by D. M. Almond
Rows of armored gnomes stood side by side, shields raised in a tight wall. Corded muscles held firm as the cobolds battered against their defense, determined to hold steady and unwavering. Broxlin watched his men gritting their teeth as blow after blow rained down on their shields.
“Advance!” he yelled.
The shield wall lowered and separated, just enough to let the second ranks through with jabbing swords and spears. Cobolds howled in agony as they were skewered, a score of them cut down where they stood.
“Shields!” Broxlin commanded, and the wall closed once more, before the cobolds could gain their bearings and launch an assault.
“March!” The gnomes walked step by step forward, closing the distance to their dazed enemy. The cobolds were bowled over by the rushing tide of shields, trampled under steel boots and stabbed by the warrior’s quick blades.
One of the cobolds had enough wits to turn tail and retreat. “Fodlor!” Broxlin called.
The warrior called upon lifted his hand axe, lined up his aim, and hurled it. The blade tore deep into the back of the hairy vermin’s spine, throwing him to the ground, screaming. The gnome ranks parted, and they spread throughout the wide entrance hall to ensure the fallen cobolds were dead with a stabbing sword here and a slammed boot heel there.
Fodlor marched over to the cowardly cobold and curled his lip. It was still twitching, like the legs of a crushed centipede. “Filthy things don’t know when to die,” he said, then pressed his boot against its neck and wrenched the axe head free.
“What did you expect?” Gabbrix called over his shoulder as he wiped the dirty blood of his sword on a cobold’s shirt of rags. “They’re too dumb to even try different tactics. Keep falling for the same battle formation.”
Broxlin grimaced, taking in the piles of cobold bodies littering the hall. It was the fifth wave of the monsters that had rushed past the castle’s main gates, which were ruined and hanging from the Necromancer’s devastation ages ago. The eyes of his ancestors watched on in the carved totems lining the hall, and Broxlin felt certain they were judging him. Warning his noble heart to look at the bigger picture.
“Don’t get so cocky,” Broxlin said. “The cobolds were always stupid in the ways of civilization but cunning enough to make us fools if we believe the whole fight is going to be this easy.”
The warriors brooded on his wise words. Long had they trusted in the wisdom of Broxlin, who had led them in the Filogr War and seen them through the Lost Marches and risen triumphant, though he had lost an eye for it against the great Wyrm Styx. He was a wise and honorable warrior they would willingly follow into the depths of Hel if he only asked. If Broxlin advised caution, they took it gratefully.
Broxlin wondered what the cobolds were actually up to. Were they merely trying to wear his men down? He was already beginning to feel sore in his thighs, but it would be a while yet before they grew too weak to fight properly. Not one cobold had escaped to tell of their tactics. Perhaps their leader was vying for that very information? Let him—there were at least a dozen more formations they could fall into at a moment’s notice, all too powerful for the cobolds to break through.
What he really feared was that the devious savages were merely biding their time, waiting until the Necromancer could join them from Broxlin’s flank. That would be a treacherous scenario to be sure, one he prayed he would not have to endure. At least, not until King Thorgar returned with the mage’s secret weapon.
“Incoming!” Gabbrix shouted.
The gnomes packed together, pressing their shoulders tight, and lifted their shields. Broxlin gritted his teeth and readied for another wave, hoping that their friends would return soon.
The world closed in around them in dizzying patterns as Corbin stepped out of the abyss and into Isaac’s inner sanctum. He was breathing heavily and his stomach was in knots. He stared at his hands, which were trembling uncontrollably, and dimly wondered where all the blood had gone.
One look at Alma told him she felt the same. Her eyes were wild, darting left and right as if she expected more of the Gralok’s horrors to be waiting for them in Isaac’s sanctum.
Isaac wordlessly slipped out of the room, heading to his vault of relics to retrieve the Agimat. That they had made it through at all felt surreal. Corbin stood with his hands on his knees for a long time before regaining his composure. Alma was staring out of Isaac’s stained glass window. Corbin knew she should be feeling a profound sense of awe and wonder at the view from the high branches of Isaac’s tower in the White Tree, but her gaze was distant, far away, almost reflecting the sounds of the screaming souls they had just faced.
Corbin wanted to reach out to the gnome priestess, to comfort her in some small way, but how could he tell her everything would be alright when they both knew the world would never be the same again?
He flinched and spun about when Isaac reentered the sanctum clutching a parcel of wrapped cloth.
“Is that the Agimat?” Corbin asked, drawing Alma’s attention away from the window.
Isaac nodded soberly, the light in his eyes dim, matching his grim expression.
Corbin turned and looked at the dark gap in the wall, the way back to the Gralok. He suddenly felt as if his body had broken out in a cold sweat, though he had no physical form.
Isaac tied the parcel to his robes and held out his hands for them to grasp. For a moment Alma stood shaking her head, and Corbin worried that she was not going to be able to move again.
Isaac placed his hand in hers and stared her in the eye. “Everything depends on this,” he said. “We must be brave.”
Corbin wished he felt bolstered by the mage’s words, but all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and wipe any remnant of the Gralok from his memory.
Isacc looked at him with a steadying gaze. “Are you ready?”
Corbin took a deep breath and reached for the mage’s hand.
The dark gap opened wide and sucked them back in, back toward the screams of madness, back into the abyss, back toward the waiting horde of lost souls, and Corbin readied himself to face what would come next.
“Me king!” Bipp shouted in despair.
Thorgar lay so still, Logan could not tell if he was still breathing. The warriors had put up a worthy defense, but without Thorgar they were no match for the brute. Several of them lay dead on the library floor. The flesh golem took a lumbering step forward, reaching its greedy stitched hand for Thorgar’s head.
“You stay away from him!” the last remaining warrior howled as he charged in from the side.
The flesh golem had scarcely turned its head before the warrior swept a blade across its thigh. Rotten flesh oozed from the wide gap into steaming piles on the floor. That made the golem very angry. It punched the marble floor and backhanded the warrior. Logan heard the snap of metal, watching helplessly as the brave warrior hit a bookshelf and slumped to the floor.
The flesh golem grunted and directed its attention back to the king. Through the doorway, more skeletons were arriving. Logan cursed the Necromancer and his seemingly never-ending army of undead.
“We have to do something,” Bipp said frantically.
“Damn it,” Logan grumbled under his breath. “Bipp, go get the king out of there. Nero, protect my brother. Don’t let anything happen to him, please.” Logan leaned back and pulled Gandiva all the way behind his head.
Bipp gaped. “What are you going to do?”
“Something really stupid,” Logan said. “Hey, ugly, why don’t you go find a body bag to climb into?”
The flesh golem grunted like an ape and turned, confused by the commotion. Gandiva whistled through the air, striking the behemoth in the side of the face. A line tore open along its cheekbone and an entire section of stitching popped open, revealing the raw, stinking meat beneath a section of flapping skin. As Gandiva returned to Logan’s hand, he saw the transformation from simplistic curiosity to unbridled fury play out in the golem as it realized the damage it had taken.
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Logan felt his stomach turn sour when the beast did exactly what he thought it would and charged across the long library. Bipp hopped away from the toppled bookcase and made a beeline for King Thorgar’s limp form while Nero promptly sprinted to the trio of lost travelers, stooping to snatch a worn shield and rusty spear from a skeleton’s lifeless bones. The newly arrived undead were heading straight for Isaac and Corbin.
Logan only had a second to register that his friends were following his orders. With the golem racing toward him, he had to act quickly and spun about, running straight for the nearest long table. Without slowing, he jumped on top of it and ran toward the other side. Logan dared to look over his shoulder and saw the golem was almost upon him.
“Oh, this is going to hurt,” he cried out, seconds before the golem slammed an ogre’s fist into the end of the table. Logan threw all his momentum into a leap, reaching his free hand out into open air. The table burst apart under the golem’s fury, but Logan had already escaped. His mechanical hand caught one of the bars of the balcony lining the perimeter of the library.
Quick on his feet, Logan scrambled up over the iron railing, scraping his leather vest over its rusty edges. He hit the grated floor of the balcony hard, nicking his chin and biting his lip. With the metal tang of blood filling his mouth, Logan scanned the area for the flesh golem’s whereabouts, steadying Gandiva for another throw.
Logan turned and got an eyeful of a broken chair flying toward him. His mind screamed move, but his body stuttered, leaning left then deciding to move right. But his reflexes were too slow, and the chair crashed into his shoulder. He tried to go with the blow, like he knew his brother would in the same situation, but it just wasn’t fluid enough, and he took the brunt of it. The chair knocked him to the grated floor of the balcony, and the back of his head smacked against the wall. The flash of pain left Logan in a daze, and he knew he was in trouble. He heard the golem, which sounded as if it were right on top of him, breathing heavy and growling.
Get up, he thought through the ringing in his ears. Get up before you become zombie food.
Logan rose on unsteady legs, trying to shake the swooning feeling away. The effort only made it worse, and he could feel a trickle of blood running down his bicep beneath his sleeve. He saw the golem readying another missile and let himself fall sideways. The new chair became like a grenade of splinters when it hit the bookshelves on the wall behind him.
Through the rusty railing, Logan could see Bipp kneeling beside King Thorgar. The gnome was shaking him, trying to wake his idol.
Logan got back to his feet, though he was unsure when he had made the decision to do so. The ringing in his head was accentuated by the sound of clashing steel between Nero and the skeletons that swarmed him. Logan was shocked to see four of the undead were attacking him at once.
“Nero, heads up!” Logan hollered, twisting Gandiva into a practiced throw.
The android did not raise his head but ducked under the swooping mace of a skeleton and gave it a kick from the side, sending the fiend directly into the path of Logan’s boomerang. Gandiva not only hit home, shattering the skeleton’s spinal column, but also continued on to deliver another skeleton a glancing blow strong enough to knock it in front of its partners. Gandiva seemed to hang in the air for a moment before reversing trajectory and spinning back toward Logan’s waiting hand.
He had no time for patting himself on the back, however. The flesh golem had tired of chairs and now stood directly below the far end of the balcony. Logan saw the beast’s intent and scrambled for the other end of the balcony. The sound of metal bending and rivets popping from the wall was loud enough to drown out even his thoughts. The golem had grabbed the floor of the balcony and was tugging it down with all its strength.
Logan felt the balcony shake loose from the wall and suddenly found his jaw bouncing off the grates. He scrambled to rise, and for a flashing second thought he might make the distance between the lurching balcony and its sturdy twin.
Then the world fell out from beneath him and he tumbled, staring at the mirrored ceiling on his way down. Where the flesh golem’s reflection should have been was a smear, a dark muddy cloud in the polished silver. When his back broke through the table below and all the air rushed out of his lungs, Logan knew his time was up.
The golem howled, and something about it sounded triumphant. Logan tried to move, but he was in too much pain and the whole room was spinning. He weakly groped for the edge of the table, which was flattened onto the marble floor, and tried to find the leverage to pull himself onto his side.
The golem ran forward and gave the table a hard kick, flipping it so that Logan’s face smacked against marble. He dimly wondered if he had just broken his nose, as there had certainly been a splintering sound, but his whole body was numb, and it was hard to tell the difference anymore between pain and shock. Bipp screamed for him, but there was nothing Logan could do to answer.
When the golem slapped away the wooden debris covering his body, Logan could only think about how much more disgusting it looked this close up. He wanted to hit it in that big stupid ugly face with Gandiva, but he could not even tell if he was still holding her, let alone move his arm deftly enough to do any damage.
The flesh golem reared back and roared. It lifted a big foot, with three remaining toes, and stepped right on Logan’s chest. Logan had never felt such pain in his entire life. The numbness turned to an exploding feeling of anguish. He saw his hand beating the brute’s foot with Gandiva, but it was like a mosquito stinging a bear and only seemed to anger the golem further.
The edges of Logan’s vision grew fuzzy, and his hand became limp and lifeless.
Suddenly the foot was off his chest, and air flooded painfully back into his sore lungs. It was hot and acrid, stinging his insides, yet sweet and heavenly. He had never appreciated such a precious thing as air in his whole life as he did in that moment.
The golem let out a roar so violent that the entire room shook. Hands reached down for Logan, and he was wrenched to his feet, staring eye to eye with his brother.
Lines of worry were etched in Corbin’s face, and past his shoulder Logan could see the golem twisting and turning, clawing at its back to remove Corbin’s voulge, which was stuck in the center of its spine. Corbin’s face was haggard and pale, and his eyes were yellow and bloodshot.
“You look like crap,” Logan said.
Corbin coughed, spitting blood on the floor and drooping forward. He looked toward the tunnel entrance. “We have to get you out of here.”
Logan tried to agree, but his knees gave out and he almost spilled to the floor. Across the room, Alma had moved to help Bipp, already casting a spell of healing over the king. Logan hoped she would come do him next. Nero was much nearer, supporting Isaac’s weight much the same as Corbin was Logan’s. The mage looked as rough as Logan felt. His eye was swollen, and there were deep cuts running down his left arm, which leaned heavily onto the white staff.
The golem punched the wall in furious rage, sending books spiraling in all directions. One of them bounced off Corbin’s shoulder, but he did not even flinch, instead firming his grip around his brother. Logan nodded, and they moved for the secret tunnel. He had to drag his left foot, which was too numb to lift properly, shambling step by step forward.
A guttural laughter entered the room from the entrance at the far side. It was a strange sound, like glass scraping against a harpsichord. Corbin, like his companions, stopped and turned around.
“The Necromancer!” Nero shouted.
A long, drawn out, dark figure in ruined armor floated into the library, his torn cloak and deep cowl fluttered in the crackling shadows that shimmered unnaturally around his form. From beneath that heavy hood, the Necromancer’s crimson eyes were filled with a sick pleasure, like a cat that had just cornered some mice it intended to toy with before eating.
Logan’s eyes focused on the glimmering black stone that floated around the Necromancer’s form. “The S
hadow Stone,” he croaked in a hoarse whisper.
“Ah, if it isn’t my dear old friend, King Thorgar,” he cackled. “Guess you wasted all those years guarding over me for nothing, eh?”
“You go back to the pit you came from!” Bipp said, shaking his fist at the gloating Necromancer.
A bony finger raised in the air to wag back and forth. “Tut tut, that’s no way to speak to your master.”
“You ain’t my master now nor never,” Bipp said as he lifted a dazed Thorgar to his feet.
“Oh, but you will all be mine in the end.” The Necromancer’s voice grew even louder than the raging golem behind Logan.
The foulest words Logan had ever heard spilled out of the Necromancer’s mouth like skittering insects. They were in an ancient language, one not meant for mortal ears, and their very utterance grated against his mind like a filthy rag. The Shadow Stone seemed to pulsate for a moment. From the shifting shadows around the Necromancer came a swirling purple light, except to call it light was to spin the world on its head, because though it had a certain vibrancy, it was surely made of the purest shade.
The Necromancer finished his summoning and directed the spectres with the tip of his staff. Like bees they zipped for Bipp and Thorgar as Alma stared on, stupefied, behind them. Screaming, fanged skulls were at the front of each charging blast.
In the fraction of an instant that it took for the spectres to fly across the room, several things happened. Logan spilled onto his knees, screaming for his friend to get down. Bipp turned the king away and winced, bracing his body for the incoming spell. Alma cried out for Ohm and threw her hands up, casting a rounded halo that began to spread from her midsection and lightly touched the King’s bent elbow. And Thorgar’s last remaining warrior, who had earlier been tossed into the bookshelves, threw himself headlong in front of his king.
The spectres hit the warrior with devastating force. In seconds his entire body shriveled up inside his armor, skin tightening like a prune then peeling back like an orange and smoldering with a black smoke. His eyes melted in his screaming face as he clawed the floor with bony fingers.
