Hunted (Book 3) (11 page)

No one did.

“I’m home!” Tornus yelled from out in the hall. “There is only one way out of this keep! Well, only one way that doesn’t hurt a great deal, and that is through this hallway. So I think I will wander around a bit and see what I can find! A little hide-and-seek, perhaps.” They held their breath as Tornus briefly pushed their door, Volney’s wedges holding long enough to satisfy the Craver that the way was barred.

Gen slid his sword quietly from its scabbard. With precise cuts he whittled away a bit of the stone floor so that Gerand could hold it up while he cut a small circle around it. Once complete, Gerand lifted the section of flooring up and they peered downward. The hole opened up into the kitchen. In the low firelight, they could make out low tables with unidentifiable pieces of meat lying in pools of blood. Quietly, Gen cut more sections of the floor away while Volney and Gerand carefully laid the pieces aside. Once the hole was wide enough, they dropped into the room.

The kitchen smelled of flesh and rot, a large pot reeking of some cooling substance that appeared uncomfortably like what they had eaten for dinner. Even worse, bits and pieces of Uyumaak lay scattered carelessly about the floor. Gen pulled his disgusted friends toward the back of the kitchen until he found what he thought was an outer wall.

Gen raised his sword. “I am going to cut through this wall. It will be noisy, but fast. We run for the gate. Get ready.”

With quick strokes, Gen cut a triangular exit into the wall, the blade passing easily through the thick stones. They pushed their shoulders into the cut out section to heave it outward, the sound of stone grinding on stone echoing through the keep. Somewhere, Bibbs was slapping the walls in warning to his master.

“You should have cut a smaller section!” Gerand exclaimed as the chunk of wall moved inch by inch outward. Several seconds later the stones and mortar crashed to the paving stones outside, and they leaped out into the night. Gen led them back toward where he remembered the gate to be. Stealth was impossible, the litter of bones beneath their feet filling the air with cracks and snaps that echoed about the empty streets. Although exhausted, they knew they could not stop—Tornus knew exactly where they would run.

As they neared the courtyard, Gen suddenly pulled up. “Do you hear that?”

“More Uyumaak,” Gerand stated flatly. “I’ll bet those lanterns of his are still out front.”

Cautiously they approached the courtyard, hugging the sides of a building. Gen chanced a look out into the square and pulled back quickly. “The gates are open, but I think that entire division of Uyumaak soldiers we spied in the glade are milling about out there. I cannot see that any of the lamps are lit. They are searching about at their leisure.”

“What do we do?” Volney asked nervously.

“We think and we. . .” Gen started to reply.

“What is that?” Gerand hissed, cutting off Gen’s comment. A yellowish orb floated just above them for a few moments before dashing away back into the courtyard.

“Run!” Gen ordered just as the sound of Uyumaak speech reverberated through the streets, the sound of their pursuing feet adding to the din. Gerand and Volney followed Gen as they darted down deserted avenues, turning unpredictably at corners and fleeing down alleys to throw off the Hunters. Echoes confused their senses as the scrabbling and scuffing of boots and clawed feet reverberated.

“In here!” Gen ordered quietly. They slipped into a dark building with rock walls and floor, the door and furniture long since turned to dust. “Get down away from the window and don’t move. Don’t breathe if you can help it.”

Moments later, a large body of Uyumaak passed outside. Gen held his breath, hoping they would pass on. They stopped, snuffling and thumping to each other in the night. Abruptly, the entire company fell silent. Beads of sweat pooled on their foreheads as they crouched in the dark, unable to hear anything of their motionless pursuers.

A voice outside incanted. “Hideya Uk!”

“They’ve brought a Chukka,” Gen whispered. White light streamed through the window of the room where they sat, brightening until a blinding luminescent sphere passed through the opening and flashed with the intensity of the sun before winking out.

“I can’t see!” Volney said frantically.

“Stay against the back wall!” Gen’s words barely left his lips when his ears told him that four Uyumaak, probably Warriors, had pushed through the doorway. Gen’s night vision was washed out by the light. Relying on his training, he shut his eyes and listened for the sounds of footfalls and breathing.

Remembering his surroundings, he stepped forward and sliced downward. The sword of Aldradan Mikmir cut through the Uyumaak as Gen laid about him with every ounce of speed he could muster. Two died, cloven in two, before the other two could recover. The Warriors wielded great clubs, and Gen ducked a high swing he heard coming an instant before the devastating blow pounded the wall and sent chips of rock skittering across the floor. A quick upthrust to the gut finished the creature, and Gen spun to impale the last in the back as it leveled a strike against Gerand.

They had no time to think as more Uyumaak charged the door. Remembering something he had read in his Trysmagic books, Gen used his power to create a small patch of razor-sharp spikes at the threshold of the door. Two Hunters had entered before his spell, but the next two fell down in agony as they crossed, tripping up their companions while Gen dispatched with the first.

“Aywejha!” the dark elf outside screamed.

Gen knew the Elvish word. It meant
wall
, but once his eyes finally adjusted to the dark, he couldn’t see the result of the spell. Quickly he butchered the Hunters that had run afoul of the spikes. The floor was slick and treacherous with blood and bodies.

“I think I can see,” Gerand whispered, “but my sight does little good in this blackness.”

“The Chukka is out there, alone I think,” Gen said. “Let’s run. Kill him quickly. Step on the bodies near the door. The floor is a mess.”

They ducked the window and ran for the door as one, slamming into an invisible barrier and falling about into the gore. Cursing, they stood, peering through the doorway to find the Chukka slapping his chest, summoning reinforcements.

“Wait here,” Gen said, extending Aldradan’s sword before him and passing through the invisible barrier. He sprinted at the surprised Chukka who stood alone in the street. The dark elf’s hood was around his shoulders, long dark hair falling loosely down his back. Raising his hands, he started to incant until Gen created a small stone in its mouth. The obstacle threw off the spell, the Mage spitting the stone out just as Gen beheaded him.

“Come on.” Gen waved to his companions, feeling exhausted. Magic took its toll.

“But which way?” Volney asked, terrified.

“Any way is a guess,” Gen wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “We need to work our way back to the gates, but the buildings make it difficult to get my bearings.”

The sound of running Hunters to their left chose path to the right for them, and they loped away into the darkness along the paved streets. Empty rows of blank windows and doorways whirred by as they ran away from their persistent enemies.

“I see a clearing ahead,” Gen informed Gerand and Volney. “Let’s see if we can figure out where we are.”

To Gen’s dismay, the clearing was the edge of the city, the long lines of graves dug and filled by Tornus stretching before them on the other side of the low wall.

“I can’t run anymore,” Volney admitted, nursing an aching side.

“Over the fence!” Gen ordered them. “Lay down at the base and cover yourselves with your cloaks. Let’s render their eyes useless, although we cannot help their noses.”

The overgrown field on the other side of the rock wall provided excellent cover as they rested and listened for signs of their pursuers. Gen fought to control his labored breathing, mind racing. They were trapped on the wrong end of the upthrust rock, gate back to the road hopelessly out of reach.

Again the malevolent voice intruded into Gen's mind.
“I am at your command. I serve those with the power of my making. Long have I waited.”

The voice, solicitous and urgent, carried with it a taint of violent intent, an avalanche eagerly awaiting a yell to send it in a destructive course down the mountain.

“I am Ghama Dhron. I am sixteen thousand strong. I can bring you aid.”

Gen shivered, the creature’s dark language reminding him of the demon that crushed him during the Chalaine’s betrothal. He ignored the call, shoving the offers of assistance out of his mind until the scratch and thump of a large number of Uyumaak on the other side of the wall set his heart pounding. Lying on his back, he leaned up to chance a look, finding the field swarming with the yellow eyes of the Throgs. Several memories of the disgusting beasts surfaced from Samian's memories. He had taken great pleasure in sticking arrows in the floating eyes.

“The Uyumaak are many. They are made from the same power as I. My poison will not harm them, and their skins are too thick for my bite. Command me and I will take the bodies of the dwarves laid in this field and drive your foes into the abyss.”

Snuffling on the other side of the wall turned to thumping.

“They are upon us!” Gen yelled, leaping to his feet. As one, nine Hunters leaped over the wall and toward their prey, one remaining to summon the rest of horde. The eyes of the Throgs raced to where the battle was joined as a host of Warriors and Bashers emerged from alleyways into the moonlit field.

They fought desperately against the first wave of Hunters, sustaining many shallow cuts as they retreated slowly backward against uneven ground.

Gerand wiped sweat from his brow after the last Hunter fell. "What are those floating yellow orbs, Gen?"

"Throg eyes," Gen answered. "I'll tell you about them later."

“No need. We’re dead,” Volney said.

“Then let’s make a heroes stand!” Gerand yelled. “And let them find a pile of Uyumaak at my feet!”

Gen swallowed hard as no fewer than twenty Warriors and a handful of Hunters hopped the wall. The Uyumaak bolted at them, circular mouths contracting and expanding as if already imagining their meal. More approached from the city. Gen had no choice. He extended his thoughts outward to the ethereal force. “
Come!”
he commanded, not sure what to expect.

At once, a mighty keening wail tore through the field, a sound of dark relief and delight, the pleased expression of a murderous convict set loose from his prison into a field of unsuspecting blood. The Uyumaak drew back, momentarily unnerved, and Volney and Gerand stood rooted, wide-eyed with horror.

“This way!” Gen commanded, leading them in the direction of the pit that Tornus showed them earlier that night. They did not travel far between the graves and weeds before a mass of sleek, dark serpents boiled into the field like dark water, groups stopping to burrow into Tornus’s shallow graves. One by one, dwarven skeletons wrapped in snakes rose from the ground, one snake poking its head through an eye hole while others wrapped themselves around the bones, adhering them together and striding forward. Dwarven weapons as bright as the day they were crafted glinted in the light of the moons, serpentine hands gripping them with purpose.

The Uyumaak did not wait until the snake-animated skeletons formed a column five hundred strong before deserting the field at a dead run for the confines of the city.

“What is your wish, master? Shall I pursue?”

“Yes. Clear the way for us,”
Gen replied in thought.

“I thank you, master. Ghama Dhron will not fail you.”

The counterfeit dwarven army sprinted away in pursuit, leaving the field quiet, save for the whistle of the wind through the weeds by the disturbed graves. Gerand and Volney looked around, faces troubled.

“A lot of strange things have happened tonight,” Volney finally said. “But Holy Eldaloth! That is the most disgusting, horrifying thing I have ever beheld!”

“The chill in my spine is permanent,” Gerand added. “Gen, do you have any idea what just happened? Because, despite the fact that we have just been delivered, I don’t think the sound of my clapping for joy would overcome the thunder of my knees knocking.”

“I do not have an explanation,” Gen answered. It was mostly true. “It is a creature of dreadful evil and violence, but for some reason it helps us. We must accept the gift. I don’t think we have a choice.”

They walked toward the city tentatively, weapons at the ready. Uyumaak lay dead along their path, cut apart and scattered. Rarely did they find the body of a snake torn by an Uyumaak claw or smashed by a club, but the the Uyumaak and their Chukka masters could not hold against the puissant force of the dark army. When they arrived at the courtyard, the serpent-animated dwarves stood in ranks. Three of the skeletal warriors held a struggling Tornus fast.

“Do not approach him,” Gen warned.

“I am quite content to stay where I am,” Volney asserted as Gen strode forward between the ranks of the creatures, the hissing and sleek black bodies testing his courage.

“This one we could not kill. He is a Craver.”

“Throw him in the pit,”
Gen ordered,
“into which he threw you and cover it with the rocks he used as grave markers. Then follow us onto the mountain road. Bring as many of the green lanterns as you can, but shutter them. I will give you further instructions once we are on the road.”