The Temple of Yellow Skulls (20 page)

He was so close to taking the skulls. His hands tightened on his axes. “What do we do?”

“Flank it, one to either side,” said Tragent. “Try to fight past the heat—”

The dreadnought lunged at them with a grinding roar before he could finish, but Raid didn’t need to hear any more. He met the elemental, matching its roar. The heat of its body seared him again as soon as he moved close, but this time he didn’t try to fight it. He embraced the pain as it scoured his flesh. It became a part of his fury. He bellowed again and unleashed a flurry of blows that drove the elemental back.

Tragent stayed to its other side, taking advantage of momentary openings as the dreadnought tried to fend off Raid’s furious attacks. His sword licked into the deep cuts that Raid’s axes chopped into the monster’s rocky hide; his shouts urged Raid to even heavier, faster blows. Raid ground his teeth together and just fought until his armor smoked. Until the elemental’s torso and arms were scored with deep, glowing gashes.

The injuries barely slowed it down. Raid twisted under a swing of its fists and swept down with a blow that should have sheared off a good chunk of the thing’s side. Rock splintered
and fell away, but the elemental’s molten interior flowed to the surface and took its place like a scab forming from drawn blood. The elemental responded by bringing its fist down in a hammer blow that numbed Raid’s entire left arm.

“Don’t stop!” Tragent yelled. He drew the elemental’s attention with a series of feints. The distraction gave Raid the chance to shake feeling back into his arm, but he knew in his gut that it wasn’t enough. It was as if something was sustaining the dreadnought—and the firelasher, too. The flaming monster’s swirling form seemed a little sluggish, but nothing more. Dohr’s powerful blasts of lightning had faded to sporadic jolts. Uldane had run out of knives and was reduced to mockery alone.

So close, yet not close enough. Strain showed in Dohr’s face and, in spite of his words, Tragent’s. They weren’t going to be able to keep up the fight much longer. Only Uldane still seemed full of energy and optimism. “Is that all you’ve got?” he shouted at the firelasher. “I’ve seen better out of a scullery maid trying to light tinder with an old flint and rusty steel!”

Maybe something in the tone of the insult finally penetrated to whatever served the elemental for a mind. It whirled and surged toward Uldane faster than Raid would have thought possible, its whip-like arms leaving streaks of brightness in the air. Uldane’s eyes went wide and he leaped from one platform to the next to take cover—

—behind one of the floating golden skulls.

The firelasher froze. The tendrils of its arms drifted like seaweed in water only an arms length from Uldane’s otherwise insignificant hiding place. The halfling was hardly concealed at all. In the elemental’s place, Raid wouldn’t have hesitated: He would have cleaved the skull in two right between its glowing
eyes and taken Uldane with the same blow. So why had the firelasher paused?

Because the elementals had appeared, he realized abruptly, when the witchfire that lit the chamber had turned white and sparks had leaped into bony eye sockets focused on the circles of the central platform.

The skull’s eyes still glowed. The witchfire still burned white. And the elementals still fought on. The golden skulls were the ower behind the temple. What if their power sustained the elementals, too? Raid didn’t know how to extinguish the witch-fire, but maybe there was something else they could do.

“Uldane!” he called. “Turn the skull! Break its gaze!”

The halfling reached out, grabbed the floating skull, and pushed it face down.

The white sparks in its eye sockets winked out.

Both elementals gave a shriek in unison and seemed to go mad. The dreadnought’s pounding fists slammed at Tragent and Raid with renewed force. The firelasher whirled in place, arms lashing around Uldane but never quite touching either him or the skull. Dohr’s face darkened like a thundercloud. “By the storm,” he said, his voice booming, “
you will not!”

There was thunder in his words, and the roar of a terrible wind as well. The firelasher turned to face him—and was blown aside, its flames winking and guttering. It tried to reach for Dohr, but the sorcerer’s face just tightened and the wind raged on, holding it away.

Uldane needed no further instruction. As soon as the elemental’s attention was off of him, he raced for the next closest skull and turned it over, too. Once again, the dreadnought and firelasher cried out, but this time their movements seemed to slow. The molten ooze that had sealed the dreadnought’s
wounds started to trickle and run like blood. Raid felt a savage grin spread across his face.

“Can you hold your ground?” he asked Tragent. The swordsman nodded grimly. Raid slashed once more at the elemental then dashed down a crooked flight of stairs to a skull and twisted it around.

The elementals didn’t cry out this time but the light that filled the chamber dimmed as the white witchfire ebbed. Uldane laughed like a child playing games as he leaped between platforms to reach another skull. Raid couldn’t help laughing along.

With the turning of the fourth skull, the witchfire returned to a distinctly green hue. Raid found a fifth and when he looked to Tragent again, the swordsman was easily holding his own against the diminished dreadnought. The firelasher had stopped trying to reach Dohr and was just trying to keep its fire alight. Raid dropped his axes and ran faster, charging up and down stairs and along walkways in search of every skull. The sense that they were shifting around seemed even stronger, as if they were trying to escape his attention. He found two more, though, spinning each away from the central platform.

“Here!” Uldane called from the very top of the spherical chamber. “I think this is the last one.” He wrapped his arms around the golden skull and instead of turning it, simply pulled it out of position.

The last trace of white disappeared from the cold flames around the chamber. The dreadnought collapsed into a heap of smoking gravel. The firelasher sighed and vanished without a trace. For a moment, the only sound was a fading rush of wind as Dohr allowed his storm to fade.

Then the doors to the chamber creaked and slowly swung open again.

“We did it!” Uldane thrust his skull into the air in triumph.

“Thank the gods,” Dohr said with a groan as he turned for the portal. “Let’s get out of here.”

Raid’s belly tensed at the idea. “No.”

Dohr swung back to him. “Are you insane?”

“We fought for the skulls—we’re not leaving without them. Gather them all.” Raid pulled at the skull that still floated beside him. It came away with only a little resistance, like breaking a large, unseen spider web. He looked up again. High above, Uldane had already started his descent. Tragent was grinning and making his way to the nearest skull. Raid glanced back to Dohr.

The half-orc’s mouth twitched and he smiled. “Who am I kidding? The only way I’m leaving this place is rich.”

Raid forced himself to smile back. “Indeed.”

The treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls made a neat pile on the central platform once they were finished collecting it. Eight perfect golden skulls—the mystery of their exact number solved—gleamed in the green light. Removed from their perches, they no longer seemed to shift when Raid looked at them. They varied in size, from the thick skull of an adult male to the delicate skull of a child, each one flawless and surprisingly heavy. Heavy enough that Raid could believe the legends were wrong and that they’d been transformed into solid gold rather than being dipped in it. He wasn’t about to break one to find out the truth, though.

He caught Dohr flexing his fingers as he looked over the pile. Like all of them, Dohr had his share of burns and other injuries from the battle, but Raid hadn’t seen him
treating his hands with such delicacy before. “Blisters from spell casting,” he asked him, “or just from lugging gold?”

The half-orc wrinkled his nose and stuck his hands behind his back like a child caught stealing. “Neither,” he said. He hesitated, then asked, “What are you doing with your share, Raid? Are you going to melt them down for the gold or do you have a collector interested in them?”

New pain surged across Raid’s burned face as he clenched his jaw. “Something like that,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

Uldane and Tragent were looking at them. Dohr’s eyes flicked between them, then back to Raid. “Something like which?” he asked. “The gold or a collector?”

“A collector would fetch more money,” said Tragent, raising an eyebrow to his friend. “The gold’s just gold, but the skulls are something special.”

Raid felt a wash of relief. Whatever was going on in Dohr’s head, he hadn’t shared it with the swordsman. “They’re not going to be melted down,” he said.

“That’s good.” Dohr let his hands slip from behind his back and rubbed them together. “It’s just that … I think the legends are true. I can feel something inside the skulls.”

Uldane’s eyes opened wide. “You think there really are demon princes trapped in them?” He reached over and rapped on a skull. “Hello? Baphorcagonwhozit? Are you in there? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

“Uldane!” said Dohr harshly. He swept the halfling back, then looked at Raid. “I’m no expert in this—you probably want a priest or a wizard—but I’m pretty sure those things should never be melted or broken.” He drew a deep breath and added, “In fact, I’m not sure we should be taking them away from here.”

Raid pressed his lips together, searching for the right response, but Tragent was the first to break the silence. “Are you joking?” he said. “What we’ve seen and done and now you get cold feet?”

“I’ve never felt anything like this before. There’s power in them. We know that.” He turned to Raid again. “This collector you’re selling your share to—would he be interested in paying for our share, too?”

“I imagine he would.” Raid kept his face and voice neutral.
So close.…

“As long as he’s going to keep the skulls intact.” Dohr ran fingers through his hair. “Tragent, I think we need to see more of the world. Somewhere a long way from wherever the skulls are going.”

Tragent’s brows pulled together in concern. Raid quickly clapped Dohr on the back. “Don’t worry,” he said. The half-orc scowled.

“I hate it when people say that.” He squeezed his fingers into fists again. “I don’t think I can help carry the skulls out of the temple, though. I’d feel them the whole way.”

“It’s taken care of.” Raid went to his pack and retrieved a second bundle of leather, much like the one that had held his specially made gloves. Unfolding this bundle, however, revealed nothing more than that the leather was, in fact, a finely stiched large sack. Uldane clapped his hands when he saw it.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked. Raid held it out to him, letting the open end sag down. Uldane hopped right into it—and the bag hardly sagged. He popped his head out again, looking a little bit disappointed. “It’s not as roomy as it could be,” he said. “I knew a family of halflings who lived for six months in a really big magic bag. Well, until a gust of
wind came up and blew the bag into a lake. We never saw them again. Or half the lake, either.”

Raid upended the bag and dumped him out, then tossed the bag at him, along with a red leather thong. “Load the skulls inside,” he said, “then tie it with that. It will keep the bag closed.”

“Why me?”

“Because Dohr can’t handle the skulls and I want Tragent to look at my burns.” He glanced at the swordsman. “You look like you know something about healing.”

“Some.”

“That’s enough, then.” Raid turned away, leaving Uldane cursing and Dohr smiling in amusement.

Tragent followed him. “Those burns are beyond me,” he said quietly. “You need to see a healer as soon as you can when we’re out of here. Even then you’ll probably carry the scars.”

“I can live with scars. There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.” Near the edge of the platform, Raid turned so that he could watch the loading of the sack and started unstrapping the chestpiece of his armor. “Keep your eyes on me,” he murmured to Tragent. “What do you think of Uldane?”

Tragent’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a clown. A dangerous clown, but still a clown.” He reached out to help Raid with his armor. “Careful. If you’re burned under there—”

The warning came too late. Burned skin pulled away. Raid couldn’t hold back a groan of pain. His hand gripped Tragent’s arm. “Do you really want to split your share of the treasure with a clown?” he said through clenched teeth.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

Raid’s heart started to pound in his chest. “Good,” he said. He pulled out his axes and laid them to the side so that
he could sit down on one of the stairways. “Help me get my armor off, then call Dohr over. Tell him you need bandages from your pack or something.”

“I do need bandages from my pack.” Tragent grimaced as he eased the chestpiece away. Raid looked down at himself. The elemental’s molten blood had traced a wide red path from his right shoulder down half his chest. It wouldn’t be the only scar on his torso, though. He drew a slow breath, embracing the pain.