Priestess of War (The Bowl of Souls Book 10), page 22
“She can’t,” said Maryanne.
Locksher clapped his hands together and stood enthusiastically, gesturing to the rest of them. “Indeed! Something has kept her from coming after us. Now think. What could it be?”
She has a broken leg? Squirrel wondered
“Ooh!” said Rufus, nodding his head in agreement.
“Bet she can’t go too far from her source of blood,” Lyramoor said, his face still tense with anger.
“Not a bad line of thinking,” said Locksher, unaware that it was the elf’s only line of thinking at the moment. “As an elf drinker, she would need to quench her thirst often to avoid descending into madness. However, our camp is not that great a distance from the Black Lake. Going a day or two would likely not be long enough. Besides, she could always carry some with her in a flask or something.”
Fist thought hard. Something the wizard had said pricked his brain. “Maybe it is the distance . . . we might be only a day’s journey from the lake, but it can’t be easy to control something as big as Mellinda’s evil. And distance matters with spirit magic.”
“Very good!” said Locksher and Fist wondered if the wizard had just learned something from him, or if he already figured it out on his own and was just using this as a teaching moment. “Yes, I saw the immensity of that magic up close! I would imagine it is very difficult to control. So much so, that she has to reinforce her spirit magic with blood magic in order to do so.”
“So we’re safe for now,” Qenzic said.
“Until that next attack comes,” Charz said. It had been quiet for several days and everyone assumed that the next one would be quite a bit more difficult than the last.
The academy graduate shrugged. “We’ll deal with that attack when it happens, but what I’m saying is that the big difficulty is going to be on the day the Academy arrives. While she’s focused on them, we’re supposed to charge in from this side, which is sound tactics, but what’s to keep her from just squishing everyone?”
“A legitimate concern,” said Locksher and the wizard glanced Maryanne’s way. “I assume the High Council is aware of this development?”
“Sarine should be telling them now,” Maryanne said.
“She didn’t have much problem killin’ wizards before,” Charz reminded them.
“Yeah, but they didn’t have Mistress Sherl,” Fist said. “She’s the best dark wizard hunter the School ever had.”
“Too bad she’s not coming,” said Maryanne bitterly. “She’s stuck back at the Mage School with the rest of the council. Valtrek wouldn’t let any one of ’em go with the army. He actually kept several of the best wizards home. He said they already lost too many teachers in the last war.”
Lyramoor scowled. “Why did the Bowl pick him?”
“I dunno,” Maryanne pouted. “He’s way too cautious.”
“Maybe he knows something we don’t,” Fist suggested. “You know. Like maybe he has a secret plan?”
She gave him a warning frown. “That’s another thing about him. He’s worried about secrets above all else.”
“Now-now. Second guessing the new Head Wizard will get us nowhere,” Locksher said. He cleared his throat. “Heaven knows Valtrek has a tendency to overthink things that has got him into trouble in the past. But, burned bridges aside, he has a clever mind. Undoubtedly he feels that the wizards on their way to us will be sufficient.” He nodded, then frowned as he considered what he had just said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a list of who he sent, would you?”
The group did not get back to sleep until late and Fist’s sleep was troubled. His dream was even more bizarre than before.
It began with Lenny’s strong hands grasping his shoulder and pulling him from the muck. The dwarf’s face was as battered as if he had been in a bar brawl and a tiny naked old man was sitting on his shoulder.
“Get up, young ogre,” he said in a voice that wasn’t his own. “There is a battle afoot!”
Fist watched him leave in confusion. Where had that come from?
“Why weren’t you listening?” said Maryanne. The gnome was standing next to him, untouched by mud. Only this time she wasn’t wearing her armor. She wasn’t wearing a stitch. “I told you not to land on your face. Tuck your legs under you and roll!”
Standing on her shoulder was Squirrel, only he had no fur. His transformation was complete. Covered in scales, his fingers and toes tipped with black claws, he held a sword into the air. Electricity sparked around the tiny weapon and Squirrel exulted, letting out a battle cry. “Deeeaaathclaaaaawww!”
“Uh oh, Fist,” said Rufus’ staccato voice and Fist realized that the rogue horse was standing on his other side. Rufus pointed with one long arm. “Big snake.”
Fist looked down. Instead of the multitude of tiny snakes, this time it was an enormous one. It was already attached to his torso, it enormous jaws stretched so wide that they covered him from shoulders to waist. It’s fangs had to be extremely long. He imagined that they had pierced all the way through him.
“Hurry!” said Maryanne and the gnome warrior began running towards the black lake with all the others. “Hurry or we’re all gonna die!”
“Ooh! Hurry Fist!” Rufus agreed and ran off after them.
In the distance, Fist could hear a terrible rumble. Lightning strikes were lancing out of the sky. Fires were raging.
“I have to hurry,” he repeated and looked back down at the head of the giant snake that was attached to him. Only, it was just a head. It’s neck now ended in a stump. It’s eyes were milky, it’s scales dry and wrinkled, and it stank of rot.
He tried to pull it off of him but it wouldn’t budge. “Stupid dream.”
He tried to run after everyone else. He had to try to save them. Only his arms and legs would barely move. He was just too slow.
“Too slow,” he said as destruction rained down on his friends. “Too slow . . .”
“Too slow for what?” Maryanne asked. She patted his face. “Hey, wake up, big guy.”
Up! Up! Squirrel agreed excitedly.
Fist squinted at the sight of the early morning sky. Maryanne was crouched beside him, already dressed. Squirrel stood on her shoulder. “You let me sleep?”
“I would’ve kept letting you sleep, only Lyramoor thinks a fight’s coming our way,” she said.
A fight! Squirrel agreed. He was wearing one of the vests that Darlan had made for him, this one in brown leather. His eagerness reminded Fist of the dream he had just woken from and he didn’t like the comparison.
“I don’t hear the drums,” Fist remarked.
“Well, we haven’t actually seen any dead approaching yet,” she admitted. “But Lyramoor, you know the way he is, couldn’t sleep last night so he went on a long scouting trip alone.”
Fist got up and started to get dressed for battle. “What did he find?”
She helped him strap on his breastplate. “He saw approaching shadows. Also claims he felt a rumbling under his feet and ‘smelled a foul wind’.”
“That is good enough for me. Lyramoor has good instincts,” Fist said.
He stepped over to pick up his shield and noticed that his pack had been knocked over on its side. The water flap had fallen open and some of his belongings had spilled out. He bent to put them away and his eyes fell on a thin book. On the cover, written in Justan’s precise handwriting was the title, Fist’s Book of Words.
Fist picked it up, smiling slightly. He had lapsed in his daily ritual. He opened it, flipping through the pages with his thick fingers until he found the leaf that he had used as a bookmark. Had it really been that long since he had opened it?
Puj had given the leaf to him. It was just a regular fernwillow leaf, but the ogress had called it “big healing magic”. He pushed away the feeling of sadness that welled within him and scanned down the page, looking for the first word he had not done yet.
“Indomitable,” he said.
“Huh?” Maryanne said, looking over his shoulder.
“It means, impossible to defeat,” he said with a nod. Fist shut the book. “Let’s be ‘indomitable’ today.”
He placed the book back into the bag just as the horn sounded from the clifftop above. The drums started beating. The tribe was called to action.
Fight! said Squirrel eagerly, leaping to Fist’s shoulder.
Fist didn’t quite like his bonded’s tone, You don’t fight.
Squirrel sighed, I am Squirrel. I do Squirrel things.
That’s right, Fist said with a nod.
The ogre defenders waited at the pass’ entrance just as eager for the battle as Squirrel. The throwers on the slopes above the pass watched as the enemy army came closer. At first glance, the ranks looked to be the same mix of dead goblinoids that they had come to expect. Only, they did not march down the center of the pass like usual.
The enemy stopped just before the choke point where the defenders’ traps had been reset. The ogres began to feel a rumbling at their feet. Something big was approaching, pushing its way through the rear of the dead’s ranks. It was bulky and lumbering.
“What the hell is that?” Maryanne asked.
“I don’t know,” said Fist. They were perched on a ledge thirty feet above the ogre’s defenses.
As they watched, the bulky thing shouldered aside a rotting giant and approached the first trap. It was hard to make out the details of the beast from this distance. It was blocky and at least twice as tall as any of the goblinoids surrounding it. Fist thought it had a sort of brownish color to it, but there was a strange variation in its skin tone. It seemed much like the variations in the color of the strata in a cliff face.
“A rock giant?” Maryanne asked.
Ooh! Like Charz? Rufus asked through the bond. The rogue horse was even higher above the defenses, atop the cliff side.
“I didn’t think there are any other giants like Charz,” Fist replied. Besides, Charz just looked like a giant whose skin happened to be made out of rock. This thing looked as if it had been roughly chiseled right out of the mountainside. “We’ll see how it handles our trap.”
The opposing army had no way of knowing this, but there had been an addition made to the pit traps. In the bottom of the pits, along with the sharpened stakes, was now a small rock charged with Locksher’s magic. The wizard had learned from the results of his last attempt and had reduced the amount of power in each rock. It wouldn’t blow the entire mountainside apart, but if the creatures should try to fill the pits in again, the explosion released would do a great deal of damage.
The giant stopped just before the trap as if knowing exactly where it was, despite the excellent work that had been done to cover it up. It stood there for a short time, not moving. Then it reached its arm into the cliff wall.
This wasn’t like the diggers, who had torn into the rock with their claws. This thing just pushed its hand into the rock as if it were malleable. The overlooking slopes began to shudder. Rocks began to tumble down the slopes and fall into the pass, breaking through the carefully composed latticework that hid the pits from view.
Several of the throwers that were perched above the pass lost their footing. Two of them tumbled down and into the pits. A series of explosions ripped through the pass as Locksher’s rocks were triggered. If any enemies would have been standing nearby they would have been shredded by the shrapnel. Instead, the explosions only added to the landslide as more rocks, accompanied by a cloud of dirt, fell into the pass.
Maryanne fired an arrow. The giant was just barely within her range, but the arrow soared true. It skipped off of his head ineffectively. “Okay, Fist. Your turn.”
Fist was already working on his spell, sending flows of air and earth both below the thing and into the sky above. A lightning bolt split the sky with a crack, striking the giant head on. All of the dead surrounding it fell silently, steam rising from their bodies. The giant didn’t budge. Rock continued to tumble down the slope.
“Rufus!” Fist shouted both aloud and through the bond.
“Ooh!” shouted the rogue horse in reply. He had grown several times his normal size and carried a small boulder in the crook of his arm. Rufus stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth as he judged the distance. Nodding, he started to spin.
Rocks continued to tumble into the pass, filling the pits, but also clogging the pathway. Finally, the giant pulled its arm out of the rock. The tremor stopped and the stony giant began to step forward.
Rufus’ boulder struck it dead center of the chest with a loud crack. The boulder shattered into several large chunks. The giant fell backwards, crushing the bodies of several of the smaller dead around it.
“Did he hurt it?” Maryanne asked. “Did he kill it?” she asked even more hopefully.
The giant lay still for nearly a full minute and then it climbed back to its feet. As far as Fist could tell, there were a couple of cracks in its chest, but evidently that wasn’t enough to slow this beast down.
This one’s hard to kill, Squirrel observed.
“Throw another one!” Fist shouted.
Rufus picked up another rock from the pile next to him and focused in on the giant.
The stone beast stepped into the pass once again. Rocks were strewn in uneven piles. Some were knee-high. The giant began kicking the piles over, shoving them to the side with his blocky feet to create a clear path for the dead shuffling behind him.
Rufus’ next rock struck the giant’s shoulder with a loud crack. This time the giant staggered, but did not fall. A small cluster of cracks in its shoulder was the only sign of damage. It continued forward.
“Maryanne, go get Wizard Locksher,” Fist said. “He may be able to tell us what this is.”
“Right,” she said and darted off, heading for the narrow trail that led down to the camp.
Another one, Rufus, Fist sent. This time aim for the head.
Okay, Rufus replied.
Fist switched to mage sight. The giant below shone a deep and hungry black. He frowned. What was this? A magical construct of some sort?
Rufus’ next boulder hurtled in towards its head, but this time the giant was prepared. It raised an arm and the boulder struck it with a resounding chunky thud. This time the boulder did not shatter, but rebounded and fell. Once again, the only damage was a series of cracks.
Were the blows doing any lasting damage? Fist wondered. Was there any flesh within this thing or was it solid rock all the way through? It continued to make its way through the pass, clearing space as it went, drawing nearer to the entrance where the ogres waited. Would they stand a chance against it?
“Ooh! More!” said Rufus in his huffing staccato voice, his long arm pointing.
Another large shape was entering the pass. It was about the same size and shape as the first one, but this giant was a solid brown. Fist’s mage sight showed him that it glowed the same shade of black as the first one.
Throw a rock at that one, Fist instructed, hoping that there would somehow be a different effect.
Ooh! Okay! The rogue horse replied through the bond.
Not good, Squirrel observed, eating a nut calmly on Fist’s shoulder.
“No kidding,” Fist replied.
The rocky giant was now in range of the ogre throwers. A series of rocks much smaller than the ones Rufus had been throwing began pelting the thing to a much lesser effect. It ignored the projectiles and kept moving forward. Qenzic saw the problem and ordered the throwers to focus on the goblinoids that packed the narrow confines of the pass behind it.
“Ooh!” cried Rufus, pushing his body to the limits with a another nearly back wrenching throw. The boulder hurtled through the air towards the rocky giant’s browner brother.
The rock struck the thing just under the chin with a dull thud. Pieces of the giant thing’s brown flesh struck the surrounding walls with a patter. The boulder stayed there, embedded.
The thing reached up with hands that Fist could now see were much better formed than its rocky counterpart and grasped the boulder. It plucked the rock from its soft brown flesh and threw it to the side, exposing the gaping crater that the boulder had left behind.
It didn’t bleed. It didn’t act as if wounded. It just started forward again and Fist’s jaw dropped as he watched the crater fill itself back in.
“Oh! How unfortunate,” said Locksher, breathing heavily as he arrived on the ledge, Maryanne at his side. He was staring down at the rocky giant that had just reached the entrance of the pass. “A rock golem.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Ohh,” said Fist, beginning to understand what they were up against.
He had seen Justan’s memories of the enormous plant golem that had torn through the grounds of the Mage School, killing students and teachers and destroying the school’s ancient clock tower. It too had been able to take severe damage without being stopped. Its rampage had only ended after Justan had shot it with a magical arrow enhanced by the power of his Jharro bow.
“There’s another one coming up the rear of the pass!” Maryanne noticed, seeing the dark brown golem’s approach for the first time.
“A clay golem,” Fist surmised from the way it had reacted to Rufus’ attack. It had almost completely repaired the damage the boulder had caused and was continuing towards them.
“Unfortunate,” Locksher said again softly, his mind churning. “Clay golems are a lesser threat, but formidable all the same.”
As they spoke, the rock golem stepped out of the pass and approached the ogres’ defenses. Crag’s clubbers charged towards it.
Maryanne swallowed. “So how do we kill ’em?”
The wizard let out a nervous laugh. “It’s-it’s-it’s very difficult. Uh, magic can sometimes do it. Enough brute force . . . but these were undoubtedly made by Cassandra, so I imagine they are incredibly tough.”
