by R. E. Fisher
Pulling both his dagger and sword, he prepared himself for anything that might arise. The sound of his steel exiting its sheaths whispered down the corridor ahead of him. He paused, listening as he did so; hearing nothing, he continued. He continued to follow the corridor for what seemed like an eternity in the silence and blackness, maintaining his caution and silence. He realized that upon entering the corridor, he’d felt a tinge of apprehension. However, that had disappeared the further down the corridor he went. He preferred living in the cities and light, but he was also at home in all manner of darkness.
He had spent his youth as an unwanted orphan. His father had been a human who had fallen in love with a wood elf maiden, and she with him. However, when she had given birth to him, she had been forced to carry him to his father to be raised. He would never be accepted by his half-kinsmen, nor would his father. His father had done the best he could, raising him until just after his sixth birthday. He remembered that he had died of coldlung, wasting away with such a fever that he hadn’t even recognized his son at the end. Unable to bury his father and unsure of what to do, he’d moved into the small stable that housed the only horse they had. He had lived that way for months, eating from their garden and finally their winter stores. Once the food had run out, he thought that he should learn to hunt. While hunting one day, he had been found by his kinsmen and taken to his mother for her to deal with. She had listened sympathetically, but they were still in the same situation as when she had given birth to him. The wood elves wouldn’t accept his tainted human half, so she took him to Noli Deron and handed him over to the city’s orphanage, leaving him alone and unwanted.
There, he thought, was where he had learned how to perform menial labor. He was farmed out to various merchants to empty wagons and clean stables, all in the name of ‘earning his keep.’ During his work assignments throughout the city, he had run across other children his age who lived on the streets and who made their way by stealing from those whose coin purses jangled. Though he was young, it had been his first introduction to the life of thievery. He had been forced to learn to fight those who hadn’t liked him for his eye color, the shape of his ears, or his naturally deft hands; he had proven adept at defending himself. It wasn’t long before he began committing thefts with his newfound friends and fencing them for his own profit. Once he felt that he had enough coin in his pocket, he walked away from the orphanage at the tender age of eleven. Not yet understanding how the world worked, he and the friends he made along the way began providing for themselves. They had even formed their own little band of thieves and had called themselves Hell’s Little Takers, leaving calling cards when it wouldn’t jeopardize their safety. The calling card they left had been a small curled tooth from the rats that roamed the streets at night. To them it had looked like a miniature demon’s horn. They had thought it grand fun. More and more, his friends had begun to look to him for leadership and guidance; they began taking bolder risks and collecting the greater rewards that came along with those risks as well.
There had been tragedy, too, for there were many men who had felt that thieves—child or not—had to pay for their failed attempts. He had watched, knowing that he could do nothing, as two of his childhood friends had been caught and killed in their attempt to lift the purses of two dangerous men.
When the city guard had searched the bodies of the dead thieves, they found a small bag on one of them that had contained a couple of the rat’s teeth. And though the city guard hadn’t been able to further identify the dead, the thieves’ guild had come calling on Helor. They admired what he and the children around him had been able to accomplish, but they also made it clear that there was no organization that would be sanctioned within the city other than their own guild. Period. They brought all the children into the guild with promises of wealth and adventure, provided they put in the work; the youths had learned more about their craft through training, guidance, and even more dangerous work. When they weren’t out lifting coin from the belts of others or committing burglaries in the wee hours of the mornings, they were training. As they became more proficient in their chosen craft, they had begun to separate from one another, their friendships falling to the wayside. They were relocated to other cities to perform their assigned tasks, arrested, killed, or even cast out of the guild for one violation or another. All of his childhood friends had disappeared within a few short years.
But the training he had received eventually paid off for him, and he rose to become recognized as one of the best thieves in the city by the age of sixteen. It was also then that he had earned the envy and jealousy of many within the guild, mainly from those who had professed to be his friends and allies, souring him on the guild. It hadn’t been as it had in his youth, where he and his friends had watched out for one another as best they could. The guild had changed all that. His natural skills had brought him great success, but now he was at risk from those who envied those skills and his daring. They had come to believe that because it appeared so simple for him, he should pay more to the guild for his right to work within the city. They had also let him know that should he not pay them more coin from his endeavors and continue to work within the city, they would contact the assassins’ guild and place a bounty on him. So, he had left the guild and their politics behind and had left the city. Confident in his own abilities, he was certain that he would be able to provide for himself.
Soon thereafter, he had met Jehosaa while traveling through the Barbarian Wastelands. He had happened upon the half-elven there after his family, an ancient tribe of warriors, had sent him out for his trials.
Jehosaa had thought to kill Helor, whereupon he would gain his first mark. The magic that had been wrought on him as part of the rite of manhood was called Tenno’s Look. It meant that from the moment he reached the age of acceptance and went through the ceremony, the likeness of any man or creature that he killed would manifest itself on him in the form of a blood-red tattoo. He had hoped to take the mark of Helor and return to show it proudly to his kinsmen. It was to be the first to mark his skin, one that had ended up being the only one that he would not gain.
He smiled at that memory of his friend and the arrogance he had displayed. His smile was interrupted by the slight sound of a rock tapping on rock ahead of him. He stopped, dropping into a kneeling position. He looked around, searching for the brighter shades of heat that he knew he would see within the cold, deep black and blue shades that filled his vision. He saw none and so he stayed still, continuing to look for movement. He knew that the undead and some elementals wouldn’t be visible and that they would have to be seen by movement, as they failed to have any real body temperature. They, too, could be down there with him.
Remaining kneeling, he searched for the source of the faint sound that he had heard and saw nothing, so he began moving forward in a crouched position. The horrid odor had grown stronger, but he was still unable to place it, looking for its source. Helor moved forward silently, still unable to spot the creature that saw him. He, too, shone brightly for those who could also see in the dark. Before he realized it, a figure within the shadows flung a large, broken piece of stone toward his head. As it came sailing through the air at him, he managed to see its movement and duck, avoiding the missile. He dropped instinctively to his knee once again. He realized that he was in serious trouble when he finally spotted the monster, while the missile it had thrown crashed against the tunnel floor, skidding down the corridor.
He hadn’t encountered anything like that before, but he had heard the stories about them and recognized it for what it was: a golem. A being created of earth and stone, a sentient monster that only sought to kill. A manifestation of some druid that had been created to assassinate an enemy of one type or another, but the druid must have been killed. Perhaps he had failed to maintain his control of it and the creature had turned on its creator, killing him. If it had, it became free to roam and continue its pursuit of death. Helor was curious as to how it had made it down into
those subterranean halls and corridors. That was something to consider later; for now, he had to escape. He doubted that he would be able to defeat this foe alone, assured that his sword and dagger would do minimal harm to it.
The sound of rocks crashing in the tunnel had echoed all the way to the spot that the party had managed to reach in Helor’s absence. Upon hearing the noise, Jehosaa told Brightbeard, the last dwarf in line, that he was going back to check on Helor. And he darted off down the corridor.
Jeresette stood next to the wall, watching Helor as he rushed past him. They all turned and rushed back, and the shelfling seemed to stare right at the demon as they passed.
Helor rose and began rushing back toward his companions. He was much faster than the golem and realized he could outdistance it, but he knew that now that it had picked up his scent, it wouldn’t stop until it had caught and killed him. He rushed through the darkness as best he could, hearing the consistent clacking of the beast’s stone feet slamming onto the hard stone floor of the corridor. It wasn’t the fastest, but it was relentless, he knew. As he began to run, several more stones were hurled in the direction of his legs as the beast attempted to knock him to the ground. Without thought, Helor began moving left and right to prevent the monster from gaining a good shot at him. The rocks crashed onto the floor in front of him, beside him and against the walls; waves of sound burst throughout the once silent halls as stone crashed against stone. He hoped his companions were paying attention, as he realized that the monster would be a challenge for the whole group of them.
As he rushed down the dark corridor, he heard them before he saw the faint glow of their torches far down the tunnel. He saw that they were moving toward him, heedless of the noise they were making in their hurry to locate and aid their companion. Dwarves never were known for their stealth, he thought, smiling in gratitude. They closed in on one another, shouting, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to tell friend from foe in the darkness unless he identified himself.
Upon rejoining the band, he told them what pursued him, and the dwarves just smiled while Sterling shouted out, “Anvil defense!” They spread out along the walls, holding their hammers and battle-axes high above their heads and their torches along the shafts of those lengthy weapons, the flames from their torches licking at the heads of hammer and axe.
“To me!” Dumas shouted to the remaining four members, having seen that particular move once long ago.
Everyone but the dwarves quickly moved back from where they knew the golem would rush in. It would have to run through the gauntlet they were quickly setting up. Unfortunately for Karon Whitebeard, he would be the bait at the other end of the gauntlet. The dwarves planned to quickly surround and close in on it.
However, Jehosaa had other ideas. He chose to stand alongside his friend, his greatsword at the ready; he and Helor stood in the center of the tunnel awaiting the foe, and a few moments later, it rushed into the now-crowded passageway. As the unthinking beast did so, the dwarves surrounded it, hammering away. No matter which direction it turned, the dwarves smiled and took turns hammering and beating it, until the smaller stones within it began to shatter from the force of their blows. Its demise was slow at first; the beast, not of the comprehending sort, failed to realize that its doom was sealed unless it could break out of that ring of dwarves.
It fought back instinctively as stone fists struck dwarves, knocking them backward or to the ground. The force of the golem’s blows lifted Karon from his feet, sending him crashing against the wall, his armor rattling as he fell into a heap at the base. It was then that they doubled their efforts, realizing that this was no soft monster and that it could end any of their lives.
Though it was the same height as Jehosaa, the sheer weight of the stones and dirt that compromised its being never allowed the dwarves the chance to knock it to the ground, as this dwarven tactic had done in the past against other creatures and people. It was as though they were mining the tunnel again, but without their pickaxes. Yet few creatures can withstand the force and the joy that a dozen dwarves feel as they hammer away at anything.
As the dwarves continued their efforts to hurt the golem, they realized that it was making headway against them. It stepped forward through the opening that it had created when it knocked Whitebeard out of the way. It had also managed to reduce the number of dwarves that could strike it to less than half of those that had been able to just moments earlier. Unfortunately for the golem, when it stepped forward, the dwarves broke ranks to surround it—but it had also stepped into a position that allowed Jehosaa and Helor to strike it from behind. They did so as viciously as they could with their edged weapons, but each had little impact on the golem.
Not one to be left out, Winston pulled two small daggers from his boots and rushed in, darting between Jehosaa’s legs and carrying his daggers in front of him with a look of determination on his face. With the beast’s back to them, Winston reached up and struck the creature on the inside of its legs, hoping it would cause harm. This recklessness only served to draw the golem’s attention toward him. The golem lashed out, striking Winston so hard that it sent him flying down the corridor into the darkness, disappearing past even the glow of the torches that now lay scattered about the floor. Seeing this, Laz, Ollie, and Dumas feared the worst for their diminutive new acquaintance. Now angry, they searched for an opening but saw no room for them to join the fray. It was nothing but a rapidly moving mass of dwarves and stone to them.
With the dwarves still hammering away at the golem, and while Jehosaa and Helor were attempting to drive the tips of their weapons into its hard flesh and the other three waited for an opening to join in, a small flash rushed from the darkness. The figure zipped back toward the golem from the area in which Winston been tossed. The shelfling was rushing back into the fight, and he struck the creature in its kneecaps with his daggers, displaying a force of strength that his small frame alone was incapable of creating. He drove his daggers deep into its stonelike flesh, their entry and the force behind it causing the beast to collapse forward. The dwarves took advantage of that opportunity and began raining heavy blows down upon the monster’s head, back, and legs.
Winston came to a stop in front of the three of them, who stood with a look of astonishment on their faces. Even while the dwarves continued to hack at the beast, Winston looked up at them and asked, “What?” with a smile. He crossed his arms, comfortable that he had done his part; he began tapping his foot, awaiting the now inevitable conclusion.
Unable to move or defend itself, the golem succumbed to the constant strikes from those that had gathered around to kill it. Jehosaa struck the beast mightily with his two-handed sword, and it promptly shattered as if it were made of glass. The corpse emitted the sickeningly sweet smell of rotten fruit.
Winston began to walk toward the beast to retrieve his daggers, but Darkbeard picked them up before he could get there, examining them both.
“Mythryl,” Winston said matter-of-factly. “They were made for me. By a friend,” he offered, holding his hands out for their return. He kept silent upon seeing the remaining looks of disbelief from the entire band.
After taking the small daggers from Darkbeard and returning them to his boot sheaths, he walked over to the broken corpse of the golem, looking at it, and covered his nose. “Yuck! Smells like we found someone’s buried breakfast,” he said.
The dwarves helped Whitebeard to his feet, ensuring that he was okay, and picked up the scattered torches, relighting those that had gone out. Laz turned and noticed that Helor was holding a torch, searching the tattoos on Jehosaa’s body, who was searching as well.
“Anything?” Jehosaa asked.
“No,” Helor replied. “Too bad. You don’t have one of those.”
“Shite!” the barbarian said, frustrated.
“Guess you didn’t do it enough harm,” the half-elf offered.
Jehosaa lifted a torch from the stone floor and began walking toward their original destination,
muttering to himself. Helor just smiled at his behavior and followed him.
“What’s that about?” Laz asked Helor as he passed.
“He didn’t get his mark,” Helor replied.
Laz just looked at him, confused by his answer.
“When he kills something, it shows up on his skin. It’s not perfect, though. Sometimes he has to have the killing blow, sometimes not.”
“So that’s what those tattoos are. Seems kind of a weird thing to do,” Laz pointed out.
“No, not really. It keeps you honest, don’t you think? Especially if your history is key to becoming a tribal leader,” Helor replied as he resumed trailing after his friend.
Ollie walked up beside Laz. “I was wondering, too, but hadn’t gotten around to asking. The tattooed one doesn’t talk much.”
How strange, the demon thought after he had watched that battle and had seen the damage that the shelfling had done to the golem. Seeing the group now returning, Jeresette backtracked down the corridor, ensuring that the group wouldn’t pass by him again. He realized that he had more to be concerned about than the dwarves and a half-elf. Although he had to be careful of elves and dwarves sensing him, he was positive no one could see him in his incorporeal form, so what had that shelfling been looking at?
As each of them worked their way back up the passage, Winston glanced about the corridors several times. He thought that in the rush to battle he might have just imagined what he had seen, as he didn’t see anything now. Oh well, he thought, just a trick of light from the torches.
He turned to move back into the line and saw that Helor was watching him closely. He signaled for the shelfling, and Winston walked over.
“Do you sense it?” Helor asked him in hushed tones.