14

The Elder Rudra

Bax ignored the array of looks garnered by his entrance. Rather he marched straight up to the portal, standing at a distance that threatened the tip of his nose, and grinned.

Oydd, discouraged by the final product of the gnome's 'weaponsmithing', though not at all surprised, closed his eyes and massaged his temples to avoid losing his temper.

Cricket on the other hand, ran up excitedly to examine the Witch Clipper.

"What does it do?"

"It clips witches! Right in the head. Done it before," he added proudly.

"Nice! We're not after a witch though."

Before the gnome could react, Cricket patted him on the back. "Just a rudra..."

At this, the gnome smiled.

Oydd, however, let out an odd sound.

Bax, undeterred, turned to the portal. "Well, time to butter up and squeeze through!"

"What's that?" Cricket asked. "Is that an..." he turned to Jesh.

"Idiom," the dryad finished the thought.

"Yes, is that an idiom?"

"Buttering up or squeezing through? But yes to both," Bax answered. "Comes from weasel hunting! You're not gonna catch a weasel if you're not willing to dive into its hole headfirst!"

"Oh, nice attitude," Cricket said.

"Yes, I suppose," Oydd replied. "This does feel a bit like diving headfirst into a hole."

"The butter," Bax added, "is so you can wriggle back out afterward." His expression suddenly clouded over and he hung his head. "Poor Kevin."

The rudra chose not to notice. "Is everyone ready?"

Oydd surveyed the room, met only by silence—not even so much as a nod.

"Well, that's good enough," he said with a forced laugh. He spoke a word under his breath that released some unseen seal on the portal, then ushered the others through—his creations first, followed by the three rudra spearmen, then Scorpion and the gnome. Finally, with a sigh, he clicked the tip of his staff against the stone, building his resolve, and the rudra stepped through with Cricket and the druid.

Instantly, he felt a breath of frigid air wash against his wet skin, and shivered.

The rudra looked about in alarm, worried the portal had spat him out in the wrong location, but all appeared around the portal as it had days prior. He was indeed in Agoth, though most of the familiar scene had frosted over, and the rotting bodies of the kobolds from some battle unknown to him lay more silent and still than ever.

Another rush of freezing air blew against him, and the rudra covered his eyes to prevent them from drying out. The wind carried an echoing word of magic.

Behind him, the portal began to tremble in the gateway and frosted over, like glass, with icy fingers crossing and reaching and snapping.

Then, once again, the room fell eerily still.

Steam rose from the ratling, and the frosted ground melted beneath his recently attached arm.

The ghast produced even more heat than the ratling, and had stood still long enough that the puddle beneath him began to simmer.

Skunk, on all fours, approached the ghast and sniffed in curiosity. The two had spent so much time together, recently, in Oydd's lab, that the mutant had begun to take on the aspect of the undead lizardman—his maw elongating, his claws growing, his tail widening. With the simple addition of spidersilk to his diet, the mutant showed marked improvement and even began to heal his rotted arm. Still, he remained grey and hairless, and the changeling blood running through his veins made no attempt to produce scales. Regardless, the two moved in unison, swaying and hungry.

Scorpion drew his sword, which had also frosted over, making it far more visible. "Shit," he said under his breath. "What's even the point then?" He warmed the blade with Bale's forearm, whipping it to the side to shake off the dripping water, though it quickly refroze.

"What is this?" Jeshu asked calmly.

The rudra shook his head. "A new development, if that's what you're asking. I sense a terrible black magic."

Jeshu nodded. "It literally makes me sick to my stomach."

"I don't sense anything..." Cricket said.

"That really surprises me," Jeshu replied. "With your shadows, I thought you would be able to sense black magic clearly by now."

"You can sense my shadows?"

"Yes," Oydd answered. "Everyone can."

"Bax!"

The gnome's eyes widened and he stammered, "I-I know what you're thinking!"

"I'm thinking you're a dirty cheat."

"Hide and Seek is a game about cheating. It's designed to test who cheats the best."

"It's designed to test who can hide the best, and my clones were completely quiet."

"I... uh..." Bax waved his fingers in the air, thinking.

Cricket sighed. "Next time we play, you make illusions. I know you can't sense those!"

"Really, it is a bit extraordinary you can't sense dark magic," Oydd rejoined the conversation. "Your antennae are very good at sensing everything else."

Unconsciously, Cricket reached to stroke an antenna.

"What do you suppose caused this?" Jeshu asked, stooping near a kobold corpse. The ice from his hammer grew unusually high up his arm, and over his shoulder. The druid winced, and held the joint with his opposite hand.

"You all right?" Oydd asked.

"I don't do well in the cold."

"You don't do well in the heat," Cricket added.

Jeshu sighed. "No, I suppose not." He continued to massage the shoulder, but it still creaked when he lifted his hammer.

"Do you have a grace for warmth?" Oydd asked. "Surely it gets this cold on the surface."

"I do," the druid responded, placing the hammer headfirst on the ground, with the shaft pointing up in the air. He cupped his hands together and a soft, orange light appeared for only a few seconds, before dwindling and dying out.

Jeshu closed his eyes, chanting in the druidic tongue. He cupped his hands, but this time, no light appeared at all.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Cricket peered over the top, looking for the hint of a spark.

"I... don't know."

"Let's get moving," Oydd suggested. "At least that will produce some heat."

Bax nodded. He tucked the pole of the Witch Clipper under his neck while he rubbed his hands together for warmth, and trotted downhill toward the ratling.

Oydd followed, a troubled look on his face.

"But, like," Cricket said, "this is definitely some spell from Fathead, right?"

One of the azaeri guards snickered.

"Don't call him that," Oydd snapped.

"Well, you said it's too late to change names. So we might as well grout it in. Could only make the name stronger, right?"

The rudra blubbered some incoherent rebuttal, but Jeshu laughed and nodded at the reasoning.

A long raspy breath pierced the frozen corridors of the Agoth keep, along with another word of magic, and Oydd reflexively clenched his staff more tightly. A pair of glowing green eyes appeared through the icy mist in the corridor, and then another, and then two more pairs.

"Careful," Oydd shouted out to the vanguard, "these are not mere zombies!"

Scorpion glanced over his shoulder. "What are they, ghouls?"

"They are no mere ghouls either."

"Dammit!" Scorpion growled, backing away, though his tail waved excitedly.

The silver clad azaeri fell back with him, readying their bows.

"Oh, I forgot to give him that dagger," Cricket said. He looked down at his feet. "I guess he can easily get one now."

A roar, much louder than the earlier sounds, resounded from the hallway.

"That's a dethkirok," Oydd cried. As the rudra neared the hallway, he saw the brute charging from the back, trampling over the powerful goblin and kobold ghasts with ease.

A silver arrow flashed, like a bolt of lighting, through the hallway, wedging into the demon ghast's neck, but it did not slow visibly. A second bounced harmlessly from its thick natural armor.

Oydd's ghast lunged forward ahead of the group, and the rudra willed it back, to form a line with Scorpion and Skunk, while Cricket created shadows.

Despite the charging dethkirok, a kobold reached the front lines first, clad in adamantine armor but only wielding a crude spear.

Scorpion edged around the creature, which ended up lunging for the lizardman ghast, impaling it in one thrust through the shoulder. The full length of the spear protruded from the lizard's back, as though its body had offered no resistance.

Scorpion pounced, wrapping his violet claws around the adamantine helm, and almost instantly ripped the head free. He turned and pounded the helm into the chest of a second kobold, hopping back as the dethkirok came into range.

The lizardman pounced on the second kobold, gnawing at its neck, and Skunk ran past them to tackle a third kobold in a similar manner, only to be immediately swiped from his kill by the arm of the undead dethkirok.

Skunk's skin sizzled from the heat of the demon. The mutant crashed against the wall, and Scorpion jumped onto the demon’s back as the hulking dethkirok bounded toward Skunk’s writhing body.

His weight did nothing to slow it, but he clamped his teeth down on its plated neck as he slipped his sword under one of the armored sheets on its throat.

The archers let loose another volley, with two arrows digging into the demon, and a third downing an emaciated goblin with a head shot.

The dethkirok swerved, abandoning the mutant in favor of crushing Scorpion against a wall, but the lithe ratling flipped out of harm's way, yanking his blade free with the same motion and splattered the huge ghasts coagulated blood on the stone.

The ghast whirled on him as he landed and it roared, but most of the sound escaped through the hole in its throat, causing the dripping blood to bubble and hiss.

With the dethkirok separating him from the rest of the group, the ratling opted to sprint further away down the hallway, flinging another kobold across the room before he vanished from the rudra's sight.

The demon gave chase, and Oydd sent Skunk and the ghast for backup. He lifted an unarmed goblin with his mind as it jumped at a squealing Bax.

The gnome took a deep breath of relief when he saw the goblin freeze midair, and he readied a strike with his flail, but hesitated.

"Finish it!" Oydd yelled.

"I would," Bax replied. "I really would, but... this weapon only has a few uses before it crumbles, so I want to save it."

"You said the rougher the better," Oydd snarled.

"Yes, I think. Rough edges are better for smashing."

One of Cricket's shadows moved in for the kill on the dangling goblin, then Oydd released it to crash back to the ground.

"Didn't you enchant it for durability?"

"How do you do that?"

"With runes," Oydd spat. "You didn't add any runes? You told me you studied with the greatest weaponsmiths!"

"The greatest gnomish weaponsmiths. I can't stress the difference enough. Gnomes are not, by and large, exceedingly good weaponsmiths." The gnome placed his free hand on his hip for emphasis. "Oh, I... I do have this rune. Does this count?"

Bax held up the Witch Clipper for Oydd's inspection, and pointed with his thumb at a symbol etched into the rock.

The rudra, however, recognized it not as a magical rune, but a superstitious symbol the goblin's at Euna Brae used for good luck.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No, not really," he replied.

Bax, not listening, ran off with one of the shadows, to gang up on another kobold. The gnome pecked at it with the butt of his pole twice before the shadow saved him from near certain death.

"I'm gonna miss Bax when he gets killed," Cricket said wistfully.

As he spoke, the headless corpse at his feet filled with a green light that burst from the open esophagus in its neck, and poured from its wounds. The headless kobold rose, shaking to its feet, and Cricket quickly moved in to slash it apart with his khopesh. The jade weapon thirstily absorbed the dark magic, and the corpse dropped lifeless again to the ground.

A moment later a green light burst from it again and it started to rise. An azaeri plunged in with his silver spear, pinning it back to the ground, but the light barely flickered, and the silver began to blacken, letting out a shrill hiss where it touched the kobold's flesh.

"Should we just leave it?" Cricket asked. "I mean... it's not going to do much without a head."

"Yes, leave that one, but I'll need to start sealing the bodies," Oydd answered with a horrified look on his face.

Bax appeared again at his side. "I can seal bodies. Want me to do that while you do other stuff?"

"No," Oydd said. He leaned over the squirming corpse and waved his staff, pulling the green light out like a thread from a doll, then he quickly slammed Bale's palm onto the creature's stomach. The violet claws created a strange chime as it struck the adamantine breastplate, and reflected a dazzling light. The kobold began to shrivel.

Oydd paused. "That was easier than I thought." He looked up and noticed Jeshu clearing a portion of the hallway with his hammer.

"Jeshu, they're coming back. The corpses must be sealed."

Jeshu nodded animatedly as he swung the hammer around his head with both arms.

"How did Fathead get this much stronger?" Cricket asked.

"It's odd. He actually felt weaker to me, as if some portion of him were missing. But to create ghasts over such a distance, is..."

"Is he far away?"

"He's not... he's not close."

Cricket looked around for his shadows, but only saw one. "Go for the tendons. We have to disable them. Tell Cricket if you see him."

The shadow nodded and ran down the hallway, just as Scorpion returned, covered in dethkirok gore, smiling from ear to ear. "I need a dagger."

Cricket silently pointed to an adamantine dagger laying near a frozen corpse, and Scorpion scurried over to retrieve it.

"They're reanimating. Even the one you beheaded. Where's the dethkirok?"

"Oh, he's not getting back up..." Scorpion grinned. The demon's blood boiled on his arm, quickly drying.

Oydd nodded. "Stay with us. We can't spread out."

Scorpion let out a slight groan, looking back over his shoulder. "All right."

*****

Bax stayed back by Oydd while Cricket ran ahead to assist Jeshu.

He found the druid panting over a single mutilated corpse, ground to a mushy pulp.

"I guess that works. Can you... give me a little speed, please?"

"No," Jeshu huffed. "I don't think I can."

"I'll cover you while you catch your breath."

Jeshu shook his head. "No, I mean I don't think I can. I... after I knocked this one down, I tried to bless the corpse. It should have been easier for me than for Oydd, but... it didn't work."

"You... none of your magic is working?" Cricket said in astonishment.

The druid looked down at his hands and shook his head.

"Well... oh, that's just awful timing. This is supposed to be your specialty, I think."

"That's not helpful," Jeshu replied evenly.

"I guess not. Okay, Oydd wants us to stay close. Come back to the group."

Jeshu hefted his hammer with a grunt and followed the insect back down the bloody, frozen hall.

Cricket passed the corpse of a dhampir wearing platemail formed from bones and covered in black flakes that looked like dried blood. The head had nearly rotted off, but it had not yet been reanimated, so he stooped to sever its ankles.

He heard Oydd's voice behind him. "That won't work. These are being possessed by spirits that are powerful enough to move without tendon or bone. Otherwise, beheading them would do the trick."

Cricket only half-listened, and pointed at the body. "This one was dragged here. Look, something was eating it."

Oydd hovered over him and touched the corpse with his staff. The skin began to dry and wither, and the bones creaked.

"Cricket... Jeshu," Oydd caught the druid as he walked by. "The rudra has changed. We are not dealing with a living necromancer."

"Not living," Jeshu repeated. "What do you..."

Oydd stared into Jeshu's eyes, until comprehension settled on him. "No," Jeshu breathed.

"What?" Cricket looked from Oydd to the druid then back.

"He means the rudra has likely sealed his soul."

"And in a sense, unsealed it," Oydd replied. "Releasing an unknown depth of power."

"Cricket," Jeshu replied. "It takes an amazing amount of skill and prowess to bind or unbind a soul. You must bring it to the point of unraveling, and even if you succeed, the price... is paid beyond this world."

"The endeavor is meant so that the bound soul never moves beyond this world," Oydd countered.

"I'm a little lost."

"Cricket," Jeshu continued. "The art is forbidden. It is unholy—the greatest affront to the gods."

"And results in a power close to godhood," Oydd added.

"I don't believe that." The druid shook his head, sadly. "Not really."

Oydd closed his eyes and gritted his beak. "Fathead has become a lich."

One of the azaeri guards snickered.

Cricket followed Oydd down the corridor, passing the mutilated bodies of several more

kobolds. He picked up a tiny adamantine buckler, which actually had deep scratches in it from the ratling's godly claw. He held it up to show Oydd.

"Impressive," the rudra responded, though he didn't look at all surprised.

Cricket, however, stared at the gouges with a fascinated smirk, then tested the edge of his own khopesh against the metal and frowned in disappointment.

When the ratling caught up to him, Cricket tossed the shield aside nonchalantly and pretended to be surveying the battlefield.

At the end of the hall, the group encountered a ghastly imp, which spread its wings in a magnificent display and let out a bloodcurdling roar. As it leapt into the air, Cricket tossed a single, silver shuriken at its wing, and the ghast crashed sideways into the wall, where Skunk and the undead lizardman swarmed it like hungry piranha, clamping it with their jaws, tearing to to pieces in a matter of seconds.

"When did you get that?" Oydd asked in astonishment.

"Well, the normal ones didn't do a lot of damage. Mostly good for distractions, so I figured—"

"That's not what I asked." The rudra sighed.

Jeshu laughed, "It only took a few minutes to make them from scraps. We wouldn't have had time to make more silver spears, if that's what you're wondering."

"But perhaps a few arrows?"

"Well, I just killed one with a shuriken, so..."

"It's all right. The silver bolts we fired at Indech corrupted almost instantly, which made them worthless. So we're in low supply. But you didn't do anything that—"

Another, sudden breath on the wind interrupted the rudra—this time a deep inhaling sound—and wisps of magic rose like steam from the fallen ghasts, dissolving into the air.

Oydd paused. "He's drawing power back to himself."

"Meaning?" Cricket asked.

"Not much. He's just efficient. Archers," Oydd called.

Cricket cringed at the impersonal order, and pointed directly at one of the azaeri. "Lech'ti, you're in front with a shield. Erro, and El'lick, you're left and right flank."

The azaeri nodded and fell into position at the insect's order.

"Azae—" Oydd started, but caught himself. "Lech'ti... I have little to offer in close-combat. I would like you to stay by my side."

The azaeri looked to Cricket for confirmation, and the insect nodded. "Erro, that means you're up front."

*****

"Do you think that's enough, Pip?"

Patches laid all the wool she had intended for her scarf on the stone tile before her. The grey bat wool had grown crisp in spots, which made it difficult to untangle, and the smell of bat musk only seemed to intensify with time.

The ladybug stared back, uncertain.

"You have to say something," Patches critiqued.

The familiar only glared back coldly, and the mouseling shivered.

"Pip, you've been mean since you got back."

The mouseling tried to ignore his gaze as she picked the more pliable bits of wool from the matted clump and began to fashion the likeness of a rudra. She formed the torso and head first, without the tentacles, then folded the research scrap Oydd had given her and tucked it in the chest.

She stared at the doll for a full minute, before moving the scrap to the head.

"That's where rudra's hearts are," she explained to the familiar. Pip didn't like that she hadn't made the tentacles yet, so the mouseling calmly explained that the personal item needed to 'sit' for a bit, but she could always touch up the appearance at the end.

While Patches braided the legs, the tiny beetle crawled up the doll and onto her thumb. She placed him down on the floor, but he simply repeated the behavior.

"Pip, you're not helping. If you climb on the doll, I'll have to put you in time out again."

Pip only stared back, his eyes cold and empty.

"That's enough," she cried pitifully, scooping the ladybug up in her paw, and hobbled over to the corner of the room on the stump of her amputated wrist.

She placed Pip down, facing the corner, and scurried back to her half-finished doll.

Despite her earlier explanation, the mouseling set to work on perfecting the tentacles, making them extra long, so she'd have some progress to show Pip if he wandered back over.

She placed the bit of wool with Indech's blood inside the doll's head, then paused, confused, and took it out. She fished out the vial with the elder rudra's blood from her satchel. "I almost did the wrong one," she said to Pip, “Indech is already dead.” She looked over at the corner, remembering he wasn't at her side.

The familiar had begun to climb up the wall, not taking his punishment seriously, and the mouseling let out an exasperated sigh.

After several minutes, she realized she was thinking of Oydd, not the older rudra, as she made the face, which wasn't good for the magic. So she tore up the beak and started again, taking extra care to make the eyes look mean. Staring into the totem's eyes, she actually shivered, which meant she had done a good job.

The mouseling rolled back into a sitting position and scratched at her front teeth with her thumb. She looked over at the corner. "Pip, you can come out now. I need your help with the spell."

*****

"What about a flying carpet?" Cricket asked.

"You can't control a flying carpet," Oydd replied.

"But easier than controlling wings, right?"

"You can't control either."

"Hey, I just realized, you didn't deny they exist."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Cricket continued, "Usually, when I ask about flying carpets, you say something like 'what makes you think we have flying carpets'?"

"What makes you think the rudra have flying carpets?" Oydd teased.

"Not buying it. You said I couldn't control one. Which means they exist."

"I suppose."

"Suppose! So what other cool things do the rudra have? Can they really make snakes dance and sleep on beds of nails?"

"You're not describing anything that couldn't be done with telekinesis... or even just a passing knowledge of physics."

"So, what? You could make a carpet fly?"

"I can make anything fly."

"You never make me fly..." Cricket moped.

Bax nodded empathetically.

A short silence followed, and then Cricket started up again, "So there really is a whole city of rudra?"

"Several," Oydd replied.

"That ratling we ran into got me thinking about it. I'm trying to imagine what it would be like."

"I can assure you, you are imagining it wrong. Mine are a wicked and perverse people. Their accomplishments—architectural, civic, arcane... or otherwise—are surpassed only by their cruelty and lust for power."

"That... sounds even cooler than what I was picturing."

Bax, again, nodded in support. His flail bounced around behind his back as he hopped along the empty frozen corridors. Gradually, the surroundings more and more resembled the halls of a keep.

"You... remember your home?" Cricket asked.

"Not really. I remember my father, somewhat," Oydd replied. "Only from the eyes of a frightened and displaced child. He was a man of no real talent. We lived on the streets, and when he died, I was sold into slavery to pay his debts."

"And you lived in a city full of rudra?" Bax asked.

"The largest. Sherrar hesh Bellech—the seat of Bale. Deep in Agoth..." the rudra laughed to himself. "I suppose there is nowhere deeper, as Bale's temple is said to rest on the brink of Sheol, keeping the darkness at bay."

"Is that... true?" Cricket asked.

"I wouldn't know," Oydd replied caustically, which silenced the conversation.

Scorpion, walking a few paces ahead of the group, motioned for silence anyway as he entered a dark, spacious room.

Cricket's antennae perked up listening for faint sounds. He heard, first, the faint clicking of pointed, chitin-covered legs against the stone, and then an excited clacking of mandibles from the ceiling and along the walls as the arachane neared.

"Oydd," Cricket whispered. "How many arachane corpses did we see before?"

"I only saw one, but we didn't deviate far from the main halls."

"I... I'm thinking two," Cricket said, this time to Scorpion.

"Or three,” the ratling hissed. “I can't tell which sounds are echoes."

Cricket nodded, signaling the two archers to keep their eyes on the perimeter.

A single, eight-legged warrior strafed into the center of the room from behind a stalagmite—saliva dripping from its open mouth, its hands empty. It seemed he tried to move forward to attack, but could only manage a side-ways crabwalk due to a missing leg.

As Cricket readied a khopesh, he heard the thud of a crossbow bolt digging into flesh, and Scorpion momentarily crumpled over. The ratling righted himself, and yanked the bolt from his stomach, and charged after the unarmed arachnid in the center of the room.

Before Cricket had taken more than a step, the ratling had removed three of the arachane's legs, and half of its eyes. Scorpion leapt back as another crossbow bolt flew from the shadows, dodging by luck or some unnatural intuition. Then he darted off toward the marksman.

"Can ghasts work crossbows?" Cricket spat, flabbergasted.

"I... should think not!" Oydd replied with too much uncertainty in his tone.

"That was a second shooter." Cricket darted toward one marksman as the ratling pursued the other. Though he couldn't help but glance over as Scorpion reached his target first. The ratling swung what Cricket assumed was his invisible blade twice in the air, and the crossbowman fell into pieces, with bits of it still clinging to its tattered web. The azaeri behind Cricket fired an arrow, which brought the insect's attention back to his own target.

The arachane's eyes indeed glowed green, and it scuttled behind a crop of rock with a silver arrow protruding from its abdomen.

Cricket rounded the corner and swatted its readied crossbow away with one khopesh as the other took its head.

He crouched, listening to the room, but heard no more clicking, so he brought the head back to Oydd. Scorpion, seemingly having the same idea, carried the other arachane's head, skewered on the tip of his sword, which was now somewhat visible, just from the blood dripping down the blade.

Cricket tossed his head to the rudra's feet, and bits of green goo splattered on the hem of his robes.

"Cricket!"

Scorpion froze. "You just need one, right?"

"I don't need any!"

"But they were undead," Cricket explained.

"I can see that!"

"What should I do with my head?" Scorpion asked.

"Keep it." Oydd, despite his objections, stooped to examine the ghastly head, while the azaeri took defensive positions at the corridors.

The rudra's head twitched. "This is... troubling." He suddenly addressed the ratling. "Scorpion, you know not to remove a bolt mid-battle. You'll only bleed out!"

"I'm not bleeding out," he protested.

"Thanks to that ogre adrenaline," Oydd grumbled. "But more to luck, I think."

"Why are undead archers troubling?" Cricket asked. "We can handle archers, dead or not."

Oydd shook his head. "I'm more concerned about Rusalka. If the rudra's ghasts are intelligent, then we could be up against an undead spellcaster. Rusalka was a witch of some renown, purportedly."

"Gleeful!" Bax said, readying the Witch Clipper. "Um... sorry, sometimes I accidentally just say how I'm feeling..."