The Seal of Karga Kul_ A Dungeons & Dragons Novel - Alex Irvine [75]
Returning his attention to Remy, the Road-builder held out a hand. “Don’t,” Keverel said before the lich could speak.
“Cleric, I will have it one way or another.” The Road-builder pointed out and up, toward his greatest work. “If I could make that, do you imagine you can oppose my will now?”
Keverel drew out his holy symbol and held it high in front of him. The Road-builder dismissed him with a wave. “Now,” he said to Biri-Daar and Moula. “Perhaps the dragonborn would like to kill each other at this time, for the honor of their enemy gods?” He turned to the rest of the group and added, “I will do my best to occupy the rest of you.”
As he spoke the last words, bits of shadow began to detach themselves from the shadows among the garden beds, shaping into wispy versions of the Road-builder himself. They formed a perimeter around the garden and closed in. “Vestiges,” Remy heard Keverel say. “Don’t let them near you if you can help it. They die easily, but kill easily too.”
The clean, pure light of Erathis shone forth from his talisman as Keverel invoked the god’s protection. Kithri, long since out of throwing knives, slowly swung a sling back and forth. “Wonder if the bones of that skull will crack,” she said, and snapped off a shot. The Road-builder flicked the stone aside with a glance.
Ghosting in, the vestiges reached to apply their necrotic touch. Lucan’s arrows tore through them as if they were tissue; every strike swirled them away into dissipating smoke, but more and more of them rose. Kithri’s slung stones ricocheted from the garden walls after passing through the vestiges without resistance. A window in the greenhouse shattered. The Road-builder hissed. “Poor manners for a guest, halfling. Very poor,” he said.
From his hands poured liquid shadow that spilled across Remy and Obek. Remy smelled death, the scent of corpses … the scent of his own corpse. Dullness afflicted his legs. Obek growled a tiefling oath and struck out, slashing vestiges to shreds and leaping to land a strike on the Road-builder himself. Even approaching the lich took its toll; Obek bared his teeth against the Road-builder’s necromantic aura and struck again as black spots appeared on his flesh.
An entire quadrant of the vestiges blew away in a blast of light from Keverel’s talisman. The light flared brighter and brighter still—and steel clashed on steel as, their preliminaries out of the way, Biri-Daar and Moula came together in a pitiless battle of former friends. The traitor landed the first blow, shearing off a piece of Biri-Daar’s shield and cutting deeply into her upper arm. She shoved him back into a tangle of fleshy flowers, following with a barrage of blows that he barely held off. The flowers, sensing blood, grew excited. Their stalks stiffened and their petals reached and grasped like fingers.
But Remy could spare little attention for their duel. He pressed forward, striking at the Road-builder but finding his blows deflected by the power of his necromantic aura. It clouded the vision and the mind; only Keverel’s incantations kept them from succumbing completely. One of Lucan’s arrows struck true, opening a crack in the Road-builder’s skull. He answered with a simple gesture, two forked fingers pointed like a snake’s tongue—but something black burst silently, momentarily obscuring both Lucan and Kithri.
When it cleared, both of them lay still. There came a brief hush over the garden,