“The edge of the moat is just ten yards in front of us, master,” he said.
Simon peered through the blowing snow, but beyond the shield was simply a mass of white, constantly being whirled around by the howling winds.
“I'll take your word for it. Which way is the front gate?”
Kronk pointed to their left.
“Along the moat, that way, master. Perhaps forty yards.”
“Okay. Good. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get out of this stupid storm.”
He leaned on his staff for a moment and looked from side to side.
“Now where's Aeris? How long can it take to count monsters?”
He walked forward carefully, letting Kronk guide him, until he could finally see the dark line on the ground ahead that showed the edge of the deep ditch.
“There you are,” he said softly. He was happy to finally have a point of reference in the chaos of the storm.
The shield pushed the snow over the edge of the drop as he approached and Simon stopped a few feet away from the moat and looked down.
The bottom was covered with snow and gusty winds shot along the curve of the walls, turning the moat into a wind tunnel. The howl of the storm was even louder here and Simon shivered at the dreadful sound.
“You know,” he said to Kronk as they scanned the trench. “I always pictured Hell as a really hot place, but I think I've changed my opinion. It couldn't be any worse than this.”
“If you say so, master,” the earthen replied agreeably.
“Now, let's move toward the gate. Slowly. We don't want to attract the attention of those wights.”
“Yes master. This way.”
They turned to the left and began to follow the rim of the moat. Simon walked five, maybe six steps, still wondering where Aeris was, when a voice to his left, coming from the open field beyond, shouted at him. It was Aeris.
“Simon! Get away from the moat! Get back!”
He turned to look at the wall of snow just beyond his shield.
“What the...?”
He barely saw the streak of light that was the air elemental; Aeris was actually glowing. He shot toward the shield and, at the last minute, soared up and over the barrier.
Simon looked up to where the elemental was hovering several feet above his head.
“Damn it, move!” Aeris shouted.
“Move? Move where? Why?”
A rumble from the field made Simon turn and look out into the storm, just in time to see a wall of monsters appear out of the snow, jaws gaping and claws extended toward him. The wights slammed into his shield and Simon was suddenly soaring up and out over the moat.
He looked down just as the earth came up to meet him and everything went black.
Chapter 6
“Master, wake up,” a frantic voice was calling to him from some incalculable distance.
Simon could feel someone shaking him and his skull suddenly felt like it was going to fly apart.
“Knock it off,” he murmured weakly.
“Master, you must wake up. The air in here won't last much longer.”
The wizard found those words puzzling.
Air in here? Where's here? he wondered vaguely.
Slowly, reluctantly, Simon forced his eyes open, only to be met with...nothing.
He was lying flat on his back on a hard, uneven surface. Blackness surrounded him and the ominous silence that accompanied it woke him up faster than Kronk's urging ever could.
“Kronk?” he whispered, his pounding head making it difficult to hear his own voice. “What happened? Where are we?”
“We were attacked by wights, master,” the elemental answered softly from close to his right ear. “It was an ambush. I have been thinking while waiting for you to wake up, and my guess is that it was all a set up. I believe the attack on Nottinghill was a ruse to draw you out after the assault on our tower failed.”
Even in the midst of his pain and confusion, Simon smiled to himself when the earthen called the tower 'ours'.
“Wait, you're telling me that all those undead monsters, plus however many others jumped me, were all at Nottinghill just to get to me?”
“That is my belief, master.”
“God, I hope you're wrong or all of this is my fault.”
“It is not, master,” Kronk said forcefully. “It is the fault of the dark gods who control these creatures.”
“Yeah? I think you're splitting hairs, my friend. Anyway, we can talk about that later.”
The wizard reached up to rub his temples and his hands scraped across rock mere inches from his face.
“Holy crap!” he exclaimed. “Where the hell are we?”
“Shh! Master, keep your voice down.” Kronk whispered urgently. “When the wave of wights slammed into you, you fell into the moat. Your shield cushioned your fall, but when you hit the ground, you were knocked out and the barrier dissolved.”
“Oh. Oh right. I kind of remember that. A bit.”
Simon slowly moved his hands along his body feeling for wounds and tried flexing his arms and legs. Everything seemed to be working and his headache was diminishing, but he was still almost entombed in solid rock.
“So how did we get to wherever we are now?”
“The creatures poured down the side of the moat and were going to engulf you, so I did the only thing I could think of, master. I brought you underground. I am sorry if the space is small but I had no time to do any better.”
“You did that? Gees, Kronk, don't apologize! You saved my life.”
There was a short pause and Simon imagined the little guy shrugging his shoulders.
“I did my duty, master. That is all.”
“This is above and beyond the call of duty, my friend. So, how deep are we?”
“Perhaps fifty feet, master. As I pulled you downward, I could feel those horrible creatures digging above us, so I moved us down into very hard rock. There is no chance that they can reach you here, at least not for some time.”
“Then why are we whispering?”
“I remember stories of these wights, master. Their hearing is very keen. They could be above us even now, trying to track you. We should be cautious.”
Something hard was digging into Simon's back and he shifted until he could reach around and move it. It was his staff. He felt a sense of relief as he touched it.
“Thank God I didn't lose the staff,” he murmured. “Now the big question; how long have I been out?”
Another moment of silence.
“About two hours, master,” Kronk told him softly.
“What!”
Simon reared up, slammed his head into the ceiling and flopped back on to the hard ground again. Flashes of light like fireworks shot across his vision and he moaned in agony.
“Master! Are you all right?”
The wizard waited until the flashes faded to red swirls before answering. His blood was pounding in his ears and he felt like his skull was expanding and contracting with his every heart beat.
“Not really,” he finally managed to gasp. “Two hours, Kronk? The defenders of Nottinghill were running out of arrows. God knows what's happened since then.”
“I'm sorry, master. I couldn't wake you up! I tried and tried but...”
“Stop. Don't blame yourself. Blame me,” Simon told him bitterly. “The cocky young wizard strolling through a blinding snowstorm so sure that he was going to save the day. God, I'm such a jerk.”
“You are not, master,” the earthen said firmly. “You were doing the right thing.”
“Yeah, the right thing in absolutely the wrong way. Well, we don't have time for regrets right now. I have to know what's going on up there.”
He tried to think through his pain. It wasn't easy.
“What happened to Aeris?”
“No idea, master. I was too busy getting you to safety to look for him.”
“Okay. The air in here is getting a bit thin. Hang on to me. I'm getting us out of
here.”
Simon felt Kronk take a firm hold of his coat and chanted the Gate spell. He pictured his target, head throbbing through it all and cast the spell.
A moment later he was lying on the floor next to his kitchen table. Kronk stood beside his shoulder, a smile of obvious relief on his craggy little face.
“You did it, master! We're home.”
“No time to celebrate just yet,” the wizard said as he struggled to his feet.
His knees were wobbly and he staggered to the closest kitchen chair and collapsed into it. He stared at the center of the table and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his bleary vision. Kronk jumped up to stand next to him.
“Aeris, I need you,” he said as firmly as he could.
A pause and then with a harsh crack of thunder, the air elemental appeared hovering above the tabletop.
He looked around in obvious astonishment and then gaped at Simon.
“You're alive!” he exclaimed and a look of delight came over his face. Seeing Kronk's sly expression, Aeris caught himself and sniffed. “Of course I knew that. If you had died, I would have been pulled back to my own plane.”
“Yeah, I'm alive. Barely,” Simon replied as he slumped down in his chair. “Thanks to our mutual friend here,” he added with a smile at Kronk. “But forget about me. What's going on at Nottinghill?”
Aeris looked grave.
“They're on the run, my dear wizard. The guards ran out of arrows about an hour ago and the wights swarmed over the gates.”
Simon leaped to his feet, staggered back and landed on his butt on the floor.
“What?” he asked weakly as Kronk jumped down and scurried over, looking concerned.
“You heard me.”
Aeris floated off of the table and hovered in front of the wizard.
“Malcolm, Aiden and the others held them back to buy the townspeople some time. Virginia and her group pulled back when I told them what had happened and now they're all barricaded in the town hall. Those damnable wights are tearing at the walls as we speak. They won't hold them back much longer.”
Simon got to his feet again and stood swaying.
“Grab on,” he told the elementals. “We have to go, right now.”
“Master, I think you may have a concussion,” Kronk cautioned him.
“I think he's right,” Aeris said as he flew up to hover near the wizard's shoulder. “Your eyes are glazed and your speech is slurred.”
“I don't care! We'll worry about that later. Now grab hold or I'm leaving without you!”
They quickly held on to Simon's coat, which was dripping with water in the warmth of the tower, and he cast the Gate spell again. This time he pictured the central fire pit of the town hall, with himself a few feet away from it. Then he invoked the spell, knees shaking, and the three were pulled into the Void.
They appeared in the midst of chaos. Around them, people were yelling and screaming. The few children born in Nottinghill were crying and, in the center of it all, Simon saw Clara calling loudly for calm.
He and the elementals went unnoticed at first and it gave Simon a chance to look around.
The walls of the building were shuddering as the sounds of screeching and clawing, obviously from the attacking wights, echoed through the large hall. He spotted Malcolm and Aiden standing side by side facing the reinforced front door and felt a momentary sense of relief.
So they're still alive, he thought, thankful for the first time that their blood, tainted by the bite of a werewolf, had made them damned hard to kill.
The pair were bleeding from several deep scratches on their arms and faces but their expressions were grim and resolute. Nothing was getting past them while they could still stand.
Behind the warriors, Virginia, Anna, Eric and Gerard stood in a line, holding each others' hands. They looked pale and exhausted and Anna, the smallest of the group, was leaning against Eric, trying to stay upright.
With his wizard's senses, Simon could feel the power emanating from the four young people. It permeated the walls of the hall, strengthening them. They were using their power to shield each other, but extending it to the perimeter of the building. He could tell that their magic was the only thing keeping the wights from tearing the place apart.
Clara's calls for calm finally got through and the panicked screaming died down. The outside attack sounded even louder and more terrifying now.
“If anyone else is wounded, step forward,” the cleric said tiredly. “If not, I'm going to heal the guards while I still have the strength. Get the children close to the fire pit and form a wall around them. Those devils will not reach them while any of us live.”
Simon counted no more than twenty survivors and felt the beginnings of despair.
Twenty out of what, almost forty souls, he thought. God, I failed them.
The adults shuffled around, moving the youngsters, just three little children, close to the pit. Suddenly someone, Simon wasn't sure who, spotted him.
“It's the wizard!” a woman shouted and everyone, even the group guarding the door, turned as one and looked at him.
“By the gods! Simon, you're alive,” Clara exclaimed and hurried over to him, limping from an unseen wound.
He attempted to smile and almost keeled over. Aeris moved quickly to grab his shoulder, demonstrating just how strong he really was, while Kronk braced his legs from below.
“Yeah, more or less,” he told her as the cleric hugged him fiercely.
“What happened?” she asked. “You went out into the storm and that was the last we saw of you. We feared the worst.”
“There's no time to explain right now,” he told her, squinting to keep her in focus. “We need to get you all out of here to a place of safety.”
“Where? Where can we go that those hell-spawn can't follow us?” a large man that Simon vaguely recognized as the town's blacksmith asked dispiritedly. He was holding a massive hammer that was stained black with undead blood.
“My tower,” Simon told him and the others. “I can Gate six of you at a time, so we'll have to make four trips, but you'll be safe for now.”
“Simon, can you do that?” Clara asked as she looked at him closely. “You can barely stand.”
“I'll do it crawling then,” he answered bleakly. “Who cares? You folks are what is important.”
He looked at the children, none older than three and then at the adults around them.
“I'll take the kids first with one parent each.”
There was a momentary hesitation and then a tremendous bang reverberated through the building, making them all jump.
“Damn it all, what are you waiting for?” Malcolm bellowed from across the room. “Grab the kids and go!”
At once, the children were scooped up and the three parents hurried to stand next to Simon.
“You two come along,” he said to the elementals. “You can see to our guests' needs while I keep transporting the rest.”
Thankfully neither one argued. They just held on to his coat and waited.
Simon held out a hand to a desperate young woman who was gripping her little girl to her chest, eyes wide and terrified.
“Take my hand,” he told her gently, “Someone hold on to her shoulder and everyone else grab the hand of the person next to you.”
When they were all firmly connected, Simon smiled at Clara, chanted the Gate spell and took them away.
Kronk and Aeris quickly began to organize the survivors once they arrived in the tower. The sense of relief from the three parents was palpable and they began thanking Simon hysterically.
“No need, folks. My friends will help with food and whatever else you need. I have to get back.”
He chanted the incantation again, nodded to the elementals and Gated out.
Each casting of the Gate spell drew more and more energy from the wizard and it was only the desperate nature of the situation that kept him on his feet. But by the time he had returned for the final group, Simon could b
arely see or speak.
He appeared in the hall and fell to his knees. Malcolm, Aiden and the group of four magic-users led by Virginia had insisted that they be taken out last, so that they could hold the building against the wights.
Aiden hurried over and knelt down beside the wizard.
“Easy there, Simon,” he said as he wrapped a heavily-muscled arm around him. “Take a breath, recover your strength for a minute.”
“Do...do we have time for that?” Simon gasped and stared through the fog toward Virginia and the others.
“We can hold them for a few more minutes,” she replied firmly, even as she stood there shaking like a leaf. Anna was being held up by Eric, who was himself listing to the side. Gerard looked like a ghost. His skin had lost all color and he appeared almost transparent.
“You know, it's not nice to lie to a wizard,” Simon told her with a half-hearted attempt at humor.
The others chuckled weakly.
“Aiden, could you help me over there please?” he whispered to the guardsman.
“My friend, I would carry you anywhere you wanted to go if you needed me to,” the man replied fiercely.
He practically lifted Simon to his feet and then put an arm around his waist and helped him over to the others.
“We're all...”
The wizard gasped, took a ragged breath and tried again.
“We're all going to have to be linked for the spell to work,” he told them.
“We know, Simon,” Virginia said with a exhausted smile. “The problem is that once the four of us connect with someone else, our circuit will be disrupted and our spell broken. The walls won't be reinforced anymore and those monsters will rip through this building like it was made of paper.”
“Can't...can't be helped,” Simon told her blearily. “Without that connection, you'll be left behind. Just wait until I speak the incantation. I'll hold Aiden's hand. Malcolm, you take his other hand and touch Virginia's shoulder and then I can invoke the spell. It will only take a few seconds.”
“Well, let's hope those damned wights give us those seconds,” Malcolm rumbled.
“Let's hope,” the wizard panted. “Okay, here we go.”
He chanted the spell very slowly so that he didn't stumble over the words. One mispronounced syllable and he would have to start again.
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