How far do you think you’d get, Jaharra asked, before you tire and can run no more? The demon is an engine of destruction. It will not pause. It will not grow weary.
Morbed scanned the watery horizon for any signs of a vessel. None. No rescue there.
The crash of timber was louder now.
His thoughts took a much darker turn. He withdrew his small blade and rotated it over and over in his hand as he considered what the demon could do to him. How effortlessly it could rip him apart, treat him as little more than a plaything, a mouse seeking desperately to evade the cat’s claws.
Don’t you dare give up, Jaharra all but shouted inside his head. Ending your own life would be the ultimate act of cowardice.
Morbed was silent for a long moment. “I thought you could so easily read my intentions,” he spoke aloud. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a coward . . .”
Slowly, he gained his feet.
“I’m a survivor.”
Nearer the forest edge, trees smashed to the ground, shivering the leafy canopy.
“You said you could help me . . . I need to know that what you say is true—that your claims are not just the ramblings of my own deteriorating mind. Show me. Before I do this, I have to know.”
There was an immediate twisting inside his stomach, nauseated disorientation, followed by a change in his surroundings. In an instant, he had moved from where he was and was now looking from the opposite direction at the discarded anchor and shattered longboat. The action was accompanied by a low boom that scattered sand at his feet and echoed out over the ocean.
Morbed raised his arms to steady himself. He forced bile back down his throat and turned his head. The bleached whale bones loomed behind him.
At the forest’s edge, a massive tree crashed down onto the rocky sand.
“If you can do this,” he said, “you could use your power to move me farther away, maybe even to the other side of the island. Then I might—”
I could, Jaharra answered. But I won’t. You don’t seem to understand, boy. Her voice had suddenly turned colder than it had ever been. We’re dead because of you. We no longer draw breath because you ran away. You’ve spent your entire life running, and people have died because of it. So you don’t get to run anymore. You can either stand and face this or die. There is nothing else.
The monstrosity emerged, parting the trees at the forest’s edge and lumbering out onto the shore. Black, dried blood coated its left leg. It moved sluggishly yet with dread, elemental purpose. The creature turned. Faced with its fierce enormity in the predawn light, the thief felt like little more than a helpless bug, small and weak and wholly insignificant. He tried to swallow but found he had no saliva. His heart raced. Blood drained from his limbs.
Do not waver, the voice of Clovis encouraged. You must believe.
It is up to you now to restore balance, Vorik added.
Remember, you are not alone, Aedus counseled. You’ll feel compelled to act as we exert our will. Bend to each perceived purpose, and we will guide you. But remember also that we cannot do this without you.
And at the last, Jaharra exclaimed, Fight! Claw! Outmaneuver fate and spit in the face of death!
Morbed advanced two steps. Blade held in one shaking fist, lantern grasped by the ring in the other, he stood, feet firmly planted, terrified yet resolute beneath the killing skies.
Shifting its weight, the behemoth hunched, rose, sent its bludgeon-arm smashing into the sand, then charged.
At once Morbed felt a presence other than his own, an otherness working to compel his actions. He detected in some instinctive fashion that it was Jaharra seeking to come forward, and he allowed it. Instantly his hands were raised as he struck a stance, muscles tensing, a string of foreign incantations pouring from his lips.
A breath later, time stalled. The demon’s onrush slowed; it moved as if fording water. Morbed sensed the enactment of a temporal spell, a bending of time around him. He felt compelled to let fly the dagger, knowing somehow that its own speed would be unaffected. His wrist flicked out, and the blade drove itself into the demon’s left eye.
The churning in Morbed’s stomach returned. He briefly lost all sense of time and place as he was physically removed . . .
. . . and transported several paces behind the creature, appearing with a crack like that of a small cannon. He swayed and fell backward as the demon regained its former speed, stumbled, halted. Its horrific bellow shook the sand beneath Morbed as it turned and fixed its remaining eye on the thief.
There was an instant of confusion as two inhabitants of Morbed’s mind tried to exert control simultaneously. A tempest raged briefly inside his head. When he looked up, the armored giant was almost on top of him.
Morbed scuttled away, fumbling with his hand and reaching the cold solidity of the anchor. Clovis came forward then. A radiant, resplendent warmth pervaded Morbed’s core, washed out over his limbs, and infused the anchor with a magnificent holy light. At once he felt indomitable, armored in righteousness.
The demon closed. Morbed gained his feet, twisted, and swung the Light-imbued anchor up into the heathen’s right flank. Brought up short, the monstrosity cried out in primal fury, rendering Morbed temporarily deaf. It yanked the anchor from its side, cast it to the sand, seized the thief’s right shoulder and arm, and flung him in a high arc.
Morbed somersaulted through the air and plunged into the forest canopy. He collided with several branches, felt ribs break, and slammed into the unforgiving ground, where he lay gasping. Blood flowed where the manacle had cut into his wrist. The lantern sat unbroken in the loam.
With mighty strides the hulking demon swept aside timber in a mad rush to overcome its prey, even as healing powers within Morbed fought to mend the damage to his broken body. He had seemed so invincible, but although he had felt as the crusader felt, his physical constitution was not that of the holy warrior.
Movement above shook Morbed to his senses. The demon had struck a thick, burled cypress, and the barrel-like column of its trunk was crashing down, a heartbeat away from crushing the thief. The presence of the crusader was gone and replaced instantly by the rugged steadfastness of Aedus.
A collection of esoteric entreaties rolled over Morbed’s tongue. All of a sudden, he felt a oneness with each individual species of tree, grass, fern, and shrub on the island. He was aware of every nearby insect, and for the briefest instant he believed he could hear worms burrowing in the earth beneath him.
Incredibly, a long branch jutting from the falling cypress lashed out, striking the ground inches from Morbed’s face, intending not to smite him but to arrest its own descent. The trunk twisted, and two more branches on the opposing side groped and snared the raging demon about its torso. Nearby, a rangy pine leaned in and snagged the creature’s right arm. The demon strained against its arboreal bonds, reared, then raised a massive leg to stomp the prostrate thief.
Aedus receded. Morbed felt his stomach churn . . .
Boom! Morbed found himself outside the tree line, lying on his back just inches from the chain of the cast-off anchor. Pain, white-hot and agonizing, flared up and down Morbed’s right side. His hearing had returned enough to register terrible thrashing sounds erupting from the forest. The violent cacophony persisted until at last the demon reemerged, its thick hide marred by wide gashes, its right flank a black and bloody ruin, the handle of Morbed’s dagger thrusting from its left eye. It strode slowly, battered but still alive and far from beaten.
For his part, Morbed was now acutely aware of Jaharra’s dominant presence. Words of power passed his lips; his muscles tensed; a singular mental focus came upon him. He felt reserves of strength and power welling up, building, then channeling out and away, and he heard then the thunderous roar of waves crashing to the shore.
The nightmare-behemoth had not seen Morbed; its malefic gaze was set on
the shoreline and something forming there.
A light rain fell on the thief as he wheeled. Towering columns of ocean water swelled, gushed, and thrust upward, shaping what looked like three heads rearing and swaying against the ice-gray sky. To Morbed, the elemental construct resembled the legendary hydras of old.
Wind whipped at Morbed’s hair. Waves pounded the shore. The demon advanced even as each of the water hydra’s heads slammed down onto it, driving it to its knees. Then, as quickly as the force of nature had appeared, it was gone, its salty form soaking into the sand.
An empty, desperate lethargy stole over Morbed in the spell’s aftermath. He knew that Jaharra had little energy left to give, at least for now, and the demon was rising. He felt a coalescing of strength, a final whisper of an arcane command, and then, incredibly, he saw himself standing just in front of the whale bones, hands on his hips, chest thrust out, taunting the behemoth—who turned, huffed, then stood and set off after the false image.
The debilitating pain in Morbed’s side had grown slightly less agonizing. He attempted to stand, winced, cursed, and fell back down.
Jaharra withdrew. A kind of cold detachment overcame Morbed then. In contrast to the overriding determination of Jaharra, he felt a calm equanimity. Whether he lived or died was, in the final tally, inconsequential compared to maintaining the Balance of all things. The thief realized at once that these thoughts and feelings were not his own but the innermost makeup of the necromancer, Vorik. Morbed’s overpowering imperative to survive clashed with Vorik’s detachment, but understanding soon dawned—realization that Morbed did not have to share the old man’s views in order to benefit from Vorik’s abilities.
The thief was compelled to withdraw the bone dagger he had taken from the wayfarer’s room. He set the lantern down at his side as he snatched the blade; then he sat on his haunches, dagger extended in his hands, tip pointed downward. He felt the instrument acting to not only focus but intensify his energies.
In just a few massive strides, the creature reached the false thief, raising its bludgeon-fist and dropping a perfectly placed blow on its head. Had the image been Morbed himself, every bone in his body would have been shattered by the strike. As it was, the maul passed through the illusion and smashed with terrific force into the hard-packed sand.
Bewildered, the demon turned, scanning the shoreline, its cold eye fixing at last on the real Morbed. Before it could set off, however, the gleaming whale bones erupted up and flew forward, locking onto and around the baffled creature the way a manacle might close on a doomed prisoner’s wrist. The ribs formed a cage of sorts; then, with supernatural force, the skeleton jerked the behemoth back and down with a shuddering crash, leaving the armored nightmare briefly stunned.
With no words exchanged, Morbed understood the strategy. He must take up the anchor one final time and rush the demon’s position. At just the right moment, Vorik would draw back; Clovis would come forward and imbue the anchor. Without the necromancer’s power holding the bones, the demon would quickly break free, and Morbed would have a narrow sliver of time to deal the killing blow.
Morbed replaced the bone dagger in his boot and tried once again to stand, but his fractured ribs held him fast. Down the shore, a bellow of frustration escaped the demon as it struggled mightily to extricate itself.
There was little time. If Morbed was going to act, it had to be now. He repositioned the lantern, snatched the last link of chain connected to the anchor, and pulled, hand over hand, reeling it in. Once he had grabbed hold of the anchor’s shackle, he rolled to the opposite side of his injury, tucked his knees, and pushed himself into a kneeling position. He shifted his weight and planted one foot in the sand, grasped the lantern ring, and, using the upright anchor as a prop, fought through the torment to stand.
He set out. Hot iron shards of pain speared his right side. He carried the anchor limply in that hand, knowing full well that he would be incapable of raising the makeshift weapon on his own. He would need Clovis’s help.
I am ready, the crusader encouraged.
Morbed closed the distance. The demon thrashed and fought, kicking and flexing the arms pinned at its sides. The thief drew closer and then to within striking range.
Vorik withdrew. A bold, warm radiance enveloped and infused the thief once again as Clovis came forward. The demon arched and strained, snapping the rib bones that served as its cage. The creature was free, but Morbed was now more than its equal. The agonizing injury became, if only for the briefest instant, a distant memory as the thief leaped upward; the black blood coating the anchor melted away as the holy power of the Light shone forth. The rising sun caught the glowing, upraised metal, which blazed with a starlike aura as Morbed swung the anchor down, splitting the demon’s skull and burying the pointed fluke in the blood-drenched sand.
Morbed stood panting on the fallen behemoth’s chest. The mammoth body convulsed, shuddered, and moved no more. As the sun broke the horizon, Morbed reared back and loosed a long, fervent cry of victory.
Epilogue
Close to dusk on that same day, Morbed had nearly finished his task. After spending several hours borrowing Clovis’s healing powers of Light, the thief was able to move and function once again. Following a brief search of the shoreline, he had found a half-buried cask, cracked it open, and filled his waterskin.
He had ranged inland, tracing the steps of his flight from the fortress, and within a relatively short time, he had come upon the corpse of the fisherman. It took him another two hours, digging mostly one-handed with the same anchor he had used to dispatch his horrific foe, to create a hole large enough for burial. Despite the canopy’s shade, the sun was hot and stifling within the trees, but the ground was forgiving enough, and the thief was just now packing the last bit of soil atop the grave.
It had been his foremost intention to find and lay to rest the bodies of his comrades, but they had all insisted that the fisherman be tended to first. He stood, picked up the capote he had earlier cast aside, and was preparing to set out for the bastion, when a voice carried through the timber.
“Hoooo!”
Jaharra was only too happy to transport the thief instantly from the burial site to a location just within the tree line. After watching the newcomers long enough to assess any potential threat, Morbed stepped out onto the shore.
A portly sea captain in a long-sleeved tunic and breeches hailed. A handful of sailors ranged along the shore, inspecting the debris. None had drawn weapons. Morbed spotted a longboat beached nearby and, farther out to sea, an anchored galley flying the flag of Kingsport.
“We saw the smoke,” the larger man said, indicating the pyre Morbed had built around the giant’s corpse. It had taken long for the body to catch, but when it did, the carcass blazed throughout the afternoon, and it was now a smoking ruin. “What a wreck! How many survivors?”
Morbed stepped forward. “Just me. But there was a terrible battle. Many dead and many yet to be buried.”
The captain eyed the lantern in the thief’s left hand and took in the other man’s overall appearance. “You look as though you’ve waded through the deepest pits of the Burning Hells and barely come through the other side,” the burly man decreed. “You’ll have your help with burials, but first let’s get you fed.”
Take note, thief, Jaharra spoke, that when you do good, good will come of it.
Jaharra’s voice had lost a bit of the edge it had possessed in the aftermath of the thief’s betrayal. In fact, the overall tone of condemnation from those he had betrayed had softened since Morbed’s battle with the hellborn colossus. The thief knew, however, that any real forgiveness would take time . . . if it came at all.
And what of his own opinions? He had, after all, experienced what it was not only to be like his former comrades but to actually be them. And as loath as he might be to admit it, something deep within him had changed as a result. Would it be eno
ugh? Would he be capable of performing selfless acts, and even if he were, would those succeed in freeing the spirits who would otherwise be his constant companions?
Time would tell. The road would be long, Morbed had no doubt—a journey of many steps. But perhaps, just perhaps . . . he had taken his first.
About the Author
Micky Neilson is a lead story developer at Blizzard Entertainment, where he has worked since 1993. Micky’s game-writing credits include World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Lost Vikings 2. Micky is a television and movie fanatic, and with his writing partner, Sam Didier, he writes screenplays in his spare time. (What spare time? Luckily, he was able to create a fold in the space-time continuum!) Micky’s first comic book, World of Warcraft: Ashbringer, hit #2 on the New York Times Best Sellers list for Hardcover Graphic Books. His most recent graphic novel, World of Warcraft: Pearl of Pandaria, reached #3 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. With the support of his wife, Tiffany, and daughter, Tatiana, Micky looks forward to continuing his adventures in the world of Sanctuary and beyond for many years to come.
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Diablo III: Morbed Page 6
