The Seal of Karga Kul_ A Dungeons & Dragons Novel - Alex Irvine [74]
As they approached, they began to see details. The garden was a riot of undead plant life and bizarre hybrids, fruits that looked like faces and flowers that dripped blood or gave off faint sparks when a breeze pushed them too close together. “I wouldn’t touch anything in there if you can avoid it,” Lucan said.
Kithri chuckled. “You don’t need to be a ranger to see that.”
The walls around the roof garden were as high as a man. Built along one of them was a long greenhouse with an enclosed stone structure set into a corner of the wall. Smoke began to curl from Biri-Daar’s nostrils. Lucan, bringing up the party’s rear with Paelias, nocked an arrow. “I hear something down there,” he said. “More than just the wind in the plants.”
As she set foot on the gravel garden path, Biri-Daar clashed her sword on her shield. “Road-builder!” she cried out. “I, Biri-Daar, paladin of Bahamut and dragonborn of Karga Kul, call on you to come out and render unto the Knights of Kul what is rightfully ours!”
Her voice echoed in the space between the walls and up into the earth-vaulted sky above. When the echoes had died away, there was a dragonborn standing before them. None of them had seen him approach. “Biri-Daar,” he said.
She nodded. “Moula. I am here for the quill.”
The dragonborn she had called Moula stood a head taller than Biri-Daar and wore armor of lacquered indigo with the totems of the Knights of Kul etched on his shield and helm. Noting this, Biri-Daar said, “And I am also here to tell you that you are no longer welcome in Karga Kul. Exile is one possibility. If I must kill you to recover the quill, however …” She clashed sword and shield again. “I confess to my god that I might take pleasure in such a killing.”
“Careful, paladin. If you take pleasure in killing, you won’t be a paladin for long.” Moula set his sword down and tightened the straps of his shield over his forearm. “To the winner the quill,” he said, picking up his sword again.
“Perhaps I might have an opinion on that topic,” came another voice, dry and sibilant. The Road-builder emerged through a glass door in the greenhouse, closing it carefully behind him. Once he had been a strong man, and handsome. But in his undeath, rich rags draped and swept around his skeletal frame, and an inhuman light shone from the empty sockets of his skull.
“It is rare to find a group of adventurers clever and hardy enough to brave my tomb and my keep,” he said. “Welcome. Although I fear that I must not let you pass on.” He gestured around the garden, and Remy, following the gesture, saw that the garden beds were nourished by the bones of previous would-be heroes.
“Remy of Avankil,” the Road-builder said. “Philomen did not tell me to expect you.”
The vizier’s name in the lich king’s mouth struck a chill in Remy’s spine. It was the confirmation of everything Biri-Daar and Keverel had been telling him from the beginning. Instinctively Remy’s hand dropped to the pouch containing the vizier’s box, as though the Road-builder might try to pickpocket him. The Road-builder laughed. “Fear not, boy,” he said. “I will not need to take it from you. Soon enough, you will offer it to me.”
“You will never touch it,” Remy said.
The Road-builder laughed again, the sound like two stones scraping against each other. “Delightful,” he said. “One forgets so easily the bravado of the living.”
Moula laughed at that, mimicking his master. “Dog,” Biri-Daar said. “Slave of Tiamat. You turn your back on the Order.”
“I realize the destiny the Order has approached since the Solstice War,” Moula said. “Tiamat would yet accept your service, I think; though she would prefer to accept your soul.”
“Ah, the Solstice War,” said the Road-builder. “I remember it with some fondness. O hardy adventurers, you do realize that you fight the latest battle in a war that has never