Fear rose in him as empty eyesockets turned his way. They were dead or should be dead, not moving forward in silent menace, swords lashing out-
One of his hirelings snapped, “Quickly-before something else shows up!”
There followed a general rush and a frenzied hewing and hacking.
Stormserpent peered ahead into the gloom. The faint glows of old lighting spells, long unrenewed, kept the empty wing from pitch darkness, but he’d have been much happier if he’d dared bring lots of lanterns and walk along in proper brightness. In the shadows, anything could be …
Anything was. Another less-than-whole skeleton with a zombie-no, two zombies-lurching in its wake. Behind them, something dark, almost batlike, glided. One of the wraiths. Real trouble.
Marlin turned to his hirelings. “Get them!” he hissed. “There’ll be more! You and you-watch behind us and our flanks!”
He was scared, all right. He could taste it, and the excitement was making him tremble. Not that he’d have dared such a thing at all if he hadn’t had his amulet. An old family treasure that the gods alone remembered which errant ancestral Stormserpent had got and from where, that was said to render the one who wore it “immune to what undead can do, beyond purely physical woundings.”
Not that there was a Stormserpent alive who’d tested those claims. A visiting Sembian had confirmed there was “strong magic” on the nondescript, tarnished little pendant and had ventured the opinion that it should protect Marlin-but not anyone with him-against life drain, soul reaping, and other such necrotic dooms. But the Sembian had admitted that was just his guess. And it would be an idiot’s death to trust overmuch in a greedy outlander’s guess.
The skeleton was down; one shattered bone skittered past Marlin’s boots. The zombies, too, had been hewn apart by men with their teeth clenched in distaste.
The sword wraith hung back; Marlin took a step toward it and ordered, “Stand together, now. Some of these horrors can leap around.”
His hirelings were only too happy to obey; they were still drawing together into a shuffling ring, holding their swords very carefully to keep from slicing each other, when what the wraith had been waiting for appeared.
Down the passage toward them came a helmed and armored warrior with gray, dead flesh, and eyes that blazed with an eerie emerald glow. More of that glow flickered and played around its arms and shanks as it stalked forward, moving far more like a living warrior than the undead they’d faced thus far.
“It’s just one guardsman and what used to be a highknight,” Marlin announced dismissively. “Hack yon greeneyes apart, but keep your eye on the wraith. The highknights were used to sneaking and stabbing, not facing down bands of armed men. As long as we keep at it, once it’s alone, we can take it easily. Just keep hacking.”
He proved to be right. The hirelings hacked in frantic fear the wight went down swiftly, literally cut apart as it fought and the wraith tried to stab and whirl away, only to find itself pursued and hewn down.
Well, then. It was proving easy.
Moreover, the wraith had tried something on Marlin with its sword-a blade that had seemed almost a part of it, a thin line of shadow no different than the rest-that had numbed and chilled him for a breath-snatching moment … then simply had faded away. A warmth spread from his amulet and steadied him.
Well, then. Not that the heir of House Stormserpent saw any need to tell his hirelings about the amulet, nor that he felt any more emboldened then when they’d first gathered.
“We go on,” he ordered. “I’m not expecting the gold to be just lying around. If we’re to find it at all, we’ll need time enough to really search. Let’s find and destroy the rest of these walking dead.”
He doubted very much they’d find any gold at all, or prisoners-being as he’d invented all of that earlier this evening, above the gleam of the silver finery on the feast table. Just as he’d invented the “ball of spellplague in the little coffer” to lure the Royal Magician away from Dragontriumph Hall. Word of which had passed from his hired informant to the ear of War Wizard Vainrence, who’d sent word on to his superior Ganrahast via the understeward of the palace … it was nice to know war wizards could be just as gullible as anyone else.
Not that Marlin was bothered about what these hirelings might think; very few of them were likely to live long enough for their opinions about anything to matter.
They advanced through the haunted wing in a small, tight band around him, confident and quiet, ready for trouble.
Marlin allowed himself a small smile and the words, “Good work. I’ll have more of it for you all, soon enough.”
Empty promises were always a useful tool.
He had no intention of trusting in these sword-brawn swindlers after that night. Not if he could control even a few of the Nine.
The Nine. The blueflame ghosts …
He couldn’t wait to have them at his beck and call, to send into danger like this on his behalf.
Very soon, he’d have two of them. The Flying Blade had long been a treasure of his family, and he knew where the Wyverntongue Chalice was.
He could almost taste the power.
Lothrae had promised. Until together they controlled four or more of the Nine, those they did have would be Marlin’s to command as he saw fit-and, by the Dragon Throne, there was a lot he planned to do with them before that fourth ghost was found!
Below, in the deep gloom, Marlin Stormserpent and his band of hirelings advanced cautiously along the great passage that ran down the heart of the haunted wing.
Princess Alusair turned from the rail of the balcony where she’d been watching them, as swiftly as if she’d been thrusting a sword.
“I could kill all these fools in less time than it would take you to get down yon stairs to hail them,” she hissed. “Why shouldn’t I? Why, Old Mage?
Why?”
The chill emanating from her made Elminster’s teeth chatter, but he stood his ground. “I know how ye feel, lass.”
“Seething,” she snapped. “That’s how I feel, right now. So put an arm around my shoulder and soothe me, wizard. Or by my father’s sword, I’ll be down from this balcony and killing them all, before you can-”
“Easy, Alusair. Easy,” he murmured, doing just as she’d bade him. His arm encountered nothing solid, only a terrible cold. A flesh-freezing chill that made him stagger, yet he tried to hold her comfortingly. And failed.
Alusair watched him stumble back against the nearest pillar, gray and gasping. Her face was not friendly.
“Not yet, lass,” he muttered at her when he could speak again. “There’ll come a time to smite these worms, to be sure. Probably not long from now.”
She glared at him. “Not yet, not now, await the right time … how can you be so farruking patient, Old Mage?”
Elminster shrugged, looking back at her with eyes that blazed with the same rage that was almost choking her.
“It helps,” he whispered fiercely, “to be insane.”
“They seem rather disappointed to find only dark emptiness, shrouded furniture, and a distinct lack of chained maidens, imprisoned nobles, and heaps of gold,” Alusair said tartly, a little later. “Poor little pillagers.”
She peered down from a high balcony in the last room of the haunted wing. Young Lord Stormserpent seemed to be tugging something out of an inner pocket in the breast of his darkly fashionable jerkin. “What’s he up to now?”
Elminster shrugged. “That’s a map, so I’d say he’s now going to tour the palace in search of a magic he thinks is hidden here.”
“One of his precious Nine? Can’t I kill him now? Really, El! You may not care what is stolen or despoiled in these halls, but this is my home-I care very much!”