by J D Dench
He stopped when he heard a sickening thud followed by a crack. What he saw caused his eyes to widen and he almost lost the very little food he had eaten that day. Gazing downward, his jaw slowly fell to the ground as he stared at what his hammer had struck.
“I know what happened,” Olap finally managed to say, reaching down to pick up the massive skull staring up at him. The skull was five times the size of a man’s, with a third eye six inches above where its nose would have been. Around the base of its skull, around the center of where a human forehead would be, a crown of tiny spikes stuck out. Olap held up the skull, so heavy that it took both of hands. And he held it high enough for everybody to see, so there was no mistake what had happened.
“First the feather. Now this. I’m sure of what happened here, though I have no idea how it could have happened without us knowing.” Olap’s exhausted eyes ran over the face of everybody else. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils and swallowed the boulder in his windpipe.
“The Demons are back.”
His voice was quiet and tired, but it still seemed to carry through the deserted land around them. Everybody’s eyes locked on the skull, and Olap watched each expression change. The only expression that didn’t change was Jonn, who simply took another swig from his flask. Silvia’s hands shot to her mouth, hiding half of her face and only showing her wide eyes. Ulp reached for his crossbow, Gremlin reaching for Ulp’s hand for some sign of protection. And Leif’s eyes shot to the dark, night sky, illuminated only by the impossibly large moon that seemed bigger than ever before.
Olap took a moment to clear his throat as he dropped the skull to his feet. “This means a Demon attacked this town. And if there was one, there was probably more than one..” His eyes went to the Dwarves. “That means you two were right. The wood here was untouched because the Demons didn’t want to burn this wood, or it would destroy the remains of their Demonic servant. And they never want that. They would rather leave the corpse of a dead Demon on this planet for thousands of years to learn to bring them back before letting them rest in peace.”
“That also means you were right to be worried, Olap,” Leif added, his quiet voice louder than Olap remembered it being. “You thought we were being followed and watched. I’d say you were right, because we aren’t alone right now.” He reached down and pulled out his dagger, a beautiful weapon crafted from dragon bone and sharpened to perfection, decorated with a silver hilt and a faint diamond tip around the inside of the blade.
They had been speaking quietly, which made the shriek they heard next all that much louder. The cry was deafening enough to crack bones. The dirt seemed to shift beneath them. The cry from the heavens was like a gust from a hurricane striking against their bare flesh. Without any indication, the giant bird known as Liguin crashed onto the debris right behind where Olap had been speaking, shattering the remaining stones to pebbles and the wood to splinters. Before anybody could move or breath, the bird raised its wings, let out another shriek, and lashed out at Olap with its clawed foot, the claws as sharp, if not sharper, than Leif’s dagger.
The Demon lashed out too fast. Olap had only just enough time to raise his hammer to defend himself. Three of the Demon’s claws shaved away the stone of the hammer, burying themselves halfway through the hammer’s head. The other two found their way around the hammer, ripping right through Olap’s armor and across his exposed chest. While the claws may not have cut Olap to pieces, like the bird Demon wanted, the power was so strong that, even as the claws struck the hammer, Olap was sent directly into the ground. All of his energy was sucked out of him. The experienced Dwarven warrior fell to the ground nearly unconscious.
“Olap!” the Dwarven brothers cried out together. Each grabbed their weapon and ran to Olap’s side. Ulp dove out of the way of Olap’s hammer as it flew past him, the stone nearly striking the Dwarf in the head. As the Demon prepared a second strike, Ulp jumped in its path and blocked the attack with his crossbow. The wood of his crossbow shattered under the Demon’s incredible strength. Gremlin struck out at the same claw with his sword, but the blade snapped in half against the claw.
Gremlin had to fall onto his back to avoid being swept away by the strike. Ulp was thrown into the air and out of the fight, his body flying away from the debris. Somehow he had managed to avoid being killed by the Demon’s claw. His body smacked the ground hard enough to nearly knock him unconscious, but with a shuddering breath he pushed his way to his knees, though a loud crack indicated the shattering of what he expected were his ribs.
“Help them!” Silvia screamed, ripping her blade from its sheath and charging forward without another thought. She ran in front of Gremlin and blocked the claw aimed at him, pushing back against the Demon with all of her force. Her blade was made by more powerful metal than the Dwarf’s had been, but she watched as the metal began to curve toward her as the hilt tried to pull out of her grip.
She was shoved back by Liguin and would have fallen on top of Gremlin if Leif hadn’t been there to catch her. Before she could thank him, he pushed her to her feet and jumped in front of her, blocking the next strike with his dagger. And, incredibly, he matched the Demon’s strength with his own, pushing the claw aside. His dagger managed to stay intact as he pushed back, his shoulders shaking from the amount of effort he had to put forth.
“Stop looking at me and help him!” he shouted, nodding his head toward Olap.
Ulp refused to be counted out of the fight. His pride was too much to keep him down. Climbing to his feet, Ulp charged full speed toward the combat and saw the attack aimed at Olap. Without a thought, the Dwarf dove onto his leader to shield him from the blow.
Liguin watched the Dwarf and laughed in response, stopping his claw and bringing it back down. With both feet digging into the ground, the Demon lunged forward with its beak, the sharp point like that of a spear. Just before the impact, Ulp and Olap were pushed aside by Leif, and the three of them were sent rolling down the hill of stones and splinters.
The beak struck the debris with inhumane power. The power was able to shatter every bone to pieces, nearly even shredding them down to dust. The stones that remained large were sent shooting in every direction as if shot from a slingshot. Leif rolled to his feet at the bottom of the hill and saw the projectiles shooting toward them. He hesitated for an instant before throwing himself over the two Dwarves’ bodies. The stones dug into his back, but Leif was too strong to show pain. Biting his tongue, he managed to stifle any cries that would have escaped anybody else’s lips.
On the other side of the hill, Silvia did much of the same for Gremlin. The stones dug into her spine. A cry echoed through the battlefield from Silvia. Her hands wrapped around the arms of the Dwarf as she sought out any source of strength to help her endure the pain.
Olap’s head hit the ground hard enough to finally wake him up. He pushed Leif off of him and climbed to his feet, looking to his fallen companions. Leif and Silvia were injured, Ulp and Gremlin were more so and unarmed, and all of this had taken place in the span of only a few minutes from only a handful of attacks.
“What are we supposed to do?” Olap asked nobody in particular, as if the Ancient Gods could somehow answer him. With a deep breath, he repeated his question with more anger and venom in his voice than he knew he had. His hand gently brushed against the wounds on his chest. He hissed in pain and looked down at the deep cuts. “This thing has injured all six of us and broken weapons, yet we haven’t left the slightest scratch!”
Nobody knew what to tell him. Ulp managed to get to his knees with difficulty, but he could get no farther. Leif shuddered in pain on the ground, his eyes shut. There were signs of blood trickling from his lips down his face. On the other side of the hill, Olap could just make out the signs of Silvia on the ground, her face hidden by her silver hair. Large stones stuck out of her back, but she was shaking. Olap could only hope she was still alive. Gremlin was on his back staring up at the Demon. And Jonn was nowhere to be seen.
&nb
sp; The bird looked to the sky and screamed again, louder than ever before. If its first cry had been a hurricane, this second cry was the earthquake that would begin the end of the world. Its eyes met Olap’s, and the Dwarf could almost see a smile on its boned beak. The hollow eyes could not be read. There was only darkness within those bones. Slowly, Liguin extended its wings made of nothing but bones. Somehow the beast was able to use the wings to take flight. It held itself in the air only a little, but enough to extend both of its claws at Olap, Leif, and Ulp.
“It’s hopeless,” the Demon said.
Olap realized for the first time that this was the only Demon that had defeated him. And it had never spoken a word. Every other Demon they had ever faced had spoken about its incredible power and fallen at their feet. But this skeleton bird was able to put them in this position with demonstration, rather than gloating its power. With a dry swallow, he realized this might truly be the end. A new type of Demon beyond the reaches of any power they had faced before.
“You’re dead.”
And with a flap of its wings with the power of two tornadoes, the Demon shot forward like a bullet from a gun, the speed impossible to trace with any eyes, the claws only glints of light like daggers coming closer and closer…
Olap closed his eyes, waiting for the claws to rip him apart. With no plan of attack and no weapon, he ran out of hope. His heart slowed down as he felt himself giving up for the first time in his life to the hopeless circumstances he found himself a part of. And, in the darkness of the back of his eyelids, Olap saw a figure appear. At first, he thought it was just a random dot in the corner of his eye, but the blurry figure solidified and represented a Dwarf. A Dwarf that Olap knew. It was Crowley, his brother in arms that was killed over a year ago.
Two more figures stepped up behind Crowley. “You give up too easily,” Lemeldo scolded him. Lemeldo had been the first of his companions killed a year ago. He had been assassinated when training with the original wielder of the Hammer, Tony. Soon after, they had gone in pursuit of the assassins, who had kidnapped Tony soon after killing the Dwarf. “If I were in your shoes, I would be grabbing my hammer and beating those boned claws into splinters!”
“I sacrificed myself for you to live on. You must live on,” Reginald added. Reginald had been the Dwarf to find the remains of Lemeldo and return to the group. He led them to the assassins and walked into an ambush. Soon after, Reginald had sacrificed himself to save Olap from a Demonic woman in an ancient Elven city. “If I died for you to only live another year, I wasted my sacrifice. Go, Olap, and show what a Dwarf can do.”
Crowley came up to Olap. The only living Dwarf felt tears stinging the corners of his eyes. Crowley had been his shield brother until he was killed in the ambush from the assassins. As Crowley wrapped his strong fingers around Olap’s shoulder, Olap swore he could actually feel the hand and wanted desperately to grab it back.
“You have to live on, my brother.” Crowley’s tone was simple. Firm. The way he spoke never gave room for an argument. “You must fight back for yourself. For the three of us. For all the others who died to the Demons. Fight back, Olap.”
Olap took a breath to respond to the trio and was interrupted by a deafening crunch, followed soon by a boom as loud as the largest of bombs. His eyes shot open without hesitation, the three Dwarves he loved so deeply gone in a sudden moment. His gaze locked on the large figure in front of him, but nothing registered in his mind for a moment. It slowly dawned on him what he was gazing upon.
The skeleton bird was on the ground, its sword-like beak only two feet from Olap. The darkness in its eyes had faded to only a regular darkness. Its wings were limp at its side, its claws now motionless against the ashes around the Demon.
“What happened?” Ulp was the one to ask the obvious question. He looked around and saw Leif and Silvia on the ground still. Gremlin was on his knees, but it was clear that he could push himself no farther. Only Ulp and Olap had the strength to climb to their feet. He turned to Olap and repeated his question.
Olap didn’t answer. He walked to the Demon and spotted the cause of the Demon’s death: a spear sticking from its chest. He wrapped his hand around the spear and pulled with all of his strength, but the spear held strong. “There’s a spear here,” Olap announced to anybody who was still conscious.
A spear? A Demon that shattered hammers, crossbows and swords was taken down by a single throw of a spear? Impossible.
“It’s mine,” a voice announced as a figure emerged from the other side of the rubble. The man was uncommonly slim with strangely long arms and legs. His skin was tanned from the sun, and the clothes he wore were dirty and torn up. Cuts and scrapes covered his arms, but his legs looked clean and unharmed. He had a thin goatee on his face, complimenting his thin lips, short sharp nose, and uncomfortably gray eyes.
“Well, my father’s really. But I don’t think he needs it anymore,” he added, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
He makes light of his father’s death?
“Who are you?” Olap asked as the man approached. “Where did you come from?”
The man shrugged. “I’ve been here the whole time. My home was over there.” He pointed toward a pile of stones. “The whole building crashed down on my father and myself. For days I stayed down there, grieving my father only a few inches away from where his dead eyes looked into mine. And then I heard all of you and I knew I had to help.”
“But why did you wait so long to help?” Olap knew he sounded suspicious, but who couldn’t be in such a strange situation?
The man smiled and gestured to where his home was again. “I was trapped in there until an Elf came and let me out. He asked for a drink, so I indicated where my beverages were and grabbed the spear from the carnage to come fight.”
“So you killed a Demon, one none of us could even touch, with a single throw of that spear?” On the other side of the remains of the man’s home, Olap could make out the figure of Jonn. He rolled his eyes hard enough to knock them from his head.
This Elf is as worthless as they come.
“You did?!” Gremlin remarked, a giant grin spreading over his face. He was just approaching where the two figures were talking and heard what Olap said. “That’s incredible! That must have been the greatest throw of all time!”
“It was, brother!” Ulp added, running to his side. “I saw the Demon coming at us at the speed of a meteor when suddenly a hole appeared in its chest. It reached down and—”
“What’s your name?” Olap interrupted. Something didn’t sit right with him, and he wasn’t ready to celebrate quite yet.
“I’m Jam’aal,” he said with a slight bow. “I’m an amateur healer of LivenOak. May I?” This last part he asked while gesturing to Silvia.
Olap was about to decline his offer when the Dwarves cut him off, inviting him to take a look. While Jam’aal tended to Silvia’s wounds, Ulp told Gremlin all about the heroic tale. Somewhere during the tale, Jonn returned with a fresh flask of ale and cheered with the Dwarves, laughing as they tried to create a song to reflect Jam’aal’s heroism.
Olap turned his back to them, shifting Leif slowly onto his back. “Are you alright?” Olap asked, his voice concerned, though if it was more concern for Leif or Silvia, Olap didn’t really know.
Leif blinked hard a few times before narrowing his eyes open and glancing at Olap. He coughed up blood but wiped it away instantly. “I’ll heal,” Leif said simply with a grunt. He tried to sit up but fell back down with a cry. Olap went to help him up, but Leif swung his arm at the Dwarf and pushed him away.
“I’m fine, Olap,” he said, clearly agitated. “But listen. You can’t trust that guy.”
“What guy?” Olap asked. Slowly, he realized Leif was referring to Jam’aal. The realization slowly dawned on the Dwarf. “You were awake this whole time?”
“Something’s wrong about him,” Leif said quietly, ignoring Olap’s question. He turned his head away and coughed up more blood. He wiped hi
s mouth and continued, “I know you see it too. Many things lie in the world, but the moon never lies.”
Olap just stared at Leif, not quite understanding what the Elf meant. “The moon?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Olap,” came Jam’aal’s voice. “I’d like to take a look at the boy, if I may. You can go check on the other elf. She’s awake now.”
How did he learn my name?
Olap pushed to his feet and stood uncomfortably close to Jam’aal. “I will,” he said flatly, his tone revealing nothing as he walked past the man. His eyes cut straight through the man’s mistcolored eyes, but all the Dwarf found beyond was darkness. He walked a few steps toward where Silvia sat up, the two Dwarves checking on her.
They check on the girl, but nobody pays attention to the quiet boy, Olap thought to himself. He turned back and looked in Leif’s direction. He stood toe to toe with that Demon and risked his life to save two Dwarves. I’ll remember that.
And now, looking back, Olap thought about the moon. Leif’s words echoed in his head.
“The moon never lies.” His words sounded hushed in the harsh wind as it whipped around him.
What about the moon? The color? Size? The light? That’s how Leif had found the Demon’s feather. Is there more he sees than I do?
Olap looked toward the others again. Their shadows were long in the moonlit night. He looked down at his own shadow and saw an equally long shadow. Looking toward Leif and Jam’aal, Olap thought he finally understood.
There was only one shadow stretched behind them. And it was lying down.
They set up camp for the night, Jam’aal tending to their wounds. Leif was back to his feet, but he had a bad limp in his right leg from his uncomfortable landing when diving in front of Olap. Silvia was also walking around, but the scars down her arms would never fully heal. Ulp and Gremlin, for the most part, weren’t terribly injured, but they desperately needed the time to rest and regain their strength. And Olap refused Jam’aal’s assistance to his wound, telling the man he was fine. He wrapped the wound around his chest himself with the assistance of Leif’s careful hands.
