He remembered suddenly that he'd sent a party of undead to remove the priests of Maul from their temple and their mortality. In that moment, he thought he might have just discovered the key to the old man's ward. He and his servants were dark-hearted in nature, unnatural, and evil. The idiot girl and all the Old Ones who'd been able to pass were good-natured, what Debain would have called righteous souls. Reaton-Stav figured that the spell only kept out those who were not so kind or naïve. He figured he could test this theory with one of the priests, if they were still alive, because they were supposedly pure of heart and mind. It was a stretch, he knew, but it was worth a try. He would have to send a living, breathing person with some of his ghouls to make sure they brought back a few of the priests alive, though. After thinking on it, he knew he had not one, but two people who were perfect for the job.
Hertzel and Bart had been headed for the gallows before Baragon saved them. He'd bribed the hangmen in Antole, and now the two murderous thieves owed him.
Lord Ulrich Gruel followed his master's orders. When his main force marched steadily through Nepram, across the border and into the kingdom lands known as The Rich, he left nothing but death in his wake. Two rotating patrols of eight gothicans flanked each side of the main column and ranged out as far as they could, killing farmers and burning homes and barns. They brought back wagon loads of food and supplies, most of which were consumed after each night's short rest. What was left was saved just in case this took longer than expected.
Ulrich had his men do this while they were still in Nepram, despite his promises to King Rayden, but only if they met resistance.
Lord Ulrich and many of his warriors were restless and unsatisfied. They wanted battle and were not finding any, save for some stubborn, unprepared farm families and the occasional village bully to cut their way through. Lord Ulrich assured them time and again that the forces of Antole would provide a proper confrontation, and when they were done there and marching toward Camberly, they would find a long war that would quench their thirst for blood.
As he understood it, the people of Antole would be aware of their approach. He'd voiced his angry opinion to Pharark because the taking of the old heavily fortified city could turn into a siege quickly. If that happened, the approaching winter could take its toll on his gothicans.
Pharark had assured him that the city would be in chaos from within and that a siege was an impossibility. The demon didn't elaborate very much but spoke of a necromancer who would be lying in wait to ensure this was so.
Ulrich wasn't sure what a necromancer was, but he had little choice in following the demon's order, and even less say in the overall battle plan. Truthfully, he didn't care. His hatred for King Barden and humanity in general was all-consuming. This chance to remove them from his homeland was enough to keep him doing as he was told. With each passing day, though, he found his own bloodlust was growing from a simmer to a boil. He was so angry he doubted he needed an army to take Antole. He felt he could do it alone for he would cut down men for days and draw sustenance from his own hatred. Any soul lucky enough to defy his wrath, his warriors could have. He wanted to wade through Antole fast enough to beat not only winter, but to beat the trolls and other gothicans closing on Camberly from the north. He had no greater desire than to hand the demon of destruction King Barden's head after removing it from his still living body personally.
Chapter Twenty-One
It took Dowgen a full day to get down the valley and back up the next ridge. The steep rocky faces were easy for him, but not the forested areas. His stubby dwarven legs didn’t like walking as much as they did climbing. The thick undergrowth tangled in his hair and beard, and his attention had been raptly captured by a strange, blue-leafed bush for an unnaturally long amount of time. Now his hair was knotted and tangled with the sticky blue leaves, and he was being followed by a cloud of buzzing yellow flies that wouldn't leave him alone. He might have never left the bush if some antlered creature hadn't startled him back to his business by leaping past him and scaring him witless. Even then, he had to picture Pranty's pretty face blowing him kisses in his mind’s eye to keep the strange hypnotic plant from drawing him back to it.
Once he finally gained the ridge and put the first valley behind him, it was almost dark. He found a jumble of rock and scree and curled up into it. He covered himself with his double thick blanket and had no trouble finding sleep.
One of the strange yellow flies woke him by walking across his eyelid, and he had to violently shake his hair and beard to get the flies that had spent the night in the warmth of his whiskers to come out from their new home. By the time that was done, he was wide awake and the sun was coming up.
By midday, he found a stream by the bottom of the next valley and washed the sticky mess from his beard and hair. He shivered dry in the cold mountain air. Once he was dressed and about to start off again, a band of wood trolls lumbered through his field of vision just across the tree line on the opposite rise. He figured if he hadn't stopped to wash, that was right about where he would have been.
He huddled down and made himself as small as possible until they passed, then he hurried up into the rocks above the trees where he felt much safer.
Early in the evening, he traversed a shelf of granite and accidentally knocked a large piece of it loose. The large chunk of rock crashed and rattled down the side of the valley making all sorts of noise.
He cringed behind a jumble of rocks and looked down, hoping that the wood trolls were far enough away by now. It turned out that they were, but he saw a lone rock troll climbing stealthily up toward him. He knew he had to move, and move quickly, because the rock trolls, unlike the wood trolls, could manage the crags and crevices with speed and grace. Defiantly, Dowgen stood up. He took careful aim and hurled a fist-sized rock down at the unsuspecting beast who was searching back and forth for the intrusion, not looking up.
Other than causing the troll to drop to a dead hang for a moment, all Dowgen really did was anger the creature, but in the few moments it was stunned, he climbed with all the strength he had in him and lengthened the distance between he and the troll considerably.
The rock troll's big legs needed only one step to make up for Dowgen's three, and it gained on the dwarf with uncanny speed. The troll barked out his location to others, and from a distance, more rock trolls answered. The sun was gone behind the mountains now and only the sky's reflection of its glow lit the area they were ascending.
Dowgen could see the ridgeline not too far above him and decided, if he could slow the troll with another blow, he could top the ridge and be out of the troll's sight long enough to bury himself in a crevice or a fissure. He also knew that if he missed, the troll would only be that much closer.
He chose his spot carefully and worked his way over to it, gathering up a few well-rounded stones as he went.
The troll was ready for the rocks this time and ducked the first one with ease. The second he had to bat away by taking the force of the blow on his forearm. In the seconds he spent wincing from pain, Dowgen's third rock looked as if it were heading right for the troll's head. Dowgen didn’t wait. He was already climbing again and didn't watch to see if it hit.
The volume of the howl that erupted told him the rock found its mark, but it was so dark now that he could only make out shapes and shadows. He was forced to slow down and take his time lest he trap himself or fall in a crevice.
He continued, moving blindly upward until he came to a fairly level area he was sure was the top of the ridge. A cold wind blasted him, nearly knocking him back down toward the troll he could still hear scrabbling up through the rocks in pursuit.
The image of Pranty flashed through his mind's eye, and he lowered his head into the gust and continued, knowing this downward travel in the dark was dangerous. He told himself that as soon as he found a place to bundle up and hide, he would. By now, it was so dark he couldn't see anything. Eventually, he ran right into a large boulder, felt his way around it, a
nd huddled at its base where he was out of the wind. There, he wrapped himself in his blanket and sat as still as he could.
Only a few moments passed before he heard the grunting sound of the troll scuffling after him. The sounds grew louder and closer, and he was sure he was going to get caught. Then, out of nowhere, a thick gray shadow appeared right before him, and he could tell that it was the troll's leg. In his sitting bundled up position, there was no way he could flee. The troll's knobby knee was directly in front of his face. Dowgen shut his eyes tightly and pictured Pranty's kiss. He said a prayer and silently told her he loved her while shivering with fright. He waited like that for what seemed like an eternity, knowing that, at any moment, the troll would reach down, find him, and tear him limb from limb before eating him raw.
Part III
Soul of the Sapphire
Chapter Twenty-Two
Suclair and Cryelos kept the second and last watch after Darblin and Nixy took the first. Tired from nearly two full days of pounding, Big H was allowed to sleep the whole night through, and he did so loudly. His heavy snores carried down into the rocky canyon and could be heard echoing over the loud roar of all the water that was now draining through the old river bed.
By dawn, things had quieted down. Both the exhausted dwarf and the sound of the rushing water had dissipated considerably. By the time Suclair walked up the rocky hill to stretch her legs in the predawn light, the reservoir was mostly empty.
Cryelos jumped in alarm when she came stumbling down the hill kicking rocks and making an unbelievable amount of noise.
"It is…it is— " she heaved for breath, and Cryelos immediately began waking the dwarves while getting his bow ready. But Suclair stopped him because she knew he thought they were getting attacked when they weren't.
"It's the sapphire," she finally blurted out, causing everyone's frightened alarm to shift into excitement.
Nixy and Darblin were already scrambling up the hill, and the others weren't far behind. When they topped the rise, they nearly toppled over Darblin who had stopped to stare out across the empty lake bed at the amazing sight before them.
About a third of the way across the basin, about halfway between them and what appeared to be the river's still flowing main channel, was the silt covered ruins that Vinston-Fret's father had described. They were strangely illuminated by a faint blue glow radiating in slow pulses from a flat altar centered amongst the rubble of what was once a large stone building. A few fluted pillars still stood at odd angles, casting long shadows across the wet muck. Not very far behind the ruins lay the long sinuous body of the giant red scaled snake that had eaten Braxton, only it's headless end was plainly visible. Between them and the altar lay a wet, muddy expanse littered with glossy pools of water that rippled with trapped aquatic life and reflected the strange glow coming from the jewel.
The sun slowly rose while they stood there. Its orange-yellow brilliance muted the light coming from the Sapphire of Souls, but only slightly.
Suclair started off across the lake bed toward the ruins, but only made it a few dozen paces before sinking to her knees in soft mud. Of the rest of the group, only Darblin was able to make it out to her without sinking himself, and by the time he got her unstuck and back to solid ground, he was covered completely in mud. When he squatted down to catch his breath, he easily could have passed for a moss-covered stone.
A good portion of the morning was wasted freeing Suclair, but the clever elf used the time to make some wide, paddle-like attachments for Darblin's boots out of branches and leather string.
He said they were similar to the snow shoes the elves had to use to cross the land bridge between Jolin and Halden in the winter months, back before the water had risen too high to make the journey. Since Darblin was able to keep from sinking without using what he called the mud shoes, Cryelos explained that, with them on, Darblin should be able to make it out to the ruins and retrieve the Sapphire of Souls without any problems. This probably would have held true if two dozen angry wood trolls hadn't appeared across the river channel from them.
The trolls worked their way toward the altar. After the first few sank and got stuck in the silt, the rest started carrying large broken limbs and rocks with them.
Suddenly, it became a race to get to the sapphire, for the trolls were laying out the branches and stones in front of them, then going back to get more, thus forming a stepping trail out across the mud. Luckily, theirs was a slow and laborious process, for they had to get back to the old shore and into the woods to retrieve more materials, and they still had the main channel of river to cross before they could get to the ruins.
Cryelos finished making the mud shoes and strapped them to Darblin's boots in a hurried, but not careless manner.
"I'll try to slow them down," said Suclair before moving off to a place that gave her a better view of the trolls and their progress.
"Don't get in a hurry and get stuck," said Cryelos as he knelt before Darblin and laced the shoes onto his boots. "You'll be able to move much faster than they will, but if you get stuck, we will never be able to get the Sapphire of Souls back to us, or get you out of there, for that matter."
"Yon sapphire isn't coming back with me," Darblin said with a scowl, then turned to Big H. "Give me your hammer."
Cryelos stopped and looked at the dwarf, confusion and sadness showing in his eyes. "But Taerak, Pranthius, and Vinston-Fret, and all of our lore says that the sapphire will lead us to a new land where we can once again be hunters, not island bound prisoners." Cryelos resumed tying the laces and continued. "If you destroy it, my people are doomed to the—"
"Look around, elf. Open yeer yellow eyes." Darblin's voice was cold. Cryelos and Nixy both looked at him because of how sharp his tone was. Neither of them had seen the dwarf act in such serious and commanding manner. "You can hunt there, and there." Darblin's little arms swung around and pointed at different sections of the forest. "The sapphire has already led you to your promised land, Cryelos." The dwarf softened his voice, if only a little bit. "If those trolls, or that foul demon gets yon sapphire, not even your island prison will be safe from him. Now finish fastening these blasted things to my feet so I can get this over with."
Big H brought Darblin his big war hammer, and after the mud shoes were firmly in place, he helped Cryelos get Darblin to his feet.
A roaring blast of orange fire and heat shot forth from Suclair's outstretched hands, out across the lake bed, and splattered across the two trolls closest to the river channel. The sticky flames scorched not only the trolls, but some of the limbs and branches they'd laid in the mud. Half of what they had done was now impossible to use without getting burned.
"Good shot," Nixy said, and was immediately saddened by the memory of saying those exact words to Braxton when he lobbed his arrow into one of the bandits the first morning they'd met.
Her thoughts of sadness were forgotten and replaced with terror when she saw a giant, purple-fleshed thing flash into existence across the lake. She immediately knew it was Pharark, for only a demon could be that hideous to look upon and so impossibly built. He was twice as tall as the trees behind him, and the wood trolls barely came up to his waist. He had a giant head with stubby horns and a flat, piggish nose. His round, flabby body reminded Nixy of a chubby newborn baby. His arms and legs were far too small for his size while his head was impossibly large. When she saw his toothy mouth open, splitting his massive head nearly in two, and the vertical black strips of rage that split his red glowing eyes look directly at her, she knew they were in trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dowgen was so sure that the angry rock troll standing over him would kill him that he sat frozen with his eyes shut tightly until dawn finally broke the horizon. When he did peek, he found that the troll was nowhere in sight. What he saw when he looked around though was almost as scary as the rock troll. Not five paces before him was a sheer drop that he would have surely went over had he not decided to stop and hide in the
rocks where he did. Cautiously, he poked his head over the edge and there at the bottom of the cliff was the rock troll with its limbs bent askew.
Cautiously he looked around and sensed no other trolls around him. He tried to remember how far he'd come. After getting his bearings, he realized he was above the valley where the Midway Hole was located.
After eating several bites of the food in his pack, he took a long deep pull from the brandy skin his uncle had given him. He knew that once he found the hole, he still had a long climb down into the dwarven realm to get where he was going. At least it would be a relatively safe journey since it would be underground.
A little less than two days later, he stumbled out of the underground passage into a cave town. He was half-drunk and very hungry. He was fed and offered wine and rest, and after he explained the situation he'd left above ground, a young tunnel runner, who was knowledgeable of all the local passages, took his message, swearing it would be in the hands of King Rockheart in just a few days.
Dowgen was glad that rumors of the missing dwarves being held as prisoners had long been spreading through the underground. By the time he was led to a bed, at least two dozen well-armed dwarves gathered and discussed a plan of action. When he woke, it was to the wrinkled, knobby face of an old mother who was scrutinizing him as if he'd grown a third eye, but when she saw his eyes open, a gapped-tooth smile spread across her lightly bearded face.
Sapphire of Souls Page 14
