“What’s out there?”
“The Shining One is this way.”
“Of course, he is. What else is over there?”
Thing One didn’t answer. There was a loud crash followed by screams. The sucker-covered leaf-shaped tip of a tentacle darted out of the shadows behind them and slammed Yazi into a wall. The other monster had finally caught up with them. Did that make it two monsters on their tail now or three?
Nulthir threw himself to the right, but another tentacle grazed his side. He swung his nightstick at a third one as he staggered, tripping over the slender appendages of the second monster until a heavy weight shoved him hard in the back. Nulthir pitched forward and just barely managed to hang on to his nightstick as he crashed into an inconvenient boulder.
Blood trickled down his face. There was so much chaos, Nulthir could only catch glimpses of his people between those thrusting tentacles. They were everywhere, and they struck with precision. How can they see us without eyes?
He threw a rock at one, and it reared up, undulating like a snake as it searched for him. Nulthir pushed off the boulder, and the world grew hazy for a moment until he blinked the exhaustion away. And just in time too because the tentacle he’d annoyed was shooting toward his head.
Nulthir ducked, and the tentacle swept back and forth seeking him again. What was it using to triangulate his position—sound, smell, some other means? If he could figure that out, he could fool it.
“Yazi!” Gare hacked ineffectually at the tentacle between him and the former Ranger, but his blade couldn’t pierce its tough hide. So, he kept it busy while Yazi crawled clear of the fight.
“They’re boxing us in,” Agalthar said.
There were too many sucker-covered things snaking through the deepening darkness as the dawn-rune’s pale glow wavered. Its magic was almost spent, and Nulthir couldn't rekindle it. Soon, they’d be plunged into complete darkness.
We’re dead if that happens. I need to change the odds. Nulthir hefted a rock from a nearby pile and threw it at one of the dozen sucker-covered arms thrusting through a hole. It stunned the appendage, and its friends swiveled around seeking him, but he was backing toward the monster on their tail.
That’s right. I’m over here. Nulthir threw another rock, and the sucker-covered thing reared up.
“Go.” He shoved Gare in the direction of the hole he hoped led to safety then dropped to the ground.
As he’d surmised, the tentacle met the sucker-covered arm-thing, and the latter’s paralytic mucous did what their swords could not—it stunned the tentacle, causing it to fall like a hammer on the thinner appendage and squish it.
Nulthir fast-crawled away from the spreading puddle of purplish-brown goo as more tentacles shot around the bend. If they’d had eyes, they would have burned with a need for vengeance. Nulthir stayed down as the two creatures clashed. Every so often he popped up and lobbed another rock to direct them away from his intended route.
He worked the only advantage he had—independence. Those tentacles were connected to something, and that constrained their movement. Nor did they work well in concert. Three sucker-covered arms stabbed at Iraine from three different points on the compass, but she dove aside, and they collided where her head would have been.
Nulthir lobbed a rock at them before they could locate Iraine again.
“Get out of here.” She shoved a dazed Huwain toward a hole in the wall then glanced back at Nulthir with worried eyes.
“Go find that ‘Shining One.’ Maybe he can help us.”
Nulthir lobbed another rock. It hit the tentacles arcing toward Agalthar and altered its trajectory that crucial inch to save his friend.
“What are you planning?” Iraine asked between parries.
“A diversion.”
“What kind of diversion?”
“Whatever I can manage.”
“Why don't I like the sound of that?”
“Because you know me too well.”
“In that case, I’d better stick around.”
“No need, my plan seems to be working.”
“That’s what I'm afraid of.”
Before Nulthir could argue the point, one of the many sucker-covered arms stabbed at him. But he dodged, and it struck its mate, which had had the same idea. The two sucker-covered arms tangled up and struck the wall opposite the hole, and they kept slamming into it. Two more joined the fray.
These things aren't as smart as I thought they were. Maybe they're just reacting to stimuli. Nulthir tapped two others with his nightstick and led them to the tussle. With luck, they'd become hopelessly entangled in it, and take two more attackers off the board.
“Captain, lookout.”
Nulthir turned too late. More tentacles shot around the bend, and their chitinous hooks gleamed in the fading glow of his dawn-rune. They smashed into the ceiling, burying one of his men in a cascade of stones.
“No!” Nulthir dove under a tentacle arcing over the rubble and unearthed a hand.
Who did it belong to? It was limp and cooling as the stones crushing the guard leeched his body heat. He clutched that hand, and everything receded—the fight, the endless insanity of this day, the dark murmurs and the strange things he’d seen.
“I’m so sorry.”
He still had no idea which of his men had fallen or how many others had died. Was it his imagination, or had a pale glow flickered to his left? Nulthir turned his head, but there was nothing there now except shifting shadows.
“Captain!” Anthanen shoved Nulthir hard, and he went down on his stomach as a tentacle speared that young Guard. It punched right through Anthanen's armor as if it wasn’t there. His eyes rolled up in his head, and Anthanen slumped in the monster's grip. Then he was whisked into the darkness by that retreating tentacle. Hopefully, Anthanen wasn't about to become that creature's dinner.
“No, give him back!”
Nulthir rolled to his feet, and his hand connected with his nightstick. He came up swinging. Runes flickered along its length as he extended it. There was enough charge for just one trick. It would have to be enough. I must get my people out of here. We can’t fight two monsters, not in such close-quarters without better weapons.
“Nulthir,” someone shouted, but he couldn't turn to see which guard had called him.
“Everyone get through that damned hole right now as quickly and quietly as you can, and don't look back. That's an order.”
Nulthir didn't check to see if his people obeyed. Instead, he concentrated on dodging and hunting for that spark inside him that yearned to connect with a source of magic. There was a tiny bit of power there, but just enough for what he had in mind. But it resisted when he tried to force it into the runes on his nightstick.
Come on, let go. His body finally stopped fighting him and gave up the spark that had given mankind life.
There were other pinpricks of magic bonded to his skin by ink, blood and his mother's rune-magic. He reached for those, too, intent on unraveling them when a light caught his attention.
He'd wring every drop of power from his blood if it would save his people, even if doing so killed him, and it probably would otherwise his mother wouldn't have gone to such lengths to ensure there would always be a thread of magic woven through his core.
It was a shining cord extruding from his base chakra. Nulthir ripped it out as he backed toward the hole his fellow Guards had hopefully escaped through. He glanced over his shoulder at it and noted every obstacle between him and it. He'd only get one shot at this if it worked. If it didn't, he'd join Anthanen for dinner.
“Here, monster, monster, come and get me.”
More than a dozen tentacles surrounded him. They reared up like a pack of angry snakes about to strike. It was now or never. Nulthir fed the last dregs of his power into the runes in his nightstick and prayed this would work. The shock-and-awe rune drained everything he had and could have taken so much more if he’d had it to give. His knees buckled, and he shut his eyes, so h
e wasn’t blinded by what would happen next.
Nulthir held his charged, rune-enhanced stick up. My life for theirs. It was a fair trade, and the way all Guards hoped to go out—not in a blaze of glory but by ensuring someone else would live. He thought of Iraine and hoped she’d forgive him for this. A bright flash lit up the backs of his eyelids as his nightstick emitted a concussive blast that propelled him backward into three tentacles and the darkness beyond that hole.
Seconds later, a loud boom resounded, but by that point, everything was fading except the pale glow walking this way. Somewhere a bell rang, but he might have imagined that.
Sacrifices
The egg had stopped rocking some time ago. That was not a good sign. The Ægeldar caressed the cracked ovoid and hoped the child inside was still viable.
“Please, not another stillborn. Come on, little one. You must push. I know it's hard, but you must leave your egg. You'll starve in there if you don't.”
Maybe the Ægeldar imagined it, but the egg shifted ever-so-slightly.
“Come on, little one, break free. Come out and greet the world you will rule.”
The egg stilled again. Maybe the child was taking a break. Hatching was a hard process, but a necessary one. A babe who couldn’t escape his shell, couldn’t possibly survive in a hostile world.
A shadow passed over the pit. Had the Adversary finally noticed what was going on right under his nose? The Ægeldar stretched its senses to their fullest extent, but the sacrifice anchoring it to the pit, and the dark secrets buried under it, constrained it.
No, that shadow wasn’t the Adversary. That devil hadn’t yet wised up to the Ægeldar’s plans. One of the Adversary’s minions had cast that shadow, and he still bore the taint the Ægeldar had put on him. But it wasn't time to activate that yet. Go back to guarding your soul ball. Your time hasn't come yet.
As if he’d heard, the wraith formerly called Chris flew back to his post. If his fellow wraith noticed the deviation in his circuit, he gave no sign. And that reminded the Ægeldar about another of the Adversary’s minions, Gore.
What happened to you, Gore? I thought we had a deal. You come to me and feed my young, and I’ll set you free from your dark lord. So, where are you?
Not here and that was a problem. What could be keeping that wraith? I thought he wanted to be free of his master. The Ægeldar lowered its mental defenses just enough to send an inquiry to the brains controlling its tentacles. If Gore was skulking around under the mountain, they’d find him and bring him to the pit.
A piece of shell extruded from the egg and fell, distracting the Ægeldar. It clattered on the ground as a snout pushed through the gap and inhaled its first breath. It too was an Ægeldar.
“If you thrive, you’ll need a name. I had one once a very long time ago before I became the last of our kind.”
But time had erased its name. Since the Ægeldar was the last of its kind, it had taken to calling itself by the name humans had given its race. Perhaps it was time to pick a new name.
A desperate cry came from within that egg.
“I know it’s hard, but I can't help you. You must get out on your own, little one. Hatching will make you strong enough to survive until I’ve made a paradise for you to inherit.”
In fact, it was time to check on the progress of its satellite brains pursuing that project. The Ægeldar lowered its mental walls again, and reports from all its active appendages flooded in. There was still no sign of Gore though. Where could that fiend be hiding?
Wait, repeat that. What did you find? No, that can’t be. But it was. Its tentacles only confirmed it.
The lay out of the tunnels down here channeled the black lumir crystal’s nullifying power into pathways lined with—what’s this? —cold-forged iron and lead? No, those damned Litherians. That explained why the flow of magic spiraling into the exposed black lumir crystal had slowed to a trickle after that initial flood many hours ago.
“Break down those walls. Bring down the mountain. Expose the black lumir crystal to the world,” the Ægeldar sent to the brains controlling its many appendages.
But it needn't have bothered. They were already doing that. Well, most of them were, and they let the Ægeldar know it through a barrage of images showing the destruction they'd wrought. Once those images ceased, others if its distributed brains sent back conflicting reports about a light sometimes shaped like a man and sometimes like a cross. It had appeared and disappeared at random like a lost soul. Maybe that’s what it was.
“We pursue,” the tentacles chasing that light sent back.
This flickering man seemed more an apparition than a reality, but more than a dozen brains had been searching for it for hours. If it was real, the source of that light would make an excellent meal for the hatchlings.
“Fine, keep hunting him, but take out as much of this structure as you can. We must expose the pit to daylight.”
Though that man-shaped light might just be a mirage created by the absence of magic. After all, nature abhorred a vacuum, so something was bound to take its place. But there was no reason to recall the appendages chasing it.
After all, the Ægeldar had to keep up the appearance of a mad beast whose mind was split between its many, many appendages, so their thoughts were so much noise in the thought-stream easily overlooked by the Adversary in case he was still combing through there. Just keep ignoring me while I undermine your plans.
Several dozen of its appendages harassed a group of men while they tore apart the Lower Quarters, but resistance was futile. They had those foolish humans surrounded. Soon, they would be dead. Too bad I can’t collect their souls. What a feast that would be.
Another egg rocked, and cracks disrupted the smooth black ovoid. It banged into another egg, and that one too started moving.
No, no, no. A fourth egg shuddered and bounced as the child within struggled to break free and then a fifth started rocking. They were all hatching now.
“No, not yet, wait my young ones.”
The Ægeldar walled off its mind so it could concentrate on the new life coming forth and shut off the trickle of information its distributed brains sent back. They were on their own anyway. The Ægeldar couldn't come to them, not while the Dryskellion's sacrifice held it here. It chafed against that binding, but not even a black lumir crystal could break it.
How could that be? What magic was stronger than the antithesis of all magic.
"Belief, love, righteousness—take your pick," whispered the ghost of a Dryskellion.
She stood upright like a man on the balls of her three-taloned feet, and a shock of purple hair tumbled down her spiny back. Instead of skin, she had scales and the raptorial eyes of a predator. Her tail lashed the ground behind her, but it was incorporeal, so it passed harmlessly through the eggs the Ægeldar guarded. She was just a ghostly reminder of who had jailed the Ægeldar, not a flesh-and-blood combatant.
A pity that because I would love to kill her and her mates all over again. Doing so wouldn't release the Ægeldar though, only a sacrifice would. All the eggs were rocking now and banging into each other.
“My life for theirs,” a man said, and the echoes of his statement slammed into the Ægeldar, staggering it. Those were the magic words last spoken centuries ago when the last Dryskellion warrior had given her life to bind the creature she could not kill.
Her ghost crouched, head bent in defeat as the spell she’d wrought with the last drops of her heart’s blood frayed and began to unravel. It had been her final strike, and she had nothing left to stop its undoing. A white thread of power darkened as it unwound and reached out for the unlucky soul that had turned the lock and unsealed the spell, creating a weakness the nullifier could exploit. Magic bled from the binding as the black lumir crystal picked at it, darkening it.
The Ægeldar curled one of its soft, sucker-covered arms around that line to freedom and pulled the soul attached to it. Come to the pit, my liberator. Complete the circle and free me once and for a
ll.
Less than a mile away, J.C. leaned against the rocks blocking his intended path again. I hope this isn't another dead end. But it might be. If the level of destruction was any clue, He was finally nearing the pit where this had all begun.
And there was still no sign of a certain glowing dove or its message. The Holy Spirit must be off on its own mission. I wish I knew what that was. Hopefully, that mission took it far away from the Adversary’s clutches. If not, then a rescue might be in order.
And that was when a horde of grinning nulls charged out of the darkness. They struck J.C. full in the chest, staggering Him, so they could lay their power-stealing hands on Him.
“Ghosts and ghouls and sallow fools—oh, how they cool. Oh, how they cool 'neath the land where nulls rule!”
Not again. He'd been dodging these annoying creatures for hours now, and their creepy chanting was beginning to annoy Him. But if they were here, then they weren't bothering Ran or his father. J.C. closed his eyes to banish the sight of that boy’s frightened face and cranked up his aura, so it shone even brighter.
The nulls screamed and fell back shading their sunken eyes with their skeletal hands. But none fled. All their attention focused on Him.
Thank you, Father for single-minded minions. J.C. raised his cross and prepared to do battle with them again. Their regenerative powers were impressive and annoying.
“Ghosts and ghouls and sallow fools—oh, how they cool. Oh, how they cool 'neath the land where nulls rule!”
“Enough already. You can't take my power. It comes from belief, not magic.” J.C. swiped at a brave null, but it danced out of range, laughing all the while.
“You could use your power to knock them down,” said the shadow rising out of the rock pile at his back.
It wasn’t the devil come to tempt Him, just one of his lesser minions. The Adversary was probably still searching for Sarn and his son.
You can search, but you won’t find them. They’re well-guarded. J.C. swatted another null and it toppled, taking several nulls down with it. It was time to find another way.
Curse Breaker: Sundered Page 25
