Borran Kiosk stood on the flying deck of Mistress Talia as storm winds blew them into Alagh?n's harbor. His rapacious tongue flicked out, tasting fear in the air. Hundreds of lanterns and torches lined the dockyards. Men armed with bows occupied positions on top of the buildings. The men ringing the bells kept up their awful racket. "It would have been better," Allis said, "if you had not let them see you coming." "Sneaking back to Alagh?n like some thief in the night is not how I wanted to return in my moment of glory and triumph," Borran Kiosk said, gazing at the sight of the frightened people taking a stance against him to save their city. He drank in their intoxicating fear. "All those years ago, they thought they had beaten me. They needed to know before I got back that they had failed." The bells continued to ring, and the cacophony of harsh noise drew Borran Kiosk's ire. Using the powers granted to him by the Glove of Malar, as he'd come to think of the device, he reached into the minds of some of the men aboard Mistress Talia. Two dozen corpses leaped from the ship's side and hit the dark water. They disappeared without a trace, swimming deep. The warning towers stood in the harbor, as they had when Borran Kiosk preyed on Alagh?n in his human life. Crafted of mortised stone, the three towers stood as narrow pinnacles with lookouts for the harbor patrol and the watch stationed atop them. With the military district so close by onshore, there was seldom any trouble in the harbor. Commerce was the primary interest in Alagh?n, and nothing was allowed to interfere with that. Allis stood at Borran Kiosk's side. Her features altered as she shifted into the half-human/half-spider shape. She wasn't like the rest of the dark troops the mohrg had gathered-she still feared death. Borran Kiosk enjoyed that savory tidbit from her, and it only whetted his appetite for what awaited him on shore and deeper into Alagh?n. One of the warning tower bells started ringing in a haphazard manner, no longer bonging sonorously. Turning his attention to the suddenly silent tower, Borran Kiosk spied the drowned ones that had seized the two men manning the tower. The men screamed in terror, but it didn't last long. The sea zombies easily overpowered both men. One of the drowned ones swung a man by his heels and smashed his head against the stone structure. Blood, the color of black bile, ran down the masonry. The drowned one tossed the dead man into the harbor. The two drowned ones, at Borran Kiosk's silent command, cut the rope securing the bell and shoved it off into the water as well. In short order, the other bells dropped into the harbor too, preceded by the men who stood guard there. It was a waste, Borran Kiosk reflected as he watched first one dead man then the other plunge below the surface of the dark water, but then, once he'd destroyed all of Alagh?n he would be able to raise up the newly-fallen dead and build an even larger army to take over all of Turmish. Allis flinched as archers along the docks set fire to arrows and drew them back. When the archers unleashed their shafts, they leaped into the air like a hundred miniature comets. Some of the fire arrows went out before they reached the ships. Others missed the two vessels completely and extinguished in the harbor, but a number of the fiery projectiles found new homes in the sails, decks, and bodies of the undead. Savage hunger filled the mohrg as he reached into the mind of the undead sailor manning the wheel. He made certain the man was staying on course. All the sails were up, and the storm winds blew them toward the harbor at top speed. His long, purple tongue whipped the air before him, watching as the army standing along Alagh?n's docks waited to die. "These fools only see two ships filled with undead bearing down on them," Borran Kiosk said. "Wait until they know the truth." He plucked a flaming arrow from between his bare ribs and tossed it into the harbor.
*****