The Duelist

by Eric Vall

  With one last wink, I turned tail and bolted up the steep incline that wrapped nearly a quarter mile around the peak before the first switchback came into sight.

  “Try to use your other senses, Alex!” Zoie called out, and suddenly a rock bounced off the back of my booted heel.

  “Hey!” I said and looked around. “What about the Somethings following us? Won’t they hear?”

  “They caught our scent when the winds changed,” Zoie said, and another rock hit off the cliff face as I rounded the second switchback.

  “More sink or swim, got it,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “I heard that.” Zoie threw another rock, and it got me on the elbow. “Open your senses and dodge me without looking back!”

  “That one is going to leave a mark, you know,” I said just to be difficult, even though the rock didn’t sting.

  “Anywhere you bruise, I will make better,” she bantered, and her voice sounded like dusk and of Hot Things to Come, which made my heart pound harder.

  “Is that a threat or a promise?” I fired back, and I wasn’t sure which one I wanted it to be.

  Instead of answering, Zoie just chuckled, and I heard her scoop up a handful of rocks from the rocky trail.

  “Right, focus,” I said to myself, and I tried to track her movements with my hearing as I ran up the next incline.

  Instead of picturing the seed pod visually, I just imagined I could feel the creeping shoots of my focus as they sought out the information behind me, so I wouldn’t be too distracted and lose my footing on the narrow inclines.

  I turned the third switchback, and I could hear the stones were in Zoie’s left hand, which meant her throwing hand was her right.

  A stone whizzed by my ear just as I had the sudden urge to duck my head, and I realized I was starting to find my pace. Each step matched the tempo of my heart, and I was able to compartmentalize my attention to the beat like a metronome.

  I swerved to the left and dodged another rock, and then I jumped over another one aimed at my feet.

  My lungs pumped, and my leg muscles burned, but my mind grew sharp and clear. Again, it felt as if a part of me was able to observe outside of my present task, and I was able to avoid most of her incoming rock missiles.

  When we passed the sixth switchback, I tried to see how much I could push my awareness, and I sectioned my focus even more until I could hear a very familiar ticking sound…

  Tick.

  While still being aware of my rambling path, I heard a distinctive sound added to the flurry of other information. Among the continuous noise of our pounding feet, Roo’s flapping, and the sound of rocks rolling around in Zoie’s hands, a high-pitched whistling rose on the breeze.

  Tick.

  “Zoie!” I yelled and then spun on my heels so I could grab her and pull us both against the rock wall as an arrow flew up from below. We peeked down the sheer cliffs and saw a handful of large dark shapes point up at us from the base of the switchbacks.

  “We’ve got company,” I said just as the pack of broad-shouldered figures started running.

  Chapter 15

  Roofus cawed at us urgently as the pack of Somethings thundered up the inclines, and we both stood in frozen horror for a moment until Roofus screeched loud enough to snap us out of it.

  “Run!” Zoie said, and we both sprinted up the incline in an attempt to reach the falls as quickly as possible.

  I really hoped the entrance into the Ruins was self-explanatory because I had a feeling the Somethings chasing us weren’t going to wait around for us to find the door.

  I looked up to try and catch a glimpse of the supposed ruined ancient palace/city, but the steep face of the mountain we were traversing was preventing me from seeing anything but its rocky and jagged shadow as it eclipsed us in shade.

  A fierce stitch appeared in my side as we rounded the tenth switchback, and I willed my stamina to hold out just a little longer when I heard the sound of rushing water.

  “The falls must be close!” I shouted to Zoie at my side, and we both leapt over a fallen tree in sync.

  “I can smell them!” Zoie answered, and with one more concentrated burst of energy, we hauled ourselves to the top of the final incline.

  Even though a terrifying pack of Somethings were tearing up the switchbacks on a quest for our blood, Zoie and I still stopped dead in our tracks at the sight of the magnificent ruined palace peeking down at us with its formidable crumbled spires and collapsing battlements. I couldn’t see the entire scope of the place, but there was something foreboding about how it stood like a dead sentinel at the top of the narrow waterfall which thundered down onto slick black rocks.

  “How do we get inside?” I asked when I snapped out of the trance the ruins trapped me in. There was something oppressive to the atmosphere that demanded silence, and I almost felt guilty about having to shout over the waterfall.

  Zoie startled slightly as if she, too, was in a daze and then shook her head a bit as if to clear the cobwebs as she withdrew her katana. “The entrance must be behind the waterfall. We must hurry, I can feel the ground vibrate with their approach.”

  The roaring water made it impossible for me to hear the pounding feet of our pursuers, but I trusted that Zoie’s fine-tuned skills might pick up something before we were caught off guard.

  “Let’s do this,” I said.

  With no time to spare, we ran behind the powerful waterfall and searched the rock for any signs of a door.

  Zoie took the time to relight another one of those expandable bamboo-like torches, which really were starting to come in handy because without the light we would have missed the ancient carvings on the rock wall.

  “Alex, I can hear whatever is hunting us is getting closer,” Zoie said as she watched me examine the carvings.

  “Just a second,” I panted as I squinted up at the carvings.

  “They are advancing,” she urged, but I tried to focus on the weird riddle scrawled on the wall.

  “I think I can read what’s written here,” I said as the weird translation thing that allowed me to communicate with the locals somehow made the words look like they were written in English. “‘Weapons are nothing without the bearer’s key.’”

  “Alex…” Zoie warned, and through the drips of the waterfall we saw a dark shaggy creature breech the top of the ledge.

  It was getting dark, but I could see it had some sort of tribal-looking paintings on its skin, and it was also wearing a loincloth and had a lethal quiver of arrows on its back.

  “Shit,” I hissed under my breath and glared back at the wall.

  Of course, there was a mysterious password in the form of a riddle. It wouldn’t be a proper dungeon crawl without it, even though the “getting chased by werewolves” timing could be way improved.

  Zoie nudged me as more of the wolf-men appeared in the clearing where we were a moment ago. They raised their long muzzles and scented the air, and I knew our time was up.

  “Weapons without what…” I murmured as I focused back on this hidden doorway riddle shit. I could not afford to be distracted. “Come on, what makes weapons useless?”

  “They found us,” Zoie said as she held her sword at the ready.

  I glanced through the falling water and saw one of the wolf-men fix his stare on our location. His eyes glowed, and then he gathered the others closer as he pointed toward the falls.

  Leave it to Tovish to get us here and then not give us the answer of how to get in. Or wait… maybe he had, and I’d just forgotten. I seemed to remember him telling me specifically not to forget something just before he shoved me out onto that roof.

  A wolf’s howl sounded, and the six terrifying beasts began running full tilt toward our position behind the falls.

  “Alex!” Zoie whisper-shouted

  “Don’t forget, don’t forget…” I chanted. “What was it Tovish said? Something map, something Roofus will help us, something--argh! Weapons without what? The absence of what makes
weapons useless?”

  “Skreet!” Roofus wailed as the snarling barking beasts charged toward us.

  “Don’t forget: bravery!” I cried when the memory finally hit me full on.

  Tovish did tell us the key, even though it was in a really twisty way. I should have expected that given how he seemed to have a fondness for playing with words.

  The sound of a pneumatic hiss sounded almost like when a city bus stops on the side of the road. Then a large slab of stone popped out from the rock wall, and Zoie and I leapt on it so we could pry it open with our fingers and then squeeze through the narrow space.

  “Close it, close it!” I yelled as a pair of snapping jaws tried to push their way through the gap behind us.

  Zoie and I slammed our shoulders into the heavy stone door, and the wolf-man on the other side yelped before all sound was cut off.

  We panted in the silence, and I pressed my forehead to the cold stone as I caught my breath.

  “Weapons are nothing without the bearer’s key,” I chuckled to myself. “The key was bravery.”

  Suddenly, Zoie sheathed her katana and grabbed the front of my cloak so she could slam me up against the wall. Before I could ask if everything was alright, she pressed her gorgeous body up against mine and kissed the breath out of me.

  “What was that for?” I asked when she broke the kiss.

  The torch Zoie had lit earlier was on the ground and still burning, and I could see the way she looked at me with hunger.

  “You are one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known, and your instincts are unparalleled,” Zoie said in a breathless voice, and I couldn’t help but bring her in for another scorching kiss.

  “It helps that I have an excellent teacher,” I chuckled when I pulled away. “Where’s Roofus?”

  “Ki-Ki!” came the sound of the gold-seeker moth, and I walked over to the fallen torch we dropped so I could lift it high and get a good look around the catacombs of the ruined palace.

  It seemed as if we were in a crypt under the palace, given the fact there were at least five raised marble tombs standing in silent guard on either side of the chamber.

  “Roofus?” Zoie called out, and even though her voice was as quiet as possible, it still bounced off the high arching walls of the crypt.

  “Krr!” Roo cooed from somewhere nearby, and Zoie and I followed the sound past the tombs and through a broken and crumbling part of the wall that had been smashed through who knows how long ago.

  “Watch your step,” I said as I walked over the crumbling bricks and into a small room probably meant to keep gold and riches for whoever was in those tombs. The place looked like it had been raided a long time ago because it was picked clean except for a few smashed crates and empty barrels, and it was behind one of these barrels that we found Roofus as he used his beak to peck at a pile of old cloth.

  “Whatcha got there, buddy?” I asked as I crouched down with the torch to get a better look.

  Roofus pecked at the dusty cloth again, and I almost flew backward when I saw the pile of cloth was actually the remains of a skeleton, and Roo was avidly trying to get something out of the poor dude’s front pocket.

  “Roo, come on, let Bonely rest in peace,” I said as I tried to shoo the crow-moth away, but the determined creature wouldn’t be persuaded to give up his task.

  Finally, with a triumphant caw, Roofus pulled a shining gold coin out of the dead man’s pants pocket.

  “He’s a gold-seeker moth,” Zoie reminded me as she scratched Roofus under his chin, and then she took the coin and put it into her pack. “It’s incredible he was able to find this all the way back here. He will be useful for getting through this place quickly.”

  “Now the question becomes how do we leave this crypt,” I said as I raised my torch along the walls and ceilings of the secret gold room. “Roo, find us more gold!”

  The gold-seeker perked up his dusty head and wiggled his feathery antennae.

  “Krt! Krt!” he clicked his beak, and he flapped over and gripped onto the wall with his feet. “Krt!”

  Then Roofus tapped twice on the rock and turned his head almost all the way around so he could look at me.

  “Twice for yes?” I wondered as I walked up to the wall.

  The crow-moth fluffed his neck ruff and then tapped twice on the same stone in the wall.

  Zoie and I exchanged looks, and then I shrugged and knocked in the same place Roo did.

  “It can’t be that easy--” I scoffed and then ate my words a second later as the stone pushed inward on my fourth knock. My eyebrows went up, and I pushed the stone the rest of the way until it fell out with a thunk on the other side.

  “A cornerstone,” Zoie said and then began shoving out the rest of the bricks that made up the back wall.

  With my help, we plowed through the obstacle and broke out into an even larger main chamber.

  “Woah,” I whispered, and even the subtle sound reverberated around the cavernous space and then seemed to get swallowed down the inky mouth of what looked to be a natural crevasse that bored deep into the depths of the mountain we were under.

  Our combined torch light only stretched out so far, but from what I could see, there was a wooden bridge over the deep fissure that connected the two sides.

  “Krt!” Roofus clicked and then launched off the back of Zoie’s pack straight for the bridge.

  “We better make sure we don’t fall behind,” Zoie said and then sprang ahead so she could lead with her superior eyesight. “I know you are light on your feet, husband. Be that now as we run because I’m not sure if the structure can support us both.”

  “Wait, what?” I did a double-take as we barreled toward the bridge. “Training part three, then?”

  “On a pass or fail grading system,” Zoie said in that matter-of-fact way I now understood was her sense of humor.

  “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” I said with the same deadpan tone, and I couldn’t help but be disturbed at how my voice seemed to disappear into the abyss we were just about to cross.

  “Here comes the bridge!” Zoie called out. “Summon the feeling of the winds under the soles of your feet. You are light as an arrow racing just above the ground.”

  I didn’t have time to respond before Zoie sprinted ahead and banked left over the bridge, but at the last second I panicked, and I screeched to a halt as I watched in awe as her bubble of torchlight floated over the wooden structure with barely any sound.

  “Okay, no big deal, just a vertical plunge into certain death. Nut up, Alex.” I tried to pump myself up as I jogged backward a few paces so I could get a running start.

  Then, I put all my faith into imagining myself as light as air, and I prayed to Mercedes, or whoever the fuck was listening, that these mentality exercises would be enough as my feet hit the bridge.

  My stomach gave a sick lurch as the bridge bucked and swayed under my footsteps, but I kept my eye on the halo of Zoie’s torchlight at the end in order to ignore the terror welling up inside me as I thought every footfall would be my last.

  From the angle I approached the bridge, it didn’t seem like it was very far across, but running over the gaping maw of the small canyon made five-hundred yards seem like five thousand.

  I knew if I looked down, I would only see pitch blackness, so I kept my gaze on Zoie.

  Before I knew it, I crossed the bridge, my feet skidded to a stop on the dirt ground as I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Then, I turned around and looked at the other side just to confirm to myself I made it.

  “Pass,” Zoie said as she came up next to me and butted her hip gently against mine.

  “Did we lose Roofus?” I panted through a wild grin.

  “No, he’s waiting for us over by the portcullis,” she said and then pointed with the torch over to a vertical sliding gate with a heavy iron checkerboard pattern. “I think this used to be a dungeon.”

  Sure enough, I could see the dim golden outline of the gold-seeke
r moth as he impatiently hovered in front of a massive latticed gate that looked like it could keep all the Greeks out of Troy.

  “What did they keep down here? A Cerberus? A balrog, a--you know what? I don’t wanna know.” I shivered as a draft suddenly wafted out of the chasm with a slightly sulfuric smell as if Gandalf really did just plummet after the raging hell beast in the Mines of Moria.

  “Krt!” the gold-hungry creature clicked for my attention.

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” I said as Zoie and I jogged over to the portcullis. Then I handed Zoie my torch so I could have both hands free to turn the lever of the gate’s mechanism. “Must suck not to have thumbs.”

  “Kaw!” Roofus said as if I’d offended his mother.

  “Relax,” I muttered, and then the portcullis lifted an inch with a metallic growling noise as the rust cracked off the large chains.

  Zoie stuck the torches into a crag between two rocks and then walked up to the gate so she could catch the gold-seeker with gentle hands.

  “Kaw!” Roofus said again when Zoie clutched him close.

  “Oh, hush,” she said as if he was a naughty child. “We can’t let you get too far away, now can we?”

  A piercing wolf-like howl suddenly echoed somewhere behind us, but Zoie and I both glanced at each other with the same amount of dread.

  “The monsters hunting us sound like they found another way in,” I said.

  “Then we must hurry.” Zoie tucked the squirming Roofus under one arm like a stuffed chicken and then collected our torches with the other hand.

  “Run underneath, and then I will follow you after I let the lever go,” I said as my arm muscles strained with holding up the portcullis.

  Zoie nodded and ran under the gate, and I zipped after her just seconds behind.

  With no one holding the heavy metal gate, it slid down with an almighty crash, which basically just telegraphed our location to the fearsome wolf-pack on our trails.

  “I hope there is another way out, because this gate only has one working door lever,” I said as I kicked at the matching iron wheel that was slowly decaying in a rusty pile.