The Last Cleric

by Layton Green

  Val thrust his staff in the water and cut deep into one of the creatures holding Synne. Green ichor gushed forth, obscuring his view, but moments later she reached a hand out of the water. Val extended his staff, and she clutched it. As the second demon burst out of the water, he pulled Synne out of the bog while using Wind Push to thrust the demon back.

  Synne pushed him aside and attacked another demon right behind him, hitting it so hard with a double punch that her fists sank into its chest. She yanked her hands out, gutting the creature, then kicked it back into the muck.

  Val spun. Adaira had taken to the air to avoid the initial attack, Rucker was fending off three of the creatures, and two more were dragging Dida towards a bog. From the corner of his eye, Val noticed another pair crawling out of the water.

  Adaira let herself plummet as she waved her hands in the air like knife strokes, cutting deep into the legs of one of the creatures holding Dida. By the time she arrested her fall, landing hard on the ground at the last moment, the demon she was attacking had collapsed, its legs sliced open in a dozen places. Val swung his azantite staff at the other creature holding Dida, cutting off the monster’s legs at the knees. One of its long arms whipped forward as it fell, piercing Val’s side with two dagger-like fingers.

  Adaira looked stricken as Val staggered to a knee, but he waved at her to help the others. Another demon lurched out of the nearest bog and loped forward, swinging its deadly arms. She flew backwards to escape its grasp.

  A demon wrapped Rucker from behind. He jerked his head back and stabbed the creature in the face with his horned helm. When it bucked in pain, Rucker turned and sliced open its torso with his blade. Two more came at him. He kicked one in the chest and caught the other with an elbow to the maw, his spiked vambrace ripping its jaw open. The demon he had kicked came at him again. Rucker roared and advanced, whipping his blade back and forth to block the long-armed strikes, then stepping inside and using his helm as a battering ram, spearing the demon through the chest.

  Val sank to the ground, pressing his fingers into his side to try to staunch the blood flow. He tried to summon his remaining magic but the pain interrupted his concentration. Dida picked up Val’s staff to fend off an approaching demon, but Synne got there first, leaping past them both in a blur, her hands and feet a concerto of violence. She spun behind the creature and broke its spine with a forearm strike so hard it made Val shiver. God, majitsu are scary.

  Three creatures remained. Instead of attacking, they communicated with a series of slurping sounds and retreated to the nearest bog, sinking into the water while casting malevolent stares at the party. The intelligence in their eyes caused gooseflesh to prickle along Val’s arms.

  “Gather up!” Rucker commanded. “They might be going for their friends.”

  “Agreed,” Synne said, still dripping water, flush with adrenaline from the battle. She wouldn’t meet Val’s eyes, as if ashamed the first two monsters had gotten the drop on her.

  “We’ll go when I say we go,” Adaira said, easing Val onto his back. She tore away a portion of his shirt, cleansed the wound with water from the canteen, then handed Val her rucksack.

  “What’s this for?”

  “The pain. We don’t have time for a long procedure, so I’m going to cauterize the wound and burn away the poison.”

  He gasped and looked down. Greenish pus was oozing from the stab wound. The flesh beneath felt as if insects were crawling around inside, stinging in a thousand places.

  Adaira put her hands on the wound until her palms glowed red. She directed heat into the wound with precise aim, and Val bit down on the leather as the pain seared through him and the smell of burning flesh flooded his nostrils.

  When it was finished, he shuddered and started to pull away. “Not yet,” she said. He gasped as Adaira slowly closed the wound, the pain duller but more prolonged than the previous bout.

  “I’ll work on the scarring later,” she said. “Can you walk?”

  Val limped to his feet. His side still ached but the pain was far better. Tolerable. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad the wound was not more grave,” she said softly.

  “May we go now, Your Highness?” Rucker said.

  “With all due haste.”

  Doing their best to avoid fens and standing water, the party hurried through the soggy stretch of moorland, eventually reaching firmer ground that had a smattering of hardy grass. As they crested a long ridge that seemed to last for miles, Synne pointed out a circular stone wall in the distance. Inside, a handful of towers and peaked roofs poked above the fortification.

  Rucker clapped Dida on the back as they stopped to absorb the view. “Well done.”

  Val felt a surge of relief, but also trepidation. What if the town was abandoned, or overrun by demons? What if nothing but horror lay on the other side of those walls?

  With a snarl, Rucker started clomping down the opposite side of the ridgeline. Val and the others hurried to catch up.

  -18-

  Will woke hanging upright in midair, his arms stretched above his head, wrists and feet bound with some type of vine. The vines wrapping his wrists had been tied off to a rope that looped through the hollow stone rings set into the ceiling.

  At least he knew the purpose of the rings. Dying with a construction puzzle plaguing his final thoughts would be a terrible way to go.

  Mateo and Yasmina and Coba were hanging to his left, Gunnar and Mala on his right. Everyone blinked and struggled as they came to. One of the jaguar people, a slender female with mahogany spots, held herself upside down on the rope above Gunnar, as if she had just finished stringing him up. She somersaulted off, landed silently on the floor twenty feet below, and hurried to the entrance, where a large group of her kin filled the main opening. Will swiveled and saw the strange hybrids pressing into all of the doorways.

  Selina, where was Selina?

  He swiveled on the rope to peer around the temple. There was no sign of the sylvamancer, and he paled when he realized what must have happened.

  Of course there’s no sign of her. You can’t tie down a wizard. They surprised her and killed her.

  Mala and Coba were kicking their feet, trying to swing back and forth. Gunnar struggled against his bonds, muscles bulging as he tried in vain to rip the vines free. Will yanked on his bonds as well. They felt as strong as steel cables.

  “What do you want?” he called out. “We’re not here to harm you!”

  The jaguar people seemed startled, almost frightened, at the sound of Will’s voice. Almost as if they didn’t realize he possessed the power of speech. One of the females, as tall as Gunnar and wearing a garland of thorny vines, dropped to her knees and supplicated herself on the floor. The rest of the tribe followed, except for another female. At first he thought they were worshipping him, but then the lone standing jaguar woman held up an enormous gourd, raised it to her lips as she turned towards the jungle, and blew into it. A deep, booming note issued forth. She varied the pitch as she drew the note out, repeating the call three times.

  When she finished, the jaguar people bounded out of the temple and into the darkened jungle as if the hounds of hell were behind them.

  “That can’t be good,” Will muttered.

  Mala bent her knees to her chest and started shimmying up the vines upside down, despite her bound hands and feet. When she reached the iron ring, she started tugging on the knot. When that didn’t work, she put her mouth against the vines, trying to bite through.

  A weird coughing sound echoed in the distance, followed by a prolonged growl and a throaty roar that echoed through the trees.

  Coba stopped struggling, his face drawn with fear. “Jaguar,” he said.

  Will lifted himself up so he could gnaw on the knot around his hands. He made some progress before his muscles gave out and he had to drop back down. Still, with enough time he knew he could break free.

  So why tie them up with vines?

  Moments later, another
roar came from the jungle, this one much closer. As if whatever had made it had traveled a few miles in less than a minute. The sound was so thunderous it reverberated through the temple.

  He answered his own question.

  Because we don’t have time to escape.

  One of the jaguar people dashed back into the temple, surprising Will. He thought they would all be far away by now. His shock grew as the female creature in front of him began to shift, her body morphing in seconds to the naked form of a human woman—one Will recognized.

  Selina.

  Mala gasped. “A lycamancer,” she said, staring down at her in shock.

  Selina whipped out a knife, flew into the air, and cut everyone down. Another roar vibrated the air, so close it sounded right on top of them. Mala darted to one of the western entrance portals and peered outside. “It’s still clear,’ she said, in a loud whisper.

  “It will smell us,” Coba said, in a trembling voice. “Follow us everywhere.”

  “You’re right,” Mala said, as she pulled out a vial from one of her pouches. She uncorked it and doused everyone with an oily substance that smelled like cheap soap.

  Selina retrieved her clothes as the party hurried to scoop up their belongings scattered around the temple. They recovered everything except Mateo’s longbow and Will’s shield, last seen atop the tower. They dared not take the time to search.

  Will had never felt so vulnerable as he sprinted out of the temple and dashed across the jungle clearing in the moonlight. As they reached the edge of the trees, a huge shape bounded out of the jungle, traveling fifty feet with one leap.

  “Stop!” Yasmina ordered, in a harsh whisper. “He’ll sense your movement!”

  Will stilled with his head turned, watching in dread fascination as a jaguar as big as a bus slunk towards the temple. The monstrous feline was black with gray spots, and resembled the sinuous form of the temple itself.

  The cat entered the cavernous main entrance and unleashed a mighty roar, turning Will’s nerves to jelly.

  “Now,” Yasmina said softly. “Run now!”

  “It will hear us!” Coba replied, almost too panicked to speak in a coherent voice.

  Mala yanked him forward. “This is our only chance. Take us due west. Now.”

  Coba eyed the moon and then darted through the jungle, moving without a sound. As everyone hurried to keep up, Yasmina made a series of bird and animal calls. The jungle came alive in response, helping to mask their progress.

  Will turned and saw the cat pausing in the clearing, trying to discern the source of the disturbance. Cats had night vision, he knew, and they hadn’t run that far. With his heart pounding and his palms slicked with sweat, he looked over his shoulder again and noticed a strange sight: the foliage closing in behind them, obscuring his view of the clearing. Then he noticed Selina looking back as they fled, locked in concentration as branches bent double and vines snaked down to cover their passage, the forest responding to the sylvamancer’s call.

  More ear-shattering roars and rumbling growls pierced the night, but as the party fled through the jungle, not daring to slow as the vines and branches whipped into their faces, the cries of the mighty jaguar grew farther away.

  How can such a thing exist? he wondered. Is it the creation of a menagerist? A holdover from the dinosaurs? Are there more of them around here?

  As they ran, a thunderous cacophony of animal and insect life assaulted the party’s ears, a stark difference from trekking during the daytime. Fleeing through the uncharted Mayan jungle in the dead of night was one of the most terrifying experiences of Will’s life. Almost as frightening as facing a jungle cat that could take a swipe at King Kong.

  They pressed grimly forward, through an endless series of shrieks, chitters, snarls, howls, and bellows. Nothing as intimidating as the roar of the giant jaguar, but the pitch of some of the nocturnal sounds was almost more disturbing, aggressive and deranged, strangely intelligent.

  Yet they dared not stop. They could still be within the jaguar’s range. Coba’s skills and Mala’s compass kept them heading west, despite the lack of a path.

  “Do you recognize these sounds?” Will asked Yasmina, keeping his voice to a whisper.

  “Some. Not all. This is a very different jungle from Brazil.”

  “But you’re learning, aren’t you?” he asked, noticing her eyes in constant movement, fingers brushing trees and bushes, slender nose turned to the air.

  She nodded.

  “What’s it like, being a wilder?”

  A soft smile appeared on her lips. “It’s beautiful, Will. I feel so attuned to nature. It’s as if this part of me I never knew existed has been unlocked.”

  “Do you think we all have it?” he asked. “It sounds pretty good.”

  She gave a quiet laugh. “Maybe to some degree. I do feel like it’s . . . natural to me. And there are things to learn, of course. Many things. Elegon taught me so much in the short time we had, but I think I could spend a lifetime in study and barely scratch the surface.”

  A shrill, ragged cry pierced the night, almost human in its distress. Yasmina cocked her head. Moments later, the cry repeated, insistent. It wasn’t far off, and sounded different from the other night calls. Vulnerable. Pleading.

  “I know that call,” she said, her face crumbling. “It’s a harpy eagle, and she’s in pain.”

  The cries continued. A hundred yards later they found the source: a huge but emaciated eagle, dark gray with a white head and breast, trapped inside a bamboo cage. The cage had been strung from the branch of a tree and tied off with vines, reminding Will of their own capture. He glanced uneasily into the jungle.

  “There’s no time,” Mala said, but Yasmina, with a look of pure revulsion, ignored her and used Will’s sword to slice open the cage. The sickly, two-foot tall bird cawed and fell over as it tried to hop out. Its wings and talons had been clipped.

  Yasmina picked the bird up and tucked it into her arms. “It’s my duty. She won’t slow me down.”

  Mala flung a bangled wrist in annoyance. “I hope not.”

  Will helped fashion a sling out of Yasmina’s cloak, and tucked the bird inside. The party continued slogging through the jungle, exhausted beyond reason, desperate for the dawn.

  A hundred yards later, Coba stopped and put a finger to his lips, calling for silence as he pointed into the canopy. Looking up, Will could just make out an elaborate, open-walled tree house made of living vines and giant leaves. He swiveled and saw more of the arboreal dwellings. Dozens of them.

  “Jaguar people,” Mateo whispered. “We saw these homes on the temple walls.”

  Yasmina’s eyes flashed as she stroked the head of the harpy eagle, which had nestled against her chest. “The bird was a sacrifice. An offering from their village.”

  “It appears empty,” Mala said. “They must hunt at night.”

  Gunnar nudged his head to the left. “We can backtrack and circle around.”

  “Or save time by going straight through,” Mateo said.

  Will sided with his cousin, Yasmina with Gunnar. “I vote for a direct approach,” Selina said in a hard voice. She had kept to herself during the night trek. “I won’t be taken by surprise this time.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Mala countered. She stood with her hands on her hips, debating her choices. “But speed is of the essence. Let’s continue straight through. Quickly, now.”

  The party stepped as lightly as they could beneath the tree houses, trying not to make a sound in case the canopy concealed any of the residents. On the other side of the village, just as Will began to relax, a group of jaguar people emerged out of the jungle dragging nets full of freshly killed game.

  The hunting party looked stunned when they saw they were still alive. Will wondered if he could somehow communicate with them. Over Mala’s whispered objection, he stepped forward with a palm out, beseeching them to talk instead of fight.

  At first, he thought he might be getting through,
but then the first low growls issued forth. The warriors raised short rods of bamboo, and a pair of females crept forward with a net held between them. A dozen or so others slunk into the jungle, disappearing from sight.

  “Stay tight,” Mala said, eying the jungle as she whipped her sash off and raised her sword. “Will and Mateo, watch the flanks. Yasmina and Coba, guard our rear. If we can strike a decisive blow, maybe they will lose their appetite for battle.”

  “I was hoping they’d let us through,” Will muttered. “Isn’t our survival a sign from their god?”

  Mateo slapped his sword back and forth on the ground, drawing attention. “Maybe they think they’ve failed in their duty.”

  Will heard a sound in the background, a steady hum that seemed to be increasing in volume. He didn’t have time to process what it might be, because Mala had initiated the battle by letting her sash fly at the front line. The weighted projectile was a darkened blur of movement, but the lead jaguar was even faster. He whipped his bamboo rod forward and used it to catch the sash in midair.

  Not a good sign.

  The weird buzzing in the background increased as a wave of jaguar people attacked, leaping and clawing at Gunnar and Mala. Though more agile than the adventuress and stronger even than Gunnar, the duo’s skill and superior weaponry kept the exchange even. More jaguar people leaped out of the jungle, striking at the party’s flanks, throwing nets at Will and Mateo. When Will sidestepped the throw, two of the jaguar people pounced on him. It took everything he had to force them back. The length of his sword negated their physical advantages, but there were simply too many of them.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Coba trapped in a net, and watched Mateo rush to help Yasmina, who was fending off a pair of attackers with her staff. The wounded harpy eagle was perched on her shoulder, shrieking her rage. Mateo’s whip-like sword seemed to confuse the jaguar fighters, and he beat them back.