Oblivion: Part Five of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  “Mazoroth of Mazar!” he cried as he recalled the name of the hideous beast.

  He leaped at the wall, bouncing off and jumping off the other, launching him and his swords back at those who forced him down the passage. Landing in the midst of them, his blades went to work before he had hit the ground, flashing in the darkness as warm blood was ripped from their throats as he whipped them this way and that, spinning and ducking and jabbing.

  The Horgs screamed in pain and terror as the warrior spirit of Dril’ead Vulzdagg came to life, the demon slayer awakening and coming to his call as the monsters threatened to destroy him and his family once again.

  They stumbled away from him, falling to the floor or groping at deep cuts as they attempted to get away from him. But the warrior fell in pursuit, slaying them left and right as he charged back the way he had come. They screamed as his swords ripped through their tough hide, cutting heads from shoulders and hands from arms.

  He bellowed, roaring angrily as he felt something cut through the mesh armor of his sleeve, and turning he bashed the skull of a monster against the tunnel wall. He dropped low, smashing his shoulder into the ribcage of another as he picked the Horg off the ground and hefted it before him, throwing it into the others to knock them down from his path.

  Running over the fallen beasts, Dril cut at them where they lay, leaving the passage behind him full of corpses and blood.

  *****

  Neth’tek spun round as he felt the presence in the room, and looked up at an enormous Horg towering over him, a patch over one eye and a heavy axe held casually in one hand. It smiled, its lips curling over its yellow tusks.

  “So here you are at last, Neth’tek Vulzdagg,” said the Horg through its grin, “I have waited patiently for the day I would spill your blood in penitence for the blood of my horgs!”

  “I’m here for the girl!” Neth’tek said, his hands slowly touching the hilts of his swords.

  “Oh yes I know, of course!” said the Horg, “I had to draw you out of your little haven some way or another, and it just so happened that we managed to take one of your own from you. I knew eventually you’d have to go looking for her, to save yourself of the guilt. Tell me, do you feel the guilt, Vulzdagg?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Neth’tek growled, his teeth clenched angrily.

  “Of course you don’t!” bellowed the Horg, “You pathetic nobles know nothing of the dealings of your overlords! Your parents hunted my kind in the dark for centuries, damning us to the brink of the Lesser Realms! I plan to do the same to you and your friends. I’m afraid your brother has already begun the descent.”

  “Dril’ead,” Neth’tek whispered, his eyes drifting to the passage his brother had gone.

  “Do not mourn for him just yet,” said the Horg, and he slowly lifted his axe. “You will be with him soon enough!”

  “Indeed, he will!” cried Dril’ead as he came charging out of the passageway.

  Mazoroth turned round and growled furiously. “Those fools!” he roared. “But of course. You always were a sly one, Vulzdagg.”

  “I don’t have time to barter with a wretch such as yourself, Mazoroth,” Dril growled as he came to stand on the other side of the Horg, next to the fire. “You waste time!”

  “Indeed, time is wasting,” said the chieftain, and then he swept his axe out wide for Neth’tek’s head.

  Neth’tek ducked and rolled to the side just barely in time to miss the swinging blade, and came up with his swords in his hands. Dril charged first, slashing at the Horgs legs, but Mazoroth was exceptionally quick one his feet for a Horg, jumping back and bringing his axe up in front of him.

  Neth’tek spun as he jumped up, his swords swinging round for Mazoroth’s neck. But Mazoroth ducked and shouldered him out of the air, tossing Neth’tek to the side where he landed on one knee. Dril came upon the Horgs back, whipping his swords out in front of him so as to slash the monsters backside.

  Mazoroth turned, though, and caught one blade with his axe, the other slicing a thin cut in his side that began to bleed. He doubled back, his axe coming up and round and hitting Dril by the butt-end of it across the face. Dril’ead rolled backwards, his cheek bruised and bleeding where his skin broke, but came onto his feet and charged.

  Both Neth’tek and Dril’ead came at the Horg, their swords whipping this way and that, keeping the monster on his toes as he slowly backed towards the fire. Suddenly, Mazoroth ducked and rolled away just as he came to the licking tongues of flames, and grabbing a crooked edge sword where it lay on the floor of the corridor, he came to his feet and kicked Dril’ead in the back.

  Dril fell face forward toward the flames. Almost instinctively, Neth’tek dropped one of his scimitars and through out his arm, screaming an incantation that held Dril’ead in his place just inches from the fire. He pulled his brother backwards just as Mazoroth swiped at him with his sword and then his axe, coming round with a blow with both weapons that would surely have ended The Fallen’s life had he not rolled to the side and out of his weapons’ reach.

  Dril hit the wall beside Helen, his hairs singed at the ends and his face red with heat and anger.

  “Your petty spells cannot save you, Fallen!” Mazoroth bellowed as he stalked towards Neth’tek. “I shall paint this hall with your blood, and the blood of your brother, ending the Vulzdagg line once and for all as was my destiny!”

  Dril’ead got to his feet, picking his swords up from the ground and walking toward them as they moved to the other side of the room. He saw Neth’tek’s scimitar lying where he dropped it by the fire, and then looked to where his brother ducked and rolled away from each of the Horgs’ vicious attempts to end his life, one scimitar in his hand.

  He kicked the blade upwards, and then spun round and knocked it through the roaring flames to where Neth’tek scurried on his nimble feet. “Neth’tek, catch!” he cried.

  Neth’tek turned in time to see the blade spinning through the air, tongues of flames wrapping round the blade as it came for him. He put out his hand, dodging to the side as a sword came down from above, and caught the sword by its hilt just before it hit the floor.

  He dove toward the flames, an idea coming to him, and thrust the blade into the embers of the fire. Mazoroth leaped toward him, but Neth’tek rolled to the side, whipping his sword up and throwing hot coals into the face of the monster.

  Mazoroth bellowed and stumbled back a pace, cursing wildly. Neth’tek came to his feet and watched the wretched Horg brush the embers from his face and tusks, his hairs burning. Dril came up beside him, swords in hand, eyes blazing with the reflection of the fire in them.

  “Do you yield, monster of misfortune?” Neth’tek asked the beast.

  Mazoroth slumped onto his knees, dropping the sword and growling angrily. “Yield,” he repeated, “I will never yield!”

  He grabbed a chain from the floor and flung it toward the two of them, but the brothers dodged to either side, rolling and coming onto their feet again. Mazoroth jumped at Neth’tek, swinging his axe, and then turned round and whipped the chain toward Dril’ead’s head.

  Neth’tek parried his swing, and Dril’ead ducked under the chain, both of them circling round the Horg to keep him on his toes as they jabbed at him with their swords. Mazoroth turned round and round, swinging his axe and chain at either of them, now suffering from minor cuts up and down his torso and arms and legs. But he still would not yield to them, and his anger was only heightened.

  Dril’s patience was waning, and he kept looking to Neth’tek for permission to rush the beast and end its miserable life right then and there, but Neth’tek was resolute in weakening the monster to the point that he would give up the fight without the loss of his life. Little did he know Mazoroth was no such creature, and would fight until he died of either loss of blood or a mortal wound.

  The chain came round, then, and whacked Neth’tek in the side of the head. The Fallen stumbled to the side, dazed, and the axe came round to
chop him in half. Dril’ead, swift as always on his feet and with his blades, dove forward between them and caught the axe with both scimitars. He snapped the blade away and grabbed the chain with one hand, diving under the Horgs’ axe, and wrapped the chain round the arm of the monster.

  He rolled to the side, pulling the Horg to the floor so that his head hit the stones with a resounding thud. The thrill of the battle suddenly overtook him, filling Dril’s mind with the recollection of how much he hated the monster that had attacked his home and nearly murdered his brother.

  Dril’ead, his eyes blazing with the wild warrior that he was, jumped through the flames, dragging the body of the Horg after him. However, Mazoroth caught himself on a small edge in the floor with his free arm, holding fast so that he wouldn’t be pulled into the roaring flames. But Dril continued to pull his arm into the flames from the other end of the chain, until the clawed hand of the Horg was completely engulfed in the fire.

  Mazoroth screamed in agony as the flames scorched his lower arm and hand.

  Neth’tek could barely open his eyes to see what was happening, barely able to cling to consciousness as his head throbbed from the hit. He felt warm blood trickle down his face, but paid no heed to it. He was focused on the two of them struggling on either side of the fire, Mazoroth clinging to the floor as his arm was slowly pulled into the flames.

  “Dril’ead... no,” he barely managed to whisper, his voice drowned out by the screams of the Horg chieftain.

  Another scream filled the room, and looking in the direction of it both Neth’tek and Dril saw a Horg attempting to carry a thrashing Helen out of the chamber. Dril’ead dropped the chain into the fire, spinning round and cutting out the legs of the Horg as it passed him. The monster fell, Helen scrambling away from it as it struggled where it lay without the lower half of its legs, screaming horribly.

  Dril drove his sword through its neck, ending its awful cry. When he turned back toward Mazoroth, though, he saw the beast roll away from the bonfire, cradling an arm with the hairs and flesh burned away from it. But before he could finish the chieftain, a light irrupted from the midst of the flames, an orb of purple light that blasted the light out of the torches and fire.

  Mazoroth looked once at Neth’tek as he lay barely conscious on the floor, and then dove into the orb just as Dril’ead whipped his sword at him, and the chieftain of Mazar was gone.

  Dril’ead rushed to Neth’tek’s side as soon as the orb and Mazoroth vanished. He fell to his knees and put something to Neth’tek’s lips, a flask of liquid that he carried with him.

  “Drink this,” he said.

  Neth’tek allowed the substance to flow into his mouth and down his throat, and then he sputtered and coughed as it felt as if it burned his insides. First freezing, and then it slowly warmed in his stomach until it was hot.

  “Easy now,” said Dril’ead, putting a hand on Neth’tek’s arm. “Let it take effect.”

  Neth’tek coughed a few more times, blinked open his eyes, and looked up at Dril. “You... You were going to kill him,” he said.

  Dril looked down, ashamed. “Yes,” he said, “he was going to kill you. I... Sometimes, I lose control and forget who I am, what I’m fighting for. I hate it, but it has saved my life. I can’t allow you to get hurt or lose your life. It’d kill me. And although Mazoroth is evil, I have learned that the only evil is what we allow to fester in our hearts. I’m sorry.”

  Neth’tek shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone, and to where and whomever I know not. But he did not cast that spell.”

  “Indeed,” said Dril’ead, looking to the empty fire pit, “He must be in league with someone else, some other power that hunts us still. I fear it will only get worse hereafter.”

  Neth’tek climbed to his feet, gently touching his head where he had been hit and feeling the warm blood there. There was a nasty gash, he could tell. But he’d have to take care of that later. Right now, he had to get Helen back to Evenstar and Skifel.

  He walked over to the girl, who pulled her legs up under her as she huddled against the wall of the corridor, a dead horg lying in its blood just in front of her. He knelt down, putting his arm out to her just as he had done before.

  “Helen, it’s time to come home,” he said softly.

  She only stared at him, afraid.

  “Helen,” Neth’tek said again, “I will keep you safe.”

  “That’s what he told me,” she said, suddenly, tears filling her eyes. “He said... He said he’d protect me from... You.”

  Neth’tek felt himself turning red with anger. Mazoroth you wretched creature! You turn your victims against those who seek to help them! Dril’ead should have killed you... Seeing Helen’s expression, Neth’tek forced himself to remain calm. “I am a friend of your father, Skifel, who waits for you in Evenstar,” he said. “Please, come home now.”

  “This is not my home?” Helen asked.

  “No,” said Neth’tek, his arm out toward her, “and I am your friend.”

  Someone put their hand on his shoulder, and looking up Neth’tek saw Eladrid standing over him. The woodlander knelt down beside him and put a hand on Helen’s trembling arm. “I’ll take care of this, Neth’tek,” he said.

  Neth’tek looked back to Helen one last time, his heart sinking in his chest. He stood and left, walking to meet Dril’ead by the entrance to the corridor. They both watched as Eladrid lifted Helen in his arms and walked toward them.

  “The next time we meet Mazoroth of Mazar,” Neth’tek said under his breath as they watched him come, “the Horg chieftain will die.”

  Dril looked sad as he turned about, walking up the stairs. “Be careful what you say, brother,” he said, “it might actually come to pass.”

  3

  A Father’s Deathbed

  Guldar, baron of the small human settlement of Evenstar, sat at the bedside of his late friend. Crippled not only by his battle with the horgs, but also by the loss of his daughter to the terrible monsters, Skifel had spent the last fifteen years of his life searching the mountains and valleys all around for the child. It had been to no avail, and only weakened him to the point that he could no longer walk, and the early winter already began taking its toll on his body.

  He coughed into a rag, specks of blood wetting the cloth clutched in his trembling hand. “Any news of The Fallen?” Skifel asked the baron, his voice hoarse and weak.

  Guldar shook his head. “Not since he set out,” he replied.

  “He’ll find her,” Skifel said as he laid his head back against his thin pillow.

  “You trust The Fallen, then?” Guldar asked him.

  Skifel did not speak. His eyes were shut, but Guldar knew he hadn’t passed away yet. His chest rose and fell, although weak, with what was left of his breath. A moment later, and as if in answer to the barons question, someone knocked on the door. Guldar turned around as it slowly opened, Neth’tek’s familiar face peering in, dirty with travel and weather. He looked at the baron, nodded, and then his gaze fell upon Skifel.

  There was a visible shudder as Neth’tek saw the man lying in bed, covered by blankets and holding a blood stained cloth in his hand. He coughed, holding it to his mouth.

  Guldar turned to Skifel, putting a hand on his arm as he continued coughing. “I’ll leave the two of you alone,” he said, and then stood and walked to the door, nodding the Neth’tek as he passed.

  Neth’tek came inside and stood at the bedside, saying nothing but looking down at the poor man with a sad expression.

  “Took you long enough,” said Skifel, chuckling. He coughed, clearing his throat, and turned his head in the pillow to look at him through cracked eyelids. “Is she... well?”

  “See for yourself,” said Neth’tek, looking sidelong at the door.

  Helen stood there, uncertain as she looked at the old man in the bed. Grey hair, a wispy beard, and wrinkled skin. His search for her had aged him well beyond his years, leaving him unprepared for winters chill
. He was not the strong man as she had remembered. She came forward as Neth’tek motioned toward her, and then he stepped from the bedside.

  Skifel reached up and grabbed him by the hand, his grip surprisingly firm. “Thank you, Neth’tek,” he said, a tear in his eye, “thank you!”

  Neth’tek put a hand on his hand and smiled at him. “Of course, dear friend,” he said.

  When Skifel pulled his hand away, he left something there. Neth’tek looked at it as he walked to the door. It was his rag, stained with blood. On it, though, was the evening star of Muari the Beloved, the token he had given to the man in promise of finding Helen. It was apparent that the man had never let go of it while he was gone, refusing to let go of the one thing that kept him alive. His daughter would be returned to him.

  Tears came to Neth’tek’s eyes and he rushed out of the house and into the night, running down the street and into the forest beyond the wooden walls of the town. He fell to the earth, soaking his trousers in the mud at the base of a tree, and wept.

  He knelt there, clutching the cloth in his hands, and looked up at the stars through the foliage overhead. “What is this cruelty? Why must you taunt my spirit so?” he demanded of the heavens, and then sank against the trunk of the tree as he sobbed bitterly to himself all the night through.

  Dril’ead watched him from a distance, his own eyes swollen with grief as he beheld the torture his brother went through. How can this be so? he asked himself. What more can the creators of this world ask of him?

  “He will carry the burden his whole life,” said a voice from behind, familiar from years long gone. “Just as you had to carry the burden of Vulzdagg after I was gone, he will have to carry the burden of these people after Muari is forced to leave them to their doom.”

  “But why?” Dril demanded, turning around and facing the ghost of their father, Vaknorbond Vulzdagg.