“Where is the other human?” Juraviel asked.
Jojonah nodded to the next cell in line, and they both went quicklyonly to find Graevis hanging dead, the chain still wrapped about his neck.
“He escaped the only way he could,” Jojonah said somberly.
Juraviel went right to the corpse, carefully turning it out of the chain choker. Graevis’ stiff form contorted weirdly as it fell to the length of the single shackle, but better for Pony to see him like that, the elf reasoned, than in his death pose.
“She needs to be alone,” Elbryan said to them, joining Jojonah in the doorway.
“A bitter blow,” Juraviel agreed.
“Where is Bradwarden?” the ranger asked Jojonah, his tone stern, forcing the guilt-ridden monk to retreat a step. Elbryan recognized Jojonah’s horror at once, though, and so he put a comforting hand on the monk’s broad shoulder. “It is a difficult time for us all,” he offered.
“The centaur is farther along the corridor,” Jojonah explained.
“If he lives,” Juraviel put in.
“We will go to him,” the ranger said to the elf, motioning for Jojonah to lead on. “You stay close to Pony. Protect her from enemies and from her own turmoil.”
Juraviel nodded and came out of the cell as Elbryan and Jojonah made their quiet way along the corridor. Juraviel went back to Pony then, telling her gently that Graevis, too, was dead, then embracing her as sobs of grief washed over her.
Jojonah followed the ranger farther down the low corridor, guiding Elbryan past intersections with soft whispers. They moved around a final bend into another shadowy, torchlit area, where they saw two doors, one on the left-hand wall and another at the very end of the corridor.
“You think this is ended, but it has only begun!” they heard a man cry, followed closely by the crack of a whip and a low, feral growl.
“Brother Francis,” Jojonah explained. “A lackey of the Father Abbot.”
The ranger started ahead, but stopped fast, and Jojonah faded into the shadows, as the door began to open.
The monk, a man of about the same years as Elbryan, stepped out, whip in hand and a very sour expression on his face. He froze in place, eyes going wide as he took note of Elbryan, this stranger standing impassively, sword still in its scabbard.
“Where are the guards?” the monk asked. “And who are you?”
“A friend of Avelyn Desbris,” Elbryan replied grimly, and loudly. “And a friend of Bradwarden.”
“Oh, by the gods, good show!” came a cry from within the cell, and it surely did Elbryan’s heart good to hear the booming voice of his centaur friend again. “Oh, but ye’re to get yer due, Francis the fool!”
“Silence!” Francis commanded the centaur. He rubbed his hands together and eased the whip out to its length as Elbryan advanced a stepthough the ranger still did not bother to draw his sword.
Francis lifted the whip threateningly. “Your friendships alone show you to be an outlaw,” he said, a nervous edge to his voice despite his best efforts to appear calm.
The ranger recognized those efforts, but hardly cared whether this man was confident or not. Bradwarden’s voice and the realization that this man had just used that whip on his centaur friend assaulted the ranger’s sensibilities, sent him spiraling into that warrior mentality. He continued his advance.
Francis pumped his arm but didn’t snap the whip. He shifted uncomfortably and glanced over his shoulder as often as forward.
On came Nightbird, Tempest still sheathed at his hip.
Now the panicking Francis did try to snap the whip, but Nightbird quick-stepped forward, inside its rolling length, and pushed it aside. The monk threw the weapon at him, turned and sprinted for the door at the end of the corridor. He grabbed at the handle and yanked hard, and the door opened about a foot before Nightbird’s hand was against it, stopping its momentum.
With frightening strength the ranger slammed the door closed.
Sensing an opening in the ranger’s defenses, Francis spun about and launched a straight right punch for the man’s exposed ribs.
But even as his right hand pushed the door, Nightbird stiffened his left hand, holding it fingers up and perpendicular to his body, a foot in front of him. A simple, slight shift, perfectly timed, brushed Francis’ hand out wide, and then Francis’ successive left was turned harmlessly under the ranger’s upraised right arm.
Francis tried yet another fast right, and again the ranger picked it off, brushing it out wide with the same blocking hand, only this time he followed it out, keeping the back of his fingers in contact with Francis’ arm. It all seemed too slow to Francis, and too easy, but suddenly the tempo changed, Nightbird rolling his hand fast over Francis’ forearm, grabbing hard and yanking back across his body. He caught Francis’ fist, covering it with his right hand and pulling hard, again with the frightful, undeniable strength.
Francis lurched to the side, his arm drawn right across his body and down, and his breath was blasted away by a short, straight left jab to his side, a punch incredibly jarring, given the mere five inches the ranger’s fist traveled. Francis bounced hard against the door and tried to recover, but Nightbird, holding fast the monk’s fist, drove his arm up and under Francis’, and the sudden movement at so strange an angle brought a loud, bone-jarring pop from Francis’ elbow. Waves of pain washed over him. His broken arm was thrown up high as he fell back squarely against the door, and the large ranger waded in, hitting him with a right to the stomach that doubled him over, followed by a left uppercut to the chest that lifted his feet right off the ground.
A devastating flurry followed, left and right in rapid succession, hammering away, jolting Francis against the door or up into the air.
It ended as abruptly as it had started, with Nightbird moving back a step, leaving Francis bent forward from the door, one hand holding his belly, the other hanging limply. He looked up at the ranger just in time to see the roundhouse left hook. It caught him on the side of the jaw, snapped his head violently to the side, and flipped him right over to land on his back on the hard floor.
All the world was spinning into blackness for Francis as the large form moved over him. “Do not kill him!” he heard from far, far away.
Nightbird hushed Jojonah immediately, not wanting his voice to be recognized. He relaxed when he looked closer at his victim, to see that Francis was unconscious. Moving quickly, the ranger dropped a sack over the monk’s head and bade Jojonah to bind him, then went charging into Bradwarden’s cell.
“Taked ye long enough to find me,” the centaur said cheerily.
Elbryan was overcome by the sight, and thrilled, for Bradwarden was indeed very much alive, and looking healthier than the ranger could ever have hoped.
“The armband,” the centaur explained. “What a good bit o’ magic!”
Elbryan ran over and embraced his friend, then, remembering that time was not their ally, went right for the large shackles and chains.
“I’m hopin’ ye found a key,” the centaur remarked. “Ye’re not for breaking them!”
Elbryan reached into his pouch and produced the packet of red gel, the same substance he had used on the tree against the raiding goblins. He unfolded the packet, then smeared the reddish gel onto the four chains holding the centaur.
“Ah, but ye got more o’ the same stuff ye used in Aida,” the centaur said delightedly.
“We must be quick,” Jojonah remarked, coming into the room. The sight of him put Bradwarden into a fit, but Elbryan was quick to explain that this was no enemy.
“He was with them that took me from Aida,” Bradwarden explained. “With them that put me in chains.”
“And with them that mean to get you out of these chains,” the ranger was quick to add.
Bradwarden’s visage softened. “Ah, true enough,” he surrendered. “And he did give me me pipes on the long road.”
“I am no enemy of yours, noble Bradwarden,” Jojonah said with a bow.
The centaur nodded, then turned his head and blinked curiously as his right arm came down from the wall. There stood Elbryan, Tempest in hand, readying to strike at the chain that held the centaur’s right hind leg.
“Good sword,” Bradwarden remarked, and then, with a single swing, his leg, too, was free.
“Go see to Elbryan,” Pony said. She was still kneeling beside the body of Pettibwa, but she resolutely straightened her back.
“I doubt that he needs any assistance,” the elf replied.
Pony took a deep breath. “Nor do I,” she said, and Juraviel understood that she wanted to be alone. He noted that her hand was again clutched about a stone in the pouch, and that was surely alarming, but in the end he knew that he had to trust in Pony. He kissed her gently on the top of the head, then moved back from her, out the door of the cell but no farther, keeping quiet guard in the torchlit corridor.
Pony tried hard to hold control. She put her hand to Pettibwa’s bloated cheek and stroked it gently, lovingly, and it seemed to her as if the dead woman settled easier, as if the pallid color of death was not so obvious.
Pony felt something then, a sensation, a rush, a tickle. Confused, wondering if, in her longing to reach out to Pettibwa, she had unintentionally slipped under the power of the soul stone she once more held tight in her hand. Following that course, Pony closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Then she saw them, or thought she did, a trio of spirits, one an old man, rushing through the room.
Three spirits: Pettibwa, Graevis, and Grady?
The notion startled Pony as much as it intrigued her, but still not understanding, she became afraid and wisely broke all connection to the soul stone. She opened her eyes and looked down at Pettibwato see the woman looking back at her!
“What magic might this be?” Pony muttered aloud. Had she subconsciously reached out so powerfully with the soul stone that she had grabbed Pettibwa’s disembodied spirit? Was such resurrection even possible?
She got her terrifying answer as Pettibwa’s eyes flared red with demonic flames and the woman’s face contorted, a guttural snarl coming from her opened mouth.
Pony rocked back, too confused, too overwhelmed, to immediately react, and her horror only grew as the corpse’s teeth elongated into pointed fangs. Up came the corpse to a sitting position, too suddenly, plump arms shooting out and clamping hard, with superhuman strength, about Pony’s throat. The horrified young woman thrashed violently, turning her hands into every possible angle to gain leverage but making no headway in dislodging the demon’s powerful grip.
But then Juraviel was there, his slender sword slashing hard against Pettibwa’s bloated forearm, opening it wide that the pus and gore could spill out.
Elbryan was just about to sever the last of Bradwarden’s chains when Pony’s cry reached his ears. He slashed hard with Tempest, spinning on his heel and taking several steps before the chain even fell to the floor, Jojonah close behind. He came around the bend in full speed, heard a tumult within the cell that held the body of Graevis, and kicked open the door.
And then he stopped, stunned, for the animated corpse had bitten right through its one chained wrist and now came toward him, its eyes flaring with red fires, its stump arm leading the way with a spray of blood.
Elbryan wanted to go to Ponyabove all else, he wanted to get by her sidebut he could not rush off, and took some comfort when Jojonah thundered past behind him on his way to Pettibwa’s cell. Out came Tempest and in charged the ranger, meeting the demon creature head-on, ignoring the spray of the bloody stump and slashing away viciously at the reaching arms.
“My mum,” Pony said repeatedly, falling back against the wall as Juraviel battled the creature. The woman knew rationally that she should go to Juraviel’s side, or that she should use the gemstones now, perhaps the soul stone to force this evil spirit from Pettibwa’s body. But she could not act, could not get past the horror at seeing Pettibwa, her adopted mother, in this state!
She forced herself to find a level of calm, told herself repeatedly that if she could get into the soul stone, she might learn the truth of this creature. Before she could begin the move, though, Juraviel thrust ahead powerfully, right between the reaching arms, stabbing his sword deep into the corpse’s heart, a sight that froze Pony in place.
The demon laughed wildly and batted the elf’s hand from the sword hilt, then swatted Juraviel with a backhand that launched him head over heels.
The elf accepted the blow, and was moving with it before it ever connected, diminishing much of the shock. Aflutter of his wings, a perfect twist in midair, landed him squarely on his feet, facing the demon creaturewhich still had the sword sticking from its chest.
Then another form came charging into the small cell, rushing past the elf. Without slowing, Jojonah slammed hard into the demon, burying it under his tremendous weight, taking it heavily into the back wall.
And then Bradwarden entered, and the cell was packed full of bodies!
“What is it about?” the centaur gasped.
With an unearthly roar, the demon launched Jojonah away, but Bradwarden found his answers quickly, and as the creature rushed forward, the centaur spun about and hit it with a double-kick that sent it careening back into the wall. Bradwarden moved right in on the creature, front hooves smashing away, fists pounding hard, a sudden and brutal beating that would not allow the demon to find any time to go on the offensive.
“Get her out of here,” Juraviel instructed Jojonah. As the monk scooped Pony into his arms, the elf leveled his bow and waited for an opening.
All the months of Bradwarden’s frustration came pouring out in the next seconds as the centaur rained blow after blow on the demon creature, battering it, tearing bloated flesh, smashing bone into pulp. Still, if he was truly harming the creature, it didn’t show it, just kept trying to find some way to grab at him.