The Duelist 3, page 30
Anwaar blinked a few times and then smiled a slow smile that only made me a little worried.
Just a little.
Especially when she had that devious glint in her gaze.
“You have nothing to fear, Brightwood,” the mage-woman laughed a moment later and dropped the pretense of wanting to devour me whole and spit out the bones.
“Good, that’s, erm…” I cleared my throat. “Good.”
“Although, I must warn you,” she went on, and her voice turned a little sad. “Amaya is bound by her duties, as am I.”
“Horus mentioned something about an Oath?” I held up my Duelist stone for a little more light when something caught my eye. Some of the haphazard garbage would occasionally fall off a pile in a mini landslide here and there, and the combination of the rustling and movement were playing tricks on my imagination.
“Yes, the Oath, a time in every acolyte’s life where she is faced with the ultimate sacrifice and surrender,” she sighed again with a longing so tangible I felt almost punched in the gut by it.
“What does this Oath mean for you and your sister?” I asked in a way I hoped wasn’t prying.
“It is a pledge to only give your heart just like Mercedes did to give us the light of the Sun,” she explained in a way that sounded rote.
“Like in a symbolic way, or…?” I ventured, and I was a little concerned this was going to turn into some human sacrifice thing or something.
“It is mostly symbolic, however, there is a binding enchantment put upon the acolyte that attempts to bar her heart from ever feeling love,” she said. “And marriage, of course, is out of the question once an acolyte is bound.”
“But what about Dawn, Gavlain’s wife?” I asked. “They’re married and look pretty happily in love.”
“Dawn is a Deaconess,” Anwaar continued and tilted her head this way and that in order to maneuver through another narrow gap between trash mountains, but the tip of one of her horns caught a moth-eaten piece of fabric that sent a few items of the bric-a-brac to the floor.
“And Deaconesses can get married and feel love?” I stepped over a rolled-up carpet and offered my hand to the ibex-woman so she wouldn’t trip.
“They can elect to a different kind of pledge,” she said and hopped daintily off the carpet log. “If an acolyte wants to marry, she must submit how her marriage is more beneficial to the Order than if she were to not marry. In Dawn’s case, the union was smart politically because Gavlain is Asher Lord. However, it came with a price.”
“Oh?” I encouraged.
“Dawn had to drink of the Sacred Sea to prove she is worthy to carry both burdens of acolyte and Asher Wife,” she said in that ominous way of hers.
“My wife, Zoie, told me drinking from the ocean could make people go crazy,” I said, and I left out the fact that I totally gulped down the surprisingly fresh seawater when I first got here.
“The Ocean Mercedes is full of Her tears, and in them is Knowledge as well as great Sorrow.” She nodded. “Most cannot handle it.”
“I see,” I said, and I mulled that over in my mind as my heart sank. Amaya and Anwaar were trapped in a corner when it came to choosing how they lived their lives, and the only options of freedom were running away, or insanity.
“Do you?” she asked and stopped so she could regard me over her shoulder.
Before I could answer her, the sound of something rustling through the debris caught my attention.
“Wait, do you hear that?” I asked as the rustling grew louder.
“It is things falling off the stacks,” Anwaar said and looked around.
“No, this is different, hang on,” I said as I strained my eyes and ears.
This wasn’t the sound of a random object or two falling off a pile. No, this noise was coming from all around, and it sounded like something crawling through the garbage toward us.
A lot of Somethings.
I pulled my sword and moved the ibex-woman behind me as the noise grew louder.
“Look!” Anwaar gasped and pointed up to one of the tallest mounds of discarded statues, tapestries, and broken pottery.
There, swarming over the peak of the junk pile, were hundreds of spiders made entirely out of the broken parts of the debris they were crawling over.
And they were racing right toward us.
Chapter 21
My eyes flew wide open at the sight of dozens of macabre junk-spiders the size of manhole covers skittering toward us on their eight freaky legs, and I shuddered as an icy claw dragged its way down my spine.
Nothing should have that many legs and eyes, and my old fear-- Extreme Dislike of Arachnids-- came roaring to the surface to play out a recurring nightmare I’d had since I was five.
Granted, working on the farm for several years helped me get over my EDOA pretty quickly. There were all types of spiders to look out for in woodpiles like widows and recluses, and after trapping a few hundred wolf spiders single-handedly, the sight of something that fast, hairy, and multi-legged usually didn’t bother me anymore.
But I also never had to deal with spiders this large outside of my nightmares before, so I gave myself a break for the prepubescent screech in my voice when I yelled:
“What the fuck are those?”
I slashed at the leg of the nearest spider, and the crap its leg was cobbled from exploded in a spray of thrift store shrapnel.
“We must have tripped a trap enchantment,” Anwaar said and kicked at another trash-spider who was getting too curious with fangs made of jagged shards of mirror.
“No shit!” I hacked at another spider on my left, and a weird rattling hiss I didn’t think was even possible sounded from the maimed junk-creature.
“Ch-ch-chhh!” The trash-spider tucked its stump of a leg back toward its body where more of the junk that was holding it together reformed the appendage as if I’d never cut it off in the first place.
Oh, fuck, no.
“Hss-ss-ss-sch-rrrreeeeekkk!” it shrieked like a possessed car trying to turn over on a dead starter.
“Run!” I shouted and grabbed the ibex-woman’s hand so I could keep her from lunging at the trash-spider as it tensed its own legs in order to pounce.
“I can fight it!” Anwaar yelled as I dragged her in and out of the junk towers.
“Maybe, but what about the others?” I shot over my shoulder. “They’ll just keep reforming anyway, it’s not worth it!”
She nodded a short jerky nod as if she was still torn between walking away and fighting until her foe was vanquished, and right then I understood what Horus saw in her.
I was also extremely glad she had my back.
Literally.
“Raaaaahh!” Anwaar roared, and I spun around just in time to see her put her impressive ibex-horns to use on a spider that just tried to jump on me from above.
“Hsssssss--!” It was launched back into a sizable mound of wooden armchairs with a powerful toss of her autumn head, and the chair-mound cracked and groaned.
I took a moment to glance up at the way the chair-mound was leaning, and I let my eyes do the math.
The spires of clutter surrounding the wobbling mountain of furniture were lined up like ill-fated dominoes no matter which way Chair Everest decided to fall. I knew we needed to step on the gas if we wanted to outrun what was essentially a giant Rube Goldberg machine made out of Macklemore’s Bargain Store Wet-Dream.
“Faster!” I bellowed and stowed away my sword so I could focus on getting my bearings around the crooked spires. We needed to get back to the spiral staircase before--
Boom.
Chair Everest finally gave up the ghost and crashed into the even bigger mountain of what appeared to be instruments of all shapes and sizes. When that one toppled, it effectively set off the domino-effect I was dreading by taking out three more towers of various items and diverting our course sharply to the right.
“The staircase is the other way!” Anwaar shouted.
“So is death by hoard!” I yelled back and jumped over a broken-down bed.
Great big booms continued to signal the encroaching avalanche, and the spiders screamed out their Demon Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang noises.
At least they were being taken care of for the time being, but there was still the factor of us being buried just like they were that was my immediate concern.
A junk-alanche wasn’t a gelatinous cube, but it was close e-fucking-nough.
“Left!” I screamed and jerked us both to the side just as the massive stone head of a statue crashed down in our path.
“How are we going to get out of here?” the ibex-woman asked as we both helped each other back to our feet.
Behind us, the statue’s head blocked the way we came, and on our right we were flanked with what looked like a massive, fifty-foot-long stained-glass cathedral window laying on its side.
“I’m working on it,” I said as we started up jogging again.
I could actually see a break in the forest of junk through the multi-colored window, and I saw how we were actually running parallel to the railing of the mezzanine. That meant if we followed it for a little while longer, it should lead us to the stairs.
“We’re almost there!” Anwaar cheered when she caught on to our bearings as well and rushed ahead. “If we turn right at the intersection up ahead, the stairs should be right there!”
This was of course when the trash-spiders caught up with us and careened in like a flash flood from the left aisle at the end of the intersection.
“Close your eyes!” I grabbed the ibex-woman around her waist and shielded her as best as I could with my right shoulder as I smashed us both through the glass.
That hurt like a motherfucker, but at least one of Anwaar’s curved horns protected the majority of my face from the brunt of the shards.
“Are you okay?” she asked while she helped me back up.
“Yeah,” I said, even though I could feel all the places I got cut like a dozen hot knives slicing into my skin. “We’re not out of the woods just yet.”
The trash-spiders seemed to have learned their lesson with the junk-alanche, so when the rest of the cathedral window started to crack ominously, they slowed their approach.
It wouldn’t deter them for long.
“Come,” she urged, and we wove around the few remaining hoard stacks until we reached the mezzanine banister at last.
However, the only way to the stairs from here was completely blocked off by what looked like a piece of hull from a solid metal ship.
“Shit,” I cursed and then glanced around for an exit.
“Ch-ch-ch-hsssss!” The bravest of the spider-horde finally breached the hole I punched through, and they seemed to be trying to form ranks to try and corner us.
“Alex!” Anwaar called out and then tossed me a thin flagpole with the banner still attached. “Can you vault?”
I looked at the pole in my hands and then to where she gestured with a flick of her horned-head.
The towers of books as well as the tops of the bookcases were almost level with the height of the mezzanine and created little islands we could possibly vault to with the help of the poles she pulled from the junk.
“You’re a genius.” I grinned and adjusted the grip I had on my key to freedom. “Let’s do this.”
Anwaar and I each stood up on the top of the railing and positioned our poles, and just as the spider-horde was upon us, we each pushed off and vaulted to the nearest platform.
My feet hit the top of a bookcase, and I smiled wildly at the ibex-woman when she landed on one adjacent to me.
“It worked!” she exclaimed. “The creatures cannot leave the place where their enchantment is meant for. We are safe.”
Before either one of us could really settle into the fact, a high-pitched scream ripped through the air.
Our eyes locked when we both realized at once whose voice that was.
“Amaya!” we gasped in tandem.
“Let’s put these to good use,” I said and readied myself for the next vault.
The ibex-woman and I made pretty good time leap-frogging the way we were, and it actually would have been really fun if my mind wasn’t blaring klaxons that sounded like Amaya’s name on repeat.
“Amaya!” Anwaar screamed out as we vaulted down to the floor back where we all started and then cast aside our poles.
“Ana!” the oryx-woman called back from around the corner where the biggest book towers stood like sentries. “Watch out--!”
I ran smack into Anwaar’s back and gawked at the sight of some bizarre-looking snarling creature in the center of my circle of friends.
“Booorrrrrrkkk!” It blatted like a trombone with a sinus infection, hacked up a wad of bloody sputum, and ripped a tuft of greasy feathers out of its patchy hide.
“What the fuck is that?” I yelled again and slung my crossbow around so I could load it with a bolt.
“It’s… it’s…” Horus said with a disturbed look on his face as he also took aim at the disfigured thing. “Igoric. I think.”
“Boooorrrrrkkk!” the monger squalled again, and a set of secondary wings burst from its scaly ridged back as the feathered ones almost rotted away and fell to the ground.
“Something feels really wrong about that creature,” Amaya said, but instead of being afraid, she took a step closer like she wanted to understand it more.
Anwaar immediately intercepted her sister and pushed the curious oryx-woman with the odd sense of self-preservation behind her body.
“Yeah, no shit,” I murmured and had the strange feeling of deja vu.
Same conversation, different sister.
“How can that be Igoric?” Jenner asked as he helped support a crutch-less Tovish.
Maybe it was the adrenaline of the situation, but the old Archivists seemed way more sober all of a sudden.
“I have no frixen idea,” Horus said.
“That’s not how you use that word,” Tovish grumbled and rubbed his head as if it was sore.
“Ani?” the falcon-man asked as his green-gold eyes flashed toward the ibex-woman. “Any ideas?”
The mage rubbed her hands together until they glowed softly, and then she held out a palm toward the creature still contorting on the floor like something out of The Exorcist.
“Wait!” Amaya suddenly cried and went to stop her sister, but it was too late.
“Ahh!” the ibex-woman screamed and fell to her knees.
“Ani!” Horus bellowed and let two arrows fly at the creature slavering and moaning on the ground in a puddle of bloody feathers.
“Booorrrrrkkkk!” The Creature That Was Igoric made that awful noise again and stared at Anwaar despite the arrows sticking out of its hide.
“Ama… ya,” Anwaar gasped as she cradled her hand to her chest like an invisible force had burned her palm. Then she collapsed fully into her sister’s lap.
“Ani!” Horus shouted again, and I could tell he wanted to rush to her side, but the Creature was smack in between us and them.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked Amaya, who was cradling her sister’s head in her lap.
“This makes no sense…” she said as she cupped the mage-woman’s face. “Anwaar is sensitive to the presence of demons, but there is no Red Sky.”
“Boooorrrkkkk!” The Creature shuddered, and a gross crackling noise could be heard as its bones rearranged under its now slimy, scaly skin.
It snapped its now considerably larger wings until a small twister of loose parchments swirled up around it, and with another guttural groan out of its now-elongated alligator maw, it fixed its beady eyes on the two women.
“No!” Horus roared as he loosed another arrow with ill effect.
I fired my own bolt in an attempt to make up for the fact the falcon-man’s didn’t even cause the Creature to bat a lash.
“Breeeeccchh!” it shrieked when my bolt embedded itself in its eyeball.
This didn’t really seem to throw it off course, and even though its eye was now a ruined mess of leaking green ichor, it still readied itself to pounce on the augur-mage pair.
“Fuck,” I said as jammed my foot in the cocking stirrup of the crossbow in order to reload, but I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough.
“Skra!” Roofus’ loud caw rent the air, and before anyone made another move, the gold-seeker zipped by in a flash of yellow and attacked the Creature with his sharp beak and talons.
This distracted the unholy abomination long enough so Horus and I could finally reach the women without getting our heads snapped off by the thing.
“Booorrrrrkkkk!” The Creature attempted to lift its bloated and grotesque body off the ground with a clumsy beating of its wings.
It was no wonder the beast was having such a hard time due to the fact its transformation had it growing almost to the size of a VW Bug.
“We have to get out of here!” Jenner said as he hobbled over with Tovish.
“Yes, quickly, while Roofus has it distracted,” the koala-elder said and gripped Horus’ lapels. “Fire stones! Do you have a pair?”
“Yes, why?” he answered, and he pulled a set of round stones out of his pack that were immediately snatched up by Tovish.
“The hellbeast cannot tolerate fire,” he said and popped the stones into a discarded wine bottle he found lying nearby along with the rest of the junk in this place.
Then he poured in the rest of the liquid he had left in the flask he and Jenner were drinking out of, corked the bottle, and gave it a violent shake.
The stones inside flashed rapidly in warning, and with a mighty swing, the koala-elder rocket launched the whole contraption at the flapping Creature.
It exploded like a Molotov cocktail would have, and the hellbeast, as Tovish called it, roared again and smashed into a pile of books and debris.
“This place is going to go up in flames, we have to go now,” I ordered, and Horus hauled Anwaar up and flung one of her arms over his shoulders so he could help her find her feet while I took Amaya’s hand.
“What about the archives?” Horus asked.
“We got everything of use, trust us, lad,” Jenner said as we all attempted to outrun the fire that was spreading like a cancer and devouring everything in sight.
