The Ogre Apprentice (The Bowl of Souls Book 8), page 49
Like Gwyrtha? Squirrel muttered.
Maryanne slapped her forehead. “By the great hairy pits of the gods, you’ve bonded!”
“I think you’re right,” Fist said in realization. Of course that was it. That made so much sense. “I didn’t think I could. I thought my magic was too weak.”
Head hurts! said Squirrel.
“Darn rogue horses will bond to anything,” Maryanne complained. She saw a huge dead orc slowly climbing the boulder. One of her shock arrows finally reappeared and she fired down at it. There was an electric pop and it fell backwards, landing on top of the dead below it. “You would have to pick the worst possible time to do this!”
“We’ve got to help him,” Fist said, sending a crackle of electricity down his leg and kicking the head of a climbing ogre corpse. “There are maggots inside his body and the lake is pulling at him, but somehow he’s fighting them off.”
“Well, what do we do about it now?” Maryanne replied. “We’re stuck up here.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Fist said. “But first we need to get Rufus over to us.”
“How?” she asked. Waiting for another shock arrow to return, she drew a long knife with her free hand and began slicing off the fingers of any dead thing that climbed high enough to grab the top of the boulder.
“Shoot the dragon,” Fist said.
“Fine. It’ll be a few more seconds before Chester brings me a shock arrow,” she said, reaching for her quiver. “But I got plenty regular ones.”
Drink the black. Kill the dragon!
Fist understood. The command to kill the dragon was Rufus’ way to fight the compulsion of the larvae. Instead of listening to the evil’s demands, he was funneling the anger at the dragon. The dragon was the enemy.
Yes, Rufus! Fist urged. Kill the dragon!
The dragon reared back, its front claws raking at Rufus, but the rogue horse hopped back out of the way. An arrow burst one of the dragon’s eyes. It jerked in surprise. Another arrow struck its shoulder. One pierced its neck.
If the dragon had been fully dead, these attacks wouldn’t have mattered. But the creature, though driven mad and controlled by the evil compulsions of the larvae, still felt pain. It let out an ear-splitting roar.
Finally, Maryanne’s quiver did its job. A shock arrow reappeared and Maryanne shot it right into the dragon’s open mouth.
The dragon was a massive creature, but the electric energy contained in the arrow was enough to kill the majority of the larvae in its body. It swung its head around in pain and confusion and Rufus saw the opening he wanted.
Kill the dragon! The powerful rogue horse leapt up and wrapped both arms around the dragon’s long neck. He squeezed and twisted and bit its neck with his two large fangs, while he raked at its body with the powerful claws on his rear legs. Hot blood poured from the stunned dragon. Then with a final crack, Rufus snapped its neck and it fell lifeless to the ground.
“Kill!” Rufus roared and slammed the dead dragon with his mighty fists over and over again until the urge had passed. There was only one compulsion left. Drink the lake.
“No!” Fist shouted aloud and through the bond. Come here, Rufus! Come to me! I am Fist! I will help you!
The rogue horse turned his enraged gaze onto the boulder and the large figure standing on top of it. Kill the ogre!
This wasn’t exactly what Fist had in mind. He shoved feelings of kindness through the bond. Come here Rufus. Don’t kill me, though.
“Kill ogre!” Rufus roared. He reared back and beat his chest, then ran towards the boulder, using his powerful rear legs and the knuckles on his hands to propel him forward. He was fast.
“He looks mad,” Maryanne warned.
“I’m nice! Nice Fist!” Fist exclaimed as the rogue horse pounded up the hillside, reaching the boulder in seconds.
“Kill ogre!” Rufus swatted aside the corpses in his way and leapt, his huge hands gripping the lip of the rock and pulling him up.
“What do I do?” Maryanne asked.
“Just fight the dead,” Fist said, and found himself on his back. Rufus was on top of him, the rogue horse’s rear claws digging into the ogres legs. Rufus reared back, his massive arms raised in the air, his fists ready to pound.
Sorry Rufus, Fist said and sent threads of air and earth through the bond, shocking the rogue horse from within.
Rufus jerked and collapsed on top of Fist, his weight pinning the ogre to the rock. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Fist said to the unconscious beast, patting him gently.
“Uh, we’re in trouble, here,” said Maryanne. Having fired all her arrows, shock and regular, she was back to slicing fingers with her knives. “There’s too many! I could use some help!”
“I need to heal him,” Fist said, trying to work his way out from under Rufus without getting too close to the boulder’s edge. “Grab my mace. It’ll make you faster.”
Maryanne snorted. “It would have to make me a lot faster.” She grasped the handle of the mace and swung her knife with wicked speed. A giggle escaped her lips. “That could do it.” The gnome warrior darted around the boulder, laughing as she sliced off the grasping digits of any creature that climbed close enough.
Fist gave up on getting out from under Rufus and closed his eyes, entering the bond, checking the rogue horse’s injuries. He was immediately overwhelmed by the flood of colorful magic coursing through Rufus’ every cell. So this is what Justan saw when he looked inside Gwyrtha. By everything Fist could see, Rufus should just fall apart, but somehow a balance had been struck in the magic.
Fist forced himself to look past the colors. Rufus had several minor puncture wounds and one long gash along his side, which was how the larvae had gotten inside his body. Those were easy enough for Fist to heal. The difficult part was discerning what to do about the remains of the dead larvae in his system. It was too complicated for him to figure out. Fist had no choice to leave them alone and hope that the rogue horse’s body would flush them out on its own.
He withdrew his thoughts from the rogue horse’s body and called out to him. “Rufus! Wake up!”
Rufus stirred. The rogue horse raised his head and looked around. “Ooh!”
“Um, as fun as this is, I’m getting tired here,” Maryanne said. “Please tell me you’re done, Fist!”
The wide boulder was now surrounded by hundreds of grasping dead, wanting nothing more than to reach the people on top. Maryanne’s work had made this difficult for them though, because those in the front of the press no longer had fingers to climb with. Nevertheless, stronger and bigger creatures were pushing their way towards the front. To make things worse, the dead dragon had now risen and was making its slow way up the hillside towards them.
Rufus rose on all fours and looked down at the ogre. “Ooh! Ooh! You!” the rogue horse said. He reached out and touched Fist’s face and a wide smile split his huge mouth. “Ooh! Fist!”
“That’s right,” Fist said, smiling back at him.
The rogue horse grabbed the front of Fist’s breastplate and pulled him to his feet. “Okay?” Rufus asked and Fist saw that Squirrel was already sitting on top of the rogue horse’s head.
“If we can survive this,” Fist said, looking at the dangers that surrounded them.
“Here,” Maryanne said, gasping as she handed the ogre back his mace. “Please tell me you have a great plan to save us that doesn’t require me to do anything else.”
Fist shrugged at her and looked down at the milling mass beneath them. “I think I do. I’m going to try that cloud lightning spell.”
“Didn’t you kill yourself doing that last time?” the gnome asked, her voice concerned. She stomped on the fingers of one corpse and kicked it back into the crowd.
“Yes, but it wasn’t permanent.” He gave her a playful smile. “I’d rather have you bring me back than Charz.”
She smiled back. “Not funny.”
“It’s the only thing we can do,” Fist said.
He sent a swirling gust of wind around the boulder, kicking up dust. Then he reached out and sent a web of water into the air. A cloud of mist began to form around the boulder. Fist focused, pushing the cloud outward. Sweat began to bead on his brow. This was going to be harder than he thought. He’d spent a lot of energy bringing down the rock wall and healing the rogue horse. If he released the spell as tired as he was now, he wouldn’t be able to ground himself. Squirrel and Rufus would die too.
“Me!” said Rufus, tapping his chest with his fingertips. He pointed at Fist. “You!”
“Yes, Rufus?” Fist said, confused at first. “Oh! Right! You’re a rogue horse and I can do that now! Good idea.” Fist reached through the bond and tried to duplicate the way Justan did it, tapping into the rogue horse’s energy reserves and pulling them into his own body.
Suddenly he was filled with energy. Too much energy! His hands were shaking. His teeth chattering.
Hurriedly, he threw out another web of water magic. The mist around the boulder thickened and spread along the ground, covering the hillside and a good portion of the shoreline. Fist turned his head and smiled back at Maryanne. “This is going to work.”
Fist picked up his shield and mace and faced the mist. He started threads of air and earth crackling around his body. The thick cloud obscured everything below, making it seem so peaceful here, almost as if the four of them were alone atop an island high up in the sky. Then the dragon’s head rose out of the mist and reared back, its broken neck bent oddly.
Fist jumped off of the boulder and into the mist, leading with his shield. He crashed through the milling mass of dead, and stood, raising a thick barrier of earth magic over his skin, before pushing everything else he had into the crackling field of energy around him.
Hands reached for him. Biting jaws. He could feel the pressing anger of the maggots all around him against the bond.
With a primal roar, he sent the vibrating and crackling threads of magic away from his body in a violent burst. The cloud he had created filled with light, electricity passing through every droplet of water vapor.
Fist grit his teeth, waiting for the energy to slice through the barrier he had put up. But the energy was gone. The mist faded. The hillside was covered with the bodies of the unmoving dead.
Fist leaned back against the boulder and laughed. “It worked!
Maryanne and Rufus climbed down and stood by the ogre, looking out over the black lake. The spell hadn’t touched everything. The dead at the edge of its range started to stand. The surface of the black lake rippled, misshapen forms rising from the depths and making their way towards the shore.
“Well, Fist?” Maryanne said. “You ready to go now?”
“We’d better,” Fist said. “Locksher will want to know what we found. They should be in the Thunder People territory by now.” He looked up past the hilltop at the familiar mountainside in the distance and sighed. “It’s going to be a long walk.”
“Ride?” Rufus asked hopefully.
Chapter Twenty Six
Justan paused outside the palace infirmary, Peace clutched in his hand. It was strange. His emotions were being taken away by the sword, but the thought that his friend and mentor was in there, dying, paralyzed him. Justan had thought about what to say to Hilt the whole ride there. Nothing seemed quite right.
“Just go in,” Deathclaw complained.
Jhonate placed her hand on Justan’s shoulder. “Tell him that Vahn is dead. Yntri is avenged. That is all he’ll want to know.”
Justan nodded. He sheathed his sword, accepting all the pain that rushed over him. He couldn’t let the sword help him hide from this. He reached out and grasped the door handle, then pushed. The doorway opened and Justan saw Hilt.
The named warrior was sitting on the edge of one of the grass mat beds, holding his daughter Sherl-Ann in one arm. She was grabbing his ear, tugging on it, and he was smiling. He looked fine. He wasn’t even bandaged! Beth was sitting next to her husband, her arm around his waist.
“Hilt!” Justan exclaimed, forgetting about the pain in his body as he pushed his way through the door.
“Edge, you’re back,” the named warrior said, looking at him with concern. “What happened to you?”
“I thought you were dying,” Justan said, limping in further. “Deathclaw said your wound was mortal.”
Jhonate pushed in past him, a smile on her face. “You survived!”
“It ends up there was a mage in Xedrion’s prison,” Beth said, nodding her head towards the right side of the room. “I had to convince your father to release her.”
Justan turned to see who Beth was referring to. His mouth dropped open in shock. “Vannya!”
“Sir Edge,” said the beautiful mage. Her long blond hair was disheveled and her normally pristine robes were bunched and wrinkled. She looked quite put out. “You were supposed to set this up before I got here. I was grabbed off of the road by soldiers. Manhandled-!”
Justan rushed forward and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “Thank you! Thank you for being here. I’m so sorry. So much was going on, I forgot that Fist had mentioned you might come.”
“I . . . I’m glad I was able to do something in time.” Her hands hesitantly rose and she embraced him back. Justan was so happy that she was there that he didn’t mind the way his ribs cried out. Despite her ragged appearance, the mage still had that pleasant smell.
Jhonate cleared her throat. “You deserve all of our thanks, Mage Vannya.”
Justan let go of her and stepped back, his face coloring. “It’s really a miracle.”
“I just wish I had been able to do more with his hand,” she said.
Justan looked over at the named warrior. Hilt raised his left arm and gave him a wan smile. The flesh around his wrist was puffy and red and covered with scar tissue. His fingers were curled inwards. Hilt strained and was able to get them to straighten slightly. “It least she was able to put it back on.”
“It had been too many hours since he lost it,” Vannya said apologetically. “I used every flesh restoration technique I knew, but there was extensive nerve damage. If he works hard enough at it, he should be able to get most of his movement back, but it may never be completely the same.”
Deathclaw approached the named warrior and clutched his maimed hand. “Do not fear. You will kill many with this hand yet.”
Hilt chuckled in surprise. “Why, thank you, Deathclaw.”
Sherl-Ann noticed the raptoid and cried out, reaching for him. Sighing, the raptoid took her from her father, his expression stoic as the baby giggled and smacked his face repeatedly.
“Where is father?” Jhonate asked. “I had assumed he would be here.”
“He went back to the prison,” Beth said. “Evidently Mage Vannya wasn’t our only recent visitor.”
“Um, Sir Edge? May I heal that wound on your face?” Vannya said, giving Jhonate a hesitant look. “It’s driving me crazy that you haven’t asked yet.”
“Please. Would you?” Justan replied with a sigh. This was going to be so much better than long days of soreness. “And take a look at my neck and ankle too.”
Vannya waited for Jhonate to give her a nod of acquiescence. Then the mage reached up and grasped Justan’s head, sending her magical energies into his body. The mage’s eyes widened. “It looks like you took a serious fall! How are you still moving?”
“My s-sword,” Justan explained, gasping as Vannya used a complex mix of water, earth, and air to repair the damage all over his body. “H-how long were you in the prison?”
“Hours!” she complained. “They threw me in a cell and gave me nothing to eat but bananas! One guard kept a bow trained on me the whole time like, just because I can use magic, I was going to go around throwing fireballs at people or something.”
“I apologize for their behavior,” Jhonate said. “The distrust for wizards runs deep among my people.”
“So what happened to the three of you?” Beth blurted. “We keep chatting, but you’ve been gone for a long time! Did you track the nightbeast down?”
“He’s dead,” Justan confirmed through gritted teeth. Vannya was finished with the main injuries and was now working on the more minor bruising, something that tickled terribly.
“I dealt the death blow,” Deathclaw added.
“Fantastic! I hope you made it hurt,” Beth said, gripping the raptoid’s arm proudly.
Justan grunted. “I f-found out who sent Vahn after me.”
“Who?” Hilt asked.
“The Dark Prophet,” Justan replied, trying not to react to what Vannya was doing. “Vahn had a rune from the Dark Bowl.”
