Zellohar

by Chris A. Jackson

  Avari reached the corner two full strides ahead of her pursuer, but lost some of her lead scooping up her fallen dagger. Her shield took the impact as she slammed into the wall. A quick glance over her shoulder widened her eyes in horror; the huge club swept in a flat arc directly at her head. She ducked and twisted, trying to bring her shield up, but tangled her feet and sprawled to the floor. The fall saved her life; the club missed her head by scant inches to crash into the wall with a resounding crack.

  Avari stared up at the club, already being raised for a crushing overhead blow. From her supine position there was no escape; her shield would never turn a direct hit from that monster. As the club reached its apex, she hurled the glowing dagger with all her strength and rolled. The blade streaked like a bolt of light at the ogre's face, blinding it. The dagger cut a gash in the ogre's cheek and lopped off the tip of one pointed ear. The club crashed to the floor, and Avari was up and running again before the monster's vision cleared. The ogre was even angrier than before, but Avari had gained an additional two strides lead.

  The din of heavy blows striking stone echoed through the corridors. Shay and Jundag glanced up from the grim task of dispatching the few remaining orcs, then at one another. Pained looks marred their features.

  "Now what has she gotten into?" Shay mumbled, reaching into a pouch.

  "Something big, I think." Jundag snatched up his jaw-bone club. "Be ready!" Their eyes widened as Avari and her pursuer hove into view.

  Shay's hands contorted before him and a stream of harsh syllables sent light flashing from the priest's outstretched hand toward the charging ogre. The magical ray of searing light struck, leaving a sizable scorch on its chest, but seemed only to anger the beast. Avari charged past the men, using her momentum to jerk her sword free from the dead orc's chest. Whirling, she saw Jundag swing his club, using the force of the ogre's charge against it. The point of the jawbone stuck in one of the tree-trunk legs, and the weapon was wrenched out of Jundag's grasp.

  The beast's howl shook the walls. One meaty paw batted the big man aside like a rag-doll then yanked the club from its leg. It whirled to finish off Jundag where he leaned against the wall gasping for breath. As it turned, however, a war hammer descended to crush the big toe of its left foot into bloody ruin. The ogre's eyes widened at the pain, its mouth gaping in surprise. It raised the club to smash the offending half-elf, but Shay's hammer lashed out again, smacking its wounded leg. A howl of rage and pain deafened them, but the club slammed harmlessly onto the flagstones as the nimble half-elf rolled away.

  Avari charged to slash at its weapon arm. Her blade cut to the bone, eliciting yet another bellow from the monster, but its free hand swatted her to the far side of the corridor. She grimaced at the impact, but rebounded off the wall to attack again. Once more her blade bit into the tough hide. Shay struck simultaneously from behind, his hammer cracking against the ogre's knee, but the wounded and furious beast ignored the priest; its full attention on the flashing blade of its original adversary. Avari stood with her back against the wall, unable to avoid the sweeping stroke of the ogre's weapon.

  But as the ogre's swing began, Jundag drove his longsword deep into its back, angling upward into the lungs. The great club clattered to the floor as its owner reached back blindly. It wrapped its thick fingers around Jundag's arm, wrenching it as it lifted him off the floor. But as it turned, Avari's blade sliced into its bulging stomach, opening it like a bag full of rotten sausages.

  Releasing the tribesman, the ogre groped helplessly at the gaping wound, but Avari twisted the blade, cutting into the soft viscera. The ogre collapsed to its knees and grasped the blade's hilt, forcing Avari to let go or have her hands crushed. Breathing in ragged gasps, it reached out toward the woman. Shay ended the ordeal with a well-placed blow from behind. Their adversary dropped instantly, shards of its shattered skull piercing its brain.

  Jundag's sword protruded from the dead ogre's back, sunk to the hilt, while Avari's blade was wedged in the beast's side. She reached for the hilt and tugged, her arms suddenly weak. She hung her head and looked at the sword in despair. The battle had not lasted long, but it felt like she had been fighting for hours.

  "I believe we may have chosen the wrong door," Shay said in obvious understatement.

  Jundag laughed then gasped, clutching his side where the ogre had smashed him against the wall. His left arm hung limply. His obvious pain brought Shay to his side. The priest stopped briefly to wrench the warrior's sword from the ogre corpse, and presented it to him as he knelt to inspect the wounds.

  "A cracked rib," he noted, drawing his holy symbol from beneath his mail. "And that arm will only get stiff if it is not seen to."

  Watching the priest attend the tribesman in spite of Jundag's protestations, Avari realized that she had not received even a scratch, though she would have plenty of bruises. Shaking her head at her luck, she grasped her sword once again, pulling with steady pressure to avoid damaging the blade. It moved a few inches, then grated into bone and held fast. She dared not pry or jerk the weapon lest it break, so she looked around for something to aid the extraction. Her spare dagger was wholly inadequate, and most of the orc weapons were simply too dull, or shattered.

  The hilt of an ogre-sized belt knife protruded from under its wide bronze buckler, so she grabbed the hilt and jerked, not really caring if it broke. The blade that came free was far from any old knife, however. She stared at the finely wrought double-edged short sword. A single rune shone near the crosspiece, the sole mark on the blade's mirror surface. The wire-wrapped hilt was cool in her hand, and the weapon's balance was perfect.

  "A fine blade." Shay's voice echoed her thoughts.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" Avari turned the sword in her hand, holding it to reflect the glow from a nearby brazier. "But what would a filthy ogre be doing with such a marvelous weapon?"

  "Booty, no doubt," Jundag interrupted, grinning over a double handful of sparkling trinkets from the ogre's pouch. "Just as these, stolen from some unfortunate merchant, or perhaps the dwarves that once inhabited this fortress."

  "If this is dwarven," Avari said, shifting her grip on the sword, "then it's only right that it be used against the corruption that's overrun this keep." With that, she hacked through the ogre's ribs, freeing her father's blade then began cleaning them both on the beast's tattered cloak. The two men stood patiently, an amused smile growing on Shay's features.

  "I do hope she does not make a habit of this," he said to Jundag, his arms crossed in impatience. "Getting the same sword stuck twice in two opponents in the same fight is quite a feat, but it could become difficult if we are in a hurry."

  Shay's tone made the remarks an obvious joke, but Avari's face flushed a deep red. Jundag restrained his laughter as he rifled through the other corpses.

  "Now you can start a weapon collection to rival my own," he said, trying to hide his smile.

  Avari completed the task, then retrieved the smaller blade's scabbard and fastened it to her belt, while Shay continued his ribbing. "Perhaps the smaller blade will be less likely to get stuck as often."

  "Smart-elf!" she snapped, smiling despite herself as she stalked down the corridor with deliberately long strides.

  "That's half-elf," he quipped, trotting to catch up.

  They left the gristly scene without noticing that several of the fallen had died clutching the fletching of crossbow bolts.

  Their trailing shadow emerged from the dimness of the corridor, slipping a bolt into his quiver and flipping the crossbow onto his back. He surveyed the carnage quickly, not wanting to fall too far behind his quarry, but he did pause long enough to notice a detail that the three companions had missed.

  "By the Maker!" he gasped, slipping a dagger from its sheath to pry the dark circlet of iron from the ogre's brow. He was loathe to touch Mortas' interlocking crescents, but knew their meaning well enough, and knew that any creature that bore such a trinket would never do so lightly.

  "S
o that's what's got the beasties all riled up. Well, I'll put a fix on this." As the iron circlet writhed, transforming into a scaly demonic serpent, he used the knife to pin its head to the stone. As it squirmed and hissed, he rifled through one of the satchels at his hips and withdrew an ornate crystal flask. He twisted the silver stopper free with his teeth and poured a dollop of clear fluid upon the writhing demon-snake. The fluid hissed and crackled like acid.

  "Not so saucy wi' a bit o' the Earth Mother's tears to cool ye, are ye, ye wee daemon?" He laughed shortly, then glanced up and trotted silently away, not waiting to watch Mortas' serpent writhe and smoke as the holy water reduced it to smoldering ash.

  CHAPTER 20

  Blood scent hung in the air; they could all smell it now. As he and his troops approached the barracks corridor, Sgarl-gee began to worry. Could the messenger be right? Had something happened to the captain?

  A messenger had been sent to Glurg-ree's quarters with a dispatch, only to discover the pulverized remains of an orc lying in the hallway. The Dukarr captain was nowhere to be found, so the confused creature had wandered until he found the next in command. Sgarl, an ogre slightly inferior to Glurg in both size and intellect, had been furious with the messenger's interruption. But now, as Sgarl examined the orc remains, concern furrowed his brow. The captain's quarters had been ransacked. This was not good for morale.

  They followed their noses and found the corpses of their comrades. Sgarl ordered his troops to examine everything, hoping for a clue as to what had slaughtered his captain and several of his best fighters. It unnerved him that no enemy bodies littered the floor. Either their foes were very dangerous, or they took their wounded and dead with them; the latter seemed a more likely explanation.

  Sgarl turned to the messenger, who was still trying to follow its orders and deliver its message to the dead captain. The fact that the recipient lay disemboweled on the floor did not faze it.

  "Hey." The ogre grabbed the messenger by the scruff, lifting it up until they were face to face. "I got a new message for ya. Take it to Lord Darkmist. Ya got dat? Lord Darkmist. Tell him dat Captain Glurg has been killed, an' dat dere is intruders in da keep. Awright? Go!"

  The messenger nodded frantically, scrambled to its feet from where it had been dropped, and dashed off down the hallway.

  Sgarl picked up his dead commander's club, a fine weapon he had always coveted, and rallied his troops to search for the intruders. If he could take them by surprise, Sgarl himself would deliver the corpses to Darkmist. As for his reward, well, someone had to be captain.

  "Draco pyromanicus rufiotyrannus," Shay said, the words rolling off his tongue as he looked up at the towering pile of bones. The great skeleton lay in the center of an even greater hall, the ceiling of which arched more than two hundred feet overhead. Bronze double doors dominated the far wall of the room, but they looked as if they had been made of wax and left out in the sun. Facing them, at the opposite end, a simple throne of dark granite sat atop a three-tiered dais.

  "Fancy words for a big lizard," Jundag said with a smirk, twisting to relieve some of the kinks in his back.

  "The common name is 'flame dragon', and dragons are not lizards. They belong to an entirely different—"

  "At least now we know what forced the dwarves away," Avari said, running her fingers along a sword-sized tooth. Many smaller skeletons lay scattered about the room. This obviously was the site of the dwarves' last stand with the evil that had driven them from their home. It appeared that both sides had lost. "This room looks like it hasn't been opened for a century."

  "The evil creatures now inhabiting the keep may consider this place cursed," Shay suggested, prodding one of the great, bleached bones with a toe. Thick dust rose in a cloud, settling onto his boot. "Many primitive races have superstitions and taboos regarding the death site of a powerful being."

  Jundag's hard look of skepticism notwithstanding, they decided that this would probably be the safest place to rest. With Avari's dagger propped atop the great skull, its pearly light reaching into the darkest corner, they settled down.

  "I don't understand why the dwarves didn't come back."

  "Perhaps because of the same superstitions that keep out the evil ones," Jundag speculated. "The dwarves I know have a great many taboos of their own."

  "Possibly," Shay said, wandering over to examine an armor-clad dwarf skeleton. The armor, once magnificent, was torn and charred.

  Avari felt a now-familiar rage boil up within her blood. "So many dead because of a single, stupid animal!"

  She kicked the dragon skeleton, but only managed to hurt her toe. She held her foot and hopped, glaring at the bones as if she could destroy them with her gaze.

  "Dragons are known for many traits, Avari, but stupidity is not one of them. Let us hope that you are right, and this was the only reason that the dwarves fled Zellohar." Shay's warning tone drew sharp glances from Avari and Jundag, but the half-elf shrugged. "I simply meant that dragons are often found in league with even more fell—"

  Shay's diatribe was cut short as the door through which they had entered dissolved into shattered splinters.

  "KILL THEM!!" Sgarl bellowed, urging his troops into the hall. Considerable persuasion had been necessary to coerce his underlings into the room they had always passed with hurried steps and hushed appeals, but his promotion stood whispering behind these doors, and he was determined that their heads would be his. He almost laughed when he rounded the dais and caught sight of his quarry hurrying to gather their weapons. Only three? And they were so small! His victory was assured. Yelling to his troops again, Sgarl tromped up the short stair and plopped into the throne to enjoy the rout, wiggling to fit his backside into the uncomfortable seat.

  Orc battle cries ringing in her ears, Avari dropped her injured foot and dashed to her weapons. She grabbed her sword with just enough time to unsheathe it before the first of the beasts was upon her. She parried the high cut and snapped a kick into the beast's groin, fending off two more attackers with no time to finish the castrated creature.

  Jundag didn't bother to retrieve his weapons, but grabbed the closest thing to hand. The orc charging the tribesman faced a bone from the finger of the dead dragon, a bone that ended in a cruelly hooked claw. The great talon sliced through the orc's leather armor and pierced the tender meat beneath.

  "So much for the superstitious taboo theory," Shay muttered, ducking behind the two warriors, his nimble fingers fetching a sticky bit of gummy sap from a pouch. His chanting drew unwanted attention, forcing him to sidestep a thrown spear. A sly smile tugged at the corners of his goatee as the gooey material between his fingers vanished in a sparkle of magic. With an audible splat, a thick coating of stringy, sticky goo materialized upon every surface within the main body of enemy troops, immobilizing them like flies in amber, which was exactly what they were caught in.

  Shay drew his war hammer and started toward a goblin that had evaded his trap. He parried the stubby mace, laying the hammer alongside the frogish face to send the vile little creature sprawling. He caught a bare glimpse of another spear flashing past Avari from his left, but it was too late. A burning blow tore the air from his lungs. As he sprawled backward, his head smacked into a thigh-thick dragon bone. The sights and sounds of the battle waned as the priest's mind reeled into darkness.

  Flesh opened like a torn sheet, black blood fountaining from the parted throat as Avari kicked the dying waglok aside. A spear flashed past, missing by a wide margin. She whipped out her spare dagger and hurled it at the now-unarmed orc, burying the blade in its throat. As the orc hit the floor she heard a gasp behind her, followed by a sickening thud.

  "Shay!" she cried, but before she could turn, a slashing blade commanded her attention and Shay was momentarily forgotten.

  Avari's cry jerked Jundag around to see the half-elf on the floor, a spear by his side. Well, at least it's not sticking out of his gizzard, the tribesman thought as he parried another sword and put the poin
t of his dragon-claw club through the temple of his assailant. A low growl turned him away from the mostly immobilized enemy force and toward the dais. An ogre sat on the throne, raging at his troops. The creature's gaze fell upon Avari, who fought two orcs and was unaware of her observer.

  The ogre started to rise, straining to extricate himself from the seat, but Jundag was faster. The great finger bone he wielded flew toward the ogre to impact upon its chest, knocking it back into the seat. His hand finding the hilt of a fallen orc's blade, the tribesman charged up the stairs and threw his full weight into a thrust, but the borrowed blade snapped on the ogre's thick, bronze belt buckle.

  The throne was made of solid granite, but the force of Jundag's assault, along with the combined weight of the big man and the ogre, was too much. With a resounding crash, the chair toppled backward, flinging the two combatants to the floor. Jundag rolled as he fell, but could not avoid the several hundred pounds of ogre that landed on top of him. Pain lanced through his ribs as he struggled through the fog that descended over his eyes.

  Avari stabbed through a chink in the armor of the last fighting orc, twisted her blade and pulled it free as her foe fell to the floor. She whirled to face the recent clamor of crashing stone, and found herself face to chest with another ogre. Her mind stumbled at the closeness of the beast, only one thought surfacing clearly: Oh no, not again!

  The thing's face spread into a lurid grin, its huge club clattering to the floor as it reached out for her. She held her stance. There was no turning her back on this monster; it was too close. As the massive hand reached out, she swung her sword at it, hoping to lop off its thick fingers, but the blade cracked into the open palm and stuck there, held fast in a grip of iron. She tugged and twisted, blood trickling down the blade and over her hands, but the beast just grinned broader and reached for her with its other massive paw.