• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The weakening light revealed that the great fortress of dead trees had a glow all its own-a faint greenish phosphorescence-not the green of living things, no, but instead the essence of gangrene itself-greenish black, pustulant, and pulsing. Thus, even with the arrival of night and through the mist produced by the driving rain, Marrec was able to see the forces that began to stream from the Close.

He had thought the great petrified trees were fused together, but there must have been enough space to navigate between them. Like cheese squeezed from a colander, lines of figures squirmed from between the trunks. The figures, once free of the Close, massed and moved down the lane toward Marrec and the others.

The cleric noticed that the ruined buildings on either side, too, were disgorging ungainly figures. There were hundreds of figures closing upon them at a dead run, with dozens more appearing each second.

Marrec took a pace forward. Gunggari stepped up to Marrec's left, but a pace behind. Elowen remained to his right, also back a pace. Ususi remained directly behind Marrec, but with space enough between to shelter Ash. In that way, they encircled the girl.

As they rushing forms grew closer, Elowen said, "Volodnis. They're all rot-touched, like those we fought in Lethyr."

It was as Elowen said. A tide of blighted volodnis threatened to flow over them, and the rain continued to fall, cold and uncaring.

The blighted volodnis were worked up. They hissed, shouted, and stamped their feet. They broke upon the defenders like a tide, but Marrec held steady. Justlance's tip became a silver flame in his hand like a thunderbolt, a veritable rod of death to every volodni who opposed him. Marrec slew them as fast as they approached. To his right, he saw Elowen make a similar impact with Dymondheart, save when she slew, the volodnis' rotting bodies took flame with purifying fire. To his left, Gunggari laid about him, dispatching foes with his sap-spattered dizheri. Behind him, he could hear the continual chant of Ususi, bolts of magical fire laying volodnis low-sometimes one, sometimes several at once.

They advanced. Through the flashing lightning and implacable rain, the silhouette of the Close loomed larger.

They fought, they cursed, and they slew, and the tide continued to part, and a trail of the dead grew behind. Larger shadows begin to stir on the outskirts of the fight, which in a flashing dazzle of lightning were revealed as reinforcements for the enemy-twigblights. Marrec realized that the Rotting Man must know the secret of their animation even without the aid of Anammelech.

The cleric shouted above the thunder, "We can't fight both volodnis and twigblights and hope to win."

Ever economical in wielding his dizheri, the Oslander took a moment to shrug, which became the initial move of a dramatic swing that laid two volodnis low.

Each volodni they slew allowed the menacing twigblights to move closer through the crush. They didn't have to get too close, though-the ones Marrec could make out were fifteen, maybe twenty feet high. Already some were leaning out over the volodnis, seeking to lash Marrec with claws of splintered wood.

Time for the bargainer to make good, Marrec decided. He screamed out, "Queen Abiding, answer to your final agreement. Aid me."

The sky changed instantly, as if she had been waiting for the call, just out of sight. Where before was driving rain, lightning from the thundercloud, and the sick glow of the petrified forest, there was nothing but black. Tendrils of darkness reached down from that immensity, stabbing into the boggy ground like twisting roots, but more often spearing a blighted volodni or screeching twigblight. Darkness was upon them.

The queen had come.

The void continued to descend. The Rotting Man's blighted forces cowered and screamed. They sought to escape, but the periphery was already void, so they ran back and forth. Vainly they crawled and clambered, packed into the narrowing space like swarming