A Champion Falls, page 13
Unprepared.
A twisted thought came to him. “I wonder what Tristan would think if he knew I was going to need to use my fighting style to deal with a stone monster like that,” Gavin said.
“Why don’t you ask him. When we get back.”
“If.”
Gaspar frowned at him.
The creature got to its feet again and turned toward them.
“Any thoughts?” Gavin asked.
“You said you hurt it.”
“Its hand.”
Gaspar pursed his lip. “Well, you hadn’t attacked because you assumed it was made out of rock. Maybe it is, but if it’s also alive…”
Gavin got what he was getting at. He sheathed his dagger, brought out his sword, and raced toward the creature. This time, he confronted it with a different intention.
Not to run, not to hide, but to find an opening.
Everything had a weakness. The creature had already shown that its hand was sensitive. That meant there was an exposed area.
What about its legs? If Gavin could hamstring it, it might fall. But even that might not work.
What about its head? Mouth and eyes were always sensitive areas, but he didn’t know for sure.
The creature swung its hand at Gavin again. He ducked and then quickly shifted direction. He stabbed with his sword. The blade sliced across the creature’s hand.
It cried out. The strange, trembling sound sent the stone rumbling all around it.
Gavin felt it throughout his body. It was almost as if the thing were connected to some deeper part of the earth.
The creature kicked. Gavin rolled to the side, springing up and bringing his blade around to try to connect with its leg. His El’aras blade bounced off. It was too hard for even this sword, at least when Gavin didn’t have access to his core reserves or his El’aras ring. With those, he wondered if he might be able to pour enough energy into the blade. That might penetrate the creature’s stone hide.
Without that, Gavin had to find another opening. He knew he had to target its hands.
The creature spun toward him. When it swiped, Gavin jumped. Again, he didn’t jump with nearly as much power as he usually would. As he lunged forward, the air squeezed down on him, as if any energy he was using to fight as he normally did was holding him back. But the blade punctured the creature’s palm.
It jerked back again and took a reeling step back.
That was a victory.
As the monster staggered away, Gavin redoubled his efforts. He jumped again, trying to scramble onto the creature’s arm, but he could not reach it.
Something struck him—maybe a small boulder—and Gavin went flying backward. Once he rolled to a stop, he leapt to his feet again with his blade held out.
The creature was looking at him.
“It looks like you got its attention,” Gaspar said.
“I could use help!” Gavin shouted.
Gaspar grunted. “I don’t know that I’m going to be a whole lot of help against something like that. You can go ahead and take it on.”
“I have been. Its hands are sensitive. I’ve been trying to target its eyes and mouth, but everything is too hard to reach.”
“Let me try something.”
“What are you—”
Gaspar didn’t give him a chance to finish and went racing toward the creature. When it spun toward him, Gavin feigned moving in one direction, before darting forward and twisting between the creature’s legs. Gaspar rolled, and as the creature reached for him, he dodged and then stabbed with his El’aras sword.
The stone monster tumbled. It curled into a ball and went rolling forward, and it eventually came to a rest.
Gavin sprang into action. Now that the creature was down, he didn’t have to jump quite so high to get into its range. He hurried, wanting to get to it before it began to get to its feet, and he darted into its field of view. When it turned toward him, he slammed his blade forward to try to catch the stone monster in its eye. It turned its head at the last moment. Gavin’s blade landed on the side of its head and went into its ear.
The shriek that thundered was overwhelming.
Gavin tried to pull his sword out, but it was stuck, and he wasn’t fast enough.
The creature stumbled to its feet, the blade still sticking out from its ear. Gavin leapt back, unsheathed his El’aras dagger, and just stood there watching.
The stone monster was shaking and shouting in ways that made the rock around Gavin tremble. It hurled massive boulders that seemed to come out of nowhere, sending them streaking through the air.
It shook its head violently. Then it grabbed at the sword in its ear.
Gavin winced, afraid the blade was going to snap in half, but the creature managed to snatch the end of it. It shrieked again as it pulled the sword out, then threw it down to the ground.
Gavin hesitated. He needed that weapon.
The stone monster continued to shriek. Boulders rained down, appearing out of nowhere. Somehow, it seemed as if this creature had power over rock, as if it were simply generating stones and hurling them. It wasn’t grabbing boulders from the ground at all.
Gaspar looked toward Gavin, a question in his eyes. There was a small break in the attack, and Gavin used that as an opportunity to race toward his blade. The creature turned toward him, fully aware of where he was.
Gavin froze.
The creature shrieked again.
Gavin held his dagger up and yelled at the top of his lungs.
The creature continued to shriek at him, but Gavin yelled back. He cried out until his voice went hoarse, waving his hands in front of him as he did.
“What are you doing?” Gaspar said.
“I’m trying to sound threatening,” Gavin said.
“You sound like a maniac.”
“I’m hoping that it will be afraid of a maniac.”
Gaspar joined him. He yelled and waved his hands in the air, daggers clutched in his fists. He shouted, screamed, and they made as much noise as they could.
Gavin started to laugh. Now he truly felt like a maniac.
Finally, the stone monster started backing away from them. As soon as it gave them a bit of a reprieve, Gavin retrieved his sword. He held it carefully and waved it like he had with the dagger, feeling as if he had lost his mind.
Gaspar started laughing too. The two of them shouted and screamed at the stone monster, trying to appear threatening to a creature that towered over them at nearly five times their height.
Then the creature turned and lumbered off.
Gavin took one long breath, then sank to the ground, panting heavily.
“Gods, that worked?” Gaspar said. He sheathed his daggers with a flourish.
“Well, we have rock monsters that aren’t enchantments, magic that’s holding us here, and who knows what else we might have to deal with.”
“Didn’t you say there was a sorcerer up here?”
Gavin had almost forgotten about that, which was dangerous. He got to his feet, still holding his El’aras blade. “There is a sorcerer. And we have to deal with them.”
Maybe not deal with them entirely. If they could convince the sorcerer to help them, that might be enough.
They made their way up a steep hillside. They didn’t go far before they paused again. In the distance stood another enormous figure—another stone monster.
But that wasn’t what caught his attention. A person was fighting it.
That was where the sorcery was coming from.
“Does it look like they’re trying to kill it?” Gaspar asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Gavin said.
“You want to go help the sorcerer?”
“Help? Gods no, I just want to go and get some answers.”
Gaspar groaned. “This is another one of your plans, and I don’t like it any more than I like any of them.”
Gavin chuckled.
They started forward, toward the monster, toward the sorcerer, and hopefully, toward answers.
As they ran, Gavin was increasingly uncertain that they would find any answers. But he wasn’t going to stop.
Yoran needed them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ground trembled again as if the creature knew they were coming toward it.
Gavin could detect sorcery all around him. It was a distinct sensation, the feeling of power building from someplace up ahead, and the kind he wished he had the ability to access. He couldn’t tell why this sorcerer could reach for their magic, nor could he tell what kind of magic they were using, only that they were trying to wrap spells around the creature’s legs.
“That’s not going to work,” Gavin said, looking over to Gaspar.
“How do you know the sorcerer isn’t going to stop that?”
Gavin shrugged. “I was just commenting. So, which role do you want? Maniac shrieker, or the person going after the creature’s hands?”
“I think I would rather be the maniac shrieker at this point. And you are far better with that sword than I am.”
“I don’t know. I was a pretty good shrieker.”
Gaspar let out a laugh.
There was a nervous energy between them, both of them giddy with surprise at having survived the last attack, but they didn’t have much time. The creature grabbed the sorcerer.
Gavin raced forward. He called on the power of the enchantments, knowing it would drain them. As soon as he reached the creature, he lunged with his blade. He stabbed at its open hand, and the thing cried out, shrieking much like the last one did. This one wasn’t nearly as tall—only about thirty-five feet. The last one had been stocky and massive, whereas this one was more slender. Maybe this was a female stone monster, though Gavin didn’t know if they had genders.
He slammed his blade up again, trying to catch the creature in the palm. Gaspar started shouting as he did so.
Gavin knew he also had to be ready for the sorcerer’s attack, but there wasn’t any. Instead, magic began to wind up the creature’s legs, snaking up from the feet and wrapping around them as if constricting them. Gavin had seen this spell from many different sorcerers, and it seemed to be a baseline use of power. Could this be one of the Sul’toral who had sent them here in the first place?
Maybe they should let the stone monster attack.
He danced back, taking a quick survey of everything around him.
The sorcerer had the hood of their cloak up, and a flash of red hair hung loose. Gavin’s gaze immediately went to their hands. There was a ring on one finger, which glowed a faint red.
“Jayna?” he said.
He would bet anything that he was right. The last time he’d seen her was in Nelar.
Is that where we are?
Gavin knew the lands around Nelar. These weren’t it. The problem was that he didn’t know where they were.
“We can talk when all this is over,” the familiar voice said. “But right now, I’m having a little trouble with this creature.”
“You just have to look big and threatening,” Gavin said.
“I have to do what?” She pulled the hood of her cloak back and looked at him with dark eyes. Her skin looked burned, and some of her hair even looked charred.
“You have to look big and threatening,” Gavin repeated. “They respond to that. I don’t know what parts of their bodies are sensitive, other than hands and ears. I tried stabbing the creature in the eye, but—”
“You tried fighting this with a sword?” She laughed, and Gavin shrugged.
“I’m just telling you—”
Gavin twisted to the side as a swing came toward him. He jabbed upward, trying to connect his blade with the stone monster’s hand, but he missed.
Nearby, Gaspar was still shouting and waving his daggers in the air. He was doing a great job of sounding like a maniac, and Gavin wanted nothing more than to laugh with—or at—his friend.
Jayna flicked her gaze to Gaspar. “You brought somebody like that out here?”
“I thought we were talking after this is over.”
Jayna shook her head. She raised her hand, and the ring started to glow softly. She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth, and then a band of red power slipped out from her. The magic worked its way around the creature’s feet, wrapping upward until it reached its chest. From there, the bands split and moved up either side of its head, and then they jabbed into the creature’s ears.
The creature shrieked, stumbled back, and then collapsed. As it cried out, it battered at the ground with massive fists and kicked over and over again.
“You don’t have to kill it,” Gavin said. “Just scare it.”
“It’s going to chase us again,” Jayna said.
“We don’t know that it will.”
She released her sorcery, and it faded.
The monster trembled for a moment before the kicking stopped. When it got up, it sat for a moment and watched them. Then it shrieked again.
Gavin raised his sword and took a step toward the creature while shouting and waving his blade. Jayna joined him, holding her hands up as she shook them from side to side, looking almost as crazed as Gavin. With burns on her face and charred hair, she looked even more maniacal than him or Gaspar.
The stone monster scrambled to its feet, then lumbered away.
Gavin breathed out a sigh of relief.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Jayna said. She sunk down to the ground, rubbing the back of her neck.
Gavin looked over at Gaspar, who was watching the creature’s back as it disappeared.
“What happened?” Gavin asked Jayna.
“You saw what happened. The damn thing came across me, and I did my best to stay in front of it, but they’re almost impossible to hold. Every time I thought I had my spell wrapped around it, it would slip out. I had no idea how it could do that.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Gavin said. “Where are we?”
Jayna looked up at him. “What?”
“I mean, where are we?”
“What are you talking about?” Jayna got to her feet and wobbled for a moment. “Damn. I need water.”
“Do you know a place that has water?”
“I can find it, if that’s what you’re asking about. The real challenge is purifying it enough so that it’s safe to drink. But I should be able to do that.”
“Does your magic work here?” Gavin asked.
“Sorcery?” She shook her head. “Not really. I have to use my other connection, and even that’s a bit twisted. I’ve been trying and have gotten better control over it, but it’s not quite what it should be.” She motioned toward the distant form of the rock monster that was still lumbering away from them. “You saw what happened.”
“It seemed to me that you had pretty good control over your power just then.”
“That was the best I’ve had in quite a while,” Jayna said. “And the pain…” She shook her head again. “Well, it’s too much for me. There are times when I can’t even tolerate it.”
“What kind of pain is it?”
Jayna watched him for a moment and looked as if debating how much to tell him. “There’s pain when I try to draw on my Toral connection. It always hurts, but not like that. Coming here has changed it. It’s a struggle in a way that it normally should not be. It’s augmented it.”
“Augmented your power?” If that were the case, then maybe they could get out of here.
“Not the power,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Water?” Gaspar prompted.
Jayna turned away, and she headed toward the broken forest.
“See?” Gaspar said to Gavin.
“I never said you were going the wrong direction,” Gavin said.
“Well, I just wanted some confirmation that maybe I have good ideas from time to time.”
Gavin chuckled. “And I will give you all the confirmation you need, especially when it comes to you finding water in a magical and dangerous land that suppresses our power and is filled with rock monsters.”
Gaspar nodded. “That’s all I want.”
Jayna looked from one to the other. “I don’t remember the two of you acting like this before. What happened?”
“I think it was the blood of some dark creature,” Gavin said, realizing that had to be true. He and Gaspar both were being a little strange. Then again, not only had they survived a strange creature that had poisoned him with its bizarre blood, but they had also lived through fighting two stone monsters.
There had to be something to that, though Gavin didn’t know what it was. These creatures seemed significant, as did the number of them that they had already encountered. But why?
“What kind of creature?” Jayna asked.
Gavin spread his arms and flapped them as if he were a massive bird. “Some enormous black-winged creature. Had a dangerous tail.”
Jayna furrowed her brow. “How did you survive?” She seemed genuinely interested.
“My sword,” Gavin said, holding the blade out.
“Interesting. Even I haven’t tried to take them on. It’s not the blood, though. It’s the saliva.”
“Saliva?” Gaspar said. He looked over to Gavin and laughed. “You get kissed by some bird?”
“At least I’m getting kissed,” Gavin said.
Gaspar scowled and turned away. They’d been teasing each other quite a bit lately, so it surprised Gavin that he would react that way. What had he missed?
“Saliva,” Jayna said, catching Gavin’s attention. “If the creature’s saliva gets on you, it has strange effects. I’m not sure about all of them, but it does cause disorientation and confusion, sometimes delirium. Always weakness.” She shook her head. “That saliva can be used in certain spells.”
Gavin frowned as he tore his attention away from Gaspar. “What kind of spells would use that? Who would need that kind of power in their magic?”
“Dark spells,” she said, then strode away from them.
Gavin hesitated for a moment before making his way to Gaspar. “Listen,” he said, seeing the irritation on Gaspar’s face. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have bothered addressing it, but they were friends now. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
