Red Magic (38 page)

The procession wound its way into the mountain, navigating the twisting main shaft. Wynter had difficulty moving through the tunnel. The top of his head brushed against the ceiling in places, and the rocky floor felt uncomfortable beneath his hooves. His human chest and his equine body ached from being pelted by the rocks in the slide, but he plodded forward, focusing on Galvin several feet ahead.

The shaft was nearly twenty feet wide, allowing the undead to spread out behind the centaur. Torches spaced at irregular intervals provided only scant light and made the complex seem like a mass of shifting gray shadows.

The druid, however, was becoming accustomed to the meager light, and he concentrated on his surroundings. From somewhere ahead, he heard the sounds of metal striking against rock—miners with picks, perhaps. Because the noise echoed through the shaft, it was impossible for Galvin to guess how far away the miners might be.

Wynter glanced about nervously, wondering why they hadn’t met with any resistance since entering the mines. “There should be guards in this shaft,” he whispered. “This is too easy, Galvin.”

“Perhaps,” the druid replied. He slowed and studied the tunnel. Galvin guessed they were about two hundred yards into the mountain. The shaft ahead straightened out and was angling downward. The tunnel was supported by massive oak beams, some reinforced where the wood had splintered. The druid eyed the construction, noting that the mine was of considerable age and this main shaft had been mined out decades ago. After traveling another hundred yards over rock worn smooth by human traffic, he raised his hand signaling the undead to stop. He wanted to listen to the sounds of the miners ahead and try to determine if anything else was in the tunnel. The druid was certain that Wynter was right—the mine had more defenses than what they had encountered on the plateau.

Scanning ahead, he spotted unnatural, thumb-sized crystals embedded in the shaft’s walls at roughly waist height. They started at about the point the torches stopped. Farther down the shaft, the torches started again. Perhaps its some sort of magic, he thought, staring at the closest crystal. He started to stoop beneath the crystal when Brenna’s arm shot out, grabbing him.

“It’s a ward of some kind,” she said.

“So we go under it. The miners go through here somehow.”

“No,” she stated simply. “Passing beyond a ward, a magical guard, triggers it. If you speak the right words, the ward lets you by.”

“And if you don’t have the right words?”

Brenna frowned. “The ward could kill you.”

Galvin studied her features amid the shadows. “Is there any way we can learn the words?”

“Of course not,” the enchantress replied, pursing her lips. “At least, not in the time we have. But …” She stared at the crystals for several long moments, then reached toward the druid and pulled his longsword from its sheath.

“What is it?” the druid started. But a motion from Brenna kept him quiet.

She extended the tip of the sword toward the crystal, then past the crystal. Nothing happened. Handing the sword back to the druid, she stretched out her hand. As it neared the ward the crystal began to glow and she heard a soft hum. Snatching her hand back, she turned to Galvin and smiled.

“It senses heat. I can get around this, but it will be uncomfortable.”

The druid nodded and gestured with his hand, waiting to see what Brenna would do. The enchantress began mumbling something, the words coming so quickly the druid couldn’t make them out. As her voice rose, the air grew chill. And when she extended her hands, pointing away from her and down the shaft, frost leapt from her fingertips and headed down the tunnel with a whoosh, coating the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Let’s hurry,” she urged, sliding forward toward the torches beyond the crystals.

Shivering, the druid quickly followed, but Wynter had a difficult time navigating the ice-coated floor. By the time the centaur managed to make it to the end of the frost, it had started to melt.

“The undead!” Brenna cried. “The crystals will—”

Galvin interrupted, gently grasping her shoulders. “The undead don’t give off heat, Brenna. The dead are cold.”

She slumped her shoulders, feeling foolish yet relieved, and continued at Galvin’s side down the shaft. They trodded downward for a hundred yards. As the torches became farther and farther apart, the shadows grew thicker, and the druid grabbed a torch from the wall so they could see better.

Ahead were a series of crosscuts, tunnels that had been dug off the main shaft. Some of those tunnels, or adits as the druid had heard miners call them, led to ventilation holes; Galvin felt a slight breeze coming from them. The moisture became more noticeable the deeper the army marched, and the clinking bones of the skeletons echoed hauntingly off the walls.

The druid noticed that the sounds of mining had stopped. Whatever or whoever was ahead had likely been alerted to their presence, probably hearing the centaur’s hooves and the skeletons’ bony feet. Galvin continued to inspect the mine as they moved along. The pressure of the mountain was strong, he noted. The support beams were closer together here, and some were bowed from the weight of the rock above. The mine was massive, the druid was certain, probably winding throughout the mountain like tunnels in an anthill.

He wondered if he should investigate the crosscuts, but he heard no sounds there, either. And he knew better than to speak with the stone here; it was so old and probably had so many stories to tell that he’d be totally exhausted after listening. Along the way, he spotted deposits of sand within layers of rock, a sign that precious metals were present.

Although the druid knew little about mining, he knew the earth, and his eyes told him where veins of gold had been stripped, the layers of stone robbed of their wealth. He was uncertain where all the rock and dirt that had been mined was taken. There was little evidence of discarded gravel and silt outside the shaft’s main mouth. Perhaps they had a way to dissolve it magically, he thought.

“Galvin,” Brenna whispered. “Listen.”

The druid cursed himself for becoming so lost in his thoughts that he had dropped his guard.

He heard a whisper, or something that sounded like one. It was a soft noise, a shushing sound that slowly increased in volume.

Bats? he thought. The noise could be the flutter of wings, but the way sound was distorted in the shaft, it was difficult to be certain. If it was bats, there must be many of them, and something had disturbed them to get them aloft.

Concerned, he urged the army forward, scanning the walls to make sure no more crystals were present and indicating Brenna should do the same. Then he reached out with his mind, trying to contact the bats deeper in the shaft. Brenna cursed softly and tried to keep pace, at the same time watching the tunnel’s walls for more of the dangerous crystals.

The centaur also struggled to stay ahead of the undead. As he picked up the pace, his head bumped against a support beam.

The shaft continued to descend as Galvin trotted faster. The torches were spaced even farther apart now, leaving most of the tunnel blanketed in darkness except for the small area around the torch Galvin held. Then, somewhere below in the blackness, the druid’s mind reached out to another consciousness. But it was not a bat’s, as he had anticipated. This mind felt twisted, alien, corrupt. But the creature thought in human terms, and as Galvin became more intimate with it, the mind took on a human quality, a human intelligence. The druid tried to close the link, but the other intelligence held on to his mind.

Death to you, Harper, the consciousness spoke inside the druid’s head. Galvin grabbed at his temples, dropping the torch. Concentrating, he tried to force the presence out. Still the intelligence persisted, pulling from the druid’s thoughts his name, his history, and the reason for his intrusion into the mine.

Death to you who would spoil my finely wrought plans. Galvin buckled over in agony as the mind bored into his, seeking information about his forces, his strengths, why he had come here, what magic he possessed.

Szass Tam! the intelligence screamed, and the druid cupped his hands over his ears in a futile gesture to shut out the sound. The words were coming from inside his head. You are Szass Tam’s servant!

Galvin fought to keep the details from the intelligence, but the druid’s mind wasn’t strong enough. It seemed as if all of Galvin’s being was flowing from him, his experiences, knowledge, emotions—all were being assimilated by the probing mind. Then he felt the mind—no, minds—coming closer. And he heard the flutter of wings even more clearly.

Deep in the bowels of the mine, Maligor screamed. How had Szass Tam found out about the mine? How had the lich managed to bring an accursed Harper under his control?

Maligor’s mind whirled. He wouldn’t be able to covertly control the mines now; the lich would see to that. Nor could he confront the lich, as Szass Tam avoided direct involvement.

“I will not be undone by a dead man!” Maligor bellowed, his voice bouncing off the walls of the deep chamber. “If I cannot have the mines, no one will!” The Red Wizard’s staccato voice repeated a simple enchantment, and before the words could echo back from the chamber’s shadow-cloaked walls, the wizard was gone. His form, replaced by a small cloud of white, swirling vapors, floated up a narrow shaft.

I will turn your forces to ashes, the cloud thought as it moved along the shaft’s rocky ceiling. “I will destroy your army, Szass Tam. I will make you regret your treachery.”

Brenna reached the druid’s side and knelt beside him. His palms were pushed against the sides of his head, and his teeth were clenched in pain. She tugged his hands away from his face, and their eyes met.

“What—what happened?” she asked, glancing behind her at Wynter. The centaur waved the undead to a stop.

“I—I don’t know,” the druid gasped. “But there’s something ahead. Something …”

Then Brenna and Wynter heard the rush of wings, too, and smelled an overpowering stench. The tunnel ahead gave way to blackness as the flying creatures buffeted the torches out and filled the shaft with their misshapen bodies. The creatures’ horrid shrieks filled the shaft, echoing off the walls.

“Darkenbeasts!” Brenna cried, as she saw a myriad of burning red eyes rapidly closing on them. She jumped to her feet, pulling the druid along with her.

In one fluid motion, Galvin drew his longsword and strode forward. Swinging fiercely at the air in front of him, he connected with the lead darkenbeast, slicing halfway through its grotesque neck. Its dead body thudded at his feet, but another creature flew forward to take its place.

The beast’s talons stretched toward Galvin’s eyes, and the Harper bent his arm across his face to shield them. The gesture allowed a pair of darkenbeasts to fly past him toward the sorceress and Wynter.

The enchantress flattened herself against a tunnel wall, narrowly avoiding a sharp beak. Fumbling through the small bag at her side, she drew out a pinch of coarse powder. Hoping she had found the correct components in the darkness, she began mumbling a series of incoherent-sounding words.

At the same time, Wynter charged forward. Using his bardiche, he skewered one of the darkenbeasts against the ceiling. A second creature closed on him, its beak sinking into his left shoulder. Dropping his weapon, Wynter reached out with his bare hands to capture his arcane attacker, bashing the beast’s head against the mine wall. The centaur continued beating the creature until it ceased to move.

Finished with her incantation, Brenna stirred the powder in her hand, then held her palm toward the ceiling. A gout of flame whooshed from her hand and danced along a portion of the ceiling beyond Galvin, catching several darkenbeasts hovering there and lighting up the tunnel. The macabre creatures’ wings caught fire, and they cried out in agony.

The Harpers and Brenna ducked, and the burning darkenbeasts flew beyond them, into the waiting grasp of the skeletons and zombies. The rotting flesh and tattered clothes of the zombies burst into flame on contact with the darkenbeasts. Impervious to pain, the zombies struggled with the winged creatures, tearing them apart and dashing their misshapen heads against the tunnel walls.

The darkenbeasts’ beaks and claws were wasted on the skeletons, who latched onto the creatures and began pulling at their leathery limbs until no life remained in Maligor’s constructs.

At the forefront of the struggle, Galvin continued to slice through the darkenbeasts, suffering numerous minor injuries and scratches in the process. Behind him, he saw Wynter catch one of the loathsome creatures and hurl it to the shaft floor, trampling it beneath his hooves.

In the dark tunnel below, Galvin saw more darkenbeasts, hovering in the shaft, waiting for a chance to join in the fight. The druid realized the numbers eventually would overwhelm the three of them, although the undead could likely hold their own against the creatures.

Edging backward in the shaft, closer to the centaur, Galvin split the nearest darkenbeast nearly in two with his sword, then ducked and pulled his longsword free as another creature dove at him. The centaur reached above the druid’s head, smashing his large fist into the creature’s side and sending it careening wildly against the shaft wall. It crumpled and flapped feebly, trying to rise.

“Head for the crosscut!” Galvin shouted, barely able to be heard above the sounds of the darkenbeasts’ wings and the skeletons’ clanking bones. “Hurry!”

Brenna inched her way along the shaft wall and darted into the side tunnel. Wynter fought his way through a half-dozen of the darkenbeasts before he could join her. The centaur squinted to catch some sign of Galvin in the mass of flailing bones and leathery wings.

“How many are there?” the enchantress whispered, staring wide-eyed at the cloud of darkenbeasts.

“Hundreds,” the centaur guessed. “There are more down the shaft. Galvin’s somewhere out there in the middle of them.”

Then suddenly the druid hurled himself through an opening in the wall of skeletons and dove into the side tunnel. Wheezing, he sheathed his longsword and moved deeper into the tunnel.