Black wizards - Douglas Niles [141]
"We will attack tomorrow morning, an hour after dawn. Use the rest of the day to get into positions – I want all units ready by nightfall!"
The captains dispersed to organize their units. Cyndre spent the long afternoon checking with each commander to make sure that he understood the role he was to play in the plan. Only the ogre brigade, which had to make a long march through the woods to the northwest, faced a real challenge.
The long night gradually gave way to dawn, and the sorcerer estimated the passing of an hour after sunrise. He felt the mass of the king's legion behind him as he stepped to the forefront and cast his spell – the spell that would, he hoped, give them free passage into Doncastle.
"Seeriax, punjyss withsath – fore!"
The forest before him slowly filled with yellow smoke. There was no wind, but the smoke, trailing a sickening stench in its wake, began to drift toward Doncastle. It thickened, billowing along the ground as it moved, and drifted steadily away from the king's army.
As it passed through the forest, squirrels, birds, and every other animal fell dead. It grew still more, bubbling and seething like a furious living thing. Tendrils of the smoke, tinged with green, reached forward eagerly toward the outskirts of the city. Cyndre knew that ranks of defenders stood, camouflaged, among the trees before him. But the killing cloud would find them.
* * * * *
The Deepsong thrummed, building in intensity and volume. Throughout the city, along the canyon walls, across the gardens and balconies, the sahuagin gathered, enthralled. Thousands of them focused their might upon the song, and it grew more compelling with each addition.
Gradually, they began to thrash and jerk from the tension. Flailing around with the vast domes of Kressilacc, the sahuagin thrashed the water into a vast, swirling maelstrom, until the momentum of the sea itself carried the song and the singers through its great circle. And still the Deepsong grew.
The dead of the sea marched along the bottom. Shepherded by Ysalla's priestesses, they gathered around the city. Vast ranks of white bone, pallid flesh, and gouged eyesockets shuffled forward under the priestesses' commands. Unknowing, they stood ready to do whatever they were told.
Then King Sythissall raised one webbed, claw-studded hand, and the Deepsong came to a halt. The frenzy of the sahuagin exploded upward as thousands of green, scaled bodies hurled from the city, kicking their way swiftly toward the surface. The swarm bristled with tridents and spears. The mass of sahuagin broke the surface in a frothing mass of turbulence.
Swimming strongly, their spines breaking the surface to roll through the spray in a menacing flood, they approached the coast of Alaron – the Kingdom of Callidyrr.
And the undead started to march slowly across the bottom of the sea. Led by the yellow-scaled priestesses the dead of the sea shambled over every obstacle, every undersea mountain or valley in their path.
Toward the light, and the air, and the land.
XIX
Wind
"An eagle, huh?" The halfling was obviously impressed with the account of Robyn's journey to Alaron. He, Daryth, Tristan, and Robyn stood overlooking the King's Gate of Doncastle. Below them the defenders of the city stood at their posts.
"And a wolf, once," she added proudly. Her skin was clean and smooth again – the scrapes and burns had vanished from her face. Only the garish scar across her eye indicated the hurts she had received.
"I've learned a lot in the past year," she admitted. "But I missed you all terribly." She touched Pawldo tenderly on the cheek, and he turned away in embarrassment.
She squeezed Tristan's hand, and for a moment he forgot everything but the fact that she was at his side again. His confidence grew; Robyn's strength would be a great asset in the coming fight.
They would certainly need all the help they could get, he reflected, looking at the position before