The Temple of Yellow Skulls (29 page)

The big crested lizardman clawed weakly at churned mud, trying to drag himself away from the crocodile as it chomped on the mangled remains of his leg. Blood poured out of his wounds and Uldane knew he wouldn’t make his escape. Most of the other lizardfolk were down, either dead or unconscious. Only three still stood, struggling in the grasp of the four-armed monsters, the big blackscale lizardman among them. Their captors bled from numerous wounds and had darts sticking out of their thick hide like spines, but hardly seemed affected. The last of the dogs still howled and thrashed as it died. The three lizardfolk Raid had gone out of his way to injure still screeched as well, as if in the grip of a terrible fever. In fact, Uldane could have sworn he saw their skin shifting and bubbling.

And Raid, completely untouched, his axes not even bloodied, looked over the scene with satisfaction.

The elation of rescue slipped away from Uldane. Raid and his monsters had devastated a full dozen strong lizardfolk without difficulty. Shara and the others had no idea the danger they were riding into—and in only moments, the lingering screams of Raid’s victims would no longer be enough to cover the sound of their horses’ hoof beats.

Bracing himself against the trunk of the tree, Uldane sat up. He drew a breath deep enough to send agony through his chest, squeezed his eyes shut, and cupped hands over his mouth. As loud as he could, he let out the piercing wail of a night heron, the call Shara’s father had always used to signal danger.

He cracked his eyes open to see his friends reining in their horses. Shara wheeled hers in confusion—before looking
straight at his tree and punching her heels into the animal’s side, urging it back to a gallop.

“No,” Uldane whispered to himself. “No!” He cupped his hands again and made the call again—a call that died in his throat at a sudden snarl from below. “You!”

Uldane looked down into Raid’s horrific, misshapen face.

A
lbanon had been the first to hear the sounds of the fight ahead down the trail, but Shara was the first to rein in her horse at the sound of the bird call. “That’s Uldane!”

Disbelief was a like a slap in the face. “You must be joking,” Albanon said as he fought his horse to a prancing halt beside hers. From the moment they’d decided to go looking for Uldane, Shara had been pacing like a caged animal, consumed with worry for the halfling. She’d had them up before dawn to meet the Nentir ferryman on his earliest crossing of the day, ready to strike out for the nearest likely ruin to Fallcrest: a crumbling guard tower along the edge of the Witchlight Fens. He honestly hadn’t held out hope that they’d find Uldane in the first place they looked—although he supposed it wasn’t hard to believe that they’d find him in the middle of trouble. “We must be lucky!”

“No.” Shara turned her horse as she scanned the trees and reeds of the Witchlight Fens. “That’s our signal for danger. If he’s trying to warn us, he must be somewhere he can see
us.…” Her eyes fixed on the top of a tree that rose above the other undergrowth a short distance away. “There.”

Albanon’s ears prickled. “Shara, if he’s trying to warn us—”

His words came too late. The warrior kicked her horse and the beast took off along the trail toward the tree. “—maybe we need to be careful,” Albanon finished to empty air. A curse rolled off his tongue and he turned to Kri.

The old man’s hand gripped the holy symbol of Ioun around his neck. His face was drawn and hard.

The prickling in Albanon’s ears seemed to grow even stronger. “Kri?”

“Go after her,” the cleric said through tight lips. “The Voidharrow is here!”

Albanon’s stomach dropped. The Voidharrow? Here?

Vestapalk.

So much for their plan of questioning Raid about his connection to the Voidharrow. If the dragon was already here, Uldane might not be the only one in need of rescue. Albanon kicked his heels hard into his mount’s side. The horse leaped into a gallop, racing along the trail. Albanon leaned low over his horse’s neck and willed Shara to look over her shoulder and see him, as if that would do any good. She’d just think he was following her charge. “Shara!” he hissed as loudly as he dared. “Shara!”

But she wasn’t going to hear him over the sound of her horse’s hooves, he knew, and raising his voice would just give them away—if the sound of their gallop hadn’t already. He dredged his mind for spells that might stop the warrior before she did something stupid. Short of blasting her horse out from under her with an arcane bolt, there was nothing.

Fear gave birth to nightmare scenarios in Albanon’s mind of Vestapalk rising up just as they reached the tree. The sounds of fighting had faded. Now there were only screams of pain and terror. Whatever battle had taken place was over. Just ahead of him, Shara drew her greatsword from across her shoulders and charged through the bushes with a scream of her own.

A scream that rose suddenly into an oath of dismay. Albanon’s heart skipped a beat.

The bushes loomed before him. Albanon clenched his teeth, fixed a spell of icy destruction in his mind, and spurred his horse through.

There was no dragon on the other side. He almost wished there had been.

For a moment, it felt as if his mind refused to believe what his eyes were seeing. The devastated camp. The blood and scraps of flesh all around, some from a butchered deer but more from brutally mauled lizardfolk, including one in the jaws of a massive crocodile. The few still living lizardfolk held captive by creatures with a hunched stance and extra arms—just like the kobolds in Andok Sur, but bigger and with plates of red crystal like armor grown across their shoulders. Albanon felt a sickness in his gut. The Voidharrow had infected them. Whatever they had been before, they were demons now.

Three lizardfolk writhed on the ground. He could already see the sparkling silver-red of the Voidharrow in their wounds.

And right before him, confronting Shara and looking almost as startled as she did, another even taller creature. Thick, gnarled hands held twin axes above a head that on one side was stretched into a weird countenance and on the other was burned and scarred but distinctly human and shockingly familiar.

Raid’s eyes fixed on Albanon and he smiled, his mouth stretching far wider than it should have. “And the eladrin,” he rasped. “Now everybody’s here. I knew you’d join me eventually.” He twisted his wrists, spinning the axes.

“Don’t try to fight him!” Uldane’s voice, terrifyingly weak, came down from above. Instinctively, Albanon glanced up into the tree and found the halfling clinging to the trunk high up among the branches. “Get out of here!”

Raid’s smile turned into a snarl and he whirled, kicking the tree hard enough to shake it. “Close your mouth and die, you—”

The instant he turned, Shara spurred her horse forward and slashed out with her greatsword. Caught by surprise and off-balance, Raid flung himself back. “Albanon, get Uldane!” Shara ordered over her shoulder.

She didn’t have a chance to say anything more. Faster than should have been possible, Raid sprang back at her, axes swinging in blurring arcs. Shara sent her horse dancing aside, then struck again to force Raid away from the tree.

Clenching his teeth, Albanon rode in as close to the fight as he could, but his horse wasn’t trained for battle the way hers was. The beast was skittish, its eyes rolling at the blood and sudden movements. He had to fight to keep it steady. Out in the camp, the armored creatures were looking between themselves as if unsure whether to abandon their captives and join Raid.

Albanon twisted and looked up. “Uldane, can you get down?”

The halfling nodded. His limbs trembled as he shifted from the branch he stood on and wrapped his arms around the trunk.

Raid let loose a howl and ducked past Shara’s horse. Albanon yelped and dragged on his reins, but he wasn’t Raid’s target.
On the far side of the tree hung the partially slaughtered carcass of a deer. Raid slammed into it and kicked off like a street fighter, using the impact to bound away from Shara’s sword and out into the open. The carcass swung the other way—toward Albanon.

It was too much for the wizard’s already frightened mount. The horse whinnied and shied away, thumping hard into the tree. Agony blazed through Albanon’s leg as the beast bashed it into the hard wood.

Between the swinging carcass and the impact of the horse, the tree shuddered violently. High above, Uldane gave a feeble gasp. Albanon looked up to see the halfling lose his grasp and topple backward.

Sometimes during his training, Moorin had tried to distract him as he cast his spells. A loud noise, a sudden shaking, once a bucket of water dumped over his head. “You have to learn to hold your focus,” his master had told him. “It could save your life some day.”

His life or someone else’s. Albanon’s leg throbbed from knee to hip. His horse still fought him. Shara and Raid bellowed at each other and exchanged ringing blows. Thanks to Moorin’s lesson, though, the words of a spell rolled smoothly off his tongue. Uldane’s plunge turned into a gentle drift. Albanon wrenched his horse’s head around, bringing it back under control, then reached up and pulled in Uldane as if he were a floating feather.

The halfling’s skin was burning hot. Mud and dried blood caked his torn leathers. The stink of an infected wound rose from him. Fear gripped Albanon and he quickly scanned Uldane for signs of the Voidharrow—crystalline blisters, sparkling wounds, anything. It was almost a relief to see only angry,
pus-wet wounds. Albanon swallowed and settled the halfling against his own body as best he could. Uldane’s eyes flickered, then opened wide, Albanon had to grab him. “Uldane!” he said “Easy. It’s—”

“Your horse!” Uldane grabbed for the front of Albanon’s robes with one fist as if he could drag the wizard closer than he already was. “Get your horse away from Raid.”

“What?” Albanon’s first reaction was confusion, but his ears were prickling again. Uldane knew things they didn’t. He gathered his reins and turned his horse, twisting around in the saddle to call back to Shara. “I have Uldane. Let’s—”

The words stuck in his throat. Between watching Uldane and struggling with his horse, he hadn’t paid close attention to Shara’s fight against Raid. He wished that he had. The warrior was still beating her sword against Raid’s axes, but the first blow that had sent Raid stumbling back had just been luck. Raid caught each of her swings and turned them away, defending himself with ease. He almost had a smile on his face, while Shara wore concentration like a mask. Albanon watched as she tried to guide her horse back with pressure from her knees. The horse responded, dancing back from the demon, but Raid stayed with her.

The moment she tried to turn and run, he would cut her down. He was toying with her.

Anger flared in Albanon. Maybe he could give Shara the opening she needed to break away—and give Raid some payback at the same time. He flung out his hand, speaking the words of a spell.

Raid saw him. His red eyes narrowed.

Albanon’s horse shuddered under him, then suddenly reared up and lashed at the air with its hooves. The bright
bolt of Albanon’s spell flashed into the darkening sky like a silvery star. His heart racing, the eladrin cursed and hauled at the reins with both hands as he struggled to keep his seat in the saddle.

The horse slammed back down on to all four with enough force to rattle his teeth. That wasn’t the end of it, though. The beast kicked up with its back legs, bucking as if it had never been broken. Uldane, clinging to Albanon’s robes, almost flew free. Shara was struggling with her horse, too. Her face was white as she hung on with one hand, sword gripped tight in the other and waving wildly. Raid threw back his head and Albanon would almost have said that he laughed except that is sounded more like a roar of triumph.

It was cut short by a shout from behind Albanon.
“By the Book of Insight, let the light of the gods rise against this abomination!”

As his horse thrashed back, Albanon caught a glimpse of Kri. The old cleric held his holy symbol in one hand and a harsh, unforgiving light played across his face. Even the cleric’s horse seemed to stand tall, tossing its mane and stomping one of its hoofs.

Where that hoof struck the ground, brilliant light glimmered—glimmered and spread, racing through the dirt and branching out like earthbound lightning that refused to fade. The web of light surrounded Albanon, and the wizard felt a sense of protection wrap around him. An instant later it flashed around Shara. And Raid.

The demon shouted and jumped away as if he’d been plunged into boiling water.

Almost instantly, Albanon’s horse calmed under him. It still fought the reins, its eyes rolling madly, but it was no longer actively trying to throw him off. Shara’s horse calmed as well
and she wheeled it around to face Raid. He came to his feet, axes up and ready to meet her.

“Shara, no,” Kri said sharply. Raid hissed and jumped again, forced back as the blazing web of light slid ahead of Shara. Albanon looked over his shoulder to see Kri pressing his holy symbol gently forward, moving the web. The cleric’s wrinkled face was creased in concentration. “Come back to me, both of you,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

Albanon needed no further encouragement. Out in the camp, the four-armed monstrosities seemed to have figured out that they were needed and started forward, dragging their captives after them. The big crocodile snarled and moved in, too. There was a redness in its eyes that reminded Albanon uncomfortably of Raid—and if the demon had driven their horses wild, what could he do to the crocodile? The eladrin forced his horse to turn and canter back to Kri.

In his arms, Uldane stirred. “Shara, listen to him!”

Albanon heard her curse, then other hoofbeats joined his. Behind him, Raid hissed—a horrible, inhuman noise—then hissed again. Albanon glanced back and saw that he was trying to pace around the glowing web. Guided by Kri, the light just followed him. Raid stopped and glared at them. “Go,” he snarled. “Run. You can’t hold this spell forever. I’ll get around it. I will hunt you down.”

Kri’s face tightened. He jerked his head as Albanon and Shara passed him on either side, urging them both to the broken bushes and the trail beyond. Albanon rode for the gap, his horse becoming easier to handle the further he got from Raid, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the demon. He twisted in his saddle to watch him. Raid and Kri glared at each other, the cleric still as a holy icon, the monster twitching and
flinching. His misshapen face changed slowly from snarl to grin. His gnarled hands shifted on the handles of his axes. He sank back in a crouch, ready to spring.