T Lain - Return of the Damned

Then he gasped and reached for his throat. Blood flowed out through his fingers as he clasped them tightly around his neck. The spell he had been forming slipped from his lips and was gone. His attention turned to stopping the flow of blood from the tremendous sword wound in his neck.

Regdar charged the stairs once again. When he reached the old man, he grabbed him by the front of his garment and hefted him over the railing, pulling him down to the floor and smashing his face against the stone tiles. The impact knocked the old wizard’s head sideways, tearing the wound in his neck open further. Blood rushed out, and the spellcaster’s body shuddered once, then fell still.

Leaving the gnarled old man in a heap on the ground, Regdar retrieved his sword and took a look around. The cloud surrounding Whitman was gone, and the dwarf lay on the floor, obviously breathing but otherwise unmoving. Tasca remained stationary, and Clemf hadn’t returned.

Regdar turned his attention to the two living but badly injured soldiers. The man whose eye Regdar had gouged out had fallen to the floor. His face lay in a puddle of his own blood and vomit, and blood continued pumping from his ruined eye socket. The other man still stood with his back against the wall. He had removed his helm, and his face was a ghostly white. The arm Whitman had smashed was tremendously swollen, and the man was obviously in a lot of pain. Sweat rolled down his forehead, and he had a hard time keeping his dagger pointed out in front of him.

The injured soldier shook his head, trying to focus his eyes on Regdar. He struggled to keep them from rolling back in his head.

Regdar took a couple of steps toward the man. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you know about Lindroos and her plans for New Koratia.”

The cultist steeled himself and thrust his dagger out toward Regdar as far as he could.

“Come on now,” coaxed the big fighter. “I don’t want to kill you.” He lowered his sword and began fishing around inside his backpack. “Tell me what she wants with Naull and what evil she’s up to, and I’ll take care of that wound for you.” He pulled a pearly, opalescent flask from his bag and shook it. The liquid inside made a satisfying sloshing sound.

The soldier looked at the flask with wide eyes. He turned to Regdar, lifted the dagger to his own chin, and plunged it into his throat. A rush of blood spilled to the floor, and the cultist collapsed beside it.

Regdar rushed over to Whitman. The dwarf lay on his side, breathing easily, his lips flapping a bit as they let out a breath of air, a small drip of drool running down the side of his face. The human grabbed his prone friend by the shoulder, and Whitman let out a long, snorting breath.

“Huh?” Whitman shook his head and rolled to his side, startled alert.

“Are you all right?” asked Regdar.

Whitman wiped the drool from his beard and sat up. He looked up at the big man and nodded.

Regdar slapped him on the arm and went to check on Tasca. The elf still stood frozen in place, his eyes moving side to side, alert but unmoving. Regdar tried to shake him as he had the dwarf, but it did no good. Tasca remained magically stuck, as if a statue.

While Regdar examined the elf, Clemf returned. He had a sheepish look on his face, and he poked his head around, surveying the room.

“They’re all dead or dying,” said Regdar, standing up straight. “You okay?”

Clemf straightened up and nodded hesitantly. “Yeah.” He pointed to the dead wizard with his chin. “You kill him?”

Regdar nodded.

Clemf looked to the floor. “Good.”

Soon Tasca’s rigid form began to soften, and he slowly stood up straight as the spell expired.

He rubbed his neck. “Damn. I hate it when that happens.”

Whitman led the way up the spiral stairs, and they reached the top without incident. The floor spread out in a small, square room around the hole where the stairs entered from below. There was one torch on each of three walls and a door in the third.

“Kick, kill, take,” said Whitman, gently probing the smooth spot where his beard had been partially cut from his face.

Tasca and Regdar nocked arrows to their bows. Clemf stood beside the dwarf, sword at the ready.

Whitman looked at the other three men, nodded, then took two running steps forward, lifting his leg and kicking the door near the handle with a powerful thrust.

The door creaked open, resisting Whitman’s forceful entry but giving way all the same. Inside, the room was filled with natural light. The wall opposite the door was made of a series of pillars and arches. The space between the stone supports was open to the outside. The walls to the east and west were solid stone like those the group had encountered below. Unlike the rest of the fortress however, the floor was made from slatted wooden panels. Many, many feet had passed over these boards, wearing them thin in places and leaving the floor smooth and shiny.

In the middle of the room, backlit by the light coming in from the overcast sky, stood a petite figure, hands grasped tightly around something, face pointing toward the floor.

Regdar pulled his arrow tight against his bow string, then relaxed.

“Naull,” he said with enough inflection to make it sound somewhere between a question and a summons.

The figure didn’t look up.

The men entered through the open door and spread out. Tasca looked at Regdar, holding his bow taught.

The big fighter shook his head. “It’s her,” he said. He lowered his bow and crossed the floor.

“Naull,” he said again, this time a little louder. “Naull, it’s me, Regdar.”

Naull looked up from the floor. Her mouth moved, and she was whispering something Regdar could not hear. In her hands she held a partially unraveled scroll. The arcane markings on the rolled vellum flared and disappeared, and Naull’s lips stopped moving, curling up into a smile.

The light pouring into the room wavered then disappeared. The gray, overcast sky slipped away, replaced by speckled black stone. Torches flickered along the walls, illuminating the outlines of a dozen or more black-clad soldiers. All of them held longswords at the ready, and they surrounded the four fighters.

Lindroos stepped out next to Naull, accompanied by four bald, burly men with purple vests and scimitars tucked into orange sashes at their waists. They were all quite large and resembled the efreeti Regdar and company had bested on the lower level.

“Hello, Regdar,” said Lindroos with a smile. “It’s time you met my companions. This is Shirzad—” she pointed to one of the burley men and continued around—“Parviz, Hebola, and Tam.”

The four burly men each bowed.

“They are jann from the court of Vizier Haleh,” explained the blackguard. Then she turned to Naull. The fallen paladin ran her finger along the slight wizard’s cheek, caressing her skin. “You already know my close friend Naull.”

Regdar dropped his bow to the floor and pulled his greatsword from its sheath. His heart pounded in his chest, and the skin on the back of his neck tingled where the hairs stood on end.

He squeezed the hilt of his sword. “What is it you want from me, Lindroos?”

“I want what I’ve always wanted of you and those of your kind,” she said, pacing closer to the big fighter. “I want all of you to die.”

The room broke out in fighting. Black-clad soldiers charged in at the group of four intruders in a rush of metal and blades.

Whitman’s hammer pounded out a staccato rhythm against two soldiers’ banded-mail armor. Attack then parry. Attack then parry. The dwarf whirled and struck, defending himself with long, sweeping arcs of his hammer, then smashing down on his opponent with a tremendous blow.