Dungeon Bringer 2

by Nick Harrow

  “Nothing,” Kezakazek said. “It hasn’t moved except to breathe.”

  “Good. Let’s hope it stays that way,” I said. “I’ll deal with it shortly.”

  Somehow, Nephket’s senses hadn’t conveyed the smell of this place to me. The air was thick with the metallic tang of spilled blood and the ripe, funky smell of dry-aged beef well past its best-by date. There was a decadent floral fragrance there, too, that coated my nostrils and throat with the heady, cloying aroma of honeysuckle. The sticky-sweet bouquet made every breath feel sluggish and difficult. Which was weird because as a dungeon lord I didn’t have to breathe at all.

  “Do any of you smell flowers?” I asked my guardians.

  “No,” Nephket responded. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I wasn’t sure of that at all, but there was no point in worrying my guardians about my state of mind. I had to see this through, and we were long past the point of turning back. I’d just kill this tortured dungeon lord before Kozerek figured out how to escape from the hole I’d put him in, and we’d all go home.

  Easy-peasy.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Just a little farther to go.”

  My core throbbed as I forced myself up one flight of stairs, and then another. The perfumed air was an oppressive weight against my face and chest, and my arms and legs were so heavy, I double-checked to make sure I hadn’t mistakenly incarnated. But, no, I was still my immaterial self.

  But that didn’t explain why I felt like I was breathing, and my head was full of fuzz.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered and pushed on.

  Through sheer, dogged persistence I made it to the floor made of bodies. The writhing of the torsos seemed less tortured and more suggestive in person. Sleek muscles bulged beneath skin moist with sweat, and the stumps ground against one another with a desperate hunger for sensation.

  I hesitated on the edge of the passage, then straightened my shoulders and plunged ahead. Those poor fuckers sewn into a floor couldn’t hurt me.

  At least, I didn’t think they could.

  Before the perfumed air and hypnotically twisted bodies delayed me any more, I fixed my eyes on the staircase at the end of the hall and stepped onto the carpet of flesh.

  The whole fortress shook as if a bomb had gone off in its basement. The bodies beneath my feet bucked and heaved with a spastic energy that threatened to knock me off my feet.

  “Uh, boss,” Zillah said. “The dick beast is awake.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “Stay away from it until I get there.”

  A trap. Of course, Kozerek had a trap waiting for me. I should have expected that, but my head was so heavy, and my thoughts had become dull as butter knives.

  Every step became a challenge. It was hard enough to keep my balance on a floor determined to buck me onto my ass while the air tried to choke the life out of me, but there was a new and exciting wrinkle to this whole mess.

  The other dungeon lord’s attention fell on me like a ton of bricks. It staggered me beneath the ponderous mass of its regard and flooded my thoughts with moaning words that felt more like a whale’s song than anything a human throat might produce.

  “Who comes?” it roared.

  The power of those syllables dropped me to one knee, and a slobbering, toothless mouth clamped onto my thigh with a repulsive suction.

  Panic stabbed through me at the touch because nothing here should have been able to affect an immaterial dungeon lord. And, yet, the floor tossed me around like a little kid in a bounce house, and mouths suckered onto me like a teenager who thought hickeys were one step shy of vampirism.

  Well, if they were going to get all touchy-feely, I’d do the same.

  I summoned my khopesh and used it as a crutch to get back on my feet. The sharp tip burrowed into one of the spastic torsos when I put my weight on it, and the whole floor wailed in protest as blood bubbled out of the wound.

  “My friends call me Clay, but fuckwits like you know me as Lord Rathokhetra,” I said.

  “Fool,” the dungeon lord groaned in a way that made it impossible to tell if it was in pain or about to have its mind blown by a wave of ecstasy. “The trap is sprung.”

  “Of course,” I growled and trudged down the bucking hall with my khopesh at the ready. “Story of my fucking life.”

  I didn’t know what trap the dick beast had laid for me, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out. I made my way to the next staircase with only a few more stabs to get the floor to settle down, and bounded up the narrow steps in defiance of the lethargy that tried to sap the strength from my limbs.

  “Wow,” Zillah said when I reached my guardians where they waited in the hall outside of the chamber. “You look like troll shit.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Outta my way, I need to see a dick monster about a web.”

  “After you,” Delsinia said, and my guardians pressed themselves against the side of the narrow passageway to let me pass. Their eyes stayed glued to me as I headed for the rival dungeon lord, and I felt their pride and confidence in my ability to kill this dungeon lord before it could do the same to me.

  Nephket stopped me at the door with a hand on my chest. The tips of her claws snagged my skin lightly, and she leaned up on tiptoes to plant a kiss on my lips.

  “Kill it,” she whispered, “and let’s go home. This place is disturbing.”

  “Your wish is my command,” I said with a wink.

  “Ugh, you two are so gross,” Kezakazek whined. “But, yeah, kill that thing. All those wiggling dicks are giving me the willies.”

  “Ha.” I stepped across the threshold of the room of bones. “I see what you did there.”

  Or, at least, that’s what I tried to say.

  Before the first syllable had left my mouth, the rival dungeon lord bellowed so loudly my teeth shook in their sockets and my brain felt like someone had tossed it into a paint mixer.

  “Kooooozerek,” the imprisoned monstrosity howled. “Your enemies have come.”

  Chapter 16: Sacrifice

  THE CREATURE’S WORDS oozed a perverse sensuality, as if the creature howled its lover’s name instead of cursing its captor. The sheer force of the cry rattled my thoughts for a handful of heartbeats. When my brain cleared, the creature’s chin had drooped almost to its chest, and its tentacles trembled like dry leaves in a chill autumn breeze.

  “If you expect Kozerek to come bail you out of this mess, you’re sorely fucking mistaken,” I said as I examined the dick beast. “He’s a long, long way from Kansas, Toto.”

  <<<>>>

  Insuxexara, The Lurker at the Threshold, Doomed Dungeon Lord

  <<<>>>

  Well, okay then.

  Insuxexara raised its head at the sound of my voice, and its nostrils flared open so wide I could have stuck a fist into each of them.

  “A core?” the damned creature asked. “Give it to me, and I will give you time to run before Kozerek arrives. Let me feast upon your ka, and I will allow you to escape.”

  “Your dark elf fuck-buddy’s not coming,” I said. “Seriously, the big bad drow is locked up nice and tight in a pit I dug for him and all of his little pals. It’s just you and me.”

  But just to be sure, I turned my attention back to Kozerek.

  Sure enough, he was right where I’d left him. Surrounded by his troops, who all knelt on the floor like good little boys and girls. Except...

  Where the fuck had all that blood come from?

  The floor was slick with deep red puddles that oozed across the cold stone like spilled cream on a counter. Motes of amber light danced across the crimson slicks like water gliders over a pond’s surface. Those lights skidded toward Kozerek, who stood before one of his drow with a knife in his hand and a rictus grin plastered across his face.

  “I see you, dungeon lord,” he said to me. The dark elf unleashed a cackle that chilled me to the bone as he ripped his weapon across the soldier’s throat. Blood leapt from the wound and added another layer of
red to Kozerek’s sodden shirtsleeve. “You have tampered with the affairs of your betters for the last time.”

  Oh, shit. I didn’t know what the dark elf was up to, but it didn’t look good for me.

  Okay, fine, whatever. I could still fix this. If I severed the thread, the Solamantic Web would collapse, and my guardians and I could leave the penis blob behind. We’d still have to deal with Kozerek, but we could do that in my dungeon on my terms.

  “Which one of the rings changed earlier,” I asked Nephket, careful to keep my inner voice down even in my thoughts. I didn’t want there to be any chance that Creepy McDicksalot would overhear this conversation.

  “The one in the pelvis section,” she responded, her thoughts cool and quiet as a sluggish arctic stream.

  Great. I didn’t care for that symbolism even a little. Plus, it was the one on the far side of the room.

  Something told me that Insuxexara wouldn’t let me stroll on over and kill that magical ring. I didn’t see any way to sneak around it, either, and I didn’t have time to come up with a better plan.

  Whatever Kozerek was up to had to be nearly complete. There weren’t many of his dark elves still alive.

  When in doubt, sometimes I fall back on my earliest teachings from childhood. I’d learned a lot about the element of surprise and shock from a video I’d watched on the internet when I was but a wee tyke.

  I took a deep, cleansing breath, hoisted my khopesh over my shoulder, focused my eyes on the ring, and charged straight toward Insuxexara.

  “Leeeeeroy Jennnnnkins,” I howled as I sprinted across the room for all I was worth.

  Which wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped.

  The choking honeysuckle air flooded into my body and made my chest feel like a small elephant had taken a seat on my sternum. Whatever poison was in the air must have been specially tailored to affect dungeon lords because it was fucking me up in the worst way.

  “Idiot,” the bag of dicks moaned, and lashed out at me with a dripping tentacle the color of an eggplant.

  The whipping member plowed through the air with little finesse but a shit-ton of strength. As hard as it was for me to move, I knew there was no hope of dodging out of the swinging dick’s way.

  Instead, I stayed the course, raised the khopesh high over my head, and brought the weapon down with a guttural battle cry.

  The khopesh’s heavy curved end slammed into the swinging tentacle with an ugly squelching noise. Sticky, salty fluids splashed in every direction as the tentacle split in half. A blast of thunder filled the room of bones when the khopesh smashed into the copper rod at the heart of the tentacle and snipped it right in half.

  The two halves of the dicktacle swept past me and covered me from head to toe in a vile fluid that clung to me like hagfish slime and smelled like a mixture of bleach and fresh-cut grass. It also tasted awful, but the less I remember about that, the better.

  “Aaaaah,” the beast moaned, and its other tentacles thrashed at the air as its whole body trembled in the grips of unspeakable pleasure.

  My feet skidded in the slime that covered the floor, and I only remembered to leap over the ring at the center of the room at the last second. With a yelp, I got my feet up and over the amber light with less than an inch to spare.

  I don’t know that the runic circle would have killed me if I’d touched it, but let’s be honest: it was that kind of day.

  Another tentacle swooped down and slammed into the floor in front of me with bone-splintering force. With a whoop, I jumped over it like an exhausted hurdler and landed on the far side just in time to get walloped by another tentacle that swept in from my blind side.

  The impact drove me half a step to the left, and I twisted to the side to keep my foot off the amber circle. Two more tentacles slammed down next to me, and one of them looped around my ankle. A fraction of a second before the penis noose tightened, I hopped away and landed a few inches outside the circle.

  Right back where I’d started this fight.

  “Okay, ladies,” I thought to my guardians. “Time to shake things up. Delsinia and Zillah, flank this piece of shit the next time I cut it. And don’t step on the circle.”

  A grotesque swarm of tentacles flailed at me before I could make my next move, and ropes of slime filled the air around them as they plunged toward my face. I bobbed and weaved away from the attacks like a drunken butterfly, then hopped back inside the amber circle and stung like a bee on steroids.

  The heavy, curved end of my khopesh landed on Insuxexara’s abdomen with the force of a poleaxe. The razor-sharp cutting edge opened the beast’s thick skin like a zipper being pulled, and thick clumps of curdled fat drooled from the wound’s lower lip. Blood, thick and clotted as week-old oatmeal, trailed after my khopesh as it burst free from the creature’s body.

  “Aaaaah, so close,” the beast wailed. Its tongue lashed its wet lips like a whip.

  “Gross,” Zillah said as she burst into the room with Delsinia on her heels.

  The scorpion queen leapt to the left, then scrambled up the arched bone wall toward the ceiling. She ducked below a sweeping tentacle and caught another in the crotch of her mancatcher. With an angry shout, Zillah used her leverage on the tentacle to whip her body around and somersaulted to the floor. A twist of her wrist caused the spear to snap closed, and a severed tentacle crashed to the bones behind the scorpion queen.

  Meanwhile, Delsinia sprinted into the room, a bone dagger in each hand. She dropped to her knees and slid beneath one of the tentacles, then popped up and cartwheeled over another attack. She landed on Insuxexara’s right side, took a step back from the circle, and spun one of her daggers over her head. The spinal column that bound the two daggers together whirred as it sliced through the air.

  “Morsels,” the dick beast moaned. “I smell you. Come closer and give me a taste.”

  “You got it,” Zillah snarled and darted up to the edge of the amber circle. The runes flared crimson and shifted in a dizzying pattern that lit the scorpion queen’s face with streaks of bloody light. She batted aside one of the monstrosity’s tentacles, then plunged her tail into the imprisoned dungeon lord’s side. The sac behind the stinger’s tip pulsed as it injected dead green fluid into Insuxexara’s bloated body.

  I was surprised to see Pinchy and her cousins scuttle out along Zillah’s tail and fling themselves at the beast. Their feet dug into the blubbery flesh when they landed, and their tails pumped spurts of venom into Insuxexara’s flesh.

  “Neph, crossbow, Kezakazek, acid balls,” I shot the order into my guardians’ thoughts.

  I was almost in position, but the doomed dungeon lord knew it. Its tentacles wove complex patterns in the air to hold Zillah and Delsinia at bay, but most of its attention was focused on me. It smashed its penile limbs into the floor in a frenzy that filled the air with sticky cords of disgusting goo and made it damned near impossible for me to do anything but duck and weave around the attacks.

  The choking honeysuckle perfume didn’t help matters. Every time I took a step I wheezed, despite the fact that I was not incarnated, and every parry made my lungs ache and my heart thud. The smell had worn me down more than the actual combat, and I couldn’t spare the mental bandwidth to figure out how the hell it had affected me at all.

  “I see you, Rathokhetra,” the chained dungeon lord moaned. “Do you remember Villacarsola? How the men screamed when they burned, how the women wept when you chained them to your altar! Glorious!”

  The old dungeon lord in my thoughts recoiled at a memory so dark it made my whole brain feel dirty. Bodies charred to cinders dotted a landscape awash in gray ash and sticky pools of blood. Scarred and scorched creatures that looked like a junior mad scientist project to breed shrimp with lizards bore heavy silver collars around their necks. Chains led from those collars to a stone slab adorned with detailed engravings that depicted an army of lions that devoured everything in its path.

  And atop that altar held aloft by slaves, Rathokhetra r
eclined with his most trusted guardians at his side. A smile curled his lips at the sight of his enemies laid low, and satisfaction oozed from him in repulsive waves.

  “Liar!” Delsinia screamed and vaulted over the amber ring. Her chest heaved with the effort of each breath, and her pale body gleamed with a fine layer of sweat. Apparently I wasn’t the only one bothered by the honeysuckle air freshener of doom.

  She landed directly in front of the monster and unleashed her spinning dagger. The razor-sharp bone’s tip burrowed into Insuxexara’s face and carved a wicked valley of gore from the corner of its mouth up past its eye. Blood flowed from the wound in a sticky sheet, and a flap of flesh flopped away from the bone beneath to lay raw and twitching against the dungeon lord’s face.

  A heartbeat later, one of Kezakazek’s spheres of acid splashed into the wound I’d opened in the beast’s belly. A bolt from Nephket’s crossbow followed it and vanished up to the fletchings in the creature’s meaty torso.

  “Delightful,” the chained dungeon lord moaned. “Would that I could keep you here forever...”

  As it writhed in ecstasy, I saw my chance.

  My khopesh rose and fell with a mind of its own. The blade hacked through a tangle of writhing, squirting tentacles that lay between me and my target. I lurched through the severed meat hoses and my feet slithered through the sticky, revolting muck that oozed from their severed halves. I dropped to my knees and slid the last foot to the amber circle that tied Insuxexara to the Solamantic Web’s thread linked to Soketra.

  “Get ready to run,” I thought to my guardians. “Shit is about to get crazy.”

  This close to the smaller circle of runes, I saw that it contained an object. A simple copper spike had been driven through the bone floor with such force that its once flat head had become rounded and its edges deformed.

  Each of the glowing runes in the circle that surrounded the spike emitted a coil of power that looked like a strand of molten lava. And those strands wrapped tightly around the copper spike, covering it from its slumped crown to where it disappeared into a splintered bone.