Bloodsongs (41 page)

Dim torchlight greeted them. They stepped inside without making a sound and paused. Frost repressed another shiver. How many times had she climbed that curving stairway as a child and played in the rooms above? How many times had she played in this very entrance hall?

Yet it all seemed so alien and otherworldly to her.

“He's up to something,” she whispered suddenly. “There's a vibration in the air; I can feel it.”

Telric brought up the point of his sword. His knuckles had turned white around the hilt.

She padded quietly across the hall and paused before another set of doors. She touched it with her fingertips. The sensation was stronger. She opened them and started down a narrow corridor. There were rooms on either side, but she ignored them, increasing her pace.

At the end of the corridor a tapestry was hung. She brushed it aside. A slender staircase rose up, lit by a single torch in a sconce on the wall. She didn't need its light, though. Too many times she had walked this way to forget; she knew what lay at the top.

“This place is a maze!” Telric whispered, drawing no response. “Doors and more doors!” he hissed irritably when she stopped before another one.

She touched it lightly, assuring herself that she had found the source of the arcane vibration. Then, she listened for the tiny note in her soul that said she had also found Kel. She nodded to her companion. He drew a deep breath and nodded also.

An odd calm settled upon her as she eased open the door to her father's library. Kel's back was to her as she said softly, “Hello, son.”

Kel whirled, startled, and his face went pale. He stood within a double circle pattern drawn on the bare wood floor with chalk. The symbols between the two circles were unknown to her, but they crackled with a vile energy. The air reeked of death and decay. On either side of him two tenebrous
things
floated, shifting and formless. On a small table before him rested a pair of skulls.

“No!” Kel screamed fearfully. “You can't be here yet. I'm not ready!”

Before Frost could act, Telric shouldered his way into the room, saw the
shimeres
, and froze. Then, realizing they had interrupted the conjuration before it was complete, he crossed the chamber and rubbed his bootheel across the outermost circle and through one of the glyphs, smearing them.

Kel screamed again.

The
shimeres
let go an ear-splitting wail, shot up to the ceiling, down to the floor. Desperately, they smashed into the walls and the high bookcases, overturning furniture, knocking over candles that illumined the room. Frost snatched one away from an arras before a fire could start and crouched in a corner.

The
shimeres
whirled in faster and faster circles. Their black substances began to melt and merge, spinning faster with each passing heartbeat until a small, tightly contained vortex raged at the center of the room.

Frost stared, her hair lashing wildly, her garments whipping about her. She shielded her candle with one hand, but the tempest fanned the flame to a blue, dancing blaze. Nearby, Telric was sprawled on the floor, clinging desperately to his sword, struggling to unfasten the cloak that threatened to choke him as the vortex sucked at the scarlet fabric. Kel was flattened against the far wall, wide-eyed and hysterical. He screamed curses, but his words were lost in the spiraling rush of energy.

Books and scrolls flew about the room, chased by the two skulls, the small table, anything that was loose. The air was full of deadly missiles. Frost protected her head and crouched even lower; she couldn't reach Telric's side.

Then it ended, and all the world seemed to hold a breath. Books, bones, tables, all fell with a resounding series of snaps, cracks, and thuds as the vortex lost its energy and began to dissipate. When the tempest had subsided, only a faint, dewy film of ectoplasmic material remained. That, too, quickly evaporated.

Frost rose and set the candle, the only source of light, on a shelf above her head and moved toward her son.

“Stay back!” he shouted angrily, but fear shone in his eyes. “Stupid woman! I knew you were close, but not
so
close. You and your lapdog”—he waved a hand at Telric as the Rholarothan got to his feet—“you'll wreck everything!”

She took a step closer. “Kel . . .”

His hand shot into a pocket of his robe and drew out a ring. Before she could stop him, he slipped it on his first finger. His face was a mask of bitter hatred as he vanished.

Frost leaped forward, but her arms closed on emptiness. “Telric,” she shouted, “kick the door shut!” Without questioning he lashed out with his foot. The door shivered as it slammed against the jamb, but Frost sensed it was too late.

“The ring,” she explained as she jerked the door open and raced down the stairs, “is a talisman. It hides him from human eyes. That must be how he escaped from my inn when Riothamus's soldiers came for him. He must have used it, also, to get past the Keled army when we crushed his force at the tower.”

“What do we do, then?” her comrade called, running behind her.

“I didn't need to see him to get us this far,” she answered. “I think I can find him now.”

She hurried back the way they had come, through the entrance hall, outside into the courtyard. Halfway across, she stopped and caught Telric's arm. “He's just beyond the gate,” she said warily. “I can feel him.”

Ashur came to her side as she started across the yard again. The mare only glanced up at them, then went back to munching the weeds.

She moved cautiously. She could sense her son's presence, but not his precise location. He was out there somewhere, moving slowly.

They paused at the gate. The huge doors stood open, inviting. Frost eased her sword free, flattened against the cool iron, and inched her way around the corner. There was no sign of her son. She beckoned, and Telric and Ashur came around to join her.

“That way,” she whispered, “but I don't . . .”

For a brief instant Kel appeared. His eyes burned into hers, and he wore a subtle grin. Then he turned and ducked behind the thick trunk of an old tree.

“There!” she cried, running along the outside of the fortress wall. But when she reached the tree, Kel was not there. He appeared again, though, farther down the wall. She gave chase, weaving among the trees, leaping thickets, brushing aside limbs that might have clawed her face. Ashur thundered along close on her heels. She didn't dare look back for fear of losing her son, but she knew Telric followed.

Kel ran lithe as a deer with his robes gathered in his arms. Suddenly, he stopped and turned to face her. Not even the darkness could mask the madness that shone in his gaze. He flung back his head and howled an insane laugh. “Do you know this ground, Mother? Do you remember it?”

She knew it was a mistake to listen to that silken, beguiling voice. She should cut him down without hesitation. But he was her son, and she stayed her hand. “No more games, Kel,” she said sharply. “You've caused enough grief.”

A malicious smile blossomed on his lips. He continued as if she hadn't spoken. “It's the cemetery, Samidar, my dear mother. We buried our soldiers here, the retainers and the servants.” His smile widened. “And they've missed you. They want to welcome you home!”

He opened his hand. On his palm glinted fragments of teeth and bone. A surge of arcane force rippled through the air as he tossed them. Ashur screamed and reared; prominences of flame crackled from the unicorn's eyes. Frost felt the power like icy knives carving away her flesh. Where each ensorcelled fragment fell, the earth split open.

“Embrace them, Mother.” Kel laughed. “Embrace your friends and loved ones!”

They shambled from the fissures. The red fire of hellish half-life gleamed in the corpses' vacant sockets. They groped for her, and their nails were long as dagger blades. Withered, rotten flesh and tattered burial garments dripped from ancient bones with every step the creatures took. The stench of them was overpowering.

Frost shrank back in revulsion. A foul taste filled her mouth, and she discovered to her shame that she had vomited on herself. She gaped, staring at a nightmare made real. They came for her, surrounding her, and more clambered from the earth as more fissures yawned, all with the same hungering look.

How many?
she cried in silent terror.
How many are buried in this once hallowed ground?

Beneath her feet the earth sank away. Reflexively, she leaped aside and bounced clumsily off the unicorn's flanks as Ashur, too, tried to get away. She fell on her face, swallowing dirt. Then she let go a shriek as something raked her ankle.

Without thinking, she rolled on her side and brought her sword over in a glittering arc, severing the grisly arm that reached out of the hole where, moments before, she had stood.

That was all it took to mobilize her. She scrambled up, spitting filth from her mouth, and smashed at the head that tried to rise from the same hole. Bone splintered with a hollow, snapping sound.

Her action was permission enough for Ashur. The unicorn plunged into the thick of them, slashing with horn and hooves, bellowing his strange war cry.

Far to her left she spied Telric. The Rholarothan's back was to the fortress wall. He swung his sword two-handed in wide, whistling strokes to keep the monsters at bay.

From the corner of her eye she saw a taloned hand reach. It caught her long hair, but before it could jerk her off-balance she cleaved off the arm. Her second blow sent a head flying from a pair of emaciated shoulders, and the creature collapsed.

Her heart gave a leap. “Strike at the head!” she shouted, praying that Telric could hear her.

She sprang at the nearest corpse. Its ribs showed bare on its right side, and the decayed scalp had slipped over the skull nearly into the creature's eyes. Still, it reached for her, finger bones clenching spasmodically, clacking its broken teeth in an obscene rhythm.

One clean stroke sent it to a second rest.
Was it grateful?
Frost wondered.
Or was even this perversion of life preferable to the everlasting hells?

She wasted no more time on such troubling thoughts. Alive or dead, these horrors intended to kill her. Suddenly, her fear was gone. She moved through them, hacking with relentless fury, shattering skull bone, slicing limbs, decapitating. Two of them slammed into her from behind, bearing her down, but she twisted and flung them off with ridiculous ease. Even the freshest of them was little more than skin-covered bone. There was no weight to them and no power in their feeble blows. The things had only their claws, which more than once came dangerously close to her eyes or throat.

She caught a hasty glimpse of Kel as he stood beneath an ancient tree like some woodland god of myth, watching. The laughter with which he had so freely mocked her was silent now. His face was livid with anger and frustration.

Telric was not where she had last seen him. She couldn't spy him anywhere, but a series of shouts and curses and grunts, followed by the wretched snapping of bone, told her he must still be on his feet.

Ashur had taken the greatest toll. The corpses' nails were useless against the unicorn. He trampled the mindless creatures as they attacked him, and he pounded them back into the earth with his great hooves. He didn't always find the skull, though, and wherever the unicorn fought, pale cadavers twitched grotesquely on the ground.

Three of the nightmares shambled toward her. It was almost a duty, she had decided, to free them from Kel's insidious control and give them peace once more. Raising her sword, she ran at them, determined to do it swiftly.

Too late, she saw the yawning fissure and gave a choked cry. Her head struck the opposite side as she fell, and she landed at the bottom in a heap, stunned. She struggled to draw a breath, to get to her knees.

A grave
, she thought, horrified.
I'm
in a grave!

Groping in the loose earth, she found her sword. As she pulled it from the dirt, she chanced to look over her shoulder and froze.

Three corpses jumped into the grave on top of her. Instinctively, she brought up her blade, impaling one of them through the eye socket. Its own descending weight tore the skull from the spinal column, but it also knocked the sword from her grasp again.

An evil face leered down at her; bony hands locked around her throat. The creature's touch chilled, and she tried to shrink away even as she fought to loosen its grip. But the confines were too narrow; she could get no leverage. Those red eyes burned into her; they drank the warmth and life from her body.

Desperately, she brought her arms up, trying to break the monster's hold. As she did, the third corpse began to tear and rip at her garments, trying to get to the flesh beneath them with its talons.

Again, she slammed her arms up, but the grip on her throat was arcanely strong. She could almost see the laughter in her murderer's gaze. Agony seared her throat; her lungs cried for breath.

She shoved her thumbs into the redly glowing sockets, hooking her fingers over the bony ridges. With all her fading might she strained. The muscles in her arms and shoulders bulged and trembled with her effort. Her vision clouded over with a crimson film, and a roaring filled her ears. An incessant pounding began to throb in her temples.

With a wrenching heave, she splintered the creature's skull with her bare hands. The broken fragments showered down upon her face. The remains of the corpse sagged atop her like some obscene and necrophiliac lover.

Fire shot up her calf. The third creature had torn through her trouser. Its nails gleamed darkly with her blood. It looked up at her with a slack-jawed grin, holding up the hand to show her its handiwork. Then, it lunged to sink those talons into her face.

With an effort, she flung the second corpse in its way, brought her feet up, and kicked it back against the graveside. Two ribs swung weirdly, broken by her blow. Quickly, she got her feet under her, but before she could rise, the shambler wrestled her back to the ground again.