The Sorcerer's Vengeance (The Sorcerer's Path)

by Brock Deskins

  ***

  Zagrat awoke with a start when he felt the wards he placed at the entrance to the caves and along the halls warn him of intruders. Running across the small room, he gazed into the black water of the shallow pool and conjured forth an image of the passageway as seen through the eyes of one of his creations.

  The shaman sprang backwards and fell hard on his bony rump when a huge axe seemed to erupt from the surface of the water to split him in half. He scrambled back to his feet and looked warily back at the pool just in time to see a broad grinning face staring up at him and spit in his eye before the image went black.

  Zagrat waved his puss-colored hand over the water and watched as a new image appeared. He saw through the eyes of another of his minions that his cave was crawling with Eislanders, southerners, and what appeared to a minotaur missing a good portion of one of his horns. He screamed in rage as he watched these interlopers hew down his beloved creations, his objects of art and war.

  How dare they! The shaman raged internally, nearly throwing himself into a tantrum.

  He turned his thoughts to his hunting party that had departed only a couple of hours ago. Return to me, my pets, quick as you can. Our home is besieged!

  “Grogan, we must prepare to defend our home. You are my greatest protector. See that no harm comes to me in this dark hour.”

  The golem showed no reaction, not even a blink of its pink eyelids. It preceded his master through the open doorway of his chamber and stomped off toward the main passage at the mental instructions of his master. The shaman walked behind his nearly invincible creation, listening to the sounds of battle rapidly approaching from the halls up ahead.

  Zagrat and his golem rounded a short bend in the passageway and came upon the rear element of ragmen fighting a losing battle against the infuriated humans and the unwavering might of the minotaur.

  “Fight, my pets, fight!” Zagrat commanded, knowing if his constructs did not hold all was lost. Even if he was able to flee, he was likely doomed. Varnath did not take failure well.

  “Stand fast and guard me, Grogan. Do not allow my ragmen to be forced back any further.”

  The flesh golem shoved at the backs of the ragmen, forcing them toward the machine-like swinging axes of their foes while the shaman chanted the words of a dark spell in his guttural tongue. A black fog billowed forth from his outstretched hands and rolled up the passage, washing over his constructs as well as the attackers. Where the fog touched his creations, minor wounds closed and bleeding slowed, renewing his pets with its black energies.

  Seeing the effects of the black fog at first infuriated the northmen, but they quickly began losing hope, wondering how they could defeat an opponent that seemed to feel no pain and only ceased fighting after inflicting numerous crippling wounds. Their swings slowed as they lost their heart for battle. The invaders began losing ground and taking injuries.

  “Do not give in!” Toron’s deep bellow came as he strode forward and single-handedly held the line, his massive axe cleaving the air and cutting through any flesh it encountered. “It is the fog! Do not let the foul magic weaken your mind and resolve! Look at these creatures. Some of them are your people, your friends, neighbors, and family and more will fall to this terrible fate if we fail here!”

  “Listen to him, men!” Modi shouted, slapping his men on the shoulders or the backs of their heads to get their attention. “We are Eislanders and we do not bend to the foul magics of cowardly tricksters!”

  The roar of the warriors’ shouts of defiance echoed off the cavern walls as they heaved themselves back into the battle with renewed fury, first a few then more and more as the others saw their brothers shaking off the magically-induced gloom.

  Zagrat hissed in rage as the invaders overcame his spell and renewed the slaughter of his precious creations. The shaman waved his arms and spoke another line of incoherent words. Zagrat drew a long blade from the belt at his waist and casually tossed it in the direction of the battle. It flew fast as an arrow, slashing deep cuts into any nearby flesh before clattering against the cavern wall several yards behind the attacking humans.

  The shaman’s use of magic just seemed to infuriate the rabid Eislanders even more. Their determination to reach the evil spell caster quickened their blows as they shouted curses and promises of painful retribution. There were few ragmen left between him and the gore-covered axes that sought his lifeblood.

  “Come out from behind your flesh wall and fight like a man, wizard!” one of the Eislanders called out.

  “Wizard!” the shaman sputtered. “I am a shaman and necromancer! I create wondrous—creations—bah, you have me speaking in redundancy you filthy barbarian! I hate redundancy!”

  Zagrat pulled a sharp piece of bone from a pouch and enchanted it with his dark power. It grew and elongated until it was the size of a shortsword and flew from his hands. The shard of bone pierced the chest of the northman that had challenged and insulted him. Toragar felt a deep burning in his chest then an icy coldness spread through him just before he dropped to the ground dead.

  “Ha, why lower myself to fighting like a man when I can fight like a necromancer! Grogan, they are nearly past my pets; crush them for me.”

  The powerful mound of flesh strode forward and swung its massive fists. One of the Eislanders nearly lost his axe when he attempted to parry the blow with his weapon. The steel blade struck the fleshy arm with a wet smack and was turned away, making only a superficial cut on its forearm. The heavy steel head should have severed the appendage but it felt like striking soggy wood with a dull axe.

  The golem followed through with its strike and smashed the northman in the chest. The shattering of his bones made even the hardest of warriors give a sympathetic wince. The warrior flew back as if launched from a catapult, knocking down several men behind him. The men that were knocked down quickly regained their feet. The one who had been struck never moved again.

  The battle suddenly took on a new dimension of furor. Instead of hacking wantonly at the construct, the powerful warriors were doing all they could to stay alive. The golem simply stepped into their weapons heedless of the minor harm they inflicted and laid about with slow but tireless and unstoppable force.

  Grogan reached forward with both hands, grasped an unfortunate Eislander by the front of his hauberk, and began using him like a huge club. The golem swung the hapless warrior from side to side like a scythe, smashing the man into his comrades as well as the narrow walls. The makeshift club ceased its struggles after several solid connections with flesh, stone, and armor.

  The golem strode forward, obliviously treading on any fallen invaders in his path. With a mighty heave, Grogan hurled his human club into the press of warriors making a fighting retreat, knocking down nearly the entire front rank.

  “Woo-ha-ha, yes my pet! Kill them, punish them!” Zagrat cackled and danced in place.

  “Fall back, men!” Modi shouted as he and Toron stepped to the fore. “Come on, beast-man, try and keep up if ya can!”

  “I would have to run backwards and strike myself in both legs to match pace with an Eislander,” Toron retorted with a loud huff.

  “Ha ha, that’s the spirit! Now let’s see if you can put it into practice, horn-head.”

  The two elite fighters stepped up, axes swinging. Toron swung high while Modi swung low. Grogan attempted to parry the minotaur’s axe and ignore the human’s strike. Both were bad mistakes. Modi’s ancestral weapon cut deeply into the golem’s thigh causing it to stumble. Toron’s axe met flesh halfway through his swing and cut into the bone of the construct’s forearm, cleaving clear through the smaller of the arm bones.

  The creature was incapable of uttering a sound but its facial expression slightly registered the severe damage the two foes had caused it. Grogan did not feel pain like a living creature but it knew that it had suffered a serious injury and could not ignore the attacks of these two foes. When Modi swung low again, the golem brought its arm down to intercept the sw
ing, catching the axe on the haft.

  Grogan threw its other arm up over its head to block the powerful, overhand strike the horned creature delivered. Toron pulled his powerful swing in toward him at the last second so that the blade struck the upraised forearm instead of the haft. The weapon sheared through the upraised arm and sank deep into the golem’s left shoulder.

  “Hey, Modi, what do you get when you cross five Eislander warriors with a minotaur calf?” Toron asked as he wrenched his axe free of the solid mass of muscle.

  “What?” Modi asked with a grunt as he swung his axe deliberately short then spun himself completely about, reversing the swing and cutting deeply into the golem’s other tree trunk-thick leg.

  “Five dead Eislanders!” the minotaur shouted, displaying a sense of humor that only showed itself in the midst of a life and death struggle.

  “That joke stunk worse than your mangy, flea-riddled hide. What do you call a bunch of minotaurs invited to an Eislander banquet?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The main course!” Modi guffawed swinging his axe downward then back up when the golem stepped away from the blow.

  The reversed strike cut through the already damaged leg. Grogan started to topple, his ruined right leg no longer able to support its great weight. Toron brought his own axe swinging down at an angle, burying the thick blade deep into the construct’s neck. When the big minotaur wrenched his axe free he could see a gaping cavity in the side of the creature’s neck as it toppled onto its side.

  Modi extended his axe toward Zagrat with one hand, holding it perfectly level by the end of its haft without so much as a quiver in the heavy weapon. “Your turn, you sick hobbi bastard.”

  “Grogan! Oh my pet, my beautiful pet!” Zagrat wailed then turned furious eyes onto the smirking creatures that killed it. “You will pay for this!”

  Modi turned toward Toron. “Are you scared, Toron?”

  Toron shook his big head. “Nope, not a bit. Are you?”

  “Naw, am I supposed to be?”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “You ready to kill him now?”

  “Oh yeah,” Toron replied with an evil grin, showing off his sharp, very un-cow-like teeth.

  “Me too,” Modi concurred and stepped toward the hobgoblin.

  Zagrat raised his arms and spoke twisted words of magic. A swarm of blades spun around him like chaff in a whirlwind.

  “Well that complicates things a little,” Modi said.

  The necromancer never so much as paused in his casting, bringing forth a black shadowy blade. Zagrat tossed the black blade away from him, taking Modi and Toron by surprise when it darted forward and began swiping at them of its own volition. The shadow blade moved swiftly and was hard to see in the poorly lit cavern. The two warriors dodged and parried the animated ghostly weapon with all the skill they could muster.

  “You will pay for your desecration with your lives! I will enjoy using your bodies to replace those you destroyed!”

  The shaman thrust his hands forward as a pair of snakes materialized and flew at the two warriors like hurled spears. One of the snakes struck Toron in the chest, sinking its fangs into his hide and injected him with a powerful poison. He could feel the burning toxin enter his bloodstream and course through his body. His arms began to fatigue and his legs became weak as the effects of the poison took hold.

  Modi brought his axe around and cut the serpent missile in half but his distraction left him unable to parry the black shadow blade. The ethereal sword cut through his side causing frost to rime on his rent hauberk and blacken the puckered wound with frostbite. The Eislander grunted in shock as it felt as though part of his life had just been brutally pulled from his body.

  “Toron, that hurt, I think I may be getting a bit concerned now.”

  “Yeah, me too. Let’s end this.”

  Toron lowered his head and charged, letting loose a bellow of rage right along with Modi’s own battle cry. The two warriors barreled down at the shaman, completely disregarding the swirling blades that wreathed his body. They felt the sharp steel slicing into them, opening numerous bloody wounds on their bodies as they slammed into the necromancer and bore him to the ground.

  The remaining warriors and oarsmen let loose a ragged cheer and charged forward themselves. The black blade and swirling cloud of knives disappeared as Modi and Toron shifted atop the hobgoblin. Both warriors suddenly went flying back as a hideous demon now stood where the necromancer had been pulled to the ground.

  “Did you fools think it would be so easy to defeat me?” the huge winged creature demanded. “I am the most powerful shaman to ever come out of the tribes. My necromancy is second only to my master! I will tear you all apart with my bare hands!”

  “Boys,” Zeb shouted, “cut that thing down to size.”

  Eislanders and oarsmen overcame their shock and fear, charging heedlessly at the demonic presence with their weapons held high, ready to strike. The shaman-turned-demon tore the axe from one of the warriors with one hand then his head from his shoulders with the other. The brutal death only spurred his comrades on all the harder as they surrounded the transformed shaman and hacked at its red, knobby hide. Toron and Modi slowly regained their feet, blood oozing seemingly from every inch of their body and sunk their axes deep into the demon’s back.

  Zagrat screamed in pain and outrage, as much from being struck as knowing he could not emerge from this battle victorious. Gathering up all of his concentration and ignoring the numerous attacks abusing his body, most of them were fortunately turned aside by his transmuted hide, he cast a spell that would allow him to escape.

  Modi swung his ancestral axe with all his might, hoping to decapitate the demon and nearly struck Toron with it when the weapon met only smoke. The cloud bore a feint resemblance to the shaman as it sped up the cavern toward the entrance. A few men took swipes at it as it passed, but their weapons had no more effect on it than they would have regular campfire smoke. The warriors could only watch helplessly as the shaman floated rapidly away.

  “Get back here, you cowardly wizard—shaman—necro-whatever the hells you call yourself!” Modi shouted after the retreating mist. “Bah, damn spell hurlers are slipperier than slug eels.”

  “Let us be sure that we do what we can to prevent him from returning and wreaking more havoc once we leave,” Toron suggested.

  Modi nodded, slapping away the hands of his warriors that were trying to tie bandages around some of his wounds and led the men deeper into the cave. They came upon a narrow passage with sturdy wooden doors attached to iron hinges driven into the stone. The prison guard, if there was one, was nowhere to be found, but a closer inspection of the doors showed that they were all secured with a simple drop bar on the outside.

  Out of the nearly dozen small chambers carved into the stone, only four of them were locked. Modi lifted the bar off the first one and threw the door open. Huddled in the corner, his knees pulled up to his chest, was young Matt. He looked up with red-rimmed eyes that had not yet lost all of their defiance though they clearly showed the stress and fear he had been feeling for the past few days.

  “Toron, is that you?” Matt asked, shielding his eyes from the light cast by the torch that Toron had grabbed from a crevice into which it had been shoved.

  “It’s me and Zeb and the others,” Toron rumbled over the Eislander’s shoulder.

  “I knew you would all come! Gods, they have Ruben! They took him somewhere, wherever they make the monsters I think!”

  “Calm down, lad, we’ll find him,” Zeb called to him past the bulk of the large warriors.

  “Let’s see who else is in here,” Modi said and went to another door.

  The next chamber had a corpse in it that apparently died from wounds he sustained during his capture before he could be turned into one of the ragmen. The foul necromancer probably would have still found a use for the body given time, Modi thought as they moved to the other secured door. The next chamber hel
d another corpse, this one a woman who had used a length of cord to strangle herself before she could be taken and her living body desecrated. She must have been brought in with the dead man in the other cell, perhaps a husband or brother whose death helped her decide on another way out.

  Modi barely had the timber removed from the last door when a blur of flesh and feathers burst out and sank long talons into and through the chain links and leather of his hauberk. The big warrior grabbed the creature’s wrists, pulled them away from his body before they could reach a vital organ, and ran back into the cell with the strange winged creature held aloft by his upraised arms.

  Hati shrieked in rage and pain as her back and wings were shoved brutally into the unyielding stone. She struggled furiously against whomever or whatever held her. Modi struggled to keep his grip on the cursing, spitting creature. Despite its slight size and light-weight, it was as strong as most any of his warriors and it was an effort to keep from losing his grip.

  Toron bolted into the room with his torch, illuminating the room and the being’s features. Modi gasped in surprise when he saw the tan face of the young woman whose arms he held pinned against the wall.

  “Hati? Oh gods, girl, what have they done to ya?”

  “Modi?” Hati asked in surprise then burst into tears when she recognized the battle jarl.

  Modi released the woman’s wrists and she crumpled against his gore-spattered chest and wept. Several of the Eislanders made a hexing sign as the battle jarl walked Hati out of the cell, still clutching his hauberk.

  “Are you all right, girl,—in your head I mean?” Modi asked.

  “I’m not a zombie or anything if that’s what you mean. He—he wanted my mind left intact. Oh gods, we have to get out of here! I heard him call back the others, the ones he sent on the raid. They’ll be here soon!”