Pools of Darkness (24 page)

“What are they doing out there?” Evaine gasped. She struggled to fight exhaustion.

Ren shouted over the noise of the storm. “When you started your spell, Talenthia noticed a swirl of dark thunderclouds forming above our heads. Only moments ago, huge bolts of lightning started blasting down on the tower. Is your spell connected to what’s happening out there?”

“Anything’s possible with the strange weather we’ve had lately. My spell could have drawn the storm like a beacon. But if that was true, the effect should have stopped when I canceled my spell.”

Boom!

Lighting struck and was deflected. Against Gamaliel’s urgings, Evaine dragged herself outside with the others to see what was happening.

“Nice little storm we have here. I—” Talenthia’s words were lost in the thunder.

Boom!

Talenthia gestured quickly, and the lightning strike was forced aside into the meadow near the tower. In the bright flash, all the companions saw smoke rise from the ground. The grass was filled with deep, charred depressions.

“Cousin, it’s time to stop this nonsense for a while.” Talenthia could barely be heard over the roaring wind.

“Great idea. I’ll take your lead.”

The two joined hands and raised their oak staves into the air. The pounding rain stopped, and a cool breeze blew up and swirled around the tower and the meadow. The druids’ cloaks were whipped by the breeze; their staves swirled round and round above their heads, emitting a humming noise. The clouds above twisted and spun away. Then the sun broke through.

Clouds were visible in every direction, but in a wide oval above their heads, the warm noonday sun beat down from a bright blue patch of sky.

“Well, that’s much better,” Andoralson said with a satisfied smirk. “I expect our patch of blue will last only a few hours. Talenthia and I were able to slow the lightning today, but I expect the next attack will be stronger and will get through our best defenses. We’d best be off at first light. Evaine, you can rest. Tell us what you discovered as we move along the trail.”

No one argued. They all knew they had to press onward as quickly as safety allowed.

“Tactics, Captain Brittle! Tactics win battles and carry the day!” The Red Wizard of Thay was especially arrogant and overconfident this morning. “And tactics, you bag of bones, is what you sadly lack.”

If Brittle, the undead lord, had possessed lungs, he would have sighed in frustration. He had been summoned from the grave by a pit fiend because of his legendary fame for leading all types of armies into all types of battles. His victories and rare defeats a thousand years before were still discussed with admiration in all parts of Faerun. Written accounts of his battles were prized by both good and evil generals. Brittle knew more about tactics and combat operations than any creature alive on Toril. Or dead, for that matter. Somehow, a weak human, less than forty years old, who had spent most of his years reading crumbling tomes of magic in the libraries of Thay didn’t impress him.

“Let’s review my battle plan one more time, shall we?”

Brittle clenched his bony fists with a faint scraping and creaking. Along with half a dozen clerics of Bane, eight assorted mages, and the pit fiend, he was part of an assembly convening in what Marcus called his war chamber. Others would have called it a converted bedroom. Marcus circled and gestured around the pit fiend’s magical creation—an exact, ten-foot-long diorama of the walled city of Phlan.

“I will lead the two main attacks against the walls of Phlan with the minions of Moander. We will attack from two angles in sort of a clawlike action.”

“A pincer maneuver,” Brittle interrupted.

“Ah, yes. Right. A pincer maneuver,” Marcus stammered. “You, Brittle, will lead your three hundred skeletal warriors under the water, through the bay, and into the city, but naturally, your attack will not be the main thrust of the battle.”

“Mine is the diversionary action.”

“Correct. Yours is the, ah, diversion. One of my units will try to get around the main body of defenders and attack from the side.”

“In a flanking maneuver?” Brittle noted flatly.

“Yes, yes, in a flanking action,” Marcus said, creating a rod of flame to mark several spots on the model’s walls. “If all goes well, the other half of my army should be able to create a weak spot in the walls and climb over to let everyone else in.”

“You intend to probe the wall in force, is that correct?” Brittle asked.

“Why do you keep interrupting my war council, Brittle? Just do what you are told, and all of my plans should proceed in good order.”

The skeletal commander could no longer contain his irritation. “Lord Marcus, any one of these operations would serve your purpose of getting into the city. But trying all of them at once is foolish—worse than foolish, suicide. I would advise you to give up all these groping tactics and simply make a frontal charge at the walls. With the power of the minions of Moander and all the hundreds of other troops at your command, one solid, direct attack should carry the day.”

“It is clear to me, Captain Brittle, that you know nothing about military matters. I don’t know how you got your reputation as a brilliant commander.”

Brittle’s hollow eye sockets stared at Marcus in bony silence.

Marcus turned to his pit fiend. “Escort this insolent being to his troops. See that he doesn’t bother me again.”

The evil creature flapped toward the skeletal warrior. Both left the room. As the pit fiend led Brittle out of the upper chambers, he lay a taloned hand on the skeleton’s shoulder. A burst of magical black sparks sprayed from the talon and swirled around the skeletal body.

“Brittle, I know your talents as a leader. With my magic, I have now released you and your skeletal army from all control Marcus holds over you. You and I both know that tragedies sometimes happen in battle—often, sadly, to the leaders of armies. Go forth, Lord Brittle, and make war as you did in centuries past. Latenat!”

With a thunderous boom, the fiend teleported himself back to the heart of the tower.

At the edge of the accursed, twisted forest, Marcus’s troops were gathering. The landscape was covered with green flesh, matted fur, and bony skeletal shapes of monsters of every size and description. Fangs dripped, voices screeched, and weapons rattled as the evil horrors anticipated the slaughter ahead.

Once again, Marcus flew into battle on his black nightmare. He roamed above his troops, reviewing them one last time while he shouted orders from on high.

“You ogres and trolls—move in front of the clerics and wizards. Your orders are to protect them with your lives!” Marcus had no trouble being heard above the din of his army. He had magically enhanced his voice. Even at a whisper, his voice was a bellow.

A little more than a mile-wide swath of Moander’s minions stood before Marcus. The treelike creatures were the result of powerful, corrupting magic that rendered them deadly fighters. They moved more slowly than a normal man, but numerous magical protections were built into their bodies.

Marcus smirked from on high. And what’s best, he decided, is that they do anything I command with just a thought! He shifted gleefully in his saddle.

Marcus ordered five of the tree-minions to charge Phlan’s walls.

“I will invent my own tactics. In a thousand years, the world will be writing about my battle style. I’ll show Brittle how a battle is really fought. I won’t even wait until his skeletons come out of the bay.”

Sensing his inevitable victory, Marcus ordered the entire army to surge forward. “If I’m lucky, I can win this battle before lunch and enjoy the company of the erinyes this afternoon. I wonder if Tanetal can make the sun shine over the tower. I think I’d like a little sunlight streaming in for a change.”

Marcus mentally ordered his tree-minion army to split into two units as they advanced. The living part of his army, the spellcasters, clerics, monsters, and human mercenaries, followed far behind the tree-creatures of Moander.

A mile distant, atop the walls of Phlan, a cleric was taking advantage of a special detection spell. He could easily hear Marcus’s enhanced voice babbling at his troops. The cleric sent word to Tarl and the other leaders of Phlan’s defenses, who ordered the troops at the bay to be reinforced with more clerics. Extra warriors were ordered to fill positions on the northern walls.

The defenders of Phlan weren’t impressed by Marcus’s maneuvers.

“Hey, Ston—lookit these weird tree-things they’re sending at us this time!”

“Yeah, I heard about those the other day. The guys who went to bargain for peace told all about ‘em. They smell like the inside of a moldy ale keg, and they might even spit poison gas. Be careful, Tulen old buddy, or you might get turned into some kinda tree fungus before this battle is over.” Ston snorted in laughter.

Nearby, on the same wall, two wizards were preparing to launch their spells.

“Whaddya think—lightning or fireballs on those slimy beggars? Course, we could always try freezing ‘em.” The mage was digging through his pockets, looking for charred scraps of paper, a vial of sulphur, and the other materials that would power his spells.

His companion nervously exercised his fingers, stretching each digit and cracking knuckles loudly. “Those things are awfully wet and slippery. It’s hard to get a good look at them. Wait—see those five coming way ahead of the rest? Why don’t you blast a fireball at the one on the right, and I’ll try a lightning bolt on the one at the left.”

The two wizards timed their attacks carefully. Twin bursts of magic, one a fiery yellow sphere and the other an orange streak of lightning, darted from the wall. The magics exploded on the minions of Moander, knocking them to the ground. The mages slapped each other on the back, congratulating themselves. “Hurray, both worked! We’re geniuses!”

A few yards down the wall, the grizzled old Tulen spit over the crenellations and sneered in amusement at the two young spellcasters. “Look again, geniuses.”

The other three tree-creatures had stopped moving, silently waiting for their two leafy brothers to rise. When they did, the five continued their march as if nothing had happened.

Ston and Tulen were snorting with laughter. “We warriors ain’t much for magic, but watch what our buddies are gonna do.” Ston was directing their attention down the wall toward several catapults. In accordance with the commands barked out by the catapult captain, each unit adjusted its weapon. The captain bellowed out the order to fire.

A series of loud squeaks and thuds announced the launch of ten separate catapults. In a heartbeat, the moldering tree-things were buried under a pile of gigantic rocks.

Not a twig twitched under the rock piles. This time, Ston and Tulen slapped each other on the back, congratulating their comrades. “Nice shooting, boys! Now that’s what I call the magic of old Bessy, old Mamie, old Daisy, and all the other faithful old gals. We got plenty more rocks where they came from, you betchy! Heh, heh, heh. You young fellers should put away those wands and think about joining up with the catapulters. They might take you, too, if your aim is good.”

The wizards attempted to look dignified. Although the demonstration of rocks was impressive, the mages weren’t about to trade in their spellbooks for crowbars.

A flutter of violet robes drifted out of the sky behind the two mages. Flustered, the two men turned to stammer out an explanation. “Shal! We were only—that is, we—”

The sorceress chuckled and raised a hand for silence. “Nothing to worry about. Now listen carefully. These are your instructions for defending against the siege… .”

Marcus still circled high above his troops, astride the pitch-black nightmare. Such a position exposed him to arrows and magical attacks, but he trusted his numerous protection spells. Marcus was alive with anticipation, his blood tingling in his veins. He ordered the nightmare to fly faster, as if that would bring victory more quickly. The wind whipped the wizard’s hair, billowing his red robes. The speed enhanced Marcus’s euphoria.

As he passed over the battlefield, his attention turned to Phlan, off in the distance. The magical lights of the cavern shone down on the black walls of the city. “Well, that’s peculiar,” Marcus noted from on high. The walls, which had formerly been a deep red, were now a dull black. The outer defensive wall as well as the second ring of walls were all mysteriously darkened. The wizard shrugged it off. “Whatever you pathetic souls are planning, it won’t matter. Your fate is sealed.”

At that very moment, an invisible, menacing force of powerful skeletons marched under the sea toward Phlan. The unbreathing creatures would arise on the shores of the Moonsea and take the city completely by surprise. Marcus congratulated himself for thinking of this brilliant idea—even if Commander Brittle would have disputed whose idea it really had been.

When Phlan had been torn from the earth and deposited in the cavern, all of the bay alongside the city and a large section of the Moonsea had been magically stolen with it. The fish and other creatures inhabiting these waters were the only sources of food the defenders of Phlan could depend on.

But now, the bay was filled with warriors, each twice as powerful as the ordinary skeletons raised by evil spellcasters. Each was magically intelligent, unlike their automaton counterparts. Marcus had used extraordinarily powerful enchantments in creating these units. The effort was worth it; they would be deadly in battle. Even the most devout clerics, normally empowered to turn skeletons to dust, would find these mystical warriors nearly impossible to destroy.

The observations of a clever priest had alerted Phlan’s defenders to the unseen danger in the bay. Tarl had ordered troops to wait in position along the beaches. Hundreds of eyes watched for the telltale ripples in the water that would signal the beginning of the assault.

Suddenly, a helmet arose out of the bay. The alarm was shouted down the beach.

But instead of three hundred bony horrors rising out of the water, only Commander Brittle strode onto the sand. The enchanted warrior strutted boldly up to the first assembly of clerical defenders. These men bravely raised their holy symbols and ordered the skeleton to return to the dust from whence it came.