by Otto Schafer
“I’ve heard enough of your words, brother,” Apep said, his sword beginning to glow with a radiant blue energy as a razor-sharp tentacle snaked out from the tip. Slowly the strange blade slithered back and forth as if alive before drawing up, poised to strike. Apep pointed the tip of the now-coiled sword toward Syldan. “Soon, Syldan, soon I’ll build an army so immense it will devour this world and unleash hell upon ours. I will force all of Karelia into submission! The entire planet will serve one king! One god!” Apep smiled, toothy and proud.
Garrett and Lenny shared terrified looks.
“You are truly mad, Apep!” Syldan said.
“Balls!” Lenny said. “This is going to break bad, bro, I can feel it.”
Despite the fact that Coach Dagrun just turned into a… drakkawhatever, Garrett still felt in his gut that he could trust him. “No, we still got Coach!”
Outside the stone cell, Syldan shouted ancient words of power in a thundering voice. “Akozak ak ff esh!” His M4 carbine changed from steel to a bright blue light then rematerialized into a brutal-looking war hammer. The head of the hammer rested on a crooked wooden handle wrapped in leather strapping. One side of the head was shining silver, blunt with smaller knobs, like an oversized meat tenderizer, while the other had a black spike that resembled one of the dragon’s talons Garrett had seen a few moments ago. The two sides of the hammer blended together in a swirl of black and silver.
With his other hand Syldan drew a Colt .45. It also transformed into the strange light then materialized into a short double-edged bastard sword. The blade looked as though it was made of black onyx and the handle of ebony. Syldan smacked the two weapons together, creating a loud crack! followed by a brilliant burst of blue light. He ran forward, charging Apep.
Apep tossed his own sword from one hand to the other then back again as he stepped back with his right leg.
As Syldan closed the gap, Apep struck out with his sword, their weapons clashing with a crackle of energy. “You’ve no idea of my sacrifice. Because of you, I was forced to mate with one of these animals. I was forced to go against our own god and create an abomination. That’s how committed I am, Syldan. The laws of our own gods can’t even keep me from my destiny!” He pointed accusingly at Janis.
Syldan blocked with the sword and drove the war hammer down hard from overhead.
Apep side-stepped and countered.
Syldan swiped the strike away effortlessly with the bastard sword.
Flames danced in Apep’s violet eyes. “You doomed me to this place… this filthy place!” He lunged again at his brother, and this time the snaking sword flexed unnaturally, finding its way around Syldan’s war hammer and slicing open his face.
Syldan let out an angry war cry and attacked with both weapons, switching between the war hammer and the sword in a flurry of violent blows. The barrage of swings backed Apep across the chamber toward the sleeping giant. Syldan faked a strike with the bastard sword as he dropped to his knees, striking down on Apep’s foot with the war hammer.
The spiked end impaled Apep’s foot.
He shrieked in pain. “Lilith!”
Garrett and Lenny watched on in stunned shock as Janis changed. Not into the older woman they knew as Eugene’s wife, Lilith, but into something between Janis and Lilith in age, yet not human either. Her skin changed from Janis’s pale peach to a slightly darker blue-grey, she grew taller and more shapely, her ears became only slightly pointed, and her eyes changed to a shimmering gold – similar to Apep’s but with a less pronounced angle and sweeping curve. Her hair, already dark, grew longer and her facial features became sharper – harder.
Pete was sitting fully upright now and looked to be coming to his senses. “What did I miss?”
Lenny shook his head. “Dagrun is Eugene’s brother. Eugene is Apep and neither are human. They’re both some kind of alien thing, and Janis is really Apep’s daughter, a half-alien thing who is also Lilith. There ya go, you’re all caught up!”
“What?” Pete said, crawling over next to Lenny and peering through one of the gaps in the stone. “Janis is Lilith? Janis can’t be Lilith. My Janis? She can’t be Lilith.”
Lenny grabbed Pete by the shoulders and turned him to face him. “Bro! Did you even hear me? You’ve not only been making out with an old chick, but she’s not even human! You were making out with an old lady space alien! Honestly, man, if we don’t die, I’m never letting you live this down. Although, Lilith the half-alien is… kind of hot.”
Pete shrugged Lenny off and pressed his face back to the gap.
Syldan looked up at Apep as a smile stretched across his face. “The power of the God Stones belongs to everyone. Just because you hold the stones doesn’t make you their master!” He struck Apep hard in the face with the hilt of the bastard sword as he stood back up.
Apep covered his face and bellowed in rage.
“God, Breanne, please hurry!” Garrett said over his shoulder.
“You’ve no idea of my power!” Apep said, his voice rising to a screech.
In the stone cell, David opened his eyes. “Holy shit… what happened?”
“He’s waking up!” Breanne shouted. “David, you passed out.”
David sat up, smoothing his mustache and with it his face.
“Are you okay?” Breanne asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” David said, rubbing his eyes. “Whoa, what are those?” He pointed through the columns at Syldan and Apep.
Lenny sighed and then drew in a long breath. “Dokkal-somthin’s. Here’s what you missed. Dagrun and Eugene are actually—”
“Dark elves?” David frowned.
“Huh?” Lenny said.
“They look like dark elves and you started to say dökkálfar. That’s Norse for dark elf.”
“Why do you know that?” Lenny asked, shaking his head.
“Bro, I’ve played every fantasy game there is. Plus, those look a whole lot like dark elves to me… maybe taller than I imagined but—”
Lenny huffed. “But this isn’t a video game—”
“Everything has to come from somewhere, right? I mean we got giants, dragons, and wizards already. And didn’t Mr. B say imagine everything we ever heard about magic was actually—”
“Jesus! Can we please talk about this later?” Breanne said. “David, I hate to ask this, but you need to do to Paul whatever it was you did to Pete. Can you do that?” she asked.
“What did I do?”
“You healed Pete, David!”
David blinked again. “I did?”
“You did, and I need you to do it again… please,” she begged.
“Okay, I… I can try.” David crawled over to Paul and placed both hands on his leg before closing his eyes.
Garrett turned back to the scene outside their prison just in time to see Apep drop to his knees, his smashed nose a fountain of magenta blood. The color was strange but no stranger than his elvish form. The hole in his foot was spilling just as much blood as his face, forming a small pool beneath him. He looked up at Syldan towering over him with his war hammer raised high above his head. “You know… brother, you’ve always… been a better warrior than me. But your problem is you care too much about… honor. You cling too tightly to your morals. But I say, victory goes to the one smart enough to know how to win!” Bloody purple spittle sprayed from Apep’s mouth onto Syldan’s now ill-fitting BDU pants.
“Goodbye, brother,” Syldan said, setting his jaw and swinging the hammer toward Apep’s head.
“Coach!” Garrett shouted too late.
The hammer didn’t move.
Syldan hadn’t noticed Lilith slip quietly behind him, and Garrett noticed too late.
The slender half-elf raised her voice from a whisper to a full-throated yell, chanting an ancient spell.
The war hammer ripped free from Syldan’s hands with a sudden jerk from behind. He tried to turn and look, but his feet were fixed, bound to the floor. He looked down to find dark roots were wrapping arou
nd his legs like a great serpent in a hurry to consume him. Within an instant they were already constricting his waist.
Garrett and Lenny watched helplessly as their coach tried to pull his hand back down to fight the roots, but more roots had made their way up from behind, not only stealing his war hammer but also wrapping around his wrist and yanking his arm behind his back. Quickly, he raised his bastard sword in his only free hand in an attempt to try and hack at the roots. But as he swung, Apep blocked the strike with his own sword, giving the ever-growing tangle of roots the time they needed to snatch the wrist of the only free hand Syldan had left. The roots pulled both hands together, binding his wrists behind him.
Inside the cell David began to glow.
The roots wrapped around the throat of the now-helpless man and began to constrict. Syldan tried to speak words that would nullify the spell. “Flahoz—” he groaned but couldn’t get the words out before the roots squeezed off his air.
Janis called out another word of power. Thorns protruded from the woody roots that were now beginning to look like some kind of leafless, thorn-covered vine. Thorns an inch long, then two, then three grew outward as the vine writhed.
Syldan let out a snarl of rage as the thorns pierced his flesh like sharpened nails.
Apep stood and stared into his brother’s eyes. “That’s why you can’t beat me. Honor is for the weak and morals are for humans.” Apep drew back the sword then thrust it into Syldan’s gut, his wild eyes widening as he drove the blade as deep as he could force it.
“No!” Garrett screamed.
Pressing his face close to his brother’s, Apep sneered as he held the sword fast. He kept it there for a long moment as the strange blade lurched back and forth.
“Look into my eyes, brother! Know that you have failed your father – failed your kingdom! Know that I have ended you!”
Syldan looked past his brother to the stone cell, finding Garrett and Lenny, his yellow orbs darting back and forth intently between the two boys.
With several feet of stone stalagmite between them and Coach, they could only look on helplessly.
“God, Lenny, he’s killing him!” Garrett said as both boys refused to look away. Neither would abandon him.
Slowly the light behind Syldan’s eyes faded like a rogue ember in a cool breeze. Inside Garrett a rage built. No words needed to be exchanged for the message to pass between them. It was on them now. They had to stop Apep.
Satisfied, Syldan nodded, and just before the light winked out completely, he closed his eyes and smiled.
“Farewell, brother!” Apep spat, wrenching the sword free from Syldan’s flesh. The vines released their grip, withdrawing back into the earth.
Syldan’s eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed to the temple floor.
Behind Apep a stone stalagmite column cracked with a resounding pop.
31
Bound by Blood
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
Garrett startled and spun, throwing his hands up as small bits of rock rained down around him. “Holy crap!” Paul was on his feet, both of them, moving like his leg had never been caught in that bear trap. As Paul backed up for another go, Garrett’s eyes found Lenny’s. Lenny made a fist and smiled. Garrett nodded and smiled back. Now they had a chance.
Apep looked back toward the stone cell, then to Lilith. “Deal with them!” He climbed up onto the slab, approaching the head of the giant.
Pressing his back against the opposite wall, Paul ran forward again, launching his whole body at the fractured stalagmite column. The chamber shook as his shoulder compressed against the dense stone. Chunks of fracturing rock exploded from the other side as even more stone rained down from the ceiling, but still the column held.
Garrett and Lenny quickly dragged a once-again unconscious David back out of the way of falling debris.
“I’m not calling this little mustached freak David anymore,” Lenny said adamantly. “From now on he’s Bruce Leroy.”
“The Last Dragon?” Garrett said, digging his heels in as he baby-stepped backward, his hands clasped around David’s wrist.
“Yep, and if Apep starts glowing next I’m going to start calling him Sho’nuff.”
Even in this insanity, Lenny could still find a way to squeeze in an eighties movie reference. It was both inappropriate and comforting at the same time.
Paul rubbed his shoulder, a look of doubt on his face as he sized up the stone column for the third time. There was a big crack along the center, and the top had detached from the ceiling and broken off, but the giant stone column sill stood, unyielding.
As Garrett sized up the column too, a memory came to him – knowledge Mr. B had passed down to him. “Paul! Don’t focus on the column! Instead, look beyond the column, past it, and go there!”
Paul’s brow furrowed, then he nodded slowly as he backed up again, pressing his back against the wall. He narrowed his eyes at something beyond the column and then launched himself off the wall into a dead run, crossing their small cell in five short, fast steps. He roared as his shoulder bit into the stalagmite column.
Garrett flinched, watching but not wanting to watch. Something was going to break… had to break. And something did. This time Paul exploded completely through the thick stone.
Paul’s momentum carried him forward in a stagger that turned into a tumble. He tucked and rolled clear of the debris only to spring back to his feet. He reached forward and touched the stone slab, then turned back toward Garrett with a sharp nod.
Garrett didn’t see Lilith, but he heard her doing that creepy chanting thing again. By the time he cleared the newly opened hole with Lenny on his heels, Paul’s feet were already rooted to the ground, vines winding around his legs.
Garrett reeled to his right in time to see Lilith disappearing around the corner of the slab.
“Get her, Lenny! I’m going for Apep!” Garrett shouted.
Pete and Breanne appeared from the hole next to Lenny.
Paul ripped his feet free of the vines.
Lenny gripped his staff in both hands and nodded.
“Where’d she go?” Breanne asked.
“This way,” Lenny said, pointing toward the corner of the slab. “Go, Garrett. We got her!”
Garrett ran for Apep.
Apep removed the God Stones from inside his jacket, murmuring, “I have waited so long for this moment.”
“I’m going to kill you, Apep!” Garrett shouted, climbing onto the slab. He drew his sword and ran toward him.
Apep waved his hand. “Eshakmue ff esh!” he said forcefully.
Garrett felt Apep’s power hit him full on. It was immense, seemingly bottomless. It pressed against him like a hurricane’s wind, forcing him to stop, then pushing him backward toward the edge of the slab. He was up on the balls of his feet, leaning in. He stepped back into a fighting stance to try and dig the balls of his feet in, but it was no use.
Breanne peered over her brother’s shoulder as Lenny, Peter, and Paul eased close to the corner of the slab. From around the corner a shadow grew, protruding out past the edge. Longer and longer it stretched. Something was approaching from the other side where Janis had vanished. They pulled up short and waited.
Lenny stepped back into a fighting stance as he spun his staff, bringing it around to chamber in his armpit. It pointed forward, ready for whatever came next. “Here we go,” he whispered.
Paul nodded. “Here we go.”
Pete took a tentative step back to stand next to Breanne.
The shadow crept closer to the corner, but when it finally came into view it wasn’t Janis. It was a rat. And not just a regular old river rat, but a giant river rat.
“Balls!” Lenny said.
“Back up!” Paul ordered. They all shuffled back.
The rat was huge, maybe five feet tall on all fours – and it wasn’t alone. Behind it were two more rats just like it, along with a giggling Lili
th. She walked slowly toward them, her father’s sword in her right hand, its tip, now rigid, dragging ominously across the floor of the chamber. “Rayzae!”
The rats attacked.
As the first one leapt, Lenny cracked it in the snout with the tip of his staff, resulting in an unnatural squeal. Paul jumped over the second one, rolled to his feet, and grabbed it by the tail. Then, straining with all he had, he pivoted and slammed the rat against the edge of the stone slab, crushing its skull.
Lilith made a pouty face, then sneered as she made some motion with her hands and spoke more ancient words.
Garrett stopped sliding before he fell over the side of the slab. Apep’s power was incredible, but there was something about it – like it didn’t truly belong to him. What if he was only harnessing power, rather than creating it? What had Coach said to Apep? Something like, you don’t own the stones? Or maybe you don’t own the power?
Apep paused. “Well now, let us see what you are made of, boy! Akdoemue oz doe!” he shouted, as he thrust his open hand out toward Garrett. Grey ribbons poured like thick smoke from his fingers, blanketing Garrett in thick shadows. Once Garrett was completely covered, Apep snapped his fingers and the ribbons of shadow surrounding him burst into flame.
Breanne looked toward the slab just in time to see the envelope of smoke covering Garrett explode in fire. “No!” she gasped.
Three more rats came scurrying from the shadows, growing larger and larger as they approached. From behind them came yet another three. Breanne’s heart began to race as fear gripped her, but she refused to let it take hold. She ran to the wall, where piles of shields and weapons were stacked unceremoniously. Most were decayed beyond use. She grabbed a wooden shield that seemed to be pretty solid. She had to look a little harder for a weapon that was usable, finally settling on a stone-headed tomahawk. Now armed, she sucked in a sharp breath and ran toward Paul and the nearest rat.
