by Brian Fuller
“Take him!” Gen yelled, but as they moved to advance, Tornus threw open the shutters of his lamp and a pale blue light bloomed in the room. In that instant, Gerand and Volney stopped, eyes wide and faces slack, swords clattering to the ground. Tears ran down the haunted face of their host, red rimmed eyes widening with surprise at Gen’s unabated advance. Gen chopped sideways with his sword, the blade passing through Sir Torunus’s neck. The man made no move to avoid the attack.
Gen’s shock followed as he watched the skin behind the blade adhere and heal the instant the blade had passed through, Tornus’s expression turning melancholy. Gen stepped back defensively.
“Believe me,” Sir Tornus said, “I wish that had worked as much as you do. I’ve thrown myself off parapets and cliffs, stood in bonfires, crushed myself under avalanches of snow and rock, and spent months lying in the lake. Nothing will do. I’ve no pleasures but to feast on the spirits of the living, and one as strong-willed as you must satisfy!”
With frightening speed, supple fingers darted for Gen’s neck. Gen sliced at the incoming strike, but the blade simply gave his attacker a newly severed sleeve of his shirt, leaving the arm undamaged and the hand latched around Gen’s throat in a crushing grip. Tornus’s eyes flashed with a spectral light and hungry anticipation, but Gen felt nothing, his attacker’s expression turning to disappointment and curiosity.
Gen kicked the ancient knight in the midsection, sending him staggering back into the stone wall with terrific force. The lamp skittered to the ground as it leapt from Tornus’s grip. Gen sheathed his useless sword and dashed for the lamp, but Tornus recovered quickly and collided with him, sending both men skidding across the floor.
“Well, my young friend,” Tornus hissed as he stood, “I have often wondered what I had become, but you . . . what are you? You’ve no soul to feast on! Are you my damnation come at last? Come, get the lamp if you can, but beware, I just need an instant to consume one of your drooling companions!”
Hand-to-hand they struggled, Gen employing the elven fighting art of Kuri-tan, thinking he could gain the upper hand on his opponent, but Tornus was even more immune to pain than Gen was, quick hits and distracting slaps as useless as his sword had been against the demon at the Chalaine’s betrothal.
“You are fast, young one.” Tornus grinned maliciously. “But enough of the girlish elven fighting!”
Tornus dashed toward Gerand and Volney, Gen leaping onto his foe’s back and covering his eyes, throwing his weight down. Tornus stumbled and then purposefully dropped backward, slamming them both into a bed. The ancient frame broke, Gen’s breath exploding from his lungs as his back hit the cold floor, his enemy’s crushing weight driving him down.
Gen rolled and flung Tornus away from his friends and into a nearby column. As he tried to stand, the blanket tangled around his arms and shoulders, Tornus taking advantage by delivering a crushing punch to his face that sent him to the ground, head spinning. Gen fought for his concentration and his balance, thrashing against the blanket and trying to stay between Tornus and his friends. Just as Gen tossed the blanket away, Tornus rushed him, encircling him in a powerful embrace. Grinning, Sir Tornus reared his head back and butted his forehead into Gen’s face. Gen took the strike on his cheek, ignoring the dull pain and using his weight to pull Tornus down. The knight let go before they fell, Gen landing hard on his backside.
Tornus dashed toward Gerand, Gen realizing that he could not catch Tornus in time. The light shining through the window reminded him of his power, and with a thought he dissolved half of Tornus’s boot heel at a slant, a technique he had read about in one of Ethris’s texts. Even that simple effort winded him, but it had the desired effect. As soon as their host set his hurried foot down, the ankle twisted and broke, sending him to the hard ground, dust exploding from the floor.
Thinking quickly, Gen sprinted forward and grabbed Tornus’s leg and dragged him toward the lamp, feeling the man’s ankle knitting back together under his fingers. Tornus clawed and scratched at the ground, finally grabbing the leg of one of the beds. With another spell, Gen weakened the leg so that it broke off in Tornus’s hand, and, with muscles roping in strain, he pulled Tornus’ body over the lamp and fell on top of him, ramming his elbow into Tornus’s neck and breaking it. The blue light extinguished.
Gerand and Volney’s slack faces regained their tightness and comprehension, and, grabbing their weapons, they rushed to Gen’s side. Already Tornus’s neck was healing, and Gen pinned a thrashing Tornus to the ground.
“Get out!” Gen yelled to the others. “Get out now! Wait for me outside the door. Swords are useless! Go!”
Reluctantly, his companions left. Gen had Tornus flipped onto his stomach, and taking his hair, bashed Tornus’s face into the ground three times as hard as he could muster before extricating himself from the knight and bolting for the door. Tornus regained his feet with impossible speed, but his warped boot heel sent him flailing into the wall, lending Gen just enough time to get out and pull the door closed. Tornus arrived seconds later, and the two men strove with each other, each pulling at the door handle with every ounce of his strength.
“Get out of here! I will find you!” Gen yelled to his friends.
“We can’t leave you!” Gerand protested.
“You can and will! You cannot defeat this foe! Run!”
Gen put enough terror into his voice that the hint of it in his entreaty persuaded his companions to obey. Gen held to the handle, planting his feet against the wall and pulling. Inch by inch the door crept inward, Tornus’s strength fueled by his need to escape and feed.
“How long can you keep this up?” Sir Tornus said, voice strained. “Let me out. Let me out, and I will let you leave this place. I only want your companions. They will sate me.”
An idea popped into Gen’s mind, and he knew what he had to do. Gathering himself, he yanked backward with everything he had left, the door slamming shut. Envisioning the inside of the room, he used Trysmagic to create a lip of stone on the floor just in front of the door. Exhausted, he fell away against the wall on the opposite side, limbs listless and energy spent.
“What in Mikkik’s name?” Tornus thundered. Cursing, he pulled at the door several times before pounding his fists upon it. “You’re a Mage! Let me out of here! This won’t keep me long!” Silence prevailed for a few moments, and then Tornus laughed. “Why, the moons are lovely this evening. I think I’ll go to the window for a better look.”
Gen swore. Legs wobbly, he half jogged, half walked down the corridor, hand on the wall to steady himself. “Don’t go outside!” Gen yelled. Gerand and Volney ran back up the stairs toward him. Gen sat down and probed the bruises on his face, mind racing.
“What happened?” Volney asked.
“I think he went out the window.”
“That is good information and all, but I mean, what happened in there? One minute we’re talking to Tornus, and the next thing I know you’re wrestling with him on the floor.”
“He had a lamp like the ones he showed us for the Uyumaak, but this one was for men, apparently. I was able to resist the spell. He is a Craver, one of Mikkik’s most awful creations, invented sometime near the Shattering. Nearly impossible to kill. I’ll explain later. I think he is heading back in here.”
“Can we gather our supplies?” Gerand asked.
“No. He’s barred the door somehow,” Gen lied, not wanting to explain why the door could no longer be opened and not possessing the strength to undo his spell. “We have to find a place to hide. I think the door into the keep is the only one, and there are no windows on the first floor.”
“If we can find a place to hide, perhaps we can wait until he comes in, hide until he passes, and then make a run for it,” Gerand suggested. “Do you think we can outrun him?”
Gen shook his head. “For a while, but Cravers are relentless and tireless when they want to feed. If he’s shut the gates or pulled in the drawbridge, then we could be in a great dea
l of trouble.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Gerand said. “I think he can manage the gates by himself, though it would take time. The platform across the canyon, however, is too heavy and needs the services of many horses to pull in and out.”
“That is some comfort,” Gen commented, legs feeling stout enough to stand and walk. “For now, let’s head down the hallway and see what we can find.”
“Don’t forget that Bibbs is bumbling around here somewhere,” Volney reminded them. They had proceeded down the hall several paces when Gerand stopped dead in his tracks, a smile spreading across his face.
“What?” Gen whispered.
“The one room he will not think we are in is the one he barred shut.”
“Right,” Gen replied, “but we can’t get in.”
“We can. You have Aldradan Mikmir’s sword. It can cut through anything! We can cut out a section of the door at the bottom, go inside, replace it, and with any luck, he won’t even notice it.”
Gen smiled in return. How could he have forgotten the virtues of the sword? They ran quietly back to the door. “Let me see if he spiked it somehow,” Gen said, lying prone and jamming the sword into the crack beneath the door, breaking apart the rock he had created earlier. “I looks like he jammed some rock underneath it or something. Try it now.”
As they went to open it, they heard pounding on the outer door, Sir Tornus yelling for Bibbs to unlock it.
“If we can beat Bibbs to it, Sir Tornus would be locked outside,” Volney suggested.
Gen pulled them in and shut the door. “It isn’t worth the risk. Volney, jam some of the rock back underneath the door, if you can. Gerand, see how far of a drop it is to the ground. I’ll get our gear packed back up.”
In a few moments, the squeal of the keep door opening suspended Volney’s efforts, and he Gen and Gerand neared the window.
“It is about twenty feet to the ground,” Gerand reported. “Does anyone have rope?”
No one did.
“I’m home!” Tornus yelled from out in the hall. “There is only one way out of this keep! Well, only one way that doesn’t hurt a great deal, and that is through this hallway. So I think I will wander around a bit and see what I can find! A little hide-and-seek, perhaps.” They held their breath as Tornus briefly pushed their door, Volney’s wedges holding long enough to satisfy the Craver that the way was barred.
Gen slid his sword quietly from its scabbard. With precise cuts he whittled away a bit of the stone floor so that Gerand could hold it up while he cut a small circle around it. Once complete, Gerand lifted the section of flooring up and they peered downward. The hole opened up into the kitchen. In the low firelight, they could make out low tables with unidentifiable pieces of meat lying in pools of blood. Quietly, Gen cut more sections of the floor away while Volney and Gerand carefully laid the pieces aside. Once the hole was wide enough, they dropped into the room.
The kitchen smelled of flesh and rot, a large pot reeking of some cooling substance that appeared uncomfortably like what they had eaten for dinner. Even worse, bits and pieces of Uyumaak lay scattered carelessly about the floor. Gen pulled his disgusted friends toward the back of the kitchen until he found what he thought was an outer wall.
Gen raised his sword. “I am going to cut through this wall. It will be noisy, but fast. We run for the gate. Get ready.”
With quick strokes, Gen cut a triangular exit into the wall, the blade passing easily through the thick stones. They pushed their shoulders into the cut out section to heave it outward, the sound of stone grinding on stone echoing through the keep. Somewhere, Bibbs was slapping the walls in warning to his master.
“You should have cut a smaller section!” Gerand exclaimed as the chunk of wall moved inch by inch outward. Several seconds later the stones and mortar crashed to the paving stones outside, and they leaped out into the night. Gen led them back toward where he remembered the gate to be. Stealth was impossible, the litter of bones beneath their feet filling the air with cracks and snaps that echoed about the empty streets. Although exhausted, they knew they could not stop—Tornus knew exactly where they would run.
As they neared the courtyard, Gen suddenly pulled up. “Do you hear that?”
“More Uyumaak,” Gerand stated flatly. “I’ll bet those lanterns of his are still out front.”
Cautiously they approached the courtyard, hugging the sides of a building. Gen chanced a look out into the square and pulled back quickly. “The gates are open, but I think that entire division of Uyumaak soldiers we spied in the glade are milling about out there. I cannot see that any of the lamps are lit. They are searching about at their leisure.”
“What do we do?” Volney asked nervously.
“We think and we. . .” Gen started to reply.
“What is that?” Gerand hissed, cutting off Gen’s comment. A yellowish orb floated just above them for a few moments before dashing away back into the courtyard.
“Run!” Gen ordered just as the sound of Uyumaak speech reverberated through the streets, the sound of their pursuing feet adding to the din. Gerand and Volney followed Gen as they darted down deserted avenues, turning unpredictably at corners and fleeing down alleys to throw off the Hunters. Echoes confused their senses as the scrabbling and scuffing of boots and clawed feet reverberated.
“In here!” Gen ordered quietly. They slipped into a dark building with rock walls and floor, the door and furniture long since turned to dust. “Get down away from the window and don’t move. Don’t breathe if you can help it.”
Moments later, a large body of Uyumaak passed outside. Gen held his breath, hoping they would pass on. They stopped, snuffling and thumping to each other in the night. Abruptly, the entire company fell silent. Beads of sweat pooled on their foreheads as they crouched in the dark, unable to hear anything of their motionless pursuers.
A voice outside incanted. “Hideya Uk!”
“They’ve brought a Chukka,” Gen whispered. White light streamed through the window of the room where they sat, brightening until a blinding luminescent sphere passed through the opening and flashed with the intensity of the sun before winking out.
“I can’t see!” Volney said frantically.
“Stay against the back wall!” Gen’s words barely left his lips when his ears told him that four Uyumaak, probably Warriors, had pushed through the doorway. Gen’s night vision was washed out by the light. Relying on his training, he shut his eyes and listened for the sounds of footfalls and breathing.
Remembering his surroundings, he stepped forward and sliced downward. The sword of Aldradan Mikmir cut through the Uyumaak as Gen laid about him with every ounce of speed he could muster. Two died, cloven in two, before the other two could recover. The Warriors wielded great clubs, and Gen ducked a high swing he heard coming an instant before the devastating blow pounded the wall and sent chips of rock skittering across the floor. A quick upthrust to the gut finished the creature, and Gen spun to impale the last in the back as it leveled a strike against Gerand.
They had no time to think as more Uyumaak charged the door. Remembering something he had read in his Trysmagic books, Gen used his power to create a small patch of razor-sharp spikes at the threshold of the door. Two Hunters had entered before his spell, but the next two fell down in agony as they crossed, tripping up their companions while Gen dispatched with the first.
“Aywejha!” the dark elf outside screamed.
Gen knew the Elvish word. It meant wall, but once his eyes finally adjusted to the dark, he couldn’t see the result of the spell. Quickly he butchered the Hunters that had run afoul of the spikes. The floor was slick and treacherous with blood and bodies.
“I think I can see,” Gerand whispered, “but my sight does little good in this blackness.”
“The Chukka is out there, alone I think,” Gen said. “Let’s run. Kill him quickly. Step on the bodies near the door. The floor is a mess.”
They ducked the window and ran f
or the door as one, slamming into an invisible barrier and falling about into the gore. Cursing, they stood, peering through the doorway to find the Chukka slapping his chest, summoning reinforcements.
“Wait here,” Gen said, extending Aldradan’s sword before him and passing through the invisible barrier. He sprinted at the surprised Chukka who stood alone in the street. The dark elf’s hood was around his shoulders, long dark hair falling loosely down his back. Raising his hands, he started to incant until Gen created a small stone in its mouth. The obstacle threw off the spell, the Mage spitting the stone out just as Gen beheaded him.
“Come on.” Gen waved to his companions, feeling exhausted. Magic took its toll.
“But which way?” Volney asked, terrified.
“Any way is a guess,” Gen wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “We need to work our way back to the gates, but the buildings make it difficult to get my bearings.”
The sound of running Hunters to their left chose path to the right for them, and they loped away into the darkness along the paved streets. Empty rows of blank windows and doorways whirred by as they ran away from their persistent enemies.
“I see a clearing ahead,” Gen informed Gerand and Volney. “Let’s see if we can figure out where we are.”
To Gen’s dismay, the clearing was the edge of the city, the long lines of graves dug and filled by Tornus stretching before them on the other side of the low wall.
“I can’t run anymore,” Volney admitted, nursing an aching side.
“Over the fence!” Gen ordered them. “Lay down at the base and cover yourselves with your cloaks. Let’s render their eyes useless, although we cannot help their noses.”
The overgrown field on the other side of the rock wall provided excellent cover as they rested and listened for signs of their pursuers. Gen fought to control his labored breathing, mind racing. They were trapped on the wrong end of the upthrust rock, gate back to the road hopelessly out of reach.
