Looking up they could see three figures covered in suits of fine cloth from head to toe, with only the smallest slits for eyes. The cloth was the same color as the dirt that had hidden them and they must have been lying in ambush for quite some time, perhaps hours, waiting for the intruders to get close enough to render them powerless.
Another figure appeared a moment later, a grinning bearded man who looked down at the three prone bodies and said, “Bring them!”
As he turned away, Sandreena managed to whisper, “Belasco!” She didn’t know if Magnus or Kaspar could hear her.
Pain coursed through her body when she tried to move, but if she remained motionless, the pain faded. Her thoughts were still chaotic but she witnessed enough and remembered enough to have a sense of time passing as she and her companions were lifted and carried toward a small rear gate in the wall.
Then she found her thoughts fleeing, then came darkness.
Jim crouched down behind the smallest of rocks, his cloak pulled over him, motionless. No doubt he was likely to be discovered in a moment, but he had an instinct for when to flee and when to remain still. Right now his “bump of trouble” was telling him to get as close to the ground as humanly possible. He could hear muffled voices and sensed some movement ten yards ahead.
He had felt more than seen the ambush, and his reaction had been to leap backward, away from the fight. It was not cowardice but caution that motivated him; he wanted to be sure no one was coming up from behind. Those three steps backward and ducking low as whoever threw the net at Magnus jumped down the side of the dry riverbank, saved him from detection. Something happened to Laromendis, but he couldn’t be certain. One moment the elven magic-user had been there, the next he wasn’t.
Jim had his dagger ready, but kept still. He waited until he could hear no sound, then risked peeking out from under his cloak.
The riverbed was empty.
He had heard the brief struggle and knew the instant Magnus went down without a sound they were overmatched. Whoever waited for them expected a powerful magician; he assumed the same magic trap prevented Sandreena from using her abilities, and the nets had quickly rendered both her and Kaspar unconscious.
Pug and Kaspar had been clear in their instructions to him; he was the last link to the outside world if all else failed, and given the level of power and talent in this reconnaissance, he considered himself a desperate choice.
He crouched low, willing to risk looking out from under his cloak, but not willing to risk moving just yet. Where was that elf?
Then he saw Laromendis move and suddenly the elf was standing before him. He turned and looked down at Jim and whispered, “They’re gone.”
Jim stood up and Laromendis reached out to touch his cloak. “That is impressive.”
“I’m good,” whispered the noble-turned-thief-turned-spy, “but I’m not that good. This didn’t come cheaply. The artificer who wove it for me called it his ‘cloak of blending,’ and I suspect it uses magic similar to your own.” He looked around for any sign of lingering danger. “What just happened?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” whispered the elf. “They were lying in wait. They knew we had magic-users with us, and they were ready.”
“They knew we were coming.”
“Apparently. What troubles me is how the ambush was executed.”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”
“We were not moving especially quickly, in fact we were very cautious. For those three ambushers to have secreted themselves in that location, in anticipation of our arrival, meant they had to be lying in those shallow depressions, covered with dirt, for quite some time, perhaps an hour or more.”
“How did they breathe?”
Laromendis nodded emphatically. “I’m thinking they didn’t breathe.”
Jim’s face became a mask of concern. “Necromancy?”
“Pug mentioned to my brother and me that one of his concerns was trying to understand how death magic and demon magic were linked, and we understood that concern, though we have had no experience with any such connection.” The elf paused, then looked at Jim. “There may be a more prosaic explanation, but if those were…reanimated dead?”
Jim was, for the first time in years, uncertain what to do next. “We need to send word to Pug, and we need to follow those captors.”
Laromendis said, “I’ll find Pug. I can stop and hide, better than you can, but I cannot track or skulk, and that cloak gives you more flexibility than my magic does.” He asked, “What should I tell Pug?”
“Tell him what you saw, nothing more. Don’t speculate unless he asks, and tell him that if I don’t find you within one hour he’s to assume I’ve been taken as well.” Jim glanced over the verge and said, “Good luck,” then he wrapped his cloak around him and almost vanished.
“Good luck,” returned Laromendis, fascinated at Jim’s subtle bit of magic. He could see Jim moving along the verge of the dried river, but only if he looked directly at him and concentrated. He knew that if he took his eyes off of the human, he’d vanish from sight. The cloak did not render him invisible, but rather let him blend in with the surrounding terrain.
Laromendis decided he’d ask more about that cloak if they ever got out of here. He glanced around to ensure he wasn’t being watched, then started back the way he had come, hoping to overtake Pug before they ran into trouble.
Pug motioned for the others to halt. They’d been making very slow progress, frustrated by the need to loop far to the northwest and then return toward the wall in tangential approaches. There was simply no good cover until they reached a point farther to the west, and from there they could hardly see anything. Kneeling behind an overhang that sheltered them from any but the keenest observation, he whispered, “This is getting us nowhere.”
Gulamendis whispered, “Amirantha and I sense demons, but there are not that many, and they were scattered.”
“Where?” asked Pug.
“All over,” answered Amirantha. “A heavy concentration of them near that big gate where we first crossed over the road, but after that…” He shrugged.
“How about here?” asked Brandos.
“Few,” answered the elf.
Looking at Pug, Brandos said, “Perhaps a direct approach?”
“What do you propose?” asked the magician.
Glancing around at the deep night sky and shrouded landscape, Brandos said, “Unless they have night vision like friend elf here, or a cat’s, I can get close and take a look. It won’t be the first time I’ve crawled on my stomach to get a look at an enemy position.”
Pug thought for a moment and said, “I’m loath to use magic that might be detected until I know what we face. Get as close as you can, then get back here, but secrecy is paramount.”
“Understood.”
Brandos went up over the edge and on to the berm, crawling at a surprisingly efficient rate. Amirantha said, “‘Enemy position’?” He chuckled softly. “He means seeing where the local sheriff or city watch was waiting for us.”
“As long as it works,” whispered Pug.
Time dragged slowly and then they could hear Brandos returning. He snaked down on his stomach to where they crouched waiting, rolled over, and sat up. “There’s a small gate a hundred yards and a bit to the southwest. It looks like it’s the one part of the wall that’s not quite finished. There’s a wooden barrier they have to move to bring anything like a wagon in or out, and there’s only one guard. A demon,” he said to Amirantha with a grin.
“What manner?” asked the Warlock.
“Big battle demon, ram’s head, all decked out in black armor carrying a huge double-bladed axe.”
“Ram’s head?” said Amirantha, looking at Gulamendis.
The elf said, “They tend to be tractable if you can subdue them.”
“If you can subdue them,” echoed Amirantha.
“What are you thinking?” asked Pug.
“If we can subdue that demon, eve
n for just a few minutes,” said Amirantha, “that gives us a point of ingress. If you have the means to get in unseen and look about—”
“I can do that,” said Pug. “I can render myself unseen for a short period.”
“That’s good,” said Gulamendis with a slight smile, “as we should only be able to subdue that demon for a short period.”
“What do we do with him when he stops being subdued and starts shouting alarm?” asked Brandos.
“I expect it will be dead by then,” said Amirantha pointedly.
Brandos rolled his eyes. “They tend to stop being cooperative as soon as you start killing them.”
“Then do it quickly,” he said to Brandos and Gulamendis.
“You hook him,” said Brandos, “and we’ll gut him and cook him.” Gulamendis nodded. “I’ve got one banishment that’s very quick, but it tends to be messy.”
“I don’t mind messy,” said Pug. “If we need to leave in a hurry, we can.”
“What about Magnus and his bunch?” asked Brandos.
“If they hear trouble, they know what to do,” answered Pug.
“I hope so,” said Brandos. “Because I certainly don’t.”
Pug said to Amirantha, “Take the lead.”
Amirantha nodded, but instead of crawling forward as Brandos had, he stood, motioning for the others to follow, and started walking straight to the gate.
The sentry was looking the other way for a moment when Amirantha loomed up in the darkness, and when he turned his sheep-like head in the Warlock’s direction, he uttered a curious sound, “Uh?”
Before he could make another, Amirantha had used a single word spell that stunned the creature, causing the huge axe he held to drop from limp fingers. Amirantha said to Pug, “You have perhaps ten minutes. Five is more like it.”
Pug said, “I’ll be back in five minutes.” He took a quick glance at Amirantha who stood with hand outstretched, his magic controlling the demon. Brandos stood ready to strike a killing blow if needed, with Gulamendis ready to banish the creature.
Pug took a deep breath, then started walking toward the now unguarded entryway. As he moved around the makeshift wooden barrier, he unleashed a spell he had never used before. It was a difficult cantrip, causing him to be ignored. Not invisible, but rather when someone glanced at him, he didn’t garner notice, as if he wasn’t important enough to remember. It was a spell taught him by Laromendis the week before, and while the elf had judged Pug’s mastery of it sufficient, Pug still had doubts.
He walked through the opening and paused a moment, glancing in all directions.
The four towers rose up overhead, arching toward an open center. This close Pug could sense there was power in them, faint, perhaps dormant was a better word, but there. A tiny flicker of light danced across the tip of each from time to time, but otherwise they were quiet.
Pug could not enjoy the luxury of investigating any one aspect of this place, no matter how much he wished he could. He moved toward the massive excavation in the center of the ring, glancing from side to side to see if he was being observed. A sentry on the wall looked directly at him for a moment, then turned away, looking out over the dark berm outside the wall. Apparently the spell was working or there were other humans in dark robes seen trekking around the facility after dark.
He reached the edge of the pit and glanced in. His stomach knotted. The pit was less than thirty feet deep, but he could see the piles of bodies. The stench that rose clearly indicated they had been dead for days. Elves, humans, dwarves, and even some demons lay sprawled in the mass.
Pug stepped back and felt the freshening breeze blow the stench away. Had the air been still he would have smelled the dead at the outer gate.
He hurried toward the only feature inside the ring that offered any invitation, a small building of some sort, with a single door and no windows. As he hurried to reach the door, a voice from nearby hissed, “Pug!”
It was only by the scantest margins Pug didn’t incinerate Jim Dasher where he stood. “You have no idea,” Pug whispered. “Where are the others?”
“In there,” Jim pointed to the door. “There’s a stair leading down to an underground chamber.”
Pug said, “I have one minute before I must start back to where Amirantha and the others wait.” He pointed toward the unguarded entrance.
“Magnus, Sandreena, and Kaspar were taken.”
“What?”
Jim motioned for him to remain silent. “A trap. I think they knew we were coming.” Before Pug could ask how, he continued. “I used my cloak and Laromendis his conjuring skills to stay hidden. He’s heading around after you and if he hasn’t overtaken his brother and the others by now, he will by the time you get back.”
“Me?” said Pug. “My son is down there.”
“And I’m better able to slip in and out than you. Your seeming is good. I had to look at you long and hard for almost a half minute before I realized I was looking at you, but I did recognize you, and if you’re coming down stairs, even if those at the bottom think you’re someone they should ignore, you’ll be somewhere they can’t go, so let me go and I’ll meet you by the gates in five more minutes.”
“If you’re not back by then, I’ll come after you,” said Pug.
“What about the plan?” hissed Jim.
“Everyone is in place, and I’ll send Brandos with instructions if I must. I’ve lost too much to not go after Magnus.”
“Understood,” said Jim. “Now, let me go down there and I’ll find you.”
Pug hesitated, hating to leave this in another’s hands, but one complaint he had always had about his wife Miranda was her seeming inability to delegate important tasks to others. Feeling a rush of bitterness thinking of her, he nodded and turned away.
Jim Dasher knew it had been difficult for Pug to let him go. The recent loss of his wife and other son made him that much more protective of Magnus. Still, Jim knew from experience that this was exactly the situation where emotion would only get you killed.
There was a plan established, and it was the third option that only he, Pug, Kaspar, and Magnus knew of. Three companies of soldiers were assembled and ready to attack at a moment’s notice.
Each was under the command of men who Pug trusted implicitly—his adopted grandsons, Tad, Zane, and Jommy. Jommy waited in a nice quiet estate on the island of Roldem, with three hundred Roldem Royal Marines under his command.
Zane was down in Kesh with a half Legion of Kesh’s finest border Legionaries, “dog soldiers,” nearly a thousand men.
Tad was waiting in Krondor with five hundred more of the Prince’s own. Kaspar had another five hundred handpicked shock troops from the army of the Maharaja of Muboya waiting half a planet away with the young magician Jason ready to bring them here.
Any or all of them could be here in minutes. The only critical thing was one person using a Tsurani orb to get free of here and back to Sorcerer’s Island, where a simple order given would trigger a full-scale assault on this fortification.
As long as one person could get away.
Jim made his way slowly into the building, and down the circular stairs that began with a hole in the floor. He kept one hand lightly touching the wall on his left, while the other held the cloak firmly around him. The nature of this marvelous garment was reduced in proportion to his movement, but the steps were hardly wide enough to allow someone to pass, so he felt the need to reach the bottom as quickly as possible.
Five full circles and he knew he was approximately thirty feet below the surface, with the bottom still not in sight. Ten more and he saw light, and when he reached the bottom, he judged he was easily a hundred and fifty feet below the surface. It would be a wonderful climb back up, he thought, especially if he were being chased.
At the bottom, Jim discovered himself in a large room with ancient stone walls. Another of those damned ancient Keshian fortifications, he thought. This had all begun for him at that ancient site atop the plateau
called the Tomb of the Hopeless, and now he found himself in one even more remote and dangerous.
Looking around for some sense of what to do, he noticed that only one of four tunnels leading away had a distant light at the end, so that’s the direction he chose.
The tunnel was also ancient stone, dry and dusty, but the floor showed the tread of many feet. He still had no concept of what this place was and why the mad magician Belasco and his demon minions had chosen to occupy this place, but he suspected whatever the reason, it was something he was going to regret discovering more than he regretted not knowing.
Reaching the end of the tunnel, he hesitated, clutching his cloak around himself and looking into the room with surprise.
A massive altar, ancient and stained black with the blood of the slaughtered centuries past, now was stained with fresh blood. Before it knelt three figures, bound in chains and forced to kneel—Kaspar, Sandreena, and Magnus.
Well, at least they’re still alive, thought Jim.
What had him stunned, to say the least, was that atop the altar lay the still form of Belasco, eyes closed. Dead, unconscious, or sleeping, he could not judge.
And standing on the other side of the altar was a slender man, whipcord strong in his appearance, stripped to the waist. His torso was covered in clan tattoos, and his teeth had all been filed to points. Jim had never seen one before, but he had to be a Shaskahan cannibal, practitioners of especially dark magic.
Only this time the magic didn’t seem to be intended to destroy the body on the altar, but rather he appeared to be attempting to revive it. When the chanting stopped, the islander reached over and gave Belasco a gentle shake. “Master?” he whispered, loud enough that Jim could make out the word.
From out of the air came a voice. “Yes, my servant?”
“Are you with us again?” asked the islander. He appeared genuinely frightened by whatever was taking place.
“Not yet,” came the answer.
“What must I do? We trapped those coming, as you said they would. We have them bound here in chains that make their magic not work.” He looked at Sandreena and Magnus as he said the last, then at Kaspar. “We can spill blood if it will help.”