Red Magic - Jean Rabe [111]
Galvin brought his right leg up and lodged it against the dying man's waist, then pushed, sliding the man off his sword and into the advancing second rank of guards, knocking several down. The druid pressed his attack, cleaving his blade into the neck of a fallen gnoll who was starting to rise.
Shards of electric blue shot past Galvin and imbedded themselves in the chest of another guard. Brenna shouted a half-dozen arcane syllables, and more of the magical shards flew from her fingertips and into the face of a gnoll.
"Surrender!" she heard Galvin call, but the guards ignored the command. Then the enchantress felt instantly cold as a wave of wraiths passed over her, casting a dark shadow in the entranceway.
The undead enveloped the guards farthest from Galvin and Brenna, their black bodies smothering their victims' screams. Galvin futilely ordered the wraiths to retreat as he battled a pair of gnolls. Four more swings, and the druid had killed the dog-men.
Brenna and Galvin were the only living people in the hallway. The druid stared at his bloody longsword for several moments, then glanced at the polished marble floor, now coated with blood and entrails. Farther down the hallway, where the wraiths had attacked, the dead bodies appeared twisted, their skin dried, almost mummified. The shadowy wraiths hovered over the husks.
"Leave us!" the druid ordered, glaring at the wraiths that had positioned themselves along the walls equidistant from the candles, where the light was the softest. The torches showed the wraiths to be vaguely human shapes, filled with shifting patterns of gray, black, and brown.
"No!" they hissed as one.
"Outside!" Galvin continued his commanding tone.
"When will you leave the castle?" one posed as the cloud of wraiths floated over the heads of Brenna and Galvin and out the door.
"After we have the information we need," the druid replied. "It could take a few hours."
A throaty laughed drifted through the tower's entranceway. "If you do not return, humans, we will come get you."
Galvin turned to Brenna, relieved that the wraiths were gone, if only for a short while. She offered a weak smile, and he drew her into his arms. The action pleasantly startled the sorceress, and she ignored the uncomfortable links of his shirt that rubbed against her. She laid her head against his chest. The metal felt cool on her cheek.
Galvin kissed the top of her bald head. "We'll get out of this somehow, Brenna."
"What makes you so sure?" she asked, raising her head to meet his gaze.
"We have to," he stated. He bent to kiss her lips but stopped when he heard the clip-clop of hooves over the marble.
"I guess this isn't the right time or place," Brenna sighed, turning to look at Wynter.
The centaur stood amid the dead bodies, tears streaming down his angular face. "I want to go home, Galvin," he sobbed. "But I don't know where home is."
"We'll take you home soon," Galvin said softly, releasing Brenna and beckoning to Wynter. The centaur carefully picked his way around the bodies.
"Let's see what we can find-a diary or a map, anything to indicate where the gnolls are going and who they're attacking," the druid said, his voice businesslike. "If we're lucky, maybe we can find a servant willing to talk. There has to be someone alive here."
For the next hour, Brenna and Galvin moved from one room to the next searching the first three floors of the wizard's tower, coaxing the centaur up each flight of stairs. Galvin didn't want to leave Wynter close to the undead.
The trio searched through empty slave quarters, where crude furnishings dominated the rooms. The bunk beds were stacked four high and indicated the wizard kept nearly two hundred slaves in his tower. A barracks for the gnolls, furnished only marginally better, was filled with withered corpses, victims of the wraiths.
Galvin carefully inspected each body, looking for written orders or some other indication of Maligor's plans. All he was able to find were a few handfuls of silver and gold coins, the guards' meager pay. He scattered