by D. M. Almond
“Broxlin, behind you!” Gabbrix shouted.
Instead of turning, Broxlin fell to the ground and rolled forward, using his hammer to knock down a couple cobolds on his way. He felt a rush of air behind him and heard something heavy hit the dirt.
When he sprang to his feet and turned, he was already ten feet away from his original position, where a wide-shouldered cobold was recovering from the shock of hitting open air with his club. Broxlin dropped his head and charged the brute.
“Dirty gnome dies!” the cobold promised.
Broxlin thought that would be hard for the monster to pull off, especially after the gnome lifted his head sharply and caught the cobold under the jaw with his helmet. Bone shattered under green steel, and the monster gurgled, blood dripping from its broken maw. Broxlin finished it off, crushing its forehead with his hammer.
“By Ohm’s light,” Fodlor stuttered.
A pit opened in Broxlin’s stomach, and he quickly searched the battle for his friend, praying he would not see him with a mortal wound. Fodlor stood with his back to Broxlin, a freshly slain cobold at his feet. Broxlin raced over, weaving through the battle to grab his friend’s shoulder and spin him around.
“Óðinn’s ghost,” Broxlin gasped, taking in Fodlor’s face and making the holy cross.
“What dark sorcery is this?” Fodlor rasped, staring at his aged hands.
A screaming cobold came at them and Broxlin fell to one knee, blocking a chopping hand axe with the solid shaft of his hammer. The angry monster pulled back, readying for another attempt, but Broxlin was already dropping lower and swinging his hammer around. He heard bone snap as the head of it connected with the cobold’s leg. The creature’s cry was blood-curdling and it hit the ground, grasping its leg desperately.
Normally Broxlin would have finished the monster off, but he quickly rose to his feet and turned back to Fodlor. The warrior was still in shock, mumbling to himself and staring at the spots which had developed on his exposed fingers. Similar cries of despair were erupting all around them and Broxlin saw many of the other gnomes were also aging.
“Retreat! Fall back!” he shouted, snatching Fodlor’s sword from the dead cobold at his feet and pressing it into his friend’s shaking hands. Fodlor looked up at him and licked his dry lips. “Now, Fodlor, lead the men back inside the castle walls so we can figure this out!”
Fodlor blinked and nodded, then turned and pointed his sword toward the castle gates. “You heard the General! Fall back!”
It was a strange battle cry for the gnomes, who were more accustomed to running toward battle than away from it. However, none were foolish enough to question their leader’s order, and many a withering face looked downright relieved to escape.
It has to be the Necromancer’s doing, Broxlin thought, standing his ground and lowering his shoulder to face the incoming swarm of cobolds. The monsters were bolstered by the gnomes’ retreat, falsely believing the warriors were running from their battle prowess rather than whatever strange spell was aging them.
They quickly realized their folly when Broxlin roared and crushed two of them with one mighty swipe of his hammer. As the dead cobolds hit the ground, he shifted and kicked another in the groin. The hairy creature fell to its knees, perfectly positioned for Broxlin to jab the base of his hammer into its crown.
“Move it, move it, move it!” Broxlin’s voice cracked as the last of the gnomes ran past him. The dark spell has taken root over me as well, he worried, feeling the weakness spreading through his body.
A club battered him in the shoulder and Broxlin hit the ground, cursing himself for not staying focused. A crowd of hairy legs quickly surrounded him and blow after blow rained down on his armored back. Broxlin tried to stand, but a club caught the nape of his neck and he thought better of it.
“Damned rats,” he yelled, “be off with you!”
He knocked the base of his hammer out to the side and heard a cobold yelp. Another swipe, and it was crying instead. That was enough wiggle room for Broxlin.
He lunged blindly and caught another cobold by the throat. He quickly ducked behind the choking cobold, using its body as a shield while its dimwitted kin swatted at him with clubs and spears.
Broxlin shoved the cobold forward, knocking over two of his attackers, and brought his hammer crashing down across another’s chest. The swelling ranks backed off for an instant, and he turned and charged for the castle gates.
Gabbrix was standing inside the hall, waving for him to hurry. Two gnome warriors stood beside him with leveled crossbows. “Duck!” Gabbrix yelled.
Broxlin threw himself to the ground as crossbow bolts whizzed by. One tore into a cobold’s throat and the other deeply imbedded into another’s chest. Broxlin scrambled to his feet and closed the distance to the castle.
As he reached the gates, he saw Fodlor’s face inside the hall. The wrinkles had disappeared and he looked strong once more.
Broxlin smiled broadly and tried to thank the archers, but Gabbrix’s eyes widened and the words caught in his throat. Broxlin tried to turn and defend himself, but something heavy cracked across the back of his head, and dirt filled his mouth as his face hit the ground. Gabbrix leapt over him and cut down the brute that had injured him.
The last thing Broxlin saw before losing consciousness was hard gnome hands grabbing his shoulders and pulling him across the dirt.
Chapter 25
After hours of searching the castle grounds, Logan and his companions came upon the Arborium. The indoor gardens were large as a park, surrounded by curving glass walls and ceiling on three sides, while the fourth was lined with gnome apartments overlooking the garden. From end to end it took up a quarter of the third floor, with walking balconies lining its perimeter.
“When I last came to Ul’kor,” Isaac said, “I considered the Arborium one of the single most beautiful places I’d ever been.”
Logan looked around at the dead trees and sparse bramble. “All looks like rubbish now, though, eh?”
Isaac frowned. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“How did they keep all these plants alive in here?” Corbin marveled, picturing what it must have been like in its heyday.
Isaac pointed at the center of the glass ceiling, where a dense rock as large as a gnome was perched on a small turret outside. “You see there? That is a Botanical Stone. The gnomes only made five of them in all the world, if I recall correctly. They had a fascinating way of lighting the cavern ceiling. I wish you could have seen how it used to be, blanketed in the most wondrous moss you’ve ever seen. It’s a shame the stuff has withered away so, but I guess time conquers all, eh?”
Corbin shot Logan a look of daggers. Logan tried not to snicker, turning away and pretending to study some nearby leafless trees a bit too intently. The last time they were in Ul’kor, he had accidentally set half the cavern ceiling on fire, but there was no reason Isaac needed to know those details.
“The Botanical Stone would gather energy from the moss’s luminescence and amplify it over the Arborium, thus growing some of the most lush vegetation you’d ever have set your eyes upon. And they had a little of everything growing here too. It was—”
Isaac closed his mouth as they heard the distinct sound of a door closing somewhere in the Arborium.
Logan immediately huddled with his back against his friends so that the four of them formed a circle, with weapons drawn and eyes scanning the area. They only needed to wait a second before the sound of rustling branches told them which direction the new arrival was coming from.
They remained perfectly still. The sound of moving branches died off. Logan could hear his brother breathing hard and gave him a light nudge. Corbin did not say a word, but he straightened up and gripped the twin blades he had recovered from the king’s apartments. Isaac had thought perhaps Thorgar would retreat to his chambers to heal from his fall, but there was no sign of him or any other gnome when they arrived. The trip was not a complete waste though, as Corbin
spotted the masterfully crafted swords on a wall display with a small plaque underneath that said Shaska.
As they stood in silence, gazing at the thick tangle of reedy weeds that had long ago swallowed the garden’s glory, twisting it into some nightmare version of itself, the sound of movement became loud as thunder. Isaac’s robes rustled as he leaned on his staff, and Nero’s eyes whirred mechanically as they focused on a spot between ashen branches. Corbin was breathing heavily again.
“Knock it off,” Logan whispered. “You’re panting like a dog.”
“I am?”
Logan shot a glance at his brother then turned back just as the flesh golem burst from the trees. Nero knocked Logan aside, taking the blow in his stead. Corbin cried out as the android was thrown into the bramble.
The flesh golem reared back and pounded its chest like an ape asserting its dominance. Its show of masculinity was quickly cut short as Gandiva tore a massive chunk of its meaty fist away.
The weapon was already returning to Logan’s hand when Isaac opened a palm before his lips and blew dust toward the undead abomination. As the stuff wafted around the golem, Isaac snapped his fingers and it burst into flame. The flesh golem howled fearfully, something that up to that point Logan would have believed it incapable of feeling. The lumbering creature fell backward away from the burning air, slapping the flames from its forearms and chest.
Corbin saw the mage’s illusion for what it was and ran through the apparition to score a vicious blow across the flesh golem’s left calf. Stitching tore apart, and the beast pulled its leg back.
“Damn it,” Corbin said. “Stay still so I can…ugh!”
The flesh golem caught him hard with a kick, spilling Corbin to the ground. Logan ran for his brother, and the ground shook. The flesh golem was repeatedly punching the wooden floorboards and growling.
Corbin was pushing himself up on hands and knees when Logan reached his side. He leaned over and helped brace Corbin’s weight, but the shaking floor was making it difficult for him to rise.
“Bipp!” Nero shouted, returning to the fray with nary a scratch.
Logan followed the android’s pointing finger to one of the windowed apartments overlooking the gardens. There, behind dark windows, a light bloomed as Bipp, Thorgar, and Alma crept into the apartment, clearly trying to be as quiet as possible. By the looks of it, they had just entered.
Logan had to direct his attention back to the golem when the sound of buckling wood filled the Arborium. The brute had removed a long length of the floorboards, which it wrapped its maggoty fingers around like an oversized club.
Before Logan could react, the golem swept the planks of torn wood downward, aiming right for Isaac’s head. The mage flickered under the falling wood. Large chunks of the club broke away as it connected with the floor.
Corbin screamed Isaac’s name, but there was nothing they could do. The golem paid no notice to their anguish, tightening its grip on the club. Nero raced toward the behemoth, which was too large and slow to stop his advance. In an instant, the android ran up the length of wood and delivered a jaw-rattling air kick to the beast’s face.
Corbin moved past the creature’s legs, running his twin blades over their soft, stitched flesh. The golem was thrown completely off-guard by the furious assault, but that made it no less deadly a foe. One punch from it could mean never getting up again, so when it lashed out, Corbin was wise enough to roll out of reach.
“Keep it off guard,” Logan yelled, letting Gandiva fly. The blade gave a low hum as it cut through the air. Unfortunately the giant turned away before the bladed boomerang connected, and it came spinning back to Logan. He followed it with his eyes and saw a shape shifting in the bushes.
Logan fell into a crouch, catching Gandiva and preparing to let her fly again, when orange, glowing eyes turned to look at him. “Isaac?”
In response, the mage lifted a ringed finger, and a line of dragonfire, real this time, spit out and engulfed the golem’s crude weapon. The dry wood lit up like a torch, and it was all the monster could do to get it away from him, flinging it through the window behind.
Massive panes of glass shattered, and the Arborium was immediately flooded by the sounds of clashing steel in the castle’s front courtyard. Just beneath the window, an army of cobolds were engaged in fierce combat with the gnome warriors who denied them entrance into the castle. Logan heard their shrieks as the flaming floorboards rained down among their ranks. Logan could not help snickering as he pictured the filthy monsters scattering in every direction to avoid it.
His eyes darted to the room Bipp had just entered and saw the gnome pointing at them. Logan lifted his hand in salute, ecstatic to see his good friend alive and well.
Then he froze. “Oh no.” Logan shifted his stance and pointed behind the gnome. “Bipp! Look out!”
King Thorgar threw the door at the back of the Necromancer’s sanctum wide and skidded to a halt. The hall was shrouded in living shadows. Alma came up beside him and cast an orb of light, which she released into the hall. The orb floated like a bubble, bobbing down to the floor then buffeted up in the air, casting a dim blue light everywhere it landed. Dark, two-dimensional shapes shifted away from it, flattening against the walls.
“Quickly now, follow the orb,” Alma said, hopping down the hall after the glowing light.
Bipp saw another form emerging from the shadows behind him and scrambled to catch up.
Deep lines were gouged into the stone walls, each one of them ashy and charred. “This marks his path,” Thorgar grunted.
A myriad of doors lined both sides of the hall. At one time these had been the sleeping chambers of initiates, those young gnomes who had entered the Cleric’s Guild seeking Ohm’s path. Most of the small rooms were sealed, but Bipp saw an open doorway to his right and peered inside. A bald gnome with waxy grey skin sat on a bed, knees pulled up to his chest, rocking back and forth.
“Is he okay?” Bipp stopped to ask.
Alma tugged at his sleeve. “Keep moving. We mustn’t be left in the shadows.”
As Bipp moved away, the boy suddenly snapped his head at an unnatural angle and two glowing eyes looked at Bipp ravenously. The boy lurched across the room with preternatural speed, stopping short at the edge of the doorway, where Alma’s orb of light still illuminated the area.
Bipp pulled in tight to the party, peering over his shoulder at the strange boy, who stood in his doorway watching them. When they made it halfway down the long corridor, the boy was still watching, but now he stood in the center of the hall.
“Should we do something about him?” Bipp asked.
“Who?” Alma said, looking back down the hall.
Bipp didn’t know if he was more relieved or disturbed that the boy was nowhere to be seen.
“He came in through here,” Thorgar said, referring to their prey. The deep gouges ended abruptly around an open doorframe on their left.
Alma commanded the light to break off, and it hovered just outside the doorway, remaining in the hall to keep the shades at bay.
“We need light in there too,” Bipp said nervously.
Alma whispered into her hand and let another wisp of light float away, this one lifting toward the ceiling. There was a sound of crystals clinking together, and then the room was brilliantly lit by an ancient, cobwebbed chandelier. The smell of burning hair and soot was a small price to pay for light.
Bipp’s eyes scanned the room for some sign of the Necromancer. The room must have been used as a meeting place for the initiates. One wall was made up of many glass panes, overlooking an indoor greenhouse that had seen better days. Sofas and armchairs were strewn about, some with items still on them where they had been dropped when the siege had fallen upon them centuries before. With the exception of the dozens of long, standing mirrors scattered admist the furniture, the room looked quite ordinary. Unlike the Necromancer’s sanctum, these mirrors remained undamaged.
“What’s the deal with this weirdo and hi
s mirrors?” Bipp said.
“It is whispered that that is how the Shadow Lord speaks to his servants,” Alma said. “His world is fractured and hollow, a dim reflection of our own, which is why he covets it so.”
Thorgar carefully skirted the mirrors, leaning his neck to peer behind them. The Necromancer was nowhere to be seen.
“Where could he have gone?” Bipp asked, scanning the ceiling for their foe.
A bright light flared, and the sound of shattering glass came from the Arborium. Bipp shuffled up to the windows and surveyed the greenhouse.
“By the gods,” he happily declared, “it’s Logan and his brother!”
Down below, Logan must have sensed him watching. A wide smile crossed Bipp’s face as his best friend stopped and directed his attention to the windows. He waved with an absolute look of relief. Bipp understood how he felt. He remembered the time he thought he had seen Logan fall to his death and how distraught it had made him.
Logan shifted and began screaming, waving his arms wildly in the air and pointing at Bipp.
Bipp caught the Shadow Stone and a blur of black in one of the mirrors to his left. “Behind us!” he screamed, turning to defend himself.
The Necromancer flew into the room with clawed fingers outstretched.
Alma never had a chance. Fast as a spider, the Necromancer wrapped his hands around her throat and opened his mouth wide. Thorgar lunged for the fiend, but the Necromancer flew straight up toward the chandelier, pulling the priestess with him.
Bipp watched in absolute horror as Alma’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Thick strands of silver light flowed from her eyes and mouth into the Necromancer’s gaping maw. Alma’s skin withered and pulled tight as if all the fluids were being drained from her body. The Agimat slipped from her emaciated arm and clattered to the floor as her hair turned white and fell out in reams. The silver strands of light turned to faint wisps of smoke, and the Necromancer let Alma’s hollow body drop. It broke in pieces like a ceramic vase as it hit the floor.
