Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) (35 page)

“No,” said Morgant. The gem in the hilt of his dagger radiated a pale red glow. Three times he had thrown the blade into the charging mass of the Immortals, and three times it had exploded with the stolen heat of its victims. The weapon’s power had proven instrumental in holding back the Immortals. Thankfully the Hall of Forges was well-ventilated, else they might well have asphyxiated from the smoke by now. “Rolukhan has a trick coming, I suspect.” 

“I agree,” said Kylon. “They’re up to something.”

Laertes frowned. “Rolukhan has enough Immortals to sweep us aside.”

One of the smiths, a burly Anshani man named Najar, spat upon the floor. He had scavenged a cuirass and a shield from a dead Immortal, and wielded a massive sledgehammer with his right hand. “Aye, but we’ve spilled the blood of many Immortals, and they’re not so cheap that the Lieutenant will spend them freely. If he loses too many Immortals, he might have to answer to the Grand Master.” Najar spat again. “Can’t imagine he wants to get in trouble with the Grand Master.” 

“Actually,” said Nerina, peering through the hazy gloom, “I think they are constructing something. I saw four Immortals carrying a pair of timbers and three steel gears.” 

“A battering ram, perhaps?” said Nasser. 

“What would be the point of a ram?” said Malcolm. Dried blood marked his face, some of it his own. Nerina hovered behind him with her crossbow, her expression tight and frightened. She was a devilishly good shot with that crossbow, and had accounted for a half a dozen Immortals during the two attacks. “It is not as if we have a decent barricade, and if you three did not fight with such power, we would have all been killed in the first attack.”

“A catapult, then,” said Morgant. 

“I think they were carrying torsion gears,” said Nerina.

“A catapult, though,” said Malcolm. “Why? That does not make any sense. It would be easy to dodge the missiles from here…”

Suddenly the emotional sense of the hundreds of Immortals gathered in the Hall of Flames changed, and the realization struck Kylon like a sword blow.

“Not a missile,” he said. “Hellfire. They’re going to throw amphorae of Hellfire at us.”

He looked back at the barracks.

At the wooden barracks. 

“Get away from the barracks!” shouted Kylon. “Quickly! Move! They’re going to set it aflame! Go!”

The smiths, to their credit, did not hesitate. They ran at Kylon’s command, moving deeper into the Hall of Forges, closer to the stairs spiraling to the Halls of the Dead. At that same moment Kylon heard a loud click from the Hall of Flames, and something small and dark shot overhead and smashed against the wall of the barracks, just over the door.

“Faster!” shouted Kylon. 

A smear of thick crimson slime dribbled down the front of the barracks. Kylon felt arcane power gathering within it, strong and crazed and wild. The liquid began to glow, and he followed his own advice and ran after the others. 

The front of the barracks erupted into howling crimson flames. The barracks had been well-constructed of sturdy wood, but the Hellfire tore through the thick planks as if they were dry leaves. In a matter of seconds the blood-colored fire engulfed the barracks, filling the Hall of Forges with hellish light. The awful heat of the fire beat upon Kylon’s face, and he would have worked a minor spell of ice to protect himself, if not for the certainty that he would need all his strength to fight. 

“The Lieutenant’s going to burn us out!” said Najar, looking back and forth. 

“Or force us towards the entrance,” said Nasser. 

“Where the Immortals can cut us down at leisure,” said Kylon.

Another clang ran out, and a second amphora shot through the air. This time the missile was less accurate, and the amphora shattered a few yards before the blazing barracks. Hellfire spattered for a dozen yards in all directions, igniting a moment later. The fire even burned into the stone, leaving carving smoking pits in the floor. 

“If we stay here, we shall be burned alive,” said Laertes. 

“Perhaps we can retreat into the Halls of the Dead and hold out there,” said Nasser. 

“To rise again as undead, chained to the Halls for all time?” said Najar. “Better to burn alive. No, let us die upon the swords of the Immortals. Less painful than burning.”

Nasser sighed. “Then it seems we have little choice. We shall have to charge the Immortals and cut our way out.”

Najar scoffed. “Perhaps the Living Flame shall descend and aid us, too.”

Kylon opened his mouth to argue, but he saw that Nasser was right. They had no other choice, which was exactly as Rolukhan intended. The Master Alchemist had left Kylon and the others with exactly three choices. They could stay here and burn to death from amphora after amphora of Hellfire. They could retreat to the Halls of the Dead and perish beneath the ancient wrath of the undead. Perhaps they might stumble on Caina and Annarah in time to shield beneath their pyrikons, but that seemed a slim chance.

Or they could try to cut their way out. They might win free and make it to the gate, but more likely the Immortals would kill them all.

“So be it,” said Nasser, raising his voice. “Prepare…”

The Inferno shuddered around them, the walls and floor trembling, and the vast fortress seemed to ring like a gong. For an awful instant Kylon thought that an earthquake had ripped through the mountain, strong enough to collapse the entire Inferno into ruin. 

No. It was something he had sensed, something that had brushed against his arcane senses. Whatever it had been, it had been powerful enough that the others had sensed it as well. The smiths looked at each other with unease. 

“You felt that, too?” said Kylon.

“It was as if the ground shifted beneath my sandals,” said one of the smiths. 

“No,” said Kylon. “It was a sorcerous disturbance.” Had Rolukhan cast a mighty spell? Though if Rolukhan had that kind of power, he could have killed them all with ease. 

“Of what nature?” said Nasser.

“I don’t know,” said Kylon. “I…”

He fell silent as something else occurred to him. The Inferno was saturated with mighty sorcerous auras. One came from the Hellfire engine laboring at the base of the Hall of Flames, while the second came from the necromantic spells of ancient Maat in the Halls of the Dead. 

Yet now the auras were changing.

“The necromantic aura,” said Kylon. “The spell upon the Halls of the Dead. It’s…moving.”

“Moving?” said Morgant. 

“That should not possible,” said Nasser.

“Regardless, the aura is moving,” said Kylon. 

A sound reached his ears, faint and scratchy, yet growing louder and louder. It sounded like…screaming. Not screams of pain, but shrieks of rage and fury. It sounded like a battle, like thousands of men screaming as they charged at the foe. 

“What is happening?” said Nerina. 

“I don’t know,” said Kylon. 

A shout came from the Hall of Flames, and Immortals boiled through the archway, hundreds of them. Whatever was happening, Rolukhan didn’t recognize it, either. Likely he thought it was something of Caina’s or Kylon’s doing.

So the Master Alchemist was going to kill them before the new threat could materialize. 

“Defend yourselves!” said Nasser, and the weary blacksmiths raised their weapons, their stolen armor flashing in the crimson light of the burning Hellfire. Kylon raised the valikon, the sigils shining white in response to Rolukhan’s nagataaru. He wondered if he would get a chance to strike down Rolukhan before he died. The Red Huntress had escaped him, and Cassander Nilas was beyond his reach, but he could still kill one of the architects of Thalastre’s death.

His mouth twisted. All his efforts, and he would be able to kill only one of Thalastre’s murderers. Perhaps Rolukhan was right. Perhaps Kylon deserved to die for his failures. 

He put the thought of his mind and calmed himself as he watched the Immortals charge. Such distractions were dangerous in battle. 

A flare of green light from the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He turned just in time to see dozens of undead erupt from the trapdoor in the Hall of Torments, leap into the Hall of Forges, and fling themselves at the Immortals.

“What the hell?” said Morgant. 

Dozens of undead boiled out of the trapdoor like ants, shrieking in rage and fury. They charged at the Immortals, and the black-armored warriors fell back in shock. The shock did not last long, and the Immortals recovered their discipline, lashing out with scimitars and chain whips. The force of their blows sliced the desiccated corpses to pieces, yet more undead rose out of the trapdoor, and the Immortals fell back step by step.

“Impossible,” said Nasser. “The undead of the Inferno were bound long ago. They obey no one, and they never venture to the higher levels of the fortress…”

“Never?” said Morgant. “You’ve a knack for denying the obvious. Questionable quality in a leader.”

Nasser opened his mouth to answer, and the stone door to the stairs at the back of the Hall burst open. More corpses rushed into the Hall, screaming in fury as they did. The smiths let out startled curses and turned to face the new foes. Kylon gathered power, preparing to jump into the midst of the undead.

But the Undying ignored them. They charged past the bewildered smiths, racing for the Immortals. One of the blacksmiths stumbled into the path of the undead, and Kylon expected the withered corpses to tear him apart. The Undying simply pushed the living man out of the way and kept running.

“I believe you were saying something about miracles, Master Najar” said Nasser.

Najar was too astonished even to spit on the floor. 

“Attack, if you have a brain in your head,” said Morgant, his voice hard and urgent. “Whatever is going on, it is to our advantage. If we cut down Rolukhan, the day is ours, and we can rescue Annarah and Ciaran at our leisure.”

A blaze of green light came from the door at the rear of the Hall, radiating from the hand of a figure wrapped in shadow. 

###

Annarah dismissed the white light from her pyrikon, though it remained in staff form as they hastened through the galleries of the Halls of the Dead. The light was no longer necessary. The terrible, unearthly glow of the Subjugant Bloodcrystal in Caina’s armored left hand provided ample light.

The wrath of the Undying had been turned in a different direction. 

All around them ran the undead, bound to the will of the Subjugant Bloodcrystal. They raced for the higher levels of the Inferno, some of them even climbing the walls like giant, rotting spiders. The creatures screamed in rage as they ran, howling with centuries of pain and despair. It was like being trapped inside a storm of dusty bone and wailing shrieks. 

Gods forgive her. What had Caina unleashed upon the Inferno?

She could not waver now. It was the only way to stop the Apotheosis, to save Kylon and the others from the Inferno.

“Here!” shouted Caina, pulling at Annarah’s arm. She looked just as frightened as Caina felt, but neither did she hesitate. “These stairs go to the Hall of Forges. Can you manage with your ankle?” 

“I would crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees if it aided our escape from this place,” said Annarah.

“That’s the spirit,” said Caina, and they hastened up the stairs. The tide of undead around them did not slacken, an endless line of animated corpses pushing past them as the Halls of the Dead disgorged its dead. Confined in the narrow spiral stair, with the corpses brushing past her, their dusty scent filling her nostrils, made Caina want to scream. Instead she gripped the Subjugant Bloodcrystal all the tighter, the plates of her ghostsilver gauntlet creaking against the ancient relic. So long as she held that, the Undying would obey her, would fight to save her friends from the Immortals.

If Kylon and the others were still alive. 

Caina ran up the stairs as fast as she dared, Annarah hobbling behind her, the corpses streaming past them. 

Then she burst out of the awful stairwell, Annarah gasping besides her, and found herself in the Hall of Forges once again. 

Hellfire burned across the floor, dancing over the ruins of the barracks. Corpses lay strewn before the smoldering barracks, both armored Immortals and gray-clad slaves. A mob of slaves stood before the corpses, armed with hammers and armored in bits of armor stolen from the dead Immortals. Nasser and Morgant and Laertes stood near the forges, and Caina spotted Malcolm and Nerina amongst the slaves. Kylon stood talking with Nasser, the valikon in his hands, and a wave of such relief went through Caina that her knees wobbled. 

Kylon looked at her and flinched in alarm. She wondered why, and then realized what she must look like. A cloaked shadow, holding a crystal that burned with green flame. The slaves themselves backed away in terror, eyes wide.

Caina hurried forward, drawing back the cowl of her shadow-cloak with her free hand. She kept her mask on, though. There were hundreds of slaves here, and if she lived through this she needed to keep her identity secret.

“Kylon!” shouted Caina. “It’s me.” 

“Gods of storm and brine,” he whispered. Around them the dead ran to battle against the Immortals. “This was your doing, isn’t it?”

“I knew you were a troublemaker,” said Morgant, who only seemed amused, though he smiled at Annarah. “With this, Balarigar, you have surpassed yourself.”

“That is one of the greater bloodcrystals of ancient Maat,” said Nasser, and he looked more shocked than Caina had ever seen him. “How did you do that? How are you even still alive?”

“Oh, by the Living Flame,” croaked one of the enslaved blacksmiths, a black-bearded Anshani man holding a hammer. “It is true. I heard the Szaldic slaves speak of it, but it is true. The Balarigar has come to throw down the tyrants and free the slaves, and even the dead come at his call.” The slaves around him murmured agreement. 

“If I am the Balarigar,” said Caina, letting the light from the bloodcrystal fall upon them, “then the hour has come. Your freedom is at hand, if you can but seize it. Go quickly the barracks and the lodgings of the slaves, and free them. Make for the surface as quickly as you can. The undead shall deal with the Immortals and the Lieutenant.”