Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (58 page)

“Yes, all of them, don’t you think?” The wizard looked back to the wavering image of the battle wafting in the air. “I think it is necessary.”

Hamford left the throne room by the back door and headed down the spiral staircase. His heartbeat quickened with the murkiness of the air. He had been in Ewzad Vriil’s service for many years and he had never seen the wizard this angry.

Hamford felt for the prisoners and part of him hoped that they would escape. He had never liked the way his master kept the dungeons. In fact, he rarely liked anything that his master did. Yet here he was about to help Ewzad Vriil crush the lives of all of those men.

He wished that he had never come back to his master’s lair. When Ewzad Vriil had left him to die in the desert, Hamford had felt the magic chaining him to the wizard fade. It had dawned on him several times during his yearlong journey back from the desert that he was free. If not for the dragon that had followed him, Hamford would have stayed in one of the villages near the outskirts of the desert and lived a quiet life. Unfortunately, the price of freedom from the dragon that tormented him was the familiar chains of Ewzad Vriil. Hamford couldn’t foresee another such chance for freedom being dropped in his lap again.

He paused in front of the great iron door that led to his master’s creations. What if he didn’t release the beasts after all? Ewzad’s soldiers were losing the battle. Perhaps one of the escapees would kill the wizard. The idea was entertaining, but ridiculous. He had no choice.

The mere thought of disobeying his master sent a sharp pain rippling through his guts. No, he wouldn’t be able to resist his master. Not now, but he still held out hope. Maybe one day his opportunity would come.

Hamford unlocked the iron door and stepped inside. As the door locked itself behind him, his nose was filled with the foul smell of the unclean beasts. Hamford walked past the short passageway into the wide open chamber where Ewzad fine-tuned his creations.

He had always felt an uncanny fear when in this section of the dungeon. Even though a thick iron door kept each of Ewzad’s beasts imprisoned, Hamford couldn't help but shiver. He found his master’s creatures repulsive and frightening.

Ewzad had created many different types of mutations over the years, each of them possessing some quality that he hoped to exploit. Some of his creations had lived; more had died. Some were being used in his armies as soldiers, but the creatures the wizard kept in this part of his dungeons were too wild, too unpredictable for use on the battlefield. They had to be kept under strict control. Ewzad took a perverse pleasure in creating these kinds of beasts. These were Ewzad Vriil’s babies, his killing machines.

Hamford reached the desk between the two pillars in the center of the room. He pushed aside Ewzad’s many notebooks, spilling some of them on the floor in his haste. He would have to pick them up later before his master came back.

He stuck his finger in a small hole in the center of the desk and rooted around for the lever that would release the door to the control room. This was the only time he envied the wizard his writhing fingers. Finally, though it was awkward and a little painful, he was able to find the switch in the bottom of the desk and heard a great clank telling him that the door was unlocked.

 Hamford hurried back to the first door in the short passageway near the door to the stairwell. This was the control room; the only room in the fifth level that did not house a monster. 

Each door on this level of the dungeon was locked by a mechanical system that ran through the ceiling to a lever in the control room that opened each door remotely. From the outside, the door to the control room looked like a solid iron door so that the creatures couldn’t see the human hiding within. But from inside the room, the door and the forward facing wall had been
magicked
so that they were transparent. This way the person releasing the creatures could watch their progress.

Hamford entered the room and shut the door behind him. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief as the door locked. He laughed at himself. He knew that the creatures couldn't get out. Despite such assurances, he looked back through the door just in case something had followed him.

He shook his head and pulled a little-used lever that caused a section of the floor to sink down, allowing a beast to enter the dungeon. Kenn had pulled that lever the night before when letting Talon loose into the dungeon.

Hamford watched as the ramp lowered into the lower sections of the dungeons and was about to pull the lever to loose one of Ewzad’s beasts when he saw movement in the darkness beneath the ramp. Hamford felt an icy fear in the pit of his stomach. Something crawled up the ramp from the dungeon below.  It froze for a moment, sniffing the air. Then its head swiveled towards him.

Chapter Thirty Eight

The battle was heated and Fist was in the thick of it.

He pounded away at the shield of the guard in front of him, but could not get in a fatal hit. With a grunt, he kicked the shield with one heavy foot and sent the human tumbling into the milling mass of people. Another opening appeared in the crowd and he swung the thick table leg, bashing a large dent in the helmet of another guard.

The ogre felt a sharp pain and looked down to see an arrow sticking out of his arm near his shoulder. He flexed his arm to make sure he still had motion while his eyes scanned the room for the archer. Fist found him quickly. He was a tall soldier standing in front of the large iron door in the far corner of the chamber away from the fighting. He was drawing another arrow and Fist knew that he was the largest target.

Quickly, he bent down and lifted the body of a dead guard to use as a shield. He sent a message through the bond,
Justan! Archer in the corner!

Justan hadn't yet found the opportunity to make a difference in the fight. The press of people was simply too tight. When Fist's message came, he saw the problem immediately and began skirting his way around the edge of the chamber towards the soldier with the bow.

Justan hurried around the fighting as quickly as possible, but the soldier still got off two more shots before he arrived. Luckily, the arrows plunked into the body that Fist was using as a shield. Justan arrived with both swords in hand just as the soldier fired the second arrow. The soldier was quick. He dropped the bow and picked up a large shield just in time to meet Justan's first blow.

The man was proficient with a shield. Justan sent attacks in from every side, but the man moved the shield subtly, sending it up or down or twisting it to send each attack to the side. The man did all this with one hand while reaching behind his back to pull a weapon free. Justan could tell that he had been well trained.

The soldier was a tall, muscular man with four distinguishing scars that slanted across his face. He was better equipped than the rest of the guards, wearing a heavy breastplate and full chain mail greaves over his legs. Something about the man seemed familiar, but it wasn't until the soldier pulled a spiked mace from behind his back that Justan recognized who it was.

“I know you.
You’r
-” Justan dove to the side, narrowly dodging a swing of the deadly mace. He got back to his feet and knocked the next blow away with his sword. “You’re Rudfen
Groaz
.”

The man seemed startled by Justan's recognition, but didn't slow down in his assault, knocking Justan back with the shield before swinging his mace again. “I don't know you,” he said.

The shield strike was unexpected and Justan was barely able to duck down in time to dodge the follow-up attack. Justan stepped back out of reach. He had to yell for Rudfen to hear him over the crowd.

“I was in the arena the day you killed
Jennsen
Landrey
.”

Rudfen stopped mid-swing. A look of anguish twisted his features.

“It was . . . an accident,” the large man said.

Justan remembered the day, sitting in the crowd at the arena the year before he was first eligible to enter the Training School. The place had been abuzz about the new trainee,
Jennsen
Landrey
. The small man had excelled in each test and was assured the chance to attend the academy.

Rudfen
Groaz
had been a second year academy student and a candidate for the Command Guild. That day in the final test of the Training School, Rudfen had swung his mace too hard and
Jennsen
hadn't seen it coming. Rudfen's spiked mace had pierced the trainee's brain and the mages hadn't been able to save him. Justan had heard that Rudfen had never been the same.

“I pitied you then,” Justan said.

A snarl rippled across Rudfen's scarred features. “I don't need your pity!” The academy-trained warrior came at Justan again.

“I have no pity left for you now!” Justan shouted, as he parried a swing of the mace. “Not when you fight for Ewzad Vriil! How could Rudfen
Groaz
stoop so low?”

Rudfen stopped for a moment, pain wrenching his face. Finally a roar escaped his lips and he darted forward. He made to swing his mace again, but when Justan moved to parry, Rudfen brought up his shield in a stunning blow.

The edge of the shield caught Justan under the chin and sent him reeling backwards. He stumbled over a dead prisoner and fell onto his back. Before he could move, Rudfen was on top of him. The larger man pressed Justan down with his shield and knelt upon it, pinning Justan to the floor with his weight.

“You don't know me! You know nothing about me! Do you really think I had a choice?” Rudfen raised his mace for the killing blow. “Ewzad owns me now.”

Justan was helpless.
Fist!
The ogre was too far away to help. In a panic, Justan pushed upward against the shield with all his might. To his surprise, he was able to summon the strength to upend the heavy man, sending Rudfen tumbling to the side. As Rudfen leapt to his feet, Justan came up on one knee, twisted his body and sent the tip of one sword under Rudfen's breastplate. It slid several inches into the man’s belly.

“You made a choice somewhere along the way,” Justan said.

“No.” Rudfen stepped back, ignoring the rush of blood and fluids that flowed from the wound. “From the day
Jennsen
died, I had no choice. It was over. I could not fight anymore.”

“So you left the academy to do what? Join that . . . monster?” Justan had faced a similar choice after failing Training School the second time. If he had decided to take his chances elsewhere, could he have ended up in someone like Ewzad’s employ? No, he told himself. He would not have sunk that low.

“Join the monster?” Rudfen chuckled. He reached up and unclasped the fastenings holding his breastplate. It fell to the ground and Justan saw that the bleeding had stopped already. Something was moving under the man’s shirt.

 “He took me in when I was weak. He gave me the strength to kill again.” Rudfen shook. His eyes widened and his pupils turned red before expanding and filling the iris. As he spoke, his voice slowly raised several octaves to reach an eerie high pitch. “Now I am the
monster
.”

Rudfen’s legs swelled and his
chainmail
greaves burst apart, sending tiny metal rings flying into the crowd of battling men. His skin darkened, turning hard and
chitonous
and the legs split down the sides, spreading apart to become four separate appendages. At the same time, his arms grew in length, while his torso elongated and widened.

The shirt split and Justan saw what had been moving underneath. From the wound to Rudfen’s belly had sprung forth two spike-tipped tentacles that waved through the air independently as if searching for a target.

“You see me? Do you pity me now? Do you pity the power my master has placed in me?” screeched Rudfen from a mouth that now more resembled the maw of an insect than a human. He pointed to the tentacles waving from the wound on his abdomen. “See? Even the wound you gave me becomes a weapon!”

Justan was too terrified by the spectacle to respond, but in truth his pity had deepened more with the revelation. Rudfen hadn’t just lost his dream of becoming an academy graduate. He had lost his humanity.

The fighting in the chamber slowed down and nearly stopped as prisoners and guards alike stared at the transformation of the man. Fist saw the danger and no longer worrying about injuring the prisoners, shoved his way through the crowd trying to come to Justan’s aid.