The Champions (7 page)

Borrik, Garret, James, Jack, and Sara watched on as Seth
created a harbinger of death out of a legendary hero. As the great fire lit the
process, its growing and waning tones of red, yellow, and orange made the whole
thing look surreal, casting odd shadows that crawled and sputtered over the
entire scene. It was a memory each of them would carry until their final
breath. Few could hardly blink as the man squirmed upon the ground as his body
changed in new and horrible ways.

When the process was done the man stood. He moved awkwardly
at first, as if his memory refused to conform to action within his new form.
Yet turning to face the fire, his nude body completely exposed, Tommy stood for
all those gathered to appraise him.

Seth could not smile at the man’s appearance, but he was
happy with the result. He had tried things that he had only theorized about
before and each had worked, if not with at least a little manipulation. Instead
of replacing entire appendages Seth had gone deeper, making alterations from
within the bones themselves. Tommy was no longer recognizable as human at all
anymore. His visage was so gruesome that hardened battle veterans briefly
turned their gaze away, only to return to look upon him again in awe.

Tommy’s head had expanded slightly as Seth thought it
important to thicken the skull to prevent injury. Beyond that his forehead
pushed out and his neck was made more stout. Over the top of his head all
traces of hair had been removed and in its place were rows upon rows of short
knobby spikes. Seth had made his head a weapon, something he could use to bash
an opponent.

His face had changed immensely. Nearly all definition had
been lost as his sunken eyes had grown and smoothed out with the rest of his
face, each of them turning a dark purple color. His nose had completely
vanished beneath his flesh leaving behind only a pair of slit-like nostrils.
His lower jaw bone had thickened slightly, and opening his mouth a forked
tongue flicked out between rows of small, razor sharp teeth.

Each of the man’s arms had grown longer and thicker, the
muscles barely contained beneath the flesh. At the end of each was an attribute
never seen before among man or animal. Here Seth had taken particular care for
the man’s hands had been altered beyond recognition.

Where once had been four stubby fingers and a thumb, now
there was an appendage that could only be described as a claw. Seth had
stretched the bones beyond what would be viewed as normal, and had melded them
with those of other beasts. The skin of the hands was hard like the shell of an
insect, and instead of four fingers the man had three. Each of them was easily
doubly as long as would be acceptable for a human, and each of them ended in a
long, sharp, hooked talon. The thumb upon each hand was much the same, but only
stretched to about half the length of the fingers. Beneath the flesh, with
every twitch and flex of the fingers the tendons and ligaments could easily be
seen moving as if something alive crawled beneath his skin.

Tommy’s chest had become oddly disproportionate to his body.
His shoulders were overly wide and his waist was narrow beyond belief. Every
muscle in his upper body bulged over the huge tapered ribcage he had been
given. Each rib that showed through his flesh was as wide as one of Sara’s
arms. There the bones had been altered to not only be incredibly strong, but to
nearly completely fill the gaps between them. Any blade would find it difficult
to slide between Tommy’s ribs.

Below his waist, Tommy had oddly angled hips that forced his
legs to remain in a strange crouched position. He could stand like the rest of
them, but it appeared wholly unnatural. The angles just did not make sense. His
legs were too long, and even in the crouched position he retained, he was
nearly as tall as he had been before the alteration. Below his elongated legs
were two wide feet. Each foot consisted of three incredibly long toes that
appeared to be the foot of an amphibian although the webbing between the toes
had been removed.

Turning, Tommy revealed a long slender tail like that of a
lizard. Currently it flicked back and forth seemingly having its own mind. His
body was covered almost completely in thin, leathery, bumpy skin that was an
odd shade somewhere between his original skin tone and a new sickly green hue.
Into the body Seth had poured the lifetimes of twenty men.

“I feel amazzzing,” Tommy said to all those who stared at
him in shock.

He flexed his muscles, swinging his arms this way and that,
and then, lowering himself further, he leapt into the air. For a moment Tommy
was lost from sight as all looked up into the night sky. Then plummeting like a
rock, down Tommy came again to land more lightly than any could have imagined
him doing.

“Tommy, take a deep breath and hold it, then, using your
abdominal muscles, I want you to strain to exhale, but hold the air in,” Seth
ordered.

Tommy did as Seth commanded and watched as everyone around
him gasped in shock. Looking down, Tommy coughed out the air, realizing his
skin had changed from the sickly pale green to a deep brown.

“Now Tommy, inhale and exhale quickly,” Seth instructed
again.

As Tommy did so, his flesh began to lighten. First the brown
paled and then turned to a deep red then orange. Faster and faster Tommy
breathed as his flesh turned yellow and then near to white. All around him
stood smiling. It was an amazing ability.

“The faster you breathe, the lighter your skin becomes, and
the slower, the darker. For your darkest tones you have to hold your breath and
strain a little,” Seth said. “Garret, Dad, and Jack, you need to spar with
Tommy for a short while so he can quickly learn his limitations and strength,”
he added.

Understanding the need and nodding or voicing their
approval, they each turned and walked off with the man who was now part
amphibian and part reptile. Seth smiled knowing that his brother, father, and
Jack were in for some surprises. Even so, Seth had more work to do and
gesturing to Borrik, his second-in-command, he relayed orders to send the next
volunteer to meet him. The man was said to be a hunter and tracker blessed by
the god of the druids. He was a small and wiry thing with taut muscles and a
long nose.

Seth spent an hour perfecting this second assassin, a man by
the name of Chad. Already he was gifted, and Seth worked to enhance his
talents. Seth gave him a more sensitive nose and keener eyes. To that he added
strength and agility. Though he actually made the man physically shorter, he
gave him stronger instincts and beyond that he made him ferocious. Chad had
already adapted to his new body as he stalked off into the night with his
orders.

He had been a loner much of his life before, preferring the
forest and nature as companions. Now he needed to be alone; his instincts and
temperament demanded it. Seth had even promised it to him, but first he had a
job to do. Chad prowled off, away from the fire that hurt his eyes, and
dropping to all fours he rushed off into the darkness.

Seth called for another volunteer and then another. Hour
after hour for the majority of the night he would alter those who wished it
into his own champions. Others he blessed with size and strength, like that of
his father and brother. Mostly he hoped his assassins would succeed and spare
the lives of thousands. Seth toiled, sharing his power with those he chose,
until finished at last he sat back to watch as the first flakes of snow began
to descend from the sky.

*****

Garret drew his sword as did his father and Jack. Tommy
pulled a pair of short swords from the clothing he had discarded before being
altered into the creature he was now. He squeezed them in his new hands and
swung his arms testing the weight. Garret watched him intently.

“Are you ready Tommy?” the king asked.

The mutated man turned and nodded to him, and before he could
react, Tommy leapt across more than thirty feet, driving his knobby head into
Garret’s gut with unbelievable force. Garret lost his breath as the wind was
knocked from him and he was driven back more than ten yards by the blow. Tommy
twisted as they rolled and, springing into the air, he came down a few steps in
front of James. Garret, still struggling to breathe, watched as Tommy was
rushed by his father, but thwarted the attack by grabbing the man’s arm and
leaping with all his might, dislocating the appendage at the shoulder. Only
Jack was left in the fight, and moving slowly he tried to anticipate what Tommy
would do. Not one of them expected what did come.

Tommy feigned an attack. As Jack raised his sword to block
it, Tommy leapt to the man’s chest. Landing like a frog upon a vertical surface
and using Jack’s body for leverage, Tommy leapt off the man with all his might.
The force of his unnatural legs was so strong that Jack flew backwards in one
direction as Tommy flew in the other but somewhere in the action, Jack had
managed to draw blood.

The King of Valdadore watched as the newly altered Tommy
landed and lifted his foot to appraise the wound he had sustained. The tip of
one of his long toes had been severed completely. Garret thought to call a cleric
to heal him, but realized that they would probably be of little use to the man
now that his anatomy was foreign. However, just as soon as Garret had the
thought, Tommy revealed yet another blessing given to him through the
alteration of his body. Though it was an inherent gift for both amphibians and
reptiles, Seth had increased the ability by giving Tommy such an abundance of
life. So as Garret looked upon the newly created assassin, he was amazed when
in the span of no more than three seconds the toe that had been severed
regenerated as if it had never been injured at all.

All three of his opponents watched, silently amazed. Tommy
too was overcome and smiled like a fool at the discovery. If he had thought
himself invincible before, he truly did now with this new body. Wanting to know
exactly what else he was capable of, Tommy turned, his smile remaining, and
spoke to the king.

“Care to go again, your majesssssty?” Tommy asked, his
tongue flicking out between his teeth.

Garret nodded and for the next hour the four combatants
trained with one another in mock battle after mock battle. Many hours before
daylight, Thousand Hole Tommy bowed low to his king and shook hands with his
old friends Giant James and Jack. Then he crouched, picking up a bundle provided
for him, and turning, he leapt into the darkness. A few bounds later Tommy was
lost from view into the night. Within minutes the man would be in the enemy’s
camp covering as much ground as he was able. Garret and Tommy’s old comrades
silently wished him luck into the cold night air.

For more than two hours now those tended by the healers had
been silent. Most had fully recovered after treatment and left but thirteen
remained in the care of the white-robed clerics. King Sigrant had ordered that
these men remain in their care until dawn. Occasionally one of them would wake,
sweating and fearful. At such times they would speak of unnatural things. They
were confused.

After periods of consciousness, they would then have a fit.
Wracked by pain and convulsions, again the men would black out. They had been
brought to the healers throughout the day. The first arrived within an hour of
the battle’s beginning. From then they came regularly right up until the battle
had ceased. The first to arrive had now awoken for the fourth time.

More than forty healers remained in the tent, each seated
near the outer wall, surveying all the patients within. Most noticed that the
man had awoken, though none moved to tend to him. Each of them had tried and
failed several times to diagnose the illness that had overcome these soldiers.
Something within them blocked their best efforts. Even the head master of the
order had come. He too had failed. Now it was simply a waiting game.

Patient one, as the clerics were calling him, had been awake
for more than a quarter of an hour. This time he did not speak nor did he
thrash about. For the time being he simply lay on his back staring at the tent
ceiling. He had tried to move once, but finding himself restrained he relaxed.
The healers waited for him to do what he had done on each prior occasion.

While they did so, patient two also awoke. He too tried to
move, and realizing he was also restrained, he asked for assistance but
received none. Within another hour, all thirteen men were awake and Peter, one
of the healers, found it odd that they had now each awoken four times. Even
more odd was that none of them spoke, yelled, thrashed, vomited, or did anything
else they had done before.

Peter was far from the most experienced healer in the tent,
but he was climbing the ranks fast. He supposed it was due to his ability to
keep track of details. He liked details. Peter also liked organization. The two
together worked very well and Peter was a master at both. He supposed that
there were no others in the room who realized that all thirteen of these men
had awoken exactly four times.

This time Peter noted that none of the men were covered in
sweat, their fevers seemingly subsided. They did not cry out in agony either,
showing that yet another symptom had abated. None muttered crazy disconnected
things which implied that whatever infection had overcome them had run its
course and now the men were fine.

Still, no one moved to diagnose a patient. Peter grew
anxious. Sitting up in his chair, he brushed his dark bangs from his eyes. He
looked from one man upon a table to the next, and by all appearances they were
each fine. Their color seemed normal, none perspired over actively, all seemed
well.

Peter stood. He was taller than any of his peers by more
than a head. Tall and slender, like a stick with legs as his mom would say,
Peter took a step towards the nearest patient. Patient nine. Steven grabbed his
wrist. Turning back, Peter looked upon his friend and peer questioningly.