Lord Konnal turned at the sound of the curse. His glance lighted on Dalamar, dark and baleful. "Lend a hand, you," he snapped.
Dalamar twisted a sour smile, one the lord could not see as he stepped in front of the rower and bent his back to the task of pulling out the oar from whatever snare had caught it. He pulled hard, then again, moving in concert with the Wildrunner. Something had the broad paddle of the oar and held it hard. He shifted his stance and peered out over the edge. The river water slid against the sides of the skiff, oily and brown and thick with silt.
"What is it?" Porthios called, coming back to see. He balanced easily in the shifting skiff, then put his hand on Dalamar's shoulder to move him aside. "Ach, branches-"
The water slapped against the sides of the boat, and the oar slipped suddenly in Dalamar's hands. Startled, he gripped harder, pulling back against what pulled forward. Something did pull at the oar; something with intent worked beneath the waters. Clacking and clattering sounded from under the water, then a high keening shrieked up.
The brown water broke, a hand reached up-one of whitened bone, fingers grasping the oar.
"By all the gods!" Porthios stepped back to give himself sword-room.
A hand grabbed Dalamar's arm-Caylain's-and yanked him away from the side of the boat. Porthios's sword came singing from its sheath, the blade gleaming dully in the gray daylight. In one swift arcing motion, the prince swung and brought his sword down, shattering the grip of the bony hand. But it was only one hand, and there were others now, reaching with clattering fingers to grab the sides of the skiff. Once more, hands yanked at the oars, but now the rowers were prepared and held hard.
More swords sang in the air as Wildrunners leaped to defend their charges against the mute and gaping creatures who clawed up from the water. Some, Dalamar saw, were the skeletons of elves, others were of ogres, goblins, and humans. Here were the dead of the last battle for Lorac Caladon's doomed kingdom, and a few yet wore bucklers and swords of their own, hoary weapons whose finest decorations were rust.
A Wildrunner shouted in pain, then in sudden terror. "E'li!" she cried, as though the name of her god must be the last thing she spent breath on. Dalamar knew her by her voice: Elisaad Windsweep, who had wondered about the mage who'd waked the land from Lorac Caladon's nightmare. "O E'li-!"
A bony arm thrust up from the water and grabbed the woman by the hair, yanking her down. Dalamar leaped across the bowed back of a rower still struggling for his oar against another of the bone-warriors. Dragged overboard, Elisaad screamed, her cry heard even above the crash of swords and the rattle of bones as the water claimed her. In the next moment, her hand broke the surface of the brown river, but her face-eyes wide and full of panic, mouth stubbornly shut against the river-showed only hazily through the turmoil of muddy water. Dalamar leaned far over the side of the skiff. Someone grabbed him by the belt and he leaned farther, reaching into the water for the drowning Wildrunner.
"There she is!" Caylain cried, holding onto Dalamar's belt with two hands now. "There!"
"Fight!" Dalamar shouted to her. "Reach for me! Give me your hand!"
Three faces looked up at him, one full of terror, two with empty eye-sockets that nonetheless left the feeling that they were filled with malice.
Swiftly, Dalamar called out a word of magic, one he hadn't used in many long years. It was not the first he'd learned-the call for light, Shirak, is ever the first a mage learns-but it was the next. It was, in itself, also a call for light, for it was a call for focus and clarity.
"Azral!" he shouted, and Elisaad's eyes went wide to hear magic from this servant, wider still to feel terror fall away from her and purpose flow in after. She surged upward, reaching for his hand, unhampered now by fear.
Skeletal jaws opened and closed in some kind of frantic speech, the brittle clattering heard even above the water's surface. It was the sound of old leaves scrabbling on midnight paths. Elisaad's hand closed tight around Dalamar's wrist, her eyes met his, bright and clear and filled with trust. Someone cursed; someone else sobbed in pain or terror.
Lord Konnal shouted, "Behind! There are more behind!"
Dalamar dared not look to see behind where. He could only hope they were not behind Caylain, for two of the undead grabbed Elisaad, one to hold her shoulders, another her legs.
Elisaad screamed.
The attackers held, and they had the same strength they might have had in life. Some elves, others old foes, all of them had a consuming hatred of the living. Dalamar pulled again, and now Elisaad's head was above water.
"Caylain!" he shouted, hanging on to Elisaad.
Caylain, pull! Caylain, don't let go! All these things he meant when he shouted, all these things the cleric understood at once. With one mighty surge, Caylain threw herself backward, dragging Dalamar, dragging Elisaad with him. The Wildrunner came up, head and shoulders, and she had a hand free to grasp the side of the wildly rocking boat. The release of resistance sent Caylain tumbling. Dalamar staggered, then reached for Elisaad again.
"Take my hand!"
She dragged herself higher out of the water, reaching. Someone came between Dalamar and her-Porthios in pursuit of a rattling, clattering foe-and her eyes went wide in horror again.
"No!" she screamed. "No-o-o-o!"
She vanished and disappeared, screaming beneath the water. Cursing, Dalamar leaped for the side of the boat. But he was too late. He reached the water's edge only in time to see the last of Elisaad, the pale oval of her face, the terror in her eyes as her lungs filled with brackish river water and the undead dragged her to her death.
Raging, Dalamar turned, and he snatched up the nearest thing he could find for a weapon-a rusted sword, the blade pitted and scarred. One, two, and three of the skeletal beings came clattering after him, jaws working but no sound issuing, their eye-sockets empty as dry wells. He swung about as though he were a warrior trained, instinctively holding the sword in a two-handed grip, not flailing but finding the same rhythm he saw Porthios using-arc and swing, for thrusting did a man no good in this kind of fight. He must swipe heads from neck and chop bony limbs from their sockets. He must dismantle in order to kill. This he did in rage, the wail of the woman stolen from his grasp like a spur to his fury.
Not until a hard hand grabbed his arm and held his swing did he stop. Not until Porthios pried the rusted sword from his grip did he look up to see that the fighting was finished, the battle won. In the fallen stillness, Dalamar heard the slap of water against the skiff, the hiss of a quickening wind in the dying reeds. Someone coughed. Someone else groaned, and he smelled blood. He looked around him and saw that two of the Wildrunners had deep wounds. The mages sat in the center of the skiff, still bowed over, still white-faced and weaving their spells.
In the moment Dalamar's glance alighted on them, Konnal's gaze touched him. Cool and narrow, that glance, glittering with suspicion as he eyed him from brown boots to dun shirt.
"Servitor," he said, "you dress strangely for a mage."
Dalamar's tongue leaped nimbly for the lie. "I haven't practiced magic since the war, my lord. I was the servant of Lord Tellin Windglimmer and served him in the Temple of E'li. He was pleased to have me learn the ways of magic. He's dead now, and no one seems to have taken as much interest." His history neatly amended, he shrugged. "No matter. I'm pleased to have remembered some little of what I learned." He glanced at the river and the calming surface of the water. Now he didn't have to feign his feeling. "I wish I had been able to do more for the Wildrunner."