The Kuscan Demon

by Sam Ferguson

  The orc barely waited for the opening to be large enough to grant him passage as he kicked his horse into a gallop.

  A tall man with a scimitar stood near the gate. He looked up and saw Torgath, then reached for a bugle. The orc was quick to slay the scout with a deft shot of his crossbow, but even this victory only bought the orc a few seconds. He was not yet beyond the south western corner of the wall before he heard the horns from the camp where the Sarsalat waited for him. They rode toward him, but at a safe distance from the walls so as not to tempt the archers on the battlements.

  Torgath knew his horse, weighed down as it was under the bulk of an orc, would not be as quick across the sands as those carrying the desert bandits, yet he hoped it would be just fast enough to get him to the Gnarl.

  He raced over hill and vale until the hills gave way to a valley of dunes several miles beyond town. Arrows sailed toward him every few minutes. They landed behind him, but each missile inched closer, confirming that the Sarsalat were gaining on him. In the distance, just beyond a tall dune about half a mile away, he could see the purplish haze that marked the Gnarl.

  He galloped up one side of a large dune, his horse churning up the golden sand behind him as it strained to reach the peak. An arrow whistled by Torgath’s ear just as he reached the apex, a sure sign that he needed to speed up. He leapt from his tired horse to the spare, hoping that it would have additional energy. Both horses had been galloping, but this one had not been carrying the orc’s three hundred pound body. Before they were half way down the other side of the tall dune, Torgath turned and gashed his first horse’s neck with his sword. Blood spilled to the ground and the horse shrieked and galloped away.

  “We’re close now,” Torgath told his new mount. “Onward!” He gave a heavy heel to the beast’s belly, urging it faster down the dune and toward the stony ground. A score of dead, leafless trees stretched up from the cracks between the stones, marking the Gnarl and signifying the danger in the mists beyond the trees, but Torgath smiled as he neared the danger.

  Once at the bottom he could hear the Sarsalat at the peak shouting at each other. He knew they wouldn’t want to follow. What they didn’t know is that Torgath had left them no choice, for the Gnarl had two dangers. The first had already been called by the scent of blood in the sand.

  The orc counted thirty riders. He called to them and whistled. Seven riders answered with their bows, but Torgath easily maneuvered away from the missiles. A dust cloud spurted from the sand near the top of the dune. None of the riders appeared to notice it, for they kept shouting at Torgath as others reloaded for another shot.

  A snarl ripped through the sand, approximately where Torgath had cut open his horse, and a massive sand worm erupted from the dune, grabbing a nearby horse and rider with its thousands of needle-like teeth.

  The orc smiled. He knew the first was always the herder, the one that would force the prey toward the others. Torgath dismounted from his horse and stepped onto a large boulder as a precaution.

  The riders turned to flee, but a massive cloud of yellow exploded behind them on the dune. Screams and shrieking filled the air as bursts of red mixed with the dust cloud.

  Soon a group of seven riders came racing down the dune toward Torgath. Large, heaving mounds of sand shifted around them as more worms came to feed. One of the grotesque things leapt from the dune’s side and tore a man in half, leaving only his legs upon the horse as the terrified mount careened down the dune. Another worm came up to the surface like a fish gulping a water bug, and tore the front legs from a horse with such ease it almost seemed graceful to the orc. That rider tumbled to the sands and cried out for his comrades to stay with him. He drew his sword and swung at a mound of sand shifting beside him.

  Torgath shook his head.

  Three sand worms emerged simultaneously, tearing bits and pieces from the man. They weren’t going indiscriminately now, but going for the parts they liked best. The worms were nearly sated, and Torgath would be left to deal with the survivors.

  Three men made it to the rocky ground amidst the dead trees. Most of the others were either dead or bleeding out in the sand, calling for help that wouldn’t come. None of the horses had made it. All of the mounts except for Torgath’s had been slain or lost whole legs in the furious tumult. These three men who had made it to safety had done so with sheer luck and determination, sprinting after their mounts had been taken down.

  Torgath smiled and cracked his neck before striding toward the shaken men.

  “You shouldn’t have followed me here,” Torgath said. A flash of his sword and the first man was cut down before he managed to grip his weapon. The second warrior pulled a sword and managed to defend against Torgath’s first swing, but the orc quickly kicked the man in the groin and then followed with a savage left hook that spun the man around to slam his head into a boulder. The orc finished him with a swing at the neck.

  Torgath looked to the third and final warrior. It wasn’t the warlord’s successor as far as he could tell, for the man was dressed too poorly and wore no insignia. The warrior held up a hand for mercy, and then loosed his sword belt and let the weapon fall to the ground.

  “Nisen,” the man cried out. “Nisen!”

  Torgath recognized the language as Tarthun. This man was a nomadic warrior, likely no more than a hired hand for the warlord. The orc sighed and sheathed his sword. He then pointed to the Tarthun’s sword lying on the ground. “Pick it up, and go,” Torgath said, using his hands to gesture his meaning.

  The warrior glanced to Torgath’s horse.

  The orc felt a swell of anger in his chest.

  The Tarthun must have realized his overreach, for he again held up his hands and used his foot to push his sword toward Torgath while shaking his head and saying “Nisen, nisen!”

  Torgath shrugged and turned away, walking toward the thickest part of the dead trees, grabbing his horse and leading it by the guide rope.

  The orc thought the Tarthun might try to stab him in the back, but instead the Tarthun clambered onto a boulder and started to sing something that sounded like a tribal funeral prayer. Torgath walked through the trees until the mist grew thick. It smelled of sulfur and vomit. His horse balked several times and tried to shake free of Torgath, but the orc held it fast. They walked until the mist became a thick fog and the stony ground gave way to an oasis with soft grass and damp dirt. Flowers of yellow, green, and red dotted the ground. Giant white lilies sprang from the blue waters bubbling nearby. The horse settled and calmed, pulling once or twice to head for the water, but Torgath knew the water was death.

  “That’s where the larvae are,” Torgath told the horse. “The sand worms are born of water, and first learn to swim here before tunneling through the dunes beyond,” the orc said as if the horse could understand.

  He walked the horse some fifteen yards away from the babbling waters and let the creature graze upon the grass while he tied it to a live tree. He then set up camp, and decided to wait for night. As he collected bits of wood to make a fire, the Tarthun warrior approached, clearing his throat loudly and holding his hands out with his sheathed sword held in one hand.

  “I’m not looking for company,” Torgath said.

  “Nisen!” the Tarthun replied as he tossed his sheathed sword in the direction of the horse. Next the man pointed at the wood in Torgath’s arms and then he began to collect firewood himself.

  The orc wasn’t sure what to make of the Tarthun. Certainly he could see the fear in the man’s giant brown eyes, but that didn’t mean the brigand wouldn’t try to overpower him in the night and take off with his horse. Still, it might do well to have a decoy, so Torgath let the Tarthun busy himself with collecting wood and building a fire.

  Torgath broke bread after the fire was built, and offered some of it to the Tarthun. “Torgath,” he said, pointing to his chest.

  “Pintar,” the Tarthun said pointing to himself.

  The orc nodded. “Pintar,” he said while pointing
at the Tarthun. “Torgath,” he said as he pointed to himself. Pintar ate some of the bread and then started coughing. “Eating too fast,” Torgath said.

  Pintar got up from the fire and coughed a few more times. Torgath looked down to see if he had anything to offer the man to drink, but looked up when he heard Pintar rush off. Instinctively, the orc went for his sword, but there was no danger. Instead, Pintar was running to the water.

  “Pintar, no!” Torgath called out, but the Tarthun dropped to his knees and bent to the cool water, scooping in three or four handfuls in rapid succession. “Pintar, get away from there!” Torgath called out.

  The Tarthun stood and turned, his brow knitted and lips pouting.

  “Poor fool,” Torgath whispered.

  The Tarthun glanced back at the water and then returned to the camp fire. Pintar pointed for more bread, but Torgath refused. The orc saw no point in wasting food on a dead man. It took a while, but perhaps an hour after the Tarthun had drunk from the pool he began to scratch himself along the stomach. Next came grunting along with muscle spasms.

  Torgath shook his head. He knew the Tarthun had drunk in hundreds, perhaps thousands of the tiny larvae, and now they were feasting on him from the inside. The orc waited until the Tarthun was writhing on the ground in pain, perhaps holding out hope that the man could somehow survive, or perhaps it was morbid fascination at seeing the inevitable take place. But, once Torgath knew for certain there was no helping the man, he got up and unsheathed his sword.

  “Nisen!” Pintar called out.

  Torgath paused, but then he realized that Pintar was nodding his approval.

  “Nisen!” Pintar cried again. “Nisen!”

  Torgath nodded. “Nisen,” he replied, assuming the word meant mercy. The orc severed the man’s head and ended the Tarthun’s suffering. The orc then took a few of the burning logs and set them carefully around Pintar’s body. He couldn’t risk the tiny, hardly visible larvae coming into contact with him. The smell of charring flesh soon filled the area, causing Torgath’s horse to tug on his tether and stomp his front hoof. The orc had smelled similar odors many times, and was not bothered by it except for the fact that Pintar had impressed him.

  Not in the way that Tui and Kiuwa impressed him, but still there was a kind of honor within Pintar. An honest heart of sorts, even if only driven by desires of self-preservation. Many warriors, especially the hired swords, would have stabbed him in the back to steal the horse and escape. Pintar’s honest pleas for mercy were both refreshing and somewhat repugnant at the same time to the orc.

  As night grew darker around him, the waters nearby began to churn.

  Something was surfacing just about the time the fire had died down to embers and ash. Torgath kicked dirt over the last of the red embers and let his vision adjust to the night.

  The creature was serpentine in body, long and round if slightly obese. Instead of scales the creature appeared to have the same kind of skin as an earthworm, but thicker and slimier. The long tail came out first and slipped up onto the grass, wiggling the tip just enough to catch any would-be predators’ attention.

  The orc sat still, waiting for the thing to fully emerge. The waters slipped from the body as the thing slithered backward onto the grass. After ten feet of tail and torso, a pair of arms reached back and grabbed at the ground. In a fluid movement, the creature managed to turn itself around and bring the upper torso from the pool.

  It vaguely resembled a female in shape, as if a female ogre had been sewn to a massive worm at the waist, but instead of green or smooth skin the whole of this creature was rough, with small spikes jutting out from the creases in her flesh. A sheath of slime covered her, but surprisingly she didn’t stink. Instead, she emitted an extremely pleasant odor, like that of orange blossoms and honeysuckle.

  The arms were longer in proportion than a normal humanoid’s but roughly the same shape, ending in normal, but oversized, hands. The head was bald and a bit square, but the face had no nose. Instead, there was only a set of small gills at the neck that seemed to flex with each breath. A pair of black, sightless, wide-set eyes blinked with translucent lids, and the mouth had enormous, thick lips, each covering a row of sharp, jagged teeth.

  The creature held herself high above the pool and took in a deep breath before she began to sing. Had Torgath not prepared himself he might have gasped at the beauty with which the hideous thing sang, but he had seen this vision dozens of times over the years as he had replayed the details of each demon’s lair that Teolang had burned into his mind.

  This was no demon, in fact this thing had no name, as it was not widely known to exist. As far as the locals knew, there was a demon that lived in the Gnarl, but it never left the oasis in the midst of the dead trees. That was why Torgath was able to lure the warlord’s riders to their death with the sand worms. No one had ever lived to tell the full tale of what lurked in the Gnarl.

  A demon would come here, though, and soon if Teolang’s visions were correct. A sightless demon would be overcome by this creature’s song and come prepared to spawn.

  Torgath sat still, making no sound as he watched the worm-woman sing and start to move lithely. The tip of her tail twitched along the grasses and her arms stretched wide. The orc had to wonder how the two creatures had ever found each other, and which was truly in control. It wasn’t long before heavy footsteps could be both heard and felt.

  An eight foot tall, two-legged creature lumbered into the grassy area from the far end, emerging from the thick mists and pausing briefly to smell deeply of the worm-woman’s fragrance. It carried a large, black staff with a glowing stone at its head –this demon’s seat of power that housed its trapped souls.

  “Gausun taugn fer mecht’ta” the demon said in a guttural voice. Torgath could see that the demon had thick plates of bone covering every inch of its body. The armor appeared more natural than constructed, likely grown from its body. He would need to watch carefully for any point of weakness. Torgath doubted that even the dragon blade would be able to bite through the thick exoskeleton. It wouldn’t do to simply rush into battle, for with four massive arms covered along the back with spikes, the demon could easily win the fight if Torgath didn’t plan his moves correctly. Better to wait for a minute or two and hope the demon would expose some point of weakness.

  Torgath glanced to the horse, who seemed unusually calm with the goings-on in the oasis. Did the worm-woman’s scent work on it as well? Odd that the horse was quiet and still, all the while watching the creature.

  Stranger still was the fact that the demon, sightless though it may be, didn’t seem to notice the horse’s breathing, or the smell of the fire, or Pintar for that matter. The demon was all consumed in courtship dance, drawn only to the worm-woman. It set its staff across the branches of a twisted tree and then the demon took another step toward the worm-woman and let out a throaty growl.

  The worm-woman began to dance, if one could call it that, writhing in a circle over the grass and spreading her slime along the ground. The demon took another couple of steps toward her and then paused again, grunting as he stepped close and reached out with one of his four hands to stroke the worm-woman’s back. She cooed at his touch, and slithered up next to him.

  Torgath watched as the worm-woman wriggled against the demon and then spun away, singing louder this time. Her fragrance seemed to double, making the air so thick that it nearly choked the orc. It had the desired effect on the demon, however, for the creature began to shake and shift the plates of bone that covered its body. The plates turned and slid away, revealing the demon’s softer belly and chest.

  The orc prepared for his move, but waited as the demon reached out with its four arms to grab the worm-woman by the shoulders. The worm-woman sang louder as the two turned to face each other, still holding on another at arm’s length.

  The demon threw its head back and roared, shooting fire into the sky.

  Torgath knew this was his chance. He dashed forward, picking his s
teps around the edge of the slimed grasses and then launching himself to land on his knees and slide atop the slime between the two hideous creatures. The orc raised his blade and slid it along the demon’s bulbous belly, letting his body’s momentum pull the blade through the soft flesh and spilling the guts in a heap of brown and crimson along the grass.

  The demon hissed and shrieked. In its anger it rent the worm-woman’s arms from her body and then flailed them about, smacking her twice in the head and knocking her back in a heap of white blood that spewed from her wounds.

  A fleshy arm sailed inches from Torgath’s face as the bone plates closed over the demon’s wounds and the creature’s eyes began to glow red. It spun around, swinging its spike-covered upper arms to try and impale Torgath while wielding the worm-woman’s arms like clubs in its lower fists.

  Torgath rolled away, his trousers catching the business-end of a spike and ripping as he scrambled away from the patch of slime, but the sharp point failed to so much as scratch his skin.

  The demon roared and sniffed the air, blood continuing to drip steadily from under the bone plates. With a third hand it reached for its staff as it used its senses to scan the battle field. The worm-woman slithered back to the pool, screaming and shrieking as she dropped below the surface. The demon, crazed as it was by the sudden attack, didn’t even seem to notice that it had mortally wounded the very creature it had desired only moments before. Instead it shifted its head and made a clicking sound, turning its head to listen for what small echoes might be returned to its ears. It took only a moment to locate Torgath. The thing snarled, clicking louder just twice before launching at him.

  The orc managed to block the demon’s spiked arm with his sword, but the sword hardly bit into the bone plates at all, and certainly didn’t damage the demon.

  The second spiked arm missed, but the fleshy club caught Torgath in the shoulder with enough force to knock him through the air. He landed several feet behind where he had stood before and slid within an inch of the pool’s edge. Knowing the horrid death that waited for him in the waters, he jumped to his feet and circled wide around the demon until it had its back to the pool.