"Hey!" the man said, looking embarrassed. "I kept the wagon from rolling down that hill. It's hard to get fired when you've never actually done anything wrong. I'm Baird Tulman, by the way. "
"What my soon-to-be son-in-law fails to mention," Wil said with a grimace, "is that the reason they almost tipped was because his attention was on writing a letter to my daughter when he should have been watching where our wagon was going. All it takes is one major mistake with a Hawkpurse family to find yourself not only without a job, but also unable to find a new one. And that's if they go easy on you. My one friend, Dade Trilman, lost a delivery for the Soushade family once and they--"
"There you go again," Baird cut in, "telling that same old story. No one has ever even heard of this so-called friend of yours. I think you just made up that story. If the all of the Hawkpurse families were as bad as you say, I doubt they would let you go on spreading rumors about them."
"They don't do anything because they are too powerful to worry about a simple man like me. And Dade was a real person, he lived down by..."
Ean felt a nudge at his side and turned to see Phil tapping him lightly with his elbow.
"They will be at this for a while, I think," Phil whispered. "Might as well get some of the stew and sit back and watch the show."
Leaning in, Lyde voiced his opinion as well. "This happens every night. My brother is a bit of a hot head and his future son-in-law is as stubborn as a rock. We don't let them drive the wagons together during the day, but we let them go at each other at night. It's great entertainment, and I think it lets them both relieve a little stress. Here," he said, passing a bowl and spoon to Ean, "help yourself to the stew."
Ean accepted the bowl and filled it with a warm, steaming broth from the pot over the fire. The stew contained bits of vegetables and meat, nothing special but certainly filling. He enjoyed it so much that he ate two more bowlfuls, all the while Wil and Baird argued over everything from how to properly catch fish in the pond in their village to how best to seal a roof. Ean couldn't keep track of how the topics changed so rapidly, but he did agree with Wil's brothers--it was certainly entertaining to watch the two.
The arguments stopped when they both realized that the stew was almost completely gone, and all five of them sat around talking about their families and homes. Except for Ean, of course. After seeing Trait's reaction when he had mentioned Rottwealth, he decided to make up a story about growing up in Rensen. It turned out the other four had never been there, so Ean was free to make up whatever suited him. After telling what he considered to be an excellent story, which concluded with his brush with the bandits that attacked the village, Ean deflected the attention back to the other men. It wasn't hard; all four of them seemed to love to talk.
They ended up talking well into the night. By the time they were all yawning more than speaking, all three moons hung high in the sky. Wil offered to give Ean and Azalea a ride the following morning and took a few moments to show him where their wagon was sitting. Thanking Wil for his hospitality, Ean made his way back to his tent.
To his surprise, he found Azalea missing from the tent and not asleep as he had hoped, but he should have known better. Focusing his attention, he could feel the stronger aura that Azalea's connection to the Abyss gave off but figured he would leave her be. Azalea had promised to stay out of trouble after all, and if they were going to be traveling together, he had to start trusting her.
Zin, of course, was also nowhere to be found. It took a little more effort for Ean to feel the imp's much smaller presence. Ean eventually sensed him towards the other side of the camp, more along the edges of it actually. With a lack of rats or other small vermin about, the imp was probably stealing real food from the various camps. Ean silently wished him luck as he crawled into the tent. With the flaps tied closed behind him and a full stomach, the darkness of the tent helped Ean to drift right off to sleep.
EAN KNEW RIGHT AWAY he was dreaming, but it felt different. He didn't have any control of his body, but all of his senses felt enhanced. It was like he was trapped in someone else's body, stuck watching what their eyes could see, feeling what their body felt, without the ability to control even the slightest movement. He also couldn't make himself wake up, which worried him the most. Unable to do anything other than hope for the best, Ean watched through eyes that were not his own as he exited a small, dark, stone room.
The body he was hitching a ride with raised a hand to shield his eyes as he exited the room, and that was the first indication that he wasn't human. When the hand pulled away Ean was looking at four fingers where there should have been five. The skin of the hand was a dark yellow and covered in ridges. Both the hand and his arm were covered in scars as well, some old and some new, but that didn't seem to bother his host as he took a look around.
He was in a circular stone room, similar to the one he had just exited, except much larger. The walls stretched up and out of sight in the darkness above him. On the other side of the room was another doorway, a large stone door--about the height of the creature he was inhabiting-- and was currently closed. The air felt heavy as his body breathed it in with short, controlled breaths. It also had a particularly nasty taste to it, but that in no way compared to the smell.
Ean had been around dead or rotting bodies before. It was part of his job after all as a Healer, well at least in Rottwealth where the Soulbearers never came. So he was used to the horrible smell that a body gave off a few days after death. The smell in this room, however, was like nothing he had ever experienced before. Being in a room with one dead body would be like sitting out in a field of flowers compared to the smell that assaulted his nose here.
There was the smell of death--that much was obvious--as if dozens of bodies had been left in the room to rot. The smell of feces and urine was mixed in as well, which overwhelmed even the smell of rotting flesh. That, and whatever other smells were in the room, made Ean want to vomit, but apparently whatever person or thing he inhabited had a much stronger stomach. Instead, the yellow-skinned creature walked further into the room with a confident stride, as if he had been here many times before.
As he moved, the gate across from him swung open, revealing a creature pulled straight from a nightmare. The monster looked like someone had pulled off the scariest pieces of every insect, jammed them together, and then increased its size to twice that of a man. It stepped out of the opposite room on two pairs of shelled black legs as long as a man's entire body, which ended in tiny points instead of feet. Those legs connected to a more humanoid body high above them, although it was covered in what appeared to be a dark violet carapace. Two tiny appendages similar to its legs came out of its sides just above the hips while a regular set of arms sat just above them. Instead of hands though, those arms ended in a large pair of pinchers almost as long as the creature's torso. At the top of the thick, shelled body sat a head that sent chill's through his body.
A round insect-like face with pinchers coming out of its mouth and eight tiny black eyes stared back at Ean, or whomever Ean was inhabiting in this dream. A word, Amalgagrim, popped into his mind. Looking through the eyes of someone else, Ean felt the first emotion from his host: fear.
"Let the entertainment begin!" boomed a coarse voice from somewhere high overhead. It was immediately followed by the sounds of cheering and yelling, most of the words lost in the din above. When Ean could pick out a particular voice from the mess, it was usually in a language that he didn't understand.
As the noise from above increased, the creature across from Ean began to move, slowly weaving to the left then right, as if it was impossible for the Amalgagrim to move in a straight line. In response, his host let out a primal roar and lifted his four arms into the air, spreading them wide.
That's when things started to click into place--the four fingers, yellowish skin, four arms...he was in a Cruxlum!
As Ean watched the creature across from him move slowly in his direction, a thought appeared in his head that he kne
w was not his own.
Testing me, to see if I will blindly rush in and attack.
The words came to him in the Cruxlum's language, but he understood them as if the thoughts had been in his own native tongue. Was it because of the dream, or was this more than a dream? As usual, Ean had multiple questions and absolutely no answers. He was forced to simply ride along in the body of the Cruxlum and see what happened.
"I need to be ready for it," the Cruxlum thought, its eyes locked on the other creature. "It's faster than the size of its body would imply. It will feint with its pinchers. Its usual attack is to try and skewer its victim's legs with the points of its own front legs. That is how it will attack first and will be my best chance to counter and kill it quick."
An image of the Cruxlum getting behind the other creature quickly flashed in Ean's mind. He pictured himself, the Cruxlum, grabbing the head of the monster with all four hands and twisting as sharply as possible. In the brief image, he saw that the Cruxlum would probably lose a finger or two to the Amalgagrim's powerful mandibles, but it would be an acceptable loss if it assured him a quick victory.
All Ean could do while the thoughts of the Cruxlum bounced around his head was silently wish it luck.
Without warning, the creature rushed straight at him, its four pointed legs making loud clicking sounds as their points struck the stone floor. As the Cruxlum expected, it was fast, closing the distance between them in an instant. Its left pincher struck out towards his right side.
The Cruxlum dodged the blow, moving just enough that the shelled appendage harmlessly brushed against his side. Then he rolled forward underneath the creature, narrowly dodging the creature's front right leg as it crashed down where the Cruxlum's left thigh had been only moments before.
Grunting, the Cruxlum let his momentum carry him underneath and completely past the Amalgagrim. He rolled to his feet, turning around and leaping back without looking, hoping the creature was still standing in the same place. When all he felt was air, both the Cruxlum and Ean knew that the plan had failed.
All the Cruxlum could do was watch as he sailed over the monster, which had spread its legs out wide and dropped low to the ground. Ean watched as well, his host's body twisted in the air and tried to dodge the pincher that reached up for him. It clamped down on the Cruxlum's ankle, sending a jolt of pain through his body. The pincher tried to crush through skin and bone, causing such an intense pain that Ean knew if it had been his body, he would easily have succumbed to unconsciousness.
The Cruxlum, however, stayed focused, even as the pincher stopped his momentum and slammed his body down to the ground. Ignored the pain, the Cruxlum was able to twist in the creature's grip so that he was on his back. This allowed him to get his two lower hands up just in time to catch the Amalgagrim's leg as it tried to slam down and impale his body.
The Cruxlum struggled with the leg while the pain of the creature's pincher slowly bit deeper into his ankle. That pain suddenly increased as the creature used its pincher to hold its own body up enough so that it could send the end of its other front leg straight towards the Cruxlum's face.
Again the Cruxlum was able to grab the creature's leg, this time with its upper set of hands. The creature tried one last attack, sending its free pincher towards the Cruxlum's head as well but was unable to get at an angle to either catch his head or his arms with it. At a stalemate, the Cruxlum and the creature stayed locked in their position, both struggling against the other to obtain some kind of advantage.
Trying his best to focus his own thoughts through the Cruxlum's pain, Ean knew the stalemate wouldn't last long. He could already feel the Cruxlum's strength waning as he was forced to hold the creature aloft by its front legs.
Soon, both of those legs started to lower, their pointed ends getting closer and closer to the Cruxlum's body as they flailed about above him.
The Cruxlum's upper arms nearly gave out, dropping the creature low enough that the point of its leg was able to slice into his right cheek and down to his chin. The pain and the blood dripping into his mouth brought on a second wind, or perhaps a surge of desperation, and the Cruxlum was able to slowly lift the creature back up into the air. But it would only be a matter of time before the last of his strength gave out and those pointed legs did real damage.
"There is no glory in death."
The Cruxlum's thought was like a shout in Ean's mind. If he had been in his own body, Ean would have shrunken back from the power of the thought as it cut through all the pain.
"There is no glory in death, unless that death comes as the price of victory."
Ean did not like the sound of that. He had no idea what was going on, if this was a dream or something more, but he certainly hoped the Cruxlum's death wouldn't lead to his own. Another image from the Cruxlum flashed across his mind, this time showing the right leg of the creature piercing the Cruxlum's stomach.
"No!" Ean shouted in his mind. He knew it was useless, but he continued to shout anyway. How would getting stabbed in the gut help him be victorious? As a sense of peace settled into the Cruxlum's body intertwining with the pain, Ean began shouting louder. The mad creature really was going to let it happen!
All four of the Cruxlum's arms began to lower slowly, allowing those pointed ends to get closer and closer to his skin. The creature, which had been quiet the entire battle, began to make excited chittering noises. It saw the end coming.
With one last push, the Cruxlum lifted both of the creature's legs slightly higher, then let his lower two hands slip off the creature's right front leg. Letting out a few more chitters and clacks, the creature drove its now free leg down.
An explosion of pain ripped through the Cruxlum's stomach, the sensation so strong, it made the pain Ean felt after a summoning feel like a stubbed toe.
The leg made a crunching sound as it traveled all the way through the Cruxlum's body and struck the stone floor underneath. The force and the momentum of the blow caused the creature to tip slightly to its right, forcing its left leg to move higher instead of crashing down to finish the Cruxlum off.
And that is when Ean, through all of the pain and anguish he was experiencing with his host, felt the Cruxlum's lips twist up into a smile.
With a strength and speed Ean did not think possible, his lower hands shot out and joined his upper hands in gripping the creature's front left leg. With a sudden jerk and twist of all four arms, the Cruxlum snapped the creature's leg in two places, and then yanked with all of his might.
The pain and surprise were clear in the creature's ugly face as it toppled to its side, clawed arms and legs flailing in every direction. It tried to catch itself with its destroyed leg as its pincher lost its grip on the Cruxlum's ankle, but the leg simply folded up at the places it was broken, and the creature rolled to its side. The momentum also pulled its right leg out from the Cruxlum's body as it fell, freeing Ean's host.
Pushing himself up on wobbly arms and legs, the Cruxlum seemed oblivious to the pain that Ean felt crippled by. He regained his feet, letting all four arms dangle at his side, and watched as the creature tried and failed to right itself.
With grim determination, the Cruxlum hobbled around the creature, staying out of reach of flailing pinchers and legs, until he was positioned behind it. Taking his time, he reached out with his four large hands and carefully gripped the creature's head, his patience allowing him to grip it in a way that didn't sacrifice any fingers to the creature's mandibles.
The creature began flailing about even more wildly as the Cruxlum's hands squeezed tighter and tighter, but its pinchers could not reach him. Gathering what little strength the Cruxlum had left, he closed his eyes for a moment, taking away Ean's only way of knowing what was happening. Ean felt one of the Crux's feet step on the back of the creature, and then the Crux took a deep breath.
With a surge of his muscles, he yanked backwards while pushing off his foot. In the darkness, Ean felt the resistance of the creature's body to the effort and then heard
the sickening tearing sound as the strength of the Cruxlum won out and the creature's head was torn from his body.
The Cruxlum stumbled for a moment, and then stood still, his eyes closed and the creature's head in his hands. He took deep breaths, his nostrils catching the scent of both his own life seeping out of his wound, as well as the putridness of the creature's blood. There were erratic sounds of the creature flailing about, diminishing to a small rustling sound as the creature's body began to succumb to death. And over it all, over the pain and the agony, both Ean and the Cruxlum heard the thunderous cheers coming from above and all around them.
"Victory is mine," the Cruxlum thought, finally opening his eyes, pride and joy almost drowning out the pain and the noise for the briefest of moments. "The glory is mine."
As the thought drifted through his mind, the Cruxlum's legs finally gave out and he dropped to his knees. The creature's head tumbled from his grip, bouncing once off the stone floor and then rolling away. Numbness swept through his body, and Ean could feel the blood from the wound flowing down his side. It was then that the Cruxlum looked down at the wound, allowing Ean to see the damage as well.
A large hole, spilling blood, gaped on the right side of his abdomen. The hole was in a place that the Cruxlum knew did not hit any organs, but he pictured himself dying anyway. And yet somehow that knowledge seemed to bring Ean's host peace instead of fear, which was fine because Ean was feeling enough fear for the both of them. The Cruxlum might be ready to accept his own death, but Ean certainly wasn't in the same state of mind. Unfortunately, there seemed to be nothing that he could do.
"Well done! Well done!" The same gravelly voice that Ean had first heard high overhead was now coming from behind him. The voice soured the Crux's sense of pride at his victory.
Descent Into Darkness (Book 2) Page 6