Votrex, barely noticed the Wizards absence, he was clearly in the midst of a berserker rage now and despite picking up cuts and stabs here and there, he was cleaving through his enemies and sending several limping away, grasping their wounds or straight into the abyss. Another round of arrows hailed towards him, forcing him to jump clear of the tunnel entrance. He glanced at Brael and Korhan and yelled. “Go! I can hold them!”
Brael nodded, as he backed along the ledge, now being forced to give ground. “Go Avil! It is time for me to fulfill my vow!”
Korhan gave him a quick nod, parried, slashed, then slung harbinger over his back and leapt onto the rope. Votrex and Brael were fighting almost back to back now. Brael was clearly faring worse by far. Elira watched him thrust and parry, and winced as Verkreath blades caught him, sending gravian blood splattering onto the walls and into the water. She had mixed feelings about him, she didn’t think she could ever truly forgive him, but she accepted that he wanted to right the wrongs he’d caused.
As Votrex and Brael fought on, occasionally assisted by Elira, Korhan hauled himself up the rope, and once he was in the shaft, he started pulling hard, using all his upper body strength and walking up the shaft. When he emerged into the daylight his heart was pounding, his biceps were burning and the sun dazzled his eyes, despite it being overcast. He rolled onto his back panting, and gasping for air. Vashni yelled down the shaft. “Next!”
Brael heard the echoey voice from above, and he slashed hard two times, parried, then thrust. “Go dwarf! I will cover you!”
Votrex leaned over his shoulder to Elira. “Are we going to let him have all the fun?”
Elira grinned. “Let the truthseeker flee, I wish to kill some Verkreath, I do not care if we die in this hole, as long as I can end the lives of some more of these vermin!”
Votrex smacked the butt of his axe into a Verkreath head, then chopped it in the mid-riff. “Brael! Get out of here! We’re heavier than you, we should go last!”
Brael, staggering from a vicious slash to his shoulder, grunted. “Alright, farewell dwarf, Elira, good luck!”
With that he thrust his sword into a Verkreath belly, all the way until the hilt was lost in the mass of matted fur, leaving it there, he leapt onto the rope and started the climb. Votrex, was at the top of his game. The Verkreath were trying to circle him, but his strength was such that he could swing his great axe one-handed in an arc, then sweep it back in an instant. If an attacker timed their approach well enough to get inside his arc, the butt of the axe would swing up and smash his attacker in the face.
Elira too was making Votrex an even deadlier opponent, despite having only arm she was thrusting with a primal ferocity and pin-point accuracy - but she was tiring. As the lactic acid in her arm built up, and she felt she was going to drop her sword she called over her shoulder. “Start climbing dwarf! I can’t keep this up, urngh!”
As she’d spoken a rusty dagger was thrust into her belly, severing intestines and creating a gushing wound.
Votrex span, smashed his axe handle in the face of one, then swung it back where he’d just span from, nearly taking a head clean off - he swung his axe vertically, embedding it in the head of a Verkreath which was standing in the water trying to catch him unawares. With its dying breath it hacked at his calf, almost severing muscle and laming him, but with his good leg he jumped onto the rope and started climbing, his axe, left jutting out of a collapsing Verkreath, being too cumbersome to climb with in a hurry.
As he climbed Elira saw her blood flowing fast and running away from her. She also saw a line of bows being pointed upwards at them and snapped over her shoulder, her voice laboured, her breath shallow. “Climb dwarf! Whatever happens keep climbing!”
His strength was immense, so much that he was simply hand-over handing up the rope with his legs dangling free underneath him to get to the shaft. He saw Brael ahead in the distance, roll out of the shaft into daylight and Votrex quickened his pace, lifting his feet to rest against the side of the shaft, grunting with each reach and grasp of the rope. Elira was watching the Verkreath growing smaller and smaller beneath her, the archers were taking aim. There was nowhere to dodge, or hide, she simply hoped she’d create a suitable shield for Votrex. She liked the dwarf, he’d fought ferociously and provided her with the chance to wreak vengeance upon her captors. The water below was swilling with blood, mainly with Verkreath blood and corpses, other Verkreath were limping away or lying on the floor clutching their open wounds and snarling in pain.
The arrows were unleashed. Votrex felt an arrow glance the side of his head, leaving a neat, short, cut and warm liquid running down the side of his head. Another thumped into his abdomen, just below his rib cage, making him grunt softly. Elira was silent, he felt he’d heard more thumps, and almost accepted that Elira had taken an arrow, but he simply let out a cry of anger and climbed faster. Elira had been hit, by several arrows, she could feel her life-force draining away and mused that now she would discover whether Brael Truthseeker had been right or not. In her dying breath she hurled her sword down at the mass of Verkreath crowding in the pool, trying to get on the rope. By the time the sword struck its intended target she was gone, her eyes devoid of life, her solitary limb, limp, her head slumped down, swinging loosely with every pull of Votrex’s climb. Verkreath were soon making their way up the rope after them, but as Votrex threw himself out of the well, Vashni sliced the rope with her rapier-like sword. There were shrieks and snarling, then an audible splash.
Without the rope, there seemed little chance the Verkreath could follow.
As Votrex lay on his front he felt spots of water hit his face. The grass was wet, a cold wind was blowing up. When he forced his face up he was greeted by grim faces. The whole party looked bedraggled and defeated. Saul, who was the least battered looking was approaching, the others leaning against the wall of the nearest cottage, under the eave, out of the rain, except Brael, who had been standing in the doorway of the cottage. When he saw Votrex and Elira he gasped and his face fell. Saul was almost bowled over by Brael running through the rain despite his many injuries.
He dove to his knees next to Votrex and cradled Elira’s head in his hands. It was loose and limp, her final expression one of pain and sorrow. She had several arrows protruding from her torso, and a large, deep wound where the dagger had been thrust. Her mouth was full of blood, her eyes were glazed and lifeless.
His face was a look of pure anguish. He almost whispered under his breath. “Elira...” Then he looked over his shoulder and shouted to Vashni, Korhan sheltering and Saul still walking over. “Help me! Hurry!”
Korhan moved slowly, by the time Saul was kneeling by Brael, Vashni had barged past him and was at the other side. She looked over Elira, clearly concerned. “Undo the straps, get her off his back!”
Saul, Brael and Vashni worked, freeing Elira and depositing her on the floor alongside Votrex, who dragged himself up and slumped against the side of the well, panting.
Saul licked his hand and held it in front of Elira’s mouth. After a few moments he sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, she’s gone.”
Brael groaned and looked at her face in desperation, as if looking for some hint of life that he already knew wasn’t there. After a moment he looked at Vashni. “Bring her back! Start her heart again!”
Vashni looked down. “I... I believe it is too late, she looks like she has been dead for several minutes, and even if I can restart her heart, her injuries are great, she has lost a great deal of blood.”
Brael screwed his face up, fresh tears appearing and he pulled her head into his chest hugging her head and rocking backwards and forwards in the rain. “No! No! No!”
Vashni rested a hand on Braels shoulder. “Brael, her spirit has left her body, if I were to bring her back now; I fear she would be an empty shell.”
Brael continued holding her and rocking, as if deep in thought. In truth he was, but he was thinking about how wrong Vashni was. He suspected th
e elves had drawn this conclusion from their beliefs and their experience of starting hearts which had stopped for more than a few minutes. The truth as Brael knew it was that Elira had no spirit, as did none of them. The idea of a spirit was simply the product of the fact she had a mind, the connecting pathways in her brain were sophisticated enough that she was aware of her life and indeed her own mortality. The mind was simply a way of describing what it felt like to be a sophisticated brain in a self-aware animal, and belief in a spirit was an obvious progression from that.
Brael looked up after a long pause. “You are right she has gone.”
Vashni smiled weakly. “She fought bravely, if any are assured a seat in Kirkfell then-”
“Kirkfell! You are all fools! You are all blasted fools! This, THIS is it... This is all we get, we live, we die and in death we end, there are no spirits or gods, there is no pleasant afterlife to look forward to!”
This caused the rest of the group to look rather disturbed at Brael. He’d repeated this before, but to be screaming it at them, after the death of a comrade, at the top of his voice so full of anger and venom. It was comforting to think your comrades who had fought bravely and lived their lives by Ishar’s code, had gone to a better place, it made coping with death much easier, thinking that their spirits were elsewhere and they might meet them again someday. The alternative was vile and sucked the meaning out of life as soon as one dared consider, it might be true.
Korhan looked coldly at Brael. “I don’t believe you, what you are saying does not make sense. Why are you so distraught at her death anyway? You only just met her, and what kind of life do you think she could have had with but a solitary arm for her limbs?”
Brael sagged slightly, the fire in his heart having been extinguished somewhat by his outburst. “It’s not her, it’s what she represents. She’s the first gravian I’ve met since I left Durth Orza, she represents gravian society, her fate represents the fate of gravian society. Maybe I wanted to give her hope? Maybe she gave me hope? As long as she lived, there was a hope that all was not lost and the gravian race might not become extinct. Given the knowledge we now have about the Verkreath and Durth Orza, I fear I am the last gravian, at least in Torea. Could I have helped her? No, maybe, perhaps if I could have regained access to magic and my arcane laboratory. It would not have been easy though - everything has its limits, even magic and knowledge.”
“Brael-”
“Avil I feel responsible for her sorry state. She should never have been forced to flee Durth Orza, indirectly, it was I who put her in this sorry state.”
“Yet you insist on declaring the bleak reality that ‘the truth’ appears to be?”
“I do not ‘like’ the truth any more than you Avil, or anyone. I wrestled with it for a long time, for a while I was distraught, desperate to find that my research had been wrong - the more I searched, the deeper I delved the more clear it became that the truth was what it is. After much reflection, I came to the conclusion that though accepting the truth is hard, moving on from that, it becomes clear that the important thing is to make the world we live in a better place. We get one life; it’s our duty to make the most of it.”
Saul leaned down. “Come on, we should get inside, nurse our wounds and rest.”
Brael nodded. “I shall bring Elira in, and clean her up and lay her out properly. The least I can do is give her a decent burial.”
Votrex hauled himself to his feet and helped Brael to to bear her into the derelict stone cottage nearest the well. Half of its roof was missing, the bare rafters looking like the ribs of some fallen beast, white and weathered as they were. Luckily half of the roof still had its slates and bodging. The derelict cottage was a long narrow building, which would probably have been a single room, or two rooms at best building, with a fireplace at either end, the chimney going up the gable end. The companions gathered what remained of the ancient, ruined furniture which had been left there and arranged it in the end of the cottage which still had a roof. The mood was grim, the constant pitter patter of rain on the slates and the running trickles of water, forming puddles just outside the sheltered section did not help. Votrex gathered some kindling and used his tinderbox to light a fire in the hearth. Brael, having placed Elira on a wooden table by the window was pulling her from the makeshift harness they’d crafted for her in the depths of Beren’Gedt Holt. Vashni, who appeared to be becoming more and more compassionate, approached. “Can I help you truthseeker?”
He wore a face of stone, full of sadness, dried tears staining his cheeks. “Thank you Vashni, but no - I need to do this alone. She is my responsibility.”
She gently rested a tired and bloodied hand on his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Your wounds look grievous, you should let me tend them.”
“No, I need to do this first. Please see to the others.”
She nodded and turned her back on him. The entire group looked battle-worn and weary. Saul had already begun cleaning up Korhan’s wounds. Votrex, his head covered in dried blood, still had two arrows protruding from his flesh, one in his shoulder and the other in his ribcage. He sat on the hearth gently working the arrow in his shoulder left and right and grunting as he tried to free it without it damaging his tissues too much. Vashni approached him, “Leave it Votrex, I shall whisper it out for you.”
He looked up at her wearily. “Nay lass, you’re tired, you’ve done enough. I’ll get these out and get the wounds cleaned up. You should rest.”
She slumped onto the rickety wooden bed which had long lost its mattress, next to Saul and Korhan, on the opposite wall from the window where Brael was carefully tending to Elira’s corpse. “Hah! If only the stories were true, if you listened to the tales of adventurers emerging from the depths, which are so frequently recanted in the ale houses of Cormaroth, Dirsh and Cairna. Untold riches, magic items, heroes riding triumphantly back to town... Instead we have been forced to abandon our steeds, most of our possessions, some of our weapons and we barely escaped with our lives.”
Korhan looked at her. “We never hear the tales of those who do not emerge, who do not survive the horrors of the deep. Of the ones who tell these ‘tall tales’ I wonder how many have faced a Verkreath, an Orc or Goblin, or the undead in combat? And how many simply invent a tale to tell in the hope of using it to impress strangers?”
Saul nodded tiredly. “Yes Korhan, I suspect you are right. The heroic tales about dungeon delving are recanted in the ale houses are most likely ‘tall tales’ I suspect those who have actually faced these dire situations seldom wish to talk about them. Let me clean your wounds up Korhan.”
Vashni was trying to relax, to rest, but she sat up suddenly. “Are we safe here? From the Verkreath I mean?”
Votrex answered as he gave a final pull at the arrow embedded in his shoulder with a grunt. “I doubt they will be able to ascend the shaft. Even if they could, I believe we have some time before they do. To be honest there are bound to be easier exits to traverse further south, if they wished to pursue us they’d be more likely to leave by a southern exit and make their way north.”
“Hmmph, that may be, but I shall not sleep easily so close to the well.”
Saul was busy cleaning Korhan’s wounds. Votrex was now working on his second arrow, working it up and down and gradually trying to ease it out from his torso. When it finally came free he groaned and gripped the open wound tightly, grimacing. “Vashni, I fear I may need your assistance lass.”
She slid off the bed and kneeled in front of the fire, feeling its warm glow on her skin. He turned his back to her, giving her full access to the wounded area. She gently pulled his tunic aside and studied the wound, before inserting a finger, deep into the wound and feeling around inside. Votrex was now shaking, swaying slightly and beginning to look pale. “Hmmm, your intestines have been severed and perforated in several places, the foul contents are spilling into your body cavity and mingling with your blood. If I do not deal with this quickly, you will die.”
; The thought was made all the worse by Brael’s recent outburst he shuddered, “What do you need to do?”
“I need to to open the wound so I can identify all the internal damage, and see what needs rejoining to where, I then need to whisper out all the debris that entered you with the arrow and rejoin the damaged parts, then close your skin up.”
He shuddered. “Open the wound? Cut me open?”
“The damage is too great for me to risk repairing it, without seeing exactly what the damage is. I can make you sleep while I perform the repairs. If you don’t allow me to do this, you will die.”
Votrex looked weakly at her, his injuries clearly catching up with him now the adrenalin had started to subside. Only a week ago he would never have trusted her to do something so drastic to him, but it seemed he had no choice. He’d seen other dwarves take this kind of damage before, deep, penetrating wounds to the torso and they tended to die without the aid of magic. It seemed Saul’s magic, potent as it was, would not be sufficient, Vashni was his only hope. The funny thing was he didn’t feel that trusting her was an act of desperation, he genuinely did trust her. “Do what you have to do lass.”
Vashni reached up and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze, then crossed the room to the table by the window where Brael had extricated Elira from her harness, cleaned her up and pulled her eyes closed. She looked peaceful now, as if asleep, her one arm folded across her torso, the hand resting on the opposite shoulder. Brael was still looking tearful; he also looked weak, dried blood covering one shoulder and one lower leg a mass of dried blood also.
Deathsworn Arc: 02 - The Verkreath Horror Page 17
