Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [17]
The going was rough but uneventful. The battles they had anticipated never came, even after several days of traveling south following the river. It was dusk of the fifth night since Tarl took the test when they spotted a high wooden fence that they took to be a part of the City of Phlan's fortifications. In the distance, behind the fence, they could just see the pinnacles of the towers that made up the main fortress of the city. Determined to make their way into Phlan and to the temple within the city walls, they pushed their way through the rotting boards of the wooden fence. Just as the last man in the party came through the fence, a deafening clang broke out.
Anton, who was one of the first inside the walls, inadvertently stepped on and turned a large flat stone-a gravestone-and as he did, he realized that the tall grasses hid dozens more. "By the gods, there be death inside these walls!" shouted Anton. A bony hand reached up from the ground near Anton's leg. "Get back to the grave from whence ya came!" he shouted. With a swing of his hammer, he shattered the bony hand, and immediately the skeleton burst, screaming, from the ground, its frame guarded by a shield covered with earth and worms. The sickening shriek of the undead was even worse than the clanging. Anton slammed his heavy hammer down on the skeleton's shield full force, and the disc crashed from its hand. With another swing, Anton sent the bony frame of the undead creature splintering in a hundred directions.
More armed skeleton warriors erupted from the ground in front of the party. "The hammer!" shouted Brother Donal. "Protect it at any cost!" He shoved the sacred Hammer of Tyr at Tarl as the warrior clerics moved quickly to form a protective line in front of the youngest of their group.
"The horses!" Tarl's shout of warning was too late. Skeletal arms were reaching up from the ground and slashing the underbellies of the terrified creatures. The animals' death shrieks were hideous, but there was no chance to mourn for the horses as the skeleton warriors attacked with a vengeance. Swords clanked against shields and metal shattered bone as the clerics pressed forward. The sight of dozens of undead soldiers made every man's blood run cold, but the brittle warriors stood no chance against the heavy hammers and ball and chains favored by the clerics of Tyr.
In a matter of minutes, the area was littered with bone fragments, but no man had a chance to catch his breath. Dozens more skeletons appeared, and grotesque zombies burst from the ground, their half-rotted bodies covered with maggots and dirt. Brother Sontag challenged the zombies with his holy symbol. "In the name of Tyr, begone!" A ray of pure white light shot from the holy symbol to the chest of the first of the lumbering creatures. The zombie's rotting flesh began to smoke, then to bubble. Maggots, inflated from the intense heat, burst with the sound of popping corn. Like a cube of ice held over a fire, the zombie melted, layer by layer, until nothing was left but a puddle of slime.
The other clerics quickly raised their holy symbols against the zombies that followed. For each holy symbol, at least one zombie was turned to slime, but in their place followed even more zombies, along with some of the most frightful creatures of legend-wraiths, the ghostly mists that kill. Tarl could no longer quell his own terror. Shimmering clouds, gruesomely magnified images of giants, ogres, and other terrors closed in all around the clerics. By the dozens they came, from every corner of the graveyard. "Back, you spawn of evil!" shouted Brother Sontag, still wielding his holy symbol. "Press on, brothers! We must flee this place!"
The Hammer of Tyr clenched tightly in his hand, Tarl plunged forward. The other clerics followed, holding their