by Chris Pisano
Pik danced and whirled in an attempt to evade his attackers. He knew he needed to kill a few of the beasts before Bale was swarmed under, but he dared not risk taking the full brunt of a leaping attacker, or his own slight frame would be knocked down, exposing his throat to the snarling mass that stood before him. But the demon-wolf burst into flames, giving a blood-curdling yelp as it burned.
Pik leapt to his feet and spun around, seeing that he now owed thanks to Belhurst. However, he doubted the wizard would accept it, or even notice it, for he continued shouting spells and spraying arcane liquids that diminished the pack of demon-wolves into howling streamers of distended flesh. The hobgoblin smiled as he saw Bale, now unfettered, advancing toward Wyren as the mad wizard tipped one of the blood-filled pots, the river of red arcing down the cliff face. One lone demon-wolf loped past, hunger in his eyes. Pik almost let him go until he saw what prey the creature sought. Pik gave chase.
Silver and Diminutia attempted to aid Dearborn as best they could against the now four-armed Ar’drzz’ur. Their skills seemed childish against a warrior who trained for millennia. The demon-general laughed as he fought both Praeker and Dearborn like an adult scolding impetuous children. For a glimmering second, the demon-general focused on Dearborn. Praeker saw this as an opportunity to withdraw from the battle, leaving his two opponents to determine a victor between themselves. As he watched, he backed away, closer to the forest that edged the one side of Grimwell. When he was within the tangle of ebony branches, he scowled. He had lost. There was only one thing now to do—he turned and fled.
Physical fatigue crashed through Dearborn; her legs quaked, and her arms shook. The shock of blocking Ar’drzz’ur’s blows proved too much for her joints to handle, and she flopped to the ground like a freshly caught fish. Fueled by passion, Diminutia ran to her aid, an unholy scream raging from his throat—which did little good as Ar’drzz’ur used one arm to lift the blond man from the ground by his throat. Feeling extra sadistic, he turned Diminutia’s body toward Dearborn. Ar’drzz’ur gave one last laugh as both humans shed tears. Then his laughing stopped. His body trembled. And all were surprised to see his freshly severed head drop to his feet and roll along the ground.
As the demon-general’s decapitated body fell, reduced to a limp sack of organs, it released Diminutia, who immediately ran and held Dearborn. They and Silver looked to see who could possibly wield the power to kill a demon. They saw Phyl dropping a freshly bloodied broadsword as he pulled both hands to his mouth to stifle a quivering squeal.
Diminutia wanted to thank Phyl from every corner of his soul, but instead pointed and gave shout, “Behind you!”
Phyl turned to see the salivating maw of the last demon-wolf’s razor-sharp teeth. But the wolf never struck. Pik tackled it midstrike. Growls and curses shot forth as the two rolled along the ground. The wolf bit and clawed, while Pik hacked away with his dagger. The growling stopped. Pik lay on his back and pushed the fresh carcass off of him. With labored breath, he rested his sweating head on the cool ground and coughed out a burst of blood.
Sobbing, Phyl ran to his friend and dropped to his knees, pulling the hobgoblin onto his lap. “You saved me?”
Pik frowned. Through hacking coughs, he asked, “Why’d … you save … them?”
The satyr turned to Dearborn and Diminutia, then back to his dying friend. “Because they love each other. I’m such a sap for love.”
“Well,” Pik coughed. “It’s known that … I hate everybody. But you … you I hate the most.”
Through tears, Phyl smiled as he watched his friend go. Silver, Diminutia, and Dearborn each limped over and put a hand on the satyr’s shoulder. But their grieving would have to wait. The trembling ground reminded them that greater issues were at stake.
Wyren succeeded in overturning the second urn, the blood ran down the cliff side and crossed the first stream at the base. He had created a doorway tall enough to dwarf most buildings. The world quaked as the encircled rock fell away, creating a hole leading to hell.
Bale lunged toward Wyren, but found himself frozen, suspended midleap. The wizard cackled as white energy flowed from his left hand to the ogre, keeping him in stasis. The energy tingled, enough to aggitate Lapin.
Confused, the rabbit poked his head from the burrow of Bale’s pant pocket and looked around. He noticed that he was high off the ground with a tumultuous battle raging at the base. And some withered old man was holding a staff in his right hand while crazy light flowed from his left.
Wyren laughed harder, drunk with impending power. He peered over the edge to watch a massive hand emerge from the hole in the cliff face. He cackled knowing the supreme demon would soon tear itself free from its womb, born to destroy all that the wizard commanded. “Yes!” Wyren shrieked. “Yes! Come forth! Centuries of waiting! Years of calculating and searching for the stones! Finding stupid fools to fetch them for me and a dragon to supply the blood! Finally, it will be mine! The world will be mine!”
Dragon to supply the blood? Lapin asked himself. Realization struck him like a lightning bolt. The dragon blood the wizard used was fresh. Fresh enough to come from his friend who had recently gone missing. Anger rippled through every strand of fur. When he first met the dragon, he had lied about being a knight, but now honor raced through him. He jumped from Bale’s pocket and attacked.
Lapin’s diminutive body did little good. He went for the wizard’s throat, but left nothing more than a nick as the old man slapped him away. It did, however, distract him enough to lose the focus of his containment spell, dropping Bale.
With one meaty blow, Bale cracked several of Wyren’s ribs. Unable to stop himself, the wizard dropped the staff. And Bale picked it up.
All fighting ceased. The eyes of all combatants focused on Bale holding the staff. Diminutia and Silver were not exactly sure who the more menacing threat was, a power-hungry wizard, or a dimwitted ogre.
Bale stared at the staff in his hands. He tried to think logically, tried to weigh his options, even though he was fairly certain he didn’t know what his options were.
“Miiiiiiiiiine!” Wyren screamed as he jumped to his feet and charged. Out of reflex, Bale held the staff in front of him with both hands, implying he would snap it in half. The wizard froze midstep, not wanting to do anything that could harm his staff. Then Bale had an idea. And with a very muddled thought, his unspoken command came to fruition.
The giant hand protruding from the gaping wound in the mountain wall reached up and plucked Wyren from the plateau ledge. The wizard screamed a noise that would haunt the nightmares of all who heard it as half the bones in his body snapped. The hand slowly retreated back into the gateway, taking the wriggling wizard with it, as it did one thousand years ago.
A second idea struck Bale, right between the eyes, leaving a dull ache where it had hit him. With the stiffness of zombies, all of the remaining demons also retreated through the doorways whence they came.
Then what had never happened before took shape. Bale had a third idea within the confines of one day. He now possessed a headache that would stick with him for a week, but he accepted the suffering to make the proper choice. He rested the fist of the staff in his hand and made his way down the mountain path to the base, near an open doorway.
Once there, he squeezed, pulverizing the wood into splinters, releasing all five stones. All the doorways shrank, healing what they were etched upon. As the aperture nearest Bale closed, he threw the stones inside. The doorways shut, never to be reopened.
Having nothing to fight for and no leader to be found, Praeker’s diminished army of monsters and men disbanded, simply heading in all directions looking for a better possible fate than what they had witnessed. Praeker himself was nowhere to be found.
And neither was Daedalus.
Silver and Diminutia ran to Bale, never so happy to see the grotesque ogre in their lives. “Bale,” Silver said. “That was brilliant. Well done!”
“It’s true, Bale,” Diminutia
added. “How did you think of that?”
“Simple,” Bale replied with a smile. “I just thought of what I could do that would one-up you two so good that you’d never be able to one-up me again …”
Thirty-four
Diminutia fed the pigs. Fruits and vegetables that he and his recent bride deemed unsatisfactory for their meals ended up in the pig trough. A few over-ripened apples, a couple of plums in the same state, tomatoes with evidence of sun withering, weak and wilted carrots. The quantity was far from overwhelming, but there were only four pigs and two piglets to feed, so there was enough to satisfy their hunger.
Diminutia set down the basket that had held the discarded food and leaned against the fence to rest. Chuckling to himself, he still found it difficult to recognize these lands as his even after living here for two full harvests. My farm, he thought. My farm.
Swatting a mosquito searching for an early evening meal, he looked to the small orchard of apples, plums, and apricots, then to the large garden of tomatoes and carrots. These seemed like such foreign ideals on foreign lands. The stables offered him some comfort, as did the humble farmhouse he called home. But even they felt like a hermitage isolated from the rebuilt capitol, Phenomere, by a full valley.
The farm life satisfied him, as did marriage and looming fatherhood. In two seasons, he would find out if he could do a better job at parenting than his father did. He already seemed to be a better husband. But how could he fail at that? He was married to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And now that she no longer had to train and fight while within the army’s ranks, her body relinquished some of its muscle. Some, but not all since there was always some work to do around the farm. But enough to lose the bulging veins and deep striations. The bit of baby belly also helped add femininity.
As if on cue, Dearborn walked from the house with a decanter of water to share with her loving husband by the pig fence. She smiled, finding it hard not to any time she looked into his crystal-blue eyes. Even though she was a good half-a-head taller than him, he made her feel like a woman, and for that she pledged her very soul to him.
Diminutia took a gulp from the decanter. As he wiped his chin with the back of his hand, his eyes drilled hers as he offered a smirk. “I heard rumors.”
Dearborn blushed at his words. She knew what rumors he had heard. She pledged to him to leave her life of military servitude behind, never to fight again, except to protect her family, if need be. Never again for king or country. Perciless had returned right after Phenomere had fallen to The Horde with a blended army of troops from both Albathia and Tsinel. With ease, they removed what did not belong, and with the same stroke signed a treaty with Tsinel ushering in a new era of peace. King Perciless had the undying support of his followers, two full nations worth, which allowed for quick rebuilding of the country, capital, and castle. However, the army became quite skilled in a short time, leading some suspicious minds to wonder. Traveling down the winding roads of scuttlebutt, Diminutia uncovered tales of a great warrior offering fleeting moments to consult, guidance, and training. Dearborn returned the smirk and his sardonic words. “I heard rumors, too.”
Diminutia raised his eyebrows and then laughed. Sliding his hands around her waist, he pulled her in for a kiss; a sign to show that he conceded before the argument even began. For her, he forsook his larcenous ways. However, a shiny pendant or a jewel-encrusted tiara would disappear from a daughter of wealth at nighttime while the city slumbered. Corresponding with such disappearances, Diminutia would surprise Dearborn with expensive bouquets, or a dress woven with rich fabrics, or even a striking piece of jewelry.
The newlyweds knew each other’s secrets, but knew the other would never let it go so far as to destroy their family. And they loved each other for it.
The coughing and clearing of two throats interrupted their embrace. The lovers looked up to see Belhurst and Silver, both men looking out of place in long wizards’ robes—Belhurst because they were so new and clean, no one envisioned him wearing anything other than tattered rags, and Silver simply because they were robes and not dyed silks ornamented with scintillating jewelry.
“Wow,” Diminutia said, seeing his friend looking so alien.
Silver smiled. “What? You don’t approve? Wait until I trade in the apprentice robes for those of a master.”
“We certainly do approve,” Dearborn said with a smile. To prove her point, she placed a small peck on his cheek.
“Well, I can’t believe two people who saved the world have decided to become farmers,” Silver said.
Looking at Dearborn, Diminutia said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He turned back to his friend and continued, “Speaking of, any word from Bale or Phyl?”
Both Belhurst and Silver laughed. “They are still traversing from town to town with Lapin in search of a new tavern.”
Diminutia laughed. “Truly?”
“Truly. ’Tis a shame, too. Nary a soul knows about the demon stones, but hardly an ear hasn’t heard of what happened at Munty’s.”
“Well, at least their quest is noble.”
“Verily!”
“Word is that when they finish that noble quest, they’ll answer King Perciless’s call to locate his missing brothers. Not even a sideways rumor about the whereabouts of either Oremethus or Daedalus.”
“Couldn’t imagine a more intrepid group.”
The friends shared one last laugh. Then it was time for Silver to move on.
“So your training in Phenomere is nearly finished?” Diminutia asked.
“Yes. The training so far has been little more than classroom conjecture. The only way I can learn about the world’s workings is to see the world,” Silver replied.
Tears accompanied hugs and farewells. The wizened wizard and his apprentice went on their way. Diminutia watched as their shapes turned to silhouettes turned to specks, then vanished, and thought of the grand adventures his friend would certainly encounter. He then turned to Dearborn and placed his hands on her belly and realized that he would certainly have adventures of his own.