Rise of a Merchant Prince (48 page)

Calis, Praji, and Vaja were standing together when another ball of energy exploded in their direction. Praji and Vaja took the blast full in the face, and both men fell backward, their bodies erupting into flames. Erik judged them dead before they hit the stone floor.

Calis turned and took part of the blast on his left side, stumbling and howling in pain as the energies flamed around him. For a tortured moment he seemed a living candle, alight and being consumed. Then the magic fire vanished, but the entire left side
of Calis's body was smoking char and weeping wounds.

“Calis!” shouted Miranda, while Erik continued to roll, right into the first serpent priest. He knocked the creature over and slashed past it as he stood, killing another priest. Without hesitation he slammed his boot heel into the throat of the creature he had knocked over, leaving the serpent priest thrashing in pain as it suffocated, trying to breathe with a crushed windpipe.

A third priest turned to face Erik, attempting to conjure, but it died before any spell was realized as Erik severed its head from its shoulders.

Suddenly a shout from the other end or the tunnel alerted Erik that more trouble was likely to descend upon them. He turned toward the remaining three priests. One also was about to conjure a spell when a thin stream of light, a blinding white and purple pulse, slammed into its head as Miranda attacked.

The creature hissed in agony, then its head erupted in mystic flame; a brief flash, and the head was gone. The decapitated body slumped to the ground.

Calis pulled himself upright by force of will to kill the fifth priest before Erik could reach him. Even injured, Calis was powerful enough to drive his sword completely through the priest.

Erik spun to face the door as de Loungville cried out, “Saaur! They're coming!”

Erik turned to face the seated priest. Miranda also came forward, first to grip Calis and help him to keep standing, and second to protect him. She spared the smoking corpses of Praji and Vaja only a momentary glance, as it was obvious they were far beyond mortal help. Then she joined Calis in turning
to confront the last Pantathian, preparing to defend Calis should the High Priest launch an attack.

But the seated Pantathian only blinked as he regarded the carnage before him.

Erik slowly approached and saw that the five priests had been protecting something, an object that sat in a stone well in front of and a few feet below the base of the throne. Erik moved slowly toward it, shifting his gaze back and forth between the object and the figure on the throne.

The object looked like a large green emerald, but one aglow with a fey light. “Gods!” said Miranda in a voice hoarse with fear.

“Your gods have nothing to do with this, human,” said the figure upon the throne, what Erik took to be a High Priest. Its speech was sibilant but otherwise understandable. “They are newcomers to this world, trespassers, and pretenders.”

Erik glanced up and saw a faint shimmer of green energy pouring from a metal rod, falling in a faint cascade upon the stone. He followed the rod back to the wall above the door and surmised it was the same one he had struck. The sounds of battle rang out in the hallway.

Erik glanced at Calis, who weakly said, “Get that door closed and block it off somehow.”

Erik ran to where de Loungville stood. “Captain says to get this door closed and blocked off,” said Erik.

De Loungville shouted out, “Fall back!” He turned to Erik and said, “We've got one advantage. They're so damn big they can't come through the tunnel but one at a time, and we're hacking them down as they show their ugly faces.”

The men fell back and Erik saw that most were covered in blood. He imagined it must have been grim work at the end of the line. The last man through was Alfred, who thrust and parried at an unseen opponent. Then Erik saw a huge green head as a Saaur warrior, attempting to fight while half hunched over, pushed forward. Erik didn't wait but took out his dagger and threw it with all his strength at the creature over the shoulder of the retreating Alfred. The blade took the Saaur in the neck, and it clawed with one hand at the blade as it fell forward, half blocking the door. A shout from behind the creature told Erik the creature's allies had seen him fall.

De Loungville didn't hesitate but shouted, “Drag him inside!” Three men on each side grabbed the creature, nearly twelve feet tall, and pulled it through the portal, while another soldier duplicated Erik's action and threw his dagger at the next Saaur. It had the desired result, causing the creature to retreat long enough for them to get the door closed. There was a large wooden bar, and Erik motioned for other soldiers to set it across the door, into two huge iron supports. A moment later came the sound of a large body hitting the door followed by an angry exclamation Erik assumed to be a Saaur oath.

“Block the door!” shouted Erik.

Four of the men dragged the dying Saaur away from the door, while others took some idols of stone, lizard figures crouching as if guarding something, and pushed them before the door. Erik turned to see Miranda and Calis slowly approaching the green gem.

“What is this thing?” Miranda asked.

The seated figure said, “Your lowly intellect is
incapable of understanding, human.”

Calis hobbled with Miranda's help to stand next to the object, letting the green light bathe him. The burns he had received from the magician's blast must have been causing him incredible pain, but he showed no sign of it. He said, “It is a key.”

The serpent said, “You are more intelligent than you look, elf.”

Calis shook off Miranda's support and reached over the edge of the pool in which the emerald rested and the Pantathian stood up slowly, as if infirmity or age were weighing heavily upon him. “No!” he commanded. “Do not touch this! It is nearly finished!”

“It is finished,” said Calis as he put his hand upon the gem and closed his eyes. Green pulsing light seemed to crawl slowly up his arm. Calis's wounds were still terrible, raw flesh and singed hair, but the green light seemed to strengthen him. He removed his hand from the gem's surface and walked toward the creature, who now stood upright, looking at Calis with amazement upon its face.

“You should be dead,” said the priest. “This is decades of work, the life force of thousands of slaughtered creatures, and it is the key that will bring back our Mistress.”

“Your mistress is a fraud!” shouted Calis. He came up to the Pantathian, weaving slightly, and said, “You are snakes lifted up and given arms, legs, speech, and cunning, but you are snakes!” He leaned forward until he was nearly nose-to-snout with the creature. “Look into my eyes, snake! See what you face!”

The old priest blinked and stared into Calis's
eyes. Mystic communication passed between them, because suddenly the priest fell to its knees, turning away, holding up its arms as if shielding itself from Calis's gaze. “No! It cannot be!”

“I carry that blood within me!” shouted Calis. Erik wondered where the strength to hold himself that way came from; a lesser man would be dead from the burns.

“It is a lie!” screamed the lizard man, turning away.

“Your Green Mother is the lie!” shouted Calis. “She is no goddess! She is one of the Valheru!”

“No! They were lesser kin. None were as great as She Who Birthed Us! We labor to bring her back so that in death we will be born again to rule at her feet!”

“Fools!” said Calis, and Erik could sense the strength leaving him again. Miranda took careful hold of his right side, helping him stay erect. “Murderous fools, you are nothing but what she made you, bent creatures of no natural root, the makings of a vain thing who knew only her own pleasures. You were dust under her feet, and when she rose with her brethren during the Chaos Wars you were forgotten!” Calis stumbled, and de Loungville came to help hold him. “If there was any possible way to redeem you and your kind, we would not be here.”

Then Calis took a deep breath. “You are a pawn and have always been a pawn. It is no fault of your own that you must be destroyed, but you must be obliterated, root and branch.”

“You are here to do this?” said the High Priest.

“I am,” said Calis. “I am the son of he who imprisoned your Alma-Lodaka!”

“No!” shrieked the High Priest. “None may speak the most holy of names!” The old serpent rose, puffing a dagger from its robes. Erik didn't hesitate, but ran two steps up the dais and hacked as hard as he could at the High Priest. The old creature's head sailed from its shoulders, landing a short distance away, while the body collapsed.

Erik looked at Calis who said, “You did well.”

“What now?” asked de Loungville, as the thudding against the door became more rhythmic. “They've gotten themselves a ram. That's a heavy bar on the door, but it won't hold forever. Those Saaur are strong.”

Calis said, “Find us another way out, or we have to fight back the way we came.”

De Loungville turned and ordered the men to start searching for another exit. “Here is what their temple was about,” said Calis, as Miranda helped him sit upon the steps. “Tens of thousands of lives given up over the last fifty years in vile sacrifice so they could create that.” He pointed weakly at the green stone. “It is a thing of captured life.”

Miranda said, “Your father spoke once of the false Murmandamus using the captured lives of those who died in his service to shift into the same realm as the Lifestone. We should have suspected they would again use such means.” She pointed at the stone. “This is a far more powerful tool than that simple deception.”

“What do we do with it?” asked Erik.

Calis groaned in pain. “You,” he said to Miranda, “take it. You must take it to my father. He and Pug are the only two men on this world who might understand how to utilize it.” The pounding on the door
served to underscore the urgency of his words. “If the Emerald Queen gets this key to Sethanon, joins it with the Lifestone.

Miranda nodded. “I think I understand. I can get a few of us out of here. . . .”

“No,” said Calis. “I'm staying. I'm the only one who might begin to understand what else we might find here. Take the Valheru helm we found, and this key. Try for the surface.” He looked at Boldar and said, “Take the mercenary with you. He'll keep you alive until you find a place you can use your arts to get home.”

Miranda smiled. “You bastard. You told me you don't know anything about magic.”

Calis said, “There is no magic, remember?”

“I wish Nakor were here,” said Erik.

Calis said, “If Pug couldn't find the Pantathians after looking for them for fifty years, it follows this place is very secure, and I suspect that using magic to get in
or out
is equally impossible.”

“Damn you,” she said, a tear running down her face. “We do need to climb up to the surface, or near it.”

“Well, then we'd better hope there's another way out.”

A few minutes later, de Loungville reported they had found a stairway at the rear of the hall leading upward. “There you go,” said Calis, trying to smile. “I need to rest a bit. And the men need to look around.”

Miranda took his hand and gripped it. “What do I say to your father?”

“That I love him, and say the same to my mother,” said Calis. “Then tell him that a demon is loose
and there's a third player in this. I think when he looks at this gem he will find it is not what it seems to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let the Spellweavers examine this thing without my theories coloring their opinions.”

Miranda approached the object with caution and gently touched it. She muttered and cast about with her hands, then picked up the object. “I don't like leaving you.”

Calis managed a brave smile. “I don't like it much either. Now, if you can manage to give me a kiss without touching my injured side, do so, and get out of here.”

Miranda knelt and kissed the right side of his face, then whispered, “I'll come back for you.”

“Don't,” said Calis. “We won't be here. We'll find our own way out. I'll get to that Brijaner ship, somehow. Get Duke William to send someone our way, just in case, but don't you dare come back here for me. There are still other priests in these mountains, almost certainly, and even if we've killed their inner circle, they will be powerful enough to find you when you use your magic to return.”

Then he fingered the magic ward she gave him. “Besides, how will you find me?” His question was punctuated by another assault on the door.

She gripped his good hand with her left, while holding the glowing gem with her right. “Stay alive, damn it!”

“I will,” he promised. “Bobby!”

De Loungville said, “Captain?”

“Take a dozen men and go with them.”

De Loungville turned and shouted, “Squad two
and squad three, come here!”

Twelve men left their searching of the hall and reported. “Go with the lady,” he instructed.

Calis said, “You too, Bobby.”

De Loungville turned and with an evil grin said, “Make me.” To the twelve men who waited, he pointed to the door and said, “Take the lady and the mercenary and get the hell out of here!”

The twelve men glanced at Miranda and Boldar. Boldar nodded once and set off in the van, and six men followed, while the other six waited until Miranda gave Calis's hand one more squeeze and set off. Then they followed her.

Erik turned to Calis. “What do we do now, Captain?”

“How many men do we have left?” asked Calis.

Erik didn't have to count. “Now that two squads are gone, we're down to thirty-seven, including you.”

“Wounded?”

“Five, but they can still fight.”

“Help me up,” said Calis.

Erik gave him a hand up, then slipped his arm around his waist—keeping his hand on Calis's belt, avoiding his burned flesh. Calis leaned his good side heavily upon Erik and said, “I need to see anything that may be an artifact of the Ancient Ones, the Dragon Lords.”