The Seal of Karga Kul_ A Dungeons & Dragons Novel - Alex Irvine [86]
After a full day of riding the river, monotony broken only by the occasional nibble of a fish on the hooks they trailed behind the boat, they tied up to a leaning oak tree, its branches spreading a good fifty feet out over the water and its roots exposed at the river’s edge. “In ten years it’ll be a snag,” Vokoun said.
“In ten years, you might be a snag too.” Paelias jumped nimbly from the boat up to a low-hanging branch and swung into the tree. The rest of the non-halfling passengers disembarked onto the shore while the crew made the boat fast and cleaned out the day’s trash. They clustered in a flat crescent at the base of a wooded mountainside, with the sound of a stream nearby and the forest canopy alive with the energetic songs of birds. “This would be a fine place to settle,” Paelias said from his perch.
Some of the halflings hopped out of the boat and set to work building a fire at the shoreline. “Someone’s been here before, and didn’t like it,” one of them said, holding up a skull.
“Maybe not such a fine place to settle,” Remy said. He and Lucan scanned the edges of the clearing.
Keverel examined the skull while the halflings finished laying the fire. “Whoever this was, a blade killed him, and not two years ago,” he said. Something crashed in the woods, some distance above them. The sun was low; already it was dusk in the trees and on the water, and the light falling on the other side of the Whitefall’s canyon was darkening to orange.
More crashing from the trees put them all on guard. Vokoun and the four halfling rowers cocked small crossbows and clustered together. Remy drew his sword and heard the creak of Lucan’s bowstring. “Erathis,” Keverel murmured, and at the invocation of the god a dim glow spread from the edge of the woods. Remy could see it playing along the edges of swords and the curves of helmets. But it was not men they were going to fight.
“Death knights,” Paelias said as the undead soldiers broke into the open clearing. The halflings cocked crossbows and the party fell into combat order, their backs to the river. Remy had heard of death knights. In the stories, a single one of them could tear through a company of marching soldiers as if they were farmhands. At the edge of the trees, he could count at least a dozen of them. Perhaps more.
One, a dragonborn, larger than the rest and clearly the leader, stepped forward and raised a hand to arrest the progress of its subordinates. They stood at attention, eyes dimly aglow along with the steel they wore. “Biri-Daar of the Knights of Kul,” the champion said.
She stepped forward to face it. “Once you were Gouvou, were you not?”
“Once I was living Gouvou. Now I am a servant of Orcus and my name is no longer of any use.”
“Yet I will call you Gouvou,” Biri-Daar said. “Because that is the name attached to your treachery.”
“What have I betrayed? Surely not the legacy of the Knights. That was formed at the Gorge of Noon, at the southern foot of Iban Ja’s bridge. Moula carried it on. I carry it on.” Gouvou opened his jaws wide, threw his head back, and roared. A column of flame, burning the color of shadow, or clouds on the horizon lit by distant lightning, erupted from his mouth—and the radiance of Erathis disappeared.
“It is their unholy fire,” Keverel said. “He may think it has driven the light of Erathis away, but he will discover differently.” The cleric touched his holy symbol to his lips, then drew his mace up and held it at the ready.
“He did not?” Remy said softly.
Keverel shook his head. “I could bring it back. But to what purpose? We can see them now.”
Biri-Daar drew her sword. “Single combat,” she said. “Hold your minions to it.”
“You put me at a disadvantage. Will your fellows submit should I defeat you?” Gouvou laughed, a sound like the rattle of a snake. The sound hung in the air, against the backdrop of the river’s rush.
Remy never saw the signal, but at some unspoken sign the two