Blood and Honor

One of the wights struck Tarrel a vicious blow to the head, knocking him back like a felled tree. Mordan, who was fighting two of the creatures at once, could do nothing to help as the wight straddled Tarrel’s body and prepared to deliver a killing blow. With a cry, Brey dropped her bow and rushed forward, tackling the creature before it could strike. The momentum of her charge drove the wight backward, and they sprawled at the necromancer’s feet.

The elf smiled a smile of pure malice and reached down as if to touch her lightly on the back. From inside his sleeve appeared a wooden stake, shod in silver, and her head snapped back in a scream as he drove it through her body. Then, the great scythe swept down, severing her head from her body and cutting the wight beneath her in two. The head rolled a couple of feet, red hair plastered to the scalp and the stone floor by the vile rain, red blood oozing from the neck. Wide with shock, Brey’s eyes turned glassy, and then her head and body began to crumble like sand washed away by the tide. In a matter of moments, only her clothing and armor were left.

“No!” Mordan flung himself aside as the seed of the fireball shot past his shoulder. Tarrel was standing, his feet braced and the wand in both hands, his mouth open and his face a snarling mask of hate. The explosion toppled three of the remaining wights and one of the half-golems, but the necromancer stood his ground.

Adalrik ripped at the magical sarcophagus with his iron hand. After a few blows, cracks started to appear in the stone box; when they widened enough, he thrust his metal fingers into the widest crack and pulled with all his strength. The lid came free with a jolt and fell to the ground. Haldin’s eyes took in the scene quickly, and he held his sapphire dragon aloft.

A silver light sparked in the depths of the faceted stone, and as it had in the courtyard of Fort Zombie, a burst of light swept out in all directions. The wights fell like corn before the scythe, leaving Dravuliel to face his intended victims alone. The filthy rain stopped.

Dria barked a command, and the repaired half-golem leaped at the elf, its arm-blades weaving a pattern of death. Mordan leaped forward as well, his eyes blazing and his rapier seeking the necromancer’s heart. With a strength that belied his thin frame, Dravuliel swung the great scythe in a figure eight, deflecting the rapier with its iron-shod butt and slicing an arm off the construct as he stepped back into the passage.

Holding the weapon in front of him, he screamed a string of syllables, and the air in the temple thrummed with power. Then a wall of liquid darkness filled the passage, and he was lost to sight.

The wall rippled like the surface of a lake, and a low moaning came from it. In its dark substance, faces came and went, like those of the drowned trying to regain the surface. Adalrik tried to push through it with his metal hand, but shrank back with a yelp of pain.

“Quickly!” Haldin was running toward the exit of the temple, gesturing for the others to follow. Tarrel was staring down at Brey’s empty clothes, and Mordan dragged him out by one arm. The two artificers followed, with their constructs bringing up the rear. Before they could reach the exit, however, something appeared, hanging in the air between them and the archway. It was so horrific that they stopped in their tracks and stared.

It was somewhat reminiscent of a newborn baby, but it was as tall as a half-orc, with a distended belly and shriveled, distorted limbs. Half its head appeared to be missing, and it gazed at the mortals with one unblinking, fathomless eye. Blood vessels were visible beneath its sickly-pale skin, pulsing grayly as it turned slowly in the air.

The temple had become cold—not the normal cold of a deep winter, but the bone-chilling, strength-draining cold of death.

“Dol Arrah!” yelled Mordan, “what is that?” Its eye lighted on him, apparently drawn by the sound of his voice, and the coldness intensified a hundredfold. As it had at Fort Zombie, the halfling charm-bag around his neck began to flood his body with warmth—but then it crumbled, falling to the floor.

“Don’t let it look at you!” yelled Haldin, ducking behind the remains of his sarcophagus. A blast of frigid air struck the stone a split-second later, riming it in ice and widening the cracks that Adalrik’s fist had made.

“Get out of here!” barked the artificer, and the halfgolems sprang forward between the living and the floating abomination. It regarded them emotionlessly for a moment and then reached down with one of its shriveled arms, striking the nearest construct a casual, almost playful blow. The half-golem rocked back on its heels, responding with two fast slashes that would have severed the limb of a natural creature. Instead, the thing’s skin was barely scratched, and the cut sealed itself as the companions watched.