GoCorral

Chapter 8 – Second Tries (Continued)

“Is that… good for you?” Tereman worriedly asked.

“Good for us right now.”

Part of the wall to Tereman’s right disappeared. Behind was a hidden spiral staircase going up. A troupe of adlishars poured out of the opening armed with silver swords. Tereman and Blendegad raised their own swords in response. Tereman gripped his shield tightly in front of him. There were eight of them.

Blendegad grinned at the adlishars. Nervous feelings coursed through him, but if he appeared unphased it might give him an advantage. His stomach churned and his body was slick with sweat from his enhanced exertion.

The adlishars raised their left hands up and Tereman and Blendegad reacted. Tereman summoned the power of Zeus into his hands. Blendegad ran forward and directed the life force he’d just harvested to his legs and his eyes. He transfixed the closest adlishar freezing it in place. His superior speed allowed him to reach the monster before its left hand reached the forehead. Blendegad’s right hand grabbed the adlishar’s left wrist.

Blendegad commanded, “Paralyze me or die.” The energy flowed into Blendegad. The adlishar struggled to bring its left hand to its temple, but Blendegad held it fast.

The other adlishars’ handsreached their foreheads. Blendegad and Tereman froze. Blendegad still held his adlishar with a limp grasp. The adlishar was too weak to escape even a paralyzed hand. It continued to wither, empowering Blendegad further.

The other seven rapidly stepped forward. Blendegad felt the power surging within him. He could still direct energy around within himself. There had to be an internal location that would free him from the paralysis. Feet? Knees? All the different organs within his abdomen? None worked. The adlishars’ silver swords were getting closer. Hands? Elbows? Shoulders?

The answer struck Blendegad. It was so simple. A silver sword sliced through the air towards him. He put life energy into his left hand and his forehead at the same time. He could move! He brought his own sword across just in time to block the strike.

More blows rained down in a whirlwind as Blendegad was surrounded. His movements were accelerated, but the paralysis had put him in a bad position. He blocked, parried, and dodged blow after blow. There were four surrounding him. He took a cut to the back of his left leg as he blocked a downward slice in front of him. Another cut on his left arm as he blocked the slice.

Blendegad directed life force into his legs. He burst out of the four monster circle around him. He slashed one of them in the back. The magic armor blocked his attack, but he knocked that adlishar down with the strength of his blow. Blendegad stole a look at Tereman and saw him handling himself against the other three.

Focusing back on his own problems, Blendegad backed up against the stone egg in the middle of the room. He braced himself against it and bent his knees. His four adlishars moved to surround him. Blendegad gathered the life force into his legs. He jumped forward in a diving spin. The increased power allowed him to shoot through the adlishar formation. He quickly redirected the life force into his arms on the spin. His sword chopped through one of the adlishar’s arms, separating it from the shoulder along the bicep. Blendegad’s right hand grabbed the red hair of another one, pulling it along with him in his spin.

Blendegad and his captive landed in a heap. He gave the command quickly, “Give me your sword or die.” The adlishar struggled against his right hand, but his grip was like iron. Life force flowed into Blendegad. He pulled the adlishar’s pony tail, ripping the energy out of it faster. His de-armed foe lay on the ground screaming and bleeding. The other two shot blasts of force at him. Blendegad absorbed them without flinching. The life force within him was too powerful.

“Blendegad!” Tereman pleaded from Blendegad’s right. Blendegad turned to see his friend in trouble.

Stenvall and Galandir made their way through twisting passageways. They came upon a spiral staircase and climbed it to the next floor. The stairs exited into a circular room with three rounded passageways coming off of it. The walls of the second floor were covered in glowing lights and what looked like sinks and buckets embedded in the walls. Stenvall and Galandir heard the distant clash of swords and screams of the dying.

“This way,” Galandir said to Stenvall. He ran to the left passageway and headed down it. Stenvall followed Galandir’s guess. Left, right, left, they headed deeper into the maze.

Turning another corner they discovered a passage filled with doors in the curved walls. The hall ended in a door as well. Between the door and the two adventurers were two adlishars.

The adlishars immediately brought their left hands up. Galandir screamed, “A’dant” and pulled the hands down with his right hand. With his left hand he screamed, “Kindieron!” Fire shot out of his fist. A ball of fire the size of a boar’s head streaked towards the closer adlishar. Galandir twisted the a’dant tether he’d tied to his foe. He brought the creature’s face into the path of the fire. A direct hit and the adlishar fell.

Stenvall bumped past Galandir. She grabbed her spear with her shield hand for additional power and stabbed down into the fallen adlishar. She pushed through its magic armor and killed the creature.

The other adlishar threw a push spell at Stenvall. She flew backwards. The adlishar followed that up with a pull spell on Galandir. The two impacted in the middle of the hallway.

Galandir shook off the blow quickly. The adlishar was getting closer. It wasn’t bothering with the left hand trick. Galandir used a trick of his own. He said, “Stachit,” directing his magic at the floor. The hall floor ice over underneath the adlishar’s feet. A quick fleed push knocked the enemy to the ground.

Stenvall wrestled to her feet. She ran to the adlishar. Galandir quickly dispelled the ice, allowing her to run unobstructed. Stenvall brought her spear forward like a plow. The point sank into the adlishar’s face. The creature spasmed and died.

“Two more down,” said Stenvall.

“Yeah,” said Galandir. He winced as he got to his feet. His ribs were bruised from the collision with Stenvall. She had been wearing a hoplite breastplate with cushioning underneath. His inexperienced magic armor did little to protect him. Galandir hoped he wouldn’t need any serious attention before the day was over.

“Which door?” said Stenvall.

“Try them all.”

Stenvall went to the closest door on the left. Galandir worked to control his breathing. His practiced rhythm could keep him going for hours of practice. The real thing was quite different. Galandir was never actually hit during his practice sessions at Valor’s Forest. Stenvall opened the door and readied her spear to fight.

Behind was a small bedroom of some kind. Against the opposite wall was a bunkbed with two luxurious mattresses. A desk was on the right side of the room. A double set of drawers was on the left side.

Galandir said, “No villagers there. Next door.”

Stenvall and Galandir repeated the process. All the side doors of the hallway led to bedrooms. They had clearly stumbled on a dormitory section of the structure. All that remained was the doorway at the end.

Stenvall turned the knob and pushed the door open to reveal a shocking sight. Beyond was a large square room. Stacked cages lined the exterior. Humans in peasant clothing were trapped in the cages. They had found the people of Shalerton, but not all of them were living.

At the center of the room stood two solid torture racks in the horizontal position. Two villagers were secured to the racks, a man and a woman. The adlishars had cut open the humans on the table. The reasons for the autopsy were unclear, but their organs sat on the tables with further dissection performed on them. In the back left corner of the room there was further evidence of past fatal surgeries.

Galandir brought his hand to his mouth to hold in the vomit. He swallowed, feeling the acid running down his throat. Stenvall strode into the room. She had not seen worse than this, but she had seen worse things than Galandir in her life.

Stenvall said, “Fucking monsters. No decent mortal would do this.”

Galandir panted again. His rhythm was truly broken now. “Let’s get the living people out of here.”

“Right,” said Stenvall. She marched towards the closest cage. “You okay? We’re here to free you.”

The villager blinked at Stenvall. She seemed to not understand who or what the person before her was.

Stenvall spoke louder, “I’m Stenvall. This is Galandir. We’re here to rescue you. Can you walk?”

The villager’s eyes opened wide. “This is real?”

“Yes. We are real. Can you walk?”

“All of us, we’re so weak. They haven’t fed us. They barely give us water. And we have to watch…” The woman pointed at the racks in the center of the room.

Galandir looked for keys to the cages. His eyes found a key ring hanging on a peg by the door they’d entered from. He grabbed it and threw it to Stenvall. She began unlocking the cages.

Stenvall asked Galandir, “Do you have some way to make these people faster? Some of them can hardly move.”

“There was a spell for that… Let me think. What was the word?” Galandir rolled the words around in his mouth, “Tos? Flow? Flowal? Flowanol?”A bit of water spurted from his hands with flowanol. “Got it!”

Galandir performed the best hand gesture due to muscle memory. He started with his hand limp, hanging down with the palm towards him. He slowly brought it up until his palm faced away from him. Then he pushed his palm forwards and stiffened his fingers. “Flowanol.”

Water flowed from Galandir’s hand. He increased the pressure and shot water all around the room. The villagers cupped their hands and drank. Whether freed from their cages by Stenvall or still trapped, they were desperate for any sort of comfort. Galandir provided what he could with water.