Empire of Bones (21 page)

Maleela dropped to her knees and crawled to his corpse. Oddly, he seemed satisfied, as if all of his demons had finally stopped tormenting him. She didn’t care. He’d been nothing but deceptive and spiteful since leaving Chadra all those long winter nights ago. He represented everything wrong with the world: the physical manifestation of hatred, death, and rot. Ionascu may have come to terms internally, but the sight of him turned her stomach. She jerked the dagger free, hesitantly at first, and plunged it back down with all of the hate she could muster. She stabbed again and again until blood coated her face and hands. His body jerked with each strike to the central nervous system.

Finally she collapsed. She wanted to cry. To burn away the pain with purifying tears, but there was none. Her tears were used up. She looked deep within herself and was horrified to find she actually liked killing him. It felt good to rid the world of one more villain. She wanted more. Maleela pulled herself up and, dagger in hand, turned to head back to the fight. She wasn’t afraid anymore. The time had come for her to stand on her own two feet and become the princess her kingdom deserved.

Maleela looked up in time to see two large figures drop down on her. Concealed by the shadows of the double canopy while the battle raged, the Hags waited for their chance to strike. Unlike before, they had a solitary purpose. Freina was to capture the princess and deliver her back to Amar Kit’han. With outstretched claws, the Hags attacked. Maleela’s shout quickly turned into a scream as ragged claws dug deeply into her shoulders and jerked her skyward. Leaves drifted lazily down to where she’d just been.

Stolen

Her scream broke the sudden silence dominating the battleground. They looked around, desperate to find Maleela. Bahr grew frantic. He’d gone through so much to get her back and keep her safe he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her now, this close to their goal. She was the only true family he had. And he wasn’t able to protect her when she needed it. Failure gnawed at his already waning confidence. He drew a heavy sob before realizing it was unlike his character.

Anienam saw what was happening and shouted, “Snap out of it! It’s the magic of the Gnaals! They are draining your confidence, leaving you open to their next assault!”

“Where is she?” the Sea Wolf called back. He slowly started to understand the delaying tactic used by the Gnaals. They wanted him to get distracted. To lose track of what was happening around him so that they could get to Maleela, his one weakness. Visions of finding her corpse torn apart in the jungle sickened his stomach.

They charged recklessly into the unknown, rescuing the princess being their solitary thought. Nothing else mattered so long as they recovered her from the Gnaals alive and unharmed. He headed back to where he left her without waiting for the others. He didn’t get far. The second Gnaal dropped from the canopy and attacked.

Taken off guard, Anienam did his best to turn and confront the beast. His best years were behind him, and it was all he could do to fight back. His magic was weaker. The majority was spent on the first battle. He was on fumes, barely capable of withholding the Gnaal as it charged. Fortunately his friends were able to react in time. Battered, Boen led the way. His sword was raised above his head. His initial goal was to take a hand off. The rest he’d work out along the way. He never made it the Gnaal. The Gaimosian slipped on moisture-slick moss and went down.

The Gnaal roared. Poisons steamed from its flesh. Branches wilted. Leaves withered into shriveled brown husks. It saw Boen on the ground, trying to roll back up, and knew death was but a moment away. For the second time in as many minutes, Groge did the unexpected and blocked the attack. His crisis of conscience faded as the lives of his friends were in jeopardy. There’d be a time for reckoning with his god when he returned to Venheim, but for now they needed his immense strength and size.

Giant and Gnaal met, Groge towering over the beast by six feet. His massive fists hammered down on the beast, desperately trying to kill it. The Gnaal responded with claws and teeth. Groge was cut in a dozen places as he busied breaking ribs and bones. The sheer ferocity of the titanic struggle brought small trees down. Brodein had never seen such a battle and the witnesses prayed they never had to again.

“Go, all of you! Get Maleela before it’s too late!” Anienam shouted. He rolled his sleeves up and headed to aid Groge. Even a Giant’s strength was limited.

Bahr grabbed Boen by the shoulder and propelled him along. Neither had the strength to fight a Gnaal and win. Dorl, Ironfoot, and Skuld joined them. Heart racing, Dorl didn’t want to lose sight of them in the midst of the battle. They ran into the jungle as Rekka and Anienam aided Groge. Each had their own battles to fight.

Shadows crept in oppressively. Their vision was reduced to a handful of meters. Underbrush grew thicker the deeper they went. Bahr wished for torches but they lacked the time to get them from the packs. Unnatural silence secluded them from the rest of the jungle. Nothing stirred. All life had fled the moment the Gnaals arrived. Bahr began to feel claustrophobic. He needed the open sea again, not the coffin-like enclosure of Brodein’s deepest heart.
How I’ll ever find her in this nightmare is beyond me. I should have left the poor girl in Rogscroft. She doesn’t deserve any of this.

“Does anyone see her?” he asked. Desperation haunted his voice. He verged on pure panic. The sensation left him torn. Family was an alien notion he struggled to accept.

Ironfoot darted out in front of them. Reduced by his four-foot stature, the Dwarf had the best vision in the group. He could see in the dark, used to being underground for extended periods. He used that to their advantage, piercing the artificial gloom only to find nothing. He gripped his axe murderously. He’d read legends of other Dwarves that had fought Gnaals and bristled at the opportunity to do so himself. Ironfoot felt his talents were wasted stalking the jungle for a lone girl. Honor demanded he continue on. Find the girl and get back to the fight. Nothing else mattered.

After meters of not finding so much as a footprint he spied a scrap of light blue cloth. His mouth curled up in a savage grin.
Finally. A trail!
He bounded over a fallen log and clutched the cloth. He squinted into the gloom, tilting his head back to sniff the air. “It’s hers. Torn from her tunic but I don’t see her anywhere.”

“There must be something else. Something you’re missing,” Bahr said.

“I’m a Dwarf. I don’t miss anything,” Ironfoot growled, uneasy with being questioned. “Whatever took her was no Gnaal. Look around. Nothing here has died. The monster would have killed every living thing it touched. This is damned peculiar.”

“Over here! It’s Nothol,” Boen called deeply. He was crouching down beside the groggy sell sword as the others hurried over.

“What happened here?” Bahr demanded.

Nothol started to shake his head but quickly thought better of it. Great lances of pain shot through his skull when he tried to move. “I don’t know. She was in front of me and then I got hit in the back of my head. Whatever did it was strong enough to knock me out. She was gone when I awoke.”

“It was Ionascu,” Dorl said slowly. His face lost much of its color. The sell sword stood over the dead Man’s body, pointing with his sword. “He must have snapped.”

“The slimy bastard wasn’t that strong,” Nothol protested. “He couldn’t have.”

Dorl reached down to retrieve the heavy branch Ionascu had used as a club. “He didn’t need to be strong to get you with this.”

“Spread out. Search the immediate area. She might still be here,” Bahr ordered. He couldn’t bring himself to say the one inescapable conclusion they all thought. That she might be dead along with Ionascu. Bahr held onto hope as long as there was no body to prove otherwise.

Nothol was the first to return once the others fanned out to search the immediate area. The look on his face told Bahr all he needed to know. She was gone. But where? He owed it to himself not to give up, not after all they’d been through just to reach this point. Bahr redoubled his efforts. She had to be in the area. A fully grown Woman couldn’t disappear without a trace.

“Damnation. We need Rekka here. This is her jungle,” Bahr said dejectedly.

Of them all, Nothol felt the pain of failure the most. He’d been with her last. He viewed her disappearance as his fault, a momentary lapse of awareness that led to her probable death. The idea of his inability to keep the ones he cared about safe mocked him. Grief stricken, the sell sword continued to look.

* * * * *

Groge swung with all his might. A mighty blow landing in the Gnaal’s already mangled face. Dark blood exploded. Teeth dropped. Pulverized flesh clung wetly to the Giant’s fist. Severely wounded, the Gnaal managed to rake its claws across Groge’s stomach, drawing thick lines of bright, red blood. Anienam sent another blast of power, this one greatly diminished from his first, into the Gnaal’s face to give Groge time to recover.

The old wizard sagged to his knees. His body was bordering on giving out. Darkness crept in around the corners of his vision. Rekka fired two quick arrows and reached down to help him. She understood they needed him if any were going to live long enough to return to Delranan. Groge dove back into the attack. The ancient fury lacing his blood flared alive. He felt strong. Powerful. He felt alive.

Two trees burst into flames directly behind them. Anienam’s heart sank. The second Gnaal had returned. “We’re doomed.”

Rekka wiped the clinging strands of black hair from her face. “No. We will find a way. There must always be hope, wizard.”

He wanted to laugh. What hope could there possibly be for this? The question faded on his tongue as a hail of arrows and spears riddled the second Gnaal. Anienam peered through the building haze and was rewarded by spying half a dozen warriors from Teng. They attacked the Gnaal with abandon. Despite never having seen a Gnaal, Cashi Dam led his warriors without hesitation.

Rekka’s mouth fell open. Cashi and his warriors shouldn’t have left Teng. Their bravery quickly turned into foolishness. The first died after getting too close to the surprised beast. A clawed hand reached out to crush the Man’s skull. The sound reminded Rekka of fresh fruit being pulverized. A warrior vomited. Another stabbed repeatedly into the Gnaal’s exposed rib cage. The beast roared and wheeled on his attacker, backhanding him into the trees. He died as his back broke against the rough bark.

“Demon!” Cashi raged and leapt in to attack. He’d come here to find Rekka and take her back. There was no denying the murderous intent in his heart. She embarrassed him in front of his warriors and no small amount of retribution was demanded. Rekka Jel needed to pay for her insolence. He wasn’t a common villager.

Finding Rekka involved in a fight for her life was the last thing he expected to stumble across. The manner of creatures battling her stole the strength from his soul. Warmth fled his bones, giving him a cadaverous feel. His confidence shook when Ashru and Mehy died so quickly. They were both seasoned veterans, older and more experienced than he was. Their deaths would haunt Teng for many years. Cashi’s sword struck the Gnaal’s thigh and shattered into pieces on impact. He cursed and tried to jump back. The Gnaal was faster. Its tail slammed into Cashi, driving him to the ground.

Rekka, having recovered her bow, took aim and fired in the span of a single heartbeat. Her aim was true. The bolt struck the Gnaal in the left eye at the same time Anienam managed a weak bolt of power. Lacking any real punch, it was enough to keep the already distracted Gnaal from recovering in time to finish Cashi.

“Anienam, we must find a way to get them away from the Gnaal,” she warned, leaving the threat unspoken. Death ruled this portion of the jungle. It was a matter of time before it claimed them all.

Back on his feet, the wizard coughed a wad of blood. “I don’t have much left. Not enough to defeat both of them.”

He looked across the ruined area to see Groge doing his best to rip the Gnaal apart. Foul, dark blood coated the Giant. An evil gleam blackened his eyes. Anienam recognized the blood rage. It wouldn’t be long before young Groge became lost to his long suppressed instincts and transformed into a killing machine. It was one of the reasons the Giants abandoned life in the lowlands after the wars. Once lost to the rage, they were near unstoppable.

The second Gnaal ripped the arrow from its ruined eye and attacked the remaining villagers. The air sizzled as the whip-like tail nearly sliced the closest warrior in half at the waist. Moving with lightning speed, the Gnaal bit down on the shoulder of the next, devouring both head and arm. Alone, the surviving warrior edged back towards the trees. Any courage he once had fled down his leg as he emptied his bladder. The battle was over.

Both Gnaals stopped in mid strike. Their misshapen heads turned upwards, as if listening to an unknown song on the stale wind. Treetops rustled. A haunting echo reverberated deep into the foundations of the world. Both beasts launched up into the canopy, slashing through the trees as they abandoned the battle. Anienam watched, unable to comprehend what just happened.

“They had us,” he whispered.

Rekka lacked answers. She expected a trap. Time running out, she hurried over to Cashi’s side before the Gnaals returned. Kneeling, she ran her hands lightly over his broken body, looking to see if he was still breathing, checking for broken bones, and to see if he was bleeding. Sorrow filled her normally soft eyes. He groaned every time she managed to touch a broken bone. The richness of the blood slowly trickling from his mouth and ears suggested internal bleeding. Reluctantly, she was forced to admit he was already dead.

His eyes fluttered open, slowly focusing on her soft, round face. Broken teeth showed when he tried to smile. “Rekka.”

“Do not speak, Cashi. You are gravely wounded,” she said sympathetically.

A tear welled in his eye. “I am…dying. There is…much I need…to say.”

She placed a fingertip on his lips. “Do not waste your words. I know the truth of many things, Cashi Dam. You are a great warrior. A good Man. I wronged you and for that I am deeply sorry. You did not deserve my harsh treatment.”

He closed his eyes. “No. I came…here…” A coughing fit racked his body. Fresh waves of pain made him scream. “To…punish you.”

A last strangled breath escaped him and his body trembled briefly before life left. Rekka lowered her head and cried for the first time in many years.

* * * * *

Freina and Garelda, last surviving Harpies in the northern kingdoms, flew back toward Delranan. Their captured prey hung limply from their claws, swaying in the cooling air. Capturing Maleela proved less problematic than their earlier attempts but lacked any rewarding feeling. Their third sister, Brom, died of wounds sustained in their ill-advised attack in the village of Fedro. Her loss stung the Hags, further widening the rift between them and the Dae’shan. Freina decided this was the last act they were going to perform for their deathless masters. The Harpies had given up more than enough in a cause they didn’t believe in.