The area was lush with grasses, I had found another water source, and not far from us was a herd of those buffalo.  They were going to move in front of us, actually.  Looking up and thinking, I knew what I wanted to do.  We had made really good time and I figured Hoscoe to be at least another week away.  I wanted a close up look of that pyramid.

If our enemy wasn’t watching us magically, I could think of no way they would know we were so close.  And when the cogs attacked us, it was always within a few miles of a ruin of some kind.  I had the men dismount and then went straight to Ander, “I’m putting you in charge for a few days.”

“A few days?!”  He got this stern tone and wrinkled his forehead, and making sure no one else could hear him he asked, “Why?!  You going to do something crazy?  I know you took the kid’s death hard and you haven’ been acting like yourself …”

“Ander … that pyramid’s laying that way,” I pointed, “maybe twenty, twenty-five miles, I’m guussing, guessing, and no one’s seen it in what, sixty years?  We need to know what’s going on.  I can feel what’s coming from a long way off.  I can get in there, I think, without them knowing and get back within four, maybe five days.”

“Wolf, no.  Sorry, but I’m not letting you go out there alone.  It isn’t smart.”

“It’s-s … I’m in command, it’s my call.”

“Bullshit!  I know you’re in command, but I’m also your friend.  I’ve been watching you and you’ve let that boy’s death screw you up, just like Vensi keeps feeling guilty for Puffer.  Recon is great, and I agree you’re the best to go out and do it, but we do it as a team.  You’ll go out there alone, find something you think you can do, and go do it without a second thought.  Getting yourself killed won’t bring Tahnus back.”

Somewhat, kind-a sort-a, and way out-a character for Ander, he added, “What did you have in mind for the rest of us?  Weave baskets out of these long grasses?”

I pointed matter of factly, “Right over here is, is a small dip, and under it is a deep shpring, I mean spring.  For physical labor, have the men dig deep enough to generate a ready supply for the company for maybe two weeks, until we re-up with the main force.  Based on the angle they’ll come in, they’ll probably do to make camp right here until we determine exactly how we’re going to attack. 

“That herd of buffalo will be here soon and you can kill a bunch of ‘em, skin ‘em, have, and have the meat ready for when the rest get here.”

“And yeah, you could weave some straining nets to filter that water.  It’ll more likely be muddy at first.

Ander looked in the direction of the Pyramid, then back at me with a glare.  After a few moments of us trying to stare each other down, he wrinkled his brow and said, “You won’t want horses so you can lay low as you get closer.  Riding so far and picketing them wouldn’t be good, ‘cause you might have to come back a different way and leaving good horses out there would be against your nature. 

“You’re not going to be taking crossbows, either.  If you get caught in the beehive, you’ll be in sword trouble.  You’re gonna want a team who can go for endurance on foot, and do it staying low for a long way. 

“Most likely you’re going to want to leave tonight, without sufficient rest, so you can rely on your senses of the land to feel the way.  And you’ll want a small number so you can move fast.”

We just looked at each other and shael’s if I couldn’t think of anything to say, after which he added with a firm finger against my chest, “Get some rest, Wolf, you’re exhausted.  I’ll have three men ready for you tonight.” 

There was no defiance in Ander’s tone, no challenge of authority, but he knew me well and was doing his job, which in his mind meant protecting me from myself, I guess.  There have only been a couple of people I’ve known in my life who could hold a stare down with me, Ander being one of them.  The only trouble was, he was right, probably, although I would never outright admit to it, so you could hear me say it, anyway.

I finally nodded and went for a cup of hot tea before hitting my blanket.  I can’t remember my head touching down.

___________________________

 

Izner, Patriohr, a lean fellow named Gressit and I prepared to head out, but first I had something I needed to do.  I found Vensi, he had done his work and was sitting alone and quiet.  It wasn’t that he was shirking, nothing of the kind.  Sitting down beside him I said quietly, “I’m not good at this sort of thing, Ven, but I want you to listen to me.  Would you have done the same for him?”

He looked at me startled and hurt, “Yeah!  No thoughts.”

“Ven … would you want him acting like this?”

I let my words settle in, and then added, “No one knows this, but I was born a slave.  I heard my momma get raped and abused on more than one occasion, and when I tried to protect her I would get beaten hard; she was killed and died in my hands when I was young.  One day I’m going back; I’m going back and making some things right, only I don’t know when.  When the time comes, though, I need you to go with me. I need someone like you to watch my back; You, Ander, Ize, Dud, all of us who stick together.  Can I count on you?”

Vensi looked down at the ground, up to the stars, and then to me and thought his words out very carefully, “Yeah-yeah-h-h, Wolf.  I’ll be there for you.”

“Okay,” I said with a smile.  “I’ll see you when we get back.”  I stood up and he did too, like he was ready to go with me right then.  For the life of me I don’t know why I told him that, but I did and it was done.

I was still tired, but the few hours of sleep did me a world of good.  My team made short work of traveling to the Pyramid and made absolutely no sounds to each other, but you could feel the awe as we got closer.  I had never seen anything the size of the smaller ones, but they were dwarfed in comparison to the glittering structure we targeted.

We were in a hurry, but we took our time.  Even one altercation could alert everyone to our presence.  I wasn’t happy about Ander picking Patriohr, but if I said a blatant No, that would have caused problems as well.  But I became glad he came along.  He had developed his skills well, and was incredibly light on his feet.  Izner, of course, was exceptional at stealth, and Gressit had been an orphan making do on the street, until joining the army. Traveling as quick as we could on foot and keeping low among the grass of the plains was hard on the back.  But I did the heal thing on everyone as often as possible to remedy the aches.

The ditch had been re-dug, but where had they put the dirt?  We had gotten to the backside of the Pyramid and I was studying that big fin-like thing on the back, when Patriohr got up close to me and broke silence by whispering, “They’re routing the underground river system to fill the ditch.”

“Huh?  What river system?”

“I studied engineering at the university and learned this entire country has a wealth of underground river systems.  The irrigation possibilities could tremendously help with agriculture here.”

I just looked at him, trying to figure why this was relevant.  I also remembered talking to Hoscoe about the water in the well at Biunang.

“Major, I’ve seen two grids with some leakage on the outer wall of the ditch.  I am betting there is at least one more, and there will be a larger outlet grid as well.  Each of these grids are covering a tunnel face.  I’ve seen archaic schematics of trench systems which eventually lead to the Teshucarr River.  They were used to pipe water where there wasn’t any and some of them were buried in tunnels.”

I just kept looking at him, then facially indicated for him to go on, “It is possible these grids are to hold in fish of a certain size … a kind of hatchery, if you will … but that would mean they are intending to stay for a long time, to even settle this place.  From what you and the general have told us, it doesn’t make sense.”

My face may have gone white as suddenly, I remembered something.  Patriohr had said it, about the Lihtosax may not be keeping things out of their region, as much as keeping something in.  I got over to Izner and whispered to him, “Ize … take Gressit and as careful as you can, go this way around the ditch-line as Patriohr and I go the other.  Look for a big hole, grid, gate, anything, that is built into the inside of the ditch … directly against the base of the pyramid.  Don’t try to find me, I’ll find you.”

___________________________

 

Hoscoe gazed intently at my ground etching of the Pyramid, ditch-line, and placement of humans around the ruined smaller pyramids.  At a point west of the bridge, Izner found a large, ornately designed gate of golden bars.  As Patriohr suspected, there was one more grid in the outer ditch wall.  Hoscoe and I both had the same thought on mind, the possibility of an elemental to attempt breaking down the barrier which formed Emdejon Falls.  It was still a long shot, but it was a good possibility.

Hoscoe had waited for reinforcements from the mines, and he got them to the tune of four hundred and thirty people who could swing a tool or weapon.  My company had done well in preparing meat, cleaning out a significant water source, etc., to prepare for these folks.  The big question now, was how to go about attacking the Pyramid grounds.  And once we attacked, how to get across that moat?  The one bridge was the only way across without climbing the ditch. 

I still hadn’t felt those eyes, and hadn’t since just before talking with the Shaman Lady the last time.

We talked over different ideas but it came down to this; there was a big expanse of space to cover, they could see us coming long before we got there, and we still hadn’t found an actual doorway to get inside should we manage a way across the ditch.  While strategies were discussed, the soldiers practiced and non-soldiers learned.  Ander was an outstanding teacher, and so was Patriohr.  There were a couple dozen left-handed folk out there, and he was showing them how it was done.

I was in the middle of teaching some spear techniques to use with captured weapons when someone ran over to me and said, “Excuse me Major, the General wants your opinion of his plan.”

Assigning my trainees some exercises to practice and then running to where Hoscoe was brainstorming with some others, I looked into the eyes of mischief as Hoscoe was smiling a dangerous smile, stroking his goatee and casually taking a sip of his coffee.  This, I knew, was going to be interesting.

Hoscoe maintained our true enemy was not the cognobins, and definitely not the humans cultivated to fight with them. He fully believed our adversaries had yet to reveal themselves.  They were powerful in their own right, yes, and extremely intelligent.  But, Hoscoe declared, the real adversary was woefully two-dimensional in combat tactics.  He believed we were dealing with one or more strong wizards whose true tactical leader was either no longer around, had yet to show up, or was also grievously under-experienced in applied warfare.

After studying all records dealing with fighting patterns, tactics, technology, movement, and current strategies since the cognobins appearance, Hoscoe believed the first to be true.  He did not, however, believe Meidra or the Witch Queen to have been the leader.  Whatever was going on here was a small part of some greater war, something which had escaped the eyes of common man.  Hoscoe was thinking the direct involvement of the High Priest Logan was indicative of what could be a Holy War with grand scale consequences, perhaps on the world level.

When I was explaining it to my unit leaders Tobin asked, “Then what difference can we make?”

I was about to open my mouth when Patriohr suddenly ventured forth an introspective answer, “Because, if we are only affecting one spoke of an enemy’s wagon wheel, that is one spoke we might be able to break.”  Patriohr cast a friendly gaze upon Tobin and asked, “Have you ever tried to go far with a broken spoke on a wagon?  I have.  I thought to finish my journey, since it was only one spoke, but the one damaged part compromised the rest of the wheel and the whole thing broke in just a short time.”  He looked from person to person and they all got it.

Hoscoe’s plan was to not attack the Pyramid of Rem’Nai Sezhukte.  “Instead,” he said, “we are going to do the illogical, and prompt them to attack us.  Hopefully they will make a mistake.”  We were going to ride around the Pyramid grounds, just outside of crossbow range, then return to camp.  Each day we would do something a little different, but that was the plan.  Where he got the idea, I have no clue.  He told me he read it in an ancient text I had never even heard about.  Not that I had heard of them all, of course, but this was way out there.  Still …

One of the men spoke up, “General … I don’t mean to doubt you, or your strategy.  But this sounds, it sounds …”

“Preposterous?”  Hoscoe finished with a smile.  “Of course; that is why I believe it will work.  Gentlemen, there are no certainties in war.  There is no exact science.  Anything can happen, and it will.  That is why it is a game of absolute risk.  A tyro can accidentally loose a missile which can find itself into the heart of rabbit.  This is where experience and psychology comes in to play.  Take no doubt, conventional war is a game of chess between two generals, and a deadly game it is.

“Our adversary has the advantage of home field and superior weapons.  But our adversary does not know how to use them.  Yes, they are smart, and they will learn from their mistakes.”  And then Hoscoe took a menacing tone and claimed an evil eye while brandishing his fist, “But I do not intend they should be able to rectify their folly.” 

He looked at all of us, “We will not have a second chance at this, and we are here to do a job.  Our prize lay within.  We do not yet know the details of the prize, but I wager we will know it when it is seen.

“If you wish to flush the snake from its hole, you must find the hole the snake uses.  And the best way is to either track the snake, or watch it retreat to its lair.  And there will always be at least one other hole.  We will march in units, and nothing will avail us a better position to find the hole of our adversary than to encircle to whole place.  And nothing will allow us to encircle the place and be spread so thin, as to perform as we will be doing.

“The way they come out, will be the way we go in.”  Hoscoe became very solemn, “Many, maybe most of us, will not survive.  So let us each find the one reason for which we fight, pull it from our heart and hold it before us.  I am proud of you each and all.”  Striking his right fist to his chest, then upward to the heavens, Hoscoe let loose with “Gondishaey!”

The Pyramid defenders must have thought we were outright crazy.  On day one we all rode in formation in a left-wise circle around the whole compound.  We were loose and we looked ahead.  Our crossbows, however, were hanging off to our right side prepared for a sudden snap-over to fire.  We looked insane, but everyone was on a tightrope nerve as we played this most deadly of games.  We saw nobody, but I could feel them.  I knew they were watching and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with sweat rolling down his neck and back.

The second day we rode the same, but on day three we sang children’s songs, and we sang loudly.  There were a few humans, here and there, who stood out from the smaller pyramids to look and wonder.  According to Hoscoe’s source, an army marched around a walled city every day for several days, and then the walls of the city crumbled and the army was able to go in and conquer.  This was related to a holy war, but we had no such expectations.  Our goal was to totally fluster our enemy with our strange actions, and it seemed to be working.

Day four had us riding in the opposite direction, in a right-wise circle, still singing children’s songs.  Once more humans came out, a few more than the last day, and just as curious.  But we rode into camp to a welcome surprise; Chymthina flew in to land on my arm.  The message she carried was several days old and apparently she had been hunting the terrain for me.  There was a partially healed talon wound on her body which told me she had survived a fight of her own, and I healed her straightway.

My message had reached Gohruvae the day before Lahrcus arrived at Brosman.  Lahrcus wasted no time and put together a force to meet the marching enemy from the south.  The battle had been decisive and Threstor had been killed.  Lahrcus was now marching en force toward our position with enough troops to put our number over eleven hundred.  There had been battles in our world with much larger armies, but our upcoming battle would mark the largest clash of warriors on this land in nearly two thousand years.

Hoscoe looked up at the clear sky and studied the stars, looked toward the Pyramid, down to the ground and around the plain while chewing his jaw.  I could tell he was deliberating many things and it was always best not to interrupt when he was like that.  Whatever it was he was calculating he didn’t say, but then he got a satisfied look on his face and said, “Three to five days, they will be here in three to five days.”  Gazing back at our objective he added, “Within one to two days after Lahrcus’s arrival the attack will begin on their part, and it will be time to make our move.

Sitting down, he took a quill and wrote a message.  He asked me, “Is our little lady up to returning a flight?”

I brought Chymthina over to him and we both petted her.  Wesney would have to note she was an integral part of what we had accomplished.  Once her message had been put in place, I touched heads with her and using *S’Fahn Muir* let her know how proud we all were of her, and then sent her on her way.

On day five we rode sidesaddle and made as if to play with our chest.  There were getting to be some larger numbers watching us now, and some were actually laughing.  The morning of day six I became *Aware* of water running into the ditch, it was starting to fill up, and there were cognobins on the top of the Pyramid’s base level.  How they got there, we didn’t know, but Hoscoe wasn’t acting concerned.

We wore ribbons in our hair the seventh day and every second rider sat backward in the saddle and acted effeminate.  All of this was wearing thin on our troops; they wanted to get on with the fight.  Hoscoe warned not to lose focus, we were playing a game of psychological warfare.  In the minds of many of the enemy, we were truly insane, but there were those who wanted desperately to attack.  While our antics were different each day, the enemy had now gotten used to seeing us come out to ride in a circle.  Hoscoe called it Acclimating the frog in the pot, “Put a living frog in a pot of comfortable water and it is fine.  Add heat slowly, and it will stay in there even as the water comes to a boil.

“These have not attacked us yet because they have not figured out what we are doing, and they are curious.  As I said, they are not true military leaders.  It is what I have been counting on.  They are being led in there by wizards, and wizards are scientists who are above all else, inquisitive.  They believe they are smarter than we, and are no doubt preparing what they believe will wipe us out in one fell swoop.  In short, they have written us off as a real threat and regard us now as a nuisance to casually exterminate.  It is the mark of arrogance.”

The eighth morning we rode out in our worst exposure yet.  We wore only leggings and had strapped tassels to our chest, as if hanging from our nipples, but that wasn’t all.  From the opposite side of the compound Lahrcus rode with his command in exactly in the same manner and in the opposite direction.  The grounds around the lesser pyramids, the base level of the Greater Pyramid, and the between were full of people staring.  You might think it funny to see, but to be there and ride like that … it was beyond tense and nothing was humorous about it.

Some believed it a miracle we hadn’t been attacked yet; and who wanted to fight, let alone die, naked?  Hoscoe heard, and he smiled.  No one confronted him with their anger and frustration, after all, everything he had said so far had come to pass.  But it was clear the troops were on their last nerve.  When … Was … The … Fight?!

A meeting between officers was held, and Lahrcus was there.  There were no salutes, but forearm clasps were exchanged by all.  We passed summary of all events thus far, and though he felt deep regret for our casualties, he was especially pleased with our overall progress. 

Everyone was wondering who would take command, now that the Commander of the Army was in camp, but Lahrcus dismissed the thought quickly when he asked Hoscoe, “Well General, I hope we made it here satisfactorily.  What is your plan and how may I be of service?”  Have you ever heard the phrase, Being blown away?  Several of them men got that feeling with Lahrcus’s words, but it only made sense.  Hoscoe had brought us this far, and he knew what he was doing.

Hoscoe laid out his detailed plan, how he thought the attack would occur and how he thought it best for us to respond.  He also grilled Lahrcus on two backup plans and how to invoke each from the availing cues.  This was no haphazard idea based on a whim.  Hoscoe had everything planned like a chess game, and he had backup plans for backup plans.

After the meeting he asked me to his fire for coffee.  He was perfectly calm, despite the loom of battle, and after pouring each of us a cup he caught me by surprise when he asked, “Do you still have any of those cigars?”

Chapter   50

________________________

 

 

I WAS SURPRISED, but shouldn’t have been.  Producing my last two cigars and offering Hoscoe one, he took and savored it, then bit the end off and rolled it in his mouth.  Expertly flipping the end of my little firebox, I gave him a light, and then lit my own and replaced it in a pocket inside my boot.  It’s something I didn’t ever want to lose. 

We sat for a few minutes in quiet, tasting the finest of tobacco, sipping coffee black as sin, and enjoying each other’s company.  Then he asked, as if talking into the night, “It has been enjoyable and fulfilling,” he glanced at me with a faraway look in his eye, “do you not think?”

“What?”  He had me curious.

Then he said in a matter of fact voice, “Working together, you and I.”

The idea caught me off guard, but as I thought about it, I said with a warm smile, “Yes … yes, it has been fun.”  We sat like that and said no more, well until after the cigars were smoked down to the nub.

Finally he said, “Well, I guess it is time to call it a night.  When you begin, Wolf, do not stop until it is over.  Remember the prize.  One person can make a difference.  Make a difference, Mehio, make a difference.”  He paused a long time, and then said, “When the time comes, find Mount Bn’Chella.” With that he got up and went to his sleeping gear.

Mount Bn’Chella?  That was way up in the Sahrjiun Mountains.  What did he mean by that?  I stared at him as he walked away.

Thinking about the evening, I retired to my own bed.  I didn’t think I would fall asleep, but I did, and then I had a dream.  I found myself running, flying, being thrown, and running again through an impossible tumult of wind, lightning, fire and water.  I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, let alone why.  All about me I saw ghostly images of skeletal faces, destroyed buildings being blown apart, objects I’ve never seen before and couldn’t identify, hands grabbing at me I couldn’t see and teeth gnashing on the back my neck.

Suddenly I was hit by multi-colored lightning and it coursed my body; I couldn’t believe I was still alive as the electric heat seemed to sear me apart.  The energy pushed through me and I could feel it seeking avenues of escape.  It would seek no more … it was going to force its way out of me and I was trying to hold it in, knowing it would destroy me if I let it go … but the agony was too much to bear.

And then I saw her face all around me, the Shaman Lady, as if I were trapped in a ball of crystal and she was looking in at me … and then without moving her lips I could hear her whispered voice, “Wihlabahk is com-m-m-i-n-n-g-g-g …”

I bolted upright from my sleeping roll and was running out of camp, running as if I were part of So’Yeth.  It was so surreal, it seemed it had been part of my dream, but it wasn’t.  I was in my long underwear, bare of feet and without a weapon, and only a few hundred rods from the Pyramid.  Gasping, I realized I had dropped to hands and knees … and as I looked down, I couldn’t quite see my hands.  I mean I wasn’t invisible, but my body had taken on the appearance of the grasses around me.  ‘How the …?’

The ground … something was wrong.  Something beneath the ground was rumbling, only it was physical.  This was new and I didn’t know what to make of it; I tried to follow the source of the energy.  The ditch, but it was hundreds of rods away, I had never been able to extend any of my effects so far.

Almost like I had done with Hoscoe, I tried to *Merge with the Land* and felt my mind travel toward the ditch.  It was hard and I had to concentrate with all of my skill. 

The cognobins, they were pouring out of the big gate which was now underwater, and they were hanging on to the outer walls of the ditch.  They weren’t climbing out, they were just hanging on.  Craiken!  I could see them breathing slowly, they were amphibious. 

Something grabbed my arm and my thought was, ‘Oh shit,’ and I felt myself torn from the ditch and back to where I was kneeling.  The Shaman Lady had me by the arm and then laid down into the ground and fell in, taking me with her.  Next thing I knew we were in a sort of a bubble with the top of the ground right above us, only we could see through it.  A human walked right over the top of us and just stood there, looking out and about. 

I started to reach up and grab what looked to be a floating foot, but she stopped me and said, “We are safe, for now.  They cannot hear us, but you must listen.  Tomorrow they will summon Zvertio, a great elemental who shall be sent to the waters.  It is you who must stop this.”

“Zvertio?  What, I mean who is …”

“Listen to me, he who calls himself Xiahstoi will summon Zvertio through the Gate of Huk-nu’Sis in the Chamber of Utnim-Su-Zai.  You must call him by his true name, Aydrian, for there is none who know this.”

“How do you know this, any of this?”  I interrupted.

“You must listen -”

“The kahdjit I will.  You’ll give me answers or you can -” I just noticed, she had next to no nose and she didn’t blink … at all.  Something under her hood moved, and then very calmly and without any form of anger she eased her hood back and two long antennae came free from just under her hairline.  I also noticed she was speaking perfect Elvish, but with a slight twist.

“I am Y’nesia of the Apndiul.  Ages gone, my people are they who built these structures for those who gave us creation.  No more do we live here and are free from time of Xiahstoi and her reign.  My purpose is to make warn of the Wihlabahk.”  She took my hand and her fingers felt hard, yet gentle.  “You have emotion for those among you.  He who deigns proclaim as Witch King shall invoke the Guardians of Rem’Nai Sezhukte.  From the four pillars they will rise with diamonds in their eyes, and unholy flame shall consume all for as far as the human eye can see.  He shall do it from the Perch of Anu-Rah.

“As he rises up, those within shall pour forth from the Gate of Tio.  Into this gate shall your path lead and I will await you.  I shall lead you to the Chamber of Utnim-Su-Zai.”  And then she stopped, just like that.  No emotion, nothing.  She looked at me as if curious, not anxious.

Exasperated, I asked, “Why are you telling me all of this?”

With a matter of fact, this should be obvious, type of demeanor she answered, “Because you are Komain; third Grandson of Ml’Shain; third Grandson of Kn’Yang; successor of Lahnumae, third Chief of Sh’Nika Tribe; grand-daughter of first Itahro Chief, Shihnuthai; son of V’Lang; heir to the throne of Oshang, King of Dsh’Tharr Elves.”

My jaw almost dropped and I sat there momentarily stunned.  Where and how had she learned all of that?  And why did she have to trace it to Oshang?  Besides, what did my lineage have to do with anything?  Regaining my composure I shook my head and said, “That means nothing to me.”

She squeezed my hand and said, “Time we have not much of.  You must give me trust?”

All kinds of thoughts spun in my mind and I remembered what Lahrcus had said.  Was she benevolent, was she actually one of the good guys, or did she have her own agenda.  Looking in the direction of the pyramid I made a big gambol and played my gut feeling as I said, “Let’s do it.”

She stopped and looked at me for a long moment, I could have sworn I saw a twinkle of humor in her eyes and give me a slight smile of irony.  She said, “You must return the way you came.”  And then she looked up, spoke some strange word, and we both rose up level with the rest of the ground.  I looked around quickly and back, but she was gone.  ‘How does she do that?!’

Grabbing the grass I focused on that *Blending* effect again, if it didn’t work I was going to have to run for it … three hundred rods in my underwear.  ‘Shael’s,’ I thought, ‘it works’ … but I had to concentrate to keep it in place.  Carefully I made way back to my bed, and grabbed my pants.  Cudty was crawling into his bedroll, not far from me, and was watching as I dropped the blending effect.

His eyes were wide as he said, “Now there’s been many a time I could ‘uv found that mighty useful.”

“I just learned how to do it …” I said as I pulled the rest of my clothes on.  I knew he was wanting to talk, but I had to hurry.  I said, “Get back out of that bed and come with me.” 

Quickly I made way to Hoscoe and touched him on the foot to wake him.  He was awake in an instant and I wasted no time with all the details, starting with my dream.  As I talked we picked up listeners, and I meant to.  Hoscoe deliberated long and hard, but as he was thinking I had an epiphany of my own and said, “I think I just figured out how to get to the other side, but it will be tricky.”

___________________________

 

The morning of the ninth day we ate well, drank our tea, and savored each drop.  The enemy was waiting, so we lingered even longer.  We had begun each march at daybreak, this time we waited until late morning.  The night before I had briefed my team as to our plan of action; I made it a priority for everyone to keep eye on the top of the pyramid and take out the Witch King the moment he became a clear target.

When we began our march, we kept the circle tighter and listened for Hoscoe’s command to engage.  Regardless of what the enemy did, we were to await Hoscoe’s word, which in turn would be echoed by horn.  So much depended on the accuracy of my own report, but our action was based upon just that.

From around the lesser pyramids the humans came out, all were armed with rough swords and weapons.  If unholy flame would consume all, then it would include the cogs and humans who fought with them, as well.  Hoscoe would be right, they were just tools.  I wondered if they even had an idea what might be coming.  Y’nesia mentioned diamonds in the guardians’ eyes … I wondered if that was why Meidra had helped reopen the diamond mines.

We were well into the march, and looked like a long line wrapped around the Pyramid, when suddenly I felt a surge of energy from under So’Yeth.  One moment everything was dead calm, then the next it seemed something far deep, even miles below, came to sudden life.  My horse felt it too, as the sensation ran through him to get to me.  It was all I could do to keep my mount under control when Hoscoe must have seen what he was looking for from the Pyramid.

He was guessing the humans would be given some kind of cue, and they would attack us, then run back to the ditch with us chasing them, for the cogs to surface and catch us off guard.  Hoscoe wanted to act before they received their cue, and then press them before they could recover their footing, as he put it.  But he was waiting for something from the Pyramid.  What, he wasn’t sure, but he was playing his instinct and experience. 

Exactly what the enemy was planning, we will never know.  Hoscoe had carefully prepared his commands with his point leaders all around the line, and from casually sitting his horse and riding in a circle, the enemy staring at us with weapons sheathed and beginning to engage in their noon meal while watching our spectacle, he roared out the Nahjiuese command for attack, “HAHT’SWEI!”  On the instant, over four hundred hunting horns sounded loudly as our horses were turned with a well-trained left-facing movement, and thundered at top speed into the enemy mass.

All around our circle, troops broke right instead of left and immediately dismounted, aimed their crossbows upward at a calculated arc, and fired their weapons toward the ditch-line where we were headed.  This was a one time, do-or-die tactic, which had us racing in the direction of the crossbow bolt fire, with expectation the bolts would strike downward into the water before we got there.

The frogs had warmed to our antics and were suddenly in a panic as the front wave raced for the ditch-line with LBC’s ready and cocked with our own payload.  It was a huge gamble, but it was our one shot.  The Arabian Chargers of the first wave deserve as much credit as anyone, as we all slid to a near halt and with yet another left-facing movement within scant inches of the ditch, we fired those Magical Ice Bolts straight down into the water, into the cognobins who were already trying to deal with the rain of missiles plunging down into their unexpected masses.

How many cogs were injured in that first volley is unimportant, it set us up for our next move.  There was no time to watch those Ice Bolts do their work.  As I had hoped, upon contact with the hardness of water they immediately began their effect, and apparently each bolt hit a cognobin as well. 

I could feel the energy from below well up, and from the south, the walls of the Pyramid started rolling away, from within shouts were heard as enemy forces were preparing to come out.  As we flanked back to meet the second wave of cavalry, something else began to happen.  From the four corner towers there was a groaning as something was opening from their tops.

You would think an army leader might stand back and let the troops do their work.  But as I turned my charger to join the second wave, to my right I could see Hoscoe as his soldiers must have seen him in the Jernigan War, at the Battle of Kithnuchai, and the sacking of the great city of Hezk’Lien.  He was first to fire his crossbow into the water and the second bolt of his Mark VII hit as most were firing their one. 

He rode a fierce black charger with three white feet, and when we met the second wave he had already reloaded his Mark VII and pulled his sword.  As the full cavalry bore down to cross the now frozen mote of ice and to the hill, it was General Tyorrin Hoscoe Val’Ihrus who led the way.  It was he who touched ice first, and he who rose up onto the Pyramid’s Holy Dias to fire upon the first of the unprepared enemy.  They had not expected our maneuver and were caught completely off-guard.

We may have ascended the plateau, but we had not yet taken it.  Human warriors with an ancient golden armor were taking arms against us, but I could not describe it all in detail, I was fighting.  They were dressed in some archaic chain mail, but wore skirts and used a short blade and shield.  It seemed they were pouring from within the Pyramid’s walls.  Some of the apparent blocks had rolled upward and into the structure.

What I had to do was get inside that gateway on the south side.  Hoscoe’s was now on his feet and I found myself beside him.  Together we fought back to back and as deadly as it was, it was exhilarating as well.  How he found the breaks, I couldn’t imagine, but we kept pressing through the steady stream of warriors.  He fought with intensity beyond imagination and I was pushing myself to keep up.  For months I had been training to control my own rages, to conserve my own energy for the useful moments and still had much yet to learn.

With every strike he was yelling commands to our troops.  Yet as we fought, I felt that energy again, and it was stronger.  We were now at the top of the Pyramid’s base and I saw the heads of statues slowly rising up.  In the statues’ eyes, though, were diamonds … and they were shining.  Zaeghun’s Lair!  Up on top … the Witch Kin---

I glanced at a statue with the head of a hyena … and on top of it was Kisparti; He had straddled the snout and locked his legs in while aiming that 400.  I saw a spear hit him solid, but he didn’t move and the spear fell away. 

“No-o-o-o!” I yelled.  I sprang to aim my crossbow … and took out one enemy aiming at him, but it took too long to reload.  There had to be something better and I thought of the re-curve bows used by my ancestors. 

The statue was rising higher and the enemy was focusing on Kisparti.  I could hear Hoscoe yelling at me, but I had to save my man.  Too far away and too many, I sliced through a torso and parried a weapon to slice another, yet farther away another threw a spear at the man on the statue.  I couldn’t help him but I had to try.  He was a sitting target, helplessly I watched him take a crossbow bolt under the shoulder blade but he held steady, focused; he was sacrificing his life for the one good shot.

I was washed through with burning rage, but I couldn’t let myself go berserk; my mental clarity was necessary for the task in front of me and I felt helpless.  Five times more Kisparti took bolts but held his aim, and then he let loose his own bolt.  I saw Soyvette take the bolt fired from the 400 through the head and topple off backward as the scepter fell from his hand; and as the Witch King fell, so did Kisparti … over two hundred feet to the ground below, before landing on the frozen mote.

The scepter did not fall down the side of the Pyramid, and I could only imagine it had come to rest on that nearly forty foot square platform.  Then Hoscoe was beside me yelling, “Timber Wolf!  It is now to you!”

I looked and saw the gateway opened, I had to do my job.  A quick forearm clasp to Hoscoe and I pulled my own horn.  My men were in place and we charged in. 

The architecture was astounding and the ceilings high.  We had done what no one had done in thousands of years, but we weren’t finished by a long shot.  Using staged volleys of crossbows, we made our entrance, and then to swords.  I had expected cognobins, but we got big humans.  Then we met some elves with swords and magic.  Tobin took a spot of light into the chest which blew a hole out his back many times bigger than when it went in. 

Wesney came in with us and almost caught one of those spots of light when Merle shoved him out of the way, narrowly missing it himself.  When I first saw Wesney in combat I was astounded, was he not a surgeon?  But then, who better to know the right place to put a cut than one who knows the body intimately, and where better to learn a history than right in the middle. 

Wesney had courage, and watching him I saw he had skill.  Almost all our boys used broadswords, but Wesney used a more slender blade something called a rapier.  It was more of a parrying and thrust weapon, but his was sharpened top and bottom on the front third to a razor sharpness.  One might think his blade would not be as effective as these heavier weapons, but he wove that blade with beautiful efficiency.  Many ties he deflected an opponent’s weapon and skewered him, or else found a carotid artery with a surgically precise draw cut on the neck.  And he did it all with the ultra-calm demeanor of the master physician he was.  It was if he was waging war against a human sized disease.

Yes, he had skill, but he also had something more. Wesney pulled out a stick, the one which had been used to kill Lieutenant Commander Eppard and identified as a wand, and he aimed it at an elf who died instantly.

I had learned to merge my own energy with my sword, and I *Pressed* causing something like green and blue flames to embrace the blade.  Everything I cut sliced like a hot knife through butter.  As we fought I could tell these were clansmen dressed in cool armor, nothing more. 

As we pressed inward, from the ceiling came a rain of deadly missiles as giant spiders with human heads and arms took aim with small crossbows.  Dudley found a place he could use for cover as two footmen protected him from the front, and began a firefight with the ceiling.  One of his footmen went down and another took his place.  Others of our troops got the same idea, and I saw Merle swing that 400 on his back and chase a lead on a spider-leg across the walls before shooting the bastard and pinning him onto a statue of a crocodile.

One of those elves suddenly crossed my path and raised one of those wand things at me, but Izner skewered him with his sword from behind.  The wand skittered across the floor and I did a roll to pick it up; eight little dots on the side, interesting.  I pointed it at another elf who saw me with it, and then his eyes got big as I pressed a dot.  He didn’t think about it long. 

When I pushed the dot, though, I felt strange.  Just to see what would happen, I *Pressed* my own energy into it, then aimed at a bunch of bad guys and punched the dot.  A backlash knocked me twenty feet back into a wall, and a ball of black and purple light forty feet in diameter hit those guys and burned them to a crisp.  Problem was, I dropped the damned stick and couldn’t see it, what from the blur in my eyes.

Izner was beside me and must have seen what I did, he found my wand and aimed it himself, taking out another one of those elves.  Then right out of the serpent-man paintings on the wall, serpent-man creatures started walking out and fighting us. 

Y’nesia abruptly appeared beside me and said, “Here is not your place.  Follow me.”

“Like Hades it isn’t.  These are my boys-”

“There … Is … No … Time.”

Ander was there, and for the first time he saw her.  He instantly knew and understood and yelled at me, “Wolf!  We got it!  Throw the ball.”  It was the phrase he would use, back when we played pigskin.  The team would set me up so I could throw for a score.  I now had the ball and it was up to me to throw true to the goal.

Y’nesia pressed her hand to a gem in the wall and a door opened.  She ducked in and I followed quickly.  The door closed, but not before Izner, Dudley, Deak, T-bone, Patriohr and Lieutenant L’Nahr made it through with me.  Dudley tossed me that wand and said, “Here’s your play-pretty … and don’t get your drawers tangled in your ass.  We’re here, now do that Ahnagohr shit and we got your back!”

I wanted to swear, some really bad swearing, but Y’nesia wasn’t waiting.  She waved her hands at us and something went blurry, then she put her finger over her mouth for us to keep quiet.  Somehow we knew where each other was, but when I held my hand up in front of my face, it was like all I could see was an outline.  We went through a maze of chambers, hallways, staircases going downward, a room which spun for what seemed forever and then stopped in a bunch of mist, and when the mist faded away we were standing in a huge field where the whitest goats the size of deer were grazing. 

She waved her hands again and the air swirled around until all we could see was what seemed to be a mile long tunnel that ended in another room of mist.  All the while the vast energy surge below was almost to the point of causing me pain.  And then we were in the middle of it.  My whole body tingled as we stepped into that second misty room.  From time to time Y’nesia kept glancing back to me, she didn’t seem to notice the others.

In the second misty room she said, “We are here.  On other side is Chamber of Utnim-Su-Zai.  He that you seek is there.  The Gate of Huk-nu’Sis, called by some the Eye of Anu-Rah, is there.”  My thoughts went immediately to Hoscoe, ‘It’s what he was looking for,’ as Y’Nesia continued, “Death is there.  Many doorways are there.”

“Doorways,” I asked, “Doorways to where?”

“Where do you wish to go?”

That caught me flatfooted.  Thinking quickly I asked, “Can you get my friends out?”

“Hey!” declared Izner, “We go where you go.  We came together, we leave together, or we don’t leave.”

The looks on their faces were resolute.  I said, “There’s a huge magic creature that has to be killed, a wizard who has to be killed or stopped, and then we have to fix it so this door thing can’t be used again.  It’s probably going to happen all at once.”

L’Nahr said, “Major, we’re ready.”  I saw he had one of those wand things, that made two we had, and I was wishing we had a lot more.

Dudley remarked, “Are we goin’ to take a dump or go kick some ass?”

I asked Y’nesia again, very pointedly, “Can you get my friends out?”

“I can show them the way, but choose their own path they must.”

I took a deep breath, then said, “Fair enough.”

Stepping first through the misty veil, I saw a vast chamber with a thirteen feet high ceiling.  I figured the place to be one hundred and thirty feet in diameter and a pentagram was etched into the floor.  At the center was etched the figure of a large eye, the pupil being thirteen feet in diameter.  At each point of the pentagram was a diamond the size of my fist, and they were all glowing.  ‘That explains the importance of the diamond mines,’ I thought.

In the ceiling was a paralleled design, but with the pentagram pointing in the exact opposite direction.  Diamonds were in the points above, as well.  Around the lower pentagram circle were the same runes from the pits, and in the pupil center was the thirteenth rune.  In the walls, evenly spaced, were numerous openings that I guess counted to be thirty-nine all totaled, including the one we were coming out of.  Everywhere were scattered lavers, pillars from ceiling to floor and statues against the wall.

There were also several beings in this room, including one humongous cognobin who wore a gold band around his head, a few humans, three robed elves with outstretched arms evenly spaced around the pentagram, my friend the Warrior-elf, and a human looking person who looked like his skin was missing and was in process of making an incantation.  All of this I saw in a scant second.  And then the world went sideways.

Chapter   51

________________________

 

 

I DID NOT hear the exact word skinless said in his incantation, but when he said it a rush of unnatural energy tore through my body and I screamed.  It wasn’t intentional, mind you, to announce our secret arrival in such a way, but it felt like a thousand lightning bolts coursed through me at once.  It was the same instant jagged lines of multi-colored lightning danced from one diamond to the next, forming a kind of electric cage around the pentagrams.  A blur began to emit from the eye on the floor and then everyone in the room looked in our direction.

A robed elf with pale skin and orange hair addressed skinless in a form of Draconic I barely recognized, saying something to the effect of, “Xiahstoi!  You fool!  You said-”

“Hnugh, Phostein, Rh’Tosh!  Quickly!”  Yelled Xiahstoi as he pointed our way. 

‘Rh’Tosh,’ that name … the Eayahnite priest who came to our quarters when I was little.  Did he have something to do with Kalisha’s death, or anything else for that matter?  A grizzled old man turned quickly and stepped back in a dramatic pose while throwing his hands up in the air … and my whole team suddenly became weightless.  My elvin-warrior buddy, who I finally decided was Phostein, aimed that craiken ring at me again and I just winced.  It knocked me back into Dudley, Deak and T-bone, each of who began spinning around in the air without control. 

Izner leaped to evade the collision, and while he succeeded he also flew across one part of the room and collided with the ceiling.  L’Nahr managed to latch onto a protrusion on a pillar and aimed his wand at a robed human in process of moving his hands and fired.  Charred mess splattered all over, a hand splashed into a laver full of amber liquid, revealing it was only us who were weightless and floating.

T-bone showed his quick thinking and rebounded off of the wall with a hefty leg press, right into another spell caster and smashed her into the wall.  Hnugh was charging and drew his morning star back deep to attack Patriohr, but Patriohr was not to go that easily.  He leg-pressed once off of a pillar, off of a wall from a different angle, off of the ceiling, down beside a laver, and leaping up did a back flip allowing him to catch the Cog Chief under the chin with both feet.  Shael’s, where did he learn to move like that?

The pulsing energy was still affecting me and I was raked with pain, with sword in one hand and wand in the other, I saw as I *Channeled* into the sword it glowed brighter and drew some of the pain from me, so I tucked the wand away and *Channeled* harder.  I think Phostein wanted his sword back, but even he marveled at the effect I was manifesting with it.  The more I channeled the brighter the blade became.  He had a new sword, but it wasn’t glowing and I was mad.

Y’nesia, on the other hand, doffed her cloak and I’ll be jiggered if she didn’t have wings … and some kind of armor.  Cherron’s Beard!  Apndiul … her ancestors built this place, she was one of those praying mantis people and that wasn’t armor, it was her hide, I mean her skin.  She began flying from one of our team to the other, laying a glowing hand on us and speaking Elvish words meaning, wall walk. 

Why Y’nesia didn’t fight with magic, I didn’t know, maybe it was out of her portfolio, but she pulled out a pair of glowing hand sickles and everything she hit cut deep.  A wizard hurled a dull silver glow of an effect at her, and she caught it with those sickles and spinning in mid air she hurled it right back.  The wizard had a funny expression on his face as he saw that effect come back at him, right before he turned to stone. 

Cogs were coming into the room and over in the center those three elves were still chanting, and something really big was starting to form in that blur.  I wanted Rh’Tosh, but I had to put him into the back of my mind.

Phostein was giving it all he had and he was now covered in that protective glow, and while he might be better than me in many regards, I had him at skill-at-arms, and I now had the superior weapon.  I had to focus.  The prize was in that blur … if only to bring the roof in.  That was it!  Would my sudden idea work, I didn’t know.

Phostein could do nice flips with his effect enhancement, but I had trained in gymnastics.  The weightlessness didn’t bother me, in fact it gave me release.  I used my imagination and made him chase me in our combat.  With every movement I would aim my glowing sword at a pillar, and when I hit chunks flew.  The alarm in my opponent’s eyes told me I had scored the right idea.  It didn’t take long to finish cutting through one pillar, and my glowing blade was making it easy.

Although I was channeling it into my blade, that energy pulsing through my body was getting old.  More importantly, these people were succeeding in keeping us away from the pentagram and that thing in the center was starting to solidify, and it had fins.  Suddenly Izner hurtled past Phostein’s back and sliced hard.  I took the moment and attacked his sword, shattering the blade like glass, and then striking hard at the elbow joint.  I just didn’t have time for this.

As Phostein’s arm flew through the air, I yelled out at the fast chanting person calling himself Xiahstoi, “Hey Aydrian, dog-face!”  I actually got his attention and he looked at me in startled amazement as I hammered hard into another pillar.  Focusing all the unnatural energy I could into the glowing sword, I cut through the pillar and it immediately began to crumble.  The ceiling groaned and he stopped in mid-syllable, horrified.  One of the three elves echoed the horror on her face and two of the warrior-elves targeted me.

The creature was still there, however, and you could tell they, the elf wizards, were also in a race against time.  The creature was not yet solid, but was looking pretty mean and you could hear it scream to shake the room.  My guys were fighting for all they had, but we still weren’t taking the advantage, we were running even.  The enemy was being killed, but something would take the place of the downed, and as one of us tried to attack the three elves, someone would get in the way.

Our team was trading opponents, running up and down the walls, across the ceiling, vaulting through the air and doing well, until Deak plunged in and got his sword into Hnugh’s midriff.  The blow was a good one, but the cog hammered Deak hard in the back and I knew he was all but dead.  I saw his face and he looked at me.  The former Clan Chief grabbed Hnugh by the legs and wouldn’t let go as I saw his life fluid dribbling out of his nose and mouth; and then he locked eye contact and with a grin gave me a nod. 

L’Nahr leapt away from his opponent as a piece of roof fell on the ugly, and bracing himself against a laver, aimed his wand at one of the elves in the circle and let him have it.  How many more shots did he have?  The elf went to pieces, if you get my drift, but it didn’t stop the energy flowing.  Was it too late, or did their incantation have nothing to do with it?  No.  They were harnessing it.  So how was it generated?  And where was Aydrian going?  He was backing toward one of the doorways, and then turning to it he began pressing the runes over it in some kind of combination.

Patriohr broke his sword fighting against Hnugh’s morning star as Deak was still hanging on to his legs; Dudley caught the wizard elf on the far side in the back with his blade, and as the elf turned around Dud cut him down; L’Nahr aimed his wand against the final wizard elf; I finished one of my warrior-elves. 

L’Nahr fired his weapon as his target attempted to loose an effect simultaneously.  The two effects met in the middle and the blast was as beautiful as it was deadly.  The elf was thrown through the lightning net of energy and alongside the elemental, which in turned let loose with a horrific scream and tore the elf into shreds.  L’Nahr, however, was smashed into a piece of falling roof and was buried by tons of ancient brick.

Slicing at my remaining warrior elf, I leapt over with a flip as she rolled away from my blade.  T-bone then hit her broadside as if a living missile and cut her legs from under her.  I yelled at Izner, who was currently on the ceiling, and at Patriohr. Taking a wild chance, I *Channeled* my blade as strongly as I could, then tossed it to Patriohr hoping the effect would last long enough for him to use it. 

Swirling my finger around the air toward Izner, I looked toward Aydrian, who was still working some kind of combination from the door runes.

Izner and I both leaped toward each other as I saw Patriohr catch the still glowing blade and slice through Hnugh’s weapon, then his midriff, then cleanly cutting off his head.  Meeting each other in the air, Izner and I hooked arms, spun around, and released each other at just the right moment to completely change our trajectories.  I added a triple tuck and curl to add momentum, then extended myself in time to dive into Aydrian and knock him sprawling. 

If you think any of this happened in slow time, you’re wrong.  In fact, everything happened so fast it takes my breath just remembering.  But when I hit Aydrian, I didn’t intend to let go.  In my hands was the person who called himself Xiahstoi.  As I held him I knew I had laid hold of a physical coward, small, boney, and a manipulator.  But he was powerful in his own right.  More importantly, he was smart and he knew how to control this ancient technology.

Holding him secure with my right hand so I wouldn’t float away, I smashed my left against his face and felt the wizard’s teeth break.  Another blow to his cheek and I followed with an uppercut to the soft belly and felt the wind rushed from his body.  He tried to grab at my hands and mouth words, but the jaw didn’t work.  I saw a ring on his right hand and giving a hard under-hook twist against my own shoulder, I broke his elbow.  Screaming, he grabbed for a wand in his belt and I seized his hand. 

My feet firmly on the floor, I smashed the wizard into the wall, lifted him up and did it again.  He wasn’t human.  He looked human, but there was a tensile strength within him that was unbelievable.  And he wasn’t skinless like he first appeared, his hide had a marbling running throughout that made me think of a snake, and his skeleton was taking my abuse against the wall.  A medallion hung from his neck with a gem at center.  I grabbed it to twist, but this sent him into an outright panic. 

The necklace broke in my hand and the look on his face was one of terror.  Frantically he tried to grab for it and I took the wand in his belt and held it against his belly.  There were no dots, so I *Channeled* again and into him.  An explosion resulted and I was flying in the air, landing inside the pentagram with the elemental directly over me.  The wand was no longer in my hand, and my hand burned.

All around me I felt that unnatural power, stronger than before, and the pain was quickly coming back.  I couldn’t hear because of the beast’s screaming, but my *Awareness* directed me to move quickly and in the left direction.  It was incredibly fast and I was trying to focus through the pain and screams in my head.  Y’nesia’s thoughts were in my mind, “He is not complete.  Make him to cease and he will return to his realm.”  My first concern was how to keep him from making me cease. 

Not complete?  His breath was complete enough.

The pain was excruciating and my sword was gone, I couldn’t direct my ... 

Another roll and I pulled my new stick batons. 

‘I ... have to … focus,’ my mind screamed as I tried desperately to out-maneuver the creature.

Roll-tuck-faster-*Faster* … THERE!  I felt myself under the massive abdomen where I could strike.  Directing energy into the sticks, I expanded them into *Thorn Blades*, struck straight up with both, and *Pushed* all the energy which was pummeling my essence through the sticks … the wave of exploding power smashed me into the eye on the floor.

Where …?  I couldn’t tell where I was.  But there was no elemental, I did it.  Or did I?  The pain was still there, and I could feel the engraved eye beneath me.  The energy was still pulsing all around me and I was all but blinded by the lightning web around the pentagram.  I could sense the ceiling was breaking in, but Y’nesia was still in my head, “You must be strong …”

I wasn’t finished, there was more to do.  Looking up into what I thought was the ceiling I saw something like a tornado, and I was at the bottom.  This was the source, I knew that.  Streaks of colored lightning were coursing through the funnel and I could feel it, it hurt.  I had to close this thing.  The wand in my belt … I had to try. 

I tried to speak and couldn’t hear my own voice.  “Y’nesia,” I thought, “get my friends out … NOW!”

Attempting to stand, I got the wand and held it in my hand.  The energy was trying to rise up, into that funnel.  Then I must focus down, into the Eye of Anu-Rah.  I reached for So’Yeth, to tap into my own source of energy … merging with the unnatural power around me, I took all I could … and then aiming down I rubbed down over as many dots as I could, as fast as I could, all at once, and *Channeled* everything once more as it felt my insides were being ripped out … the boom deafened me and I was sure I had been killed. 

For a long time it seemed I was floating like a feather carried by a storm.  Then I heard a buzzing sound of some kind, and a hard textured hand grab mine.  ‘Wihlabahk,’ I thought.  ‘I had stopped Wihlabahk.’

“No.  Wihlabahk is not yet.”  Then there was the flash of heat, being bashed from side to side against something I couldn’t see, then air, a sense of falling, and my ribs breaking as I hit something with just a touch of give.

Heal, I knew I had to heal, but was there anything left?  Just barely.  I was back at the mountain.  Cielizabeg had knocked me into a crevice.  But the stuff under my fingers wasn’t rock; what was it?  It was grass.  How -?  Was I outside the Pyramid?  Did we win?

My ribs and lungs were healed, but I still hurt like Hades, but there was still fresh blood in my mouth.  Wait … something was out there, human sized, and only a few rods away and getting closer.  I had heard the Shaman Lady’s voice.  She had followed me, what was her name?

“You are most difficult, but a worthy opponent.”  The language was Elvish, so who?  Phostein!  Phostein was here. 

Slowly I scrabbled to my knees.  In my hand I still had the wand.  Why hadn’t it blown up like Aydrian’s?  Wobbling up to one knee I turned to see my adversary.

“Is it true?  You are the one they call Timber Wolf?”  Phostein looked bad, as bad as I did, maybe worse.

“Yeah, why?” I asked, weakly.

“It is said,” he was staggering for breath himself, “it is said you created the quick-throw.”  I saw the fingers of his right hand, his only hand, flexing themselves over a knife he had slung into a low position and the sheath tied down to his leg.

“Huh?”  Was the only thing I could think of to say, “What are you talking about?”

“At least it is you.” he said

Suddenly he jumped up into the air and spun to one side, grabbing his blade, and as he landed he fashionably drew and whipped the blade my way.  He was fast, I’ll give him that, and his aim true.  But I was faster.  The blade came to where my heart would have been, but my senses were ahead of him and well trained.  I caught his knife and whipping around I let it fly into his own chest.

His expression was one of amazement.  He slowly dropped to his knees and I swear he was almost smiling.  That smile made me mad, and I glanced at the wand.  One dot was left.  I hadn’t hit all of them.  I aimed it at Phostein and fired.  Watching him smolder as I staggered to my knee and back up, I noticed off in the distance three men were riding my way.  They were leading seven horses and they were coming with a purpose.  What I mean is, they were riding fast.

As the riders advanced, I spent a moment or three looking around.  To my south was a bluff with one of those old, square ruins.  To the east I saw hills and mountains in the horizon.  All around me were gently rolling hills and some flatland.  I was nowhere near the Pyramid.  In my throwing hand was still the jeweled medallion I had taken off of Aydrian, only the jewel had cracked.  It must have broken when I caught the knife, so I tossed it into the grass.

I was hungry, thirsty, sore, and my possible pouch was gone.  My clothes were tattered and burned, except for my boots, and I stank.  What happened at the Pyramid?  Did my team make it out?  I was getting anxious, but not as much as I was confused as I saw Hoscoe was the first of the three, but he was coming from the wrong direction.  After him was Gohruvae and … okay what I saw didn’t make me very happy.  Once I identified Hoscoe, I left Phostein lying among the billowing grasses and started walking in their direction

As we met I looked up at Hoscoe with bewildered curiosity. 

He, on the other hand, was excited and pleased.  Sliding down he grabbed my forearm, and then gave me a manly embrace and said, “Wolf, Timber Wolf my boy, am I glad to see you.  We must hurry, there is very little time.  You know Gohruvae, and this is his manservant, Sormiske.  You must needs mount quickly and let us be on our way.”

It seemed I was in a bad dream.  Gohruvae led a saddled mount up to me, and Sormiske looked the other way.  What was going on here?  I touched the horse’s reins, and then asked, “I don’t understand.  The battle … what happened … did my team get …?”

Quickly, Hoscoe said, “The Battle at the Pyramid was eleven weeks ago.  Ander led your unit out when the floor started to shudder … but none of your team came out.  We thought you all had perished in the explosion.  One of the statues fell over and broke into pieces and the Gate of Tio closed in unto itself.  Lahrcus rode for the diamond mines with an army and we made it to Brosman.”

He hesitated for a moment, “The cognobins have been defeated, I think, but Chitivias is dead.  Aldivert claims to have found him dead and has declared himself heir to the throne.”

I swung up with thoughts of my friends’ death on my mind.  And there was Patriohr, I had failed and was being washed through with guilt.  I barely heard Hoscoe say, “You and I have been declared criminals and have been sent for, for transport to Kiubejhan to stand trial and execution.”

Turning to Gohruvae, my look was questioning and he answered, “I have no reason to stay, and I know a shortcut to Cherron’s Road.  The General says you know the phrase which can get us all through.”

“Wolf,” said Hoscoe with empathic urgency, “There is a large patrol not more than an hour behind us, at best.”

“How did you know where - ?”

“The Shaman Lady …”

And with that we were off, riding hard west by southwest.  Two canteens were on my saddle horn, and Hoscoe tossed me a pouch full of some food, the saddlebags were full of jerky as well.  Everything was happening so fast, there was so much I wanted to know.  But we weren’t riding at a conversational speed.  My head was reeling and I was overcome with depression.  We had won the battle, but it seemed I had lost.  I had let my chums down and got the legal heir killed.  Now we were fugitives riding from judgment and death from the very country we had just fought for.

Everything was wrong.  And what about Riana?  Now I was breaking my promise to her by running.  Wasn’t there anything else I could do?  And once more there was Sormiske.  I thought he would be dead by now.  Gohruvae’s manservant?  What did that mean?  I was disgusted.  Obviously Hoscoe didn’t want Gohruvae to know we knew each other.  Alright, I could play along, but would Sormiske?  I noticed he had grown his hair back, and he was still wearing it short cropped … it looked like he was trying to coax some facial fuzz into a mustache and beard, it made me think of a teenage human entering puberty.

The food was basic, but good to my innards, and the water was refreshing.  They had made camp twice before, and had one brush with Aldivert’s troops already.  In command was former Lieutenant Davolet, now the new Commander of the Army.  We were close to what is called Donce Canyon, where the cul-de-sac and ancient gateway could be found, so there would be no camping tonight.  The plan was to make it to the other side of Cherron’s Road, then we could relax a little and rest a day or two as there was no other known way to the river; not without traveling north for several days, that is.

Afterward, we would go our separate ways; Hoscoe and me headed south to the coast and seek passage to N’Ville.

I rode because I was in the saddle, as beat as I was.  If I were to lay down, I believed I could sleep for a week.  Switching the horses twice, we rode all night with only short breaks.  I was able to learn that the top of the Pyramid had blown like a chimney, two of the statues had gone back down halfway, and one was still standing.  Flame had shot out of the southern doorway and smoked for days.

The eyes had been plucked out of the fallen statue, but the diamonds were still in the others.  I briefed what happened below, and told them about Phostein.  But as I said, there was little time to talk.  As I gave my reports, Sormiske glanced at me from time to time and I could see jealousy in his eyes.  He hadn’t changed.  Simply put, he was a man with a lot of natural ability who believed he had none, and was willing to cheat, lie and compromise his standards to get what he believed he deserved.

I did learn Gohruvae had purchased Sormiske about a year beforehand due to exhibited skills with cooking.  Gohruvae had chosen Sormiske for this venture in part because of apparent usefulness in setting up camp, handling the chow, tending to riding stock, and the fact he was skilled in riding.

In a brief moment of secrecy, Hoscoe mentioned to me Sormiske would most likely not say anything about our past association in fear Gohruvae would cast him off.  Sormiske was afraid we might say something.

“It is a thing we can use to our advantage.  He will want to be a good little eunuch,” Hoscoe said with a tone of scornful amusement.  “We can deal with him later.”

It was then that I understood Sormiske.  Self-pride and arrogance were his primary problem.  Sormiske truly believed he was better than others and would never get it that all he had to do was some honest work.  His kind would be shortcutting their way through life for as long as they existed, and loathing those who have more than they regardless of the means.

For a moment I softly chuckled, but only for a moment.  When I did he looked sharply my way.  In the four years since I last saw him, I had risen to a rank beyond anything he had accomplished while he had been reduced to a much lower class than mine had been … and it burned him because of it.

It was near to twilight and we had changed horses the second time when it all got quiet.  We were in the mountains bordering the Teshucarr River, and the old gateway was only a few miles off.  I had nothing left and was doing all I could to stay in the saddle, so I didn’t feel the warning signs from the ground.  A crossbow bolt whipped across the air, a horse screamed and reared, the horn of my saddle was knocked off by another bolt and we knew we were being attacked. 

Someone had anticipated our direction and headed us off while we were being chased by the patrol.  Letting the spare horses go we rode like the Winds of Torsham down a hill toward the pass to our goal.  We had to make a rise, cross another hill and we would enter the canyon … if we could just make it.

We were strung out with Gohruvae in the lead, then Hoscoe, me, then Sormiske when Sormiske’s horse was hit and went down.  Almost at the rise … Gohruvae turned and saw Sormiske’s horse go down, and he turned to go back and help.  Hoscoe and I both drew up at the top of the rise, and saw seven riders riding hard to Sormiske and Gohruvae.  Hoscoe whipped up his Mark VII and charged down to help and I couldn’t let him go alone. 

Gohruvae dropped from his horse as bolts began to fly, and he took one as he was pulling Sormiske from under his horse.  He took another as he turned his own crossbow and caught a soldier in the chest.  Sormiske scrambled onto Gohruvae’s horse and I saw the panic in his eyes.  Hoscoe’s back was to me, but I saw him take two riders, and as they came close he got another with his Ace in the hole.

Gohruvae was trying to get into the saddle when Sormiske kicked him off and turning, fled toward the mountains in a totally different direction.  Hoscoe pulled his sword and engaged one soldier as I, weaponless, vaulted from my horse onto another soldier and carried him to the ground.  A bolt went clean through my tattered garment and into Hoscoe’s mount, which reared up and backwards onto Hoscoe.

Adrenaline coursed through me as I desperately searched So’Yeth for more energy.  Pulling my opponent’s knife I sliced him across the throat, then pulled the last soldier down, grabbed his sword and ran him through. 

Looking quickly around, I saw Gohruvae was dead and Hoscoe was down and hurt badly.  Under Hoscoe’s struggling horse I saw the Mark VII, busted.  I grabbed a loose horse and saw a detachment of riders coming hard maybe two miles away.  With all I had I pulled the wounded animal off of Hoscoe, and as the horse managed to get to its feet I grabbed Hoscoe up, slung him over my shoulder, and hoisted him onto my captured mount.

I would not leave the Mark VII to be examined by an enemy, so I grabbed it and fastened it quickly to the saddle horn and then put Hoscoe’s sword in its sheath and on my own back.  I tried to summon another horse, but I couldn’t make it work.  There was nothing else to do, so I jumped to the back of Hoscoe’s mount and smacked it into a dead run.

Cruelty to animals is against everything I believe, but Hoscoe was in a bad way and I had to get him out of there.  I had a good idea where we were going and we went at it at full speed.  The Arabian was a game animal and he gave it his heart.  I knew they were behind us, and that they could see us.  Running so hard would kill the horse, I knew, but the alternative was our own death.

I whipped that animal for everything and more as he ran all out, carrying nearly four hundred pounds to that cul-de-sac where I prayed I could speak the right words before the gate.  We made the canyon, and far up the field was the ancient gate.  A bolt hissed by me, and then I felt the horse shudder.  Again I whipped him, a little further.  Once more he shuddered. 

Around a sharp bend in the canyon we ran until we came to the base of a steep incline leading to the gate.  I tried to urge the horse up the hill but he just couldn’t make it, stumbling as he tried.  With no time to spare I jumped off and pulled Hoscoe onto my shoulder.  Grabbing the Mark VII I swung into the climb as the horse lurched away.  I hoped the kingdom’s value and need of horses would lead them to care for the animal.

Eighty feet, I had to climb eighty feet to that ancient gate.

Inside I could feel energy, strong and ancient, and it made me tingle.  They were getting closer and I could feel them rounding the bend.  I contorted my throat and voiced the ancient tongue as it had been taught to me, “Ggjhnahk’a-Tahggk u’Sstukg nuk huil!”

Someone yelled from one hundred rods away, “Major Wolf, you’re trapped.  Surrender and we won’t …”

The ground trembled and dust poured from the seams of the door.  It opened outward, and revealed a great disk of shining gold which rolled to the left, revealing another which rolled to the right.  Inside a long, winding pathway with crystals on the wall sides reportedly led through the mountain.  The tunnel looked to be perfectly round with a ten feet wide floor and a ceiling fifteen feet high.  The walls curved under the floor, as if the walkway were a later addition.

I had no idea what was going to happen, but I heard yells and a bolt hit me in the back, then another cut my scalp.  Just inside the doorway I felt the bite of a bolt-head hit me solid in the leg, the point stopping at the front of my left thigh as I spun inward and commanded the doorway, “Kiug huel!.”  The door closed as another bolt flew in and I heard yells of men on the outside.

The air was foul and I knew we were in a bad place.  The air sucked its way down, and flames of brilliant colors shot up around us and in a circular pattern, tracing the placement of the crystals.  The floor was covered in sheets of flame, but the magic in my boots protected my feet from the fire … but what fire?  Could anyone comprehend the tunneling inferno before me?  How far to go … how deeply into the mountain did this road lead?  Had I killed us with this avenue?

Certain death was behind us by torture and execution, and before us lay death by incineration … yet a sheer hope of freedom on the other end.  If it was to be, it was up to me.

Into the flaming road I trod, with each step it seemed the fires grew hotter.  I tried to double-time march, a type of jogging step Hoscoe taught me, and which I used in my physical training runs, while singing the cadences he liked. 

Suddenly the walls exploded … showering us in purple sheets of fire and unbelievable heat … my breath … my lungs were scorched and my hair caught fire.

“Left … left … left-right-le’YEFT … left-your-right-your-LE’yeft …”

Another explosion of heat and fire … It was too much … so far to go …

“… left-your-right-your-le’YEFT …”

So much heat, yet I was so wet … my feet … my boots were soaked inside … were my feet boiling … the pain …

“Hear-the-five-forty-com-ing-ov-er-the-rise …”

A blurring roll of heat coming my way … I ducked my head and charged in … ‘Where am I?’

“We’re-going-to-slice-your-ass-make-Jer-ni-gans-die … AHG-yah … AHG-yah …”

What was I doing in Hades Fires?  I couldn’t see, just opening my eyes a slit brought excruciating pain.  It was a nightmare; I was in a horrible dream.  If only I could wake up.  Staggering in my steps I was hit by yet another blast of flame, but it didn’t hurt anymore … I was so hot, hot and wet, and sticky.  I almost dropped something from my shoulder … what was I carrying?  A … a man, a human.  I could let him go and go get a drink, and wake up …

I stumbled and my foot found a ledge … and then my eyes opened and I saw a magnificent horse rise up from the furnace before me … a stallion with fire for his mane and tail … Dahnté … and he was on his hind legs, about to hit me.  I turned hard to the right to avoid his razor sharp hooves … and almost ran into a giant wolf made of flame leaping right at me … on his neck I saw a medallion … I ducked and turned somewhat to the left … and instead of hitting me, the flame of the wolf enveloped me as his front legs spread wide apart and the shape became that of a flaming Saukeir that flew in a direction where the flaming tunnel seemed to open from the fire, if only for an instant.

I had to keep my footing, and I tried hard to move in the direction the Saukeir had flown in … but I couldn’t keep up.  Was that a doorway I saw?

The walls exploded again and I became lost … we weren’t going to make it … the world began to spin in multiple directions … if I fell, I knew I would never get back up … Hoscoe … Hoscoe …

From out of the inferno a hooded figure emerged and pointed … where?

I saw into the hood and beheld a ghastly figure, was he death, come to lead me to the end?

Scared lips moved and I saw he was trying to speak, and then a gust of the torrent blew his hood away and I saw the features of a horridly scarred elf, Th’Khai … it had to be Th’Khai … here?  I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he was pointing in earnest. 

Was it a hundred feet or a hundred rods?  I could see a doorway.  My legs didn’t want to move and rebelled, my body wanted to quit and I couldn’t feel the floor beneath me.  How did I get a stick inside my leg?  Somehow I made one step, then another, and then another.

I thought I saw my momma dancing among the apple trees … I staggered in my steps and almost dropped Hoscoe …

So close, so far.  “You mussst be ssstrongerrr … Wihlabahk is coming,” I could hear Y’nesia say.  And then we were there, the door opened without my saying or doing a thing, and I could hear the roar of the Teshucarr.  Staggering outside, the door closed of its own accord and I dropped us both to ground untouched by human or elf in centuries, maybe thousands of years.

He looked so bad, as I know I did … tearing open his burned clothing he was covered in hard baked blood and a multitude of burns.  Three bolts had penetrated him, but they must have broken off when the horse fell on him.  I saw another piece of shaft, lower down on the right, which was a couple of days older.  If he could only hold on long enough for me to rest a little and heal him.

Panic rushed through me as I held his head, my own body burned horribly, and yelled at him as my lips cracked and bled, “Hoscoe … Hoscoe … we’re through, we’re free!  We’re FREE!” 

“On the other side of the river, there’s a huge waterfall.  It’s beautiful, Hoscoe, look.  It’s got to come from the Tio’Pashon Mountains.  It must be all one hundred and seventy feet tall.”  I was holding him so he could see.  Like a child I was holding back the tears, remembering my momma, who I couldn’t help, and Tahnus, Kisparti and …

Pleading, I said “Hoscoe, you can’t leave me.  I don’t know what to do … you’re like a father to me … you’ve got to …”

His left hand, burned and scarred, took me by the arm and he said so weakly, “I-I have trained you … in the best way … I know how.  Never … never forget … your Honor … Integrity … and … your Promise.  As long … as you remember … your teaching … I … shall always … be with you ……… for … I taught you all … all that I am.  I … am proud of you!”

Hoscoe finally managed to turn his head to see the waterfalls, and he smiled.  Then he looked at me, and after taking several ragged breaths and squeezing my arm said, “She’s waiting for me … can you see them … my grandbabies?”

The tears poured from my eyes and I said, “Yes, Hoscoe.  I see them, go to them … go to your family.” 

He squeezed my hand hard and I looked into his eyes and said “Kact’Ha’Shuintei, yuen poh Tahnna,” which is to say until later, Beloved Father.

Hoscoe smiled at me and said in a fading voice, “Kact’Ha’Juinjo … yuen … poh Tahnna,” which is to say until later, Beloved Son.  I kept looking him in the eye, directly, as we always had.  Then I realized he was gone, he had passed to meet his beloved wife, son, and grand babies.  My own cries of torrential pain echoed through the Teshucarr River Canyon walls, and I didn’t care.

Chapter   52

________________________

 

 

I FOUND A beautiful flat place about one hundred and twenty rods from the northern side of the tunnel entrance, and a dozen rods higher in elevation to place Hoscoe.  The spot would overlook the river rapids and the falls on the other side.  Now, I was sure what he meant by being able to lay him down.  He was buried deep, and with him I placed his mug, the broken Mark VII, and his sword. 

Now you might think burying such a wonderful blade a bad idea, but I had a plan.  If the plan succeeded, I would return for it, for I believe he wanted me to have it.  If my plan failed, I didn’t want it to go into the wrong hands.  With great emotion I held that blade.  Wearing it on my back had kept that one bolt from severing my spine when I surely thought I had been hit.  And the mug … I would never forget ……

Hoscoe had done his job, and he did it well.  He had found me, befriended me, trained and guided me.  My debt to him was infinite.  Now, before me was my first true choice of absolute free will.  Looking down the Teshucarr Trail, I smelled in the aroma of freedom, and there is nothing like it.  The roaring of the Teshucarr River called out to me.  But first, I had a mission.  I had a man to kill.

On Hoscoe’s person, trapped between he and I in the tunnel, were his ever-present trail rations.  They weren’t plentiful, but they were enough.  First, though, I found what was left of the arrow shaft in my leg.  Breaking it off at the head, I tried to pull it out the way it came in, but it broke off inside.  I had to push my finger into the hole and force the shaft out.  If you think that might be fun to see, try it for yourself.

Exhausted and with no power to heal myself, I laid beside the body of my mentor and surrogate father all through the night, protecting him from scavenging creatures before finally falling asleep.  My hands I had pushed into the soil amid a patch of sahrnoy vines and relished in the soothing sensation that rushed into my body; I fell asleep that way.  It was nearly evening of the next day when I awakened, somewhat refreshed and healed myself physically; enough so that I could complete his burial in a proper fashion. 

For two days I stayed there; finding a place where the water swirled I sat up to my neck and relished in the power of the water, losing myself in *Self Healing* meditation and recuperation, and consummation of sahrnoy tea; the sahrnoy root being a core component of druidic medicine and usually thought of as a weed by humans. 

The morning of the third day I went on the hunt.

No longer was I a civilized being, held by trappings of elegance and sophistication.  I was now as a beast of the wild.  Finding some ripened berries I ate, and then drank of the many water sources I could find.  With me I carried a hefty supply of the sahrnoy root; it was bitter on its own and best when brewed with honey and garlic, but that was the way it was. Even as a solitary component it magnified healing and endurance by several times.

With my stores of dried meat finally gone, my *Awareness* caught the sensation of my first quarry.

The encampment was settling in for the night and food was cooking.  My stomach was thinking my throat had been choked off and it was wanting to growl, but chewing on a piece of sahrnoy root I tried to trick my body into believing it was getting something to eat. 

I was lying in the brush, *Blending* with my surroundings when the first watch walked right by me without noticing.  I sprung up from the brush and hooked him around the throat with my right forearm while catching his right arm behind his back in a tight hammerlock.

Holding him fast until I was sure he was dead, I carried him off to the side and stripped him of sword, daggers, crossbow and ammunition.  There were only five sent up here to hunt a way across the ridge to find Hoscoe and me; bad choice. 

Waiting for just the right moment, I stepped into the camp, shot the first one to look my way and dropping the weapon I threw a dagger into another, then using a quick-draw technique laid the long-blade across the torso of another and sliced with both hands and all my strength.

The fifth looked at me and my uncaring eyes. 

Smiling at him cruelly I asked with a sneer, “Wanna go for it?  I’m itchy.”  The man dropped his blade and put his hands up as his friend with the impaled dagger kicked and squirmed.

Mr. Stand-up asked, “Wh-what about him.  I kin go hep him.”

“Tough,” I said, “let him die.  Where’s Davolet?”

“H-he’s down the mountain.”

“Call for him.  Get him up here, now.”

The man was wide eyed and looked at me as if I were crazy.  He fumbled in some gear and produced a horn.  As he was putting it to his lips I said, “Remember, I know the codes better than you do.”  Of course, Davolet may have changed a code or two, but the soldier in front of me wasn’t thinking of that.  He blew the horn signaling capture.  Then I walked up to him, and with something less than a congenial attitude, kicked him in the groin and as he bent over I beheaded him.

A horn sounded from below and I knew if it wasn’t answered they’d be coming up quickly.  Getting two packhorses and a mount together, I loaded up with food, water and weapons.  Then I picked some clothing and began eating their meal.  It took them a while to ride up from below, during which time I arranged the soldiers such as I wanted, made a couple more preparations, then sat back to relax.

When they were almost there I took my position with a crossbow in each hand and waited with my back to the trail.  Davolet was first to ride up to the fire and he demanded why I had signaled so late in the night.  He had brought a full platoon, twenty-four men.  He stepped down and repeated his question.

I turned and faced him with both of my weapons drawn, “Hello Davolet, what was that you said about my momma?”  I was at point blank range and I put a bolt into each shoulder.  Dropping the weapons I did a quick roll and threw a dagger into the rope I had looped around one tree, and a dagger into the rope around another tree.  Branches whipped and all riders were knocked off of their horses, then I pulled two swords and went berserk.

Davolet was still alive when I finished the last of his men.  I knew there were a few more down below, but it didn’t matter.  They would come up soon enough when they heard Davolet’s screams into the night.

___________________________

 

So far every fight I had engaged in, every being I had killed, had been for the sake of self-defense or war.  Now I was hunting down someone I intended to kill for revenge.

Sormiske had more than a couple days advantage, but in truth I expected to find him lying dead somewhere.  What I had to remember was, good soldier or bad, he had been trained in the Dahruban Army and had spent time in the field.  He had to have picked up something, and he apparently did.  The problem was, he didn’t seem to have any idea where he was going.  Nor was he followed.  There was much about the situation I didn’t understand, but it didn’t really matter to me.

With my two packhorses I rode careful. The cognobins were still in occupation, just not nearly as strong.  With any kind of leadership out of Kiubejhan, they would eventually be run out of the territory or killed.  I had run into no knowledge of cognobin females in the country, and I had yet to hear of two males producing offspring in any species.

I was sure Sormiske wouldn’t try to approach the Pehnaché River Bridge, but when we crossed the road between Kiubejhan and Biunang Village, I swear he didn’t even stop and look around.  I was convinced the man was lost.  He didn’t kill the horse this time, and I saw where he had killed some small game and eaten, so he had some basic survival skills.  But for all of his perceived intelligence, he had no imagination.  Hoscoe had often told me that lots of people had great powers of memorization, but if you can’t process that information you were often less useful than a book or a scroll.

At any time I could have quit, I could have turned back and started my own life.  With my abilities it would have been easy to get completely out of the country.  My friends were either dead, or I had let them down.  I thought of going back for Riana, but how would she look at me?  Finally, I decided when I had finished this, I would go back and at least kill that Aldivert, and if Riana wanted to come with me, we would go somewhere.  Where, I didn’t know, but somewhere.

Sormiske’s existence, however, bothered me.  He was responsible for so many deaths, it was time he was exterminated like the vermin his life so favored.  Most importantly, he was responsible for the death of Hoscoe, and, I believed, for the deaths of Hoscoe’s family.  If he were not directly responsible, he must have cowered as they were slain.

The trail led north by northeast, way up to the Jho’Menquita border at the Di’Yamohn Desert.  I eventually found his horse, dead, lying in the trail a few miles from where the Pehnaché River lay flat, level, and wide between the two territories.  The river would be deep at this point, but you could walk up to it and, if you wished to make a try of it, launch a craft.  Trouble was, there were no trees or driftwood on this side; just some dunes and some low plant growth.  On the other side it was pure desert.

I saw Sormiske hobbling toward the river, gazing at it, and I’m sure trying to figure how to cross.  Somehow I’m sure he planned to swim his mount over; not that current and distance across he wasn’t.  I figured it to be three-quarters of a mile across, and it wasn’t moving slow.  This wasn’t the place to do such a thing.

From out in the distance, I could feel them coming, a group of riders from around the dunes, but I had planned this for a while.  This was something I had to do.

Ground tying the packhorses, I rode the final thousand rods to where Sormiske was standing, staring numbly at the water only eighty-five feet away.  He was dressed in a once-white, filthy long sleeved tunic and muslin leggings.  As I got within a few feet, he then turned to look at me. 

I had healed, yes, but the hair was bristled short all over from the tunnel flames.  At first he didn’t recognize me and he started to stammer some nonsense about how he lost his horse and needed help.  Dismounting, I then walked casually toward him.

Getting up close so he could see my eyes, he recognized me as I spoke, “Hello Sormiske.”  His face turned white and his lips began to take that whiney twist when I hit him.  It was a casual slap, but when he straightened up his face contorted as a spoiled child.  My left crossed into his nose and he went backward onto the sand. 

From that point it became methodical.  Sormiske had always fancied himself a fighter, but he had next to no skill.  Beating him was irritatingly easy, but with each strike I saw images of Hoscoe, his wife, his son; I thought of his granddaughters, Jinx, Parnell, the girl Stagus had slain, and Gohruvae … the man who risked his life to save his servant.

I kicked, punched, kneed and smashed elbows into Sormiske’s body.  Many bones were broken and he cried like the coward he was.  Finally, I had had enough.  This wasn’t satisfying in any way.  Looking at his whimpering shell, I bent down and gently put my hand on his, and then I administered a *Heal* effect on him … steady and strong I pushed my energy into his body and felt the bones come back into place, bruises go away, internal bleeding stop.

Through my *Awareness* I felt them coming near, watching.  But I didn’t care.  I was doing what I came here to do.  The choice was made before this journey started.  Nothing or no one would get in my way.  This was the realm of the Banupodai Bandits, fierce warriors in their own right, but they would have to wait their turn.

Standing, I looked down at the coward before me and said with contempt, “You are less than nothing, Sormiske.  You played a game of risk and came up wanting.  It’s over now.”

Watching me back away, he looked at me surprised.  He reminded me of a mangy cur expecting a strike from his master.  Getting to one knee, his lip quivered again.  Slowly raising his hands he looked at me, the horse close to him, and those gathering around behind us.  I could see his two-dimensional mind calculating as he asked with a hint of almost giddy excitement, “You mean you’re giving me a chance?  That’s all I want.  Just give me a chance.  One chance …”

Deliberately turning my back to him and beginning to count in a slow whisper, I took a moment to gaze upon the group behind me.  They were wearing colorful robes and had missing teeth, and they were not Banupodai.  I had made a mistake, a very bad one.

Focusing on my next maneuver, I waited to the count of four, positioned my feet, and then whipped my body around as Sormiske charged upon my back with a dagger high in the air.  How stupid, so predictable.  With all of my strength I slapped the edge of my right hand across his throat.  His feet swung up in the air with the force of the blow as he did a full backspin and landed on his stomach without a bounce, his mouth open with shock.  Pushing him over with my toe, I saw he had impaled himself in the gut with his own dagger.

Kneeling down I said, “That one was for Parnell.”

In the language of another time long past I added, “Go to hell you piece of shit …” and then in a coarse, but loud whisper-like tone in his face, “… you damned, morose cookie …”

He died as I sent him away with a cruel smile and a wink.

___________________________

 

Many times I have thought back on that day.  Lahrcus had asked me if I believed in fate.  Knowing what I know now, I’m sure if I hadn’t ridden up that day Sormiske would be just as dead.  So did I do the right thing?  Would I do it different, now?  Searching within myself, I must say, no.  To me, Sormiske needed to die for the deaths of those he had caused.  Not for any other reason.  But I would have been much more careful.

I still ask myself; was I too focused on revenge, or was it arrogance, that made me overlook a serious detail.  This much is certain, the people who had surrounded us weren’t Banupodai, they were Coumunti, and having watched me work they were taking no chances and had me dead to rights.  As fast as I was, there was no way to evade a dozen prepared blow darts at once.

At least four or five of those darts had scored, and every time I started coming around I got hit with another.  That went on for a long time.  When I was finally allowed to wake up, I was still groggy from the paralytic drug coated on those darts.  It was, I believe, the same fast acting stuff the Tiskites had used. 

All I had on was my legging and boots and was being dragged on a travois.  Weapons, top half of my long underwear, everything from waist up was gone, and they had frisked the hideout blade in my leggings as well as the knives in my boots.  My wrists and ankles were bound securely and tied together in behind.  Yes, I was fairly caught and on the north side of the river, being drug across the desert sand.

Just days ago I had been a major of the Kiubejhan Military, fighting side by side with Hoscoe and preparing to lead my men into the depths of that pyramid.  It didn’t matter we had closed the door on the cognobins, nor that the elemental was gone, what mattered to me was my friends.  They were dead because they followed me.  The heir, who I was supposed to protect, was gone.  I consumed myself in grief of those I had watched die in my life, those whom I had not been able to help.

Hoscoe was dead because he came to find me … no … he was dead because he went back to help Gohruvae … but he wouldn’t have had to do that if he hadn’t come to find me in the first place.  Perhaps I deserved this, to be a prisoner once again. 

‘Cherron’s Road,’ I thought, ‘I’m still in the tunnel and I’ve dropped Hoscoe … we’ve both fallen and this is just a dream …’ a dream fleeting through my mind as I died and was sent to the underworld.

I was awakened by unfriendly hands shaking my shoulder.  Forcing my eyes open, I saw a man with a water skin close to my cracked lips.  Slowly he poured the lukewarm liquid into my parched mouth and I drank.  He spoke to me but I could not understand; I did not want to understand, not anymore.

A collar was put on my neck and my feet were cut loose, and together with several other captives we marched for days in a big caravan across the dunes.  Where we were going I didn’t know, what was being said to me I didn’t care.  I wanted to die, it was that simple.  At an oasis settlement I had my chance.

I was led to a walled in circle with people in bleachers all around, untied, and pushed into the middle.  A burly human was pushed in with me and the spectators all started yelling.  My new buddy raised his hands into the air like he was something special, and then walked over to me and offered his hand in greeting.  Not sure what was going on, I reached for his hand and then he sucker punched me, but good.

The blow knocked me off my feet, however I got up quickly and mad.  But wait … this was what I wanted, right?  I could let him kill me and it would all be over.  I deserved to die.

Over and over he hit me, often knocking me down, each time I got back up, but I didn’t hit him back.  The crowd was mad, I could tell.  They wanted a fight.  Well, I wasn’t going to give them one.

Again he hit me and I could feel the energy of So’Yeth rising up, seeking me, but I pushed it away.  I was done, no more, I wanted out.  The man was having a good time at first, then he became enraged when I refused to hit back. 

He struck me and I went down, but this time my head was reeling and my mind went spinning.  Everything became blurry and I thought, ‘It’ll be over soon.’  I got up one more time, staggering.  But he didn’t close.  Instead he was taunting me.  Why did his features slowly become that of Stagus?  “Do you want to fight?!  You want to swing on me, you little spike-eared slink?”  I could still hear the words.

Again I took one to the head.  This time I staggered all around what was called the pit, but didn’t quite go down.  He walked around me again, and measuring me for a hard one he broke my jaw.  Crawling on the dirt floor I felt the energy calling to me, reaching up, touching my inner self. 

I looked up at the human and my jaw snapped back into place.  A sneer came across my face as I smiled wickedly.  He walked over and reached down, grabbing my hair.  Seizing his hands I spun over and with a snapping motion shattered his wrist.  Kicking him in the torso, I grabbed his own hair and bashed my knee into his face.  Not letting go, I pummeled him with a multitude of screaming uppercuts, then setting him up I dropkicked him with all I had.

The man hit the side of the ring and staggered back my way as I quickly returned to my feet and set myself up, right into the same chopping technique with which I had killed Sormiske.  I let loose a roar of rage and those darts hit me again as the spectators went wild with cheers.

My place in the world became one of fury, death and destruction in the venue of pit-fighting and coliseum style combat.  Could I have escaped?  There were times when it could have been possible, but there is no greater prison than the one inside your own mind. 

In time they quit shooting the darts into me, not because my spirit was broken, I just quit caring.  My hair grew back and I wore it long and wild with a mustache and full goatee.  A few tried to talk with me, but I talked to no one.  I became like a beast, angry, full of grief, never forgetting my self-shame.

My physical training I continued; handstand pushups, regular pushups, pull-ups, squats, all kinds of dynamic tension … and I did it all to the point of pain.  Then I would heal myself and sometimes do it again.  My senses I maintained; trying to increase the range of my smell, hearing, and by reaching into So’Yeth and seeing how far I could go.

For close to three years I was taken around the desert, central and eastern Kohntia Mountains, and then I was bought by a man who took me on a tour of the east, or rather, the eastern part of the country where pit-fighting was allowed.  I obviously won because, well, if you lost you were dead.  No one knew my name and I gave it to nobody, so I was fought under various titles. 

I had just been brought to a new location when they put me up against this prancy-dancy arrogant man who kept throwing his foot up in the air as if he was kicking at bugs or something.  Before the match began he stood on one leg and snapped his foot ten times at his head level, then looked at me and flexed his chest muscles. 

When the command came to engage, he came at me with that foot and I simply caught it, kicked him ten times in the groin as fast as I could, then kicked his other leg out from under him.  Stepping over his leg, I spun my body around and cinching his ankle tight with my hands, his screams were bloodcurdling as I snapped the joint. Then I stomped him in the neck and as fast as that it was over.  Shael’s, was the crowd mad.  We had to leave that night because the crowd had wanted a nice long fight and was about to riot.

In a pit called The Leather Barrel in the port-town of Sancridge, just north of the Cape of Thenahgo, I had just fought the main fight when my excited owner brought a well dressed man to my holding cage.  The man was Edgarfield; it had been a long time.

Chapter   53

________________________

 

 

KYNEAR SEEMED A lifetime ago. Edgarfield wouldn’t have remembered me from then as we never actually met, but I remembered him.  I wondered if he still had Lath. 

He walked to the front of the bars and looked me over carefully.  In Lohngish he asked me, “Where is home to you?”

I just stared at him and my owner said, “He doesn’t talk, not to anyone.  But he fights the best of any of ‘em I’ve ever had.  He could make you a fortune up around …”

Edgarfield held his hand up for the man to be quiet.  Edgarfield was smooth, calm, and in control.  Again directing his attention to me he asked, “You are not Abaishulek … from the Gohbashai Esh’Niufahrr, maybe?”  He was thinking, “Your nose is too straight to hail from Lychiwal, and you are too short for the Val’Nahahl Bands.”

He turned to my owner and said, “No matter, I will take him.”

The Cape of Thenahgo is the southeastern most point of Aeshea, and we were bound north by boat to Franswa in northern Lychiwal.  Once I had been loaded onto The Reliance, he came to my cell in the berth and said, “We can get along, or not, it is up to you.  I do not give a damn.  But I will make you the same deal I offer everyone.  You give me seven good years, and I will let you go.”

I walked over to the bars and took one in each hand and asked, sarcastically, “And just how many have made it that long?”

Edgarfield was genuinely pleased, “You have a cultured tongue.  You were not sent out in disgrace from Ch’Hahnju by any chance?  If so, you are a long way from home.”

I didn’t answer and I saw an amused twinkle in his eye.  He answered me, “So far … no one.”  With that he turned and went out.  ‘Lath,’ I thought, ‘had Lath been killed?’

In the cell beside me was a middle aged man who said, “That’s a cagy man, Mr. Elf sir.”

I just looked at the speaker, who added, “I’m Doc Lamindo.  You make the fights good, get the crowd to like you, he makes money.  When he makes money he’ll take care of you; feed you good, get you gals, guys, happy dust, whatever you want.”  Doc watched to see how that registered with me.

“He used to have a woman fight for him, a woman named Lath.”

Doc’s eyes went awry and he blew through his teeth, “Now there was a mean one, she nigh broke him into bankruptcy.  Over a year she dominated the Grand, but she pissed off the crowd with her fast wins and nonchalance.  He had to sell her, damn, maybe a year ago.”

“Who to?”

Doc laughed, “Why do you care?  She won’t mate.  Lot’s have tried it.”  He squinted his eyes and shuttered.  “Besides, you’re in here.  I don’t know that kind of stuff anyhow.”

“Are you a fighter?”

He lifted a wooden leg, “No.  I fix you people up so you can go it again.”

“So why are you in here?”

He lifted his eyes, sat back onto his cot, and said, “Because every time I get a chance I run.”  Once more he showed me his wooden leg.

“Oh,” I said.

___________________________

 

I don’t know how honest Edgarfield was about his seven years, but the food was indeed good.  The thought of being touched by women into doing prisoners or slaves who killed each other didn’t turn me on, so I wasn’t going to go there.  Maybe it’s because I grew up on stories of the love between Diehn N’Jiun and Lahnumae Ahk’Nohra, maybe I longed for what Hosc-, my mentor had with his wife, or maybe I was spoiled with the feminine touch and tender kisses of Riana, there just isn’t anything about the male anatomy that makes me want to … well, I’m just not interested.

As far as happy dust goes … I watched a couple of they fighters do it and there was nothing happy about it.  All I saw was an intelligent mind go to butter.  No thanks.  When it got offered to me as a means of escape from reality I said simply, “Escape?  Escape to what?  It looks like a prison to me.”

The jiuk responded with, “Don’ knock it unlesh yu triet it …”

“I only have to hear you talk to know I don’t want it,” I replied dryly.

The man just looked at me with his burned out eyes and snorted his dust, lay back, and I watched his brain turn to mush.  He never woke up.

From time to time I would remember Riana, and then I would become disgusted with myself.  I didn’t deserve to carry the memories of such a quality lady.  Lath came to mind as well, and I wondered where she might be, a slave like me.  Would I ever see her again?  If so, would I be able to set her free?  I began to fantasize that if I performed well enough, somehow our paths would cross again and I could … what could I do?  Again I would become depressed.

Doc and I talked for more than a year and I began learning his form of medicine, until the day came he was taken to fix another fighter.  I heard later he tried to run once more.  Edgarfield walked among us, his fighters, and a guard carried Doc’s head by the hair for us to see.

From touring the northeast and as far as the Val’Nahahl frozen boarders, we returned south and hit the Pihpikow Road; our ultimate destination, Dahruban. 

As we traveled we got bits of news from here and there: Vedoa was about to enter civil war; the scattered bands of Val’Nahahl Elves were trying to unite with the winged folk of Bristahven against Lonahki and his followers; the Associated Kingdoms may be falling apart as a united body; and the talk of the times, the Eayahnite High Priest Logan had split with the whole religion and may be starting his own cult. 

I remembered Hoscoe’s thoughts about Logan, but it didn’t matter anymore.  If there really was a worldwide something going on, I had already done my part and screwed up my life doing it.  Tilting my head back against the bars of my cell I just put it all out of my mind.

As we were well into the winding road going into the high ups of the Kohntia Mountains, someone pointed to what might have been a trail south.  “There’s supposed to be a dangerous sect of people called Pyntahku as got a fortress up there,” they said.

“I hear they can do things with their minds,” another mentioned.

“Bullshit!” a third mentioned, “I went up there once.  Ain’t nothin’ up there but a wizard and a few handy boys, and he wasn’t nothin’ much hisself.”

“No foolin’?”

“No foolin’.”

I just kept quiet.  They were going to be dead soon anyway, they were mediocre fighters at best, and I never saw any point in arguing with a know-it-all fool.  The third was always trying to show how much he knew anyway.  He couldn’t have been too smart, he was caught trying to sell baking powder as Morning Glory, a powerful addictive drug, to a legal official in Lychiwal.  He was going to be hung when Edgarfield bought him as a preliminary fighter.

Sure enough, when we got to Milano, the first city on the eastern coast of the Alburin Sea, Vadid the know-it-all went down in just over one minute to a d’warv.  A few days later I was matched with the same d’warv.  I’ve fought a couple of tough d’warvec, he wasn’t one of them, which just emphasized how bad Vadid was.

When we got to Stafford, I was amazed.  The whole city was almost straight up.  It was built off of two towers on either side of the Phabeon River and the place was big.  The bridge was practically a city of itself and the word was, if you had the money and wanted something, you could find it here.

Inside of the West Tower was a place called Child’s Theater, and it was no place for children.  As we were being paraded toward the tower, I saw hanging from the center of the bridge a pentagram, and in the center was the rune at the center of the Eye of Anu-Rah.  A chill ran up my spine and then I heard a voice in Lohngish slang jargon say, “Hello my brother.”

Looking around I saw the insolent face of Uven, and he was smiling.  Well over six feet tall, he looked slick in satiny black garments, dark brown hair … and emerging from his side … a slinky dressed Cielizabeg with a smirk on her face and arm entwined around Uven.  She winked at me and the two blended into the crowd. 

Mon’Gouchett!  My hands were manacled as were my feet.  I was, after all, the star of Edgarfield’s entourage and was touted as being more savage than a mountain beast.  There was nothing I could do, again.

I had yet to give my name, so I had fought under the billing of Gojai Dianbo, a makeshift name of Gohbashai and a word meaning demon.  Gojai, I was told, could easily be chanted in loud volumes during fights, and here I found it to be true.  Waiting for my own fight on the first night, I could hear the acoustics perfectly. 

When it came my turn I was taken a’back as I was led into the arena.  The pit itself was sixty feet in diameter.  All around I could see the denizens of Stafford.  This had to be a city of deviants, run by deviants, for deviants.  Most of the people could have gotten away with being naked, as scantily and suggestive as they were dressed.  I saw piercings where you wouldn’t think piercings should go, tattoos completely covering the body, and hair styles which I would have thought could serve as weapons. 

Many of those seated in front were splattered in blood and more than one person, male and female alike, made sexual gestures toward me.  The reek of powdered drugs was everywhere and right away I started to feel light headed.  A heightened sense of smell also meant higher risk of susceptibility.  I went into constant *Self Heal* mode right away. 

They had paired me with a female of a species I didn’t recognize.  What I remember was that she was naked and had three pairs of breasts, claws on the ends of her digits and barbs on the end of a five feet long tail.  She was my first exotic opponent, if you want to call her that, and I had no intention of underestimating her.