Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1)

Scars of the Sundering

Book 1

Malediction

Hans Cummings

Chapter 1

The minotaur
stopped at the edge of the hole, a great pit that seemed to swallow up what
little light existed in the tunnel and threatened to swallow him as well. He
rubbed his right horn, the gilded tip cool against his fingers. Kale stepped up
alongside him and kicked a stone into the hole. It clattered against the sides
as it fell. He searched for an alternate route, but decided descending the hole
was the only way forward.

"Come
on, Pancras!" The diminutive lizard-like creature, according to legend
descended from dragons, gestured for his friend to follow him. The minotaur
sighed, running his hoof along the edge of the precipice and watched as the
black- and red-striped drak jumped into the unnaturally dark void. "It's
not that deep! You were right!" Kale's voice echoed up from below.

Pancras
suspected the darkness was magical in nature. Dwarven lights, powered by the
Soul Forge, dotted the tunnels of the city and usually illuminated the upper
part of cavities such as the one before him. He tapped a piece of rubble at the
edge and watched as it vanished into the darkness and then shook his head.
Sometimes
I think Kale is braver than he is smart.

As he
considered following Kale, he started at the scraping of a boot behind him. He
smoothed the front of his gold-trimmed violet robes and turned to face the
hairy creature behind him.

"I'm
Edric. I've been ordered to go with you." The dwarf ran his fingers
through the frayed braids of his beard, evidence that he had not groomed
himself in days. Pancras wrinkled his nose as the pervasive odor of stale ale,
which clung to the dwarf, wafted past him. He intended for he and Kale to
handle whatever they encountered, but since the dwarves sent a helper, he would
put Edric to work.
The smelly bugger can distract the ghouls at least
.
He nodded and pointed toward the darkness. "Fine. Get in then."

Edric seemed
taken aback. "That hole? Why in the name of Adranus's beard would I do
that?" He peered over the edge into the blackness, running his fingers
through his scraggly beard. "What's down there?"

Pancras
sighed. "Did they not tell you why we're here?"

The dwarf
shook his head. "Nah. They don't tell us much when we're being punished.
You fellas are from Drak-Anor, right? I figured you being here with us dwarves
was your punishment for something or other, and I got stuck here with
you."

I suppose
being here is a punishment of sorts.
"Lord Sarvesh asked Kale and I
to help your Seer-King with this ghoul problem as a gesture of goodwill."

"Ghouls?"
Edric stepped away from the hole. "I heard about some problems down here,
but nobody mentioned ghouls. I don't mess with no undead beasties."

"Well,
that's the job." He grabbed Edric. The dwarf squirmed and thrashed, but
Pancras held him at arm's length and tossed him down the hole. He took a deep
breath and jumped in after the dwarf. For a brief moment darkness enveloped
him.

Unprepared
for the impact of hooves to ground, Pancras collapsed onto his knees. Kale,
busy helping Edric to his feet, shook the dwarf off his arm and rushed over to
assist his friend. The minotaur waved off the diminutive drak. There wasn't
much Kale could do to help him up anyway since he stood only as high as
Pancras's waist.

“When did we
get a dwarf?”

"He
arrived just after you jumped down the hole. Ordered to help us." Pancras
was glad Sarvesh required his closest advisors to learn Dwarvish. Before
Ironkrag and Drak-Anor worked out a peace agreement, communication between
minotaurs, draks, and dwarves often relied on tedious relays between
translators.

"Help
us, huh?" Kale offered a clawed hand to the dwarf. "I'm Kale."

The dwarf
stared at the proffered hand as if it might bite him and shook it with obvious
reluctance. "Edric."

Pancras
glanced up and noticed the darkness covered only the hole above them, a void in
the rocky ceiling.
Hmm. It is indeed magical
. They stood in a rough-hewn
tunnel, wide enough for only two to stand side-by-side, and the minotaur
crouched, lest the tips of his horns scrape the ceiling.

Edric
examined the walls. He rubbed a gloved hand on them and shook his head.
"This is not dwarven work. Look at these markings." He pointed to a
pattern on the wall. "This tunnel was dug by claws."

"Dug?
So the ghouls came in from outside Ironkrag?" Kale regarded the area to
which Edric called attention and then looked up at Pancras.

"So we
have ghouls coming in from outside. Ghouls of goblin, drak, oroq, and dwarven
origins, yes?" Pancras ticked his fingers as he recited the names.

"That's
what Sarvesh said." Kale drew one of the many daggers from his bandolier.
"But where do they come from? The dwarf ghouls, I mean. Dwarves turn to
stone when they're dead, right?"

Edric
nodded. "Yes. Fuel for the Soul Forge. I have never heard of a dwarf being
so afflicted." He looked back at the black hole above them. "I wish
I'd repaid that bastard moneylender now. They sent me here to get rid of
me."

Kale grinned
and raised himself on tip-toes to put his arm around the dwarf's shoulder.
"Don't worry. Pancras and I have some experience with this. Ghouls are
nothing."

The dwarf
pulled away from Kale. "It ain't the ghouls I'm worried about. It's what's
making them."

Pancras
nodded, chewing his upper lip. "Edric speaks wisely. A vampire could do
this. Perhaps a necromancer. There are older and fouler things that could so
corrupt a dwarf, as well. The ghouls are a symptom of the problem. Our true foe
is much more dangerous than a pack of mindless flesh-eaters."

A clicking
sound from the darkness ahead interrupted his musings. Although a variety of
creatures made their homes in dark places of the world, Pancras was not
familiar with any that made such a distinctive sound.

Kale dropped
to a fighting stance as he peered ahead. "What's that?"

Pancras
glanced over at Edric. The dwarf shook his head and shrugged. The minotaur drew
magical energies to him, preparing them for use on whatever lay ahead. The tips
of his horns glowed with emerald light as the swirling tendrils of aether
converged.

He nodded.
"Let's move forward then."

Edric drew
his sword, a short and angular weapon designed more for chopping and slashing
and typical of the type of brute-force weaponry dwarves preferred, and
positioned himself next to Kale as they crept forward. The light from the
magical foci on Pancras's horns illuminated the walls. Accustomed to living
underground, he noticed the air in this tunnel seemed unusually oppressive and
thick.

The tunnel
descended as they moved forward. The subtle downward slope became more
pronounced the further from Ironkrag they explored. Pancras sniffed the air,
recognizing the faint stench of decay. The clicking in the distance continued,
growing louder.

"This
is worse than Deep Road patrol." Edric held up his hand and stopped.
"Feel that?"

Pancras and
Kale stopped. The minotaur felt nothing out of the ordinary. The clicking sound
and stench still grew louder and stronger. "What?"

"Vibrations.
In the stone. Feels like machinery ahead."

Kale nodded
and looked up at his friend. "Hey, maybe it's not such a bad idea to have
a dwarf along after all, huh?"

Pancras
frowned. "I never said it was."

"Where
do you suppose this tunnel goes, anyway?" Kale peered forward into the
darkness. "We've walked a ways already, and we're going deeper and deeper.
I'll bet we're already below Deep Road."

The
underground thoroughfare connected most of the dwarven cities, from Dwegerthon
in the Iron Gate Mountains to Ironkrag and Korbaddan in the Dragon Spine
mountains in the northwest. Although he was unsure how far under the mountain
it extended, he agreed Kale was probably correct.

"Let's
keep going." He gestured for Kale and Edric to lead the way, while he
concentrated on keeping his magic at the ready. He cursed himself for not
bringing Kale's sister along. She was a powerful sorceress and was more adept
at combat sorcery.

The tunnel
continued its descent and turned sharply before it opened into a cavern. The
misty glow of phosphorescent moss covering the distant ceiling gave the
appearance of purple clouds in an impossibly dark sky. The clicking echoed
throughout the chasm.

"Whew!
I thought something stank." Kale waved his hand in front of his snout.
"It reeks in here."

"Oh."
Edric sniffed the air. "I thought that was the two of you!"

"Ghouls
are close." Pancras pushed past his smaller companions. "Be on your
guard."

As they
moved deeper into the cavern, the minotaur felt the ground vibrating through
his hooves. Ahead, he saw a shadowed recess in the floor. He approached it and
realized it was a vertical shaft in the floor of the cavern. Boulders big
enough to house drak families dotted the chamber, but a clear path led to the
cavity. He advanced to the edge and peered into the hollow.

Downward
pointing spikes lined the sides of the pit. He saw something churning at the
bottom, almost like an undulating pool of blood. The red glow from the bottom
permeated the sides, creeping up almost like ivy, yet it moved in a way that
suggested thought, purpose.

It was then
Pancras realized: the spikes were teeth.

* * *

"What
is that?" Kale bumped into Pancras as he looked down the pit. With a gasp
the minotaur grabbed him and backpedaled. The drak saw spikes and a
nasty-looking red morass at the bottom of the pit. He grasped Kale's bandoleer
and dragged him away from the edge.

"Bloodmaw."

"What?"
Kale looked up at Pancras.

Pancras
shook his head. "It is a beast born of chaos. It should not be in this
world."

Edric looked
over the edge. "That thing's making the ghouls?" The clicking noise
echoed up the bloodmaw's pit.

"No,
no." Pancras shook his head again. "I don't think so. It can corrupt,
though, corrupt and devour. When the world was sundered, the shards of Calliome
were surrounded by elemental chaos. Scholars called it The Maelstrom. Those
rifts were all sealed with the healing of the world, but as with all grievous
wounds, some of the scars festered and allowed bits of chaos to seep through,
much like the portal to the Fae Realm in Drak-Anor. They allow what's on the
other side passage to our world. This chaos beast"—he gestured to the
bloodmaw's pit—"must have come through one of those festering sores."

“How does it
make that sound?” Kale noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Dozens of
ghouls shuffled toward them out of the darkness. Twisted and deformed, they
were hunched over, their knuckles touching the ground. Dirty, elongated nails
now served as cruel talons. He identified ghouls that were once dwarves, draks,
and even minotaurs and humans. He tapped Pancras on the hand.

"We
have company."

The dwarf
spun around, brandishing his sword. Pancras turned to regard the ghoul horde.
"Aita's bloody bones!"

Ghouls
closed in from all sides, moving toward them with deliberate purpose. Kale drew
a second dagger and crouched into a combat stance. "Why aren't they attacking?"

The glow on
the tips of Pancras's horns grew brighter and greener. "They are being
controlled."

"Indeed."
A mellifluous, malicious voice answered. Kale did not recognize the language it
spoke and was puzzled he understood it. The air around them grew ranker and as
cold as the deep of winter as a shadow rose from behind the pack of ghouls
surrounding them. "Welcome, Necromancer. Come to join my ever-growing
army?" Kale shuddered, his stomach twisting in knots. Every fiber of his
being screamed for him to run and hide from or cower in fear at this twisted
abomination in the shadow as his brain told him to stand fast and help Pancras.

The minotaur
stepped forward, interposing himself between Kale and the shadow. "We come
to destroy it."

The shadow
laughed. "The three of you? You would make fine additions, despite your
foolishness." The shadow moved forward, revealing its true form: that of a
slime-covered beast. Shadows cloaked it like billowy clouds of soot and ash.
Kale found himself instinctively shrinking from it, though he did not recognize
its form. Its slavering maw snapped, and hissing at the three, it bared its
teeth.

Pancras
stood his ground. The emerald glow at the tips of his horns flared.

Kale
squinted to shield his eyes as Pancras threw open his arms and chanted. "
Aita
pairnei piso tee dyaenamee pou eiche klapei.
"

The shadow
growled and charged the minotaur. Kale leapt forward, throwing his dagger at it
and drawing two more from his bandoleer before touching down. The thrown
daggers punched holes through the shadow, holes which sealed themselves with a
hiss and puff of greasy smoke.