Send a spelling or grammar correction to: Tracy Johnson
Back to Empire on the HPe3000 Home Page
Emiel stepped back first, past the sculpted doorframe and into the crystal-roofed entrance room. Ragnar followed. He'd torn the lightstone from the battered lantern and held it in his hand, his other hand held his axe. He took one backwards step, but stopped as another four-legged beast pushed the slow-moving dead aside. A manticore, its tail only a stump, but its needle teeth and unsheathed claws weapons more than enough. In a mighty bound it leapt.
* * *
Emiel saw Ragnar step back, then stop, then brace himself against the charge of some unseen foe. He prepared himself as well, but the barbarian and his swinging axe filled the door. Ragnar would have to face this attack alone. A clattering noise from behind made Emiel turn his head. He swung around and from the stairway two figures rose into view as they climbed the short flight of stairs.
* * *
Though it had a man's bearded face, a manticore was no more than a beast, or so Ragnar had been taught. He expected no more than animal cunning, but the creature knew what Ragnar's axe could do. It knew weapons and it grabbed a living shield.
Curved claws sunk into withered flesh and the manticore lifted the torso of a bugbear with its foremost paw. Ragnar's axe hewed away the bugbear's head with teeth still gnashing, but he was knocked back when its half-rotted chest was slammed into him with the force of a giant's fist.
Falling to one knee, Ragnar ducked beneath the corpse-shield of the manticore. He dropped the lightstone and gripped his axe with both hands. With the topspike as a spear he impaled the lion body of the beast, but the manticore weighed far too much to hold, even for Ragnar's great strength.
He was knocked to the floor as the manticore fell upon him. The beast's burning eyes, lit with the same infernal glow as the other dead, held a spark of madness as well. They were only inches from his own.
It raked him with both forepaws. He rolled and the steel links took the savage blow. The ends of its claws snapped off, caught within the metal rings, as it tried to tear his flesh and bones apart.
Ragnar could not lift the weighty manticore so instead he twisted and turned it to one side. The beast turned too, drawing back away from the impaling spike, but as it did it caught him with a powerful, gutting kick. The chain shirt again absorbed the blow, but one of Ragnar's legs was mauled from thigh to knee, below the chainmail's lower edge.
He howled as some wild lion might, drew himself to his feet, and with rage-gifted strength struck down and across the manticore's lower back. The beast came apart in two, one half a head, forepaws and chest, the other a set of kicking legs. Then Ragnar quickly limped across the door and out into the smaller entrance room.
* * *
Two heads appeared, then as they climbed the stairs, two bodies followed. Emiel gave a curse, trapped here he thought, no way back and another fight ahead. Then as he prepared to battle, back to back with Ragnar if need be, he saw a face that he had thought was dead.
"Thaddeus!" He cried. "You live!" And then he saw the other man, though a face changed from the one he had known before in more peaceful days. "Mikhel! Mikhel! You live! My wife..." Emiel rushed over grabbed at the wild-eyed Mikhel's dirt stained collar. "My wife, is she..."
"Emiel!" Ted yelled and pushed the smaller man away. "Watch Out!" he pointed toward the maproom door.
A yowl of pain snapped Emiel back from thoughts of his wife's likely fate. He whipped round, his sword at hand, and saw Ragnar, with a single blow, cut the undead manticore in two.
* * *
"Give me a hand!" Ragnar yelled as he limped across the floor. "Come Emiel, hurry, my leg's hurt pretty bad."
Emiel ran to Ragnar's side, behind them a mass of severed parts came crawling, themselves blind, but directed by some will which saw them clear. Dragged by forepaws, the front half of the manticore pulled itself along. It gnashed needle teeth in frustration as Ragnar took slow, agonized steps away from its deadly reach. Behind this mass, a fresh supply of less dismembered dead appeared.
"Hurry." Ted called back then ran down the stairs.
Mikhel tittered a screeching laugh then ran away as well.
Emiel grabbed Ragnar around the waist and they hobbled after the pair as fast as they could. They nearly fell at the top of the stairs, then with Ragnar's arm across his shoulder, Emiel half carried the shocked and protesting barbarian to the hall below.
"Vatun!" Ragnar spat out as they passed the last stair. "You have two mens' strength in those arms of yours."
"Clean living." Emiel replied. He stopped in the lightless hall and looked closer at the northman's wound. "It's bad alright." he said.
"It feels it." Ragnar replied. "But how in this pitch black can you see how bad it is!"
"I saw how badly wounded you were up above." said Emiel. "You've lost our lightstone then."
"It's my day for losing things." Ragnar said. "Help me get down this hall and out of this black pit."
Emiel and Ragnar staggered out. They found Ted just a short way down the passage with Mikhel by his side.
"Here." Emiel commanded. "Ted take his other arm, quickly now." And with a supporting shoulder underneath each arm, Ragnar made much better time.
They'd fought and hacked all the dead to bits between the stairs and the front doors. Their flight from the hall met no resistance.
* * *
(To Be Continued)