Brawn cursed. “Damn it! I can’t even see where I be going.”
Tax grunted as one of the branches snapped back and caught him in the face.
Brawn continued his rant. “…don’t know why we couldn’t be night walking…sunlight hurts me eyes something fierce….we’ll probably be eaten by were-bears, we will.”
Azuela De Nova, the recently transformed seer, walked behind him, oblivious to all the moaning and groaning. If Tax didn’t know better, he would have sworn that the trees and brush moved out of her way as she passed. Tax watched the way she moved. She seemed to flow more than walk, like she was made of water. He wasn’t yet accustomed to the way she looked—eighteen and a stunning beauty—but it was far better than the bent-over hag with the scraggly hair he had met in the cave. Her spider cocooning trick—whatever magic she had done—had made her young again, and she had used that magic on him!
Tax grinned; he had not been out of the Keep in centuries and despite all the rough going, he was actually happier than he had been in centuries. Since Azuela touched him, his body didn’t ache—he could bend over and touch his own toes—and he felt a couple hundred years younger.
He used his hand to push aside some branches and peered up through the trees, scanning the towering rock-walls. The mottled sunlight warmed his face and the brightness occasionally caused him to squint and turn away. As he saw it, it sure beat being down on his knees cleaning the Grand Staircase in the dark, damp Keep. Almost anything was better than that.
“Where are we going,” Tax asked Azuela. “We’ve been walking a fearful long time.”
Azuela smiled. “You will see. Have patience little Tax man.”
Tax frowned. It was irritating how she always answered questions with cryptic answers.
Brawn waved his hand frantically and started dancing.
“What the halla? Damn, sweat-bees…ouch!” he swore, as he swat one that had landed on his hand and stung him deeply.
He swung his blade at the small buzzing creatures that swirled about his head. Tax tried hard not to laugh, trying to contain his snigger, but he was having limited success.
Azuela did not. She laughed out loud and clutched her sides as she watched Brawn dance.
“It’s not that funny…” he growled as he dashed from side to side in the deep ravine, trying to escape the wrath of the tiny creatures.
“But it is,” she countered. “You should be more careful where you step!”
Brawn’s face reddened and he cracked a forced grin, knowing it was the truth. He had seen the nest, but thought he could pass before the bees got wise.
She stepped forward and wove her hand, causing the bees to disperse. “Let’s go…” she said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
Brawn looked up at her with steeled eyes, fighting to control his temper. “Why didn’t ye do that in the first place…,” he grumbled.
She looked at him and raised her brows in a challenge. “What? And deny myself a good laugh at your expense?”
They stared each other down for several seconds before he turned away.
“You heard the Seer, let’s be moving along,” he growled.
Thom “Topside” Brokenhammer, a dwarf of little renown, huddled under the floorboards of the Thompson’s General Store in Five Peaks. He had not moved in close to two weeks. The storm—if you could call it that—pounded them relentlessly. The purple and sickly-green lightning that laughed, raced along the ground seeking life and destroying all in its path. He ventured to guess that pret’-near half of his neighbors and friends were dead.
He knew he should have left with his kin. They had warned him of the hazards of living above ground, but he had paid no attention to their moaning. Problem was, he liked it topside where the sun shined, and the rays warmed his bones. Stupid dwarf! Stupid, stupid dwarf! His peculiar like earned him his nickname. Local folks shook their head in disbelief, his kin cursed his name.
Thom had tried to escape Five Peaks once, during a lull—tried real hard—but the snow was above his waist and slowed him down. Wasn’t it just calf-high just a week or two ago? Dwarves weren’t as tall as real folk. He had made it about a quarter of the way to the tunnels, almost to the edge of the forest before the lightning sought him out. He was lucky his reflexes were good, he jumped behind a tree just in time to avoid being turned to ash. The tree had been split and turned to kindling and his ears rung like the bells of Anarch. It was days before he could hear himself breath again. Luckily, the door of the store was open. If only he could have moved quicker. If he had only made it to the forest…
Topside’s stomach gurgled. He hadn’t eaten in almost a week. If things didn’t change soon, they would be calling him Grumblebelly instead of Topside! Although he had entertained the idea of going topside into the store and finding something to eat, he didn’t… He was getting weak, that much he knew for certain; his hands were shaking, sometimes he got a headache and his vision blurred. Sooner or later, he would be forced to risk his life to feed himself. Today was not going to be that day.
The thunder stopped and the air went quiet. He waited, knowing that the pause was only temporary. It always was. The pause was always just long enough to give a dwarf the false sense of security. That’s what the lightning wanted. It wanted him to try to escape. Then it would hunt him down. Thom wasn’t dumber than lightning, no, he wasn’t.
Clutching his knees tight to his chest, he waited for the booms and crashes to start again. Soon, his eyes drooped and he fell sound asleep. When he woke late the next morning, it was still eerily quiet. Topside stared across the bottom of the floorboards, trying to see through the cracks. He moved across the rough dirt on his knees and looked up, expecting to find others, but nothing moved in the store, nothing at all.
He pushed the lid of the cellar open just a smidge and stuck his nose out. He pushed the lid open as slowly as he could. It squeaked something horrible, forcing him to jiggle it. He pushed himself up to the floor and crawled on his belly across to a window and peered out. The snow was stained red and the ground was littered with bodies; bodies of his neighbors.
Then he saw the beasts lurking the streets and dragging the bodies of the dead off toward the mountains. Thom’s eyes went wide. He crawled back to the cellar, grabbing what little he could carry in one arm. He closed the lid and locked it. He stuffed one of the hardtack biscuits into his mouth and chewed. His canteen was almost empty—the powder dry biscuits didn’t help.
The first crash of thunder made him jump up and hit his head. The building rattled and the sky darkened, blocking out the sun. The lightning started, purple and yellow-green flashed filled his space, and he cowered.
Rags
Bal’kor mood was sullen, but his pity party didn’t last for long. A familiar voice in his head yelled at him, catching his attention and pulled him out of his morose reflection.
“Bal’kor, you need to get off this mountain. Use what you have learned.”
Bal’kor stared ahead but didn’t answer.
“Do you hear me? You need to move now!”
“But mother, I can’t...” Bal’kor moaned, defeated. He didn’t move. He just sat staring blankly at the rock floor feeling sorry for himself.
His mother assured him, “You can and you must!”
Topaz stared out of the bal’achar. Although her view was limited and the horizon continuously shifted, she saw the bleak cave. She knew he was cold…and naked. Mistakes? Sure, there were plenty to go around. He was young and had no life experience—that was her fault. There was nothing she could do about that, she had to focus on him surviving. She needed to get him motivated!
“How? How can I survive?”
“By using what you were taught in the Keep. Now go and examine the dead...see what you can use.”
“But—”
“No buts—GO!”
Bal’kor lifted his head sullenly and nodded to himself. He pushed himself to his feet and walked back to the two dead warriors and star
ed.
“Just junk! There is nothing usable here but...”
“Bal’kor Merl Kandor’a, I didn’t raise you to give up!” To’paz screamed at him as loud as she could.
Bal’kor nodded weakly.
He stared at the tattered goods and tried to imagine what Hammergrip would do, or for that matter, Zedd’aki. Hammergrip always told him to critically examine the situation. He tried to push thoughts of doom out of his head and be brave. But…being brave was hard.
“What is, is! What ain’t, ain’t…” he mumbled, echoing what he had been told repeatedly by his teacher of things metal, an old dwarf named Hammergrip—the smithy of the Keep. The old dwarf had been more than mildly irritated with him when he made excuses and told fabricated stories. What was it he had said? It is fine ifin you tell yerself stories, as long as ye don’t confuse them with da truth. Truth is truth. The rest is fancy—or plain unadulterated bullshit!
Bal’kor rubbed the his chin and discovered fine stubble. He wondered when the magic would wear off and he would stop aging. If this kept up, he would be an old man by the time he passed his first birthday!
He bent over to scrutinize the dead warriors. Upon closer examination, it appeared to him that the warriors chose this particular location to make their last stand and had purposefully stacked rocks from around the cave entrance into a makeshift barricade.
…what would make them do that, he wondered aloud.
It was quite possible they knew that whatever was attacking was coming long before it arrived—there had been plenty of time to gather and arrange the boulders.
Bal’kor reasoned. Yet—why not escape? Surely, warriors such as these could have escaped.
His head hurt from trying to figure it out. They chose to stay and fight when the prudent thing to do, was to flee. It made absolutely no sense to him. He poked one of the shriveled bodies with his foot.
Well—what was done was done; nothing he could do about it. Just the same, it seemed such a waste. The two died horrible deaths, their rib-cages split open and their insides ripped out by some kind of dog, or maybe wolf. Their entrails were yanked from their guts and scattered about the area.
He wasn’t certain that the beasts at his feet were wolves. From what he had read, they seemed all wrong—the wrong size, the wrong shape and the wrong color. Maybe the wolves of this realm were just different. He supposed that must have been the case.
Bal’kor stooped to examine the desiccated warriors’ wounds—they seemed odd and certainly out of place—but he just couldn’t figure out why. Bal’kor gasped out-loud when the answer came to him suddenly. The wolves had not eaten any of the flesh. Oh sure, they had clawed and bitten the two, but wolves—wolves that attacked men—he expected to be ravenous or desperate. To the best of his knowledge, wolves didn’t kill men for pleasure—there was far easier prey. They killed to eat—and these had not eaten a bite. None of them had. They had come here just to kill!
“Mother—this is very wrong.”
His comments were met with deafening silence.
Bal’kor didn’t presume to know where his mother went when she didn’t answer or talk to him. He just knew that she was gone again. He wondered if he had just imagined that she had been talking to him in the first place. He shrugged his shoulders; it mattered not. What mattered was that the voice in his head, either his mother or just him going plain mad, was right. Sitting here would be a death sentence; he needed to move and formulate a plan.
He continued his examination. The more diminutive of the two, the dwarf, had his head thrown back and his mouth wide-open; it was twisted and contorted in some frightening scream that had frozen mid-breath. He was still holding his spear, gripped tightly in his oversized, withered, and dried hands. The two had put up a very valiant fight. The bodies of over a half-dozen beasts were strewn about their feet. But in the end, they were obviously overwhelmed by the sheer number of attackers.
“Why did these wolves attack you two?” Bal’kor asked himself, while shaking his head from side to side and rubbing his cheek.
There must be some clue he failed to comprehend. If these wolves were the attackers, surely the hunted could have made escape. Mayhap the wolves were but the first of many waves of attackers. Mayhap something far more foul was in pursuit. This supposition gave Bal’kor pause.
Bal’kor wondered how such beasts had made purchase to the cave when the cliff outside seemed nearly vertical. Wolves didn’t climb; yet here they were. There were too many unanswered questions.
The two had wounds that seemed consistent with having been inflicted by the beasts alone. Another shiver ran down his spine. Although Bal’kor didn’t know a lot about such things, he supposed that the beasts could have been magical…somehow. If they could fly, then no place would have been safe. Magical beasts would be harder to fight. Better to make a stand in a cave than to be caught out in the open.
Bal’kor had learned of the curved-horned goats that live in the mountains. They could climb rocks that would give a sane man pause. Mayhap the wolves of this region were the same. He would have to remember such fact should he be forced to seek refuge from such beasts.
He stooped down and laid his hands on the rear leg of one of the wolves and turned over the paw, running his finger along the desiccated pad. They did not appear to be suited to climbing—the pads were large, and even now—soft, and the long sharp talons would surely not aid their grip on rock or ice.
Bal’kor set his gaze on the fallen. The dwarf’s spear was angled up and had pierced through what appeared to be a mummified version of some large smooth-skinned hound with fangs, but it was really hard for Bal’kor to tell exactly what it was due to its decomposed condition.
The large beast had been caught mid-stride in the air as it had jumped in for the kill. The spear, braced between the makeshift wall of rock and the dwarf, pierced the beast’s jaw from below and exited the skull above. The beast’s rear legs draped to the ground and the spear was arched under the weight. There are several other dead beasts at the foot of the rock pile, but this one was different from the others.
Bal’kor reached down and pushed the beast off to the side so that he could get a better look.
The delicately balanced beast, wobbled, fell over to the side and shattered turning into dust as it hit the stone. Only its bones remained partially intact. Bal’kor examined the bones. Even these did not seem right—misshaped, too thick, too many. Bal’kor looked at the other beasts that had attacked. Only this one was vastly different. The others appeared to be wolves of some type. This one? Bal’kor shrugged. It didn’t seem to be a wolf, or a dog.
“Were these wolves commanded by someone who did not participate in the battle? A thief mayhap?” he continued, thinking aloud. “If so, why not take the knife and coin?”
The other man was lying on his side, staff still in hand, his arm thrown across his face to shield him from whatever attacked him. He had no spear, no sword, and no knife.
“Where are your weapons?” Bal’kor wondered. “Mayhap the dwarf was your protector. You don’t seem to be dressed like a royal. Yet here you are, in the middle of nowhere with a dwarf.”
A dull brass medallion hung loosely from his neck from a simple leather strap. Bal’kor gripped the medallion and turned it over in his hand. It was rather unremarkable and didn’t appear to have any value, so he let it go. It clattered on the exposed bones of the man’s ribs as it settled back into place, draped in the man’s chest cavity.
The man’s long blood-matted hair was draped over his arm and face; a hollow face that no-longer held eyes. His leg was broken in multiple places and was twisted, pointing off at an odd angle. A large gash through his britches had ripped the flesh on his leg down to the bone, separating tendons and cartilage.
Bal’kor stooped down placing a knee on the rocky floor in order to get a closer inspection. The dwarf’s vest has been brutally clawed, but was of such high quality that there are only surface scratches in the fine leather
. The larger cadaver had a small ruby ring on his little finger; the dwarf had a large knife still clutched in a muscular fist.
Both corpses’ clothing had mostly disintegrated, but Bal’kor was desperate and knew they would be better than nothing. He wondered how long they graced this cave and why nobody had come searching for them.
Bal’kor touched the man’s hand and his mind was filled with horrific visions. He saw through the eyes of the lanky man...beasts running across the snowfield, heading their way. The vision blurred and then next thing he knew, he was standing with the dwarf. They fought side by side, killing beast after beast. The dwarf wasted no movement and slid quickly from one attack from to the next. Bal’kor recognized some of these forms. They were the same as those that Hammergrip had showed him. The beasts stacked up at the dwarf’s feet, barely giving him room to maneuver.
The scene shifted again. They were bent over, winded, waiting for the next onslaught. He felt their bone-dead weariness, but had no idea for how long they fought. They dragged the beasts to the edge and tossed them over, making room to fight once more. Bal’kor watched in horror as the dwarf rushed to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the steps etched into the cliff face—steps filled with beasts trying to gain purchase. He turned to him, the tall thin man, and he was weak and sunken eyed, barely able to stand—yet he didn’t appear to be injured.
“Why won’t yer magic work, he gasped, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“I do not know,” the man said. “It just doesn’t…”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me. Does it make sense to you?”
The man shook his head. “The castings are correct, yet the magic tragically fails.”
“Then we shall die in this place.”
“We will take as many of the beasts with us as we can,” the man said, with false bravado. The man stood straight. “I can still stun them, if you can deal the death blow!”
“It’s been a good life, hasn’t it?” the dwarf asked.
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 03 - Darkhalla Page 8