The Sentinel

CHAPTER 19

They came upon the girl deep within the castle, inside a long-abandoned barracks tucked against the base of the inner curtain walls. She was dressed in a simple gray shift and hard at work building one of the eerily beautiful bone walls that lined so many halls throughout the structure, carefully placing freshly scrubbed skulls atop a row of femurs stacked two-feet high. She was surrounded by a dozen ghouls and twice as many zombies, and Arietta felt sure she could see the shimmer of several ghosts floating high in the corners of the room.

With alabaster skin and brown, kohl-rimmed eyes devoid of any apparent emotion, the girl appeared to be the same one who had addressed the companions through the viewing slot in the castle entryway. She had a strong, sinewy build and a hollow-cheeked face lacking any childhood softness, so it was impossible to be certain of her age. She might have been more a young woman than a girl.

In either case, she was only the second living being the companions had encountered since entering the gruesome castle. The first had been the goat, Peox, which they had come across again in a storeroom near the entrance. The chamber had been lined by rotting corpses that were being torn apart and slowly devoured by the wallbound. Peox had been bleating in protest, springing back and forth as he grabbed mouthfuls for himself. After seeing that, the companions had been all too happy to leave the goat to his own devices and continue exploring on their own.

What they had encountered were hundreds of undead, mostly withered ghouls and rotting zombies. Fortunately, Malik had made good on his promise to protect his companions by having them hold the hem of his robe, and the group had simply eased past the undead without the creatures taking notice. It was hardly the complete command Arietta had imagined Myrkul’s Chosen to have over the undead, but as long as it worked, she wasn’t inclined to start asking questions.

Besides, judging by the muffled clamor behind them, it seemed likely Malik had chosen his method with the orcs in mind. Certainly, the brutes had been too busy fighting undead to catch up with the companions.

After observing the young woman through the barracks entrance for a time, Malik turned to his companions and lifted a querying eyebrow. Arietta was quick to raise a finger to her lips and point down the bone-lined passage ahead. The castle crypt stood next to the keep tower, just across the inner bailey from where they were now.

As determined as Arietta was to go through with the sacrifice and activate Sune’s binding magic, it would have been a lie to say her resolve was not wavering. Every step deeper into Sadrach’s Castle seemed to bring with it a fresh reminder of what she would be leaving behind-a hand squeeze from Joelle, a reassuring smile from Kleef, even a solicitous nod from Malik. These people were her friends and fighting companions, and the longer it took the group to reach Grumbar’s Temple, the less she wanted to leave them behind.

Joelle and Kleef quickly added their own nods to Arietta’s, then Malik raised a hand, motioning them to await his signal. When the young woman turned to take a fresh skull from one of her ghouls, he finally pointed his arm and started across the doorway.

Without turning around, the young woman called, “You’re acting like thieves.” She turned and placed the skull on the wall she was building. “And you don’t want to see what Grandfather does to thieves.” She shook her head. “Truly, you don’t.”

Malik stopped midway across the doorway-which meant the rest of the group did, too.

“We have not come to steal a thing,” he said. “We were only trying to pass quietly because we had no wish to interrupt your work.”

“And because you hope to break into the family crypt.” She stepped back from her work and turned to face the companions. “Though you won’t find what you’re looking for there. Grumbar’s Temple isn’t beneath the crypt.”

“How do you know what we’re looking for?” Kleef demanded.

The young woman-Arietta recalled one of the wallbound calling her Gingrid-pointed toward the side of the barracks.

“The walls have ears.” As Gingrid spoke, a female face emerged from the stone and turned its head to the side, displaying an ear. A thin smiled flashed across Gingrid’s mouth and vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Then she added, “And what the walls hear, I hear.”

“Then you must know we didn’t come to steal anything,” Joelle said, using her warmest voice. “You would be doing me a great favor by telling us how to find Grumbar’s Temple.”

“I am sure I would.” Gingrid let her gaze fall on Joelle’s face, and for a moment, it seemed the heartwarder’s magic would work. Then Gingrid looked away. “But no.”

“Why be unreasonable?” Malik asked. “We mean no harm to you or anyone in this place.”

“And yet, the castle gates hang open and Grandfather’s servants are forced to eat orc.” Gingrid’s eyes narrowed. “And they don’t like orc.”

She turned to her undead companions and looked expectant.

The ghouls looked back at her. The zombies dropped the skulls in their hands and shuffled around randomly, while the ghosts remained in their corners and keened.

Gingrid’s eyes widened, and she looked back to Malik with her head cocked in wary regard.

“It is no use commanding them to attack,” Malik said, sounding a little too smug for the circumstances. “They will never harm a Chosen of Myrkul.”

“You? A Chosen of Myrkul?” Gingrid studied Malik for a time, then shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you will,” Malik said. “I wandered the Plane of the Lost for a hundred years before I was Chosen. I still carry the smell of the place in my own flesh.”

“It’s true,” Kleef said. “Not that you’d ever smell it in here.”

“A death priestess would,” Gingrid said. An odd gleam came to her eye, and her gaze remained fixed on Malik. “You have walked the Fugue Plane?”

“Indeed.” Malik extended his arm toward her. “Smell for yourself.”

Gingrid started to approach-then took another look at Kleef and stopped. “You come here.”

“Who are you to give orders to a Chosen of Myrkul?” Arietta demanded. She was less interested in defending Malik’s dignity than in keeping the hem of his robe securely within their grasp. “He has given you leave to approach him, and you will do it or suffer for your arrogance.”

Gingrid actually cringed, then shifted her gaze back to Malik. “I meant no offense.” She dropped her eyes and said, “With your permission.”

“Very well.” Malik glanced at Arietta with an expression that was half astonishment and half reassessment, then added, “You are forgiven.”

Gingrid hesitated-perhaps offended by being offered a forgiveness she had not even requested-but she glanced back to Arietta and quickly came to the barracks doorway. Keeping a nervous eye on Kleef, she took Malik’s hand and leaned over to smell it.

She was only halfway down when she abruptly stopped. “It’s true!” She looked up at Malik, then dropped to her knee. “I–I thought I was the only one who still worshiped the Lord of Bones. But you-you have actually walked with him!”

“You could say that, yes,” Malik replied. He motioned her to her feet. “Now, let us attend to the matter at-”

“Not yet,” Kleef interrupted. His gaze was fixed on a shadowy alcove about ten paces down the corridor, where the passage took a sharp bend and started toward the crypt at the far end of the castle. “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Malik frowned. “We have?” he asked, clearly not grasping the true meaning of what Kleef was saying. “How can you know-”

“Because Kleef has Helm’s Sight, Doomlord.” Arietta addressed Malik by a title once used by Myrkul’s most feared servants. “He can often see things that elude even you.”

“Of course … Helm’s Sight,” Malik said, finally seeming to catch on. “And what is it Kleef sees?”

“The entrance, I’m sure.” As Arietta spoke, she caught Kleef’s eye, then tipped her head toward the barracks. When he nodded, she nudged Malik forward. “In there.”

Malik balked at the door. “Are you certain?” he asked, eyeing the roomful of undead. “I would hate to disturb Gingrid’s work for nothing.”

“This is the place,” Joelle said, no doubt recognizing the same advantage as had Kleef and Arietta. “Bring out the Eye. This will be quick.”

Malik sighed. “Let us hope.”

He motioned for Gingrid to lead the way, then stepped across the threshold behind her. Arietta and the others followed close on his heels, still holding the hem of his robe to protect them from the undead. As they walked, Gingrid glanced back at Arietta and the others, her brow furrowed and her gaze on the three sets of hands clinging to the hem of Malik’s robe.

“It mustn’t touch the floor by accident,” Joelle said, speaking in the hushed tone of a confidence being shared. “It’s how the doomlord spreads his decay.”

The suspicion vanished from Gingrid’s eyes, then she nodded sagely and turned back to Malik.

“Whatever your servant sees in here, it isn’t Grumbar’s Temple,” she said, leaning close. “That would be beneath Grandfather’s-”

“Perhaps you can tell us later,” Arietta interrupted, worried about the location being overheard. “At the moment, I’m sure the doomlord is more interested in showing you the Eye of Fate.”

She poked Malik in the back, prodding him to bring out the Eye as Joelle had suggested. If Kleef’s plan was to work, they needed to press the Shadovar into making their move now-before Malik managed to disaffect his new disciple.

“Yes, of course,” Malik said. “All of the Reaper’s priests must look upon the Eye of Fate.”

Malik made a great show of traveling to the center of the room, where they would be away from dark corners and surrounded by Gingrid’s hideous assistants. The stench here was even worse than in the rest of the castle, for the zombies’ flesh reeked of fresh decay and the ghouls’ breath stank from meals better left unimagined, but the creatures remained oblivious to the companions’ presence-even when Kleef had to shoulder a zombie aside to make room for them all.

Malik reached into his robe and withdrew the Eye of Gruumsh. Arietta felt a shiver of revulsion as its savage hunger filled the room, but Gingrid gasped in awe and seemed unable to look away from its pulsing veins.

“It’s beautiful … and terrifying.” She stepped so close her torso was almost pressed to the thing, then raised her hands as though to grasp it by its sides. “What happens if I touch it?”

Her response came in the form of Kleef yelling, “Move!”

Arietta felt his arm slam into her back, pushing the entire group down onto the floor.

“Shades!”

They landed as a group, then Arietta heard the cold sizzle of shadow balls descending from all sides of the room. She rolled onto her back and saw a volley of the dark spheres converging on the spot where the group had just been standing, ripping holes through ghouls and zombies alike. Several of the orbs missed and simply drilled down through the stone floor deep into the dirt beneath.

Behind the orbs came the shades, a half-dozen warriors dropping down from the gloomy corners of the room. Joelle felled one instantly, hitting him with a trio of magic darts that lodged themselves in a neat line from the pit of his throat to the center of his brow. The wallbound killed a second warrior, catching him in a tangle of stone arms and pulling him back to die a screaming death beneath their gnashing teeth.

The other four landed intact, scattering bones and skulls in every direction as they drew their glossy swords and charged toward the center of the room.

Kleef was already on his feet, dodging ghouls and shouldering zombies aside as he rushed to meet Yder. Arietta rolled to a knee, drawing her own sword-and using the flat of the blade to slap aside the lashing claw of a nearby ghoul.

“Malik, not us!” she cried. “Turn them on the shades!”

Joelle came up beside her, simultaneously kicking a zombie back and sending a fresh trio of darts flying toward a charging shade. This time, the warrior was prepared to counter, raising a shield of shadowstuff to absorb the first two darts, then simply twisting away from the third … straight into the claws of a hungry ghoul.

The shade went rigid as the first claw raked across his neck, then stood wide-eyed and helpless as the ghoul’s poison did its work. The thing opened its mouth and twisted its head around to bite at the warrior’s throat, and Arietta turned her attention to more immediate threats.

Buoyed by his resurrected faith-and the spark of divine magic he now carried as one of Helm’s Chosen-Kleef had Yder well in hand. He whirled Watcher through a dizzying blur of attacks, driving the prince toward a tangle of wallbound at the far end of the barracks. The shade was counterattacking with everything he had, dodging in close to slash at Kleef’s legs, flinging shadow tentacles high and low, spinning into head-high power chops, hurling disks of shadowstuff left and right.

Each time, Kleef was ready. When Yder slashed low, Kleef pivoted and opened a slash across the Shadovar’s shoulder. When Yder hurled his shadow magic, Kleef leaped in to attack, dodging and deflecting as he drove the prince back. When Yder tried to spin away, Kleef lashed out with a snap kick and cut off his escape.

Finding no immediate threats on that side of the group, Arietta turned to find a trio of ghouls watching her from a bone pile two paces away, their yellow eyes locked on her throat. Unsure of their intentions, she put the point of her sword between her and the middle one’s eyes.

“Malik,” she said, glancing over. “About those undead …”

It was Gingrid who called them off. “Not her,” she said. “The dark ones.”

The ghouls lingered long enough for the middle one to bare its fangs at her, then all three bounded off to join the mass of undead swarming the last of the shades. Arietta breathed a sigh of relief, then joined Joelle next to Malik and Gingrid.

“Where are the rest of Yder’s warriors?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Joelle said. “Maybe we killed-”

She was interrupted by the wet crunch of bodies coming apart, and Arietta saw the tip of a shadow scythe slicing through the mass of undead. One after the other, zombie and ghoul torsos fell away from the legs beneath. In the blink of an eye, she had a clear view into the heart of the swarm, where both shades remained on their feet.

One was swinging the scythe. The other brought his arm forward, about to fling a shadow spell in their direction.

“Down!”

Joelle was already pulling Malik down, so Arietta grabbed Gingrid and sprang in the other direction. Or tried to. The young woman had gone limp, perhaps from the shock of seeing-or feeling-the destruction of so many of her undead at once. Arietta had no choice but to release her and dive into a neatly stacked row of femurs.

The shade’s spell sizzled by a few feet behind her. Arietta spun to a knee and saw the dark band of a shadow disk streak past-straight toward the fight at the far end of the barracks.

Arietta turned to shout a warning, but Kleef was already spinning around, bringing Watcher down to defend himself. He caught the disk on the blade’s edge and sent it spinning off in three hissing pieces.

By then, Yder was on him, bringing his glassy blade around in a vicious overhand strike that looked as if it would split Kleef from collar to navel-until the watchman landed an equally vicious back kick in the middle of the shade’s chest.

Yder doubled over-and still managed to drag his blade down the length of Kleef’s back, opening a wound so deep that Arietta saw the blood spray from twenty feet away.

Kleef roared in pain and whipped Watcher around one-handed-catching Yder on the elbow and dropping a murky forearm onto the floor. Then the battle continued as before, with Kleef pressing the fight and Yder giving ground, retreating inexorably toward the waiting arms of the wallbound.

Closer by, Gingrid lay on the floor, unconscious but not obviously injured. Malik and Joelle were just gathering themselves up, Malik tucking the Eye back inside his robe while Joelle drew her sword. The two Shadow warriors quickly advanced, hacking and blasting their way through a steady stream of undead.

Arietta rose and started across the bone-strewn floor to help defend the Eye-and quickly found her path blocked by the withered forms of two snarling ghouls.

“Out of my way.” She waved them aside, then pointed her sword at Malik. “I’m with him.”

The ghouls hissed, but reluctantly took a single step apart-then seemed to catch themselves and leaped forward to attack.

Arietta was so surprised that she barely managed to duck away as the nearest one’s claws raked through the air above her. She pushed her sword up through its chin, deep into its brain. Then, dragging the blade free as she moved, she spun around behind it and drove the tip through the back of the second ghoul’s skull.

When she turned back toward her friends, it was to find a trio of zombies shuffling away from the Shadovar toward her. The two shades quickly took advantage of the shift to break free of the other undead and rush Malik and Joelle.

Arietta charged straight at the zombies, then changed course at the last second and launched herself into a flying dropkick that caught the nearest zombie square in the chest. The zombie went over backward, clawing and clutching at her legs. She landed atop him with bent knees, then quickly freed herself with a couple of quick slashes to the wrists.

By then, the Shadovar were on Malik and Joelle, the larger one hammering at Joelle’s guard, driving her away from Malik and forcing her sword farther down with every strike. The smaller shade had Malik pinned to the floor, his foot in the middle of the little man’s chest and his sword tip pressed to Malik’s throat.

“No need to die,” the shade was saying. “Give me the Eye and-”

Arietta slashed her sword across the back of his neck as she raced past, then reversed her stroke and buried her blade deep into the side of the larger shade’s throat. Joelle finished the job by lopping off the head completely.

Arietta turned to find Malik withdrawing his little black dagger from the other attacker’s chest. It was hardly a beheading, but with the shade’s body withering into a shriveled black husk, the shadow warrior was clearly just as dead as the one Joelle had killed.

Before Arietta could ask after the Eye, the three zombies she had eluded a moment before came shuffling toward her. She backed away, then looked to Malik.

“Aren’t you supposed to be protecting us?”

Malik rose. “As I have been.” He took Arietta’s arm, and the zombies instantly turned to shamble after Joelle. “But I warned you, Myrkul’s magic will only protect you when we are touching.”

“What?” Arietta glanced toward the far end of the barracks, where Kleef and Yder were battling a handful of undead as well as each other. “You can’t even command the undead?”

Malik straightened his shoulders. “I have commanded them not to see us so, have I not?”

“That’s not very strong magic for one of Myrkul’s Chosen,” Joelle said. She slipped behind Arietta and grabbed the hem of Malik’s robe, and the zombies turned toward Kleef and Yder. “Especially when Gingrid can control them with a thought.”

“Gingrid has lived with them all her life,” Malik said. “I have only just-”

“No more excuses.” Arietta grabbed Malik’s arm and started toward Kleef. “We do what we can.”

They quickly caught up to the three zombies and cut them down from behind, then Arietta and Joelle grabbed Malik beneath the arms and practically carried him into the battle.

Yder saw them coming and twice attempted to retreat into the shadows. Kleef made him pay in shadow and blood, slashing him behind the knee the first time and slamming him in the head with the end of Watcher’s crossguard the second. The Shadovar finally countered by smashing an elbow into Kleef’s nose and driving him back into the arms of a lunging ghoul.

The ghoul raked open one side of Kleef’s face, and the watchman staggered a single step forward, blinded by his own blood. For a heartbeat, his legs seemed to go rigid, and it appeared he had been immobilized by the creature’s poison.

Yder turned to flee.

Then Watcher’s tip came shooting out through the ghoul’s back, and Kleef whipped his sword around, slamming the thing into Yder and sending him sprawling.

Arietta and Joelle arrived in the next breath, leaving Malik’s side and tearing into the nearest undead. Kleef shook the blood from his eyes and sprang after Yder, bringing his sword down in an overhand strike that the prince escaped by a mere inch.

Yder rolled onto his back and swung at a knee-only to have Watcher’s tip come up beneath his blade and send it spinning away. Kleef’s boot caught the shade beneath the ribs, lifting him completely off the floor.

Yder planted a foot on the ground and twisted into a standing position, his remaining hand already dipping into a pouch on his belt. Kleef feinted a sword strike, then skipped forward and planted a stomp kick in the Shadovar’s chest and that sent him flying backward.

Into the stony arms of the wallbound.

The arms pulled him tight against the wall, and then a pair of heads emerged from the stone and bit into his murky flesh. Yder screamed and pulled his hand from the pouch on his belt. Kleef quickly stepped forward and brought his sword down across the prince’s neck.

Yder’s head fell free and bounced off Kleef’s boot-but the hand opened anyway. A tiny ball of shadowstuff slipped from between the dead fingers and sank into the wall. A dark stain slowly blossomed around the spot, and the pop-crack of crumbling stone shook the room.

Gingrid stumbled to her feet, looking dazed and alarmed, but otherwise none the worse for her recent collapse. She stopped in front of the wall and watched the dark circle expand for a few moments. Then, when a steady cascade of dust and pebbles began to spill out onto the floor, she turned to Malik.

“Grandfather won’t be happy about this,” she said. “He won’t be happy at all.”