Stone Ram (Leopard King Saga)

by T. A. Uner

  “Halt!” they both said simultaneously. “Turn back or die.”

  “Straightforward, aren’t they?” Lager said.

  “Be still,” Renley said.

  They both stared at Renley and then at the newcomers. “Lord Renley,” they both said, continuing to speak simultaneously, “who are these strangers?”

  “Guests, now, return to your posts.”

  They nodded obediently before climbing atop their plinths. But Fabian could see that both their eyes remained transfixed on him and his friends.

  “You must excuse the Sentients. While they make excellent guards, their manners are limited.”

  “So where is the Door?” Fabian asked.

  Renley rubbed his fat thumb over one of his rings—it resembled a stag’s head with antlers twisting around the fat lord’s finger—and the door appeared before them. Its studded bronze surface was dark and ominous, and a large Stag head positioned in its center glared at them angrily. “Now, Stone Ram, you must enter.”

  Fabian turned toward his friends. “Time to get this over with.”

  Renley put a hand on Fabian’s arm and he instinctively drew his sword and pressed the blade against Renley’s chest. The Sentients stirred from their plinths but Renley waved them off. “Your weapons, you must leave them behind.”

  Lager pushed Fabian’s sword back from the Lord’s chest. “It’s ok Ram, we’ll keep an eye on things on this end. You go.”

  Marella stepped up to him and kissed him on the lips. He felt lightheaded for a tick then collected his composure. “Very well.”

  Matilda barked and wagged her tail and he ran his gauntleted hand gently across her back. After entrusting his weapons to Lager he stepped up to the door. It creaked open and he stepped through.

  III

  He was home.

  The soft wind brushed across his cheek and he realized his armor was gone. Surrounded by a rolling meadow, underneath a warm sun within a sky of flocculent clouds.

  And he could see! It reminded him of his dream with Tildon, half expecting the old Mage to appear he called out for him. No answer, so he decided to go back to his family’s stead.

  His father was in the barn, using a hammer to straighten a horseshoe on an anvil. “Father?”

  His father did not look up. “So, after abandoning your home, you’ve come back to us?” his father said irritably, it was unlike his demeanor to speak in a disrespectful way, even when he was displeased with Fabian. “Do you know how worried your mother and I have been?” He still did not look directly at Fabian, and continued with his work. “Stupid boy, and you took Starspeed, what were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry father,” he said. Perhaps this was some sort of test. It had to be, for this man was not his true father.

  “Come with me, boy,” the impostor said. Fabian followed him toward the horse stalls. He recognized the other horses and felt a sense of relief before reminding himself that this was not real.

  They reached Starspeed’s stall.

  Inside was the horse, but only its skeleton. Its sightless eye sockets stared lifelessly at Fabian. This is not real, Fabian thought.

  “But it is, boy.” Fabian looked at the imposter but it had changed into Renley. “The door is an entity. It can give you whatever you desire: money, power, fame, women. Renley smiled mischievously. “It’s a good trade, boy, take it.”

  “What must I trade?”

  “Your quest, abandon it, for it can only end in failure and cost you both you and your friends’ lives.”

  “Do it!” said a familiar voice. Fabian spun around and saw his father again, this time with his mother.

  “Listen to your father,” the imposter posing as his mother chided, “become whole, see the world like it was meant to be seen.”

  Fabian laughed. He didn’t want to but he felt a surge of anxiety lounging in his chest, so he released it, and the fake images of his “parents” faded. They were poor specters of two people who had raised him to be proud of who he was.

  He turned back toward Renley, who was still standing in front of the stall, a look of scorn stretched across his fat face, behind him the horse skeleton had disappeared. “You have passed your screening; now, your Endurance Test begins.”

  IV

  It began.

  He was plunged in stygian silence; his sight, gone.

  “This is your Endurance Test, boy,” Renley’s voice said, coming from inside his head. “If you can pass it without saying ‘yield’ you will be successful, if not, well,” and he giggled in his trademark manner, “then you’ll be dead.”

  “Proceed,” Fabian said.

  He felt something stab him in the back. A sharp rippling pain, it did not subside. Then something pricked his cheek, he could feel hot blood on his chin. Another stab. This one in his stomach. “Do you yield?” Renley asked.

  Fabian swallowed. “No.”

  Fabian clenched his teeth and something landed a punch in both his ribcages simultaneously, he thought he felt something crack, but, he could not be sure. He started walking to shake off the pain; he hit a wall. He Turned and walked in another direction. Again, another wall. He tried twice more and he then knew he was in a room. A cold chill descended upon him and it felt like a stinging sensation, like tiny spring bees. The cold became intense, he felt his throat become sore and his nose congested; he felt as if he was trapped within a sheet of thin ice, his sightless eyes pressed against its frozen surface. “Now do you yield?”

  “No.”

  The ice was gone. He felt a pressure against his chest. It was hot and beads of sweat appeared on his face before turning to acid drops that burned his face. He called out in pain before the feeling subsided, only to return with even more intensity.

  “Yield?”

  “No!”

  The pressure in his chest burned too, but it kept squeezing him, as if trying to drive his soul out of his body. He gritted his teeth but they were hot too, and his gums in flames. Then his whole body erupted, he could not see but he could visualize the flames, consuming him, trying to get him to…

  “Yield?”

  “Noooo.”

  “I can make the pain stop, just yield.”

  “Nooooooooo.”

  Fabian lost consciousness.

  ***

  Fabian was in the room again. The door slowly closed behind him. His armor had been returned and he could see the smug look on Renley’s face repealed.

  “Well that was fast,” Lager said, handing Fabian his staff and sword. “You only left a second ago.”

  “Welcome back, Hero Fabian,” Marella said, hugging him as Matilda nuzzled his leg.

  “How did you do it?” Renley said. “Few can match wits with the trials of the Stag Door.”

  Fabian ignored him and instead reached for the Truth Diamond. He extended it toward the Bronze Door and said, “Door.” The center of the Truth Diamond lit up like a candle ember before its outline was highlighted by a white light. A few ticks later the door disappeared. Renley’s eyes widened in horror, his most prized possession gone while the Sentients both dissolved into piles of sand that spilled over the plinths and onto the floor.

  “In the name of the King I seize the Bronze Door, and Lord Renley you have been discharged of your guardianship duties.”

  Renley nodded glumly.

  “You will also guarantee us safe passage through Trident.” Fabian said before turning toward his friends. They left the room, leaving Renley alone, looking tired and defeated.

  Eleven

  Langor and his Cavalry escorted Fabian and his friends out of Trident. When they reached the city limits the giant Knight pointed at a sign which indicated the distance toward The Last Outpost, the final Rek settlement before entering the Darklands. In the distance they saw the white sky thinning toward a line of darkness marking the border of the Darklands. Beyond that were the Wasp Mountains.

  “How long will it take to get to The Last Outpost?” Lager asked.

  L
angor’s thick Corinthian-style helm turned towards the Earthman, the Trident emblem on it glimmering. Only a pair of yellow eyes visible. “When you get there, you will know.” And with that he turned and rode off, with his men, back toward Trident.

  “Gee that was real informative,” Lager said. “I bet that guy moonlights as a standup comic after he gets off work.”

  “I doubt he’s even human,” Marella retorted.

  “Let’s move,” Fabian said, “we’re almost at the border.”

  ***

  When they arrived at The Last Outpost they were all horrified at the carnage before them: the corpses of dead Rekian frontier guards attracting flies while carrion crows picked at the decaying flesh. Broken weapons and charred ground also marred their surroundings. Within the shadow of the large cliff before them, the small frontier garrison had been bombed. It had been a total rout.

  “These men all deserve burials,” Lager said before he looked up and studied the sky border between the two lands, white holding its ground against a line of black sky stretching eastward, deeper into the Darklands.

  “If we had the time, yes, but we must press on.” Matilda looked at the men who had given their lives and whimpered. In the distance Fabian saw many of the lookout towers on Rek’s side had been wiped off the face of the world. The work of Xot Marauders no doubt. In the distance his sight picked up a squad of Wasps patrolling the border. They hadn’t detected him and his band; it was best they moved off. They passed through a narrow cleft in the cliff’s side and were greeted by impaled human and non-human bodies. One was Joffe’s the stable boy who had rebuffed Fabian’s overtures to join his band, next to his body were two other humans, most likely Joffe’s older brother Mick and Sal the conjurer, both in various forms of decomposition. But perhaps the worst of it all was Greenworth the Battle troll, whose skin had been stripped from his body, his skinless muscles exposed for all the world to see. How it was possible they stayed in place was something Fabian had no desire to learn. “I know those Crusaders.” He muttered a silent prayer as they moved forward.

  “You mean you knew those guys,” Lager corrected him.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Marella said. Lager offered her a vomit bag, but as soon as they cleared the malevolent spectacle she was able to collect her composure. Lager patted her on the back reassuringly.

  “Curse the moon,” Fabian said. Uttering a famous Rekian phrase. He halted his horse and gazed at the scene ahead beyond the other end of the cleft.

  “One day you have to tell me how that saying came to be, Ram.”

  Fabian pointed. Lager took out the Gold Rek binoculars Tildon had gifted him and cursed too.

  A bridge, made of bone spanned a gulley beyond the rocky corridor they were traversing.

  Guarding it were four heavily-armed Xot Defenders.

  II

  “Well this isn’t good,” Lager said. He put away his binoculars and scratched his stubble face.

  “We could probably overtake them with our combined might,” Marella said, “but it would only take one Xot to sound an alarm.” She cast a sly look at Lager. “Unless Lager can pull it off.”

  “I’m intrigued,” Lager remarked.

  “Let’s hear the plan,” Fabian said.

  “Alright, listen to this.”

  They listened.

  ***

  “Hello there!”

  The Xot watched as a strange-looking humanoid wearing the alien uniform of an offworlder approached them. Behind him were Fabian and Marella. They grunted and surrounded them immediately.

  “What business have you here?” said one of the larger Xot whose face was painted dark blue with a white spear painted down the middle of its face. It pointed a spear at Lager, who merely pushed it away.

  “Is that any way to treat potential allies?” Lager said.

  “Allies?” One of the other sentries said. The Xot looked collectively dumbfounded. Fabian was disgusted by their body odor, a combination of vinegar and human excrement. But he and Marella remained straight-faced.

  “What do you mean?” another Xot said.

  “We’re mercenaries,” Fabian said. “Can’t you tell? I’m from Tork; and Marella here is from—”

  “—Pazland,” she added.

  “And if you let us pass we’d be willing to offer you something of value.” Lager poured a few coins into the palm of one Xot.” The Xot lowered their weapons; Fabian hoped this plan would work. “These are Gold Dinars,” Lager said, “from Rek.”

  “What would we need with these?” another Xot said, “we’re at war with them!”

  “True,” Marella added, “but after you conquer them you’ll need currency to buy goods, at least until your own currency is established.”

  “We take what we want!” another Xot said. “We have no use for money!”

  “Then you can use it to build armies,” Fabian said.

  “Yes,” Marella said. “You know your lord, the Blood Reeper? You don’t think he has a horde of gold stashed somewhere? To build armies?”

  “Lord Reeper breeds his armies in the Spew Pits,” another Xot said.

  “Yes, but eventually he’ll need new armies, for his burgeoning empire,” Fabian added, “then he will have no further use for you.”

  “He would never turn on us,” the blue-and-white-faced Xot said. “We are his creations.”

  “You never can tell, big man,” Lager said. “This is a floor plan of Rek’s Treasury Building. You’ll need it once you reach Rek City.” Lager handed the Xot a paper map. “Take it, as payment for letting us pass.”

  Fabian hoped Lager’s bribe would get them past these sentries. But how had Lager obtained a floor plan of the Treasury building?

  “Very well, move along,” the big Blue-and-white-faced Xot said. Lager nodded at it and smiled.

  When they had crossed over Bone Bridge and left the water gulley below behind. Lager’s laughter had overtaken him.

  “What is he laughing about?” Marella said as she pulled her horse next to Fabian’s while Matilda looked at the Earthman as he had gone insane.

  “Yes Lager, what is so funny?” Fabian flipped open his visor to air out the bad smell of

  The Xot. “And where did you get all those Dinars and that Map from?”

  Lager took a sip of water from his canteen nearly choking on it. “Ram, Marella, those Dinars were holograms, and that map, well it a set of directions on how to build a wooden bathtub; but here’s the kicker it was laced with fire-brim.”

  “What is fire-brim?” Marella asked.

  “Itching powder,” Fabian said smiling. “We use it in Rek to expel fleas from our pets and horses.”

  III

  He sat in his throne room, alone except for his Xot Guards. But in essence he did not need them at all. Two crimson eyes stared into an Orb that floated beneath a skeletal face. He smiled a bony grin and descended the steps of his throne, made from the bones of his vanquished enemies. He drew back his blue hood and could not help but rue the stupidity of his Defenders. He knew one crusader group might make it to his Darklands, despite his massive invasion, where he had committed one half of his entire military forces. But he still had one more piece to move in this drawn-out game, one last weapon to use in order to test these brave souls who had ventured into his domain.

  “Come closer fools,” Blood Reeper said, he twiddled is bony hands before grasping the orb. Within it, an image of Fabian, Lager, Marella and Matilda advancing closer toward Bone Keep.

  He sent out a thought message to Zoron and his Knights.

  ***

  Inside the Altar of Skulle Khallor, Zoron awoke with his master’s whispers floating inside his skull. He arose from his sarcophagus and gathered his weapons and armor before summoning his seven brothers. They all gathered at the Dead Table to discuss their lord’s summons. Barat and the others agreed with Zoron that the two humans, one wearing the Tork Armor, the other an offworlder in an outlandish costume, would be killed immed
iately. The girl however would be brought back; to be sacrificed to their Lord Reeper as tribute, for giving them the gift of eternal life.

  When all five had all mounted their horses, The Knights of the Dead Table rode with fervor, skirting the edge of the Wasp Mountains, toward the invaders.

  Twelve

  They plowed ahead, following the Black Road, deeper into the Darklands. The dark sky eying them from above, while on their right flank lay the Wasp Mountains. Fabian felt his head tingle as he looked ahead. He took off his Ram helm and shook his head.

  “What is it Hero Fabian?”

  “You alright Ram?”

  Matilda barked.

  “I swore I saw something ahead,” he said pointing towards the foot of a tall plateau that stood alone like a lone sentry in an inhospitable land.

  “What?” Lager said.

  “What we seek.”

  “I don’t like this, Ram.” Lager scanned the plateau with his binoculars and Marella with her sharp eyes. “Let’s keep moving; let’s find Bone Keep and end this; before it ends us.”

  “For once I agree with Lager,” Marella said.

  Fabian donned his helm and pushed his horse forward. A silver light growing before his eyes until they reached the foot of the plateau. He dismounted and smiled beneath his helm. “Do you see it?”

  “What?” Lager repeated.

  “It’s the door, the Silver Hellion Door.”

  II

  “I don’t see it,” Lager said. “You sure it’s the Silver Door?”

  “Yes,” Fabian said in a firm voice. “I can see it; perhaps it is because the magical properties of this Tork Armor.”