“How many Vaasans are coming? When will they arrive?”
Kara shook her head. “I’ve got scouts ringing the Highfells and the moorland now. They haven’t run across any Vaasans yet, but then again, the Galena passes are still snowed in and likely to stay that way for another month or more. I doubt we’ll see any large numbers of Vaasan soldiers in Hulburg before the end of Tarsakh, at the earliest. Even then, it would be a hard crossing.”
“That is another argument for striking at Marstel soon,” Sarth observed. “It would seem better to attack before Vaasan soldiers reinforce the Council Guard.”
As if we needed another reason to move with haste, Geran reflected. He didn’t like the idea of the Vaasans choosing sides, but he couldn’t see that it changed the essential facts of their situation. Every day that went by with Marstel in control of Hulburg was another day for the usurper to tighten his grip on his stolen realm, another day for Rhovann to devise arcane defenses and create deadly new soldiers, another day for the foreign mercenaries and brigands to plunder the honest folk of the town. “We should see to it that High Lord Vasil knows what we know about the Vaasan meddling,” he mused aloud. “Thentia won’t want to see another power gaining influence in Hulburg. It might buy us some additional help.”
“I’ll have Master Quillon speak to his counterpart in the high lord’s palace,” Kara said. “Now, for more important matters … what in the world did you do to end up in the coronal’s dungeons? Other than you, Geran, of course I expected you to be imprisoned. I want to know how Hamil and Sarth got on Ilsevele’s bad side.”
“You expected me to be imprisoned?” Geran protested, but he was too late; Hamil was already embarking on the story of their brief sojourn in Myth Drannor. Instead, he shrugged and sat back to listen to his friend’s version of the tale, which featured more than a few colorful exaggerations.
That night, he slept soundly for what seemed the first time in months. The following day was bright, clear, cold, and windy-a typically raw early spring day in the Moonsea. Geran spent it doing his best to catch up with scores of important details and decisions that Kara and her officers had settled on during his absence, but ultimately he simply concurred with everything that had been done already. He saw no reason to second-guess a decision arrived at over hours of dedicated thought with his own quick impressions, and he knew that his next task waited for him on the Highfells after sundown.
Late in the day, Geran took an hour to refresh his wardings and arm himself with the most powerful spells he could manage. A little before sunset, he rode up to the Highfells again, with Kara, Sarth, and Hamil at his side. The howling wind drove the moorgrass first one way and then another, an invisible serpent writhing and hissing its way across the landscape. The four riders huddled closer within their heavy cloaks against the biting cold and the sheer wild loneliness of the empty hills.
An hour’s ride brought them to the line of barrows on the broad hillside where they’d met the King in Copper before. “This is the spot,” Hamil said. He shivered. “The sooner this is over, the better.”
Geran nodded. He closed his eyes, searching for the words to summon the lich, and began to recite:
Dark the night and cold the stone,
Silent grave and barren throne,
Empty halls, a crown of mold,
Deathless dreams the king of old.
Long the dark and brief the light,
An hour’s play, and then the night,
Beauty fails and all grows cold,
Still awaits the king of old.
The wind grew stronger as he spoke, seeming to snatch away his words even before he spoke them. A chill began to gather in his bones, and he shivered; he could feel the King in Copper’s presence. In the barrow’s entrance, windblown mist began to stream and sink into the low doorway, pooling like water poured into a basin. From the gathering mist, the tattered robes and tarnished crown of Aesperus took form. An evil green light kindled in his black eye sockets, and his yellowed bones with their copper rivets took shape within his robes of black. Despite himself, Geran retreated a couple of steps; Sarth and Hamil did likewise.
“Have you brought the rest of my book?” the lich hissed.
“Aye, I have it,” Geran replied. “I wouldn’t have summoned you without completing my part of our bargain, King Aesperus.” He drew the scroll tube from Myth Drannor from under his cloak, opened it, and carefully drew out the old parchment within. The wind, which had been howling with such bitter fury only a few moments before, had fallen still with the lich’s arrival. With a conscious act of will he forced his feet forward and extended the pages to the lich.
Aesperus took them with surprising care, immediately turning his attention to the parchment in his bony hands. His jawbone worked silently as he read, examining the prize. “Ahhh, so I thought,” he murmured to himself. “At last the ritual can be completed …” The lich’s voice trailed off as he eagerly read on, studying the ancient pages with his eyes burning brighter.
Hamil gave Geran a sharp glance. Remind him that we’re waiting? the halfling suggested.
“Is that everything you expected us to find, King Aesperus?” Geran asked.
The lich ignored him, reading further. Geran felt his companions’ eyes on him, but he forced himself to keep his peace a little longer. He did not want to annoy the King in Copper, of that much he was certain. He waited until the lich raised one hand and began to chant in his horrible, cracking voice. For a moment Geran feared that Aesperus was simply going to enact whatever spell had been interrupted four hundred years earlier, or teleport away without another word … but instead the pages glowed briefly with a violet light, and vanished. “The manuscript is complete,” Aesperus finally said. “I have sent the pages you brought me to rejoin the tome from which they were torn. I have much study ahead of me now.”
Geran took a breath. “How do I defeat Rhovann’s runehelms?”
“With the proper weapon, of course.” The lich stretched his hand over the bare ground and rasped the words of another spell. There was a burst of mist from the spot beneath his hand. Then a black, dull shape seemed to rise up out of the ground in answer to his magic. It was a sword, long and straight, a double-edged broadsword with a blade of some unreflective black metal Geran did not recognize. Its hilt was wrapped in dark, pebbled leather, and its pommel was a flat disk in which small glyphs were inscribed around a large onyx gemstone. “This is Umbrach Nyth, the Sword of Shadows, forged of shadow to dispel shadow. Long ago I enchanted this black steel for your ancestor Rivan. He later attempted to slay me with it, the ungrateful fool. You will find that it carries a bitter sting for creatures infused with the power of shadow-and most others, for that matter. The runehelms will not ignore its bite. Take its hilt.”
Trying not to flinch, Geran reached for the sword’s hilt and drew it clear of the ground. It was lighter than it looked, not much heavier than his Myth Drannan backsword, and it was balanced quite well. He could sense the potent enchantments on the weapon as he brandished it. A matching scabbard appeared from the ground; he took it in his left hand, and sheathed the dark blade. “I can believe that this would be a better weapon against Rhovann’s constructs than my own sword,” he said, “but am I supposed to personally defeat each and every one of them? There may be hundreds by now.”
“You forget what I told you about Rhovann’s enchantment the last time we spoke,” Aesperus replied. “A single animus unites the runehelms, equally present in each one of the constructs. A pearl of shadow lies within each of Rhovann’s creatures, linking it to its fellows-and to a single great pearl or stone, a master sphere from which the others are drawn. Destroy the master stone, and all of the shadow pearls created from it will be destroyed. Without their shadow pearls, the runehelms are bereft of intelligence, purpose, resilience … they are little more than unthinking automatons. Your warriors will easily sweep them aside.”