Possessing the Grimstone - By John Grover Page 0,50

it.

“Their mages know what it looks like,” Sooth-Malesh muttered to himself. “They know what the three pieces make, and they will find them.”

Around the bearer, a row of Neshing appeared with long spikes. To the crimson mage’s horror, the tops were fitted with the severed heads of his people.

Not just his people, but those of the North, of the Lake Lands,and even of the painted, leering faces of those in the South.

A message sent loud and clear, the Neshing planted the spikes in the ground for all of Cardoon to see.

Then Sooth-Malesh saw it: the first volley, the first attack. The sky lit up with yellow-green fireballs and boulders studded with spikes.

Chapter Twelve

Shannara splashed across the swamp and swung her blades, gutting the undead knight, and spilling snakes, frogs, and other vermin into the muck. She swung higher and severed its head. The body lurched around before falling over.

Pim wanted to run, but found his feet stuck in the mud. Behind him, something sloshed.

“Pim, duck!” Tolan yelled.

He did as the warrior commanded, and a mace swung over his head. Tolan jumped in front of him and bashed the undead attacker to the ground. Its entire body stumbled, falling face first, and squirming on the ground.

Tolan pulled Pim out of the mud and to higher ground. Pim watched dozens of dead emerge all around them.

Drith kicked a shuffling undead across the chest, and swept another’s legs out from under it.

The D’Elkyrie seers retreated into the shadows as their women leaped into action, slicing their deadly blades through rotting limbs and waterlogged bodies. Shannara ducked as an undead archer launched an arrow at her.

The arrow found its mark in another of her warriors, sending her down. Shannara cursed and fought harder, but the dead kept coming.

Dead men and creatures flooded the swamps, their battered armor cluttered with exposed bones, their gouged flesh seeped, and their stiff legs dragged through mush and marsh. Old weapons brandished dangerously close to the living as the lost ones closed in on them.

“There’s too many!” Tolan called as he, Pim, and the Cardoon soldier backed into a cluster of trees.

“We cannot give up now! We are so close!” Shannara said.

Drith clashed against two undead; they swung at him and missed. One let out a baleful moan, and lunged. Drith scurried up a tree, and the dead ceased their attack. He watched as they continued through the swamp, ignoring everything around them.

“Get out of their way!” Drith called to the others. “Let them pass! Stop fighting, and let them pass. We are in their way.”

Tolan and Pim wound around and kept the trees at their backs. The Cardoon soldier lowered his sword, and followed their lead.

Shannara dug her blades into the nearest tree and climbed the trunk. Her warriors did the same, leaping onto each other’s shoulders and climbing out of the undead’s way. The women reached down to help the seers off the ground.

The undead fighters stopped their attack and walked on, single-minded, a purpose in their steps. They filed together and made a path through the swamps.

As the last of them passed through the area, Tolan looked to the others. “Follow them, they’ll lead us to Mort A’ghas.”

Drith, Shannara, and the others dropped to the ground. When the undead were at a safe distance, the group tracked them.

“They were only trying to get to Mort A’ghas?” Pim asked.

“We were in their way. They must have thought we were trying to stop them,” Tolan said.

“Our ignorance cost me the lives of my people,” Shannara said.

“How were we to know?” said Pim.

Shannara remained silent as they followed the distressed souls.

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At last, it came into view: a structure composed of darkness and shadows, of altered perception, and perceived reality. Stone met wood at odd angles, foundation burrowed beneath charred ground, while two black steeples rose into the misty trees. Eerie red light flickered inside its hollows, and etched windows. The abode curled at some sides, while narrowing at others. Its entirety could not be completely determined as it toyed with the senses and threatened the sanity of those who looked upon it. One moment it was there, another it was but a hazy dream or nightmare. This was Mort A’ghas, the Church of the Dead.

Mort A’ghas stood on a small island in the center of a swamp with black waters. The dead walked one by one into the waters and submerged. They rose out of the water on the other side, and stepped onto the island, filing through the