The Living Dead

24

"That's all well an' good for the chosen ones'," Hound-Eye blurted. "What about the rest of us?"

Zalyn smiled apologetically. "I fear your presence is as unintended as it is unfortunate," she replied.

"Well, if someone's going to put steel in the son-of-a-dog's eye, I'm in." Hound-Eye stood eye patch-to-eye with the little elf and clenched his fists. "And you ain't stoppin' me."

Devis grinned. He had hoped Hound-Eye would come along.

"And the rest of'em?" Hound-Eye cocked his eye at Clayn and the family Pell. "What about little rat-girl?"

"I will stay to cover your backs," Clayn said immediately, "and protect the others."

"Who's going to cover your back, elf? The bird?" Hound-Eye asked. Devis could see he was beginning to panic at the thought of leaving Nialma in the hands of her catatonic parents and a single Silatham ranger.

"I will not be able to turn when we leave, Clayn. I must be at full strength to defeat the Buried One. You will be trapped in here. But Ehlonna will provide," Zalyn said.

"I've lasted this long," Clayn said. The bard could not have been more surprised at the next voice he heard.

"Halfling," Delia said in a monotone whisper, "take her. Take her, please. Get her out of here."

Hound-Eye went into a coughing fit, but managed to pound his chest and ask, "Gyah?"

"We have decided what we must do," Pell cut in suddenly. He turned to Clayn and stammered, "We will help you fight them, ranger. But you," he pointed at Hound-Eye, "will see to it that my daughter escapes, if you do."

Hound-Eye simply nodded, his one eye wide as Nialma slipped a tiny hand into his calloused palm. "Houndie!" the elf girl said, and started to make little barking noises.

Hound-Eye crouched-but not much-to take the girl by the shoulders. "You listen to me, rat-girl," he growled, "this is going to be bad. Maybe more bad than staying here. If you want to stay with your mama…"

"Houndie!" the girl said and wrapped the halfling in a gleeful hug.

"It's 'Hound-Eye,' kid," the halfling whispered.

"All right, then," Zalyn suddenly said. "We all know what we must do. Mialee, you will prepare spells focused on offense, freeing Favrid, and anything else that might be useful. Ah!" she exclaimed, remembering something, and ran back to her still-open trunk. She rummaged through the treasures within and produced a pitch-black wand with a red tip. Mialee's was almost out of charges after the last few days, Devis was willing to bet.

"Hey, Zalyn," Devis asked. Delia's desperate request had reminded him of something he could not believe he hadn't thought of before. "Are you going to teleport us into Morsilath?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Zalyn said, looking very much like her gnome-self. "Look at this." She crossed the room to the center of the floor, slapped three times with the butt of her hand, and stood back.

The center of the floor glowed orange for a moment, then disappeared. Hound-Eye had to hold Nialma back from jumping in.

"This leads to an ancient mining track. The tunnel will lead us right there. It is useless as an escape route," she said apologetically to Pell and Delia, "for it leads only to Cavadrec's prison and the hollow volcanic tubes that run out from beneath Morsilath. You are safer here with Clayn.

"We must not leave the cart track, for the lava tube network is a labyrinth. One wrong turn, and we would be lost forever."

"Elder!" Clayn suddenly hissed, pointing at the little cleric, wide-eyed. Everyone turned and stared at Zalyn, who froze. A small, gray rat with empty eyes finished wriggling from the shoulder of her robe. Before even the rangers had time to act, the wightling rodent sunk a pair of tiny incisors into Zalyn's exposed neck.

Zalyn screamed.

Soveliss was to her before Mialee could move and flung the foul thing off of the cleric's shoulder. It landed in front of Clayn, who stomped it flat.

Zalyn's eyes grew wide and Mialee saw her face become a faint shade of gray.

"How?" the little cleric whispered, and dropped to the floor.

A hideously familiar chorus of arrhythmic thumps pounded all around them as Mialee ran to the fallen Zalyn. The wightling elves had climbed back up the tree and now sounded like they covered Zalyn's tiny home like a swarm of nesting hornets.

"Devis!" she shouted, gratified that the bard whirled to join her. She might have said "dodo" a few hours ago.

Clayn, Soveliss, Pell, and Delia-Delia, Mialee blinked with amazement-dashed to the doors and windows. She didn't spot Hound-Eye, but heard him whispering soft reassurances to little Nialma.

She rolled Zalyn over onto her back before she considered how foolish that might be-if Zalyn was already a wightling.

The little elf was drawn and injured, but as her eyes fluttered open, Mialee saw with relief that the elder's sockets still held the twinkling brown eyes she'd learned to trust.

"Mialee," she whispered weakly, "I am lost."

"No, you've got to fight," Devis said as the din outside grew into an incessant chorus of pounding, rotten fists and growling, mindless moans.

Mialee felt her eyes begin to well up. Though Devis was typically optimistic, she saw in Zalyn's face that the little woman spoke the truth.

"I will, Devis," Zalyn croaked, smiling bitterly at the bard. "Even now, I feel Ehlonna…lending me her strength against the plague. It was-"

The hacking cough shook her form, and Mialee helped her wipe away the black phlegm that dribbled down the side of her mouth.

"It was a small rat, a little bite," Devis said, growing more frantic. "You can handle that. You're the big-time elder, right? Right?"

"Right," Zalyn managed, but she looked far away.

A strange light flashed into her eyes, and suddenly she leaped to her feet, jaw clenched, but glowing with a faint, green halo of light. When she spoke next, her voice was strange. It sounded like Zalyn's voice, but layered beneath another, impossibly beautiful tone that immediately made Mialee feel a comforting warmth.

"Children, we must go. Ehlonna is ready. We are so close. We will hold off the Reaper that long."

Mialee and Devis gaped. "Is that-?" the bard stuttered.

"It is me, Devis," Zalyn smiled beatifically at the bard, and Mialee saw him smile in genuine awe as she felt her own jaw refuse to close. "And we are also a part of Ehlonna. This vessel is tainted, but must persevere. We will see the destroyer cleansed of our body by the morrow." Mialee wondered which one of the elf's occupants, the deity or the cleric, had said the last part. She opened her mouth to ask but before she had a chance, the little elf/god said, "Come. We go." She crooked a finger at them, then leaped into the nothingness in the center of the floor.

Chunks of wood flew into the room as the wightlings finally breached the long-abused defenses. Nialma's screams of terror were muffled by Hound-Eye's fur cloak.

"Get out of here!" Clayn shouted, slashing at the wightlings that crashed into the room.

Devis and Mialee scrambled to their feet as Soveliss and Darji followed the Zalyn/Ehlonna hybrid's example.

"Hound-Eye!" Devis shouted. The halfling was clutching Nialma, who was screaming at her parents.

Pell and Delia turned as one. Delia gave a small, sad wave to Nialma.

"Damn you halfling! Save my daughter!" Pell shouted as he took up a chunk of wood, turned, and cracked it against a grasping, clawed wightling arm.

"Come on, baby," Hound-Eye said as soothingly as he could to the confused little girl, and dropped into the hole clutching Nialma to his chest. His one eye widened at them, then he disappeared with a long, descending epithet that trailed off into the darkness below.

Mialee didn't have time to think about what they were jumping into because Devis put his arms around her shoulders and shoved her forward. She stepped out over the black pit and dropped like a stone.