by Max Anthony
“A wand of sunbeams!” said Rasmus, giving it a pat.
“Do I recall you once telling me that wands are for lady wizards?” asked Viddo.
“Some wands. This particular wand is certainly meant to be wielded by a gentleman wizard.”
“What is wrong with lady wizards?” demanded Jera archly.
Rasmus was saved from having to explain himself by the arrival of the main pack of undead, which all three clearly heard approaching somewhere beyond the limits of the light spell.
“Let’s go!” said Rasmus, turning and beginning to run.
“Can’t you just zap them all with your wand?” asked Viddo, who had caught up within moments. From the unlaboured tone of his voice, he could have been lying on a grassy hillside, sunning himself.
“I don’t know how many charges remain within it, nor do I know how many of those creatures are behind us. In the circumstances, I think we are better off running and seeing if we can come up with a subtler solution to our problem.”
Viddo was not convinced and thought it more likely that they’d find trouble ahead instead of successfully escaping that which lay behind. In spite of his misgivings, he didn’t argue the point. Rasmus and Viddo had been working on their teamwork recently, and that meant supporting each other, even where doubts remained.
Jera, for her part, was content to go with whatever was decided. She was slowly coming to the stage where she felt as if she might be able to offer valuable insight and had also been impressed that neither of her companions had dismissed anything she’d said as if it wasn’t worth their time. If she’d been pressed for an opinion, she’d have said that she was keen to try out her new hammer some more, but that she was sure there’d be lots of time in which to do so, and therefore it was probably better if they kept running for a while longer.
Their luck ran out and when he saw the closed door ahead of them, Viddo was surprised that they hadn’t come up against one sooner. After all, they were running through the depths of a dungeon that was designed to trap and impede adventurers at every turn. As soon as he saw it in the distance, Viddo sprinted ahead of the other two and was already crouched over the lock when they caught up. The door was another of the sturdy metal affairs and not designed to be casually shoulder-charged open.
“Can you get it open?” asked Rasmus, turning to see how far away the undead were. He could hear the sounds approaching – they didn’t have very long.
“As always, given time,” said Viddo.
There was a grating sound and something obscured the thief’s vision – a thick, heavy darkness descended upon him and he felt tiny particles of something cascade down upon his body. It took him a moment to realise what had happened. He pushed himself smoothly to his feet as if nothing at all was a bother. As he’d gathered, Rasmus’ patience had worn thin and he’d cast a spell of stone deconstruction at the rock surrounding the door. Now, that door was still upright, balancing in defiance of gravity, whilst the area surrounding it was completely gone for several feet to each side and several more feet above it. Viddo himself was covered in a thick, grimy layer of what had once been solid stone.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Rasmus, already halfway through the newly-widened doorframe. “The undead are almost here.”
19
Viddo didn’t reply and set off after Jera and Rasmus, leaving a shower of dislodged particles falling to the ground behind him. He’d already seen what was coming – the passage was teeming with the grey figures, squeezed in so tightly it was a wonder that they didn’t jam themselves against the walls as they fought each other to reach the people who had appropriated their diamonds.
On the other side of the door was a vast, open space. The walls were rough and jagged, with the roof vanished in the darkness. The floor was level here, but ahead, they could see that it fell away. Neither Jera nor Rasmus could make out anything beyond the extent of the light spell, but Viddo’s sight permitted him a much more expansive view. They were somewhere in the middle of a great sundering in the rock, as though a giant axe had struck down from above, cleaving a vast chasm that might have conceivably gone for miles. The chasm wasn’t straight and it wended away out of sight on both sides. The place they were standing was about fifty feet from the edge of the fissure and there was room for them to run left or right if they chose to do so. The problem was, they needed to be on the other side.
Viddo knew this place. He and Rasmus had once crossed over the chasm elsewhere – he wasn’t quite sure how close they were to that other place and knowing it wasn’t going to help them just at the moment. Then, his eyes caught sight of something – a narrow, sliver of rock that arched upwards over the sundering. It was a good few hundred feet along and he couldn’t be sure if it was a bridge or if his eyes had been fooled by the angle at which he was viewing it.
“This way,” Viddo said, taking charge of his companions. They had advanced as far as the chasm and were now looking uncertainly over the edge. It was almost forty feet wide at this point and far beyond their capabilities to jump over. If it had a bottom, it was well out of sight.
They ran, with Rasmus finding himself closer to the edge than he’d have preferred. At the recently-widened doorway, undead arrived. The creatures pushed the metal door over and streamed through the opening, giving immediate chase to the companions.
“They are persistent sods, aren’t they?” said Rasmus, wasting precious oxygen by speaking unnecessary words.
“Persistent and numerous,” agreed Viddo, who had plenty of oxygen to spare. Jera remained silent.
The adventurers reached the place which Viddo had seen. The pack was close behind and gaining. Most zombies were slow and ungainly, but these examples were neither of those things. They ran as fast as a man or woman and didn’t appear to have limits to their stamina. Rasmus had spent some time pondering exactly what variety of undead they were and in the end, had abandoned his efforts. There were secrets in this place that he’d likely never get to the bottom of.
Viddo’s eyes had not failed him and what they came to was clearly intended to be a bridge. It was made from carefully-shaped blocks that managed to be both uneven in appearance, yet slotted together perfectly to make this free-standing structure. Without waiting, Viddo walked onto the bridge. It was four feet wide and it ascended steeply into the middle of the chasm, then it dropped equally steeply until it reached the far side. He wasn’t at all surprised to find that it didn’t so much as tremble when he stood upon it.
“You’ll need to dissolve this bridge once we’ve crossed it,” said Viddo over his shoulder.
“I’ve run out of deconstruction spells,” said Rasmus promptly.
Viddo gritted his teeth at this news, since he thought he’d just come up with the perfect plan to ensure their escape.
The situation worsened. The slope of the bridge was such that they had not been able to climb it quickly enough to remain ahead of their pursuers. Jera was the last one to start the crossing and when she saw that she stood a good chance of being attacked from behind or even dragged clean off the arch, she decided to turn and face the pack, inching slowly upwards as she did so. The closest of the creatures got to her, running up ten feet of the slope as easily as if it had been level ground. The first undead into the breach is always the first one to suffer, as this creature discovered when it was knocked to one side and into the darkness of the abyss. As it fell, its arms flailed as though it still hoped to recover the diamonds it had been tasked to return.
The bridge wasn’t quite wide enough for the undead to attack abreast and this suited Jera quite nicely. Behind her, Rasmus and Viddo had slowed in order that they could watch with concern, though there was no way for them to join in. The wizard considered using his new wand, but didn’t want to do anything that might interrupt Jera’s equilibrium on the bridge. Besides, she seemed to be doing quite well on her own, he thought, feeling an unexpected pride at her excellence. As he watched, grey bodies tumbled to the left and right. The
y charged without thought or reason and it was easy for Jera to use their own momentum to deflect them off the bridge.
They had almost reached the highest point of the bridge, with Jera looking forward to the descent with much less relish. It was one thing to knock the undead into the chasm when she had the advantage of height, but she didn’t particularly like the idea of them jumping at her from above, particularly since her footing would become much more precarious on the way down. In the end, things became a little more complicated.
From his position at the rear, Viddo had nothing to do apart from stand close by in order to offer his moral support. He had his crossbow and had loosed a few of his non-magical bolts into the press of undead, though it had soon become apparent that there was little point in bothering, given the numbers arrayed against them. There were at least two thousand of them. They struggled and pressed, ever trying to get closer to the carrier of their diamonds, which Viddo was quite aware was him. Some of the creatures spilled over the edge before they’d even reached the bridge, their existence no more likely to be remembered than that of an undead fly.
Without being sure why, Viddo glanced along the length of the chasm and thought he saw something. He blinked once or twice to be sure and discovered that he wasn’t mistaken. There was a vast blackness above them, distant and high - a dark shape amongst many dark shapes, only visible because it was moving. It seemed to glide like a bird caught in an updraft, and then its great wings flapped once more, in order to keep it aloft.
“How on earth did that get here?” he asked.
“What’s that?” asked Rasmus. He was also feeling like a spare wheel and wished he had his usual panoply of area-of-effect spells available for his use. He had some bits and pieces, but nothing that would wipe out the crowds of undead nearby.
“The dragon. It’s up there and coming closer.”
“Is it not a bit of a squeeze for it to fly in here?” asked Rasmus.
“Apparently not. It looks to be an almost perfect fit, as it happens.”
“What’s all the talking about? Did I hear someone mention a flagon?” asked Jera, unable to make out their exact words over the sound of her hammer and shield. She’d never tried ale before and suddenly found her mouth was desperately dry.
“Not a flagon,” said Rasmus. “He said a dragon.”
“Oh,” said Jera. Rasmus had put sufficient emphasis on the word dragon that this single utterance had conveyed the additional unspoken words of and it’s coming our way.
Viddo’s brain worked feverishly as he tried to come up with a plan that would ensure their escape. They were just beginning the descent now and on the other side of the bridge was another wide space, perhaps a hundred feet across. There was a tunnel visible, which vanished invitingly into the rock, whispering its promises of safety.
Rasmus found that was becoming increasingly less fond of these huge open spaces, particularly when there were dragons flapping round in them that he was unable to see. “Is it close?” he asked, finding himself to be completely calm. He didn’t know if he’d survive the breath of a dragon. Wizards tended to be pretty good against the magic stuff. The trouble was, he didn’t know if the breath of a dragon was magic in the strictest sense of the word. Anyway, he didn’t think Jera had much chance if she was caught in the undeath. Give her a couple of years and she’d be as good as anyone at surviving random deaths, just now was a little too soon.
The dark outline came closer. Viddo had hoped briefly that they would escape notice, knowing even as he thought it that they’d been seen. The creature shifted direction almost imperceptibly, until it was pointing exactly towards the bridge. At the same time, it glided lower, taking it from the distances above, to a position where it would be able to pluck them away with its claws as it sailed overhead, or cover them in the vileness of its breath.
“How long?” asked Rasmus.
“Ten seconds,” said Viddo.
Rasmus could take charge of a situation when he wanted to. Hearing that the dragon was so close, he took a hold of Jera’s arm and dragged her backwards. Unbalanced, she stumbled and began to slither down the arch. With no idea what Rasmus was planning, Viddo took a hold of Jera’s arm and used it to arrest her fall, bringing her to a halt.
“Go, quickly!” ordered Rasmus. As he spoke, he felt the first of the undead collide with him. It reached for his throat, and the wizard tottered on his feet under the weight of its charge. In order to cast spells under duress, all wizards needed to be able to operate in adverse circumstances. Rasmus was no exception and as he struck out with his cosh, he used his other hand to point the wand of sunbeams outwards into the darkness. Wands generally had a short cooldown period to prevent all of their power being unleashed in half a second by over-zealous wizards. Nevertheless, Rasmus managed to force this wand to expend three of its charges in less than a single second. Three bursts of yellow light flashed in a line to his right, expanding into spheres of sunlight that were dwarfed by the expanse of the room. They flared brightly and dispersed in a moment, followed a split second later by the thumping noise of their detonation. Even that short space of time was enough for Rasmus to see the entirety of the dragon as it was illuminated by the magic. The creature was looking directly at him, its mouth wide as it prepared to breathe.
Rasmus did not know that the dragon resisted two of the sunbursts. Nor did he know that the third one managed to bypass the creature’s innate ability to deflect magic. The sunfire burned the skin of its neck and its face, blistering and charring the undead flesh. However, it had not been Rasmus’ intention to kill or injure with his wand. As each of the wand’s charges detonated, they burned the retinas of the dragon’s eyes. The undead didn’t know pain, though this dragon’s ancient body still retained a memory of it and reacted accordingly. Temporarily blinded, it opened its mouth and belched out a stream of darkness at the place it had last seen Rasmus. The cone of undeath spewed over the bridge, covering the stone and causing the surface to bubble.
As the final of the three charges left the wand, Rasmus felt it shatter in his grasp. Dimly, he thought it a shame that he’d managed to destroy it by abusing it so badly, since it likely had a number of additional charges remaining. Two more grey bodies flew at him, while a third landed a punch on his temple, sending him into a daze. The wizard stumbled and fell, rolling in an uncontrolled manner down the slope of the bridge, bringing several undead with him. In the tumult, he was unaware that he’d avoided the dragon’s breath by a whisker. There was a crash and he felt the bridge rumble and vibrate. Unable to slow himself, Rasmus’ speed increased. He felt another punch land on him and then he knocked his head on something solid. Although he struggled and fought, his brain demanded that he fall unconscious and this he did, his vision fading into nothingness.
20
Some time later, there was a groaning noise heard in the depths of a small side tunnel. Then there was a rustling noise, followed shortly by words.
“Ooh my head,” groaned Rasmus. He creaked open one eye and discovered that he was lying in total darkness. He knew there were people close because he could hear their voices.
“How are you?” came sympathetic female tones.
“We can’t wait here for much longer,” came another voice, not lacking in sympathy but also betraying concern for other matters.
Rasmus powered up his light spell and instantly wished he hadn’t been staring at the centre of it when it appeared. He tweaked the illumination until it cast hardly any glow at all, which suited both his eyes and his pounding head.
“What happened?” asked the wizard. He knew from the worry he’d heard in Viddo’s voice that he should do his best to stand, but he didn’t think he was quite ready to try it yet.
“Your wand blinded the dragon long enough for it to crash into the bridge, smashing it completely and preventing our pursuers from following. You rolled down the bridge with several undead clinging to you, which we killed before dragging you a few hundred yards to safety
,” said Viddo, condensing the recent past into a mere two sentences.
“It feels like I’ve been the recipient of a sound thrashing,” said Rasmus. Jera handed him an almost empty water skin, which the wizard gratefully accepted.
“You have been. Those undead were flailing at you good and proper while you were unconscious. Until we killed them, that is. Good work with the dragon, by the way,” Viddo told him.
“Thank you,” Rasmus replied, already feeling improved after a few mouthfuls of water. “And thank you for saving me.” The wizard shivered. “I feel cold,” he said.
“Yes, you would do,” said Viddo with a chuckle. Jera turned her head away, her expression unreadable.
Rasmus pushed himself into a sitting position, noting that something was amiss with his robes. Gingerly, he reached around and discovered that half of the material was missing, preserving very little of his modesty or dignity. “What happened to my robes?” he spluttered.
“Undeath,” chortled the thief. “Your robes caught the extremes of the dragon’s breath, which has burned several large holes across the back of your garments. Somehow, your flesh beneath has remained entirely untouched.”
“That’s a relief at least,” said Rasmus, struggling to find the funny side of it. Perhaps it was because he could feel ten or more bruised and sensitive patches about his body, while his head felt like Jera was hitting it with her hammer. Bah! he thought, with a great amount of feeling.
Whilst many wizards were weak and feeble specimens, with pasty skin and greasy hair, Rasmus was not. It took more than a few punches from low-level undead to leave him bedridden and while he’d have really preferred to be in a bed, he didn’t dwell on his misfortune. With a grunt and a suppressed groan, the wizard finally got to his feet, shoulders and buttocks on show to the world. Jera tittered and then, when Rasmus fixed her with a stare, pretended she’d been clearing her throat.
