by Troy Osgood
Culann gasped in pain, trying to push back against the force of the skeleton. He started hitting the arm with the axe, trying to break it.
“Look out!”
The shout from Davey warned him.
He dove to the side, barely out of reach of the other skeleton’s reaching arms. Culann rolled, coming up in a crouch facing the two skeletons. The stone behind them was growing brighter, the runes in rotation again. He glanced at Davey; the boy was pulled as tightly into the corner of the room as he could, trying to stay quiet.
Culann tried whistling. His throat was still raw and hurting but he was able to make the sounds. The left hand axe glowed blue and the right was red.
“Now that is better,” Culann said with a smile.
Jemas and Sheren ran together, four other villagers behind. All were armed with runed weapons.
The skeleton was just ahead and the two men spread out, one on either side of the creature, which was ignoring them. Almost at the same time, both men swung their weapons. Bright bursts of orange flared, one on the skeletons left shoulder and the other on the thing’s skull. It fell forward, pieces breaking off. The two men just kept running, the other villagers stopping to destroy it.
They ran out onto the plateau in front of the mines and paused. A skeleton could be seen walking into the third mine, the bones scrapping against stone.
Sheren looked around the plateau.
“Davey,” he yelled as loud as he could, hoping his son was hiding in one of the buildings.
No answer, but he wasn’t really expecting one.
He led Jemas to the mine’s entrance. They could see the skeleton in the shadows moving down the tunnel. Light could be seen at the end, coming from the crack in the wall that led to the Dvorkan room. By the light they could see that a portion of the room’s back wall had been moved. The light did not extend far into the dark tunnel beyond.
Jemas stepped into the mine first. He moved slowly in the tight spaces, watching the skeleton ahead. The thing just kept moving, ignoring the man who was not being quiet. It was moving slowly, stumbling over the uneven ground, bumping into the walls.
He walked up behind it and swung with the sledge hammer. The orange flare was bright in the dark tunnel as the skeleton fell forward. With it on the ground, Jemas swung again. Two more swings and the pieces of the skeleton stopped moving.
Sheren moved past him, almost running. The miner stepped through the crack and into the entrance chamber, stopping at the new opening in the far wall. He took a step across and stopped. Jemas walked up beside him.
There was no sound coming from the tunnel, nothing that they could hear. The light from the four lanterns positioned at the corners of the room did not penetrate that far into the new tunnel. It was dark, pitch black.
He could hear a noise behind him, Jemas moving around the room. The lights shifted, getting brighter behind him and now in front as Jemas stood beside him, shining a light into the tunnel.
“Ready?,” the young soldier asked.
Sheren wanted nothing more than to go into the tunnel in search of his son.
“No,” he said finally, regretfully. The sledge hammer hung low, barely in his grasp. He stared down the tunnel, pain and hurt in his eyes. “We don’t know where they went or what else is down there.”
Jemas wanted to argue but he knew Sheren was right. He knew how much this was hurting the man. He could see it in Sheren’s eyes, the struggle to stay. But he was right. They could get lost in the Dvorkan tunnels and wouldn’t know which way Culann, and hopefully Davey, had gone.
They could only wait.
Davey watched the two skeletons advance on Culann. The Far Rider was turning them, getting them away from Davey, but he was backing himself into a corner.
The runestone still glowed with the inner light. The band of runes still glowed in that rotation, but nothing seemed to be happening. Culann’s spell must have weakened it, hurt it, Davey thought.
The notes of the spell, how Culann had hummed and whistled, still echoed in Davey’s mind. He knew it all and even the hard part he had difficulty catching seemed to resonate in his mind, the melody of the spell coming together. He thought he knew how it went, how it started.
Culann drove the skeletons back, the axes glowing in blue and red. Ice and fire spread over the two skeletons, large cracks forming where the two met. He kicked out with his left boot, hitting a skeleton square in the chest and sending it stumbling backwards.
It looked like it might fall but somehow regained its balance. The skeleton moved towards him, slower than before as the magical ice and fire hurt it.
Putting his full attention on the skeleton in front of him, Culann swung the left axe wide, pulling a skeletal arm out of the way. He swiped across the bony chest with the right axe, taking advantage of the opening. A great scratch cut across the rib bones.
He had to react quickly with the right, blocking the other skeleton’s reaching arms. Pulling the left back in, he swiped at the left skeleton’s skull, blue sparks exploding on the impact. Both creatures pushed at him, making him take a step backwards.
They were weakening, but so was he.
Trying to dispel the magic of the runestone had taken a toll on him. He hadn’t cast a spell that lengthy, and that difficult, in a very long time.
It was a race now, to see who would tire first. The skeletons or him.
A skeletal arm got past his defenses and he barely moved his head out of the way. The claw like fingers ripped through his cloak. The other leaned forward, pushing his arm back at an awkward angle. He barely held onto the hand axe. The skeletons were so close he could feel the flames that were burning across their bodies.
He tried pushing back, forcing them away to give him space. They were too close and he couldn’t swing either axe. He was tiring quicker then they were.
The skeletons faltered, seemed to pause. They shifted, like they were turning.
And a noise filled the room. Music. Humming and whistling. It was a melody that he recognized. It was quiet, lacking a resonance that came with practice, but the power was there.
Looking past the skeletons, Culann could see Davey Tobiason standing in front of the stone. The boy had his arms raised, palms outstretched and facing down to the stone, barely an inch from the surface. A weak light was forming around the hands as the boy whistled and hummed, repeating the spell Culann had been casting. The weak light flowed down onto the stone, covering it in a thin shell.
He had the notes mostly right, the tones and pitches. But he was untrained, the results of the spell weak.
It was enough.
Barely.
The two creatures shook, trying to turn towards the boy but also wanting to attack Culann. The melody continued, Davey making it almost to the end of the spell song. He stopped, skipping a beat as he struggled to get through the notes of the most difficult part. He was faltering, the skeletons moving towards Culann.
Moving a step to the side, giving himself a small amount of breathing room, Culann whistled a couple notes. He repeated it, trying to get the notes out as loudly as he could. He saw Davey react, the boy nodding, eyes still closed. The boy whistled the notes, quietly at first, practicing. Culann heard them clearly, knew that Davey had gotten it right.
The melody started again, from the beginning, the boy moving through it at the proper pace. He got to where he had failed before and didn’t pause, whistling the notes perfectly. He made it through the song and started over, repeating it again.
The runestone seemed to dim. The skeletons pulled back from Culann. They skeletons turned towards the boy, mindlessly moving to the defense of the runestone that had created them.
They gave Culann the space he needed as they turned their backs to him.
He swung the right axe at the right skeleton, aiming for the neck where the spine was connected to the skull. The blow connected. The perfectly placed swing, the force and the magic all worked against the already weakened skeleton. The skull w
as severed from the spine, falling to the ground and rolling around. The body just collapsed.
A swing with the left axe and the magical cold froze the bones, the spine shattering with the blow. The second skeleton’s head fell, rolling away, and Culann pushed the body over.
Davey Tobiason was struggling. The whistles were starting to falter, the already weak light around his hands fading.
Culann took up position across from the boy, on the other side of the stone. He rested his hands on top of Davey’s, palm down, and started whistling. He paced the boy, keeping his tones and pitches in sync, compensating for the slower cadence Davey had. He was tired, exhausted, mentally and physically. His throat hurt but he forced himself to concentrate.
Light came from his hands, enveloping Davey’s much smaller ones, adding to the boy’s dimming light. Together they stood there, the sounds mixing together and creating a stronger whole.
The inner white light of the stone tried to fight back, but it was already weakened, it’s magic drained. It pulsed and flared, but together Davey and Culann fought it back.
The runestone started to dim, the room growing darker.
Davey’s voice cracked, faltered. The boy fell backwards, landing hard on the stone floor.
He was breathing, ragged and hard, unconscious.
But he had done enough.
Culann continued the whistling and humming, the room growing darker as his magic forced the runestone’s own away.
Slowly the inner light of the runestone dimmed, diminishing with each repetition of the magical notes.
And then it winked out. Not with a last flare up or push, but just diminished to a small dot that went out.
Plunging the room into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They heard a noise coming from the tunnel and could see a spot of light appear, as if it came around a corner. It was coming closer, the light growing. There was a bright spot in the middle of a globe of light, a dark shadow behind the spot.
Jemas and Sheren took a couple steps back, spreading out in the Dvorkan entrance chamber. Both men readied their weapons, gripping the handles tight.
The globe of light came closer, showing details of carvings along the smooth walls of the tunnel. Behind the light was dark. They could make out the shape in the light now, a man in a cloak and he appeared to be carrying something in his arms. The light was coming from a rod the man was carrying.
Sheren dropped his sledge hammer and ran forward.
They two came together ten feet or so from the chamber, Culann Hawkfall slowing as Sheren came to a stop, hand reaching out, afraid to touch his son, fearing the worse. Davey was not moving, his chest barely rising with breath.
“He’s alive,” Culann said. “Just exhausted.”
Relief flooded through Sheren, tension visibly leaving his body. He reached for Davey, holding his hands. Awkwardly, carefully they moved the boy from one to the other. Jemas ran forward, taking the light from Culann. He led the way as the three men walked back into the mine. They were silent, Sheren staring down at the unconscious form of his son, as they walked out into the sun.
The plateau was crowded. More than just the two villagers that had followed Sheren and Jemas. Men and women filled the space, the women keeping back and the armed men forming a ring around the mine entrance.
Culann blinked at the bright sun, his eyes had grown accustomed to the strange magical light of the rod, which he took back from Jemas. With a word he extinguished it, putting it in the satchel at his side.
He watched as Sheren gently laid Davey down on the ground. The miner knelt beside his son, watching the boy breathing slowly. He looked over his shoulder at Culann.
“What happened?” Surprisingly there was no accusation in his voice.
“The lad saved ye,” Culann said looking out over the crowd.
Sheren swung the hammer, hitting the nail and driving it in. He nodded to the other villager who had been holding the new beam in place. The man moved off to grab a stud to start framing in the new wall. Sheren lined up another nail and hit it, driven it in.
He was ready to hit the third in when he heard the horses.
Climbing down the ladder he handed the hammer and bag of iron nails to the other villager who took Sheren’s place on the ladder. Grabbing the, now, ever present sledge hammer, Sheren walked into the village square and turned towards the road.
Four horses were coming up the road that led down into the duchy proper and Sheren recognized the man in the front. Captain Crato of the King’s Guard rode ahead of the other three. All four men wore plate and chain armor, and tunics with the crest of the Kingdom of Jeryan but in the local duchy’s colors of red and gold. The horses wore barding also in the duke’s colors. Big and tall, the horses were bred for war and moved in perfection unison. They were smaller than the village’s draft horses, but stronger in their own ways.
Behind the King’s Guard, on a much smaller and less disciplined horse, rode Michel Tarryson who looked around at the destruction in the village with shock on his face.
Sheren laid the sledge over his shoulder, standing in the middle of the square, in front of the stage.
“Sheren Tobiason,” Captain Crato said recognizing the miner. “It looks like the trouble we heard was true,” he added looking around at the village. “But what has happened?”
“Aye Captain,” Sheren said. “What Michel told you was true. But it’s at an end now.”
“What happened to the village?,” Crato asked climbing down off his horse. He handed the reins to one of the Guard as another climbed down off his own horse. “Did these skeletons do this?,” he continued looking around the village. Many buildings along the square had received minor damage, broken posts and windows. Three near the mine road where destroyed, gutted by fire. There were broken parts of a wagon just visible in the direction of the cemetery. Villagers were at all the damaged buildings, already starting on repairs.
“Aye, that they did,” Sheren answered.
Captain Crato was a good man, Sheren knew, and just doing his job, but Sheren felt himself becoming defensive. It was Crato and the King’s Guard that accompanied the tax collector the three times a year the man came to the village. Crato had even stopped the collector from taking more than was required a time or two.
“It was a rough day,” Sheren said trying to relax.
“How many?,” Crato asked walking towards Sheren. He paused and stared at the rune that was visible on the head of the sledge hammer that Sheren was carrying.
“Yesterday? Maybe a dozen.”
“How many dead or wounded?”
“Five dead and a dozen wounded,” Sheren answered.
“Sergeant Jaspers and Jemas,” the Guard captain asked, fearing the answer. If they were able they would have been here to meet him.
“The Sergeant died,” Sheren replied. “Private Jemas is with our wounded. He received some minor wounds that required stitching.”
Crato looked back at one of the soldiers, handing his horses reins to another.
“Check on the Private,” he said to the first. “Take the horses to the stable,” he ordered the other.
Both soldiers gave quick salutes and moved to their tasks. The last soldier stood behind Crato but his attention was on the village.
“The Sergeant died a hero,” Sheren informed Crato. Donald Jaccob, the former King’s Guard had told him how Jaspers had died, and also how the man had not been well liked. “He saved a young man.”
Crato looked at Sheren, surprised. That did not sound like the Sergeant Jaspers he had known.
“And Private Jemas?”
“He fought well and saved many villagers,” Sheren told him. “He refused to seek help until the fighting was done. Lost a lot of blood and was exhausted. Our acting doctor isn’t letting him out of bed. We’ll need a priest.”
The Guard Captain nodded, taking it all in. He had many more questions, and there would be time to get them answered, but first there
was one that needed to be answered immediately.
“Who aided you and who did that?,” Crato asked pointing at the rune.
Sheren glanced at the rune and back at Crato, measuring and thinking. He knew this might be trouble for Culann, but he didn’t think he could avoid it. He sighed.
“This way,” he finally said.
Culann Hawkfall moved the whetstone across the blade of the hand axe, trying to get out a nick that had appeared during the battle. The runes themselves were still crisply etched, the lines as clean as the day they had been carved into the dark metal of the weapon. He whistled softly to himself as he ran the stone over the head. The other hand axe was already done and another minute or two and this one would be good as well. The magic of the axes would repair the nicks over time but Culann enjoyed doing it himself. The repetitive motions were relaxing.
He was leaning up against the tavern, the deep overhang sheltering and shadowing him from the noon day sun, around the side from the square. He heard the men approaching, their boot steps echoing. He had also heard the horses approaching and knew to expect visitors soon after.
Looking up, he used a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare. He could make out Sheren Tobiason, another man and two men in armor. He knew it was armor by the way the sun reflected off the polished metal.
The rest of the Kings Guard. A little too late, he chuckled to himself, standing up and putting the hand axe in its sheath. He put the whetstone back in the satchel and looked at the men.
“Gentlemen,” he said bowing. “Captain,” he added to the Guardsman in front, recognizing the rank stripes on the man’s tunic.
“I know him, he’s the one I passed,” Michel Tarryson said excitedly. “I recognize him from the road.”
Culann looked at the young man, the one hiding behind the guards and Sheren. Sure enough, it was the man that had been running his horse to death. The one that he had encountered just past the Waystation.