Black wizards - Douglas Niles [155]
The undead had marched slowly toward this shore for several days, and finally they climbed the sloping bottom toward shallow wafer, and surf, and then air. Late in the night they joined the sahuagin at that high promontory.
Sythissall was the first to emerge, striding boldly from the rolling waves, thrusting his chest forward and swaggering toward the one who awaited him on shore.
The enemy, the sorcerer told him, was on top of the hill. When the sun gave them light, the sahuagin, the undead, the dark dwarves, the ogres, and the humans of the Scarlet Guard, would attack and slay them all. Cyndre said that his plan had come together quite nicely.
And Bhaal chuckled as he heard. "His plan," indeed!
XXI
Earth and Sea
"My prince."
Tristan woke instantly, reaching for his sword. He relaxed as he saw Robyn standing beside him.
"I couldn't sleep," she apologized, kneeling beside him. "And then I saw that" The druid pointed to the north, and Tristan saw a brilliant fire blazing in the distance. "It just exploded – like a magic spell, not like a normal fire."
The prince stood and looked. The fire was the only break in the darkness. Moonlight reflected off the sea, but that was only a vague distortion of the gloom.
"Have you been up all night?" he asked.
Robyn nodded. "There's something… something else out there besides the duergar and the Scarlet Guard. I felt it several hours ago, and it has been growing stronger. Tristan, I'm afraid. There's something horrible here – every bit as horrible as the Beast or the undead!"
He held her against his chest, black thoughts running through his mind. She was right, he knew. And their chances had been hopeless enough earlier in the evening. He had brought her to face death with him on some remote and rocky shore. But for what? For a failed, short-lived cause. Damn his foolishness!
"Robyn," he whispered. "I love you – by the goddess, I love you!"
He kissed her and pressed her close, and for a moment joy filled him. He felt a kind of invincible serenity that banished the real world. But all too soon he remembered their situation. He could not let her go.
"I missed you so much when you were gone that I thought I'd go crazy. I was even going to come to the Vale and see you, if I could have found you – to try and bring you back to Corwell."
She smiled at him through her own tears, and he continued awkwardly. "I can't ask you to turn from your calling – you have a destiny that even I can see, to serve the goddess. But, if you have room in your life for a husband…"
She kissed him quickly, almost playfully. "I like the idea of being a queen," she whispered. "A druid queen! Of course, you'll have to win the kingship for me first…" And they said no more for a time. The sky grew pink and then pale blue as the sun climbed toward the horizon.
Then they heard a sentry shout, and another alarm raised from a different quarter. The battle, it seemed, was beginning.
* * * * *
"By the goddess, what are those?" growled O'Roarke.
Daryth looked into the pre-dawn haze and saw movement at the base of the hill. Things that looked like humans emerged from the mist, stumbling forward. But they did not move like humans, nor did they make any noise. Among them, he saw the fishlike figures of sahuagin, their yellow scales ornamented with golden bracelets and headdresses.
"They're dead!" gasped Pawldo, straining past Daryth to get a better view.
"No! That's impossible!" gasped Pontswain. He stared in shock at the shambling forms, with their sightless eyes and grasping fingers.
The things had pasty white skin – where they had skin at all. Many of them were bare skeletons, clacking along like puppets, while others had swelled into bloated blobs of flesh from their long immersion. Patches of rotten flesh fell away from them with each step, revealing white bone or bleached sinews.
Beside the undead, so ominously silent, there suddenly appeared the berserk forms of a thousand charging duergar. Halfway up the slope, they started to howl. The shrill,