The Duelist

by Eric Vall

  “There has to be,” she replied with such confidence I couldn’t help but believe her. “I also don’t think returning the way we came would be wise if you are right about the monsters.”

  “Let’s go,” I said, and I led us down the stone steps and into a damp series of interconnecting chambers that looked like a proper medieval dungeon, complete with musty-smelling hay in cramped prisoner cells, and rooms with nightmarish looking torture devices I didn’t want to personally know the uses of.

  Roofus then took the lead, and he took us through another series of rooms that had old sleeping pallets arranged in bunks, and I wondered if this must have been where the guards slept. It seemed like we were traveling north-east from where we came in, but I couldn’t be sure because the oppressive darkness of the underground Ruins played tricks with my sense of direction.

  It was a good thing we had such a tenacious crow-moth hell-bent on finding any scrap of gold for our compass, because the underground of the Ruins was a little like a sprawling maze that I wish I had a map for.

  Every now and then, Roofus would stop and unearth some golden chalice, or a handful of small coins hidden by layers of dust and cobwebs. It wasn’t much, but Zoie and I kept everything that met with the little crow-moth’s approval anyway.

  Beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers, after all. Especially when the occasional sounds of howling would remind both Zoie and me that we were still being hunted.

  We followed our dusty guide through the rest of the guards’ quarters, through another gate with a large wooden door rotting away on its hinges, and past another crypt. We then traveled up a staircase that must have been some sort of servants’ entrance because we ended up popping out into the vast entrance hall on the main floor of the abandoned palace.

  Sunlight streamed in through the high windows that miraculously still had hand-blown glass fitted into some of their frames. The light was growing more golden, which meant the sun was in the latter half of the day, and I really hoped we could be out of these haunting Ruins before nightfall.

  Roofus flapped around as if he couldn’t decide where to go while Zoie and I ashed the burnt moss out of our torches. Then we disassembled them so it was one less thing to worry about in our hands.

  Finally, the crow-moth clicked his beak with a gleeful sounding squawk and flew off toward the giant stone staircase that towered up to the rest of the ruined palace.

  Zoie and I took off after the gold-seeker as he led us up at least three more flights of crumbling stairs before he came to the end of the corridor and swerved left.

  We both had to skid and catch our balance before we smashed into the damaged stone wall and added our own cracks to the once-fine marble. Roofus screeched again and balanced with his crow feet and furry moth-paws on the handle of the ornate metal doors at the end of the corridor.

  He angled his fluffed yellow head back at me, and then he thumped his beak against the door twice.

  “What’s in here, boy?” I asked and forced the rusty handles to turn.

  With a loud crack, the doors to the mysterious chamber opened, and Roofus led us into a bedroom suite that was probably for the master of this kingdom. I wasn’t sure if Roofus was on the right track, though, because if this place had been raided several times over according to history, I bet the bedrooms were the first places the thieves and mercenaries took out.

  This chamber seemed to be proving that theory already because it was stripped of anything valuable right down to the sheets on the bare mattress.

  But the little crow-moth wasn’t slowed by the sad gold-less state of the room, and instead he flew over to the fireplace and landed on the mantel.

  “Kaw!” he said as if he was showing us his report card.

  “Roofus, there is nothing here,” Zoie said and tried to get him to land back on her back.

  The gold-seeker stretched back his black and yellow wings and then stamped his crow’s feet.

  “Krt!” Roofus clicked and then, before Zoie or I could get any closer, he darted up the chimney.

  “Roofus!” I called out, and I ran over to the fireplace so I could try and look up into the dark flue.

  “Ki-ki-ki!” the creature echoed back, and then there was a loud thumping sound just before the gold-seeker barreled out of the chimney and straight into my chest with a sooty cough.

  A ringing rumbled through the walls on the heels of Roofus’ frantic exit from the flue, and a moment later, several sacks of jangling metal crashed to the floor of the fireplace.

  Zoie and I leapt back in surprise at the downpour of treasure cascading out of the chimney, and we both stared slack-jawed until Roofus’ squirming became too much, and he escaped from my hold so he could roost on top of the pile when the downpour stopped.

  “There must have been a hidden compartment,” Zoie breathed, and I could tell by the fascination coloring her tone that she wanted to explore the fireplace’s mechanics, but I knew time was of the essence.

  “We better grab as much as we can,” I said and swung my pack around so I could start filling it with as many of the fist sized sacks of coins and jewels as I could.

  With one last longing glance at the chimney above us, Zoie crouched down and started doing the same.

  “These Ruins are much too quiet,” Zoie said when we finished stuffing as much into our packs as was practical. “I am waiting for a trap to spring, or perhaps some cursed gold.”

  “Wait, some of the gold is cursed?” I asked as I put the backpack on my shoulders.

  Roofus cocked his ruffled head and dropped a ruby ring from his beak.

  “It’s just a legend,” Zoie said quickly. “More of a bedtime story about how the ancient Lords knew of the old magic and would protect their hoards from thieves. If a person takes even a single piece outside the palace walls, then they will be destroyed by a curse.”

  “But it’s just a story, right?” I checked as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

  “Of course.” She smiled and then placed a pretty silver bracelet around Roofus’ neck.

  The gold-seeker puffed out his chest and then hopped up to the cat-woman’s shoulder while she stood up from her crouch.

  Just then, an arrow whistled in through the gap in the doors and glanced off the stone chamber wall.

  “Arroooooo!” a wolf-man howled, and Zoie and I shot each other a look when two other howls answered him.

  “Block the door,” Zoie started, but I pulled my sword out instead.

  “No, we have to go through this guy before his buddies show up,” I said as I bolted for the door. “We can’t let them trap us inside here.”

  I burst out into the corridor just as the wolf-man nocked another large arrow so big it was almost spear-like. Given how the wolf-men were all about seven feet tall, it made sense they needed big arrows for their massive bows.

  Just as the silver-haired wolf drew back his taut arrow, Zoie threw a knife at him that snipped his bowstring like a limp noodle.

  The wolf-man snarled and snapped like a rabid Doberman, and then it barreled toward us like a rocket off its launch pad.

  I rolled out of the way as he brought his backup sword down on the stone floor in a clash of sparks and iron.

  “Riiiooowwwwl!” Zoie cried and then pounced onto the wolf-monster with her blade as well.

  The creature barked and growled as he parried her attack, which sent her flipping backward. While he was distracted trying to get closer to Zoie, I side-kicked him, and he went crashing into the railing that separated the third floor from the main level below.

  The next volley of attacks were coordinated effortlessly by Zoie and me like we’d been fighting together for years like a well-oiled machine. She threw a knife, I took a step to his flank, the monster blocked her weapon, and I delivered a roundhouse kick to its sternum.

  The beast howled as it fell over the balcony, and Zoie and I spared a second to peek over the railing after we heard the tell-tale thud of a body.

  On
the main floor, a dark puddle expanded outward from the wolf-man’s still, twisted figure.

  “Shit,” I hissed just as another one of the hunting pack appeared in the entrance hall and ran to its fallen pack-mate.

  The second wolf sniffed the corpse of its companion, but I pulled us both back before it could raise its head and spot us.

  As we turned and sprinted away from the scene of the crime, another angry howl ruptured through the palace, and three more answered the call from multiple directions.

  “Why did I get the impression the monsters were just mindless violent beasts?” I asked as Zoie and I kept running up staircase after staircase. “They seem pretty organized, and they also have pretty sophisticated weapons.”

  “I don’t know because I thought that as well,” Zoie said, and she sounded just as confused as I was, which was a little bit of a relief.

  Two wolf creatures suddenly plowed out of the corridor wall right in front of us, and Zoie and I scrambled back. One jumped clean over the both of us on a pair of strong legs, and when it rolled up from its crouch, it had a dual set of hook swords that it brandished in an X.

  Zoie sheathed her katana on her back and then pulled out a set of tri-bladed daggers from a hidden lower-back holster.

  “I’ll protect your left side, Alex,” Zoie said before she launched herself at her dual-bladed opponent.

  I whipped around and faced my own foe, who was spinning a staff with a wicked looking pike-headed blade on both ends.

  The wolf-man’s yellow irises seemed to flash as gold as the late-afternoon sun, and his gray muzzle wrinkled as he bared his sharp teeth. He swung the Darth Maul staff at my head, but I parried it Ewan McGregor style. Then I tried to step forward, the wolf-man tried to use the back end of the double-headed pike to take out my legs.

  Tick.

  My pulse hammered in my ears, and I focused on the inkling of that trance feeling as my flight or fight response amped up and the adrenaline saturated my boiling blood.

  Before I could let the time-trance overwhelm me with its power, I visualized I could slow the trickle of this power by narrowing the cracks in my seed-pod focus, so the faucet wasn’t on full-blast, so to speak.

  Tick.

  The world shimmered a moment after the wolf-monster’s double-headed halberd swept out toward my feet. Then I narrowed the sphere of my focus like closing the aperture of a camera lens, so only a little of the time-trance took over for the split second I needed in order to jump over the halberd, land in a crouch, and then spring up with my sword to cut his staff in two.

  My opponent reared back in surprise, blinked down at the two halves of his staff, and then he began to twirl the dual half-pikes like they were batons.

  I didn’t know if I made my situation worse or not by essentially granting him two weapons instead of the one, but I figured he would be equally lethal even if he had only a butter knife.

  I shuffled back as the large mutated wolf-monster advanced on me, and every time I tried to strike, one of his spinning pikes would knock away my sword like it was an annoying gnat.

  The spinning was too fast which meant I had to slow it down…

  The cracks widened, the aperture opened, and I bent down to grab a piece of rubble the size of a baseball.

  Tick.

  My hearing tunneled out, but I brought it back and narrowed my focus so I wouldn’t lose track of what else was happening in the room. I was relieved to hear Zoie seemed to still have things under control, so I turned back to the wolf-man helicoptering closer.

  Tick.

  His whirling weapons slowed a fraction.

  Tick.

  They slowed even more, and I pictured actually reaching out and turning the dial down on a car stereo.

  Ripples bent the air as the dual pikes revolved at half-speed, and I wound up my throwing arm like I was a starting pitcher at a home game and threw the giant piece of rubble right at the creature’s muzzle.

  The wolf-man yelped and stumbled back as blood gushed from his nose and mouth.

  I saw my opportunity, and I slashed with my sword and easily knocked one of the staff pieces out of his hand, due to the fact that my blade was wide and stalwart.

  I slashed again and then blocked as the wolf-man tried to gut me with the remaining pike blade he had at his disposal. I side-stepped and then ducked as the wolf-man tried to take off my head, but then I slashed my blade across his torso, which caused him to grip the wound with one arm as he crashed back into the wall.

  I pressed my advantage and blocked his feeble thrust, and as I knocked the pike aside, I followed through by running my blade through its heart.

  The wolf-creature wailed like a dog on the highway, and then he was still.

  “Riioooowwwlll!” Zoie cried out, and I yanked my sword free from the sucking wound in the dead wolf’s chest.

  “Zoie!” I yelled as the monster she was fighting grabbed her around the throat and made her drop her katana.

  I lunged forward and brought my sword down along the length of the sandy-wolf’s spine, and he howled as he dropped Zoie.

  “Come on, fucker!” I challenged and bared my teeth at him in the universal language all savage beasts understood.

  The sandy-colored wolf-creature snarled and snapped his slavering jaws at me so hard ropes of spittle flew off in all directions.

  Well, if my goal was to distract him from Zoie, then I’d accomplished that tenfold because he charged at me like a locomotive from the flaming pits of hell.

  The adrenaline ignited my blood like a barrel of gunpowder, and the shell of my honed focus shattered right when the beast lunged at me.

  Tick.

  The time-trance poured out and nearly swallowed me whole like the first few times it overwhelmed me right at the most critical height of danger, and I couldn’t help being pulled along with the immense power.

  Tick.

  The wolf-creature launched itself through the air and reached for me with its yellow-tipped claws so slowly I thought I’d managed a time-freeze again like I had with Gul.

  I pushed myself through the thick feeling in the air as I brandished my weapon.

  Tick.

  I took a step, and time resumed with a snap as I met the wolf-creature head on with a powerful thrust of my sword.

  It shrieked but didn’t make a move to withdraw itself from my blade, so I used my momentum to plow it backward until we were stopped by a study column.

  The wolf-man continued to try and tear out my throat even as the light died in its eyes and it stopped moving.

  I pulled my sword free as my knee buckled suddenly, and I had to rest with my back against the balcony railing.

  “Alex!” Zoie said as she ran toward me and crouched down so she could look into my face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just got a little dizzy all of a sudden,” I muttered as I shook my head. “I think I’m learning how to control the time-trance power.”

  “Really?” she asked with a hopeful grin. “How have you managed this?”

  “Mostly with your methods on visualizing,” I said and then wiped the blood off my blade. “I was able to combine the technique of when I was blindfolded with how the time-trance works, but I don’t think I can control it for long.”

  I hauled myself up with the help of Zoie and stretched my shoulders as the brief spell of weariness faded.

  “Maybe with more practice it will be less exhausting to control in the future,” she said and went over to where the gold-seeker moth was hiding under half of a broken shield. “Poor thing.”

  “Kerr,” Roofus burred, and his right wing stuck out at an awkward angle.

  “The beast batted him away when the little one tried to come to my rescue,” Zoie said with a concerned frown, and then she untucked her black tunic so she could rip off two strips of cloth from the bottom hem. She then gently set Roofus’ broken wing and wrapped it with the first strip, and with the second, she tied the wrapped wing to the crow-moth’s body as a
kind of improvised sling.

  “Poor little guy,” I said, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty that Tovish’s companion got hurt while he was helping us.

  “Here,” Zoie said and then pulled out her scarf. With a few twists, she transformed the head cloth into a strap across her chest that allowed her to wrap Roofus securely against her front. “Okay, we’re ready.”

  I cracked my neck back and forth and shook out my shoulders.

  “Me, too,” I said and looked left and right. To my right there were more stairs leading up, but to my left were the stairs leading down. “Did we want to go back the way we came yet?”

  “There’s still the fourth creature we saw below,” Zoie said and headed to the right.

  “Up it is, then,” I replied as I gripped my sword just to feel its sure weight in my hand, and I really hoped upward led to a direct exit route out of this creepy place before more wolf-packs showed up.

  Side-by-side we raced up another staircase that led to a winding tower with…

  More stairs.

  “Come on, Samwise.” I dug deep and mustered the remnants of my stamina as the heavy gold pack on my back bit into my shoulders.

  “Samwise?” Zoie whispered.

  “Famous hero from my world,” I explained. “Never let his pals down and climbed just a shitload of stairs and mountains.”

  Then an outraged howl shattered the still air and made Zoie and I speed up.

  “I think the fourth one found the rest of his friends,” I panted as we exited the tower and ran outside along the crumbling palace wall.

  “Ah!” Zoie suddenly cried out, and I slammed to a halt when she stumbled and crashed into the side of the wall for balance.

  “Zoie?” I said and ran over to where she stood clutching her heart.

  “I-I’m okay, I just--oh!” She winced and nearly collapsed to the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I grabbed her arms when she swayed.

  “Skree!” Roofus said and struggled out of Zoie’s scarf.

  “Alex… it hurts,” Zoie hissed as her chin trembled.

  “Where, Zoie?” I frantically fumbled along her black clothed body for any signs of blood. “Did you get injured?”