"Favrid always believed in redundant protection," Zalyn added with a smirk, "and Cavadrec believed in the permanence and inevitable power of death. Favrid and I underestimated the Buried One, and we must hope he underestimates us as well."
Pell, the elf whose home this was, spoke for the first time. The man’s voice was strident and inflected with something that told the elf woman he would welcome death himself if not for the presence of his family.
"Animals. That's what happened to us. The village was overrun with rats, a swarm of them. They came out all at once. Everyone they bit became a…I don't know what." Pell's soulless lack of emotion reminded Mialee of a clay golem. "I've seen wights, we all have. The rats, they didn't make people into wights. They're worse, they're rotten corpses. They eat anything, including each other. It's something slow. A wight kills you, you become a wight. This . . . you watch someone rot before your eyes. They just leave, and you're left with…you're left.. ."The robed man trailed off and he pulled his thirimin and remaining child close. It was apparent what happened to those bitten by the undead rodents, and equally apparent Pell had seen it happen to his own progeny.
Zalyn frowned. "His creations have certain powers of both wight and zombie-semi-intelligent 'wightlings,' if you will. It's what Favrid called them," Zalyn said. "Like wights, the Buried One's minions can convert a living being into creatures like themselves, but wights must completely kill the living thing to do so. Cavadrec concocted a necromantic technique that causes eventual conversion from a single bite. The victim need not die. However, the effect does take time. Minutes in the worst cases, hours in others."
"The rats went for the Rangers first, while they slept," Clayn said. "They took the barracks completely by surprise. My men and I, and maybe three or four other units, were in the field on patrol or we would have been caught, too. As it is, I am the last ranger in Silatham that I know of." He glanced at Soveliss. "Until now."
Devis turned back to Zalyn, puzzled. "You said you buried this guy, Cadavrink or whoever, in an elf body. But that was no elf we fought on the road. It was a wight. At least, it looked like a wight, but it was far more powerful than any other I've heard of."
"Yes, it is something we feared, but never believed Cavadrec would be mad enough to try. I know not how, but he inhabits a wight body. This is unexpected, and complicates matters even more. Favrid, I think, somehow held out a small belief that when the Buried One finally saw his destruction staring him in the face, our old friend Cava would return to us. But Cava, it appears, is completely gone, having joined the ranks of the undead. I believe he means never to breathe air again. That is why my thirimin is captive now."
Mialee scribbled and handed a note to Devis. "He expected to find either a living elfin a fresh body or an old elfin an old body," the bard read, and added on his own, "but he got jumped by a Cavadnik in a wight body."
Responding to some distant sound only he heard, Clayn turned and pressed his eyes to the slit in the boarded window.
"Elder, I think-"
That was all he managed to say before a fat, oily, hollow-eyed rat wriggled through the crack and scrambled atop the man's golden helm.
Then rats were streaming into the room from every conceivable crevice. Little Nialma, Pell's daughter, screamed. Smoking wightling rodents wriggled around the open flames in the fireplace, forcing Pell's terrified family to stumble to the center of the room. His wife Delia nearly collided with Clayn, who flung the helm off with his left hand and brandished a long sword in the other. Soveliss had both swords out even faster, and he skewered the rat and Clayn's helmet with the Mor-Hakar. Devis scrambled to his feet, knocking his lute to the floor with an atonal clamor of strings as he struggled to free his sword. Hound-Eye nailed a rat to the floor with his pick. Mialee plucked the wand from her belt in a heartbeat. She dared not risk speaking a spell, but she could mentally invoke the missiles in the wand. With her right hand, she drew her rapier and batted at another chittering rodent. Zalyn, as near as Mialee could tell, was doing absolutely nothing but standing like a statue.
Slow, insistent thuds resounded through the little room's weird acoustics. Mialee thought it sounded like a dozen drunks trying to open a tavern after closing time. Several of the boards nailed haphazardly over the round windows snapped, and gray, ragged, half-rotten arms clawed the air inside their sanctuary.
Mialee gritted her teeth, kicking a hollow-eyed rat off her boot with a snarl. The last living people in Silatham tensed for the inevitable intrusion of the walking dead. She held the wand overhead and sent a small missile blast into an unseen body at the end of one of the grasping hands. A scream and flash of flame outside the window testified that she hit her mark.
Zalyn finally moved. The little elf, her back to Mialee, raised the golden symbol of Ehlonna overhead. "Ehlonna hinue, mormhaor shan!" the tiny cleric bellowed in a booming, supernatural voice.
Metallic, gold-flecked, green energy shot in every direction from the holy icon. Mialee felt gentle coolness spread through her body in the hot, confined space.
Every rat in the room burst with a splatter of orange fire and hot gore. They flamed into cinders within seconds, leaving smoldering guts all over the room. An unholy chorus of hideous, rasping shrieks erupted around the tiny little house, and the mangled talons flailing into the room jerked back as one. Many of them, Mialee noted with disgust, left dripping strips of flesh hanging from jagged boards. Even a few clawed hands dropped to the floor and twitched momentarily before flaming out like the rats.
Zalyn turned and faced the wizard. She looked suddenly drawn and frail, and her breathing was heavy and erratic. Still, her eyes twinkled as she spoke.
"I've given you all a lot to take in. There is more, but the night has already gone on far too long. Ehlonna will give us her protection for a few more days. We all need rest. Tomorrow, we can discuss plans."
Mialee retrieved her charcoal and paper, which had fallen to the floor. She scribbled.
"Favrid?" Zalyn asked, and looked like her heart would break. "He knows the Buried One dare not kill him for a few more days. As I said, he has grown very stubborn in his old age. As long as Darji remains, I will know he lives. And as long as Favrid lives, there is hope. Think on that, child. One thing, though."
Mialee nodded.
Zalyn pointed to Mialee's pack, resting under the table. "I'd recommend you meditate, then take time to study and prepare yourself. We will rest, and soon, you will recover you words. You must."
A sober hush fell over their little band of survivors. The only sounds that reached Mialee's ears were of the crackling fire, the bawling of the terrified little girl, the distantly screaming zombies, and the reverberating thuds of Clayn and Soveliss pounding the barricade back into place with the butts of their swords.
22
Mialee sneezed twice into her spellbook and went into another coughing fit. Devis sat on the floor beside her, noodling around with a new ballad on his lute, and sympathized. Between the festering rat residues already buzzing with tiny flies, the days-old gore encrusting everyone's clothes, and the foul, but necessary, waste bucket in the corner, drawing breath in their little sanctuary was a dangerous adventure. Devis set aside the lute and opened his leather vest. Most of his under-tunic was still clean, at least relatively so. He shrugged and tore two wide strips from the bottom, tied one around his own nose and mouth-winced at how long it had been since he'd taken a bath-and offered the other to Mialee. She looked at the rag with distaste, but relented after she sneezed violently one more time.
"Thistle-" Mialee frowned, and said more slowly, "Thanks, garlic."