CHAPTER FIFTEEN - THE FuRy oF THE STEAlER

The scream made the hair on the back of Tarn’sneck stand on end, for it was a sound like nothing he’dever heard before. It was most assuredly not human. Helooked over toward Logan, then toward Tonath. The knightstood up straight in his saddle and looked straight ahead.“I heard it, too, Tarn.” He shuddered. “Whatever it was….” Tarn simply nodded. Tonath looked at his troops, unsure of what to say, andso said nothing, choosing instead to wave his sword in theair, and pointed toward the outpost. His men heeded hiscall, and spurred their mounts forward, faster and faster,a cloud of dust rising quickly behind them. As they drew

closer, Tarn saw arrows ying out from inside the wreckage

of the small fort, and he was relieved that they weren’t toolate.More screams echoed across the plain, and this timethey were distinctively human in nature. Tarn instinctivelydrew his sword from the scabbard strapped to his back.

A ash of movement caught his eye, and he saw for therst time what he knew to be the stealer. It was a sight he

would never forget, no matter how hard he tried.It looked like the stuff of nightmares. The beast wasalmost eight feet tall and shimmered in the sunlight. Itsbody was hard and angular, its skin consisting of blackarmored plates, all sharp projections and dark lines. There was nothing natural about it. The sunlight refracted off of it in strange ways, and even though Tarn could tell itsskin was blacker than midnight, the light seemed to passthrough it, giving it a kind of strange black translucence. The beast spun around, and Tarn knew a singularmoment of terror as he got a look at the beast’s face. Truly,

this was something out of the deepest and blackest of the nine hells. Its face was drawn up in a contortion of terror and fear, and yet it was perfectly calm. Armoredspikes covered its body, and its head was hidden behinda mask that was there, and yet wasn’t. Its body coalescedgradually, as if it was drawing itself more fully onto thisplane. Then it looked straight at Tarn, and he shuddered tothe very core of his being as its red glowing eyes seemed tolook right through him. He tried to suppress his fear as hestarted to move his horse sideways, taking in the beast andits actions. Then it screamed again.* * *Even more than the sight of the creature, Tarn knewhe would never forget the scream. The sound reverberatedthroughout his skull, and every bone in his body screamed

fee!

It wormed somewhere deep inside of him, and hecould feel his fear warring with his intellect. He lookedabout: saw some of the soldiers whipping about on theirhorses, running; saw others overcome with panic, notdoing anything; he even saw some so panicked that theylost control of their bladders and wet their saddles. He felttempted to do the same, but forced himself not to panic.He looked about and saw Tonath rallying his soldiers.He had never been more grateful for the little knight’s

unappability than he was then. Several of the troopers

rallied to him, and as the other men struggled to gaincontrol of their fear, the more experienced few at Tonath’sside loosed a volley of arrows at the beast.

The beast seemed not to notice the impact of their

arrows on its ank and shoulders. It bellowed out a

command in a deep and guttural tongue and waved oneof its arms about as it if was casting a spell. It looked atthem, and then it

grinned

. Its grin was a hellish grimaceof unholy darkness, and it sent yet another shiver down Tarn’s spine.One of the soldiers shouted a warning, and Tarn whipped his head in that direction. He saw the bodies of the dead guardsmen lying there begin to rise. The beast hadsummoned the fallen soldiers back to unlife.

Deathwalkers.

He turned his horse toward them and began to ready anattack.Ahead of Logan, closer to the beast, Tonath had rallied

several of the soldiers. They were ring arrows as fast as

they could, but no matter how many arrows they launchedat the beast, nothing seemed to faze it. The repeated shotsdidn’t even seem to be slowing it down.Nyla saw that there were nearly a dozen deathwalkersslowly trudging toward her friends. Tarn had drawn hissword and was riding toward the closest zombie, but Loganstill seemed to be barely aware of what was going on around

him. Unsure of what to do – or who to attack rst – she

screamed out a warning to the cleric. “Logan! Undead!”Her call seemed to snap Logan out of his stupor, andhe quickly realized what he was up against. He had neveractually faced undead in battle before, but he had studiedthem, and knew what he had to do. Grasping the holysymbol around his neck, he began chanting softly. Then,as Tarn rode by and swung his sword, decapitating the

rst zombie, Logan’s voice reached a crescendo and echoed

across the plain. “Fouls minions of darkness, by all that is