Dan Willis - The Survivors

“Stay down,” Thurl said as two more Disir emerged from the hole in the ground. “I’m starting to enjoy this.”

Thurl advanced on the creatures easily. When the blind monsters lashed out at him, he methodically cut off their limbs, literally disarming them with repeated slashes until he could step in and deliver a fatal blow. He moved with the smoothness of a dancer performing an intricate ballet of death. Occasionally a Disir would strike him a glancing blow, leaving a trail of red over his scarred flesh, but his wounds were superficial.

“Lay down,” Tal said to Bradok, suddenly at his side. Without waiting for cooperation, he pushed Bradok down hard and tore open his shirt.

“Hold this to his head,” Tal said to someone Bradok couldn’t see. “He’ll lose that ear but it can’t be helped. I have to tend this other wound first.”

“What about the Disir?” Bradok croaked, wincing at the pain as Tal cleaned his wound.

“They’re all dead,” Rose’s voice answered.

“It looks like it was a small scouting party,” Thurl added, coming into Bradok’s vision. “Only a dozen or so.”

“They’ll be missed, then,” Bradok said. “They’ll send more to find out what happened to the scouts.”

“Not for hours, if we’re lucky,” Thurl said.

Tal pressed his silver flask up to Bradok’s mouth. “That means we have to hurry and get you patched up and ready to travel,” he said. “Drink this.”

Bradok tried to protest, but Tal forced the flask into his mouth. Whatever was in there had a sweet, sticky flavor and burned all the way down into the soles of Bradok’s feet. Almost immediately his vision blurred and a heavy, contented feeling swept over him.

“Hold him down,” Tal said, his voice seeming to come from a great distance away.

Pain shot through Bradok’s side, but he didn’t seem to have the willpower to care. He could hear Tal and Rose talking as Tal labored on Bradok’s wound. He seemed to be stitching it together like a tailor would close a rip in a shirt. That didn’t make any sense to Bradok, but his foggy mind couldn’t make sense of anything.

“Just wrap up his head,” Tal said after an indeterminate amount of time had gone by. “Hurry,” he added as Rose lifted Bradok’s head. “There are others we must save.”

Eventually, the stinging sensation in Bradok’s side and head began to fade. At the same time, he began to feel the world gradually coming back into focus. When at last his vision cleared, he found Rose sitting beside him. Her hands and arms were stained with blood, and she was scrubbing them with sand.

“I … we …” he said, struggling to form words.

“Lie still,” Rose said firmly. “You need to rest now. We’re going to need to travel in a few hours, and you have some healing to do before that. And then it’s still not going to be pleasant.”

Bradok opened his mouth to speak, but something caught his eye. He reached out and grabbed Rose’s arm. She tried to yank her arm away, causing Bradok to cry out as pain shot through his side.

“Stop that,” Rose said, letting him see her arm.

The gray patch of skin had grown considerably and glowed a sickly yellow color. A tiny mushroom protruded from the center, and Bradok could see several more forming just below the surface.

Bradok swore.

“I didn’t want to bother you with what’s happening to me,” she said, withdrawing her arm after Bradok released it. “I’ve been putting the moonwell water on it, but it’s still growing. I’m going to have to leave soon, or I’ll become a danger to everyone.”

“Book,” Bradok croaked.

“What?” Rose asked, wrapping a fresh bandage around her arm.

“Metal book, from Starlight Hall,” Bradok said. “Maybe the metal book has a cure.”

“Bradok,” Rose said hesitantly. “I don’t need false hope.” But her face showed that it was something she hadn’t thought of.

“What’s he doing awake?” said Tal, coming up to them. “He needs to sleep at least four hours before he can travel.”

Something was pressed to Bradok’s lips, and more of the burning liquid ran down his throat. He preferred to stay awake, to reassure Rose, but the strength of the liquid was not to be resisted. The world faded to black, and Bradok knew no more.

The pain woke Bradok-a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to run from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He didn’t mind the pain so much; after all, it meant he was alive.

He lay in that half-waking dream state for what felt like hours. Just beyond the reach of his senses, full consciousness waited, but there seemed to be no hurry to rush there. Bradok knew when he finally woke, the pain would be more real and more bothersome.

As his mind drifted, he gradually became aware of sounds. Confused at first, the sounds resolved themselves into snatches of garbled conversation and the weeping of children.

Bradok tried to force his mind awake, but whatever Tal had given him to sleep made it impossible to focus. He needed something to hold on to, something to use as an anchor to pull himself into wakefulness. The conversations were too vague, and he couldn’t ever seem to understand the words. Finally, he became aware of an odor-not the smell of blood nor the smell of the caves, but something far more pungent.

With a jolt, his drifting mind caught hold of the name he’d been seeking to put to the smell-rot. The odor was the stench of death and decay.

“Rhizomorphs,” he gasped, remembering, his eyes popping open.

He lay on the sandy floor of the great cavern, looking up at the fading light shining through the hole in the ceiling. Gritting his teeth, he tried to sit up but flopped back onto the sand immediately as white-hot pain tore through his side. Involuntarily he gripped the wound, only to have his hand pulled away.

“Don’t do that,” Rose said. “You’ll start bleeding again.”

“But we’ve got to go,” he insisted, trying to sit again. Thurl’s bandaged hand pushed him down. “Don’t you smell that?” he asked, pushing at Thurl’s unmovable hand. “The Rhizomorphs are coming. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“We smell it,” Rose said, gently. “Tal is still tending some of the wounded. As soon as he’s done, we’ll all move on, together.”

Bradok tried to push Thurl’s hand away again. He noticed the scarred ex-assassin was missing the ring finger on his left hand.

“I got cocky,” he said in response to the questioning look Bradok gave him. “That fancy sword of yours makes a dwarf feel invincible.”

“All right,” said Tal from somewhere nearby. “You all know your jobs. Let’s go.”

“This is it,” Rose said, reaching under Bradok’s shoulders. “Give your right hand to Thurl.”

Bradok did as he was told, and Thurl slowly pulled him up, with Rose lifting from behind. Exquisite pain tore through Bradok’s body, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out. When he finally reached his feet, he wanted nothing more than to lie down again. Thurl slipped Bradok’s arm over his shoulder for support.

After a moment, the dizziness passed and Bradok found he could stand on his own, albeit a bit wobbly.

“You lost a lot of blood,” Rose explained. “If you feel dizzy, lean on Thurl.”

He nodded and gently ran his hand over his side and shoulder. Both wounds were on his left side, so someone had tied his left arm into a sling. He reached up to his right ear and felt a thick bandage there as well, wrapped around his head.

“Tal couldn’t save your ear,” Thurl said.

Bradok shrugged, glad simply to be alive. “A man can live with only one ear,” he said.