by Eric Ugland
Up we went, going through the forest. It was older growth, so there was actually a little space on the ground. Deep beds of pine needles and loam masked our footsteps. The stone pointed us in the direction we had to go — almost straight up the mountain.
We moved without talking. Thinking, I suppose, about the end. About what had happened. I know I was feeling good about not killing the minotaurs. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake. They seemed nice, but then again they had been trying to kill me. I wanted to believe, though, especially since I had just placed Ragnar’s life on that belief.
I was also trying to come to terms with whatever had happened to Meikeljan. What had he done to lose favor with Eona? What could he do to get it back? Could he? Did I want him around if he couldn’t? Was he part of the treachery? Were there others among the Ursus at Coggeshall who hadn’t embraced the corruption, but were willing to go along with the corrupt’s ideas and might be in danger of turning on Coggeshall? Meikeljan didn’t trigger the rock, and he seemed quite emphatic he hadn’t done anything treasonous. Maybe Eona was just quick to anger and mete out punishment. On the other hand, maybe I was putting a lot of thought into something that wasn’t that important.
More important was focusing on the battle, on getting ready to do some killing. Or culling. Or both. Focus on the death dealing — that’s what I needed to do.
On and on we went until we got to a point where there was a small cleft between two tall standing stones, with the mountains rising up on either side. Our options were to go through the small walkway, or nothing. A perfect ambush spot or a perfect defensive choke point.
I stopped the group at the edge of some trees then looked back at Skeld.
He shrugged.
“You smell anything?” I asked him.
“You.”
“Anything else?”
“Lack of bathing has made you a bit, uh, ripe.”
I frowned at him. “I’m serious.”
“I wish I was joking.”
“You do smell bad,” Bear said from the side.
“Sorry,” Meikeljan concurred.
I looked up to the sky, expecting to see Fritz concurring on the stink. But I just caught his shadow and no honks about my stench.
“Bear,” I said, “mind doing a quick sneak and peek through there?”
“Delighted,” she said, her voice still sounding like shit from the choking. She leapt from my pauldron, alighting on the ground, and slipped out of sight.
“I doubt I smell much better,” Skeld said. “But you do have a tendency to bathe in blood, and I can’t imagine that helps your, uh, scent.”
“Your armor is a bit sticky,” Meikeljan said.
“Pipe down,” I snapped.
Bear reappeared, and leaned against the side of the rock wall.
“All clear,” she said.
I nodded, and waited for her to run back up to her perch before I stood back up.
“I’m assuming this is the valley up ahead,” I said, “and there’s a cave somewhere in the valley we need to find, and apparently stop some ritual.”
“At the west end,” Meikeljan said.
“Right,” I replied. “The west end. Anyone know which way is west?”
All three of my companions pointed the same direction: My left.
“Great.”
Walking through the small pass was a little claustrophobia-inducing since my shoulders were scraping against the sidewalls. When we got to the other side, I understood why it was called the Valley of Spears. There was a heavy layer of fog below, and piercing it with startling regularity were tall cedars whose branches only started above the fog.
“That is pretty dope,” I said, seeing how someone could find a place like this spiritual.
A ridiculously loud thump indicated Fritz had arrived.
“Not sure there’s space for you down there,” I said, turning to look at the goose.
“Fog.” Fritz replied.
“You think you can hang with us?” I asked. “Or are you going to fly above?”
Some of the heads looked out over the fog, while one stared at me.
“No. Can. See. From. Ah-bove.” He honked out.
“Okay, so?”
“Go. With.”
I smiled, glad he was coming. Fritz always came through in a pinch.
The path in front of us led down into the valley and the fog. I figured once we hit more level ground, we’d turn west. Pulling out the Eona’s rock, I double-checked, and, sure enough, west.
I set off at a jog.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
What had been a road on one side of the mountains had turned into little more than a dirt path on the foggy side. There wasn’t much in the way of grass down on the ground, so much as moss, lichen, and a shit-ton of pine needles. And hot springs. Lots of hot springs, everywhere. The path had to weave around them, and if you weren’t paying attention, it was very easy to just walk straight into nature’s Instant Pot.
I’d been to hot springs back on Earth, and though they were always relaxing and amazing, there was always a nasty smell to them. Sulfur or hot minerals or whatever it was. Here, though, there was no noticeable odor. Unless, you know, you were talking to Skeld, who’d probably point out how the Eau de Montana overpowered everything else.
Moving through the fog was eerie. We only had about twenty feet of visibility at the best of times, and getting close to one of the seeming infinite hot springs made the fog so much worse. I couldn’t imagine spending a long time there; my skin was already wet and clammy. But warm. I suppose if the choices were freezing to death or living life in the fog, you’d learn to make do. But the ursus had to wind up with mold all through their fur by the time spring came around.
The fog somehow seemed to muffle sounds — we couldn’t hear much of anything. There were tracks on the ground, something I picked up on thanks to my tracking skill, which gave them a little glow. There was plenty of nature about, rabbit tracks, fox tracks, squirrels aplenty. But other than that, virtually no evidence of sentient life. No birds, at least at this level. I imagined the above-the-fog layer was more their speed. You know, where they could see.
The first sign that we were on the right track, beyond my magic stone still pointing in front of us, were the tents. Camp sites had been in use for at least some time, but had been abandoned. Which surprised me — why were they abandoned? Nothing looked ruined so much as just left behind. There were some fire pits with pots still hanging above. Blankets and bedrolls were in the tents, as was armor. And weapons.
We stopped to investigate. It one hundred percent looked like someone had left the site with the full intent of returning to it, then just never came back. What food was there was rotting, blankets were rotting and bug filled. There were little things undone that made me assume those who’d been camping there were not just out for the day. I did take the armor that had been left behind, and tossed it in the unfillable knapsack, which Skeld was still carrying. Also the weapons. And the pot. I didn’t want to leave anything behind. Except the blankets. Mainly because I could see insects crawling around in there, and it grossed me out. Though, as we resumed our quiet walk through the fog, I realized that the unfillable knapsack would probably kill any bugs I put in there, so it might be a great way to sterilize blankets. Still wasn’t willing to take the chance, though.
The second sign that came was a bit more disgusting. The hot springs just past the abandoned campsites weren’t as, uh, pure as the ones we’d passed by earlier. These ones had…stuff in them. Whatever had been there had already boiled off into pure nastiness, but the bones still remained. Bones that looked decidedly humanoid. The corrupted ones had been using the hot springs as giant cooking pots. It smelled horrific. It really was like something out of a horror film. But, like, one of those ones made in Italy in the late seventies that was banned in lots of countries and you could only find it on really deep darkweb movie sites.
No one was willing to say anything, maybe in f
ear of vomiting. Maybe just because there’s not a whole lot you can say about such overt displays of cannibalism. If it was cannibalism. Could have just been cooking other sentient beings. The thing that really got me, the tiny skulls which, if you discounted the shape, you might be able to convince yourself were from creatures like Meikeljan. But as soon as you were honest, you’d know it was babies. Of some kind.
We continued on, and the path started to go up, working its way between large rocks.
And ahead, there was light. Something burning, since the light was flickering. We were about to reach the cave.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Stepping into the cave was like stepping into a completely different world. The warm fog disappeared almost immediately, and was replaced by a cold, wet darkness. The walls were slick with moisture, and there were incessant drips from countless points on the ceiling. Thick, crude candles put out sputtering light, as well as inky black smoke, here and there. And given the smell coming off them, they must have been made out of something vile.
We only made it about ten yards into the cave before I stopped Skeld to pull a sword and shield from the bag.
“You two stick with Skeld,” I said to Bear and Meikeljan. “Fritz, stay between me and them. You are all the back-up here. I’m doing the heavy lifting, okay?”
Nods from a bunch of heads. Mainly the eight belonging to Fritz.
The path went down, and it really felt like we were heading deeper into the earth. The candles continued along, seemingly placed at random intervals alongside the path. Far ahead, I could see a cavern wall, and the path took a hard right. About halfway down the path, I started to hear noises, but they were hard to place. A bit like howling, a bit like wind, a bit like screaming. And there were other sounds mixed in, things I couldn’t even identify. Getting closer to the curve just made the noise louder, and stranger.
At the curve, I stopped. Then I inched out just enough to peek around and see what might have been making the noise. Around the corner, the cave opened up some, becoming a chamber about forty yards long, twenty or so wide, and twenty or so tall. The path continued through the chamber, going right down the middle, almost perfectly bisecting the room. The far wall of the chamber was hazy, and didn’t quite seem right. Kind of like someone had painted the pattern of a cave wall over a window looking onto a desert. It was really odd. On either side of the path were corpses in stacks. A wide range of bodies, but mostly ursus. Two ursus remained upright. They both stood in front of the wall-window combo, looking corrupted as fuck. Smoke rose from their claws. Both were emaciated, though, with bone showing through in places as if all the muscle had been scratched away. Their fur had fallen off and left patches of raw skin as well.
I watched the taller of the two reach over and grab his compatriot, then rip the poor bastard’s head off. The living one angled the body at the wall, spraying it down with hot blood erupting out of the headless corpse.
The wall flickered. There was an audible pop and the haziness was pulled back and gathered around the edges of the wall, forming a border of sorts. It was iridescent, and buzzing, but the wall was gone, leaving the desert landscape clear. It was pretty obvious I was looking at a portal.
“Found the portal,” I whispered over my shoulder.
Wherever this portal led, though, was not Vuldranni. Or Earth. The sky was different. I could see two moons in what I took to be daylight. The sky was a pale cerulean interrupted by brownish clouds. There was little but dust around, nothing breaking the horizon. It looked a bit like the hellscape where Nikolai and I had ventured while going through WarWaters, but there was more going on in the hellscape. This was desolate. Dead.
A creature walked into view.
It was large, as tall as the ursus, but seemed like it was also hunched over. The robes it wore did quite a bit to cover the creature’s true form. Like if it stood up straight, it might be twenty feet tall. Everything on the creature was the same color, a brownish-greyish hue that was more like a decided lack of color than anything else. Eyes, skin, lips, clothes — it was monochromatic in a way I had never seen before.
The creature had a bulbous head with long thin eyes that didn’t seem like they should work. A mouth took up the center of the face, and its eyes were placed exactly on either side of that. The mouth was very round, and had teeth all the way around it, coming out of the lips and curving inward, thin like needles at the end, but surprisingly thick at the base so that they almost touched.
“Usthol,” the thing in the desert said. “You have taken your time.”
They were speaking in Ursusian.
“There have been complications, Yarchrontor.” Usthol said. “But though I have been forced to sacrifice my own to bring this portal to bear, I have yet succeeded.”
I stifled a chuckle. The bear pun was terrible, but it got me.
“As it should be,” the creature named Yarchrontor said. “The great one still slumbers. You must have one sacrifice remaining to wake him.”
“I have only myself.”
Yarchrontor stepped across the portal as if it was nothing, entering the cavern. It reached out with something between an arm and a tentacle that emerged from between folds of its robes and touched Usthol.
“You have enough power,” the creature said. “But barely.”
These guys. I put my hand over my mouth.
“I am ready,” Usthol said, dropping to a knee. “Our master will destroy this world, yes?”
“Yes,” Yarchrontor said, with what I could only imagine was a sense of joy. The thing seemed happy.
“Then I am ready.”
Usthol bent his head forward.
“You must be fed to the great one,” the creature said. “He needs your energy to pass over to this world.”
The big bear nodded, and stood up.
“I am ready.”
“Can we hold on just a second?” I asked, stepping around the corner.
Both Yarchrontor and Usthol were startled. They whipped around and looked at me.
“You,” seethed Usthol, “it is him who has caused all the problems. Him who has kept the great one from—”
“I think it’s ‘he who has,’” I corrected. “Not ‘him.’”
The corrupted ursus made a growling noise while the other creature eyed me with interest.
“I will enjoy gutting you,” Usthol said, “and bathing in your blood, eating your entrails and—”
“Buddy,” I said, “before you finish your culinary exposé on me, can I ask you a question? Are you really the last of the corrupted?”
He just looked at me, either unwilling or unable to answer.
“Because,” I continued, “I came out here to kill all of you. All the corrupted ursus. I came ready to rock, to fight and probably die in the process. Maybe more than once. But now that I’m here, you’re all there is? The very last one? And you’re, what, running away?”
“I will never run from you,” Usthol said.
“I’d hope not,” I replied. “I already feel like this was all a pretty gigantic waste of my time.”
It was just so ridiculous. I’d been building this whole thing up in my head, agonizing over what I was going to have to do, and how I’d live with myself after it. And then this fuckhead went and did all the dirty work for me and left me holding my dick in my hand. Figuratively speaking, I mean. My brain was spinning in circles, disappointed and weirded out. I might have just walked away right there, except the creature from the other world made an ululating noise that reverberated around the cavern so loudly that I winced. My eyes closed involuntarily and my brain emptied.
As I opened them, another of the weird alien creatures rushed at me. Behind it, I could see Usthol grabbing an axe that had been on the ground.
“No,” snapped Yarchrontor. “You must not be lost before—”
I knew what I had to do, which was what I’d come here to do: kill all the corrupted ursus. Well, the one remaining corrupted ursus.
; I took a low stance, caught the charge of the creature, and shield-bashed it into the left wall. Then I stepped forward and launched the sword, end over end, smiling as it impaled Usthol right through the stomach.
“Not a perfect throw,” I said, “but it’ll do.”
Usthol looked at the blade sticking out of his belly. Yarchrontor snarled in clear frustration. Usthol then laughed, ripped the blade out, and tossed it aside.
“We will use him,” he said to Yarchrontor.
“Weapon?” I called back to Skeld.
An axe flew through the air at me. I caught it with just enough time to bring it around and block the claw coming from the creature I’d shield-bashed.
But the creature had some serious strength behind his hit, and I slid across the slick floor and smashed into the right wall.
I jumped off the wall and brought the axe down hard into the creature. It brought its arm up to take the blow, and the axe crashed through the bone of the forearm before lodging into its torso, splitting apart the brown robes. Sludge came out of the cut. The same brownish-grey color as everything else.
A quick Sparta kick sent the creature to the ground. I stepped on the corpse, ripping my axe free.
GG! You’ve killed a Sakaak Glak (Great One Parasite Priest Lvl §ÐÆ).
You’ve earned þƒ¥§ XP! What a mighty hero you are.
A parasite. Lovely. And what the fuck was up with the levels? They weren’t numbers I knew. Or letters. It was gibberish. Same with the XP. What the fuck was going on?
Looking up from the corpse, I realized I didn’t have time to ruminate on the gibberish, there was another sakaak glak coming for me, pell-mell.
I got my axe up and into a power throw.
It was a perfect hit that slammed right into the sakaak’s head. I’d done a solid job of bisecting the beast. But as that creature died, it just revealed a whole new terror behind it.