The Crown Of Yensupov (Book 3) (20 page)

The adventurers stood in a huddle outside the entrance, trying to decide what to do.

“We might as well go in,” Bodrin said, hand on his sword. “We’ve found no other way south. We can’t stay here. When another troop of orcs comes along, and they will, we’re trapped here with no place to hide. Let’s rush the tunnel and take on whatever’s in there.”

“Something’s blocking the tunnel,” Tournak said. “We need to know if it’s stone or some enemy, waiting for us before we charge into that unknown. The immediate darkness will leave us temporarily blind and vulnerable.”

The band hemmed and hawed uncertain as to what to do.

“Let’s go,” Saxthor said. “We have to go in there. The longer we wait, the more likely we are to have more orcs come up behind us.” He turned and lowered his staff to go into the darkness.

* * *

The wraith had arrived at the tunnel two nights before, just one night ahead of the adventurers. It had determined this was the only place in these hills the Neuyokkasinian prince would find to cross into Sengenwha, if indeed he were making his way back down the peninsula. No one saw the phantom come, as the night traveling vaporous form wasn’t visible except against the light of a full moon.

The specter hovered like trapped smoke high in the tunnel’s cool dank ceiling, watching for the prince to pass below. It hadn’t acknowledged the orcs and ogre the night before. The wraith didn’t wish to disclose its position and alert anyone to its presence. It decided to lurk there for a week. If no one came through the tunnel by then, it would leave and travel to the capital to find the prince.

*

“Well, we can’t stand here and chatter all day. We’ll still have to risk the tunnel. I’ll go first,” Saxthor said.

“No, wait, let me go first. If there’s something lurking in there, we can’t risk losing you and the jewels,” Tournak said.

“We wizards will go into the tunnel first, Saxthor,” Hendrel said. “We can use finger torches to see what, if anything, awaits us in there. We’ll have wizard-fire to protect us in case there’s a trap. You follow if we don’t find any problems.” He moved up to the entrance with Tournak, and that seemed to settle the issue.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Saxthor said. “I shouldn’t endanger the greater mission at this stage.”

The two wizards looked at each other for a moment. They flicked finger-torches and started into the tunnel, looking what was blocking the view. Neither looked up. The others followed slowly after there was no sound of alarm from the wizards.

“Something is making my skin prickle,” Tonelia said.

The group moved along the tunnel for twenty feet or so. The black form of a huge boulder blocked the tunnel’s center and the light from the exit beyond. The path went around the boulder on both sides. The adventurers relaxed more with each step further into the tunnel.

Looking back to those behind him, Saxthor said, “When we pass the boulder, we’ll be able to see our way clear to exit.”

“Watch your head,” Tonelia said.

Saxthor looked ahead almost walking into the lower ceiling. The boulder was just ahead. Tournak and Hendrel passed on either side of it.

“I don’t see anything between here and the exit,” Hendrel said.

Tonelia poked Astorax. “You see, we worried for nothing.”

*

The wraith took form atop the boulder in the ceiling’s gloom. Its dark figure blended with the shadows and charcoal-gray granite. One of this group must be the prince, he thought, the one leading.

Pow! The wizard-fire cracked.

-

“Come on,” Tournak said, “back to the others” just as the bolt shot past him. He heard his beard sizzle and smelled the hair singe. The bolt passed by his face, exploding in a shower of sparks on the tunnel wall.

“Cripes!” Tournak ducked and jumped back. From the corner of his eye, he saw the black form turn toward Hendrel. “Get out of here, Hendrel!” In that instant, Tournak bolted back around the rock and retreated.

-

Pow! The second bolt struck Hendrel, just aware of the wraith. Instant pain surged from his hip as the blue flame burned through the bearded wizard’s thigh searing the flesh as it passed. Hendrel fell to the ground. There was nothing…

-

As he rounded the boulder, Tournak sighted the wraith’s twisted face just as it fired at Hendrel.

“No!” Tournak screamed, but it was too late. He saw the bolt strike his friend. Blue fire sputtered from Hendrel’s hip. He didn’t move.

Tournak fired a wizard-fire bolt that struck the wraith returning to vaporous form. It shimmered, glowing blue for an instant. As the wraith absorbed the wizard-fire, the adventurers retreated from the tunnel.

“There’s no way to reach Hendrel exposed at the boulder’s base,” Tournak said. He beat his head against his fists, then looked at Saxthor. “I think he’s dead.”

“The wraith survived the strike and spread through the tunnel’s ceiling as a dark vapor.” Saxthor said.

“
In that form, it can’t shoot wizard-fire, but it can move about invulnerable to wizard-fire,” Tournak said.

“It watched and followed us as we retreated back out into the sunlight,” Tournak said. “We’re only safe until the sunset. Then it’s coming for us. Without Hendrel, I don’t think I can stop it.”

“We only have a few hours at most to think of something before orcs will again come down the trail and trap us between themselves and the wraith,” Saxthor said. “Trapped here, there’ll be no escape.”

“Poor Hendrel,” Astorax said. “He saved me, and I could do nothing for him.”

“We all loved him, but we can’t help him now. We must think of something, or we’re dead, too,” Tournak said.

“We can’t go back up the trail and hide,” Saxthor said. “After dark, the wraith will search the hillside for us, if the orcs don’t force us into the tunnel.”

“What can we do about Hendrel?” Astorax asked stamping about. “We can’t just leave him in there. We have to do something.”

No one had a response.

“We loved Hendrel, too, but we have no means of getting to him,” Tonelia said.

Saxthor went to Astorax and put his arm around the distraught man’s shoulder. Astorax looked at Saxthor, and Saxthor hugged him. In the embrace, the eyes of both men watered. Then Saxthor again faced the deer-man.

“There’s nothing we can do, Astorax. Hendrel is dead.”

Tournak saw Astorax swallow back his pain, life seemed to drain out of him. He shrank into hunched state.

Saxthor turned to the others. “We must think of a way to fight the wraith now. There’s no way to force him out.”

They looked to each other for solutions no one had.

Twit was perched motionless atop Delia’s shoulders, this time not bobbing. He and Delia seemed to be sharing some thoughts of their own. As Tournak noticed the two, Twit flew up on a limb and watched not the men, but the dog. Delia ran across the tunnel opening. The wraith reformed and shot wizard-fire at her, but was too late. The wraith hovered just inside the tunnel, waiting for night’s darkness.

“If we could lure it outside, the daylight would vaporize it,” Saxthor said. “That’s about all we have that’s powerful enough to destroy a wraith, isn’t it, Tournak?”

“That’s about the size of it,” Tournak answered, his depressed tone hollow. “That’s an especially powerful wraith from what I could tell.”

Tonelia came to him and felt the singed beard stubble that still smelled of burned hair. She hugged Tournak. She stepped back, her face luminous among the gloom.

“Well, if that monstrous creation won’t come to us, we’ll go to it.”

“What’s that you say?” Bodrin asked. “Go to the wraith? Why are you so animated?”

-

Tonelia took off her pack and searched it for a pot, pulling out item after item as though looking through her purse at a shop sale.

“Since we didn’t cook last night, the pot should still be clean,” she said.

“What about pots? How can you be searching for pots at a time like this?” Bodrin asked. “What are you doing?”

She grinned but said nothing, continuing to search for pots. When she found two with large flat bottoms, she looked up and smiled, wiping the bottoms well.

Bodrin looked at her. “You’ve lost your mind.”

She glanced at him and he turned away in apparent disgust. She watched her love for an instant, hoping he would understand then turned back to her plan. Tonelia checked the bottoms of each pot to be sure her theory would work. Then she moved closer to the tunnel entrance and looked for a rock that would suit her purpose.

Saxthor and Tournak watched Tonelia in silence.

“Any idea what she’s up to?” Saxthor asked.

“She won’t tell you a thing,” Bodrin said.

Tonelia tossed one pot across the path leading into the tunnel. The vapor watched, but made no move. The pot landed on a rock, upside down at an angle. Tonelia turned to Bodrin, “Can you throw this rock at the pot and knock it slightly ajar facing a bit more this way? Not too hard.”

Bodrin looked at her, his jaw hanging, shook his head and took the rock.

“I suppose you have a purpose. I can see that from your face, but this had better be good. I don’t know why you want me to throw rocks at a pot at a time like this, but I’ll oblige you.”

“Tournak, would you slip over beside the entrance and shoot wizard-fire at the wraith to drive it deeper into the tunnel?” Tonelia asked.

“Really, Tonelia, is all this necessary?” Saxthor asked. “We’ve a crisis on our hands here.”

Tonelia glared at Saxthor, “Have you a plan?” No response and she continued with her work.

Tournak did as Tonelia requested and shot three bolts of wizard-fire at the wraith before the specter retreated further into the tunnel. Tonelia took the second pot further away. She used a third pot to reflect sunlight on the pot then checked the pine branches above the pot to see where the light went. When she settled on the angle, she covered the pot in hand with a towel, and went to a spot off the cave opening. The wraith vapor moved forward again.

Bodrin stamped his foot. “Don’t get so close to the opening.”

“Tournak, burn the wraith,” Tonelia said. “You can do it. Burn the foul vapor.” She saw the wraith beginning to materialize.

Tournak fired another bolt at the cave entrance. The wraith dodged. The bolt splashed in a shower of sparks on the interior wall. The wraith moved forward toward Tonelia.

“I see,” Bodrin said. He threw water at the ceiling. The wet spray made the wraith sparkle, where the droplets clung to its materializing form. That seemed to anger the apparition, who moved closer still.

Delia bolted, dashing toward the tunnel opening to Tonelia on the other side.

“Delia!” Saxthor said. “No Delia!”

Delia lurched ahead turning across in front of the opening, heading for Tonelia.

The irritated wraith was nearly a solid form. Its arm drew back to cast wizard-fire at Delia as she passed in front of it. From nowhere, Twit flew into the wraith’s face, throwing off his aim. The bolt went skyward.

“The rock Bodrin,” Tonelia said, “Throw the rock and knock the pot this way.”

Bodrin responded and the struck pot clanged, sliding to Tonelia’s desired angle. She jerked away the towel and adjusted her pot angle. Sunshine shot from the pan in her hand to the pan on the rock by the entrance and up toward the tunnel ceiling. The brilliant light shot through the wraith exploding through the water droplets covering it. The wraith sizzled, turned to steam and vaporized. Only a thin ripple in the sunlight above the tunnel entrance betrayed its last seconds.

The disheartened hikers rushed into the tunnel to help Hendrel, but he was gone. The wizard-fire had turned him to dust on the tunnel floor. Nothing remained but a boot.

* * *

Far to the north, a burning pulse coursed through the sorcerer-king. The instantaneous searing burn collapsed his energy level. He slumped to the floor as his super-wraith vaporized. He knew the wraith was gone. Smegdor rushed to him, but snarling, he thrust out his arm pushing his aide away.

“Someone has outwitted and destroyed my best wraith. Someone is going to suffer for that.”

“Who could do such a thing?”

“I’d know if it was Memlatec, the only wizard capable of challenging me. No, this was someone else. That prince is involved somehow. Still there’s no word on his location or intent.” Drained and in pain, the king clutched his gut shuffling over to a chair. He flopped down, gasping for breath, waiting for the pain to pass.

“Who has sufficient power to destroy a super-wraith?” Smegdor offered a beaker of water only to have it backhanded to the wall.

The king twisted his brain without forthcoming answers. “How could such a person exist and I not know of him? Why has no one reported this powerful new force loose on the peninsula? Perhaps I haven’t been listening well. Earwig has ranted and raved for years about the Neuyokkasinian prince. What’s he up to, traveling around the peninsula? The only thing of worth to me would be the Crown of Yensupov. The crown disappeared with the end of the Third Wizard War. No one would believe it ever really existed now except Memlatec, who created it. Yet only that crown could provide the South with any resistance to my armies, simmering below. Only the crown could be a threat now.”