Judah carried the tied-up dweller, slinging it over his shoulder. It had stopped flailing now and seemed resigned to its fate. In a way, seeing it so subdued made me feel sorry for it. It had lived down here in the mines for however long, and all its life had led it to was becoming a tool in our survival.
I could feel the tension amongst us now, almost a chain of it that linked from person to person.
Harrien was trying to paint a picture of grim resolve on his face, but I could see through it. Even so, that actually gave me even more respect for him. To be scared was one thing, but to power through it, to force himself down this tunnel…that took more guts than people like Cleavon would ever have.
Judah and Adi-Boto carried themselves with the calmness I’d come to expect from the Tallsteep scouts. Erimdag skulked at the back. He’d wanted to stay back with Cleavon, out of danger, but I had reminded him that dwellers would come eventually and staying back there wouldn’t have been the wisest course of action. While Tosvig…Tosvig actually seemed like he was looking forward to this.
As for me, well I kept repeating a mantra in my head. Everything is flesh and blood. Everything can be killed. Even the Runenmer.
Not, not Runenmer.
Cleft. That was a better way to think of him, because it robbed him of his mystique. This bastard was just Cleft, an outcast who had died before and would die again. For now on, I wouldn’t give him that mystical name, I would call him by the name he was born with, the one that meant he was just another sack of flesh.
The tunnel seemed never-ending as we walked down it, but that could have been my nerves messing with my head. Nevertheless, we followed Kayla, our stares set firm ahead.
With Cleavon gone, I felt like I could trust everyone here. Well, everyone except Erimdag, but then again, he’d once told me that even though we couldn’t trust him personally, we could trust that he wanted to survive.
If only we had Pendras or Siddel. Even Mardak, who was back at camp, would have been a great boost. We needed more mages for this. More warriors.
We’d just have to make do with what we had, and deep down I utterly believed that was enough. I had to.
We’d gone too far and seen too much for this rune-spawning son of a bitch to stop us. And now, it felt freeing. Yes, we were walking into danger. But there was a better way to frame it.
We were bringing the fight to him.
Flesh and blood. Everything can be killed.
Soon, I saw Kayla stop walking, and the rest of us paused.
She pointed. “He is ahead. The tunnel curves, runs for another fifty meters, and then opens to a cavern. He is there.”
“Judah,” I said, nodding.
Judah unslung the dweller from his shoulder. “Stand back from me.”
Using a knife, he cut the ropes binding the creature until its legs were free. He left the rope around its mouth in place.
“No,” I said. “You need to cut that rope, too. If Cleft sees a dweller with its mouth tied, he will know something is wrong.”
Judah cut the last rope. For a second, the creature just stayed there, unmoving, paralyzed by fear. Judah prodded it with the hilt of his knife, and it twitched one leg, then another.
It scampered down the tunnel away from us, and soon it rounded the bend and we lost sight of it.
I felt my pulse racing now, so I took deep, calming breaths and repeated my mantra. I focused on my body, on my muscles filled with bear buff strength. I focused on my thoughts, with my mantra swirling around my head. And then, I waited.
I waited and listened. Our chain of tension strengthened, and I could almost feel it binding our group together, all our fates locked in as links. If one of us broke under strain, did that mean we’d all break?
Finally, I heard a series of whooshing noises, followed by several low growls. Or, they seemed like growls at first, but the longer I listened, the surer I was that it was a language of some kind.
There was a shriek of pain, and from that, I guessed that the dweller had met its fate.
Harrien looked at me expectedly.
I focused on the passageway ahead of us.
“Hrr-barrer!”
[Shield] discipline improved by 4%!
Rank: Grey 63.00%
A shield of light formed ahead of us, spreading from one side of the tunnel to the other.
“Hrr-barrer!” said Harrien, commanding a magical barrier of his own to appear behind mine.
“That will protect us if the demons can leave the runes. Initially, at least. And now we wait,” I said.
The first few minutes were the worst; pausing there in the tunnel, wondering if Cleft would sense something suspicious and leave his little lair.
But the more time passed, the surer I was that it had worked. The dweller had scuttled down the tunnel and into the cavern Kayla had described, and it had set off Cleft’s runes. Now, once activated, he could do nothing but let it run its course, his own traps draining him.
I pictured him in there, surrounded by his power-sapping demons and with nothing but a dead dweller to show for it. Using the rune would consume the power he’d anchored in it, and that would leave him with less to play with when we faced him.
The most beautiful part was there would be nothing to alert his suspicions. Dwellers lived in the mines, and it wasn’t so strange that one should scuttle into his cavern.
“This is killing me,” said Harrien. “How long do we wait?”
“Until the demons stop talking.”
Three hours.
Three hours spent cramped in there, with mine and Harrien’s shields ahead of us in case the Cleft’s demons could somehow leave his runes and follow the tunnels.
Nothing came, and there was no sound from the cavern ahead. Twice I felt the rune disc glow warmly in my pocket, and I knew that Cleft was trying to contact Cleavon again.
It was almost funny to picture him pacing around his lair, wondering why Cleavon wasn’t answering him. Maybe even cursing the fact that a little dweller had made him use some of his power. Thinking about that helped my nerves a lot.
I wondered if he would show the impatience Cleavon said was part of him and leave that place, but he didn’t. I had to think that there was a reason why; maybe he was scared to leave it.
After all, Cleft was all too aware of the fact he could die. Who would be more understanding of it than him, he who had already died?
He also knew that we outnumbered him. That victory wasn’t an absolute.
“They have stopped,” said Kayla.
I listened now, and I heard that she was right; the voices had ceased talking. The power he’d anchored in his rune was gone, and now it would just be Cleft on his own again. Still dangerous, but slightly less so than before.
It was time to go.
It was then that I felt the rune disc glow warmly against my thigh again. This time I took it out, and I saw the lines of light crossing over it, concentrating in the center.
I touched the part where they all met, and I heard a voice in my head.
“Cleavon, it is troubling that you would ignore me. Do I need to remind you that what can be brought back from the land beyond, can also stay there?”
“This isn’t Cleavon,” I answered, forming the words in my head.
He didn’t answer for a few seconds. Finally, he spoke.
“If I am not mistaken, it is you. The outsider Cleavon spoke of.”
“Right, but I have a name.”
“Isaac.”
“I have other names. There’s a duke in Agnartis who called me the archangel of retribution. Someone else calls me No-Color. People have different names, don’t they, Cleft?”
There was silence again.
“Perhaps it is fitting that we speak. One who was cast from his clan, and one who has no clan.”
I had an idea now. Another edge that we could take. But I needed to be sure of something.
I glanced at the tunnel wall to my left. Can you hear this? I thought.
Good; it meant that the rune disc only transferred my thoughts to him when I was looking at it. I had been worried that Cleft would read my thoughts while I held the disc, and that he’d learn of the idea I had.
Feeling a little safer, I nodded at Judah. I pointed at his sword, and then at the tunnel ahead of us.
He arched his eyebrows.
“Can you hear this, Cleft?” I said, while not looking at the rune.
No answer.
I spoke to the group. “I’ll talk to him. While we’re having a chat, you guys go ahead and unleash hell on his rune-spawning ass. This will keep him distracted. Only for a second or two, but that might be all the difference.”
The rest of the group wasted no time in leaving me, heading deeper into the tunnel and then disappearing when it curved to the left.
A voice spoke in my head. “I do not hear any objections, so I will assume you are open to listening to me. Good, outsider. Cleavon told me that it was a part of you; a willingness to do what is necessary. That is a good instinct. It is hard to find in a person, that willingness to do anything to stay alive. Not many have it, and not many appreciate it. Some would even spurn you for it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never talked to a rune-spawning bastard through a disc before.
“Thanks.”
“Your fate does not need to be that of your friends,” he said. “You are not of a clan, after all. You are not a Lonehill, nor a Tallsteep, nor a part of any other forsaken clan. I have no quarrel with you. We could perhaps help each other, outsider. I need someone with no allegiance to the treacherous band of cowards that live in this world. I need one who, if Cleavon was correct in his summary of you, will do what is needed, exactly when it is needed. One who is unflinching. One who doesn’t care about dirtying his soul for the sake of something better. One who…”
Cleft stopped talking now.
I heard voices ahead of me. Shouts and yells, with one voice rising above the others.
“Hrr-chare!”
It was Harrien casting a spell.
I dropped the rune disc now and sprinted down the tunnel, my heart racing. I soon rounded the bend in the tunnel and carried along the last stretch, to where it widened into a cavern, just as Kayla had said.
Just before reaching the end I paused and cast hrr-spee, feeling the spell energy inflate in my chest.
[Speed] discipline improved by 3%!
Rank: Grey 22.00%
I already knew that if I willed the speed energy to go into my legs, I’d run faster.
So, if I commanded it to reach my arms, maybe it would…
I carried on now, finally leaving the tunnel and emerging into a vast space.
It was a bigger cavern than any that I had seen in the mines so far. The ground was covered in rune marks, but these were blackened, no doubt from when the dweller had activated the Cleft’s trap.
Cleft was at the far end of the room. It was now that I saw my mantra was truer than ever. When I had first seen Cleft, back when I knew hardly anything about magic, I had feared him. Then, he had been eight feet tall, a figure of darkness that had cast doom in my heart.
Was that an illusion?
It must have been, because now I saw him for what he was; I saw a small mage, green like the rest of the Lonehills but with skin stretched out over him so that his bones jutted out. He gave off an air of age and time, but I sensed a vulnerability, too.
Behind him was a great sarcophagus made of stone, with the lid lying next to it. It was covered in a series of patterns carved into it, unmistakably similar to the ones in Cleft’s runes.
My group was in the middle of the cavern. Tosvig, Judah, and Adi-Boto were in the center, buffed by bear meat. It didn’t make them look any different, but I knew how it felt to eat it, and I knew how they’d be feeling now. It made you believe you could uproot a great oak tree with your bare – or bear – hands.
Kayla took the left flank, boosted by hare flesh to help her speed, while Harrien took the right side. Erimdag hung back by the entrance, not far away from me.
Judah raised his sword in the air and charged, followed by Tosvig and Adi.
Cleft pointed at the ground, where a series of interlocking lines of light formed, gradually becoming a circle.
With a whooshing sound, light exploded from the rune, and the ground changed so that it became almost liquid. Shapes burst out from it, and soon, a dozen hand-sized demons were flying in the air.
They screeched and shouted in their guttural language while zipping above Tosvig and the others and letting loose a stream of demonic shouts and urine. Their wings sounded like paper rustling when they flapped them, and each flap spread a gust of foul-smelling air throughout the cavern.
Kayla focused on Cleft and let an arrow fly from her bow. It sailed upwards and then arced down, the tip trained on him.
A demon whizzed through the air so fast that it was a blur, grabbing the arrow midflight and then cackling as it snapped it.
Kayla, gritting her teeth, pulled another arrow from a loop on her belt.
I took three paces further into the room and aimed upwards. As I began to cast hrr-chare, I realized that my guess had been right; casting hrr-spee and commanding its spell energy into my arms made my stances much quicker. Coupled with Siddel’s medallion, it meant I could cast my magic in barely a millisecond.
“Hrr-chare!”
My flames smashed into three demons, licking over their bodies and scorching their wings to cinders, sending them crashing to the ground where they landed with a plopping sound.
The remaining demons, grouped together until now, separated from each other, wary of all being caught in one gust of flames.
Zip! An arrow left Kayla’s bow, only for a demon to catch it again. It threw it back at her, though it had such little strength that it was less an attempt to hurt her, and more an act of mockery.
Tosvig closed the gap on Cleft, his sword gripped in his hand, his muscles tensed so that the veins stuck out.
Cleft pointed at an untouched area of the ground and drew another rune. The stone beneath it seemed to melt and become gooey like tar, before a giant fist emerged.
The fist slammed down on the ground, sending a shudder through the whole cavern. Stones dislodged from the walls and fell, while to my right, a spikey lump of rock fell and shattered into pieces.
A stink of sulfur and rot permeated all around us now, the smell so cloying that I felt it stick to my throat. It came from the demon, emanating from its skin in wafts.
Another great hand rose from the melted floor, crashing onto the edge of the rune. Now I saw two arms, and then a head. Finally, the rest of the demon emerged.
Holy hells!
I felt my stomach tighten as I looked at this creature. Twelve feet tall and just as wide, its grey body seeming to ripple with muscle. It had six eyes set in the center of its forehead, and a mouth that looked like it could eat a man in one gulp.
Not content with that, Cleft cast three more runes, this time producing demons eight feet tall and barrel-chested. These took a position in front of him, standing so that they completely blocked him from view.
Great.
A bunch of flying imps pissing on us. A demon that would make giants tremble stomping through the cave. Three imposing monsters from the depths of hell that wouldn’t let us get close to Cleft.
Even with his powers drained a little, this guy was something.
Okay, first things first.
I focused on the air in the center of the room, using my speed spell and medallion enhanced body to quickly cast two hrr-chares.
I sent one out, aiming purposefully to the right of where the flying imps hovered.
Out of instinct, they swerved right, forming into a group again. It was then that I hit them with a second hrr-chare, and the flames hit them dead-center, charring them midair and bring a rain of blackened demon corpses upon the room.
The greater demon took ano
ther giant step, the sound vibrating so that I could feel it in my feet.
Adi-Boto stared at it.
I saw something then. A look on his face; not just a concentration brought on by battle, but something else. Something deeper, an inner fury trembling out to the surface and locking his features in hate.
Judah said that Cleft’s demons had killed Adi’s parents. Was this…
Adi charged at the demon. As he neared, it swept a meaty arm out to hit him, but Adi was too quick. He ducked under the swing and rounded the demon, before leaping onto its back.
I charged into the center of the room and grabbed Harrien, who was about to cast a spell at the giant.
“Focus on Cleft.”
“But Adi-Boto!”
“We kill Cleft, and this all stops. I hope.”
Together, Harrien and I cast balls of flame across the room, where they smashed into the demons blocking Cleft from view. Unlike with the imps, when our fire hit these demons it simply dissipated like rain on a windscreen.
“Hrr-Chare!”
I fired another ball of flames, again seeing them fade to nothing when they hit the demons.
“Hrr-eisre!”
Just like with my fire, my ice had no effect.
The spee energy in my chest was gone now, and I felt my movements slow down.
Across from us, Adi climbed up onto the giant demon’s shoulders, and he wrapped his legs around its head.
It raised a hand to swat him off. What was Adi doing? This beast was so strong that even a glancing blow would probably cave a man’s skull.
Adi raised his spear, roared something, and brought it down, pushing the tip straight through the demon’s eye.
One of the demon’s fists crashed into him like a warhammer, smashing him clean off the demon’s shoulders and across the room, where he slammed into the wall.
“Adi!” shouted Judah.
He charged at the demon, but as he neared, the creature’s legs began to falter. Black blood, thick as tar and with an overwhelming stench of rot, poured from its eye. It took a stumbling step forward, barely staying balanced.
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 51