As Gidwyn's tale is nearing its end, there may be a lull in activity over the next couple of weeks as I take a break. Tales from Esdaria will resume in the new year with new posts, new lore, and new stories. Thanks to those who have read Winter's Gift thus far - the conclusion comes nearer!
By the time the Yaghu party finally stopped, Gidwyn was sure he was going to die.
It had been agonising. The Yaghu had lashed his wrists together when they had grown tired of him clawing at the stone and then taken it in turn to drag him along. They had not allowed him to walk – not that Gidwyn could. His whole body felt weak and enfeebled, and the Yaghu had kicked and prodded the two arrows in his back as they had dragged him across the stone floor, sending waves of pain coursing through his body – each eliciting a helpless moan from Gidwyn's lips.
The rubble-strewn ruins of the
ancient Dwarven city were completely lost to darkness and Gidwyn saw nothing of
the journey he was forced upon. Though the Yaghu could see without light, they had made no effort to spare dragging Gidwyn across the fallen rocks and jagged
boulders that lay in their path.
In fact, they seemed to relish
the opportunity. They took glee in dragging Gidwyn through sharp shards of broken stone,
through the scattered rubble of fallen statues or buildings, and over the rough
and splintered timbers, laughing as they did so – their hissing voices
reverberating through the darkness. Gidwyn had been able to do nothing but
groan.
But Daia had thrashed and fought
the whole way. Twice she had almost broken free – the first time she had
managed to crush one of the Yaghu that held her; the second time, her efforts
were rewarded by another serrated hook being buried into her uninjured leg. The
roar of pain and fury she had let out had made Gidwyn’s head rock.
But they had stopped.
And there was light.
It was painfully bright and
brilliantly white. As Gidwyn lifted his cut and battered face to look, he saw
that the ancient Dwarf-city had disappeared. They had passed through a number
of tunnels and out into the bottom of a glacial fissure.
Daylight poured in through the
mouth of the great crevasse, hundreds upon hundreds of feet above Gidwyn’s
head. Rays of brilliant white light fell onto the dark stone around him. The
walls on either side of the great chasm were covered in great tendrils of ice
and knots of rime that glinted like jewels in the daylight – as did the
terrible, jet-black eyes of hundreds of Yaghu that packed the chasm’s floor.
As Gidwyn lowered his head again,
the last of the strength gone from his neck, he realised the floor was covered
in shattered black and white tiles that slowly led towards a wide dais in
the middle of the Yaghu-filled chasm. Upon that dais was an ancient stone seat
of Dwarf origin decorated in the bones of more animals than Gidwyn could think
of.
And in that seat sat a single
frail Yaghu woman.
She wore a ragged black robe and
a hood that covered her head. In her bony fist she clutched a wooden stave
adorned with feathers, gemstones, and bones that rattled and clicked in the
cold wind that blew through the chasm. Gidwyn could make out little of her face
behind the hood that covered her head and through the haze of weakness
settling in front of his eyes.
‘We found a Dwarf, Chief!’ Saark
said, swaggering forwards from his warband and gesturing his arms wide in triumph.
‘A real-life Dwarf! Put a few arrows in him, but he’s alive!’
A rumble of appreciation passed
through the Yaghu present, but the female figure in the stone seat did not
move.
‘And we got that she-troll that’s
been stalking these ruins for years!’ Saark yelled, turning to where Daia lay,
still twisting against her bonds and the hook-ended chains in her legs, and
leaping onto her back.
A hiss of
cheers reverberated through the canyon. Gidwyn could see white fur-clad Yaghu
leaping up and down in celebration.
But still the figure sitting in
the stone seat did not move.
It was a throne, Gidwyn was sure: the ancient seat of a long-forgotten king or emperor, the remnants of whose once glorious throne room were scattered around them. The shattered tiles beneath Gidwyn, covered
in arching cracks as fat as his arm and as long as ten men, made him wonder.
The mountains…he thought. The place is so old…the aeons-slow shift o’
the mountains…they tore it apart…
This place…it’s…ancient.
Gidwyn managed to swallow. He
could feel blood tricking over his back.
Not trickling. Pouring.
An' I will be the first Dwarf t’ die ‘ere in millennia.
The hissing cheers of the Yaghu
died away to silence, but the figure in the stone seat still had not moved. Gidwyn
managed to lift his head and saw the slight figure was different to many of the
others – smaller, thinner, with more pointed features and sharp eyes. She's old, Gidwyn managed to think
through the pain. Very old.
After a moment of uncomfortable
silence, Saark jumped off Daia's back and spoke again. ‘Have I pleased you, Chieftain?’
The female Yaghu in the stone
seat rose to her feet slowly. She was wrapped in a long cloak and robe of
matted rabbit fur. Leaning heavily on her wooden stave, she shuffled through
the silent mass of her clan and arrived before Gidwyn and Daia.
She looked from one to the other,
then back at Saark.
Saark swallowed. ‘Chieftain?’
The female Yaghu’s face did not
twitch. ‘This was a valuable use of your time?’
Saark’s thin lips twisted. ‘We-…’
He stopped. ‘Gifts. They’re gifts. For you.’
‘Gifts?’ the Yaghu female said
slowly. ‘Interesting.’
Gidwyn heard the female Yaghu
shuffled across the shattered tiles to where he and Daia lay. ‘Tell me, Dwarf,’
she said in her thin voice, ‘in your culture, what sorts of gifts do you give?’
‘G-…gifts…?’ Gidwyn managed to
croak. ‘Please…’
The
thin creature waved her hand. ‘Tell me. What was the last gift you gave?’‘B-…boots…m-…my daughter.’
‘Boots to your daughter?’ the female Yaghu said slowly. ‘Were they nice?’
‘Please…’
The female Yaghu let out a small huff of amusement. ‘I imagine I know the very boots,’ she said. ‘I imagine I’ve seen the pretty creature they were adorned upon. They are lovely. Well-made. A brilliant gift.’
Gidwyn managed to raise his head enough to look up into the wizened face of the ancient female. One of her eyes was glassy-white, whilst the other was pitch-black. Her face was criss-crossed with more scars and mottles than the back of a flogged criminal, and each feature – her twisted, pointed ears, her snarling mouth, her heavy brow – was studded with dozens of bone piercings.
‘Kiryae…’ he said, his breath short. ‘M-…my…’
The female Yaghu turned away and glared at Saark.
‘The troll is too wounded to make a good sport, and the Dwarf is almost dead,’
the female Yaghu said, her voice cold. ‘Congratulations, Saark, you’ve proved
that, once again, you are a fool.’
Saark let out a low snarl and clenched his bony fists. ‘But Chieftain Ozytala,’ he
cried, ‘I found the girl!’
‘After you lost her a decade ago!’ the female Yaghu’s voice
split through the gloom of the crevasse. ‘And
you had to ask outsiders for
help! Outsiders, you fool!’
Somewhere through the agony he
felt, Gidwyn heard the words. A…decade?
They…lost her?
Outsiders…?
‘Once again,’ the female Yaghu –
Chieftain Ozytala – began, her dark eyes fixed on Saark. ‘You’ve put your own
enjoyment above the safety of the tribe.’ She looked around at the assembled
Yaghu. ‘You seem to be a few dozen kin-warriors short. Tell me, where are
they?’
Saark let out a low growl.
The chieftain’s thin, scarred lip
curled. ‘I see the troll’s hammer which you have needlessly dragged with you is
slick with blood. Our blood.’
Saark’s growl intensified.
Chieftain Ozytala let out another
small huff of amusement. ‘And now you
stand here grumbling like a hungry cave-frog.’
Saark raised a hand as if to
strike the chieftain, but as he did a sharp shard of rock rose from beside
Gidwyn’s head and shot through the air with blinding speed. It sliced through
Saark’s wrist and whizzed off into the back of the cave, clattering to the
floor somewhere behind the assembled clan.
With a scream that echoed around
the chamber, Saark fell. He howled in agony as his hand wheeled away from his body, spinning
through the air and landing on the shattered stone floor with a wet thud.
Chieftain Ozytala shuffled
forwards and stood over Saark, looking down at him with cold, terrible eyes.
‘If you raise a hand against me again,’ she said slowly, ‘you shall meet the
same fate as the Dwarf.’
‘Shot in the b-…back…?’ Gidwyn
croaked. ‘That seems…appropriate…’
Chieftain Ozytala turned and
walked to where Gidwyn lay. With a small, sharp-toothed smile on her thin lips,
she bent down and placed her thin hand on his back.
‘No,’ she said slowly as a warmth
spread through Gidwyn. The Dwarf could feel his strength returning, the pain in
his back lessening. He felt the arrows slide out of his flesh and heard them
clatter to the ground beside him. ‘No, definitely not.’
‘Wha’ are ye doin’ to me?’ Gidwyn
said from where he lay as he felt life sparking back into his limbs.
‘Healing your wounds,’ Ozytala
said. ‘I have something much worse than arrows in the back in store for you and
your troll-friend here. But you’ll need to be in top condition if you ever want
a chance of seeing your daughter again.’
Kiryae.
Gidwyn, his strength returned and
his fury a fire in his limbs, rolled over and hurled himself at the Yaghu
chieftain, his teeth barred and his blonde beard flying about him. He was
barely off the ground when a fist-like formation of stone rose up from beneath
him and wrapped three fat fingers of solid rock around him.
Gidwyn gasped, suddenly suspended
in the air, trapped in solid rock. ‘Wha’ is this?!’ he roared, kicking his legs
and flailing his arms to no avail. The rock had closed around him, and he could
not get it to move. ‘Wha’ ‘ave ye done?!’
A roar of laughter went through
the assembled Yaghu as Chieftain Ozytala folded her thin arms across her chest
and stepped towards Gidwyn – just out of his reach.
‘It is true, then,’ Ozytala said.
‘The Snow-Dwarves have forgotten the art of Stoneshaping.’ She let out a
dangerous laugh and tapped the tip of her bauble-adorned stick to the arm of
rock. Gidwyn felt the fist of stone tighten around him. His ribs buckled and
his breath was squeezed from his lungs. He fought and writhed against the
stone to no avail, and was about to scream in fresh pain when the tightening
stopped.
Ozytala’s fang-toothed grin was
inches from Gidwyn’s face. ‘Stoneshaping,’ she said.
Gidwyn gasped for air. ‘Why…would
ye…heal me…jus’…’
‘If I’m just going to torture you
again?’ Chieftain Ozytala said.
Gidwyn managed to nod.
Ozytala’s grin widened. ‘I’m not
going to torture you,’ she said in a whisper. ‘You’re going to A’kala sin Kysz – the Ring of Death –
and my whole clan will watch you die.’
Ozytala stepped away from Gidwyn
and began to shuffle towards her throne. ‘And my whole clan want sport –
where’s the fun in watching you be eaten by an obsydioth if you’re already
half-dead?’
*
As Gidwyn looked up at the ancient, tiered seats and tower-like columns of the Ring of Death, he could not help but feel the chieftain had somewhat undersold her arena.
The ovular amphitheatre was situated in the middle of a vast, dark cavern. Many of its pillars and arches had cracked and collapsed, but enough of the ancient Dwarven arena still stood to make it an impressive, imposing ruin. Statues of Dwarven ancestors, ten-times the size of the warriors they immortalised, stood outside the grand archway that led into the coliseum; their hands held swords, axes and hammers, and their stone bodies had withstood the inscrutable writhing of the mountain over thousands of years.
Gidwyn, his hands bound with rope and two Yaghu spears at his back, was led between the statues of ancient champions and through the gaping archway that led into the arena. Behind him, Daia was dragged by her barbed bindings, two-dozen of the largest Yaghu the Dwarf had seen pulling her along. She thrashed and roared all the way, the terrible wounds in her legs oozing blood. Where Chieftain Ozytala had decided Gidwyn’s wounds would make the spectacle she was planning boring and had just healed his wounds with magic, apparently Daia’s condition would add an element of entertainment to whatever was about to happen.
And when Gidwyn was led onto the arena floor, he felt his stomach drop.
Hundreds of Yaghu crammed the stone seats and sat on the fallen pillars that lay like enormous bones across the amphitheatre’s tiers and facades. They opened their thin-lipped mouths and barred their fangs, filling the cavern with terrible hissing cheers as Gidwyn and Daia were dragged into the middle of the bone-strewn arena floor.
Once they were in the middle of the oval-shaped arena floor, the spear-wielding pair of Yaghu escorting Gidwyn cut the bonds about his wrists and backed away from him, their weapons raised, whilst their companions tossed down the ropes they had been using to pull the she-troll along and walked away, retreating back the way they had come to the ravenous cries of the Yaghu in the stands.
Without a thought, Gidwyn rushed to Daia. ‘Here!’ he said to the enormous she-troll, seizing hold of one of the hooks in her flesh and pulling on it. ‘I’ll get these out o’ ye!’
Daia roared in pain and writhed. ‘No!’ she bellowed. ‘It hurts! It hurts!’
Gidwyn staggered away from the thrashing troll. Even with her arms bound, she rocked and twisted like a ship upon a wave, her huge shoulders and bound legs swinging dangerously towards Gidwyn.
‘Daia, I’ve gotta-…’
‘No! I’ll do it, I’ll…argh!’
Blood spurted from one of the deep, ragged wounds in Daia’s legs.
‘Daia!
‘She won’t get free.’
Gidwyn spun and looked straight into the face of a battered and bruised Yaghu.
‘Saark,’ Gidwyn said through his teeth.
The Yaghu managed a cracked-toothed grin. His thin lips were covered in dried blood and there was a tendril of the same blue ichor dripping from one of his slitted nostrils. One of his cheekbones was broken, and his right wrist was bound with a filthy rag. He had been stripped of all but his smallclothes. Saark’s face was dark and malicious, and despite the dagger he held in his left hand, he made no move to attack Gidwyn.
‘You,’ the Dwarf snarled.
The Yaghu responded with a growl of his own. ‘You did this to me.’
Gidwyn spat. ‘You earned yer place ‘ere, by the sounds of it.’
Saark laughed. ‘No. You and your accursed Elf-thing got me here,’ he said. ‘That monster you call “daughter”.’
Gidwyn bristled. ‘Ye leave ‘er alone,’ he snarled. ‘She’s done nowt to ye!’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Saark said with a shrug. ‘Ozytala wanted her. She got her eventually.’ The Yaghu glared up at his chieftain, sitting in a high-backed stone seat upon a balcony high above them. ‘She always gets what she wants in the end.’
Gidwyn took a step forwards and balled his hands into fists. ‘Wha’ do ye want with Kiryae?’ he demanded.
Saark’s thin lips curled into a grin. ‘You’ve got stomach, Dwarf,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that. But right now, we need each other. If any of us want to leave here alive, we’ve got to stick together.’
‘Oh aye?’ Gidwyn said through his teeth. ‘And why’s tha’?’
‘Because you’ve never seen an obsydioth before.’
Gidwyn opened his mouth to demand
answers, but the arena suddenly went silent.
Two figures had appeared on a
stone balcony set into the arena tiers. Both were small and slight of stature,
with pale skin and large eyes, but one was twisted and cruel, dressed in rags
and carrying a staff; the other was dressed in thick furs and had snow-white
hair falling around her shoulders.
‘Kiryae,’ Gidwyn breathed.
He could feel her looking at him.
‘Kiryae!’ he roared, running
forwards. ‘Kiryae! Kiryae!’
‘Father!’
The cry was lost beneath a
stone-shaking roar.
Gidwyn skidded to a halt and
spun. He was greeted by a monster.
The thing walking into the arena
– no, being dragged in by dozens of Yaghu – was unlike anything Gidwyn had ever
seen on the surface-world before. He had heard tales of monsters, of men who
turned into great dogs, or corpses that walked and mangled themselves into
horrific knots of rot and muscle. He had heard of scaled things that slithered,
but were large enough to swallow houses, and beasts that sunk ships with
tentacles. But this was none of them.
It was as high as ten men and its
broad, humped back was covered in shifting plates of stone. The head that sat
between its boulder-like shoulders was like that of some horrible fanged beetle
– two long, stalactite-like antennae protruded from its forehead and flicked in
the air before it, and a pair of saliva-dripping mandibles clacked and clicked dangerously.
The thing pushed itself forward on two squat hind legs with enormous, onyx-like
talons on its stumped feet, and lashed out around itself with four insectoid forelimbs topped with pincer-like appendages covered in more dark spikes. Its
forelimbs were encased in granite-like stone plates akin to those on its back, whilst its underside was
snow-white and fleshy.
‘Fire save me,’ Gidwyn breathed.
The obsydioth roared and began to
thrash its four forelegs wildly. Gidwyn watched as the ropes that held it began
to fray, and when the first snapped he could tell it was going to get free.
The Dwarf turned to Saark. ‘Wha’
do we do?!’ he cried.
The Yaghu gestured to Daia. ‘Free
her.’
‘But ye said we couldnae!’
Behind Gidwyn a terrible chorus
of screams and yells came from where the Yaghu were battling to keep the
obsydioth under control. The Dwarf span and saw the creature break from its
bonds and begin to lash out at the Yaghu with its pincered forelimbs. Flesh
flew, blue blood arced through the air and landed amongst the dust and bones
covering the arena floor – and more Yaghu fell, adding their broken bodies to
those already littering the floor.
‘I said you won’t get her free,’ Saark snarled, running to Daia’s side,
‘but I made these damned hooks – I can get them out of her!’
‘Get away!’ Daia roared as Saark
rushed to her side. ‘Get back from me, you fiend!’
Saark ignored Daia and grabbed
one of the hooks. She howled in agony as the Yaghu – with surprising deftness
for a one-handed creature – pulled the hook back on itself and slowly began to
wrench it loose.
Gidwyn’s head spun between where
Saark was wrestling with Daia’s bonds, and where the obsydioth was slaughtering
the Yaghu hopelessly trying to control it – much to the enjoyment of the
onlookers. ‘Saark!’ he cried as the obsydioth crushed the last Yaghu between
its pincers. ‘Saark, its coming! Its-…’
Two milky-white, globe-like eyes
the size of shields affixed themselves on Gidwyn.
Oh, Creator…
A pair of antennae twitched.
Oh, Creator please. Please no.
Terrible, barbed mandibles clacked.
And the Yaghu cheered.
The obsydioth leapt into the air and charged, its
antennae quivering like arrows fired into a target. Its bloody mandibles were
wide as it propelled itself forwards on all six of its limbs, kicking up loose
stone, bones and Yaghu body-parts. It rushed forwards, bounding through the air
like a giant hare, making the ground tremble and the ancient arena shake.
Gidwyn hurled himself sideways as
the enormous monster charged past him and straight for where Daia and Saark
were struggling with the she-troll’s bonds.
‘Look out!’ Gidwyn roared.
Saark looked up at the last
moment and dived aside, a bloody hook in his hand. In a swift move, the Yaghu
buried the tip of the rbarbed hook into the inner-thigh of the
obsydioth. Daia roared and scrambled to her feet, blood flowing freely from her
leg wounds. She fought with her bonds for a moment and her arms were free. Staggering towards the monster, she grabbed hold of the chain attached to the hook in
the obsydioth’s leg and pulled as hard as she could.
The enormous creature staggered,
knocked off balance for a moment, but brought one of its stone-plated limbs
around in a huge arc and struck Daia across her chest. The wounded she-troll
reeled back, a huge hand over her chest. When she removed it, Gidwyn saw an
enormous dent in the carved armour she wore - bent as if it were little more than a cheap pewter plate.
The Yaghu watching on roared as
Daia fell backwards, blood still pouring from her terrible leg-wounds. On the
balcony, Chieftain Ozytala smiled.
The obsydioth turned back to
Saark, Daia forgotten for a moment, as the one-handed Yaghu dashed between its
legs, slashing left and right wildly with the dagger he clutched in his only hand. Pitch-black blood
poured from long wounds in its legs, and the creature roared in pain and anger, raising its
four forelimbs high into the air. Then, as the Yaghu slid out behind it, the
obsydioth spun with surprising speed and lashed out with its pincered forelegs.
Gidwyn could not make out what
happened, but blue blood filled the air and Saark went flying backwards, his
body looping through the air. He crashed down hard on the arena floor and lay
still – much to the joy of his onlooking kin, whose chants and howls of
enjoyment shook the cavern with the same force as the obsydioth’s footfalls.
Footfalls that were now coming
towards Gidwyn.
The Dwarf froze in fear as the
enormous creature lumbered towards him, its mandibles and rock-covered pincers
snapping at him. Its antennae felt the air in front of itself, flicking
backwards and forwards like dry branches caught in a whipping wind. It loomed
over him, the largest living thing he had ever seen, its mandibles and pincers
dripping with blue Yaghu blood.
‘Kiryae!’ Gidwyn cried. ‘Kiryae,
I-…’
Gidwyn was cut short by a
terrible roar.
Daia, the enormous troll dwarfed
in size next to the huge creature, hurled her battered body into the side of
the stone-covered creature with enough force to topple it. The obsydioth let
out a horrid hiss as it rolled
sideways, curling up like a weevil for a moment and wrapping its six limbs
around Daia. Its mandibles flashed and Daia’s heavy fists fell.
Gidwyn wanted to help, he wanted
to do something – but he had no idea what he could do as he watched Daia and
the obsydioth roll away together, pummelling each other with their limbs. The
Yaghu watching from the stands screamed in excitement at the spectacle, raising
their fists and punching the air.
‘Daia!’ Gidwyn cried, looking
around desperately. Do something, ye
fool!
There.
A spear, as long as two arms and
tipped with a twisted, barbed head, lay a few feet away from a dismembered
Yaghu. Gidwyn ran across the bone- and blood-covered arena floor and seized
hold of the spear in his trembling hands. He spun to face the obsydioth.
Just as it tore Daia in half.
The she-troll made no sound as
the obsydioth clenched her arms and legs in its pincers and tore her in two.
Thick, red blood and steaming innards sloughed out of Daia’s rent body and
cascaded onto the arena floor.
‘No…’ Gidwyn breathed. Even with his spear, he knew that
without Daia there was no way he could possibly defeat the obsydioth.
The Yaghu’s excitement rocked the
cavern. They leapt up and down and pounded their seats with their hands and
feet, screaming at the top of their lungs as the she-troll died. They began to
chant a word over and over again until it rang in Gidwyn’s ears. ‘Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath!’
Gidwyn swallowed. He could guess
what the word meant.
Kill.
The obysdioth turned to face
Gidwyn once more. Its pincers and mandibles were drenched in blood – red and
blue. Its antennae twitched erratically, and its milk-white eyes bulged
in their stony sockets.
‘Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath!’
The obsydioth growled and stepped
towards Gidwyn, gnashing its mandibles. Blood flew, splattering Gidwyn across
his face.
‘Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath!’
Gidwyn would not die like a
coward before Kiryae. He would not let her last memory of him be of how he
cowered and wept, and the part of him that was Kiryae’s father refused to give
up – he would fight until the very last ounce of life was crushed from his
limbs. I’ll no’ leave ‘er, he thought
as he gritted his teeth. I’ll ne’er give
up on ‘er!
‘Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath!’
The obsydioth stepped forwards
again, a horrible, wet growl echoing from behind its bloody mandibles. It
raised its four forelimbs and charged.
Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath! Ula’ath!
Gidwyn leapt forwards and jabbed
upwards with the Yaghu spear with all the might he could muster. The obsydioth
made no move to defend itself – perhaps, Gidwyn wondered, it had not expected
the sudden aggression from the tiny Dwarf. The spear went upwards, burying
itself deep into the snow-white fleshy underside of the obsydioth. Gidwyn saw
blood well from the new wound and mingle with that already pumping from the
hook-wound to its leg.
But it was not enough.
The obsydioth lashed out and
Gidwyn felt himself tossed into the air. The spear flew from his hand as he
cartwheeled through nothingness. The Dwarf would have cried out had all the air
not been knocked from his lungs, and he could do little more than flail
helplessly as he soared over the arena floor.
He crashed down amidst the bones
and dust and tried to drag himself to his feet, but was too dazed. He writhed
on the floor, blood trickling from his nose and over his lip from his bitten
tongue. Get up, he told himself. Get up, get up, get up!
He could not.
As Gidwyn felt a huge shadow
settle over him, he had no choice but to give up.
The Dwarf managed to roll onto
his back and look up at the enormous creature looming over him. Its sharp
mandibles opened and closed, and he saw that they were lined with barb-like
teeth.
Oh, brilliant, Gidwyn managed to think though the haze clouding his
brain.
He tried to tell himself he would
not scream, that he would not do that to Kiryae. He would not make her listen
to her father weep and beg. ‘C’mon, ye big bastard,’ Gidwyn spat through blood
seeping over his lips. ‘Do yer worst.’
The obsydioth reared up on its
hind legs, its four terrible forelimbs raised, its mandibles gnashing, its
horrific eyes boring into him.
And then did nothing.
The obsydioth seemed to go limp for
a moment. It staggered as if struck, stumbling forward in a sudden daze and
stepping over where Gidwyn lay. It let out a long, low groan and stood
completely still, its forelimbs limp at its stone-clad sides.
Gidwyn staggered to his feet and
scrambled backwards, away from the creature that stood as still as a statue,
staring into the amphitheatre’s tiered seats, straight up at the balcony where
Chieftain Ozytala and Kiryae stood. Gidwyn followed the creature’s gaze over
the packed tiers of seating where the Yaghu stood screaming in indignation and
fury – Gidwyn should be dead, how dare he still be walking around the arena?
Gidwyn found the balcony where
the two women were standing. Except one of them was no-longer standing.
Kiryae was floating.
She hovered a pace or so from the
ground, her mouth wide and her eyes rolled into her head. Her silver-white hair
blew around her narrow frame and a faint scream echoed in the back of her
throat. Her hands were twisted and contorted, and as they twitched so did the obsydioth’s
pincers.
‘Kiryae…?’ Gidwyn breathed,
unable to believe what he was seeing. She’s…
…She’s controlling it?
The Yaghu in the stands exploded
into chaos. Half grabbed for their weapons, the other half ran for the exits,
shoving each other aside as they ran. Yaghu fell over one another in their
frantic attempts to either fight or flee. They cascaded over the tiered seats
like an avalanche of pallid flesh and white furs, hissing and shrieking as they
came
Gidwyn found himself suddenly
forgotten. With nowhere to run and no idea what to do, he watched the white
tide of Yaghu come flooding into the arena floor – hundreds and hundreds of
them, blocking his path to Kiryae who was still floating and twitching beside
Chieftain Ozytala, whose wrinkled and lined face was twisted in a sharp-toothed
grin.
The obsydioth suddenly moved,
staggering into life as if it had just been struck again. All four of its
forelegs whirled before it in a blur of razor-sharp barbs and furiously slicing
claws, and its mandibles slashed like deadly twin cleavers. It staggered into
the Yaghu swarming to attack it, limbs lashing left and right in a blur of blue blood.
Gidwyn had to bite his tongue to
stop himself vomiting and blood washed up around the obsydioth in waves. The
creature was unstoppable: a spiked, tower-sized boulder given life that rolled
through the Yaghu and towards the balcony where their chief stood beside
Kiryae, a trail of broken Yaghu bodies lying behind it, its stone-covered hide
studded with harmless spears.
The Yaghu fought it hard,
throwing their jagged javelins and slashing at its legs and stone-covered limbs
with their savage swords, though for every blow that drew blood on the monster, the obsydioth killed a dozen Yaghu.
Just as Gidwyn was beginning to
think he had been forgotten, one of the Yaghu pointed at him. It shouted a word
that was lost beneath a cacophony of shrieks and yelling – and the obsydioth’s
ground-shaking stamping – before breaking from the swarm of Yaghu and running
towards him, a number of its pallid-faced, bald-headed kin at its back.
Gidwyn swallowed and looked
around. Another Yaghu spear lay by his feet, its long haft cracked and worn,
slathered in the dark blood of its former owner – a tell-tale hand lay a pace
away.
The Dwarf seized the spear just
as the first Yaghu leapt towards him – its mouth wide, its eyes shining with
malice. It’s no’ so different from me ol’
shepherd’s crook, Gidwyn thought as he swallowed and raised the spear. He
braced his legs, and struck.
Gdwyn had no martial expertise.
He had never fought with a weapon in his life before, but a lifetime of
wrangling goats had granted him one thing: a great strength.
The blow landed hard and true.
Gidwyn’s spear-thrust tore through the chest of the Yaghu as it jumped and
severed his spine, breaking out of its back again. Gidwyn had to fight the urge
to cry out in shock and horror as he held the spear upright, a gasping Yaghu
slowly sliding down it, scrabbling at the spear sticking through its body.
With a cry – intended to be a
battle-roar, but more like the whimper of a terrified man – Gidwyn whipped the
spear backwards and threw the Yaghu off the weapon. The creature was slight and
slid off the spear’s haft and landed hard on the floor, where it twitched and
heaved for a moment before falling completely still.
Another broke away from the
chaotic melee surrounding the obsydioth and rushed Gidwyn with a hooked dagger.
Again the Dwarf struck, lashing out with the spear, throwing all his weight
behind it. The Yaghu sidestepped and whipped the dagger at Gidwyn’s face, but
his aim was short and he only opened a small cut across Gidwyn’s cheek.
Gripped by a sudden surge of
rage, Gidwyn dropped the spear and aimed a huge, heavy-fisted haymaker at the
Yaghu. His blow landed on the creature’s jaw and a crunch reverberated from the hit. The Yaghu made a gulping sound
and fell sideways, clutching its shattered face, spitting blood and teeth, and
Gidwyn stamped down on its head and neck again and again and again.
Shocked by his own sudden
outburst of rage and violence, Gidwyn staggered backwards, blue blood soaking
his fur and leather trousers, and looked up.
A huge group of Yaghu were
rushing towards him. They howled and shrieked, brandishing hooked swords and
barbed daggers.
Gidwyn had nowhere to go, nowhere
to run. He scrambled for the spear he had dropped and lifted it up, bracing
himself for slaughter.
‘I’ll no’ beg,’ he breathed,
tears suddenly stinging his eyes, ‘an’ I’ll no’ give up. I’ll make Kiryae proud
o’ her Da.’
He never got the chance.
The obsydioth barrelled through
the group, its stone hide peppered with spears and its pale underside dripping
with black and blue blood. The Yaghu group fell under the slashing, flailing
limbs of the rock-clad creature. Gidwyn closed his eyes and raised his arms,
blood splattering all over him as the enormous creature decimated the group.
As the obsydioth charged, the
Yaghu that remained scattered and broke, running for the exits. The enormous
creature continued to lash out as it ran, cleaving through the bodies of dozens
more fleeing Yaghu as it went, filling the air with a fog of rancid blue blood.
The creature was unstoppable.
The arena emptied, leaving only
desolation and four figures: Gidwyn, Kiryae, Ozytala, and the obsydioth. The
huge creature hurled aside fallen stone pillars as if they were sticks as it
hurtled towards the balcony, crushing bones and bodies as if they were nothing.
It opened its mandibles and shook the cavern with a roar that made the very
stones shake.
And just as Gidwyn was beginning
to hope, just as he began to think that by some miracle he and his daughter may
be saved, a huge lance of stone shot from the stone of the arena floor, up
through the obsydioth’s gut, and out of its back. Shards of rock-plate from the
creature’s back flew high into the air, and on the balcony Kiryae collapsed.
The obsydioth gurgled, a sea of
blood pouring from its wound as it writhed on the end of the stone spike. With
one last twitch of its mandibles, it fell still. On the balcony set in the
tiered seats high above, Chieftain Ozytala gathered Kiryae up in her arms and
disappeared down a narrow passage set into the seats behind her.
‘No!’ Gidwyn cried, clutching the
spear in his hands, he began to run across the arena towards the now empty
tiers of seats. I cannae lose her again! he
thought as he rushed across the bloody arena floor. Not now, not after this! I cannae!
‘Dwarf,’ a voice croaked.
Gidwyn skidded to a halt.
‘Dwarf.’
He looked through the carnage.
Blood and Yaghu bodies painted the amphitheatre’s every tier. The carnage made
his stomach twist and he thought he would vomit.
‘Dwarf.’
Gidwyn felt a hand on his leg and
almost yelped in fright.
Saark’s grasp on his knee was
firm but not cruel – it could not be; the Yaghu had no fight left in him. His
legs were gone, one below the hip and the other below the knee. There was a
terrible wound to his gut and blood was gushing over his fanged teeth. That he
was still alive – let alone conscious – was incredible.
‘Fire’s breath,’ Gidwyn gasped as
he looked over the ruined form before him.
Saark managed a half-smile.
‘She’s a sage,’ he said.
Gidwyn’s eyebrows slowly rose up
his forehead in shock. ‘A wha’…?’
‘A sage, you deaf fool,’ the
Yaghu snarled before erupting into a fit of bloody coughs. ‘That’s why Ozytala
wants her. Magic stuff. I don’t know. Go save her.’
‘Why would ye…?’
‘Because she killed me.’
Gidwyn swallowed and nodded.
‘Aye.’
Saark did not hear. His eyes had
glazed over and he had fallen still. The hand around Gidwyn’s leg had gone limp
and fallen away.
Turning away from the bloodbath,
Gidwyn picked up Saark’s dagger and turned towards the tiered seats where
Chieftain Ozytala and Kiryae had been sitting. He gritted his teeth and,
without a backwards look, set off at a run towards the narrow doorway through
which the Yaghu leader and Kiryae had disappeared.
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