by Clare Smith
Jonderill and Perguine struggled from the cell barely a score of paces ahead of the monsters, supporting the bloody body of Jarrul between them. Perguine released his hold on his friend, making Jonderill stagger under the sudden extra weight and pulled his lock pick whilst he was still running towards the door. He thrust the metal spike into the lock and manipulated it into jerking, twisting circles. The pick grated in the lock giving off sounds of moving metal but when he withdrew the pick from the lock it remained firmly closed and the door still wouldn’t open.
Jonderill staggered forward, supporting Jarrul's weight with the stone creatures only a dozen paces behind. He pushed Jarrul into Pellum's arms and drew his sword, knowing it would be of little use against the creatures but feeling better for making some sort of stand. The closest of the creatures leapt forward and Jonderill made a wild swing at its head, smashing the blade into its face to shatter a tusk and one side of the monster's snout.
Screeching in pain the creature staggered away and Jonderill stepped back, preparing himself for the next beast to attack. His hand and the old battered sword touched the heavy metal door behind him which suddenly swung open, causing him to tumble through backwards in a welter of flying arms and legs. Perguine acted immediately, grabbing hold of Jarrul and hauling him through, followed by Pellum. They made it into the far cavern only an instant before the door slammed closed behind them.
For a moment nobody moved but the loud crash of stone, pounding against the metal door, jolted them into action. Pellum leapt to his feet in the same instant as Jonderill and together they heaved a heavy metal bar into position across the door and into the supports buried into the stone walls. From the other side of the door the crash of stone continued to pound as the creatures threw themselves at the barrier but the door held firm, giving the fugitives a chance to catch their breath.
Jonderill held the old battered sword high in the air and stared at it in disbelief. Plantagenet had never bothered to tell him that the sword was spelled to open doors, not that it would be unusual; Plantagenet could be very secretive when he wanted to be. The others hadn’t seemed to have noticed what had happened so Jonderill didn’t bother to explain but sheathed the sword and looked for a way out of the room they were now trapped within.
The cavern was smaller than the one they had left, about the size of a farm stable, torch lit and uncomfortably hot. Its curved walls and floor were plain stone and in the centre of the room a stone slab, stained black with blood and fixed with metal shackles, waited ominously. There were no other furnishings in the cavern and only the one door through which they had entered. It wasn’t that which caught and retained their attention though. Along the walls, held captive in heavy chains, were bodies, or parts of bodies. Jonderill swallowed hard and took a step backwards whilst Pellum turned his back and heaved out the contents of his stomach.
Like a man walking through a nightmare, Jonderill forced himself to move forward, his eyes fixed on the first figure chained to the wall. Despite the missing eyes and the splayed ribs supporting the obscenely beating heart, he knew the man was Garrin. Garrin who had been Maladran's faithful servant, the man who had taught him how to ride and play games and laugh again and do the things that other boys did. Garrin who had been a father to him when he had forgotten what a father was. Tears came into his eyes and he did nothing to hold them back. Nor was he the only one to weep.
Jarrul, despite the agony he had already lived through, knelt in front of the other bodies chained to the wall, supported by a grim-faced Perguine as they looked at what remained of their friends. Each one had been mutilated by having their heart cut out, one had an arm missing and another the side of his face caved in. They stood in a straight line, their eyes wide open and their mouths gaping whilst their bodies twitched as if they were puppets whose strings were being pulled. Only one had found the mercy of death and he hung from his chains with his skull crushed.
"Give me yer sword, Jonderill," whispered Perguine hoarsely. "I gotta end this abomination."
Jonderill handed him his sword with shaking hands and watched as Perguine thrust it into the body of the nearest prisoner. The body jerked and the mouth worked as if it was forming a terrible scream but when Perguine withdrew the sword it was bloodless and the body resumed its puppet like twitching. Jonderill turned away in disgust and then moaned in anguish and dropped to his knees, clutching his head as silent screams reverberated through his skull.
"That's all we need," spat Pellum harshly. "The serving boy on his knees having hysterics."
Perguine knelt next to the shaking Jonderill. "Look, I knows it's bad but this aint goin' to 'elp us get out of 'ere."
Jonderill looked up, his eyes wide and frightened. "He’s alive, Garrin's still alive, all of them are still alive, can't you hear them scream?"
"No, mate, but I guess yer can." Perguine stepped back and stared at Jonderill in fascination.
Through the screams a familiar voice whispered through Jonderill's mind and he turned his attention back to Garrin's corpse watching as its lips moved to form words. "Jonderill, who was like a son to me. Maladran has called on magic beyond the grave to take our spirits and now uses our souls for his own evil purposes. We are all dead but he doesn’t let us die. You must do that, you must release us."
"I don't know how," whispered Jonderill, ignoring Perguine's startled look as he started talking to himself.
“You must destroy what we have become,” whispered the voice in his head.
"I cannot," said Jonderill, horrified at the thought of what he was being asked to do.
"If you have ever loved me you must, you cannot leave me or them like this."
Jonderill looked desperately at Pellum and Perguine but it was obvious they couldn’t hear the tortured screams or Garrin's plea for help. Reluctantly he pulled his knife from his belt and before either of them could stop him he pushed the blade deep into Garrin's chest and twisted it until his heart came free. The body jerked in its chains and Garrin's agonised screams filled his head. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of what he had done.
"You dirty son of a whore!" shouted Pellum. He launched himself at Jonderill but Perguine held him back. "What sort of dirt crawler would mutilate the body of a helpless prisoner? You're worse than the bloody magician." He spat at Jonderill and turned away in disgust.
Jonderill ignored the irate prince and holding the heart as far away from him as possible he laid it on the stone slab, took the sword away from Perguine and cut the heart in two. Black blood seeped from the severed organ, burning into the stone and pitting the hardened iron blade. He watched in horror as the remains of the heart writhed, shrank and then disappeared. Garrin's body gave one final jerk and then hung limp in its chains.
"Gods! do we 'ave to do that for all of 'em?"
Jonderill shook his head, hardly able to speak. "No. I think Maladran has their hearts. The only thing we can do is to destroy the stone creatures they have become and hope that their hearts will die with them."
Perguine looked at him in disbelief and then at the one fortunate dead man before he understood what Jonderill was saying.
"Now you've finished with your little display of bravado, can we get out of here?" Pellum demanded.
“Ow we goin’ ter do that, smart arse?”
Pellum didn’t answer but just scowled at the thief leaving Jonderill to walk slowly around the room looking for a door that didn’t appear to exist. He walked around the stone slab twice, as if he was oblivious to their urgent need to escape or their imminent danger. At the far side of the stone where the stain of dried blood was the darkest he stopped, leant down and lifted a metal grid from the floor, grimacing at the foul smell.
“Apart from the way we came in I think there’s only one other way out and I guess people aren’t usually alive when they take it.” He pointed down at the dark hole in the floor. “That's probably how Maladran disposes of his prisoners unwanted bodies and down there, amongst them, is our means of es
cape."
The others peered down into the darkness but none of them spoke.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The True Queen
Maladran screamed in anger and frustration as his stone warriors threw themselves against the barred door to the lower cavern where his darkest magics were worked. He’d felt the intruder break and destroy his warding like a physical pain but worse still was the agony at the sudden death of his soul slave. Such things should have been impossible for anyone who hadn’t studied dark magic and yet this intruder had used his power almost carelessly.
Once again he removed the black silk from the scrying stone and transferred his waning power from animating his creatures to locating the source of the power ranged against him. Outside the cavern door the stone creatures became still allowing him to easily locate the alien magic in the darkness beneath the tower. He gasped in shock and realised he had underestimated his adversary as a glowing nimbus moved through the dark, solid rock towards the cave exit where sly hunters came to feast on the tower's dead.
It would be a fitting end for the intruders to become bait for the sly hunters which ranged at the forest edge but the scavengers had recently fed too well and couldn’t be relied upon to attack. He needed something more certain to ensure that the user of strange magic was totally destroyed and his companions along with him. It would be exhausting but there was nothing for it but to send his stone warriors into the kill before the source of power and the freed prisoners could escape.
He replaced the black silk square and returned to the circle of stone caskets. Apart from one each heart beat slowly as if at rest but on his command their rhythm increased, beating with the same pulse as if each heart had been encased in flesh instead of stone. Below the tower the stone creatures once again jerked into movement and responded to Maladran’s command, turning away from the door where they had waited for his power to reanimate them and charging back up the stairs to the tower’s open door.
Their given mission was clear as they retraced their steps up through the tower and out into the windswept darkness of the high crag. Sure footed despite their size and build, they ran down the steep track of the rocky pinnacle with stones scattering beneath their pounding feet. They bounced over the jagged rocks like it was smooth stone as they raced towards the cave's entrance, their only intent to capture or kill the fugitives.
Each bestial face was drawn back in a savage snarl and long snouts tested the air, searching for their quarry. The first monster to pick up the scent of their prey let out a fiendish howl, more chilling than any pack of sly hunters, and was instantly taken up by the others so that their cry reverberated through the night.
The first howl was lost on Jonderill as he staggered from the cave’s entrance, one arm supporting the semi-conscious Jarrul and the other clasped over his mouth and nose in an effort to filter out the stench of their nightmare descent from the tower. The opening in the cavern floor had immediately dropped away from the metal grid by the height of a man and after that it had wound downwards so steeply in places it had been almost vertical.
More than once they had been forced to drop through darkness into the unknown but that had been the easy part. When the tunnel ran horizontally, Jonderill had been forced to use elemental fire to guide them around the decomposing remains of the tower's dead until they could scramble from the caves entrance into the blessed relief of the night air.
Gasping for breath, Jonderill propped Jarrul up by the cave wall and then vomited until his sides ached with the effort and his throat burned with bile. Still the smell of rotting flesh would not leave his nose or mouth or the sight of dismembered limbs and mutilated corpses leave his memory. Neither Perguine nor Pellum were in any better state and he almost envied Jarrul who had lost consciousness for most of the nightmare journey.
He was still wiping the sickness from his mouth onto the back of his hand when the unearthly howling cut across his numbness like a knife. There was no need for him to see the creatures that made the noise to know they weren’t far behind or that there was no way the three of them could stop the creatures or defend themselves. It was simple; outrunning them was their only chance.
With a grimace he finished wiping his sticky mouth on the back of his sleeve. "Let's go, we’ve got to outrun them and lose them in the forest.” He heaved Jarrul into a standing position, pushing his shoulder beneath the injured man's arm and for a moment took all his weight. "Pellum, you take Jarrul's other side, you're taller than Perguine so we’ll be able to move faster."
"Not on your life!" snapped Pellum. "Those things are right behind us. If you want to be a hero you take him, I've enough to do getting myself out of here.
Pellum turned and ran, jumping over the loose stones at the cave's mouth and sprinting across the open scrubland which separated the rocky outcrop from the forest edge. Perguine muttered a foul imprecation under his breath and thrust his shoulder beneath Jarrul's free arm, giving what help his slight height and build could provide. They ran with Jarrul stumbling between them and made it half way across the scrub before they could feel the first vibrations through the ground of the stone monsters’ pounding run. The moon skipped behind fleeting clouds and Jonderill glanced over his shoulder to see the pack gaining on them, moving fast enough to take them down before they reached the forest edge.
"Leave me," hissed Jarrul through pain-clenched teeth.
Jonderill had no breath for words and Perguine was in an even worse state, breathing so hard that his breath came in loud gasps and the tendons in his neck stood out like knotted rope. Calling on the reserves of strength which fear lends to the hunted, Jonderill spurred forward, widening the gap enough for them to plunge through the thinly spaced trees at the edge of the forest a bare dozen paces ahead of their pursuers. He charged forward to where the trees thickened, oblivious to raised roots and trailing brambles underfoot. His only awareness was of the crashing sound of stone feet smashing through the undergrowth behind him and his own rasping breath.
As the forest began to thicken a spark of hope gave him extra strength and he increased his speed again but Perguine had reached his limits and his legs buckled beneath him. Suddenly burdened with Jarrul's full weight Jonderill stumbled and crashed to the forest floor, releasing his grip at the last moment so that the injured hunter had the chance to break his own fall. Jonderill landed on hands and knees, driving sharp twigs and dried thorns into his hands in a sudden flash of pain. Within seconds he was on his feet again and dragging Jarrul upright. He caught a glimpse of Perguine diving through the bushes ahead of him with the speed of a bush skimmer and then he was gone.
"Save yourself," pleaded Jarrul. "There's nothing you can do now."
Jonderill didn’t bother to reply but grabbed the hunter's wrists and shouldered him in the stomach so, that for a moment he went limp, allowing Jonderill to heave him over his shoulder. His legs shook enough to collapse under the weight of his helpless burden but Jonderill forced them to steadiness and started to run into the thickest, darkest part of the forest, illuminated only by intermittent moonlight.
He could hear the creatures pounding behind him, gaining on him despite the denseness of the woodland but that was not all. To each side of him he could now hear the crashing of undergrowth as more powerful creatures forced a pathway around him. Then they were ahead of him, in amongst the trees and blocking his escape; he was surrounded.
Staggering under Jarrul's weight, Jonderill broke through into a small clearing no more than a dozen paces in diameter and dropped his burden in the centre of the circle. Knowing his situation was hopeless he drew his sword and waited, determined they should both die rather than be taken back to be cruelly used by Maladran's magic. A savage howl behind him and a splintering of wood made him spin around to face the first of the creatures as it ripped bushes and trees aside to get to him.
The stone creature rushed forward, its short, massive legs driving it across the clearing in a matter of mo
ments. It pulled back its lips in a horrifying grin of triumph and revealed pointed canine teeth the size of a man's finger. That was where Jonderill aimed, smashing his blade broadside into the creature’s mouth and shattering a tusk and front canines. The creature howled in shock and hesitated in its forward charge whilst it shook broken teeth from its mouth.
It was a moment’s respite only as the creature leapt for Jonderill's throat, its large muscular hands clamping down on Jonderill's shoulder at the base of his neck. Jonderill staggered back under the creature's weight and momentum and swung the sword around onto the back of the creature’s skull. The angle was too tight to deliver a blow with much force and only a small piece of stone chipped away but the beast still clung on, snapping its terrible broken teeth at Jonderill's face.
Again Jonderill brought the blade crashing down broadside onto the creature's skull this time chipping out a larger piece of rock. The animal howled and loosened its grip on Jonderill's shoulder in an effort to protect itself. Once his shoulder was free of the crushing hold, Jonderill could swing the sword with greater freedom. He brought the blade down once more, completely shattering the skull of the creature with its impact. Stone scattered in all directions and the creature's bestial howl was instantly cut short as it crumpled to the ground in a pile of rubble.
His victory was short-lived as another of Maladran's creatures lunged forward to attack Jarrul, who had no means of defence except his bloody arms and damaged hands. The creature landed on Jarrul's chest and ploughed downwards towards his throat with its long tusks, crumpling Jarrul's resistance beneath its weight. There was only one chance to stop the creature so Jonderill dropped his sword and grabbed the stone boulder which had once been his attacker's forehead.
