It still gave light. But the winged creature swooped down from the ceiling, straight at it. He had no doubt that it could whisk the ring out of the tomb as easily as it had whisked him into it.
Even without the walking corpses pressing in around him, he couldn’t have reached the ring first. He tossed his sword into his off hand, snatched the knife from his boot, and threw.
The dagger pierced the hurtling creature, and it vanished at once, like a soap bubble popping. Balasar still hadn’t had a good look at it, nor could he judge whether he’d hurt it badly enough to keep it from coming back immediately.
But there was no time to worry about it. Slashing at his belly, groin, and thighs, the dead child drove in. Its elders did too. Claws raked to tear away his face, and he hopped back to avoid them. That landed him back on the three shallow steps leading up to the sarcophagus-or maybe on the steps of a different pedestal-and he stumbled and almost lost his balance once again.
Snarling, he kicked the child zombie. It reeled back and fell on its rump. By then, the full-sized ones were reaching out to tear at him from either side. It would be hard to strike at one without turning his back on the other.
So he heaved himself backward and rolled over the top of the sarcophagus. And scraped and banged himself up in the process. But he landed on his feet, and now he had a makeshift rampart between the walking dead and himself. They could only claw at him with difficulty, but he had no trouble slashing at them with the sword.
He concentrated on the one on his right, cutting slimy chunks away from its head. Meanwhile, the zombies started around the two ends of the coffin to close with him once more.
He rushed the one he’d been attacking. He landed a cut that split what remained of its skull, and it collapsed. By a happy chance, the child corpse had shambled up right behind it, and the two ended up on the floor tangled together.
He thrust his point deep into the child thing’s tattered, wormy face, and it stopped struggling to wriggle out from under its larger comrade. He whirled. As he’d expected, the remaining zombie was right behind him. He cut, sheared slimy fingers from the hand that was reaching for him, then noticed how the creature’s head dangled and flopped on just a rotted vestige of neck. He struck hard and decapitated it.
He felt a stab of horror when he saw that hadn’t finished it. But at least it spoiled its aim, and he had little trouble evading its pawing as he kept on hacking pieces away. Finally, it too toppled and lay inert.
Panting, heart hammering, abruptly conscious of the sting of his cuts, Balasar picked his way through the corpses and the stray lumps and spatters of putrescence littering the floor. He recovered the silver ring and jammed it on his finger. Now no one could deprive him of light. He turned and surveyed his situation.
There was still no sign of the winged creature. Good. He hoped the wretched thing was busy dying a long and agonizing death.
The problem was that he couldn’t see an easy way out of the vault either, only the oval piece of wall someone had mortared in place after the most recent interment.
Without the proper tools, could he remove it? Would he run out of air while he was trying? The thought was enough to make the stale, fetid atmosphere feel thin.
He spat fear away and told himself he wasn’t going to die there. It had always been obvious that his end would be either glorious or scandalous, and suffocating alone in a box was neither.
So naturally, he finally did chip and bull his way out, though he ruined a good sword in the process. Beyond the hole he’d opened was a corridor lined with the sealed entrances to other tombs. One of the Catacombs’ distinctive sconces hung on the wall, its glow faded to a mere hint of phosphorescence.
He still didn’t know exactly where he was, but that was all right. If he simply wandered, he was bound to find a way back up to the Market Floor eventually. As he returned his ring to his pouch, lest its light attract unwanted attention, two thoughts were foremost in its mind.
The first was that he actually was on the trail of something incriminating. No one set a trap along a path without a reason to keep the wrong person from reaching the other end. The second was that he’d have to avoid his fellow dragon-worshipers for a couple of days, until healing magic erased all trace of the claw marks from his face and throat.
SIX
5-9 KYTHORN THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS O NE (1479 DR)
Tchazzar, Jhesrhi, Aoth, Cera, and Shala approached Soolabax with caution. Which turned out to be unnecessary, because the orange light of the setting sun revealed that the besieging army was gone. Nothing remained but burned and toppled trebuchets, unburied bodies, and trampled earth.
Scar screeched like he was angry he’d missed the fight. Jhesrhi peered down into the city. She wanted to know how many casualties the Brotherhood had sustained, but found it impossible even to guess from so high up and far away.
Tchazzar blasted flame across the sky. “A victory!” he thundered. “The first of my new reign!”
The flash and bellow made the folk down in the streets look up at the sky. When they saw the red dragon, they started to cheer.
Soolabax wasn’t Luthcheq. There was scarcely room for Tchazzar to land inside the walls. But that didn’t deter him. He somehow managed to set down in the intersection of three streets in front of Hasos’s keep. A flick of one wing scraped shutters and paint from the facade of a house. His tail swished and smashed a wooden horse trough, splashing the contents onto the ground.
Then he shrank, becoming the handsome warrior in red and gold. His companions landed beside him. For all her manifest toughness, Shala looked glad to be back on solid ground.
The enormous hawk the former war hero had ridden gave Jhesrhi a fierce, inquiring stare. She nodded, and it dissolved into a gust of air that stirred everyone’s hair and cloaks, becoming pure wind once again.
Looking more serious than was her wont, plump, pretty Cera said, “There must be wounded. If Your Majesty will excuse me, I’ll go help tend them.”
Tchazzar smiled and waved a hand in dismissal.
Cera and Aoth exchanged a quick, fond look. Then the sunlady hurried away while Gaedynn, Hasos, and others came striding out of the keep.
Seeing the archer made Jhesrhi feel relieved but guilty too. The relief made at least a little sense. Gaedynn could have conceivably have died in the fight to break the siege, as any warrior could perish in any battle. But the guilt was nonsensical, yet another instance of the exasperating way just being around him could tie her emotions into knots.
The newcomers bowed, and Tchazzar quickly gave them permission to rise. “Well done, gentlemen!” he boomed.
“Thank you, Majesty,” Hasos said. “The knights of Soolabax fought superbly.”
“We Brothers and the fellows Aoth mustered from along the border were there too,” Gaedynn drawled. “We held the knights’ horses and such.”
“And are there prisoners?” Tchazzar asked.
Gaedynn nodded. “Some.”
“That too was well done,” the dragon said. “Sacrifice them. It will give me the strength I need to crush Alasklerbanbastos.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Shala asked, “All of them?”
Tchazzar grinned. “Why not? Every drop of spilled blood will make me more powerful. And it’s easier than guarding and feeding the bastards, isn’t it?”
“Probably so,” said Aoth. “But there surely hasn’t been time to question them all. We might be able to extract some useful information. We can certainly ransom the ones whose families have coin. And the sellswords might switch sides with a little coaxing.”
“Besides,” Shala said, “I’ve studied Chessenta’s history-your history-and I don’t understand. You never required such … such a thing in the past.”