by B. V. Larson
“Rise milord, rise, please rise!” she screamed at him. She pulled her thick hand back for another slap, but he caught her wrist.
“Why do you weep, woman?”
Sobbing, wordlessly, she pointed to the window. Gruum heard a keening cry, a mortal cry of such great fear and agony that it bordered upon the unnatural. It came from beyond the window. He threw open the shutters and looked down into the permanently night-shrouded courtyard.
There stood Vosh, in the very act of sucking the life and soul from Cagen. On his knees before the skeletal figure, Cagen howled his life away. Blood ran from his eyes and the flesh of his face sagged as if melting.
“Save him, milord, please,” wept Gertrice.
Gruum took up his saber and drew it. The blade glittered with its own light, and Gruum wondered if it might now be sharp enough to cut through the ancient bones of a lich. He began to climb out the window, but Therian’s touch slowed him.
He glanced back. Therian, half-slumped against the wall in his weakness, shook his head.
“You can do nothing.”
“Wrong,” growled Gruum, “I can at least slay the boy with one clean stroke.”
Therian shook his head again, “Then your soul would feed the lich in his stead.”
“Please, lords, I will do anything,” begged the innkeep. She grasped them and shook their shoulders.
“I am too weak to face him, milady,” said Therian. “Is there anyone else living here?”
Sobbing, she shook her head.
Therian took her chin and lifted it. As she watched, he drew Seeker. “Milady, I need your strength to defeat Vosh. Do you understand?”
Gertrice’s eyes widened. She eyed Therian’s curved blade, and the horrific truth swept over her features.
After a terrible moment of decision, she nodded. Her eyes remained fixed upon the blade as she spoke, “Do you swear, my lord, that my boy’s soul will be freed?”
“Upon the crown of Hyborea, I do so swear, milady. Else, my soul will take the place of his.”
Gruum reached out, wanting to stop this thing, but his arms slumped back down. He saw no other way. He turned his face away, sickened.
Gertrice sagged down to her knees before Therian. He aided her with what strength he had in his weak arms. Therian spoke dark words. He raised Seeker to the ceiling and then struck off her bowed head with a single clean stroke.
A great sickly green flash enveloped Therian and power swept through him. The head thumped and rolled in front of Gruum. Gertrice’s face was forever locked in a scream of terror as she met a fate he could only guess at. He reached down, trying not to retch, and closed her eyes with his fingers.
Loosing a savage cry of from the steppes, he whirled and leapt out of the window into the courtyard.
Cagen had at last stopped screaming out his life and soul. Even as Gruum charged forward to behead the boy and end the horror, the lich finished feasting. Cagen’s husk folded upon itself and flopped down like a deflated bladder. Grotesquely limp, it sprawled at Vosh’s feet.
Gruum’s charge faltered, feeling defeated. The boy’s soul was gone. He felt ill. He circled the lich, uncertain as to how to attack such a creature. Would striking its skull from its spine slay it or only amuse it?
Vosh turned to him and cocked his skull at an odd, thoughtful angle. The creature extended a finger to indicate Cagen’s collapsed body. “Rarely, have I feasted upon so rich a soul. Extended life, rich of limb, bone and blood—it tasted of both youth and age at once. It was like a rare vintage of wine, something I’ve not savored for so many centuries.”
“Your words are wistful, Vosh,” said Therian, stepping up behind Gruum.
Gruum gulped with relief to have Therian at his side, he could hear the stolen strength surging in his lord’s voice.
Vosh addressed Therian, “Ah, well met again, young King. Our last encounter was all too brief.”
“Do you miss life, Vosh? Do you miss having flesh to hang from your bones?”
Vosh put a finger bone to his jaw, striking a philosopher’s pose. “At times, yes,” he admitted. “But there are so many tiresome details to existence when one is clad in meat. Eating, fornicating—pain and pleasure. Existence is much cleaner for me now, if a bit more dull. You will find death relaxing, I would wager.”
“I feel that life still suits me well enough.”
Vosh pointed suddenly to the dripping blade of Seeker. “Fresh blood! You have consumed the other. What a shame. I am sure that her soul would have tasted no less sweet than that of her son. Really, you should follow Yserth as I do, Therian. You would no longer need that blade. It is only a crutch you know, and by using it you taste nothing of the life you consume.”
As they conversed, Gruum and Therian each stepped a few paces apart. They now faced the lich from different angles, but the creature seemed unconcerned by their tactics.
“Perhaps I miss out upon certain unearthly pleasures,” replied Therian, lifting his swords slowly, “but I enjoy a thousand other sensations you are denied. You speak of flesh being tiresome, but then wax eloquent upon the one sensation you can still experience.”
Vosh nodded. “Touché, young one. I can’t deny your point. I take it then that you will not swear your soul to Yserth?”
Therian gave a slight shake of his head.
“Again, we are at an impasse and I’m afraid there must be conflict. It saddens me, as I truly feel a growing kinship for you.”
Gruum shuddered. Again he thought of Therian becoming like Vosh. Could he serve such a creature?
“What must be, must be,” said Therian. Then, as one, Gruum and Therian rushed to close with the monster, blades upraised.
Vosh quickly caressed the slumped form of Cagen with the web-work of bones that served as his hand. The corpse lurched up with a sickening wet sound and met Gruum.
Gruum hacked at the rubbery corpse, and it clutched at his saber. Fingers and broad slices of flesh splattered. Still, the thick arms reached for him. Gruum found himself in the horrible embrace of the dead. He struggled, but it squeezed the breath from him. The remaining fingers found a hold upon his hair and pulled great bloody patches from his scalp. He screamed.
Therian fared no better. Vosh had summoned a shadow-creature, like the one Therian had called days earlier. Smoky flesh grasped for Therian and he hacked at it. Shimmering wads of nothingness were sliced free from its body to float down and lie there quivering upon the cobblestones of the courtyard. Still it came on, and struck the king a hard blow that knocked Succor from his grasp. Another sweeping fist sent him sprawling. Therian sprang back up, and the two figures locked arms and struggled like wrestlers. Only the unnatural power in Therian’s limbs kept him from succumbing instantly.
Vosh shook his head sadly. “You fight so well. Truly, Hyborea has seen few champions that could wrestle on even terms with such a creature. I grieve that I must devour such proud souls. Know, child-king, that your passing will at least provide a burst of rare flavor upon a very discerning palette.”
With these words, Vosh approached Therian, who stood locked in an embrace with the shadow creature. The lich reached forward to caress his brow.
Gruum wheezed and felt the world blacken for a moment, such was the power in the dead limbs that gripped him. All his years of tavern fights did little to help. He scratched and kneed the slab of meat that held him, but was not rewarded with any reaction, not even a grunt from the breathless lips. Beyond his sight, he heard Therian begin his death cry, the unmistakable sound of a man losing his soul.
Desperate, Gruum pulled his dagger loose and slashed the tendons on the creature’s hands and wrists. Oblivious to the ghastly wounds, the thing simply continued to crush him. Once the hands were weakened however, it was unable to grasp him, and he wriggled free. Snatching up his saber, he raced to Therian’s aide.
Therian was on his knees, with the shadow creature and the lich stooped over him. Gruum swung his saber with everything he had. Vosh’s s
kull popped free and crunched down upon the cobblestones.
The skull growled in annoyance. “You can’t slay the dead, fool.”
The spell seemed to be broken, however. Vosh’s body stood up and lurched to pick up its fallen skull.
Therian stopped screaming, but still the shadow creature held him. Gruum hacked at it, too, and then he was struck from behind by Cagen’s corpse, which had shambled up behind him. The shadow creature screamed and turned on Gruum who had hurt it, and Gruum was pummeled by harsh blows from both sides. He fell and tried to crawl away, but was kicked down again.
Then Dragon speech rent the air and a great flash of light lit up the scene. The shadow creature loosed a screech and fled, seeking darkness. Therian stood with Succor, the blade of which ran with intense, rippling white fire.
Therian hacked the limbs from the zombie with a butcher’s speed and precision. He kicked the flailing parts in all directions, leaving only the flopping torso upon the cobbles of the courtyard. He then advanced upon Vosh, who sought to cast another spell.
He plunged the point of his blade through the lich’s ribcage to no good effect. Then he knocked the skull from the creature’s grasp and raised his sword to smash it to dust.
The skull spoke then, “Pray, let us strike a bargain. You are damaging me too greatly.”
“It is a trick! Strike!” urged Gruum.
Panting and bleeding, Therian loomed over the fallen skull.
“I will bargain.”
“Excellent. I grant thee free passage from this place, in turn—”
“No,” said Therian, “I will speak the terms. You must release the soul of Cagen. Then you will leave this place and never bother us again.”
“Never? Never is a long time, young one. No immortal could swear to such a thing.”
“Very well, you will not harm us again nor anyone in my kingdom, for a year and a day.”
“Done, but why do you care about the boy’s soul? It is already numbered among my favorites.”
“I have sworn to free it.”
“Ah!” said Vosh in sudden understanding. “I had counted you a fool for parlaying at all, but now I understand. A King such as you must have honor. I do agree to your terms. I do swear by the great, beating heart of Yserth, it shall be as you have spoken.”
“I do swear by the crown of Hyborea and the blood of Anduin, it shall be as we have agreed.”
-20-
They could not bury the bodies, as there was no soil. They made crude cairns of black stone in the courtyard instead. Gruum said a few words in his native tongue, committing the lost souls to the wind and the grass beneath the bright sun. He had not much hope that his benediction would see them through their dark paths, however.
Therian said nothing.
When Gruum had finished his ritual, and placed the last stone upon Cagen’s warped visage, the ground beneath his feet lurched. A rumbling sound, like that of a falling wall of stone, grew into a roar in his ears. Gruum fell to his face and watched in shock as their cairns were scattered and knocked asunder. Therian somehow kept his feet, riding the rippling ground as a master horseman might stand upon the bare back of a galloping pony.
Gruum felt and heard something of incredible bulk rising up behind him. Stones clattered down in a loose rain. Daring to turn his head, his jaw dropped open and he screamed, but the sound could not be heard over the din of moving stone.
The Inn had transformed. The door now stood open, emitting a red glare reminiscent of deep eternal fires. As it rose up, the door became an opening, and finally a fanged maw. The windows on the second floor shone with a pale green radiance. The windows had shifted, becoming eyes, and they regarded the two puny men in the courtyard balefully. Gruum thought to recognize those green eyes; he knew he gazed again upon the goddess he had met in his dreams. In the blackness beyond and below the great head, a long serpent’s neck extended into inky blackness.
Gruum stopped screaming as silence fell over them, broken only by the slow roaring wind of the creature’s breath and the occasional clattering of stones dropped from a great height.
Therian addressed the monstrosity. “You grace us with your true form, Anduin.”
“I had not thought it possible that a mortal could cause me grief,” came the grating reply. The voice was the sound of boulders grinding together, yet somehow these noises formed speech. So loud was the voice that Gruum felt it in his very bones. “But you Therian, have managed it this day. You have slain my innkeep, she who hath served me for millennia. It seems you have a gift for bringing strife and death wherever you journey.”
“Your teachings have worked changes upon me.”
“Perhaps. Although I believe you were a twisted spider at birth, in both body and spirit.”
“I wish only to serve you as your champion, my Lady.”
“And what of this other?”
Gruum managed to get to his feet. He saw no benefit in groveling. Life or death would be met either way, and either was best met standing. His knees felt like water, however.
“He is my servant and companion.”
“Good. I would test your quality and his. I require a sacrifice as payment for my innkeep.”
Gruum paled.
“If you require more blood, then you will have it, milady, but—”
“Yes?”
“I have your promise that I will gain the status of your champion with this act?”
Anduin grew wrathful. “You will do as I ask or you will cease to exist. Do not question my word, mortal.”
Therian bowed. “Apologies, milady.” He turned to Gruum and said simply, “defend yourself.”
Gruum, blinking in surprise, drew his saber. Without ceremony, Therian attacked. Seeker and Succor flickered in the half-light, darting out to take his life with blinding speed and precision. Gruum parried, riposted, but his saber was off-handedly beaten away and the counterstrike nearly took off his head. Gruum gave ground after that, desperately fighting for his life. With the aid of his newly enchanted blade, he fought well—in fact he knew in his heart that he had never fought better—but it was a losing struggle against the tireless Therian.
“Is this it then? All this and now vengeance?”
Therian stepped back and Gruum was glad to see the other’s inhuman sides did heave a bit. Gruum himself was bathed in sweat and nearly exhausted, but he struck an easy pose.
“You speak of my Queen,” said Therian.
“Throughout this venture I’ve felt your ire, but I did not know its source until you spoke with Anduin.”
Therian pursed his lips and lifted his eyebrows. “You heard my conversation with the Dark Lady?”
“I did, I was there, same as you.”
Therian shook his head and smiled. “Such dreams are unique to each witness.” As he spoke, he began to circle Gruum again, Seeker held high, Succor poised at waist-level.
Gruum kept pace with him, his guard up. “Just the same, you know it is I who released her. Why have you not slain me for it?”
Therian slashed low, Gruum leapt over the blade and thrust, but somehow Succor flickered up and caught the attack, deflecting it. Therian came on then, and Gruum thought to see true anger in his master’s eyes, something horrible to behold. Blows rained upon him, and his arm ached with the effort it took to parry and dodge each of them. He knew he could not last long under this onslaught.
“Don’t you even want to know why I let her go?” Gruum asked, trying not to sound desperate.
Again Therian stepped back. He made an unconcerned gesture with Seeker. “You became lustful for her charms, as would most men. You wanted to save her from her fate, to possibly possess her yourself. What more is there to say?”
“Not just that,” Gruum managed to get out, then Therian was on him again, a wolf with swords instead of fangs. Gruum’s parries became more desperate, and suddenly his leather jerkin was laid open and red line appeared upon his breast.
Again, Therian stepped back. �
��And what other reason would you have me believe?”
“She was destroying you. Even as you were destroying her.”
Therian laughed aloud at this, but with little humor. “Ah, I see. You did it all for me.”
Therian struck once, twice, thrice. Gruum’s blade fell from his stunned hand. Gruum lunged close. They embraced, straining. Gruum had his dagger out, but Therian easily forced back his hand.
Gasping, Gruum managed to hiss out, “it was best for you both that she escaped, so that you could focus upon your real work.”
Therian dashed him to the ground and raised his sword for the deathblow. But Gruum rolled away and grabbed up his saber even as Seeker sparked upon the cobbles.
Both men stood there for a moment, breathing hard, blades shifting in their grips.
Finally, Therian stepped back and addressed Anduin, who quietly watched the two tiny mortals, “Would thou hast me slay so worthy a swordsman, a man that can stand before the might of a sorcerer king wielding Hyborean blades of old?”
“But is he as loyal as he is capable?”
Therian turned back to face the panting Gruum, who had taken the respite to take up his saber again. He wiped the sweat from his palms, grimly ready to finish this fight for his life.
Therian nodded to him, and mouthed a single word, Trust.
Gruum blinked sweat from his eyes, shuffled his stance and readied himself to face death with everything he could muster.
“Loyal vassal, I require your life,” announced Therian loudly. “Lower your sword and pray Anduin will be merciful to your wandering spirit, which will forever haunt his place.”
Gruum’s sword arm sagged a fraction. He knew he could never defeat Therian. With the full strength of a fresh soul in him, he was far too powerful, even without the aid of sorcery.
He met Therian’s piercing gaze.
Trust. Gruum thought he understood. He recalled Therian’s hand upon his back in the cold and lonely tower that now stood so far above them in the clean, sweet air of Earth. Again he stood at the edge of an abyss. Again he must prove his bravery. Again he must trust his lord with his very life.