The Dragons of Decay (11 page)

The little
guy bowed slightly and trundled off. The snow was almost level with
his head and Simon followed in the wake of the hump he was leaving on
top of the snow cover.

“
Aeris, since you're feeling so
lively, could you go ahead to the edge of the moat? I don't want any
surprises.”

“
Good idea,” the air
elemental told him and shot through the storm and out of sight.

Simon muttered under his breath as he
plodded along. He could chant the incantations for two spells now and
they would hang around him, invisibly like distant storm clouds,
waiting to be invoked. So he energized the two fire-based spells that
he had locked in his permanent memory; Fireball and Fire Blast.
Hopefully they would do the trick.

Snow was constantly dripping from the
windward side of his face and the bottom of his coat was starting to
get heavy with ice. He shook his hood and a cascade of wet snow
plopped to the ground. He was panting after a few minutes, reminded
yet again of his body's frailty.

The mound ahead that was Kronk
stopped and the little guy pushed the snow away from his body so that
Simon could see him.

“
What is it?” he gasped
as he caught up to the earthen.

“
Master, you are suffering from
this cold and snow,” Kronk said mournfully. “Why are you
not using your Shield spell? It will keep the snow off of you and it
will protect you in case of any surprises.”

Simon stared at him numbly, shivering
as a bit of snow slipped from his hood to the inside of his coat.

“
Oh for God's sake,” he
said, exasperated with himself. “Thanks, Kronk. That's a very
good idea. I think my brain is frozen.”

The little guy simply smiled and
turned to begin leading the way again.

Simon chanted the Shield spell,
feeling it dissolve the other two spells he had waiting to be
invoked.

Wish I knew why it worked like that,
he thought. He could ready two spells for casting, but chant a third
incantation and poof, the first two were gone. Weird.

“
Invectis
,”
he stuttered through lips stiff with cold.

The snow
on the ground around him immediately exploded in all directions and
the wizard gaped at the frozen ground covered in icy brown grass that
appeared in an instant.

The shield
extended six feet out from his body in a circle and he was suddenly
standing in a crater swept clean of snow.

“
Whoa,”
he said in surprise. “That was unexpected.”

The wind
and snow were being diverted around him and the sudden calm was such
a relief that Simon felt his knees go weak and had to lean heavily on
his staff for a moment.

“
Well,
it's about time you thought of that,” a voice called out from
in front of him.

Simon
looked up to see Aeris floating just beyond the shield, hands on his
hips. The wizard made a gesture and a small round opening appeared in
the barrier, just large enough for the air elemental to enter. It
closed as he passed through.

Practice
does make perfect, Simon thought with a bit of pride.

“
So
how's it look up ahead?” he asked as he caught his breath.

“
About
what you'd expect,” Aeris replied. He hovered next to Simon and
waited for him to recover his strength.

“
The
wights are still piled in the ditch below the gates, fighting each
other as they scramble up the wall.”

“
Will
I be able to see them from the edge of the moat or do I have to go
down there?”

The
elemental's expression became quite serious.

“
That
would be a very bad idea, my dear wizard. I might have been a bit
conservative in my estimation of their numbers. Or else more have
turned up. There are definitely a lot more than thirty wights down
there now.”

Simon gave
himself a shake and an avalanche of snow fell off of his coat. He
leaned his staff against his chest and clapped his hands to get clear
the ice from his gloves.

“
More?
How many more?”

Aeris
looked a bit uncomfortable and the wizard was reminded that the air
elemental hated to be wrong, about anything.

“
Maybe
twice that number,” he answered reluctantly.

“
What?
Twice as many? So you're saying that there are at least sixty of
those monsters trying to get into Nottinghill?”

“
Um,
yes. That's about it.”

Simon
shook his head tiredly.

“
That's
great. That is just great, Aeris. You really know how to cheer me up,
don't you?”

“
What
is wrong, master?” Kronk called out from ahead of them.

Simon
opened the shield to let the little guy in and watched as he trundled
up, so snow-covered that he looked like a tiny snowman.

Despite
the gravity of their situation, he had to laugh.

“
Kronk,
I don't think I've ever said this to you before but, covered in snow
like that? You look cute.”

“
Cute,
master?”

The
earthen looked down at himself and at the ice and snow that layered
his body and then back up at Simon.

“
Thank
you, master. I have never been called 'cute' before.”

Aeris
snorted and seemed about to make a smart remark when Simon looked at
him sternly.

“
Maybe
worry less about me complimenting Kronk and more about how you
miscounted sixty frigging wights,” he snapped.

The air
elemental stared at him, mouth open and Simon immediately regretted
his words.

“
Sorry.
I'm always cranky when my toes are frozen. Just...scout ahead again
and recount the damned things. I really need to know what I'm up
against. We'll be right behind you.”

Aeris
nodded silently and the wizard opened the shield for him. He shot out
of the barrier and disappeared into the storm.

“
He
miscounted the enemy, master?” Kronk asked as he jumped up and
down to clear the snow from his body.

“
Apparently.
Instead of the initial thirty, he says there may be as many as sixty
of the cursed things now.”

“
Sixty?”
Kronk replied in disbelief. “Where did sixty undead come from,
master? And there are at least two dozen at the rear gate.”

“
Good
God,” Simon said, appalled. “What is going on? You know,
maybe Malcolm was on to something. This can't be random. These things
are targeting settlements. My home, Nottinghill, maybe other places
that we don't even know about. The gods of Chaos may be behind this.”

“
Perhaps,
master,” Kronk said skeptically. “Or perhaps this is just
the old world reasserting itself now that magic has returned.”

Simon
began to walk with the earthen a few paces ahead leading the way. As
he moved forward, the snow was pushed aside by his shield and he
smiled with relief at his new ease of movement.

“
Okay,
but were cities attacked by this many wights back in the old days?”

“
It
is hard to say, master. I was never present during an attack. I heard
of these things second-hand, by listening to wizards discuss it
amongst themselves. I don't remember numbers ever being brought up.”

They
continued to move forward for a few minutes until Kronk stopped and
pointed ahead.

“
The
edge of the moat is just ten yards in front of us, master,” he
said.

Simon
peered through the blowing snow, but beyond the shield was simply a
mass of white, constantly being whirled around by the howling winds.

“
I'll
take your word for it. Which way is the front gate?”

Kronk
pointed to their left.

“
Along
the moat, that way, master. Perhaps forty yards.”

“
Okay.
Good. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get out of this
stupid storm.”

He leaned
on his staff for a moment and looked from side to side.

“
Now
where's Aeris? How long can it take to count monsters?”

He walked
forward carefully, letting Kronk guide him, until he could finally
see the dark line on the ground ahead that showed the edge of the
deep ditch.

“
There
you are,” he said softly. He was happy to finally have a point
of reference in the chaos of the storm.

The shield
pushed the snow over the edge of the drop as he approached and Simon
stopped a few feet away from the moat and looked down.

The bottom
was covered with snow and gusty winds shot along the curve of the
walls, turning the moat into a wind tunnel. The howl of the storm was
even louder here and Simon shivered at the dreadful sound.

“
You
know,” he said to Kronk as they scanned the trench. “I
always pictured Hell as a really hot place, but I think I've changed
my opinion. It couldn't be any worse than this.”

“
If
you say so, master,” the earthen replied agreeably.

“
Now,
let's move toward the gate. Slowly. We don't want to attract the
attention of those wights.”

“
Yes
master. This way.”

They
turned to the left and began to follow the rim of the moat. Simon
walked five, maybe six steps, still wondering where Aeris was, when a
voice to his left, coming from the open field beyond, shouted at him.
It was Aeris.

“
Simon!
Get away from the moat! Get back!”

He turned
to look at the wall of snow just beyond his shield.

“
What
the...?”

He barely
saw the streak of light that was the air elemental; Aeris was
actually glowing. He shot toward the shield and, at the last minute,
soared up and over the barrier.

Simon
looked up to where the elemental was hovering several feet above his
head.

“
Damn
it, move!” Aeris shouted.

“
Move?
Move where? Why?”

A rumble
from the field made Simon turn and look out into the storm, just in
time to see a wall of monsters appear out of the snow, jaws gaping
and claws extended toward him. The wights slammed into his shield and
Simon was suddenly soaring up and out over the moat.

He looked
down just as the earth came up to meet him and everything went black.

“
Master,
wake up,” a frantic voice was calling to him from some
incalculable distance.

Simon
could feel someone shaking him and his skull suddenly felt like it
was going to fly apart.

“
Knock
it off,” he murmured weakly.

“
Master,
you must wake up. The air in here won't last much longer.”

The wizard
found those words puzzling.

Air in
here? Where's here? he wondered vaguely.

Slowly, reluctantly, Simon forced his
eyes open, only to be met with...nothing.

He was lying flat on his back on a
hard, uneven surface. Blackness surrounded him and the ominous
silence that accompanied it woke him up faster than Kronk's urging
ever could.

“
Kronk?” he whispered,
his pounding head making it difficult to hear his own voice. “What
happened? Where are we?”

“
We were attacked by wights,
master,” the elemental answered softly from close to his right
ear. “It was an ambush. I have been thinking while waiting for
you to wake up, and my guess is that it was all a set up. I believe
the attack on Nottinghill was a ruse to draw you out after the
assault on our tower failed.”

Even in the midst of his pain and
confusion, Simon smiled to himself when the earthen called the tower
'ours'.

“
Wait, you're telling me that
all those undead monsters, plus however many others jumped me, were
all at Nottinghill just to get to
me
?”

“
That
is my belief, master.”

“
God,
I hope you're wrong or all of this is my fault.”

“
It
is not, master,” Kronk said forcefully. “It is the fault
of the dark gods who control these creatures.”

“
Yeah?
I think you're splitting hairs, my friend. Anyway, we can talk about
that later.”

The wizard
reached up to rub his temples and his hands scraped across rock mere
inches from his face.