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Authors: Lynn Flewelling
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could see the pale ovals of upturned faces as the soldiers realized too late the trap they’d been drawn into. The neat column wavered and broke. Men foundered in the snow, throwing aside their arms as they sought some direction of escape from the implacable wave bearing down on them.
The avalanche overtook them in seconds, carrying men likedead leaves in a flood, blotting them from sight. A great cheer went up from the Dravnians and the sound brought down a second deafening avalanche from the east wall. It crashed down the valley to lap over the first with a roar of finality that echoed for minutes between the stark, sun-gilded peaks.
Shradin pounded Seregil joyfully on the back. “Didn’t I say it would fall just so?” he shouted. “No one could have survived that!”
Seregil took a last wondering look down at the massive slide, then waved for Turik. “It’s time I completed my work. This evil must be removed from your valley so no others will come seeking it.”
Amazingly, the tunnel opening was still clear, though drifts were piled thickly around the spot. With the women singing victory songs behind him, Seregil once again made his way down the slick, cramped passage. The noises in his head and the tingling in his skin were as bad as before, but this time he ignored them, knowing what he had to do.
“Here we are again,” he whispered, reaching the chamber. Refusing to consider the various ramifications of being wrong about the nature of the magic, he hugged the box against his side and said loudly,
“Argucth chthon hrig.”
An eerie silence fell over the chamber. Then he heard a soft tinkling sound that reminded him of embers cooling on a hearth. Tiny flashes like miniature lightning flickered across the rock face at the far end of the chamber.
Seregil took a step back, then dove for the mouth of the tunnel as the stone exploded.
Jagged shards flew up the tunnel, hissing like arrows as they scored the back of his thick coat and trousers. Others ricocheted and spattered in a brief, deadly storm around the tiny chamber.
It was over in an instant. Seregil lay with his arms over his head a moment longer, then cautiously held up the lightstone and looked back.
An opening had been blasted in the far wall, revealing a dark space beyond.
Drawing his sword, Seregil approached and looked into the second chamber. It was roughly the size of his sitting room at the Cockerel, and at the back of it a glistening slab of ice caughtthe glow of his lightstone, reflecting it across a tangle of withered corpses that covered the floor.
The constant cold beneath the glacial ice had drawn the moisture from the bodies over uncounted years, leaving them dark and shrunken, lips withered into grimaces, eyes dried away like raisins, hands gnarled to talons.
Seregil sank to his knees, cold sweat running down his chest beneath his coat. Even in their mummified state, he could see that their chests had been split open, the ribs pulled wide. Only a few months earlier his friend and partner, Micum Cavish, had come upon a similar scene nearly a thousand miles away, in the Fens below Blackwater Lake. But there some of the bodies had been newly killed. These had been here for decades, perhaps centuries. Putting this together with Nysander’s veiled threats and secrecy, Seregil felt a twinge of genuine fear.
The singing whine in his ears was much worse here. Kneeling there at the mouth of the chamber, Seregil suddenly envisioned what the victims’ last moments must have been.
Waiting to be dragged into the killing chamber.
Listening to the screams.
The steam rising from torn bodies—
He could almost catch the sound of those tortured voices echoing back faintly over the years.
Shaking such fancies off uneasily, he climbed in to examine the mysterious slab.
The rough-hewn block of ice was half as long as he was tall, and nearly four feet thick. The aura of the place was worse here; a nasty prickling sensation played over his
The avalanche overtook them in seconds, carrying men likedead leaves in a flood, blotting them from sight. A great cheer went up from the Dravnians and the sound brought down a second deafening avalanche from the east wall. It crashed down the valley to lap over the first with a roar of finality that echoed for minutes between the stark, sun-gilded peaks.
Shradin pounded Seregil joyfully on the back. “Didn’t I say it would fall just so?” he shouted. “No one could have survived that!”
Seregil took a last wondering look down at the massive slide, then waved for Turik. “It’s time I completed my work. This evil must be removed from your valley so no others will come seeking it.”
Amazingly, the tunnel opening was still clear, though drifts were piled thickly around the spot. With the women singing victory songs behind him, Seregil once again made his way down the slick, cramped passage. The noises in his head and the tingling in his skin were as bad as before, but this time he ignored them, knowing what he had to do.
“Here we are again,” he whispered, reaching the chamber. Refusing to consider the various ramifications of being wrong about the nature of the magic, he hugged the box against his side and said loudly,
“Argucth chthon hrig.”
An eerie silence fell over the chamber. Then he heard a soft tinkling sound that reminded him of embers cooling on a hearth. Tiny flashes like miniature lightning flickered across the rock face at the far end of the chamber.
Seregil took a step back, then dove for the mouth of the tunnel as the stone exploded.
Jagged shards flew up the tunnel, hissing like arrows as they scored the back of his thick coat and trousers. Others ricocheted and spattered in a brief, deadly storm around the tiny chamber.
It was over in an instant. Seregil lay with his arms over his head a moment longer, then cautiously held up the lightstone and looked back.
An opening had been blasted in the far wall, revealing a dark space beyond.
Drawing his sword, Seregil approached and looked into the second chamber. It was roughly the size of his sitting room at the Cockerel, and at the back of it a glistening slab of ice caughtthe glow of his lightstone, reflecting it across a tangle of withered corpses that covered the floor.
The constant cold beneath the glacial ice had drawn the moisture from the bodies over uncounted years, leaving them dark and shrunken, lips withered into grimaces, eyes dried away like raisins, hands gnarled to talons.
Seregil sank to his knees, cold sweat running down his chest beneath his coat. Even in their mummified state, he could see that their chests had been split open, the ribs pulled wide. Only a few months earlier his friend and partner, Micum Cavish, had come upon a similar scene nearly a thousand miles away, in the Fens below Blackwater Lake. But there some of the bodies had been newly killed. These had been here for decades, perhaps centuries. Putting this together with Nysander’s veiled threats and secrecy, Seregil felt a twinge of genuine fear.
The singing whine in his ears was much worse here. Kneeling there at the mouth of the chamber, Seregil suddenly envisioned what the victims’ last moments must have been.
Waiting to be dragged into the killing chamber.
Listening to the screams.
The steam rising from torn bodies—
He could almost catch the sound of those tortured voices echoing back faintly over the years.
Shaking such fancies off uneasily, he climbed in to examine the mysterious slab.
The rough-hewn block of ice was half as long as he was tall, and nearly four feet thick. The aura of the place was worse here; a nasty prickling sensation played over his
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