The Paladins (5 page)

A slight scrape on the ground to his right jolted Able to life. With a start, he leaped away from the sound and raised his hammer and shield.

A zombie watched him apathetically. He had wandered into its path. As Able looked upon the decaying thing, it occurred to him that the creature had once been a boy about Noph’s age. Whatever life that had once surged through the body had been forever ripped away, leaving only a husk to stagger on until it finally crumbled to dust. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t just.

“Filthy monsters!” he growled. He lifted his warhammer and brandished the holy symbol emblazoned on it, crying, “Behold the light of Tyr and rest!”

The zombie continue to stare, disinterested.

Able bowed his head. A tear found its way down his bristling cheek. “Forgive me my weakness,” he begged and shifted his grip on the hammer to destroy the zombie with two powerful blows. If he couldn’t put it to rest with the power of his faith, at least he could do it with the power of his good right arm. He tossed the body into the river and snuck back to the ship.

Laskar Nesher, Noph’s father, had warned his son about Skullport, mostly to scare him into minding when he was a child, but Noph had never believed the stories—until now. “It stands to reason,” he thought bitterly, “that my father would know about a place like this.” As he and Harloon made their way along the docks, they passed a long bank of caged monsters. Many thrust their talons toward the humans, yet their screams were inaudible, blocked by some evil wizard’s spell to silence their pain and fury. Most of them possessed the bulbous eyes or pale coloring of Underdark dwellers.

These are probably on their way to the surface, to be harvested for spell components,” said Harloon with distaste. “We should destroy them all right here, so nobody suffers!”

“That won’t help a zombie, Harl,” said Noph. “The skull in the water said to help a zombie, and Aleena told us to keep out of trouble!”

“All right, all right! Let’s check out that tavern over there.”

The two young men crossed the boardwalk to a sagging, flat-topped building lit by a magical torch on each side of its thick, iron-shod door. Harloon grasped a fat metal ring, bolted to the door and pulled on it, releasing a puff of smoke and the heavy beat of dwarven music from within. As they peeked inside, they gulped at the sight of ores, giants, and men carousing together, drinking from great ceramic flagons, and ogling scantily clad dancing slaves. Zombie waiters cleaned tables and brought drinks.

“Let’s go find another zombie,” said Harloon, shocked by the lurid atmosphere.

“No, this is perfect!” answered Noph, grabbing Harloon’s breastplate without taking his eyes from the festivities. “We’ll clean a few tables for the zombie servers and be gone in, say, five minutes—maybe ten.”

“Noph, you’re supposed to be following my lead.”

“Look, Harl. Clearing a few tables doesn’t get much safer. This time, you follow me.”

“Well… okay. Let’s just get this done with, shall we?”

They entered the tavern and blended with the crowd. The music pounded in a deafening beat, so Noph simply pointed at the nearest zombie, obliviously clearing a table. Harloon nodded. They each snatched a dirty rag out of the apron off of passing zombie and started wiping down the tables around them.

“Hey now, I never asked to have my table washed,” a huge goblin complained, glaring up at Noph.

“Management’s policy, great noble. And today you win a drink on the house. Enjoy!” Noph dropped a silver piece on the table, and the goblin showed a toothy grin. That would buy it several ales.

A dancer leaped from the bar to a table that Harloon was clearing and leered down at him as she swayed seductively. He stumbled away, modestly dropping his eyes, and backed into a table flanked by duergar, knocking over their ales. They leaped to their feet to avoid being soaked by the beer and then closed around the young fighter with furious snarls on their lips. Duergar at nearby tables spotted the commotion and rose to join their kin, surrounding Harloon. Their poisonous pikes gleamed in the candle light as they drew near to the human’s face. Other creatures noted the rising tension and backed off, looking forward to the show. Seven duergar against one human—the fight wouldn’t last long.

Suddenly, a fat purse hit the floor next to the duergar, spilling its coins amidst their feet.

“Hey, that’s my money!” cried Noph in a high-pitched voice and the room erupted into chaos as the surrounding drinkers dove for the gold. Harloon shoved two of them aside in the tumult and wormed his way free of the pile of bodies.

“Thanks! Let’s get out of here!” shouted Harloon.

“Wait!” answered Noph. “Grab that zombie before it walks into the middle of the fight!” he cried, doing the same for another mindless creature.

“That takes care of our service to the zombie!” said Harloon. “Now let’s get out of here!”

Noph flipped a silver piece to a dancer as they left. “Thanks for everything!” he called over his shoulder. Outside, they bent over and rested their hands on their knees while catching their breaths. They looked at one another and Harloon shook his head, an exasperated grin on his face. Noph returned the smile, with an added chuckle. Each reached out and clasped the other’s shoulder.

“Let’s get back to the boat,” said Harloon with a cock of his head toward the water.

“I’m with you. Let’s go.”

*****

Trandon had been terrified of the skulls that floated around the boat. His senses, more finely tuned to the rhythms of magic than the rest of the men, could see the deadly power. He also saw the shadow monsters floating above the water, around their boat, but he dared not say anything.

“Stupid youngling,” he griped, blaming Noph for the delay.

The long-haired warrior quickly walked the narrow streets of the city until he was sure none of the others were anywhere near him. The undead of the city didn’t bother him at all; necromantic magic was simple stuff. On the other hand, the magical powers openly displayed in the city disconcerted him gravely. Fiends sprouted out of arcane circles drawn on the very streets! Even more strangely, no one seemed to care! The fiends appeared without alarm and flew away into the darkness while others flapped down from above and spiraled into the complex patterns on the ground, slipping off to their native planes. Meanwhile, a human wizard marched pompously down the middle of a wide avenue, flanked by a fire elemental on each side.

“Idiot,” Trandon muttered to himself. “The slightest slip and those monsters’ll break free of their bond, and he’ll be the first thing they kill.”

Down a side street, he found a zombie limping along on the stump of its ankle, carrying its own foot. Trandon reached into a pouch that lay between his chest and his leather breastplate and drew forth a prickly pair of burrs. He let the zombie walk past him, then caught its broken limb and whispered a few words while pressing the burrs against the ragged end of the leg. Quickly he snatched the foot away from the creature and pressed it against the stump, uttering a last syllable. With a flash of reddish light, the foot adhered to the leg. Trandon released the zombie and watched it walk away, only slightly more graceful.

Trandon carefully looked from side to side, spying for onlookers—most especially other members of his party. It would be supremely difficult to resist using magic during this mission, but no one must know he was a wizard. He must maintain his cover at all costs.

Satisfied that no one had seen him, he stood up and made his way back to the boat.

*****

Jacob skulked along the pier. It would be easy to find a zombie loading or unloading a ship somewhere nearby. He was in a hurry to finish the unpleasant business and get back to the boat, yet he couldn’t help but exalt in the thrill of the adventure. There was nothing more exciting than questing for the glory of Tyr.

Several ships down, Jacob found what he had been looking for. Three wide gangplanks stretched from the dock to a barge, and a crew of zombies, alone and in pairs, offloaded wooden crates of various size. The lowly undead moved mechanically up and down from the cargo hold, hauling heavy boxes across the planks to deposit them on the dock. Apparently their handlers had set them to work and then wandered into a dive tavern across the way, for nothing sentient monitored their progress.

Jacob charged up the gangplank and crossed the deck, checking to each side for live crewmen. He bounded down the hole in the ship’s main deck, into the cargo hold, and paused while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. No one had left a lantern, as the zombies needed no light. After a few moments, he made out a pair of walking dead close by, lifting a crate together. Jacob pushed one of them aside, tripping it over his foot. It tumbled to the ground and he stamped on its neck, crushing the bones with his boot. The zombie shuddered under his weight and fell still.

“Here, allow me to help,” he whispered in a cracked voice.

Along with the other monster, the man lifted the crate. He squinted through the darkness, across the crate’s upper side, at the decayed face of his co-worker, which stared back at him without recognition. Pity filled his heart, and Jacob thought that if he were a paladin, he could put this poor creature and all of its fellows to rest. Perhaps, when this quest was completed, he would receive an invitation from the Knights of Holy Judgment, or better yet, the Knights of the Holy Sword! That latter group of Tyr’s paladins wielded blades, just like him. He and the zombie began to move together, toward the steps, but the undead sailor came to a stop at the base, and wouldn’t begin its climb.

“Come on!” urged Jacob. “It’s time for me to go!”

At that moment, he realized he was not alone among the dead.

With a jerk, he twisted his head to the right and peered into the deep darkness, where seven decrepit zombies rippled and transformed into gray-skinned humanoids—dopplegangers! Jacob opened his mouth to shout, at the same time releasing his side of the box so he could reach for his sword. The closest doppleganger shoved its hand into his mouth, cutting off his air. The others tackled him, dragging him to the floor. Their hands reformed into spike-lined stocks that screwed themselves into the deck, attempting to pin the fighter down. The first assailant’s hand liquefied in Jacob’s mouth and oozed down his throat. He seized that one and began to tug at its arm, gagging against the intrusion. If he could only roll on top of them, he might be able to reach his sword….

*****

“I ran into a bit of trouble,” Jacob admitted when he joined the party, back at the boat. “But no one noticed and I handled it quickly.”

“How did you help your zombie?” Kern lightly asked Aleena as they cast off and headed back into the bay.

“I opened a door for one.”

“That’s good enough?”

“That was good enough for me.”

“These creatures understand law,” observed Miltiades, “but they know nothing of its spirit.”

They rowed to the mouth of the cave that led upstream along the Sargauth, and as the grand cavern of Skullport curved down to meet them, the skulls once against boiled up from the deep. “Hast thou performed thy service as commanded?” they whispered. “We shall know if thou lie’st.”

“Oh, we helped them, all right,” answered Kern.

Aleena seized his arm and squeezed hard, silencing him. “We have done as thou ordered, Watchers,” she declared solemnly.

Silence closed over them. The gentle lapping of water against the boat filled the air. Then pass,” whispered the voices, and the skull sank into the depths once more.

The paladins dug in deep with paddles and began to force their way against the Sargauth’s deep, slow current. Behind, the dim light of Skullport faded completely, as Aleena pulled a magically lit beacon from her pack and placed it at the bow.

“Don’t they even want to know what we did for their precious zombies?” asked Kern, looking back.

“No!” snapped the wizardess, “and neither do I!”

Somewhere deep in the void beyond, a crazed voice erupted into fits of laughter. The hilarity escalated to hysterics and then faded away.

“Who was that, Aleena?” asked Noph, unnerved.

“Halaster, the mad mage. This is his territory.” She sighed dejectedly. “I really hate Undermountain.”

Interlude 3

Don’t worry about your debts if you’ve got friends, because a friend in need deserves what he gets!

“This is it!” thought Shaakat to his fiendish accomplice. “This is the gate! The scent of its magic is the same as the gate in the city of the bloodforge.”

The vrocks stood at the base of a short, pyramid-shaped platform, upon which two massive ivory tusks of some prime creature sprouted and curved together,

forming an arch. The uprights were deeply grooved along their lengths and inlaid with some magical metal shimmering and changing color like liquid chaos.

“Thank hideous Juiblex!” spat Rejik as he squatted down to rest upon the lowest of the glossy, crimson stone steps leading up to the gate. “This cage is a horrible death trap! I don’t think we even scratched the surface of this—this Undermountain, but we’ve already killed a slithermorph, six ibrandlin, those two illithids with the nasty staves, a score of undead, three groups of heavily armed primes, and a sodding herd of beholders, not to mention those ill-tempered reflections of us, that came out of that mirror back there!”

“Yes, we must develop a place like this on the Abyss,” agreed Shaakat.

“Let’s go home and tell General Raachaak we’ve found the way into the city of the bloodforge!”

“Or—perhaps we should take the bloodforge for our own,” returned Shaakat.

Rejik’s beady eyes narrowed. “You would suffer Morbaat’s fate, addle-cove?”

“Raachaak isn’t here, stinkfeathers. Besides, if we capture the bloodforge, we can destroy him and ascend.”

“We?” sneered Rejik.

“We… for now,” growled Shaakat.

Rejik squinted up at the gate and clicked his beak pensively. “If we fail, we’ll be turned into lowly larvae and left for the chasme on the Plane of Infinite Portals.”

“We are true tanar’ri!” howled Shaakat. “Or I am, at least! You disgust me, baatezu’s bastard!”