In The Shadow Of The Beast (23 page)

Brodus Klay suddenly staggered, clutching at
his neck as if an invisible arrow had punctured the swollen meat
there, a moment later he vomited up a great mouthful of black blood
that bubbled and drizzled down over his chin and the great breast
plate of his burnished armor.

Sigourd saw his opening, and pounced!

He landed upon the broad chest of the
grotesque knight, and used the only weapon available to him,
sinking the razor sharp canines of his fanged maw into the throat
of the monster.

It hadn’t even occurred to Sigourd that he’d
been in possession of fangs until this very instant. What had
happened to him? What change had the dreamscape wrought upon his
flesh?

Sigourd threw back his head and bit down
again, sinking his unnaturally long teeth into Brodus Klay’s throat
for a second time. The monster groaned as the teeth sank into his
flesh, the sound coming out of him like the low rumble of glaciers
grinding together. Brodus Klay beat his mighty fists upon Sigourd,
the hammer blows raining down upon his back in a bludgeoning,
murderous fury. Sigourd bit deeper in desperation, knowing that
this was the only chance he was going to get at turning the tables
on his would be executioner.

The monster Klay dropped his halberd so that
he might grip Sigourd with both mighty fists in an attempt to tear
the young prince from his breast. But it was futile, Sigourd had
clamped his jaw firmly around the neck of the knight, and his
taloned hands had punctured the armored plate about Klay’s torso in
an effort to strengthen his hold.

In the midst of this life and death
struggle, Sigourd sensed that his body had undergone some change in
this strange place. He understood that he was no longer fully
human, but was instead caught between his former self and something
new, some animal form that had crept over him like a shadow.
Unbeknownst until it had chosen to reveal itself at this moment of
desperate climax.

Brodus Klay, with the half human Sigourd
still clamped to his chest, staggered to the cliff’s edge. Gripping
Sigourd in a titanic bear hug that threatened to break the
youngster’s back, he fixed Sigourd with a terrifying stare. The
madness in the eyes of the knight burned more brightly than ever,
matching in intensity the torrid flames that swept through the old
forest behind them.

‘
Abomination!’ was the
last word Brodus Klay uttered, throwing it into Sigourd’s face like
an accusation, before he threw himself and the half human from the
cliff’s edge.

The old man hung off the end of Jonn
Grumble’s sword staff, suspended there like a macabre marionette as
his blood ran of the sword’s tip to pool about his feet. Jonn
Grumble leaned in so that he could look the old man in the eye as
the life drained out of him.

‘
That’s for the bird...’
said Jonn Grumble with a feral snarl upon his lips, ‘...and this
one’s for me!’

Jonn Grumble raised his foot and kicked out,
the blow connecting solidly with the old man’s chest, causing him
to stagger backwards unceremoniously, sliding off the blade that
pierced his throat. He landed in the fire pit, the flames billowing
around him in a second furious fireball.

Sigourd and the monster hit the crashing
waves with a tremendous bang, the impact stunning Sigourd into near
insensibility. They began to sink, only to be picked up suddenly by
the swell of the currents and tossed like a leaf in a gale as the
black waves rolled them this way and that.

Sigourd had released his grip on the knight
before they’d hit the water, but Brodus Klay’s irresistible
strength would not be denied. He held fast to Sigourd, that
back-breaking bear hug still locked tight.

Sigourd struggled with all his might against
an unholy might that was imbued with the power of the ancients of
the Ash’harad. He looked up to see that the monster was staring
down at him, the light of madness in his eyes diminishing rapidly
as his rancid life blood billowed in the water around them, a small
snarl of triumph upon his lips. Down, down, down they sank into the
black depths of a nameless ocean.

With Sigourd over his shoulder, Jonn Grumble
ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Down, down, down the
spiral staircase. The structure of the skull keep had begun to
collapse in on itself, and the thundering of crashing rock and
molten glass echoed down the narrow confines of the stairwell after
them. It would only take for Jonn to stumble once and fall for all
hope to be lost, for the pair of them to buried under the
unforgiving tonnage of falling debris.

Jonn did not look back. Instead he quickened
his pace down the stairs, almost slipping on the smooth surface of
the stairs, managing to right himself mid stride as he careened
ever downwards.

As the entrance to the skull came into view
at the bottom of the stairwell, there came a terrifying booming,
like thunder crashing from somewhere above. The entire conical roof
section of the landing far above must have finally given way to
gravity. Whatever support system that had been ingeniously carved
into the molten rock had finally given way to the intense
destructive force of the raging magical fire. As Jonn Grumble
neared the opening in the rictus grin of the keep that would open
onto the shore of the atoll, he could feel the swell of un-heat
against his back as the pressure of the collapse forced what
remained of the inferno down the funnel of the stairwell.

Almost without thought, the wild man threw
himself and Sigourd through that opening, sprawling onto the black
sand as the fireball screeched past.

They had missed being consumed by the
otherworldly flames, but their close proximity as they swooshed
overhead filled Jonn Grumble with an icy dread the likes of which
he hoped never to experience again.

Taking a moment to look to the sky, Jonn
mouthed his thanks to the gods of the four winds, which were the
particular deities to whom he subscribed belief, before rushing
quickly to Sigourd’s side. He turned his friend over, studying his
pale, waxen complexion for signs of life.

‘
Wake my friend, wake,’ he
said to Sigourd, desperation in his tone as he sat helplessly by
the young lords side side.

They continued to sink, Brodus Klay holding
fast around the waist of Sigourd who fought with all his strength
against the grip of the madman, and was now struggling just as
feverishly against the encroaching darkness of his own
oblivion.

Brodus Klay’s eyes were still fixed on
Sigourd as they sank, and his words rang loud and clear in
Sigourd’s mind even though his lips never moved.

‘
I will not suffer your
reign to pass, half wolf!’ he said, ‘I willingly give my life in
the cause of the good.’

In sheer desperation, as the last dregs of
his strength ebbed away, Sigourd reached up to fasten his taloned
fingers around the head of his would be destroyer. With every
remaining ounce of hatred and aggression he drove his taloned
thumbs into the glowing eyes of Brodus Klay, who cried out in
agony, streams of tiny bubbles flowing from his horribly corrupted
throat as more black blood billowed from his ruptured eye sockets
into the icy water around them.

In that instant, some unnatural bond was
forged between them. Sigourd saw flashes of vivid imagery which
flickered through his minds eye almost too fast for him to
comprehend what he was seeing.

He saw a young man resplendent in the
ceremonial black and and gold of his uncle’s household. It was
Brodus Klay as he must have appeared years ago. He saw a hunched
creature nearly twice the size of a mortal man, covered in thick
fur with yellow eyes that burned fiercely and a mouth full of razor
fangs. It stood as a man might, yet for all the world appeared to
be more wolf than human.

Sigourd saw the young Brodus Klay wandering
the frozen wastes of the Ash’harad and his discovery of the ancient
skull keep. He saw Brodus Klay in combat with another of the wolf
men. They fought on frozen wastes at the edge of a large forest
beneath a jagged mountain peak. That imposing peak tapered to a
fine point like the carnissal of a flesh eater, and above it shone
a full moon so bright it ached to look upon it. Through it all,
Sigourd was aware of the steady transformation of a once noble man,
turned by the powers he’d discovered and attempted to harness out
here in the forgotten corners of the known world. Brodus Klay had
been driven insane by whatever magics he’d tried to control.

To see all of these things was like a dream
within a dream, a glimpse of the knight’s mysterious past scried
from the hidden places in his fractured mind.

Brodus Klay’s grip around Sigourd suddenly
went slack as the life drained out of him. His expression faltering
for an instant even as Sigourd drove his thumbs deeper into the
frontal lobes of the knight’s brain, piercing the soft tainted
jelly beneath the skull.

To Sigourd, it almost seemed as if the
knight wore an expression of regret, of sorrow perhaps at a life
wasted out here in the ice wastes.

Sigourd looked to the surface, where he
could see the churning waves turning far above him. With a final
grunt of effort he kicked away, powering his way toward the bloody
sky as the knight Brodus Klay sunk forever into the darkness of the
nameless sea.

Jonn Grumble felt helpless as he stared down
at the near corpse state of his friend. He shook Sigourd gently at
first, trying to rouse him from the sleep that the old man had cast
upon him. But as his concern grew, and his emotions began to
overcome him he began to shake Sigourd more aggressively.

‘
Wake up dammit, this ain’t
no time for a kip!’ shouted Jonn Grumble. ‘We’ve still got a damsel
in distress to rescue...’

But it was no use, Sigourd was still under
the sorcerer’s spell and would not rouse. Jonn Grumble checked
again for the pulse of Sigourd’s life blood, and was dismayed to
find that this time there was nothing to be found. He shook Sigourd
with all his might, desperate to awaken him from whatever
enchantment he was under, and when finally he had shaken Sigourd so
much that his muscles burned and his heart hammered in his breast,
he sank back onto his knees and wept for his lost friend.

It seemed as if Sigourd would never reach
the surface. All of his strength had been sapped by his struggle
with the terrifying knight, and although he kicked furiously
against the currents, they seemed intent on dragging him down into
the icy depths. His limbs felt as if they were cast of lead, and he
struggled now to even raise his arms.

The darkness without was mirrored by a
darkness within, which threatened to submerge him.

And then, an image of Isolde came to him
unbidden. Her beautiful pale skin, her raven dark hair and her
mesmerizing gold eyes. At first she was smiling, the light of her
perfect face so uplifting that it filled Sigourd’s heart with hope.
Then the recollection of her abduction stormed into his minds eyes,
he saw her struggling against her captors, a look of terror on her
beautiful face and into his heart there flowed a renewed vigor. An
anger that would not be quenched.

Sigourd felt new life in his tired limbs,
and he began to kick and thrash again at the murky waters around
him. He fought the currents as he had fought the monster Brodus
Klay, and would continue to fight until he had rescued Isolde.

Nearer! The surface grew inexorably nearer.
Sigourd powered his way through current and ice water, his
determination spurring him upwards like a propellant.

And finally he broke the surface of the
nameless sea, his head and torso exploding from the waters in a
shower he came to rest upon the backs of the churning waves. He
sucked great lung-fulls of the cool night air into his lungs,
relieved and amazed that the strength of his will had delivered him
from certain doom.

He looked up into the blood red sky, where
the full moon hung low and achingly bright over a mountain top that
curved sharply upward like the carnissal of a flesh tearer.

Sigourd’s eyes flickered open as he inhaled
sharply, gasping for air like a man who is struggling against
drowning. Jonn Grumble was so surprised at the sudden awakening of
his friend that he fell back on his ample backside, unable to
believe what his eyes were showing him.

‘
You’re alive!’ Jonn
gasped, as Sigourd struggled to sit up.

The wild man could not contain his joy at
the unexpected turn of events, and flew at Sigourd, gripping him
about the shoulders so that he could study his friends face as he
laughed with joyous abandon. The booming of that laughter echoed
around the vast cavern of the lake.

‘
Gods be, you’re alive boy!
You’re alive!’ Jonn Grumble hugged Sigourd close to him, squeezing
him like a rag doll.

‘
How are we outside?’ asked
Sigourd, trying to force his words out despite the unrelenting
pressure of his friend’s embrace. The wild man released Sigourd,
suddenly aware of his uncharacteristically emotional
outburst.

‘
That old crow,’ said Jonn
Grumble, ‘he poisoned the bloody bird. When I found the poor little
sod I legged it back down here, and by the time I arrived he
already had you under some kind of enchantment.’

‘
The tea,’ mused Sigourd
aloud, ‘it was drugged.’

Jonn Grumble looked about them, as if seeing
the epic scope of the lake within the cavern for the first time,
‘What is this place? It defies all belief...,’ he said, his voice
dropping to a whisper as if he’d suddenly found himself talking too
loudly in some holy place of worship.

‘
I don’t know exactly,’
said Sigourd as he struggled to sit up. ‘Brodus Klay found this
place decades ago. Sent out into the wilderness by my uncle
Mortaron for witnessing an attack on my mother by some kind of man
beast. Over the years his isolation and his exposure to this place
drove him insane.’