City of the Dead

TWENTY-FIVE

The courtyard of Dead End House was awash in rain, fighting bodies, and general chaos. Rampage Stunk's guards were still trying to herd all the Carvers into the center of the courtyard as Sophraea slipped out the front door with Gustin and Lord Adarbrent.

Bentnor and the younger men led the charge against Stunk's men. With heavy mallets, they struck at the bullyblades. The younger Carvers used their hard heads and fists as much as their makeshift weapons. They butted and punched, jabbed and weaved, and even bit an ear or two.

They kicked with hobnailed boots, hooking knees or ankles to send their opponents flying.

If there hadn't been so much water and mud underfoot, the Stunk's bullies might have overcome the Carvers' tricks, certainly they were better armored than Sophraea's relatives. However, the sheer slickness of the cobblestones worked in the Carvers' favor. The young masons and coffinbuilders whipped their large leather-aproned bodies into the heavily armored men and sent them skidding backward to sprawl on the cobblestones. More lost their footing every time the full weight of the Carvers struck them.

Bentnor wrestled one bully into the mud. The iron kettles and brooms of his mother and his aunts kept the screaming man pinned down while Bentnor leaped up to hook another around the neck. Cadriffle followed his brother into the fray, swinging a heavy mallet to protect his twin's back.

"Go on! Fight!" Stunk yelled at his men, as they tried to retreat and regroup. "What do I pay you for?"

But it was Stunk's shouted orders, "Don't kill anyone yet! I want to question them!" that actually slowed the battle. His men didn't dare use their swords so were hobbled in their efforts.

By the time Sophraea reached the courtyard, the army of dead from the graves had nearly broken through the family's gate. She saw the hastily mortared bricks and reinforcing boards shatter. Debris was scattered at the base of the wall.

The family was pushing back Stunk's men but they were distracted by cries for help from their fathers, desperately seeking to shore up the defenses of the Dead End gate.

"We need to reach your statue!" Sophraea cried over the din of the fighting.

Gustin nodded, stretching his head this way and that, trying to spot a clear path to the door of Astute Carver's workshop.

The current melee effectively blocked their route.

"Stay here," Gustin said to Sophraea. "I will go around them."

"No," she replied, catching his hand in her own steady grip. "We'll go together!"

Lord Adarbrent gave a grim smile and unsheathed his sword cane.

"Allow me to clear the way for you," he said.

Like a black storm, the old man fell upon Stunk's bullies, striking them from behind, a slash high to the head, a cut low to the knee. Stunk's men howled as the old man's cane lashed across their faces and other vulnerable points.

The startled fighters fell back, only to be urged forward by Stunk's bellow of rage as he recognized the old nobleman swirling through his guards.

"Keep fighting, you stinking cowards!" Stunk roared. "Catch him! Kill him!"

The fat man rocked back and forth in his agitation, his meaty hands chopping at the air as if he could beat Lord Adarbrent down himself. At the same time, the greasy merchant stayed well behind his men and made no actual attempt to join the fight.

Lord Adarbrent moved too quickly for Stunk's fighters. He teased them with thrusts and backward steps, drawing the conflict ever farther away from the center of the courtyard and closer to the street-side gate.

The rest of the Carvers, recognizing their noble friend, rushed to his aid.

"Now," Sophraea said to Gustin.

They darted across the yard. Gustin flung open the door to Astute's workshop. A startled kitten gave a mew of protest and dashed under the workbench.

In the center of the room, the statue lay upon the table. Astute had done exactly as he had promised. The stone man looked real. Faint lines creased the corners of its eyes, the veins across the back of its hands showed clearly, even the skin of the face and neck that showed above the elaborate armor had the pores of a living man.

"It's wonderful," breathed Gustin. "Look at the grip that he's got on that sword. Just as if he was struck down in battle. Your father is a genius! It would have been my very best hoax ever!"

"Hurry!" Sophraea urged him. Peeping around the workshop door, she could see that Lord Adarbrent and the younger Carvers aiding him had managed to drive Stunk's men back against the street-side gate.

But none of Stunk's men pushed back. With Lord Adarbrent in the fight, his opponents drew knives and swords, ready to use the cutting edge against the old nobleman and any who defended him.

When one fighter thrust at Lord Adarbrent with a naked blade,

Cadriffle gave a great cry and smashed down his mallet, shattering the sword with a well-struck blow.

In numbers, Stunk's men and the Carvers were evenly matched, but Sophraea could see that the rich merchant's private soldiers held the advantage in armor and weapons. Luck, so far, had favored her brothers and her cousins, but not even men of their size could hope to prevail forever against so many.

"Hurry," she said again to Gustin.

Beside her, Gustin held open his guidebook, the illusion of a map slowly dissolving to reveal the spells and rituals hidden beneath. He began to chant, a deep sound like the boom of a bronze bell. His voice rolled through the workshop. The kittens yowled in their basket. Astute's chisels and mallets rattled on their hooks.

As before, a red glow infused the wizard's frame, illuminating the workshop. Ordinary things, iron nails and empty jars, shone in the shadowy corners of the room.

At the center of Gustin's spell, the stone statue glowed. Light poured from the wizard to the statue until the shimmering ball of magic completely cocooned it.

And then, between Sophraea's inhale and exhale of wonder, the light winked out.

The kittens still howled under the workshop bench. Gustin slumped, his lax hands nearly dropping his precious spellbook. The ordinary gloom of twilight once again filled the workshop.

"Did it work?" Sophraea whispered, unable to speak any louder, nearly strangled by excitement and worry. The statue lay inert upon the table. If the spell had failed, they would have no choice but to try to end the curse without its aid. And that, Lord Adarbrent had sworn, meant certain death for someone.

Gustin raised his head slowly, as if the weight was almost too much for his neck to bear. But the grin that he gave her was as cocky as ever.

"It really is my best magic," he declared in triumph.

With ponderous motion and a sound like the grinding of a millstone, the statue slowly rose from the table. Two stone feet landed with a thump upon the floor. With a solid tread, the statue marched toward the workshop door.

Gustin pulled the brocade shoe out of his belt and thrust it at the statue. "Take it," he commanded. "Return it to the Markarl tomb."

The statue gave no response. Gustin went closer, circled the stone man, and pushed the shoe between its hip and its hand. The beautifully carved fingers were slightly curled to look natural. The little shoe glittered in the stone grasp.

"Does it know what it carries? Will it know to put it inside the tomb?" Sophraea asked.

Gustin shrugged. "I have never asked one of them to do anything more than walk."

Sophraea bit back her doubts. They had no other choice.

She flung the door wide open. The stone warrior stomped past her into the courtyard.

"Go on!" Gustin shouted at his creation. "That way. To the City of the Dead!"

Outside, the fighting continued. Lord Adarbrent still held off Stunk's men, but the old nobleman had been forced back to the center of the courtyard.

Even as the statue stomped toward the gate into the City of the Dead, the denizens of the graveyard began to overrun the Carvers attempting to block the graveyard gate.

One particularly ambitious corpse knight rode his skeletal horse up the mossy stairs leading to Dead End House.

Halfway through the gate, the ghastly equine opened its mandible in a silent scream. The heavy hooves skidded on the steps leading out of the City of the Dead. uuuumhiii jujiuu

Slowly, surely, the creature slid backward to the confusion of its rider, which twisted its skull completely round on its shoulders to see what the problem was.

"Ho! Starting a fight without me! I don't think so!" yelled Leaplow from behind the horse's hindquarters.

Black-and-blue but grinning widely, Sophraea's enormous brother gathered up the heavy skirts of the skeleton horse's armor and dragged it out of the gate.

The knight fought to turn the horse, but Leaplow's grip was too strong. For the moment, the dead warrior, his horse, and Leaplow blocked the gate leading into the Dead End courtyard and kept the other dead from entering.

The booming tread of the statue crossing the courtyard startled all the combatants. Everyone turned to watch Gustin's stone fighter stride toward the graveyard gate.

Stunk's men broke off their attack of Lord Adarbrent and stood openmouthed.

"Stop him," the fat man screamed. "You'll all be street beggars if you don't stop him!"

His men hesitated and then raised their weapons and circled the stone man. One slashed at the statue with his short sword. The blade shattered on the granite head and the statue marched on.

"Clubs!" Stunk screamed. "Mallets! Don't use your blades, you idiots!"

"Wood," someone shouted and they all raced to pick up anything that could be used as a club. "Rocks," yelled another.

The courtyard was littered with building materials. Armed with boards and stone urns, Stunk's men faced back toward the walking statue.

"Don't let them smash it!" screamed Sophraea.

"We're defending a statue?" yelled Bentnor.

"Yes," she yelled back.

"All right," he agreed. Then he shrugged and motioned to his twin. The two men picked up the nearest of Stunk's fighters trying to wrestle a half-carved tombstone into the statue's path. With a heave and a grunt, Bentnor and Cadriffle threw the armored man across the courtyard into a couple of others. The twins gave a ragged cheer, as if they had scored a goal in one of their endless ball games.

Stunk's men gave a unified growl. They dropped the junk they had picked up from the courtyard to draw their own weapons. Swords were fully out and they swung back toward the younger Carvers with blades upraised. Lord Adarbrent sped forward, obviously trying to place himself between the two lines of very angry men.

Gustin drew a deep breath and raised his own hands, only the faintest glow of magic quivering at his fingertips. His eyes were sparkling green as he advanced toward the two sides.:.

"1 hope this spell works," he muttered. "Want to give me one more kiss for luck?"

"Somebody is going to get killed." Sophraea tried to keep one eye on her family and an equally desperate eye on Gustin.

"Probably me," Gustin agreed. But he winked at her as he moved cautiously forward. "Try not to worry too much!"

Sophraea wrung her hands, twisting round and round Volponia's ring.

"I wish that they would all freeze in place until we can get into the City of the Dead," she said. The ring flared hot upon her finger and then icy cold.

The usual Waterdeep drizzle dissolved into fat snowflakes. The snow began to fall faster and faster. Soon the swirling white storm obscured the crooked chimneys of Dead End House.

A cold wind swept through the courtyard, tumbling Stunk's ters and Sophraea's family into the drifts of snow piling up.

Even the dead were blown away from the gate, pushed back into the City of the Dead. Sophraea heard Leaplow give a shout as the knight and his rotting horse slipped on the sudden ice that slicked every surface.

Only Gustin's statue seemed impervious to this strange winter storm. It strode on, snow settling on its shoulders so it appeared as if the statue wore a white mantle over its carved armor.

"What have you done, Sophraea Carver?" Gustin asked.

"I made a wish," replied the stunned Sophraea. "Volponia said something about the ring containing only half a wish. I was not expecting anything like this!"

"I think it was more like a wish-and-a-half," said Gustin.

The statue passed Sophraea's uncles and. aunts and stomped down the little stairs leading into the City of the Dead.

"We better go," said Gustin. "We need to finish the spell at the tomb."

Sophraea checked her basket. Lord Adarbrent's spellbook was still safely stored there. She stepped cautiously on the cobblestones of the courtyard. The stones were slick under her feet, but not impossibly so. Everyone around her slipped and slid, knocked prone and unable to regain their feet, caught by her wish.

Gustin started to slide and snatched at her shoulder to steady himself. As soon as he touched her, he stopped falling.

"Interesting," the wizard noted. "Hang onto me, Sophraea, until we get into the City ofthe Dead."

She threaded her arm through his. They picked their way around the fallen fighters toward the gate.

Of the fighters in the center of the courtyard, only Lord Adarbrent managed to stay upright. He swayed from side to side, the snow-filled wind billowing out his coattails.

Sophraea grabbed his arm. At her touch, the old nobleman stopped swaying.

"Can you walk?" she asked.

He took one careful step and then another. He nodded at Sophraea.

Gustin and Lord Adarbrent, with Sophraea in the middle to steady them both by hanging onto their arms, followed after the marching statue.

The statue marched straight ahead, its eyes fastened on its goal. It seemed more than willing to follow that one instruction from Gustin, to walk to a named destination. But what if that was all it could do?

"Then one of us has to put the shoe inside," Sophtaea muttered to herself as she pushed through the snow after it. "And one of us has to close that door."

The ghasdy knight righted its skeletal horse as they passed. Over her shoulder, Sophraea saw the knight gather up the rotting reins of its steed but give the creature no signal to move.

Leaplow yelled and tried to get to his feet, only to slip and fall again.

"That haunt is still watching us," Gustin informed her.

Sophraea's own sense of movement within the City of the Dead informed her that all the dead were changing their course, turning back from the gates and other exits, and moving slowly toward the north of the graveyard, toward the Markarl tomb.

She didn't know if it was the token that the statue carried or Algozata's horrible spellbook that attracted the dead's attention. She tried to be glad that they were no longer trying to invade Dead End House or the rest of Waterdeep.

But she wondered if ending the curse would be enough. Ever since Gustin tried to reverse Lord Adarbrent's spell, she'd sensed a change in the atmosphere. The noble dead were no longer content with playing tricks on the living, such as rattling a few windows at Stunk's mansion or causing a few houseplants to wilt.

Something worse had woken; something that hungered for more than petty revenge.

Up in Volponia's room, her plan had seemed so simple and so clear. In Volponia's room, she'd thought she knew all the answers. In Volponia's room, she had not been afraid.

But as the snow blew bitter in her face and the noble dead began to move again within the City of the Dead, Sophraea wondered if she'd been right.

For the sun was setting, and the dead were always stronger at night.

She shivered. She had no more wishes in the magic ring. She had to rely on her own courage and the courage of her companions. Would that be enough?