Stalking the Beast

by Howard Andrew Jones

  "This is the place," the woman's voice said. "Kilvor?"

  "Disperse the fog," snapped a familiar voice, and Elyana tensed at the sound. Calvonis?

  She bit back a curse. Of course. She had seen Calvonis die, but magic could bring men back from beyond.

  She set Hindreck down and shrugged the strung bow from her shoulder. She had but five arrows left, and if she had her way, she'd drive each of them through the summoner's head.

  "They're still fighting out there," the woman's voice said. "I'm not dropping the fog until we have a living body for each of Drolgug's mouths. We've got the woman, he's got Hindreck. You go—"

  "Shut up," Calvonis snapped. "Don't you see? They've killed Kilvor."

  "Well, use his own amulet on him, then," the woman's voice said crossly. "We need him."

  While Elyana quietly put an arrow to her string, Aladel slid silently into the fog.

  "Idiot," Calvonis snapped. "Someone's close. Velandril smells it."

  There was no mistaking the swish of boots through the tall grasses. The other speaker stepped close enough for Elyana to perceive her shape in the fog. She was tall, very slim. As she bent to look at Kilvor, her back was exposed.

  It was too fine a shot to miss, and Elyana took it.

  The stone-tipped arrow drove into the back of her skull. The woman threw back her arms, spine arching impossibly far, then collapsed.

  "Elyana!" Calvonis spat.

  The monster rushed out of the fog and a tentacle reached for her. It was scarred, nicked, and oozing black blood, but even as she rolled clear she was astonished that something so awful could be touched with such beauty. The clean portions of the limb were formed all of different swirled shades of blue, inlaid with lines of sparkling gold, like some elaborate mosaic on a mansion floor. The head loomed then, first just a blot of darkness, then a knobbed and scaled visage, vaguely draconic, its scintillating azure scales hacked and scored with injuries. One eye had been shot away and was nothing now but a gaping wound. It was as fine a place as any for an arrow, but she could not pause to fire, for the beast's mouth was opening.

  Elyana dashed beneath the tentacle and dodged past a stump of a ruined column. She heard the deep cough and the sizzle of the grassland behind her as the beast launched a gout of acid. The ground shook as the monster turned to follow.

  Melias shouted from somewhere. Gone was the hesitant, mousy young woman. Her voice now was confident, certain. "Glory of Razmir!"

  The monster roared.

  "Melias!" Calvonis called. Elyana guessed he must either be at the side or the top of his monster. "How you ever survived this long—"

  "Glory of Razmir!" Melias called, then shouted in pain that was quickly strangled.

  Elyana knew instantly the monster had grabbed her with its tentacle. She had meant to wait and time her moment, but she'd be damned if she'd let another of the expedition die. Not while she still breathed.

  She launched herself from behind the pillar.

  The monster had turned to seek Melias and she now confronted its shell-like back and a long blue tail, curled up toward its monstrous back legs. Calvonis sat astride the thing at the height of the shell, though he was draped now in a spare robe. His hair was still matted with blood from the injuries that had killed him.

  At the same moment Elyana launched the arrows at the back of his head, Aladel lunged out of the fog and drove his blade deep into the beast's right front leg. It howled in pain.

  The arrows rebounded from Calvonis without ever reaching him. His cursed shield was up again. How many spells could he possibly have left?

  The monster pivoted to face Aladel, still bearing Melias in its remaining tentacle. The girl struggled weakly, though both arms were pinned to her sides. Aladel retreated, and there was no scream when the beast spit acid after him, so she assumed he'd dodged clear.

  Maybe she couldn't hit the summoner, but she could damned well hit the tentacle. Wind swift, Elyana cast two more shafts, plunging one after the other into the scarred area she'd noted earlier, halfway along the length of the limb. The beast hissed in pain and dropped Melias, who landed with a groan.

  "You're only delaying the inevitable," Calvonis cried. "Hide in the fog if you like! I will kill you—"

  The monster turned to face her, sweeping the tentacle like a battering ram. She grabbed her final arrow, nocked, let fly, then threw herself in the air, arching her back to pass above the swatting limb, clearing it so close that her trailing hair brushed against one of its golden veins.

  At the same moment she struck the earth the arrow sank deep into the creature's eye socket. She looked up, watching her bow bounce once as it hit the ground.

  And then, with a miserable, muted cry of anguish, the monster vanished. Elyana did not think it intentional, else Calvonis would not have plummeted suddenly to the ground with a bone-jarring thump.

  Elyana was sore. Fatigue ate at her very being. Yet she fought down the first instinct, to reach for her sword, and scrambled over to Melias, still groaning upon the grass. The girl's eyes met Elyana's dully as the elf plucked the wand from the hand that grasped it tightly.

  Calvonis was already climbing to his knees, and Aladel was hammering at the summoner's unseen shield with his sword.

  The summoner's eyes widened as Elyana advanced and aimed the wand at him. "Glory of Razmir!" she cried, and the spherical shape of the magic shield was suddenly delineated by a splotch of green energy. Elyana repeated the call once, twice, as a wide-eyed Calvonis fumbled, searching the pockets of his robe.

  And then the shield was down. The acid still sizzled in the grass surrounding Calvonis, who first tried backing from Elyana, then found himself arrested by the point of Aladel's sword.

  He raised his open palms, slowly, and Elyana studied his face and the fine brown hair, clotted with his own blood and brains. Presumably the organ had regenerated all the ruined parts that still flecked his skin. She raised the wand.

  "There is much I can tell you," Calvonis said. "I can be very, very valuable."

  "Oh, I think I've figured it out. You were going to call something up, and use it for the glory of your mad god. I don't really care what it was, or what you were after."

  "It's a lot more complicated than that," Calvonis said with a knowing smile.

  "I'm sure it is. Everything you say is a lie, Calvonis. So give me one truth I can test."

  He actually looked relieved. "Name it."

  "That amulet of resurrection we found on Kilvor. How do I use it?"

  He laughed. "The same way you activate that wand." Then he tried to make a jest. "You going to test it on Kilvor?"

  "Oh, I'm guessing you've killed someone I cared about out there, or I'd have more allies joining me by now." She aimed the wand.

  "I thought you said you were going to give me a test!"

  "Glory of Razmir," Elyana answered.

  He only screamed once, because she had aimed very carefully.

  Aladel practically leapt from the smoking body, then shouted at her. "I thought you were playing with him!"

  "No." Elyana looked down at the corpse. "That really was the only thing I wanted out of him, and probably the only true words he would have spoken, because he thought I'd test it immediately." She turned away from the staring elf and the mutilated body, and walked to the wounded girl. "Let's see to her, then look for the rest of our friends."

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Twenty

  The Calm Before

  Drelm

  The fog was gone when Drelm opened his eyes, and the sun was up. The warmth kissed his skin and he sucked in the fresh air, cool with the breath of winter.

  The last thing he truly remembered was the sorcerer, witch, or druid—Drelm didn't know what she'd been and didn't care—throwing a spell upon him. After that all had been a blur of rage and pain. And now he was here, peacefully lying in the grass.

  Was he a prisoner? What had h
appened to Elyana and the others?

  He sat up and instinctively reached out to his right. His axe was there, and so he knew even as his eyes took in the scene that Elyana was alive and well, and that she had tended him, for only she would have known to put the weapon in comforting reach.

  The sun shined down from a pale blue sky and wind brushed the tips of the long green grass. In the wreck of the camp, Elyana and Aladel stood talking with three brown-robed strangers. More Oakstewards? A few yards to the right were armored men he didn't know, assaulting the ground with heavy shovels, and near them were what he briefly took for a pile of rags, then understood as bodies.

  "Tymon," said Lisette beside him, and he turned to consider the markswoman.

  She sat on a log just on his left, a pistol resting in the palm of her hands. In the bright light the bore of the weapon took on a beautiful cherry glow.

  "Warriors from Tymon and some real Oakstewards turned up a while back," she said. "Hindreck sent for them. He wasn't in on it."

  "In on what?" Drelm asked.

  "Remember how I said that this whole thing was a protection racket?"

  "Yes." The summoner had meant to draw people to his god by causing fear and chaos, and then keep the beast and other attacks away from the newly converted followers.

  "Turns out there was more to it." Lisette sounded tired. "The summoner was setting up a huge summoning ritual. It looks like they were going to call something in from the Outer Planes, which is why he was making sure blood was spilled in specific places, sometimes at specific times. At least that's what these new druids think."

  Drelm wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't help wondering. "What was he going to call up?"

  "Nobody knows. Elyana killed Kilvor and Calvonis both."

  "Kilvor was—wait, did you say Calvonis?"

  Lisette smiled thinly. "The druid was in on it. Seems even some of them can be bought for the right price—in this case, probably that Razmiri amulet he used to bring Calvonis back." She seemed to recognize Drelm's growing confusion, because she hurriedly changed the subject. "Anyway, he resurrected Calvonis when the rest of the summoner's allies turned up disguised as reinforcements. Their original plan was to drug us last night so we'd be nice and quiet for a big dawn ceremony. But Elyana and Grellen and I didn't go under, and Kilvor didn't want to play his hand too soon, so he waited—"

  "But Calvonis is dead?" Drelm asked. He wanted to be sure of that.

  "Twice." Lisette flashed a death's-head grin.

  Her eyes turned briefly toward where Hindreck sat hunched with Melias and Illidian and Cyrelle, drinking beside a fire. Drelm knew a sudden pang of hunger, as if the sight of the food had awakened his stomach.

  "Hindreck thinks some of the spells Kilvor was throwing against the monster last night were probably thrown against Shalon. The redhead."

  Drelm grunted. "So Kilvor was a traitor?"

  "Kilvor," Lisette said, turning the pistol over in her hand, "was helping to drag four of us to the middle of the field where we were going to be used in a ceremony. That little piece that turned you into a monster was carting me. Whatever they were going to conjure up had to have blood from a living host."

  Wizards, summoners, and sorcerers. Drelm didn't much care for any of them. "Casualties?"

  "Grellen didn't make it," Lisette answered slowly. "It was the damnedest thing. Cyrelle and Illidian and Grellen were all of 'em deader than dirt. You were close to death too, incidentally."

  Drelm blinked.

  "I shot you," she went on, "when you attacked me. You remember that?"

  Drelm shook his head.

  "I've been sitting here watching your body finish healing itself for the last hour. Elyana said it was the ring she gave you."

  Curious. But since he was clearly fine, he was more concerned with other matters. "You said the others were all dead. And they're alive right over there."

  "Right. Like I said, Kilvor's amulet brings people back from the dead, remember? He used it to pull back Calvonis. Well, Elyana used it on the first two of us she found. But when she got to Grellen...the thing was out of power. Makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, if she'd gone left instead of right she probably would have found Grellen before Illidian."

  "Grellen was a good fighter," Drelm said. "And brave."

  "But not lucky. You need luck, too."

  "Even luck runs out."

  "So it does." She shook her head and looked at the gun again. "So," she said slowly, "it's all over. You get to go home now and have a happy ending."

  Something in the way she said that sounded strange to Drelm, but he didn't understand why. She was probably weary, or sad because she had liked Grellen. In any case, it wasn't his place to pry, though he did think of a polite inquiry. "What are you going to do?"

  She stared at him as if in shock, then fell suddenly to cold, cutting laughter. She set down the gun, pulled her battered hat from her head and rested with her hands on her knees, still laughing. At some point the hat's feather had been lost.

  "What?"

  She finished with a few final chuckles, then pushed hair from her eyes. "Nothing. It's just that you asked a fine, fine question. I don't know the answer yet." She paused, then added, "I have some choices to make."

  That was like a woman, to keep talking even when she didn't really want to say anything. All the women he knew but Elyana were like that. "Elyana is leaving," he said.

  The way Lisette looked up and stared, he knew that she'd misunderstood him.

  "After my wedding," Drelm went on. "She thinks that she doesn't belong in Delgar."

  Lisette sounded curious. "Where's she going?"

  "She didn't say."

  Lisette was quiet for a time, apart from the sounds of her adjusting her hat. In the end, she snorted and tossed it into the grass. "Damned thing's ruined." She looked him in the eye. "Elyana doesn't belong in Delgar. She's bigger than that place."

  "She's welcome there. Avelis is a good man, and honors her."

  Lisette let out a strange noise, almost as though something were caught in her throat, but when he turned to look at her she coughed briefly and waved off his concern.

  "You could stay, too," Drelm offered. "Delgar will grow. There will be bandits, and raiders, and I will need steady hands to keep it safe."

  "You want me to serve in Delgar?"

  "If you like. You need not be a guard. Elyana serves the town, but holds no rank. You could be like that. You remind me of her," he added, "in some ways."

  "What ways are those?" She sounded...unguarded. Often there was a wary, world-weary note to her voice, as if she were always holding something back.

  Drelm shrugged. He thought it obvious. "You are both swift but deadly. Stealthy. Good in a fight. Reliable. It is hard to find trustworthy people. I am sure Lord Avelis would welcome you."

  "I'm not so sure of that." She sounded wryly amused. She stood, then bent over to grab her hat and pistol. She pushed the former onto her head with a look of distaste and thrust the latter through her belt, where its twin already hung. "Let's see if there's any wine left."

  "I'm hungry," Drelm said.

  "Let's see about getting some food in you, then."

  He liked that plan, and was soon sitting with all the surviving comrades of the road but Aladel and Elyana. All were silent, tired. Melias's eyes were red-rimmed. Yet travelers found strength in each other's company, even if they did not speak.

  After a little time, Elyana and Aladel—his black cloak cast off—strode up to their campfire. Drelm moved aside and indicated a space beside him, but Elyana did not yet sit.

  "The Oakstewards are going to be able to send us back to Delgar, soon," she announced. "But I think I want to wait for nightfall so we can have a chance to rest. And there's another matter."

  Drelm saw that her eyes were bloodshot, and her shirt and breeks were streaked with dirt and blood. "The outpost," he offered.

  Elyana seemed to see him for the first time,
and gave him a sad smile. "Glad to see you up and around. No, Drelm. Our allies from Tymon already checked out that outpost, and it was abandoned. Maybe that's where Calvonis's allies were before they attacked us this morning. It's hard to know. There've been so many lies..." She shook her head. "No, I'm talking about the Razmiri temple in Delgar."

  Drelm growled in sudden realization.

  "We can't be sure that any other Razmiri were in league," Elyana said quickly. "So I don't mean to wander in and start slaughtering. But I think it best we escort any of their priests to the village edge before word of our return leaks out. I don't expect any of you to help," she added, "because that's out of—"

  "Of course we'll help," Illidian said sharply.

  "I'd like to come," Hindreck said, and Drelm studied the chubby druid as he spoke on. "As penance or my brother's betrayal. He should not have interfered in political matters."

  "Political matters," Cyrelle repeated with a snort.

  The druid didn't acknowledge her comments. "You might need me against a priest. But don't you need your mayor's approval before you start throwing people out of your settlement?"

  "I am the guard captain," Drelm said with pride, "and act with the mayor's full blessing."

  "In more ways than one, I hear," Cyrelle said, then laughed at her own rude humor, adding, "or at least you will pretty soon."

  Drelm frowned at that, but many of the others smiled, so he judged that the comment had been offered in good humor.

  Everyone else spoke up then, saying that they, too, wanted to be there for this final act. Elyana stressed again that they shouldn't wander in with swords bared, although she thanked them for their support.

  "Still, someone should inform the mayor." Lisette set down the wine sack and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "When we arrive, why don't I run to tell him, and I can summon Demid and the rest of the guard in case you need backup?"

  Drelm thought that good sense, and was further evidence of why someone of Lisette's intelligence would be welcome in Delgar on a permanent basis.

  "Well said," Elyana agreed, and then, after a few more details were sorted out, walked back to converse again with the trio of druids. Aladel followed.