by Drew Hayes
Grumph twisted, catching the side of a golem’s blow in his shoulder, which felt like it was fractured, if not outright broken. Had he taken the full force of it, Grumph doubted he would still even have an arm. It was a worthwhile injury, though, because it allowed Grumph to redirect and run over to Eric, skewering a golem that had been attacking the rogue a moment prior.
“Go!” Grumph ordered, pointing over Eric’s shoulder to where the mage was steadily progressing toward the pedestal.
Eric hung there for a moment, visibly torn with indecision. They were barely holding on as it was; losing one person, one fellow target, might mean dooming everyone he left behind. But Eric was the only person in the party besides Grumph to touch the Bridge; he knew how dangerous it could be. With a small nod of apology, Eric turned and began to chase the woman.
Grumph didn’t know if Eric would be fast enough—enchanted boots versus magically-augmented legs—or if Eric would be able to stop her or get to the Bridge himself upon arrival. Unlike his dearth of magic knowledge, this uncertainty didn’t bother Grumph in the slightest. It wasn’t his place to know if or how Eric would succeed.
No, Grumph’s sole job now was to ensure Eric made the journey un-accosted. He whipped the bone-white blade at the end of his staff forward as three treasure golems began to close in around him. Tough a fight as it appeared to be, Grumph would make sure Eric got the time he needed. He had to, because if Eric failed, it would likely mean the death of everyone in this room.
And that was being optimistic.
Chapter 54
Even as his feet desperately raced across the ground, Eric wasn’t sure if he was running to stop or save the mage ahead of him. If she reached the Bridge first, there was a strong chance she’d trigger whatever defenses Rathgan had left in place, meaning that he’d get valuable information on what the next hurdle to overcome would be. But there was also the possibility that she knew what she was doing and could circumvent any wards or traps to get her hands on the Bridge first. She might have the best of intentions for the moment; however, there was no telling what would happen once her hands curled around the ancient artifact.
Maybe it was both; maybe Eric needed to get there first for her safety as much as his friends’. The trouble was that no matter how hard he ran, Eric wasn’t gaining on her. Whatever spells she’d woven around herself, they were propelling her forward as quickly as his trained legs sitting atop a pair of enchanted boots could. Actually, the truth was that she seemed to be a bit faster, which didn’t bode well. They were drawing rapidly closer to the pedestal, and it was clear that this was a race Eric couldn’t win. Given this information, he considered it a good thing that he was a rogue, and it was somewhat acceptable for rogues to cheat.
Without taking his eyes from the sprinting mage who nimbly dodged any coin-composed hands that reached for her, Eric unfastened his crossbow from his waist and readied it to fire. From this distance, even running, he had a decent chance of hitting her in the torso. A blow to the legs would be less likely to seriously wound her, but they were also a far more difficult target. Plus, there was a strong chance she’d need to be running again soon—being hobbled in a place like this could easily turn into a death sentence.
Eric’s tongue ran along his lips as he battled the indecision. He had to do something, but the idea of launching a bolt into someone without cause, especially when they might be trying to help, sat heavy in his gut. It was what Elora would have done; Eric had no doubt on that issue. He wasn’t Elora, however. And if there was one thing he’d taken from his time as her pupil, it was the realization that while the skills rogues needed were similar, how they used them varied from person to person. And Eric wasn’t the type to shoot someone in the back. At least, not without reason.
The bolt from his crossbow ripped through the air, flying toward—and then past—the mage, who let out a yelp of surprise. She started to turn back to see her presumed attacker, but before she could, the bolt found its target. It struck the side of the pedestal square on and was instantly engulfed in a contained storm of red magical energy. By the time the light died away seconds later, there was nothing left of the crossbow bolt besides ash and a heavily-warped hunk of metal.
“Little more than I was expecting.” The woman rapidly slowed her pace, still approaching the pedestal but dialing back the breakneck speed enough that Eric was able to catch up to her easily. Together the two stared at the pedestal that was now only twenty feet away.
“We got some insight into how much the dragon cares for this piece,” Eric explained. “I had a hunch he’d ward it heavily and didn’t want you to stumble into something.”
“I’m usually not a fan of people shooting in my direction, but I think this time, I’m willing to make an exception. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Eric.” He didn’t even bother looking at the mage; his eyes remained unwavering from the pedestal, the last hurdle between him and the Bridge. This close, he could hear its voice, trapped behind the seemingly minor barrier of a glass case.
“I’m the esteemed sorceress Chalara,” she said. “And I used a spell to sense magic before I ran in here, so trust me when I say that that pedestal is positively glowing with power. I figured it was the totem for the golem spell, though.”
“It might be.” Eric glanced back at the still-growing army of treasure golems that were steadily surrounding his friends. Some were heading toward him and Chalara, but their movements were slower, more cautious. Like they had something to fear in this direction. “Since Rathgan wards the hell out of it anyway, why not make it the golem totem as well? That way, it would be even harder to stop them. I’m not sure my bolt even made contact before it got destroyed.”
“Crafty-ass dragons.” Chalara took a tentative step forward, hands waving through the air, touching things Eric wasn’t able to see. “The spellcraft on this is insane. Even if I used all my mana to try and dispel it, I doubt I’d cause more than a hiccup. You might have enough time to grab whatever that crystal is, but I’m perceiving zero magic from it, so I doubt it’s the totem. All we’d manage is to rob a dragon for a few minutes before his golems tore us to pieces and took his artifact back.”
Eric’s teeth ground together as he stared at the pedestal. Damn Rathgan. Damn this sorceress. Damn them all. Because he knew that there was a way to break the pedestal, if Chalara could cause a hiccup. If she could manage to get close enough, Gabrielle could swing her mighty axe into the pedestal and at least hinder, if not outright destroy, the ward. But she’d already paid too much blood as it was, even with Thistle patching her along the way. He couldn’t ask more of her, especially if the magic she’d be hitting was as powerful as Chalara indicated. At the same time, he couldn’t do nothing. If the situation didn’t change, then they were going to be crushed to death by golems.
And then it hit him: Gabrielle didn’t disrupt magic. The axe did. There was no reason she needed to be the one who swung it. True, he lacked her strength and training, but he wasn’t trying to take the weapon into battle. All he had to do was land one hit on a stationary object. That, he could accomplish. He had to.
“Get ready to cast that dispelling,” Eric told Chalara. “When I give the signal, cause as much of a hiccup as you can. I’ve got an idea to stop these things.”
“Oh yeah, sure, I’ll just burn the rest of my mana on a plan you don’t feel like sharing with me. That sounds totally cool,” Chalara mumbled. She did pull her wand out, however, so Eric had to assume she was at least a little on board.
Cupping his hands to his mouth, Eric pushed all thoughts of silence and stealth out of his head. For this, he needed to be loud, to be heard over the ruckus of battle. Taking a deep breath, he reared back, and then screamed with everything he had.
“Gaaaaabby!”
* * *
It was overkill, really. She’d been paying Eric as much attention as she could spare mid-battle, keeping her eyes locked on him in case he needed her assistance. So of course
she was ready when his scream tore through the treasury, even as she dodged a fist made of gold coins and then slammed her axe through its arm, parting it from the rest of the golem. The limb would rejoin its owner eventually—she’d lopped off enough of them in the fight to know that much already—but for a while it would be crippled, and that bought everyone precious breathing room.
Gabrielle felt torn for a moment as she tried to extricate herself from the fight. Eric wouldn’t have called if he didn’t really need her; however, the others were also in dire straits. Grumph’s staff was keeping some golems at bay, and the combined efforts of Timuscor and the other guy in armor were slowly breaking their enemies back into coins, with Mr. Peppers stomping his hooves on the smaller pieces. Thistle was darting about carefully, landing blow after blow to draw just enough attention away from his friends to keep them safe. It was a dance, all of it, intricate and dangerous and only getting harder. Without her in the fray to keep the pressure off, the golems might take the upper hand.
Unfortunately, that was going to happen even if she stayed, and Gabrielle knew it. Too many new golems kept forming from the seemingly endless heaps of treasure, and the ones they knocked down were putting themselves back together. There was no way to win this fight, not with the tactics her friends were currently using, so she had to hope, to trust, that Eric had found some method of stopping their foes. Maybe he could do it with the Bridge. Maybe he had another plan. All she knew for certain was that he needed her help. She just prayed that the cost of leaving the battle wouldn’t be too high.
Gabrielle ran hard, determined to forsake the others for as little time as possible. A few golems tried to bar her way, but a quick swing here and there chopped through their legs, leaving them unable to pursue. She sprinted through the room, getting ahead of the enemies, and then finally reaching Eric and the mage woman.
“What’s the plan?” Gabrielle was breathing heavy from fighting and running in such short succession, but her words were still clear.
“Chalara has a way to disrupt the magic on the pedestal, which we think is powering the golems,” Eric explained. “But we need to use your axe as a focus. With it, we can put an end to this in one magical swoop.”
Her hands tightened reflexively on the hilt of her weapon. “You want me to hand over my axe to a stranger?”
“It’s a cursed weapon, Gabby. Do you really think anyone wants to steal it? Plus, she’s using all her mana on this spell; it won’t be hard for you to take it back.” Eric extended his hand and gave her a warm, reassuring smile. It was just like the ones he’d given when she was brought back from the goblin camps and he’d thought she needed comforting. He was asking her to trust him and his judgment.
“I better get this back.” Slowly, she reached out and set the axe in Eric’s hand. He winced as his fingers closed around it, but the smile never wavered.
“You will, Gabby. I promise.” Eric raised his voice and called over to the robed woman, who had her eyes closed and was muttering nonsense as she waved a glowing wand in the air. “Chalara, you almost ready?”
“Good to go whenever you are.”
He headed toward her, axe in hand, and stopped at her side, so close to the pedestal. “Do it.” Eric looked back at Gabrielle for a split second, and in that moment, she knew.
That bastard had tricked her. He’d used their relationship to put her at ease, and the urgency of the situation to keep her from asking questions she should have asked, like why did he need to be the one to take the axe to the mage? In that fraction of a second, Gabrielle realized just how far along the path of a rogue her best friend had gone.
She tried to stop him, but Eric was always faster than she. With enchanted boots and a healthy head start, there was never any chance that she would catch up. All Gabrielle could do was watch as Chalara let out the blast of blue magic that struck the pedestal and caused it to spark and flicker. Eric was only steps behind the magic, axe held clumsily over his shoulder as he reared back for a swing. Gabrielle tried to scream, to tell him to stop, but Eric’s desperation was faster than her words. He took one final step forward and swung with everything he had, smashing the axe’s head into the pedestal.
The explosion knocked Gabrielle flat on her back, which turned out to be a blessing as her weapon sailed overhead, slamming into the ground only a few feet away. Dragging herself up, ignoring the ringing in her ears, she scanned the area, desperately searching for Eric.
He wasn’t hard to spot, his singed and battered body only a few feet from the pedestal, which was now covered in swirls of glowing red glowing energy. Bursts of that energy shot out, seemingly at random. One hit a coin near Gabrielle’s feet, and when the light faded, the piece of gold had been transformed into a dead fish.
“Oh shit.” Chalara rose to her feet as well, shoving a treasure chest that Gabrielle was certain hadn’t been there moments prior off of her legs. “He only cracked it.”
Following Chalara’s eyes, Gabrielle realized that there was a chip taken out of the pedestal, right where Eric had struck. “What does that mean?”
“Best guess, he fucked up the enchantment but didn’t destroy it. Now, it seems to be firing off magical energy with random effects, like unshrinking something I paid a lot of money to have miniaturized.” Chalara kicked the chest for good measure.
“Maybe he at least stopped the golems.” Gabrielle turned around to look back at their friends, and what she saw was almost as alarming as Eric’s beaten body. Chalara turned as well, and she let out a series of curses under her breath as she saw what was happening.
“I guess we at least know for sure that this is the totem.”
Chapter 55
Thistle thought of himself as worldly, in the sense that he had seen much and been through many experiences. If pressed, he would have admitted that while he didn’t consider himself impossible to surprise, he did think it was difficult to do so. The treasure golems had been unexpected; however, ultimately, they were just like what he’d battled in the orchard, only made of coins instead of moss, and much, much stronger. After the explosions, that was no longer so. Whatever Gabrielle, Eric, and the woman in robes had done, it had clearly impacted the golems.
Specifically, they’d begun to warp and fuse, the humanoid shapes no longer static as they continued attacking Thistle and his friends. A tentacle made of gold coins whipped by Thistle’s head, nearly taking it off if not for poor aim, the individual coins within falling even as it swung. That appendage belonged to a golem that had once been two, and both heads rested atop its malformed shoulders as the hands became little more than waving whips. Near Timuscor, three-fingered hands were reaching up from the ground where a golem had been smashed to pieces, trying to grab his legs. Timanuel managed to catch a blow on his shield and was driven back, but the limb that with which the golem had struck exploded into a shower of gold, the coins rolling into other golems as soon as they touched the ground.
This was a surprise all right; no getting around that. Obviously, they’d done something to mess up the spell; however, rather than simply coming apart, the enchantment had been warped. Thistle backed away quickly, surveying the battlefield as he tried to get his bearings.
Movement caught his eye. Three new figures had entered the room, but they weren’t going anywhere near the golems. In fact, they were approaching one of the gold piles, shoveling in as much as they could take while everyone else battled around them. It was because he was staring at them that Thistle noticed another shift, a ripple moving through the mound of coins and gems. It was intuition more than intelligence, but in that moment, he knew that this wouldn’t be more of the well-formed guardians pulling themselves together a few at a time.
“Everyone by the gold, get clear!” Thistle’s scream echoed through the cavern and hung there, confusing almost everyone who heard it. To his left, he saw the gnome who’d come in with Timanuel hustling to move away from the gold, and moments later, the elf with a bow followed suit. Neither of them wa
s fast enough, though.
The first pile to rise up was the one the three strangers were pillaging. It condensed into a hand—this one with seven fingers—that lifted from the floor in a huge fist, only to slam itself down on the would-be robbers. Two of them scrambled clear, but the one in robes couldn’t quite manage and ended up with a crushed foot.
All around them, the rest of the treasure was acting in similar fashion. Giant golden limbs and faces were manifesting out of the piles, reaching out clumsily toward the invaders. The sound of falling coins was deafening as they rained down from the massive constructs, only to be reclaimed and lost once more by the smaller, misshapen golems. Thistle racked his mind for any solutions, no matter how far-fetched they might be, and came up with nothing.
Whatever was going on, he didn’t have the skills or power to fix it. The only ones who might manage were the same people who’d started this slide toward chaos in the first place. Desperately, Thistle glanced across the room to where Gabrielle and the mage had just finished pulling Eric’s body away from the pedestal. He wanted to be there, helping and healing, guiding them along, but the simple truth was that there wasn’t anything he’d be able to add.
He was needed here far more, where Timuscor, Timanuel, and Grumph were circling up with one another, trying to defend from all angles. Since they left Maplebark, Thistle had been doing all he could to keep everyone safe with his meager knowledge and unexpected paladin powers, but this was out of his hands.
Darting forward, Thistle joined up with the other three as the enemies surrounded them. Gabrielle and Eric would think of something. They’d come a long way from being the mayor’s daughter and the inept guard. He trusted them, quite literally, with his life. Rather than wasting time by trying to get over and guide them, Thistle was going to do what paladins were meant for.
