Lady White sensed whoever was hunting her growing closer by the moment. She’d settled on one of the smaller stone houses for her hiding place. Inside, she found a room with no exterior wall and only one entrance. Her warbeast crouched just to one side of the closed door. Whoever walked through was in for a nasty surprise.
If they took whoever it was in the first rush, that would be ideal. A drawn-out battle against an unknown opponent was risky. If the one she thought was coming actually showed up, she wasn’t sure even a surprise attack would be enough.
In the palm of her right hand, darkness gathered. Slowly she collected and condensed corruption into a destructive ball that would blow apart anyone she hit, whether it be a living or undead foe.
Her hunter stopped outside the building. Must be the cautious sort. Pity. Some of Astaroth’s followers were more patient than others. She’d been hoping for one of the impulsive ones. Not that she really imagined she’d get so lucky. Anyone that had grown powerful enough to face her one on one didn’t do it by being stupid.
Finally, they entered. Corruption gathered around the hunter just like it did her.
At her mental command her warbeast tensed. The hunter was only twenty paces away now. Any moment they’d burst through the door.
Lady White prepared herself.
Corruption surged and the wall to her right exploded inward.
Gravel showered her as dust filled the air.
A barely visible silhouette appeared through the haze.
She hurled the corruption she’d gathered.
The black sphere passed through the figure before slamming into the wall behind. The resulting explosion rocked the building and she feared it might collapse.
Having no desire to end up crushed under tons of stone, Lady White ordered her warbeast to attack. It roared and leapt.
At the moment of impact, she sprinted for the hole in the wall.
An instant’s warning was all she had before her opponent’s spell came rushing at her.
Darkness formed a shield around her.
A moment later she was blown backwards through the opening in the wall. Her quick protective spell kept the damage to a minimum, but the power of the attack still stunned her.
As she staggered to her feet, the connection between her and the warbeast vanished. Her mystery opponent had killed the creature. That narrowed the hunter’s identity down to only a handful of cultists. No way was it Lord of the Dead himself.
The dust settled and she finally caught a glimpse of a pale, handsome face. Jackal. She’d suspected Lord of the Dead would send his favorite hunter. She would have felt honored if she wasn’t so scared.
“Submit and your destruction will be quick,” Jackal said.
If she was inclined to die quickly, she would have done it back in the Land of the Demon Binders and saved herself a long walk through the desert. A wave of her hand summoned a curtain of darkness.
Lady White turned and ran.
Some spell grazed her side, drawing a hiss. Undead though she might be, there were still spells that could hurt her. And she wouldn’t be surprised if Jackal knew them all. She needed space to set a trap. Or better yet, to summon an ally.
Outside she turned down a street and ran away from the portal. She had no idea how the group already here would react to her and had no desire to fight a three-sided battle. Besides, the mithril would weaken her more than Jackal.
She’d barely managed ten strides when he came out of the building at full speed. Jackal would have no trouble outrunning her. Forcing power into her legs, she leapt from the street onto the flat roof of the nearest building.
From roof to roof she raced across the city, not daring to look back, but sensing him gaining.
She yanked the message device from her pocket, snapped it, and said, “I’m in the city and need help. Now.”
A faint tingle in the back of her mind hopefully indicated the spell had worked.
She leapt to the next roof and tossed the rune-marked coin off to one side. If Jackal noticed it she was doomed. Her gamble was that he’d be so focused on her that he wouldn’t think anything of the coin. Her eternal life rested on winning that wager.
When her foot hit the next roof, it collapsed under her. Lady White sprawled in the dirt and found herself staring up at Jackal.
“And so the chase ends.” He reached for her, darkness writhing around his hand.
Otto sat at the desk in his bedroom and twirled a gold and mithril amulet. It was a beautiful item, carved with a circle of runes that he’d then filled with liquid mithril. In the center of the runes, also written in mithril, was Lady White’s true name.
He’d spent the last three weeks forging it according to his master’s directions. Lord Karonin claimed that when he sent ether through the amulet, it should allow him to command Lady White. “Should” being the operative word. While she felt confident in the technique, even the former Arcane Lord had never actually used the magic on an intelligent, self-willed undead like Lady White.
He sighed and slipped the amulet under his tunic. Hopefully she’d never give him cause to use it. Willing allies were far more useful than ones operating under threat. Though he’d made out okay with Allen and Sin. Those two were currently keeping an eye on Jet. He’d grown weary of the demon worshiper’s constant questions about when they’d be going to join Lady White and sent her to stay with Allen at his tavern.
The day had been long and his bed beckoned. He pushed himself out of his chair, yawned, and took a step toward the water basin to wash up.
One of his message spells hit him in the back of the head. I’m in the city and need help. Now.
He shuddered at the power of the message. Sometimes emotions influenced the force of the message. Clearly Lady White had gotten into serious trouble. More importantly, she’d found Amet Sur’s capital.
His bed forgotten and his weariness washed away by excitement, Otto turned away from his bed, crossed the room, and snatched up his sword and satchel. He had the patch he needed to activate the portal near him at all times for when she contacted him.
As ready as he could be, Otto became one with the ether and reached for the rune-marked coin he’d given her.
An instant later he appeared on a rooftop.
He barely had time to register his surroundings when he sensed two powerful sources of corruption below him.
Otto went to the edge of the roof. Below him a figure in a black cloak had its hand wrapped around Lady White’s throat and was holding her two feet off the ground.
Not even thinking, Otto drew his sword and leapt.
Ether flowed into his body as he fell.
His mithril sword sliced the arm holding Lady White off at the elbow. He caught just a glimpse of a pained, pale face before the man vanished.
Otto kept his sword drawn just in case the stranger returned. Beside him, Lady White tossed the forearm away and rubbed her pale throat. She looked shaken, even more so than when the cultists had her trapped in the Land of the Demon Binders.
“I doubted you’d come,” she said at last.
“Why? We’re allies, aren’t we? I promised you protection from your enemies in exchange for your loyalty. Wouldn’t be much of a deal if the first time you got into trouble I ignored you.” Otto used a few threads of ether to retrieve the rune-marked coin from the nearby roof. “Here. Who was that anyway?”
She took the coin back and slipped it into her pocket. “Jackal. He’s the favored hunter of Lord of the Dead, the leader of my former cult. Of all those Lord of the Dead might have sent, Jackal is the one I least wanted to deal with.”
“Why? What makes him so special? When I first sensed the two of you, your levels of corruption seemed about even.”
“He’s a little stronger than me.” From the tone of her voice, it took a lot to admit that. “The real problem is our specialties. My talents lie in summoning and binding as well as long-range communications. When my superiors trained me, it was to be a leader who oversaw others in the field. Jackal is a hunter. Finding and destroying foes directly is his focus. Basically, this situation is where I’m weakest and he’s strongest.”
“Hmm. That’s hardly ideal. At least he seems vulnerable to mithril. Is he an undead like you?”
“No, Jackal is demon bound. Lord of the Dead summoned a demon spirit, stripped it of personality, and infused the energy into Jackal. Basically, he retained his human personality and intellect and gained the powers of a demon. Of course, it cost his soul, but that’s no different than any of us that serve Astaroth.”
“How did he escape, some sort of teleportation?” If Jackal could appear and disappear at will, it would make killing him far more difficult.
“He can travel short distances as a black mist, but only for a second or two, then he needs to reform. It’s not a trick he can use often.”
Otto nodded, that was something at least. “What else can he do?”
“Jackal is strong and fast, his body heals quickly, though I doubt that arm will be growing back since you severed it with a mithril blade. But just to make sure.” She pointed at the severed appendage and it melted into a puddle of liquid meat. “There. He can also rip the corruption out of an undead or demonic creature, destroying it utterly.”
“That’s what he was doing to you?”
She shuddered. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I’d have lasted ten seconds at most.”
“Well then, I’m glad I made it in time. Anything else I need to know?”
“There was another party already here when I arrived. They were camped near the portal.”
“Friends of Jackal’s?”
“He doesn’t have friends. Whoever they were, I doubt he was with them.” She nodded toward his sword. “Could you put that away? It’s making my skin crawl. Jackal won’t attack again until he recovers from the blow you struck.”
Otto obliged her, sheathing the blade. “I’ll just take a quick look at these strangers.”
He closed his eyes and extended his sight. The corruption burned, but this time he knew what to expect and protected himself from the worst of the negative effects. His ethereal construct reached a point far above the plaza. In the distance he caught a glimpse of green light and figures racing toward the largest of three black pyramids. That would be Amet Sur’s palace.
The group was a few strides from the only visible entrance.
Sending the construct in for a closer look, he slammed into an invisible barrier right at the palace entrance. The green light quickly dwindled out of sight. Whoever they were, he couldn’t follow them in there. The barrier reminded him of the one generated by the knight statue he took from Sin. For a wizard of Lord Sur’s skill, forging such a barrier would be a simple matter.
If he wanted to deal with them, he’d have to do it in person.
Otto let the construct vanish and returned his sight to his body. “They’ve fled into the pyramid. I saw no sign of Jackal or anyone else in the plaza.”
“Jackal would have no more desire than I do to get close to the portal.”
“It’s going to get considerably worse once I activate it. Pure ether charging the mithril should make it impossible for any undead to approach within a hundred yards or so. I planned to use it as a safe zone for our camp. This Jackal problem complicates my plan. You’ll be a sitting duck outside the protected zone on your own. We need to find him and destroy him before I activate the portal.”
“I like that plan, but now that he knows I have help, he won’t attack again. Jackal is too smart for that. He’ll wait until I’m alone. We’re both immortal. Time is on his side.”
“Is it? I assume your former leader wouldn’t want his best hunter tied up for potentially decades. Time may be on his side in theory, but in reality, there’s some kind of a limit. That limit is certainly longer than I plan to invest in this dead city, but still.”
“Okay, what’s your plan?”
“Simple, we hunt the hunter.”