Dragonhammer: Volume II (37 page)

The guards from the hallway burst onto the walkway and run straight at us, swords held high.  Similarly running guards come from the other side, so we cannot jump to the next walkway.  “Kadmus…” Aela says under breath.

“Jump,” I command.  Then I leap into the water.

I come up spluttering, though swimming in the Torrent is much easier than in a rocky beach with waves trying to kill me, while wearing a suit of armor.  “Come on,” I push, repositioning my hood to cover my face.

We swim to the edge of the grate and I watch as two of the guards, one on each side, each string their bows.

“Oh, come on,” I breathe.  I pull myself up onto the edge of the hole, holding myself up by clinging to the grate.  The center of the grate, a small square in the metal bars, flies open on its hinges when I pull.

Aela has hardly pulled herself halfway onto the edge.  The guards each nock an arrow.

“No,” I seethe, gripping Aela just below her arms.  With a grunt I lift her all the way up and into the grate.

“No!” she screams, turning to watch the archers fire.

In one motion, I take hold of the grate, launch myself up and throw myself into the cavity.  Searing pain explodes across my left leg and I grunt in pain.  “Shut the grate,” I command.

“But your leg-”

“Do it!”  She does as I say, arrows clacking around the grate.  One of them flies between the bars, but misses me by several feet.  Something else distracts the guards; they are yelling, but turning away from us.

“Your leg!” Aela points.

I rip the arrow from my thigh, snarling as blood seeps through my pants.

“Let me bind it!” she says frantically.

“Not yet,” I reply.  “We’re not safe here.”

The guards yell from the Torrent.  One of them falls in the water and another is slowly clambering onto the grate.  A huge cloaked figure, dual-wielding axes, throws two guards from the edge and kills another.

“Who is that?” I ask.  “He with you?”  He looks straight at the gate and eviscerates another guard.

“No idea,” she replies.  The figure takes an arrow in the shoulder, but does not slow.  He runs straight for us.  “We need to leave,” Aela panics.  “Come on.”  She places herself under my left shoulder and lifts.  I cannot place my weight completely on my left leg, or I will fall.

We do not have long to walk.

The slope grades downward and we come to an intersection.  There are three options.  Forward, left, or right.

The grate creaks as the someone opens the hatch.  Yells follow.

“Where do we go, Kadmus?” Aela asks, breathing hard.

“I need light,” I reply.  She responds by digging in her pack for something.  She comes out with a small object, puts her pack back on, and then grabs a torch from its sconce.  Within moments the torch burns brightly.  The light shines across the skin of my left hand and I suddenly realize that I must have lost my glove in my rush to get inside the grate.  I shake my head and focus.  That’s doesn’t matter.

I look at the water.  There would be no point in bringing clean lake water in if it couldn’t get out.  Therefore the water must let out somewhere.

The water levels are low.  Nonetheless, I see a glint of torchlight on the ripples, and that reveals to me their direction.  “Right,” I utter.

We hurry as fast as we are able along the right tunnel.  I hold the torch in my right hand, as Aela is preoccupied under my left shoulder.  My guess proves correct when I see that the tunnel continues to grade downward and the water picks up speed.

The guards clang noisily behind us.  “Which way did they go?”

“I don’t know!”

“Split up!  We can go down every tunnel!”

“Are you mad?  We’ll get lost down here!  Never go by yourself in this place!”

There’s the crash of steel on steel followed grunting.  “How many are there?” a guard screams.

I and Aela listen, trying to find out how much time we have.  “At least this will buy us a minute or two,” I gasp.  She smiles.

I lean heavily on her with every left step.  “You doing okay?” I ask.

“Am I?” she asks.  “It’s your leg!”

I smile faintly.  “Just making sure.”

Then we hear the footsteps behind us.  They are loud and obviously not at all trying to hide their presence.

“Go,” I tell her.  “Leave me.  I’m slowing you down.”

“I can’t do that,” she says.

“Yes you can,” I reply.

“No,” she responds sternly.  Then looking into my eyes, she says, “No one deserves to die by the side of the road.”

I recall having spoken the same words to her when I had first met her.  Then I nod.  “Okay.”

“Or in this case under the road,” she adds as we continue.

Despite the circumstance, I find a grin crossing my face.

We hear the echoes of the guards’ voices.  “I think they went this way!” one of them yells.

Still the footsteps behind.  I glance behind, but see nothing.

The slope evens out and we walk onto a stone walkway that skirts around the edge of a large circular room.  Water laps at the edge of the walkway.  The ceiling is domed.  This is where the stench is the worst.

Aela’s nose wrinkles.  “As if it wasn’t bad enough.”

“Don’t say that or you may have to get in.”

She doesn’t find that very funny.

“We can’t hear them any more,” she says as we turn down the corridor that smells freshest. 

“Not their voices,” I reply.  “You hear the footsteps?”

“Yes,” she says.

The corridor slopes downward for a short time, and then evens out again.  That’s when we see the light.

It’s dim, as it is still night time.  But it is light nonetheless.

It peaks at us from around the corner.  Our pace quickens and we follow the corridor left, where the water exits the sewer with a roar.

“We’ll have to jump,” Aela says, looking out.  “We’re about ten feet up.”

“Could be worse,” I reply.

Then we jump.

The water is cold.  I surface, Aela gripping me tightly.  We make our way to the bank and climb up.  There I rip a section from my shirt and tie it hastily around my leg; the cold water has helped staunch the flow of blood, but the bandage will keep infection away.

We have come out at a pool southwest of Poalai.  The roar, I realize, was not the water leaving the sewers, but rather the enormous falls crashing down a cascade probably fifty feet high.  The pool roils, and from it stems a river that winds off into the trees of the forest.  I’m sitting, leaning against a rotting log.

“What are you going to do?” Aela asks, helping me stand.  Then she steps away from me and gazes at me tenderly.

“I don’t know,” I respond.  “Go back in the morning I suppose.”  There’s a pause.  “What will you do?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she replies.  “I don’t want to go back to Diagrall.”

“Then don’t,” I reply.

“And go where?” she retorts.  I do not answer, and she continues, “They’ll kill me if I go back with you.  The blood of many good men is on my hands.”

“I can convince them,” I reply.  “I can.”

“Can you?” she questions.  Then she takes a deep breath.  “They will be unhappy I was not able to fulfill my mission.”

I nod.

“There is a price on your head, Kadmus,” she warns.  “There will be more who will try and take it.”

“When will I see you again?” I ask softly.

She stares into my eyes.  “I will find you.”  Then she makes to leave.

“Aela, wait!” I plead.  She stops and turns towards me.

I lean forward and take her hand, pulling her towards me.  Before I know what I am doing, I have pulled her into a tight embrace and have planted my lips on hers.

Her arms move up my back and clutch me snugly as my arms tighten, pulling her closer.  Elation shoots through my body.  I do not know how long it lasts.  But it is over too soon.

She pulls away and I lean forward, hungry for more.  My forehead rests against hers and our eyes lock.  “I should go,” she says.

I nod.  “Promise me I will see you again.”

She nods.  “I promise.”

Then she pulls herself from my arms and, with tears in her eyes, darts away into the trees.  Within moments she disappears into the shadow of the night.

I stand there for only a moment longer.  Then I hear a noise from the sewer.

I turn and gaze upon the hole in the cliff, straightening my stance and setting my shoulders back.  My left foot hovers about an inch from the ground and I have to hop to face the tunnel, but I will meet with courage the fate that befalls me.

The immense figure emerges from the tunnel.

I cannot get away.  I have no weapons with which to defend myself.  So I stand and wait for him to come.

He searches for a way down that doesn’t involve getting wet.  His gaze falls upon me, and then he climbs out of the tunnel, onto a large rock, and skillfully maneuvers his way down the cliff.  He straightens about ten feet from me and lifts his hood, and that’s when I realize that this is no normal person.

He’s an orc.

For a moment I am hopeful that it is Ullrog, but after another moment it becomes dreadfully obvious that it is not.  His skin is not the muddy green that Ullrog’s would be.  His skin is gray so that he blends into the night.

His arms are folded and he surveys me silently.  He must be just as large as Ullrog, maybe a little smaller.  A war axe hangs on each side of his waist.

“
Thiem okhreel nah Khroll’verär
!” he bellows.  I recognize the first and last words, but cannot decipher the meaning of the sentence.

Then there is another.

He appears the same way the first did, clambering out of the tunnel.  Then follows another, and another.  A steady stream of them flows from the tunnel, and for the first time in a long time, I find myself getting very, very, nervous.

All six of them form a circle around me, cutting off any escape.  Not like I could run anyway.  Each of them is dark-skinned:  four of them grey, one of them dark brown, and one of them green.  This green is different from Ullrog’s green, however; it is a sort of green I would see in dark moss.

I tally their weapons.  There’s the grey one with the two war axes, who has moved to my right flank.  Another with a large battleaxe.  Two with greatswords.  One with a shortbow.  The last with a mace.  All of them have fangs.

Some of them are armored, but the armor is unlike the plated metal I have seen Ullrog wear.  It is made from fur and leather, hardly any of it metal.

Then the last emerges.

Instead of climbing down the cliff face, he leaps from the edge of the tunnel to the shore.  He lands solidly and straightens.  He is easily the biggest, taller than me by probably a foot.  He steps to the place in front of me, and their circle grows to accommodate him.

His face is battle-hardened.  There are four scars on his head alone that I can count in the dark of the night.  Several mark his arms.  About his chest and shoulders, he wears steel orc-forged armor, the like of which I have not seen before.  His hands, legs, and feet are similarly clad.  Yellow eyes pierce me from behind his orcish helm, almost glowing in the darkness.  Moonlight accentuates his pale green-hued skin.

His long wet fangs shine in the moonlight, his lizard-like tongue drawing across them lazily.  “
Thiem okhreel nah Khroll’verär
!” he thunders suddenly.  The other six orcs laugh, some of them drawing their weapons.  The sound is booming, carrying across the landscape.

It dies down.  Then the seventh, who I assume is their leader, pulls a warhammer from his back.  The head is huge, the impact portion flat and the spike on the opposite end very long.  A small spike protrudes on top.

He stabs the top spike into the ground at his feet, resting his beastly ironclad hands on the bottom of the weapon.  His gaze glances over my wound.

His yellow eyes draw my attention as they try to stare holes through the back of my head.  I return his gaze strongly, though I have no idea what will befall me.

“
Thiem ushkha rüash’na thien ísh
,” he growls.  He breathes out loudly, enjoying the fact that I cannot understand him, his breath a white cloud in the air.

“Dragonhammer,” he rumbles.  “We have been waiting for you.”

End of Volume II

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Conner McCall is a college student pursuing a degree in music composition with a minor in computer science.