Ghost Vigil Read online

  “When do we leave?” said Kylon.

  Strabane grunted. “Good man. Later this morning.”

  Kylon returned to his room, leaving Caina’s ring there for safekeeping, and then went to join Strabane and his warriors.

  ***

  Chapter 2: Shaman Hill

  A faint mist of rain fell as Kylon, Strabane, and a half-dozen Kaltari warriors made their way south from Drynemet.

  Kylon did not mind. Most of Istarinmul was so hot that the dampness felt pleasant by comparison. He had spent much of his life on the ships of the Kyracian fleet, safeguarding the interests of House Kardamnos, and had sailed through storms where the wind howled like an army, where the waves rose up like mountains and the troughs seemed like chasms into the heart of the earth.

  Compared to that, a little rain was hardly noticeable.

  Though Strabane’s warriors complained as if the heavens had opened.

  Kylon ignored their griping, as did Strabane. They made their way along the crooked, twisting paths that wove through the rocky hills of the Highlands. Some of the hills had been hewn into terraces for crops, and every square foot of the valleys between the hills had been cultivated. The Kaltari had not wasted a single yard of viable cropland. Yet it still would not produce a bountiful harvest. Little wonder so many of them took service in the Padishah’s army or worked as mercenaries.

  The cultivated farmland made Shaman Hill stand out all the more by comparison.

  It was a squat fist of rock, its sides cloaked in pine trees. From a distance it looked untouched by the hand of man, yet as they drew closer Kylon saw ruins upon the slopes, crumbling walls and half-fallen towers. A ring of menhirs stood atop the hill’s crest, rising like massive bones jutting from the earth. Kylon had seen similar standing stones during his journey through the Imperial province of Caeria Ulterior, and it seemed the Kaltari had followed some of the religious practices of their ancient Caerish cousins. Here and there Kylon spotted dark spots on the side of the hill, and he realized they were entrances to tunnels.

  “Strange place,” said Kylon as the path descended towards the ravine at the foot of Shaman Hill.

  “Aye,” said Strabane. “There’s a shrine at the top of the hill, sacred to the demon cultists. Long ago a warlord built his fortress on the hill, and raided for slaves to sacrifice to the demons. The other tribes joined forces and burned him and his shamans inside their fortress, and Shaman Hill has been abandoned ever since.”

  “I’m surprised no one has torn down the shrine,” said Kylon.

  “It’s cursed,” said Strabane. “No one wants to draw the attention of the demons.”

  Kylon supposed that was superstition, but the demons that the cultists worshipped were real, so perhaps it was a prudent caution.

  They reached the ravine at the foot of Shaman Hill, near a half-ruined tower standing further up the slope like a weary sentinel. A half-dozen Kaltari men waited in the narrow ravine, grim-faced warriors in chain mail with scimitars at their belt. At their head stood a whip-thin man with a ragged red beard who resembled an angry ferret.

  “Mulgor!” said Strabane. “You look like hell.”

  The thin man spat and grinned. “Aye, Strabane, I do. But I went into the Padishah’s service while you fought gladiatorial games for the rabble of Istarinmul. Honest labor ages a man.”

  “Bah,” said Strabane. “You joined a mercenary company and helped the sultans of Alqaarin raid each other.”

  Mulgor offered an indifferent shrug. “A man needs to eat.” He looked at Kylon. “Who’s the Kyracian?”

  “One of Glasshand’s friends,” said Strabane. Mulgor took another look at Kylon, shrugged, and then turned back to Strabane. “So you decided to join the march? I wasn’t expecting that. Wondered if the superstitious old women of Surig had convinced you stay behind.”

  Mulgor grimaced behind his beard. “Don’t start. The folk of Surig claim they pray to the Living Flame or the Master of Battles, but half of them sneak off at night to lay blood offerings upon Shaman Hill. If they had their way, they’d stay in the Kaltari Highlands to take slaves while the rest of us went to war.”

  “But you’ll join us,” said Strabane.

  “Aye,” said Mulgor. “I’ll not sit by the wayside as the Kaltari go to war, and neither will the men of Surig. The demon-worshippers can go be damned with their false gods.”

  “Good,” said Strabane. “I want to march within a week. Tanzir Shahan’s army is coming up the Great Southern Road from the Vale of Fallen Stars, and I…”

  “Fools!”

  Kylon reached over his shoulder for the hilt of the valikon as he looked around for the source of the shout. He saw a middle-aged Kaltari man appear at the top of the ruined tower. He was gaunt, and wore a ragged chain mail shirt and carried a long spear, his greasy hair hanging past his jaw to mingle with his gray beard. His face had been painted blue, in the fashion of the ancient Kaltari warriors, and blue spirals and swirls marked his arms.

  There was something wrong with him.

  Kylon wasn’t sure what, yet something about the gaunt Kaltari man made him uneasy. He stepped towards the hillside, trying to focus his arcane senses upon the man.

  “Baelnach!” shouted Mulgor at the blue-painted man. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Baelnach let out a long, derisive laugh. “It is the end, fool! The end has come at last! The old world shall perish in flames. The new world shall rise! The lords of the void of proclaimed it.”

  “You know this idiot?” said Strabane.

  Kylon took a step forward, something familiar tugging at his arcane senses.

  “A warrior of Surig,” said Mulgor with derision. “And a devoted follower of the old ways.”

  “You are a fool, Mulgor,” said Baelnach, “to throw your lot in with the rebels. Instead, you should prepare for the return of the lords of the void!”

  Kylon felt the emotions pouring off Baelnach, rage and fury and hatred. He was certain the Kaltari man was insane. A healthy mind could not veer between emotions that fast. And there was something else in his sense, a terrible, alien hunger, malevolence and hatred and rage beyond anything human…

  “He’s possessed,” said Kylon. “There’s a nagataaru inside of him.”

  Baelnach laughed, the cords in his neck standing out, and purple fire and shadow snarled in his gaze.

  “The stormdancer,” snarled Baelnach. “The princes of the void have spoken of you. You are the guardian, the defender of the demonslayer. She shall perish, and you shall perish with her.”

  Kylon had spent the last three weeks in a state of fear, anger, and constant frustration, but at last that frustration and fear had a target.

  He drew the valikon, the ghostsilver blade flashing in the gloomy light. The sword looked vaguely like a double-edged Anshani falchion, though longer and with less of a pronounced curve to the blade. For that matter, no Anshani falchion had ever been forged from ghostsilver, the rare metal impervious to sorcery. Iramisian symbols had been carved into the flat of the blade, and those symbols burned with white fire as he pointed the sword at Baelnach. The valikon had been forged to destroy spirits, and it could kill the immortal nagataaru within Baelnach.

  “Why don’t you come here and say that?” said Kylon.

  Baelnach snarled, and the purple fire in his eyes flashed brighter as fresh rage burned through his sense. Oh, yes, Baelnach knew what a valikon was, or at least his nagataaru did, and the malevolent spirit recognized its danger.

  A half-dozen more men emerged from the pine trees around the base of the ruined tower, Kaltari warriors with their faces and arms painted with the same swirling blue designs as Baelnach. Each man carried a heavy amphora by the handles, their tops sealed with clay plugs. Within those amphorae Kylon sensed the mercurial, shifting presence of alchemical sorcery. The last time he had seen amphorae like that had been in the Inferno, and those amphorae had been filled with Hellfire, the most deadly weapon of the Alchemists.

/>   Strabane let out a harsh laugh. “Only six fighters, Baelnach? We have twice as many.”

  “Run along, Baelnach,” said Mulgor. “I’ll give you one chance to run, or else I’ll mount your skull in my hall.”

  “Hellfire,” said Kylon. “Strabane, I think he has Hellfire in those amphorae…”

  “Hellfire?” said Strabane.

  “Actually,” said Baelnach with a laugh, “I don’t. Show them!”

  One of the men grinned and heaved his amphora down into the valley. Kylon cursed and stepped back, hoping to get out of the way of the explosion of crimson fire that would erupt from the Hellfire. The amphora struck the stony ground and shattered, and Kylon expected to see the thick crimson fluid of Hellfire starting to boil as it touched the air.

  Instead, he saw something like gray gelatin leaking from the broken amphora, gelatin that was start to boil…

  It exploded in a huge plume of gray fog, and a wall of gray mist rolled through the narrow valley. As it engulfed Mulgor and his men, they fill to their knees, hacking and coughing, some of them collapsing to ground.

  Kylon recognized the weapon. It wasn’t as powerful or lethal as Hellfire, but in the right circumstances it could be just as effective. It was a sleeping mist, one that induced unconsciousness in its victims. Kylon worked a spell of air sorcery, altering the flow of air around him. It would keep the mist from entering his lungs, but the spell took a great deal of concentration, and he could not hold it for long.

  The wall of mist rushed past Kylon, swallowing Strabane’s men, and Strabane himself doubled over, coughing and wheezing. Baelnach shouted commands, and his men hurried down the slope, ropes in hand. They weren’t coming to kill Strabane and Mulgor and his warriors. They were coming to take them captive.

  Why?

  Kylon didn’t have time to figure it out, and he couldn’t fight Baelnach and his men in this damned fog, either. Maintaining the spell that kept the fog from his lungs would be difficult in the midst of combat. One mistake, and he would fall unconscious in the mist.

  He had to get away from the fog.

  Strabane stumbled against him, and Kylon seized the headman’s arm with his left hand, the valikon burning with white fire in his right. He pulled Strabane forward as fast as he could, scrambling up the slope. Strabane tried to run with him, but Kylon felt him slowing.

  Then they were clear of the mist. Kylon turned, intending to draw upon his power and fight, but Baelnach’s men scrambled after him, still carrying their amphorae of sleeping mist.

  He had to get higher up. The mist was heavier than air, and would sink and pool in the ravine. One of Baelnach’s men hurled an amphora at Kylon. It shattered against the stony slope a half-dozen yards away, and exploded into a wall of gray fog, concealing Kylon’s view.

  It also meant that Baelnach and his men could not see Kylon.

  Strabane coughed. “Tunnel. There…”

  Kylon saw a dark gap in in the stones between two pine trees. It was one of the entrances to the tunnels that Strabane had mentioned. He nodded and pulled Strabane towards the cave, hoping to disappear before the fog cleared.

  ***

  Chapter 3: Tunnels

  “Here,” said Kylon. “We’ll stop here for a moment until you catch your breath.”

  A mixture of fury and annoyance flushed Strabane’s sense, but the headman only nodded. “Fine. What was that damned fog?”

  “Sleeping mist,” said Kylon. “Alchemical weapon.”

  “Baelnach must have stolen it from somewhere,” muttered Strabane. He coughed again. “Gods, that’s a foul taste.”

  Kylon nodded and looked around, using his glowing sword like a torch.

  The tunnel climbed up into the core of the hill, the air cold and dry and stale. Someone had carved stairs into the floor long ago, though they were eroded and uneven. The tunnel ended in a large round chamber that seemed part natural cavern, part worked stone. The walls had been carved with strange, eerie designs that showed shamans calling up demons from ritual fires. Utter gloom ruled in the darkness beneath the hill, but the valikon still burned in Kylon’s hand, the harsh white light throwing stark shadows against the strange designs upon the walls.

  “Why haven’t they followed us?” said Kylon.

  Strabane grunted, rubbing his throat. “Don’t know. Guess they didn’t see us thanks to their damned fog. Although…”

  “Although?” said Kylon. There was something brushing at the edge of his senses, something he could barely feel...

  “Shaman Hill has an evil reputation,” said Strabane.

  “You mentioned that,” said Kylon, looking at the roof of the chamber. The strange sensation was coming from overhead, from the top of the hill.

  “Supposed to be demons living down here,” said Strabane. “No one wants to disturb them. Not even the cultists. They might have been afraid to follow us in here.”

  Kylon grimaced. “So when you said that the Kaltari were afraid to pull down the ruins for drawing the attention of demons, you meant it literally? It wasn’t just superstition.”

  He focused upon the strange sensation, the peculiar tearing feeling.

  “The Kaltari are never superstitious,” said Strabane.

  “Apparently not,” said Kylon.

  “I’ll make that dog Baelnach pay for his treachery,” said Strabane.

  “Treachery,” said Kylon. “Why didn’t he try to kill us? They had ropes. Baelnach was hoping to take captives.”

  Strabane grunted. “Likely he wanted to sacrifice us to his demons.”

  “Sacrifice?” said Kylon, and then the answer came to him. “Damn it.”

  “What?” said Strabane.

  “There is a weak spot between the worlds atop the hill,” said Kylon. “I’ve felt them before.”

  “A weak spot?” said Strabane. “What are you talking about?”

  Kylon gestured at the roof. “You remember the day of the golden dead?”

  “Hard thing to forget,” said Strabane.

  “Yes,” said Kylon. “I was there, when it began in New Kyre. A sorceress tried to open a gate between this world and the netherworld. She failed.” Caina had stopped her, in fact, but Kylon knew she would not appreciate having her secrets shared. “But the gate left…weak points, cracks, in the walls between the worlds. Weak points where things could force their way through, where it would be easier to summon spirits from the netherworld…”

  He lowered the valikon and looked at Strabane.

  “That’s why Baelnach took your men captive,” said Kylon. “He’s possessed by a nagataaru. So he’s going to kill them at the weak point atop the hill and use their blood to summon more nagataaru.”

  “Gods,” said Strabane. “Damned sorcerers. Will that work?”

  “Probably,” said Kylon. “I suspect it is the work of Grand Master Callatas. He has a pact with the nagataaru. Likely the nagataaru within Baelnach wants to slow down Tanzir’s army, so it’s trying to cause chaos in the Kaltari Highlands.”

  “To hell with that,” said Strabane. “Those are my men and Mulgor’s a friend. I won’t let some drooling demon-worshipper spill their blood in a spell. Are you with me?”

  “Aye,” said Kylon. “These tunnels must lead to the top of the hill. We can surprise Baelnach and deal with him.” He lifted the valikon. “This was forged to kill nagataaru.”

  “Suppose that explains the glow,” said Strabane.

  “If we can get to Baelnach, I can kill him and his nagataaru,” said Kylon. “I don’t think any of his followers had nagataaru within them yet.”

  Strabane grinned, the white light of the valikon’s fire flashing off his teeth. “Then let’s make sure they never have the chance. We…”

  Something cold and malignant brushed against Kylon’s senses. He whirled, and the valikon blazed brighter, its white flames starker. He saw another archway on the far side of the chamber, stairs climbing higher into the hill.

  “Beware!” said Kylon. “An ene
my comes!”

  Strabane snarled and drew his greatsword, moving to the side to give himself room to swing without striking Kylon. The rasp of claws against stone came from the stairs, and a moment later a shadowy shape bounded down the stairs, leaping into the light of the valikon.

  It was a ghastly, misshapen creature, a thing that looked like a human with a beetle’s armored carapace, its face distorted and twisted, its eyes burning with the purple flame of the nagataaru. A mane of barbed tentacles writhed and twisted around its head, and its hands ended in dagger-like claws.

  “Kadrataagu,” spat Strabane.

  Baelnach had been strong enough to maintain his own will after the nagataaru had possessed him, much like the Huntress. Sometimes, though, the host of a nagataaru was not strong enough to maintain his own will, and the nagataaru within his mind overwhelmed his will and overshadowed his flesh.

  A kadrataagu was the result.

  “This is my kingdom, mortals,” rasped the kadrataagu, its voice twisted and alien. “Mine! I ruled here long before you were born, and I shall live long after our lord has devoured this world and left it an empty cinder.”

  Kylon wondered how long the kadrataagu had lurked in the darkness below the hill.

  It didn’t matter. The nagataaru might be immortal, but if it attacked Kylon the valikon would end the long eons of its life.

  “You seem very confident,” said Kylon, pointing the valikon. The sword’s harsh light fell over the creature, and the burning eyes narrowed. “Just how confident are you?”

  “You,” said the kadrataagu. “I know you.”

  “Do you, now?” said Kylon. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction.”

  “You have been spoken of in the councils of our lords,” said the kadrataagu. The pincers of its mouthparts clicked. “You are the guardian of the demonslayer. She was destined to die, slain at the hand of our one our lord’s vassals. Kotuluk Iblis decreed her destiny! Yet you twisted her fate, guardian. She lives because of you, and impedes our lord’s will. You shall perish for this!”