Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (31 page)

The return of their friendly insults told
Gustin that Drake was truly back; he had conquered his fears.
Gustin felt elated, but he didn’t let that emotion show in the tone
of his answer. “I had it right where I wanted it,” Gustin replied
glibly, but after a pause added, “but thanks, Drake.”

“Actually, I really came back because you
are my best friend, and I would rather die beside you than live
knowing I let you face this ugly beast alone,” Drake said
honestly.

“I’m glad you’re here Drake,” the big man
replied.

“So am I Gustin, so am I,” Drake answered,
his fear overcome.

“Do you see it anywhere?” Gustin asked,
peering into the dark.

“No, but it’s out there; I can feel it. We
better keep its attention; we can’t have it going after Michael.”
Then he raised his voice into a shout, “Come on out, Baron of Bile,
I have a little fire I want to shove down your throat!”

“So, the little coward returns. Will you
face me now, scared mortal?” the Darknull answered, the voice in
their heads sounding like the hissing and bubbling sound of a man
speaking through his freshly slit throat.

“I’ve got you placed in proper perspective
now, puke face. You can kill us, but I won’t waste my spit on you,”
Drake replied. Then he whispered over his shoulder to Gustin,
“Quick, help me insult this thing, we don’t want it leaving us and
going after Michael.”

“Right and we’re just the guys to do it,”
Gustin acknowledged, and then he remembered something Elizabeth had
said to the beast the night before. “Listen to this one!” he
whispered to Drake and called out to the Darknull, “I hear the
necromancers
are using you
Darknulls for errand boys
nowadays
.”

Out of the
dark,
the Baron howled in total madness.

Drake elbowed his friend lightly and said,
“I think you struck a little nerve with that one.”

The Darknull’s voice called out to them and
incredible hate pounded at their minds. “The necromancers will all
be consumed once we have found what was lost! Until then we use
THEM for our needs.”

“What was lost?” Gustin muttered to Drake,
in a puzzled tone.

“You got me,” Drake whispered in reply, but
then called out, “Oh what horse manure; I heard the necromancer in
Lindankar claims to have a pet Darknull he uses to spit shine his
boots.”

With another insane
howl,
the Darknull rushed to the attack.

Gustin sighed, “I think that did the
trick.”

“Right,” Drake replied dryly.

The foul creature struck without care for
the pain of the torches, it virtually slammed into the two knights
in its insane anger. They shoved their torches into the creature's
body and it began to attack their auras. All three beings yelled
with pain as they all toppled to the ground. Drake lost one of his
torches and Gustin was very weakly trying to bring his into play.
The knights were dying, but they had to hold the Darknull as long
as possible.

Slowly the creature began to consume their
life spirits.

Drake’s face was near Gustin’s and he
whispered through pain clenched teeth as they fought the creature,
“It was a good try, big man.”

Gustin was barely conscious when he replied.
“I’m glad you’re here, my little friend, at the end. Do you think
they will make it?”

Near his own limits, Drake answered weakly.
“We must believe they will escape Gustin, we must. Do you hear
horses?”

“Yes, by Vorg’s rancid breath, that’s all we
need! It’s the rest of the Tchulians come to help this beast. Well
if they hurry and kill us this thing can’t finish destroying our
souls.”

“Always the optimist...” Drake managed to
gasp as the light began to fade from his eyes, his voice croaked
out a whisper, “
Goodbye
,
Gustin.”

Also fading, Gustin managed a weak reply,
“Good-bye, my friend.”

Michael began to cry from his place in the
pack slung on Hetark’s back. The past few days had been hard on his
mother and his knights, in other ways they were also hard on the
young child. His mind didn’t understand this massive break in his
daily routine. Being cooped up in the pack for lengthy periods and
then the gallop of the last few hours had finally taken its toll.
He’d been out now for some time, but woke to renewed fits of
crying, tired, sore, hungry and not understanding why. He wanted
his food and his mother, not necessarily in that order. He
announced these desires in the only royally commanding voice he had
at his disposal, he cried his lungs out.

Elizabeth had not awakened since she had
fallen to the ground the night before, but at the sound of her son
calling her eyes fluttered and she raised her head and muttered,
“Michael?”

Hetark felt her taking control of her
balance, so he slowed the horse to a walk.

“Where are we, Hetark?” she asked tiredly,
not yet really focusing on her surroundings. She pulled wisps of
hair out of her face with one hand.

“Somewhere near the Kirnath School, milady,”
Hetark stopped the horses and let Elizabeth
down
so that he could retrieve Michael off his back and
hand the crying boy to his mother. Then he said, “You must get
mounted on one of the other horses, we have little time.”

“But, we can’t be near the school, it lacked
only five bells until dawn, and it’s still dark.”

“We have traveled a complete day and part of
another night, milady,” Hetark explained.

“Wait, it’s coming back to me… what happened
to the Darknull? Where are Gustin and Drake?” she exclaimed in
concern, suddenly twisting around hoping to see them coming up from
the rear.

“We all survived the attack, thanks to the
protection of your powers, but you collapsed after you struck the
creature with that beam. Gustin was burnt the worst, but after
bandaging,
he was all right. We
waited by the fire until morning in case the creature came back and
then we rode all day as fast as possible. We were trying to reach
the school before the creature caught us again,” Hetark
recounted.

“Then where are the others?” she asked in a
puzzled tone.

“It became dark and Drake decided that he
could buy us time to reach the Kirnath School by delaying the
Darknull, and Gustin stayed to guard his back. They convinced me
that it was necessary for your and Michael’s survival. I had to get
you two to safety,” Hetark explained simply, but the pain of that
decision was obvious in his tortured voice.

“That’s horrible; you know that they can’t
stand against a Darknull, Hetark! We must go back and help them!”
Elizabeth said, turning to get to her mount.

“We cannot, milady. I left them over two
bells ago, so it is probably too late. Besides, look in your arms,
can you take him back into the danger of the Darknull with your
power already used to its limits?”

With a haunted
look,
Elizabeth gazed back down the path toward where her
brave new friends were meeting their doom for the sake of her and
her son. Tears welled up in her tired eyes and
crested
over the edge, carving trails down the
dust on her cheeks to fall a short distance and land gently on her
son. “You’re right Hetark, but I swear that I will avenge their
deaths and my husband’s, I swear,” she said quietly, but
forcefully.

“Can you ride?” Hetark asked the grieving
woman.

“Yes.”

“Good, we must get on our way in case the
Darknull gets past them,” Hetark said, changing his saddle to a new
mount.

“Hetark, it will get past them,” she said,
placing her hand on his arm.

“I know,” he replied, not meeting her eyes.
He didn’t want her to see the haunted expression they held.

Elizabeth concentrated her meager remaining
power and felt
for
the presence of
the Darknull down their back trail, and then her shoulders drooped
as the approaching Darknull confirmed the reality of Drake and
Gustin’s end. She turned to Hetark and placed a hand on his
forearm, “It comes for us Hetark, and I don’t have the power to
stop it this time,” she told him simply.

Hetark quickly strapped the pack holding
Michael onto Elizabeth, and then he put out his interlaced fingers
and made a step for her to climb into her saddle. “Here, mount
up.”

Elizabeth got onto her horse, but looked
down at Hetark and said, “We can’t outrun it Hetark, it is still
too far to the school and the creature is coming too fast.”

“I know Elizabeth; it was Drake and Gustin’s
turn first, now it is my turn. I will delay it while you continue
toward the school,” he explained. He was calm now that he finally
knew what he could do to save her and Michael.

“No Hetark, I cannot let you do this,” she
pleaded.

“Don’t waste Drake and Gustin’s sacrifice,
milady, they died to keep Michael alive, so ride!” Hetark reached
up and slapped the horse on its rump and it took off at a gallop
which effectively ended the discussion.

Elizabeth looked back once over her shoulder
and saw Hetark resolutely watching her ride away. Then she bent low
over the horse’s neck and held to its mane while urging as much
speed from the running animal as she could get.

Hetark did not have long to wait, he had
just finished lighting a hastily constructed fire and some torches
from his pack when the Darknull swept down the forest path coming
fast.

When Baron Qyrmswav saw the brave knight
waiting with his fire and torches it was not amused. “Is there no
end to these worthless knights who are willing to face me?” The
creature asked rhetorically.

Hetark heard the thought within his mind and
answered, “We will fight until you no longer seek to harm the good
souls of this world. Be gone, destroyer of life, depart back to
your world.”

“I do not take my commands from any mortal,
and if I had the time I would make your soul scream, but don’t
fear, I will return to take retribution for your impudence!”
Without a further
thought,
the
Baron swept by Hetark, intent on following the path of the fleeing
Elizabeth and Michael.

“NO, turn and face me you cowardly monster,
fight me!" Hetark cried out as he ran a few steps after the
disappearing creature.

But the Darknull raced on down the path out
of sight, seeking the wounded Kirnath sorceress and her child. The
Darknull could feel the closeness of the powerful auras of the
Kirnath Adepts ahead and it knew it had to catch the wounded
Elizabeth before she could reach the protection of the other
sorcerers.

Elizabeth slowed her horse to a halt and
dismounted. She could feel the evil presence of the Darknull coming
swiftly up her back trail and she estimated that it would reach her
in only a twelfth of a bell; not enough time to reach the safety of
the school.

Quickly she took off Michael’s pack and
started to tie him to the saddle. She would send him on to the
school alone and trust to her fellow Adepts to find his strong aura
while she stayed and engaged the Darknull.

As Elizabeth pulled the leather straps tight
her eyes came to rest on the palm of her hand. The faint oval
shaped scar of the aurora stone caught her eye. It was the scar
from that day a little over a year ago when Michael’s strong aura
had blazed forth from the aurora stone. Her scar matched the one on
her son’s chest exactly. It took her mind back to his day of birth
when Jatar had been alive and they had been so happy.

Her exhausted mind was trying to tell her
something, she trusted her instincts, so she closed her eyes and
relaxed to let her thoughts drift back to that day. She had been
talking to her husband about Michael and the results of the aurora
stone test...

…
imagine the things he can do; our hopes
and dreams of uniting more of the kingdoms into a coalition will
have an even better chance. The necromancers will have trouble
opposing his moves, and I doubt they will even be a serious threat.
With proper training, he’ll be more powerful than any Adept
alive.

Finally,
she saw what her tired mind had been trying to tell her; with
proper training the power Michael had would handle any Darknull
creature, but he didn’t have the training, not yet. She had the
training to defeat the Darknull, but her power was completely used
up for the moment. If she could but wield Michael’s power she would
be a match for the Darknull. After another quick check on the
creature’s
progress,
Elizabeth
found she had little time left to decide.

She spoke to her young son though she knew
he could not understand her words, “Michael, I need to do something
dangerous to you, if it works we will be safe to reach the Kirnath
School. If it doesn’t work I will die and you will either go with
me or be aura crippled for the rest of your life. It is dangerous
to pull the amount of life energy I need from a
one-year-old
child. Normally it would kill the
child, but you have the strongest aura I have ever seen, so it
might not harm you... I just don’t know. Children’s auras are not
fully developed yet, and though we know your potential is
incredible, this would be very dangerous. I will need a lot of
power because I am very weak. I wish you could help me decide.”

Michael looked up into the face of his
mother and reached out to grab a handful of her hair. He pulled it
through his fingers, feeling the softness of the strands and then
he smiled.

Elizabeth took this smile as an omen and
made up her mind.

Quickly she tied her horse up securely to a
sapling and then looked for the largest tree she could find. She
sat with her back to the tree with her son in her lap and placed
her hand under his tunic. The scar on her palm sat directly over
the matching scar on his chest.