ZIHAEN, The Shadow of the Revenaunt, Book 2

CHAPTER 19 - THE WIDDEREN (Part 2)

It was dark around him. Dark as the world of the Anti, as... as... Greos's cellars. Vasthul shivered and his teeth chattered. He looked at his hands, at his crooked fingers and swollen knuckles. He cursed the pain. What was happening to him? He felt the hollow eyeholes of the archmage on him. Dammit, you old bag of bones! The little man coughed and dry cramps ripped through him. Hastily he took a big swig from the bottle of sour wine beside him. It tasted nasty, but everything did lately. He shivered again.

At break of day, Vasthul shuffled out of the cave, leading the chained archmage. He looked around at the gray wetlands. A low fog hung over the water, from which the dead trees clawed at the sky like withered arms. Unbelievable, that this once had been the scene of a bloody clash between two armies.

The soldiers of Wichit'hai and those from the lost city of Maumpelai had fought for six days and five nights for dominion over these few square miles of marshes, the Yahnise Dras. It happened two thousand years ago, long before the Master's first empire. Vasthul knew of it only through an old document about the history of the marcher reach of Wichit'hai, whose ruins lay to the southwest of here.

Vasthul cleared his throat and said hoarsely, 'Here is the first battlefield, Neferestan. Raise its dead, to the glory of my master, the Revenaunt Emperor!'

'As you wish.' The voice of the archmage sounded like a funeral bell, dark and ominous. He walked forward, the black water and the tatters of his purple robe swirling around his bony ankles. When he reached the extreme limit of his chains, he stopped. A faint light grew around him, a phosphorescent, greenish glow. Vasthul shuddered. It reminded him of rotting corpses, and although he certainly wasn't unfamiliar with death, the image filled him with horror.

The glow expanded and mingled with the low fog, so that soon the whole surface of the marsh was covered with the light of putrefaction. Here and there, the water began to churn. The swirls spread until the whole marsh was in motion.

Anxiously Vasthul saw how a shadow came up from the mud and stiffly joined the archmage. A second undead followed, then a third, dozens, hundreds. The only sounds were made by the sucking swamp that only reluctantly let them go, and by the water dripping from their bodies. Most of the undead wore bronze weapons that looked remarkably useful still, along with what bits of their armor time had left them.

Then the intolerable smell of rotting death wafted over Vasthul and he gagged. He bent over and vomited the sour wine and the little he had eaten into the water at his feet. Another attack of the chills and a tearing cough racked his body. When they had passed, he raised his head and saw his army of undead soldiers all staring at him.

'Your first force,' Neferestan said. 'What do we do now?'

For a moment, Vasthul wondered how an undead mage in a rotting robe could carry so much dignity. 'The next battlefield is to the north-east of here,' he said dully.

The archmage nodded. Slowly the mass of undead started to move.

Two days later, the companions left the marshes behind them and rode through an open land of clear lakes and grassy fields. In the afternoon, they spied the towers of a massive fortress in the distance.

'What is it,' Zino said, 'a repetition of Lorrevaal, or a hospitable lord?'

As they approached, they saw the streamers on the towers and the prince suddenly began to laugh. 'Neither. You're not the only one who wanted a base in a foreign country, Ghyll.' From the towers flew the red and yellow of Stiphet.