Forging Destiny

by Marc Alan Edelheit

  Warily, both orcs crossed over the wall and closed on him slowly. One angled out to come at Tovak from the left side. The first orc came straight on and attacked. Tovak again blocked. The second slashed and Tovak dodged by stepping aside. The sound of steel on steel echoed throughout the ruins as they came at him, relentlessly attacking. He decided that both orcs were not skilled fighters, but they had just enough training to keep him off balance and on the defensive. Tovak’s hands stung from the repeated impacts. He could feel his fingers beginning to go numb.

  The first orc swung hard. Tovak blocked. Out of the corner of his eye, Tovak saw the other orc raising his blade for a killing blow. Tovak dredged up every ounce of strength he had left and shoved the first orc’s blade away, but he knew he would not be able to turn in time to fully block the second attack.

  Tovak’s head snapped up as an unintelligible battle cry filled the air, and with it, a thick body crashed into the second orc, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

  “Gorabor,” Tovak shouted in elation as his friend and the orc thrashed together and then separated. They both quickly rose to their feet, facing one another.

  The first orc that had been facing Tovak took two steps back and glanced about, while keeping an eye on Tovak. It was clear he was wondering if there were any more Dvergr about.

  Gorabor charged like a berserker, slashing violently at the orc and driving him back. Then Tovak had no more time, for the orc he faced recovered from the surprise appearance of Gorabor and attacked, pressing him tightly. Tovak managed to block several attacks. He side-stepped another quick slash, dodging, and stepped back, giving ground. Again and again, the orc pressed him. Tovak counter-lunged. The orc parried and drove his blade in towards Tovak’s belly. Perhaps he was more skilled than Tovak had originally estimated.

  Tovak barely managed to block this time, but he could feel himself seriously tiring. He took a nick on the arm from the orc’s blade. It stung. His own blade was becoming heavy in his arms. He knew the orc was stronger and slowly getting the better of him. The creature sent another flurry of slashes at his head. Tovak fell back a step, until he stood on the very crest of the hill, barely able to defend himself.

  With a mighty swing, the orc slammed Tovak’s weapon aside, knocking it free of his left hand. The blade went flying and landed several feet away. The orc leaned his head back and roared in triumph as he drew his blade back for a killing blow. In desperation, Tovak yanked out his dagger and, rushing forward, shot his left hand up, grabbing the orc’s sword wrist. His arm quivered as the orc, clearly surprised by the move, pushed down with incredible power in an attempt to break his grip. Tovak drew in a last burst of strength and drove his dagger into the orc’s belly, just beneath the lip of his chest plate.

  The orc grunted before screaming out in agony. They stood there frozen for a protracted moment, looking at each other. There was clear recognition in his enemy’s eyes that the wound was a bad one. Then the creature roared in rage and pain, baring his tusks. The orc released his sword and wrapped his arms around Tovak’s body tightly, as if to squeeze the life out of him. Tovak struggled to break the bear hold the orc had on him and could not. It was frightfully strong and Tovak felt his feet leave the ground as he was lifted into the air and shaken violently.

  Still holding the dagger that he had plunged into his opponent’s belly, Tovak gave it a savage twist. Hot blood rushed over his hand as the blade ripped open the creature’s belly. He pushed it deeper into the orc’s stomach and felt it hit the spine. There was a physical pop that was communicated through the hilt of his dagger as bone snapped and the spine was cut. The orc groaned, shivered once, and, still holding him tightly in a bear hug, fell backward to the ground like a toppled tree. When they hit, there was a strange snapping sound, a splintering of wood, and then a crash. The ground opened beneath them both, and they tumbled into a black void.

  Tovak woke to near darkness and a sense of chilling cold. His whole body ached. The back of his head felt like it had been flattened, and there was a persistent ringing in his ears.

  “I hurt,” he mumbled to himself and his voice sounded distant in his own ears. He wondered how long he’d been out. He tried to focus on what lay within his field of vision.

  Dark gray motes of floating dust drifted in a weak light that seemed to have no source. He blinked and shifted his head slightly. Even the tiniest effort hurt. He realized he was lying on cold stone. His vision swam. Tovak blinked several times. As his vision cleared, he realized the wall and floor were a uniform gray and covered with a thick layer of dust. He turned his gaze upward and winced in pain as he shifted and discovered where the light was coming from. A wide shaft of daylight shined at a shallow angle through a seven-foot hole more than thirty feet above in the ceiling.

  Had he fallen that far?

  He blinked again, not quite believing his eyes. Almost impossibly, the orc he’d stabbed was suspended ten to fifteen feet above him. The creature was unmoving and thick gobs of blood dripped down to the floor next to him. It took Tovak a moment to understand what had happened. With that understanding came a terrible dread. The orc was suspended in a thick web, one cast by a spider, and clearly a large one at that.

  He looked around the room, which appeared to be circular. It was big, twenty yards from one side to the other. The walls, from the opening high above to the chamber that surrounded him, were covered in thick, gray sheets of webs that could only have been created by the mother of all krata, or, worse yet, maybe even one of giant super-predators, a krow.

  He peered into the darkness around him, his head pivoting in all directions, wondering if one of the giant arachnids was lurking in the darkness somewhere. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could just make out a sort of tunnel that shot off at the back of the chamber. Unlike everything else, it wasn’t filled with curtains of web that seemed to stretch away into even deeper darkness. He rolled onto his side and groaned in pain and discomfort from the effort. Everything in his body seemed to hurt. He pulled himself to his knees and reached for his dagger.

  “Oh no,” he said in a horrified whisper. He had stabbed the orc with the dagger. He looked up and saw the weapon still stuck in the creature’s stomach. His sword was nowhere in view either. It was probably still up on the surface. Tovak was weaponless and in a den of death. He hoped that the spider was long gone, and the webs were old.

  Tovak sat up, groaning with the effort. His left side was particularly sore. Once he and the orc had hit the web, Tovak must have been thrown free and fallen the rest of the way down. He realized he had landed on his left side. His throat felt dry like a desert. He checked his right hip where he’d tied a skin. It was half full. He unstopped it and drank a few mouthfuls of water. It felt wonderful going down.

  He looked around. The floor was smooth stone and so too were the walls. He was in what looked like a rounded chamber with a domed ceiling. It did not appear anything like what he would expect from a spider den. This looked like a room that had been carved from the very bedrock with two hands, hands much like his own.

  He turned his gaze up towards the ceiling, where he’d fallen through. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like there had been some sort of wooden door overhead, the sides of which hung at odd angles. Splintered wood lay all about him. It must have been a trapdoor that had rotted through. Around him, he could see what looked to be the remains of a pulley system. A rusted wheel, with a portion of rope still tied around it, lay off to his left. Where the rest had gone, he had no idea. There were also several broken boards scattered about that had clearly been used to help raise and lower things. He knew with a sinking feeling there was no getting out that way. The walls were smooth and rounded, with no handholds. The trapdoor lay at the very top of the dome.

  He turned his attention back to the chamber itself. As he peered deeper into the darkness, he saw something that made him deeply unhappy. Within the curtains of webbing was a grisly assortment of heavily webbed, desiccated bodie
s. Some were large and some smaller. Most were clearly animals, but a couple looked suspiciously like orcs.

  Careful to make as little noise as possible, he pulled himself to his feet. The effort was painful, as his left arm hurt terribly. He experimented with moving it. Nothing seemed broken. He took a step closer and saw more bodies, smaller ones that were about the size of children. Gnomes.

  There were at least a half-dozen gnomes mixed in with the desiccated animal carcasses. He hoped the bodies were old because the alternative was that the spider was still alive and down here with him.

  A surge of sudden panic threatened to overwhelm him. He very much wanted to get out. But how? He stepped up to the wall, inspecting it closely. The webbing that covered the smooth stone was old, very old, and heavily coated with the dust of time. He reached out and grabbed some of the finger-thick strands that snaked their way around the room. It was dry and had no stick to it. He looked up, wondering if he could climb it. If the web could support the spider, which was undoubtedly large, perhaps it could hold his weight. He tried to pull himself up. The web quickly broke away. Disappointed, Tovak decided he would have to find another way out.

  “Tovak!” Gorabor’s voice echoed down from above, filling the chamber with his friend’s voice. The sound filled Tovak’s heart with relief. Then he felt a wave of panic. What if the spider was still around?

  “Shush,” Tovak hissed back up as Gorabor’s head appeared over the edge. “I think there is a krata or krow down here.”

  “Gods,” Gorabor hissed back. “Look at all that web. Are you okay?”

  “That depends upon how you look at it,” Tovak called back. “I’m alive, which is better than the alternative. Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to get up there … unless you brought a rope I don’t know about.”

  “Nope, no rope,” Gorabor said. “What do you want me to do?”

  Tovak blew out a frustrated breath. Gorabor was his one connection to the surface. Without him, Tovak would have to find another way out, and up was clearly not an option. “Go back and get help,” he finally said. “Bring rope.”

  “Are you sure?” Gorabor sounded uncertain, obviously not happy about leaving Tovak alone.

  Tovak stared up at his friend for a few moments. “Yes, I’m sure, and I don’t see any alternatives,” he finally replied. He looked around the chamber. He really wasn’t happy about his situation. Then another worry hit him. “Think you can find your way back? We came a long way.”

  “I believe I can manage,” Gorabor said. “I’ll be back as fast as I can with help.”

  Tovak nodded. “Alright …. And, Gorabor ….”

  “Yes?”

  “If I don’t see you again … may your Legend never fade.”

  “What kind of talk is that?” Gorabor scoffed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. You just sit tight, okay?”

  Tovak nodded again, and then Gorabor disappeared from sight.

  Now, Tovak really felt alone, more isolated than he had felt in his entire life. He let out a long breath and inspected the chamber one square inch at a time with his eyes. As he did so, he noticed in the dimness several bulges sticking out of both sides of the wall to his left, only a few feet from where the pile of corpses began. The bulges were elongated and fully covered in what looked like a sheet of webbing that hung from the ceiling. It ran over them and down to the floor. The bulges’ bottoms started at about his waist level and reached to just above his head.

  Wondering what the webbing concealed, he moved over and pulled away the thick coating of webs that covered one of the bulges. As he yanked the fibers away, he exposed an ancient torch. Any oil that might have been soaked into the torch head would have long since become unusable. If nothing else, the torch might be used as a cudgel, if it was stout enough. He pried away the last of the webbing.

  The base of the torch looked to be made of solid oak. It had been set into the wall. He gripped the shaft to pull it free. As his hand closed around the torch, the end glowed. Tovak pulled his hand back, as if it had been burned. The light went out. Tentatively, he reached out again and poked the torch with a finger. Nothing happened. He then gripped it. The torch glowed with a steady light. It pushed back against the darkness, filling the chamber with bright yellow light that, at first, hurt his eyes.

  “Magic,” he hissed to himself, absolutely stunned. “It’s magic.”

  Magical artifacts were rare and expensive. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen true magic. There had been the like in the great caverns of Garand’Durbaad. But beyond that, only the very wealthy could afford to own such powerful and rare artifacts. His father at the height of his own personal success would not have been able to purchase a magical artifact.

  Tovak reached out to the light, which was still encased in a thin layer of webbing. He removed the web and discovered a crystal or glass cylinder the size of his fist underneath. It was from this that the light emanated. He touched it and found it cool, cold even.

  The thing glowed more brightly than any torch Tovak had ever seen, but there was neither flame nor heat emanating from it. Not knowing what else to call it, he decided to simply think of it as a torch. It was truly a marvel and, if he escaped this underground pit of death, one he fully intended to bring with him.

  The bright light cast the web-wrapped and desiccated corpses a few feet away into sharp highlights and shadows. He could see now that there were dozens of them, piled haphazardly. There was really no way for him to tell how long they had been down here. But one thing he did know: whatever type of spider had consumed them was capable of catching and killing a grown orc, which meant it was very dangerous. He could see no weapon amongst the bodies.

  He suddenly cursed himself. He should have thought to have Gorabor toss down his sword or a weapon of some kind. Frustrated with his failure to think ahead, Tovak lifted the torch up into the air, turning around in a circle and surveying the chamber more closely. He moved over to the hole in the wall to his right. Something had clearly dug its way into the chamber. Could spiders do that? The hole was large enough to crawl into, but Tovak wanted to go nowhere near it.

  He moved away, surveying the rest of the space. The back of the chamber had a thick wall of webbing covering it. He thought he could see almost through it. There appeared to be some sort of a cavity beyond.

  And then he felt it—the urge to discover what was behind the wall of web. The pull was unmistakable, and it was strong, almost demanding. Tovak paled at the thought of going through the web, and yet the pull drew him onward, beckoned to him with an intense growing urgency to climb over the corpses and carcasses, scratch and scrape his way through the webs and into an even deeper and completely unknown darkness.

  He closed his eyes as a passage from the Fifth Saga of Uliand Stormhand came to mind.

  “At all costs, fear must be ignored, for it has no bearing on courage of the heart and can only serve to prevent us from doing what must be done.”

  As he voiced the passage, he felt his fears fade, at least a little, and the burning spark within blossom. It seemed to fill him up. With his eyes closed, he reached out and touched the burning spark and was comforted by it. A sense of pure calm and peace descended over him.

  Tovak opened his eyes and scanned the wall of webs before him. While he desperately wanted a weapon better than a magical club, he wasn’t all that keen on the idea of climbing over the desiccated bodies and digging through the wall of webbing.

  Go forth.

  The urge slammed into his thoughts, and without thinking about it, he moved forward towards the bodies and animal carcasses. He began climbing over them. He put his hand on the limb of an orc. It felt dry and shriveled under the web.

  Reaching the area where the cavity was, he found the webs thicker and harder. They seemed fresher than the rest. Some of it clung to him as he tore it away with his hands. He even used the end of the torch to stab and punch his way through it. The web resisted at first and then gave way with the sound of te
aring fabric. He then worked on creating a hole big enough for him to crawl through, which was harder than it sounded.

  Once it was done, he could just barely make out the outline of a stone passage beyond. He held the torch out before him and found himself staring down a long hallway of gray stone.

  A dozen yards ahead, he saw what looked to be alcoves cut into the walls. The alcoves were stacked two high on either side of the hallway. The bottom ones were only a few inches from the floor, while the upper ones were just above waist height.

  He felt a strong draft of cool air coming from the passage that blew by and around him. He glanced behind him at the hole in the ceiling, then around the round, domed room. Tovak turned his gaze back to the hole he had created, suddenly unsure whether to proceed or not. Maybe this would lead him out? Perhaps that was why the urge, the pull, was wanting him to go this way. He really didn’t want to stick around and wait for the spider to return. Then again, there might no longer be a spider.

  Wait for help? Or go explore and possibly get out?

  He felt another strong nudge. That decided it.

  Raising the torch, he moved forward, climbing through the hole he had created. Despite the draft, the air in the hallway was dank, full of moisture, and smelled of decay. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all covered with a thin coating of webbing, somewhat different, not as thick as what he’d just cut his way though.

  Holding the torch up, he shined the light outward. Not far down the passageway, he picked out the wet glisten of water seeping in from the ceiling above. The passageway angled downward at a steep grade. The water ran along the edge of the floor, disappearing ahead into darkness. What caught his attention, however, was what occupied the alcoves on either side of the hallway.