Dawnbringer Page 14

  Rand had spoken truly. The demons resembled spiders that had been pulled apart and had their abdomens attached to the upper torso of four-armed humanoids. Their skin and carapaces were shiny black, reflecting the reddish sky above them, and they held a variety of weaponry in their four arms.

  “Drolnac!” Malek recognized them instantly from the tome. The artist’s sketch had looked ghastly enough, but in the flesh, they were absolutely terrifying. They moved frightfully quickly, gaining on the young soldier.

  Lumley sent an arrow into the lead drolnac, and the shaft lodged in the lower part of its humanoid torso. It stumbled, ichor leaking from the wound, but continued its pursuit.

  Seeing Rand would soon be overtaken, Malek raised his staff and drew mana from it. It surged through his veins, reinvigorating him, and he channeled it into the ground below, where he knew it was honeycombed with caverns. The ground vibrated and then crumbled, collapsing downward onto the caverns below. A chain reaction occurred as the ground rumbled and collapsed further, leaving a deep pit with rubble at the bottom. A dozen or more drolnac disappeared in the collapse.

  Rand made it to them, panting heavily. Lumley had cried out a warning, and Waresh, Yosrick, and Jannik caught up to the group.

  “Ready yourselves,” Nera warned unnecessarily, for everyone already had steel in hand.

  Perhaps another two score drolnac remained, the group smoothly splitting apart and skittering in both directions around the pit.

  “Looks like we won’t be able to avoid this fight,” Yosrick muttered.

  They were pinned between the ridge of rock about seventy paces to their right and a cliff twenty paces to their left. Behind was no cover, merely a rock-strewn incline, which would threaten to twist ankles were they to attempt to flee.

  “We’ll have to make a stand here,” Nera said grimly. “Try not to let them surround us.”

  Rand and Lumley loosed more arrows into the drolnac. Malek cast a lightning bolt from his staff, but it seemed to merely stun the fiends for a few seconds before they shook it off.

  “Ugly bunch of whoresons, ain’t they?” Waresh spat on the ground, fists tightening around Heartsbane’s haft as he prepared to meet the drolnac charge.

  Malek drew on more power from the staff, and the companions readied themselves.

  ***

  As the drolnac bore down on them, Nera remembered the potion she had stuck in her pouch. She quickly popped the lid of the phial and slugged it back. The contents looked like liquid gold and tasted like sweet apple cider mixed with dwarven spirits. A tingling instantly surged through her body, and she thought briefly of the lightning bolt etched on the glass. This is what consuming a lightning bolt must feel like.

  Time seemed to slow around her. She watched an arrow float by, about an armslength to her left, as it left Lumley’s bow. She could have reached out and plucked it from the air had she felt the desire. Instead, she drew a pair of throwing knives in each hand. With fluid flicks of her wrists, she sent them twirling into the charging fiends. Eyes were put out and throats opened up. Four of the demons fell, dead or wounded.

  Waresh let out a battle cry that seemed to go on for long minutes as he charged the rushing demons. A ball of blue flame was forming around the head of Malek’s staff. Yosrick chanted his magical commands, and his runes flared brightly on his boots, gauntlets, hammer, and shield.

  Nera charged the drolnac. She passed Waresh in two strides. In eight, she caught up to Lumley’s soaring arrow. Judging its trajectory accurate, she moved past the intended target and slashed into the next drolnac.

  It stabbed down at Nera with twin short spears, but its attack was happening in slow motion. She easily ducked under, opening up its throat with Lightslicer and then driving Bedlam Judge into its stomach for good measure. Then she dispatched the next. And the one after that.

  She carved through a dozen in seconds, the fiends unable to process the incredible alacrity of her movements granted by the potion. Glancing back over her shoulder, she noted her friends’ stunned expressions as nearly half of the fiends seemed to suddenly drop, blood spurting from wounds near simultaneously.

  A pair of spider legs were hewn off, flying away as if moving through molasses, ichor a slow fountain, as Waresh hacked into the beasts’ legs and underbellies.

  Yosrick went to work beside him, crushing and bludgeoning the creatures with his hammer. His enchantments allowed him to move faster than the drolnac, but Nera was still much quicker. The pair were well suited for the battle as the larger creatures had difficulty striking them due to their shorter statures.

  Malek’s fireball was floating overhead, aimed for the rear of the group. Nera sprinted past, leaving those be, and attacked another half dozen at the right fringe. She leaped atop the abdomen of one, drove Bedlam Judge through its skull, then hopped to the next and repeated her attack.

  Nera finished off those six then saw one that had slipped through and was coming up on Lumley’s flank to strike. She was upon it in six strides, leaping atop its abdomen as she had the others.

  The effects of the potion wore off suddenly, and Nera overshot the drolnac, surprised at the abrupt change as reality instantly sped up around her once again. Her foot slipped off the side of the drolnac’s abdomen, then she struck her forehead against one of its four elbows. Disoriented, she hit the ground, tumbling in the dirt. She rolled back to her feet but realized her mistake, sensing the drolnac had slid to a halt, one of its raised spears aimed at her unprotected back.

  She was about to get skewered.

  An unexpected blow struck her from the side and knocked her down. When she came back up in a crouch, she saw Lumley impaled on the drolnac’s spear, having shoved her out of the way and taken the blow meant for her. The thrust was delivered with such force the spear burst through his backplate. The sergeant’s eyes were wide, and he choked, blood spewing from his mouth. The demon moved to withdraw the spear, but Lumley gripped it tightly, his eyes hard with grim determination. With a tremendous effort, the gravely wounded sergeant actually pulled himself up the spear, leaving the tip and pole slick with his lifeblood as it exited his back. The drolnac seemed confused up until the moment Lumley ran his sword through the fiend’s throat. The beast reared back, taking the sword with it and dropping its spear. It staggered like a drunk before falling dead.

  Although horrified at the sergeant’s brutal wound, Nera saw another drolnac coming in to attack behind the first. She ducked under its whirling sabers and dove between its legs. As she came out of her somersault, she drove Lightslicer into the drolnac’s abdomen, carving a long gash through its soft belly. Stinking entrails poured from its abdomen, but Nera was already on her feet, facing the next surprised fiend.

  “Damn you, you bloody bastards!” she screamed in fury, leaping straight at it.

  The drolnac brought one of its spindly legs up to impale her on the blade at the end, but she lopped it off with a brutal slash of Lightslicer. She buried Bedlam Judge to the hilt in its chest, momentarily eye-to-eye with the hideous beast. She could smell its putrid breath as its mouth opened wide in a pained screech.

  Nera sprang away as the drolnac collapsed, its black skin turning a mottled gray from the bone dagger’s effects. Its legs splayed, and it fell hard onto its abdomen.

  She spun, sensing the approach of yet another, but the fiend was suddenly hurled to one side with the force of a ballista, split in half from some tremendous blow. Gore rained down as it splattered to the ground in pieces.

  Her eyes met Malek’s from across the battle, and she waved her thanks. A quick glance revealed all but a couple of the drolnac were down. Yosrick and Waresh were battling the two remaining.

  Lumley staggered toward her, eyes glazed and the spear still protruding from his guts. Nera caught him by the shoulders, gently easing the veteran to the ground and laying him on his side. The blood coating his chin was stark against his pale face. His eyes were unfocused, no longer seeing.

  She thought to remo
ve the spear but realized it was too late. Lumley extended a trembling hand, and Nera clasped it fiercely.

  “You fool, that was meant for me,” she said quietly.

  “You… m-must… see the quest through. Save Nexus… Protect our families,” he whispered, shuddering, and then breathed his last.

  “Damn it all! Another dead for this mad quest.” She gently closed Lumley’s wide, staring eyes.

  Nearby, Waresh fought like a madman, his mighty axe hacking through limbs and felling the last drolnac with ease. The crazed look was in his eyes once more, and he stood among a pile of dead fiends.

  Malek knelt beside her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Another one sacrificed himself for nothing,” she said bitterly.

  “It’s not for nothing!” Malek said harshly. He turned her toward himself, gripping her shoulders firmly. “You are Sabyl’s Chosen! Lumley believed in this quest, and he believed in you, Nera! The same with all the others. None of us thought this would be easy—we just have to trust that each step we take gets us closer to reaching the Engineer.” He sighed and pulled her into an embrace. She clung to him, determined not to break down in front of him and the others.

  “All we can do now is make sure Lumley and the rest were justified in their faith in us. We’re going to see this through—find the Engineer and save Nexus.”

  His words hit home. Every one of them had come on the quest of their own volition because they wanted to save their homes and families.

  I can’t let them down—I won’t.

  “Aye, we’ll make sure their sacrifices aren’t forgotten. I mean to see their homes and families kept safe.” She gave Malek a quick kiss on the forehead before getting back to her feet. “I thank you for that reminder.”

  ***

  The demons were indistinct shapes in the red fog, barely noticed by Waresh as he mechanically cleaved them apart with Heartsbane. What he did notice was that the prolonged flight and combat was peeling part of himself away like the layers of an onion. He knew he was teetering on a blade’s edge—on the verge of succumbing to the axe’s demands until he was some mindless thing—a construct of flesh carrying out the weapon’s will.

  Help me… I can’t hold on much longer. The faint voice cried out from the shrinking sanctuary within his mind, the walls constricted and crumbling under the axe’s assault.

  As if his plea was heard, the swirling red storm clouds parted, and a compact figure strode toward him.

  “Tarni?” he asked in a whisper, afraid that he was lost to madness and the apparition would disappear yet again. He’d heard her voice in his head urging calm before, but that had been before the Abyss. Faced with the horrors found there, he’d been alone in his head ever since, struggling desperately to maintain his sanity and avoid plunging into madness.

  “Aye, it’s me, Waresh,” she said in that familiar voice from his past, seemingly a lifetime ago.

  A lifetime’s worth of misery he’d caused since losing her.

  “Oh gods, Tarni! How I’ve missed ye.” He felt tears on his cheeks.

  The dwarven maid approached him, her striking sapphire eyes filled with sorrow. Her curly brown hair stirred in the maelstrom swirling around them, a lock blowing into her pretty oval face before she tucked it back behind an ear. She was petite and slim, unlike the vast majority of stocky dwarven maids, which had made her undesirable in the eyes of a lot of potential suitors.

  He shook his head, not wanting to relive the past, instead focused on her—on the present moment, a brief lull in the chaos of his mind.

  “Waresh, ye must resist! Don’t let that damned axe break ye.” Her soft hands cupped his cheeks, and she looked into his eyes.

  “There’s not much left of me, lass. I’m losing meself forever.”

  “The stubborn Waresh I know would never give in so easily. Ye never submitted to yer father’s wishes. Why should ye listen to some cursed hunk o’ steel?”

  Waresh smiled despite himself at Tarni’s conviction. “Aye, lass, but I’m afraid yer the only one that’s ever had faith in me.”

  “Stop feeling so damned sorry for yerself!” she snapped, her eyes flashing. “What about Kalder? Hatrek? They believed in ye.”

  “Perhaps so, but they’re dead now… as are ye.” He tried to fight back the grief. Once again, he could see the blood bubbling up from Tarni’s lips, the awful wound in her chest as she died in his arms.

  “Oi!” A hard smack knocked the image straight from his mind. Tarni yanked on his beard until they were nose to nose. “Yer friends need ye now, ye bloody fool! Ye can still help them—don’t make the same mistakes as before. Fight Heartsbane!”

  “Ah, yer right, lass,” he said with a deep sigh. “Reiktir’s bloody beard… How could I have buggered up everything so bad? All to prove me father wrong about me, that I wasn’t a weak sluggard.”

  Tarni smiled gently, her hand warm on his cheek. “We all made mistakes. Mine was to fall in love with a thick-headed dwarven prince who I could never be with. As my da always said, the only course we can take once the ore cart’s gone off the track is to right the cart and shovel the ore back in. So get to shoveling!” She leaned forward, and her soft lips touched his for a moment before she was gone.

  “Tarni, nay—don’t go!”

  All that remained were the raging storm clouds trying to buffet Waresh and sweep him away into madness.

  “I’m sorry… I should have told ye how I felt. Goodbye, me love.”

  The winds tore and raged at Waresh, but he ignored them. “Ye will not get the better of me! Begone from me head!” His wordless roar of anguish sent the clouds fleeing from him until he stood alone, his mind his own again—for a time, at least.

  “Are you back with us again, dwarf?” Nera’s voice cut through his reverie.

  He blinked and looked around, finding the thief staring at him, hands on hips. Looking down, he saw Heartsbane was slick with ichor, and butchered corpses of the hideous spider demons lay strewn about him. For a moment, he couldn’t remember what had happened last.

  “Thought we’d lost you too.” Nera walked over and looked him in the eye, concerned.

  Waresh shook his head and cleared his throat. “Aye, I’m all right now, methinks.” He slung Heartsbane back over his shoulder. “How’d we fare?”

  The thief’s face turned sorrowful. “Lost another man—Lumley. Several have minor wounds. But we’re still alive.”

  He saw Malek and Yosrick bore wounds, the mage a cut to his upper arm, the gnome a gash in his thigh.

  “Let’s get some distance from that crack in the ground where these bastards came from and rest for a bit,” Nera told the group. “We’re banged up pretty good and won’t make it much farther without some rest.”

  Waresh didn’t complain. He had worked up a fierce appetite with all the fighting—that and a fiercer thirst, but there was no ale to be had. His wineskin was half full. That would have to suffice in the meantime.

  They walked for about half a mile, fortunately not encountering any more drolnac. Nera called a halt when they came to a spot providing a bit of shelter alongside a ridge.

  Waresh leaned back against a large basalt dome formed from cooled lava. He chewed on some salted meat and a piece of hard bread and cheese without tasting them.

  Looking over the dwindling number of their companions, he didn’t like the odds. Nera, Malek, Yosrick, Jannik, and the boy Rand were all that remained besides himself. From what he could see, all of them bore at least minor injuries, save Nera—likely a result of the potion she had quaffed.

  He took a long swallow from his wineskin and closed his eyes for a moment. “It won’t be long now, Reiktir,” he said quietly. “Take care of Tarni for me, and if ye’ve any mercy, let me at least see her briefly before ye cast me down to Belgond’s deep, dark pit.”

  He drifted off to slumber, memories of Tarni filling his head.

  ***

  Nera stared into the hazy distance from a
top the ridge of cooled lava the others were resting beside. Waresh had called it basalt, as if that was somehow important. She cared only that it provided some amount of concealment for their brief rest.

  The eerie green lightning flashed in the dark clouds in the distance, storms churned up by the erupting volcanoes. Nothing stirred that she could see, and she thanked Sabyl they were able to get a respite.

  She had taken first watch since the others all bore injuries and needed some rest. Jannik had offered to tend their wounds. With the exception of Yosrick, whose leg wound would’ve slowed them down, the others had bidden him conserve his spells. Nera had briefly considered offering them the healing potions she had in her pack but decided she’d better save them until absolutely necessary. Her own bumps and bruises were just minor nuisances.

  Her companions slept fitfully down below, each of them confronting whatever nightmares he’d faced. Even had she not taken the watch, she doubted her nerves would have allowed her to sleep.

  “Are the others truly gone?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she didn’t feel that Arron and the others were dead, although she had no way of knowing that. Although she knew it was foolish, she tried to keep her hopes alive in case Arron, Wyat, Endira, and Idrimel had somehow managed to survive.

  She cursed quietly, her eyes probing the hazy plain in the distance—still no sign of the Wall of Lost Souls. If the group couldn’t locate the Engineer, and soon, she doubted they’d survive much longer, their group having been whittled down to merely six, well under half the group they had started with.

  “You’d better be able to save Nexus as you promised, Father.” She didn’t want to think of the consequences if the quest ended in failure.