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  The Ruby Guardian

  ( Scions of Arrabar - 2 )

  Thomas M. Reid

  Thomas M. Reid

  The Ruby Guardian

  PROLOGUE

  1 Tarsakh, 1373 DR

  Marcon Hastori flinched and stifled a gasp as his surroundings shifted, changing in a single, startled breath to a moonlit ring of towering stones atop a low hillock. A heartbeat before, he had been standing in one of the rigid stone corridors deep inside the Palace of the Seven, listening to Senator Dwonlar Aphorio explain to him how he was needed for "a matter of utmost urgency and secrecy." Upon Marcon's reluctant nod of acquiescence, the senator had made an odd and complex gesture in the air between the two of them and the hallway had rapidly and completely faded away in a single, startled breath.

  Marcon really hated magic. The smoky, stifling air of the castle had been replaced by a humid, earthy breeze that wafted lazily over the uneasy guard. The zephyr was hardly cool, but Marcon shivered anyway, clenching his halfspear warily as he peered about. His gaze scanned past the circle of standing stones to the landscape beyond, wondering what need the senator had of him in the middle of nowhere and in the darkness of night.

  The light of Selune set the area beyond the hillock aglow in an eerie way, illuminating a broad expanse of open ground that was covered in low-lying mist. Near the wide, flat mound supporting the standing stones, a river flowed, though Marcon could really only make out the near edge as a darker shadow, running in a more or less straight line. Full moonlight glimmered off ripples in the water, and judging from Selune's position in the sky, the river sat to the north of the hillock.

  Marcon had no idea where the senator had brought him.

  Wishing that Aphorio had chosen someone else to serve as assistant, Marcon followed the tall, muscular man down from the top of the hill, noticing for the first time that the senator led him in the direction of a second, steeper hill stretching off into the darkness. Then flickering torchlight caught the guard's eye from the distance, near the base of that mound. For a moment, Marcon hesitated, his heart racing and his palms sweating. But Aphorio didn't slow, either unaware of or unconcerned about the presence of others, so the guard steeled his resolve and kept pace.

  Serving at the pleasure of the Seven Senators of Reth meant it was Marcon's duty to aid them in whatever capacity they deemed necessary. If that included being magically whisked away from the Palace of the Seven and traipsing through a mist-filled field in the middle of the night, so be it. It was not Marcon's place to question such strange doings, and he would abide.

  But that didn't mean he had to like it.

  Among the Seven, Dwonlar Aphorio was responsible for the city's defenses and was considered the most eccentric of the ruling members of the city. Though he was judged as handsome by most with his lustrous, wavy black hair and prominent, chiseled jaw, the gods had apparently wasted their gift on the man. He sometimes spent days at a time in his personal quarters, alone or with apprentices, supposedly using divination magic to ferret out potential threats to the city or developing new arcane defenses to stave off such attacks. It was whispered that he never slept and could go for days without eating. Such tales unnerved Marcon, despite the fact that he knew them for nothing more than speculation. Few in the palace interacted directly with the reclusive man and could thus neither refute nor substantiate the fanciful stories. Marcon, it seemed, had become an exception that night.

  He didn't have to like it at all.

  Together, Marcon and Senator Aphorio crossed the open space between the two hills, heading directly toward the flickering light of the torch. The breeze from before, atop the hill, did not reach down there, did not disturb the mists. Only two men's slow, careful paces caused the vapors to swirl and flow around them, thick enough to obscure even the grass that grew near to knee high. The fog smelled both sickly sweet and foul to the guard's nostrils, adding to his sense of unease. He wanted to be away from there, and could sense that something dark and menacing lurked in the ground beneath their feet, waiting. It did not welcome them.

  Soon enough, Marcon and the senator drew close enough to the light of the torch to make out several figures huddled together in a circle, gathered around something on the ground, something the guard could not see at first. Then the figures parted respectfully, allowing Aphorio to pass, and Marcon realized that they were the senator's apprentices, seven of them, all dressed in the same black and crimson that the senator himself always wore. They bowed their heads as Aphorio approached, making room in their midst next to a gaping hole in the ground.

  Marcon saw the turned earth along the hole's perimeter, evidence that it had been freshly dug. It was deep and long, and it almost seemed to tunnel into the side of the hillock. The guard's foreboding continued to grow, and he held back, truly afraid. Aphorio moved forward confidently, peering into the depths of the scarred soil eagerly.

  "Excellent," the senator said, turning and smiling at his underlings. "Well done," he added. Then Aphorio turned to Marcon and motioned for him to step forward. "Come and look," he encouraged the guard, holding one arm up invitingly.

  Marcon hesitated, feeling death radiating from the slash in the ground. He wanted to turn and run. "What is it?" he asked, his voice wavering uncertainly.

  "An incredible find," Aphorio crooned, turning back and peering down again, leaning forward so that his hands rested on his knees and he could crane his neck for a better look. "It's history. Come. Have a look."

  With dread making his legs weak, Marcon took one cautious step closer, then another. Finally, when he was able to see past the edge of the cut earth, he leaned forward and gazed where Aphorio pointed. The glow of dull yellow-white caught his eye.

  Bones.

  "W-what is this place?" Marcon said, trying to take a step back, away from the hole. He peered at the mound, which he could see stretched away as far as the faint light of Selune would show him, though it was not round, as he had suspected before. It was a great long thing, straight and steep.

  A barrow.

  "A battlefield!" Marcon wailed, stumbling back another step. "You've unearthed the slain! No!"

  Suddenly, with dreadful realization, Marcon knew well the place upon which he stood. He had never seen it before that very night, but he had heard it described often enough. The Fields of Nun, it was called, the site of the final, decisive battle of the Rotting War, where fell magic had brought the plague to all of Chondath. It was said that just as many warriors died of horrible wasting diseases as by sword and bow. The description of a great stone circle watching over the battlefield and the barrow tombs was unmistakable. As his eyes swept up and along the steep-sided, elongated hill before him, Marcon recalled in an instant the horrible stories of how it came to be.

  The dead had lain thick upon the field of battle that day, many of them with festering sores and rotting flesh. The slain could not be buried by hand for fear of the plague spreading. Instead, great spells had been employed to furrow the earth into huge channels, like mountain giants tilling the soil with their own massive plows. The warriors who had died in the fighting were scooped into the furrows with more magic, buried as one.

  Since that time, the field had lain fallow, for no farmer would come near. Visitors fell sick and died from crossing the ground. It was a place of death, a grim reminder of the terrible magic of the Rotting War. And Senator Aphorio and his brood of apprentices had dug into the very heart of its malicious remains.

  Panic gripped Marcon. The sickly sweet smell of the mist assaulted his nose, making him gag. He turned, staggering, ready to sprint back to the standing stones, to find a way home to Reth, away from the death.

  "Take him," Aphorio commanded, his voice casual and un
concerned.

  Marcon shrieked in misery as hands grabbed at him, snatching at his tunic, his wrists, and his shoulders. Marcon felt his halfspear, forgotten in his panic, wrenched free of his grasp. He twisted away, savage, primal, and terrified. The hands were too strong, their grips like steel vises in the carpenter's workroom or tongs the smith employed. They halted his retreat, pulled him backward, off balance, dragging him down to the ground, kicking and thrashing. The guard was pushed to his knees, forced to face the hole in the ground.

  Senator Aphorio turned away, back to the rent soil, and began to chant, gesturing, as he had done before, in the hallway of the Palace. Marcon watched, wide-eyed, wondering what terrible magic the man was calling forth. He dared not think about his own role in the ensuing rite.

  Marcon felt the rumble well before he heard it. A low, throbbing vibration in the ground, as though all of Faerun groaned, began at his knees and ran through him, fueling his terror. The guard yanked against the hands that held him fast, pulling against those grips of iron, but he was overmatched. He opened his mouth to plead, to beg to be released, but the words died in his throat.

  The earth erupted as the senator stepped back, still gesturing. Bits of soil and rock were thrown skyward and showered down, pelting Marcon's face and arms. He cringed, blinking, caught between the stinging dirt in his eyes and the morbid need to see what had surfaced.

  The thing that stood, its lower half still in the hole, was taller than two men. It was nothing but bone, dirty yellow and caked with mud and roots, but it was not the skeleton of any creature Marcon had ever known. Its skull was wide and flattened on top, and its snout was long and filled with rows of teeth as sharp and as deadly looking as any dagger. A pair of horns protruded from that forehead, slightly forward and curved up toward the glow of Selune. Two long arms ended in skeletal, slender hands that were mostly claws. Two more hands fanned out to either side as part of what must have once been vestigial wings. All four flexed eagerly as the demonic thing stared at Marcon balefully, with twin globes of sickly green shining in the skull's eye sockets.

  Suddenly, Senator Aphorio gestured right at Marcon and uttered a word the guard did not understand. He realized then, too, that the apprentices were no longer there, restraining him. He leaped to his feet, spinning to run, but the skeletal monstrosity was too fast, lunging at him.

  Marcon was knocked sideways off his feet as the creature's claws raked his back. Liquid pain radiated through the terrified man as he tumbled to the ground and came to rest face-up, looking up at the demonic skeleton looming over him. Quick as a cat, the skeleton pounced, stabbing at Marcon with both of its wickedly clawed hands. The guard flinched and tried to fend off the attacks, but he was too slow. He felt the knife-like claws sink into his chest, his gut, sliding all the way through his body and penetrating the ground beneath him. With each agonizing blow, he wanted to cry out, but his breath had left him.

  The guard turned away, his eyes welling with tears of pain and terror, just as the skeletal beast's head snapped down. Jagged teeth sank harshly into the flesh of Marcon's neck and shoulder, sawing through muscle and tendon. Marcon did cry out then, a pitiful whimper in his own ears that faded to a burbling gasp.

  Just as quickly as the skeleton had appeared, it was gone, leaving Marcon lying motionless on the battlefield, his life force ebbing away into the tainted soil. He tried to move, to feel his wounds, but he had no strength left in his body, and all he accomplished was a feeble trembling.

  Aphorio's face loomed into view, all sharp angles and shadows from the single torch flickering off to one side. The man peered down at Marcon with an eager, disconcerting smile. "Try to relax," he crooned, reaching out and patting the guard on one cheek. "It won't be long, now," he added. Turning to one of the apprentices, the senator said, "Fetch the decanter. Quickly, now. I don't want him dying on us before we can finish the transformation."

  Marcon watched in a pain-rimmed daze as the apprentice disappeared from view and returned a moment later, a large crystal container held before him in both hands. The container seemed to glow with a faint green light.

  Or perhaps, Marcon realized in a brief moment of clarity, the contents inside are glowing.

  The mortally wounded guard had no idea what was about to transpire, but he wanted no part of it. He began to struggle anew, trying to turn away, to crawl from the field before any more of Senator Aphorio's foul magic could further harm him. But his arms would no longer move, and a cold chill began to creep in, numbing his extremities.

  Marcon sobbed in frustration and terror. "Please," he croaked, begging anyone who would listen.

  Ignoring him, Senator Aphorio took the decanter from his apprentice, removed the stopper, and waited, watching Marcon struggle feebly. The apprentices, perhaps sensing that the guard's life was fading, gathered in close, watching expectantly.

  Marcon looked from one impassive face to another, not understanding such cruelty, terrified of what horrible fate awaited him. He tried again to roll over to escape their cold gazes, but the exertion only succeeded in bringing on a coughing spell-great, wracking hacks that brought with them stinging pain all through his middle. When they finally subsided, Marcon found it hard to breathe. He sensed death closing in, and he was afraid.

  He closed his eyes and began to pray to Tempus for the courage to face it.

  "Watch closely, now," Senator Aphorio said, as though he were a professor lecturing his students. "It will begin very soon."

  As if to make the man a prophet, Marcon felt a rush of heat through him, and he broke out in a cold sweat. Almost immediately, his joints began to ache, and he began to shake, as if a great fever were surging into every corner of his body. Coupled with the dull, burning pain in his wounds, those new sensations overwhelmed him, and he cried out as his prayers were interrupted.

  The plague.

  The terrible disease of the battlefield had taken him, Marcon realized. He was thankful that he would die before the worst of the affliction could consume him. He prayed that it would, as he felt the fever and chills grow in intensity.

  "There," Aphorio said, his voice filled with delight. "Do you see?"

  Marcon opened his eyes to see the senator pointing at him knowingly. There was a smile on the man's face, and Marcon hated him.

  "And now for the infusion," Aphorio said, and he tipped the decanter over, pouring its contents out upon Marcon.

  The guard cried out again and squirmed, futilely trying to evade the concoction, which spilled out not as a liquid but instead as a thick, green, glowing vapor. The heavy, syrupy fog wafted down and oozed over Marcon, coating him in its glow. He tried to swat at it, make it drift away, but it insistently clung to him.

  Almost immediately, Marcon began to feel the potion's effects. A strange sort of coldness settled into him, a sensation of sluggishness that suggested he was drifting away, leaving his body. At first, the guard thought that he was dying, that he was making the final journey to Warrior's Rest. But his mind did not escape from his mortal shell as he expected. Instead, it began to recede into a corner of himself. He felt his limbs grow heavy, felt control of his body lessening. He sensed his consciousness coiling up, becoming a mere spectator as his body was consumed and devoured by both the plague and the greenish glow. His heartbeat slowed and stopped, as did his breathing. Yet he remained there, seeing through filmy eyes all that took place around him.

  "There," Senator Aphorio said, smiling broadly. "The transformation is complete. Now we can get him back to the city."

  Suddenly, Marcon knew.

  No! Not this!

  Marcon tried to scream, but the sound that came out was a mere moan in his ears. He frantically tried to flail his arms, tried to reach out and claw at those despicable, staring faces, but his body no longer obeyed his commands. In his heart, he sobbed again, for he knew what they had made him.

  Marcon Hastori, former guard of the Palace of the Seven in Reth, was a zombie.

  CHAPTER 1
r />   16 Tarsakh, 1373 DR

  Letius Fordallin of the Iron Lion Mercenary Band swatted away the buzzing, biting flies that swarmed around the hunk of sunmelon he held; then he took another bite. The sweet, golden fruit practically melted in his mouth, it was so ripe, and its juices ran down both his chin and his arm as he gnawed on it. The flies wouldn't be denied, however, and finally, after he had eaten his fill, Letius tossed the bright orange rind aside, into the bushes, and reached for his waterskin.

  Tilting his head back, the mercenary soldier unstoppered the skin and let some of the water spill out over his sticky face, washing away the remains of the sunmelon juice. The water ran down his neck, under his leather jerkin, and into his shirt, though that was already so damp from sweat that a little more was hardly noticeable. Letius's horse whinnied when it felt some of the stray water splash off the man's face and onto its withers, but the well-trained animal did not move. Finally, when he had removed the last vestiges of the sticky residue from his face and hands, Letius capped the skin again and let it drop back down to hang from his saddle.

  Letius turned back to watching the men on the opposite side of the glade where he had been stationed. They were oblivious to him, hard at work sawing or chopping through the trunks of the trees. Already, they had felled more than two dozen large shadowtops, which other men then trimmed, removing the trees' branches. Still other workers, assisted by teams of horses, were in the process of dragging those logs away, down the path in the direction of a nearby river, where they would be floated down to Hlath, milled into lumber, and used or sold there.

  Letius yawned, feeling drowsy from both the noonday sun and the food in his belly, and he thought of dismounting and settling in a shady spot for a brief nap. He abandoned the notion, though.

  Sergeant Kukras'll have me scrubbing kettles for a tenday if he finds me sleeping, the soldier thought. Tempus, I hate this wretched guard duty.