Jean Rabe - Redemption

Something began to rise from the ground where the tree had been.

“By my father!” Maldred cursed. “What in all the levels of the Abyss is that?”

The ogre-mage hadn’t expected an answer, but he got one from the draconian.

“It’s an umberhulk,” Ragh groaned.

“A what?” Dhamon and Maldred asked practically in unison.

“A monster,” Fiona hissed.

Climbing from an ever-bulging hole was a hideous creature, easily eight feet tall and nearly that wide around. It looked like a cross between a great ape and a crustacean, with long crablike pincers at the end of massive arms clacking loudly. It was the color of wet earth, of which it strongly smelled. A pair of jagged mandibles on either side of its cavernous mouth were dark as midnight. Its eyes—four in all, two pairs of them—were darker.

Legs as thick as tree trunks bent as the strange creature shook itself, scattering a shower of dirt. The umberhulk stamped with its great clawed feet, and the ground was set to trembling again.

The creature swiveled its head, mandibles moving, pincers clacking. Its mouth opened slowly, revealing an intense blackness. Teeth that looked like jagged roots were also blackest black, yet they gleamed weirdly. When the creature roared, it sounded like a dozen angry lions, an explosion of noise that filled the night and brought tears to the goblins’ eyes.

“The eyes!” Ragh shouted. “Don’t look at the umber-hulk’s eyes! There’s magic in them!” The draconian repeated this order in the goblins’ tongue. His eyes averted, he stumbled forward, leading with the long sword, but in a second the Solamnic Knight stepped in front of the draconian, cut him off and snatched the sword from his outstretched claws. Ignoring his exclamation, Fiona advanced on the beast, her blade gleaming in the light of the full moon.

The umberhulk held its arms out to its sides in a macabre, triumphant pose, then roared even louder and stamped forward to meet the female Knight.

“It was hunting the goblins,” Maldred said in a low voice. The ogre-mage was sneaking looks at the umberhulk without meeting its gaze. “The vibrations in the earth mark its passing. It was burrowing like a gopher.” The ogre-mage had his hands in the air, fingers splayed, and his palms were glowing with enchantment.

Dhamon hadn’t given Maldred permission to cast any spell, but now was not the time to argue. He dashed forward, trying to reach the umberhulk before Fiona.

Fiona got there first, staring up into the umberhulk’s four dizzying eyes. “Madness,” she pronounced, as she blinked and shook her head. “Beautiful eyes.” Then for a moment she stood as though paralyzed, weaving back and forth as the umberhulk roared. “Madness,” she repeated, somehow rallying her senses.

Nearly all of the goblins who had not fled either stood spellbound or were wandering aimlessly along the edge of the brook, as if they were caught in some mind-clouding magical spell. One wandered too close to the beast, too dazed to see a pincer-arm shoot out, too numb to feel the pincer close about its waist.

The umberhulk held the goblin high, then squeezed the little creature, nearly slicing it in two. Then the creature tossed back its head, opened its mouth, and swallowed it in one motion. The umberhulk reached to snatch another one.

“Monster!” Fiona howled, sounding like the Fiona of old, momentarily. As she drew back on her sword and brought it down hard, the blade bit into the chitinous shell of the thing’s pincer-arm but did no significant damage. The female Knight, as if possessed, struck at the massive creature again and again.

Ragh managed to maneuver behind them and join in, clawing at the umberhulk’s back while kicking dazed goblins out of the creature’s reach.

Another goblin dropped into the umberhulk’s maw.

“We’ll be at this all night!” Dhamon shouted, noting that neither Fiona nor the sivak seemed able to cause the umberhulk any real harm. “Its skin is as tough as plate armor!” He edged closer, narrowly avoiding a pincer and knocking it away with the butt of his glaive. With Ragh and Fiona so near, Dhamon couldn’t risk sweeping the glaive in a wide arc. Instead, he raised it above his head and brought it down in a powerful chopping motion. He felt strangely eager for a good fight.

As the blade of the glaive sliced into the umberhulk’s shoulder, its thick, green blood fountained into the air and rained down on them.

“It bleeds!” Fiona shouted. “If it can bleed, it can die!” She accelerated her efforts, some blows bouncing off the thing’s armored hide, a few miraculously cutting into its arm just above the pincer. The runes along her blade glowed brightly blue, and its sharp edge sparkled in the moonlight. “I can kill it with this sword!”

She drew back for a thrust, just as the umberhulk turned with a speed unexpected for its size. A pincer-arm shot forward, clacking loudly. Fiona had fast reflexes and pulled away at the last instant, yet it snagged her clothes. She spun around behind the creature, pushed Ragh aside, and stepped up her frenzied attack.

“We’re actually hurting the foul creature!” This was shouted by Ragh, who also managed to cut the creature and draw some repulsive-smelling blood.

Dhamon stepped in for a hard chop, this time cutting even deeper into the umberhulk’s shoulder and wounding the creature so badly that one pincer-arm twitched, then hung limp. He drove his blade down again, this time with more force. The umberhulk screamed, a horrible sound, like stone scraping against stone. The ground rumbled, and cracks raced away from the umberhulk’s clawed feet. Its legs churned, and it began to retreat down its huge hole.

“It’s fleeing!” Ragh shouted in triumph. Still, he pressed his attack. “We’re winning!”

“We can’t let it escape!” Fiona cried angrily. “Don’t let it go!”

“She’s right!” Dhamon said, as he brought the glaive up again, swinging it down this time into the center of the creature’s back. He bunched his arm muscles and yanked the blade free. “If it gets away, it can pop up anywhere for another chance at us!”

The ground rumbled louder, as the sinking umberhulk roared its defiance.

“Wait, it’s not going anywhere.” As Maldred finished his spell, a soft yellow glow poured from his palms onto the ground. Like a line of molten lightning it streaked to the umberhulk. “Out of the way!

Move, Dhamon!”

Dhamon had to grab Fiona, for the Knight was continuing to lunge at the beast with rapid sword blows. Ragh jumped back just in time. The magical light struck its target, spiraled around the umberhulk, and took root in the ground.

“What’s going to happen now?” Ragh said. “What kind of magic…?” The rest of his words were swallowed by the furious upheaval of the earth.

As they watched, everywhere the light flowed the ground began to thicken, trapping the creature’s legs and its one good pincer-arm in solid stone.

It shrieked its rage. Whipping its head about, its four eyes fixed on Ragh and magically befuddled him. The draconian’s snout dropped open, and he started shuffling toward the screaming umberhulk and the still-hardening earth.

“Now, Dhamon!” Maldred shouted. “Finish it!”

Dhamon was in good position. Releasing Fiona, he swept the glaive at waist-level with all of his strength. The great blade parted the chitinous shell of the umberhulk. The creature howled, and the earth shook wildly. The stone earth in which he was embedded began to crack as the creature fought to break free.

Again Dhamon swung.

“It bleeds!” Fiona cried gleefully. “We can kill it! I can kill it!” She leaned in and landed a few more blows before the thing gave a tremendous shudder and stopped moving.