The Bonds of Blood (43 page)

Slowly the darkness began to abate as
the wall directly opposite of him began to blossom with color, a
slight lavender. He squinted as the wall grew brighter and
brighter. The wall he was looking at was the door they had come
through.

“I think it is letting us out into the
tunnel!” Jovian informed them as he watched the crystal door grow
brighter and brighter.

“How do you know?” Grace asked, her
voice sounding dreamy.

“Because the crystal doorway is
glowing.”

“Your wall is not the only one glowing
then,” Angelica said. Quickly Jovian turned and saw that three of
the four walls glowed with a light color. The one before Angelica
glowed a soft blue, while the one before Grace glowed sage green.
The only wall not glowing was the one directly opposite the
door.

“What do we do?” Angelica
asked.

“I don’t think we need instructions. It
is obvious that following the light has helped us this far, I think
we need to touch the walls.” Grace suggested.

“She is right; take up the new post.”
Jovian prayed to the Goddess that this was not the way back out,
for he was sure it would take them right into the presence of the
Golem.

This time when Jovian touched the wall,
it was not to the sense of cold fire that he experienced before,
but instead he felt a heat that he never thought possible in a
place so cold looking as this crystal cave. The wall let off warmth
that both warmed the skin and nourished the soul.

The light slowly grew brighter until
all of his pain and cares melted away in a cocoon of warmth created
by the light. He closed his eyes against the brightness of the
light, and he felt the ground drop away from his feet.

A sense of floating upward swept over
Jovian. There was a slight wind that bore down on him tousling his
hair and rustling his clothes about him.

All at once the laughter and the
sensation of hovering stopped and Jovian was surrounded by
darkness. He felt something cold and solid pressing into his knees
and his hands. When he opened his eyes it was to see the soft grass
of the earth he had thought forsaken to him. He looked around and
saw Angelica crouching a ways ahead and off to his right, and he
found Grace directly across from her to his left.

He started to laugh a little and stood.
Just then the horses reared and he heard a panicked voice behind
him.

“Jovian, look out!” Joya screamed, the
light of the cave having revived her in a way that previously was
thought only time could do.

Instinctively Jovian jumped to his
right just as a large club buried itself into the earth where he
had previously been.

“It’s the golem,” Grace screamed,
scrambling to her feet. “How did it get out here?”

Jovian scurried away from yet another
heavy club stroke. With a rush of adrenaline, he managed to jump to
his feet and draw his sword.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

_A
n orange moon hung full
in
the sky, blotted out by haze and gray
clouds that seemed to glow an eerie black like they only seemed to
do in autumn. It was only when the moon broke through a mass of
these clouds did Jovian see the horror of the Golem for what it
truly was.

In the deep of the night in which they
emerged from the crystal cave, it was difficult for Jovian to
differentiate between the Golem and the trees of the Forest of Life
not far off in the background.

The creature must have stood at least
ten feet in height and would have had an attractive body if the
face of the being didn’t mess up the whole image.

A figure of clay and wood stood before
them, lumbering toward Jovian with a kind of jerky grace. At once
Jovian realized that the wooden limbs covered with clay-flesh made
moving awkward at best. Beneath the uncertain gait there was a hint
of fluidity that could entail quick, even movements.

On its well formed shoulders stood a
spindly neck that did not fit the muscled façade at all, and on top
of that neck rested a round blob with a horizontal slit that ran
from side to side in some macabre smile. The rest of the face was
in lumpy ruin, as if the beast’s creator had not taken much
interest in what it really looked like as long as it was
functional.

Jovian would wager that it would not
have had any facial features at all if it was not for the fact that
Golems, as a rule, needed at least a mouth in order to be conjured
into being.

Jovian was wary now after having been
brought to his senses when they first were attacked just outside of
the crystal cave. And when the muscled figure raised its cruelly
formed cudgel over its head again, Jovian was ready to dodge out of
the way before it came crashing down, sinking into the earth with
thunderous rippling that shook the very earth.

Angelica was not sure when it happened,
but there was a definitive moment. She was terrified one second,
and then almost as if there was a click somewhere inside her she
came to herself and was filled with a calculated rage. This rage
was very unlike her white-hot anger that normally coursed through
her during battle, and it was unlike the rage that filled her the
day she fought Destra. This fury she could control. She could
dampen this wrath, this fire kindling in her core if she desired;
but she didn’t desire.

Coming into the battle should have been
chaotic in itself, the thundering of the great stone club, the
whizzing of arrows as Maeven fired them in what seemed like an
endless stream at the Golem, and Jovian dancing back and forth,
taking the opportunity of the club being sunken into the earth to
lash out at the Golem’s arms.

Angelica knew what needed to happen,
and she hoped that the golem had not seen her. Though unsure how
she knew that the head must be removed, there was a certainty in
her that it was the key to the destruction of the beast.

She was there, mace lashing out; taking
the opportunity of being unseen, Angelica did what she would have
done on most humans, forgetting (despite the voice in her head
screaming not to do it) that golems were anything but human. After
all, striking a human in the knee would bring it toppling to the
ground. In reality the only thing it would do to the Golem was
irritate it, and lose her the mace for a time.

She stood staring at the mace, trying
to dislodge it from the knee of the Golem. Thankfully it was still
focused on Jovian, and it was not smart enough to realize that the
near crippling blow to its leg was some other creature besides the
human trying to slay it with the sword.

For the next few moments Angelica was
also caught up in a dance much like Jovian’s, but instead of
dodging a club and striking with a sword, Angelica eluded
thunderous feet while trying to dislodge her mace from the
clay.

One hard pull landed Angelica on her
rump. Under the clay that made up the outer exterior of this
creature was something very like a bone structure made of wood. She
stood, and with all of her might she swung again.

She heard the wood splinter, but not
completely break. The golem made a noise that she could only guess
must be a roar. She pulled back again, and swung with every bit of
strength she could muster. The wood splintered yet more. Angelica
guessed that two more strikes like this would remove the leg from
the Golem’s use.

Those two more strikes would not come
right now, for just then the golem realized where the pain in its
leg was coming from, and it reverted its attention on Angelica. The
good thing that came from this was that Jovian was now given the
opportunity to strike the golem without having to do so at the
expense of his life. Angelica picked up where Jovian left
off.

Realizing his arrows weren’t doing any
good, Maeven drew his sword and he and Angelica started encircling
the golem together, him striking the arm that Jovian was trying to
cleave as each club stroke fell, and Angelica working to break
through the wood of the other arm as she had been trying to break
through the leg.

The Golem reared and turned, swinging
its club at Jovian, annoyed by yet more pain in his leg. As he
turned, Angelica dove in and swung with every bit of power left in
her arms; this was the last hit she needed. The wood broke with an
almost deafening crack, and the golem stumbled back and forth. They
all ran like mad to get away from the creature, and finally it fell
in what seemed like slow motion until it hit the earth.

“The head needs to come off,” Grace
yelled over the din. “There is something inside his head
controlling him and we need to destroy it!”

The three of them took off running
across the ground, their weapons bare, ready to remove the head,
though Angelica was unsure how she would be of any help.

They made it halfway before
the golem raised its hands and slammed them back on the ground.
Jovian had never seen earth ripple like water before, but that was
exactly what happened. He braced himself for the rippling that came
his way, but nothing could have kept his feet under him. The ground
heaved so violently that for a time all of them were fighting just
to stay
on
the
ground and not be tossed around like a child’s toy.

When the rippling subsided enough for
them to gain their feet again, they started their charge once more.
Another slamming of fists on the ground sent out one single ripple.
They watched it coming, and when the ground beneath their feet was
at its apex, ready to fall out beneath them leaving them in vertigo
and falling to the hard earth, Angelica and Jovian jumped, landing
(if not gracefully) on their feet instead of their backsides like
Maeven.

“He is an Earth Elemental!” Angelica
said.

The golem stopped making the earth
buckle, for there was no use now; they were too close to be
completely harmed by it anyway. Instead it raised its arms as high
as it could and the grass came to life, trying to tangle itself
around their ankles. Angelica, having nothing but a dinner knife in
her pack, was out of the battle. Soon her ankles were overcome, no
matter how she tore at the grass; it lengthened and quickly twined
its way up her legs lashing at her like a whip. Before long she
knew that she would be completely consumed by the grass and then
what? The answer came before long as she felt the grass tightening
around her, squeezing off the blood flow to her feet.

Jovian made quick work with his sword,
cutting and hacking at the grass to allow freedom for his feet to
gain him a few feet closer to the Golem, and then repeating his
attack on the grass.

Before long Maeven passed Angelica and
joined Jovian.

The golem, however, was not ready to
admit defeat, and as the two boys reached it, they felt something
sharp and rough biting into their skin. At first Jovian wondered if
it was not the biting of hundreds of ants, but looking off behind
them he realized that it was a sandstorm being conjured from the
gravel of Voyager’s Pass, the road that ran through the Holy
Realm.

There was only one thing they could do
before the storm blew too strongly, and that was to remove this
creature’s head.

Though the neck was spindly compared to
the body of the Golem, it was still the size of a small tree and
made out of wood that was likened to the same tree. It took several
sweaty minutes of hacking and striking, dodging the Golem’s hands
that swung out threateningly at them as they worked, before they
removed the head. Jovian was certain that he would have to sharpen
his sword after using it as a saw, but at least they had removed
the Golem’s head before the sandstorm blew up to its full
strength.

The wind died as the globular head of
the Golem fell to the ground, and the rumbling in the earth (which
had been present as long as the Golem was) faded away.

Exhausted, Jovian fell to his knees,
looking at his sword, and was only slightly shocked to see that it
still glinted sharply in the fleeting moonlight.

“Jovian!” he heard Grace yell. “It’s
Angelica—she needs to be freed from the grass!” The old lady was
trying her best to cut through the grass with her silver dagger,
but it was obvious that this dagger was meant to be used for some
other purpose than cutting. Jovian hurried back to her, leaving
Maeven to struggle with the weight of the head.

In minutes Angelica was freed, though
unconscious and being carried by her brother back to Jesse, who was
now much calmer than he was an hour before when the golem
appeared.

“Now,” Grace was saying as her and
Maeven walked up to where the other three of their group were
standing. “The tablet inside must be scripted with a specific order
of letters. In the ceremonial language this scripture will say
‘death,’ which will cause the golem to become deactivated.” She
pointed to the ground, and Maeven knelt resting the head on the
ground, horizontal slit up. “This is the only way that one can kill
the golem, and it must be done by a priest, or that who conjured
it. Only one with deep devotion can create them, and only one of
deep devotion can destroy them.”

Maeven made a great incision and
removed a silver table from the depths of the clay mass.