The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

13

"Baylee!" Serellia's warning cut through the sound of combat. Looking around, Baylee realized his friends had joined him in the battle with the drow. But so had the skeleton warriors. One of them swung its two-handed sword at Baylee. Leaning backward, the ranger flipped out of the way. The sword nicked his leather armor, slicing through neatly and scoring the flesh underneath.

Baylee prayed the great sword wasn't poisoned. His feet pounded into the ground, bringing him face-to-face with the undead creature again. Maybe it would have had him, but Aymric was suddenly there, his falchion managing to turn his larger opponent's swing. The two-handed sword thudded into the ground, cleaving deeply into the earth.

Seizing the opportunity presented, Baylee stepped forward and smashed the heavy mace against the imprisoned sword. Sparks flared up at once, but the sound of shattering steel rang across the clearing.

The skeleton warrior drew back its broken blade and paused only for a moment. Then it attacked Baylee again. The ranger blocked the blow with the buckler, feeling the impact run down his arm, numbing his hand.

Aymric stepped in, weaving a net of steel before him with his sword and dagger. "Do you know who controls this monster, my friend?" His blades licked out, scoring deep bites in the skeleton warrior's dead flesh.

"I think so," Baylee answered.

"Then break that control." Aymric defended another blow from the broken blade.

Trusting his friend after their years of companionship, Baylee turned and raced toward the female drow. Around him, more rangers had joined the fray, bringing with them their animal followers. It looked as though the forest itself stood aligned against the dark elves, filled with tearing claws and flashing fangs. The drow backed down slowly, but the cost for the rangers was high.

Breathing hard, blood matting his tunic and his leather armor from the wound across his stomach, Baylee sped for the female drow. Before he could get to her, two drow warriors closed in front of him. Their swords forced him back. He went to work with the buckler and mace, trading blow for blow with each of them as he used the terrain itself against them, taking the high ground where he could, and using trees and brush to block them.

He kept them from taking his life with effort. The mace vibrated in his hand, and his other hand hadn't quite recovered from the blow of the skeleton warrior.

"You need to live, Baylee Arnvold," a feminine voice said at his side.

Stepping back to take advantage of a tree that broke up the two drow, Baylee glanced at his side and saw Cordyan Tsald fall into position beside him. "This isn't your fight," he told the watch lieutenant.

"I have questions that you need to answer," she replied, then riposted a low sword thrust. Her return blow drew blood from the draw's shoulder. "If you die tonight, Captain Closl will still be asking them in the morning."

Baylee beat the other draw's attack to pieces, filling the air with the mace and the buckler. He swung the small shield at the end of his arm and slammed the black adamantite against the draw's knee hard enough to break bone. When it came to survival, there were no rules of conduct.

"I have questions of my own I want answered," he growled. "This drow female knew my name. Were there any drow involved in Golsway's death?"

"If we had known there were," the watch lieutenant replied, "I'd have been searching the Underdark, not this forgathering."

Glancing past his opponent, Baylee saw that Xuxa had landed in the top of a tree. She had her wings spread out to hold herself up in a branch while she kept the gold circlet clutched in her clawed feet. Below her, the skeleton warrior pursuing the circlet started climbing the tree.

Without warning, the sky flared into magnificent golden light that drained the shadows and darkness from the immediate area. The drow in front of Baylee drew back, raising his arm in front of his eyes.

Half-blinded himself, Baylee glanced back toward the direction he'd come from and spotted Carceus less than fifty paces distant. The priest held his hands aloft, and the light seemed to pour from them.

The skirmish line the drow had held broke. Arrows flew at them, filling the air as the archers among the rangers tried to find their targets.

Baylee stared hard into the group of drow, seeing that the female among them was once more conscious. Her hot gaze rested on the ranger briefly, then she called to the drow warriors. They flocked to her quickly, having no place to hide under the fierce light of Carceus's creation.

A ruby limned hole opened in the air behind the female drow. Two of the skeleton warriors held the line against the rangers. One of the drow popped open a bag and pulled it over the warrior next to him, swallowing the other man instantly.

"They're escaping!" someone yelled.

"Let them!" yelled another. "There's been enough death tonight, and I've no wish to visit the Underdark before morningfeast."

Baylee raced toward the drow group, but two of the skeleton warriors fronted him. He drew up, frustrated. The hole behind the drow group flared a deeper red as it flashed. Then it was gone. A handful of fletched shafts cut the air where the dimensional door had been.

The skeleton warriors turned from Baylee and ran back toward the area where the dark elves had disappeared. Both of them searched the grass until they found the gold circlets. One touched the circlet immediately to his forehead. Under the clear light of Carceus's spell, Baylee watched as the skeleton warrior and the circlet turned to dust, blowing away in the strong wind left over from the dimensional door. Then the second skeleton warrior knelt in the grass. Its arms spread out in supplication as its dead face turned toward the sky.

"It looks like it's praying," Cordyan said quietly at Baylee's side.

"Maybe it is," Baylee said. "In the end, those creatures may be capable of great evil, but not all of them had beginnings in evil. Good men have often been bound to the curse of those gold circlets, I am told."

The second skeleton warrior drew the circlet to its forehead and turned into a pile of dust that rapidly blew away in the rising wind.

Baylee glanced anxiously about. Two of the skeleton warriors had been accounted for, and one climbed the tree Xuxa took shelter in. But a fourth remained.

"What are you searching for?" Cordyan asked.

"The fourth skeleton warrior."

"Why?"

"Because it will follow them," Baylee said. "No matter how far they go. The magic they used to control it will bind it to them. If we want to find them, all we have to do is follow the undead creature."

"It looked like they all threw the circlets away," the watch lieutenant stated. "And the other two skeleton warriors didn't try to follow anyone."

Baylee surveyed the bodies of the dead drow in front of him. Seven dark elves lay stretched out near the battleground. "Then the people who controlled them were dead."

"The ones who controlled the skeleton warriors were the most protected of the group," Cordyan pointed out.

"I know." The situation didn't make sense to Baylee either. The people who controlled the skeleton warriors had been deep within the group of drow. He quickly searched the dead, seeking answers.

Two of the drow had died by the sword, their bodies opened up in great gashes. But the third one he checked didn't appear to have a mark on him. Grabbing the corpse by a shoulder, the ranger pulled and rolled it over.

He spotted the black fletchings of the small crossbow bolt that jutted out from the back of the man's neck. The bolt was of dark elf design, matching ones Baylee found in the small quiver on the man's thigh. "This man was killed by his own." He released the corpse and let it fall back to the ground.

"As was this one," Cordyan informed him grimly. She indicated the quarrel sticking out from below the man's left ear.

"They were taking no chances about being followed," Baylee said. "Someone had already taken into account the cost of failure."

Cordyan let go the corpse she'd handled and looked up at Baylee. "They came here for you."

"Perhaps."

The light from Carceus's spell faded from the sky and moonlight returned to highlight the watch lieutenant's features. "There is no 'perhaps' about it," she replied. "Whether there was a drow involved with Fannt Golsway's murder or not, his death exhibited strong magic. Just like this."

Baylee knew it was true. His thoughts had already taken the same fork in the stream. He gazed around at the carnage that had ripped so bluntly into the festive atmosphere of the forgathering. Only moments before, so many of the people around him had been involved in swapping stories, swapping possessions, eating and drinking, competing, and perhaps even flirting at love.

Now, they tended the wounded and dead comrades among them, and sought to tip the scales on the ones they might lose. Thankfully, a number of clerics and druids had attended the forgathering. Those who had healing potions shared willingly among the fallen.

Guilt chafed in Baylee's mind.

You did not know, Xuxa chided him. If you had, you would not have brought this trouble among your friends.

Baylee looked at the tree where the azmyth bat held her prize from the clutches of the skeleton warrior. The undead creature swayed unsteadily in the thinner branches near the top of the tree, searching in vain over and over, like some kind of artisan's automaton for safe passage higher.

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Serellia approaching him. Her beautiful face was streaked with blood, and tears ran down her cheeks. Her sword remained naked in her fist.

"It's Aymric," she said.

Baylee felt like a cold fist closed around his heart. "Where?" He knew many people in many places, but so few actually got close to him. The elf was one of the closest.

Serellia guided him to Aymric.

Pale and disheveled, Aymric lay on the ground as Karg and two other men sought to bind the horrible wound across his midsection The skeleton warrior's sword stroke had laid him open. The elf looked up at Baylee and tried to speak.

Baylee knelt beside his friend, feeling the tears burn his eyes. He took Aymric's hand and closed it tightly in his. "I should not have left you," he whispered in a hoarse voice.

Aymric showed him a small smile and moved his head back and forth.

"Let me through!" a voice urged. "He may not yet be too far gone!"

Baylee shifted and let Carceus through. The priest's face remained blank as he surveyed his patient. "Gond willing," Carceus said, "I'll not suffer him to die." He pulled up his robe sleeves. "Water, please." He held his hands out.

Karg stood nearby and removed the small flask at his hip. "It's spring water, god-speaker, brought from the airy heights, only one step removed from the heavens themselves."

"Even better. Pour." The giant killer sluiced the water over the priest's hands. Prayer spilled from Carceus's lips, coming so rapidly that Baylee understood only a few of the words.

He added his own prayers to the Lady of the Forest to the priest's. Aymric's hand in his was already growing weaker.

A smoky blue aura glowed around Carceus's hands. He kept his fingers wide-spread. Then he placed his palms against the violent wound in Aymric's midsection.

The elf s body jumped in response, bowing up. Aymric's hand closed around Baylee's tight enough to cut off the blood flow. A keening moan escaped the elf ranger's lips, spitting out blood with it.

The smoky blue aura around the priest's hands spread, covering all of Aymric's stomach and lower chest. Miraculously, the flesh knitted itself back together. Muscle reconnected to bone, then to each other. Long moments passed as the healing continued. Perspiration dappled Carceus's forehead, trickling down through his eyebrows. After a time, the blue glow faded. Even after the work was done and he sat back in exhaustion on his haunches, the priest's prayer to Gond Wonderbringer continued unabated.

Baylee stared at Aymric's face. Once the blue glow had faded, the elf s body had gone into total relaxation, his eyes shut. He didn't appear to be breathing. "Aymric," Baylee called gently.

There was no response.

Fear clawed at Baylee's mind, bristly as the spider's leg had been all those years ago when he'd been tied securely in the web before Golsway had shown up to save him. There were stories from time to time of those who had been healed after having severe wounds who only turned out to be well-preserved corpses. Healing could still be done on the body even though the spirit had departed. His hand trembled, surprising him. "Aymric." He spoke louder, but his voice was lost in the myriad moaning and bits of other conversations circling around the group with the elf.

Serellia placed her fingers against Aymric's throat. "It's all right," she said. "He only sleeps. His heart beats strongly."

Baylee.

Heartened by his friend's survival, the ranger turned to look back at the azmyth bat. The skeleton warrior had gotten closer to the circlet in Xuxa's claws. Men and women surrounded the base of the tree. Even over the distance, Baylee heard the group talking about firing the tree. Someone else told them that firing the tree would do no good, that only magic weapons had any effect on the undead creature.

We have to deal with the skeleton warrior, Xuxa urged. I have but to release the circlet and he will go.

Not yet. Baylee stood and walked toward the tree with the skeleton warrior in it. He knew that the undead creature wasn't mindless. Far from it, skeleton warriors possessed cunning intelligence far above average. But they were bound by the drive to recover the circlets and become one with their souls again. That obsession weakened them once they were no longer in a controller's thrall.

"What is it you're going to do?" Karg growled, joining Baylee. He carried his axe in one huge hand.

"We have no clue where these skeleton warriors came from," Baylee answered. "But they were elves."

"Aye."

"Where is the skeleton warrior you and Serellia fought?"

"Destroyed," the giant killer replied. "It put up a fierce fight for a time. Of course, it helped when I removed one of its arms. Then it erupted into a frenzy that almost caught me unawares. Serellia saved me with as fancy a piece of sword play as I've seen in a long time. We were hard pressed for a time, but it turned its attention back to the drow. Were it a human foe, I would not have attacked it from behind. The blow cut its spine in two and took its legs from it. Still, it tried to battle. Then, of a sudden, it went limp. I wasted no time in cleaving its skull to pieces, I tell you."

"It's dead?" Baylee asked.

"Oh, and it didn't turn to dust, that's true," Karg said, "but it's deader than it has been in a long time."

How long a time it had been originally dead was only one of the questions on Baylee's mind. He'd noted the clothing the skeleton warriors almost wore. Fashion sometimes was very indicative of time period, and the bits he'd seen of the clothing on the skeleton warriors looked near to ancient.

Xuxa, he called. Bring me the circlet.

Are you sure?

Baylee came to a stop forty paces from the tree. He hoped it would be enough. Yes. He glanced at one of the nearby rangers, a young boy who trembled as he tried to stand still under a shuddering pitchblende torch. "Could I borrow your torch?"

The boy gave it without answering, then wrapped his arms around himself.

Xuxa hurled herself from the tree, dragging the heavy circlet after her. The skeleton warrior tracked the band instantly, abandoning the tree. It fell through the branches, plummeting toward the ground. When it hit, it sank into the ground nearly to its knees from the weight and the height of the fall. A normal man's legs would have, shattered.

Instead, the skeleton warrior put a hand against the ground and levered itself from the impromptu grave. An arrow glanced from its head, leaving a trail of silvery sparks behind to show that the arrowhead had possessed magic properties. Thin cracks blossomed in the undead creature's skull.

That creature will kill you to get this, Xuxa warned:

Baylee reached up as the azmyth bat let the circlet tumble from her claws. Gold flashed as it tumbled through the air, fired by the torches and lanterns the rangers brought with them. He caught the circlet, the metal cold under his fingers.

"It's coming," Karg stated.