Maddox pulled out his broadsword and followed in his grandfather’s wake.
More cultists fell under the embrace of the glowing persona, consumed unto nothing. The guards weren’t doing their duty, for the amazing sight tainted their attention. Gorias whistled quietly through his teeth and a guard turned from the exhibition to face him. It was the last scene his eyes ever recorded and they carried it away, through the air, as Gorias sliced his head clean off.
The guard next to this man broke from his confusion, about to raise his bow. Gorias slashed up from his left, striking low, breaking the bow in half and cutting deep into the man’s hip. The right sword of La Gaul aimed at the neck, but buried itself in the shoulder until it struck bone. The guard screamed as he withdrew and transfixed his swords at the man’s neck. The screams stopped.
Terrible cries continued to rend the air from the bog as the two attacked. Maddox swiftly impaled a guard, with his sword still affixed on the risen master. He acted fast to assault the next guard, who was occupied with keeping cultists from running away. When this man turned to face Maddox, an arrow from Tammas’ bow struck his Adam’s apple, and he went down with a wet gurgle.
Kayla paid Gorias the same compliment, but her shaft went to the heart of a guard who faced La Gaul. Gorias kicked him in the groin to knock him off balance, sending the guard to the ground. The final obstructing man, facing down Gorias and Maddox La Gaul, backed up into the ring of confused faithful who remained. Unfortunately for him, he walked straight into the reach of the personality from the bogs. In short order, he was added unto the solid body of the man.
“Ho there! We are breeched!” Zeren shouted and raised his spear in warning. “Hold fast and…”
The leader’s words caught in his throat as he fell to the ground. In his back were two arrows. This confused Gorias until Tammas and Kayla came out of hiding fast.
Gorias looked to the risen man, who indeed started to resemble a muddy version of Carlato Wyss, then down at the lip of ground behind him. The thunder of hoof beats grew ever nearer and the old warrior shouted, “Get down and take up defense, fast!”
Confused, Tammas and Kayla searched for cover just as half a dozen horses broke over the ridge. Soon, they were joined by half a dozen more horsemen, all bearing men in light armor and ready for war. One of the men held the blood red standard that carried a familiar insignia. It was an “X” in a circle.
“Nosmada,” Gorias muttered hotly, naming the emblem of the dark lord. Glancing back, he found the thing that was once Wyss continued to stare at him. It grinned. La Gaul looked over at the two-dozen frightened cultists and at the thirteenth man who joined the military force.
This man wore a tall armored helmet, for his skull was oblong and inhuman. When he raised the visor, the dark, grim features ate up the firelight.
“Tolin.” Gorias, gripped his sword handles.
The response, though, came out of the mouth of the thing that was Wyss. It was a sound from across the gulfs of endless space. These were words uttered by raw semblances unaccustomed to speech. “Yes? You called me by name…father?”
From atop the horse, Tolin leered down and his teeth shown like a wolf. He managed to open his maw and say the words, “Hello, indeed, father…”
Maddox’s bewilderment mounted. He glanced at Wyss, then looked at Gorias for answers.
The old man’s look of confusion turned to one of resignation. He crossed his swords, showing no fear, and said, “Deliverance will come.”
CHAPTER VIII
Reunions and Departures
*
In the face of such an incredible threat, Gorias La Gaul knew the play to make. Amid the imminent military danger, utter confusion of his comrades, and terror of the cultists, he turned and faced Carlato Wyss. With a fast move his swords whistled, chopping off both of Wyss’ arms at the shoulders. A look of confusion and pain came into the newly formed eyes of the arisen. Those in the cult gasped. Even the troopers of Nosmada paused, transfixed by the image and the very presence of the aged warrior in his dragon plated armor.
The panic was high. A few dozen remaining cultists arose and charged away from the bog. They tried to run past the thirteen men under the standard of Nosmada, but their attempt proved futile. If anything they confused the troopers, who stabbed at them with obsidian tipped lances and bronze khopesh swords. One of the faithful fell to her knees and shouted to Wyss for deliverance.
Tolin’s mount reared up and the front hooves flailed. One hoof caught the woman in the back of her skull. Her head fractured as the hoof scooped out brains. While she collapsed Tolin’s mount righted itself then treaded on her back, proving her prayers insufficient.
“Shoot, for God’s sake!” Gorias shouted at Tammas and Kayla as he still faced Wyss. As these youths fired on Nosmada’s troopers, Maddox scooped up a guard’s fallen bow. He went to one knee and fired. His arrow didn’t bounce off the soldier’s armor, as Tammas and Kayla’s did. His arrow struck a horse in the eye. The animal reared up just as the last of the cultists ran amongst the troopers. As this horse plummeted down, more bedlam reigned. The trooper yelled, his leg broken and pinned, his body soon trampled by sandaled feet.
General Tolin never hesitated and his mount thundered through the line.
Maddox yelled for Tammas and Kayla to fire on the horses.
Tolin swung an object that hung low to the ground. This long bludgeon, a double headed morning star flail, connected with Maddox’s left shoulder and knocked it out of joint. Pure luck dictated that the morning star strands hit Maddox, not the spiked head. This move sent the brash youth to the ground, writhing in agony all the same.
Gorias’ stood aggressively in attack style, glancing back at Tolin, but quickly facing Wyss again. With great speed he again drove his blades down, chopping the man off at the knees. Wyss mouth gaped open and he fell to the ground as Tolin thundered close, a sinister look in his glowing eyes. The bludgeon swung again, but met empty air as Gorias dived and rolled, swiping with his blades as he fell.
As Tolin’s mount came to rest, it bellowed and fell backwards. One of the hooves came off at the third phalanx. The horse bawled and fell, cut just above the short pastern. Full of rage, Tolin sliced the air with the morning star and fell off the horse backwards, onto the soft ground at the edge of the semi-frozen bog.
“Run, dammit!” Gorias shouted with fury at Tammas and Kayla.
The troopers threw nets on the last cultists and had already snared Tammas. The boy kicked and screamed, but still found himself a prisoner.
Swiftly, Gorias walked to where General Tolin fell. The general’s legs were in the crisp edges of the bog. Tolin coughed as he stabbed down with the morning star, trying to use it as a means to pull himself free. Gorias stepped on the handle of the weapon.
Tolin looked up in to the face of La Gaul. His arched eyebrows raised in expectation of a coming death blow, and then a low growl started in his throat, like that of a blood mad tiger.
He squinted, hands resting on the handles of his swords. “You are not my son.” After that simple statement, he kicked Tolin in the jaw with his heavy boot. The bone popped and the large man tumbled back into the semi-frozen cavity where Wyss had crawled out. Struggling in the open gap, Tolin couldn’t get a handhold. Blood fury in his eyes, he sank into the embrace of Earth.
When he turned back, Gorias saw a trooper net the elusive Kayla. She slapped the helmet from the man’s head, revealing this soldier’s baldness. More nets fell, this time securing Gorias’ grandson. Even in agony, Maddox kicked and fought like a wild dog, determined not to give in.
The glow had ceased around Wyss. Gorias grabbed the undead torso by the waist and jogged around the lip of the bog. The troopers watched him and failed to fire arrows at the gliding legend.
With a move that almost appeared to be magic, La Gaul disappeared.
*****
“Where did he go?” Tammas stammered from his restrained position in the nets. His words strained and tears lurked in them. “By the gods, he faded away.”
Kayla’s dark eyes glared at the edge of the bogs where the old man vanished with the torso of Carlato Wyss. “He knew we were captive.” She whispered so no trooper could hear them. “Look at them trying to find the old man.” Her face grew brighter, odd in her abject joy amongst the confined cultists.
The thuggish, bald trooper slapped her on the back of the head then went to peer over the lip of the bog, out into the lands beyond. One of the soldiers chided this bald man, for the girl gave him such a fight. He took the jabs with good nature and cursed them back in jest.
Several of the troopers also stared into the area beyond the bog. They even held out torches and tried to perceive where the old man could have escaped to. Curses flew frequently and they returned to the bog.
“Captain Karter,” the bald trooper shouted as he gazed at where the general sank. “Fetch rope.”
After several minutes, the troopers pulled General Tolin free of the stiff bog. What he fell into was more of a hole than a bog trap. He stretched his tall frame and promptly slit the throat of his bawling horse. While he wiped off the slime, Tolin listened as the men told him of La Gaul’s escape. He stomped to the brink of the deep canyon. His glare shot sharp knives out into the sheer blankness that dropped off into eternity. Soon, he roared at the sky.
Maddox winced. “The drop is almost straight down into that chasm. Grandfather knew what he was doing. He’s very far from here by now.”
“How can you be so sure?” Tammas demanded, confused at the taciturn response.
Recoiling from the pain in his shoulder, Maddox replied, “He never said deliverance will come before he jumped. He didn’t expect to die that way.”
“Why did he take the piece of Wyss?” Tammas said, almost weeping.
“Toughen up, damn you, or sing your death song. Tolin will kill any he cannot sell into slavery. You recall the slave train we saw? Keep your mouth shut. If we’re lucky, they’ll sell us to it.”
Tammas gave a look of wary distrust. “Why did he take the body?”
Tolin stomped toward them, his face sinister and sardonic in the torchlight. He growled at his troopers, “The darkness is La Gaul’s friend, men. He is far departed now. Damn him to Hades.” He grabbed Maddox by the hair, twisted his head back so the boy faced him and demanded, “Why are you with La Gaul?”
Maddox pulled at the coins in his belt purse. “The old man paid us to cover his back. We’re along for the ride…sir.”
Blood fumes dancing in his eyes, Tolin snapped, “And he has used you well, pup. Damn you as well! What good are any of you fools but more food for the beast? You are but blood vessels for Nosmada’s sacrifice. I shall dispense with you all, sucklings for La Gaul, to the damned slave caravan. We cannot wet-nurse prisoners or blood packages for the dark Lord.” The roar of the general subsided and his muscles relaxed. “So close to the soul that once inhabited this shell, still, that matters naught to any of you.”
As they were starting to be led away, Kayla leaned in and whispered, “Would you explain something to me fast? What’s happening? Is that wild man really General Tolin? Why did they both call Lord La Gaul father?”
“I can make a good guess,” Maddox said, rubbing his dislocated shoulder. “General Tolin? That one is simple.” He focused on the general retrieving gear from the fallen horse then strangely petting a small oblong box. “His last name is La Gaul. He’s my father.”
Kayla’s eyes widened. “What? But he acted like he didn’t even know you!” She fell silent, reading Maddox contemplative silence. “He never addressed you or even said your name.”
Maddox nodded, but not with heavy conviction. “He hasn’t been himself in years. In fact, I’m unsure who he is now. You see, Tolin La Gaul is said to have the heart of a dragon. Its soul, as it were. Wyss’ figure calling Gorias father? I would guess a soul jewel switch landed the real Tolin la Gaul in the arisen flesh of the cult leader.”
Tammas said, “That’s crazy talk! That’s the stuff of ballads and tales--men taking on the soul of dragons for unearthly compensation. Such a thing cannot be true.”
“Yeah, insane just to say it, no?” Maddox said. “But he does have the soul of a dragon in that body.”
Kayla looked at the bog with a frown of impatience. “Then where’s the soul of your father, the real Tolin La Gaul?”
*****
Indeed, Gorias La Gaul had traveled far from the bogs. Sliding down the sheer edge of the canyon was an easy feat for a child, or many who used flat boards to ride the edges in the past as sport. For an ancient man and a reanimated torso, it was a rough fall. He remained stunned that the descent didn’t knock him cold. He was on his feet at the base of the canyon and ran a quarter mile before collapsing. The darkness proved his ally, hiding him for a long time. He needed the rest.
The wind echoed in the canyon, howling like a traveling spirit. While he sat, he talked to what was now Wyss.
“You tore me apart,” Wyss said, barely audible. “How could you, Father?”
“Shut up.”
“The spell is fading, and the life forces used to maintain me are waning fast. I can no longer absorb life, not even yours.”
Gorias leaned back. “Oh, knock it off. I’d give my left testicle for a bed of moldy straw right now.”
“But why, Father?” the hideous voice cooed from the cadaverous face.
“Because you need to stay dead, son. Simple as that. I never would have guessed the error in the soul jewels. What a grand joke it all is, to be honest. Makes me glad I’m mortal.”
“They tried to raise Wyss from the grave and accidentally used my soul crystal,” the torso said. “It didn’t take you long to understand it all. I will grant you that. You haven’t slipped far in your mind, remaining cognizant of the threats from beyond unknown voids.”
“Well, I knew that you were separated from your flesh long ago. That was way before the bargain with ageless Nosmada. What walks around as Tolin doesn’t even know who he was before, not completely anyway.”
“I wonder if he realizes that young man by the bog is his own son?” Wyss said. “Poor Maddox. So young, so impetuous…”
“He’s brave in battle, that Maddox, but he needs to grow wiser if he’s to survive. That general hates my guts because of the dragon inside of him and an aura of his flesh he cannot seem to shake. I guess your childhood angst toward me lingers, eh?”
“Slaying all the dragons made you unpopular with them.”
“I brought you along to make sure I was right. If you were human again completely, you would have died from blood loss when I cut you apart. You don’t have long anyway, Tolin. Indeed, the spell fades.”
“Then my soul will go free at last,” Tolin said. “Committing a soul to a crystal as a necromancer is one thing, but the stasis is not pleasant.”
“Silly of you. What did ya think to gain in such a bargain with Nosmada and his wizards? A new life in a better body?”
“The body of a dragon.”
“Foolish of you to make such a deal,” Gorias said, his heart hammering in his ears. “What’s it like? What happens?”
“Nothing,” the torso said in a desiccated voice. “Nothing ever. You have no sense of body, yet you dream, and you cannot speak. I dare not guess how long I was inside the crystal. One cannot count time. It is all like a nightmare, a very boring dream. By the looks of you and Maddox, it was years. Perhaps that is why any ingrained memory I have of Maddox is not in the mind of the general. My son was a child when I saw him last.”
“Souls weren’t meant for that form of stasis,” Gorias said, lifting his head up to stay awake. “They’re a part of you, not a bargain chip for demons and their plans for the earth. Those of the Eli
lum, Siqqusim, and the Teraphims belong in chains of fire, not on Earth. That book must stay lost.”
“Vengeance can be a sweet thing, no? That is their plan, the devils and demons as you call them. The spirits are tedious creatures who get real joviality out of outwitting simple mortals. Their bargains are dust, Father. As the dire Teraphims lurking beyond are easily amused, mankind is effortlessly duped for their heart wants so much more than they should have, I know.”
“Yes,” Gorias said, his heart still thudding hard. “There’s no bartering to be made of the afterlife for certain. The worms tunnel for the rich and the poor on the same day. It is all about what you did here that counts.”
“Rumor is that God is going to destroy the world. I saw that in my dreamtime,” the torso ventured.
He coughed, the hammering in his ears doubling in tempo. “I wish he would hurry up.”
“There will be no escape for me now,” the voice from beyond the grave said. “Once you do what it is I know you will do, my soul will go to Hell and burn for all eternity.”
“Yeah, that’s where bad people go when they die.”
The torso shuddered. “Then I will see you there.”
Gorias’ looked at the sky and his heart calmed at last. “Well, I hope I never have to speak to you again. If I do see you, we will have plenty of company, son.” He got to his knees and wavered when he tried to rise up. “Damn, can’t let myself fall asleep.”
Gorias drew his swords and slashed in the darkness. The head of a female tumbled across the chest of the muddy torso.
“Watch out for the leeches.” The torso laughed. “I have to hand it to you for senses and stout reflexes. You still are in your element, but for how much longer?”
“Yeah, if I fall asleep and wake up dead then how stupid will I look?” He stood over what was left of Wyss, staggered and sighed.
Undead eyes stared into the face of the legendary fighter. “How can you kill your own son?”
“You’re dead already. This is a bad dream in your crystal stasis, just remember that.”
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