‘This is how they found it,’ Orrell mentioned.
Three of his men were waiting at the base of some stairs and Orrell led the way up. Samuel pushed in last, into a cramped area that held stores and wooden boxes. A ladder led up yet again and Orrell was already climbing it, past another couple of his men. Voices could be heard echoing in the roof space above.
Samuel entered into the small attic. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, as the only light shone through cracks in the shutters.
‘Wait downstairs,’ Orrell told one of his men, who pushed past them all and went back down the ladder.
Sitting on the ground was a chubby man, wearing magician’s robes, but he was clearly not a magician. Samuel could tell this at once for his aura was thin and dismal—as with common folk.
‘This is Master Sebastian,’ Orrell informed them. ‘He seems to be the only survivor.’
‘He is no Master,’ Samuel said at once and Master Glim gave him an urgent hush, look. The man, Sebastian, was looking at each of them with wild eyes.
‘He was a Master, Samuel,’ Lomar told. ‘He has lost his power.’
‘How is that possible?’ Eric asked in disbelief.
‘Quite easily,’ Lomar explained in hushed tones. ‘He has gone mad.’
The man, Sebastian, began to blubber into his hands, shaking his head and with tears streaming down his face.
‘Calm now, Master Sebastian,’ Master Glim told the man, squatting beside him.
Sebastian began to speak through his chattering teeth, but his words were incomprehensible.
‘He was sensible for a short time,’ Captain Orrell disclosed. ‘But now it seems he has broken down again.’
‘Did he say what happened?’ Samuel asked, hunched over in the tiny space.
Orrell shook his head. ‘Apparently not.’
Sebastian suddenly leapt to his feet, making everyone gasp and step back with surprise. He launched himself off the ground and struck his head on a roof beam, then fell back onto the floor and began squealing, clutching his injured head. Master Glim and Lomar looked to each other with concern.
Sebastian looked up at them with watery eyes. ‘You are the ones that Ash sent,’ he stated.
‘No, we’re not,’ Master Glim replied. ‘Tell us, what happened here?’
‘Oh, yes you are,’ Sebastian went on, scratching frantically at his chin with all his fingers. He then pointed sharply to each of them in turn, almost accusingly. ‘He told us you were coming. I’m sure you are the ones.’
Master Glim looked to Lomar. ‘The Council sent us,’ he explained and Sebastian burst into giggles. ‘Do you find that amusing?’
‘Yes!’ Sebastian declared through squinting eyes and laughter.
Master Glim was losing his patience and so Lomar took over the interrogation.
‘Where is Master Ash?’ he asked in a patient tone, but Sebastian only giggled all the more. ‘What are you doing up here, Master Sebastian?’ he asked.
‘Hiding,’ the mad man told them with sudden seriousness. Snot was running freely from his nose, like a two-year-old child who had not yet learnt to clean it himself. ‘Everyone else is dead now, but I’m still alive. I won’t go outside. You can’t make me.’
‘Who killed them, Sebastian? Where did they come from?’
‘Here.’
‘Then where did they go?’ Lomar asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Sebastian explained. ‘I hid while the others were all killed. If only Balten were here. He could have saved them all.’
The name sounded familiar to Samuel and he caught sight of Lomar also raising an interested brow.
‘They’re all dead?’ Captain Orrell asked. ‘Who attacked you?’
‘Ti’luk,’ Master Sebastian responded.
Master Glim looked to Lomar and both their faces showed concern. Samuel was perplexed. Ti’luk meant hungry in the Old Tongue.
‘He’s not much use,’ Orrell said. ‘Bring him downstairs.’
They tried getting Sebastian to stand, but no amount of persuasion could get him to move from his corner in the attic. He wriggled from their hands and wedged himself tightly in the corner, screaming like a wild piglet. He was already covered in cuts and scratches and was only hurting himself further as he struggled against them.
‘Don’t worry,’ Orrell finally directed. ‘Leave him be. My men will drag him out whether he likes it or not.’
They waited downstairs while there was much screaming from Sebastian and much cursing from Orrell’s men. They eventually sent for a rope and dragged him out between them, tied hand and foot. Still, he thrashed wildly and the men had angry scratches and bite marks to show for their efforts. A gag had been tied around Sebastian’s mouth to stop his incessant crying and screaming.
By then, Tailor and Keller had finished their search for passages below.
‘There is an underground stream that runs beneath us along this entire rise,’ Keller told them. ‘I can’t tell whether or not it’s full of water or even accessible, but it is large enough for someone to pass through.’
‘Very well,’ Captain Orrell said. ‘I’ll send someone down.’
‘Lomar,’ Samuel began. ‘Do you think that one mage could have killed all the others—this Ti’luk.’
‘I don’t know. If he did, he may have escaped unseen. Orrell’s scouts would not have noticed if he was hidden by magic. He must be very strong to do all this. We should keep ready,’ and Samuel nodded in understanding.
One of Orrell’s men had dropped one end of a rope down the well with a lantern tied to its end. The rope that had originally been used with the well was gone, which meant either that someone had removed it or the well was unused.
‘It goes down quite a way, Captain,’ the man said, peering down. ‘I think I can see water. Shall I go down?’
Orrell nodded and the man prepared himself by taking off some of his light armour and removing his sword. They tied the top end of the rope to a great iron pin that was sticking out of the stones. The shaft was just the right size with rough stone walls, so that the man could press his back against one side and his feet against the other. With the aid of the rope, he began down.
‘What do you think made Sebastian lose his mind?’ Samuel whispered to Lomar beside him. ‘A spell?’
‘I don’t know, Samuel. I met him once, years ago, and he was sane then, but he could have lost his mind at any time. I wouldn’t trust anything he does or says. Still, I feel we must display caution here.’
Samuel nodded.
Grunts of exertion echoed up the shaft as the man steadily progressed down. ‘Hold on. I can see something moving!’ he called up. ‘Wait…there’s someone below!’
‘Captain,’ Master Glim urged. ‘Get your man up. If there’s someone down there, it’s not someone your man wants to meet alone.’
‘Get him up,’ Orrell barked out and then he called down the well. ‘Hold on tight. We’re pulling you up.’
They began heaving on the rope.
‘He’s coming up after me, Captain!’ the man in the shaft echoed up. His voice was carrying some hint of alarm. Samuel looked to Lomar and Master Glim and they both look uneasy. ‘Captain, he’s...get me up! Get me out of here!’ The man in the well was now screaming frantically. ‘Hurry! Hurry up! It’s coming after me!’
The men were all pulling and heaving as best as they could, while Captain Orrell peered down the well with concern etched on his face and one hand on the hilt of his sword. The frantic man could be heard climbing just below the top and Orrell’s hands went down to help him out. A pair of grubby hands came up and gripped the top of the well, followed by a terrified face as Orrell pulled his man out by the back of his shirt. The soldier toppled over the edge and sprawled on the ground, rolling away from the well and leaping to his feet with wild eyes.
‘It’s not a man!’ the soldier gasped between frantic breaths.
Captain Orrell took a look down the well and quickly stepped back. �
��Get back!’ he ordered and everyone nervously took a backwards step, Samuel included. Swords hissed out of their sheaths. Samuel and the magicians moved further back as something came up from the well.
A large, round, bald head, pale and swollen and devoid of ears, poked up from the shaft and eyed them with enormous, black, saucer eyes. It looked at them and it grinned as its oversized, tooth-laden mouth came into view. It was not human, and it was not animal. It was something else.
Behind them all, Sebastian was thrashing on the ground, his bonds tearing at his skin with his wild eyes fixed on the rising thing.
‘What, by the nine gods of old, is that?’ Keller asked. He was on the opposite side of the well to Samuel, and his face had suddenly drained white.
‘Bowmen, ready!’ Orrell called and five of his men stepped to the front, putting arrows to their bows and drawing their strings tight.
The creature continued up out of the well, carried by a set of long bony arms and equally disproportional legs. Its skin was a pasty white with long blue veins pulsing underneath, stretched tight over its bulbous, swollen sack of a stomach.
‘What is it?’ Samuel hissed.
‘Ti’luk,’ Lomar responded, his eyes never leaving the creature. Hungry.
The men all stepped back further as the thing clambered over the well and regarded them eagerly with its glinting, saucer eyes.
‘Master Glim!’ Captain Orrell called across. ‘What is that thing?’
‘I don’t know, Captain,’ came the answer. ‘But I recommend you kill it quickly.’
He had no sooner spoken than the creature snapped out an arm at blinding speed and grabbed Master Keller around the waist. Its reach was deceivingly far. He had no time to even scream as it pulled him in and bit into his shoulder. The limb snapped off in the creature’s mouth and it proceeded to finish it with a quick gulp. It was then that Keller began screaming, locked within its grip.
‘Loose!’ cried Captain Orrell and the creature was an immediate pincushion of arrows as the bowmen released their missiles into it. Their empty bows hummed in their hands and the bowmen stepped back.
Keller was skilfully avoided, but blood continued to gush from his ruined shoulder, spraying over the creature’s pallid skin. ‘Help me! By the gods help me!’ he screamed.
The creature ignored the shafts that hung from its body and took another bite from Keller, this time putting his howling head into its gaping mouth and snapping it off with a single chomp. Keller’s thrashing body fell limp.
Samuel could not believe his eyes. This hideous creature seemed born of his worst nightmares. How could such a thing exist? Not even in the spirit world of his dreams had he seen such a monstrosity. There, everything had been wispy and made of smoke, however horrible. This was all too real.
‘Kill it!’ Orrell ordered and a dozen men stepped in with their swords raised. The creature sprang up, dropping Keller’s lifeless body down the well as it leapt. It jumped clear over the swordsmen and landed amongst the astonished bowmen. Some found the sense to dive aside, but the creature grabbed a man in each arm and swung them both high into the air above its head and then back down into the ground with a spine-chilling snap of bones, its mouth wide open all the while with its horrid teeth laid bare.
One of Orrell’s men darted in to hack at it with his sword but its head rolled around, spying him. Just as quickly, one of its legs flashed out and grabbed him with its finger-like toes. It pulled him in and threw its face down upon him, burying the man impossibly in its mouth. It then raised its head again and, with a rattling gulp and a shake of its belly, Orrell’s man was gone. There was no hint as to the soldier’s existence, except his sword lying on the bare earth.
The man who had been down the well had found his feet and he ran for the gates, past other guards from outside, who were running in because of all the noise. Attracted by the attention, the creature dropped the two broken bodies and in three strides it was away from the group and had the fleeing man in its hand. It took only a snap of its neck and he was gone, vanished into its mouth as a chicken pecks up grain.
‘Cast your spells!’ Lomar said beside him, slapping Samuel on the arm as if to wake him, while Orrell and his men chased after the thing. They were slicing and hacking at it with their swords from all sides, but the creature avoided their strikes with lightning speed, retaliating with its arms, picking up the men one by one. Bodies flew against the keep walls with a terrible crunch of bones, or were picked up and shaken violently, breaking their backs and necks and ribs. The corpses were then thrown back at Orrell and his remaining men so that they had to avoid their own shattered comrades. When their swords did manage to meet the creature’s flesh, the blades bounced off as if striking the hardest of leathers.
‘Nothing works!’ Master Glim cried out. ‘I cannot harm it!’
Spells were flying from all the mages, but the creature was similarly unaffected. Samuel shook away the fear and made his own, trying to bind the creature’s limbs. The spell had formed true, yet the demon thing continued to dash the men to pieces around it. It should have been held stiff by his spell. He should easily be able to seize a creature of its size, but his weaves slid through it as if it did not exist.
‘Get back!’ the mage, Tailor, cried. He had levitated the wooden stable roof over and with a final effort, sent it crashing upon the beast. Some of the men, Orrell included, caught the motion in the corner of their eyes and dived aside. Others were showered with the splinters and debris as the roof slammed into the creature and cracked in half.
They scuttled back as the monster slowly pushed the roof aside and clambered unsteadily back onto its spindly legs. Bodies littered the ground all around and it surveyed the scene around itself calmly. Its face was devoid of emotion, yet it seemed to be searching for the source of its discomfort with its great unblinking eyes. It spied Tailor and a low, rumbling noise emanated from deep within its belly.
Tailor sensed his peril with wide eyes and turned to run, but the creature bound past Orrell’s men as they hacked at it, and it had him by the leg.
Samuel could see spells pummelling the creature from the Erics and Lomar and Master Glim, but the thing was undaunted as it tore the robes from Tailor’s body before dropping him into its gaping mouth to disappear into the depths of its stomach. It was barely twice the height of a man, and the impossibilities of its acts were perplexing. There was not enough space in its whole body to fit the men it had already swallowed, yet somehow, it had—and only wanted more.
Captain Orrell and the remainder of his men had gathered together. Samuel and the magicians stood in a similar cluster, discussing the situation. The creature looked between them, twisting its pale limbs around itself and rubbing its belly as if in anticipation of its imminent meals. It reminded Samuel of a huge, hideous old man with demonic distorted features.
‘I think we now know what happened to the people here,’ Eric mentioned.
Spying the still-bound, still-gagged body of Sebastian, the creature started leisurely towards him. In all the commotion, Sebastian had managed to wriggle some distance away and now, seeing the creature closing on him, he began wriggling frantically.
‘I’ve tried everything,’ Goodfellow said. ‘It seems impervious to sword and spell.’
‘But not physical blows,’ Master Glim noted. ‘That rooftop knocked it down for a moment. We need something similar…something larger,’ and he eyed the walls around him.
‘Let me try something first,’ Samuel said. He was not enraged as in the past, but he put his mind to summoning as much power as he could handle—he could feel the magic rushing into him, both terrible and sweet. The others stood back, sensing his summoning, but not knowing what to expect.
Pushing a terrible torrent of energy between his hands, Samuel willed all the magic he could muster through his trembling body. The others took a further step back as his spell began to hiss and spit in his hands. Sparks arced between his fingers, snapping and flashing from fin
ger to finger with azure brilliance. All at once, Samuel felt he was on the verge of losing control, his muscles trembled to contain the growing spell between his palms, and so he released it with a shout of exertion, throwing his hands out towards the creature at the very last instant. The spell flew like an unholy comet, warping the air with its vigour and heat and trailing tendrils of lightning behind it. It struck the creature as it was dangling Sebastian above its gaping maw. There was a flash and a boom and Samuel fell, his legs buckling, as the earth rocked back and forth. The others also stumbled around him as they struggled to remain afoot.
A cloud of dust fell all around them. A building across the courtyard was half demolished, lying in ruins across the ground with one of the creature’s long legs jutting out from underneath. Sebastian’s lifeless body was hanging from the second floor, charred and blackened.
‘What was that?’ Goodfellow asked in disbelief, dusting himself off.
‘Just something I’ve been thinking about,’ Samuel replied groggily. His head already felt giddy and his muscles weak from the toll the spell had taken on him. He had used too much power and his debt had been accrued.
The creature stirred beneath the ruins and began dragging itself from the rubble, groaning loudly from its belly.
‘Can you manage another one?’ Lomar asked.
Samuel shook his head and almost fell over. Master Glim held onto him with both arms.
‘Then I think we’re in trouble,’ Goodfellow stated as the thing stood and took an unsteady step.
It suddenly bound hissing towards them on its long legs and Master Glim threw Samuel aside as it landed amongst them. Samuel found his senses and rolled back to his feet, feeling something slap at his legs. He was thrown onto his face once more, sending pain through his neck as it bent at a right angle. With blurred vision, he could see the monster standing over him. Then, the shadow of something large flashed overhead and the creature disappeared with it. A great boom followed and echoed from all around.
‘Get him out of here,’ someone called as the ground still shook.
Something gripped Samuel’s hand and began dragging him across the hard earth.
The Young Magician (The Legacy Trilogy) Page 60