The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [34]
The fang moved to defend their ethran. Wide-eyed as he surveyed the closing circle of undead, Bastun summoned his axe blade. Anilya's voice rose in casting and she spun as her sellswords formed their own semi-circle. Battle cries, blades, and cracking ice echoed within the enclosure. Raising his axe, Bastun searched for his place in the circle, turning as he listened to the chaotic rhythms-and detected an inconsistency.
A bleakborn shattered as the durthan completed her spell. Thaena grunted as she took another off its feet, muttering arcane phrases to keep it down. A clang of steel on his right, a dying sellsword gasping for breath on his left. From above he caught whispering and a rustle of robes.
The dark figure on the eastern wall moved before Bastun could get a better look, but its voice continued to whisper words of magic. Bastun charged forward, sidestepping a stumbling berserker, the man's arms coated with thin ice. A bleakborn hissed as it knelt to finish its grisly feeding. Horrified, Bastun slashed at its skull, using the strike to slip past the combatants. The blade split through flesh and bone as he turned with the swing.
Bolts of flame arced from above and he dived forward, the edges of his robes singed and steaming in the snow. The figure above disappeared again, but its aim had been true. The nearly beheaded bleakborn rose, its flesh healed, and reached toward the vremyonni. He cursed as the undead's freezing aura gripped him. Pushing himself up along the ruined wall, Bastun struggled to summon a spell through the cold.
Ohriman appeared, kicking the bleakborn down and slashing at its grasping fingers. Blood spilled and became a black ichor as it hit the ground. Not waiting to thank the tiefling, Bastun turned to the wall and began to climb, finding easy hand- and footholds in the crumbling stonework.
Wind and snow greeted him atop the wall as he stood and peered through the mist for the figure on the tower. Stalking forward, he glanced once at the battle below, his allies barely visible through the haze. Only Anilya stood out, her arms raised as she chanted a dark language over the bodies of several fallen sellswords. Bastun shuddered and ignored the durthan, focusing on the tower.
The figure appeared, dressed in long robes and a furred cloak with a brace of amulets around his neck and braided into his long, unkempt hair-the look of a Nar shaman. Even across the distance that separated them, Bastun could see a spark of madness glinting in the Creel's eye. Spying Bastun, the shaman snarled, baring his teeth as Bastun approached.
"What do you want with the Shield?" Bastun asked as he adjusted the angle of his axe, edging forward and determined to discover if he faced a simple barbarian or something more sinister. "Why have you come?"
The Creel's answer was a string of arcane syllables, summoning a smoky darkness that enveloped his hand. Bastun charged, muttering a curse. With a quick spell he might have killed the shaman, but he needed answers. He dodged left, skirting the edge of the wall as a ribbon of darkness shot past him. It grazed his arm, searing as it passed through robes and flesh. Growling through the pain, he darted forward, ducking beneath another bolt of shadow, and shoved the Creel backward.
A dagger flashed in the shaman's hand, but it proved no match for Bastun's axe. Wincing at the pain in his arm, he separated the Creel from the dagger, taking several fingers in the process. Reversing his swing, he cracked the butt of his staff into the screaming man's jaw.
The shaman, his pain-filled screams cut short,