by SJB Gilmour
Stand back, she warned Melanie. Sarah felt rather than heard or saw Melanie step back, drawing in her own will to stand firm against whatever sort of explosion might be coming. Melanie’s consciousness hovered beside her own, observing.
‘Annullarikus!’ Sarah ordered in Magaeic. The base spell imploded and a huge explosion of pure enchanted force burst from within the temple. The force blew Sarah and Melanie backwards several metres, but that was nothing compared to what it did to the jungle surrounding them. For perhaps twenty metres in every direction, the trees were stripped of their leaves and all the smaller plants disappeared completely. Dozens of the taller trees were uprooted and had fallen out-wards.
Sarah bounded back onto her paws quickly. ‘The temple!’ she growled.
The decayed temple was now clean and new. The snake motif was new and now far more menacing. The enchantment was gone. All noise from the jungle around them had ceased.
‘I think we’re in trouble,’ Mel said aloud. ‘We’re probably going to have company pretty soon.’
Sarah wagged her tail briefly. Her werewolf mind, much more mature, and certainly wiser than her young human consciousness, was thinking like a warrior.
‘In that case,’ she growled, ‘you better handle the next enchantment we find while I watch our rear,’ she told Mel. Then she paused for a moment.
‘What?’
‘You can, can’t you?’ Sarah asked. ‘The Princesses told us the enchantments were too strong for them.’
Melanie grinned. ‘I watched you do it plenty of times,’ she said confidently. ‘How many thirteen year-olds do you know who can face off a Pyronian devil or throw around ball-lightning? I’m strong enough. Besides, I’m a lot stronger than any soul-sucking parasite. Just because a succubus couldn’t do it, doesn’t mean I won’t be able to.’
‘You don’t seem too fond of them.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Melanie said, casting a nervous look at the flattened circle of jungle. Then she bravely marched straight into the gaping mouth of the snake temple.
Sarah padded along behind her. The entrance opened up into a huge, single room, just as they had seen in the image Sarah had borrowed from the succubus Heather’s mind. Inside, it was much cooler than out in the jungle, as well as much drier.
‘Good to be out of the rain,’ Mel muttered. She leaned over to one side to wring out her hair a bit.
Sarah gave herself a hearty shake, giving off a great spray of water and muck. ‘Know what you mean.’ Then she sniffed. ‘There are enchantments about here. We better be careful.’
‘That way looks like the corridor you showed us on the table,’ Mel said, nodding. ‘C’mon.’ She began to walk down the corridor.
As their eyes became used to the dark, they could see the stone plinth that had been carved into the shape of a striking cobra. It still stood at the end of the hall just before a large open doorway. Carefully, they approached the plinth and the scattered bones at its base. Suddenly, both the Golden Mane werewolf and the young necromancer stopped.
Sarah shook her head for a moment. The world appeared different now. Something was wrong with her vision. Colours had faded to endless shades of grey, and the room was strangely out of focus. Sarah whined in confusion.
‘It’s another enchantment!’ Melanie exclaimed.
Sarah looked at her friend sharply and gave a startled yelp. ‘Your face!’
Melanie put one hand to her face and recoiled in horror. Her skin was growing scales! ‘This place is turning us into snakes!’ Mel then immediately began preparing her will to destroy the enchantment as she had seen Sarah do only moments before.
Though her eyes were now next to useless and her ears felt as though they were stuffed with wool, Sarah’s sense of smell was excellent. She could almost taste something outside.
‘Something’s coming!’ she growled. ‘You stay here and take care of the spell. I’ll go back and keep whatever it is from coming after us.’ She bounded back to the entrance. As soon as she was out of the boundary of the enchantment, her eyesight returned to normal. Several alien-looking creatures burst into the clearing. They were quite humanoid in that they had arms, legs and a head carried by a neck. The heads of these creatures were what gave them away as goblins.
Goblins have flat faces with angular, jet-black eyes and mouths full of short, pointy teeth, much like those of rodents or bats. Pointed, elf-like ears stick out from the sides of their heads and they have dark brown, glossy skin. Under normal circumstances, she might have considered them handsome, Sarah noted absently to herself, but since they might be about to attack her, she didn’t dwell on their appearances.
These goblins were dressed in full Guild battle armour. Sarah had seen them only once before, but instantly recognised them. If the Guild Guardslins were here, Marzdane couldn’t be far behind!
The goblins spread out in a semicircle at the front of the temple, holding their swords down low. They snarled back at her but did not move. Then another group of figures emerged from the jungle. Sarah recognised two sorcerers she had seen the year before at Conundrum. There were also several more that she didn’t recognise, including one quite unattractive witch.
‘Stay back!’ Sarah growled again. ‘I don’t want to hurt you!’
‘I’m afraid we can’t say the same for you,’ another of the sorcerers drawled menacingly. He gestured to the goblins. ‘Kill her!’ he ordered.
The goblins lunged forward, swiping at her, but the Golden Mane was too quick, too deadly. Before he finished taking his first step forward, one of the goblins found himself minus a leg. Sarah had ripped it from his body with her powerful jaws. She shook her head, tossing the leg aside as the goblin fell shrieking to the ground. His blood, an icky purple colour, spurted out in a gory arc. It splashed all over the goblin’s comrades and a lot of it landed on Sarah as well.
The rest of the fight was just as quick. Sarah danced and wove between the goblins. Each goblin fell with horrible wounds to the neck or legs.
Within a few heartbeats, eight goblins lay dead or dying on the ground. Sarah then resumed her place at the mouth of the temple.
‘You better leave,’ she snarled at the sorcerer. ‘This fight isn’t one you can win.’
The sorcerer gave an evil smirk. ‘I beg to differ,’ he said, and shot a bolt of dark, sizzling evil energy at her.
The Golden Mane was ready. She held firm as the bolt struck her solidly in the chest and recoiled straight back at the sorcerer who fired it. It struck him low in his belly. A look of mild surprise showed on his face.
‘Oh,’ he murmured, then exploded in a great splash of blood and gore. Only his feet remained on the ground.
‘Your power may hold well against one of us, werewolf,’ the ugly witch snarled. ‘But you’ll not fare so well against us all!’
‘Who are you?’ Sarah demanded. ‘And don’t be stupid. I don’t want to kill any one of you.’
‘I am Moira Cromwell!’ the witch spat. ‘And you’re about to be a coat! Then I’ll have the Star and Marzdane will have to answer to me!’ Unfortunately for Moira, her eyes were particularly crossed at that moment so her threat was very hard to take seriously. Sarah responded with a playful, taunting bark.
The remaining witches and sorcerers gathered their wills at once and combined their power. Oliver’s evil niece then focused that enormous force and prepared to blast it straight at Sarah.
Suddenly very serious indeed, the Golden Mane again stood firm. The power of Wolfenvald filled her lithe body. She crouched low and growled, bracing herself for the blast.
Before Moira could strike, another massive explosion erupted, this time from within the temple itself. Melanie had destroyed the enchantment that was turning her into a reptile and protecting the inner rooms of the temple.
The blast flung Sarah out-wards towards the sorcerers. She smashed into two of them and the combined wills of all the sorcerers dissipated. Sarah then bounded to her feet and tore into the neck of
one of the prone sorcerers. He gave a strangled shriek as her powerful jaws ripped his neck wide open. Then she bounded back to face the remaining sorcerers who were picking themselves up off the forest floor.
Moira Cromwell was the first to her feet. She kicked her fallen comrade’s remains out of the way contemptuously. She fired a lightning bolt at Sarah. The Golden Mane darted out of the way. The bolt of lightning struck the ground at the base of the temple as dozens more sorcerers and yet more goblins materialised out of the jungle.
This gave Sarah an idea. She leaped back inside the temple. She glanced up at the gaping, fanged stone mouth. She didn’t say a word, but merely barked at the ceiling, blasting it with her power. The stone mouth gave a shuddering groan and collapsed in a pile of stone rubble, sealing the entrance.
‘I hope that isn’t the only way out,’ Melanie moaned weakly from behind her.
Sarah whirled around to see her friend, bloody and bruised. ‘What happened to you?’ She rushed up to Melanie, just as the dark haired girl sank to her knees. Blood ran freely from a large swelling cut on her forehead. The right side of her face was scraped and raw and her lips were bruised and bloody, but at least she was no longer covered in snake scales.
Melanie draped herself over Sarah, panting weakly. Her eyes were unfocused and she was shaking. ‘I,’ she gasped painfully. ‘I think I hit my head.’
‘Hold still, you slow-coach face-painter,’ Sarah told her, grinning. She then stood up on her hind legs with her fore-paws on either side of Mel’s shoulder. Then she licked Mel’s face and head clean enough to see the wound. Mel winced and complained but held still.
Sarah let her friend go and sat back down. ‘It’s just a scratch, you big baby,’ she told Mel, although the wound was quite a lot worse than that. Blood was running from it quite quickly and it was very deep.
Sarah concentrated hard. Before when she had healed Melanie’s hand, it had been instinctive. Now that she was actually concentrating on how to go about it, using her power to heal her friend was harder. She drew in her power until she felt as if she was about to explode then focused it on Mel’s head.
‘Numbicularus!’ she barked. As always when she healed someone, Sarah felt dizzy for a moment.
Melanie straightened and let go of Sarah. The cut on her head closed over. The swelling around it went down and a large bruise appeared, then went from purple to yellow and then faded away. Her lips shrank back to their normal size. The fresh scrapes on her face became dried scabs, which then fell off.
‘Ooh,’ Melanie moaned as she lurched to her feet. ‘That feels really weird.’ She shook her head. ‘I could taste the poison in my fangs. I’m almost sorry I had to destroy that last spell.’
Sarah wagged her tail. ‘I’m kind of glad you did. Are you going to be okay? The Guild’s here.’
‘Did they send Guntex?’
‘I don’t know. I only saw his soldiers, but that doesn’t mean he’s not around here somewhere. Are you alright?
‘I’ll be okay,’ Melanie replied shortly. Then she glanced meaningfully at the huge pile of rubble between them and the outside of the cave. ‘That won’t keep them out for long.’
Sarah and Melanie made their way through the dusty corridor. When they got to the plinth, Sarah sniffed it a few times.
‘Can you pick up anything?’ Mel asked.
Sarah whined. ‘Nobody’s been here for years. All I can smell is rock. She turned and looked at the remains on the floor. There were a few tattered and decayed rags that had once been some sort of satchel, a withered and cracked old book cover, and several bones. Sarah stared at the bones for a few moments before she realised something odd about them. They weren’t human.
‘Is that what’s left of who I think it is?’ Mel asked her.
Sarah sniffed the bones. It was incredibly faint, but she could just detect a familiar scent. ‘This was a werewolf…’ she told her friend uncertainly.
‘Rufus?’
Sarah sniffed at them a few more times. Yes, that scent was most definitely that of the ancient Golden Mane Rufus. She wagged her tail sadly and whined. That was enough of an answer for Mel.
‘Those succubi didn’t tell us their explorer was Rufus,’ Mel muttered darkly. She bent to pick up the old book cover. Where there had once been parchment pages within it, now there was only dusty crumbs. They fell away to the floor as the whole thing crumbled in her fingers.
‘C’mon,’ Sarah urged her then, nudging her with her snout. ‘Let’s go find the real tome.’ She padded into the doorway.
The walls of inner sanctum of the temple were covered from floor to ceiling in carvings of snakes. The roof itself glowed with the light from thousands of jewels that had been polished to resemble reptile eyes. The floor was covered with tiles in the pattern of snake skin. The pit before them was sunk about a metre into the rock, and several metres wide. Coiled at four points around it were more stone statues like the one back in the corridor. Like that one, they were carved into the shape of striking cobras, only these ones had very old-looking tomes displayed in their mouths.
As she walked carefully to the edge of the pit, Sarah sensed another enchantment. ‘We’re not done with breaking spells yet,’ she growled.
Mel pointed to the middle of the shallow pit. The small rock they had seen in the succubus princess’s memory still hovered motionless in the air in the middle of the sunken chamber.
‘That’s their rock,’ Mel observed.
Sarah wagged her tail nervously. ‘And on one of those four snakes is the real tome.’ She looked up at her friend. ‘You ready? We don’t know what might happen when I break the spell.’
Mel gritted her teeth. ‘Are you sure you want to try this? I don’t want to see you end up like that.’ She waved back in the direction of the bones. ‘This place has already claimed one werewolf.’
‘Only one way to find out.’ Sarah concentrated again, listening very carefully to the voices of Wolfenvald within her mind. ‘Annullarikus!’ she commanded at the base layers of the enchantment.
Both girls were unsure what to expect. Would there be an explosion? A sound perhaps? Would the temple collapse? All they heard was a dull thud and short rattle as the stone fell the short distance to the dusty floor and rolled a few centimetres before coming to rest.
‘Well, I guess that’s it then,’ Mel said with a shrug. She leaped nimbly into the pit and went to the nearest plinth. As she was reaching out to take the tome, she glanced back at Sarah.
‘Go on,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘Hurry. If something goes wrong, I’ll fix you.’
Mel nodded nervously. ‘Well, here goes nothing.’ She bit her lip nervously. As her fingers touched the ancient enchanted book, the ground gave a mighty shudder. Then the air around her began to shimmer and the tome she was holding began to glow very brightly. Then the glow faded and the tome appeared normal.
‘Seems alright,’ said Mel. She opened the tome and then her expression froze in one of absolute horror. ‘Oh, crap!’ she began to swear.
Sarah barked a quick command to halt the enchantment that was taking hold of Melanie. Nothing happened. Mel’s body began to become transparent and flickered as her soul was being sucked into the enchanted book. Mel screamed in pain.
Sarah barked ‘Annullarikus!’ with all her might.
The tome Melanie was holding burst into flame. Unfortunately, Mel could not let go. Her body solidified again and the shimmering around her stopped. She screamed again as the burning tome in her hand seared itself to her palm. Her whole arm was now on fire. The stench of burning snake-skin and human flesh filled the musty temple.
Sarah crouched back on her haunches. ‘Aquaslick!’ she commanded in a fierce growl. Rain suddenly burst from all around them, dousing the fire on Melanie’s hand and arm. The tome, now merely ashes, melted and fell to the floor. Mel collapsed on the ground, cradling her injured hand.
‘Numbicularus!’ Sarah commanded next, sniffing Mel several times.
This injury was much harder to heal and the effort nearly made Sarah swoon. She whimpered weakly and sat down, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes with her paws.
Mel straightened and stood up. She examined her now-healed hand and arm, though her sleeve was still smoldering. She wiped some of the rain from her face.
‘That’s getting to be a habit of yours,’ she said, trying to force a smile. She shook her arm a few more times. ‘Damn, that hurt.’
Sarah wagged her tail. ‘That leaves three left,’ she said weakly. She shook her head a few more times until she was no longer dizzy. Then she quickly barked at the rain that was still pouring from the ceiling of the temple. As if someone had turned off a tap, the torrent stopped.
‘Is there any way we can tell between a good tome and a bad one?’ Melanie asked. ‘I don’t want to do that again.’ Despite her fear, she stepped up to another tome. She took a deep breath and reached out for it.
This time, the result was different. ‘Uh oh,’ Melanie murmured as she took the tome from the column. The temple began to shake violently. Jewels from the ceiling began to rain down like huge chunks of sparkling hail.
‘Have you got it?’ Sarah barked at Melanie.
‘Get us outta here!’ Melanie yelled back. She clamoured up the side of the pit.
Sarah closed her eyes and created a quick portal back to the jungle outside the temple. Even if it meant running straight into a fight, it was better than staying inside a collapsing ruin. In a flash, she and Melanie were transported outside the temple, behind the crowd of Guild sorcerers and goblin warriors.
Seeing the goblins, Mel yelled. ‘Guardslins!’ She unleashed a few more choice swear words. ‘Where the hell’s Marzdane?’
‘Never mind,’ Sarah told her friend confidently. ‘We can handle them. They’re not that good at fighting. I thought they were supposed to be professionals!’
The huge temple gave one last shudder and collapsed in on itself. A huge cloud of dust erupted up into the air and was quickly washed away by the rain. The goblins scampered quickly over the rubble, searching for any trace of Sarah and Melanie.