Tales from the New Earth: Volume One

by Thompson, J. J.

  “Okay, you've got a point. But you will call me if you need me, right?”

  The cleric gave him a gentle push toward the bed.

  “Yes Simon, I will. Now, good night. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well.”

  “Thanks, Clara. Good luck out there.”

  Chapter 10

  Simon awoke in pitch darkness to someone shouting in his ear.

  “Wake up, master. Please wake up.”

  “Hmmf. Wha..?” he mumbled, groping at the air above him.

  Suddenly he yelped as he was hit by a sharp blow to the head.

  “Hey!” Simon exclaimed as he sat up abruptly, staring wildly around. The candle had gone out and the drapes were tightly closed over the window.

  “Don't hit him!” a voice protested. It was Kronk.

  “It woke him up, didn't it?” Aeris asked sharply.

  There was a sudden radiance that lit the room weakly. Simon realized with some surprise that the air elemental had taken on a shine that illuminated the area enough to see by.

  “Hey, I didn't know you could do that,” Simon said thickly.

  “Well, I can. Now for goodness sake, get your skinny wizardly ass out of bed!”

  Simon pushed back the covers and planted his feet on the cold wooden floor. Kronk jumped off of the pillow where he'd been trying to wake up the wizard and thumped to the ground.

  “Now, what is going on? What time is it?” Simon asked, still groggy and weak from lack of sleep.

  “We're under attack, master,” Kronk told him quickly. He was bouncing with anxiety.

  Simon ran his fingers through his tangled hair, wincing as he pulled out knots.

  “But surely Clara and the others expected that, didn't they? If they needed help, they were supposed to call me.”

  As he spoke, the wizard stood up and groped around until he found his robe. The glow from Aeris didn't light things up very much.

  “They can't call you, Simon,” Aeris told him. He watched as the wizard got dressed, bobbing in midair.

  “Why not?”

  Simon found his socks, pulled them on and reached for his boots.

  “They are too busy, master. The undead are about to overwhelm them.”

  “What?” Simon exclaimed as he grabbed his saddlebags and searched through them until he found his spell-book.

  “Clara said that there were only a handful of undead that had attacked over the last few nights.”

  He picked up Bene-Dunn-Gal and hurried into the main room of Clara's quarters. Her small fireplace glowed with barely burning embers and, as he entered, Simon could hear shouts and screaming coming from outside.

  “That may have been true, but tonight they have come in force,” Aeris told him as the two elementals followed the wizard.

  Simon took his coat off of a hook on the wall and turned to look at them.

  “In force? How many?” he asked as he struggled into his jacket.

  “Dozens, master,” Kronk said gravely. “They are attacking in waves. All of the townspeople have been called out to help, but I fear they will not be able to contain the monsters at the gates.”

  “Damn it!” Simon muttered. He opened the door to the hall and hurried out. The fire was still burning brightly in the fire pit and he hurried to this light source and knelt down, opening his spell-book frantically.

  “Hurry up!” Aeris barked at him. “They don't have much time out there.”

  “Hang on a minute,” Simon said as he flipped through the pages. “Unless you just want me out there beating the damned things over the head with my staff, I have to memorize some spells.”

  “Leave him alone,” Kronk told Aeris crossly. “Master knows what he is doing.”

  “Let's hope so,” Aeris muttered.

  Simon ignored him as he scanned the spells.

  “Fire. Anything to do with fire,” he said to himself. He found the spells he thought would be most useful and set them in his memory as quickly as possible. After firmly locking three into his mind, Simon paused as a wild idea came to him.

  He considered it for a second, shrugged and flipped to the appropriate spell and memorized it. Then he slipped the book into an inside pocket and stood up.

  “I'm ready,” he said nervously. “Let's go.”

  “Finally,” he heard Aeris say as they ran for the exit.

  “Be quiet,” Kronk told him firmly and Simon smiled a bit at the little guy.

  The three of them burst out of the town hall and were met with a scene of chaos.

  Simon skidded to a halt, appalled at what he saw.

  Down the narrow road in the distance, he could see the main gate. Bundles of burning hay lit up the area and Simon saw people running in and out of the light, mixed in with unidentifiable shapes that seemed to be chasing them. The shouts and screams were horrific.

  To his right, he heard more shouting coming from the rear gate, but it was more muted and Simon assumed that the main attack was centered at the front gate.

  He turned and looked at the two elementals.

  “I want you two to get to the small gate and give them any help you can. Aeris, if things get out of hand back there, come and get me. All right?”

  Both of them looked at him with wide eyes and nodded simultaneously. Kronk raised his arms and slipped into the earth with barely a sound while Aeris spared Simon one long look and then disappeared with a quiet pop.

  The wizard turned and raced toward the main gate. As he ran, he passed several of the townspeople. Two men were carrying a young woman toward the hall. His stomach churned as he saw the bloody mess of her face. They didn't even notice him.

  As Simon approached the gate, he heard Clara's voice clearly, rising above the shouting and howls that rang through the air. She was chanted something unintelligible and finished with a word that made the very ground quiver under his feet.

  A bright, silver light flooded the area and Simon shielded his eyes from the glare. Through his fingers, he saw figures that were gathered in front of the gate begin to shriek, their screams a nightmare mixture of hunger and rage. Then they seemed to fall in on themselves and crumbled into dust.

  The light faded and, for a moment, there was silence. Only the sound of the burning hay bales and someone's sobbing could be heard.

  “Simon! Over here!” he heard and ran forward to the right of the gate where Clara was being supported by Richard.

  The big man's armor was stained and covered with soot and several deep scratches. Simon shuddered as he looked at what were plainly claw marks.

  Clara tried to smile and failed as she clung to Richard, her breathing painful to hear. She looked frail and exhausted. The armored man was watching her with obvious concern.

  “What's happening?” Simon asked as he reached them. “Where are Virginia and the others?”

  “They're holding the rear gate,” Richard told him, still looking at the cleric. “Between the four of them, I think that they'll be able to stem the tide back there. The main attack is here.”

  He looked up and Simon followed his gaze. On the walkway inside the wall, several guardsmen armed with bows were looking out into the darkness.

  “Any more of those bastards?” Richard called up to them.

  “Nothing yet, sir,” one of them answered. “But we can hear something out there. A low rumble or something.”

  “More trouble,” Richard muttered. “Keep your eyes open,” he shouted back at them. One of them waved in acknowledgment.

  “Clara, are you okay?” Simon asked.

  The cleric smiled a bit tremulously.

  “Fine. I'm fine. That Turn Undead spell just...takes a bit out of me, that's all.”

  Simon didn't think she looked fine at all. He caught Richard's eye and the big man shook his head slightly.

  “Why not sit for a moment?” the wizard suggested. “It looks like there's a lull in the attack.”

  “Good idea,” Richard said. He helped Clara over to a crate that was pushed up agai
nst the wall and she sat down with a relieved sigh.

  “Thank you. I do need to catch my breath.”

  Clara closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed a hand over her face.

  “I don't understand what is happening,” Richard said to Simon. “We've destroyed dozens of the monsters and they just keep coming. Why so many? And where are they coming from? Clara said that you found signs that they weren't from the local cemetery?”

  Simon leaned on his staff and looked around the area before he answered. A half-dozen of the townspeople were pushing more oil-soaked bales of hay to the front of the gate, leaving a space of a dozen feet for anything that climbed the gate to be trapped in. There were piles of scorched bones and the burnt remnants of clothing blowing around in the cold wind.

  “That's right. That little graveyard was still intact. The tracks of these things came from beyond the town.”

  “But from where?”

  Richard banged his fist into his palm, the sound of his gauntlets clashing dully.

  “There have been no more that ten or twelve of these creatures attacking over the past three nights. And now, we have a bloody horde of the things. Why?”

  Simon had a sudden uncomfortable thought. It seemed a bit absurd but...

  “Maybe it was me,” he told the two of them. “Maybe when I followed their trail, it, I don't know, set them off somehow.”

  “Don't be ridiculous, Simon,” Clara said sharply. “These are mindless monsters, nothing more. So there are more tonight than there have been previously. That proves nothing.”

  Richard watched Simon quietly for a moment. He rubbed his chin and then shrugged.

  “You may be right, sir wizard. Or you may be wrong. The cause is irrelevant at the moment. The town is in peril now.”

  He looked up at the clouded night sky.

  “There is perhaps an hour until first light. If we can hold them off until dawn, we can start looking for answers then.”

  Simon stood silently, thinking that sunrise couldn't come fast enough. They had to know where these undead were coming from. Then maybe they could find a way to stop them.

  With a sudden pop, Aeris appeared a few feet away. At the same time, a pile of frozen earth was pushed aside and Kronk climbed into view.

  “The rear gate is secure,” Aeris told them. “Virginia, Eric and the others have beaten back the attacks there fairly easily, they tell me. It seems that this entrance is the main target of the undead.”

  Clara struggled to rise and Richard hurried to support her.

  “Thank you, my friend,” she said. “And thanks to you two,” she told the elementals, both of whom bowed slightly. “With any luck, the attacks have stopped. If not, the monsters have very little time to mount another assault before the sun rises.”

  As if her words were a signal, one of the guards on the wall began waving at them frantically.

  “Here they come again,” she yelled. It sounded like Lynn. “A wave of them. It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like the biggest wave yet.”

  “There's something in front of them!” another guard added. His voice trembled with fear. “Some big black thing.”

  “Big black thing?” Richard said with a frown. “Another type of undead?”

  “Just what we need,” Clara said, sounding tired. “Well, my friends, get ready. Hopefully this is the last of them. Stand your ground, do your best and we'll get through this.”

  Simon smiled at her and then hurried back to stand behind the hay bales at the gate. Kronk and Aeris followed, one on either side.

  Richard patted the cleric's hand lightly and then turned to scramble up a ladder to the walkway. He clanked along the parapet until he was standing next to the guards looking over the wall.

  “Can you see what it is?” Clara called up to him. She had moved slowly to stand behind Simon where she could see her people and direct them if needed.

  “No, the blasted torches are fading out there. I see a tall shadowy thing in front of the walking corpses, but I can't see any details.”

  He waited and Simon held his breath. What else could be coming for them?

  “They're about fifty yards out, moving slowly.”

  Richard leaned forward, straining to see through the darkness and Simon looked back at Clara while he waited. She was watching the big man intently.

  “Wait a minute. They've stopped!” he called down. “I don't know what...”

  He suddenly turned and waved both hands at all of them gathered below, as if trying to push them back.

  “Quick! Get back from the gates! I think that thing is casting...”

  Whatever he'd been trying to say was lost in the sound of a huge explosion. The gates were hit with terrific force and literally blew apart. Simon raised Bene-Dunn-Gal without thinking and cast his Shield spell faster than he had ever dreamed was possible.

  The air around him turned opaque and a bubble of force shot outwards, covering not only Simon and the elementals, but Clara and the other townspeople who had been gathered nearby.

  Thank you for the boost, Bene-Dunn-Gal, he thought gratefully. Blood was flowing down his wrist from his palm, but Simon considered it a small price to pay.

  The air was thick with smoke and stone dust but the shield kept most of it out. Simon held up the staff with both hands, keeping the spell stable, and around him everyone peered through the cloudy air, trying to see the gate.

  “Thank the gods you had that spell ready, my friend,” Clara whispered from beside him.

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Simon answered. “But what's happened to Richard and the rest of the guards? I wish they'd been down here with us.”

  “So do I.”

  They waited for the chilly breeze to clear away the smoke and dust and, when they could finally see the gates, Simon stared, appalled.

  The gates had been almost vaporized. The hinges hung twisted and limp from the walls but the gates were gone. On either side, the top of the walls had been smashed and had fallen in. The walkways were gone for about a dozen feet on each side and Richard and the guards were nowhere to be seen.

  “My God,” Simon said in disbelief. “Where are they?”

  From behind him, someone screamed and he turned to see a young woman, one hand covering her mouth, pointing toward the nearest small house. A body was hanging head down from the roof. One arm was missing.

  There was no way to tell which guard it was. All of their armor was the same, dark iron, and they couldn't see the person's face.

  Clara gasped and then began to run toward the house.

  “No. Clara. Wait!” Simon called.

  “Watch the gate,” she yelled back without looking. “I have to care for my people.”

  The shield hissed and sparkled as the cleric left its protection, followed by the other half-dozen townsfolk. Simon was left alone with just Kronk and Aeris for company.

  He turned back to the gaping hole where the gates had been and watched for any movement.

  “What kind of creature can do that?” he asked the elementals as he stood guard, the shield snapping and popping around him.

  “None that I know of, master,” Kronk said from his left.

  Aeris remained silent and Simon finally turned to look at him hovering to his right at shoulder level.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

  Aeris looked at Simon and his expression was one of pure fear. Simon had never seen that look on the elemental's face before, and that included the time that he had been drawn back into his own plane.

  “Aeris? What is it?”

  “There's only one creature in the ranks of the undead that could cast a powerful spell like that. But it isn't possible. No, I can't believe that even the dark gods would loose something that foul into the world.”

  “What are you talking about? Damn it, Aeris, answer me!”

  From the darkness beyond the ruin gate came a high, tittering laugh and Simon tore his eyes from Aeris' expression and looked toward that ev
il noise.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered. “I know that voice. But it can't be...her.”

  “Her, master? Who is that?”

  Again, that shrill, high-pitched cackle echoed out of the night beyond the walls and now a voice, as brittle as old bones and as dry as sand, began to speak.

  “There you are, my lovely one. How delightful. Did I not tell you that I had a present for you? And you ran away from me. That was very naughty of you. And so impolite.”

  Simon tried to speak and his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed dryly and tried again.

  “Madam?” he called out. “Is that you?”

  “Oh how sweet. You remember me! You remember how I promised you a gift, don't you? And since you left me so abruptly, I've decided to deliver it in person. You should be flattered, my darling child. Madam doesn't do this sort of favor for just anyone, you know.”

  There was a crackle and a hiss from behind him and Simon whirled to see Clara running back through the shield.

  “By all the gods, Simon. Who is that out there?” she asked desperately.

  “Something that calls itself Madam,” he told her quietly. “I ran into it when I visited Ottawa, over a year ago. It, she, whatever, was hunting Changlings who were living in the ruins there. I have no idea what she is.”

  “There are Changlings in Ottawa?” Clara asked with wide eyes. “Why didn't you tell us?”

  He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the gap in the wall.

  “I thought I did. They aren't interested in leaving the city. They've made it their home. And they have strange powers. I don't think they'd appreciate a visit from any of us.”

  “I can hear you whispering in there,” Madam called out. Clara shivered at the sound. “And I can feel someone with you. Is it the cleric? Wonderful! My masters wanted her dealt with and now I have my little poppet of a wizard here as well. Two birds with one stone, as we used to say.”

  “So what happened to Sarah and her friends?” Simon shouted, more to stall for time than anything else. Dawn was approaching and maybe he could keep the creature talking until it was too late to attack.

  “Ah, that one,” Madam answered, her voice now a hiss of malevolence. “Well, thanks to you, dearie, I was able to catch up to the little urchins. They are now part of my lovely family. Isn't that nice? No more trouble from them. And don't be so concerned. Soon you and the others in there with you will become my children as well. One big happy family. I hope you're as excited as I am.”