Assassin's Quest

by Jon Kiln

  In the eyes of a Southlander, the ability to withstand extreme heat without complaint is a measure of one’s fortitude. The young devil in the garden was being tested, and he was doing very well.

  There was a sound behind him, but not in the tunnel. The light cracking sound came from above ground. It sounded like a twig snapping, and Rothar froze. He dared not drop the lid to the portal. If whoever stood above had not noticed the secret door already, they surely would when it lowered. The bee that had flown into the corridor with him landed on his neck, drawn by his sweat. A booted foot appeared in front of his face. Light brown, Southland leather. The bee stung, apparently annoyed by the stomping of the foot. Rothar did not move nor make a sound.

  The Southlander, standing merely inches away from his face, seemed to be watching the man and the boy sweating in the distance. For an instant, Rothar considered reaching out with his dagger and slicing the devil’s ankle. He would be dead in an instant, there was still plenty of Quietus on the blade. Rothar could silently escape back through the tunnel. He thought better of it. A mysteriously dead soldier would attract undue attention. The portal could be found and Rothar and his companions would be hunted through a dark maze by a contingent of up to two hundred. Besides, they had not come merely to kill devils and wreak havoc, they were here to save the children - those who could still be saved.

  Being that the owner of the foot in front of him was facing away, Rothar carefully and silently lowered the portal door. The moment it was closed, he heard an eerie and unsettling sound, this time inside of the tunnel.

  Somewhere far off, a dog was howling. It was not the mournful howl of a crying dog, but the incessant baying of a hound on the hunt.

  Chapter 30

  Rothar sprinted down the corridor, his boots skidding around the tight bends, broadsword clanking against the narrow stone walls. The sound of the howling dog echoed through the labyrinth, growing gradually louder as he neared the manifold chamber.

  He finally burst into the circular room to find Peregrin, standing with his bow drawn, staring anxiously at the dark tunnel into which Harwin had last ventured. The only sound that emitted from the impermeable darkness of the passage was the haunting bay of the hellhound. In moments, a faint light began to glow within the tunnel, and at long last the bobbing torch of Harwin came into view, moving fast and frantic. Harwin exploded out of the mouth of the tunnel¸ breathless and wild eyed. Close behind him came the dark shape of a beast that stood as tall as Rothar’s chest.

  The howls of the monstrous canine rang about the chamber in a deafening squall. Harwin scrambled past Rothar and Peregrin and the huntsman loosed his arrow at the beast. The arrow found it’s mark, perfectly in the center of the animal’s chest. The dog faltered, stumbling, but then continued it’s relentless pursuit. Peregrin notched another arrow and released. This time, the arrow found the dog’s eye, and the monster fell, skidding to a stop only a few feet from where Peregrin stood.

  Harwin was gasping for breath, leaning against the chamber wall. Once he was able to speak again he said, “I checked a door, it was open, and I heard nothing within.” A fit of coughing interrupted his speech. “Nothing but darkness. I shone my torch inside and this bastard was staring right at me.” Harwin motioned towards the dead dog.

  Rothar looked at Peregrin and then back at Harwin.

  “You are quite fast for a man your size,” he said.

  Harwin scowled at him and Peregrin stifled a laugh. Then another howl echoed though the tunnels.

  It was impossible to tell which corridor the howling came from, but suddenly it did not matter. The horrid baying was joined by the sounds of more howls, and then more still. A chorus of deathly snarls and barks rushed out of every passage, growing louder every second.

  Rothar knew, when Harwin had unwittingly released the dog into the labyrinth, someone had noticed. Whoever had noticed had ordered the release of the other pets into the tunnels.

  “It seems we have announced our arrival,” said Rothar.

  Going back the way they came was not an option. Soldiers would be sent into the hills to wait for them.

  “What was down your way?” Rothar asked Peregrin.

  “Locked doors only,” replied the huntsman. “Yours?”

  “Only a hot garden, with soldiers waiting,” he said.

  There was only one corridor left which none of them had ventured into, and without a word, the three men hurried into it.

  It seemed that no passage was without it’s dogs, and as they headed into the tunnel, they braced themselves for the inevitable meeting with their canine hosts. Coming around a bend in the distance, torchlight showed a small pack of giant beasts, six in all, charging and snarling towards them.

  Rothar took the lead, not wanting Peregrin to waste any more precious arrows before they had even met the real foe. With a sweeping motion of his broadsword, he fell the first two beasts in the pack. One dropped dead and the other yelped and circled to the back of the pack, but did not flee.

  Her dogs are as merciless as her guard, Rothar thought.

  Huge jaws moved in to clamp down on Rothar’s left arm, but at the last instant Harwin clubbed the dog in the head with the butt of his torch, and fell upon the downed creature with all the fury of a man possessed by rage and desperation.

  Peregrin had wisely put his bow away and was wielding a pair of long daggers quite effectively against the beasts. Hand to hand combat with an animal is never a one sided fight. Teeth snag the flesh and claws tear at a man in a way that a human combatant cannot match. But one by one, the trio thrashed and slashed their way through the awful pack of mongrels. The last one fell when Harwin struck it with the lit end of his torch, swinging two handed with all of his might. The burning end of the torch broke off and remained stuck in the animal’s head, filling the tunnel with the stench of burning hair.

  The darkness behind them was growing noisy with the sounds of countless other dogs in pursuit, so the three continued on.

  They passed door after door, all of them locked from the other side. There was no time to try to pick a lock or pry open one, not with the rest of the evil pack closing in on them.

  In the flickering torchlight, Rothar vaguely noticed that the ceiling was getting gradually higher, and the doors on either side of the corridor were growing in accordance. Eventually, the ceiling reached a height that the dim light of the torches could not reach. It seemed as if the trio were running under a starless night sky, between sheer cliffs of limestone.

  When they finally reached the end of the passageway, there was a door there, but it was not any sort of door that any of them would have expected - not in these secret tunnels.

  The door stood at least fifty feet high and half as wide, made of solid oak and hasped with iron bars that would have taken Harwin a month to hammer flat. The handle on the door was so high that they could not have reached it, even if all three men were to stand upon one another’s shoulders.

  They stared in awe at the door for a long moment, then the cacophony of canine pursuit drew their attention to the rear. They turned and braced for a terrible assault; if every corridor held at least as many dogs as they had just slain in this one, they were about to be faced with a wave of fangs and claws that no three men could defeat. Yet, they were certainly going to try.

  The pack of hounds arrived like a solid wall of black fur and gnashing teeth. Rothar handed his broadsword to Harwin, who was now empty handed without his torch. Peregrin resolved to use his remaining arrows for his final stand, and Rothar held only the dagger that Esme had given him.

  Strangely, it seemed so long ago that the little girl had gifted him with the fine blade. Rothar had become so accustomed to the dagger, in all the use it had gotten in tracking down the abductors of it’s maker. In a strange moment of lucidity, with a pack of mad dogs barreling towards him, Rothar worried that Esme may one day become as familiar with his old blade as he was with hers.

  The dogs were closing fast, and they
were spreading themselves out to fill the expanded passage. Peregrin had his bow fully drawn and was focused on the leader of the pack, a giant, yellow-eyed, black haired monster that was the size of a small horse. Suddenly, the pack stopped moving forward. The halt was so abrupt that the sound of claws skidding against the hard packed earth was all that could be heard, the dogs having instantly ceased their howling.

  Perplexed, the three men still stood on the ready, until they noticed that the dogs were no longer looking at them. In the faint torchlight, they could see that every glowing eye was fixated on a point high above their heads.

  The three men turned. The massive door was no longer closed tight. It was open a small amount, and a light shone from within. When they looked far, far up, a single, giant eye was visible, peering out through the crack in the door.

  A voice came from behind the thick wood. The voice was so big that it seemed to fill the corridor and reach all the way out into the wilderness of the hills. Yet it was so dry and frail that it seemed like the dying whisper of an ancient oak tree.

  “Who goes there?” asked the voice.

  Harwin and Peregrin were stunned into silence. Rothar stepped away from the door to let himself be seen, and called up to the ogre.

  “I am Rothar, loyal servant of the King. Will you grant us shelter?”

  The eye blinked. Rothar could see giant wrinkles in the gray skin.

  “Shelter from what?” the ogre asked.

  Harwin found his voice again. “From these demonic dogs!” he called out.

  The door opened a few feet more and the aged face of the woman ogre showed almost fully.

  “Demonic dogs? Oh, do not let them cause you trouble,” she said.

  Swinging the door fully open, the ogress took a half step forward and uttered a short growl that seemed to shake the earth itself. At once, every dog in the pack, whimpered and turned to run back through the ever narrowing corridor, back to whence they came. Rothar noticed a rather large damp spot on the earthen ground where the pack had last stood.

  Chapter 31

  Now alone in the huge corridor, the three men stood facing the old ogress. Ogres, as a rule, were not to be trusted, but this aged behemoth had already showed them kindness, and hers was the only door though which they could proceed. It seemed they had no other choice. If she had wished to crush them, she could easily have done so by now.

  She stared down at them with a look that was a mixture of kindness and incomprehension. Rothar was the first to speak, and he chose his words carefully.

  “Madame, thank you for scaring off the dogs. We owe you our lives,” he said loudly. Ogres always struggled to hear the words of men, being that the speakers were always so far below them, and this old soul was undoubtedly doubly deaf by virtue of her advanced age.

  When she replied, her creaking voice filled the cavern with an ear shattering din, like the sound of a huge and ancient tree splitting at the trunk.

  “I haven’t any hogs, and I care nothing for your wives. Please leave me alone,” she creaked.

  Rothar glanced at his companions. Harwin shrugged and Peregrin simply shook his head, but neither man took their eyes off of the towering ogress.

  “No,” Rothar shouted. “We thank you for helping us! May we enter your home, madame?”

  The old woman’s huge eyes lit up with realization. She looked behind her and then back at the men.

  “Ah, well. I would not call this my home… but you may come in if you insist,” she said, sheepishly.

  She stepped aside and opened the massive door fully. The men walked in to find that the room she resided in was a large one indeed - for a man. However, for an ogre, it was a prison cell. It was really more of a silo than a room. The only items that occupied the space were a bench fashioned out of a halved tree trunk, a trough full of water, and a tin plate large enough for any one of the men to lie down in. The plate lay on the floor in front of a wide slot in an iron door, as big as the oaken door through which they had entered. High on the wall were a few tiny windows that allowed in only enough light to see by.

  “May I ask your name, kind lady?” asked Rothar.

  “My name?” replied the ogress. “Why, I am Waya, mother of the towering ones.”

  She said it with an air of great pride, but immediately her eyes fell, and she said in a whisper that reverberated like a shout: “And that is why I am here.”

  “What do you mean by that, miss?” Peregrin asked.

  The giant old ogre looked out of the tiny windows and sighed. “That witch Miranda lured me here, and then put me in this tower,” she said. “She had her evil soldiers bring word to my children that I would be killed if they did not do as she asked. Now I suspect that they have done as she ordered, yet here I am, and the peace that we have maintained with the little ones is destroyed.”

  The old ogress bowed her head and squeezed her bulbous eyes shut tightly. A single tear slipped out and splashed to the ground next to Rothar.

  “I understand now,” he said to her. “Your boys attacked the King’s City, and I wondered why they would be working with such an awful power, but now I see.”

  Rothar omitted the fact the he had slain six of her sons with poisoned arrows, and dispatched the King’s soldiers to do the same to the rest of the attackers. Being caught in a town with an incensed ogre is a deadly proposition, no matter how old or infirm the ogre may seem to be.

  “They are all good boys,” she said, a mournful look on her face. Rothar suspected that she had an idea of the type of havoc her offspring had brought upon the kingdom since her imprisonment.

  “Madame, we intend to free you from your bondage,” Rothar called up to the ogress. “But we will need your help and we need to act fast. I would not be a bit surprised if the Southland devils were on their way to your door at this moment.”

  She looked down upon the tiny and weary warriors before her. Perhaps it was the sheer size of her eyes or the wisdom of her years, or maybe it was just exhaustion setting in, but Rothar thought he could see a supreme understanding in her countenance at that moment. She looked from man to man until her gaze settled upon Harwin, who had been peeking out of the giant slot in the bottom of the door through which the ogress’ plate was served, but was now looking back at the giant inquisitively.

  “Your child is here, is she not?” the ogress asked Harwin.

  Harwin was shocked. “Yes, yes she is. How do you know that?”

  A tiny smile crossed the old ogress’ face. “She share’s your eyes, and your ferocity. I can see the manor grounds from my little windows here.” She motioned towards the tiny holes in the top of her wall.

  She straightened up suddenly, showing a resolve that would be impressive in an elderly woman of any size.

  “How do you propose we get out of this box?” she said to no one in particular.

  “Well,” Rothar said with a smile, “for us it is easy. For you, we can open the door. After that, however, you may have to smash your way out of the manor.”

  “I will gladly do so, many times over,” said the ogress. The prospect of freedom seemed to give her voice a new sense of youth. “But not until after I help you get those children out of this awful place.”

  The three men glanced at one another.

  “Very well, then,” said Rothar. “We would be fools to decline your service. Come with us and do your worst, if you will.”

  “Oh, I certainly will,” said the ogress, looking more formidable than any of the men would have thought possible, upon entering her chamber.

  The three men slipped out of the slot at the bottom of Waya’s door and checked the corridor. They were now in the lowest level of the manor, proper. The knob on this door was low, and Rothar picked the lock easily.

  Waya came out into the great hallway, her gray hair snuffed out the flames in the dangling chandeliers.

  “Where are the children, Waya?” asked Rothar.

  “Follow me,” replied the ogress.

  Chapt
er 32

  The three men followed Waya as she strode down the corridor, running to keep up with her enormous strides. The hallway was high, and besides the constant nuisance of the chandeliers, the ogress was unencumbered for the first time in a long while.

  She knew, along with the three brave men who followed her, that her escape from the tower was most likely well known by now. A being so large can hardly move without everyone in proximity being aware. For this reason, Waya spoke openly and loudly to the men dashing behind her, and her words gave the men courage and strength.

  “We, the towering ones, have a distinct advantage over ye little ones,” she called back at them. “Our strength, and our perspective, make us difficult to defeat.

  “But you down there, you actually have a weapon that we all fear. It is your determination. No ogre in all the land possesses the single-mindedness of a man. It seems to us that there is no limit to what a single man can do, and what a group of little men can do when they are together, well, that is a frightful thing to see.”

  Rothar looked over at Harwin and Peregrin. They met his gaze with steely eyes.

  “We ogres are mighty,” Waya continued, “but we do not possess the mad passion of you little warriors. I can and will knock down any wall you ask, but I am fighting for my freedom and my revenge. What you are fighting for is surely a great matter among men, and I know you will instruct me with righteous ferocity to exact a suitable punishment to our enemy.”

  Rothar had never heard an ogre speak so poetically, and the speech gave him a great respect for the fearsome and misunderstood giant.

  “Mother!” he called out to Waya. “The peril of your children shall not go unavenged. And in reaping this vengeance, you will help us redeem the children of men!”