by James Dale
Cullibranos stared mouth agape at the trio of pirates lying dead on the marble steps, chests charred and smoking, eyes sockets orbless and bloody, their swords twisted metal gripped by convulsing hands. He could not move. His own booted foot was mere inches from those same steps.
"Tis true," he whispered with horror. "The place is cursed."
Then the last remaining thoughts of treasure or powerful staffs was driven from his mind by the ringing of steel and the shouts of men.
"Ambush!" He heard someone yell. "To arms brothers!"
Tarsus heard a low grunt behind him and his instincts told him something was amiss other than the chaos which had erupted on the steps of the temple. Then Falco screamed the scream of death and pitched forward onto the grass, a crossbow bolt embedded to the fletching between his shoulder blades. The Amarian instantly dropped to the ground as another bolt, twin to the one that killed Falco, sailed over his head. Dorad fell to the ground only a second after Tarsus and was rewarded by a glancing blow to his left arm that drew blood. Both men were immediately back on their feet, and with swords drawn turned to meet their unseen attackers.
Tarsus shouted a warning of "Ambush! To arms brothers!" Then bedlam erupted as a company of swordsmen came rushing out of the forest and he and Dorad were fighting for their lives.
It took a masterpiece of aggressive retreat and superior swordsmanship to win their way back to their shipmates. Tarsus and Dorad each slew a pair of the attackers during their miraculous escape, but even if they could have killed ten men between them, the pirates would have still been greatly outnumbered. The attackers also had surprise on their side, and since most of the pirates were still in shock at the deaths of their three comrades, the advantage was fully with the swords-men.
Tarsus and Dorad fought back to back, encircled by five of their attackers. The tide of battle swept three of them away and the other two were quickly dispatched.
"Well done!" Tarsus shouted above the clamor of the melee.
"And you!" replied Dorad, then parried and thrust, felling another swordsman. "They are Norgarthans!"
"They are!" the Amarian agreed as he barely avoided a swipe meant to disembowel him. He beat the man's sword to the ground, swung his left fist and caught the man squarely in the throat, crushing his windpipe.
"Do you think we have a chance?" Dorad asked.
"Of dying, yes!" Tarsus laughed wildly. "Of getting back to the ship with our heads? No!"
"Then this is farewell!" shouted his young friend.
"It would seem so!" the Amarian replied.
Then there was no more time for talk.
The remainder of the fight was hot and furious. The Norgarthans gave no quarter, the pirates expected none. Soon there were only four members of the Seawolf's landing party left alive, Dorad, Tarsus, Malachus, who was almost dead on his feet from half a dozen wounds, and Rollando Amael, a young buccaneer from Annoth. In a circle they now fought, one and all prepared to make the easterners pay dearly for what remained of their lives.
There was a halt in the fighting, and as if it were a prearranged maneuver, the attackers dropped back to regroup before their final assault. Their leader, a tall, dark man, stepped forward to address the pirates.
"Well met," he said in the common tongue of the west. "I am Selus Er-Tau, Captain of the Eighth Western Forlegion of Norgarth."
"A noble title for the son of a street whore," growled Dorad, then spat at the man's feet.
The Norgarthan captain smiled at Dorad's defiance, then suddenly his body started to shudder. His face began to shift and change, his features rearranging until they transformed into an abomination of humanity which caused his own men to fall back in fear. "Could it be," he asked coldly, "a mere human wishes to pit his strength against One of the Seven?"
Realizing the man was either possessed by a demon or one of those foul creatures in the flesh, Dorad somehow found within himself a hidden reserve of strength. "It could be," he replied boldly, "if Captain Jackal comes within sword reach of Dorad Ellgereth, Prince of Doridan, he will find himself missing his malformed head! Yharies Sinalda enne'Eoyolas Daeon Cythora! Ware demon! You have been warned!"
The demon flinched in pain as Dorad shouted the Ailfar words of power, but he did not retreat. "That pitiful incantation hasn't enough strength to harm me human princeling! I am Urioch! Duke of the Second Hell!" he shouted. Then a cruel smile came to his lips. "Forgive me. Where are my manners? I am addressing royalty."
He saluted with his sword and bowed low.
"It is a pity I cannot afford to take you back to Norgarth, or back to Agash Thugar even," he continued. "It has been many years since an Ellgereth graced its dark halls. Princess Tanisha was the last, if I am not mistaken."
Dorad's shock was evident by his sharp intake of breath.
"Ah," the man thing smiled, seeing disbelief in his eyes. "You thought her lost on the Field of Elldoride, during the siege of Dorshev, didn't you? How fortunate the House of Ellgereth will finally learn her true fate. A proud, noble creature as I recall," the demon added, his smile growing even more cruel. "My master raped her, many times, before he sacrificed her to the Sa'tan."
"Liar!" Dorad shouted, trembling with rage.
"Oh, but it is assuredly true. I wish I could take you back to Agash Thugar and show you where her skin still adorns the Great Hall. But alas," the demon sighed, "I am on an even more important mission than the capture of an Ellgereth. I have enjoyed our talk however, and shall treasure it always."
"Not as much as I will treasure spilling your tainted blood!" replied Dorad, then saluted with his sword and brought it to high guard.
Shaken at last by the rage burning in Dorad's eyes, the demon stepped back to rejoin his men and raised his sword high to signal the final assault. An instant before his arm dropped in command however, there was another sharp crack like thunder, and his head exploded in a spray of brains and crimson blood!
Chapter Five
The Door is Opened
As Jack Braedan stepped between the two trees, the universe seemed to explode inside his head. There was a blinding flash of light, which quickly expanded into a million individual pinpoints, then began to swirl outward into a great spirallike, cosmic wheel. After a long parade of years or a millisecond, the lights stopped, slowly reversed direction, then collapsed back in on themselves in another brilliant explosion.
Then there was only bitter cold darkness that seemed to stretch into eternity.
Braedan awoke to the painful sensation of pins and needles. It felt like thousands of electrically charged ants were crawling over him, biting him with their mandibles to release the current building up in their overloading bodies. Pinching and biting, biting and pinching! Pinching, biting, pinching, biting, pinchingbitingpinchingbiting! Braedan screamed and three thunderous explosions filled his head.
Mercifully, he blacked out again.
He could not guess how long he lay in the sanctuary of unconsciousness, but when he next opened his eyes the hurtful return of his senses had abated to a slight tingling in the tips of his fingers and toes.
Braedan sat up tentatively and surveyed his surroundings. He appeared to be sitting on the floor of some sort of enclosed amphitheater. Surrounding him on all sides was row after row of ascending stairs, leading up to twelve massive marble columns shot through with veins of gold. About one hundred feet above his head, supported by the columns was a domed ceiling. Painted on the dome was the mural of a great battle. There were archers, spearmen, swordsmen and several figures in robes wielding staffs that shot great bolts of flame or lightning. Pitted against them was another army of swordsmen, joined by a number of strange beasts that looked to be half man and half animal, riding on large, vicious looking dogs. Also pictured were huge, winged creatures that could only have been dragons. Scores of other horrible monsters he could not even begin to name, joined men, beasts, and dragons in an orgy of slaughter.
"Toto," Jack whispered wearily, "I don't think
we're in Kansas anymore."
He examined his new surroundings, searching for some clue that might help explain what had happened to him. His clothes were covered with ice, quickly melting now. His face was still stinging from that brief or eternal, bitter cold, and his hands were numb and only now was feeling returning to his fingers. He briefly considered the possibility this was all some weird, stress induced nightmare. It would have been the simplest explanation. Maybe his mind had snapped again. Maybe Harry had found him gibbering away in the spare bedroom and was calling for the men in white to come pick him up at this very moment. If that were the case, and he was insane, all he could do was pray he could survive this delusion until some witch doctor at a Walter Reed brought him back to the real world with more drugs and electroshock.
"I think I'd rather take my chances here," Jack decided quickly. "I just wish I knew where here was."
To find the answer to that question, there was only one thing he could do. Braedan groaned with effort as he struggled to his feet, using the Lapua rifle for support as he gingerly tested his balance. His knees were a bit unsteady, but it was the only apparent after-effects of his journey through the frigid darkness. When he was confident he would not fall on his face, he crossed the floor and mounted the steps leading to the top of the theater.
He was only half way to the top when he heard a terrible scream, so full of pain it could only have meant someone's death. Realizing he had not seen his nightmare beast since following it through the trees, it suddenly occurred to Braedan his hunt might not be over. The beast might have preceded him to this place and was even now continuing its reign of terror. He took a single second to ensure his rifle was loaded, then he was off and running, bounding up the remaining steps two and three at a time.
What Braedan found at the top of the stairs was another valley, twin to the one where he had encountered the beast. But this one wasn't empty. The grass of the clearing was trampled and blood soaked, filled with the refuse of a small but violent battle. The bodies of at least forty or fifty men lay scattered from the foot of the building to the edge of a thick forest of trees about one hundred yards distant. It was obvious the conflict had been begun a short time ago. Survivors of the clash were still engaged in a bitter struggle only a few yards from the base of the amphitheater.
There was a larger group of eighteen or twenty, dressed in scarlet tunics, with metal breast plates covering their chests. Some wore high crested helmets and several had bare, shaven heads, but all were armed with small round shields and long, single edged swords. Surrounded by the scarlet clad warriors was another smaller group of four men. These men weren't dressed in any like manner and did not seem to have any similar characteristics except for the fact they were all trapped and likely to die soon.
As if it were a prearranged maneuver, there was a break in the fighting and the two groups separated. A man stepped forward from the larger group to address the encircled four. Outwardly he seemed to be no different from the others, but a shiver of dread ran down Braedan's spine as he looked at the man. Bile rose in his throat at the mere sight of him and Braedan was forced to turn away in disgust. To his eyes, the man's outer shell of flesh was only a facade, a poor disguise that could not contain the underlying sickness of his soul, a soul filled with the same loathsome darkness, the same nauseating stink of death and smell of the pit that emanated from the monster of his nightmares.
The man was shouting now, virulent words that spewed up out of the darkness like a volcanic eruption of hate. Braedan took a hesitant, cautious look around the column where he was hiding and saw that the man's face had changed. His features had shifted until they echoed the unhuman rage burning in his soul. It wouldn't be long before the two groups were fighting again for the last time and once this new monster had finished with those men, Braedan knew instinctively it would be coming for him.
There was only one thing he could do if he wanted to survive. Using the marble columns for concealment, Braedan made his way around the top of the amphitheater, then down the opposite side, still out of sight. Taking a deep breath, he stepped around the corner of the building. His mind struggling against a fear that threatened to overwhelm him, Braedan dropped to one knee, sighted the cross hairs of his scope on the head of the manthing, and pulled the trigger.
His first round turned the man...the monster's head into a spray of skull, brain and blood as he lifted his sword to signal the final assault. If there was a God, Jack hoped the thing was even now waking up in Hell. He chambered another round and fired. The bullet found a purely human target, hitting him just below his chin. The man felt like he’d been struck in the face by a sledgehammer, and was dead before he fell to the ground. He chambered another round and fired again. His next victim dropped his sword to stare at the small hole that suddenly appeared in his breast plate. Though he was already dead and didn't know it, his head was quickly separated from his shoulders by an alert and opportunistic fellow shortly thereafter.
With the sudden chaos his intervention caused, his final two shots could not be well aimed, but Braedan guided them accurately enough to find vulnerable flesh, adding further confusion to the fray. The Lapua’s bolt locked to the rear, its magazine now empty, Jack suddenly realized he'd left his extra rounds his ruck sack. The finely crafted, high powered rifle was useless now except as a club. Without hesitation, Jack grabbed the rifle by its barrel and charged into the fray.
The first scarlet clad warrior to come within his reach found his skull split by the buttstock of the Lapau. When polycarbonate stock shattered from the force of the blow, Jack dropped the rifle and reached for the only weapon he had left. He drew Swordmaster Fugihara's perfectly forged blade and struck at the neck of another charging man. His head flew from his shoulders as the sword tasted blood for the first time in three hundred years. By the time the other soldiers realized it was only a single man attacking them, it was too late. Powered by the rage and frustration that been building for years at the torment he had suffered from his nightmares, Jack Braedan waded into the fray a llike whirlwind of death and destruction, the razor edge of the samurai sword cutting through limbs and poorly forged armor with equal ease.
Dorad knew as he shouted his defiance at the demon possessing Selus Er-Tau his life was forfeit. Urioch was a power he could not defeat unaided. He was one of the Seven Dukes of Hell, a being which could not be slain by ordinary weapons. The unfortunate body carrying its essence could die, but it was only a vessel. At worst Urioch's spirit would be banished back to where his body lay in Gorthiel or in the underworld halls of Ulgogrond, abode of the Sa'tan.
Dorad also knew the demon's words were true. It was not necessary to send a servant of his power to capture a mere human prince. Urioch was here for something else. The only answer could be the Temple of the Door. It had been sent here to attempt the destruction of the temple! To take possession of the Staff of Mikael.
With growing horror, the sudden realization of another fact dawned on him. Only the dark King Graith possessed the power to control a Duke of Hell. Graith Halbar of the Wilderlands had once been a Lord of the Staffclave, the ancient order of white sorcerers charged with protecting the earthe. Until the fateful day he had found the Bloodstone, a powerful talisman of legend endowed by the evil of Yh’Gar the Sa’tan. Possessed by the Bloodstone, Lord Graith had fallen into wickness and started a war for dominion of the earthe.
History taught the dark-King Graith had been defeated Ljmarn Bra’Adan the last High King of Aralon, wielding the Highsword Yhswyndyr with Sunheart in its hilt, twin talisman of the Blood-stone but fill with the power of Yh’Adan, Prince of Heaven. But if the demon Urioch was here…it could only mean Graith had survived that battle eight hundred years ago. Only the dark-King; Master and slave of the Bloodstone, had enough power to command one of the Seven Dukes of Hell. Only he had reason to fear the Temple of the Door. If Urioch succeeded in destroying the temple, it would forever prevent the use of the Staff of Mikael, and with its destruction,
all hope for the Whesguard, for Aralon and possibly the world, might be destroyed as well. The only other weapon with the power to face the Graith’s Bloodstone was Sunheart in the hilt the Highsword Yhswyndyr. But it had passed out of knowledge seven hundred years ago when High King Ljmarn had died heirless. Dorad Ellgereth was suddenly glad he was about to die before he was witness the resurrection of Graith and with it, the world descending into darkness.
Then the Norgarthan's started to fall. The man possessed by Urioch went down first. There was a sharp crack, like distant lightning, and the top of his head disappeared in a shower of blood. Another crack a split second later felled another attacker. Then a Norgarthan directly in front of him dropped his sword to stare at a hole suddenly appearing in his chest and Dorad realized what was happening. The Temple was aiding them against the Norgarthans! He struck off the head of the wounded man and then all was bedlam.
Half a minute into the fight, Jack Braedan prayed silently to God and Jesus and any saint that would listen, thanking them for all the long hours he had spent sweating and cursing and getting his body pummeled as he learned the ancient secrets of Japanese sword fighting. But he was unprepared for this chaotic flashing of steel and fist and shield. If his opponent was quicker and more aggressive here, he would not only suffer bruises or wounded pride, he would lose his life! But Braedan had been well trained, he had excellent reflexes, and that kept him alive until he could adjust to this bloodsplattered free for all.
The first man to taste the edge of Hattori Hanzo’s sword was a tall fellow with little regard for his own life. He'd charged at the man suddenly appearing from nowhere only to lose his head before he had time to raise own sword in defense. Braedan moved on to his next opponent, swept aside his clumsy attack and rammed two feet of steel into the man's stomach. The man's high-pitched scream was one of the worst sounds Jack had ever heard issue from a human throat. Yet he had little time to be horrified. He was set upon by another swordsman before the dying man fell to the ground.