The Long Journey Home (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 8) (6 page)

She saw the cavern—half in, half out of the water and nearly perfectly round. It was in a slab of granite six hundred feet high and clearly unnatural. Chelda saw Poops splash through the shallows and disappear into the darkness.

“Come on, man,” she yelled. “I’m going in.”

“It’s not me,” Castavonti growled back. “It’s these gods-be-damned robes. I’m coming right behind you.”

“You’d better be,” she mumbled under her breath as she came out of the thin trees and raced across the open ground between forest and lake. The water didn’t slow her at all, because to her gargan frame it was barely ankle deep. It did make the leather of her new Harthgarian boots stretch, which caused her to have to use extra caution, lest her feet slip inside the wet leather and cause her to falter.

She was as worried as could be about Vanx and now Poops. As she left the daylight behind her, she heard the dog yelp. When she rounded the corner, she was shocked to see that a perfectly cylindrical beam of light was piercing a huge cavern full of pale crabs the size of caravan wagons.

There were three of them that she could see. Worse, the whole floor was a sheen of glassy water. Chelda could take three steps and fall into a hole, and the idea of that terrified her more than the spiders had.

She found Poops splashing his way back toward her. He looked to be bleeding, but the wound apparently wasn’t bad enough to hinder his stride, for he was moving as fast as she’d ever seen him move.

She watched the way he came and saw that he never fell into a hole.

“What is it, Poops?” she asked, poking him with the elven blade of healing, as soon as he was close enough.

“Grrrrufff, ruff, gruff,” the dog responded.

“I don’t speak dog like Vanxy does, Sir Poopsalot.” Chelda huffed. “Where are they? Are they close?”

Poops barked and pointed his nose toward a continuation of the winding bore worm hole they were standing in. Chelda knew that’s what these nearly perfectly round tubes were. There were a few in the mountains where she grew up. The dead giveaway was the lack of stalags, for the great bore worms coated their tunnels with something that prevented them from getting blocked or narrowed by mineral deposits.

“Where are they?” Castavonti huffed as he came sloshing up, holding the hem of his soaked robes at his waist, heaving for breath. “Are we too late?”

“What can you do about that?” She didn’t have to point out that one of the ugly-headed crabs was following Poops’s blood trail toward
where they stood. Its eyes were on stalks that arced up and away from the thing’s body and pointed downward.

Chelda saw the weakness in this immediately. It wasn’t looking forward, so it had no idea what it was following. It was just following. Maybe it sensed vibration, too, she wondered. That creepy, eyeless head could have been bat-ish as much as anything.

“Hey, mage, are you going to do something?” she asked.

“Chah,” Castavonti exhaled, and a pulse of yellow energy shot from his pointing finger at the thing.

The impact of the blast flipped the creature over and left a gaping wound.

Chelda sighed with relief because it didn’t look like it was going to be able to right itself.

“We need to get those things out of there,” Chelda snapped. “That’s where Vanx and Zeezle are.”

“Oh shit,” said Castavonti, as if hope had fled him.

Chelda shook her head, for the man looked as if he could barely stand.

Chapter Thirteen

All alone in this world of madness
,

this heart of stone can feel no sadness
.

V
anx cast the best healing spell he knew on Zeezle’s spider bite, and the angry red color of the wound faded instantly. Pus and poison leaked out the opening as it tried to heal the pocket of venom the spider had injected.

Vanx couldn’t dally with the spell, for he had to draw his sword, step over Zeezle, and meet the three snake-tail-like tentacles that were trying to get hold of one of them.

He ducked one of the tentacles. Then he hopped over another, spinning to cleave an arm’s length from the third. It retreated, and another came snaking in to take its place. He chanced a glance over his shoulder, and he saw that the giant crab beast was reaching one of its pincers down at Zeezle’s limp, sweaty form.

He also noticed that all the healing he’d done had been overtaken again by the spider venom.

Vanx spun and cast a spell. He hoped
Tempus
Fist would come to him, but it didn’t. The less destructive pulses he’d seen Castavonti use before were what went streaking out of his outstretched fingertip. It was the better choice.

He had to spin back to avoid getting wrapped by one of the reptilian reachers, and he managed it, but barely. He felt Poops get cut by
something, and panic over his familiar assailed him. He should have left the others up top instead of calling Poops for help.

The crab beast behind him was still there, but it was disoriented and spilling slimy green and black-colored ooze from its main body, where two of the three pulses Vanx had let loose struck it.

Vanx decided to quit with the sword, and he cast the same spell into the darkness where the body of the snake-tentacled creature was.

To his great surprise, it roared back at him, and Vanx was forced to dive onto Zeezle to avoid a faster, smaller tentacle that looked more like a tongue than a snake.

The pink appendage went right over them, and got hold of the stunned crab beast. With violent force that almost crushed Vanx and Zeezle both, it yanked the monster past them and up the tunnel.

Vanx coughed, thinking maybe his ribs were cracked, but he cast the healing spell on Zeezle, who looked dead.

He was thinking he should throw Zeezle over his shoulder and carry him back up to the hole where they entered, but there were two of the pale-skinned crab beasts fighting to get past one another as they approached.

This time, Vanx cast the
Tempus
Fist, and before the powerful spell even impacted the two huge creatures, Vanx had Zeezle over his shoulder and was climbing back up the shaft.

He could only hope that the snake-tentacled thing had taken its meal to consume somewhere besides his route. Then another of the crabs forced its way through the mess he’d made of the last two. When he turned to see how close it was getting, he felt Poops again, and knew that there were three of these creatures between him and his familiar.

Between him and the Glaive.

It was then that he sat Zeezle on the ground and started blasting his way back down the tunnel. Rage consumed him as he poured his anger into each devastating spell. His next
Tempus
Fist tore half of the newcomer apart, and beyond it he saw a series of smaller magical pulses tearing into the other things.

He cast one more
Tempus
Fist, making sure its path didn’t impact Chelda, Castavonti, and Poops, who were now wading toward him through the disgusting remains of the strange, monsters.

“Hurry with the Glaive,” Vanx yelled.

Chelda entered Vanx’s magical illumination, and instead of laboring to carry the ancient elven weapon, she stuck the blade in its sheath, unhooked it from her belt, and hurled it end over end at Vanx.

Vanx decided his ribs might have been broken. The pain almost made him miss when he had to leap up to catch the sword, but it didn’t matter. As soon as he pulled the blade free, he stabbed Zeezle, right in the spider bite, and then cut himself on the forearm.

He stabbed Zeezle twice more, when the first didn’t seem to do anything.

Grief struck him then.

He was too late. His friend was dead.

“What happened to him?” Chelda asked as she got close enough to see.

“Spider bite,” Vanx said. He didn’t say anything when the complexion of her cheeks went from raging red to pale as a sheet.

“You were right, man,” Castavonti called from where he’d found the old chest spilling coppers.

Vanx didn’t let the man’s lack of couth get to him; Castavonti hadn’t seen Zeezle’s dead, half-bloated body yet.

Chapter Fourteen

There are many monsters
,

many evil things spread across the land
.

But the saddest truth of all

is the worst creature alive is man
.

V
anx couldn’t remember ever being as relieved as he was when Zeezle moaned out his brother’s name.

Quickly, he stabbed his friend with the Glaive again thrice more. He also poured his waterskin on Zeezle’s sweaty face, and chest, trying to cool his body. It took a few long moments, but suddenly the swelling started to subside. Poison, pus, and bloody goo oozed from Zeezle’s wound, like icing squeezed from a bag, until his leg was back to normal size. Even the deep cuts, where his well-made pants hadn’t given way, were healed over.

Within half a glass, he was fully restored and griping about the destruction of his favorite britches.

It was nearing dark when they got themselves and the treasure back to the longboat, but none of them wanted to stay the night.

By the light of a spell, Vanx used the shovel they’d left on the boat to scoop up a few yards of turf and dirt. He put it all in the makeshift crate he’d built after they’d mapped this foul place.

Once they were all in the longboat and rowing away from the island, Vanx let out a sigh of relief and hugged his dog. He couldn’t wait to get back to the
Adventurer
.

They were about half way between ship and shore when there was a heavy splash from not so far away.

“Kill the illumination,” Zeezle said in a hushed tone.

Vanx did so, his heart racing faster than his mind could.

“What is it now?” Chelda asked the question for him.

“Shhh,” Zeezle hissed. “Quit rowing.”

A moment later, they were gliding slowly on their previous momentum. The sea was black and glassy. The sky would have been full of moonlight were there not a thick layer of storm clouds building over the island. The
Adventurer
was but a silhouette with a single lamp glowing in the darkness ahead of them. Vanx felt like his orb of light might have caused them to look like bait for something below.

“Oh my,” Chelda blurted.

Poops barked, and then Vanx saw why.

All around them, lime green and bright blue, glowing fish were schooling. Some of them were leaping from the water. They looked to be swimming through the air, until they splashed back down amid thousands of their chums. It was beautiful and amazing all at the same time, but something wasn’t sitting well with Vanx. Even though these were harmless creatures of the sea, they had surfaced for a reason.

That thought sent Vanx into a panic. “Something is feeding on the school, from underneath. Row your arses off.”

Chelda and Zeezle did just that. Castavonti, for the first time Vanx could remember, said something helpful.

“If it was attracted to your light, Capt’n Vanx,” he said, “I can cast a similar orb of illumination a good distance away, and it will then be drawn to that, instead of us.”

“Wait…until…we…have…enough momentum.” Zeezle finally quit rowing so he could talk. “Once we have enough momentum to glide the rest of the way to the ship, then cast the other light.” He went back to rowing. “Right now, these beauties are hiding the commotion of the oars just fine.”

They were beauties, Vanx decided. These fish were as long as a man’s leg, and the colors racing across their skin were as captivating as the old wizard’s healing spell had been.

It came as a great surprise when Poops darted to the front of the boat and caught one of the fish from the air.

Vanx had to hold him by the leg until he could pull his catch all the way into the boat.

The dog looked at Vanx proudly, but all Vanx could think about was the deep thumping sound the fish was making as it flopped around the bottom of the boat. He was about to draw his sword to stab it when the heel of Chelda’s boot found its head.

The fish’s colors faded then, and its tail curled up one last time, then it flopped back to the bottom of the longboat and lay still.

“There’s me and Poops’s supper,” Chelda grunted between oar strokes. “You dolts need to catch one for yourselves.”

“If you two can eat all that meat, then have at it.” Castavonti said. “That’ll feed the lot of us for two days.”

“Cast that light spell on the count of three,” Zeezle said. “Chelda, let’s put it all into these three pulls.”

“Aye, Zeezy.” She let out a breath. The force the longboat lurched with each pull was startling.

“One, two,” Zeezle said. “And shhh…” He hushed them instead of saying “three”.

Castavonti didn’t cast the illumination spell, so Vanx whispered, “Three,” to him, and then he did.

Chapter Fifteen

It is times like this that make me feel

like I’m the king of this whole world
.

You could be my queen, and I would cover you

in diamonds, gold, and pearls
.

T
he next morning, they waited out a thunderstorm. When they pulled anchor, the island that should have been right there was gone. There was nothing but open sea in its place. Not even a trace of it was to be seen, by eye, or by glass. It was as if the whole thing had simply vanished.

Vanx knew it hadn’t been an illusion, though, for there in the crate they hauled aboard last night was the dirt and turf he’d gathered. He didn’t dwell on the missing land mass, but instead directed the
Adventurer
toward Orendyn and spent the first part of the day constructing a shallow, square box to hold the dirt from the island. He laid the turf over it and set a barrel of fresh water aside to water the makeshift grass bed every day.

Poops understood what it was. No sooner had Vanx finished than the dog squatted brazenly in front of them all and squeezed out a healthy, stinking shit.