by J. M. Topp
Elymiah turned to Artus’s body. His eyes were open, and he was mouthing something, but he was utterly oblivious to the world around him.
I have to get this beast away from him.
She dodged another blow from the giant and picked up a small rock. She threw it at Gulch’s head. The rock hit its mark just above the giant’s forehead. This must have been a shock for Gulch, for she opened her mouth and stared at Elymiah.
A fire began to burn in Gulch’s eyes. ‘I will know your name before I kill you. Most run and cower in fear, yet you cut my flesh and throw rocks at me.’
‘I will tell you my name. I am Elymiah Artus Farnesse. Care to taste more of my steel?’ Elymiah opened her mouth wide and stuck her tongue out, then licked the dark red blood dripping from Alamánd in defiance. She spat the wad of blood and aimed her weapon at the giant. Gulch snorted and lunged at her. Elymiah turned tail and ran from the path into the grassy fields as fast as her legs could carry her, but she began to feel intense pain in her left leg where the beetle had sliced her earlier.
Thump, thump, thump!
She couldn’t outrun the giant for long. Elymiah turned, but too late. The giant slammed her thick and boulder-like open hand at her, tossing her head over heels. Elymiah fell on her back, her breath knocked out of her lungs, but she was up in moments. Her leg protested, causing her to grimace, but she held the sword with her good hand and struggled to breathe. She spat at the giant.
Gulch grabbed a boulder and hurled it at Elymiah. She rolled to the side. The stone smashed against the ground, kicking up dirt and mud. Yet when Elymiah searched for the giant, she was no longer there. She heard a heavy movement through the air and looked up. Elymiah leapt out of the way at the last moment before Gulch stamped the ground with both feet, creating a crater at her feet. Elymiah staggered. She was growing tired, and the giant knew it.
‘Well, aren’t you a clever one?’ said Gulch with a snarl. ‘None of the other Veledred knew the tricks you are pulling. This is fun!’
Elymiah felt the rumble of the ground beneath her and saw the earth give way far to her side. She realised there was another chasm beneath them. She looked at Gulch. Either the giant didn’t know, or she simply didn’t care. Elymiah clenched her teeth.
Gulch laughed. ‘You aren’t afraid of me. Before I kill you, I want to know what gives you the courage to face me.’ The giant crouched low to the ground, her eye flashing at Elymiah. ‘I love stories more than anything. Especially in the face of death.’
‘I don’t give a shit what your curiosity holds. I’ll tell you what I hold for you: a blade in your good eye,’ snapped Elymiah.
Gulch flashed an ugly grin, breathing heavily. She must not have been used to prey giving a fight like this. She smiled cruelly and leaned on one of the boulders she’d thrown. ‘I like you a lot. You have guts—and a woman, no less. I thought I was the only female with balls around here.’
Elymiah stood up and relaxed her stance. She closed her eyes and squeezed Alamánd by the hilt. ‘What I have between my legs has nothing to do with it. Fine, I will tell you what gives me courage.’ She opened her eyes. ‘The thought that I have nothing left to lose, that it was all taken from me, that the one I loved abandoned me to the darkness of my own mind. Once you reach that darkness, very little scares you. And you, Gulch, though anything but little, do not scare me. You are a reeking overgrown ogre with a fetish for eyes. I would say that you need someone to sit you down, and who better than someone three times smaller than you?’
The hideous smile decorating Gulch’s face disappeared. ‘Oh, you’ll pay for that.’ The giant stood, picking up the boulder.
‘Oh, sure, some brave creature you are, throwing rocks at me. Why don’t we do this? You drop that boulder, and I’ll drop my sword. How does that sound?’
Gulch looked stunned and then bellowed a laugh. ‘You intend to defeat me without a weapon? Fucking hell, I really like you, Elymiah Farnesse. Maybe I won’t kill you. Maybe I’ll keep you as a pet. Like that dragon.’
‘He’s a wyvern, you idiot. His name is Dorma,’ Elymiah snapped through clenched teeth.
‘I don’t care what his name is. I will catch you and keep you like a bird in a cage, but you are right about my eye fetish. I will savour your eyes too.’ Drool dripped from the edges of Gulch’s mouth. Elymiah stuck Artus’s sword in the ground, and the giant dropped the boulder.
Then Elymiah turned and ran.
‘This again?’ Gulch rushed at her and leapt, and Elymiah was not fast enough. The giant’s massive hands wrapped around her waist, squeezing her ribs like a vice as the giant’s body slammed against the ground. Just then, the ground beneath them gave way. Gulch shouted as her body fell through the crack in the ground and dropped into the darkness as the earth swallowed her up. The giant let go of Elymiah’s body. Elymiah caught and held onto the edge of the crevice with her good hand. She saw Alamánd fall into the darkness.
‘No,’ she whispered. She kicked at the rocky edge of the crevice to push herself up, but she could find no footing. She felt her fingers losing their grip. With only one good hand, she tried to crawl up, but the earth was too soft. Elymiah heard a scream echo through the air.
‘Dorma!’ she called out, but there was no response.
She held her breath as she clawed at the edge. Then her hand slipped, and she fell into the dark and cold abyss. Elymiah hit a stone protruding from the wall. A sickening crunch made a bright light flash before her eyes. Then she fell from the rock. Elymiah plummeted farther and farther into the abyss as the light of the opening of the crevice faded, plunging her into pitch black.
ACT III
I Play Dead
A FAINT SLIVER of light rested its gaze on Elymiah’s cheek. The rustling of earth beneath her made her eyes open wide. Yet she could only see out of her right eye. She touched her left eye and quickly gasped as dagger-like pain shot through her face. Her left eye was, in fact, swollen shut, and her throat ached as air burned through her chest. She coughed, and a sharp pain radiated on her side, like someone was poking her with a searing blade. She could not see anything but the ray of light from above. Slowly, and with great struggle, she pushed herself up to sit with her back against mud and rock. Any small motion shot lightning through her arms and legs, and she struggled to catch her breath.
‘You’ve rested long enough.’
The voice was stern and sent shivers up Elymiah’s spine, but it wasn’t the first time she had heard it.
‘I was wondering when you’d show up again,’ muttered Elymiah. She couldn’t see in the darkness, and even the sliver of light wasn’t enough to pinpoint where the voice was coming from, but then a shadow moved. The voice belonged to Oredmere’s rider, The Ashen Knight. A faint ringing of chainmail alerted her attention to the man who moved to stand before her in the light. His armour was black, and she could see the outline of his shadowed helm. Two eyes glowed distinctly red in the darkness.
‘You’ve wasted enough time, Hunter of the Apostles,’ said the voice.
‘I was busy, if you couldn’t tell.’ Elymiah picked herself up to stand on her own feet. ‘Where have you been skulking?’
The Ashen Knight shifted his weight onto his hip, and as he did so, the earth moved beneath her again, only she realised, it wasn’t the earth. She stood on rough and rutted flesh.
‘You bitch,’ a voice gurgled in the cavern. Elymiah leapt from the torso of the giant but lost her footing and fell to the ground. A tremor rocked through the crevice. ‘You’ve doomed us both.’
Elymiah bared her teeth. ‘That’s for what you did to those daemon hunters. That’s for what you did to my father.’
Gulch’s laugh echoed cruelly in the crevice. ‘I didn’t touch your father, but I must admit, I enjoyed myself with those Veledred. Oh, how they fought valiantly, suffered valiantly, and died valiantly. They wanted to get me so badly. It brings a tear to my eye.’
A glimmer of steel caught Elymiah’s eye. Alamánd was stuck i
n the dirt just above where The Ashen Knight stood.
‘We are both going to die in this place, but you will die by my hand.’ Gulch lifted her hand and slammed it on the ground, catching Elymiah’s foot, crushing it beneath her massive fingers. Elymiah screamed and fell to the ground. She clenched her teeth, sure the bones in her leg were cracked. She dragged herself away from the reach of the giant, but then another strike came.
Elymiah picked her legs up, and the massive fingers of the giant barely missed her, landing just between her legs.
‘You won’t be able to crawl much farther.’ Gulch laughed. ‘Next time I’ll crush your pussy.’
Elymiah knew she was right.
‘Aren’t you going to help me, Ashen Knight?’ she snapped, but the shadow of the spectre was gone. She glanced up at the sword stuck in the wall, then grabbed a rock beside her and tossed it at the sword. She missed.
‘Throwing rocks again? I thought we were past this,’ said Gulch. Her voice grated against Elymiah’s ears, sending shivers up her spine. Elymiah grabbed another rock and threw it, missing the embedded weapon once more. She slammed her fist in frustration. Tears began to burst from her eyes. Her heart beat furiously in her chest. She grabbed another rock.
It bounced just below the sword.
‘Fuck!’ she shouted, her lips quivering.
‘You can’t aim in the dark like this. How pathetic. You can’t even seem to throw rocks straight anymore.’
A shadow grew in the crevice. Gulch stood up, but as she did, her distended stomach burst like an engorged pimple. Gulch screamed in pain and held her guts in her massive fingers. A pool of blood spilt onto the crevice floor, splattering like a small waterfall. The sword attacks to Gulch’s abdomen had done more damage than Elymiah had thought. But as the giant screamed, another tremor shot through the crevice and the sword loosened. Elymiah grabbed another rock, half stood, and threw the projectile at the sword.
Cling!
The sword trembled.
‘Ah, so this is what you wanted?’ asked Gulch, looking up to the weapon lodged in the dirt wall. To Elymiah’s dismay, Gulch picked up the sword in her hand and pulled it from the wall.
‘I know the feeling of holding a weapon of this kind. A magic sword? How many of these are left in the world, I wonder? How did you come to possess this?’ asked Gulch with genuine awe.
Another tremor shook the crevice floor. Gulch held the sword in her hand, and with one squeeze of her fingers, broke Alamánd into two pieces. The giant let the broken blade fall onto the ground.
‘No,’ whispered Elymiah as she sat back onto the floor, defeated. There was nothing left to do. Gulch laughed and took a step toward Elymiah, still holding her bloody guts in her arms. Elymiah closed her eyes. Maybe I will see you there, on the other side. Would you turn away as you did before? Or would you forgive and embrace me? I am sorry. I can still see you. I can still smell you. If I die now, would I face another death standing before you and you tear my soul to pieces? What would you say to me? I cannot bear it.
A tremor rocked through the crevice floor, loosing clods of dirt and stone. Gulch stood on her knees and towered over Elymiah.
Perhaps there, you won’t remember me. I’ve changed too much. Maybe you will walk past me like a stranger in a foreign dream. Would you lose me in the crowd?
Gulch laughed.
Elymiah was breathing heavily, and she spat on the ground. ‘I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of whom I will meet after death takes me. I cannot die before I am ready for that.’ She picked herself up. Gulch stopped laughing and raised her colossal hand above her head.
Elymiah laughed. ‘You think me easy prey? You are sadly mistaken. I am Elymiah Artus Farnesse, banished Aivaterran knight-captain from the Holy Silver Angels Platoon.’ She laughed again, blood dripping from her eye. She gritted her teeth and held her side as she took a step toward Gulch. ‘I was branded, betrayed, and forgotten. My life was ripped from me. I have nothing left to lose. I have everything left to give my life up for, and right now, I would give my life just to fucking kill you.’
Gulch slammed her fist onto the crevice floor, crushing Elymiah into the ground.
‘And so a hero dies!’ roared Gulch. The giant lifted her fist, expecting to see a mangled armoured woman crushed into the ground. Nothing but dirt fell from her hand.
‘What the—?’
Elymiah jabbed a broken shard of Alamánd into Gulch’s good eye, drawing blood and sinewy transparent liquid. The jagged blade sliced into Elymiah’s fingers, but she twisted the blade in the giant’s eye regardless of the sharp pain. She pulled the sharp edge of the sword point and leapt from the giant’s shoulder with a grunt as she fell on her side. Gulch screamed and thrashed her arms and stomped her legs, desperately trying to catch Elymiah and pull the sword point from her eye at the same time. Any attempt to remove the sword point, however, pushed the end of the sword deeper into Gulch’s eye. Blood spurted from the wounds in her stomach, but the giant was in too much of a fury to notice. Her loincloth fell from her body before Elymiah.
Then Elymiah saw the broken hilt of Alamánd. Quickly, she picked the sword hilt up and leapt onto the edge of the crevice, digging the broken but sharp blade into compacted dirt and rock. She lifted herself up with one arm and pulled, heaving herself up the canted edge of the wall. The giant’s thrashing caused another tremor to shake the crevice. Rocks began to fall onto Elymiah, hitting her head and body. She clenched her teeth and dug her feet in where the crevice wall wasn’t so rough. She pushed herself up and dug into the wall, pulling herself up with one hand.
Gulch shouted unintelligible words, but Elymiah didn’t look back. Suddenly, the wall in front of her began to give way. Large boulders and dirt flew past, but her eyes were steeled on the faint ray of light coming from above.
She dug with the broken sword point over and over again, lifting herself up. Fortunately the ridge had just enough slant for her to climb. She rose higher and higher along the crevice, nearing the top. She jabbed Alamánd into the dirt, but then the earth gave way, making her lose her balance. Her feet slipped.
‘I’m dead,’ she whispered as she fell down the crevice once more.
-I’ve got you!-
A long and scaly neck shot for her falling body. Fangs dug deep into her shoulder, stopping her fall. Dorma flapped his wings and pulled her from the crevice in his jaws. The earth collapsed, and a gust of dirt and wind flew up at them. Dorma lifted his wings into the chilled air and brought Elymiah safely away from the crevice. A cloud of dust was flung into the air as the crevice toppled into itself. Gulch’s screams died in the roar of collapsing rock, and then all was still. All was silent, save for Dorma’s flapping of wings.
Dorma dropped Elymiah on soft grass. Blood dripped from his jaws, and Elymiah felt a sharp burning pain in her shoulder, but she exhaled a sigh of relief. She let herself fall onto the ground.
‘Dorma,’ she panted, ‘you saved my life.’
The wyvern didn’t respond, however. The bones in his left wing were oddly bent and crushed. His breath was raspy and pained. Elymiah crawled over to him. The brand on her neck ached. Pain surged from her foot and her side, but then she remembered.
‘Father,’ she said, turning to the dirt road. ‘Wait here, Dorma. I will be back.’
The wyvern collapsed onto the ground in a cloud of dust, gasping for breath. Elymiah limped over onto the dirt road. She could see Artus there, lying in the dirt. He didn’t move. Elymiah’s heart rose in her throat.
‘Father!’ she shouted, ignoring the pain in her foot. She fell beside him. His chest no longer rose and fell. His mouth no longer moved. His eyes were steeled to the ceiling of the cavern far above. A thin film of dust rested on his eyes.
Elymiah’s thoughts began to slough.
‘Artus,’ she whispered, but she had no more tears for him. She knelt beside him. There was nothing she could do, and she knew it. She lay her head on his chest and closed h
er eyes. Blood seeped from the wounds in her shoulder where Dorma had sunk his jaws in. The wound burned, but Elymiah ignored it, allowing the greater comfort of exhaustion to surround her and cover her up.
-HUNTER, WAKE UP.-
Elymiah jumped and looked around her. Dorma faced her, listening intently with his head tilted slightly. Black holes rested in his skull where his eyes had once been. Elymiah turned to Artus. The Veledred commander lay on the dirt road of the underground cavern, untouched by time, it seemed. Elymiah looked at the light coming from the centre of the endless cave. It was miles away, yet she could feel the heat. The light was no longer white but the colour of blood.
‘What is that?’ she asked Dorma, squinting at the blinding rays of light coming from the ball of red.
-It is the soul belonging to the Mother of Giants,- said Dorma, sniffing the air. -Her peace guides this place. It is she who swallowed up Gulch.-
‘How do you know?’
-I can hear her voice like you hear mine.- Dorma turned his head down the path. -We have outstayed our welcome. It is time for us to leave.-
‘I wish the Mother of Giants had grown tired of her company sooner.’ Elymiah tilted her head to look down at Artus with her good eye. She reached into his pack and pulled out two phials filled with blue liquid. She knew what those were. Instantly, she pulled the cork from one of the phials and swallowed deeply. Immediately, she felt relief in her foot. She knew that soon she would be able to walk on it. She pulled the cork out of the other, which would surely relieve the pain in her side, but then she looked at Dorma. ‘Here, drink this.’
-What is it?-
‘It’s a powerful elixir that will help mend your bones.’ Elymiah smiled. ‘It would also get you piss drunk and high if you took too much. Anyway, it will take time, but it will relieve the pain for now.’ She held the bottle up to Dorma’s mouth. The wyvern opened his jaws and allowed her to pour the elixir onto his wet tongue. She threw the empty bottle away and stood up, looking down at her father’s stiff body. ‘I can’t leave him here like this.’
