by Isaac Hooke
But not all of the uraks were soldiers. There were mages among them, and rock elementals arose from the walls and floor to assault the dragon and its poison creatures. Other uraks launched walls of flames, and ribbons of black mist, concentrating on the unhealed wounds Malem had already inflicted on the dragon’s scales.
But Furlantos raised that magic shield, and the incoming attacks deflected. For the moment. Malem sensed the green’s stamina flagging from the effort of maintaining that shield, and he fed Furlantos endurance, taking from the others. He took most from Nemertes—it seemed a fair trade, for her disobedience. Then again, she wouldn’t have been able to survive against Vorgon, so he couldn’t really blame her for running.
Don’t fly far, Malem sent her. Cross to the other side of the mountains. We’ll try to rendezvous with you at some point.
Okay. Fuck, Nemertes sent.
Malem dismissed the green dragon’s vision.
“Come on, we have to collapse this opening while the dragon holds them off!” Malem said, making his way down the stairs. “Inside!”
“But if we collapse the opening, we’ll be trapped!” Gwen said.
“Yes,” Malem said. “But I’m counting on the fact that Wendolin is right, and that there’s another way out of the cave system.”
He ordered the birds inside with him. Abigail sent her flaming globe ahead of him, lighting the way.
The stairs ended in a smaller tunnel, this one maybe twice as tall as he was, and wide enough so that half the party could walk abreast. He could only see so far down that tunnel, the rest hidden by the murk beyond the cone of light from Abigail’s globe.
The birds landed next to the perimeter of the light cone to wait for him.
When everyone was inside, he turned to Ziatrice. “Collapse the stairwell!”
She climbed two of the stairs and then began to rapidly strike the ceiling with Wither, loosing up the stones with her halberd. At first, small rocks fell, but the rocks quickly increased in size and frequency. She backed away, moving to the base of the stairs, and then began launching her chains of dark mist into the gaps she’d created in the roof. She tugged at those chains, repeatedly pulling free large chunks, until she set in motion a chain reaction.
She and the others backed away as an avalanche of rock crowded the stairwell, and a cloud of dust erupted from it.
When the dust cleared, the passage was plugged.
“That should hold them for a little while,” Ziatrice said.
“Not with their earth mages,” Mauritania said. “We’ve brought ourselves a few minutes. Probably less.”
Malem felt pain emanating from Furlantos. He switched to the dragon’s viewpoint. The green was lying on its treasure pile, bleeding out onto the gold coins. Its magic shield was no longer active. A rock elemental held a large boulder in its arms, no doubt broken away from one of the cave walls, and slammed it down onto the dragon’s head.
The dragon’s vision went black.
Malem felt the life force of Furlantos ebbing away. Seeking to avoid the boomerang effect, he crushed the monster’s will, and drained the ancient dragon of the last of its stamina, killing it.
“Furlantos has died,” Malem said quietly.
“What now?” Gwen asked.
He turned forward, to face the darkness. “We find another way out.”
15
Malem kept the birds flying at the forefront of the party, following along the periphery of the light cone produced by Abigail’s flaming globe. The four oraks followed behind them, and Malem and his main companions came thereafter.
He and the others moved quickly, conscious of the fact that Vorgon’s uraks would be digging through the collapse even now, abetted by earth mages.
He reached out with his beast sense, trying to get an idea of how close those uraks were behind him, and what evils lay ahead, but he felt nothing except his companions. Figured.
No matter how powerful I get, I’ll always be limited by a dodgy sensing mechanism.
It was probably a good thing. Because while he liked power, he liked challenges too. He just wished the current challenge wasn’t so potentially deadly.
The minutes passed slowly. The passage didn’t branch left or right, but continued straight ahead. Malem thought it was slowly sloping downward.
He knew gazers awaited ahead when the birds suddenly turned on one another.
“Goldenthall, turn the oraks back,” Malem said.
The oraks immediately returned.
“Eyes closed everyone,” Malem said.
He switched to the viewpoint of the lead bird, the one that was attacking the others, and he positioned the remaining two still under his control on the cave floor, with their backs to the darkness ahead.
The gazer-possessed hawk landed as well and kept trying to peck the others. Wanting to prolong the fight for as long as possible, Malem ordered the other two to keep dodging. Meanwhile, he searched the ever-shifting vision of the possessed hawk as it pecked away. Near the edge of the cone of light produced by the flaming globe, he could see the vague outlines of what looked like two gazers.
He tried to wrap his will around them, but could not.
“Abigail, send the light forward,” Malem said.
Her globe advanced toward the fighting birds, illuminating more of the tunnel ahead, confirming that a pair of gazers definitely blocked the path ahead.
“Gwen, I want you to wound those gazers,” Malem said. “Without killing them, if possible.”
“I’m not sure where their hearts are, so that could prove tricky,” Gwen said.
He sensed movement beside him, and knew she was knocking an arrow to Wasp.
He shared the possessed bird’s viewpoint with her so that she could use it to aim her arrows at the gazers.
“Hm, I can’t see myself,” Gwen said. “Going to be tricky. Can you tell it to stop moving?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t at the moment,” Malem said.
She fired an arrow, and via the hawk’s shaky vision, Malem saw it pass right between the two gazers, skidding along the ceiling.
Gwen released another arrow. This one almost hit the leftmost gazer, but was still a little too high.
She released a third arrow, and it struck the gazer. More arrows hit the same general area, and the gazer shrieked, retreating.
Malem reached out, and was able to wrap his will around the monster.
“That should be good for now,” Malem said. “Concentrate on the other one.”
As she fired more arrows to line up her shots against the second gazer, Malem tightened his will around the first. The gazer threshed about in his grip, but Malem held on fast. He squeezed harder, but before he could break the gazer, a wall of air pushed him backward and he fell to the ground. From the sounds around him, and the surprise he read on their energy bundles, he knew the others had fallen too.
“It’s using some kind of air magic,” Abigail said. “Permission to burn the a-hole to the ground?”
“No,” Malem said. “I want to Break them both. Gwen, keep up the arrow barrage.”
He forced his upper body upright. The birds had been flattened by the air strike, too, but they arose, and the gazer-controlled hawk attacked them again. Once more Malem positioned the birds so that he had a good view of the gazer from the possessed hawk, and he shared its vision with Gwen.
She released several test arrows, using the hawk’s vision to guide her, and then began to hit her mark.
Meanwhile, Malem focused on the original gazer, and squeezed hard, finally Breaking the creature’s will. It filled up seven slots in his mind, and weakened him, so he drew stamina from Solan and Gannet before concentrating on the next gazer.
It was fleeing, its frontal area looking like a porcupine with all those arrows protruding. He was able to Break it a little easier than the first, a sign that it was even more injured.
Once again it weakened him, but this time he took stamina from Sylfi and Brita to recover.
“They’re mine,” Malem said.
What are your names, gazers? he asked the creatures.
They did not understand.
He was going to have to communicate via images, a technique he had mastered with animals. It wasn’t that the creatures were stupid—they wouldn’t have been so hard to Break if that were the case. No, he suspected they simply didn’t speak Common.
“Weyanna, heal them,” Malem said. He ordered the gazers to release the bird. He wasn’t sure which of them was in control, so he sent the visual message to the both of them.
The hawk stopped pecking at the others, and squared docilely.
The gazers fully entered the cone of light produced by the flaming globe, and approached.
“Whoa, and I thought Gwen was ugly,” Xaxia commented.
“Gee, thanks, Bitch,” Gwen said.
“Just kidding, come on girl,” Xaxia said.
“Whatever,” Gwen said.
Weyanna tentatively approached the creatures, and then she carefully removed the arrows from them, issuing white streams of healing mist to mend each wound as she did so. The healing drained her, and he took stamina from Abigail and Wendolin to restore her as she worked.
When it was done, the gazers were good as new.
The party continued the march. Malem put the gazers in front this time, ahead of the hawks, ready to possess anything else that might come.
Soon the stone floor gave way to cobblestone, and the tunnel widened into an expansive, rectangular cavern. The front and right portions were lost to the darkness—a murk not even his night vision could penetrate—but on the left, the flaming globe illuminated a long wall made of what looked like iron. He could see various alcoves set into that wall: they appeared to be small courtyards of sorts, leading to the inner walls of houses whose doors and windows had been smashed and broken. He was close enough to the first one to discern what looked like the furniture of a common room beyond the doorway. A stairwell led up to another floor, hidden behind the inner wall.
“You know, we could probably transform in here, if we had to,” Abigail said. “Though the fit would be tight.”
“Can we get another flaming globe?” Malem asked. “To illuminate the right half of this place?”
“No,” Abigail said. “But I can do this…”
She sent the probe to the right side, momentarily casting their current location in darkness, and instead illuminating the rightmost wall. More alcoves.
As the party advanced into that cavern, following the gazers, birds, and oraks, Abigail swept her flaming globe left and right in a zigzag fashion so that both extents of the cavern ended up being illuminated at different intervals. More alcoves were visible along the walls, and they proved little different from the first, in that they looked like they had once contained houses or shops but were now abandoned. Malem centered the party in that cavern, wanting to avoid potential ambushes that might come when the light globe momentarily cast them in darkness.
“This is interesting,” Malem said. “The dragon wasn’t kidding when it said the troldens once had an underground city under the mountain.”
“I wonder if these shops contain any interesting loot,” Xaxia said.
“You certainly collected enough treasure back in the main room!” Gwen quipped.
“Shh,” Xaxia said. “You’re not supposed to tell the Breaker. I want him to think I’m a saint. Oh, wait…”
The gazers approached a fountain set in the middle of the floor. It was empty of any water, of course; at the center was a humanoid statue with seashells for hands, and a human face with small horns and clams in place of ears.
“A trolden,” Wendolin said.
“They were a pretty bunch, weren’t they?” Ziatrice said. “If you don’t mind the seashells.”
“Those aren’t seashells,” Wendolin said. “They’re supposed to represent the corrugated membranes that covered their hands, and ears.”
“Oh, I know,” Ziatrice said. “I’ve met a trolden before.”
A gray tentacle thrust from the edge of the fountain, and wrapped around the closest gazer.
He finally sensed the creature on his beast sense, but couldn’t Break it.
Malem instructed the other gazer to fly over the lip of the fountain, and he switched to its viewpoint, spotting a large, octopus-spider thing lurking inside. He ordered the gazer to possess the creature.
He received a triumphant feeling from the gazer, which told him that the process had succeeded. But then another tentacle wrapped around the second gazer.
“Your gazers aren’t doing anything,” Gwen commented.
“This is weird,” Malem said. “The gazer essentially told me it had possessed the creature, and yet it doesn’t seem to have any control over it.”
“That’s because gazers don’t control their foes,” Mauritania said. “They just Confuse them. They’ll attack whoever is closest, no matter who or what it is. Friend or foe.”
“Now you tell me,” Malem said.
He had the two gazers launch their air magic, and the tentacles flung away from them, slamming into the octopus portion of the body. He pulled back the gazers, and then he switched back to his own viewpoint.
Those tentacles wrapped around the rim of the empty fountain and the creature pulled itself out. It rose on its spiderish legs, but before it could attack, Mauritania launched darts of green magic. The deadly ribbons struck the octopus-spider, and green tears appeared in its flanks. The creature fell, screaming.
Malem cringed as the monster continued to shriek, and he glanced nervously at the surrounding alcoves, worried he was going to wake something.
He tried to Break him, but it stubbornly fought his will.
He drew Balethorn and rushed forward, stabbing his blade into the center of those flailing tentacles. The appendages abruptly flopped to the floor, and he was relieved when the monster finally quietened.
“Oh, sorry,” Mauritania said. “Did you want to Break this thing?”
“Not really,” Malem said, withdrawing his blade from the body. The sword granted him no stamina, but that could be expected from a non-dragon. Otherwise the Broken sword was behaving itself. “Let’s keep going.” He sheathed his weapon and green blood collected along the edges of the scabbard, scraped from the blade.
“That scream was kind of loud…” Xaxia said.
“I know,” Malem said. “Why do you think I don’t want to stay here?”
They had only gone another fifty paces across the cobblestone when Malem heard a scrabbling sound to his left, shortly after Abigail’s flaming globe had retreated from the alcoves there to zigzag to the right.
“Abigail, swing the fire sphere back to the left!” he ordered.
She did so. Dark shapes were swarming out from the alcoves. He heard more scrabbling coming from the other side, and at first he thought it was an echo, but when Abigail hurtled the sphere that way, he spotted more coming from the right. They were all around the party.
Abigail returned the globe directly above the party, in preparation for the fight to come.
“Uh,” Xaxia said from beside him. She drew Biter. “Damn oraks. You can never get away from them!”
Malem unsheathed Balethorn once more. He gazed at the creatures that flowed into the light. At first he thought they were oraks, but they were smaller, with heads that were flatter, more elongated—almost elliptical in shape from back to front. They had long mouth lines with sharp teeth, and round, deep-set eyes located in the sides of their oblong heads. Their bodies were armored in plate, but were slightly insubstantial, as if they didn’t entirely exist in this world. Their heads were the most solid parts of them.
“These don’t look like oraks,” Gwen said.
“They’re a bit smaller,” Ziatrice agreed. “And too ghostly.”
“Kobolds!” Wendolin said. “Target their heads! You won’t be able to damaged their bodies!”
Malem had the gazers Confuse several of th
e kobolds. He also reached out, and was happy to find that many of them were weak-minded. He Broke a bunch of those, using them to spread chaos among their ranks. They took up five slots each. He drew stamina from his companions, and from his Broken monsters, to compensate for the weakness that resulted from the Breaking.
Meanwhile he continued forward, wanting to advance as far as he could into the underground city before they attacked. And then when he could move no further, he swung Balethorn in front of him, and beheaded his foes.
The kobolds were equipped with thick, halberd like weapons they used to make up for their short stature, and they often intercepted his blade, forcing him to parry, and dodge their blows.
When a kobold died, its body became a solid form that could be touched; Malem would use that to his advantage, kicking the dead out of the way. Sometimes, when their heads were mostly intact, the dead kobolds would end up head-butting other enemies before going down.
Timlir fought nearby, wading through their ranks with his ax. His blade was useless against the bodies, and he was unable to reach the heads, so he contented himself with chopping through their weapons.
Some of the houses embedded in the walls here had windows on the upper floors, and kobold archers perched there, and launched arrows from above.
Solan and Gannet used their new bucklers to protect themselves from those arrows, but the others had no such luxury.
Ziatrice came to his side and raised her magic shield around him, Gwen, and Xaxia. The blades of everyone inside were still able to pass through and cause harm, as were Gwen’s arrows.
Timlir meanwhile fought next to the others, and used his ax to draw the arrows the archers rained down.
Abigail released fireballs at those archers, while Weyanna launched shards of ice. Mauritania created darts of green magic. Ziatrice launched her chains of mist and drew in the archers to lop off their heads. Goldenthall fired smears of pure blackness.
Wendolin had removed the trident and net set from where they were strapped to her back, and she fought with them—there was no wood for her to manipulate with her brand of earth magic. Her attacks were mostly defensive, but she did score the occasional hit after tangling up an opponent in the net.