by Nick Harrow
Before the creature could launch another dick-slap attack on me, I reached out and closed my hand around the copper spike.
It had about the same rude effect on me as if I’d just pissed on a high-voltage line.
A blast of raw power ripped through my immaterial dungeon lord body and set my nonexistent nerves ablaze. My thoughts scattered like a flock of crows at the blast of a shotgun, and the whole world became a very vivid shade of amber shot through with cracks of impossibly white light.
My mouth tasted like hot metal, and a blanket of angry bees settled into my skin to sting me with a thousand barbed needles.
“Get up,” Rathokhetra demanded. “Kozerek is coming.”
“How the hell did he escape from my trap?” I asked.
“Magic,” Rathokhetra responded.
“No shit,” I thought. “Need a second. I think I’m dead.”
My body just wouldn’t respond. The amber and white light still flooded my body, and only my sense of taste remained. This really felt like death.
“You are not dead,” Rathokhetra stated. “Kozerek laid a trap on the spike, you are merely stunned. But if you do not get back on your feet soon, you will most assuredly die.”
“Fine,” I grunted and did my best to not die. I think I made it almost all the way up to my hands and knees before Tiger Woods in his prime swung a driver up into my guts so hard I could smell the last meal I’d eaten, and that had been back on Earth.
The blow knocked me onto my back, but it also cleared my vision and opened up my other sense to a whole cornucopia of exciting sensations.
None of which I particularly wanted to experience, because they all hurt.
“Fool,” Kozerek spat. He floated five feet off the floor, supported by an aura of amber light that emanated from the runic circles on the floor. “You thought you could come into my domain and tamper with my work?”
“That was kind of the idea,” I said as I levered myself back onto my feet with my khopesh. The sounds of battle came from all around me, and a quick dip into the thoughts of my guardians told me they were all engaged with the dick beast. Insuxexara was really earning his paycheck today. “Honestly, it’s still the plan.”
Of course, what the dark elf didn’t know was that I was busily rearranging my plan at that very moment. Now that he was here, I saw no point in severing the connection between this world and Soketra. If I killed the asshole, the original plan was moot.
“Anunaset,” I thought to the wahket as I made a quick alteration to my dungeon. “Follow the light. Bring the others. I need your help.”
“No,” Kozerek said with a sad sigh. “The plan is for you to die.”
The wizard barked an ugly string of syllables that reminded me of the grinding clatter from my cousin’s car after she’d forgotten to get its oil changed.
For three years.
A blast of raw force surged toward me, but I didn’t stick around to take another shot on the chin. I rolled away from the circle and Kozerek and dragged myself to my feet with my khopesh at the ready.
“Oh, a swing and a miss,” I said. “Come a little closer, buddy, I’ve got something I’d like to show you.”
“I can see everything I need to see from right here,” the dark elf said with an irritating smirk. He opened his right hand and a whip of ebony arcane power leapt at my face.
I recoiled from the attack out of blind instinct, which saved me from a very nasty shot to the noggin at the expense of a bruising blow to my shoulder. My magical armor deflected some of the attack’s force, but not nearly enough.
This was the first time since I’d become a dungeon lord that I or any of my guardians had been really hurt. Now, in addition to the compass rose that always clung to the edge of my vision, there were five new circles on the right side of my field of view. The one at the top of the column represented my health, and it glowed an ominous caution-light yellow. The four beneath it belonged to each of my guardians, and they, too, were all yellow. Even Neph and Kez, who I’d ordered to stay at the door, had suffered some damage. It must be the damned air.
“You are doomed,” Kozerek said. “Like this pathetic slave to its own desires, Insuxexara.”
“Koooozerek,” the chained dungeon lord moaned at the sound of its name. “I need more. More!”
I had no idea what “more” the damned thing needed and didn’t want to find out. But I needed to slice the smirking drow’s head from his shoulders, then pluck the core out of Insuxexara and be done with this whole mess.
How had a simple zombie stomp turned into such an epic clusterfuck?
“Your girlfriend’s calling.” I nodded my head toward Insuxexara. “You better get over there and do...whatever...it wants before it gets pissed.”
“It’s you Insuxexara wants,” Kozerek said with a sadistic smile that made it very clear I did not want to know what Insuxexara planned to do with me if it ever got its wiggling tentacle dicks on me.
Kozerek launched another black bolt of death at me, but this time I was ready. I swatted the missile aside with the flat of my khopesh, and the energy burst into the air like the negative image of an exploding firework.
Before the dark elf could prepare another spell, I lunged forward and hacked at his legs with my blade. It was a good, strong attack despite the cloying air that had sapped my strength, and the blade sliced through the meat of his thigh and clanked against his femur.
“Aaaah,” Insuxexara groaned, but Kozerek only smiled.
“Destroy them,” the dark elf snarled, and floated into the air on a pillar of amber light. My blade sliced a slab of flesh from Kozerek’s thigh as he moved away from me, but his smile only widened as the chunk of skin and muscle slid down the length of my khopesh and onto the bone floor at my feet.
The chained dungeon lord howled in ecstasy, and threads of orange light flickered between it and Kozerek.
“The Lurker at the Threshold is mine, body and soul, dungeon lord,” Kozerek crowed as his fingers worked through the intricate patterns of a powerful spell. “While I live, it cannot die, and while it lives, I cannot be harmed. Sad that you removed your snake whore from the chain, or your position would be even more dire. Still, one must make do with the tools at hand.”
Insuxexara’s limbs thrashed at me with sudden speed and strength. I carved five of them out of the air, but five more took their place and slammed into my back and shoulders. I staggered perilously close to the edge of the ritual circle, and only a quick hop back saved me from another quick jolt that I’m sure I wouldn’t have survived.
I surveyed the battle and realized my guardians weren’t doing any better than me.
Delsinia dodged through a forest of flailing tentacles, but Insuxexara had pushed her back on the defensive, and she couldn’t retaliate without taking a hit. Zillah was in the same boat, and she cursed a blue streak in frustration as she was forced to use her spear to deflect attacks rather than moving in for the kill.
Kezakazek and Nephket kept up a steady stream of crossbow bolts and spheres of acid, but even though they left sizzling pockmarks and ugly puncture wounds in Insuxexara, they weren’t doing any real damage. Kozerek’s dark rituals made it impossible to kill either of these fuckers.
“Arise,” Kozerek moaned. He threw back his head and amber light gushed from his mouth like a fountain of lava. “Arise!”
I wondered what fresh hell the dark elf was up to, but I didn’t have time to worry about anything other than the tentacles that clubbed the ground around me. My stamina flagged as the stink of honeysuckle wormed its way into me. The bone floor was covered in sticky juices and littered with Insuxexara’s severed flesh, but the fight had transformed into an endless battle. More tentacles burst from the chained dungeon lord’s body with every passing moment.
“Do you know what you’ve wandered into, Rathokhetra?” Kozerek asked.
“Your hentai birthday bash?” I asked.
“The end of an age,” Kozerek continued with a derisive
chuckle at my sarcasm. “The time of dungeon lords has come to an end. While your kind squabbled over shards of godmarrow in pursuit of your pathetic personal power, I set my sights much higher.”
Kozerek floated near the ceiling, well out of my reach. There had to be some way to get him down where I could lay hands on him, but I’d be damned if I knew how. I fell back on witty insults and hoped that would be enough to make him lose his cool.
“Higher? You think enslaving a dungeon lord as your own magical sex gimp is some sort of higher calling?” I taunted the dark elf.
For a moment, I thought that had done the trick. Kozerek’s eyes blazed with violet light and burned into my own.
“You are a fool, Rathokhetra,” he said. “While you have toiled in the darkness, while your broodmare waited for you with madness festering in her mind, I alone among mortals mastered the secrets of the Solamantic Web. I alone learned how to collar a dungeon lord and seize their ka for my own.”
“And you’ve done what with all that book learning, smart boy? Imprisoned two dungeon lords and killed your whole fucking army?” I scoffed. “I’ve already freed one of your prisoners, and I’m about tired of hacking the dicks off your plaything. When I get done horsing around, I’ll come up there and tear you a new asshole.”
“Killed my army? Oh, no, Rathokhetra. I would have preferred they had served me as they were, but you forced my hand and now they are mine forever,” the dark elf said. “They come now to finish you and your pretty little playthings. And when this battle is over, I will add you to my collection. Your ka will fuel plans you will not live to see come to fruition.”
“Whatever kink you’ve got for dungeon lords,” I said, “I’m not interested in playing along.”
“Your consent is not required for your participation, Rathokhetra,” Kozerek said. “Tell me. While you and your kind scavenged for scraps from the gods who had fallen, did you ever consider what could be made from your salvage?”
I let Kozerek rant, because I only had the vaguest idea of what the fuck he was talking about and I needed time to figure out my next move. I focused my attention on the pit where I’d last seen Kozerek’s men.
And found it empty of everything but pools of blood and a crude ramp of shattered stone. Kozerek’s magic had destroyed my clever pit trap, and his undead dark elf slaves had used the rubble to build an escape route.
I used my dungeon lord senses to search for the dark elves, desperate to locate them before the wahket could stumble into them.
And then I found the assholes.
A hundred feet ahead of the wahket.
“Anunaset,” I cautioned her. “There is a small army of goddamned zombies ahead of you. Do not engage them until I give you the signal.”
“We could destroy the foul creatures,” the cat woman assured me. “We are so much stronger now, my lord. Let us show you our prowess.”
“Soon,” I assured her. “When the time is right.”
“And that is what has come to pass,” Kozerek continued. “When you have fallen, I will use your ka to finish this first step in my grand design. Why should I satisfy myself with the harvest of a few scraps of my fallen goddess when I can recreate her as my divine servant?”
“You are insane,” Delsinia spat at the dark elf. She danced around another tentacle, dove beneath a spurting stream of goo, and tumbled to safety outside the ring. “The gods are dead, you fool. All that stands between the many worlds and the Maw of Madness are the dungeon lords. Your mad scheme will doom creation itself!”
While the dark elf was distracted by Delsinia, I hacked a path through the thicket of tentacles and wiped their disgusting spume out of my eyes with the back of one hand. I leaped over the edge of the circle and landed with one foot on the spurting stump of one of Insuxexara’s tentacles. With my left hand, I grabbed another stump and pulled myself higher.
“Kooozerek,” the foul dungeon lord groaned.
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed at the monstrosity, and buried my blade in its throat. The khopesh sank too easily into the flaccid meat of Insuxexara’s body, and the blubbery skin and sticky fat clung to the blade as if I’d plunged it into a vat of rubber cement.
“Something’s coming,” Nephket said.
With nothing in their way, the zombies had poured out of my dungeon and through the wide open Solamantic Web. Their feet pounded on the glossy stone floor below us as they raced to defend their master.
“Stop your struggles, dungeon lord,” Kozerek said. “Your end is at hand. I can ease your suffering, as I have Insuxexara’s.”
“Fuck you,” I snapped back, and wrenched at my blade. The damned thing wouldn’t budge from where it was mired in the moaning dungeon lord’s neck.
My mind raced as I tried to form a plan. The zombies would be on top of us in the next few minutes, and they outnumbered the wahket on their tail almost four to one. Kozerek’s scouts were within striking distance of my second core, with only a few wounded wahket to defend it, and I had no idea what would happen if the drow got their hands on it. My fucking sword was stuck in another dungeon lord, and I couldn’t reach Kozerek with my bare hands.
I glared at the dark elf and he stared back at me with more hate than I’d thought possible for one creature to hold. He sneered at my struggles and uttered an incantation to unleash another of his hellish spells.
My guardians had been pushed to the limit. They were exhausted and overwhelmed by the beast’s attacks. They’d defended themselves as well as could be expected, but they couldn’t reach Kozerek any more than I could.
We were well and truly fucked.
And then I had a very dangerous idea.
Chapter 17: The Princess Ploy
“NEPH AND KEZ, GET IN here and shut the door,” I said. “We’ve got one shot at stopping this.”
Kozerek’s chant came to an end, and a thick haze gushed from his outstretched hands. The honeysuckle reek had grown so thick I was sure I’d never get a breath of fresh air again.
My fingers lost their grip on my khopesh, and my feet slipped off the tentacle stubs I’d used for footholds. I tumbled to the ground and writhed, choking, on the bone floor.
The circles in my vision had gone red. My guardians gasped for air with as little success as I’d had.
The zombies hammered at the door with mindless rage. They were trapped on the stairs outside, too stupid to lift the latch, but their weight would soon overcome the bones that barred their path.
“Now, Anunaset,” I said. “Hit the zombies hard, and fast. Swap out your front line when they tire. Keep the battle on the stairs, so you don’t get surrounded. The zombies outnumber you, but you’re stronger than they are.”
“Finally,” the wahket said, and she belted out the opening words of a wahket war song.
“We’re not out of this yet,” I told my guardians. My thoughts were getting fuzzy, and my body ached in ways no dungeon lord should have to suffer. “Kez, you’re our ace in the hole. Tell this fucker who you are.”
“I don’t—” Kez said. She’d crawled across the floor through the choking haze with Nephket, and her hand brushed against mine. “If you’re sure.”
“Do it,” I responded.
Nephket helped the dark elf to her feet though the wahket was nearly overcome by the choking gas. They were inside the circle, so close to the chained dick beast that it had enveloped three of us in a corral of its tentacles. Delsinia and Zillah were outside the circle, their bodies battered and bruised, their lungs desperate for fresh air.
“Lord Kozerek,” Kez said, her voice taut with tension as she forced reverence into the words. “I am Kezakazek Ekzilizke, Princess of the Nine Gates, Heir to the Clockwork Throne. I would parlay with you in the name of my family.”
The air grew still and quiet for a moment before the asshole responded to Kez’s entreaty.
“And what would you offer to me, renegade?” he asked. “I believe the bounty on your bones is worth more than your life, given what you
r family has done.”
“Get him down here,” I thought to Kezakazek. “Do whatever you have to do.”
“The Nine Gates do not believe my family to be traitors,” Kezakazek said around a handful of coughs from the suffocating smoke. “Were I returned to them, the reward would be most generous.”
I still found it hard to believe that Kezakazek was a princess. Though she was a drow princess, so that explained a lot about her attitude.
“Show me the mark,” Kozerek said. He descended from his position on high. The greed in his voice was almost as thick as the honeysuckle stink in the air around us. The hook was in his mouth. Kez just had to set it.
I’d do the rest.
My dark elf guardian opened her mouth and peeled her lower lip back from her teeth. Kozerek leaned forward, obviously immune to the poison gas he’d conjured, and stared intently at the lush, almost-purple flesh Kezakazek had laid bare to him.
“By the Dreaming Goddess,” he whispered. “You really are—”
I coughed out the syllables of the Light of Condemnation spell I’d been holding on to since I’d gained my ability to cast it. A blinding white light slammed into Kozerek and he ripped his hand away from Kezakazek to cover his eyes from its burning glare. His skin blistered and peeled as the spell boiled his flesh and surrounded him in a glow that made him an easy target even through the poisonous fog.
I had one shot to make this work, one brief window of opportunity that I couldn’t waste.
I forced my body to lunge to its feet and incarnated. My lungs burned, but I ignored them. I wrapped my arms around Kozerek and charged forward.
“Idiot,” he snarled. “You cannot kill me!”
By way of response, I slammed his back into the belly of his chained dungeon lord beast. He started another witty comeback, but I reared back one fist and punched him in the mouth hard enough to rattle his brain like a pachinko ball.
The dark elf’s eyes rolled in their sockets and blood gushed from his smashed lips. I rocked him with a solid blow to the center of his face, and his nose became a pulped smear.
