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small entity trapped within a conjuring circle. He loathed following Ubad's
commands but was determined to save his father.
Another spirit struck the wide man. He opened his mouth to yell, but no sound
issued, and he buckled, grasping his throat.
Welstiel's head ached with concentration as he summoned the air from out of
the prisoner's lungs. Free of the wide man's assault, Welstiel's father struck
upward into his opponent's bearded jaw as two more spirits pierced the man's
body.
The prisoner's eyes rolled as he gasped for air, and he toppled over. Bryen
was up and on him in an instant, pinning his thick arms back with the dangling
chains.
"Leave him alive, " Ubad commanded.
Welstiel ceased chanting. His father pinned the captive's stomach against the
brass vat and forced the man to lean forward over it. Before Welstiel
understood what was happening, Ubad slashed open the prisoner's throat with a
curved dagger.
The hulking man bucked at the blade's passing and thrashed wildly. Bryen put
his full weight on top of his captive. It did not take long for the prisoner
to go limp as his blood drained into the vessel. Bryen stood up, releasing the
body to flop heavily upon the floor.
Welstiel saw the prisoner's eyes, smaller and darker than the elf's, staring
blindly up at the ceiling. His mouth was clenched shut in a permanent grimace,
and the thick beard was matted to his chest with his own blood.
"Well done, my son, " Bryen said. "One dwarf is far more trouble man we
expected. "
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Awareness filled Welstiel like a winter chill spreading from Bryen's
approving gaze. His father lived an unnatural existence, but this spilling of
blood without thought shocked Welstiel. The thing that stood before him,
offering dispassionate praise, was far less his sire than he had ever before
realized.
"We must not delay, " Ubad said urgently. "Now that it's begun, preparation
must be finished immediately. "
Bryen cast the necromancer an annoyed glance but nodded agreement. Without
another word to Welstiel, he stepped to the wood-framed crate with its canvas
walls. Drawing his own dagger, he slashed open one side. The canvas separated
and fell away.
Welstiel saw the prisoner within.
Bound with leather straps instead of shackles, she was delicate. Even curled
in fright at the container's rear, he could tell she would barely reach his
sternum when standing.
Her face and build were as lithe and slender as the last prisoner's had been
hulking and wide. She would have been slight even standing next to the dead
elf. Her two eyes, staring out in wide terror, had no irises. They were fully
black like a sparrow's, and the dark rings around them showed she had not
slept in days. From narrow feet to her head of feathery hair, her pale flesh
appeared downy, though there were places where it had molted or been rubbed to
bare cream skin.
And bound down to her naked torso were wings of mottled grays and whites
sprouting from her back. Her attempts to free them were likely what Welstiel
had heard when he had first seen this container.
Bryen grabbed her bound wrists, dragging her out and holding her up to dangle
from his grip as he walked toward the vat.
"You should retire, " Ubad said to Welstiel. "There's still much to do here,
and you've exceeded your stamina. "
Welstiel got to his feet. He was about to approach his father, but Ubad slid
into his way as the necromancer followed Bryen across the room. Welstiel
suddenly felt isolated and alone.
He turned to leave. Behind him, the sound of a frantic scream was cut short.
He thought of Magelia, locked in her cell, forced to listen, and he turned his
eyes away as he passed her door.
Once in his own room, Welstiel locked the door and sat at a small desk lit by
the three dancing flickers in his orb. There he remained for the rest of a
sleepless night with his eyes closed, flinching at the sounds of two more
screams that echoed up from the seventh room beneath the keep.
Chapter 6
Cadell and Jan brought additional candle lanterns, and the room was
illuminated around Magiere in yellow light. The stench was still so thick that
she could taste it. Before her was a small heap of remains amid an old wood
frame with decayed shreds of cloth still bound to it.
At first, she thought it was two bodies, for there were too many bones for a
single being. Yet there was only one skull, human shaped, but too small and
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narrow, with oversize eye sockets like those of the elf. There was only one
set of hands and feet, with toe bones that were too long. Its limbs had been
bound with leather straps now crusted hard with age, as well as another
hanging loose around the frail rib cage.
In the filth surrounding it were the remains of rotted feathers.
"Wings?" Wynn whispered as she drew closer, holding up a crystal. "It had
wings... like a bird. Perhaps female if its make is similar to other races. "
Magiere's gaze traced the tangled bones until the illusion of two bodies was
dispelled by the memory of once seeing a dead hawk in the woods. A few
feathers lying before her still held their mottled gray and white color.
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