The warriors' blades made little more than writhing parts of the bleakborn. They kicked the pieces away from one another, spitting in disgust while at the same time muttering prayers of peace for their cursed brethren.
As Bastun rested, he noticed a change in the eyes of the fang. They gathered and made signs of warding. A handful of the sellswords stood at the edge of the enclosure, staring blankly into a distant nowhere. Bastun recalled hearing the durthans dark spell and looked upon the mindless dead she had made of her own men.
"Abominations!" Thaena shouted.
"Perhaps," Anilya countered. "But abominations that tipped the odds in our favor." Several of the bleakborn lay smashed at the zombies' feet.
"This is not our way," said Thaena. "To win at any cost, inviting evil such as this to darken our doorstep!"
"And our alliance?" Anilya replied, crossing her arms. "Is one cost more acceptable than another?"
"We will make allowances for the living as need dictates," the ethran said, "but we will not resort to fouling the laws of nature. Shandaular bears curse enough without your help."
The ethran turned back to the fang, pointing at the Shield's doors.
"Get those open," she ordered, then faced Anilya again, gesturing at the undead. "Burn them."
Their masks, night and day, displayed a conflict far beyond the mere use of necromancy. Anilya broke the stare, glancing sidelong at her creations.
"Fine," she said calmly, then added before turning away, "But in the future you might do well to consider the costs of defeat."
Ohriman followed the durthan, lighting a torch and descending to the courtyard behind the walking dead.
Looking west Bastun searched through the fog, now growing lighter as dawn neared. High above in the northwest tower he spotted a faint pinpoint of flickering light, like an earthbound star dying and choking in Shandaular's misty cloak.
"Old blood," he muttered, recalling the shaman's words. The Creel had indeed come with some knowledge of the Shield's secrets. Briefly Bastun wondered if it had been they who had invaded the Running Rocks, stolen the scrolls, and slain old Keffrass. Even with the scrolls, the Breath's location was a mystery, known only to a select few among the wychlaren and vremyonni, but his sense of urgency was nonetheless jolted by the thought. He started as the doors creaked open behind him.
The smell of smoke drew his gaze to the durthan on the steps below, the dead standing at mute attention as they were set aflame. They did not move, feeling no pain as their cold flesh charred and fell away, slowly revealing skull-grins and emptied sockets before falling one by one to the ground. He caught the durthans eye, her mask aglow in the flames' light.
Troubled by the connection in that stare, he turned toward the opening doors, away from the smell of burning flesh and the flashing eyes of Anilya.
Burning cinders floated through the air around Anilya, but she paid them no mind. The vremyonni was a far more intriguing subject than the wasteful destruction of perfectly good bodies. He turned away from her and she smiled, wondering how the presence of this exile could be used to her advantage.
Steam hissed from the snow as Ohriman tossed the torch away.
"This ethran is a fool, Anilya," he said. "The zombies would have made excellent shields if the Creel choose to attack again."
"True enough," she answered, "but they were a mistake. A useful one to be sure, but not one I shall repeat."
"This alliance you've forged for us is teetering on a very precarious edge. We should have gone on without the Rashemi or killed them when we had the chance."
"No, Ohriman." She turned to face him. "The Rashemi may be dangerous, but they are loyal to the wychlaren above all else. They will prove useful in time."
"What of these swords-for-hire?" he asked, glancing toward the men at the top of the stairs. "How can we be sure they'll follow through with this? Mere coin cannot buy that kind of loyalty."
"Their rations and wine are drugged," she said. "A derivative of Theskian thrallwine. It will keep them under control and, fortunately, not very bright."
"And the vremyonni? He knows something, I can taste it in his scent."
Anilya did not answer right away, though she was concerned about Bastun's knowledge as well. Looking back up the stairs she could see the tops of the Shield's doors opening. She could imagine what they might find inside. Dealing with the wychlaren was a nuisance. She despised their xenophobic views of the outside world. Rashemen was a land of power and the wychlaren merely caretakers until someone with more lust for battle came along to take it from them.
A shower of sparks and steam rose as another of the zombies collapsed into the snow to smolder and pop.
"Perhaps you are right," she said at length, looking at the flickering window in the northwest tower. "Keep a close watch on the exile. Do not let him out of your sight."
"You think he knows?"
"He is vremyonni," she said. "Musty old tomes and ancient knowledge are their lives."
"Pity for them," he replied. "No wonder he's leaving."
"People abandon their homes for many reasons, Ohriman," she said quietly, more to herself than the tiefling, as she studied the high walls and towers of the Shield. "Not the least of which is the idea of returning… to make it stronger than it was before."
Ohriman raised an eyebrow, then smiled. "You haven't drugged me, have you?"
Her hand shot out, gripping his neck, but quickly turning to a soft caress as she pressed her body against his.
"If I had, you wouldn't have asked."
She placed a finger across his lips as the smoke and ash of the dead swirled around them.
And Narfell rose, by demon's crown, to ruin Ashanath,
An empire born, Thargaun's glory, in ash of Shandaular,
But the Nentyarch's prince, cold and cruel, the youngest of his heirs, Remained within the broken Shield, his battle not yet done.
The walls were drowned in blood and ice; the towers filled with bones. Soldiers slain, forgotten names, to die for their king in vain,
As Narfell s prince marched through the halls to search among the dead. Within the walls, inside the halls; to steal the
Breath, to seal the Death Of the Shield and speak the Word. Of the Shield and speak the Word.
— excerpt from the Firedawn Cycle, canto XI
Chapter Eight
Bastun entered the hall of the Shield cautiously, taking in the high columns and their arching tops, the intricate stonework that had escaped the magical cold outside, and finally the grim scene of death that lay upon the floor. Few spoke as the Rashemi filed inside behind their ethran. Those that did whispered quiet prayers of peace for the dead. Thaena stood as still as the columns that lined the old hall, unmoving and resolute.
Bodies lay strewn across the floor. Most still gripped the great axes favored by warriors of the Bear Lodge. Bastun viewed each with a grief that bordered on anger. He kept to the edges of the chamber, kneeling here and there to peer at scuff marks in the dust and the scratches on stone. He took note of all entrances to the hall. Aside from the main entrance and two side passages, there seemed to be no other way in-nothing obvious, at least. None of these could accommodate the force that must have been fought here, not in such a manner as to slay so many and leave none behind to lie alongside the Rashemi.
More torches were lit as warriors filed past the dead, each performing their own rites of farewell to brethren lost in battle. Thaena approached the center of the bodies and knelt before a prone form that stood out starkly among the others.