The Ghost King Read Online Free PDF Page B

side of the ridge, Jarlaxle casually slipped a ring onto his finger and drew a thin wand from his pack.
    He punched out with the ring and its magic extended and amplified his strike many times over, blowing a path of force through the nearest ranks of skeletons, sending bones flying every which way. A second punch shattered three others as they tried to close from his left flank.
    His immediate position secured, the drow lifted the wand, calling upon its powers to bring forth a burst of brilliantly shining light, warm and magical and ultimately devastating to the undead creatures.
    Unlike the flames of the magical boar, the wand’s light could not be ignored by the skeletons. Where fire could but blacken their bones, perhaps wound them slightly, the magical light struck at the core of the very magic that gave them animation, countering the negative energy that had lifted them from the grave.
    Jarlaxle centered the burst in the area where Athrogate had fallen, and the dwarf’s expected yelp of surprise and pain—pain from stinging eyes—sounded sweet to the drow.
    He couldn’t help but laugh when the dwarf finally emerged from the rattle of collapsing skeletons.
    The fight, however, remained far from won. More and more skeletons continued to rise and advance.
    Athrogate’s boar was gone, slain by the horde. The magic of the figurine could not produce another creature for several hours. Jarlaxle’s bird, too, had fallen victim to slashing digits and was being torn asunder. The drow lifted his fingers to the band on his hat, where the nub of a new feather was beginning to sprout. But several days would pass before another diatryma could be summoned.
    Athrogate turned as if he meant to charge into another knot of skeletons, and Jarlaxle yelled, “Get back here!”
    Still rubbing his stinging eyes, the dwarf replied, “There be more to hit, elf!”
    “I will leave you, then, and they will tear you apart.”
    “Ye’re askin’ me to run from a fight!” Athrogate yelled as his morningstars pulverized another skeleton that reached for him with clawing hands.
    “Perhaps the magic that raised these creatures will lift you up as a zombie,” Jarlaxle said as he turned his nightmare around, facing up the ridge. Within a few heartbeats, he heard mumbling behind him as Athrogate approached. The dwarf huffed and puffed beside him, holding the onyx boar figurine and muttering.
    “You cannot call another one now,” Jarlaxle reminded him, extending a hand that Athrogate grasped.
    The dwarf settled behind the drow on the nightmare’s back and Jarlaxlekicked the steed away, leaving the skeletons far, far behind. They rode hard, then more easily, and the dwarf began to giggle.
    “What do you know?” the drow asked, but Athrogate only bellowed with wild laughter.
    “What?” Jarlaxle demanded, but he couldn’t spare the time to properly look back, and Athrogate sounded too amused to properly answer.
    When they finally reached a place where they could safely stop, Jarlaxle pulled up abruptly and turned around.
    There sat Athrogate, red-faced with laughter as he held a skeletal hand and forearm, the fingers still clawing in the air before him. Jarlaxle leaped from the nightmare, and when the dwarf didn’t immediately follow, the drow dismissed the steed, sending Athrogate falling to the ground through an insubstantial swirl of black smoke.
    But Athrogate still laughed as he thumped to the ground, thoroughly amused by the animated skeletal arm.
    “Be rid of that wretched thing!” Jarlaxle said.
    Athrogate looked at him incredulously. “Thought ye had more imagination, elf,” he said. He hopped up and unstrapped his heavy breastplate. As soon as it fell aside, the dwarf reached over his shoulder with the still-clawing hand and gave a great sigh of pleasure as the fingers scratched his back. “How long do ye think it’ll live?”
    “Longer than you, I hope,” the drow replied, closing his eyes and shaking his head