Forge of the Mindslayers: Blade of the Flame Book 2 (26 page)

They walked for some time across Demothi’s barren landscape without encountering any signs of life beyond the dry grass and twisted trees dotting the island. No animals, no birds, no lizards—nothing—yet Ghaji couldn’t shake the feeling that numerous eyes were monitoring their progress—malicious, hungry eyes.

Ghaji was so caught up in his thoughts that he nearly jumped when Diran spoke.

“This is it—the place where the evil that permeates this island is centered.”

Diran pointed toward a dark object silhouetted against the night sky. The object was perhaps six, seven feet tall and wrought in the rough shape of a man. Ghaji was no priest, but now that they were this close, he could feel the waves of malevolent power emanating from the man-shaped obelisk.

“What is it?” Though he didn’t intend to, Ghaji spoke in a hushed voice.

“I’m not sure. I’m not as familiar with the legends of this part of the Principalities as I am with others. Still, I vaguely recall reading something once about a dark priest who sailed to an island … a priest who was transformed into stone.” Diran stepped closer to the stone figure to examine it. Ghaji made to accompany his friend, but Diran held up a hand to stop him.

“I appreciate your willingness to follow me, Ghaji, but it’s best if only I approach.”

Though he knew Diran was only taking a precaution, and a sensible one at that, Ghaji nevertheless felt a surge of anger at the suggestion he hang back. Remaining out of harm’s way while a companion strode forth into danger was not the orc way, and it wasn’t Ghaji’s.

As if sensing his friend’s feelings, Diran said, “Please. If this object is as powerful as I suspect, I’ll need all my skill and power just to protect myself. I won’t be able to safeguard us both.”

Ghaji wanted to argue that he could look after himself just fine, thank you, but in the end he recognized the wisdom of Diran’s words, gritted his teeth, and nodded.

Diran gave his friend a grateful smile before turning and walking toward the stone figure once more. Ghaji remained standing where he was, but he kept his axe at the ready, prepared to command it to burst into flame the instant anything even looked as if it was about to go wrong.

When he was within a foot of the statue Diran stopped, raised his free hand, and held it above the stone surface of the figure. Formed of the same dark rocky substance as the island, it didn’t look as if it had been carved so much as arisen naturally from the surface of Demothi. While the statue possessed rudimentary human features—head, torso, arms, and legs—from the knees down it was nothing more than a mound of rock. The eyes were its most striking feature. Glittering black gems as large as an egg protruded from the statue’s stony sockets.

“This is indeed the center of the evil on Demothi,” Diran said. “The power radiates from this figure down through the ground and then spreads throughout the entire island, perhaps even extending for some distance beyond its shores, but for what purpose, I cannot say.”

Ghaji heard a shuffling noise from behind him, and he whirled around to see what had caused it, elemental axe erupting in flame as he spun. The sudden light from his blazing weapon momentarily
rendered his night vision useless, but his eyes quickly adjusted, and he saw a staggering humanoid shape lurching out of the night toward them. The creature was a bloated, wet thing, flesh puffy and discolored, body draped with dangling strands of seaweed. Its eyes and tongue were long gone, in their place clusters of tiny crabs that used the dead thing’s skull as a home. The rancid stink of the creature assaulted Ghaji’s nose—a sour reek of saltwater, dead fish, and rotting vegetation. It was fortunate that the half-orc hadn’t eaten lately, because the gagging stench would’ve caused him to empty the contents of his stomach right then and there.

“Walking dead man,” Ghaji said. He relaxed a bit upon seeing the undead creature shambling toward them. He’d encountered such creatures during his time as a soldier in the Last War, and he’d fought even more alongside Diran since then, though offhand he couldn’t remember seeing any quite as disgusting as this one. Still, the living corpses, while unpleasant, were easy enough to dispatch. Diran could always repell the creature with his priestly powers, and if for some reason that didn’t suffice, Ghaji’s axe would make fast work of it.

“Don’t you mean dead
men?”
Diran asked.

For a moment, Ghaji didn’t understand what his friend was talking about. Then he noticed that the water-logged zombie wasn’t alone. He’d brought some friends with him—several dozen, from the look of it. Ghaji squinted as he peered into the night beyond his axe’s fiery illumination. Make that several
hundred
. The half-orc turned in a slow circle and saw that an entire army of walking dead was coming toward them from all directions, shuffling, stumbling, moving with spastic, jerky motions as if they were ill-fashioned marionettes controlled by a puppeteer with severe arthritis. While they varied in size and race—humans, elves, dwarves, shifters, gnomes, changlings—they were all in the same bloated, wet condition as the first zombie Ghaji had seen.

“It would appear that Demothi Island is a trap of sorts,” Diran said, his tone emotionless and cool. “The undead wait underwater off shore, and once visitors reach the center of the island and are cut off from their vessel, the foul things rise forth to slay them. Clever.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your admiration,” Ghaji said. “Please tell me that you can repell a horde of zombies.”

“We’ll find out.” Diran still held a silver dagger in one hand, and with the other he reached into a tunic pocket and brought forth the arrowhead-shaped object that was the symbol of his order. He held the silver arrowhead out toward the closest of the advancing sea-zombies and the metal glowed with an aura of blue-white light.

“In the name of the Silver Flame, I command you to turn aside!” Diran’s voice boomed out, far louder than normal. Ghaji wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the priest’s words could be heard echoing across the entire island.

Several of the undead creatures stopped, hesitated, then resumed shambling forward.

Diran scowled. The aura shimmering around the silver arrowhead blazed more brightly, and this time when he spoke, his voice was loud as thunder.

“Be gone!”

The zombies didn’t even pause.

The light surrounding the arrowhead winked out, and Diran lowered the holy symbol to his side. “The evil power emanating from the statue is too strong. We have no choice. Fight or die.”

“I’ve been making that choice since the day I drew my first breath,” Ghaji said. Elemental axe held high with its flames trailing bright against the night sky, the half-orc ran forward to meet the first wave of walking dead.

Diran watched his friend hack zombies apart. Normally, undead flesh was dry, which made Ghaji’s flaming axe a perfect weapon, but these zombies had come from the sea, and their skin, while just as lifeless as that of any other undead creature, was too wet to burn. Indeed, their entire bodies were suffused with saltwater, and only magical fire of a very high order could harm them. Too bad Tresslar wasn’t here. He might well have a powerful flame spell stored in his dragonwand.

Diran drew another silver dagger from his cloak and turned to face the zombies approaching on his right. He’d had a great deal of experience fighting the undead, and not just as a priest. During the Last War, Karrnath had fielded armies of undead soldiers. The acolytes in the Brotherhood of the Blade employed zombies for quite a different purpose: as living mannequins on which to practice their deadly arts, so Diran was well aware that this was the sort of battle in which he was next to useless. If he couldn’t repel the zombies by channeling the power of the Silver Flame, there was little else he could do. He could hurl one dagger after the other with deadly accuracy, but it would scarcely matter if his targets weren’t alive in the first place. One zombie he could handle by deftly slicing through undead muscles and tendons until the creature, though still possessed of its mockery of a life, was unable to move, but more than one zombie came at them now, many, many more. Diran knew that if he and Ghaji were going to make it off Demothi Island alive, he would have to use his mind instead of his blades.

Ghaji grunted and Diran watched his friend slice through the torsos of three zombies with his axe. The top halves of the undead creatures flopped to the ground, but the bottom halves stood there for a moment as if stunned. The trunks and legs then began stumbling around erratically, lost without even the simple commands of a rotted zombie brain to give them direction. Ghaji
ignored the meandering legs and attacked the next zombie that came at him.

Diran was grateful that none of the undead was recently reanimated, else their bodies would be too fresh and they’d move far more swiftly than these water-logged abominations, but even at their slow, shuffling pace, Diran estimated that he had only a few moments more before any of the zombies reached him. He’d have to think fast.

While Diran didn’t know the specific details of the evil priest’s identity or his motivations for raising an army of the dead, it was clear that something had gone wrong during the process. Maybe the priest was supposed to have been transformed into stone so that he would become the focal point for the necromantic energies that powered the army of sea-dead. If the statue was the source of the magic that animated the zombies, perhaps they could be stopped by destroying the statue.

Diran examined the stone figure of the evil priest once more, trying to determine if it had an obvious weak point. The dark gems that served in place of eyes? Doubtful. More than likely they were there in order to lure foolish treasure-seekers, greedy artificers, or power-hungry priests to the island. Diran wouldn’t be surprised if there was a curse on the gems as well, but what else could there be? The statue had no other obvious features. No runes were carved into its surface, and there were no others gems or items of any sort embedded in the stone.

Diran glanced away from the statue and saw that a zombie—one with limp octopus tentacles dangling out of its open mouth—was nearly upon him. His thinking time was up.

After the priest’s transformation, the statue had remained in human shape. Perhaps that was a hint as to its weakness. With no time left to consider, Diran gripped the silver dagger in his right hand tight and concentrated on summoning the power of the Silver Flame, willing the power to suffuse the dagger.
Argent light blazed forth from the blade. Diran stepped forward, and using all his strength, he rammed the knife into the statue’s chest. The impact sent a jolt of pain shooting through his hand and up along his arm, and he released the dagger’s hilt. He stepped back and saw that an inch or so of the blade had penetrated the statue, but that was all. The dagger still shone with the power of the Silver Flame, though, and Diran could sense the statue’s evil aura reacting to the holy energy, massing its strength at the point of penetration and attempting to nullify the blade. Diran could also sense that if he didn’t do something more and do it fast, the statue would succeed in resisting the Silver Flame.

Diran turned to call out to Ghaji, but his voice was choked off as a pair of slime-coated hands fastened around his throat. The priest found himself staring into the empty eye sockets of the tentacle-mouthed zombie. The undead creature possessed strength far greater than that of a normal zombie, undoubtedly due to its proximity to the ebon statue. Diran felt the creature’s hands tightening around his throat, heard a roaring in his ears as the blood to his head was cut off, saw gray closing in on the edges of his vision, and he knew he was on the verge of death.

Diran still held a dagger in his left hand, and as his consciousness ebbed, he sliced at the zombie’s right wrist with a single swift strike, then sliced its left. Instead of blood, brackish seawater spilled from the wounds, but Diran knew the injuries wouldn’t pain the zombie. Despite the damage done to the zombie’s wrists, the slimy fingers clasped around Diran’s throat did not lose their strength. Consciousness began to ebb, and Diran prepared for his spirit to join with the Silver Flame.

Then a swatch of darkness detached itself from the night and swooped down to the zombie throttling Diran. His vision was too blurry for him to make out what the thing was, but it grabbed hold of the zombie’s shoulders and yanked the undead
creature away from the Diran. The zombie’s skeletal fingers scratched Diran’s neck as its grip was broken, and the priest drew in a gasping breath. He could feel himself on the verge of passing out, but he held onto consciousness through sheer force of will. He looked around to see who or what had saved him, but he only saw Ghaji some yards away, the half-orc swinging his elemental axe in great fiery arcs as he annihiliated one zombie after another.

Diran didn’t have time to worry about how he had been saved. The zombies had to be stopped. He tried to call out Ghaji’s name, but the word came out as little more than a raspy whisper. He sucked in another breath and tried again. “Ghaji! Drive home the dagger!”