Artifact of Evil (19 page)

"Gord!" called the bard. "Bring the lot of dogs back to the clearing." The young thief quickly herded the sullen group of brigands back to join their fellows, and Gellor spoke to the entire group.

"I know that you served with the vile dwarf, Obmi, and his henchmen Keak the elf and Gleed, a gnome," the one-eyed man said to the prisoners. The brigands stood defiantly now. "I also know that you slew and burned, looted and raped, from the far side of the Suss Forest all the way to here. These deeds are sufficient for your death warrants, each and every one of you!"

The sullen faces were more pale after this statement, but there was no other reaction. Gellor went on, as much for the benefit of his associates as for other reasons.

"The ambush and destruction of your former company is none of our doing," said the bard, "but I applaud those who brought your band so low. Now ready yourselves. We will find the prisoners who fled from you and tell them they are free. You will run before us – and woe to any who stumble, for they will not rise again! Thereafter, you will serve as our shield as we seek other survivors of your foul band."

The druid had rounded up the horses, numbering eleven now with the addition of those of the brigands, which were standing quietly with the coursers ridden by the adventurers. The six mounted, weapons unsheathed and ready. Trotting before them went the half-score outlaws, their hands thonged securely behind their backs. Just as they left the wooded area, however, they saw the former captives running toward them. The northern sky was dark, and an inky black cloud stained the horizon.

"Help! Help!" the women cried as they approached. A dozen giant ravens wheeled and croaked above the women, but something far worse had brought them to such a state of panic.

"We are friends!" called the druid. "Your former captors are now our prisoners. How can we help?" There was no hesitation. The dozen women and girls came directly up to the party, ignoring the brigands, who had been herded into a clump by Moon and Incosee. Gord noted that although they were dirty and worn, the former captives were all well-formed and good looking. Prime candidates for slavery indeed, the young thief thought. One of their number shouted for silence and spoke to Greenleaf.

"Gaunt horses come at us, druid, and terrible baying from inside the black mists. The riders are inhuman and the calls send terror to the marrow of the bone – these are yeth hounds!"

How she knew of these fell creatures, Greenleaf couldn't guess, but what she said seemed true enough. He gestured toward the riderless horses. "Each of these spare mounts will carry two of you," he said to the spokeswoman. "You will ride with me. And the girl," he continued, pointing to a frail brunette hardly more than a child, "rides behind that man there – Gord."

The frightened females complied readily. Gord said nothing, merely smiled and extended a hand to help her up.

"Your friends approach, I think," Gellor called to the ten brigands. "Run to greet them, or else we will ride you down and slay you all here and now!"

Two of the outlaws cried for mercy, and several others demanded to have their hands freed and be given weapons. A few blows with spear butt and sword flat silenced these pleadings and demands. The brigands began trotting away toward the gathering gloom, unwilling but afraid of the threat of instant death. The party sat for a moment, watching the men. When one started to turn back, Incosee leveled his spear and brought his horse forward at a trot. The brigand swerved and began loping toward the black fog again. His fellows likewise began running. Incosee turned his mount, and the whole party went away down the trail at a canter.

As they moved, Gord shouted to his fellows. "There are worse than the yeth in that doom. Hades has unleashed its whole pack!"

"What? How know you this?" Gellor called back with doubt.

"I could see into the blackness," Gord replied emphatically. "How? I know not, but the vision was as clear as if I saw through eagle eyes, it was so close."

"Never mind how," interrupted Greenleaf. "What did you see? "

The young thief grimly described his vision. "Many of the things I saw were unknown to me – great and malign creatures of foul aspect. I saw three men on nightgaunts… that name sprang into my brain as if placed there. They were the chiefest of the Hierarchs. Around them swarmed the hounds of Hades, yeth and more deadly dogs still. Hags and hulking giants marshalled a host of hobgoblins and lesser humanoids in their thousands. All were poised to march at the Hierarchs' command. Ravens and bats are the scouts and messengers of this evil horde, and they report our proximity even now."

"This is fearsome news," said the druid. "But your seeing was certainly granted to you by some power opposed to these hideous minions of Hades."

"What else did you see?" demanded Gellor, looking fixedly at Gord as they rode.

Gord met the one-eyed bard's piercing gaze. "The center-most of the three Hierarchs pointed southwest. The other two gestured. I saw dragonhide drums being beaten, and I felt the rumble through the very ground. On the other hand, iron horns were winded, and the ebon vapors seethed and billowed at the bellowing. They are advancing, but they seek something to the west of us. If we ride due south, we will avoid this terrible horde."

The others had heard the whole exchange. All looked at Gellor to see his reaction. He was silent for a minute, then spoke.

"We will follow this track until the women are safe. Then Patrick and his friend, Moon, will escort them onward. The rest of us will turn westward and ride to the coming battle, for more than our lives depends on it!"

Blue Celene showed only her slender crescent high above amidst the myriad icy-colored lights that sprinkled the vast welkin in a crystalline wonder. The air was soft and warm, and the breeze smelled of night-flowering blooms and growing herbs. Across a prairie meadow dimly lit by the glimmerings of the heavens walked four men, leading tired horses. The extended wing of the Eldest Griffon pointed behind them to their left. From their occasional pauses to check this constellation, it was evident that the four were guided in their course by the stars. They traveled a little south of west, walking rapidly despite the lateness of the hour.

"Rest," Gellor told the others.

The druid heaved a grateful sigh, for the rotund half-elf was exhausted from traveling and spell-working. Gord, twenty years his junior, was too proud to utter any sound of relief, but he was just as glad for the pause. The wiry Flan warrior bringing up the rear seemed to stride on long, tireless legs, Incosee merely grunted acknowledgement, allowed the reins he held to drop, and sat squatting on his heels. His steed began grazing with its three fellows, snorting in pleasure as it tore mouthfuls of the dewy grass and consumed them.

"How long?" asked Gord.

Gellor spoke in a low voice. "Fifteen minutes – a half-hour if our pudgy friend insists, but no longer," he answered. "Those we seek to aid cannot be far distant. We are bound to do our utmost to find them."

"Whoever they are," added Greenleaf, as he stretched himself on the ground and placed his hands behind his head.

"At least we are not pursued by the yeth and their foul masters," Gord noted, "so there is much hope."

Curley Greenleaf harrumphed. "Not for those we seek. They have no such luxury, I fear, and if we should find them we must be prepared to face this malign enemy!"

"Quiet, you two! Who knows what might be listening!" Gellor was nervous and edgy to speak thus, and the three with him understood and refrained from comment thereafter.

Gord was dozing, a catnap where full alertness was but an eye-blink away. Greenleaf hummed between meditation and snore. Incosee had fallen into instant slumber. Only the one-eyed bard remained fully alert. His touch brought Gord to instant alertness. The young thief saw at once that Gellor had doffed his eyepatch, and his enchanted ocular glittered in the place where his normal eye had once been.

"Look there to the west, just above the horizon," he urged in a whisper. "What do you see?"

"Let me hold my sword," Gord answered quietly, reaching for the dweomered weapon.

Gellor's hand gripped his own. "No, just use your unaided vision, just as you did when you saw into the gloom yesterday. Tell me if you notice anything."

Gord moved uneasily and peered into the sky, scanning the area indicated by his friend. After a moment he said, "I see nothing… Wait! There are bats, scores of giant bats! They are flying northward in a stream!" As he spoke, his whisper rose to a louder tone as excitement overcame the young thief.

"More?" prompted the bard. Greenleaf was awake and listening now, as was the Flan fighter.

"Yes. There is something huge and terrible toward which they fly. But I can't look at it… it is like coals searing my eyes!" Gord gasped.

"You must look! Tell us what it does, this monstrous abomination," and as Gellor said that he placed his palms reassuringly upon Cord's shoulders.

Gord forced his eyes to the spot again. "It is a winged behemoth of Hades!" choked the young adventurer. "Upon its back is one whose name must not be spoken – the Master of the Hierarchs. The winged horror is horrible – and its rider is worse!"

"As I feared," Gellor said to his friends. "Yet even my enchanted orb revealed but little of this to me. Lefus pray that the power you have to see such evil things will help us to combat them. Gather yourselves and prepare to fight those creatures from the pits!"

Without speaking, each of the four made swift preparations. The druid handed Gord two unusually heavy acorns, saying, "The Oaken Concatenation schooled me in certain special arts. These dear acorns are still potent, and will remain so for some hours yet. Cast them truly with your sling, comrade!"

Gord tucked the pair of missiles in his pouch and thanked the druid. "As surely as I can, old friend, and with a supplication too."

The horses moved well enough. The half-hour of rest and grazing had refreshed them somewhat, but they couldn't be run hard without risk of killing them, whether from fall or exhaustion. As they rode at a slow trot, Gord considered his course in the coming engagement. First he would try the fire-seed missiles given him by the druid, for they were potent. Thereafter, he thought, he would put aside his sling. He had no supply of magicked bullets to employ, and against opponents such as those he had somehow seen, ordinary missiles of lead or stone would be useless. What then? Sword and dagger were good enough against most opponents, but Gord thought he'd find scant use for his blades… not immediately, anyway, only at the last. At that thought he could not suppress a shudder. "Think, man!" he commanded himself.

He rubbed his hand across his face unconsciously. A tiny spark of light shot from his hand to his eye, a glimmering of starshine caught and reflected from the cat's-eye chrysoberyl of his ring. With that glint came a jolt of memory. He reached into his pouch, a magical case that could contain far more material than its outer dimensions would suggest. Gord recalled a parchment scroll taken from the vampiric Plincourt some time back when he had plied his craft in the byways of Greyhawk. He had tucked it away and forgotten it for several reasons. Perhaps this was something he could use!

"What are you rummaging for?" asked Incosee, awe in his voice as he noticed a foot of Gord's arm buried within a pouch no more than six inches deep.

The young thief dug deeper still, saying, "Some small tool to confuse the enemy… I hope!"

"Oh," said the Flan soldier noncommittally, still eyeing the pouch.

Gord ignored his stare and soon found the roll of (hick stuff he sought. Before drawing it carefully forth, he looped reins around cantle so as to have both hands free. Unrolling it cautiously, Gord peered at the writings that he discerned clearly despite the faint illumination.

The page was covered in magical ideograms, interspersed with certain arcane signs and sigils surrounding a cryptic diagram and runic grid of power. Gord breathed a great sigh of relief, for the thing contained neither trap nor curse. It was a recondite writing of great power! After puzzling over the page for several minutes, the young adventurer looked up with his face wreathed in a smile.

"This scroll I hold is a work of marvelous fortuity!" he cried to his comrades. "This holds the key to deal with that unnameable one – it is a banishment."

The others reined in, and Curley Greenleaf came near to Gord. "I am no dweomercrafter, but I will examine that parchment, if I may, Gord."

Gord agreed readily, handing the crinkly scroll to the half-elf. Greenleaf peered intently, saying, "Not so fast, my friends. I can make out but little of this stuff, but this I do know. The spell writ hereon is aimed at stuff of Evil, but is most puissant when used against those of Negative Plane power."

There was no sense disputing the words of the druid, for he knew the symbols of the nine alignments as surely as any cas-socked priest.

"Tell me how you came to possess this scroll," Gellor said urgently.

Gord complied, briefly relating a strange encounter in a strange place. "Then," the young thief said to his comrade, "we learned the extent of our folly, for many unexpected and unpleasant things befell us thereafter. Still," Gord said reflectively, "this may be reward and more for what was lost…"

"Perhaps," the bard said slowly, "but be not over-quick to rely on it. You yourself, Gord, are worth more than even the greatest of spells when danger must be faced."

"The one we must oppose is a malign and powerful being, but he is not so all-powerful as you might attribute," avowed the druid a little peevishly.

"What is our situation now, damnit?" growled Incosee. "Are we stopping or riding? Talking? What?"

Gord grinned at the dark warrior, for his point was well taken.

"We are riding, Incosee," said the bard. "But we are better prepared now than before."

"Not a moment too soon, either," Greenleaf interjected. "Look!"

Ahead and just a little to the right, a strange, shimmering plane suddenly lit up the sky. A dark, bulky form struck the plane of luminousness and a soul-wrenching shriek followed. As the deep bellow reverberated, the plane of light fell away in coruscating shards that dimmed and went out before they touched the ground. Even as this occurred, a second and then a third of the planes appeared before the great blob of utter darkness.

"It is the great daemonkin and its master!" cried Gord as he kicked his horse into a run. "They have come for the souls of those in the grove ahead!"

The other three quickly followed, and in a minute all were streaming toward the stand of trees a few hundred yards distant. They were almost to the copse when the last of the planes of phosphorescent force broke, and a wave of terror struck them as a mighty breaker washes the shore.

Gord vaulted out of his saddle. The near-palpable fear that swirled around him had no effect upon his mind, but his horse was terrified and uncontrollable. Rather than try to fight the creature's panic and waste valuable seconds, the young thief abandoned the beast to its fate. He hit the ground running and in a dozen strides reached the grove.

The druid used his power to soothe and quiet his steed, and Gellor, likewise skilled in the arts of nature, used similar power to do the same for his horse. Both adventurers were as heedless as Gord was of the mindless panic radiating from the horror from the depths of Hades. The projected terror simply had no effect upon either Greenleaf or the bard – but not so Incosee.

First there was a moment of frozen struggle during which the Flan warrior locked his mind upon his mission and denied all fear. His courser was rigid beneath him, Incosee's legs holding its barrel in a viselike grip. Then the horse screamed, reared, and came down wide its legs madly pumping.

Perhaps it was his effort to keep his seat and control the animal, perhaps not. Whatever the cause, Incosee was suddenly as crazed with panic as the horse that bore him. Man and animal, both crazed and screaming, went into the night.

Just as he was about to plunge in among the trees, Gord heard voices. The steeds of four riders were moving away from the copse, the horses running in reckless abandon but under control of those who rode them. Gord shouted a curse of frustration and ran southwest after the horsemen. A groaning of awful aspect nearly deafened him, and he was almost knocked off his feet as the wind from the monstrous flying daemon buffeted the ground beneath. He smelled a terrible stench, felt an ache in every nerve in his body, and then the utter blackness was gone from above Gord's head.

Despite himself, the young adventurer looked up and saw the true forms of steed and master. Retching and spitting bile, Gord stumbled on. He could see the distant figures of dismounted men – one must be a gnome or halfling from its size, he knew – preparing to make a stand against the horror approaching them.

Hooves pounded behind him. "Now, Gord!" shouted Gellor as he and Greenleaf stopped their horses. "If you have ever read quickly and true, do so now. The scroll – use it!"

"I know not the names of daemon or rider!" Gord shouted in reply as he readied the parchment.

"The master of the thing is Nerull himself," Gellor said as he dismounted, "and the daemon is called Putriptoq – true name or not!"

"Call upon any names your heart knows are inimical to those of Evil," Curley Greenleaf added desperately as he himself prepared to unleash his own spell powers. "Neither of us can aid you now," he said, and the druid turned to face the lightless mass that besmirched the ground but a hundred paces distant.

As his comrades began to work what spells they could to bring woe to such fell adversaries, Gord could not refrain from glancing quickly at the scene before him. His extraordinary new vision enabled him to see clearly, but he focused on the four men being held at bay, not upon the nauseating pair who attacked them. One of those he saw was a giant of a man hefting a huge axe. Gord nearly started and dropped the precious scroll. That was Chert! His mind screamed at him to run to stand and die fighting at his friend's side, but reason held Gord in check.

Rays and bolts of unnameable colors were playing upon the ghastly figure and its murderous mount, as quarrels and sling bullets flew at them. Gord heard the one called The Reaper give vent to peals of sepulchral laughter at these efforts, and the evil rider spoke in a hellish voice.

"Now I claim you all for my flock, nigglings," Nerull boomed as he flew from the huge, winged daemon-thing. "Your souls and the Second Key shall be my gifts to He Who Will Awaken!"

This Gord heard, but he was unmindful of the meaning. Neither did he think of the beast or of Nerull's scythe. Gord had begun to read the twisting and writhing lines inscribed on the sheet of ancient parchment.

If the rider was impervious to the attacks of the beleaguered party, not so the daemon Putriptoq. It was stung by the spells and missiles. It lunged its titanic bulk forward, furious at the affront and ravening to crush and tear and devour those who dared to hurt him so. This fury saved the four defenders, for the monster's rush prevented The Reaper from plying his weapon.

"Be still!" Nerull commanded the winged behemoth. The thing felt the searing pain of the scythe, though the contact was a mere touch. Cowed, Putriptoq drew back and huddled its bulk upon itself. Then Nerull stepped to the fore.

All the while, Gord had been reciting the near unpronounceable words of the banishment spell. His eyes burned, and his tongue felt as if it were possessed by a serpent. Beads of sweat sprang from his forehead and ran into his eyes while his hands shook and water seemed to fill his knees. He invoked the names of the deities Celestian and Fharlanghn, and Rao from dimly remembered prayers of childhood, as the text demanded that beings of power be called upon. Gord tried to shout forth the spell, but his mouth was dry and his voice cracked, and the words seemed to be mere croakings and guttural, meaningless mumblings to his straining ears.