The Sorcerer's Scourge (45 page)

The familiar guard approached and tied Wolf’s hands together with a length of leather.

“Sorry, kid.” He looked at a group of fellow guardsmen as he slung Wolf over his shoulder. “Take the carcass out, throw it on the trash heap, and get a servant to clean up the mess.”

One of the men grinned and said, “Might make an interesting rug.”

Bran let out a weary breath. “Just take it outside. We are not savages.”

The guards not tasked with cleanup duty fell in with Bran and the mage as they made their way to the grand audience hall. Bran did not set Wolf down until they reached the foot of the dais and knelt next to the wizard.

“Greatness, we found this boy wandering the halls with a large dog. I believe he was the one we spied upon the back of the dragon,” the wizard informed the Vila.

“Have we secured the dragon yet?” Mushadan asked.

Misha stood next to the Vila’s right and answered. “Yes, Greatness, we secured it in one of the training pits just a few moments ago.”

Vila Mushadan smiled and clapped once. “Wonderful! Fit her for a collar and give her to the beast master for breaking. We already have the dragon, so why bring me the boy alive?”

The wizard standing next to Wolf pulled back his long black hair and displayed his pointed ears. “I thought you might find him interesting, Eminence.”

“Is he an elf?” the Vila asked excitedly.

“Half I believe, but still quite an addition to your collection, Greatness. He was carrying this,” the wizard informed the Vila and presented him with the sword.

Mushadan took the weapon, pulled it from the sheath, and examined the blade with great interest.

“Such a wonderful day it is to have such gifts brought to me on golden wings. It is as if the gods themselves recognize my importance and reward me. Is it elven, Misha?”

The archmage examined the sword closely. “I do not believe so, Great One. Elves work almost exclusively with arcanum. That is shadowsteel. Dwarves work with both metals, but I do not believe it is their work either, but likely one of the other subterranean races.”

“You, boy, where did you get this?” the Vila demanded from Wolf.

Wolf looked up defiantly and said, “From the man who’s going to kill you.”

“Ah, you must be referring to the master of my newest wizard. I look forward to meeting him. I shall have to ensure I am properly prepared to greet him.”

“Prepare all you want, fat man. When Azerick finishes mopping up Valaria’s army, he is going to kill every one of you.”

Andrea, standing nearby holding a pitcher of the Vila’s finest wine, nearly dropped the carafe when she heard the name of her childhood friend. Could the half-elf be talking about the same person? Azerick had always been determined and resourceful. Could he really have come into such power as to threaten the Vila? Even Sumara’s king treads lightly around Mushadan. She would have to speak with the half-elf and talk to Bran.

 “Dorran,” Mushadan said to the wizard that had brought him the half-elf, “such insolence cannot be tolerated. I will have him as my cupbearer. Take him below and break him. Bring a healer to make him well, and then break him again.”

“No!” Ellyssa shouted.

With a twitch of the Vila’s finger, her shouted protest immediately became cries of agony. Her chain mistress joined her in her pain an instant later.

“You know why I punish you, Misha?”

“I failed to break her, Greatness.”

“Work harder, Misha. It is unseemly to have to punish my favorite in front of everyone like this.”

“Yes, Eminence. I will redouble my efforts,” Misha promised.

Ellyssa sobbed, more for what was going to happen to Wolf and Sandy than the pain Misha promised to inflict upon herself. Her friends were going to suffer horribly all because of her. As she watched Wolf being taken away, she wondered where Ghost was.

The two guards struggled to carry the nearly two-hundred-pound wolf outside where they casually flung it onto the midden heap located well behind one of the kitchens. The two complained about having to clean the blood from their uniforms as they retreated into the palace to resume their posts.

Several minutes later, the arrows that the soldiers had not bothered to remove began to twitch and slowly withdrew from the animal as if being pulled out by an unseen hand. One by one, the arrows fell onto the trash heap. Ghost filled his lungs with air then began contorting his body. Within moments, a boy only a couple of years younger than Wolf stood upon unsteady legs, as naked as a newborn.

Ghost looked up into the starry night sky. “Oh, Wolf, what have you gotten us into now?”

CHAPTER
18

The fog stormed across all of Valaria as if pushed onward by a hurricane of unimaginable power. The strange, cloying mists reached Southport and beyond less than three hours after its birth over a thousand miles to the north. Guards and watchmen lit torches along the walls and throughout the city streets, smaller towns closed gates if they had them, and citizens locked their doors. Some of the more predatory amongst them thought it a perfect opportunity to cause mayhem. They were the first to witness the horrors the fog brought with it.

Less than an hour after the fog’s appearance, in many cases within minutes, almost every city, town, and hamlet came under the assault of nearly everything that ever died and was buried in the ground or entombed within crypts. Anything dead that retained a physical body crawled from the earth or clawed its way out of its tomb in a mindless determination to extinguish all life.

The truly horrific nightmares were the shades. Although thankfully far fewer in number, nothing short a wizard or cleric could hope to combat them. The town watch and average citizen was powerless to stop them from absorbing the very life from their victims. No doors or locks could keep them away as they drifted through the towns and cities, leaving a trail of desiccated corpses in their wake.

In towns and cities large enough to have walls, the dead piled against their base and climbed up the backs of their brethren to reach the living who were often fighting off those that clamored from the graveyards and crypts inside.

Brother Thomas was asleep in his room within the church inside the Orphans’ Academy when the mists rolled in. A sudden sense of dread roused him from his slumber. He threw his robes on over his nightclothes, draped his holy pendant around his neck, and hurried to where his three young Chosen shared a room. Solarian had spoken to him nearly three weeks ago, warning him of an impending peril and he could not shake the feeling that the dire time had now come upon them.

“Children, wake up,” he gently called to them.

All three children woke and rubbed the sleep from their eyes.

“What is it, Brother Thomas?” Shawna, a girl of ten asked.

“Ill tidings I fear. Dress quickly and prepare yourselves. For what I am not yet certain, but I suspect an otherworldly foulness is upon us. There is a taint of powerful necromantic magic in the air. I know you are all young, but your faith is strong and this is our purpose. We must all be resolute and not give in to fear.”

All three youngsters nodded and quickly dressed. Thomas left them, feeling an urgent need to rouse the school. He needed to wake Aggie and the other wizards. Whatever was coming, they would need their formidable power.

It was impossible not to notice the unnaturalness to the thick fog that immediately blinded him the moment he stepped into its cloying embrace. He lost the church and nearly his sense of direction after only a few steps. Even the magical light he conjured did little to illuminate his path. It was as if the light and fog were doing battle and the fog was the stronger of the two.

He had just reached the foot of the steps leading into the old tower, finding it mostly by memorization, when he the first deathly scream pierced the fog. The mists were possessed of such tangible density that it even muffled sound. He knew the cry had come from someone walking the top of the wall, but it sounded as if it had come from behind a closed door.

“Alarm!” Thomas shouted at the top of his lungs.

A bell began ringing immediately then abruptly went silent. A short cry that made Thomas’s heart lurch punctuated the sudden silence. He raced up the steps and burst into the main floor of the tower shouting an alarm. He ran back out the door as he called upon Solarian’s protection. The alarm bell rang once again and he could hear the entire school stirring and preparing for battle.

Thomas ran for the wall, narrowly avoiding obstacles from wagons to entire buildings that appeared abruptly out of the gloom. All but blinded by the fog, he followed the screams until he reached the wall. The school walls were only fifteen feet high and already dozens of zombies and skeletons had gained the top. In a few more minutes, that would change to scores and then hundreds.

The martial students were the first to react. Trained to be combat ready in minutes, young men, women, and their drill instructors raced to the top of the wall, their feet easily finding the path that hid from their eyes. Dozens of students brandished forked poles, normally used to push over siege ladders, and used them to shove the undead off the wall.

The cleric poured his faith into his light and called upon Solarian’s radiance to cast out the undead monsters. Once again, his light warred with the fog, but this time it was the fog that found itself on the losing end. Enhanced with the power of his faith, his light pushed the miasma away for several yards in every direction. Wherever the luminescence reached, skeletons, zombies, and wraiths returned to a natural state of death or fled.

Fear coursed through his body, pushed along by his thundering heart as he quickly realized that his abilities were for from sufficient to deal with a threat of this magnitude. The undead avoided his light and dispersed, creating a pocket of relative peace amidst the chaos, but there were hundreds of yards of wall still vulnerable to assault.

Thomas ran back and forth along the wall, holding his luminous medallion high over his head to force back the unending tide of undead trying to sweep over the walls. The presence of his faith repulsed the horde and gave the defenders a moment of respite, but he could not be everywhere as the shouts and screams heartbreakingly reminded him.

A massive explosion rocked the school grounds and a fiery orange glow flared somewhere out in the thick vapors. More blasts and streaks of brilliant light flashed within the mists. Thomas breathed a sigh of relief as the wizards and magus students took the field. Expansive sheets of fire erupted along the base of the wall, clearing away the massed horde of abominations trying to clamor up the side.

Brother Thomas ran down the steps and tried to pierce the mists inside the wall in hopes of finding his young Chosen. He thought his efforts would surely be in vain, but then he spotted three bright patches within the fog that soon became an island of hope within a sea of despair. Over the muffled sounds of battle, he heard their voices, all three singing in perfect harmony a song so warm and full of life that it forced the fog to retreat wherever it reached.

He could see them clearly now, a look of resolute tranquility etched upon their small faces as they walked in an almost hypnotic state, lost in the soulfulness of their song. All three then split apart, walking to separate sections of the wall, clearing away the miasma with the sound of their voice as if taking a broom to an infestation of cobwebs.

Thomas knew then that they would be all right, that they could ride out this unnatural storm. He cast his eyes in the direction of North Haven and prayed that they were not the only ones to do so. He wondered where so many corpses had come from then realized that the hundreds of the creatures attacking the school had come from the bodies of the soldiers they had buried after the siege. He shuddered knowing that thousands more had lain in mass graves near to the city, a city that has hundreds of years of history to add to this scourge. All he could do was pray for them all.