Sister of the Dead - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,138
he fell so quickly that his blade tips slid into the ground.
Half-pressed into the wet earth was a small brass urn, its top sealed with a whitish filling that might have been wax. Its chain had been split in half. The soft metal clink Leesil had heard at his first blow into Vordana's chest had been the chain severing on his blade's edge.
Leesil raised his head and saw Vordana coming for him. The sorcerer didn't seem aware that he'd lost the urn... didn't see it lying so close. Leesil knew he couldn't defend himself much longer, and he had to end this. If not by finishing this walking corpse, then at least by driving it off—as Wynn had once done. He shoved himself upright on his knees, and wavered as he lifted both blades.
Vordana hesitated at the sight of sharp steel in the air before him.
And Leesil swung downward, letting go with all his weight behind the blades.
His left blade missed and buried in the soft earth up to his fist.
The right struck true.
A snapping puff of vapor issued as the urn split in half. It smelled of pepper and the scent burned in Leesil's nose, making his eyes water. The sensation of his life draining away ceased.
Leesil's fatigue started to fade, little by little, and he looked up at Vordana.
The sorcerer clenched exposed teeth as he stared at the urn's halves to either side of Leesil's blade.
No... no... no...
Over and over, the one word filled Leesil's head as he struggled to his feet.
Ubad!
Leesil lunged at Vordana. Whatever the urn preserved of the sorcerer's presence, its loss had undone his ability to prey upon the living.
Vordana's filmy eyes turned fully white. They collapsed inside their sockets, and Leesil slashed. Vordana raised the stump of his arm to shield himself. The blade hit, skidded along bone, and tore away rotting flesh.
Ubad! Master, save me!
At this outcry, Leesil's fear sharpened to replace his lost strength. He couldn't let the withered mage save this creature. Vordana's grayed flesh shriveled further and split in places to reveal yellowed bone. The undead sorcerer decayed before Leesil, but it was not enough to satisfy him. He chopped down into Vordana's head.
The sorcerer crumpled to ground, still writhing with a spilt in his skull, and Leesil fell upon him, striking again and again.
When Leesil finally stopped, he was panting in exhaustion. He rose to his feet, wavered there, and stared down at the unrecognizable remains of Vordana's head. With one kick, he scattered the rotted pieces into the forest.
"Come back from that, if you can, " he gasped out.
Now he had to find Wynn... and Magiere and Chap.
A high-pitched scream carried through the forest from a distance.
"Wynn?" he whispered hoarsely.
Leesil snatched up the still-glowing topaz, and stumbled through the trees.
IWynn knelt upon the ground, clinging to a tree trunk with both arms as the gale died away. She stayed there, shivering for a long while, before she could open her eyes. The glimmers of the ghosts were gone, and she had fled so quickly, there had been no time to pick up her cold lamp from the cavern floor. Even the moon was hidden somewhere above the thick forest canopy. All she saw was the silent dark forest.
No ghostly translucent spirits. No thin trails of white in the air that pierced her with cold pain. And no Leesil.
"Leesil?" Wynn whispered.
He was nowhere to be seen, and she had no idea which direction she had run—which direction to turn and search for him. The sound of Wynn's own rapid breaths filled her ears, and she willfully slowed her breathing before it dizzied her.
"I am not lost, " she told herself.
If she could not find Leesil, then Magiere and Chap would come. Chap could track her... if those two had escaped the cavern.
Magiere had been so angry when the communion with her mother had ended. Ubad's suggestive words of her greater purpose only fed fuel to her rage. Wynn so often felt frightened both for and of Magiere that it was becoming a familiar state. She wondered what confidence Magiere and her mother's spirit had shared.
Her thoughts were cut short by thrashing in the forest.
Neither Leesil nor Chap would ever make so much noise. Perhaps Magiere? But wouldn't Chap lead her in a more stealthy fashion?
Wynn grabbed her crossbow and quiver from the ground and crawled around the tree trunk away from the sound. She peered out, and a dark figure moved haltingly through the forest.