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Sam Mathews
Beyond Nether’s Veils
Part II
-‘Kill the heads, eat ‘em if you have to-
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[https://i.postimg.cc/pTN5BnQY/Snakeville.jpg]
The robust Zilan guard wearing the bronze cuirass armor eyed him under heavy brows. Ehlark had stayed with Darunia and followed her on the adventure at Lord Onas insistence. The released Abarat guard had clashed with the Horselords afore the battle at Serpent’s Canal and took to the task zealously. But of course the female Zilan isn’t making it any easier for him, he mused. The healer parted her cloak to show Sam the high-ankle boots she had put on, but he kept his eyes below her uncovered knee. While Darunia kept teasing him for his unfortunate night vision every night, the flaming bog had dissolved much of the early morning dimness and Sam was far from blind.
“Hah,” Darunia chuckled sensing his inner conflict. “I wear shorts underneath Sam Mathews. Everything else is firmly covered!”
Not everything.
“Lady Darunia,” Ehlark protested, but she stopped him raising a graceful arm.
“Mister Mathews defended me dear Ehlark against an ally,” she turned her expressive eyes on the adventurer, specks of gold dotting those blue orbs. “Why?”
“Kalac was in the wrong,” Sam told her simply.
“Not by the ancient customs of this continent, he wasn’t,” Darunia argued. “I was his prisoner though I guess it was very brief, which he failed to mention. Poor thing was under duress. Does this count Ehlark?”
“I can’t fathom a Horselord enslaving an Elderblood Lady Darunia,” the Zilan guard croaked. “I can’t answer your query. Apologies but I won’t.”
“He just sees a pretty female,” Darunia told him and glanced at the uncomfortable Sam. The adventurer was almost ready to leave her company and rush to the front of their column. “What do you see Sam Mathews?”
Sam thought of young Elaniel bleeding out on a cracked ancient floor and grimaced. He made to rub his face, but found Darunia’s long fingers wrapped on his gloved wrist. Her touch too light to feel, although he could.
Ah.
“Is that girl equally appealing?” Darunia asked with a cute pout withdrawing her hand.
As I am was her meaning. Her species deep-rooted narcissism not bothering him as much as the memory.
“She was a healer deep down,” Sam grunted hoarsely, not brave enough to say her name out loud. “Despite efforts to become something else. Gone too soon.”
“I can see yet again why she favored you Sam Mathews. You could have defended her insulting me, but you didn’t. A noble knight’s quality,” Darunia glanced at the group surrounding Glen, the latter furious with the wyvern firing fireballs so close to their camp.
“I’m an adventurer, much as he started,” Sam replied setting his shoulders. “As for the other matter, I told you I thought it was wrong what Kalac wanted and I acted. No hidden meaning to it.”
Maybe a little.
“I have upset you. Memories bring back feelings and what ifs,” Darunia murmured. “Memories can’t be brought back to life, feelings could fade away, but there’s only one way to make certain you don’t have regrets in the future.”
Sam narrowed his eyes unsure and the Lord of Morn Taras bellowed at the top of his lungs for someone to stop.
“I’ve seen him in Rothomir’s court,” Darunia informed him, her eyes also better at great distances. “He’s a priest of Vemoro,” she added and Sam heard Hydra’s call ripping through the waterlogged trees.
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The scouting soldier that had reached the halfway point of the smoldering land-connected little island paused and turned around unsure. Lyceron ordered the Hoplites to form up, but Glen belayed that order. He barked for some of them to uproot the platforms they had placed down by the sides of the paved road and create a barricade for the animals and rear personnel first.
In the meantime Sam had run as fast as he could to the front of the column, where the land forked, his boots thudding on the stone tiles lost in the noise raised by many animals and people moving about. Marlo tossed him a spear, Jingo carrying one as well and Hush just nodded when he continued past them without a word exchanged.
The Hoplites had rushed to the front of the column as well, civilians dragging animals and wagons away, but for Laedan who was busy pushing his heavy wagon to bring it forward with the help of the two big Nords. Soren had what appeared to be the carcass of a large water-pig over one shoulder.
Sam just couldn’t fathom the reason why.
“Hah!” Glen guffawed seeing the Cultist with the whistle hit by both Wylinor’s and Shalia’s bows. He twirled around on his feet, the two arrows protruding an inch apart from his sternum. “SHIT!” the second word out of their leader’s mouth seeing the lone soldier snatched out of the ground thirty meters east of him and hurled up five meters, his scream otherworldly. Another giant snake’s head appearing out of the vapors to cleave him in two gore-spreading pieces before he could hit the ground.
A very big head. The mouth on it bigger than the Wyvern’s, its neck fat as an old tree trunk and covered in ashen scales with a fat red line running down its length under the snout.
“That’s a lot of piss down the drain,” a disturbed Marlo commented with a grunt, fixing the wet front of his leather pants. “Completely justified.”
Glen had gotten his sword out. “We let it come out of the water,” he said. “Fight it on sturdy ground.”
“Better we rush it,” Kalac argued holding the reins of his Steppe horse. “Overwhelm it. Hit it from all sides!”
“I’m pretty sure there’s another head in there!” Glen snapped and a bookish Zilan raised a shaking hand. The only unarmed person in the group. “WHAT?” Glen barked.
“The ashen Hydra is rumored to have more Garth,” the Zilan said in a small voice most failed to register. Sam immediately thought of the Hydra of Midlanor.
“Fuck did he say?” Marlo grunted, his tinnitus worsening with each passing year.
“It has five heads. The coat of arms of Midlanor,” Sam retorted, everyone looking alarmed at the eerie silent island.
Glen stared at him intently, amber eyes narrowed and several grey hairs sprinkled on his wild head. Which was surprising since Sam was years older than him and he had none.
“Lyceron!” He barked to be heard from the Hoplite leader. “Make assault groups to face multiple big fuckin’ heads! If this goes tits up, we leg it and I call on the wyvern!”
“No!” Kalac grunted irate and jumped on his horse. “You promised! This is my kill. We charge!” He bellowed to the rest of the Horselords afore galloping away and they started after him.
“Well that’s a middle finger up the stinger,” Marlo commented looking at an equally livid Glen.
“Hit the heads Hardir?” Lyceron queried surprisingly calm, approaching under the ruckus of the marching behind him rows of Hoplites.
“Kill the heads,” Glen corrected him gruffly and glanced at the approaching war machine wagon. “Eat ‘em fuckers if you have to!”
Everyone rushing forward with a roar, but for Marlo that glanced at Sam afore adding.
“Never thought they’ll put that in the plaguin’ menu, but here it is.”
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Sam rushed onto the island, the Horselords already past the killed soldier’s bloody pieces, the Hoplites splitting up in multiple teams in front of him and Glen followed by the rangers sneakily skirting the edges of the island to flank the Hydra.
Uvrycres got the first strike though, or second, if one counted the opening fiery barrage. He fired three fireballs in quick succession into the thick vegetation, mostly tall cypress trees, covered in vines and blanketed in flowering moss, resembling lichen. The ground shook, huge tongues of flame leaping out of the overgrowth and everyone ducked for cover to escape getting bombarded by shattered wood, skewered by broken blackened branches, or burned in boiling water.
Shit, Sam thought rolling on the smoking ground. He put an elbow out to break his momentum and caught out of the corner of his eye a giant head appearing out of a curtain of white fumes created by the rapidly extinguished fires. The adventurer jumped on his feet and then almost went down again, the ground shaking under him.
“That’s as far as I go,” Marlo declared behind him watching the outline of a massive body through a foggy filter stepping on to the island with them. “Fuckin’ bullshit!”
Sam grunted and got up just as the cries started.
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One of Hydra’s massive heads, now sporting half a dozen spears on its elongated scaly neck, shuddered and pulled back. Kalac and his riders –a group of ten- went after it galloping hard and firing arrow after arrow at the beast. Sam was certain you couldn’t really harm the Hydra with an arrow unless you poked an eye out, but that was just about it. He hefted his own spear, an nervous eye on the two stories high cumbersome hippopotamus-like body, slowly moving its fat fin-like stubby legs, leaving wagon-sized footprints on the smoldering soft ground, the other eye on the dancing back and forth giant head that had just sprayed four Hoplites with jelly-like acid.
A sharp gasp and he hurled it at the fast turning snake head, forked tongue slithering and snake eyes contracting when it spotted him. Sam made to dive out of the way, but saw the insides of a hideous mouth diving on him and rolled in the mud instead.
The mouth hit the ground a foot from the bewildered adventurer, a huge amount of material exploding to all directions, a couple of stones in the muddy soil hurting like punches on his chest and gut. Sam got his sword out, gawking at the slickly scaly neck and letting out -a more-scared than courageous roar- cleaved at it clasping at the handle with both hands.
The blade sliced through a meter-long scale cracking it and then stopped. Sam yanked it away almost tumbling backwards and realized he’d less sword now than a moment afore.
No adventurer likes losing a weapon when in the thick of battle against a Hydra. Or losing half of it. It wasn’t the exact quote of the Guild this, but Sam thought he was allowed to add to it given the circumstances. No man alive had faced a Hydra since the days of Framtond and Sam was in his second one in less than two years.
Damn, he thought and reached for his dagger, but dropped the idea and dived for a half-melted Hoplite instead. The giant neck started retracting and rising higher whilst Sam went corpse-robbing feverishly. He found a fancy Kopis, the belt stuck on the dead Zilan’s melted torso right at the still visible gory spine. A yank and the weakened strap broke and Sam dropped to a knee trying to unsheathe the weapon.
He heard a hissing sound over his head, glanced up just as he freed the blade, saw nothing, but heard Glen’s manic growl ever rising.
“MOTHEEERFUUUCK’R!” The Lord of Morn Taras yelped, holding on for dear life on his sword handle, legs kicking at the air, the blade sunk a good foot into the Hydra’s long neck and said head whipping their dangling leader right and left to dislodge him.
“DUCK YOU BLOODY IDIOT!” Laedan bellowed from somewhere behind them, but before Sam could react a whooshing sound came, something whistled over his head and a bolt hit the monster’s neck an inch below Glen’s flaying legs. The Hydra let out a pained drawn out hiss that multiplied many times, foul gore spraying over the ducking Sam and then it dived for the ground, or dropped from almost ten meters high.
“SHIIITEEE!” Glen bellowed losing the grip on the handle along his helmet and he dropped backwards on the still stuck -protruding like a barbell- iron bolt his head missing it for a hair. Remarkably he grabbed it snapping an arm back as he was falling, probably popping his shoulder out and put the other hand on it screaming like a madman, as the giant head plunged for the sprinting out of the way Sam Mathews. A maniacally snarling Glen managed to swing once around like a circus acrobat, letting go with a somersault before the Hydra’s head hit the ground.
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Glen landed on his feet cursing amidst groans several deities in quick succession, knees bend to absorb the force and immediately rolled to the right looking to get his sword back.
“Fuckin’ bullshit plans,” he griped and snatched his bloody sword out of the leaking wound. Sam realized the head had two more bolts sunk into it, one just below the snout, right at the two meters in diameter throat. “Tell that idiot to aim for the blasted body,” Glen told him with a pained grimace, just as the ‘dead’ head started moving again.
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The adventurer jerked his body to the right, lost his footing when the stubby thick appendage came down and cried out panicked feeling acid spraying his back. Sam turned the blade on him and used the edge to cut through the armor bindings getting rid of it, losing his gambeson in the process. He ripped a sleeve off his shirt next and used it to wipe some of the stinky secretion away from his left shoulder, grinding his teeth when a piece of skin peeled off along with it as big as his palm.
The whole island the Wyvern had created quickly turned into a hellish battlefield, where Glen’s force wrestled the Hydra up close and personal. Soldiers were hurled in the air, or melted down in bubbling acids pools, armour and all. The smell of burned wood, sulfur gasses and rot, mixed in with the poisonous vapors from the multi-headed monster’s secretions. The Hydra had lost a head due to a frenetic Glen's and Sam’s heroics, Kalac and his horselords had blinded another scoring at least ten arrows per eyeball, paying a heavy prize for it and Lyceron’s Hoplites kept the other three busy, but they had already lost at least ten soldiers in the bloody process.
The Hoplites were running out of spears despite rotating their numbers in and out of the scrap.
The darn Hydra is going to win this attrition battle eventually, unless it takes a big blow fast, he thought.
“Run to Laedan!” Glen growled in his face, sporting a heavy limp, “Get Soren here posthaste. I’ll bring this piece of lard betwixt his crosshairs. Don’t fuck this up Mathews!” He finished and shoved him towards the land bridge where Laedan had parked his war-machine.
Sam grunted and sprinted towards the Denmaster, Hobor and Soren running the opposite way towards the yelling and cursing Glen busy trying to get the beast’s attention. The adventurer reached the aiming Laedan and yelled as he approached waving his arms.
“Don’t shoot!”
“What?” Laedan asked with a glare. “Are you nuts?”
“Aim for the body!” Sam explained with bated breath, using both arms to point.
“Why?”
“Garth ordered it!”
“Fuck does he know? I’m trying to get that front leg all this time!” Laedan admonished him. “I want you to shove that square stake under the left side now. Use that sledgehammer!” The Zilan ordered him.
“You sure?” Sam asked and Laedan pointed at Belec getting a fat blob of dark yellow Hydra phlegm right on the chest, the giant blind head still dangerous. The Horselord rode for a couple of more meters and toppled from his horse. Kalac charged his horse to assist him, but another of Hydra’s heads dived on him from the sides, the huge beast leaping forward. The Horselord leader jumped on his saddle and then off of it, but his unlucky panicked horse got broken in half almost.
A roaring Kalac flew in the air incensed and it was unclear whether this was for the gruesome death of his animal, or for seeing Belec standing up in an attempt to move away, but with pieces of flesh dropping off him not making it far. First all the flesh from his right arm and then the arm itself when the bone snapped. Then his left leg and finally most of his hideously melted face just poured down in a thick gory and bubbling puddle. The Horselord died on his feet, but not much of him remained.
Good grief, Sam thought and swung with the sledgehammer to lift the war machine supports higher.
Laedan fired without bothering to warn him. The bolts whooshing next to his ringing ear, one after the other.
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The Hydra toppled sideways, the stubby fin-like leg buckling with two heavy bolts in it and Hobor probably saved -a busy shoving the bolt deeper into the beast’s knee- Glen’s life, skewering a snapping giant snake head just below its left jaw and stopping it from spraying acid on him. The big Nord stilled his legs holding the spear with both hands when the Hydra tried to dislodge it, his boots plowing the black soft soil afore leaving it despite his efforts and great bulk. The arriving -even bulkier- Soren gave the turning upwards massive head a good chop with his battleaxe -right on its right eye- to make it drop down again, a gush of its foul blood exploding three meters out of the wound.
Hobor pulled down with all his might, letting out a baritone mighty roar, the injured Hydra yanked the other way and his spear snapped sending the big Nord down. The beast opened its snake jaws impossibly wide looming over the thrashing Hoplite, but afore it could use its sword like hollow fangs, Soren’s axe returned in a tremendous arching upwards swing that ripped them both out of its mouth and lodged so deep in the Hydra’s viscous palate, its massive cranium cracked audibly.
“Fire again!” Sam barked at Laedan and recoiled seeing the Denmaster walking past him towards the injured beast. “What are you doing?” He bellowed running after him.
“No more bolts,” Laedan said simply and gave him a javelin, along a reproachful stare. “You better find some armour to put on kid. Not the time to impress the ladies.”
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“GET BACK!” A gnarling comically, wild-eyed Glen barked in a hoarse voice limping towards them. “Get everyone back! Fuck’s sake! Bunch of plaguin’ idiots!”
Lyceron’s Hoplites started retreating towards the land bridge, but Kalac was still hacking away at a head covered in gore, the rest of the galloping Horselords trying to help him. The massive beast was trying to pull away as well into its lake, but without the front leg it was very difficult to move that cumbersome body towards safety.
“Welp, that’s a bloomin’ mess. Funny thing is I can hear better,” Marlo commented approaching them, half his helm missing, leaving part of his face and head exposed. He sported a bald spot on the uncovered surface, missing the hair there and most of his right ear. The skin an angry red of leaking boils. “Blasted me in the fuckin’ face and almost gulped it all down alike a fresh port harlot,” the adventurer griped and spat a fat blob of bloody phlegm down. “Always jerk that pretty mouth away lad.”
“Eh,” Sam retorted and moved to help the Hoplites dislodge the Horselords.
Uvrycres beating them to the punch sort off.
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The landing Wyvern ripped the Hydra’s throat out in an almost decapitating move, using its segmented stinger like a sword and spat a sphere of molten lava in the other head’s gullet, the snake jaws snapping shut instinctively but not afore the Hydra had gulped down the fireball.
“Shit,” Hush said probably thinking on Marlo’s words still.
The Hydra tried to back away, but it’d run out of heads and its bulky body kept sinking in the cleared out island soil that was its lair, instead of retreating towards the nearby waters. The Wyvern hovered in a menacing manner over his defeated foe for a long moment, leathery wings extended impressively and with a snort banked a left turn kicking with his hind legs and flew away leaving the smoldering field in the bog behind.
“Someone go and get Kalac,” Glen said breaking the awkard silence that followed the Wyvern’s departure, an eye on the still smacking the mauled snake head with his bloody sword and bronze hand Horselord, the other on the mayhem. “And every axe we have available. I want this beast cut to pieces.”
“Let me see your head fool,” Hush told Marlo and then locked up abruptly, an arrowhead protruding out of her left eye. The wound horrific and the blood splattering a shocked Marlo in the face.
No.
“Cultists!” A civilian yelled afore getting cut down by a sword hack on the head.
“THEY ARE ATTACKING!” Another yelled as everyone hurried towards the lost between the trees part of the road from where the Cultists were coming out of. Sam and Jingo sprinted after a fast moving Lyceron well ahead of the pack, the image of a distraught blood-covered and disfigured Marlo holding a thrashing in her final moments Hush in his arms, imprinted in the grieving adventurer’s brain.
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A group of about fifty Zilan members of the Veils of Nether rushed the barricades Glen had ordered them to hastily set up on the road and scaled over to reach their supply train. Ehlark leading a group of those trapped there, grabbed weapons from the wagons and stalled them long enough for the first fighters of the main body to return.
They caught the Cultists between them.
“Humph,” an armed with a sword Cultist gasped skewered under the armpit by Lyceron, the Hoplite wrenching the spear out of the gory wound and plunging it lighting fast in the snarling face of the one standing next to him.
Sam jerked away from a slash, the tip of the sword cutting a bloody line under his chest and cursed remembering he had no armour on. He ducked under the next slash, parried the blade away with the Kopis he carried almost losing the grip on it, Glen’s hurled peleg saving his neck.
The Zilan fighter stumbled, the steel throwing axe wedged in his sternum and Sam cut him once savagely across the mouth, mauling his face. He went after Lyceron, the nimble Hoplite slicing through the flanked Cultists and finished off those still breathing not feeling shame for it for a while.
What had started as a dangerous opportunistic raid for the Cultists, quickly turned into a massacre as the frustrated arriving Hoplites let it all out on them. They had suffered against the Hydra, but the Cultists were an enemy they could fight on fair terms.
Sort of, as the difference in skill was huge.
Sam paused bloodlust withering away, then stepped back breathing heavy, his opponent bleeding from multiple spear thrusts and cuts all over his body. He’d no stomach for indiscriminate slaughter, despite his grief over the loss of Hush. The melancholic woman had never gotten over the death of Cole, but that was no way to go out, he thought bitterly.
The arriving outraged Marlo had no problem with slaughter, nor did he share any of Sam’s sensitivities. He went straight at a surrendering young Cultist, the number of the emerging out of the vapors Hoplites had broken their will to fight and chopped his head off without a word. The adventurer turned around and run the next one in line through the gut, afore Glen’s hoarse voice put an end to it.
Again sort of, as Marlo had to be forcefully restrained to prevent him from killing everyone.
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“Let me see it,” Darunia told him moments later, Glen trying to pacify the Horselords and calm down a furious Marlo not five meters away. The remaining seven Cultists had been bunched up behind a ring of scowling Hoplites, with Laedan directing people back in the still smoking island, where the Hydra’s butchered massive body still lay. They were picking up the dead and some had already started cutting large foul-smelling pieces off the beast, trying to keep certain valuable parts per the austere Denmaster’s instructions.
Sam found it hard to believe he’d managed to survive two encounters with that nightmarish creature.
A sense of being part of the stuff of legends looming over him heavy.
“It’s nothing. See to Marlo,” Sam murmured a reply, grimacing when the Healer’s skillful fingers applied a cold salve on his shoulder.
“I shall, after I check on you,” Darunia reproached him playfully. “Is it common to fight without armour mister Mathews?”
“I had to ditch it,” Sam replied uncomfortable. “I’m fine Darunia.”
The Healer stepped back with a frown. Then she glanced at Kalac, the Horselord still in the field near where his horse and Belec had fallen.
“How did Radpour deal with the rest of the clans?” she asked curious. “Kalac don’t seem the type to listen to orders.”
“He didn’t,” Sam replied. “He just moved out of the Great Steppe and conquered the Peninsula. There are still Horselords roaming the plains. I guess not as many as afore.”
“Greenwhale is a naughty mistress,” Darunia told him with a smile. “Deceptively tame, but unfaithful.”
“They helped him aplenty,” Sam said.
“I’m sure they did,” the Healer replied and touched his face with a warm hand. “I’m sorry for your loss Sam Mathews.”
He grimaced and glanced at Glen puffing out frustrated with what he was hearing.
“Marlo knew her longer,” he grunted not wanting to talk about it and jumped down from the wagon’s rear. “As tempting as it is, an adventurer’s life comes with risk.”
“And rewards,” Darunia whispered her meaning vague.
Sam nodded. “That too.”
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“So Pelleas isn’t here? Fuckin’ bullshit,” Glen griped, the busy bandaging his bruised shoulder Kirk sniggering at his outburst.
“Not among the slain, or those that surrendered,” Lyceron reported. “You can ask them yourself.”
“Will they talk?”
“I don’t think so.”
Glen snorted and eyed Marlo. “Tie them up. I mean give ‘em the business here. Arms and legs. We’ll load them at the wagons.”
“Just kill them and be done wit it!” Marlo grunted. He’d removed his ruined helm, but his face wasn’t in a much better condition.
“I prefer not to,” Glen retorted trying to keep his composure. “You need to have that looked at friend.”
“Argh,” Marlo protested and walked away fuming, Jingo following after him.
“Will he be a problem?” Glen asked him and Sam grimaced.
“Give him time. It’s not easy to deal with losing a friend Garth,” he replied pointedly.
“I get that and I sympathize,” Glen replied. “Hush was a solid lass, but we need to keep our heads clear here. We march into the village and hopefully take Pelleas out for good. No more surprises.”
“What if he isn’t there?”
“Then he’ll have run out of places to hide,” Glen retorted. “We clear this plaguing swamp, open a proper road and connect it with the rest of Wetull. Civilization wins over right?”
Sam smacked his lips and nodded tiredly.
“Sounds like a good plan my Lord,” he murmured. “Gratitude for saving me back there.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Glen admonished him with a grunt. “You are a friend Mathews. You would’ve done the same. That’s the bottom line here. We are trying to keep our eye on the big picture and use teamwork to make it out of this shite alive.”
Eh, Sam thought, Glen was laying it thick there.
Probably why people didn’t trust him easily.
“Darn it!” Soren bellowed strolling near them, wild red beard sprouting out of his face and accompanied by a disheveled silent Hobor. “Someone took my pig! Come clean now ye short sneaky bastards, who done it?”
“Where did you see it last?” Glen asked him with a kind and rare genuine grin.
Soren stood back troubled and sighed deeply afore replying. “That’s the blasted problem Glen. I don’t remember.”
Hard as they tried they didn’t find Soren’s pig that day, or the next.
But it didn’t much matter as just before noon they spotted the first wooden dwellings on the small plateau sloping up to a hundred meters in elevation over the swamp with the peak of Snake Mountain behind it. If one stood at the edge of it, he could see the marshy green area underneath spreading out for many miles to the northeast.
The small forest reaching to the banks of the Canal to the west.
“Last plaguin' obstacle,” the Lord of Morn Taras told him atop his splendid warhorse, when the village buildings came to sight. “Having said that, I probably just jinxed it. Dammit! What are you doing my dude?” he admonished himself much as he habitually did and as time and again had happen afore, Glen was right.