Wild Monster

by Matthew Harrington

  Lusis stepped out of the woman's way. "Glorfindel."

  The part elf glanced her way in passing. "What?"

  "He will wear your skin." Lusis glanced over her shoulder at the woman.

  "Let him come," the half-elf woman scoffed.

  Lusis glanced over the elves behind her. They were frozen in readiness, and Bess, among them was staring at the gold with a faraway expression.

  The Istari felt the room slow. She lifted her gaze to Nema, who was still smiling on the last of the steps. Her dark stare passed beyond the Madam, to the flawless stone railing, cut by dwarves, along which there lined Forces men loyal to Gurn Drivenn. She counted five bowmen, and ten swordsmen. Lusis turned her head to take in Legolas. She could see that he was watching the bows of the nearest three archers, but his quiver was over his shoulder. Telfeth's quiver was war-slung, and lay against her ribs for quicker drawing. She stared up at the line of soldiers as well.

  Dorondir was relaxed and stood with one hand on Glorfindel's wrist.

  Amathon was close to Lusis, just off her right shoulder, but Legolas was closer the cage on the left, which meant there was a good amount of space between her and the Elfprince. She listened to Ellethiel's light steps in the gold and turned her left foot just enough to tip her body in the proper direction. She saw Legolas' blue gaze glint. His chin fell a fraction in agreement.

  In those short seconds where Lusis sized up the room, Nema stopped laughing for long enough to scoff, "I have won, oh, unspoiled princess of the North. For all your virtue, I have already-"

  Under her voice, Lusis heard the jingling of keys, and the clicking of a lock.

  She swiveled her body around and down. Her boots dug into gold and held fast. She threw herself out and over the downhill trend of the gold, this made no noise but a sudden jingle, which wasn't much warning.

  Nema cried out. Bowstrings juddered in air. Lusis couldn't see what had become of her friends behind her, but none cried out. Ellethiel turned just in time to see the immediate problem. Lusis pulled her sword in midair, but the blade impacted, jarringly, with the silver bars of the cage and dislodged, rather than striking the head off the half-elf. They landed hard and slid on the gold a good ten to twelve feet.

  "You are lucky," Lusis spat, unable to locate her elf-sword in the expanse of metal.

  "Fool!" Ellethiel brought up her knee and drove the wind out of Lusis' middle. The half-elf pushed her away and scrambled up, sore, but functional. "Nema! To his cage!"

  Both the Madam and the part-elf started running for the bars of Elrond of Rivendell.

  Lusis dug her fingers in and scrabbled up the mounds of gold. Her hand snagged the woman's boot and made her stumble, but it didn't stop Ellethiel. She threw herself forward and snagged her other heel more solidly. Ellethiel fell and the gold under her let go. Lusis slid some two feet, but the part-elf slid more than six. Lusis got up, dug in her heels, and ran.

  She had no sword. She had no way to throw off arrows that suddenly arched for her. So she braced and swerved to one side.

  The gold slithered. A great red dragon's scale rose up before her and the arrow tapped on it like rain. A second of Smaug's great scales already rose to her left to intercept the arrow there.

  She reheard Amathon's words from within the Halls of the Elvenking, and saw the sunny white ribcage over the Great Gallery, embedded in stone and braced to the cavern walls. 'A dragon's bones haunt the slayer. They are never far.' This was Bess Bowman. She'd felt the old bits and pieces of Smaug in this mountain, and being the direct line of Bard the Bowman, slayer of that famous last-known greater dragon, she called to the scales of the beast to do her bidding. Just as the Elfking called to Gorgorax to shore up his Kingdom.

  As she broke from the row of rising dragon's scales so large they were the size of barn doors, Lusis cried out. She saw that Nema's hand reached for the keys still in the lock of Lord Elrond's cage, and surged forward with a fist falling into solid connection with the woman's white jaw. The impact made a snapping sound. Lusis rode the impact down with the reeling body of the Madam.

  Then Lusis tried to rise. An arrow passed through her hair just above her ear, and blood ran down along her temple from the close call. That archer tumbled off the railing and fell into the sea of gold, dead. Legolas shouted, "Friend-Lusis, they have archers among the reinforcements!"

  "Just a moment, Lady!"

  Telfeth was off to Lusis' right, tucked behind a scale. She rolled around the side, and went into a tumble. At points in her roll through the gold she snapped off arrows. One passed through the eye of a Forces soldier on the landing and a second sliced through the wrist of a man reaching back to take an arrow from his quiver.

  Legolas shot nearly straight up into air. It fell over the tall railing and into the line of men, slicing through an archer, downward, through the nest of his throat. The bizarre shot was so incredible, the soldiers were spooked along the rails. Lusis risked getting up. She turned the lock on Lord Elrond's cage, opened it, and kept the keys. "There's only one!" she shouted. Then she looked down at Nema.

  She threw herself down and searched the Madam for the key to the King's cage. She found it in the woman's bodice on the Mithril chain with the teardrop. The chain was long enough that she could yank it off over the woman's curled head, otherwise she would have pulled Lord Elrond's blade from his still figure and struck off the Madam's head.

  Relief flooded through her, followed by fear and extremity.

  The chains were drawing up.

  The Forces were lifting the cages again, and they would soon be hopelessly far above.

  Despairingly, Lusis watched the King's cage leave the sea of gold.

  She could not reach him. She did not have time.

  So her cry was angry as she turned and flung herself into Elrond's cage. As quick as she was, the drop was over a storey when she threw them both out of it again. She prayed that landing on the ruthless gold wouldn't snap his bones.

  She needn't have worried. Glorfindel caught the Lord of Rivendell out of the arch of their fall.

  Behind him came Amathon. Lusis dropped into the big elf's arms.

  "The key," Lusis barked to him.

  "The King," he pushed her along the gold.

  She was running as soon as her boot struck. Too slow.

  Unlike Legolas.

  He had backed up for a long leap through arrow-stroked air. He targeted his father's cage. She angled her path and pushed her strides to their tooth-jarring limit. There were only seconds left to intercept him, and Legolas was as fleet as a leaf on the wind.

  When she saw his arm come up before her she cast the Mithril chain around it, and he was by her so fast she was pulled along by the gust of his passage. She was flung out on her side in gold. Her hand splayed for purchase. Arrows pocked the wealth before her. One buried itself in a soft ingot just between her thumb and index finger. She scowled up at the archers. "Stop it, you pillocks!" She slammed a fist into the gold and shrieked. "I will hunt you down!"

  But they hadn't moved quickly enough to strike Legolas. His agile body rocketed up and struck the cage such that he upset everything inside, the cage swung so violently. The King, so temperate and serene, slammed into the bars on his side, his sunny hair suddenly flying against Legolas' cheek.

  A woman's hot voice rang through the cavernous darkness. "Kill them." Which was when the werewolves vaulted the railings above them.

  Bess shrieked. She tossed herself downhill and rolled through the gold with a wolf straight behind her. It snapped air above her tumbling body.

  There were nearly twenty wolves. Too many.

  Amathon tore past and tumbled in a spiral with a werewolf snapping at his sword arm. Telfeth shot an arrow through the jaw of a wolf only to be worried at by a second great beast. And it took an arrow from Legolas to fell that one.

  The gold began to move. Lusis spilled flat down on her belly as the Counting Room shifted under her. She spun up into a tall wave of shimmering gold
that smacked against the oncoming wolves, but though the deep well of gold swamped and swallowed many of the animals, she passed harmlessly out through the back. She knew of only one person's power to do such a thing, and, only then, with water. As she slid down the back of the swell, Lusis glanced up at the King's cage, which still swung widely. Legolas had his arms through the bars. He held his father close to him. The Elvenking's line of blue fire showed a sudden bubbling of white-hot flame.

  She cocked her head at this as the gold laid her down flat again.

  Someone charged by her. Her sword hilt impacted with the gold by her chin. She hurried to catch it before it slid away.

  The werewolf that lifted off and sought to dive at her was suddenly cut into halves along the thinning of its midsection. A second fell to a bright elf travelling so fast that Lusis, trying to get to rights as she was, couldn't make their identity out. She rolled up to her feet while pulling her sword around to rights.

  The woman at the top of the stairs was in the mask of the dragon rider. She drew two short blades and backed toward the railings above with a strident and inhuman hiss. Almost as soon as she did this, the spinning sunset pillar of fire struck at her. The blades and the cords of her arms barely held him at bay.

  "What is she?" Lusis shouted to the elves around her. "The one in the horned mask?"

  "Uncertain," Ewon snatched her up off the gold and directed someone outside of her sight, "The Elfprince and King are taking fire. To the rails!"

  Redd Ayesir pounded by. A goblin tugged himself off of his fallen werewolf and made a leap at the huge librarian. The man's pumping fist quite incidentally clipped the goblin in the forehead and laid him out flat on his back. Elsenord's sword un-capped the top of the goblin's head.

  "What took you so long?" Lusis shouted at them. She raised her sword and pointed it at the rails. "Rout them!"

  A tremendous cry met her ears. Rangers, Forces, and a section of Elves charged past. Arrows bent at them. Icar struck them aside with a flick of his sword, as if painting a canvas. Elves answered, and Bess Bowman, her feet planted against the fallen body of a werewolf, gestured at the rails. The gold rippled. Red scales reared up out of it and wrought forward. Their motion ploughed gold at the enemy. The whole of Erebor resounded with the ring of tonnes of coins cascading up the stairs, over the rails, and rolling down the halls of the Dwarven Kings.

  The Istari grinned at this, braced herself, and flashed past Bess. She ran up the burning back of one of the scales and hurtled into the enemy. She wasn't alone in this. Many elves flew with her. Graceful Dorondir was among them, two long and bloody fighting knives naked in his hands. Lusis landed, plunging a knife into the chest of a gigantic orc who hadn't had the attention to spare to avoid her arrival.

  The battle for the dwarven kingdom began in earnest.

  An orc snarled, "You must die, little gir-"

  She chopped her way through its jaw and moved on to the goblin behind it. The thing turned just in time to see her sword-chop fall. Lusis hadn't time to concentrate on the next foe. She turned her sword, braced her hand on the wet flat of her blade, and bent her knees to take the impact of a massive werewolf paw. As it began to lift, she turned her sword and straightened into an upward stroke that shot along the inside of the wolf's leg, slid off a rib, and went home deep in the animal's chest. She pulled free, turned, and passed under its shaggy belly as it toppled.

  Another wave of coins flew in. Lusis found herself side-by-side with Elrond and jolted. "My Lord, how?" she blocked and slashed a reaching hand open. "Lord Elrond, how are you doing such-?"

  His eyes startled her.

  They were bright with life, and his sunset flame painted the ceilings and floors, it was as bright as if he carried the setting sun in his being. She watched him spin low, undercut a charging werewolf, and straighten so quickly his turn still had time to slice through the rider with the ease of light through darkness. His cloak flared open around an inferno. She sidestepped a goblin, then stepped out to bounce it off her shoulder and into Aric's path. It fell in a bleeding heap. She threaded her fingers into the pauldron of the Elvenlord, and it was like taking hold of a scudding night wind as he turned. She swung in air, dizzy with speed, and her boot heels cracked across skulls and snapped bones.

  At the end of that arc, she let go and her body slung up high in air, turning. She held her sword along the back of her shoulder and repelled blades. When she landed, she hit the back of a werewolf with such force that its spine gave way. She was able to swing her sword, behead the goblin behind her, and run down the haunches of the beast. Several enemy Forces men backed away.

  An orc snarled and raised his misshapen cleaver to run at her, roaring.

  A hand thrown axe appeared out of its bellowing mouth and it fell down, dead.

  Close to forty dwarves came charging down the hall like an avalanche. Lusis swung up her sword and narrowly blocked an orc's stab at her belly. She felt the blade go through her clothes, the flat against her side. It began to turn so that he could chop her in half.

  "Oh. No-no. Not that bright maid. Out of our way, now, Missy!" shouted a burly, red-bearded dwarf. His massive sword made a low hum through air. Her splendid elven scouting dress, long ago shredded, bloodied, and cut away, now tore as the orc's sword came out and the orc fell over dead.

  She checked her side for blood, found none, and turned to charge into the fray behind the relentless hammers and swords of the dwarves.

  "Lusis-Istari," Elrond grappled with her shoulder and pulled her back from the fray. His flame waned as he brought her aside. "Trust in…" he sagged and seemed to lose his place.

  "Lord, stay with me." She dragged him behind her and pressed him into one of the many elegant notches in this huge and bowed hallway. "What's happening to you? How did you break this curse of yours, Elvenlord?"

  "He… did not," crackled a low voice. The thronging of battle drew back from the dragon-rider and her horned helm. She came to stand before the pair in the hall, and hissed low in the back of her throat. "He could not, without your assistance."

  "He has," Lusis snarled and dropped to fighting stance.

  "Friend-Lusis," Elrond's sonorous voice ebbed. "It is not so…. Through much practice, you see… the Elvenking," he flagged, "his grace passed through…."

  The dragon-rider's head cocked, and her lips, only just visible at the jagged base of the horned mask she wore, twisted into a smile. She had fangs. She lifted a hand to touch something embedded in her flesh at the base of her throat. A small, round mirror. "He," she pondered a moment. "Did he figure out the mirrorwork?"

  "What mirror work?" Lusis snapped.

  Elrond sounded wan, "The mirrors burnt into our very hands, friend-Lusis. Mirrors like these bounced light across the city…. But they also stole our firelight." His powerful voice petered away.

  The horned woman smirked, "Stole?" She stepped forward and orcs grouped around her in an eager circle, "These mirrors and their doleful command of light… are how we made the Lord's Seal that hid the very entry of our army to infect the heart of your city. Not a one of you fools knew." She hissed a final time and gestured toward the Counting Room. "Clever elf."

  "He is," Lusis watched the dragon-rider take up a huge sword whose steel blade was far too long for her willowy frame. The shining blade curved in undulations that ran almost to the tip. Lusis felt her eyes widen. "Dragon sword." Such as these had been forged in the fires of Doom and used by nobles of Angmar.

  The smile was cruel. "Well spotted, little sacrifice." She slung the blade up with blurring speed and dropped it down at Lusis' hasty block. "Pity that you could not die on that mountainside! It makes me wonder, so-called-Istari, if you can die at all. But-"

  Lusis threw aside the blow, well aware it was far too powerful for the foe's small frame.

  Shadows danced around the dragon-rider as her summoned dragons raced through the hall and into the fray. Lusis felt herself fighting not to howl her outrage at so lopsided a stratagem
.

  "-this day, I will find out." The woman's deep voice throbbed.

  Maybe.

  "And I will damp the troublesome lights of Rivendell."

  The Lord of Rivendell was in a collapse behind her. If she left him, he would fall this day.

  After all he'd already endured, that simply wasn't happening without a fight.

  "I will stand for him," she told the witch, who, even as Lusis spoke, was growing larger and larger. Her horned head passed Lusis' height one moment, and was soon as tall as Redd was. The woman slung her steel sword down at Lusis again. Its ripples had now extended to lay themselves straight, which made the sword longer still. With the amount of force the witch could now muster, and at the great weight of the blade, there should have been no blocking the wallop. But Lusis stepped in and raised the elf-steel above her. Her knees went loose, ready to take impact. "I will stand!"

  The strike landed.

  But Lusis felt nothing but the buffet of winter wind. And she could withstand that.

  Bright golden light shot through the room, and the force of it tossed the now towering witch and her heavy sword back against the opposite wall like a ball of crumpled paper. When she cried out, her voice was far too deep for the woman she had been, but yet suited her newly massive body.

  Lusis leapt for her. She blocked by raising her huge vambrace under the elf steel. The recoil was terrific. It wrenched muscle along Lusis' arms, and torso, and the shock of it ran into her neck and head. Eyes watering, Lusis allowed the blade to glide down and bite into the dragon-rider's forearm. That too-deep voice bellowed with pain.

  The rider brought her sword arm down, and walloped the Istari. Lusis went slack for a terrifying moment, and wondered where she was. The smell of dragons snapped her mind around. She hastily turned her blade and rolled when she hit the blessedly even dwarven floor. Her head was foggy. A sure sign she'd taken the force of the collision with that steel vambrace. Her head was spinning. Lusis breathed evenly, and tapped the smooth, cool floor with her fingers in thanks to the builders. Its sane surface was the only way she could assure her senses she was yet on level ground.