by David Combs
“Oh, please, don’t think for a moment that I serve the dark lord of Cliffside,” the ghostly elf maiden purred. “I am but one of the lost souls that he has stolen from life. Gieralond was my name when I danced beneath the bright sun in the elven wood.” Her eyes suddenly darkened. “It was that damnable brute that stole away with me as I frolicked in a midsummer festival. Beneath the stars, he lured me away with his rapturous gaze.” Her voice snarled with malice. “And then he drank from me, and let me die. Our healers used all of their arts so that I would not become a creature as he was, but something went wrong. I rose again, wraithlike, a lost soul forever doomed to this plane, yet I still hunger as he does.” As she looked at Tyrell, the wicked smile again found her face.
“My lady, truly I am sorry to hear how you too were wronged by Ambrose-.” Tyrell’s words were cut off as a backhanded blast threw him across the cave. He slammed against the rock wall, tumbling onto a pile of bones.
“Do not say that name,” screamed Gieralond. Tyrell scrambled to narrowly avoid the jagged claws as the elven spirit lunged at him.
“My friends and I are here to face him,” stammered the wizard. “Simply allow me to leave, and this night, I swear on my honor, that you and so many others shall have the justice that you deserve.”
“Let you leave,” the spirit said mockingly. “I think not, mortal. The dark lord would feast upon you and your pitiful friends, only to leave me dining on rats here in the dark. Oh, you shall find your doom tonight, my dear one, but you need not go so far to find it.” Faster than Tyrell could follow, Gieralond grabbed the front of his shirt, hurling him deeper into the dark tunnel that led into the mountainside. Tyrell slid to a stop on the rough gravel floor.
“Now you will face me, mortal. I will drink your life force as I have not done in so many years, and I will add your bones to the piles around you.” She threw back her head and cackled with glee.
***
Nestor fought through the piercing agony of the snake’s fangs buried in his hip and pounded his fist against the side of the monster’s head. The serpent was relentless in its grip though and held fast to the flailing warrior. Slowly, the rock serpent began to retreat back into its hole dragging Nestor along. Had the barbarian thought better of it, he would have let the beast do so, for Nestor dangled over the abyssal drop held aloft only by the huge snake’s imprisoning jaws.
Instead, the warrior snarled and punched the serpent squarely in one if it’s great glassy eyes. He pummeled on the creature’s snout, but the snake merely tightened its hold. With a shake of its massive head, the serpent dashed Nestor against the surrounding rock in an effort to soften up its intended meal. Nestor took the blows without complaint, lashing out once again.
Galen caught a handhold about thirty feet below where Nestor and the snake thrashed around. The rock spur tore through his leather glove, and into the flesh of his hand, but the young thief’s grip held. As he caught his breath and tried to calm his hammering heart, he looked above himself to see how his friend fared against the monstrous snake. As Nestor was beaten around on the rocks, Galen quickly resumed his climb, determined to get to Nestor before it was too late.
Nestor drew a dagger from his belt and plunged the blade deep into the serpent’s face. The snake shook again in a wave of agony, again slamming the barbarian into the rock wall. The blade fell from Nestor’s hand and was lost in the darkness below. This will not be the end, growled Nestor to himself, though the bruises and scrapes were beginning to mount up.
Galen drew his own dagger and hurled it at the snake’s exposed throat with all of his might. The blade barely pierced the snake’s scaly hide though, and if he had done any damage, the snake didn’t show it. The serpent gave Nestor one last shake for good measure, and pulled back into the depths of the hole, dragging Nestor along with it.
The thief scrambled up the last few feet to the opening, only to see Nestor’s feet dragged into inky darkness. “Nestor, I’m here,” yelled Galen, as he reached out for his friend’s foot. With a sudden rumble, however, the tunnel before him rumbled and groaned. With a deafening crash, the tunnel ceiling collapsed before him. As dust and rock billowed in a choking cloud around him, Galen realized that he was now on his own.
***
Tyrell barely rolled away as the elven ghost’s fist cracked the rock wall he had leaned against just a moment before. He scrambled away on all fours, while his mind raced to figure a way out of this mess. Gieralond blocked him from reaching the cave opening, and the way behind him was unknown to him. It might lead deeper into the mountain or it might leave him in a dead end.
“You might as well stop running, dear one, and just accept your fate.” The elven shade’s fanged maw cracked wide in a terrifying grin.
“You’ll not have me without a fight,” growled Tyrell. He kicked a skull from the floor at the ghost, but she slapped it away and cackled that shrill menacing laugh again.
“So futile, but it does make your blood pump harder through your veins. Oh, you shall taste so sweet.” She again grabbed the front of his shirt, lifting him effortlessly from the ground. As her hand touched him, a strange lethargy fell over the wizard.
She’s right, he thought to himself. I can’t beat her. Why do I continue to fight? Gieralond laughed again, the noise sounding distant. Tyrell’s vision blurred as his strength ebbed away.
“No,” he shouted. Tyrell’s iron will dragged him to consciousness and forced his mind into the realm of magic. A sinewy black conduit snaked between himself, and the ghost drawing his energy away from. “An open pipe flows both ways,” he snarled. Through sheer determination, Tyrell found the magical core of Gieralond’s being and yanked back with all of his mental strength. A burst of revitalizing energy flooded him as he took the spirit by surprise. Magical warmth flooded through him, healing wounds and reinforcing his own magical defenses with every passing second.
Gieralond refocused her own determination and tried to draw back in a magical tug of war, but Tyrell had gained the advantage. He siphoned energy away from her, watching as her spectral form dimmed. In seconds she would be gone, changed into magical energy, and absorbed by the mentally dominant wizard.
The elven ghost realized what peril she was in, and shrieked in rage and frustration. “You cannot win, mortal!” She slammed her fist into the cavern ceiling. “The master’s will shall prevail in the end!” Another smash of her fists into the ceiling brought loose rock down on Tyrell’s head, giving Gieralond the moment she needed to sever the connection between her and the mage. Tyrell faced her as she glared with centuries-old hatred for the living.
“You have weakened me, nothing more.”
“And yet you know how close I came to destroying you. Let me pass that I may rejoin my friends, and I will see you avenged.”
“Destruction by you is only a possibility, fool. Destruction from my dark master is an absolute certainty.” She lunged again at him, slower than before but still with inhuman speed. She hit Tyrell squarely in the chest knocking him backward into the deeper reaches of the tunnel. Gieralond again struck the cave ceiling, and this time her powerful strike brought down the tunnel in a hailstorm of rock and dust.
Tyrell choked for air, realizing that she had sealed him into the cave. A faint glow pierced the fallen rock as Gieralond stepped through the stone into the chamber. “And now it ends,” she cackled.
“So it does,” growled Tyrell. The mage lashed out with his magic and re-opened the conduit to the woman’s ghost. Only a spark of magical essence remained compared to what she once possessed. Without hesitation, he grabbed hold of that final glimmer, ripping it from the otherworldly anchoring that held her to this plane. He was immediately hit with the force of all of Gieralond’s emotions. Hatred for him, sorrow for the loss of the life she had been cheated from, and most strangely of all, he sensed pity.
In her final moment, before her eternal essence was scattered into nothingness, Gieralond felt pity for Kellen Ambrose. If this mage t
raveled with friends as powerful as he, then perhaps the dark lord was truly doomed.
The final spectral luminescence faded, and Tyrell found himself in complete blackness. Splendid, he thought to himself. Time to throw out a beacon, and draw every slithery, shadowy thing in Kellen’s arsenal to me. He had no other alternative though. With a sigh, Tyrell called forth a magical globe of light to study his surroundings, but even that failed to help beyond an arm’s reach.
The route that he had come through was gone, destroyed during Gieralond’s fit of rage. There was no going back out that way. He had no choice but to follow the cramped tunnel deeper into the cave. Carefully he stepped forward, testing his footing. The slick rocks betrayed him with nearly every step though, and he stumbled several times. With shins and knees banged and scraped he paused a moment to lean against the wall and catch his breath.
As his shoulder touched the rock, however, the stone behind him gave way, and Tyrell tumbled backward into an old stone chimney. The mage crashed down through the old stone with rock spurs punching into him from all angles. He tasted blood after one particular blast to the ribs. He finally slammed onto a cold floor. Though barely conscious, his fingers felt the texture of worked stone. His globe of magical light was gone again, and he could see nothing.
I’m in the keep, he decided as he felt the brickwork under his hands. We’re nearly there. Just need some rest and a light. A feeble glow enveloped his fingertips and gave him a momentary glimpse of the chamber before pain and exhaustion stole away his consciousness.
Two rows of stone sarcophagi stretched towards a grand stair at the far end of the room. Slowly the grating sound of stone against stone rumbled through the darkness as pale white hands began pushing away lids that had remained undisturbed for centuries.
***
Nestor went limp and allowed the giant snake to drag him as far as it wanted. It wasn’t as if he had much say in the matter anyway. Without warning, the serpent’s jaws suddenly released him, and the warrior sprang to his feet. Torchlight filled the chamber above him and lit up the great pit of worked stone that he now found himself in. A ledge ran along the top of the pit, ending in an archway that led off into a dark corridor.
“So, you’re somebody’s pet, eh?” Nestor looked over his wounds and gladly found them to be superficial. It seemed that being slammed against the cliff face repeatedly had hurt worse than the snake’s bite. Nestor smiled at the great snake, now coiled up, with its massive head swaying gently back and forth. “Let’s see how well you fare on even ground, you bastard.”
As a boy, the warrior had played a game similar to his situation, except the snakes then were much smaller. He had learned that the key to avoiding the snake bite was to know the exact moment in which to sidestep the strike. With a flash of a knife, the game was over and the snake was dead. Over the years of his youth, Nestor had been the undisputed champion among the boys of his village. As he drew Shadow Reaver from the sheath on his back, the barbarian figured the principle here to be just like the contest of his childhood. Same game, bigger snake.
The great serpent slowed its rhythmic dance, then lashed forward suddenly with blinding speed. Its prey, however, rolled around the lunge, and the snake smashed its mighty snout into the solid stone wall of the pit. Shadow Reaver flashed down hard in Nestor’s mighty hands and bit deeply into the creature’s neck. Blood sprayed as the snake bucked wildly in pain.
Nestor deftly rolled himself onto the snake’s back, clamping down tightly with his knees. The blood slicked scales made holding on difficult, but the barbarian only needed a moment. As soon as the serpent reared its head back, he’d slam the elvensteel sword into its skull and finish it off. To the warrior’s surprise though, the snake rolled and twisted, crushing Nestor against the ground with the full weight of its thrashing body.
“Little worm doesn’t play fair,” he groaned as dragged himself back to his feet. The snake, wounded and in pain, slithered away from him, its slitted eyes watching the warrior’s every move. Nestor scooped Shadow Reaver from the floor of the pit. “I won’t be outdone by the likes of you,” he called to the beast. “Shall we have another bout?”
The snake’s eyes seemed to narrow in understanding and rage. Once again it lunged forth with astonishing speed. Nestor, still groggy from the repeated beatings he had taken, saw too late that he couldn’t get out of the way. Instead, Shadow Reaver came up high, reversed in his grip, and plunged down point first. The snake’s snout slammed into Nestor, plowing the barbarian against the pit wall behind him. The warrior’s breath was blasted from his lungs by the force of the impact, and stars danced before his eyes. He fell to the ground with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Wearily, he lifted his head expecting great fangs to descend into his flesh at any second.
Before him, Shadow Reaver stood out from between the snake’s eyes like some obscene horn. The legendary weapon had done its work just as the snake had slammed into him. Nestor chuckled as he slowly pulled himself to his feet. “Hope my luck holds,” he muttered as he yanked the sword from the snake’s skull.
The wall of the pit was pocked with rough stone handholds and he quickly made his way to the top of the hole. He took a quick pause to catch his breath, then he clenched Shadow Reaver’s hilt once more as he plunged ahead into the dark corridor before him.
It was time to go after more dangerous prey.
***
Galen looked into the ruined tunnel that Nestor had been dragged into. The collapse was complete. There was simply no way to follow him through the debris. The young thief’s thoughts moved quickly to Tyrell. Had the snake grabbed the mage as well?
“First Lorelei, then Tyrell, and now Nestor. No more, Ambrose,” whispered the thief, his forehead resting against the cold rock wall. He threw his head back and screamed at the moon above. “No more! Do you hear me, Ambrose? NO MORE!!” His words echoed back to him. Somewhere far below, a wolf howled.
Galen turned his attention again to the ascent, deftly scrambling up the remaining fifty feet to the top of the cliff. He found himself in an overgrown courtyard. Crumbling stone columns loomed over the edge of the climb he had finished. Statues of ancient elven warriors stood their silent vigil as the cobbled stone led to a mighty pair of doors in the fortress wall. Tall spires reached into the darkened sky. As he studied the dark windows, one of the doors swung open silently in the light breeze, as if inviting him inside.
The thief grinned as he blended into the shadows near the fortress wall. He had made a career out of getting into places he wasn’t wanted, and the first lesson he had ever been taught about burglary was to never use the front door. It was the most watched, the most heavily guarded, and possibly the most trapped. No, only a thief more arrogant than intelligent would walk right up and knock. The key to staying alive in his line of work was to go in where they least expected.
Like the turret balcony, he thought to himself. He’d have to be crazy to climb the tower after the long crawl up the cliff face. Or at least that’s what he hoped the vampire lord would think. Quickly, as only a master thief could, Galen darted from shadow to shadow until he stood at the base of a tall tower spire. From his pack, he found a small grappling hook attached to a length of thin silk rope that was too fine for him to have used on the rough cliff face, but just perfect for scaling the fortress tower.
Galen thought back to the last time he made this sort of entrance. It had been the night that he had broken into the home of Lord Merkalan. The night this entire ordeal had started, and had brought him now to this moment, this place. This time, he swore to himself, I intend better results.
Though high above, Galen’s grappling hook sailed true and caught hold on the first try to the stone railing of the balcony. “Here we go again,” he muttered as he began to pull himself up the wall. He climbed like a spider on a silken thread, scaling the tower with ease. About halfway up, Galen paused to take a look at his surroundings. He froze when his eyes scanned the parapet that stretched a
long the wall of the keep proper. A torch flickered in the hands of a dark figure that leaned casually against the stone battlement. With a casual wave of acknowledgment, Kellen Ambrose walked from the battlements into the tower that Galen clung to the side of.
The young thief’s rage spurred him on. He raced up the remaining length of the thin cord and swung onto the balcony. The lock on the doors was a mere inconvenience to him. With sword in hand, Galen Thale threw them open wide, entering the lair of the being who he hated above any other.
A long corridor led out of the turret and led to the castle proper. Dust and cobwebs filled the passage, but Galen was still surprised that the hallway wasn’t swarming with Kellen’s servants responding to the entrance of an unwelcome intruder. “Let them come,” he whispered softly to himself. “I’ve lost too much to stop now.” The young thief wasn’t here for ancient treasure or glory.
It was payback time, and Galen Thale was ready to collect.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A short stair led from the tower entrance where Galen stood to the hallway floor. Instinct buzzed within him that if Kellen hadn’t sent a horde of guards and minions to intercept him by now, then something else protected this passageway.
The thief’s carefully trained eyes scoured every inch of the hallway. Each footfall he made was carefully placed only after he was certain of its safety. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but this only made Galen that much more cautious. While he had indeed come on through the least likely entrance, he knew better than to underestimate Kellen’s cunning. After all, he mused, if I had centuries of sitting around with nothing else to do, wouldn’t it seem appropriate to honeycomb your hideout with as many traps as I could devise?
