The Jewel of Turmish (14 page)

“No,” he said, “it’s the only way I can do this.”

“You have powers, Haarn,” Druz said. “Use them.”

“No. This must be balanced.” Haarn glanced at bis companion. “However this should turn out, you’re going to stay out of it.”

“The hell I will!” Druz’s eyes flashed beneath the hood of her traveling leathers. “HI not be left up here on this mountain to be slaughtered by those wolves.”

“You won’t be harmed.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Broadfoot will protect you should it come to that,” Haarn said. He stood bare-chested in the near-freezing rain, clad only in his moccasins and breeches, which were damp and heavy. “Broadfoot will also keep you from interfering with this fight. He won’t be gentle.”

“I didn’t come here to—”

“Woman!” The tone in Haarn’s voice caused Druz to stop speaking and step back. “You came here to get that

wolfs head. I’m going to give it to you. Don’t argue with me.

Fire flashed in Druz’s eyes.

“I have bound us all with this agreement,” Haarn said. “Ill not suffer it broken.”

“A warrior doesn’t give away his strength,” Druz argued.

“I’m not a warrior.”

Haarn transferred his knife to his left hand. In his mind, he knew his declaration, defensive as it was, wasn’t true. During his years, he had fought at his father’s side as well as on his own, but those fights had been against men for the most part, not animals who lived in the forests and plains.

Druz said, “You’re setting yourself up to fail.”

“I won’t fail,” Haarn told her. “Not as long as I’ve got a breath left within me.”

The clouds burst without warning, unleashing the torrent of rain that had been threatening. He pushed away all thoughts of the cold and concentrated on staying alive.

Your long tooth won’t be enough to save you, Stonefur said, flicking his tail.

Easing down, eyes on the wolf, Haarn reached into his discarded gear and retrieved a small fighting club. The weapon was short-hafted and was run through by a leather wrist thong. It was shaped by a knife blade, hardened by druidic spellcraft, and capped in bone.

It’s fair enough, said Haarn.

“You’re not going to use your scimitar?” Druz asked. “No,” Haarn answered.

“You can’t take that monster on with only a knife and a club. That’s suicide.”

“It’s as balanced as I can make it.” Haarn popped his arm and caused the weighted club to snap into his hand. “The scimitar would give me too much of an advantage.”

“You didn’t seem to mind taking the advantage where you could against the slavers.”

“No,” Haarn said, “I didn’t.” He nodded toward Stonefur. “Let it begin.”

The wolf turned to his pack. His fierce growls drove them back into the shelter of the brush and trees. Stonefur came toward his opponent at an oblique angle.

Gathering his courage and his sense of purpose, Haarn circled as well. His attention was torn between the wolf and Druz Talimsir. He didn’t know if the mercenary would be able to restrain herself. And if she didn’t, Haarn knew it would cost them all.

Stonefur rushed in, catching Haarn in mid-stride as he circled. Quick, white fangs flashed for the druid’s crotch, drawing his hands down to protect himself. Haarn’s hands only met empty air, though. Stonefur shifted directions without effort, gliding by, then sinking his fangs into the druid’s right ankle. The wolf remained on the run, using his weight and his grip to yank Haarn off-balance.

Eldath’s mercy, Brother Tohl, awake!”

Tohl stared at the grinning visage of Borran Kiosk standing before him. The battlefield on which they stood—near Morningstar Hollows, a small village northwest of Alaghôn—was one Tohl had seen many times, but never during the time of the epic battle between forces of the living and hordes of undead. During his career as a priest of Eldath in Alaghôn, he’d made the pilgrimage to the battlefield several times. Acquainting the acolytes with Alaghôn’s history in regards to Borran Kiosk had been part of his responsibilities for decades.

Mist swirled up from the battlefield spattered bright with the blood of men, elves, and even a few dwarves. Men and elves had lived in Turmish then, as well as other cities along the Vilhon Reach. The dwarves had traveled down out of Irongfang, their city in the Alaoreum Mountains, when they’d heard about the menace Borran Kiosk and his undead minions had presented.

Brother Tohl knew it was a dream as he surveyed the carnage—he’d had similar nightmares over the years. Borran Kiosk had never shown up in any of those earlier dreams.

The mohrg stood amid the death and devastation. A torn and tattered purple cloak hung from his shoulders and fluttered in the breeze laden with flies and the stink of death. Though Tohl

had never before seen the commander of the undead armies that had threatened to overrun Turmish, he had no doubt about the creature’s identity.

Kiosk strode among the dead. Besides the humans, dwarves, elves, and a few scattered gnomes and halflings, there were also corpses of men and women of all races that had been dead long before the battle had taken place. As the mohrg moved among them, he touched a few with the crooked bone staff he carried. After he passed, the touched corpses jerked and pushed themselves to their feet and started shambling after their master.

“Follow me,” Borran Kiosk entreated.

The undead lurched after the mohrg, stepping toward the deepening sunset.

“Brother Tohl!”

Tohl knew the words came from some other place than the dream. For a brief moment he considered following the words out of the horror that surrounded him.

Wait, a soft voice bade.

Mistress? Tohl stood his ground. During all his years he had prayed to Eldath and felt certain that the Quiet One had worked in his life in small ways, but he’d never before heard her voice. Even so, the old priest was certain he heard it now.

Patience. Something can be learned here.

Tohl’s heart beat faster and threatened to rouse him from the dream. He had a vague sensation of being shaken, of someone’s hand on his shoulder. He ignored the intrusions and stayed within the dream.

Marshalling his courage, girded by the certainty that he was doing Eldath’s work, he crept around the fringes of the battlefield. He stayed within the trees outside the clearing that Borran Kiosk and his undead army followed. Branches whipped at Tohl’s face and tore at his skin

Despite the fact that he knew he was in a dream, he didn’t doubt that Borran Kiosk had the power to hurt him. A stray thought that perhaps he wouldn’t wake from the dream if the mohrg discovered him chilled his spine.

Courage, the quiet, calm voice said.

I’ve never been long on courage, Lady, Tohl admitted.

I will be with you, Tohl Farmarck, as I have stood with others against Borran Kiosk in the past.

Before he could stop himself, Tohl remembered all the priests, warriors, and helpless victims who had died warring against Borran Kiosk. He felt guilty, then he wondered how much of his thoughts Eldath was aware of. He continued up the steep rise, drawing within sight of Borran Kiosk again.

The mohrg topped the crest and started down the other side.

Scrambling, panting for breath and trying to ignore the burning in his lungs, Tohl forced himself to the top of the crest. He peered down as the mohrg continued down the other side.

The brush and trees grew denser at the bottom of the crest. During the decline, the dozen or more sluggish streams of water that drained the mountains farther south and east became white-water rapids no more than two or three feet across. Once they reached the flatlands below, the streams blended to become a small creek that snaked through the swamplands below.

We are near Morningstar Hollows, Tohl realized.

Yes, the quiet, still voice whispered in his head.

But everything is different.

The Morningstar Hollows that Tohl remembered was marshland, filled with knobby-kneed roots anchoring huge river pine, oak, elm, walnut, and pecan trees.

This is the way it was, the quiet voice said, before the Alaoreum River roared free of its banks the first time, consuming Borran Kiosk and his army. Pay attention, Brother Tohl. There is something to be learned here, and the tapestry of magic that has rent the night there and to which you are linked has opened this window of opportunity.

Yes, Lady.

Excitement thrilled through Tohl, but dread kept pace with it. Borran Kiosk had always been recognized as Malar’s tool. The Stalker possessed particular hatred for Eldath’s followers as well as the druids who followed the ways of Silvanus.

Borran Kiosk walked into the marshlands.

Heart beating at the back of his throat, Tohl followed. His courage came from his belief in Eldath and the powers of the Quiet One, for he had little confidence in his own abilities. He could think of no reason why he had been singled out for this experience, but he couldn’t forego it.

Only moments later, Borran Kiosk stopped. The undead army gathered around him.

For the first time Tohl realized that the battle had been devastating for Borran Kiosk’s minions as well. Several of them were missing limbs. At least two dozen zombies trailed the pack by dragging themselves through the muck with their arms, their lower bodies or legs missing.

Borran Kiosk spoke in an arcane tongue Tohl couldn’t understand.

Listen, the quiet voice urged.

I can’t understand, Lady.

The harsh words and rolling consonants gave Tohl a headache that he knew owed part to the magic the mohrg commanded.

Listen, the quiet voice insisted.

An abrupt change occurred inside Tohl’s head. He felt a sickening lurch, then Borran Kiosk’s horrid voice came as if from a long distance away.

“—now find ourselves hunted by every city or nation along the Vilhon Reach,” the mohrg told the undead grouped around him.

Tohl knew that the words he heard didn’t come from the undead creature’s mouth, not with the thick, obscene tongue writhing in there.

“Perhaps,” Borran Kiosk went on, “our efforts to secure these lands for ourselves and for Malar will fail.”

There was no response from the crowd.

They were mindless, the quiet voice whispered into Tohl’s mind.

Tohl took the goddess’s word for it, for he had never seen an undead for himself.

Borran Kiosk, the quiet voice said, was—and remains—jealous of all those who live. That hatred drives him to destroy life.

Remains?

Patience, Brother Tohl, all will be made clear to you, then you must take action. Of course, Lady.

Tohl pushed aside his curiosity as much as he was able and concentrated on the scene before him.

“The thrice-cursed Emerald Enclave is choosing to involve themselves in my affairs,” Borran Kiosk declared, “but I am prepared for them.”

He reached into the tattered cloak he wore and drew out a small leather bag. Improbable though it was, the mohrg opened the bag and shoved his whole arm inside. There was a momentary pause, then Borran Kiosk pulled his arm back out. His hand gripped a small, shiny, red jewel that glowed even in the dim light provided under the leafy canopies.

“I have found a means to defeat the druids,” said Borran Kiosk, “as well as to bring the whole of the Vilhon Reach to its knees.”

His hands worked with surprising speed, dismanthng the jewel into several pieces.

I don’t know what that is, the quiet voice replied to Tohl’s unspoken question, but I can feel even from here, through you and across the years separating this place, that whatever Borran Kiosk has contains great power.

Trembling in ill-contained fear, Tohl felt trapped as he gazed at the mohrg. Even with his limited ability to sense the magical nature of the world through his ties to his chosen goddess, he could feel something … wrong … about Borran Kiosk’s prize.

“I cannot yet bring forth the powers held in these devices, but the time will come. Malar has given me his blessings, and I know I will be made triumphant.”

Borran Kiosk took a step forward, sinking knee-deep in the muck and the mire of the marshlands. The pieces of the jewel glittered in his hands in the dank shadows.

“I have carried this for years, assembling it over that time. Now, with the Emerald Enclave abandoning their neutral position regarding the fate of the civilizations of

the Vilhon Reach, I am in danger. So I call upon you, my lieutenants, to carry what I no longer dare to possess.”

Five shambling mockeries of human beings stepped forward from the undead army around the mohrg. Four of them were men, one was a young woman with long, dark hair. She could not have been dead for long because she was intact and unblemished. The four men had been dead much longer and showed the worse for wear.

The druids pride themselves on their knowledge of the cycle of life,” Borran Kiosk said. They untangle the webs of life and seek to address a balance that only they can see.” The mohrg approached the first of the men. “But Malar has given me the seeds to disrupt the work of the druids. I can tear apart the fabric of their existence, and I will, as soon as the power I need grows larger.”

“Malar has been kind to you,” the woman said in a clear voice that carried across the watery land.

“Malar has been kind to us all,” Borran Kiosk agreed, “but he is a most demanding god. We will succeed in this endeavor on his behalf or he will see to our eternal destruction.”

“What would Malar have us do?” another zombie lieutenant asked.

“Guard that which I am about to give you,” Borran Kiosk said. “Guard it until my return. I have one final battle which needs to be fought.”

“We will go with you,” the zombie woman said.

“No.” Borran Kiosk shook his head. “We can’t afford to lose that which I am about to give you. You must stay here.”

Then give us what you will, Borran Kiosk.”

Borran Kiosk turned to the zombie that had spoken. “Prepare yourself.”

The zombie stood before the mohrg with its arms loose.

Without hesitation, Borran Kiosk held one of the jewel pieces in his fist. He mouthed words that couldn’t be translated by whatever spell Tohl was under. A lavender glow surrounded Borran Kiosk’s hand. When the brightness leveled off, the mohrg rammed his fist into the zombie’s chest.