Maude and Azerick managed to land the beast largely intact. Azerick pulled his staff from the creature’s mouth, glad to find that it had not damaged it in any way, hunkered down, and took a close examination of the carcass.
The creature’s snout was cone-shaped, and long thorns or thick hairs covered its body. Azerick could find no sign of eyes or ears. Using the knife he had taken off the Rook, Azerick cut one of the thorns from the sandworm’s hide. He set the small horn on a flat stone and pressed the sharp blade down upon it, cutting it in half. Azerick nodded thoughtfully when he found that the horn-like structure was hollow and filled with a fluid similar in consistency with lamp oil.
Azerick looked up at the others who were watching him intently. “It senses us by our vibrations through these protrusions. I imagine they are incredibly sensitive. No matter how softly we tried to walk, they would feel exactly where we were and devour us, and at the rate they can travel, we could never outrun them.”
“So what do we do? Sit here until we starve?” Borik asked sourly.
Malek shook his head. “That could take a very long time. Azerick has enough food in that bag of his to feed an army, and I have a prayer that will create water. We would die of old age before we starved.”
“Or die of boredom,” Borik quipped. “Does that prayer of yours make beer too?”
“Nope, just water.”
“Rather throw myself to the sandworms,” Borik muttered.
Azerick was not about to admit defeat just yet. There was a way out of this. He did not know a spell to get them across without touching the sand, but he could make a minor change to a spell he knew. It was not like creating an entirely new spell, such would be impossible unless they were going to spend months sitting on this slab of rock, which they may end up doing if he did not figure something out.
He had spent a great deal of time thinking about what Duncan had said about sorcery and rune carving, that the only limits were a caster’s imagination and ability to control the power they drew. Azerick had practiced altering some of the spells he already mastered with varying degrees of success. He simply needed to figure out which one might contain the solution to their dilemma.
“Could we make a bridge out of the stone blocks lying about?” Maude asked, looking at the toppled ruins.
“I don’t think so, Maude,” Borik answered. “Those stones weigh over a thousand pounds apiece. Without rollers and pulleys, it would be near impossible. Plus we would have to step onto the sand to place them unless we could roll them across the one just set down.”
“I might be able to make a bridge,” Azerick said.
“You got a hundred or so dwarven bridge builders in that bag too?” Borik asked sardonically.
“No, but I have a spell that will create a series of stone spikes to jut up from the ground.”
“I hate to picture what would happen if one of us slipped off and landed on the tip,” Borik interrupted. “Frozen beer on a stick is delicious. Dwarf on a stick, not so much.”
“I think I can modify the spell to make cylindrical columns instead of tapering to an impaling point,” Azerick continued. “If I have them jut straight up and tightly packed together I should be able to create a walkway a few feet above the sand. Keep a weapon handy in case these worms try and strike at you though.”
“Sounds better than the plan I came up with,” Maude said.
“What plan was that?” Malek asked.
“Don’t give Borik a drink for a few hours and then throw a wineskin out as far we can. When he goes running after it, drawing away all the sandworms, we run the other direction.”
“Oh, hardy har har. You’re about as funny as you are feminine,” Borik retorted.
“On second thought, save the wineskin and just throw the dwarf.”
Azerick was unsure how far away he could cast his stone spike spell and how long he could make a single path. He reexamined the changes he would have to make to the spell and stood just behind the line he had drawn marking the end of the bedrock. He bent his focus to the Source and drew upon its seemingly limitless power. A hundred yards away, dozens of stone cylinders, each about a foot cross, sprouted out of the sand like a multitude of tree stumps about four feet tall.
“Hate to tell you this, wizard, but that’s a mighty long jump for someone whose legs are barely two feet long,” Borik informed him.
“If I tried to make a solid path we would be lucky if I could span half the distance we need to go, and that is greatly exaggerating my ability.”
Azerick cast another spell and opened a magical gate between them and the end of the raised stone path.
“Be careful when you step through; it causes some disorientation for a moment. Walk straight through, and do not step to either side.”
Maude took a deep breath and crossed through the portal. She stepped out onto the narrow ledge and felt the ground swaying and spinning under her feet. The warrior forced herself not to try to compensate for the dizzying effects of the long step. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and carefully took a few tiny steps forward.
When she opened her eyes, she felt more stable and turned just in time to catch Malek as he stepped through and almost tumbled over the edge. Arms frantically windmilling, Malek breathed a sigh of relief when Maude grabbed the end of his war hammer and pulled him up straight.
Borik stared warily at the shimmering rip in the air before him, not at all trusting such a mode of travel. “Maybe you could all go back and make, I don’t know, a flying boat or something and come back to pick me up. Just leave me the beer. I can eat one of them sandworms if I get hungry.”
“It is perfectly safe, Borik. Maude and Malek are both on the other side and ready to catch you if you fall. I have used it several times. Trust me, it’s safe.”
“What if it closes before I get all the way through and half my leg stays here and the rest of me is way over there?”
Azerick reached into his bag and pulled out a wineskin. “Do you know what this is, Borik? This is the last of our beer,” Azerick threw it through the portal where it slapped onto the narrow stone bridge.
“Hey, what’d ya go and do that for!” Borik darted forward, reaching for the skin.
“Welcome across,” Malek said when the dwarf stepped onto the path and scooped up the thrown wineskin. “How is your balance?”
“Eh? Oh fine, I got a low center of gravity,” Borik replied and showed off by hopping from one foot to the other while draining the wineskin.
Azerick stepped through with little problem, being somewhat used to the aftereffects. The portal snapped shut as soon as Azerick crossed, and they all walked single file toward the far end of the path. Maude had to lead since there was no room for anyone to get past.
Azerick repeated both spells once more. A couple of the more aggressive sandworms tried to snap at the adventurers as they stepped upon the bridge, but they were mostly out of striking range. Two of them got some deep wounds for their efforts thanks to Maude’s sword and Borik’s axe. Their cannibalistic brethren immediately attacked and devoured the wounded creatures.
Before they were halfway to the safety of the rocks, Azerick could no longer cast his stone spike and dimensional gate spell and was forced to tap into the power stored in his staff. If he had not been wearing the ring that Xornan had given him to fight in the arena, he would never have been able to make it across even with his staff.
Azerick stepped through the gate and onto the path about five hundred yards from the low ridge of stone. “We have a problem. I don’t think I can cast both a stone spike spell and a dimension gate, and neither will get us all the way to the rocks by itself.”
“How short will we be?” Maude asked.
“My gate will get us the farthest, so a hundred yards give or take.”
“We’ll never make it. Those things are on us almost the second we step through,” Malek said.
“Our only hope is to draw them off and try to make the run before they turn a
round and can catch us.”
“Can you draw them off?” Maude asked.
“I think so. I should be able to use the runes in the staff to create a racket and strike the ground with rather significant force. It should be sufficient to get their attention.”
“I would like to once more draw everyone’s attention to my short legs. Dwarves are many things, but fleet of foot is not one of them.”
Maude smiled wryly at the dwarf. “Don’t worry, Borik, Malek and I will make sure you keep up. Go ahead and cast your spells, Azerick.”
Azerick pushed up his sleeves, faced the opposite direction from their route of travel, and triggered several runes on his staff. About three hundred yards away, the minuscule amount of moisture in the air froze solid, creating balls of ice the size of melons which plummeted from the sky and slammed into the ground sending sprays of sand several feet into the air. By the suddenly shifting sands, the party could see that the sandworms were all racing toward the sound of the disturbance. Sharp cries of pain screeched from dozens, possibly scores, of mouths as the strikes pummeled creatures.
Azerick turned toward the distant ridgeline and spent the last of his and the staff’s power casting a gate spell. Maude, Malek, and Borik sprinted through the instant the gate snapped open, and Azerick followed closely behind. Having the hundred-foot-tall ridge suddenly appear three hundred yards closer in a fraction of a second was by far the most disorienting experience they had endured thus far. Even Borik staggered while his short legs pumped up and down as fast as he could make them go.
Maude and Malek each grabbed one of the dwarf’s thick wrists and half carried him across the sand suspended between them like a child holding the hands of its parents. Azerick glanced behind him just as the last of the ice strikes crashed down. The moment the frozen barrage ceased, the sandworms sped toward the fleeing humans with relentless abandon.
“Pick up the pace, people!” Azerick shouted.
Azerick pulled out a scroll, read it on the fly, and released a searing bolt of lightning directly into the path of the pursuing worms. The electrical bolt blasted into the leading ranks of monsters closest to the surface. Those behind tore into the wounded, drawn by their thrashing and screeches of pain. Still more continued their dogged pursuit but suffered deep gashes from the shards of glass the lightning created when it struck the sand. The uninjured sandworms ripped into those that had the bad luck of being cut by the glass shards.
The sandworms were right on Azerick’s heels and struck with frightening speed. Strong hands grabbed him and pulled him up onto the rocks at the same time he swung his staff at one of the lunging beast. The sorcerer turned around and found himself standing between Maude and Malek several feet up the side of the ridge surrounding the ancient fortress.
“We made it! I really was not sure we would. I half expected to get stuck out in the middle with no way back or forward!” Azerick exclaimed, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath.
“You didn’t think we would make it, but you tried it anyway?” Borik demanded. “What in the fiery plains of the abyss is wrong with you wizards? Are you all crazy?”
“A little bit I suppose, to varying degrees.”
“Let’s go find the horses and make camp. I don’t know about you all, but I’m exhausted, and I don’t feel like traveling very far right now,” Maude suggested.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Azerick agreed. “Let’s get a little ways away from here before we make camp.”
There was no argument as they set off to find a good place to collapse and bleed off the exhaustion they were all feeling.
CHAPTER 2
Zeb sailed north on the Iron Shark with his most experienced crew and the biggest, strongest men he could find in the city. As usual, Iron Shark drew strange looks whenever she came into port. The ship rode lower in the water when empty than many did when carrying a moderate load of cargo. Her iron-capped prow was not unheard of amongst warships designed to ram enemy vessels, but such was never seen on a merchant freighter. Coupled with the four sturdy booms, one on each end and both sides of the ship, from which swung an iron spear point that must have weighed well over a thousand pounds apiece, she was an odd vessel to be sure.
Oars stuck out of her sides like the legs of a centipede and propelled the ship out of the harbor, hard going even with her two masts full of sails to help push it along. The oars were another thing that distinguished the Shark from other ships. Its oars were higher up the hull than normal and canted downward where they struck the water rather close to the ship’s sides. Inside, the oar handles angled so that the rowers still enjoyed, if the word enjoy could be used in conjunction with the onerous task of rowing, a natural angle and rowing stroke.
Despite her great weight, the wind was good and blew strongly northward as it usually did this time of year, pushing the ship toward the frozen wastelands. Two weeks into their voyage, the air was freezing and ice coated the deck, sails, and rigging. Men climbed the treacherous rigging, wielding flat paddles with which they beat the ropes and sails to clear away the ice that enveloped them.
Many of the sails and much of the rigging had been taken down and the rowers put to work driving the ship to avoid the large icebergs that began populating the sea. This is precisely why Zeb brought only his most experienced and trustworthy sailors. The slightest mistake and one of the floating mountains of ice could tear open even the Shark’s reinforced hull out from under her.
Zeb kept the ship pointed toward the rising, snow-covered granite peaks in the distance. This was his second year, and he knew where to find the bay they would set anchor in and begin their hunting. Part of the crew stayed near the ship and set out in longboats to hunt the white fur seals whose soft pelts brought a fortune on the open market. He and Toron took the smallest contingent onto the land to hunt arctic foxes, snow hares, and the great ice bears.
There was also some very good fishing to be had near the mouth of a large river that fed into the bay. The salmon’s rich, pink flesh was highly coveted by all of the southern people who could afford it. The northern lands were harsh and unforgivable but rich in the bounty that it offered. Even now, a large pod of wolf whales swam next to the big ship, curious as to who had invaded their undisputed territory. Their great black and white forms undulated in and out of the water, occasionally displaying their grace and power by launching their huge, multi-ton bodies high enough into the air that some of the sailors were afraid they might one day leap onto the deck of the ship and devour them.
Such was never the case. Even when the men went out in the longboats, the sea wolves never acted aggressively even though they could easily shatter the vessel into splinters. Zeb and his crew spent three days watching the creatures hunt and found their intelligence and use of group tactics even more amazing than their awesome size.
He and his men once watched in awe when a large seal tried to take refuge on a sheet of ice. Up to a dozen of the wolf whales charged toward the floating haven at incredible speed, all as perfectly aligned as a charging group of elite cavalry lancers. They breached the surface and pushed their bodies onto the edge of the ice sending a wave of water flooding across its surface until finally the hapless seal was washed over the side into the maws of the rest of the pod waiting on the other side.
Even aboard this sturdy ship, the sea wolves had nothing to fear from the humans. Although the sailors did take an occasional whale or two, their kind was safe from the human’s predation as they lacked the large oil sacks of their kin that was so coveted. The wolf whales escorted the Iron Shark all the way into the bay before growing bored with the strange giant fish swimming atop the water and went to go find something to eat.
It was late afternoon bordering on evening, which came rather early this time of the year, when they finally dropped anchor just two hundred yards from shore. They would wait until morning before setting out in their separate directions for the hunt. The shoreline was lost from sight by the thickening fog that ro
lled in before the night was able to steal it away first.
“Captain Zeb,” Balor called out, “you might want to take a look at this.”
“What is it, lad?”
“Look out there, maybe a quarter mile inland.” Balor pointed a finger out past the fog-blanketed shoreline.
Zeb squinted at the dark, murky landscape. His vision was not as good as it once was and, although the cold evening air pushed the fog down to a height of five or six feet, it was still difficult for him to make anything out beyond a slight contrast in the few shrubs and pathetic trees that managed to sprout up far enough to peek out over the miasma.
The mists parted just slightly and Zeb was barely able make out what had attracted his first mate’s attention. “Ah, I see it. You make it out to be a small fire?”
“Most likely; it flickers too much to be a lamp and is a bit large for a torch.”
The mists closed back in and swallowed the only bit of color in the entire landscape. “Not much to see is it? I’m impressed you spotted it in this soup.”
“It was Derran who brought it to my attention; otherwise I doubt I would have seen it.”
“That figures. What I wouldn’t give to have that boy’s eyes. I’d trade him ten years of my experience for them and ten years of his youth. Make that fifteen,” Zeb said with a smile.
“Who would be this far north, the Thule maybe?” Balor asked, referencing the small, tan-skinned nomadic people who lived at least part of the year in the most northern extremes of the known land and beyond.
Zeb shook his head. “From what I know of them which, like most people is very little, they should be further east and south chasing the caribou herds. The Eislanders should be much further south this time of year, but I only know a little more of those people than I do the Thule. I do know enough that between the two we had better hope it’s a Thule party.”
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 106
