Chapter 28
"Hey, I found a fish,"Trrillik said.
"Oooh, it's shiny."Vrawk edged toward the silvery creature which was now flopping on the bank.
"You can't have it, it's mine."
"There's lots more over here," Knnr interjected, in what was for her a very conciliatory tone.
Skrch sunned herself on top of a ziggurat, wings spread in the morning sun. She tried to keep an eye on her daughters, on Caden, and on the conversation Lord Marrowice now seemed to be having with no one at all. More interesting was the fact that the warlock Shel'yin seemed to be talking to the same patch of empty air.
"Can you see anybody there, Dev?" Skrch said.
Blackstare turned to look.
"Nope. Probably one of those invisible things," Blackstare said. She dried her hands idly on her trousers. She had a new pair now, without the telltale blood stains she had earned at her first meeting with Skrch.
"A shade," Skrch said. "Sure. But it's weird for one to interrupt them talking. Undead are strict about that." She used the new word proudly. She'd heard it from Shel'yin yesterday. If Caden the Crooked understood any of the Orcish, he showed no sign. He stood on the bank now, watching the krrrahk with no expression on his face.
Dev was watching the warlock.
"Oh, demons," she said.
"What?" Skrch said.
Dev fingered her sword hilt. "I don't know the warlock that well – never wanted to - but the whole clan knows he never looks that smug unless we're in a lot of trouble."
---
The door to the gold mine was dark. This did not matter to Mir'noj, who would have been invisible in broad daylight, but old habits died hard. So to speak. He listened as the shade gave its hurried report, supernatural ears picking up what natural ones might miss.
"You are certain of this?" Lord Marrowice said.
"I could not be mistaken, Lord," the shade said. "I have seen Lord Darkhallow before."
"So have I," the Lich sighed. "Nor am I likely to forget it. How many did you say were with him?"
"Thirty, at least," the shade said. "With the meat wagons. The skeletons made it perhaps fifty, but some of them fell apart as I watched."
Mir'noj did not wait to hear more. He turned and glided quickly back into the mine, to the little alcove where the two cots stood side by side. Variel Slowburn lay on a pallet nearby, undisturbed by his silent presence.
It is time you were waking, he said. Felwyn and Skrch showed no signs of stirring. The human and the harpy breathed, but both lay still and pale. Mir'noj felt the mana emanating from them even in their sleep. It may not wake them soon enough, he thoughtMir'noj had no illusions about what would happen to the camp – and them – and himself, if a death knight and thirty troops attacked now.
He tried shaking them, one at a time, but given his limitations in the area of corporeality this was not effective. Little sparks jumped to and through him when he touched them. It gave him an idea. Not an idea he particularly liked, but in dire straits...
I would rather not do this, Mir'noj said, but the women still did not wake. He reached out one hand to Felwyn's shoulder and the other toward Lrfk, bridging the gap between them.
The power shot up his arms so fast that he never knew what hit him.
---
Felwyn sat up, blinking. Ghouls and a necromancer and a pale man on a horse... She had the feeling something important had just happened, but she had no idea what it was. The last thing she remembered was not very clear. She frowned as she tried to recall. She'd managed the teleport spell, even though she'd never done it before, but she'd felt like a lightning rod afterwards. And then...
"We brought somebody back?" she said aloud.
"We did?" said Lrfk's voice. Felwyn turned to look and discovered she was sitting on a cot, and Lrfk was just now sitting up on her own. Her feather mane stood up around her head like a dark halo, flecks of blue light crackling from the ends. Felwyn felt crackling at the tips of her own shorn hair, where her deer skull ought to be. She leaned forward and groped on the floor until she found it.
"Wha?" said Variel Slowburn, sitting up herself.
"Don't worry, Variel," Felwyn said. "Go back to sleep."
"Lord Marrowice will want to know you're awake," Variel said, and stumbled out of the small alcove.
"Where did Mir'noj go?" Lrfk said. Felwyn looked around as she settled her headdress atop her head. A soft groan from the hallway seemed like a probable answer. Felwyn took up her staff as she got up, and Lrfk fluttered up to perch on it. I feel fine, Felwyn thought. Why were we sleeping?
Both of them stared as they entered the torchlit corridor.
"Mir'noj," Felwyn said. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"
"Better question," Lrfk said. "How is he sitting on the floor? How come I can see him with my eyes?"
"Aaaargh," Mir'noj said, clutching his head. Felwyn tried closing her living eye, then her Undead one.
"And how is he making actual noises?" Lrfk said.
"You're visible," she said. She reached out a hand. It passed through Mir'noj's shoulder, but she felt resistance, like putting her fingers in cold water. "You're almost there again. How did you do it?"
Mir'noj mumbled. Felwyn, listening closely, frowned. Lrfk fluttered up and down.
"Awww," Lrfk said. "He wanted to wake us up. But that was a really stupid way to do it."
"I think you and I wouldn't be much good without him, Darker," Felwyn said mildly. "I'm starting to understand."
"Glad one of us is," Lrfk said.
"Can you get up, Mir'noj?"said Felwyn.
"I believe so," Mir'noj said, and started to stagger upright.
On Felwyn's staff, Lrfk shifted from foot to foot. "Necromancer. Right before we woke up, did you..."
"I saw them," Felwyn said. "We'd better go outside. Lord Marrowice is going to need us."
---
"Lord Darkhallow?" Gen'dirhil said timidly.
The death knight made a mildly inquiring sound. Since he did not swat Gen'dirhil with Whitecleaver again, the necromancer took this as a sign that he might continue.
"Er... Why are we here?"
"Because the Lich King wills it," the death knight said. Gen'dirhil fiddled with the bolts on a meat wagon, glancing furtively at his Lord. Their rough camp lay in a small hollow, screened from the surrounding plane by scant trees and plentiful grass.
"We are not, perhaps, seeking something here in the Barrens?"
"Of course we are, Fool," Lord Darkhallow said. "You don't suppose I am here for my health, do you?"
"Is it a secret, Lord?" Gen'dirhil asked. He edged a little further away, but curiosity had by now reached a level where it interfered with his instinct for self-preservation.
"No." Darkhallow fingered the hilt of his runeblade, producing a sound that had nothing to do with the scrape of armor on steel. Gen'dirhil tried to pretend he hadn't heard any chorus of ethereal voices. He was becoming quite good at it.
"I did not tell you because I considered that you do not need to know," Darkhallow said. "You already show a disturbing tendency to reason rather than obey."
"I am sorry, Lord," Gen'dirhil said.
"Hm." The death knight raised a white eyebrow. "Be that as it may, I suppose you will need to know sooner or later. We seek the Well of Sib'lin Sawu."
"Sib'lin Sawu,"Gen'dirhil repeated slowly. "This is a Human name, Lord?"
"A very ancient Human, yes," Darkhallow said. "The Well has been lost for some time, but the Lich King now believes it may be found in the Barrens. A well of power would allow us to establish quite a base here. Even a small one, as Sawu's Well is said to be."
Gen'dirhil did not ask how the Lich King knew. That was heresy, and punishable by death. Besides, he did not want to interfere with Lord Darkhallow's present mood. Every hour that saw him alive and with no new bruises was a good one, in the Scourge.
