by RW Krpoun
Claws grated across my breastplate, tore at my trousers, and snagged my studded bracers; sweat poured down my torso from the exertion, and blood oozed down my limbs from a dozen shallow cuts, but I kept putting one foot in front of another, and Fallsblade’s unbloody length never faltered.
Step by step Burk and me hacked our way forward, and I could feel the others pressing in close in our wake as we advanced as a group, as we had lived these last few months. That counted for something, I decided.
Then the stark outlines of a stone slab held aloft and uneven by two other slabs loomed out of the darkness, and the black things, those whom hadn’t been made to vanish by our weapons, scampered away into the darkness. For long seconds Burk and me stood, lungs working hard, taking in air and wondering what was next.
Then what was next came out from under the dolman: two figures, each topped with soaring elk horns. These stood straighter than the one I had fought, and their limbs and torso were covered with wood armor, each piece cunningly carved and connected to its neighbor by leather straps. The one that faced me wore a face-cover made from the skull of what I guessed was a bear, and had two long, slender swords made of glistening volcanic glass.
I looked at mine with its wood armor and stone weapons, and shook my head. No wonder the First Folk weren’t around anymore. I moved Fallsblade into a low center guard and waited for it to come to me. It advanced one clumsy step at a time, shifting its blades with each step, which I guessed was supposed to be intimidating, but it just told me that this thing didn’t know how a blade was supposed to be used.
Two blades can be effective, Hatcher certainly could fight that way, but in my opinion it requires shorter blades and the willingness to work close in. Without warning I stepped in, thrusting chest-high, catching it in mid-stride. It shuffled to a halt, bringing its blades in and crossing them to parry, driving Fallsblade up.
I bored in, raising my hilt so the parry moved my blade over my right shoulder as I slammed my left shoulder into my foe, the impact driving its right arm across its chest and knocking it off-balance. Sidestepping, I brought Fallsblade in overhand, the impact shattering the thing’s right upper arm guard and cutting deep into the waxy flesh beneath.
I brought my sword up, the pommel rising to eye level as I rotated the hilt to bring the blade in line, centered over my head, and then down in a hard strike with my weight and back into it as the thing struggled to get its right blade into position to parry.
Black glass met steel in a successful parry, but not every strike made is intended to connect: Fallsblade shattered the thing’s weapon, and I was backing away, bringing my sword into a back right guard, the crossguard centered on my right hip and the point extending down behind me, a guard with many possibilities.
Elk-horns discarded its broken weapon and put both hands on its remaining weapon as it closed, moving deliberately. I stepped into a hip-height outside swing leaning to the right to avoid the blurring black strike aimed at my head, losing a little momentum, but preventing my skull from getting split. Elk-horn’s edge caught me on the top of the left shoulder, creasing the metal of my breast-and-back, and drawing blood from my left ear as shards flaked off the glass blade. My stroke split the guard on the thing’s left thigh and left a shallow gash.
Rather than a full recovery, I stepped in as I raised my hilt and twisted, bringing my point in and up to shear a fang in half as it plowed into the skull face-cover, splitting the bone and ripping across Elk-horn’s face. Fallsblade’s point missed the eyes (the lack of a nose made it difficult), glanced off the root of the left horn, and then I was moving to my left and back as the glass blade sliced open my left bracer and the edge kissed bone.
The strength in my left arm was draining as fast as the hot blood which washed across and under my left fighting glove, but I never needed both hands to win a bout before, and that wasn’t going to change now. I came back fast with a short, hard swing at Elk-horn’s neck, and Elk-Horn was a second too slow on the parry, its finely-jointed wood collar splitting, but saving the beast from a potentially fatal wound.
In the distant back of my mind I was impressed: whoever had carved this armor had been a master, using the natural strength of curvature to make up for the wood’s limited strength.
The time for style and finer points was done: we were both bleeding, and Elk-Horn’s armor was developing gaps; it was basic strokes and the willingness to get in close and get hurt that was going to carry the day. The blades flashed in short, hard arcs, black and light, glass and steel, parrying kept to a minimum (and on Elk-horn’s part, careful, lest it lose its last blade), and blood flowing on both sides.
As we turned, side-stepped, and struck I caught a glimpse of Hunter and Provine Sael by one of the dolman’s support slabs, Hatcher covering them from the attentions of a couple of tar creatures, but that wasn’t my concern. My duty was to kill this beast, and when that was done, to end anything else that came to hand.
I caught Elk-Horns off-guard with a sudden side-step as the exchanges ground on and my lungs threatened to turn to ash, and shattered the left side of its three-part breastplate, Fallblade’s edge grating across ribs as wood fragments flew.
It dropped its sword and dove onto me, its long, taloned fingers ripping at my breastplate’s vertical steel neck guard as I hit it twice with Fallsblade’s pommel and then discarded the sword as I landed on my back, the creature atop me. I punched it repeatedly in its wounded side with my right while I got my aching left arm inside its grip and planted against its weak chin, pressing upwards to turn its head away and force its right hand from my neck.
The damn thing was strong, but so was I, and for terrible seconds we matched strength against strength, its talons trying to force their way between the lip of my neck guard and my jaw (I had tucked my chin down like a turtle pulling its head into its shell) as I forced its head away and punched for all I was worth, feeling its weakened ribs flex with each hit.
My left arm was a pillar of white-hot pain, and my blood was pooling in my armpit as I struggled to push its head even further to the side, and I was feeling my punches all the way to my elbow, but this was no time to count the costs.
Then Elk-Horns moved, twisting back and to its left to release the pressure on its jaw and head, and as it went I twisted to my right and drove my left elbow into its lower right forearm, breaking that hand’s hold on my neck. Grabbing its left arm with both hands I continued my right-ward torso twist, breaking that hand’s grip on my neck and dumping Elk-Horns off of me.
Rolling to my feet, I swept my axe from my belt and brought it down in a brutal chop that caught the beast on its right upper chest. Its armor split and it was driven to its backward knees, but my axe handle shattered at the impact, and part of my brain belatedly reminded me that it had not been treated by Provine Sael’s Arts.
Discarding the stump of a haft, I grabbed the beast’s antlers as I rammed my right knee into its armored back and twisted. It got its left hoof out and braced on the floor and slowly forced its way to its feet, but I managed to shift my grip a bit back on its antlers and use them to lever its head further, hooking my right leg inside its right leg to keep us together. It tried to claw at me, but its fingers-talons weren’t sufficient to rip through the tough material of my trousers, much less my leather bracers. Its height was now a disadvantage as it struggled to stand, exerting even more strain on its neck vertebrae as it tried to get its body set to bring its full strength to bear.
For eternal heartbeats we were locked together in the weird non-light as both strained against each other and our own wounds, all skill gone, the fight now down to sheer animal strength.
I felt the bone disk start to give, and then crumble under the terrible pressure, the ‘feel’ of it transmitted through the antlers; Elk-horns arced in agony, its body as rigid as the hardwood plates in its armor, and then it spasmed wildly as the damaged spine sent uncontrolled orders throughout the body.
I released the horns and stagger
ed to catch up the bar of white light that was Fallsblade, feeling whole again with a hilt in my hand. My left hand was cramping into uselessness and stars were starting to dance across my vision from not having enough air, but nothing materialized from the darkness to attack me, so I focused on breathing, and after a few seconds, tried to take a bearing on my surroundings.
A sort of spiderweb of light, or glowing thread, was slowly crawling across the dolman’s horizontal slab, the product of Hunter and Provine Sael, who were doing something by the stones. Hatcher was resting on one knee, breathing hard, and after a moment I spotted Burk a short distance away, limping in a circle, catching his breath, half his face a mask of blood that looked deep purple in the weird non-light.
Managing to straighten up, I followed Burk’s example and moved slowly, focusing on managing my breathing, the flashing lights dying out and my head clearing a little. Elk-Horns had vanished, gone to who knew where.
Slowly the web grew to encompass the horizontal slab, and then Hunter and Provine Sael backed away, the latter pulling Hatcher along by the shoulder. The web seemed to glow a bit brighter, and then slowly faded away until it, and the slab it had encased, were gone. Moments later the non-light seemed to drain away, leaving us standing in near darkness breathing wonderfully ordinary, dust-flavored air.
“Well, that’s the hard part done,” Hunter said with satisfaction, his light orbs sweeping into the barrow to illuminate our battered group.
Provine Sael nodded once, just a sharp chin-dip. “Indeed.” Catching sight of me and Burk, she shook her head. “And now the butcher’s bill must be made right.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I will have to stitch it up,” Provine Sael advised me as she worked on my left arm. “It is too deep for me to fully heal it, given the demands upon my services, and it is too long to simply wrap. There will be no lasting damage, but it will leave a scar.”
“All right, mistress.” Most of her power had gone to replace Burk’s left eye, and I would be acquiring several new scars, but what did that matter when compared to an eye? The important thing was that once she had done what she could, the feeling and use returned to my two middle fingers on my left hand.
While the Dellian worked Hatcher limped off to collect Pieter, and Hunter studied the carvings on the remaining parts of the dolman.
“You’ve been promoted to muscle,” the ‘slinger greeted the engineer when the latter arrived, lugging a sledgehammer and a six-foot prybar. “Knock down this dolman.”
“Hmmmm,” Pieter dumped the tools and circled the structure as Hatcher helped Burk into the bedroll she had brought.
“Give me a minute and I’ll help,” I offered.
“No, you won’t,” Provine Sael shook her head. “Let the blacksap start to work, and favor the stitches. I’m sure Pieter knows how to use a sledgehammer.”
“I do,” the engineer nodded. “And Smokey can help mhm with the heavy work.
Hatcher unfolded a stool and sat down by me with a sigh when Provine Sael was done. I sat cross-legged, unbuckling my baldric using only my right hand, which wasn’t as easy as it looked.
“That was unpleasant,” she observed, handing me a wineskin.
I took a mouthful of wine cut with resin to keep it from going sour, and passed the skin back. “I’ve had worse.”
“I imagine.”
“You hurt?”
“I got knocked on my rear and twisted my ankle. I’ll leave my boot on until I can soak my foot. That and a few scratches that aren’t worth a bandage. Those black things weren’t too quick, and they homed in on you and Burk; I was just handling stragglers.”
“What were those things?”
“I have no idea. But I think you two fought First Folk.”
“Is that wine?” Hunter came over.
“Really poor wine,” Hatcher handed over the skin. “What were we fighting?”
“Foam on a wave of integral effect.” The ‘slinger took a long pull. “That is really bad.”
“Seriously, what were they?”
“I was serious. Call them unformed necromantic constructs. Probably.”
“So…what, ghosts?”
“No.” Hunter sat down and took another drink. “Ach. Ask Provine Sael.”
“What about the things with horns?” I asked.
“Those, my friend, were actual First Folk.”
“I thought they were all gone.” I liked that he had called me ‘friend’.
“They are.” He frowned at the dolman. “I think, and this is just me guessing, the Elder Ones set something up, think of a loaded crossbow. In this case, the bolt waiting to be launched were some of their own people, and whatever the black things were. The Dusmen are pulling the trigger, and we fought a little of the quarrel while cutting the bowstring. Sort of.”
“We stopped it, right?” Hatcher asked.
“Yes,” the ‘slinger nodded, and took another drink. “The Dusmen are in for an unhappy surprise.”
“How long until they know?”
“I don’t know if they will know before they try to launch their grand scheme, but if they don’t know before, they’ll definitely know afterward. I expect they’ll be sending people to look at this place, which is why those supports need to be gravel before we leave.”
“A task you could help with,” Provine Sael, looking tired, noted as she came over and sat with a sigh. She had collected her earrings first thing, and now she and Hunter reclaimed their swords. “Is that water?”
“Really bad wine,” Hatcher noted.
“Needs must.” The Dellian took a long drink.
“What were the black things we fought?” Hatcher asked, accepting the wine skin and taking a swig.
Provine Sael sigh. “The First Folk were great necromancers, as you know. They harvested…well, malign spirits and the suffering of innocents, those sorts of things, and refined them into the, well, power that drove their undead creations. What we fought was simply that force in a raw state, made active by the unnatural conditions we were fighting in.”
“Did the dolman make things like that?”
“The dolman was a funnel through which the power flowed. Or perhaps a sluice gate. Anyway, when we broke the dolman we closed the passageway. There will be other passages, but not in time for the Dusmen’s original plan.”
“Did we kill the black things?”
“No,” the Dellian shook her head. “They weren’t alive to begin with. The First Folk, now, well, Hunter?”
“They’re dead. Or still are.”
“So the First Folk we fought,” I sheathed Fallsblade, having finally gotten the baldric off. “They were like fish on ice? Kept until needed?”
Hunter raised his eyebrows. “Not a terrible metaphor. Yes, the bolt in the crossbow example is made up of the black things, a few First Folk to command them, and the ability to create the effect we all experienced. Or possibly that is just the first part, and something more sinister is the rest; there’s a huge amount we don’t know.”
“I expect the plan was for the effect to arrive in mid-battle,” Provine said thoughtfully. “What you call the ‘black things’ would have occupied freshly-slain corpses, and joined battle against the Imperial troops.”
“If the Dusmen aura worked,” Hunter added. “Although I bet the Dusmen would have hedged by letting their forces be driven back so the newly-arrived Undead would have appeared behind the Imperial fighting line. The overall effect we experienced would not have lasted long, but coming without explanation I am sure it would have been very demoralizing, and then to be followed by undead attackers…well, the Dusmen would have wreaked bloody havoc on the Imperial forces.”
“And the Undead force would simply move from corpse to corpse if cut down,” Provine Sael added. “Eventually the black forms will dissipate, but that could take as long as a full cycle of the moon, and the chaos they would raise could be fatal to the Imperial Army, and thus the Empire.”
“But they can still
do it,” Hatcher frowned. “The Dusmen.”
“They can,” Hunter nodded slowly. “But the stars, season, and other factors must align again, to include a specific place. Working off what we found on the stones and what I just saw on this dolman, I would guess that it will be nearly a year before the Dusmen can try to fire the crossbow again under conditions that are useful to them.”
“So why did the Elder Folk load this crossbow and then just leave it?” Hatcher asked, absently rubbing her booted ankle.
“There the metaphor breaks down,” Hunter took another swig. “The Elder Ones created something that I think is most certainly a weapon. The Dusmen’s vassals figured how to make it useful, albeit in a crude form. But the Dusmen’s use is not what the Elder Ones had in mind when they created it.”
“How did you figure all that out from First Folk carvings?” Hatcher persisted.
“The same way you know how to figure how a trigger leads to a particular trap; the Arts are connected at certain levels. If I was pressed, I could not list the specifics of what the Dusmen are causing to take place, but we were able to work out enough, with the various bits of information we had, to put together a general picture, and from the information on the stones we could locate a factor that could be exploited.” He waved a hand to the dolman, where Pieter was working.
“But we can’t warn anyone?” Hatcher shook her head.
“Some knowledge is best left unknown.” Provine Sael said somberly. “But we can send hints, anonymously, to certain people concerning the possible use of powerful necromantic effects by the Dusmen that are tied to seasons and places. It is far from perfect, but it would help.”
“And time may do the job for us.” Hunter drained the wineskin. “The Dusmen, as I’m sure I already told you, use a battering ram approach where the Arts are concerned, and the surviving works of the Elder Folk are timeworn. “
“What about heading north and knocking down more dolmen?” I asked.
“Most dolmen are just stones,” Hunter shrugged. “The key points, like that in the Place of Mounds, can defend themselves. If we hadn’t had a Provine along, this place would have never been vanquished by our group, and there are not a lot of Provines wandering around.”
