Black Wizards (22 page)

Pawldo was about to jump from the tree back into the narrow lane. The sound that froze him was little more than a faint scuffing, indistinguishable from wind in the grass or a dozen other common noises. But the halfling strained his ears, cursing the clouds that blocked the moon. There it was again! He was not alone in the lane.

A crease between clouds dropped a slow wash of illumination, and the halfling saw dark shapes moving toward him. Men on horseback, he suddenly realized, but why could he not hear the horses?

The riders pulled up at the base of the very tree concealing Pawldo, and he counted six men, shrouded in black. Each rode a midnight-black horse whose hooves were shrouded in thick leather bags.

Pawldo did not like these characters—not that he knew who they were, or what they wanted. His dislike was compounded by fright, as he saw the riders dismounting below. As quietly as possible, the halfling moved upward, certain that the pounding of his heart would give him away.

Pawldo could only watch as the man leaped into his tree and started to climb upward. One stayed behind holding the horses, but the other five swung into the middle of the tree.

Pawldo lay headlong upon a wide limb no more than ten feet above the sinister figures. Shaking with fright, he squeezed the branch as tightly as he could, hoping to blend with the darkness.

“He’ll be in one of the tower rooms,” hissed a man.

“How do you know?” questioned another.

“Ogres,” answered the first speaker. “They always store treasure and prisoners up high if they can.”

The men wormed their way outward along a pair of stout limbs, looking over the manor. Pawldo felt certain that they were talking
about Tristan.

“Rasper, you take this,” said the first speaker, apparently the leader of the band. Pawldo couldn’t see the object that changed hands, but he heard more. “Drink that before we cross the wall—you’ll be the lead man, but invisible. Let’s stay out of the paths of those ogres, but if we run into trouble, the four of us’ll keep ’em busy. Fallow, you know what to do then.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rasper. “The prince is a dead man!”

Assassins! In his fright, Pawldo squeezed a piece of bark from the tree.

The flake of wood broke with the tiniest of cracks, but the conversation below him ceased immediately.

Pawldo discerned slight movement and realized that some of the men had moved to the bole of the tree, while several more remained below him. In utmost silence, the assassins spread out to close the net.

Clenching his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out in fear, Pawldo wormed his way farther out on the limb. The tree’s branches thinned above him—he would gain nothing by climbing. The men were below him, and between him and the trunk, so it seemed that out was the only way to go.

The branch narrowed as he moved and began to bend under his weight. Now he heard whispered commands in the depths of the tree. He swung his feet into space, tightly clasping the end of the bough, and felt it swing down under his weight. His feet touched a lower branch and he let go, trusting his sense of balance. Tumbling free, he barely grabbed the lower branch, but this one also sagged.

Suddenly he saw movement in the lane below him and remembered the sixth assassin, who had remained below with the horses. He saw a shadowy figure moving to meet him as he landed.

“Canthus!” he cried, dropping to the ground and sprawling headlong. The assassin loomed over him and then suddenly lurched to the side. Pawldo saw the form of the giant moorhound bearing the man to the ground. Canthus’s long white fangs were buried in his shoulder.

“Let’s go!” cried the halfling, jumping to his feet and running to the horses. The dog followed, leaving his victim moaning softly in a spreading pool of blood.

Pawldo darted among the nervously shuffling horses. “Hee-yah!” he shouted, slapping one of the steeds in the rump. He grabbed the stirrups of two more and yanked them sharply. Spooked, all six horses galloped down the lane and raced into the street, the halfling swinging wildly from one stirrup. Canthus raced behind, urging any stragglers ahead with sharp barks.

“Any more ideas?” asked Pontswain. For once, his voice was not laden with sarcasm. Tristan had tried to bend the bars on the window.

“I can’t do anything about the lock without my tools,” announced Daryth, turning from the door. “They took my picks and probes before they tossed us in here.”

Tristan paced back and forth while the other two flopped onto the mattresses. The prince truly hated confinement—a thing he had never experienced before. The room seemed to grow smaller with every passing minute, and tension threatened to consume him. He felt that he might soon be driven to beat his brains out against the iron door in a quest for freedom. Forcefully, he suppressed the primitive urge. Faint starlight was visible through the window, and the tiny specks of light seemed to mock his plight.

“Do you think the High King is eager to hear your petition?” asked Pontswain. “He certainly has taken great pains to see that you waste no time getting to him.”

Tristan whirled on the lord, but then halted. He didn’t know if the man was baiting him or asking an honest question. Judging by the curious, slightly amused look on the man’s face, Pontswain didn’t know either.

“That’s not too likely,” said Daryth quietly.

“Why?” asked the prince.

“After an assassination attempt—two, if you count the sinking of our boat—they’re not likely to haul you all the way to Callidyrr.”

“If they want me dead, why didn’t they kill me already?”

“Perhaps because they didn’t dare do it in a public place,” interjected Pontswain. “Remember the mood at the inn?”

Daryth nodded and stood, nearly tripping on the chain linking
his manacles. Cursing, he pulled his hands apart and stared in shock as one of the iron rings slipped over his hand to clink to the floor.

“How did you do that?” asked Tristan.

“I don’t know.” Daryth was obviously mystified. He tugged on the other hand, and it, too, slipped through the tight and rusty bond. He looked at Tristan as he threw the manacles to the bed. Suddenly he laughed.

“These gloves are from the sea castle!” he cried, holding up his hands. “I knew there was something special about them—they’re magical!” He pulled one of the gloves off and looked at it.

“Let’s see,” said the prince, wondering if the gloves would work on his hands. He tried to pull one of them on, but it was too tight. “But what’s this?” he asked as he examined the glove and noticed a tiny pouch inside.

“What’s what?” asked the Calishite, taking the glove. He looked inside and pulled out a thin piece of stiff wire from the hidden pocket. “A picklock!” he announced. “I’ll have you out in no time!”

Daryth knelt beside the prince and pushed the thin probe into the keyhole of Tristan’s right manacle. After a minute of delicate probing, the lock snapped open. In another moment, both of the prince’s hands were free.

“That’s great!” said Tristan, jumping to his feet. “Now we—”

“Shhh!” Daryth hissed suddenly, holding up a hand. The faint scraping sound of metal against metal reached his ears. He looked anxiously toward the door. Nodding in agreement, Daryth pantomimed a probing gesture.

Someone was picking the lock to their cell.

Pawldo crouched next to the gatehouse, telling himself he was crazy. His wild plan didn’t have a prayer of success. To the contrary, it virtually assured that he would be killed, no doubt squashed like a bug beneath some ogre’s boot.

The Prince of Corwell was a decent friend, but nowhere was it stated that friendship meant senselessly sacrificing one’s life for a comrade who was probably already dead. And Tristan’s no-good
friend Daryth deserved whatever he got! At least, these were the arguments raging through the halfling’s brain.

But it was no use. Pawldo decided that he had no choice but to go through with it. It would be the last thing he ever went through, but do it he would. He would try his plan.

He tentatively hoisted one of the Crystals of Thay, tossing the sphere up and down a few times until he had captured the right degree of jauntiness. He tried to whistle cheerily, but only after licking his lips repeatedly could he call forth a few faint notes.

Finally he was ready. He emerged from the shadows and sauntered into the street, whistling a little jig and tossing the crystal into the air as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Canthus followed at his heels.

He smoothly approached the ogre standing at the gatehouse, blocking entrance to the manor grounds. The monster regarded him in surprise, blinking its wide, dull eyes. The yellowed tusks, jutting upward from its lower jaw, looked very deadly. Pawldo hoped that the look held more curiosity than belligerence. He stopped whistling as he reached the ogre.

“Hi there!” he beamed. “How’d you like to buy a crystal? It’s the only one of its kind in the Moonshaes!”

The army of undead crawled like a living organism across the land. Needing neither food nor drink, completely tireless and insensitive to pain, the creatures trampled beds of flowers and thickets of thorns with equal impunity.

But the plants suffered from more than just the shuffling footsteps. As each of the undead stumbled forward, each blade of grass, weed, and flower stalk that lay in its path simply turned brown and shriveled. It died before the monster even reached it. The bushes and trees that the army walked past gradually dropped their leaves. Slender branches drooped lifelessly.

The zombies moved in the vanguard of the army. The dirt had been washed from them by a sudden downpour, and their rotting flesh hung in great folds of gore. Some of them carried rusty weapons. Others had no weapons except their bare hands, but even these were formidable,
for most of the skin and flesh on the fingers had rotted away, leaving twisted claws of bone extended. The eyes had rotted from the sockets of most, but the lack seemed to make no difference. All of them moved with the same shuffling gait, tripping and stumbling often, but climbing to their feet to march forward. Often, they left a piece of rancid flesh clinging to a thorny branch or sharp rock.

Curiously, the zombies’ hair remained in full, except for patches where the flesh had torn away. Thus, some of the males had tufts of beard, and many women retained long tresses that hung in careless disarray.

The skeletons were gradually cleaned, as a succession of rainstorms washed the dirt from their white bones. Like the zombies, some of the bare skeletons carried weapons or wore tattered bits of rusty armor. But they had no flesh to be scraped away by thorns. Empty eye sockets stared ahead as the unearthly force stumbled forward.

The army moved without rest, for the undead suffered no fatigue, nor did they feel the need to sleep. And in Hobarth’s case, the Heart of Kazgoroth had become his sustenance.

The army marched, and the ground beneath it blackened and died. It left a swath of death running up the valley from Freeman’s Down, across the high pass, and finally streaking down the mountain slopes, into Myrloch Vale.

The vanguard of the army, twoscore ghastly figures that had once been Northmen, shuffled into a shallow pond. Flies buzzed around the zombies, landing and feeding greedily, but the creatures took no note. Some lumbered forward, their faces so covered with flies that they appeared to grow black, buzzing beards.