Chapter 37

Lord Darkhallow surveyed the enemy camp, frowning. They had met with surprisingly little resistance. He had lost footsoldiers, particularly when the necropolis went up, but that was nothing. Thanks to the recent upsurge in road travel here and his raids on Crossroads, he had plenty more.

Not enough bodies on the ground. It was quite dark, but he could still tell that most of the casualties he saw were his own. The others seemed to consist of several ghouls and one abomination, now busily being devoured by his troops. No Lich. No necromancers. No harpies.

Darkhallow glanced up as Gen'dirhil hurried toward him. The necromancer had stayed back near the meat wagons throughout the brief skirmish, and bar his robes being a little singed, appeared to be unharmed.

"Well?" the death knight said.

"I'm afraid the dragon escaped, Lord," Gen'dirhil said.

"So I saw," Darkhallow said. "I am not excessively concerned with the dragon. Where is the Lich?"

Gen'dirhil, by now thoroughly conditioned against hesitating, answered immediately. "Inside the gold mine, Lord. In fact, I believe all the survivors are there."

"Good. Pile up the entrance and leave them there to eat each other," Darkhallow said. "Have you found the Well?"

"I'm afraid so, Lord."

"And?"

"All of the buildings are destroyed now, and I was able to find no source of mana in the mounds nearby. My divinations indicate that the Well of Sib'lin Sawu is deep underground."

Lord Darkhallow considered this for a moment in silence. An observer would not have detected a change in his facial expression, but the faint mist that rose from the blade in his hand might be considered an ominous sign.

"Underground," he said flatly.

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. A man more given to introspective thought than Darkhallow might, at this point, have wondered why he seemed so calm. "In fact, it is almost certainly beneath the gold mine."

"Which has only one entrance," Darkhallow said.

"As near as we have been able to tell, Lord."

"And which entrance is presently defended by all of our surviving enemies."

"Indeed, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. "And, given that they almost certainly planned something of this nature, they probably have laid in enough provisions to last some time. I merely speculate, of course, given that we have not yet questioned the prisoners - "

"Silence." Gen'dirhil obediently closed his mouth. Darkhallow reminded himself forcibly that he could only raise a few dead at a time, and that his only necromancer would be very necessary if a long siege were ahead. Whitecleaver did not seem very amenable to this argument. The blade seemed to be trying to get away from him. He clenched both hands firmly around the pommel, bracing the point against the ground. There was power in the air, making the runeblade restless.

"Necromancer," Darkhallow said. "If you want to live out the next few minutes, you had better find me something to kill. Something alive."

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said. "Bring the prisoners!"

A banshee led a group of abominations from the direction of the gold mine. As they came closer, the group parted to reveal five people. Two of them were staggering along in heavy chains, hoods hiding their faces. One was a necromancer, almost indistinguishable from Gen'dirhil except that his beard was a little longer. And the other two...

"What have we here?" Darkhallow said.

"They were standing atop the gold mine," Gen'dirhil said. "Their escape spell appears to have backfired."

"I'm Felwyn Smallfinger," said the girl with the deer skull on her head. The headdress shadowed her face, mostly hiding her features, but her voice was very young. "This is Lrfk." The harpy perched atop the staff the girl carried, watching Darkhallow with an expression which did not appear to contain any gut-wrenching terror whatsoever.

"This Lich must be desperate for troops, to give a necromancer's robes to a child," Darkhallow said.

"She knows more than you ever will," the enemy necromancer said.

"How very uncharacteristic," Darkhallow said. "Gen'dirhil, pay close attention."

The runeblade snapped upward, spitting green fire. The necromancer shrieked as he was thrown backward to sprawl on the ground. Darkhallow inhaled deeply as the old man's life was sucked back down the thread the runeblade had created. The man was feeble. Whitecleaver took most of it, whining like a caged animal, starving for more.

Darkhallow became aware that Gen'dirhil was staring at him, and realized the hissing sound he'd just heard had come from his own lips.

"Thisssss is what happens when a necromancer tries to grow a spine," Darkhallow said. Gen'dirhil bowed his head, and said nothing.

The death knight turned his attention to the others. He dismissed the chained men from his attention without a second glance. They were walking dead – Whitecleaver did not incline toward them - and the man he had just killed could not possibly have brought them back with any kind of surviving brain. Not even on the Well of Sib'lin Sawu.

"Now," Darkhallow said. "Tell me how many are inside the mine."

The girl spoke quietly, but there was no tremor in her voice as she told him of their number and their races.

"Orcs and harpies," Darkhallow said. "This – Marrowice, did you say? - has made some strange alliances. Gen'dirhil, start the digging. They will pose no problem when we face them in our numbers."

"Yes, Lord," Gen'dirhil said, and went away.

"You were quick to betray your Lord," Darkhallow said. "Yet I sense that you do not fear me as you ought."

The girl raised her head. Her scars were barely visible in the dark, but the blue eye with the red gleam was very easily seen. "We have not betrayed him," she said.

"What we tell you won't matter," said the harpy. "It won't change anything."

"It may change whether you live or die," Darkhallow said. "Or... What happens between now and then." He came closer, and the abominations moved awkwardly back to give him space as he walked forward. He reached out to seize the girl's chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her head back. "You know that I may do as I please with both of you."

"You can kill us," Felwyn Smallfinger said.

"But that's all," said the harpy.

Darkhallow snarled. His backhand slap knocked them both flying. The harpy righted herself in midair, unfazed. The girl sat up slowly as she shook her head. Her headdress had fallen off, revealing her scars more clearly.

"The blade is your soul," the harpy said. "It owns you."

"All it wants," the girl said, and shook her head again. "All it wants is lives. So lives are all you want. Lrfk?"

The harpy settled on the ground and offered Felwyn a taloned hand. The sight of the small creature easily levering the Human upright was a comical one, but it was lost on Darkhallow.

"But I may choose the manner of your death," Darkhallow said. "How came you by those scars, Felwyn Smallfinger?"

"In dragon fire," Felwyn said. One side of her face was already swelling, beginning to darken into a bruise where his gauntlet had struck. Whitecleaver muttered impatiently, but Darkhallow was able to quell it. Wait.

"But dragon fire is quick. Would you like to know what it is like to burn slowly?" Darkhallow said. "To die by inches, over long hours?"

"You're too impatient for that," the harpy said. "You'd kill us after the first few minutes."

"It doesn't matter," the girl said. She was still entirely too calm for Darkhallow's taste. He had expected defiance, or anger at the very least. "You're going to die."

"You all are," Lrfk said. "Even most of the already-dead ones."
"Oh?" Darkhallow said. "And how do you know that, little one?"

"We see it," Felwyn said.

"Also, you're about to be attacked by about forty Orcs," Lrfk said.

"And what can forty Orcs do against a hundred Undead?"

"I don't know," the harpy said. "But I'm looking forward to seeing it. Aren't you, Felwyn?"

"Yes," the girl said. "And I think Mir'noj is, too."

"And who exactly is - "

Lord Darkhallow was interrupted by the first fireball. It flew down from the clifftop above the camp and incinerated an abomination that stood not five feet from him. The scarlet glow lit the scene, fully illuminating the beautific smile on the face of Felwyn Smallfinger.

"Kill them all!" Darkhallow hissed, and turned and ran for his horse.