Kari nodded. It was good to have Sharyn along if there would be werewolves involved. She tried to open the gate quietly, but the hinges groaned and creaked.
There goes the element of surprise, she thought with a sigh.
Once the opening was wide enough to pass, Kari slipped through shoulder-first. Sharyn followed close behind and drew her two-handed sword, and Kari slid her scimitars from their sheaths. The symbol of Zalkar began to glow brightly; the succubus was indeed present. The women made their way toward the center of the graveyard. The second moon had crested the walls of the city, so it was brighter than Kari expected. She led Sharyn to where Piotyr and Deirdre had showed her the work of the necromancer, expecting to find the succubus there.
They approached the row of crypts that sectioned off the center of the graveyard and could hear the sounds of fighting. Kari hadn’t heard anything when they entered the cemetery, so the fight had started only recently. With a gesture, Kari led Sharyn along the edge of one of the crypts. There, they started to get a glimpse of what was going on.
A few of the crypts were broken open and there were several more disturbed graves. Nearly a dozen corpses had been animated. Sharyn sucked in a sharp breath and showed her teeth in an angry grimace, and Kari could understand the sentiment. Some of the dead were armored, but most were little more than bones and old, tattered clothing. None had been recently interred; they were thoroughly decayed or desiccated.
Does that mean the necromancer is weak, or powerful? Kari mused. Not sure if older corpses are easier or harder to raise.
There were no werewolves in the graveyard yet, and Kari tried to figure out who the undead were fighting. She realized then that they were fighting each other. Kari looked around more thoroughly, trying to find the succubus or whoever had disturbed the dead. Her gaze was drawn upward after searching the nearby crypts, and she saw the succubus standing on top of a mausoleum on the far side of the graveyard’s center.
Even in the pale moonlight, Kari could see the fanged grin of the half-syrinthian, half-succubus as she watched her undead minions fight. It didn’t make sense that she’d be raising corpses to fight each other, but rather than rush in to try to stop her, Kari decided to bide her time. She hoped the succubus inadvertently answered some questions.
Sharyn started to move past Kari, but the demonhunter stopped her with an outstretched arm. “Wait,” she whispered. “She’s not hurting anyone at the moment. Let’s wait and see if she gives us a clue of what she’s up to.”
“I’m not interested in what she’s up to, I just want to stuff her into one of these crypts to keep the dead company,” the ranger woman returned.
“Sharyn, I’m tired of stumbling blind through this entire ordeal. Please, let this play out for a few minutes, see if we can learn something.”
Both women turned toward the succubus when they heard her laugh, and she called out, “Arise, children of the damned, strengthen me!” The seals on three more crypts broke, their heavy stone doors falling to the earth with crushing thuds. Turillia seemed quite pleased with herself, but the succubus’ expression changed abruptly.
“You think this a show of force?” came an oddly accented voice. Kari couldn’t see the speaker around the crypt she hid behind. “Allow this one to demonstrate.”
Kari nearly wet herself as a deafening crack sounded from all around. The tombs, crypts, mausoleums, and headstones around her cracked or broke clean in half in unison. Innumerable dead clawed free of their graves, stepped out of opened tombs, or emerged from the falling dust and debris of shattered crypts. Kari couldn’t be sure from her vantage point, but it was as though every corpse in the entire graveyard had just risen at once.
Sharyn turned and hacked a skeleton in half with her greatsword, but Kari motioned for her to relax; the undead seemed to pay them little heed. Kari watched for the succubus’ reaction to her unseen enemy’s spell. Turillia—if that was truly her name—stood hesitating, but she sought a more solid perch when the crypt she’d stood on cracked in half as well.
“Your tricks and your games are quaint, abomination, but you will have to do far more than siphon arcane power from unsuspecting males to pose any danger to this one,” said the unseen speaker.
“Don’t call me that!” the succubus yelled back. It was an unexpected show of pain from a creature Kari had yet to see at a disadvantage. “My people may not respect me, but at least I am not a slave like you!”
“Emma,” Kari muttered. She gestured for Sharyn to follow her, crouched, and began stalking along the crypts to get to the other end of the row. She wanted a good look at the mallasti girl for future reference, and she was pretty sure Turillia referring to her enemy as a slave had to mean it was Emma.
The women skulked along the backside of the crypts, thankful that the undead paid them little heed in their march to answer their summoner’s call. Kari paused along the way when she saw the two slain guards from outside the gate shambling into the graveyard, and her heart sank. This contest of necromancy had to be ended quickly, or Kari wasn’t sure how far it could go. She continued along with Sharyn, and when they reached the last crypt in the row and peeked around it, Kari got her first glimpse of Emma.
The mallasti wasn’t at all what Kari was expecting, though she had to admit that she hadn’t really known what to expect. While she’d encountered mallasti several times in her past life—and killed every one of them—they had always seemed bigger than the creature standing in the cemetery’s center.
Emma was about six-foot-one, dressed in a simple gray robe that spoke of constant travel and wear. She had a head like a hyena, but her fur was a reddish-brown, and her muzzle and ears were black, as were the hands she held out to the sides, some dark blue tide of power coalescing around them. Her eyes were aglow, a fascinating orange color with the pupils wide in the darkness of the night. As Eli had mentioned, she wore a collar, but it wasn’t what Kari expected. Emma seemed to be wearing a dog collar, and Kari understood the humiliation it was meant to instill in the slaves who wore it.
Amazing that such a small creature can cause such big problems, Kari thought. It was unfathomable that a single creature—even a demon—could raise so many undead in such a short span. Dominick had been quite accurate in assessing Emma’s power; Kari doubted even Gareth Maelstrom or any other archmage in the world could replicate what Emma had just done.
What made little sense was the succubus confronting the mallasti only to play some game of comparing arcane power. Did Turillia truly want to kill Emma, as Kari suspected? Was this entire display meant to draw Kari out to be killed by one or both of the demons? Or did it play into some deeper, more malicious plan, as BlackWing had hinted at?
Her contemplations came to an end when a massive form landed on top of the cemetery’s outer wall. Kari looked up at the silver-furred werewolf standing silhouetted against the rising moons. The creature crouched on top of the wall for a moment, its fanged maw curling up in a snarl as it beheld the demons and the swarm of shambling undead. It crouched down, and one of its clawed hands gripped the lip of the wall hard enough that Kari could hear the crunch of stone.
After a couple of seconds, the creature straightened out to its full height—even larger than Kari’s brother-in-law, Serenjols—and let out a powerful howl that echoed off the walls and crypts. Kari shivered as a chill traveled the length of her spine. Soon, other massive forms appeared on the wall near the silver-furred werewolf, until there were eight in all, and their shadows fell over the crouching demonhunter and ranger.