Kazin's Quest: Book I of The Dragon Mage Trilogy (36 page)

“Nay,” said the minotaur, dismounting Harran’s great warhorse. “She can ride my mount. If those creatures return, I will fare better on foot.”

“What if we have to escape like last time?” asked Sherman.

“Escape to where?” retorted the minotaur. “Besides, the horse is already fatigued. It will not run far with me astride.”

They could all see that the horse was lathered in sweat from the previous run. Zylor was just too much weight, even for such a large warhorse.

Milena smiled and took the reins from the minotaur’s hand. “I accept your offer, Zylor. This horse will do just fine.” She swung astride. “It certainly won’t spook like my other horse did.” The great horse raised its head in surprise and looked back. It shook its head and neighed. It seemed pleased with this new, lighter load.

“But what will you ride, Zylor?” asked the warrior.

The minotaur grinned. “I can run almost as well as any horse. After all, we’re distant relatives.”

Chapter 32

T
he companions started off after a short debate on which direction to go. It was finally agreed that the direction they had been traveling when they were chasing Milena’s horse was a reasonable course to follow, since going back the way they had come was bound to lead them back to the zombies.

They travelled at a much slower pace for a few hours, giving their mounts a chance to recuperate from their previous flight. Suddenly Sherman raised a hand and called a halt. He dismounted and bent to examine the ground.

“What is it?” asked Kazin.

“Tracks,” said the big warrior. “Several horses.” There was a pause. “Wait a minute!” Sherman swore. “These are our tracks!”

“What!?” said Harran, jumping down to join the warrior. “Let me see.” He examined the tracks and then groaned. “Sherman’s right. We’ve come full circle!”

Sounds of dismay echoed in the eerie foggy silence as the realization of what had happened dawned upon them.

“Great!” growled Sherman angrily. “We’ve wasted an entire day for nothing! I wish the sun would come out so we could find our way!”

“What’s that?” asked Zylor, pointing off to the party’s right.

Far off in the murk stood a hazy outline of a square-shaped object.

Sherman rose and scratched his head. “Funny we never noticed it when we passed by here earlier. Let’s go and see what it is. Maybe it’ll give us an idea of where we are.”

The companions dismounted and walked toward the object cautiously. They were still another fifty yards away from it when Harran gave a warning shout. Behind them, at the place where they had dismounted, some vague figures shambled forward.

“Great,” muttered Sherman. “More zombies.” He drew his sword.

“This time we will stay and fight,” said Zylor with a guttural growl. He drew his axe.

“Very well,” said Harran stepping between the two. He deftly brandished his axe. “Let’s see how they fare against the ice axe!”

Milena moved into position behind the warriors. Kazin did the same, standing near the horses to calm them.

More zombies appeared to either side of them but the companions waited silently. There was a soft chant and Milena blasted the enemies to her left. Kazin fired ice bolts into the necks of his attackers on the right. The heaviest forces came from the front and everyone had their hands full.

Sherman was blocking the blows of his attackers and waiting for the chance to sever their heads. Zylor hacked at his enemies regardless of what limbs were dismembered. Without their arms, the zombies’ heads were easy targets. They couldn’t refasten their arms quickly enough to prevent his axe from decapitating them first.

Harran, meanwhile, had discovered something important. When his magical axe sliced into his enemies, instead of freezing them, the zombies screamed and whirled away. But when they tried to reattach their limbs, they found they could not. After trying to pick up their limbs, they flinched and immediately threw them down in revulsion. The magic prevented them from reassembling themselves! Harran threw his stocky frame into their ranks and took advantage of the axe’s strange new ability.

The companions stood resolutely against the onslaught but the zombies’ numbers continued to climb, with more arriving every minute. Sheer force of numbers pushed the party of five back little by little.

A group of zombies broke past Sherman after one successfully grabbed his left arm. Sherman tried to deal with the enemy while the others came at Kazin. Ice bolts shot from Kazin’s palm to shred the front ranks but there were too many. Skirting around the mage, they threw themselves mindlessly at the unprotected horses.

The horses screamed in fear and agony and struggled against the reins while the mage and cleric tried frantically to prevent them from fleeing. In the end, the spell casters did not have the strength to hold the frightened horses. Their mounts broke free and bolted, tearing into the zombies and bucking in fear. They broke past the undead creatures and charged off into the fog. Harran’s huge warhorse did the most damage, kicking and trampling the zombies into the earth. This diversion gave the spell casters a temporary reprieve, but that was short lived as Zylor howled in rage and pain.

Some twenty or thirty zombies were swarming the minotaur and one was tangled around his legs. He fell backward and rolled to the side. Harran came to his aid and slashed at the minotaur’s assailants, giving Zylor a chance to rise to his feet. The minotaur hobbled back into his position and continued to fight with a savage wrath.

The temporary break in the barricade was enough to allow a swarm of zombies to break through the middle and press against the spell casters. This left Sherman cut off from the rest of the group.

With a battle cry not unlike a minotaur’s, Sherman spun in a wild fury, hacking everything around him as though he were cutting blades of grass. Arms and limbs went flying, and the zombies seemed to retreat despite their numbers.

The mage and cleric were too busy to notice. Milena cast her ‘dispel undead’ spell and many simply collapsed. Others were thrown down with ice bolts cutting into their flesh. This wouldn’t have been enough if it wasn’t for the dwarf and minotaur making a timely counter attack from behind. Sherman could still be seen not far away towering over a field of zombies.

Kazin was beginning to feel ill again. His stomach was burning once again but there was no time to deal with that problem right now. He stumbled over a stone and staggered against a wall. Surprised, he looked up and saw the object they were walking toward earlier. It was a tomb of some sort. An image of a gargoyle was etched into the wall but there seemed to be no other distinguishing features. The top had a short overhang and the roof sloped back to the rear right into the ground. The wall was only about eight feet wide but no doors were evident.

Kazin turned to see what his friends were doing but they had turned to face another throng of zombies. Sherman was still whirling in frenzy off to the left. But Kazin’s attention wasn’t on them. It was on his staff. The orb atop the staff glowed a bright fluorescent orange.

Kazin remembered when it had done that before. It was when he was in front of one of the lizardmages’ secret doorways. He spun around and stared at the wall in shock. Surrounding the gargoyle engraving was a glowing orange line! If Kazin and his friends could get in there, they could shut the zombies out and hopefully catch their breaths and figure out what to do next.

Kazin began to chant some door opening spells but they didn’t work. He sagged to his knees in despair. It was no use. The door wouldn’t open, just like the one in the mountain. He did not know the spells to open these doors. He stared at the glowing outline in front of him forlornly.

Suddenly he heard the mad laughter that had plagued him on and off the past few weeks. He tried to ignore it as he did in the past but it rose to a hoarse, screeching laugh. Kazin held his head but it wouldn’t stop. It grew louder and louder and finally he thought he heard the voice speak.

“Fool!” it cried. “Point! How hard can that be?” It broke off into a hoarse, insane laugh and then began to dissipate. Finally it was gone and Kazin rose shakily to his feet. There were cries and grunts behind him but he ignored them. He knew now what to do.

He planted his feet squarely and raised his staff, pointing it at the door. With a groan of protest it gave way, surging outward and allowing light into its dusty entrance. Beyond, a black, gaping hole was evident, stretching down into the earth. A set of grey, dust-covered stairs led down into that darkness. A musty odour emanated from the entrance but Kazin barely noticed, shouting in glee and drawing the attention of the others.

They saw him beckon and worked their way toward him, fighting off zombies in the process.

Kazin lit his staff and led them into the tomb entrance. “Where’s Sherman?” he asked, seeing only the other three members of the party following him.

“He’s still out there,” said Zylor raggedly. He had obviously fought hard.

“Stay here,” ordered Harran. The dwarf surged out past the zombies who were uncertainly milling around outside the tomb. Apparently there were afraid to enter. A few moments later there was a slight commotion and the dwarf and warrior appeared, slashing their way through the ranks of undead.

At last they threw themselves into the tomb and Sherman swung the tomb door shut with a loud bang. He lifted the interior latch and swung it into place. Then he turned to look at the others in the dim light of Kazin’s staff.

The only thing they could hear now was the sound of their heavy breathing. Milena lit her staff and the additional light felt comforting. She looked at her injured companions and sighed. “O.K., Sherman. Come here so I can treat your wounds.”

Sherman moved forward and gently prodded his left arm. His sleeve hung in tatters and the skin showing through was white and shrivelled.

“The touch of the dead,” said Milena in explanation, “also known as ‘tomb rot’.” She deftly applied some healing salve and chanted a healing spell. Then she took a strip of cloth and bandaged the wound. “Try to keep it clean,” she ordered. The big warrior nodded silently and moved away.

Milena glanced at Kazin but he shook his head. She looked at Zylor and rose. “I’m going to have to heal you once again, Zylor.” The minotaur nodded, looking down at his leg. Wherever the zombie had touched, his leg was exposed and dried looking. The hair was falling out in tufts. “It feels numb.”

The cleric bent over to examine the wound and there was a sudden gasp behind her. She spun around to see the warrior moving toward her. He lifted a portion of her torn robe and exposed the back of one of her legs.

“You’d better heal yourself first, Milena,” said Sherman sternly. “If you die, who is going to heal us?”

Milena flushed. “I will tend to it. Let me see to the minotaur first. Or would you rather carry him?”

Sherman looked at the minotaur and seemed to debate the matter. Finally he nodded and went back to the doorway and sat down.

Milena took care of Zylor’s leg, admonishing him to put more pressure on the other leg if possible, knowing that resting the bad leg at this time was not possible.

She took care of Harran’s wounds, all of which were superficial, and finally tended to her own injuries. The others all watched in silence.

When Milena finished, Zylor asked, “Now what?”

“We could go out and see if those zombies are gone,” suggested Sherman.

“Then what?” repeated the minotaur. “Wander around in circles?”

Sherman flushed. “Do you have any better ideas?”

The minotaur grunted and shook his head.

“We could wait until the weather improves,” suggested Milena. “Then we can fight our way through the zombies and find our way out.”

“We may not be able to survive that long,” said Kazin. “Our supplies are gone with the horses.”

“I say we should go down the stairs and explore,” said the dwarf.

Milena was aghast. “But there’s nothing but tombs and coffins down there!”

“If we explore a little way, I might be able to find another way out of here,” said the dwarf. “It’s not unlike being inside a mountain.”

Kazin became interested. “He’s got a point there. We should examine every alternative.”

“What about the horses?” asked Milena. “We can’t just leave them!”

“They can take care of themselves better than we can,” said Kazin. “If we have to leave them behind in order to save ourselves, then that’s what we’ll have to do. We may never find them with the fog and zombies to contend with anyway. All the horses can hope for is to be found by someone else. Knowing horses, they’ll probably find civilization before we do.”

“I say we vote,” said Sherman. “All in favour of going outside and finding our way back raise your hand.” The big warrior raised his hand. So did the cleric.

“Those in favour of a short exploration into the crypt,” said Kazin. He raised his hand as did the dwarf. All eyes turned to the minotaur.

Zylor growled. “It’s to be my decision, is it? Very well. The danger outside is certain but the danger below may or may not exist. If we can find another way out of here, I’m willing to try to find it. I’m not running from the zombies—they’re easy to kill—but I’d like to get closer to our destination. I say we explore.”

With the decision made, Harran led the companions down the stairs into the crypt below.

Below, the light from the staves flickered eerily off the coffins and caskets spread throughout the room. Several had their lids removed and the bones inside appeared bleached and white in their shadowy resting places.

Harran had moved over to a tunnel entrance and glanced inside. He nodded satisfactorily. “This way will take us out, but it will be a long walk.”

“How do you know?” asked Milena. She looked almost ghostly standing there in her white robes beneath her lit staff. She stood cautiously apart from the open caskets.

Harran tapped his bulbous nose. “It’s in the nose. This tunnel faces south but eventually turns west. West is the closest exit from this ‘Plains of Grief’ or whatever you call it.”

“Then what are we all waiting for?” asked Zylor. “Let’s go.”