on the edge, then the point of balance shifted, and he sprawled facedown on the ledge.
THREE
Buyard Cholik followed Nullat down through the twisting bowels of Tauruk’s Port into the pockets of pestilence that remained of Ransim. Enclosed in the rock and strata that were the younger city’s foundation, the harbor seemed a million miles away, but the chill that had followed the fog into the valley remained with the old priest. Aches and pains he’d managed to keep warm in his rooms now returned with a vengeance as he made his way through the tunnels.
The acolyte carried an oil torch, and the ceiling was so low that the writhing flames left immediate traces of lampblack along the granite surfaces. Filled with nervous anxiety, Nullat glanced from left to right, his head moving like a fast metronome.
Cholik ignored the acolyte’s apprehensions. In the beginning, when the digging had begun in earnest all those months ago, Tauruk’s Port had been plagued with rats. Captain Raithen had suggested that the rats had infested the place while trailing after the camp lines of the barbarians who came down out of the frozen north. During hard winters, and last year’s was just such a one, the barbarians found warmer climes farther south.
But there was something else the rats had fed on as well after they’d reached Tauruk’s Port. It wasn’t until after the excavation had begun that Cholik realized the horrible truth of it.
During the Sin War, when Vheran constructed the mighty gate and let Kabraxis back into the worlds of men, spells had been cast over Tauruk’s Port to protect it and hide it from the war to the east. Or maybe the city had been called Ransim at that time. Cholik hadn’t yet found a solid indication of which city had been ensorcelled.
The spells that had been cast over the city had raised the dead, giving them a semblance of life to carry out the orders of the demons who had raised them. Necromancy was not unknown to most practitioners of the Arts, but few did more than dabble in them. Most people believed necromancy often linked the users to the demons such as Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto, collectively called the Prime Evils. However, necromancers from the cult of Rathma in the eastern jungles fought for the balance between the Light and the Burning Hells. They were warriors pure of heart even though most feared and hated them.
The first party of excavators to punch down through the bottom layer of Tauruk’s Port had discovered the undead creatures that yet lurked in the ruins of the city below. Cholik guessed that whatever demon had razed Ransim had been sloppy with its spellwork or had been in a hurry. Ransim had been invaded, the burned husks of buildings and carnage left behind offered mute testimony to that, and all among them had been slain. Then someone with considerable power had come into the city and raised the dead.
Zombies rose from where fresh corpses lay, and even skeletons in the graveyards had clawed their way free of their earthen tombs. But not all of them had made the recovery to unlife in time to go with whatever master had summoned them. Perhaps, Cholik had thought on occasion, it had taken years or decades for the rest of the populace to rise.
But those dead had risen, their flesh frozen somehow in a nether point short of death. Their limbs had atrophied, but their flesh had only withered without returning to the earth. And when the rats had come, they’d funneled down through the cracks and the crevices of Tauruk’s Port to get to the city below. Since that day, the rats had feasted, and their population had reached prodigious numbers.
Of course, when presented with prey that could still fight even though a limb was gnawed off or a human with fresh blood that would lie down and die if dealt enough injury, the rats had chosen to stalk the excavation parties. For a time, the attrition rate among the diggers had been staggering. The rats had proven a resilient and resourceful enemy over the long months.
Captain Raithen had been kept busy raiding Westmarch ships, then buying slaves with Cholik’s share of the gold. More gold had gone to the mercenaries whom the priest employed to keep the slaves in line.
“Step carefully, master,” Nullat said, raising the torch so the light showed the yawning black pit ahead. “There’s an abyss here.”
“There was an abyss there the last time I came this way,” Cholik snapped.
“Of course, master. I just thought perhaps you’d forgotten because it has been so long since you were down here.”
Cholik made his voice cold and hard. “I don’t forget.”
Nullat’s face blanched, and he cut his eyes away from the priest’s. “Of course you don’t, master. I only—”
“Quiet, Nullat. Your voice echoes in these chambers, and it wearies me.” Cholik walked on, watching as Nullat flinched from a sudden advance of a red-eyed rat pack streaming along the pile of broken boulders to their left.
As long as a man’s arm from elbow to fingertips, the rats raced over the boulders and one another as they fought to get a closer view of the two travelers. They chattered and squeaked, creating an undercurrent of noise that pealed throughout the chamber. Sleek black fur covered them from their wet noses to their plump rumps, but their tails remained hairless. Piles of old bones, and perhaps some new ones as well, adorned the heaps of broken stone, crumbled mortise work, and splintered debris left from dwellings.
Nullat stopped and, trembling, held the torch out toward the rat pack. “Master, perhaps we should turn back. I’ve not seen such a gathering of rats in weeks. There are enough of them to bring us down.”
“Be calm,” Cholik ordered. “Let me have your torch.” The last thing he wanted was for Nullat’s ravings to begin talk of an omen again. There had been far too much of that.
Hesitating a moment as if worried Cholik might take the torch from him and leave him in the darkness with the rats, Nullat extended the torch.
Cholik gripped the torch, steadying it with his hand. He whispered words of prayer, then breathed on the torch. His breath blew through the torch and became a wave of flame that blasted across the piles of stones and debris like a blacksmith’s furnace as he turned his head from one side to the other across the line of rats.
Crying out, Nullat dropped and covered his face, turning away from the heat and knocking the torch from Cholik’s grasp. The torch licked at the hem of Cholik’s robes.
Yanking his robes away, the priest said, “Damn you for a fool, Nullat. You’ve very nearly set me on fire.”
“My apologies, master,” Nullat whimpered, jerking the torch away. He moved it so fast that the speed almost smothered the flames. A pool of glistening oil burned on the stone floor where the torch had lain.
Cholik would have berated the man further, but a sudden weakness slammed into him. He tottered on his feet, barely able to stand. He closed his eyes to shut out the vertigo that assailed him. The spell, so soon after the one he’d used against Raithen and so much stronger, had left him depleted.
“Master,” Nullat called out.
“Shut up,” Cholik ordered. The hoarseness of his voice surprised even him. His stomach rolled at the rancid smell of burning flesh that had filled the chamber.
“Of course, master.”
Forcing himself to take a breath, Cholik concentrated on his center. His hands shook and ached as if he’d broken every
