Unfortunately, one of the mutant creatures was jostled by its fellows into the path of the deadly projectile. It struck the monkey creature in the face, just below its left eye. It dropped to the ground, allowing Rindu to see Tingai’s pale face filled with shock. The scientist knew how close he had just come to dying.
As Baron Tingai headed toward the back of the room, the mutations all rushed to attack, the soldiers crowding behind them to find openings to do the same. A handful of men and women had bows or crossbows and were picking targets, trying not to injure their fellows.
An archer in front and to the right of Rindu sprouted an arrow in her throat, and her own nocked arrow spun off crazily as she fell, embedding itself in another soldier’s rear end. He yelped and jumped, dropping his sword and leaving off all attempts at getting to the enemies. Emerius Dinn must have been be targeting the foes with ranged weapons. That was good.
A wolf creature, a bird creature, and two men with swords came at Rindu. He pulled in a breath, drew his swords, separated them, and waited for his attackers to get within range. In the crowded room, they could come to him.
By now most of the party was familiar with the different types of mutated creatures Tingai had at his disposal. The types and, more importantly, the characteristics and abilities possessed by each. With this in mind, Rindu moved to attack the bird creature first, the most dangerous of the group.
The Zouy ducked under a clumsy horizontal slash of one of the swords, slapped away the downward strike with the other, and took a half step to his left. Right into the path of the bird mutant, which was in the process of swinging one of its talons down at Rindu’s head. His movement ruined the attack’s range, and the monk deflected it harmlessly away from him with his other sword.
Before the bird could move, Rindu changed the direction of his parry, rotating his wrist, and struck the side of the monster’s beak with the pommel of his sword. There was a cracking sound and the creature yelped in pain. With a flick of his wrist, Rindu brought the blade around to bite deeply into his opponent’s neck. The strike lacked sufficient power to remove its head, but as blood began to gush from the wound, the monk knew the creature would not last long.
Utilizing his rotational motion, Rindu sent out a backhanded blow with the sword in his right hand, landing a shallow cut on the wolf creature’s claw, causing it to pull its limb back. At the same time, the monk twirled the other sword behind his head to push aside another sword strike aimed at his neck. He continued the motion and snapped the sword out in front of him to remove the wolf’s other claw, which it had not pulled back. He reversed his rotation and struck out twice, once with either sword, to cut off the other arm of the wolf, leaving it with no claws with which to attack.
Rindu leaned to his right, allowing a sword thrust to narrowly miss skewering him through the back of his neck. He almost casually threw out a powerful rear kick, feeling more than hearing several ribs break. He pivoted on his other foot, spun halfway around to face the two humans, and whipped both swords out, one to deflect the second man’s sword and the other to batter it away with such force that the swordsman stumbled and almost lost his grip on his weapon.
Continuing his spin, Rindu struck at the stumbling man with a backhand strike, an inward strike with the other sword, and swung his leg in a large crescent to knock the sword arm aside. An inside crescent kick with the other leg contacted the side of the man’s head. There was a loud crack and the man dropped to the ground, his neck broken.
The remaining man could hardly hold his sword because of the pain of his broken ribs. Rindu put both of his swords in his left hand, lunged in to knock the man’s sword aside, and calmly struck him on the side of his head with an open-palm strike. The man’s eyes rolled up and he dropped to the ground, his sword clattering to the stone.
The bird creature had stopped twitching, and the wolf creature moved sluggishly as it died from blood loss. Rindu saluted it and then, quick as lightning, struck in exactly the same place on the monster’s neck with one sword and then the other, cleanly severing its head and ending its misery.
Rindu flicked the blood off his blades and looked around. Not that he needed to. He could feel within his aura what he was seeing. The creatures and soldiers were all dead or dying, maybe a few unconscious, or were being beaten by his friends. It was a quick battle, and he did not see any injuries on his allies.
A door at the rear of the room clicked closed.
“Baron Tingai has escaped,” he said to the others, but they were already looking at the door. After a second’s pause, they all broke for it.
Emerius Dinn made it through the door first, Sam right on his heels. Rindu came through next. The room was larger than the previous room and, like the other, it was full of equipment and tables. Baron Tingai was unlocking the chains on one of four massive creatures. The other three were almost to Sam and Emerius.
These mutations were different than the others, though the party had encountered their like previously. They were the size of two men, had four arms, and appeared to have armor plating embedded in their skin.
Emerius Dinn, eyes going wide and nearly dropping an arrow on the way to the bowstring, fired off two arrows while trying to step to the side. Both projectiles struck the chest of the closest monster and bounced as if they had struck stone.
Sam, thinking clearly enough to move to the side to allow room for the others to enter, thrust Ahimiro, in staff form, at the face of one of his opponents. There was a dull thunking sound and the creature’s head shifted to the side, but there was no apparent damage. It reached for Sam with two of its hands, but Sam ducked under them and moved out of range as Rindu came closer.
Tingai backed up until he was against the wall, eyes wide and watching what his specimens would do.
The others of Sam’s party poured into the room. Two of the four-armed creatures attacked Sam, one went after Emerius, and the other had seen the newcomers and was stomping its way toward them.
“Their eyes and their backs are vulnerable,” Sam called out. He wasn’t sure if the monstrosities understood Kasmali or not, but even if they did, everyone knowing their weakness would help shorten the combat.
Rindu joined Sam in fighting off the two mutants trying to attack him. Sam feinted with his staff and then slipped to the side while Rindu came in with his swords and delivered precise strikes to the vulnerable areas, places where the armored skin was not as thick. There weren’t many of them. The area where the creatures’ arms bent and the backs of the knees were softer than the rest of their bodies, and Rindu targeted them with the precision of a surgeon. Soon, both of the creatures were bleeding heavily and losing control of their limbs.
Sam struck at other places on their bodies, such as their ears and their eyes. He didn’t do a lot of damage, but they were becoming more and more enraged, swinging wildly at him as Rindu pummeled and taunted them.
Rindu saw from the corner of his eye that Sam was pouring rohw into Ahimiro and had formed one of its ends into a sharp point. The next time one of the four-armed behemoths came at him, he leapt up and jabbed the pointed end of his staff into the creature’s eye. It howled and thrashed for a second until the point reached its brain, and then it went still. He and Rindu finished off the other one quickly after that.
When Rindu watched the other of his opponents fall, he looked around to see how the others were faring. Emerius had put several arrows into the eye of one of the other creatures, and the last foe dropped to the ground. Reginia, Nalia, and Ru Wilkes had somehow managed to cut into its throat so deeply that its head was almost off.
Tingai looked frantic. His eyes darted from side to side, looking for a way to escape. The members of the party slowly moved toward him, a semicircle surrounding him and closing in.
“Wait!” Tingai cried out. “Just wait a moment. I think we have a misunderstanding. We don’t need to be enemies. Let’s just discuss things like rational—”
An arrow flew at the man and scratched
his face, leaving a shallow cut. The shaft bounced off the stone wall behind him. Rindu looked at Emerius. He did not like what he saw. The archer’s eyes burned with hate. The Zouy frowned at him. He had never seen the man miss a target. He had meant to graze the scientist.
Tingai put his hand to his face and brought it back down with blood on it. When he saw it, he swooned as if he would pass out, but only stumbled and regained his feet.
“You have nothing to say that we wish to hear,” Emerius Dinn said, releasing another arrow that cut the other side of Tingai’s face.
“No, wait,” the desperate man said. “I’ll give you anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Please, just listen to me. I’m too valuable to kill.”
“Was my brother too valuable to kill?” Emerius said, shooting another arrow that cut Tingai’s scalp. “Were the citizens of my village too valuable to kill? Were the hapaki?” Two more arrows punctuated what the archer said, causing other minor wounds.
Tingai was frantic. He started to babble. “Please. You, Zouy, you can’t let him do this to me, to torture me. You have honor. Stop him.”
“He is correct,” Rindu said to Emerius. “He truly deserves death for all that he has done, but do not torment him. Kill him and let us go find his master.”
Tingai’s eyes widened so much they looked like lanterns. “No, no. Please, don’t kill me. As a show of good faith, I will tell you that Chetra Dal has gone to commune with the artifacts. He’s not here. He will be back within the week, though. I can help you set a trap for him. Just give me a chance.”
Rindu looked at Torim Jet and then at the others. The other master nodded. He believed the man was telling the truth about his master not being in the fortress.
Baron Tingai took the nod to mean that they had agreed to spare him. “Yes,” he jumped on the thought. “I can help you to set a trap. There may still be some of my creatures in the fortress. We can use them. They’re expendable.”
Before Rindu could respond, he heard the twang of a bowstring and the whistle of several arrows in flight. The first took Tingai in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second arrow scored a deep gash across the man’s chest. The third and fourth caused shallow wounds on the man’s backside, causing him to jump up and forward. The last caused a large glass container, almost as tall as Tingai himself, to shatter and spray its contents all over the scientist.
Rindu looked to Emerius and saw a look of satisfaction. He did not know why the hunter was pleased with himself. Looking back to Tingai, he saw that the man had landed face down in a puddle of the liquid, a sickly greenish fluid that was as thick as honey. He screamed and beat at his chest as the ichor was absorbed into his wound.
Before the eyes of the party, the cuts exposed to the liquid began to change. They discolored as the blood mingled with the green, then became a dull brown. The brown changed into a dull yellow, then a bright yellow, then a color so bright it looked as if it was glowing. And then the skin itself began to change.
The wounds deteriorated, looking like they were rotting. Skin sloughed off and new tissue grew. It had the consistency of leather, but leather that had been soaking in water for a long time and had been ruined. In places, it grew so thin that it burst, expelling dull purple fluid.
All the while, Tingai screamed.
Baron Tingai looked as if he was changing into one of his mutants, but in an uncontrolled way. The party stared wide-eyed as his body convulsed and morphed. It looked like it was fighting the changes and the battle was tearing its tissues apart.
Rindu took a step toward Tingai, but Emerius put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t end his agony,” Emerius said. It was not commanding, but pleading. “It won’t last long now, but I want him to experience what he did to so many people, so many hapaki, and so many other creatures over the years. Just give me this, monk? Inoria deserves at least this.”
Rindu looked to Sam. Sam nodded gravely, turned, and walked out of the room. Nalia was looking at Rindu, her swords ready to strike, but he simply sighed and followed Sam. The others came after them. All except Emerius.
“Thank you,” Emerius whispered as he watched the others leave. He turned to Tingai, the man’s body racked with seizures, his breathing labored, whistling through airways that were trying to change.
“This is only a small repayment of the suffering you have caused,” Emerius said to the fallen scientist. “If I could make this last for a thousand years, it wouldn’t be enough.” He stepped closer, eyes locked on Tingai’s crazed orbs. He set down a single arrow, two feet from the monster Tingai was becoming. “It’s a mercy you don’t deserve, but if you can manage to use it, good luck to you.” He turned and walked away, knowing that whatever happened, Baron Tingai would be dead within minutes.
The party searched the fortress, but Chetra Dal was not there. They encountered a few patrols and some servants, but for the most part the place had been emptied of people, all of them with the army in their siege of Whitehall.
“I do not know exactly when the master will return,” one of the servants they questioned said as he wrung his hands nervously. “I believe he said he would be gone for two weeks, and that was just over a week ago. He does not confide his comings and goings with one such as me.”
It was the same thing the other three servants they questioned had said.
“Go,” Emerius said to the man. “Go to your chambers and don’t come out until evening, or we may mistake you for someone who needs killing.”
The man scurried off, darting looks at them every few feet until he was out of sight.
Emerius sighed. He had thought killing Tingai would bring him peace, or at least joy. Vengeance was served, and the man who caused so much suffering was dead, but the hole in the hunter’s chest would not be filled. He still felt as if part of him was missing. Several parts, in fact.
“You are finding that vengeance does not satisfy you as you thought it would,” Rindu said.
Emerius jumped. He hadn’t even heard the man come up to him. He must really be out of sorts to be surprised like that.
“Yeah, well,” Emerius answered, “Tingai needed killing. It’s done now. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”
“Revenge does not satisfy the heart, does not bring peace. As it is said, ‘Vengeance makes the heart grow hot, but peace can only be found within oneself.’”
The monk walked away, letting Emerius think on what he had said. Crazy old man. He was right, though. Nothing would bring Inoria and Ancha back. He had to find peace within himself. If such a thing were possible.
Chapter 41
The creatures threw themselves at the walls, literally climbing over each other to try to get to the top. The archers took their time, aimed, and fired their arrows only when they were sure they would score a vital hit.
“Don’t waste arrows,” Danaba Kemp yelled at them. “We’re running short and have to conserve. Kill the bastards, but make sure you hit your target every time.”
It had been like this for days. Twice, three times, or more each day, the mutant hordes had attacked the walls. The besiegers had built a long platform from the wood they cultivated from the Undead Forest. Though the trees there were twisted and tough, there were enough of the enemy forces to complete the work of piecing together shorter logs and rough boards into something they could carry up the winding path to Whitehall and place over the chasm in front of the drawbridge. It was long enough for them to cross the space and get to the small area in front of the gate and walls.
At first, the defenders had shot fire arrows onto the makeshift bridge to try to burn it down. The wood was so green that it did not catch fire easily, and groups of the enemy waited with water and sand to douse any fires that caught.
Then the soldiers of the Republic took to pouring oil onto the bridge and lighting that on fire. The enemy fire brigades were able to put those fires out, too before structural damage had been done to their platform. It was so thick that even many oi
l attacks didn’t weaken it enough for it to crumble. It seemed that someone in Chetra Dal’s camp had thought the project through. In the end, the defenders stopped trying to burn the bridge because they were running low on arrows and oil.
The attacks were relentless. Though hundreds of the mutant creatures died, it didn’t seem to affect the overall numbers. Danaba Kemp was starting to get nervous.
“I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off,” he said to Dr. Walt and Nicole Wepp. The two of them had come to the wall to see the state of things, against his suggestions and better judgment. “You better go back down now before the fighting gets to us.”
“We have to hold out until Sam and the others get back,” Dr. Walt yelled over the sounds of clashing weapons and screaming. “If they return with the news that Chetra Dal is dead, it could make all the difference.”
“It won’t make a difference to you if you’re dead from getting caught up in the fighting. You need—”
Danaba Kemp pushed Dr. Walt and Nicole to the wall of the battlements with his right arm as he tried to draw the sword from his back with his left. One of the creatures bowled into the general and bore him to the ground, clawing and biting as Danaba tried to free his blade from the scabbard.
“Go!” he yelled at them, elbowing the monster in the face and wriggling to free his sword arm. “Go!”
The black creature on top of him went limp and Danaba Kemp threw its body off him, wheeling to face the three other mutants that had gotten through the line of his men and were rushing to attack him.
Nicole hastily pulled free the two knives she had thrown from the creature’s eye and neck, cleaning them as best she could on the corpse’s fur. She looked like she would be ill.
Kemp gave her a sidelong look. “First time you’ve killed?”
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 132
