“Willow!” Gibrig screamed, reaching for her.
Brannon held onto a vine with one hand, and with the other he pointed down into the depths of the spire. Three of the vines making up the dome above them shot into the darkness and suddenly became taut.
“Gotcha,” said Brannon. He lifted his arm, and slowly the vines pulled Willow back up to the edge. Sir Eldrick had already climbed up over the edge, and he helped Willow and Brannon up as well. Gibrig clung to Murland as together they hovered over the chasm.
Outside the living dome, the trolls were still fighting to get in. Their spears began to pierce the twisted vine wall, and eager, clawed hands pushed through. To make matters worse, the wicked screeches of the beasts began to issue from the abyss that Willow had fallen into.
“We’re trapped,” said Brannon, panting. “And I don’t know how long those vines are going to hold up.”
The trolls began to climb up out of the pit, and Murland pointed his wand down into it and unleashed a steady stream of fire. The flames illuminated the cylindrical shaft, revealing hundreds of black-eyed little trolls climbing over themselves to get to the top. Fear swelled in Murland, and the magic reacted to his primal instinct. A great swath of fire burst forth from the wand, shooting down through the shaft and incinerating everything in it. But the flames did not relent, for Murland was so awestruck, so enamored by the power flowing through him, that he kept it up, eyes widening with power lust.
“Enough!” Sir Eldrick screamed. “You’ll cook us all!”
Sir Eldrick’s desperate voice and the rising heat snapped Murland out of it, and he pulled back the wand, ending the spell. But it was too late. The spire began to rumble, and deep down in the chasm the firelight glowed brightly. There was an explosion, and before Murland could tell Packy to fly them to the edge, flames shot back up the shaft. Like a volcano, the spire erupted, shooting Murland and Gibrig up through the vine dome with explosive force. They shot straight up into the air one hundred feet above the spire.
Murland lost consciousness for a heartbeat and awoke at the apex of their ascent, mildly aware that he was beginning to fall. “Packy,” he groaned. “Packy!”
But the backpack did not react, and Murland fell with the blackened vines back down into the chasm, which now bellowed black smoke. He hit hard and slid on his back down into the darkness. The chute was steep and plunged him deep into the spire before leveling out and sending him flailing through the darkness. He landed on something big and soft, and heard a familiar voice give a loud “Ugh.”
Head spinning and lungs burning from the smoke, Murland blindly groped in the darkness, feeling the thing that he had landed on.
“You mind letting go of my boob?” said Willow.
A torch lit the darkness, and Murland found himself sitting in Willow’s lap. “Sorry,” he said, releasing her.
“Is everyone here?” said Sir Eldrick. He glanced around. “Where’s Gibrig?”
“Here,” came the dwarf’s muffled voice, and Willow’s eyes widened.
“Sorry,” she said, getting off him.
Brannon was there as well, but Murland didn’t know exactly where there was.
“Come on, we’ve got to get out of this smoke before it kills us,” said Sir Eldrick.
They all got to their feet and bent to stay under the smoke gathering near the low ceiling. He led them toward the only light not coming from the torch, and soon they emerged into a wider chamber, one whose mineral-rich walls glowed dimly with inner light. In the chamber, hundreds of trolls waited. But they did not attack, for at the center of the chamber stood a figure taller than the trolls, shrouded in thick gray robes. In its right hand, the figure held what looked to be a broom.
“Look, my pets, look what has fallen into my trap,” came a strong female voice.
Murland’s mind screamed a single name, Gurtzarg.
The figure flung back its hood, and a beautiful silver-haired woman stood before them. Her beauty was not that of a young lass, but a thunderstorm, and those large icy blue eyes evoked the power of a tempest.
“Who are you?” Sir Eldrick asked, his voice echoing powerfully through the chamber. “And why have you sent these beasts after us?”
“You know who I am,” said the woman. “For I am more feared than the Horrible Hills themselves.”
“Gurtzarg?”
She grinned and dropped her robes, revealing a curvaceous body covered in skimpy leather. “The one and only. And you are the legendary Champions of the Dragon. You look surprised. I have watched you five for a long time, and I have been waiting.”
“What do you want with us?”
She strode forward, her high heels clicking on the stone floor. Everyone tensed, and Sir Eldrick put out a staying hand. “Wait.”
Gurtzarg stopped a few feet from the knight, her eyes studying the companions in turn. She settled on Murland and the wand in his left hand.
“I want one thing, and one thing only. Give me that which I desire, and I will let you pass through the hills unscathed.”
“What is the thing that you desire?” Sir Eldrick asked, surely thinking back on Princess Chastity’s motives when she had been the Horny Hag.
“I want the wand,” she said, looking at Murland.
He took a defensive step back, putting the wand behind him. Sir Eldrick glanced back at him and eyed the hundreds of trolls waiting to pounce.
“If you have been watching us, then you have seen that we are indeed champions. What makes you think that you and your spire trolls can defeat us?”
“Please,” said Gurtzarg, cocking a brow in amusement. “When you were not helped by that fool Kazimir, you got by on dumb luck. But neither one will help you now.”
“You know that we are the Champions of the Dragon. You know of the prophecy of Drak’Noir. If you kill us, no one will stop her, and she will rain death and destruction upon your lands as well.”
She shrugged. “Sounds like a good time. Nevertheless, I will possess the wand of Kazam.”
“I will never give you the wand!” Murland suddenly blurted.
She scowled at him, and the trolls all collectively growled, vibrating the walls of the spire. Sir Eldrick put a hand to Murland’s chest.
“Just give it to her,” said Brannon. “It is just a wand.”
“It’s not just a wand,” Murland snapped. The thought of handing it over infuriated him, and a rage began to boil within him unlike any feeling he had ever known.
“No, it is not,” said Gurtzarg, taking a step toward them. Sir Eldrick’s fae blade sang out of its sheath, and the witch stopped. She pointed a long finger at Murland. “That is the weapon that was used to defeat the Dark Lord Zuul so long ago. And do you know what it means to be its wielder?”
Murland said nothing.
“There is a prophecy that speaks of the second coming of Zuul. It will begin with the reemergence of the Twisted Tower in the northern oceans. And the tower has reemerged, and Zuul has returned. Only the wielder of the wand of Kazam can defeat him, and I shall be the one to do it.”
“I am the one named in the prophecy,” said Murland, and the others looked to him with surprise.
“Ridiculous,” said Gurtzarg. “You are nobody, just a useless wizard’s apprentice who stumbled upon the wand. I have been searching for the wand for centuries, and now it has come to me. It is a sign. You must see this, for I shall be the one to defeat Zuul.”
“The wand was given to me,” said Murland. “I have mended it.”
“Yes, and it can only be taken in death. Or you can give it to me willingly. Which will it be?”
“How can we be sure that you will let us go?” said Sir Eldrick.
“I give you my word,” said Gurtzarg with a small bow.
“No,” said Murland, moving in front of Sir Eldrick.
“Murland…” said the knight.
“I said no,” said Murland in a voice both powerful and confident.
The others seemed infected by hi
s confidence, for they came to stand beside him, ready to fight to the death.
Gurtzarg leveled a dangerous glare on Murland, and her eyes began to glow bright white. A wand suddenly appeared in her hand, and a spell exploded from it.
“Ignis!” Murland commanded, and his fire spell shot out of his wand.
Gurtzarg’s spell was unaffected, however, and shot through the flames, hitting him square in the chest. Pain consumed him, and he was slowly lifted off his feet, screaming in agony as the spell poured from the wand like liquid emerald and surrounded him.
Sir Eldrick leapt forward and put the fae blade in the path of the spell, disrupting it and causing it to shoot back at the witch. It grazed her shoulder and spun her in a circle, but she recovered quickly as the spell dissipated.
Murland fell to the floor in agony and was caught in Willow’s strong arms.
“Kill them all!” Gurtzarg screamed, and she unleashed another spell.
Sir Eldrick gave a war cry and charged the witch, deflecting her spells with the fae blade as the trolls attacked from all sides. Brannon and Willow protected the flanks, engaging the trolls with club and sword as Gibrig stood back to back with Murland, who still shook from the pain of that terrible spell. He watched Sir Eldrick’s advance and thought that indeed the knight would cut down the witch, but as he closed in behind the last spell and raised his sword for the strike, Gurtzarg shot out an empty hand, hitting him with a blast of lightning that took him off his feet and deposited him, unconscious, on the hard stone floor.
“No!” Murland cried out.
Gurtzarg sneered at him as her trolls descended upon the group. She mounted her broom and took off into the air.
“After her, Packy!” Murland screamed in a blind rage.
“Murland!” Brannon cried after him, but he barely heard him. He shot fire spells at the witch as she flew toward the ceiling. She easily dodged them all, for her broom was incredibly fast, and it was all the backpack could do to keep up.
Gurtzarg turned suddenly in her flight and shot a blue spell at him that streaked past, barely missing him as the backpack barrel-rolled to the left. He retaliated with a fire spell as she came at him, but the spell went wide due to his bad aim with his left hand and the backpack’s defensive maneuvers.
“Is that the only spell that you know?” Gurtzarg mocked him.
His mind raced to think of another spell, any spell, for it was one thing to recite the incantations out of a spell book in comfort, and another thing altogether to have the presence of mind to perform them in the heat of battle. But he remembered one, and as they circled each other high above the battle raging in the cavern below, he maneuvered Packy behind the witch and let loose.
“Fulmen frigor!”
The icy blue spell flew by, missing Gurtzarg’s head by inches, and hit a small stalactite hanging from the ceiling. The spell turned it to solid ice, and it cracked and fell to the ground below, landing on a troll’s head.
Murland looked up and saw a spell coming for him. He cried out to his backpack and it barrel-rolled again, but the spell hit Packy, and to Murland’s horror, the long white wings froze in place. Murland brought up his good arm as they hit and bounced off the wall, falling ten feet before landing on a group of trolls. Dozens of small hands groped at him, and Murland felt a blade stab him in the leg. He howled and came up swinging his wand frantically.
“Ventus!” he commanded, and the magic shot through his arm into the wand, where it was manifested into a gale that sent trolls flying back end over end.
“Enough of this!” Gurtzarg cried out and landed near her throne.
The trolls all stopped their advance, which Murland saw had pushed the companions back against the wall, where they had been frantically fighting the little beasts off. Willow’s club was stained black with the blood of the trolls, as was Brannon’s sword, and to Murland’s surprise, Gibrig’s shovel showed signs of battle as well. But the companions had not gotten through the fighting unscathed. Green blood oozed from many wounds on Willow’s large frame, and both Brannon and Gibrig were bleeding as well.
“Behold, your friend the knight is running out of time,” said the witch.
Murland ran over to Sir Eldrick. The man was unrecognizable, with white hair where it had once been brown and silver, and sagging, wrinkled skin.
“As you can see, he is aging. One decade for every minute that you waste.”
Sir Eldrick looked up at Murland with fear-filled eyes.
“Stop it!” Murland told the witch.
“Give me the wand and I shall reverse the spell.”
Murland looked from the witch to Sir Eldrick, who seemed to be on the brink of death.
“Do it, Murland, he’s going to die,” said Brannon.
“Fine, I’ll give you the wand, but you have to help him first.”
“No, no, no,” said Gurtzarg, holding out her hand. “First, the wand.”
Murland looked into Sir Eldrick’s dying eyes and sighed. “Alright, you win,” he said, and he limped toward the throne.
Gurtzarg stood and held out her hand, her eyes alight with victory.
Murland took one step up the dais and handed her the wand of Kazam. She stared at the dark wood, hand trembling, and reached out, eyes watching Murland for deception.
Gurtzarg snatched the wand out of his hand and laughed, tears welling in her eyes. “Finally,” she said, holding the wand up to the light. “Finally, I have the wand that was broken!”
“You’ve got what you wanted,” said Murland with a sigh. “Now reverse the aging spell on Sir Eldrick.”
She seemed not to hear him, so enamored was she by the wand.
“Do it!” he bellowed.
Her eyes moved from the coveted wand slowly, and a wide grin spread across her terribly beautiful face. “Fool,” she said with a sneer. “Don’t you know that you can never trust the word of a witch?”
He took a step back as she squared on him.
“Goodbye, Murland Kadabra, you have served your purpose in this life.”
She pointed the wand at him and spoke the words of magic. A writhing black ball of crackling energy shot out of the wand and hit Murland in the chest. He cried out instinctively and brought up his arms, but to his surprise, the spell seemed not to touch him, but rather bounced off him and rebounded back at the shocked witch.
It hit her in the gut, and she doubled over in agony. Murland thought that perhaps she had absorbed the spell, but then her veins turned black, and her eyes began to bleed as they stared at Murland in shock and horror.
“Oh, no,” she said with a gasp, before exploding into a million pieces.
Everyone, including the trolls, stared at the slowly falling black ashes as the wand fell to the stone floor.
“Great Turtle!” said Willow. “Now that was some good magix!”
“Murland, you did it!” Gibrig cried and came running.
At the sudden movement, the trolls all reeled back. They looked fearfully to Murland and the others before hurriedly running away, tripping over each other as they went.
Murland retrieved the wand and stared at it in awe, wondering what had just happened.
“Murland!” Brannon called, kneeling beside Sir Eldrick.
He ran over to them and fell to his knees beside the knight. Sir Eldrick was no longer aging, but neither was he getting any younger.
“The spell was broken when she died,” said Murland.
“Can you reverse it?” Gibrig asked nervously.
Murland shook his head. “This magic is beyond me. There might be something in the spell book about it, but I’ve nothing left. I’m spent.”
“Hey,” said Willow, snapping her fingers in front of Sir Eldrick. “Hey, you still in there, or you gone senile on us?”
Sir Eldrick looked up at her dreamily and smiled stupidly. “Ogre,” he said in his old-man voice. “I’ve never met an ogre.”
“My name is Willow. Do you remember me?”
“Wil
low?” he said, looking confused. “I’ve never met a Willow before. Nice to meet you, my name is…” he frowned.
“Yup, he’s as nutty as a chipmunk’s daydreams,” said Willow.
“Me gran’pap had the loonies when he got old,” said Gibrig. “Let me talk to him.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Brannon, eyeing the cavern warily.
“Hey there, me name be Gibrig. Ye be Sir Eldrick van Albright o’ Vhalovia, alright? We’re goin’ to go on a walk now. Ye want to go on a walk?”
“Why do you talk like a dwarf, lad?” Sir Eldrick asked.
“I be a dwarf is why. But I got that humanism.”
Sir Eldrick frowned at him, his big bushy white eyebrows furling into a long V. “Humanism?”
Gibrig nodded.
“Bah!” Sir Eldrick laughed and looked to the others to share the joke. Then his eyes locked on Brannon and he straightened. “Who’s the pretty elf?”
“Oh, gods!” Brannon said with a sigh. “Come on, let’s get the fool out of here.”
“She kind of seems like a bitch,” said Sir Eldrick.
Murland couldn’t help a laugh, and once he started, he found that he couldn’t stop. The violence, the fear, the excursion of magic, it all came crashing down on him at once, and he felt like he might have lost his mind as well. Brannon turned and scowled at them all, for Willow was laughing just as boisterously, and she fell to the floor in a fit of giggles.
“Now that ain’t nice,” Gibrig told the knight.
Brannon glared, but his nostrils flared, and he too finally burst with laughter.
Chapter 27
The Gloom of Guilt
Murland led them out into the hazy morning light. He looked north and south, scanning the spires for signs of movement, but there were no trolls to be seen.
“You think they’ll be back?” Brannon asked him.
“Let’s not find out. Willow, can you carry Sir Eldrick for a while? I don’t think we can go at his pace.”
Beyond the Wide Wall Page 19
