Jordai looked at Aaron and nodded.
“Never did I hold any darkness in my heart for you,” Jordai said. “In my eyes, always have we been kin. Since I first bowed to the feet of our king, and looked up, seeing you beside him. I bound myself to you the moment what had been the Nation of Two, became the Nation of Three.”
The door to the roof behind them banged open, and Aaron heard a scraping sound. He fought to look back but could not see the door. Before he could think, he felt a sawing of rope that bound his hands behind him on the stake.
Aaron looked at the rising sun as the bonds were being cut and he looked at Peter.
“Gonna be close,” Peter said.
As the door opened again, Aaron’s hands sprung loose, and the dagger was pressed into his palm.
“What is this then?” a witch croaked.
Aaron, with one swift cut through the ropes, dropped to the ground and grinned.
He spun, seeing Jordai behind him, snarling amongst the coven, and Aaron laughed.
“Unexpected.” He scooped up the bag at his feet that held the weapons of the Nation of Three, and he ran. Soon the roof began to fill with witches, and Aaron’s swift strong hand sliced Peter free, then Jordai. Aaron threw the bag on the roof between them, and the witches rushed forward. Aaron spun, slicing a cut across Jordai’s face. Jordai hissed and pulled back.
“So, I can tell the difference.”
Jordai’s face spasmed in confusion before he grinned, and they spun back to back.
“Do not let them touch you,” Peter said. “Breathe nothing they throw at you. Be swift and be deadly.”
The witches rushed forward, and death sprang up around them all.
The fighting was a level of terror Aaron had never known before. The slightest miss, the tiniest touch would be his death. When they had laid death at the feet of a dozen or so witches, the rest of the coven pulled back. They looked up at the sky, and their laugh was vile and hurt Aaron’s ears.
They as one turned for the great beast bound to the stake and they smiled.
“He wakes. Ranct-dep-temat is, once again and for all time, alive.”
Aaron looked at the monster as he gasped, spitting sand and dust. It thrashed and bucked, and the witches pulled blades and moved to cut it free of the bonds they had tied around it to keep it held up against the wall.
Aaron threw his dagger, embedding it in the first witch to reach the monster.
“Can’t let them free it,” Peter said. He dropped his sword and grabbed up his bow. “Cover me.”
Aaron squared his shoulders with Jordai and laughed.
“This will be ugly,” Jordai said.
“When they cut you down, I will take your sword back home. It would be a shame to lose such a pretty blade,” Aaron snapped. Stonefist turned in alarm before Aaron smiled.
“Oh,” Jordai said. “I see how this will go.”
The witches began to die almost instantly. Peter Redfist had been taught to fire a bow by the Warrior Queen of the Furies. He knew no male rival. Each arrow found a skull, and soon the witches turned, chanting. They stared at Peter and Aaron snarled.
“Can’t abide that,” he said.
Jordai shouted, “Redfist!” as he charged.
Aaron felt a power run through him as he lifted his voice with the same call. “Redfist!” He roared, and they charged side by side. The brothers in arms, the men of the king.
Death, blood, and the screams, the screams would steal his sanity. The high gibbering of madness soaked in darkness and horror. The screams rose up, almost as deadly as the claws and the spells, to bring Aaron’s heart to a panic and his mind to near-numbing effects. But over the sounds of the howls of hate and rage, Aaron heard the laughs of Jordai. He heard his brother calling out to the Stonefist men that had come before him. Heard his comrade raging to beat the vile. And Aaron let his laugh rise to aid Jordai.
Because in the end, this alone was a victory. They had not been slaughtered bound to a pole and helpless. They were here now, horribly outnumbered, outmatched in power yet striving against it. They had brought death to their enemies, and if they died now, they were still victorious.
But they were not dying.
One hit after the next landed on vile witch. One blade thrust to the next landed on vile bitch, until Aaron saw the coven pull back, hissing and spitting. They looked at the rooftop around them. Their numbers lay fallen around them, thick like a matted blood-soaked carpet. Aaron spun and roared at them, and Jordai put his back to Aaron’s.
“We are not done yet,” Jordai stated. His voice sounded stilted and strained. Over the sound of that voice, Aaron heard a horrid scratching and bellowing. He heard the strain of chains and the snapping of ropes, and he cursed.
“You may be beyond us,” a feral-looking woman sneered. “But Ranct will chew your bones to paste.”
Aaron heard the ear-splitting roar of a monster beyond the imagination, and Jordai grunted. “We gotta figure something out here,” Jordai said.
“There is no force that can stand up to the might of Ranct-dep-” another witch began before an arrow entered her temple and exploded out the other side. The remaining witches screamed and backed out of the door they had come from as Aaron heard the snapping of rock and the spitting of shards. A high whine whipped past his head as a chain ripped free. Aaron turned to see the beast before him thrashing and struggling against his bonds.
Peter joined them, and Aaron grabbed his dagger from the skull of the witch he had thrown it in. He wiped it of gore and turned to face the coming onslaught.
Peter stepped between Aaron and Jordai, and he shook his head.
“Could run,” Jordai said. “Climb down the side of this castle and make for the border. We could make the climb, and this thing wouldn’t be able to catch us.”
“Aaron?” Peter asked.
Aaron did not know how to answer. He had never been asked his opinion before.
“Why run?” Aaron said. “Someone will have to deal with this someday. Why not us now? What other evil do we have to fight now?”
Jordai laughed.
Ranct’s arm broke free, and the chain that held it whistled through the air. The thing kicked its leg free and Peter sighed.
“Aaron will go high,” Peter said. “Jordai, you’re with me.”
Aaron sheathed his weapons and rushed to the wall. He began to climb naught but five feet from the beast’s outstretched claw. The mildew-covered stones were slick, but Aaron had been climbing since he was a babe and no wall could defeat him.
When the monster broke free of its chains and strained against the last few ropes, Aaron cursed and climbed faster. He reached a battlement overlooking the roof they had fought on. Aaron looked down at the beast as it stretched its long gangly limbs wide as if to embrace the sky, the world, and everything in it. From up here, the beast looked massive. Aaron’s heart nearly stopped when he saw how small his companions appeared.
“You have drawn the ire of Ranct-dep-temat,” the creature said. “He has come now from the dead and will wreak his revenge upon the world.” The monster scooped up a dead witch and held it to its open maw. The linens that held its jaw shut stretched but did not tear when it snapped its mouth closed around the witch’s head and shoulders and bit through the body with a volley of sickening snapping and popping noises. It chewed, blood raining and drooling from its mouth, and it spoke with full mouth, spraying meat and bone as it spoke.
“Bow before me now. You are great warriors and will be granted my power. I will make you leaders of men, and I will rule with your might at my command.” The thing motioned to the ground with the body chewed free of its head, shoulders, and arms, and it grinned.
“I am already the leader of great men,” Peter said. “You can give me nothing. You have nothing worthy of me, or my men, to give as gifts. You are a fiend, and I will not abide you.”
Ranct threw what was left of his meal at Peter and Jordai. They rolled in separate directions a
nd charged. They came at him from the sides, driving into him and slicing.
Jordai’s great sword cut deep. It was large and powerful, and when it dug into the tough black meat and tendons of the monster’s foot, leg, and knee, the monster howled.
Peter as well held a massive blade crafted by the greatest sword smith of the mountain. He sliced through bone and meat to drive the beast back. Aaron backed up on the battlements and waited.
The monster snapped up another dead witch, and holding her with both hands, took a bite out of her middle. It stepped forward and sprayed its mouthful at Jordai, drenching him in gore and driving him back. Jordai frantically fought to wipe at his eyes. Blinded and disoriented, he could do nothing but pull back from the fighting to get his bearings.
Peter swung left and stood now alone against the monster. He fought to hem it back and away from Jordai, and Aaron could do nothing but wait for the thing to get pushed back farther.
Ranct gripped the witch in his hands by the head and the legs, and with one quick twist and jerk, he ripped her in two. He bent to roar in Peter’s face, spraying spittle and gore, but Peter did not pull back. With one mighty sweep of his sword, he severed the jaw from the skull.
Ranct screamed and pulled back just enough, and Aaron broke out in a run.
He leapt, his feet kicking, his arms held back and over his head with his sword pointed down, and he flew. He slammed the tip of his sword through the skull of the creature and held on tight. It thrashed and bucked, and Aaron stabbed his dagger into the skull of the monster and held both weapons as tight as he could.
Ranct kicked and spit and howled in pain and horror until it dropped to its knees and flopped to its belly. Aaron rolled to the ground, and Jordai and Peter sheathed their swords into the monster’s skull.
They retrieved their weapons. Wiped them down as best as they could, and Peter looked at the door. “We need to block that up.”
Aaron ran to the door and jammed his dagger under it.
“Your blade,” Jordai said. “You will need that.”
“Its good steel, it will hold them. I can grab a dagger anywhere,” Aaron said.
“He’s right,” Peter said. “We have to run.”
They could already hear what was left of the coven pounding on the door.
“Climb and run,” Peter said.
“They will give chase,” Aaron said.
“We had better be fast,” Jordai answered.
They ran. They ran straight through Eloo without stopping but to fill their water skins. Four days and nights, the Nation of Three ran, and every one of those hours, the Coven of Snake and Bile gave chase. When they crossed over the border into Tienne, the coven pulled back and away.
“We can never go back to the Land of Rott and Cur,” Jordai said.
“Who would want to?” Aaron replied.
Andrew Doran and the Obsidian Key
By Matthew Davenport
This takes place in the Andrew Doran novels
“What are we doing here, Doran?” Nancy Dyer stared up a boulder the size of a small house with her hands on her hips.
“You know why we’re here,” I answered as I examined the rock.
“Yes,” she sighed and turned toward me. “You’re obsessed, but that hardly explained why we’re standing in the desert in the middle of nowhere.”
Nowhere was a decent description of our location, but this was hardly a desert. We were twenty kilometers northwest of the city of Edessa. A city with a long history stretching back to the first Crusades.
Nancy clenched her fists, but I knew by now that it had nothing to do with anger. She was feeling anxious without a weapon in her hand. In our last-minute rush to follow up with the most recent lead to my “obsession,” we had been forced to leave our guns behind. We were traveling light, and the only weapon between us was my non-commissioned officer’s cavalry sword. The sword was directly from the Miskatonic University armory. The blade was black as night and covered with runes from every culture I had ever heard of as well as some I hadn’t. The sword had the ability to damage creatures from beyond the known world.
“We’re standing in the middle of nowhere because this is where the lost page of the Historiae Tenebras had told us to go.” My obsession with the Historiae Tenebras, or the Dark Histories, started back in my days as a student. It was the title given to collected notes and journals from the time of the Crusader Knights that either couldn’t be explained by the Roman Catholic Church or wished to be forgotten.
“Another book,” Nancy sighed, repeating a mantra that I had adopted over the last few years. “And the Cursed Lock of Shadows or something is supposed to be here?”
I rolled my eyes wishing that Nancy had a gun with her so that she would be distracted enough to let me finish my examination of the stone.
“The Obsidian Key,” I corrected. “Rumored to provide instant travel to anywhere.”
It was Nancy’s turn to roll her eyes. “Six nights from the first Crusade, almost a thousand years ago, broke the Church’s wishes and went after the key to try and find a shortcut to Heaven. I know all of this, and I’ve seen the lost page of the Historiae Tenebras, and I still don’t know why you’re staring at a large and entirely unimpressive rock.”
The sun was setting on the other side of the stone, but while the moon was visible, its luminescence hadn’t overtaken the daylight that remained. “We’re waiting.”
Nancy kicked at a rock at her feet. “Why are we out here now, then? The Germans don’t even know about the Obsidian Key. Is the Traum Kult after it?” Her eyes went wide, “Did the United States ask you to find it?”
I shook my head and stepped away from the boulder.
“No,” I smiled, knowing she wouldn’t like my answer. “You’re right about this being an obsession, but it’s not a new one. I’ve been hunting for the Obsidian Key for almost ten years.” I crouched and leaned on the scabbard of my sword. “Today, I’m not the Dean of Miskatonic University, I’m just an archaeologist hunting for a lost artifact. All part of my mission to study the past to keep—”
“The Old Ones away from the present,” Nancy finished. “That’s your line for dangerous artifacts. What makes this dangerous? It could revolutionize travel.”
Standing, I shook my head. “The stories never tell you everything about the thing you’re looking for, and I’m certain the Obsidian Key is no exception. Even if it is, if the Traum Kult or the Germans found it, they could bring entire armies here. Imagine an army from the Dream Lands walking the streets of Manhattan or the beasts from the Plateau of Leng devouring Des Moines.” The sky was finally getting dark enough to allow the moon’s illumination to take over. “The Key needs to be found by us first.”
When the moonlight finally hit the large rock, an outline could be seen. It was the outline of a door, but it was not open. Remembering a footnote from the Historiae Tenebras, I ventured a guess at what I needed to do next.
I held a hand out to Nancy. “You aren’t going to like this part, but I need you to stay here.”
Anger flashed on my assistant’s face. “What? I’m already bored out of my mind, and now you want me to sit here and wait?”
“No, I want you to sit here and cover my ass,” I jabbed my finger at the boulder. “The Obsidian Key is guarded by a protector from another world. If I don’t come back out, I’ll need someone out here who can either come in after me or avenge me.”
I didn’t mention that I was also trying to protect her. If the guardian of the Key killed me, whatever pathway to him would close behind me. Nancy would be safe from the guardian until she was able to get the necessary reinforcements or weaponry to come back and finish my mission.
“How am I supposed to guard your back if you have the only weapon?” Nancy pointed out.
I reached behind my back and pulled a small revolver from under my shirt. It wasn’t my magical .38 that I liked to carry, but it would at least provide my assistant with some protection.
&n
bsp; “Where did you get that?” Nancy demanded, annoyed that I hadn’t shared this information earlier.
Shrugging, I gave her a half grin. “I bought it in Edessa from a contact I have.” I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t think I’d come out here unarmed, did you? That’d be crazy.”
Nancy angrily grabbed the pistol from my hand and checked it over.
“Hurry up, already,” she said as she tested aiming down the sights. “It’s getting cold out here.”
Turning back to the boulder and the moonlit outline of a door that had appeared on its surface, I drew my sword.
“I challenge the guardian of the Obsidian Key,” I called out into the night.
After a tense moment of waiting, a deep voice resonated from inside the boulder. The voice was not in English, but I had no trouble understanding the words as their meanings resonated inside my mind.
“And who are you that you think yourself worthy?”
With the voice reverberating in my skull, I decided that lying to the voice was probably a bad idea.
“I’m a warrior for good in an age of war looking to collect the key before others attempt to claim it for themselves,” I answered.
There was another prolonged silence before my mind shook under the weight of the protector’s voice.
“Good men do not seek the key.”
Semantics were difficult when you spoke to beings that dwelt on multiple planes of existence.
“I never said that I was a good man, only that I was a warrior for good.” I paused before continuing. I was getting tired of having my intent questioned when I was so close to an almost decade-long search. “Do you accept my challenge, or do I have to come in there after you?”
The silence this time didn’t feel like the empty contemplation of an otherworldly intelligence, but instead like something was happening.
Suddenly, the outline of the doorway was gone and replaced by a vast emptiness. What the locals had called the “demon cave” had opened its door for me.
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