Dril bent backwards, however, allowing the blade to pass easily over his nose, and then came up spinning with blades cutting at Mazoroth’s arms. The Horg was quick to elude the attack, but a bit shaken at Dril’s speed, and thought it better to attempt a different attack.
Dril’ead pivoted sideways, removing his back from the other Horg’s, and moved into a new position where he could see all six of them. No one ever felt comfortable with the notion of having your opponents’ servants lined up behind them when fighting.
Dril was going round behind Mazoroth now, springing from foot to foot without strain.
A vibration shook the ground underfoot, then, and Dril’ead halted his leaping ridicule round Mazoroth to feel the tremor and guess its source.
Mazoroth grinned at Dril’s puzzled expression. “Your people are no match for the witchcraft behind such a being as the monster which is tarring your city to pieces!”
“Witchcraft you say?” Dril growled, understanding the perpetrator behind those words. “A witch of such power is only found amongst the destroyed beings of Zurdagg! Maaha Zurdagg is your chief, isn’t she?”
Mazoroth shrugged, saying, “For the present time, and only for such a payment that we are promised to receive.”
“Payment,” Dril laughed wryly, “There is no payment for you! Maaha is a deceitful one, and will trick you into doing her will; and before you know it, you are owned by her witchcraft!”
“I do not care for your words,” Mazoroth growled. “Why should I believe you any more than her?”
“You shouldn’t,” was all Dril answered.
The trembling came again, and this time stronger. Dril looked about knowing that something dreadful was happening below, but he did not know what exactly.
“What is this thing that you speak so highly of?” Dril asked.
“It is an Earth Elemental, come to destroy everything that is left of this pathetic city,” Mazoroth mocked.
“An Earth Elemental,” Dril breathed in disbelief, but knowing it to be true.
“If you are to save your city, best start with it,” Mazoroth laughed in mockery. “Many already of your faithful soldiers have been useless against such a thing as it. So many lives just for one slab of moving rock, filled with power beyond your reckoning. You might as well give the fight up here and now, Neth’tek Vulzdagg. No more need die on your account.”
“Actually,” Dril’ead said, gazing off into the distant destruction of the city, “there is one life that need be ended. And it should be ended right here, right now, and removed from this already damned world before the end comes for all.”
Mazoroth cocked his head to one side in confusion. Though, as Dril’ead’s smile slowly twitched onto his lips, Mazoroth knew what was about happen. However, he was too slow to react to the sudden quickness of the fighter as he came forward with a leap, slamming both blades against the heft of the ax Mazoroth threw up in defense.
Enough momentum was powered behind the light Dril that the Horg was thrown backwards, off his hairy feet.
Dril passed over Mazoroth, keeping the strong momentum going as he charged the five that were left standing against the edge of the drop before the citadel doors.
Dril slashed straight through the shaft of the first’s axe, and threw the beast aside with a slash across its throat. Before charging the next two that held their position, Dril’ead leaped as they both cut downwards with their blades.
The feet of the fighter came up, catching the two on their jaws and tossing them backwards with the force of the blows.
The last nearly dropped its cricked sword as Dril came down on top of it, smashing into its face with his shoulder, and pushing it a step backwards – right off the edge of the citadels crown.
The fall was long, and the Horg was struggling in midair as it fell, grasping at nothing as it panicked to save itself. Dril was smacked in the face several times before it slammed itself into the side of the citadel, breaking bones in many painful places.
The fall wasn’t nearly as far as it usually would have been, though, if the Elemental hadn’t been standing directly below them. But the Horg didn’t land upon its stony head with Dril’ead, and instead fell to land hard upon the ground beneath.
Dril’ead was shaken by the fall, but the fire in his heart would not let him rest. He did not stop to hesitate before taking both his scimitars and raising them high into the air, holding fast with his legs upon the head of the Elemental as he had done before with the Faxtogar demon.
The warrior roared like a wild animal, and brought both blades downwards in an arch that jammed them hard into the green glistening eyes of the Elemental.
The blades went deep, and they stabbed right into the essence of the Earth Elementals life source.
The monster staggered backwards, throwing out its arms and taking out chunks from the walls of the citadel, its eyes fading slowly from their glowing heat. Its feet came up from the ground, and it fell backwards into the central street of the city. Soldiers and Basilisk riders scattered so that its mass wouldn’t crush them as it struck the earth.
Dril’ead jumped just before it hit the ground, and landed with a headlong roll across the street to land among the ruin of a barracks. But as the Earth Elemental slammed into the ground, it shattered into all the tiny mice that had formed it in the beginning.
People cheered to see the Elemental fall, and the cave-crabs retreated as the mages continued their rain of fire upon them.
However, the fight within the monsters of the Lesser Realm was not through just then. More things besides the cave-crabs climbed from the earth, and such things as these stood tall with arms and legs, and had eyes that burned into the darkness to view everything in the infrared spectrum.
These were Darklings from the Lesser Realms. Their heads were shaved and glistened in the glowing light above. They charged upon their feet and fists like animals, despite their humanlike appearance.
Dril’ead jumped back to his feet when seeing these strange beings charging from the splitting earth. He came upon them with his scimitars, slashing them until they fell, and then continued through the charging monsters.
There was much more to the Darklings than their appearance as naked Followers. They bore claws the size of daggers as fingers, and could easily slice through the hard armor of the soldiers. But many of the fighters resisted, knowing well the art of melee fighting, and the training they had all received in past years and decades was enough to keep them alive.
But too many such monsters around one was difficult to handle, and as the minutes rolled by during this endless battle filled with endless charging creatures, the Darklings learned that teamwork was what they needed in order to drive a claw threw the center of a surrounded Follower.
Dril fought hard, never breaking a sweat despite his efforts. His mad rage burned hotter and hotter within him as his blade cut threw tens and soon twenties of the things. He could not name them, nor could he name most monsters from the Lesser Realms. That place was a mystery to most all creatures, and there was no knowledge of a passage leading unto it.
The Darklings surrounded Dril’ead, though his quickness outmatched the slender beings around him, and he was cutting down and sideways into each one as it came near.
One darkling threw out its clawed hand toward Dril’s throat, but the prince had his sword up and shattered the claws from its hand with a hard swinging stroke behind a roar of rage. The Darkling screamed in agony, but was cut short as Dril’s second blade went up into its throat.
Another came from behind, and Dril’ead spun round and cut off its arm at the elbow, then taking its head off with another stroke behind the first. A hand launched at him while he was still busy with the dying Darkling before him, and the claws sliced through the mail of his right sleeve, leaving behind four clean cuts on his forearm.
Dril’ead finished this Darklings’ senseless day by smashing it hard in the face with the pummel of his scimitar. It fell dead at his feet, but Dril�
��s wounded arm throbbed in pain from the cut, and was already beginning to sting.
The fire in his eyes was dying because of the pain. However, as something out of his vision ripped his sword from his already weakened grasp, they returned tenfold.
Spinning round he took the Darklings’ arm as it was coming down upon him with his freed hand, and flipped behind the wretched thing, slamming its claws into its own chest. Then, taking its head in his other hand, he snapped its neck, steeling its pain. But in his maddened attack Dril found he had dropped his last scimitar.
“Alright,” he growled to the monsters encompassing him and his soldiers, “You want to fight that way? I’ll fight your way!”
In the chaos before him there was an opening, and those on the inside of this opening were staring at a spectacle that raised Dril’s anger to its highest.
The Earth Elemental was reforming!
In his anger Dril’ead locked the head of a nearby Darkling in his armpit, and twisted it violently until it broke with a horrid snap!
He dropped the dead creature and charged through the crowd, running straight for the rising mound of rock as more and more stone mice built its mass.
Dril leaped onto it, gripping it by its rock side with his strong hands, and began to pull himself up its side.
If this thing wasn’t going to die easily, then Dril would be sure it died hard.
Its legs and torso had finished forming, but by that time Dril’ead was standing atop it, and the mice were scurrying round him and climbing onto his legs, forming over his body as if he were to become a part of the Elemental.
Dril only straightened his posture as the mice surrounded him within seconds, attaching themselves now to his knees.
It was Skandil, fighting among the soldiers of Vulzdagg, who first noticed Dril’ead as he slowly disappeared into the form of the Elemental. He could not guess the warriors intention, but only could watch helplessly as his leader was consumed by the stone mice.
Skandil wanted to scream, call out to his captain to stop before it was too late. But it was too late then, and there was nothing he could do.
But Dril looked up from where the mice were now covering his throat to conceal his face, and he met the eyes of Skandil in the center of the chaos, and winked.
Dril was now fully consumed, but Skandil had no time to think about what had happened. Darklings surrounded him and the fighters beside him, and he was forced to use the weapons he had in his hands to fend them off.
His shield rose to deflect their thrashing claws and allow his sword to finish their days in the darkness.
The Elemental rose to its full height once again, and looked down upon the Darklings and The Followers that were scattered in chaos at its feet.
Skandil looked up into its burning green eyes as it waited for its magical life to pour into it, flashing red for only a brief second, and he thought for a moment that they were the eyes of a Follower.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Simply Surviving
Mazoroth could not believe what he saw as he watched Dril’ead – or Neth’tek, as he believed him to be – leap onto the forming body of the Elemental and allow himself to be consumed. He exchanged glances of disbelief between his existing followers around him on either side, and shook his head as he watched the Elemental rise once again against the troops of Grundagg and Vulzdagg as they fought to no avail.
Chuckling to himself, Mazoroth spoke. “What a pathetic creatures a Follower is in this world of pure survival. How can such beings be so blind to the reality of life? This is no world of honor or one of respect. This is a world of war, a never ending battle between those who seek power and those who attempt to gain more to their own advantage. There is nothing to live for but to survive.”
Looking to the nearest Horg at his side, Mazoroth finished in a low voice, “A life of simply surviving.”
The Horg’s nodded or grunted their agreement to their chieftain’s words, but no more could be said when the unbelievable happened.
Below them, in the midst of the battle, the Earth Elemental began to make its charge – but in the wrong direction! It ran full sprint, as fast as its rock legs would carry it, toward the gap in the earth where a glowing light emanated.
Not a moment was to be lost in the mind of Dril’ead!
“What is happening?” Mazoroth roared in rage, “Where is the witchcraft of Maaha Zurdagg going? To abandon us no doubt! She has betrayed us!”
“But The Follower,” a Horg put in at his side, “Perhaps it has taken control!”
“Impossible,” Mazoroth told them, but as it was mentioned he wondered the same.
Chapter Forty
The Wings of Swildagg
The darkness before them was empty, and the drake flew smoothly and with great speed away from the citadel of Neth’tek and Vaknorbond’s home; leaving it all behind in the awful battle that was taking place. The tears on Neth’tek’s face were immediately dried in the current of air that he was plunged into as the drake sped quicker with every beat of its leathery wings.
Vak did not speak, but rather kept his thoughts private; and Neth’tek felt alone on the back of the drake with his father. It was as if neither was there to him, even though he knew perfectly well that he was not alone. However, from the empty darkness before them, Vak saw what he knew would come after him as he fled.
Six drakes entered the infrared spectrum, coming at Vak with incredible speed, armored in the armor of Swildagg. Reigning in his mount, Vak drove his drake downwards to dodge the income of the other drakes.
Harsh voices echoed overhead, some in the magical language while others of plain dark dialect as they passed harmlessly by. The magical words warned Vak of the magic strikes against his drake.
They’ll go for its wings, he calmly told himself, and he directed his mount into a spinning motion to their right in time to miss the impact of magical attacks as they whizzed by in bursts of flames right behind them.
Neth’tek clutched tightly to the cloak of Vaknorbond as he saw the bursts of light just behind the tail of the drake. The air was suddenly sucked from his lungs as the drake began its spinning motion, dodging each attack with quick agility. His stomach lurched and he nearly threw up from the unsuspected angle changes in the coming five seconds of at least fifteen spins.
When the drake leveled, Vak directed it straight upwards. Looking back, one could see that below them now were the pursuing drakes and their mounts. A drake below quickened its speed with strong strokes of its wings, plunging faster and faster foreword to catch the escaping Vulzdagg’s.
Vak saw it coming, and knew the others must be flanking him from behind. He had only one option. He could no longer flee them, but fight until they or he fell into the darkness below. He leaned forward and whispered into his drake’s ear something that Neth’tek couldn’t hear over the sound of the air rushing past his ears, and the cursing and commanding of the attacking Swildagg’s around him.
And then Vak released the reigns of the drake, and reaching to his hips he took his scimitars.
Gripping now with his knees, Vak withdrew his swords from their cases at his hips, and breathed deeply; prepared for what would follow.
They were cut off by the sudden upward movement of the drake passing them from below. Suspecting such an action, Vak had already known what his reaction would be against it.
Vak’s mount tucked in its wings and went sharply to the left, nearly throwing Neth’tek from the saddle, and Vak’s right hand scimitar cut fiercely into the throat of the Swildagg with a wide swing. The enemy that had once been in their path was now falling from the air behind them.
Two Swildagg drakes came at them, one on either side of Vak and Neth’tek.
Vak swerved to the left, going at an upwards angle to pass over the head of the Swildagg there, and swung with his scimitar to miss by an inch over his targets head. He managed, however, to draw the two Swildagg’s closer together as the right hand drake came nearer to attacking
Vak’s. Vak’s drake spun in the air, bringing him over and beneath the Swildagg’s mount. The right hand mount came in on him, coming closer to the one directly above Vak with each beating wing.
All three of The Followers were moving forward at high speed, and Vak knew that the cavern wall was soon to bring him into a dead end. But perhaps this could be used to his advantage. Vak leaned to the left, commanding his drake to follow his weight shift, and the mount brought him into the left turn and out from underneath the left-hand drake above.
The drakes above him saw the movement and followed. But as they did so, Vak sheathed his right-hand scimitar and lifted his right bootleg upwards, and he grasped the hilt of the dagger he had stashed there.
He had a perfect line-of-shot at the rider first in line, and knew that one direct hit might bring both down.
Vak held his breath as he let loose his dagger with a smooth throw straight at the rider, and the blade spun in the spectrum with a soft whistle. It was a direct hit into the rider’s chest, and as the momentum behind the throw carried him backwards so did his mount come to a jerking slowdown. The rider following close behind never saw them coming, but slammed into his comrade with all the speed and force he had been going at.
The two entangled mounts and riders fell into the dark abyss below with raging cries.
Vak breathed out a sigh of relief as he heard his two pursuers crash together. “Three down!” he panted, “Three to go!”
At hearing the cries of the Swildagg’s behind him, Neth’tek felt a deep sickening pity for their lives. But he had to remind himself that they would have showed no mercy to him or his father. What was done had to be done.
Shadow Realms: Part One of the Redemption Cycle Page 23
