The Ring of Winter Page 23

  Their hands were massive claws, and their tiny eyes extended upon long stalks. You honor me with your kindness, great mistress of the Olung, Artus replied, just as Kwalu had coached him.

  At a slight flick of Mainu's chin, the lobster-men moved forward to escort Artus back to the shore. The explorer rose and bowed again. King Osaw thanks you, Mainu, as will all of Mezro when this war is over.

  The mistress of the Olung took in Artus's gratitude without expression. One thing before you go, Master Cimber, she said. Is this threat to Ubtao's city great enough for the king to summon all the barae to the cause?

  I do not know all of King Osaw's plans, great mistress of the Olung, Artus replied politely.

  Mainu nodded. Perhaps that will be your next task. Master Cimber, to contact the other bara, the one you have yet to meet. If you are asked to deal with the outcast, remember that he will do anything for Mezzo-and that is what makes him truly dangerous.

  The lobster-men flanked Artus as he walked back to the bank. Once out of the river, the explorer found himself dry and the water miraculously gone from his lungs, though he coughed out river silt most of the way back to the temple. Kwalu met him at the temple door, a sheaf of battle plans tucked under his arm.

  "What can you tell me about the seventh bara?" Artus asked as he and Kwalu entered the Hall of Champions. "I mean, Mainu mentioned something about an outcast. That's who she meant, right?"

  The negus stopped dead in his tracks. "As far as you are concerned, there are only six barae-my father. Lord Rayburton, Sanda, Mainu, T'fima, and me. The reasons why we do not speak of the other, not even his name, are too complicated to go into now. It should be enough that we do not want him in the city again."

  "But-"

  Kwalu turned on his heels and strode off toward the archway. "Perhaps we can discuss the matter after we drive Kaverin and the Batiri back to the jungle." The negus glanced at Lugg, who was curled into a ball in front of one of the statues, snoring. "I must report to my father. If you want to wait here, I will inform you of our plans for troop placement when I'm done."

  The wombat snorted awake. "Well?" he demanded. "What are you doing to get Byrt back?"

  Artus traced the name of one of the fallen barae with his finger. "We are going to wait for the Batiri to attack us," he sighed.

  "But they might kill 'im before then! Poor Byrt!"

  "Look, I didn't say I agreed with the plan, but I'm not in charge here." The explorer paced to the next statue. "In fact, the more time I spend in the city, the more certain I am that I wouldn't want to be."

  The brown wombat scuffed back and forth. "With all these barae about, you'd think they could just fly in and grab the two of 'em from Kaverin."

  Artus snorted. "If the barae could get along, they might be dangerous," he said. "T'fima won't help because he's pouting about the wall, and there's another bara the king and the others won't call because he did something they won't talk about."

  "What other bara?" Lugg asked. "If there's someone else 'anging about with magical powers, the king should bury the 'atchet and let 'im in for the scrap."

  Shrugging, Artus moved on to the next statue. "Kwalu wouldn't tell me his name." He paused and looked at the six statues on the right side of the hall. These were the original barae, the ones chosen and empowered by Ubtao himself. But one of the pedestals was empty. "The seventh bara," Artus whispered. "Gods, he must be powerful if he was one of the first."

  His eyes flew from one statue to another, taking in the magical gifts of the fallen barae. What did Ubtao give to the last of the original paladins? Artus wondered.

  A passage from King Osaw's book, The Eternal History of Mezro, came back to him then: The one the god chooses is granted some magnificent power. Ras Nsi, one of the first seven raised up by Ubtao, was granted the power to muster the dead……

  Artus ran down the right side of the hall, checking each statue. Tabiaza.… Anzi... Zimwa. "That's it," he said, joining Lugg before the empty pedestal. "Ras Nsi."

  "No!" Kwalu shouted. The negus raced from the archway toward Artus, but it was already too late.

  A pool of darkness opened beneath the explorer's feet, and he fell. For a time-he couldn't tell how long-all light and sound disappeared from the world. He moved through a void so absolute he couldn't be sure he wasn't dead.

  At last he tumbled back into the world, landing with bone-jarring suddenness in the center of a wasteland. All around him the ground was broken and barren. Charred stumps of trees littered the land for miles in every direction. The sound of wood cracking and trees crashing to the ground drifted in from the distance, while vultures wheeled in the sky overhead, waiting patiently for their bounty. From the stench of rotten meat that filled the air, Artus was certain there was plenty of carrion to be had.

  "Oi, get off me," came a muffled voice.

  Artus rolled and found Lugg pinned beneath him. The wombat was covered in soot and dirt from the blasted ground.

  "Where are we?" the explorer asked. He adjusted the bandage on his shoulder and struggled to his feet.

  "Maybe we should ask them poor sots over there," Lugg offered.

  Coming toward them was a group of ten men. They moved with painful slowness over the broken ground. As they got closer, Artus drew his dagger. Human and goblin walked together. Their eyes were white and rolled back in the sockets. Cuts and scrapes and the steady working of decay had turned their faces into ghastly masks of death. Some were missing fingers or hands or whole arms. Others had twisted, broken bones jutting from their legs.

  Zombies, Artus hissed. And from the way the undead goblins drooled at the sight of the explorer, he was certain they hadn't lost their taste for living flesh.

  Fourteen

  Queen M'bobo stared mutely at the ten-foot-tall warrior standing before her. The hulking thing resembled the lizard men she'd seen near the Olung River-scaly skin, massively muscled limbs, and clawed hands and feet-though this beast lacked a tail. Its face was narrow, with a nose that jutted forward like a cutter's bowsprit. Unblinking white eyes returned the goblin's disbelieving gaze, and it moved its beaked snout silently. On one of its tiny, shell-like ears, a silver triangle dangled.

  "Fly?" M'bobo scoffed. "It no look like it can run!" She shifted her lion-skin parasol to shade her face from the bright sunshine.

  Calmly Kaverin Ebonhand patted the lizard-thing's shoulder. "Skuld stumbled across this fellow when he was tracking Cimber and the others back to Mezro," he said. "There are only about one hundred of them nearby, but I think they'll make excellent scouts and useful front-rank troops." He rattled off a long series of guttural clacks and rumbles, then gestured to the nearest tree.

  The scaly giant tilted its head like a curious parrot, growling deep in its throat. Bowing to Kaverin and the goblin queen, it lumbered to the nearest tree. The creature used its claws like the crampons on a mountaineer's boots and swiftly climbed hand-over-hand to a spot high off the ground. There, just below the canopy of leaves, it held one arm out and screeched long and loud. Then it let go of the rough bark.

  M'bobo fluffed her golden locks and watched in impatient silence, waiting for the brute to plummet to the ground. But the creature did not fall. It hung in the air as if suspended by thin wires. Kaverin smirked, reminded of the actors he'd seen portraying gods on the stage in Tantras, hanging from the rafters by complicated harnesses. Yet no actor could match the amazing feat the lizard-scout performed next. Its form blurred, skull melting into a beaked head with a rudderlike crown, legs shriveling to thin stalks ending in talons. While its body stayed the same length, the creature suddenly sported leathery wings at least eight feet from tip to shoulder. Again the scout shrieked. It floated forward, then folded its wings and crashed up through the canopy. Only the silver earring distinguished it from the other pteradons cutting through the afternoon sky as it sailed away.

  Kaverin sighed in satisfaction. Once Skuld had reported Mezro was hidden behind a magical wall of confusion, it had proven ea
sy to discover the key to breaching it-the triangular earrings both Rayburton and the wombat wore. Now the invasion seemed to be only a troublesome, potentially bloody inconvenience. With the earring Skuld had taken from Byrt, the flying scout would be able to pass close to Mezro and take stock of the preparations. As he and the queen walked through the camp, Kaverin decided the Mezroans could never muster a defense equal to M'bobo's ever-growing horde.

  Goblins from all over the area had swarmed to the queen, and more were filling the camp with each passing hour. The Batiri throughout Chult recognized M'bobo as their leader, though most lived in large hunting groups that rarely saw the monarch. Now all these disparate clans, each hundreds of warriors strong, were crammed together, huddled out of the daylight beneath makeshift huts or massive tents wrought of dinosaur hide.

  Fights were frequent and savage, so much so the goblin camp resembled a gladiatorial arena more than an army outpost. Almost everywhere, pug-nosed Batiri wrestled and poked and punched. Fingers and hands were often claimed as trophies, but the goblins rarely killed each other. When a goblin died, the body wasn't butchered for food, but left to rot in the sun. This might have been a show of respect, but Kaverin suspected the Batiri simply understood the smell of fresh carrion quickly attracted dozens of scavengers-hyenas and small carnivorous dinosaurs, vultures and wolf-sized rats. All these dim-witted creatures proved easy targets for the goblin spearmen and archers.

  Kaverin and M'bobo passed one group of Batiri as they brought down a two-legged dinosaur that had been drawn to the camp by the stench of corpses and refuse. Each warrior was missing an eye, a wound that proclaimed him a member of the Gouged Orb Clan. The one-eyed savages used their spears to keep the creature at bay, holding its long neck and snapping jaws away from them, while others pelted the beast with stones and arrows. The dinosaur toppled, and the goblins swarmed forward to club it into unconsciousness. Kaverin could not help but notice the warriors of two other clans standing in the shadows of their tents, waiting for the battle to be over so they could lay claim to the prize.

  "If we don't hurry, the army may well destroy itself," Kaverin announced, moving briskly away from the impending scuffle.

  M'bobo shrugged and idly twirled her parasol. She was quite a sight with her beautiful blonde locks tumbling over her armor wrought of human bone, a delicate parasol in one hand, a battered scimitar in the other. With practiced disinterest, the queen surveyed her rowdy subjects. They all bowed at her passing, even stopping their fistfights long enough to show deference. "They do what I say," she offered at last. "They love me."

  Hardly reassured by the proclamation, Kaverin rubbed his tired eyes and let the subject drop. The sooner they attacked, the better. And once Mezro was in his cold stone hands, he would find a way to rid himself of the queen. Perhaps the end of the war will find M'bobo with a Tabaxi spear in her back, Kaverin mused. It won't matter who throws it, just so long as the goblins think the weapon belongs to Mezro's defenders…

  "What I'd like to know, old man, is how you intend to replace the chunk of ear you took when you stole my earring. It was a present, you know-the jewelry, not the ear-so you absconding with it like that was really bad form."

  Kaverin gritted his teeth at the sound of the inane voice. "Haven't you killed that chattering pig-bear yet?" he hissed.

  M'bobo frowned. "We saving him for victory celebration. Fatten him up so all get a piece."

  With his cold, lifeless eyes, Kaverin took in the scene. Byrt slouched in a makeshift bamboo cage with wheels on the bottom. Palm fronds shaded the little gray wombat from the sun. A colorful, fragrant cornucopia of vegetables lined the cage's floor, and a large gourd served as a chin rest while Byrt rambled on at Skuld. "If you had to take it-and I suppose you had your reasons-you could have asked," he chattered. "Manners make the… er, what are you exactly, if you don't mind me prying?"

  The silver-skinned giant wisely paid the wombat no mind. He sat cross-legged, his back against a stout tree. To one side of the spirit guardian lay a jumbled pile of fist-sized stones; to the other was spread a mountain of silver triangles. Sweating goblins continuously hurried into the clearing with buckets of rock. After emptying these into one pile, they loaded up with silver and rushed off to distribute the earrings to every warrior in camp.

  "Quiet, Skuld," Byrt hissed at the top of his lungs. "Here comes your master. Don't want him to know you're giving away all the company's trade secrets, the formula for the secret displacer beast sauce and all that."

  "Get that idiot out of my sight," Kaverin rumbled. "And keep him away from me, if you want him to live till the victory feast."

  As M'bobo ordered two warriors to transport the still-chattering wombat to her tent, Kaverin moved to Skuld's side. Mechanically, the silver guardian took a stone in each of his two right hands, then pressed the rocks between his palms. After muttering an ancient Mulhorandi incantation, he tossed a pair of newly made silver earrings onto the pile at his left.

  "How many to go?" Kaverin asked, toeing the mound of earrings with one dusty boot.

  "Two hundred or so." Skuld blinked slowly and tried to shake off the pall of boredom that had settled over him. "How many more goblins will we need, master? Let me use my magic for more than changing stones to enchanted silver, and I will conjure a hundred ensorceled gunstones, more powerful than the one your foe used to stun the dragon turtle. We can level all of Mezro, lay waste to-"

  "Which is exactly why we need the Batiri troops more than your explosives," Kaverin corrected. "Don't worry, Skuld. You will be my most potent weapon in the conquest of the city." He lowered his voice and leaned close to the silver giant. "But we need the goblins as spear-fodder, to keep the Tabaxi mages and warriors occupied so you and I can destroy them from a safe distance."

  "Hey, Kaverin. He not look so good."

  Kaverin turned to find M'bobo standing over the prone form of Lord Rayburton. The bara had his hands bound behind his back and his feet anchored to a boulder by a sturdy chain. He was asleep, though whatever rest he was getting was far from peaceful. He twitched and groaned, caught up in some terrible nightmare brought on by the horrible things he'd overheard the wolf-headed denizens describe in the queen's palace.

  Kaverin felt a smile make its way to his thin lips. "We must keep him alive for a few more hours," he said softly. "Only until we can overrun the city and take control of the temple."

  M'bobo stuck out her bottom tip as she considered the comment. "Few hours?" she said at last. "We attack before sun goes away?"

  "We have the earrings necessary to outfit all your troops," Kaverin noted casually. "We have enough soldiers to defeat their army. We have Skuld… Of course we attack before sunset." He scanned the canopy for signs of the winged scout. "All I'm waiting for is the pteradon's return, so we'll know where to focus our initial charge."

  "But goblins hate sunlight!" the queen said. "We never fight wars in daytime!" She held her parasol like a shield against a slant of sunlight cutting through the palm fronds.

  "That's the best reason of all to attack now," Kaverin said. "They'll be expecting us to wait until nightfall." At the queen's worried look, he added, "Don't concern yourself, Your Highness. I guarantee you the army will be ready for its victory feast by morning."

  "Maybe I'd better give pig-bear more plantains," the goblin queen murmured, then wandered away.

  Kaverin slumped against the boulder anchoring Lord Rayburton in place. He watched the pale nobleman toss in his sleep, shredded by unseen claws, bitten by ghostly, venomous fangs. Kaverin's soul had been so blackened by hate and obscured by his lust for power that he did not pity Rayburton, though he realized how horrible the bara's nightmares were. The sight of the tortured prisoner only goaded him on. The shared pain reminded him of how desperately he needed to capture the Temple of Ubtao and become an immortal. Only then could he avoid the ghastly fate the Lord of the Dead had in store for him.

  Sleep tugged at Kaverin's weary mind, too, and for an instant he
nodded off, just long enough to again hear the corrupt voices of the denizens. He jerked awake and tried to push the fearful images from his mind, but they wouldn't be banished. He hurried off to set the army in motion, hoping that the blood of Mezro would wash the Realm of the Dead from his mind, that the screams of the conquered Tabaxi would drown out the insidious, hellish voices of the denizens-if only for a little while.

  * * * * *

  Artus was astounded by how fast Lugg could run. As the explorer charged through the wasteland, the wombat hustled along at his heels. Lugg even found the breath to mutter curses as he ran; Artus could only wheeze and gasp like a fractured tea kettle.

  "That's all," the explorer whispered, falling to his knees. An hour of running was enough, his exhausted limbs shouted. The rest of his cramped body was inclined to agree.

  Looking nervously over his shoulder, Lugg came to Artus's side. "They're pretty far back now, but they ain't stopping."

  That was the trouble with zombies. You might be able to run from them easily enough, but as long as they could see you, they'd follow tirelessly. And so this pack of ten had done for the past hour. After sizing up their chances of defeating the shambling creatures, Artus and Lugg had bolted toward the distant tree line. The long-dead humans and goblins had lumbered after them, groaning and waving their arms stiffly.

  "I need to rest," Artus said. "Just for a moment." He let himself slump to the ground.

  Lugg pawed uneasily at the dirt. Like the rest of the area, the soil here was as lifeless as ash. "Yeah, awright," he murmured. "Not too long, though."

  The wombat watched the zombies. The dark figures moved steadily on the flat terrain, occasionally stumbling over the few dead tree stumps standing in their way. The dead men walked only in a straight line, it seemed. That would be the key-put something between you and them, something they couldn't clamber over. Lugg scanned the area. A few more stumps. Some shallow pits here and there. No, there wasn't anything that would serve, not close at hand.