The Ghost King (30 page)

All around the zombies came the crawling beasts, dragging and hopping at full speed.

“Fight well!” Cadderly called out to his defenders. All about the first and second floors of Spirit Soaring, manning every wall, window, and doorway, priests and wizards lifted shields and weapons, wands and scrolls.

* * * * *

A couple of hundred yards ahead, a burst of flames erupted far above them—above the branches of distant trees on a high ridge on the mountain road. Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Bruenor sat up straight on the wagon’s jockey box, startled, and behind them, Danica stirred.

“That’s Spirit Soaring,” Drizzt remarked.

“What is?” Danica asked, scooting forward to the back of the seat and peering up between Drizzt and Bruenor.

A column of black smoke began to climb into the sky above the tree line.

“It is,” Danica said breathlessly. “Drive them faster!”

Drizzt glanced at Danica and had to blink in amazement at how quickly the woman had healed. Her training and discipline, combined with Jarlaxle’s potions and monk abilities, had restored the woman greatly.

Drizzt made a mental note to speak with Danica about her training, but he ended the line of thought abruptly and nudged Bruenor. Understanding his intent, the dwarf nodded and jumped off the side of the wagon, with Drizzt fast following. Bruenor called for Pwent as they ran around the back, setting themselves against the tailgate.

“Push them hard!” Drizzt called to Jarlaxle when the three were set, and the drow snapped the reins and clicked at the mules, while the three in back
put their shoulders to the wagon and shoved with all their strength, legs pumping furiously, helping the wagon up the steep incline.

Danica was out beside them in a heartbeat, and though she winced when she braced her injured shoulder against the wagon, she kept pushing.

As they crested a ridge, Jarlaxle shouted, “Jump!” and the four grabbed on tightly and lifted their legs as the wagon gained speed. It was a short-lived burst, though, for another steep incline lay before them. The mules strained, the foursome strained, too, and the wagon moved along slowly.

The huddled forms of crawlers crept out on the trail before them, but before Jarlaxle could yell out a warning, another form, a dwarf on a fiery hell boar, burst through the brush on the opposite side of the road, wisps of smoke rising from the branches behind him. Athrogate plowed into the crawlers, the demon boar hopping and stomping its hooves, sending out rings of fiery bursts. One crawler was gored and sent flying, another trampled under smoking hooves, but a third, near the other side of the road, had time to react and use its powerful arms to twist and leap up high above the snorting boar, right in the path of Athrogate.

“Bwahaha!” the dwarf howled, his morningstars already spinning in opposing circles.

The weapons swung around at the monster simultaneously, right low, left high, both connecting to send the crawling thing into an aerial sidelong spin. Athrogate expertly curled his right arm under his left in the follow-through, then reversed his momentum and snapped that weapon back in a fierce backhand that smacked the creature in its ugly face—and to add a finishing touch, the dwarf enacted the morningstar’s magic after the first strike, its nubby spikes secreting explosive oil onto the weapon head.

A pop and a flash revealed the magic to the onlookers. Even without the explosion, they quickly knew that added power was behind the strike as the creature executed several complete rotations before it hit the ground.

Hardly slowing, Athrogate charged his mount right through the brush on the far side, morningstars spinning, boar snorting fire.

He emerged after the wagon had passed, chasing and battering a crawler with every step, and as the creature fell dead, Athrogate squeezed his legs and twisted the boar into line, running fast after his companions.

He caught up to them just as the wagon came over the last ridge, the road twisting through a narrow tree line onto the open grounds of the magnificent Spirit Soaring.

The lawn was crawling with fleshy beasts, as were Spirit Soaring’s walls. The upper corner of the building was burning, belching black smoke from several windows.

Athrogate skidded his boar to a stop beside Bruenor and Pwent. “Come on, ye dwarfs, and kick yer heels! We’ll give ‘em a beatin’ that’ll make ‘em squeal!”

Bruenor gave only a cursory glance at the nodding Drizzt before scrambling around the side of the wagon bed, leaping up, and retrieving his many-notched axe. Pwent already carried his weapons, and was first to Athrogate’s side.

“Ye protect me king!” Pwent demanded of him, and Athrogate gave a hearty “Bwahaha!” in reply. That was good enough for Thibbledorf Pwent, whose idea of “defend” was to charge ahead so quickly and madly that the many enemies flanking him could never catch up.

“Ye keepin’ the pig?” Bruenor asked as he rambled up.

“Aye, she’s a good way to introduce meself!”

Athrogate spearheaded the three-dwarf wedge, trotting his boar at a pace that the two runners could easily match.

Behind them, Jarlaxle kept firm control of the mules and the wagon, and looked to Danica and Drizzt.

“To the side door on the right side!” Danica called to the dwarves.

Drizzt, scimitars drawn, ran up beside Jarlaxle.

“Go, go, go,” Danica bade them as she scrambled over the wagon rail and into the bed. “I’ll keep the wagon clear and Catti-brie safe.”

Drizzt gave her a pleading look, not wanting to drive the helpless Catti-brie into the middle of such a tumultuous fight.

“We’ve nowhere to run,” Jarlaxle said, answering that concern. “We go forward or we go back, but if Cadderly loses here, our fate will surely be the same.”

Drizzt nodded and turned to his companion.

“Clear a short path and move up the wagon,” Jarlaxle explained. “Clear a bit more and move a bit more.”

“When we get into the open, they’ll swarm,” Drizzt said with another nervous glance at the wagon bed, which held his defenseless beloved.

“More to kill, and more quickly, then,” Jarlaxle said with a tip of his hat—a tip that left the giant feather in his hand. He snapped the dagger from his enchanted bracer into the same hand, then flicked his wrist several times to elongate the magical weapon into a long sword.

Drizzt grabbed the bridle of the nearest mule and tugged the creature along with him, breaking through the tree line and out into the open, in full view of the monstrous hordes.

Directly ahead, he watched Bruenor and the other dwarves wade in with abandon.

* * * * *

Athrogate howled, kicked his boar into a charge, and threw his arms up, rolling over backward, executing a perfect dismount that left him on his feet behind the snorting hell beast.

Monsters swarmed at them head on and from both sides. As the boar met the frontal assault with bursts of flame from its stomping hooves, and wild and vicious head swings, Athrogate diverted to the right, morningstars spinning. He clashed with the attackers and flesh splattered far and wide, crawlers verily exploding under the weight of his swings.

Not to be outdone, Thibbledorf Pwent hit a line of charging crawlers with a sidelong tackle, as if daring them to find a weakness in his devastating armor. The Gutbuster thrashed, kicked, punched, kneed, elbowed, and head-butted with gleeful ferocity, using all of his many weapons to tear at the enemy. Thibbledorf Pwent was known as the most ferocious warrior of Mithral Hall—no small claim!—and Athrogate had been similarly regarded many years before among an even larger clan of dwarves. One after another, the crawlers were mowed down before them.

But any watching who might have thought that the pair were warriors protecting their king were soon disavowed of any notion that this particular king needed any protection.

The demon-boar faltered under a tangle of clawing arms and biting fangs. A final burst of stinging fire singed black flesh as the boar faded back to its home plane. Before those crawlers could recover from its sudden evaporation, a new enemy was among them.

Bruenor hit the group with a heavy shield rush, his solid shield cracking into one fleshy beast with enough force to imprint its foaming mug heraldry into the creature’s chest. The crawler was thrown back under the weight of the blow. Bruenor opened up, throwing his shield arm out to the left to slam a second creature, and coming across with a mighty chop of his axe that cracked the collarbone of a third enemy, driving it down with
tremendous force. Barely had he finished that stroke when Bruenor tore free his axe and cut left to right with a devastating backhand. He hopped as he went out to the end of that swing, and strengthened his momentum with a sudden pirouette.

Another crawler fell away, mortally wounded.

Bruenor landed awkwardly, though, and a crawler got its arm over his shield to scratch at his face.

The dwarf just growled and threw his shield arm up, taking the crawler’s arm high with it, and as the beast tried to slash at Bruenor with its free hand, so too did Bruenor bring his axe across. The heavy axe and the powerful dwarf easily parried that strike, and worse for the crawler, Bruenor’s swing was hardly slowed by the collision, his fine weapon opening wide the crawler’s midsection.

Bruenor gave a second hoist and shoved with his shield to throw that beast away, then chopped back the other way with his axe, cracking it into the skull of another attacker. A sudden twist and reangled tug broke apart the skull and freed the axe. Bruenor waded along, flanked by his devastating team.

* * * * *

Twenty strides behind the ferocious dwarves, Drizzt and Jarlaxle didn’t have the luxury of watching the devastating display of martial prowess, for they, too, were quickly hard-pressed.

Drizzt broke center and right, Jarlaxle center and left, each facing their respective foes with typical drow speed and sword play. With his straight blades, Jarlaxle quick-stepped front and back, rolling his hands only so much as to align his blade tips for more deadly stabs. Every step of Jarlaxle’s dance was punctuated by forward-prodding sword blades. Those crawlers who ventured too near to Jarlaxle fell back full of small, precise holes.

For Drizzt, with his curving blades, the dance was more one of swinging swaths, each blade slicing across with such force, precision, and momentum that all before it, reaching limbs and pressing monsters, fell back or fell to the ground. While Jarlaxle rarely turned in his battle, Drizzt rarely faced the same direction for more than a heartbeat or two. Quickly realizing that his best attribute against the monsters was his agility, the drow ranger twirled and leaped, spun and dropped low as he came around.

Then up into the air he went again, once even quick-stepping atop the heads of two crawlers that futilely tried to keep pace with his movements.

Drizzt landed right behind them, with more monsters coming at him, but it was all a ruse, for he was up in the air once more, leaping backward and high, tucking his legs in a back flip over the pair of crawlers he had just trod upon. Because they turned in their efforts to keep up with him, he found himself once again behind them.

Down came his scimitars and down went the two crawlers, skulls creased.

More were there to take their places, the fearless and ravenous beasts coming on with abandon. Though both drow fought brilliantly, the pair made little headway toward Spirit Soaring.

And despite their best efforts, crawlers slipped in behind them, rushing for the wagon.

* * * * *

Bruenor saw them first. “Me girl!” he screamed, glancing back at a beast pulling itself up the side of the wagon.

“We’re too far!” he scolded his companions, dwarf and drow. “Turn back!”

Pwent and Athrogate, covered in the gore of splattered creatures, immediately spun around. Bruenor pivoted the formation, the three beginning a second and even more ferocious charge back the way they’d come.

“Drizzt! Elf!” Bruenor yelled with every step, desperate for his friend to reach Catti-brie’s side.

* * * * *

Drizzt, too, understood that the beasts had been cunning enough to get in behind them. He attempted the same kind of turn that Bruenor and his companions had taken.

But he was hard-pressed, as was Jarlaxle, each alone with crawlers intent on keeping them from retreating to the wagon. Drizzt could only fight on and hope to find a gap, and yell back warnings to Danica.

A crawler pulled itself over the rail of the wagon’s side and Drizzt sucked in his breath.

“Jarlaxle!” he begged.

Five strides away from him, Jarlaxle nodded and threw down the feather. Immediately a gigantic flightless bird stood beside the mercenary.

“Go!” Jarlaxle yelled, maneuvering to Drizzt’s side as the bird commanded the field.

Side by side they went, trying to find some rhythm, some compliment to their varied styles. But Drizzt knew that they could not reach the wagon in time.

And Bruenor, screaming from behind him, knew it too.

But all five, drow and dwarves alike, breathed easier when a form stood tall before the crawler on the wagon, for up popped Danica, her sling hanging empty, her fists balled before her chest. Up went one leg, straight above her head, and her amazing dexterity was matched by her strength as she drove her foot down atop the crawler’s head.

With a sickening
crack
, that head flattened even more and the beast dropped from the side of the wagon as surely and swiftly as if a mountain had fallen atop it.

All five of the companions fighting to approach the wagon shouted out to Danica as a crawler leaped over the other side of the wagon at her back. But she needed no such warning, coming out of her devastating stomp with a perfect pivot to back-kick the second beast in its ugly face. It, too, bounced away.

A third creature clambered over the rail and a circle kick suddenly filled its grinning maw. Danica remained up on her right leg and went up to the ball of her foot to execute a complete spin and slam a fourth crawler.

Yet another beast climbing up the side was met with a flurry of fists, a rapid explosion of ten short punches that turned its face to mush. Before it could fall away, Danica hooked it under the armpit and turned powerfully, launching it across the wagon to bowl over and dislodge another of its companions.