It fell to its back, scraped its head with its paws, and swung its huge head from side-to-side finally dragging it through the dirt before Dra’kor plunged his small sword he had freed from his belt, into its rib cage. The beast twisted violently, causing Dra’kor to lose his grip as it toppled over.
Dra’kor took momentary advantage of the distraction and jumped up into the boulder field as high as he could in a single leap using one of his hands to aid in balance and turned quickly. The last catomen was getting ready to spring and he had no spell prepared. He reached down, grabbed a big sharp rock with both hands, and held at the ready.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going down without a fight,” he growled at the beast through a bare-toothed snarl.
Grit saw his friend in dire need and leapt into the fray to lend a hand. As the last foe jumped into the air, Dra’kor hoped for the best as he raised the jagged rock, ready to land a wicked blow to the creature’s head, hoping to catch an eye. But a strong arm came out of the night holding a blazing blade that cut into the beast’s side like butter and spilled its entrails over the ground. The dead beast thudded as it hit the rocks hard. A shaking Grit stood slightly crouched, glowing sword in hand, with blood and guts to his elbow. He staggered on unsteady feet before he fell to the ground shaking uncontrollably, the small sword falling from his numb fingers.
Dra’kor let the sharp rock fall from his hand and watched as it clattered and bounced down the rocky slope, coming to rest near the fire pit after a short roll. He and Men’ak raced to Grit’s side and together they took up the defensive position called Three Elk - Heads Down. Grit struggled to get to his feet as the initial shock of the battle wore off and picked up his sword, which was still dripping with the green blood of the demon beast.
The three stood back to back at the ready and surveyed their camp. The four dead catomen had done much damage, but they had been lucky. None had been bitten. They suffered bruised egos, scrapes and cuts over their arms and legs and they were a motley sight for sure, their clothes ripped and their supplies strewn about, but they would live to fight another day.
“Where the hell did they come from?” a panting Men’ak queried, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. “I … I thought those were beasts of the lower planes — what did you call them?”
“Catomen, and they’re from the first plane. Didn’t you ever pay any attention in class?” Grit schooled Men’ak sarcastically.
Men’ak shook his head negatively as he tried to pull in another deep breath.
Grit wiped his sword clean on the gleaming black coat of the disemboweled beast. “It looks like Ja’tar was right. There is much more going on. First plane beasts shouldn’t be here.”
Dra’kor reached down and lifted a barely recognizable bedroll from the dirt. He turned it over and handed it to Men’ak.
“Here, I think this is yours,” he said, holding the shredded cloth by thumb and forefinger.
“Thanks,” said Men’ak acerbically, as he tossed it into the fire.
“How did you know?” Grit asked Dra’kor.
“Well, my bedroll is over there and yours is …”
Grit scowled, “No, not that, I mean about the beasts. How did you know?”
“Oh, I set wards before we went to bed,” Dra’kor declared with a self-righteous smirk on his face. He knew that his foresight had saved them. He felt smugly proud and puffed out his chest a little.
“By the Ten, we are lucky you did. I didn’t even think of setting wards.” Grit shook his head at his own stupidity as he slumped to the ground. He slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.
“We’re so stupid!”
Men’ak nodded.
“You know we should be dead,” said Grit weakly.
“— This is so different from the training we got,” Men’ak bemoaned. “I froze. I was petrified! We aren’t prepared for this. Ja’tar should have —”
“How could you train someone for this?” Grit said, cutting Men’ak off and coming to Ja’tar’s defense.
Men’ak whined, “We should head home. We’re not ready for this kind of thing —”
“What’s done is done,” Dra’kor sputtered under his breath. “We live, and now we know. We’ll need to be more careful, keep watch in shifts, set our wards, and always be at the ready.”
Both Grit and Men’ak stared blankly at him as if he had just grown two heads.
“And you were worried about highwaymen!” Dra’kor quipped.
Men’ak frowned, eyes wide, “You think there are more of these — catomen out there?”
Dra’kor nodded as he scanned the camp perimeter, “Indubitably.”
Dra’kor grunted as he pulled one of the beasts off of his bedroll by the feet and rolled it to the side.
It was an ugly thing, cat-like in the face, but with razor-sharp teeth and an over-wide mouth. The large ears were swept straight back. The single yellow eye in the middle of its forehead was the size of a lemon. Dra’kor kicked it over. He examined it carefully.
Men’ak ran a hand over the back of Dra’kor’s coat. There were four parallel cuts that raked across his back cutting all the way through the heavy material.
Dra’kor looked back at Men’ak. “What?”
“Your coat is nearly ripped in half —” Men’ak said.
“What? Would you look at that! It’s amazing we beat them,” Grit whistled. “Did you see the size of their claws? They were …”
Dra’kor slipped his coat off and put a hand through the gaping holes, wiggling his fingers on the other side.
He grinned, “— I didn’t feel a thing.”
“You have all the luck,” Grit replied.
Dra’kor put the coat down and began examining the dead creature. The thick muscular rear legs, long claws meant speed. Small front legs, but the same big claws, balance maybe. It had protruding boney spines that looked a bit like some kind of armor. The beast looked to be about the weight of a man, but he didn’t know if it was male or female because the beast had no genitalia. For that matter, Dra’kor didn’t know if it was full-grown or not. He pulled out his hunting knife and carefully removed the rear talons and put them in a pouch.
“What are you doing?” said Grit, staring intently.
“I’m collecting these to show Ja’tar when we get back,” Dra’kor said. He pressed down hard on the knife rocking it back and forth, as he sawed through the bone and cartilage.
Grit smiled, “That’s a great idea. He’ll never believe us!”
Dra’kor wiped his blade and shoved the long claws into his pack after wiping the gore from them on the grass. “Oh, he’ll believe!”
“Let’s clean up the camp. Salvage what we can and try to get a little more rest before morning,” Dra’kor scowled. “We need our strength. Anyone need healing?”
Grit nodded and Dra’kor laid his hands on the lad and cast his spell. Grit bared his teeth and could feel the magic as it worked, mending the deep cuts he had on his leg.
Men’ak nervously paced back and forth in front of the fire, randomly reorganizing the fire pit. “R-r-rest? Hell, I can’t sleep now!”
“You better have Dra’kor take a look at that,” Grit said, as he pointed to the big red stain that had appeared on Men’ak’s arm.
Men’ak looked down at his arm. With all the excitement, he hadn’t even felt the wound. Now that it was over, the burning sensation was starting to spread. Men’ak started to shake, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he fell to his knees, passing out.
“Some hero,” grunted Grit.
Dra’kor slid Men’ak’s sleeve up and saw the deep gash, practically to the bone. The cut, which spanned two hands, was as clean as if a fine knife had done the damage. Those claws were as deadly as they looked. Dra’kor quickly took up the position, held the wound together with both hands as he dug deep for another healing spell. He pinched the flesh together at the end of the wound and cast his spell as he slid his hand down the gaping cut. The sca
r would be permanent, a constant reminder of this night to remember.
Men’ak’s eyes shot wide as the magic jerked him conscious. His face contorted as the flesh began to meld together. Soon a welt appeared, and a scar formed.
Dra’kor looked up dizzily from what he was doing to see if Men’ak was okay. He removed his hands and watched Men’ak gently caress the fresh scar. It would still hurt like hell for a while.
Dra’kor stumbled over to the fire, weakened from the healings. He sat down hard on a big boulder and took a deep breath.
“Grit, you can take the first watch, and don’t forget to set wards,” Dra’kor scolded, shaking his finger at the two younger mages. The two lowered their gaze and nodded solemnly.
It didn’t take them long to clean the camp. They dragged the dead catomen off into the woods and kicked dirt over the blood and gore, most of which had already soaked into the earth. Grit piled plenty of dried wood on the fire and made another sizable stack next to the ring, enough, he hoped, to last the full night.
Dra’kor stood stiffly, walked over to where he had set his coat, and retrieved the shredded garment, bringing it near the fire. He was aggravated, this was his favorite coat, and he had had it for centuries. He rolled it over in his hands, examining the damage as he wove a spell that neatly repaired the leather and the wool fibers of the lining. He watched as the fibers untangled and knit together. He would have to rub in some oil or fat when he had the chance, but for now, it was as good as it was going to get. Dra’kor looked at it approvingly, running his hand over his handiwork. He paused for a second and wove a spell, adding a second enchantment to make the fibers stronger, just in case —
Dra’kor slid the coat on and shivered as the night air sucked the heat out of his body. For a while, adrenaline kept him warm, but now, he stomped around the fire a bit to get his circulation moving before he nestled down against the rocks, cast a spell to heat them, and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long adventure if things kept up the way they were going. He thought to himself, the boys had done well. In fact, in spite of everything, he was having the time of his life.
He didn’t really sleep any more that night, but he did rest a tad. He heard Men’ak and Grit argue for a while before they calmed down and put more wood on the fire. He nodded off for a bit, but soon, Men’ak was shaking his arm telling him it was his turn to take the watch.
Dra’kor crouched in front of the fire, warming himself as he watched his two friends doze off. The battle with the catomen had sobered him up. This wasn’t going to be the grand adventure he had imagined, but it was going to be an adventure, that’s for sure. If they survived, they would have impressive stories to tell. He laughed to himself. In the end, all you have is your story.
He was a little repentant for how he had treated Ja’tar. Turns out the old man had been honest with him about most things, but he had been too self-absorbed to notice. He was going to have to eat a little crow when he got back to the Keep. Ja’tar deserved better. He wondered what stories Ja’tar would tell. Although he didn’t know much about the times of Ror, given what he did know, the things that Ja’tar saw and survived … well, he would just have to share a few mugs of mead with the Old man when they got back.
For a while, he sat near the fire reflecting on the events of the day. Although he was generally pleased with how they had responded, a couple things really bothered him, bothered him to the core of his being. First, he thought that his magic would do much more damage. A lot more damage. When he thought about it, only a single beast had died from magic, the one Men’ak had released a fireball directly into. The rest had died from wounds of steel or the exploding rocks that Grit had used. This gave him pause, because he just couldn’t explain it.
The second thing that bothered him was he wondered why he couldn’t tell what kind of entity had invaded his wards. If he couldn’t rely on his wards to tell him the truth, they eventually would err and either kill innocents, or end up dead for not perceiving a threat. Neither of those two outcomes appealed to Dra’kor and he vowed by the Ten to figure out what went wrong.
He would have to ponder these questions. Considering that he had cast the biggest energy bolt he had ever dared conjure into the beast, he expected that it would have been vaporized, not just wounded. Worrisome. That’s what it was, bloody worrisome!
When the first hint of daylight appeared in the east, Dra’kor woke his friends, who both, in spite of their grumbling, slept just fine. They moved like old men, stiff and sore, they joked and teased each other mercilessly for the better part of the morning. They snuffed out the fire and after eating some cold bread and warm tea, they slung their packs over their stiff shoulders and took off down the road.
Well after the wizards had left the camp, a heavily robed man stepped out of the shadows. He looked around the camp where the fire pit still smoldered and walked into the woods. He stood staring down at the stack of dead catomen.
“So my friends, what kind of trouble did you get yourselves into last night?”
He knelt down on his haunches and petted the largest on its head lovingly as he examined their bodies.
“Ran into a mage or two I see. How unfortunate for you ….”
The robed-one opened the chest cavity of one and noticed the missing talons off the largest feline lying next to the one he was examining. The blast pattern was immediately identifiable. He took a sniff, ran his fingers over the wound, and licked his fingers. “Ah! So I see our friends took a few souvenirs. I must say I am shocked that one of them even remembered that spell. That certainly does bring me back …”
The stranger rubbed his chin. “I wonder what Keep wizards are doing so far from home. It’s not like them to wander about, you know! I suppose I will have to keep my eye on them.”
He stood up, licked his fingers clean and wiped the blood from his deformed grotesque hands onto his robe where it was immediately absorbed.
“Well, I suppose I should send you home. Your master will be missing you …”
He held his hands wide and chanted in an ancient guttural tongue. Soon, smoke gathered at his feet. The smoke thickened, boiled, and a very small crack appeared in the dirt as the ground quivered. Dirt fell into the fracture as it widened. The ground rumbled at his feet and slowly the fissure continued to grow until it was several arms long and an arm wide. The fiery red glow from far below shimmered and putrid, yellow ochre smoke billowed from its depths. He stared deep into the abyss with his unblinking black pupil-less eyes and took a deep breath of the foul sulfur-laden air.
He turned to face the catomen and continued to chant, weaving his hands in the shape of a long forgotten rune. His hands blurred as he retraced the rune repeatedly. The catomen slowly dissolved into swirling clouds of dust and were sucked down into the crack.
“Goodbye my friends. I will call on you later,” the hooded man said, in a gruff unemotional voice as he lowered his still glowing hands.
He finished chanting as the crack sealed itself. He stood there for a few seconds and then he was gone, disappearing in a cloud of purple black colored smoke.
The three friends had left the camp early in the morning with the expectation that it would be easier going before the mud thawed. Besides, they wanted to put as much distance between the memories of the previous night and themselves as they could. They set a brisk pace that loosened their muscles and warmed them after a cold night of sleeping on the bare ground.
They chewed on dried biscuits and a few slices of cheese as they took their first steps, trying to warm up after a cold night. They tried to walk as quickly as they could, but given the efforts of the previous night, their progress was disappointing.
Grit shifted his pack to the other shoulder. He stopped and bent over to rub his thigh with his free hand. Dra’kor and Men’ak kept walking and he had to run to catch up. “By the Ten, I’m stiff …”
“You could have waited,” he pouted as he winced.
“Could have,” Dra’kor stated, m
atter-of-factly.
Grit took a few more strides before he mumbled, “I didn’t think the fight yesterday was that strenuous, but by the Ten.” He swore as he stumbled along trying to keep up.
“I’m sore too,” a hobbled Men’ak said. He was favoring his leg that the catomen had ripped open. It still ached even though he had been healed the night before. He would have a huge scar to show for his adventure. He smiled to himself. The ladies loved scars, especially if they were attached to a life and death story.
Men’ak grunted as he took another step. “I think I must have pulled something last night —”
“You’re just getting old. And you’re out of shape from too many slices of ham and roast,” teased Grit.
Men’ak grinned widely and rubbed his stomach, “I just have a healthy appetite ….”
“For a horse,” Grit kidded. “I noticed you completely ignored the part about getting … old.”
“What do you mean getting,” winked Men’ak as he gave Grit a shove. “Eight-hundred ain’t old … now Ja’tar, he’s old!”
Men’ak nodded his agreement, and grinned, “Yep, he’s old, but I believe he’d kick your arse!”
They stopped walking, looked at each other and broke into loud guffaws. Grit laughed so hard, he almost toppled over as his feet slid over the ice that had formed in the puddles on the road.
“True, True! But you’re no spring chicken yourself,” Grit countered, bumping his shoulder into Men’ak.
“Ouch! Hey! Watch it,” Men’ak joked.
“At least I’m not limping like a one-legged sailor,” replied Grit, doing his best impression of a bowlegged sailor.
“No, you’re not; you’re just hunched over like — an old man. Face it, you’re old and I mean old, as in a little long in the tooth,” Men’ak said, continuing the banter and shoving Grit off into the grass.
The three wizards walked down the trail in the direction of Three Rivers. The sun was up and the dew almost off the grass. The road was even starting to dry out a bit now that they weren’t so deep in the forest. They still had to stick to the side because the ruts were so deep from wagons using the road when the mud was fresh.
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 01 - Eyes of the Keep Page 30