The Goblin Corps (3 page)

Quaking under a surge of unaccustomed fear, Havarren could do nothing but watch as Morthûl walked, unhindered, through the wrath of hell, stopping only when the pair of them stood face-to-face.

Slowly, as though it required no small amount of effort, the Charnel King spoke.

“I,” he told his servant, his voice nearly too low to hear at all, “am
very
disappointed.”

Vigo Havarren didn’t believe in many gods, and he tended to despise those that he did believe in. But now, for the first time in his extremely long life, he felt an uncontrollable urge to pray.

Ananias duMark, greatest sorcerer of the Allied Kingdoms, emitted a sigh of sheer bliss as he slowly sank into the down-stuffed mattress. His robe hung on a peg across the small bedchamber; his staff leaned precariously against the wall beside it.

For the past month, ever since his final encounter with his ancient foe, duMark had daily driven himself near the point of collapse. Only within this last week had his arcane abilities returned to what he considered acceptable levels. Only now, finally, could he rest. Exhausted beyond human understanding, the wizard was asleep before his gently pointed ears hit the pillow.

King Dororam, his snow-white beard matted by the pillow upon which it pressed, bolted upright in bed, his heart pounding. Convinced, at first, that he had escaped a truly horrific dream, he had just begun to lie back once more when the hideous, earsplitting scream—identical, his sleep-numbed brain finally realized, to the one that had awakened him—echoed through the halls of Castle Bellatine. And it was only then, as he came fully awake, that Dororam realized his wife, the elegant Queen Lameya, no longer lay beside him. That it was her despairing wail that came to him through the dark. A chill of fear waltzed with improper cheer down his spine, and the aging monarch leapt bodily from his bed, his hand already reaching for the latch set in the thick mahogany door….

Echoing the king of whom he dreamt, duMark jerked upright, face coated in sweat, throat aching from his lingering scream. Before the echoes of that shout had dwindled, the mage was striding across the room, hands reaching of their volition for robe and staff. Rarely, even in his hundreds of years of life, had duMark experienced a dream of such intensity, and even the most wet-behind-the-ears apprentice wizard would have recognized it for the dreadful premonition that it was. Even before the hem of the robe had fully settled around his feet, duMark was mouthing the incantation that would teleport him instantly to Castle Bellatine. But his thoughts were elsewhere, miles away from the spell that he knew by heart.

Gods help me. I should have made sure….

He arrived in the midst of unadulterated chaos. Every servant and resident of the castle dashed hither and yon, spurred on by the call of some urgent duty, none knowing what he or she should actually
do.
One harried steward, though startled by the sudden appearance of the half-elf in the hallway, recognized the wizard by sight. Without a word of explanation, he quickly led duMark upstairs.

Over a dozen guards milled about on the landing beside the royal chambers, but they all stepped aside quickly as duMark strode past.

Queen Lameya, tears streaking her cheeks, rocked bodily back and forth in a chair in the center of the room, a low wail of anguish sporadically punctuating her sobs. DuMark had always thought of her as an attractive woman, despite her age. Now, however, grief’s ungentle fingers had sculpted her face into a grimace of pain and twisted her hair from a distinguished gray to brittle white.

“My daughter, duMark!” King Dororam, who had stood behind his wife, hands upon her shoulders, stormed across the room, his gaze boring into the mage’s own. Although a decade older than his wife, Dororam had grown up a warrior and had allowed neither body nor mind to deteriorate. But tonight, his hair was tangled with sleep, his well-trimmed beard matted exactly as duMark had dreamed. And the aura of fury radiating from him was enough to make even the sorcerer retreat a step—almost enough to hide the sorrow behind it. “My own daughter!”

DuMark quickly regained his composure. “Your Majesty,” he intoned, bowing slightly. “Something has happened? I thought I sensed—”

“Happened?
Happened?!
Oh, gods!” And then he, too, allowed the tears to come, though the rage never once left his eyes.

Reluctantly, the captain of the guard—an older man, one who had served King Dororam for decades—stepped forward, his armor clanking and tabard swaying with each step. “My Lord duMark, Princess Amalia…” The old soldier swallowed once, audibly, and then rigidly suppressed his own grief, his own horror. “Princess Amalia has been murdered.”

DuMark felt his knees go weak beneath him. Had the wall not been near enough to support his slumping form, he would surely have collapsed to the floor.
Why didn’t I make sure…?

“What…?” His voice was little more than a whisper, barely even a breath. “What happened?”

“We’re not certain, my lord. One of the serving maids thought she heard a scuffle, and when she went to investigate—”

“They butchered her, Ananias,” Dororam intoned, his hands seizing the front of the mage’s robe. “Butchered my child like an animal! They didn’t—they didn’t even leave us a whole body to bury….”

Slowly, gently, duMark removed the king’s fists from his robe. “Your Majesty—I am so sorry. If there were anything I could do…”

Dororam’s head shot up, that haunted look once more replaced by that burning rage. “It was Morthûl, wasn’t it?”

DuMark nodded slowly. “I think it must have been.”

The king’s mouth twitched, his teeth clenched. “You told me he was dead, duMark.”

“I truly believed he was, Your Majesty. But there’s no other answer. Had he died, Falchion or someone else might have taken over, but they’d be far too busy consolidating power to worry about retribution. No, my king. Only the Dark Lord himself could have done this. I’m sorry.”

Dororam stared for the space of several heartbeats. And then, without warning, he was striding across the room, his right hand clenched tightly about the hilt of the sword he had yanked from the captain’s scabbard.

“Assemble the soldiers,” he shouted to the guards around. “Assemble them all, and dispatch messengers to the dukes. We ride on Kirol Syrreth at dawn!”

DuMark, following on the king’s heels, shook his head in protest. “Your Majesty—”

“What?!”
Dororam spun, blade held at the half-elf’s throat. “You are partially to blame for this, duMark! Would you withhold justice from me as well?”

It took no small amount of effort for the sorcerer to keep his annoyance from showing on his face.
Why are they all such fools?

Carefully modulating his voice, duMark said, “Your Majesty, I share your grief. Were it within my power, I would hand you the Iron Keep this very morn.” Carefully, he pushed aside the blade with the head of his staff. “But winter comes in a few weeks. In the peaks of the Brimstone Mountains, the snows are already falling. By the time they reached the borders of Kirol Syrreth, whatever remnants of your army had managed to avoid starving or freezing would find themselves stalled at the Serpent’s Pass, unable to cross the Brimstone Mountains and easy targets for the Charnel King’s troglodytes. What justice would
that
bring you, Your Majesty?”

It appeared, at first, as though Dororam were deaf to duMark’s entreaty. But slowly, so slowly, the king’s wrath dimmed just a little, and the arm that held the sword began to relax.

“What,” he asked, his voice tight, “do you suggest?”

Internally, duMark sighed in relief. The others might have reacted poorly if he’d been forced to enchant the man. “Only that you wait. Delay your vengeance, my king. Shauntille is far from the only nation with reason to hate Morthûl. Use the opportunity that winter brings to send messengers to the others. Assemble the armies of
all
the Allied Kingdoms. With such a force at your side, even the gathered hordes of Kirol Syrreth cannot stand against you. And I personally shall ride by your side, to ensure that this time, the foul abomination stays dead!”

Thoughtfully, Dororam nodded. “It shall be as you suggest, Ananias. We will wait, and we shall assemble every fighting man this land has to offer. This spring will be the last thaw the Dark Lord ever sees. Before I am through, not only the Iron Keep, but all of Kirol Syrreth will be thrown down!” The sword clattered noisily to the floor, dropped by nerveless fingers. With his rage diverted, the king of Shauntille found himself defenseless against an overwhelming tide of sorrow.

“And now, Ananias, if you’ll excuse us…We have a daughter to mourn.”

The half-elf bowed once and departed. As he marched through the carpeted passages of the Castle Bellatine, his mind worked at a feverish pace. King Dororam and his armies might be inconvenienced by a little snow, true enough, but duMark was the greatest sorcerer of the Allied Kingdoms, and it would take far more than a change of season to hinder
him.
He had sworn that this time Morthûl would truly fall—and that was one vow he was bound and determined to keep.

Like a fading mirage, the mage vanished from the walls of the great castle. There were preparations to make, and even a man so potent and resourceful had precious little time in which to make them.

S
hadows danced in languid circles around the throne room of the Iron Keep. The impenetrable walls, adorned with an uncountable array of skulls from dozens of races, seemed to shift in the fluctuating light—and perhaps they did, guided by the fickle moods of their lord and master.

Upon his great marble throne the Charnel King sat, slumped forward, weighted down by the impossibly heavy matters pressing upon his decomposed shoulders. His right elbow rested upon the arm of the great chair, and his chin was propped on one skeletal fist. Leathery flesh, only partially re-formed from the damage Ananias duMark had inflicted, was twisted into a grimace of equal parts anger, boredom, and dejection. Had Morthûl been anything resembling a human, he might have been described as…melancholy.

Slowly, the hollow echoes of his footfalls puncturing the almost-sacrosanct silence of the chamber, Vigo Havarren approached his master.

“My lord?” The lanky wizard spoke quietly. “My lord, Her Majesty the Queen seeks an audience.”

The Charnel King moved not at all. The faces embossed in the marble of the throne—dozens of hideous expressions, screaming in agony—looked far more alive than he. “I said that I would see no one. My loving wife included.”

“Very well, my king. I—”

“For that matter,” the Dark Lord continued inexorably, “I don’t seem to recall making an exception for you, either.”

“I—that is, Queen Anne expressly ordered me to seek an audience on her behalf. You’ve told us numerous times that, in your absence, we are to obey her as though she spoke with your voice. I thought—”

“You, Havarren, are not supposed to think. You aren’t good at it.” Finally, the master of the Iron Keep raised his head, staring directly at the blond wizard. “Still, you are here now. Has there been any progress?”

The mage reluctantly shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my lord. DuMark’s spells have always been particularly potent.”

Without further comment, Morthûl once more rested his chin on his fist and resumed the all-consuming task of staring into space.

Havarren imperceptibly shook his head a second time. Morthûl had most certainly taken his vengeance against Dororam, the monarch who had aided duMark and his allies numerous times in thwarting the forces of Kirol Syrreth. But a month and more, now, the Dark Lord’s efforts had been spent in seeking the interlopers who had invaded the Iron Keep itself, the scum who had interfered with the Charnel King’s ancient spell.

And for a month and more, those efforts had proved futile. Clearly, duMark had realized that his companions were in peril, had woven spells of cloaking and protection so tightly about them that even the combined efforts of Morthûl and Havarren had been unable to locate them, the many spies of Kirol Syrreth unable to unearth them.

It was all finally taking its toll. The collapse of his great spell, at what was supposed to be the culmination of all his work—combined, now, with his failure even to fully punish those responsible—had apparently sucked the heart from the Dark Lord. Morthûl had withdrawn ever further from the day-to-day aspects of ruling a land as large and strife-ridden as Kirol Syrreth. The various goblin races—unsteady allies at the best of times—were reverting to their natural rivalries. The human officers had kept the peace so far, but it was only a matter of time before their efforts must prove inadequate.

Worse still, word had just recently reached Havarren that King Dororam, enraged by the death of Princess Amalia, was assembling the armies of the Allied Kingdoms. Elf prepared to march alongside dwarf, halfling beside pixie, giloral beside human. Come the spring thaw…

Havarren, in the process of turning to beat a hasty retreat from the chamber, abruptly stopped short. So deeply had Morthûl withdrawn, the mage realized suddenly, that there was a better than even chance he’d not yet heard of Dororam’s mobilization!

Nervously clearing his throat, Havarren turned back. “Umm—my lord, there is one other matter…”

Once more the half-naked skull tilted upward. “And that would be?”

The ancient evil listened, expressionless, as Havarren explained current events beyond the Brimstone Mountains. Even after the lanky wizard finished speaking, the Charnel King of Kirol Syrreth stared, as though he couldn’t quite comprehend what he’d been told.

And then, slowly, Morthûl rose from his throne. The ancient garments draping his body fell in folds around him, delighted to be free from the confines of the marble corners. Even the profane glow seemed, ever so perceptibly, to brighten.

“Dororam seeks to challenge
me
? Here, in Kirol Syrreth?” A spasm of laughter racked the Charnel King’s frame; dust and handfuls of squirming insects spattered across the floor, shaken from the folds of his clothes. Beneath that mocking laugh, Havarren heard clearly an undertone of fury at the hubris of a mortal who would dare stand against the Dark Lord himself.