Burrows & Behemoths

by Lee Duckett

  Behind the door was a long hallway, filled with doors, over half of them open. Clustered around the far doorway were over two dozen more remnants, pushing and shoving to try to gain access to the next room, a chamber filled with a hellish light that cast long dancing shadows down the chamber.

  “Oi, get outta my way ya bloody stutterers!” Rurik yelled, gaining their attention. Is he crazy? Badger thought, How is he going to fight them all? Casting a Flame Bolt at the mob, one remnant took it in the chest, burned but not falling. It glared at the wizard while the rest moved back out into the wider hallway, charging the dwarf, whom Badger noticed hadn’t even drawn his swords.

  As the remnants pulled away from the doorway, they revealed the room beyond was an inferno, even the walls seemingly on fire, filling the chamber with a black acrid smoke that couldn’t hide the intense flames burning within. Meeting the horde head on, Rurik didn’t strike them, barreling through them as he made his way for the now-cleared entryway.

  Grasping hands slammed into the armored dwarf, catching for but a moment before he tore away, unrelenting in his charge. A second Flame Bolt was slammed into the one Badger hurt before, the memory of what was once a dwarf shrieking animalistically as it fell to the ground, burned to death.

  There was a cry from inside and a column of fire roared out slamming into the remnants still by the doorway, burning the undead still there back to death and blasting towards Rurik unabated. The samurai grabbed the remnant in front of him and used the creature, flailing and trying to bite him even as it was lifted off the ground, as a shield against the pillar of flames the dwarf charged into without hesitation.

  Badger lost sight of his son as the stream of incandescence headed in their direction, but off course by just enough that it blasted the wall beside them. The wizard sent a Ray of Frost at one of the undead only winged by the blast, the combined damage enough to drop it as the remaining dozen charged Aria.

  His wife, who was wide eyed in worry, finally noticed the oncoming horde and snarled at the undead, “Begone fragments of undeath, Vanish before Solus’ Light!” In her free hand she held her holy symbol, which shone gold as it lit up the chamber with brilliant radiance to combat the red-orange glow from before them.

  The four closest to them vanished, popped like she’d dismissed the four in the workshop. The others screamed in terror and ran for the doorways around them, pushing each other out of the way in primal fear of that which would forever destroy them.

  Badger could now clearly view the other room, seeing it to be some kind of bureaucratic space, the stone desks laid in rows the only thing not burning. The remnants, over three dozen of them, were gathered in the center of the room, shrieking as they tried to get to something, partially blocked by the stone furniture.

  Rurik was closing on the group, longsword out as he chugged a potion, tossing the empty vial behind him as he drew his shortsword. With a bellow of challenge he jumped, launching himself upwards into the air, ten, then twenty feet above the ground, his impossible leap carrying him up over the outer edge of the horde as if even gravity itself couldn’t stop him.

  Flying high, he twisted upside-down, tracking something in the center. Reaching the ceiling the samurai gave a nonverbal bellow of anger, focused in a way that none of the remnants were, and leapt again as he launched himself down at his chosen target. He rocketed down like a metal meteor, swords pointed downwards as he descended into the middle of the undead horde and disappearing from sight with the unmistakable impact of steel on flesh.

  Aria put Badger on one of the less-burning cabinets as she charged forward. He found the raised vantage point excellent to both fire shots into the crowd and see Rurik at work. The dwarf was a whirlwind of blades, constantly moving his top half back and forth, but not moving his legs at all, keeping the ravening horde at bay.

  Speaking the proper words and mentally completing the design he held in his mind, Badger manifested a flaming sphere, a beach ball sized sun, and slammed it into the horde. It wasn’t like this place could be more on fire, he thought, burning the remnants from the far side as his wife laid into them from the direction of the door, dividing their attention. With another blast of golden light, the ones in front of her disappeared, but this radiance was weaker, not affecting the rest as those nearby turned and clawed at her. Now that she was prepared though, she rebuffed them, swinging her mace into the skull of one of them, dropping it to the burning ground.

  Rurik held fast, repelling the horde from all sides as he refused to be moved. As a remnant went down, Badger caught a glimpse of forest green before another took its place. Fayne! He realized, and had to stop himself from smacking his forehead in the middle of battle, launching a Flame Bolt with his other hand. That’s why Rurik was standing his ground, even though he’d been taking hits from the slowly shrinking swarm of remnants.

  The dwarf was battered, face bloody, but he would not be moved. As he struck down another remnant, his shortsword, one they’d scavenged from the orcs, broke, the top half snapping off in the creature’s chest. Rurik plunged the broken blade into the throat of another remnant as he shifted stance slightly, holding his longsword at the ready, the hand placement not quite right as he tried to wield the one-handed weapon like the katana he trained with.

  If he had his sword he could do this, Badger realized with dread as the dwarf continued trying to hold off the remnants, but to much lesser effect, taking a several more blows in the next few seconds, but standing fast. Longswords are one handed weapons, katanas are like bastard swords, both one and two handed, and he’s not used to that! I need to do something! Stumbling over his memorized spells as he tried to force the flaming sphere to burn through the remnants faster with a twist of his hand, he remembered the incantation he memorized out of habit, which if he’d been thinking about it, he’d likely have not prepared purely out of spite.

  Calling upon the magics, he cast Enlarge Person on the dwarf, whose stance, and reach, widened. As he grew, so did his weapon, the three-and-a-half-foot blade doubling in length, width, and stopping power. Wielding a slab of steel like out of those Japanese cartoons Isaac watched, Rurik swung out at the mob, what would’ve been wounding blows cutting cleanly through the burning undead, clearing more and more space around him.

  Moments later Aria reached him, spotting Fayne lying at his feet. She held her holy symbol aloft, golden light shining from it in a flickering radiance, like a sputtering flame, but bursting to life for a single instant. The undead opened up a space around them, even if only for a moment.

  Rurik reached down with his oversized hand and picked up Fayne, cradling her like a child as he charged back towards the door, clearing a path through the even now re-gathering remnants. “Grab hold wee man!” he thundered as he made for the exit, leaving the hordes behind him.

  Badger needed no further invitation, leaping from the now heavily burning cabinet and scrabbling to find purchase, grasping the dwarf’s belt, which was now a good four feet off the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain of legs he hadn’t realized he’d burned, he twisted backwards, directing the flaming sphere to follow them, burning the remnants which were starting to give chase.

  Not slowed down by either of his passengers, the dwarf charged down the hallway like an oncoming train, the remnants coming back out of their rooms, their divine-inspired terror having passed. Taking the head of the lead one, the dwarf gave them no time as he plowed through, and over, them once again. They struck out at him, but blows they tried to land on his legs bounced of his now three-inch-thick greaves.

  Emerging back into the half-collapsed room, the hallway behind them starting to fill with remnants once more, pouring in from the sides and the inferno at the end, Rurik laid Fayne down with incredible care. The samurai stepped back to the door as Aria ran through it, the healer immediately attending to her niece. Badger, not wanting to see if he’d lost Grace because he trusted her to take care of herself, stepped to Rurik’s side as the enlarged dwarf practically
filled the eight-foot-wide doorway.

  Rurik glanced at him, but the wizard shook his head, activating his retributive belt and unholstering his magical quarterstaff. “I’ll get any that get by,” he promised. The wizard knew he wasn’t a fighter, but the rest of his spells were all utility, useless in a fight, not having had a way to add to his repertoire yet, and while he couldn’t help Fayne, he could at least try to protect her. If he went down doing so. . . so be it.

  The samurai gave the gnome an appraising look before nodding, once. “Then be prepared to be bored, Badger.” Turning to the remnants still alive, a little over three dozen, several of them on fire, Rurik firmed his stance, taking note of the ball of flame harrying the remnants from behind.

  Like a wave they crashed into the dwarf, scratching, biting, punching, and kicking. As tough as his armor now was, it didn’t cover all of him and some of their blows got through. They paid for every blow, his sword scything back and forth, cutting them down, but even at their reduced numbers they were a threat, the bottleneck of the doorway all that was keeping him from being overwhelmed.

  One remnant, knocked down by the others, spotted a path to easier prey and tried to shimmy between the dwarf’s legs to get to the others. As soon as the solid ghost made it, it was stopped, for Badger was waiting behind the samurai.

  Swinging his staff like an oversized bat, the gnome struck the remnant in the chest, the force enhancement turning the small blow into a giant’s punch, concentrated in a tiny area. The metal staff snapped the ribs as the undead and sent it careening back between the enlarged dwarf’s legs, knocking over another that was trying the same thing.

  The flaming sphere dispersed, the magics keeping it together unravelling after less than a minute. As the samurai flagged, he grabbed both healing potions from his belt, draining them as some of his wounds healed, and continued fighting off the horde. Their numbers dwindled, but their blows started to mount up again. Surprising them both, Aria stepped up behind them, pouring divine energy into the dwarf to try to keep him going.

  Her healing helped keep him stable, barely keeping pace with his injuries, but the strain of constantly being injured, healed, and injured again wore at Rurik, the cleric’s healing doing nothing to help him stave off the mental ordeal of keeping them at bay. The dwarf’s legs buckled and he held himself upright by force of will, fending off the last handful of remnants.

  As the final undead fell, Rurik’s sword slipped from his hands with a thunderous crash, the dwarf dropping to his hands and knees and vomiting blood. Aria tried to heal him a bit more, but he waved her away, dragging himself to sit on the pile of remnant bodies and waving for her to go back to Fayne.

  As the dwarf gave a bloody grin, split lips staining his teeth red, Badger followed his son’s line of sight to see Fayne, still down but visibly breathing as Aria cascading healing light into her.

  ◆◆◆

  Fayne was still unconscious as Aria moved to the pile of corpses all around Rurik and Badger. The dwarf, still enlarged, just sat there, drained, while the gnome’s hands shook with after-battle jitters. “Um, aren’t they gonna just, you know, reset?” the wizard asked, mentally preparing for another wave.

  “Not for another. . .” she trailed off, “Five minutes or so. More than enough time for me to dismiss them,” she said, smiling reassuringly at her husband, the expression oddly fragile.

  “If you say so,” he agreed, still keeping an eye on the pile of soon-to-be-reset undead.

  Rurik didn’t seem to pay it much thought. “How’s the lass doin’?” he inquired, looking at Fayne.

  “She should be okay,” she said firmly, moving to the remnants and starting to dismiss them with a sprinkle of holy water and a quick prayer for each. “I’ve healed her, but I don’t have even a lesser restoration to help her wake up.”

  The dwarf frowned in thought as Badger took up the thread of conversation, “What are we going to do about the ones in there?” he asked, pointing towards the still-burning room.

  She dismissed him without stopping her task, “not an issue.”

  There was a pause before Badger asked, a little less fearful and a little more annoyed, “And that reason is. . .?”

  “Fire, if it isn’t tainted, tends to purify. Dragonfire even more so,” she replied, sounding a bit annoyed herself. “You should know that, since dragons are arcane, not divine.”

  “Dragonfire?” he asked, looking around, “Did I miss a dragon in there?”

  “What?” she asked, confused herself. “No, the fire that Rurik ran through. It was from the potions we got from the last adventure. Speaking of, Rurik!” she addressed him reproachfully, the dwarf still lost in thought. “Rurik, look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  He gave a start and looked across at her from his seated position. “One moment, lass,” he tried to say, getting up.

  “No Rurik, not ‘one moment, we’re talking now. What were you thinking running into the fire like that?” she demanded, starting to get upset now that the danger had passed.

  The samurai, who had been walking over to where his cousin lay, stopped, turning to look at her, an expression of disbelief on his face. “I be thinkin’ that if I didn’t get to Fayne, she was gonna die. Was I wrong, lassie?”

  “But you couldn’t’ve known you were going to make in time,” she shot back. “What if you ran in there for nothing?”

  “Then I woulda ran out with her body,” he stated, staring at her behind narrowed eyes. “Ya might not’ve been able to bring her back yet lassie, but we’d’ve had nine bloody days to get her corpse ta Firebreach. If that place’s as big as I think it be, what with Max wantin’ ta meet ‘im there, we’d find someone able ta bring the lass back to us, even if it took all of me gold to do so. Either way, it be a moot point, since we were able ta save her.”

  “I don’t want you to risk yourself,” she commanded, tension in her voice smothered in imperious authority, and from the way Rurik’s eyes narrowed even further it was obvious to Badger that the samurai didn’t think she was in a position to give him orders. “If it’s a choice between you and her-”

  “Cleric,” the dwarf growled, cutting her off. “Whatever yer thinkin’ o’ sayin’, don’t. You go put these poor buggers to rest, and I’m gonna go be wakin’ up our teammate.” Who you were about to order me to leave to die, wasn’t said, but it was heavily implied. The samurai turned his back on her and moved over to Fayne’s side.

  The aasimar blinked, nonplussed and shocked out of her moral outrage. Before she could recover her husband asked, not faking the nervousness in his tone, only the cause, “So you were saying how we won’t have to worry about reset burning remnants?”

  “Right,” she muttered to herself, “have to work fast.” She moved back to the half-popped pile of remnants. “What? Oh, yes. Dragonfire purifies, so it works to put them to rest too, though most don’t have access to it, so a cleric is usually needed. It’s also dangerous, since dragonfire tends to light everything around it. The reason you didn’t set the room on fire back then was probably because it was attenuated by the cold breath of the other dragon. Forgot we even had it,” she commented, popping the rest, pausing between each sentence to dismiss another few.

  From behind them they heard a gasp, followed by coughing. Looking back, Rurik was gently holding Fayne back as she tried to get up. “Did I shrink?” she asked, looking around blearily.

  “Nah lass, I’ve just been eatin’ me Wheaties,” the dwarf quipped. “Glad ta see yer alright.”

  Aria moved to go back to them, but Badger caught the dark look that flashed across his son’s large face as she did so, even if his wife didn’t. “We can talk to them in a minute, but there’s still a few left,” he directed her, indicating the remnants strewn down the hallway from Rurik’s charge back, along with a few that he’d hit hard enough to send flying. She looked torn but headed down to take care of them, Badger hanging back to hear exactly what Rurik said.

  “Thought w
e’d lost ya there, lass,” he said, the sound of the dwarf sitting back down clear to the gnome’s ears.

  “Thanks,” she stated earnestly. “I. . . I thought I was going to die,” she admitted, voice almost too low to hear. “I’m sorry for going off alone. I gave you so much grief about doing it, and then I did it, and I thought I was doing so well, but I was just being stupid, and I almost. . . I almost. . .” she trailed off, trying to repress a sniffle.

  “There there, lass,” the dwarf comforted. “How many of those buggers did ya put down ‘fore they got ya?”

  “Um, I lost count?” she replied, embarrassed. “I got to the room at the end, and I was doing goo- I was doing okay,” she amended. “Then they. . . reset?” There was a pause, likely Rurik nodding. “How does that even. . . whatever. So they. . . reset, and I was still hurt, and without any arrows in my quiver, and the mind link, thing, whatever it is got dispelled. All I had was my rapier, well, that and a wineskin full of potion.”

  “Wineskin?” Rurik echoed before laughing, getting a joke that Badger missed. “That’s right ballsy of ya lass, I approve. And ta get that far on yer own, maybe there’s somthin’ to this entire ‘stealth’ thing ya keep goin’ on about.”

  “It worked until they surrounded me, and I thought I heard you, so I tried to clear a way to run, but they grabbed me and took me down. Maybe it was the heat but. . . did you fly?” she asked.

  “That potion o’ levitation we got from those bloody orcs,” he explained. “Me fellow samurai’d say I was off me head to leave the ground, but it was the only way ta get ta ya in time.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did,” she told him, smile in her voice.

  Aria, finished with her task, strode back down the hallway, boots thudding on the stone. “She be comin’ back,” Rurik whispered to Fayne, not taking the bass out of his voice. “Do me a favor, take a drink of this.”