The Thieves of Blood: Blade of the Flame - Book 1 (38 page)

“Extinguish your light, priest, or I’ll close my hand and pop off her head like the bloom of a dandelion!”

“Don’t—” Makala started to say, but the vampire lord tightened his grip, choking off her voice.

Diran knew what his former lover had intended to say, for he would’ve said the same in her place.
Don’t worry about me—kill him!
Diran also knew that as a priest of the Silver Flame, it was his sworn duty to destroy creatures like Erdis Cai, regardless of the personal consequences. Diran knew then what he had to do.

He closed his fingers around the silver flame burning in his hand, extinguishing it in his fist.

The blinding holy light gone, Erdis Cai released his grip on Makala’s throat and whirled around to face Diran once more. His armored hand lashed out and fastened around Diran’s neck. The priest felt a jolt of freezing cold as the metal came in contact with his skin, and a numbing sensation became to spread outward from his neck into the rest of his body. He felt weary, listless, drained of energy, then he understood what was happening. Erdis Cai’s obsidian armor was enchanted, and the vampire lord was using it to absorb Diran’s lifeforce.

Erdis Cai’s inhuman gaze bored into Diran’s eyes. “You put up a good fight, priest, I’ll give you that much. In fact, it was the most fun I’ve had since I became immortal, but the game’s finished and I’m the victor. Go to your death knowing that your strength will be added to my own, and your woman will join me in the dark glory of undeath. Farewell, Diran Bastiaan.”

Diran caught a flash of orange-red out of the corner of his eye, and Erdis Cai’s head snapped back as Ghaji’s fire axe bit into his skull. The vampire lord screamed as his head burst into flame,
and he loosened his grip on Diran’s throat—not much, perhaps, but enough. Diran felt the transference of his lifeforce cease, and he opened his hand to reveal a still-glimmering flicker of the Silver Flame. The flicker grew and lengthened until to became a dagger of pure energy, and then Diran rammed the blade of silver fire through the opening in Erdis Cai’s breastplate.

The vampire lord opened his burning mouth to scream anew, but all that emerged from within was a shaft of bright silvery light. Other shafts burst forth from his eyes, ears, and even his nostrils, the light spreading, merging, until it covered Erdis Cai’s entire body. Diran pulled his empty hand free of the vampire lord’s chest. The silver light dimmed and the flame surrounding Erdis Cai’s head slowly died away as Ghaji’s fire axe deactivated. All that remained of the undead explorer was a suit of armor and an ash-flecked skull with an axe embedded in it. For an instant, the skeletal remains continued standing, as if held upright by the obsidian armor encasing them, then Erdis Cai’s remains collapsed to the walkway, his armor striking the ground with a loud crash.

Diran felt like collapsing himself, but Ghaji shouted, “Do you mind tossing my axe back to me? I could really use it right about now!”

Diran turned to see that Ghaji and Tresslar stood on the walkway, battling the undead warriors as they came one and two and a time. Ghaji was forced to make do with his old axe, hacking off desiccated arms and legs, while Tresslar’s dragonwand had conjured what appeared to be a gaseous reptilian claw from its tip. The claw was solid enough, though, for it gouged out large chunks of undead flesh from one hobgoblin after another. The destruction of Erdis Cai appeared to have had no effect on
the undead goblinoids. They continued to fight, and though Ghaji and Tresslar had taken out a number of the creatures, more were being resurrected by the moment.

“Forget the axe!” Tresslar said. “Throw Onkar’s arm into the pool!”

Diran recalled how his poison-coated daggers had affected the Mire, and he thought he knew what the artificer had in mind.

“Do it, Ghaji!” he shouted.

The half-orc dispatched another hobgoblin then raced across the walkway, weaving between more of the undead warriors. He reached Onkar’s severed arm with its bloody, ragged stump and kicked it into the pool. Immediately, the blood remaining in the giant basin turned black, and the ebon color rapidly spread along the upward flowing streams of liquid and down the twenty-five runnels and back into the alcoves where the rest of the hobgoblins waited to be restored to life. A rank stench of rotting meat and sewage wafted from the openings, and a flood of brackish liquid gushed out, flowing back into the basin and filling it almost to the brim once more. Skeletal fragments bobbed in the horrid soup, but they quickly dissolved and were gone.

Diran smiled grimly. Onkar’s arm had poisoned the blood his master had harvested over the course of four decades, destroying those warriors that had yet to be resurrected. Unfortunately, it hadn’t done anything to stop those hobgoblins that had already been reanimated, but at least no more would be replenishing their ranks.

Diran pried Ghaji’s axe out of Erdis Cai’s skull and tossed the weapon to his friend. The half-orc caught the axe easily,
and the metal burst into flame once more. Ghaji then returned to doing what he did best—hacking things to pieces. Diran turned, stepped over Erdis Cai’s armor, and went to Makala’s side. With the vampire lord dead, her paralysis had been lifted and she sat up.

“I’d say it was good to see you, but that would a monumental understatement.”

Diran smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. When they parted, Ghaji said, “If you two are finished, Tresslar and I could use a little help over here! Too many remain for us to deal with alone!”

Diran bent down and picked up the wooden dagger that had been embedded in Erdis Cai’s neck. He cut the ropes binding Makala’s wrists and ankles, then offered her the blade.

“No thanks,” she said. “There are plenty of weapons lying around.” This was true; the chamber was littered with mutilated hobgoblin corpses and the weapons they’d wielded. “Nothing personal, but I’d rather use something a bit more substantial than a dagger.”

“Suit yourself,” Diran said. “Ready?”

Makala grinned. “Try and stop me.”

Together they ran down the walkway.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve killed enough undead monsters to last me for a while,” Ghaji said.

Ghaji, Diran, Makala, and Tresslar walked through the domed goblinoid city on their way to the dock. They moved cautiously, for while they’d escaped the sacrificial chamber, a
number of the undead warriors yet survived and might still prove a threat. So far, it seemed as if the ancient hobgoblins had no intention of leaving the chamber, but they kept careful watch just the same.

“Where is everyone?” Makala asked.

“Hiding,” Diran said, “or perhaps with their master gone, they’ve abandoned Grimwall.”

“There
are
several passages that lead to the surface,” Tresslar said.

“I take it you don’t want to hunt them down,” Makala said.

“Erdis Cai, Onkar, and Jarlain are dead. The prisoners are free—assuming things went well for Yvka and Hinto—and the Black Fleet is no more,” Diran said. “I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you? I doubt the others will return to Grimwall, and perhaps knowing their master has been defeated will convince them of the folly of worshipping Vol. Perhaps some of them will even cross over to the side of Light.”

“I think you’re being overly optimistic,” Tresslar said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Makala countered. “I can think of a time or two that it’s happened before.”

Diran smiled at Makala and reached out to take her hand, but before their fingers touched, a quartet of naked figures came rushing out of one of the domed buildings in front of them.

“Ghouls!” Ghaji shouted.

The undead cannibals come running toward them, eyes burning with hunger, tongues lolling out of their mouths. Ghaji, Diran, and Tresslar stepped forward to deal with the creatures, Makala still had the sword she’d taken from one of the dead hobgoblin warriors. She reached for it now, intending
to help slay the ghouls, but she froze as a horribly distorted voice whispered in her ear.

“Hello.”

A handless forearm pressed against her mouth, and Makala struggled as Onkar pulled her back through the open doorway of another domed building. There, in the darkness, she felt charred lips press against her throat and sharp fangs sink into her neck.

W
hen the last ghoul was dead, Diran took a quick look around and realized that Makala was missing.

“Makala?” he called, but there was no answer. He turned toward Ghaji and Tresslar, but the worried expressions on their faces told him that they had no idea where she was.

Diran still held a silver dagger from their battle with the ghouls, and he gripped it tightly and starting running back in the direction from which they’d come. Part of him wanted to believe that Makala had simply gone off in pursuit of a fleeing ghoul, but he feared something else had happened—something bad.

As he drew near one particular building, he felt a dark presence emanating from within. He could almost see it, as if a shadowy cloud covered the domed structure. Without hesitation, he headed for the building and plunged through the open doorway.

Onkar crouched over Makala’s prone form. Her throat had been torn to shreds and her blood was smeared over the lower half of the vampire’s face. Onkar looked up with a feral snarl and his eyes blazed with red flame, as if he were a wild beast disturbed in the act of feeding. Thanks to the fresh infusion of nourishment Onkar had stolen from Makala, the battle wounds he’d sustained were already in the process of healing. A tiny hand no larger than an infant’s now protruded from the stump where Ghaji had hacked off his arm. The hand possessed miniature claws and the slender fingers waggled, almost as if Onkar’s new hand were waving to Diran.

Onkar grinned, displaying fangs slick with Makala’s blood. “You’re too late, priest. She’s dead, but if it comes as any consolation to you, she was
delicious.”

With the litheness of a jungle cat, Onkar sprang over Makala’s body toward Diran, fangs bared and claws outstretched. Onkar slammed into Diran and knocked him to the ground. The vampire held Diran down with his good hand while he lowered his mouth toward the priest’s throat.

For an instant, Diran considered letting the vampire have him. He’d fought so long against the darkness—both within and without—and his soul was weary. He’d come too far to give up now, and if he could reach Makala in time, there was a chance that he might be able to save her.

Just as Onkar’s incisors dimpled the flesh over his artery, Diran brought the silver dagger in his hand up and rammed the blade into Onkar’s left ear. The sacred metal burned its way through undead flesh and bone and lodged deep within the vampire’s brain. Onkar threw back head and screamed. Blood gushed from his other ear, his eyes, nose and mouth. Makala’s blood.

Diran shoved the shrieking fiend off him and quickly crawled over to Makala’s side. As Onkar thrashed on the floor of the domed building, Diran closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing evenly.

Please
, he prayed, and pictured a spark of silver fire appearing in the palm of his hand. He felt the holy power of the Silver Flame surge through his body, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that his hand was filled with a brilliant blue-white light. So strong was its illuminaton that Diran couldn’t look directly at it. The light spilled over Onkar as well, and the wounded vampire’s shrieks rose in volume and pitch, becoming so loud that Diran thought his eardrums might burst, but he didn’t care about that. All that mattered was Makala.

Diran pressed his palm to Makala’s savaged throat and willed the Silver Flame to enter her body, to seek out the foul corruption inside her and destroy it. How long he knelt there, channeling the power of the Silver Flame into Makala, he didn’t know. At one point he became aware that Onkar’s screams had stopped, and he knew that Ghaji and Tresslar had arrived and finished off the damned creature.

Finally, Diran felt the Silver Flame diminish, and the light slowly faded until it was gone. When he removed his hand from Makala’s throat, he saw that the skin was smooth and unbroken, as if Onkar had never attacked her.