Several green rays shot forth from the stone, striking harmlessly at several points on the floor around the dwarf. Salgor hesitated for a brief moment, expecting some great magical effect. When nothing immediately happened, the dwarf grinned and stepped forward.
Suddenly, the ground opened up around him. Forms rose up from the floor: gaunt, skeletal, and hungry. The skeletons and cadavers of people long dead climbed up from the stone floor around Salgor. Eyeless sockets stared forth, as fleshless arms reached out for him. A stench clung about them: the results of years of moldy decay and the rot of death. Some wore rusty armaments from a bygone age, others were not even whole skeletons. They all advanced upon the dwarf. Each form was infused with a malevolent spirit given shape for only one purpose: to kill the enemies of their master. The souls had long fled from the corpses, but the bodies themselves could be made into vessels the spirits could use.
Salgor rolled to one side, but not with the purpose of evading any of them. The dwarf went for his discarded mace, laying a few short steps away. An undead creature reached for him, only to be hit by both weapons at once. Though the dwarf had been on the ground, he severed its legs with his axe even as his mace slammed the undead monster in the pelvis. The cadaver went down, only to start crawling towards the dwarf. Salgor got to his feet quickly. He held the axe ready in his right hand, while his left carried his heavy mace.
“Daerkfyre!” he yelled, even as he used his mace to slam another monster’s fleshless skull down into its open ribcage. Several more undead surrounded him.
* * * * *
Petrow tried following the sounds of footsteps, even though more noise came from the room behind him. He closed his mind to the other haunting images inside the mist. As he traced his way along the wall, he felt very alone. He heard Trestan shouting somewhere behind him, but nowhere near. The faces of those long dead called to him, but the illusion did nothing except make him feel the losses and loneliness more acutely. The owner of the footsteps he was following stopped somewhere just ahead. The mist itself seemed thinner, so Petrow assumed he was about to step past the edge.
Petrow leaped forwards, swinging his axe blindly. It connected solidly with a magically charged flail.
He was now beyond the edge of the reddish cloud, which spread across the hall to block the passage behind him. Ahead was a series of branching halls and chambers leading away from the throne room. The abbess of the Death Goddess, discolored by the dark shading around her eyes, stared back at him coldly. Her gaze promised death.
She gave a few vicious swings which almost forced him back into the mist. The dark flail seemed to take on a deadly life of its own as it danced through the air. Petrow could feel the red cloud at his back, and was determined not to be forced back. He moved to one side and tried a few strong swings of his own. Neither combatant connected with any solid blows, but the young man was able to get away from the red cloud. They twirled and dodged as the fight carried them further away from the throne room.
Petrow felt more vulnerable without Trestan at his side. The young handyman doubted he was up to the task of facing the abbess by himself, but there seemed little choice unless he dove back into the dark mist. He hoped Trestan fared better.
Petrow put random thoughts away as he focused solely on the dark cleric. Memories of his encounter with her during his failed rescue haunted his background thoughts. This was the same person that had healed him several times, only to let the minotaur beat him again, to the amusement of the sailors and mercenaries. If he got the chance, Petrow would kill her.
* * * * *
Cat struggled to her feet in a daze, aware of her vulnerability. Her vision spun from the fall, but she had to try focusing. She wasn’t even aware of Trestan launching himself at the minotaur, only a few feet away. Her first and foremost efforts were to draw in a few good breaths despite a choking pall of dust.
Loung came into the edge of her vision, and that fact startled her into recovery. The crossbow was missing somewhere in the landslide of rocks. Cat drew out the silver rapier. She fought for balance between her foothold on top of some rocks and her own disorientation.
Loung’s first strike was straightforward and easy, but Cat almost didn’t parry it due to her stance. The rapier turned the staff aside, and Cat tried to move to flat ground. Loung jumped into a routine of kicks and staff swings that would have been impressive to any onlooker. Cat stumbled on the defensive as she attempted to get away. The momentum was fully in Loung’s favor and some of his kicks touched her. As agile as Cat was, she had trained hard on how to roll with blows to lessen their impact.
The half-elf lost track of everything else, focusing on Loung’s attacks. The woman started feeling trapped, as he was backing her towards a wall. Debris littered the floor, threatening to trip either of them. In the midst of this, Cat tried to find room to gain any advantage. Her foot almost stumbled over a small rock, but she got her stance set in time to block another quarterstaff attack with her rapier. She snuck her toes under the edge of the rock, even as her left arm blocked a kick. Loung stepped back slightly after that last attack, and it gave Cat the opening she wanted. Her foot kicked out, hurtling the rock up at Loung. The projectile sailed up and smacked him just below the beltline, barely missing a more vulnerable male area.
Though it failed to give Cat the full effect she sought, it caused him to flinch and step back. Now Cat had full control of her senses, and she started pushing Loung back with thrusts from her weapon. Loung used his staff in a similar fashion, attempting to jab at Cat or sweep aside her thrusts. Cat even tried a few kicks of her own, and her grace matched Loung’s closely.
Loung did not appear worried. He bided time measuring up his opponent. As the two of them fought, they came close to an archway leading out of the throne room. Cat remained aware that Revwar could launch a spell at her back at any moment, and she decided to take the fight away from that open room. She heard Salgor yelling challenges at the wizard, and she could only hope that the dwarf might get lucky. She held no illusions about Salgor’s chances, or her own. She remembered the first night Salgor and Revwar had met in Barkan’s Crossing, when the wizard used his spells to embarrass the dwarf in front of all the inn patrons. Salgor had been helpless to fight back then, and Cat doubted that now would be much different. Despite her best moves, Loung had already been close to beating her to death on the rooftop in Troutbrook. He had almost succeeded, and would have killed her if not distracted at a critical moment.
Cat fled through the archway and into a side chamber, and Loung followed.
Thus the battle of the keep unfolded, with events going as Cat had feared utilizing such a straightforward attack. Salgor and Revwar were the only living combatants still in the throne room. The dwarf fought a seemingly endless struggle against summoned creatures, unable to get close to the wizard. Cat faced an enemy that had stripped her of all her weapons in a previous fight. She had baited him away from his wizard companion, but the Tariykan could probably beat Cat well enough on his own. Petrow, the former handyman of the village of Troutbrook, dueled alone against the cleric representing the Goddess of Death. Savannah continued to lash out at him with her enchanted flail, as they also moved further and further into the maze of hallways making up the keep. Trestan had to deal with Bortun the minotaur. The young smith was not even fighting so much as he was running for his life from the eight foot monster.
And not one of the companions knew the whereabouts and fate of Mel Bellringer.
CHAPTER 25
Mace and axe worked in furious tandem. Every second proved critical. Grunts of exertion interrupted the sounds of crunching bones. One opening seemed to offer itself, and Salgor went for it. Before he could get through, several other skeletal arms reached into his path to grab at his legs, arms, and beard. The chilled touch in their bones from cold graves numbed some of the areas they touched.
Salgor became enraged. “Nay touching the beard!”
The path which should have carried
him out of the circle of undead closed before he could make use of it. The bearded warrior spun about with axe and mace, driving back the smelly cadavers. He shouted the names of ancestors as he drove his weapons through their ranks. Some of the more distant creatures were pelted with pieces of bone as the front rank met the swings of the dwarf. The floor became coated in masses of dried skin and decayed body parts. Some partially-dismembered corpses crawled onward; clawing, clacking across stone with malicious intent.
One such corpse clawed at the dwarf’s boot. Salgor reacted with a chop of his axe. Though the dwarf severed the grabbing arm, such a blow didn’t finish the undead creature. It still had one good arm, and that limb moved forwards to latch on. As soon as Salgor could spare the time to do it properly, he followed up the first blow with a skull-shattering hit from his mace. As the head and residual brain matter were crushed, the malevolent spirit emptied out of the corpse to trouble Salgor no more. It often took direct hits to the head, brain or spine area to drive the spirits from a corpse, even if the corpse was nothing more than dried bones.
Salgor worked to create a hole in which he could escape when he stumbled upon another piece of his equipment. His foot touched his discarded shield. He gave it a kick, and it careened across the floor to strike the legs of several undead. The dwarf barged through the path it made.
He charged in behind it spinning a tornado of dual weapons. The possessed dead were slammed aside or cleaved in two as they tried to fight back. Body parts flew as Salgor even went so far as to head butt one skeleton, then trample it as he ran past. Finally the wall of undead broke.
Salgor looked up and could see the wall of red mist on one side of the room, though the ominous cloud was finally thinning out. The dwarf was not close enough to be affected by its enchantments. He had lost track of direction during his most recent fighting. The dwarf turned to get his bearings only to see that he had broken through in the wrong place.
Revwar was on the far side of the rows of undead. Salgor charged back into the ranks of walking cadavers in order to reach his true opponent.
* * * * *
Petrow let loose another wild swing, and Savannah ducked past it. She returned the favor with a backswing from her weapon, narrowly missing Petrow’s back. Though the young man still wore leather protection, he imagined it would be defenseless against the imbued flail.
He turned and faced the cleric, holding his axe across his body defensively. Savannah lazily swung her flail as she slowly stepped towards him. She feinted in one direction, and then swept it overhead instead. Petrow brought his axe up in time to block. The impact shocked his hands. A burnt, black mark was left on the handle from the flail. Petrow believed the blow came close to breaking the handle, and realized not to try such a block again.
As they exchanged a few more swings, they came to a dim and cluttered section of hallway. The floor was slowly ramping down to the next level below. Several doors lined the ramp, and outside of them were crates of materials. Long ago someone had been either packing or unpacking items from these storage rooms when they had been interrupted. Barrels sat with a layer of dust and mold on them. A couple barrels had burst open after their rusty metal bands snapped over the years. A rotted smell wafted from them, even as grimy substances coated the floor around them. Pottery pieces were lying about in crates or stacked in places on the floor.
Petrow and Savannah maneuvered using the cluttered terrain to their own advantages. More than once an errant swing would smack into a barrel or crate instead of an opponent. At one point Petrow’s axe missed the cleric, only to slam down on top of one such barrel. The axe stuck. Petrow’s eyes grew wide even as he saw the cleric taking advantage of his predicament. She went in for an easy hit, but he ducked her swing. He released his hold on the axe handle long enough to land a punch on her face. The quick move staggered her back. Petrow wasted no time in grabbing the axe and jerking it off of the barrel before the flail came at him again. The same barrel split in pieces from the abbess’ blessed weapon.
In the midst of their next attacks, the weapons tangled. The chain and ball of the flail wrapped around the axe just below the blade. Savannah’s first move was to pull back and try to jerk the weapon out of his hands. In that quick moment Petrow used a tactic Salgor had taught him after the group left Barkan’s Crossing. He kept his grip on the axe and pushed forward. The top of the axe slammed solidly against Savannah’s dark breastplate. Both her momentum and the shove of the axe combined to send her tumbling backwards. Petrow was surprised to find he had disarmed her. The chain of the flail remained wrapped around his axe when she was knocked away.
The young man shook the entangled cleric’s weapon off of his own. It flew back up the hallway a bit, well out of easy reach. The dark glow of the flail faded away as it sat useless. Petrow returned his attention back to the abbess, sitting on her rear on the side of the passageway. He raised his axe and moved to finish her.
Savannah made a quick gesture with her hands as she let out a sudden prayer, “DeLaris, move him away from me!”
She finished the prayer with both hands in the motion of pushing towards Petrow. Adding to that gesture, the cleric also blew her breath out as if blowing out a candle. Petrow’s axe fell short as a divine wind lifted him. The young man landed in a sitting position on top of a crate, though the old wood buckled under his weight. He lost his grip on his axe. He couldn’t see it, but the weapon slipped down between some containers and the wall.
Both combatants struggled to get to their feet. Savannah stood up and began fishing for something from a pouch, while Petrow pushed up from the broken splinters of the crate. The young man was not about to let the cleric cast another miracle if he could reach her. Petrow charged into the abbess as she withdrew her hand from her pouch. He slapped away the object; it went flying to the side. Savannah followed up by landing a punch on his cheek, then trying to step away from him.
Petrow would not let her slip away. He got both hands around her and bore her to the ground. A wild frenzy followed as both punched, clawed, and bit at each other. They rolled around between crates and barrels, grunting and screaming as they went. At one point Petrow remembered getting in a solid punch to her cheek, only to have her nails digging into his face a moment later. He pulled her hand away but felt a bite on his own hand, to which he responded by head butting her. Petrow’s left fist slammed into her side once, hurting himself on her armor. Arms flailed wildly as both sought to punch, strangle, or slap at each other.
Despite the fighting spirit of the abbess, the bigger, stronger handyman started tiring her. Petrow got each of his hands on each of hers, and was pinning her to the ground. Savannah returned to more rational thoughts in that moment, realizing she still had some divine tricks.
Petrow was so busy trying to restrain her that he didn’t hear the first words out of her mouth. He realized she was casting a miracle, but both of his hands were busy trying to pin her hands. She stared straight into his eyes as she spoke.
“DeLaris, please stop this soul from moving. Relax his limbs like the coldness of death.”
She was already touching his hands as he held her down. Petrow limply dropped next to Savannah, though partially covering her. The young man wasn’t sure what was happening, but he could not move his limbs. Savannah did not move either; however, the abbess was just trying to catch her breath. Petrow could feel: the cold stone floor, the body of the abbess beside him, his own legs and arms…but he could not move.
Finally Savannah sat up, regarding Petrow silently from beyond her dark eye make-up. She pushed his body aside. Petrow helplessly rolled to his back as she pushed him away. The cleric got to her knees, but did not stand yet. She brought her face down to Petrow’s eyes, hovering just over him.
Savannah pronounced Petrow’s fate, confidant that she was in full control of the moment. “I act in accordance of the tradition of my goddess; who brings death or spares it, escorts lost souls to their judgment, and ultimately decides the fate of
many by her power. You must respect and acknowledge the control she has over your fate.”
Petrow could do nothing but watch her eyes as she spoke. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t raise a finger to defend himself. She continued, “On this day Petrow, your life is claimed, and shall be extinguished by the will of my patron deity. May the Karet-Atriul speed you swiftly to your judgment.”
Petrow’s eyes went wide with fear. A Karet-Atriul was a Death Angel: demons that carry the souls of the recently deceased to their judgment in the afterlife. The young man never knew if they really existed or were just a tale to frighten children, but he did not want to find out. It seemed as if he had little hope of stopping Savannah. It took all of his effort just to twitch his head, which didn’t move very much. The cleric shifted her position, and Petrow tried to glance out of the corner of his eyes at the floor nearby. Not too far away was the woman’s flail, lying within a few steps.
The abbess of the Death Goddess did not move towards her weapon, but instead she straddled Petrow’s form with her legs. Resting both of her hands on his shoulders, she leaned in close and examined his neck. Petrow was helpless as he felt her tender hands slide up to his throat.
“Some may think of me and other followers of DeLaris as evil, but we simply follow a different standard than most people.” Savannah irritably brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes, then resumed touching Petrow’s neck with soft hands. “We follow a goddess that exists above mankind’s rules and restrictions. If an envoy of the Death Goddess kills a man…is it really murder, or is it the fair decree of the goddess who controls such fates? I know that I follow she whom I hold above all others. In return, she grants me that intoxicating power to grant or take a life.”
The Earthrin Stones 1 of 3: Inheritance of a Sword and a Path Page 49