Scott M. Sandridge

         "I hate being the bait!" Arnelda sat on the bed with her arms folded, pouting. She had spent the past hour pacing the inn room and the hour before that reading on the floor. The Mists' blue-gray vapors blocked any view from the window. "Beautiful damsels in distress are supposed to wait for a charming prince, not for some virgin-sacrificing cult to come kidnap them. Next time I see Korgash, I'm kicking him where it hurts."

         A barely audible thump reached her right ear. She looked toward her window. Everything was as it was supposed to be. Was it someone else's window she heard being opened? She retrieved her dagger from off the nightstand where she had kept it next to her pack of scrolls. She unlatched her window, lifted it up gently, wincing at the sound that seemed louder in the silence. Tendrils of misty vapor crept inside as she cautiously stuck out her head. She saw nothing but gray over to her left. Then she heard another thump, one so close she had to bite her lip to prevent herself from shouting. She looked to her right and saw the shadowy shape of a foot disappearing through the window next to hers. Then a muffled scream followed by sounds of a struggle.

         Arnelda pulled her head back in and ran out of her room. Now in the hallway, she found the adjacent door locked. She uttered an Archaian incantation then opened the door. Inside she saw, and smelled, something that made her stomach queasy: a half-rotted corpse with a young unconscious woman slung over his shoulder. Arnelda shouted, "Stop!"

         The pale-eyed zombie looked at Arnelda, gave her a rotten-toothed grin, and then disappeared with his captive in a cloud of blue-gray vapor. Arnelda quickly uttered an incantation into the vapors before they completely dispersed.

         The sound of heavy boots on wood told her that Korgash was on his way. The hairy-chested half-vorc soon reached her, followed closely by Roland. She pouted with her arms folded and said, "Took you two long enough."

         Roland shrugged his small shoulders. "I was in the middle of a winning hand downstairs, and Korgash, well; let's just say he was having his own bit o' luck."

         Korgash cleared his throat as the two followed Arnelda into the now-vacant room. "Some women don't take no for an answer."

         "Convenient excuse," Arnelda said. "You might want to wipe off the lipstick on your face."

         "Later," said Korgash. "What happened?"

         "They kidnapped the wrong virgin. That's what happened."

         Roland stroked his bushy white beard-stubble with his pudgy fingers. "I wonder what the odds are o' two virgins staying in adjacent rooms in the same inn in this part o' the city."

         "'Bout the same as me turning into a gentleman," said Korgash.

         Arnelda's freckled cheeks turned red. "How was I to know Lord Falaran counted? It wasn't like we had much of a honeymoon before I took off with his wedding gifts."

         Korgash rolled his eyes and groaned. "Been nice to have known that before we started with this plan."

         Arnelda kicked Korgash in the shin. "Don't worry. I managed to get off a locate spell before they disappeared. So just get your gear ready and follow me."

         Arnelda followed the pulsing mystic energy trail through the Mist-choked Rexonian streets. A chill wind blew, accompanied by what resembled whispering voices. She kept her guard up. Whenever the Mists were up, so were the Mists' Wraiths...or so the tales claimed. But the likelihood of encountering one of the disembodied spirits was high. After all, that zombie didn't turn into Mist all by itself.

         "Slow down!" Roland's shout sounded muffled, and she knew she didn't hear it in the direction it had originated. "Not everyone here has long strides, you know!"

         She and Korgash both slowed their pace. She felt the mystic trail tug downward. Below her booted feet was a square hole with a ladder and a marker, the writing on which was concealed by the Mists. A cold shiver trailed up her spine then spread outward. "The underground catacombs."

         "Why am I not surprised?" Korgash's voice came from the direction opposite to where he stood. "Any way to negotiate extra hazard pay?"

         "Not really," said Roland. "We're lucky I managed t' negotiate any pay at all. The Church o' Lightweaver doesn't much care for us followers o' Shanak. They think gambling's a sin."

         "Isn't it?" Korgash descended the ladder first, followed by Arnelda, then Roland.

         Even in the darkness, Arnelda thought Roland's eyes twinkled for a moment. "Only when it's a gamble."

         "Korgash, toss me a torch," Arnelda said. She heard a piece of wood strike a stone wall, land somewhere close by, then felt it roll onto her foot. She picked it up and rubbed her finger across it from one tip to the other until she found the side that held the oiled cloth wrapping. Once she figured out which end was which, she spoke an incantation and touched her finger to the cloth. A brief flare of sparks and the torch ignited. She gasped, pulled her hand back, and then gave Korgash an angry glare as she sucked on her burnt finger.

         Korgash shrugged as he took the lead. "You said to toss it, so I did."

         The torchlight resembled the greenish glow of a will o'wisp, and vaporous tendrils swirled around it like moths. To each side of the narrow corridor, alcoves were carved into the stone walls, warped by the Mists to appear like dark gaping mouths. Arnelda peered into an alcove then jumped back with a scream when a small pair of purplish-yellow eyes blinked at her. A rat as big as a small dog leaped out of the alcove and scurried down the passageway, its squeals nearly as loud as Arnelda's scream had been.

         Roland placed a hand to his mouth to repress a laugh, but she thought twice about kicking the gnome. She turned around and kicked Korgash's shin instead.

         Korgash grunted then, with a snarl that showed his pronounced canines, asked, "What was that for?"

         "For, for," Arnelda stammered. She threw up her hands and yelled, "I don't know!"

         Her voice echoed in all directions.

         "It might be wise t' keep your voices down," said Roland. He eyed them both like a parent scolding children. "Unless ye want t' attract something other than rats."

         "Can we just get moving please?" Arnelda said, frowning, her voice more subdued. "The sooner we find the cultists, or whatever, the sooner we can get out of here."

         Several minutes after they began walking down the passage, Roland said, "Um, guys, I-I think something's behind me."

         Though Roland was behind her, she heard his voice in front of her. "How can you tell?"

         "Because," said Roland, his voice more strained and frantic, "There's bloody decayed hands around me throat!"

         A shadowy silhouette eclipsed Roland's. It had the height of a full-grown man, but appeared stooped and thin. She dropped her torch and grabbed her bow, but by the time she had an arrow pulled from her quiver, Korgash had already rushed past her and tackled the shadowy figure. He punched into the prone creature with his bladed, spiked glove. Amidst a sound that resembled the imploding shell of a crab came a low-pitched moan. The creature's limbs wiggled for an instant then ceased.

         Korgash stood, then flicked something tiny off one of the aarik's blades and muttered, "I hate maggots."

         Behind him, the creature sat up. Arnelda knocked her arrow then pulled and released in one fluid motion. The arrow struck the creature's shadowy head, and it immediately flopped back to the ground.

         Roland rose from where he had been knocked down, brushed off his tunic, and shook his head. "Some folk just never know when t' stay dead."

         Arnelda picked up the torch, then approached the body. Close-up, with the aid of the torchlight, she could see that it was the same zombie that had kidnapped the female. She sighed. "So much for using him as the locator; I vote we go back and try again."

         "We got a job to do," said Korgash, wiping off his aarik on his bear hide vest. "And we're gonna' get it done."

         Arnelda shook her head. Why was he always so stubborn? "You have any idea how vast these catacombs are, how deep down into the mountain they go? It's a maze down here! And finding them without a way to track their location will require—."

         "Luck?" The gnome chimed in, raising a finger as a mischievous grin appeared on his face.

         Korgash shrugged. "Lead the way, gnome."

         Arnelda followed Roland as Korgash took the rear. As he led them through one seemingly random turn after another, she began to wonder if this had been a good idea. "Do you at least have some clue as to where you're going?"

         "Nope," said Roland. Giggling, he added, "But that's what makes this trip so exciting."

         Off to her left, she thought she heard Korgash mutter something that resembled, "Get out of my head."

         She looked to her left, but then remembered that Korgash was behind her. Curse the Mists! "What did you say?"

         "Er, uh, there's a door up ahead."

         "I don't see no—," Roland started to say. He grunted, stopped in his tracks. After he rubbed his long hooked nose and muttered several curses in as many different languages, he said, "Ah. That door."

         An unstable gnome in front of me, and a half-vorc who talks to himself behind me, Arnelda thought. Oh yeah, I feel soooo safe.

         The Mists thinned as they receded back into the cracks and crevasses deep beneath the earth. Arnelda said, "The sun must be setting."

         "Oh, really?" said Roland, rolling his eyes, a pointy ear against the door. "What gave ye that idea? And be quiet for once!"

         A minute later, Roland stepped back and stroked his beard. "Seems t' be no one on the other side, but there's a needle set t' spring when the latch is raised. It might take a while t' finesse it out."

         "Stand back," said Korgash. He charged at the door and slammed his shoulder against it. The door collapsed with an echoing thud.

         Roland, coughing and waving his hand at the encircling cloud of dust, said, "Korgash, me boy, some day I'm gonna' lecture ye on the fine points o' subtlety."

         "Every corpse in the entire catacombs probably heard that," muttered Arnelda.

         "Good," said Korgash. "I'm bored."

         Several minutes later, as they made their way through the passage behind the door, Arnelda heard something up ahead. "You hear that?"

         "Chanting," said Korgash. "Toss the torch."

         "But how are we—," she started to say.

         "I can see fine," Korgash moved past her, picked up the gnome, and then told her, "Hop up on my back."

         She dropped the torch and jumped on. The light soon receded until they were immersed in utter darkness. The first thing she noticed was that Korgash felt wider than he looked. His smell made her scrunch her nose. She whispered, "You know, Korgash, there's this thing called water—."

         "I bathe...occasionally."

         Arnelda decided she didn't want to know how often occasionally meant. Oh well, what man didn't require a woman's direction? "So, how does that whole seeing in the dark thing work?"

         "Scents and sounds paint an image in my head. I couldn't do it until now. The Mists muck it all up, turn the image into a kaleidoscope, force me to go by eye-vision alone."

         "The sooner we get paid," Roland whispered, "the sooner we can get out o' these mountains and back t' where the world acts normal."

         "Maybe you should've thought of that before you lost all our money," Arnelda whispered back.

         "How was I t' know the casino owner had set up a magic-dampening field?"

         "Um, four glaring wizards and a sigil on the floor wasn't a good enough clue?"

         The chanting became louder. A dim point of pale light appeared up ahead which slowly expanded into the flickering dance of light and shadow common to torchlight. Now able to see, Arnelda and Roland got off Korgash. Crouching low, they crept to the edge of the passage, keeping to the shadows.

         The passage opened out to an extensive chamber. Thick incense stung Arnelda's nose and eyes. But what she saw in the cave made her mouth dry up.

         Adjacent to each pillar knelt six humanoid figures dressed in robes of black with red-embroidered runes. Heads bowed, they chanted a rhythmic hymn in a language foreign to even Arnelda, yet somehow strangely familiar. In the center of the circle, between two lit braziers, stood an altar of bones shaped like a skull, with a captive woman shackled on top. Her eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, and Arnelda almost mistook her for dead until she saw the chest rise and fall in a slow, almost imperceptible rhythm. Another robed figure stood behind the altar, with arms folded and head bowed. Flanking the apparent head priest, two armored skeletons with red glowing eye sockets stood.

         "Bloodstone skeletons," Arnelda whispered in a quivering voice.

         Roland shut his eyes and shook his head. "I'd rather take on a dragon with me bare hands."

         "Who's the witch in the center," asked Korgash, "the one with the black stone in her forehead?"

         Arnelda's flesh prickled with goose bumps. "How can you tell?"

         "She smells like a female, a dead one at that."

         "I mean the stone."

         "It's giving off a faint throbbing hum. The kind that'd make a wolf go nuts."

         Arnelda shrank back deeper into the shadows. She curled up against the wall, her chin on her knees. She could feel Korgash's and Roland's eyes on her. They were expecting her to say something, but what she had to say she could scarcely believe herself. "That's why the language felt familiar even though I couldn't make it out. It's an ancient dialect of Lulnarian mixed with Kabba—a perverse form of Elven—that was spoken by the Lulnarian Necromancers, taught to them by Setalthär himself."

         "Lulnarian Necromancers?" Roland asked. "What makes Lulnarians different from any ol' necromancer?"

         "They were the first human necromancers, and they knew vile arts that no necromancer today knows," said Arnelda. "The sect was destroyed millennia ago by the Dar'Kabballa, their practitioners assassinated, their books burned. How can a Souldrinker still exist?"

         "A what?" asked Korgash.

         "The stone," explained Arnelda, touching her forehead. "It's the focus of the Souldrinkers' power and what gave them the name, for with it they can drain life energy from others and use it to increase the power of their magic."

         The chanting increased in rhythm and volume. A black eldritch beam shot out of the hood of the standing figure to strike the captive woman's forehead. The captive gasped as her eyes rolled back. Her back arched. Her muscles became taut and convulsions worked through them.

         Arnelda sprang forward only to find herself held back by Korgash's strong grip. His voice sounded subdued, which she briefly noted was completely unlike him, "There's too many to take on. Nothing we can do for her."

         "He's right, lass," said Roland, his head bowed. "We got a Souldrinker, two Bloodstone skeletons, and six who-knows-what between us and her. We'll be dead right along with her if we act rash."

         Arnelda struggled against Korgash's grip but to no avail. "We must do something!"

         "Oh, we'll do something," Roland replied. His eyes glittered as he loaded his small crossbow. "Just won't be something rash. I go right, Korgash goes left. Arnelda, get that bow o' yours ready for our signal."

         "What signal will that be?" Arnelda knocked an arrow.

         "Screams," said Korgash, grinning with bloodthirsty intent.

         "And hope they're not ours," added Roland.

         Roland and Korgash crawled into the chamber like tigers preparing for a pounce. They kept to the shadows, each moving graceful and soundless. It frightened Arnelda to see how good these two were, yet at the same time she envied them. She had snuck past guards and blended into crowds in her time, but never with the skill these two demonstrated. They moved in unison without need of speech, or even hand gestures, as if they had done the exact same thing the exact same way hundreds of times before.

         She focused on her chosen target. One shot through the head, and no more Souldrinker—or so she hoped. But a decayed hand covering her mouth caused her to release the arrow early and without aim. One of the kneeling priests screamed and fell over. The eldritch beam dissipated as the witch looked up, revealing in the firelight a pallid, corpselike visage.

         Arnelda grabbed the decayed hand around her mouth as more screams rang out, along with Korgash shouting, "We got ourselves some live ones!"

         A rotted arm wrapped around her torso and lifted her up, squeezing. With one hand still wrestling with the decayed hand on her mouth, she reached blindly for her dagger, pulled it from its sheath, and hacked into the arm around her chest.

         The creature bit into her shoulder. Her arm locked into a spasm, and she dropped the dagger. Blood trickled down her arm and nape of her neck. Its crushing hold forced her lungs to exhale as she heard a crunching noise. Don't panic, she told herself, focus!

         She opened her mind to the Mystic Field, allowed its eldritch energies to flow through her. She shut her eyes and pictured a fixed point in the chamber. Without the ability to use words and gestures to aid in her focus, performing this trick would be beyond dangerous. But if worse came to worse, at least she'd take the corpse out with her...

         A brief sensation of falling in every direction at once was replaced by a sense of "down". She opened her eyes the very instant she sensed "down" and found herself in the chamber, amidst various remains of dislocated zombie. A quick check to see if all her body parts were intact was followed by a sigh of relief.

         But then she saw Roland point his crossbow at her and fire. She flinched and shut her eyes. She heard a grunt behind her accompanied by the sound of meat hitting stone. She opened one eye to see a black-robed man on the ground next to her, still gripping his knife. Roland smiled, nodded, and then said, "Learn t' watch your back, lass. Ye can't have us watch it for ye all the time."

         She started to smile, but then screamed, "Behind you!"

         Too late, a bony fist against the top of his head drove Roland to the ground. The skeleton looked down at Roland's unmoving body, then back up at its new prey. Its bony jaw gaped open and emitted a multitudinous moan that left Arnelda with chills. Shakily, she said, "Nice singing voice. Try mine."

         She screamed, allowing the eldritch energies inside her to burst forth through her voice to be shaped into sound. The air rippled around the skeleton's head. Its moan rose in pitch just before its skull exploded.

         Arnelda shielded her eyes from the raining bits of bleached-white bone. She rubbed her sore throat and with a grimace thought, I hate that spell!

         A small groan escaped Roland's lips as he rose to his knees. He rubbed the top of his head, and a drop of blood trickled down his face. Arnelda felt relief he still lived, then she looked for Korgash. She spotted him near the altar, growling and frothing at the mouth while exchanging fist blows with the remaining skeleton. What worshippers who hadn't fled lay dead.

         But where was the Souldrinker? Arnelda spotted her only a couple feet behind Korgash. Succumbed to the madness common among Vangaardian berserkers, all he could see was the enemy presently in front of him. And the Souldrinker was in the midst of chanting.

         Arnelda mentally felt for the energies the Souldrinker channeled. Then she attempted to shape and twist them into a counter-spell. The Souldrinker felt the tug; will locked against will.

         "Roland," Arnelda said through clenched teeth, "help Korgash."

         Roland staggered toward the skeleton while uttering a prayer to Shanak. Arnelda kept her focus on the Souldrinker. She's too strong, Arnelda thought as her counter-spell began to get countered. Just when Arnelda thought she couldn't hold her concentration any longer, the Souldrinker relented.

         Arnelda wiped her sweat-covered forehead and exhaled, then winced in pain. She began to cough up blood as red welts formed on her arms and swelled until they threatened to burst. Her vision blurred, and her body felt like it was on fire. As she collapsed to the ground, she realized too late that, instead of relenting, the Souldrinker had merely re-directed the spell.

         Her last thought before darkness overtook her was, why couldn't I have had a heroic death, instead?

         Arnelda woke to the sound of chirping birds. The silvery light of the moon, Shilak, poured through the open window along with a gentle, cool breeze. She inhaled the fresh mountain air, happy that her lungs still worked. On the bed next to her a heavily bruised Korgash snored, his right arm in a sling, his left leg in stilts, and his forehead wrapped in bandages.

         "Ah, the heroine is finally awake," said Roland, who stood at the foot of her bed. Considering she could see him from the waist up, she figured he was standing on a stool. That or her sense of space was somehow distorted. Stranger things have happened, she thought with a shrug. "Lucky we were able t' get ye to a Church of Imana on time. Ye almost didn't make it."

         "What happened?" Arnelda asked.

         Roland scratched his cheek. "Well, once I realized that getting in the way of ol' Korgash's slugfest would be akin t' suicide, I went after the witch instead. Your attempts t' counter her spell left her distracted just long enough for me t' stick a blessed knife into her. Didn't kill her, alas, but it was enough t' make her decide that sticking around might not be a good idea."

         "And Korgash?" Arnelda yawned and stretched.

         Roland rolled his eyes and grinned. "Once he regained enough self-control to realize that his punches weren't doing much, he grabbed the skeleton by the head and smashed it into one o' the pillars. But instead o' crushing its skull, they ended up buried under a pile o' rock. I dug him out. Then we carried—well, dragged—ye here, him a-limping all the way."

         "And the girl? Is she...?"

         "She's fine, lass; weak, but fine. The Healers replenished the stolen life energy. She recovered faster than the rest of us."

         Arnelda stared out the window. A sense of dread washed over her. "She could have stopped my counter-spell at any time, but instead she toyed with me until I was too exhausted to keep my guard up. We almost died down there, Roland—died, and maybe worse."

         "But we didn't, and that's what matters," Roland assured her.

         "Still, it's a much more frightening world than it used to be."

         "How so?"

         "Because it's now a world on which a Souldrinker still walks."

 

 

Copyright 2006, Scott M. Sandridge

Scott M. Sandridge learned how to write through hard work, trial-and-error, and the occasional writers' workshops. His fiction has appeared in Better Fiction Magazine, Dragons, Knights, & Angels, The Sword Review, and the anthology Distant Passages: The Best from Double-Edged Publishing 2005. He also writes reviews for Tangent Online, is a columnist for The Sword Review, and a Slushmaster (Submissions Editor) for Ray Gun Revival. More information and list of publishing credits can be found at < www.scottmsandridge.com >. 

 

 

Cover: "Surrender" 

Copyright 2006, Rachel A. Marks

Rachel A. Marks is a homeschooling mom to four beautiful kids. She's Managing Editor for the Christian Literary Magazine, Haruah, and is currently working with her agent to publish her first novel. You can read more about her on her webpage: < www.shadowofthewood.com >.

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