Corath walked along what Teivel had called Norwind Road. ‘Maybe it was a road during his time, but it’s more a sandy riverbed.’ Its ancient course cut through bluffs and hill sides, creating steep canyon cliffs streaked with veins of quartz and other minerals he didn’t recognize. Stumpy bushes with gnarled branches and thorny, dust-caked briars grew along the tops from what he could see.
The desert wind blew gritty sand up and into his face. Thanks to the sword he’d won from Teivel, the heat and thirst no longer bothered him. Before the mystic sword, his cheeks would have been chapped, and his lips cracked from dehydration.
He passed through the shadow of a tall, lone rock with striations of different layers. The ever-present wind and sand had scoured it smooth. He’d passed them sporadically. Sometimes, they’d even been in clusters. When he was a sapling, his teacher had called them menhirs.
He paused in the cool shade and drank from his waterskin. Though the sword protected him from dehydration, centuries of habit didn’t fall out of use that quickly. The cold liquid slid down his throat, a sharp contrast to the dry air. He scanned the area. Except for the occasional hardy bit of vegetation, the area was devoid of life. It had been so thoroughly hunted no animal life remained. Even the scavengers had fled. The few tracks and droppings he’d seen were several years old.
In the distance rose a lonely tower. He squinted his eyes as he peered at it. ‘Seems like it’s about 150 chains from here.’ Glancing up to the cloudless sky towards the sun, he calculated the time left in the day. ‘I have about six hands left in the day.’ His gaze returned to the tower. ‘I can get there in half a hand.’
He nodded to himself and resumed his walk.
###
Thirty minutes later, he was near the base of the tower. Here, the ground dropped deep into the earth. The cliff walls blocked the remaining sunlight, leaving the defile in a premature evening gloom. He hadn’t even noticed how far above him the clifftops were. A vulture landed above and watched the elf as he studied the tower.
It sat equidistant from each wall of the canyon. It rose about three hundred feet from base to jagged peak, but still below the top of the cliffs.
A faint mustiness tinged the air. The tower’s face was covered with gargoyles, carved faces, porticos and other baleful textures. The stonework was ancient, but of superb – almost supernatural – quality.
To the west, a low building squatted against the spire. The single-story structure was old, but not as much as the tower. It also wasn’t as well-built. Small piles of dust near the base showed where mortar had crumbled from between the bricks.
Corath walked over to the crumbling side building and saw the wooden door had fallen off a hinge and dangled open. Splinters and wood dust lay on the ground underneath where they’d been carried by time. Shadowy forms caught his attention. He stepped closer to the doorway and the dim light revealed to his sharp eyes several humanoid forms on the ground, facedown on loose earth. A sharp charnel reek hit his face when something inside moved.
Turning his head, he spotted a coyote and a few small rats. The animals were eating the corpses. A faint melody haunted the place’s interior. As he scanned the room, he detected the light coming from vines next to each body, growing along the walls and the floor.
‘Something is off about those vines.’ He narrowed his eyes and then shook his head. ‘Not my worry.’ Turning away, he searched for another way inside the spire.
After finding nothing, he stepped back and cast his gaze upward. ‘The distant top appears to be the only way in.’ His eyes traced from the jagged top to the base. ‘It looks to be about four and a half chains high.’ He rubbed his right eyebrow. The air grew cooler as the hidden sun sank lower in the sky. ‘It will be night soon. I have no choice but to climb. Fortunately, the roughness of the wall will provide plenty of handholds.’
***
Ten minutes into his climb up, he paused with his feet wedged into a crevice to shake out his burning wrists. ‘I haven’t done this in far too long. I forgot how much it hurts when I haven’t used these muscles.’ After flexing his fingers a few times to work out the tension, he glanced up and found another handhold.
As he worked his foot out of the crack, his left foot’s toes slipped on a loose rock and he slid down a few feet before catching another handhold. He cried out from the burning of the scrapes from his hands and fingers. His breathing was rapid and shallow as he clung to the wall with trembling fingers. His heart thumped and jolted in his chest, feeling like it skipped a beat every so often.
A few minutes later, he lifted his face from the cool stone wall and opened his eyes to look up. ‘Whew. I’m closer to the top than I expected. Only about a chain left.’
***
At last, he reached the top and rolled himself over to his back, limbs trembling. He tried to catch his breath as sweat rolled down his face to his hair. The dark sky above stared down at him with indifference. Even the stars seemed to twinkle coldly. A slithering thump made him sit up. His eyes bounced off various dark shapes, not finding anything moving. All his dark vision revealed to him was fallen stone from the jagged crenelations, debris from where mortar had crumbled, and ancient bones.
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He rose shakily to his feet and drew his mystical sword. Heat suffused his body, firming up his muscles and strength. Steady once again, he focused more on an odd shape to his left. A breeze gusted up, hitting him in the face with the stench of rotting meat. His eyes winced closed for a moment as the powerful odor briefly overwhelmed him.
A coil of something wet and muscular wrapped around him. The suddenness and strength of the attack made him gasp as his eyes flew open. As the air left his lungs, the cold coil tightened before pulling him off his feet. Each time he breathed out, the creature which had him tightened its grip around his chest, making it harder to inhale.
His chest burned from the grip and difficulty breathing. He flexed his shoulders, trying to break free. He was no match for the creature. ‘Sard! This thing is stronger than me. I have to think of something, or I’m dead.’ His stomach felt rock hard. ‘I need to get my revenge on that Carter Blake for killing my brother, or Wen will never forgive me.’ His sword rolled in his grip. ‘Wait. I have my sarding sword. I’m an idiot.’
Corath turned the weapon so the blade was edge on to his body and with the last of his strength, flicked it against the coil around his body. Gravity made the strike harder than his lack of motion. The mystic sword cut deep and the coil released him, flinging him away.
He tumbled and bounced before hitting the parapet of the spire. The impact against the crumbling stone broke it free, sending it falling to the valley floor far below. His sword hit the stone floor with a metallic clatter.
He rolled to his feet, vision blurry, and glanced around, trying to ignore the pounding of his head and the nausea welling up inside him.
And then, he caught sight of the creature that had attacked him.
It resembled an octopus with the wings of a giant bat. Six short arms danced behind two longer ones as the leathery wings slowly beat the air. A beak nestled in the center of three bulbus, moist looking eyes. The chill night breeze brought the scent of stagnant sea water to his nose. The vile odor tilted things in favor of sick.
His body betrayed him, heaving uncontrollably until the contents of his stomach spilled onto the ground. The sour burn lingered in his throat, tears stinging his eyes from the strain.
Before he could recover, the creature attacked, two tentacles striking him. The impacts, one after the other, thudded into his body. The first, drove him to his knees, and the other, knocked him to his back again.
The blows reverberated through him, making him dizzy. He gasped from the pain and managed to roll beneath the next attack. The soft moisture, and sour stench told him what he’d rolled through.
“Ugh!” He pushed himself to his feet, brushing the vomit away. “Chokkan’s bones, that’s disgusting.”
His yell startled the creature, causing it to hurriedly loop around and away from its attack. Corath’s gaze darted around the area, searching for his sword. He spotted it at the edge of the parapet.
‘I have to get to it before that thing attacks me again.’
He ran to scoop up the blade as the abomination flew down, tentacles grasping.
He dove forward into a somersault, grabbing his mystical sword at the same time.
As he came back to his feet, he thrust the weapon into the air.
The creature, unable to change direction, impaled itself.
Its weight and momentum, plus the sharpness of the sword, sent it sliding down to the cross-guard.
Gravity reasserted itself, yanking his arm and sword downward. The creature slid off, and thumped to the ground. Its tentacles curled in and relaxed a final time.
Corath’s arm jerked awkwardly, and a flash of pain knifed through his bicep. The flash of pain was a sharp, burning sensation that spread from his forearm to his shoulder. He dropped his sword as every attempt to move his arm felt like twisting a knife in raw flesh, forcing him to clench his teeth against the pain. ‘Sard, that hurts!’ He flexed his fingers, sending fresh jolts of discomfort up to his shoulder. ‘This isn’t good. I don’t have any way to heal myself. Fool that I am, I never considered it.’
He unstrapped his baldric with care, but each movement still jolted him with pain. Only by clenching his teeth was he able to keep from crying out. Taking off the strap took far longer than he was used to.
The baldric dropped from his trembling fingers.
“Chokkan’s balls.” His frustrated yell felt like it tore his throat. He kicked at the sheath, sending it tumbling away. He stared, mouth open as it ended up teetering on the edge of the roof. He gasped, body tense as it rocked to a halt, balance on the flagstones. A sigh escaped his lips as it stopped without going over.
He slumped, hand over his mouth. As the tension rushed from his body, leaving his muscles weak, he collapsed to his knees. ‘Thank Chokkan.’ He clasped his fists together and touched them to his forehead.
‘Pray later.’ Teivel’s mental command came through their bond as if he were whispering in his ear. ‘You have to get inside the tower. The next piece lies within.’
“Master, do we truly need it?” Corath rose to his feet and retrieved his sword. “This should be enough, right?” He lifted the blade before his eyes and turned it, checking for damage.
‘If you want to risk not getting revenge for you brother, yes.’ Teivel’s mental voice was cold. ‘If you want the certainty of destroying Carter Blake, then no.’
The Gorauch nodded. “Yes, master.”
A chill gust of wind smacked him in the face with the smell of rotten meat once more. He winced. ‘Ugh. I forgot about that when that creature attacked me.’ He peered around and spotted a mound at the other end of the top of the spire.
The odor seemed to be wafting from there. He approached and discovered the gruesomely slain, and half-eaten body of a winged reptilian laying atop a mound of coins, statuary and artwork. Some of the treasure seemed to have fallen in a large hole melted in the stone at the base of the pile.
‘Some of these bite marks look to have come from that creature, but these others look…’ He bent closer. “Humanoid?”
A cluster of coins shifted to his left, making him turn as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. As his voice echoed off the jagged stone spikes, a shape burst from under the coins to his right.
As he jolted from the unexpected noise, his sword lead the turn.
The blade erupted through the skull of the humanoid form before he became aware of what it was.
Mummified skin wrapped the remains of a twisted skeleton. The remnants of its jaw and teeth were jagged needles. Sharp claws tipped boney hands. Pieces of ancient robes still clung to the corpse. ‘A wight of some kind. I wonder what raised that undead monster.’
A broken, bone-white plaque, knocked free from the skeletal being’s attack, lay at its feet.
‘Maybe this?’
He bent and picked it up. The plaque was warm to the touch. Sharp runes decorated it. ‘Hmm. This is draconic writing.’
“The Vow: With my brothers and sisters, I abide the…” The next part was missing, broken off. He shifted it in his hands to continue reading. “…until such time as Teivel awakens the core…”
He arched his brow. ‘Master? What does this mean?’
‘Someone thinks I am supposed to awaken a core of some sort.’ He felt a mental shrug come from the ancient mage. ‘It is irrelevant. Continue inside. Try the hole next to the treasure pile.’
“Should I retrieve some of it?”
He received no response. With a roll of his eyes, he tossed the plaque to the hoard where it clinked to a stop, and moved to the melted hole.
A rope dangled within, leading to the dark depths. He gave it a couple of tugs and found it strong. He nodded to himself and climbed in.