Riverwind the Plainsman

by Paul B. Thompson

  “You too, Catchflea? If the creature is going to die, let it die now before it is aware of its evil purpose.”

  Di An stared at Lyrexis. “I say kill it now.”

  “What?” asked Riverwind.

  “Kill it now. Take a sword and cut off its head!”

  All the agitated shouting seemed to galvanize the awakening creature. It ceased its plaintive mumbling and threw a leg over the side of the vat. Its movements were smoother now, more like those of a fully conscious being. Everyone drew back as the creature, some seven feet tall, swung to its feet.

  “Lyrexis!” Krago breathed. He stepped forward to take the creature’s hand. She felt the warm flesh of Krago’s palm pressed to hers. She tilted her sightless head and shuddered. Her hand closed tightly over Krago’s with a horrible crunching sound.

  The cleric screamed. Riverwind raised his sword, but the creature jerked Krago toward her. Grabbing the cleric at the waist, she hoisted him in the air.

  Riverwind said, “Old man, you and Di An get out!”

  “But where? Shanz is waiting outside, yes.”

  “To the study!”

  Krago wept and pleaded with his creation to put him down. Lyrexis’s arms bowed, and she lowered him to the floor. Then, at the last second, she bent backward and launched Krago at Riverwind.

  The plainsman managed to turn aside his sword, but that was about all. He went down with Krago on top of him, cracking his head on the hard stone floor. Stunned, he didn’t see Lyrexis’s eyelids finally split fully apart. Eyes that were startlingly yellow showed long, dagger-shaped pupils in their centers. Lyrexis surveyed the room she’d so long dwelt in. The open door beyond the bookshelves beckoned. She threw back her head and let out a hissing howl that chilled the blood of all who heard it.

  “Get off me,” Riverwind said, shoving Krago. The cleric groaned and painfully sat up, cradling his right hand.

  “She hurt me,” he said through clenched teeth. “She crushed my hand! I warned you—”

  “She’ll do a lot worse than that if we don’t stop her,” Riverwind declared. He stood up and, sword ready, prepared to cut at the creature’s exposed back. Krago tangled his feet and good arm in Riverwind’s legs.

  “No!” he gasped. “I won’t let you hurt her! I made her. She is mine to teach!”

  “Let me go!” Riverwind rapped Krago on the chin with the crossguard of his stolen sword. Krago went slack, and Riverwind disentangled himself from the stunned cleric.

  “Catchflea! Di An! Watch out!” he shouted as Lyrexis stormed into the study. The creature opened its mouth and screeched at the two of them. Catchflea hurled pots of powders at it, which only made it madder. Riverwind reached the door and slashed at Lyrexis. The cheap goblin steel cut the creature, but its hard scales were as tough as leather armor. Saliva glistened from her fangs, long glassy needles protruding below her upper lip. Despite his weapon, Riverwind retreated at the sight of the creature’s fearsome teeth.

  Lyrexis stalked him, circling the table. Riverwind kept the furniture between them, but she heaved the table out of her path and advanced on him. The plainsman cut at her, leaving long bleeding marks in the horny scales of her forearms. She ignored these hurts and came on, causing him to fall back again.

  Despair crept into the warrior’s heart. There seemed to be nothing he could do to stop this monster. She took his best blows as if they were insect bites.

  Catchflea appeared in the door behind Lyrexis with a blazing torch. He clubbed the creature across the shoulders with it. Cuts Lyrexis could bear, but burning outraged her. She swatted the torch away, knocking Catchflea against the wall. Krago stirred, moaning. Riverwind circled around toward the old man, his blade dented and nicked from hitting the ophidian’s skin.

  Di An appeared in the doorway. “Shanz and his soldiers are outside again!” she cried. “They heard the noise!”

  “Get back!”

  Lyrexis flew at the elf girl. She crashed into Krago’s study just as Shanz’s goblin troops smashed their way in from the outer door. The sight of more swords infuriated the already berserk creature, and she tore into the ranks of goblins, seizing them in her long, powerful arms and biting them to death. The goblins, never the bravest of fighters, panicked and tried to flee, creating a terrible confusion.

  Riverwind grabbed Krago by the collar of his robe and dragged him out. Di An was close on their heels. Catchflea limped after them. Keeping close to the wall, they stayed out of the monster’s sight as it battled the yelling goblins. The goblins were ill-equipped to withstand the creature’s ferocious onslaught. The last living ones fled the room, throwing away their swords and shields. Lyrexis, bleeding from dozens of minor cuts, tore out the broken door and, howling like all the fiends in the Abyss, stomped down the corridor.

  Flames licked through the door of the inner chamber, fed by the ancient scrolls and weird powders. Fantastic tongues of green and violet fire lapped at the wooden book shelves.

  “My work!” Krago moaned. “My books and my equipment!”

  “Let it burn,” Riverwind said sternly. “Only evil has come of it.”

  “But let us save ourselves, yes?” Catchflea said. The left side of his face was mottled with dark bruises. He checked the corridor. “It seems clear.”

  “Go.” Catchflea scooped up a goblin shield and slipped out.

  The corridor was littered with fallen goblins and their arms. Riverwind replaced his battered sword with a fresher specimen. He let go of Krago, but kept him within sword’s reach. The ashen-faced cleric nursed his broken hand and stumbled ahead, muttering to himself.

  Catchflea was waiting where the passage went left to the draconian officers’ quarters. The rooms were a shambles. The companions didn’t have long to examine the room, however; behind them, smoke and flames were beginning to fill the far end of the corridor.

  They moved on through the postern and into the street. The footbridge across the stream below the East Falls was ablaze, and dead goblins were strewn around it.

  “I see what happened,” Riverwind said. “They set fire to the bridge to contain the monster, but it stormed over anyway.”

  “Which way are we going?” asked Di An.

  “To the courtyard, I’m afraid. The pot lift to the surface is there.”

  “You’ll never make it,” Krago said weakly.

  “You had better hope we do.”

  They waded through the stream, ignoring the slain soldiers floating in the water. As they gained the other side, a crack like lightning flashed from the courtyard, following by a booming roll of thunder.

  “What was that?” Di An gasped.

  “Shanz,” Krago replied, “using one of his spells.”

  “Shanz can use magic?” Riverwind asked wonderingly.

  “He knows two spells well. Levitation and the magical missile. That’s what we just heard.”

  They hurried down the street, Riverwind leading with his sword flat against Krago’s ribs. The sounds of fighting grew louder. The lifting pot was visible to them now, sitting on its stubby legs. As they neared the edge of the yard, the body of an armed goblin came hurtling through the air. Lyrexis stalked into view. Her tough hide bore more wounds, including a crossbow quarrel lodged in her scaly chest. She held a heavy length of timber—which looked like part of a ballista—and smashed any creature that moved into range.

  Riverwind and his group crouched by the wall only a few yards from the lift. Diagonally across the courtyard, Shanz and his six draconian officers stood several steps behind a wall of shields. They wore full battle regalia, but their weapons were unbloodied. So far, none of them had closed with the rampaging creature.

  Shanz waved his clawed hands. At this distance, Riverwind couldn’t hear his words, but a sliver of white fire grew between his hands. He hurled the magical flame at Lyrexis. She swung her timber at it, hitting it. It exploded with a deafening crash.

  “Let’s go, while they’re all blinded by the flash!” Riverwind said. />
  “No good,” Krago said tersely. “The lift won’t rise without gully dwarves to weigh down the counterweight.”

  “Where is the counterweight?”

  “At the top of the lift, in the Hall of Ancestors.”

  Riverwind slammed the heel of his fist against the wall. “Blast!”

  “Could we climb the chain?” suggested Di An.

  “So many hundred feet? I could not, nor could Riverwind with his arm wound,” said Catchflea.

  Shanz recovered from the flare of his magic missile and spied Riverwind and company across the courtyard. He bellowed an order. The wall of shields quivered and broke apart, each shield borne by a terrified goblin. They tried to skirt Lyrexis, but she would not let them pass by unchallenged. She stormed into them, laying into them with her timber. The goblins were so demoralized that they cowered helplessly under their shields. She battered them down and slew them where they knelt.

  The draconians formed a line and came at Lyrexis. The creature seemed to recognize the draconians were different from the humans and goblins, that they were cold-blooded and scaled like herself. She lowered her club and waited for them, panting. The draconians slowed and stopped a few yards from the now quiescent creature.

  “Krago! Can you hear me?” Shanz called out.

  The cleric looked to Riverwind. The plainsman nodded for him to answer. “I hear you, Shanz,” Krago responded.

  “Your offspring has slain most of the garrison. Do you hear, Krago? The goblin soldiers are defeated!”

  Fire spurted from the postern gate. The plume of smoke caught Shanz’s eye. “Our quarters are on fire!”

  “Your schemes are ruined!” Riverwind yelled. “Stand aside and let us pass!”

  “Nothing is lost but time,” Shanz replied. “The Great One will be angry, but we can begin again.” More loudly he said, “Let Krago go, warm-blood. Set him free and I’ll allow you and your companions to go.”

  Di An clutched Riverwind’s arm. “Don’t believe him!”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t.” To Krago he muttered. “Can you raise the lift by magic?”

  “Levitation? I don’t know the spell,” he said flatly.

  Riverwind put the edge of the goblin blade to Krago’s throat. “You’re a free man once we get to the surface. What do you think Shanz and his dragon mistress will do to you for failing?”

  Catchflea added, “They hanged gully dwarves just on the suspicion of helping us. What will they do to you for your obvious and costly failures? It will not be pleasant, yes.”

  “I need an answer, warm-blood,” Shanz called.

  “What’ll it be?” Riverwind urged Krago.

  Krago looked around at the destruction of Khisanth’s plans. He stared down at his ruined hand, now black and swollen. “I’ll take you up,” he murmured.

  They stood out from the wall, Riverwind keeping his sword visible at Krago’s throat. “We’ll keep Master Krago a while longer,” he cried. “Stand back.”

  Lyrexis’s drooping head lifted when she heard Riverwind’s voice. She hissed deep in her throat at the sight of Di An and the humans. Raising her club, she took a step toward them.

  “Keep her back!” Shanz snapped. The draconians closed together, shoulder to shoulder, blocking her way. Lyrexis sidled left, then right, but her path was cut off. Frustrated, she hurled the timber at the hated warm-bloods. It sailed over Riverwind’s head, smashing against the wall behind him.

  They reached the lift. It was a big pot, but it would be a tight fit for all four of them. Di An scrambled in, with Catchflea close behind.

  Lyrexis, with whatever instinct was instilled in her newborn mind, understood her enemies were getting away. She displayed her wicked teeth and advanced. Butting into the draconians’ shields didn’t discourage her. “Kill,” she said distinctly. Her first words. “Enemy. Kill.”

  One of the draconians made a mistake. He used his sword to fend off the enraged creature. The keenly forged blade cut Lyrexis, and her reluctance to battle cold-bloods like herself vanished in an instant. She rammed her iron-nailed hand through the draconian’s shield, seized him by the throat and crushed it, armor, bone, and all.

  “Kill that beast,” Shanz ordered.

  “No!” Krago cried out.

  “Get in the pot!” Riverwind demanded.

  The draconians closed around Lyrexis to cut her down. Their strength and their weapons were far superior to the goblins’ and they knew their business. That the newly born ophidian had not been properly prepared for her awakening made the task easier. One of Lyrexis’s legs crumpled, and she fell. Draconian swords rose and fell, and the howling and hissing ended in a rattling gasp.

  They were all finally in the pot, though Riverwind and Krago each had one leg dangling outside. “The spell! The spell!” Riverwind snapped. Krago turned away from his poor dead creation. He knotted his good hand into a fist and uttered the arcane words of the spell.

  Shanz looked over the remains of Lyrexis and, satisfied the wild creature was dead, turned to the escaping quartet. He saw Krago with his eyes rolled back, hand clenched, mouthing the words of a spell. The stubby legs of the pot bobbled on the ground. Shanz’s own magical senses tingled. He knew what Krago was doing.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Krago, I command you to stop!”

  The legs lifted off the pavement.

  “Stop, Krago! Stop!” Shanz turned a dead goblin over with his foot and picked up the soldier’s crossbow. He cocked the steel bow with his bare hands and fumbled for a bolt in the goblin’s belt pouch.

  “Don’t falter now, man,” Riverwind urged.

  The pot rose faster. Krago was chanting loudly now. A subtle tang filled the air around the lift, the same sort of sparkling sensation that spreads after a violent thunderstorm. The companions rose through the air, the pot rattling up against the hoisting chain. The dark roof of the cavern rushed toward them.

  Shanz butted the crossbow against his shoulder and squeezed the trigger bar. The bolt flew wide, and the pot continued to rise. He quickly cocked the bow and fitted another projectile. The range was extreme, almost straight up. Shanz squinted through the brass pins that were the front sight on the bow. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Ah!” Krago gasped suddenly, his eyelids snapping open, The sudden cessation of the spell had the intended effect. The pot wobbled and began its precipitous plunge to the floor.

  “Grab the chain!” Riverwind screamed.

  The three of them grabbed hold of the iron chain as the pot dropped away from them. Krago’s dead body, a bolt protruding from its back, fell into the pot as the cast iron kettle plummeted to the floor, hundreds of feet below. They hung, swaying only slightly, listening to the crossbow bolts sing through the air around them.

  “Is everyone here?” Riverwind hissed. His arms felt as though they were on fire.

  “I’m—here,” Di An whispered a few feet above him.

  From Catchflea, above the elf girl, there was no sound, but his rag-covered body hugged the chain as if it were a dear friend.

  “We must climb up,” Riverwind said. “Move, Catchflea.”

  “Can’t,” the old man hissed. “Can’t.”

  Riverwind couldn’t spare the strength to look up. His face pressed into the cold iron, he said harshly, “If you don’t move, we’ll all die. Di An and I can’t climb over you!”

  Catchflea inched his left hand up. When it had a grip, he inched his right hand up. With his toes in the loops of the chain, he tried to take some of the strain from his thin arms. His face was deathly pale.

  Di An, usually the best climber of the three, found the going tough. Her new body was much heavier than she was used to. Nothing seemed to fit just right. In silence, the three made the agonizing ascent.

  As the dark shape hurtled down, Shanz and his draconians stood back. The iron kettle struck the floor with such force, it buried its bottom half in the stone and a great crack split it in two.

  Shanz walked to
the kettle and peered in. Krago’s lifeless eyes stared up at him. The draconian leader spat. “Always thus for warm-bloods,” he said to no one in particular. “Always the grand ideas which come to naught. That is why we shall prevail. With the Great Ones to lead us, our discipline will overcome all the warm-bloods and their fancy ideas.”

  The other draconians joined him.

  “Don’t just stand there,” he said irritably. “Round up a hundred gully dwarves to clean up this mess and replace the pot. Do you want our mistress to see this putrid waste?” The draconians quickly dispersed, propelled by their fear of the black dragon.

  Chapter 23

  The Hall of Ancestors

  “Not much farther! Not much farther!”

  The hole at the top of the lift yawned. Sweat stung the companions’ eyes and mixed with the blood on their cut hands, making their grips unsure. Catchflea disappeared into the short shaft at the top of the cavern. Di An followed, and Riverwind brought up the rear.

  At the top of the shaft was a large room. Catchflea’s last bit of strength went into heaving himself off the chain and onto the cold stone floor. He rolled away from the opening and lay still.

  Di An and Riverwind followed suit. All three were soon laid out on the floor, wheezing and trembling.

  “Why you come up that way?” asked a voice. Riverwind cracked an eyelid and saw a gang of gully dwarves watching him closely. With his black eye, wounds, and bleeding hands, he was a grim sight. His friends were no more appealing.

  The bearded male that had spoken raised his bushy eyebrows. “Our job to fill one pot to raise the other,” he said. “Why you climb chain?”

  “We just escaped—from draconians,” Riverwind managed to say.

  The male shrugged and tugged at one fat earlobe. He waved to his comrades, and they bustled forward bearing water skins. Riverwind and Di An drank deeply. “Thank you,” Di An said gratefully.

  “Not to mention,” said the young male who handled the water skin. “You pretty lady.”

  “What you want do about him arrow?” asked the first male, apparently the leader of the lift operators.