Spe turned and left Bladeborn alone.
Bladeborn stared into the dark of the cavern he rested in. A few Dwarves looked wearily in his direction, then laid their heads back down to sleep.
Bladeborn wondered, what could have happened? Had she chosen to remove the ring and marry Lord Esket? Could something awful have befallen her? What if she was Dead? Did she ever really love him, or was it all a game, as Nightslayer had long ago told him it was?
Bladeborn found no rest that night. On the following Nights in camp his concern for the fate of Deocarla only grew, and he did not find any solace in sleep due to his worrying.
Days passed where Bladeborn kept to himself, only speaking when necessary. Rosen and Spe seemed to understand. Nightslayer said nothing since the Heartring went dark.
A week afterward, Bladeborn was still thinking of Deocarla, and Nightslayer said, ~~You are losing your focus, Swordsman! The loss of this woman has unhinged you!~~
“Be silent, Sword,” Bladeborn spat. He knew he would come to accept that she was no longer his, for whatever reason, but it would take a long time for him to do so.
The first danger of the underworld was a colony of spiders in a huge underground chamber. Even though the maps were ancient, they were clear and accurate, and the presence of the spider colony was mentioned. The Elvin scouts and Knights killed all the spiders, nevertheless, some of Bladeborn’s party were bitten and injected with a weak poison. The Dwarven clerics could cure those afflicted, but it took time, so they called for a temporary camp.
A few of the Dwarven citizens were already frightened and wished to be taken back to Vimtan’s halls. They were refused. After a full day of rest, travel was to resume.
As they explored the enormous cavern they were resting in the found strange, cubical, blocks of stone, scattered on the floor of the cavern haphazardly.
Telunk, who had been interpreting the map, said, “I don’t like what is happening on this map, General Bladeborn. The way is uncertain here.”
“What do you mean ‘the way is uncertain here,’ Telunk?” Bladeborn whispered. “Do we go forward or curve down that way, past these blocks?”
“I do not know, Bladeborn,” Telunk said ominously. “I must pray for a sign. There is powerful magic here. This does not bode well.”
“Then we must be on our Guard even more so—” But Bladeborn was stopped in mid-sentence. One of the Elf-scouts was signaling for them to follow and be quiet.
Bladeborn whispered, “Observe your holy rites, Telunk. I will see what this is.”
The Elf-scout, out of breath, gasped, “I have found something strange a hundred yards down the incline! An arm, a Rhinolon arm, and a leg just above the kneecap extending out from a block of stone! And Bladeborn, when I approached, it moved!”
“What do you mean? Your name is Nylan, right?” Bladeborn asked. “I instructed all scouts to go no more than fifty paces from the column. You could have become lost!”
“Yes, but I heard this ‘scratching’ sound. I went to investigate …Bladeborn, it’s as if there is a Rhinolon trapped alive inside the stone!”
Bladeborn was getting annoyed with the racket Dwarves in the back of the column were making. They could be heard prattling on even where he was, three-hundred feet forward of them. There had been no organizing them. The rogues and rabble were completely ruining any chance they had at being stealthy.
The Elf named Nylan led Bladeborn to the stone block. Spe went along, and so did a Dwarf cleric with one of the very bright staves. Six warriors brought up the rear. The area was much lower in the cavern than the location of the rest of the passageway and the floor was damp. The light of the line behind them was very faint. There was a distinctive, foul odor in the area. Bladeborn saw a Rhinolon sword on the ground, and a gauntleted hand that was unmistakably Rhinolon. The hand stuck out of a large stone block. The hand was moving!
All at once they heard screams from back at the line! Raining down on the travelers were red rays from somewhere high above in the cavern, and a chilling, grinding sound of stone-meeting-stone wracked their ears! Spe leapt into the air, growing to his greatest size and roaring mightily.
Bladeborn began to grow also, shouting to the small party with him, “Scatter, everyone!”
The red beams sprayed from the ceiling as Spe flew above the column into the open air. Spe lit up the darkness with an enormous blast of his white-hot breath. Clinging to the roof of the cavern by a dozen long legs was a creature out of deepest oblivion. It faintly resembled a spider, but was much larger, with many body segments. Spe had partially set the creature’s fur ablaze and it dropped immediately to the floor of the cavern on its spindly legs, doubtlessly killing some of the Dwarves when it landed.
Still alive and deadly, the creature focused eight red eyes on Spe’s head. The rays shot forth and the dragon’s face’s engulfed in a thick cube of stone. Spe spiraled out-of-control away from the remains of the line, landing hard elsewhere in the cave. The dragon thrashed far away in the darkness, weighed down.
The spider-thing leapt back up to the roof of the cavern and continued spraying its rays. Its fur was still burning in some spots but it seemed unconcerned.
Bladeborn was filled with rage. He grew to his greatest size, and commanded Nightslayer to shoot lightning at it. Despite the power of the electrical discharge, the distance traveled diminished the effectiveness of the bolts. Still, several of the creature’s legs were blown to bits under Nightslayer’s assault.
Even in the dark, the spider-Demon was able to locate Bladeborn perfectly well. It angled its red rays at him, and the rays met, partially encasing him in a cube, along with most of Nightslayer. Bladeborn was cast backwards, landing with the crushing force. His upper body, still free of the stone, was slammed to the cavern floor. His head hit so hard he was knocked unconscious.
Later, Bladeborn awoke with a start. He did not know how long he had been out. Skin-tight blocks of stone encased his left side and both legs, leaving only his head exposed. He found it impossible to free himself. He tried a dimension shift, but was startled to find that the stone created by the creature’s rays existed in alternate dimension-world with solidity.
Bladeborn still gripped the Sword, and he asked it, “Why can’t I dimension-shift to get free, Nightslayer?”
~~The Spider-Demon’s trap must be ‘dense marble.’ It has a rare quality about it, existing in all dimensions at once~~
While dimension-shifted, he saw the blocks strewn about the cavern as well as the spider-thing. It immediately lifted its head to look in his direction. He shifted back quickly so he wouldn’t draw its attention. He tried to move and felt shooting pain in his neck and spine. With his free arm, he propped himself up a little. Blood ran into his eyes.
Twisting his head around to see, he watched by glow-globe light as the spider-Demon placed its front legs around a stone block. Holding the block near its mouth-parts, its eight red eyes glowed more brightly, and the stone block vanished, leaving in its grasp a live, struggling, screaming Dwarf. It sucked the Dwarf down into its gullet and all was quiet once more.
Then Bladeborn heard a faint whisper behind him. It was Taylon, the leader of the Elf Knights. “Bladeborn, you live! There is hope!”
Bladeborn whispered back, “If I can’t get free of these stones! I want you and the others to run for it!”
Taylon whispered, “I have found no others, Bladeborn. The creature’s subdual of us was cunning and complete! Spe lives, but he’s pinned down by many blocks of stone...” Taylon’s whisper trailed off. The Elf Knight watched in horror as the creature picked up another block. “It feeds on the Dwarves first...”
“Taylon, I have something that might work. Pray to Arlen it does!” Bladeborn reached deep into his Essense, thinking of the hawk-form. He imagined himself becoming the same small hawk he had transformed into before. When he opened his eyes again, he could wriggle out of the cavity left by his body and fly free on hawk-wings, leaving Taylon standin
g there in fear and surprise.
He fluttered up into the dark toward where the spider-thing was feeding, becoming accustomed to his form It took enormous concentration and Essence to stay in hawk shape.
The only way to defeat such a large creature by himself would be to blind it. He would have to gouge the creature’s eyes out swiftly, for it was too large to behead.
He was soon near the creature, which hung upside down from the cavern’s ceiling, feeding. Bladeborn thought of that place where he could change into a human. The transformation took several seconds, but he managed to grasp the thick, stringy fur on the Demon’s head before he fell to the cavern’s floor.
Sensing Bladeborn had taken ahold of it, the creature reared, and then leapt. Bladeborn clung to a handful of its fur with one hand, and with the other he held Nightslayer, trying to get a clean strike at the top of its head where the eyestalks were, hoping that with a few strokes he might be able to cleave all the eyes out of their position.
The eyes were small and as hard as gems, about the size of a man’s palm. The first Bladeborn cut out easily. The thing screeched a blood-curdling, howl. Again, it leapt, spinning about. Bladeborn could barely hold on. He dug his legs under some of the things spindly fur, and struck solidly with Nightslayer, cutting two more of the eyes out. The creature desperately tried to get a ray on him with its remaining eyes. It started jumping wildly, and Bladeborn realized that he wouldn’t be able to keep his position on the raging spider-thing much longer.
It crashed out-of-control, careening into a cave wall and onto the rock floor, nearly jarring Bladeborn off his precarious perch. In just a few jumps they had gone a hundred yards. Another slash and three more of the eyes, plus a small portion of the top of its head, had been removed. A dark ichor pumped from the wounds and caused Bladeborn’s hand to slip where he held the thing’s fur.
The last two eyes were more forward on its “face.” Bladeborn had to reach around and dangle to get to them. He dared not grow or the spider-thing would ray him. It began to roll over, and Bladeborn thought he would be crushed between the massive beast and the rock floor of the cavern. Just before the beast had fully rolled onto its back, Bladeborn cut out the last two eyes. Bladeborn was slammed into the ground. He hit his head again, and was stunned.
Taylon was there in a moment, holding a glow globe, his face hovering in and out of Bladeborn’s burry vision.
“Bladeborn! Thank the gods!” Taylon exclaimed.
Bladeborn tried to speak, which resulted in a wrenching gag on his own blood. Yet the pain was far away. He felt only numbness.
“Do not leave us now!” Taylon whispered, in hushed panic, with fear in his eyes. “You cannot go…! You still have more to do…!”
Bladeborn focused his healing power as much as he could—he found a huge bloody welt on the back of his head where it had smashed into the floor of the cavern. Being knocked senseless twice in an hour would have left a normal man out for days. But Bladeborn had no internal injuries, and miraculously his spine was still good—his armor had held. He would survive.
The creature died when the last gem-like eye was chopped from its head, as though all its life force had been tied into the eyes. Its hulking body lay not far from Bladeborn oozing the dark ichor it bled.
After an hour of meditation, Bladeborn recovered enough to walk with Taylon and gather up the creature’s eyes, which had been scattered about the massive cavern.
“They shine in the dark as if they wish to be found,” Taylon said.
“Yes. Perhaps we can use these to free our people,” Bladeborn said hopefully.
“You think there is a way we can control the beast’s magic?” Taylon asked.
“We shall find out,” Bladeborn answered weakly.
A few of the Dwarves and Elves who had fled when the creature first attacked now returned to the cavern where Bladeborn and Taylon were examining the large ruby-colored spider-eyes.
After a period of working with the spider eyes, Bladeborn found that he could make the stone blocks disappear by setting them on the ground and placing them in certain arrangements nearby each other. It took hours of trial and error, but with only two of the ruby-eyes, a block could be made to dissolve, if they were held in the right way. With four of the spider-eyes, they could make a block appear, Bladeborn noted. It was a matter of facing the eye-stones properly and getting the right distance between them.
Bladeborn, Taylon, and the others were overjoyed when they freed the first Dwarf from his cube of stone. Amazingly, those caught within the stone prisons were preserved. The experience of entrapment had been terrifying, but the Dwarves seemed none the worse for it all.
It took them some time, but eventually each of the Dwarves, humans, and Elves had been released from the blocks. Spe as well was released. The dragon had been trapped in stone that completely encased his form.
“I tried to change my size but I was still inside the stones,” Spe claimed. “I underestimated that Demon’s strength.”
King Rosen was one of the last to get out of the stone prisons. He was shaken and disoriented, but unharmed. Since there were hundreds to free, the process took days.
After the experience with the creature, they needed some time to re-assess what lay ahead. They camped for two more days, and then the demoralized soldiers and Dwarven citizens resumed their march toward the Fourth Realm with a much greater respect for the dangers of the underworld.
One of the Dwarf clerics told Bladeborn he was lucky to suffer no permanent harm from his concussion.
After examining him, the Dwarf healer-priest of Aden exclaimed, “Yer lucky ya weren’t struck blind or worse after hittin’ yer head like that, General! Most folks who crack their skulls are never the same!”
King Rosen told the Priest, “General Bladeborn is made from stronger stuff than ‘most folks,’ priest.”
“Thank you for your expert assessment, cleric,” Bladeborn said gratefully
“Don’t go getting banged up like that again, or ye may find yerself not so lucky!” The Priest quipped. He closed his medical pack and wandered off, grumbling to himself.
~~You are lucky this time, Bladeborn. Remember, our fates are interwoven! You must be more cautious!~~
They were a month into their march beneath Draconia. They had experienced a period without further serious incident, traveling somewhere below the Fourth Realm, according to the maps.
They all climbed as the maps indicated… a long, slow ascent. The corridor narrowed, and King Rosen led the column through a long passageway to a door hidden in the rock. Beyond the door were more tunnels, carved long ago, and signs people had passed through recently. The passageway was marked on the maps, the Dwarven clerics noted, which surprised King Rosen. The old court Wizard’s spell was supposed to shield all the Realms and their entrances from magical viewing.
They went through another hidden door, and explored the space inside, which was the lowest portion of the Fourth Realm. It was empty except for smashed, recently-burned furniture, and torn tapestries. They were relieved to find no blood. The Rhinolon had been there, but it looked like the place was evacuated before any human deaths.
King Rosen declared gravely, “Another Realm fallen… Much has happened in the year we have been gone…”
Bladeborn said, “The evidence shows that the people of the Fourth Realm got out safely.”
Telunk, looking at the maps by his blue-glowing staff, offered a piece of the puzzle. The Dwarf cleric stated, “The map indicates that there are several large holes from the surface to the upper layer of the city. Aden’s maps are exact enough to say that the large holes are new tunnels.”
King Rosen ordered, “We should leave here at once! The Rhinolon may return! Everyone out! Back the way we came!”
Since they had traveled from the Dwarf Kingdom, they had gone beneath a large part of the Spiral Mountains, and completely under the area destroyed by the earthquake that struck the Sixth Realm.
King Ros
en and Bladeborn consulted Taylon and Telunk about the possibility of moving great numbers of people from the Realms through the types of environments they had seen so far. They both said that there was a chance it could be done, barring any encounters with things such as the spider Demon or another earthquake.
* * *
They walked onward and King Rosen spoke of his deep regret to Bladeborn, “Our people may all be captured by now. I must live with the fact that the life I’ve known so far is over, and learn to move on. I may never hear from my sister, or any of my other relatives, again, and all that I have known has changed.”
“It is a time of change, my King,” Bladeborn responded. He wished to say something to the King to help bolster his spirits, even though he too was gravely concerned. “We will find some of the people of the Valleys alive. The Army of the Sun could hold tunnels such as these a long time, even against a legion of Rhinolon.”
“I have hope,” King Rosen responded. “Yet the ancient home of my people—it is certainly lost. I worry about the other Kings. With half the Realms destroyed, much of our legacy is forever vanished.”
As he marched, Bladeborn also felt regret. Four years ago, he had dreams of being a father and a King. Now all he had were his prayers that there would be a better life on the yellow sun side of Draconia. When the Heartring had dimmed, he had nearly given up.
Nightslayer said, ~~You may yet live to see Deocarla again, Bladeborn. Do not fret so! March on, and make sure that all who see you can sense the spring in your step!~~
“Nightslayer,” Bladeborn thought to the Sword, gripping its hilt. “I had assumed that you didn’t want me to love Deocarla. That you only wanted me to carry you ever onward.”
~~You are a mere man. Even though I can warn you away from foolishness, I understand that you will go on your path. Deocarla may yet live. THAT is a reason to go onward, if nothing else~~
With such concerns weighing heavily on them, King Rosen and Bladeborn led the column toward the Third Realm in silence. Yet due to Nightslayer’s words, Bladeborn’s spirit was somewhat rejuvenated.
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