Rojuun (33 page)

Sstejj began flowing toward the camp like a
tidal wave. The builders gathered with weapons ready. Vevin stood
at the right, rear flank of the camp in a crouch, purple whip
coiled around his body. Liselle stood behind him, not taking any
action. They would be safe near the pool.

Sir Danth, Tathan, and Marrraa spaced
themselves at the outer diameter of the camp with their trainees
and fought the rush.

A crack of thunder sounded through the
cavern, then another and another. Purple lightning killed large
swaths of sstejj as Vevin cast his spells, determined to keep
Liselle safe. Tathan felt a burst of speed and began cutting
through sstejj twice as fast. All of the warriors were moving
faster. He felt Liselle’s touch in the magical energy and knew she
had done something to give them speed and strength. He hoped that
it wasn’t too much for her, but decided to be more thankful than
upset.

Magic flared forth from the builders. Tathan
had been told that all Rojuun could do magic, but was surprised to
see so many spells cascading into the pack. Vibrant colors of fire,
ice, lightning and other spells washed through the sstejj. In
addition, Tathan discovered that his vision became sharper, he
moved even faster, and there was power in each action he performed.
Rojuun spellcasters were sending their own boosting magic toward
the warriors. Suddenly Tathan became confident that they could take
this fight easily in spite of the numbers.

The cavern shook with a deep scream, which
sounded like one made by sstejj, only louder and larger. Tathan
dispatched the creature in front of him and looked. The scream came
from a sstejj the height of five Rojuun. Slime dripped from its
enormous teeth, each as thick as Tathan’s waist. Behind it came
even more sstejj, swarming like ants moving in for the kill.

Tathan turned to Vevin and started to yell
for him to get Liselle to safety. But he realized there was no way
the dragon could take her back through the locked gate without
breaking it down, endangering Garrrn Cavern. It was a terrible
oversight on their part. A cold fear struck his heart. He didn’t
want his cousin to die. He didn’t want any of them to die, but the
terrifying horde coming toward them did not look to be stopped.

Before he could worry further, he was
surrounded by sstejj, each trying to take a bite of him. Then they
were being hit with blue fireballs, screaming as they died. Tathan
turned to see Liselle cast two more in rapid succession. He felt
like an idiot as he realized his cousin was just as worried about
him. At that moment, she was doing a better job of keeping her head
than he was.

Aaruulaa was moving at magically boosted
speeds, killing every one of the creatures that came near her.
Marrraa and her sister were holding their own. Sir Danth was even
more deadly with the additional speed and strength from the magic
of the Rojuun. Tathan leapt onto the back of the next sstejj and
ran his sword along its length as he jumped to the next,
dispatching it just as easily. He began slaughtering the beasts in
earnest.

Then the monstrous sstejj was in front of
them. Numerous spells from the builders shot forth into the
creature’s face and body. A cold fist grabbed all of their hearts
when they realized that it was not affected by magic. The creature
had a large red gem in the center of its head that glowed brightly
as each spell hit. A magical force field flared around its body
each time, deflecting the spells. The only good thing that came out
of it was that the spells killed any sstejj that were in the
location of the deflection.

Battle slowed for a moment as everyone
digested what had just happened. The monstrous sstejj let out a
scream of triumph that rocked the cavern. It moved forward once
more with the rest of the horde.

Tathan was still leaping across the backs of
sstejj as he killed them. They couldn’t fight someone who never
touched the ground and he moved too quickly for the creatures to
pin down a scent. There were so many sstejj coming that Tathan
could walk across the cavern on them, but he needed to kill the
monstrous one.

He dashed toward it, slashing every sstejj
he ran across with his sword as he went. Tathan had more agility
than any acrobat and could keep his feet in an earthquake. In an
odd way, running atop the shifting and dying bodies was fun for
him.

An instant later, he was at the monster. It
was going to reach the camp soon if he didn’t kill it. Tathan leapt
for the first leg. He grabbed the stony structure with his free
hand and swung to the next, moving closer to the body. He hit the
second leg with his feet in a move only the most dexterous could
ever accomplish. A somersault, which would have made Vevin proud,
brought him to the third leg right next to the body of the
monstrous sstejj. Tathan did a sideways somersault and landed on
the body, driving his sword into it.

He was stunned when the creature didn’t die.
His sword went into the body easily enough, but when Tathan pulled
it out, the wound resealed. He thrust repeatedly, each new wound
resealing. Tathan managed to keep his feet when the next spell hit
the creature, this one a bolt of lightning from Vevin. The
monstrous sstejj staggered for a moment, but the gem in its head
flared bright, protecting it from destruction.

Tathan realized that the gem was key to
killing the creature. He ran up to the neck and leapt to the head,
thrusting his sword into the center of the gem.

His world exploded in a flash of red as the
gem shattered. The sword had strong magics within it or else it
might have failed to do any damage. The resulting explosive
reaction wrenched the sword out of his hands, throwing him into the
air.

For a moment, Tathan floated. He couldn’t
see anything but the red flash. The only sound was ringing in his
head. Tathan flung his body around in order to land as well as
possible even if he couldn’t see the ground. When he did land, it
was hard. He tried to get up, but could only find his hands and
knees. Tathan was momentarily blind, deaf and disoriented.

Something grabbed his shoulders. He tried to
shake it off, thinking one of the sstejj was trying to kill him.
Tathan felt a face against his cheek. Suddenly, hands were on his
shoulders, lifting him. Whoever had him was trying to yell
something in his ear, but he could only hear ringing.

Tathan stumbled and nearly passed out a few
times as the person led him back to the camp. Someone else grabbed
his other side and they carried him. He couldn’t see where they
were going, but by the number of hands on him, he thought that he
was being carried by Rojuun.

He weakly asked for his sword. That wasn’t
something he never wanted to lose. They didn’t reply or slow down.
A moment later, whoever was carrying him set him down on the ground
and left. Tathan lay on his back for a moment, trying to regain his
senses, but could still only hear ringing and see the red blur from
the explosion of the gem.

Tathan leaned up on one elbow, fighting off
a bout of dizziness, and reached into a secret pouch inside his
shirt. He fumbled it open, feeling for the seed that was in it.
When he found the seed, he placed it under his tongue. The seed was
very addictive and very dangerous to use, not to mention illegal in
most countries.

His back arched and he yelled as the drug
took effect. It was painful at first, but then a wave of adrenaline
hit him. He lurched to his feet before falling back to his hands
and knees. Tathan finally managed to reach his feet, though he
wobbled. Slowly, the blurry images began to clear. Sounds began to
filter through and he could hear shouts of Rojuun intermixed with
screams of the attacking aberrations. Tathan’s vision was still
tinged with red, while the ringing was a dull noise in the back of
his skull.

After staggering forward a few steps to join
the fight, he realized he didn’t have any weapon but his belt
knife. He pulled the knife and watched it shake in his unstable
hand. Tathan took a deep breath, trying to compose himself better.
It worked a little bit, but there was no way he could fight
anything.

Tathan looked around for Liselle. Marrraa
was fighting in the distance; at least it looked like her, though
it could have been Turrr. Sir Danth was killing just as fast as
ever, moving from sstejj to sstejj. He wasn’t using his energy to
disappear and reappear, conserving it instead for fighting. Tathan
couldn’t see his trainee or Sir Danth’s. He also couldn’t see
Vevin.

To the left of him, builders were fighting
sstejj that had broken through the defenses. There was a commotion
to the right where a smaller group of the monsters had attacked.
They were running away back through the river to the tunnels,
leaving behind the bodies of six Rojuun builders and Vevin’s
trainee.

Tathan stared at them for a moment. He had
never seen sstejj run away. He looked at the bodies of the Rojuun
lying on the ground and realized that the sstejj had left without
trying to eat them. Something was very wrong. The remaining
builders in that direction were shouting, yelling and pointing at
the retreating sstejj. One of them saw Tathan and started yelling
at him, pointing frantically at the creatures.

It was all so confusing. Tathan took a few
steps toward the retreating sstejj and waved his knife weakly at
them, but it was no good. A blast of magic to the left destroyed
another swath of the creatures, diminishing their numbers just a
little more. The Rojuun to his right had made it over to him and
was yelling while gesturing madly at the retreating sstejj. The
monsters were well past the river and nearly at a tunnel in the
distance.

Sir Danth was suddenly on his left. Tathan
absently noticed that the dark knight never got messy in battle. He
decided if he ever got enchanted armor that he would make sure it
had the ability to stay clean like that.

The knight took him by the shoulders.
“Master Tathan, the creatures took Lady Liselle.” His voice was
muffled, but Tathan could distinguish the words. The meaning wasn’t
clear to him though. “A dark creature riding one of the sstejj took
Lady Liselle and ran off with her into the tunnels!” the knight
repeated.

Tathan finally understood the words and felt
the blood drain from his face. The sense of dread he felt earlier
returned tenfold.

A great roar reverberated throughout the
cavern and a very angry purple dragon appeared in the air above the
waterfall. It inhaled deeply as great wings spread out to keep it
aloft. When it exhaled, purple flames laced with lightning shot the
distance of the cavern, killing nearly all the remaining sstejj in
its path.

The dragon heaved forward through the air
and let out another rumbling scream of fury. It shook the cavern,
causing debris to fall to the ground from the walls and ceiling.
The few surviving sstejj were paralyzed by vibrations of the roar
while Rojuun stared at the magnificent creature in awe.

The last thing Tathan saw before his legs
buckled and his vision went black was the sight of Vevin in dragon
form darting toward the tunnels where Liselle had been taken by a
dark creature.

Chapter
31

Krraa stood in the shadows of the tunnel,
watching over the cavern with powerful eyes as the Rojuun and their
new friends walked across the far end. The one it wanted was there.
The dark creature had waited for the glowing one to come back.

She had killed his pets with her painful
blue fire that hurt his eyes just to look at it. That was not why
Krraa wanted her though. It was the glow. The girl had a soft blue
glow that was power. She could fix him. Her blue power could make
him better. He could wrap it around himself, stand straight and
finish growing. He could stop the pain. He could be real. He could
kill the Rojuun. He
needed
her power to fix him.

An evil chuckle escaped his unnatural lips,
dripped to the floor and oozed into the crevasses of the tunnel.
The sstejj hungrily waited for Krraa to release them to kill the
creatures they hated so much. He ordered his pets to attack with a
silent command. They poured out of the tunnels on the far side of
the cavern by the lake. The Rojuun hadn’t dared to gate these
tunnels yet. If he had his way, they would never be able to build
another gate again.

Krraa could see that the Rojuun were going
to camp near the waterfall. It was the perfect place to set up the
ambush. He would be able to get the glowing one if he could stay
away from the other new creatures.

Those creatures killed more of his sstejj
than any Rojuun ever had. The unnatural one in metal scared Krraa
the most. It killed and killed and had no flesh to rend. The fast
one had flesh, but couldn’t be felt. Krraa could see it, but it
made no vibrations in the ground. He saw it touch the ground, but
there was nothing. There was another creature that Krraa couldn’t
quite remember, but it wasn’t important.

The horde of sstejj he had just let loose
upon the group should be able to kill even the fleshless metal one
with the great blade and the silent one with the dark blade. The
rest would not be a match. Krraa watched as his biggest pet walked
above the horde. He had found a beautiful gem with great power in
the depths of the caverns. By setting it in the forehead of his
biggest sstejj ever, he had created an invincible minion. Even if
the rest of the horde failed, the largest sstejj would destroy all
Rojuun.

The giant beast was clumsy. Occasionally, it
would step on one of the smaller sstejj and impale it. Then it
would shake the smaller creature off and keep going forward. Krraa
laughed every time it happened and enjoyed the screams of the dying
sstejj.

He petted his special mount. It was larger
than normal sstejj. There was a red gem in its head similar to the
goliath. He had five of the smaller gem sstejj. They surrounded and
protected him. He controlled them with his mind and they did his
every bidding. He rode his favorite by sitting on a special granite
saddle he had built into it between the first and second set of
legs.