Days of High Adventure (15 page)

With a wave of his hand, Randast conjured up a thi
ck wall of raging flame between himself and his assailant. It ran to the opposite edges of the circular pit and reached to the ceiling. The heat was terrible. Even though she stood several feet away, Fallon still suffered painful burns until she scrambled further back. She realized no one could survive a charge through the flames to get to her target. The barbarian backed off, limping as fast as she could to the closest stairs in hopes of getting around the wall.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Randast’s two bodyguards rushing
back in around the walkway to get to her. Both had their blades drawn, eager to avenge their liege. Limping on one foot and fleeing from the wall of flame, Fallon had little choice but to take them head on.

Worried that the fight
would turn against them already, Amanda hurled her most powerful spell at Bel-Danab. The ball of fire that came from her hands struck squarely at his feet, yet the wizard spun away and covered up in time to take the worst of it on his back. Dodging the edge of the blast, Bel-Danab’s pair of bodyguards decided to focus on the nearest foe who
didn’t
wield magic.

Eric was only ready for one, not both. Hurting from head to toe, he
raised his shield in time to block the sword that came for his head. He couldn’t get entirely out of the way of the spear, though, which was only partly deflected by the hardened leather covering his thigh. The edge of the spear still tore into his leg; Eric was only fortunate that the spearman had too much momentum to stop before he had already stepped past.

The room shook as a great flash of green light swept up from the floor. Every stone tile now gave off the same light, which rippled and billowed like smoke until it seemed that the floor had become a thick layer of glass over some great green cloud.

In spite of his terrible wound, Randast was back on his feet. With his remaining hand, he had recovered the glowing orb that he’d held before Fallon’s ambush. It glowed with the same color as the floor, beaming rays of light down at the stonework. “Master!” Randast called out, half-delirious with pain. “It is finished!”

Bel-Danab turned back to face Amanda wit
h a look of fierce hatred. “You!” he hissed. Leaning on his staff, the sorcerer reached out to Amanda with the same motion he’d used to snatch at Eric. She was instantly caught in the spell’s invisible magic grip. Amanda had no time to retaliate with a spell of her own before she was flung from the walkway out over the glowing green floor.

Her landing was nothing if not rough. She barely braced herself at all; though her outstretched arms and legs broke the worst of the fall, she still collapsed onto the rough surface. Blood streamed from her nose and from her cut and scraped limbs. She was fortunate not to have broken bones or died altogether.

She focused past the pain, forcing herself to act despite how her body felt. Blood stained the floor, much of it hers. The stone blocks seemed to become transparent; she saw drops of blood slip through the cracks between the tiles, falling into the light and clouds below. Then a rumble that shook the room came from the floor. Blocks at the floor’s center began to fall away into the glowing cloud beneath. Amanda scrambled back toward the edge of the circle.

“Mortal worm,” boomed a furious voice
from below. “You awaken me with a false offering?”

The sorcerer’s triumphant expression suddenly cracked. “What?” he blinked.

Stones continued to fall away. Soon nothing would be left of the floor. “The blood price is unpaid!”

Bel-Danab stopped cold. “What?” he asked again. “I brought you...I brought a virgin sacrifice...” Trying to make sense of it all, he looked around for some answer and saw only Amanda as she finally crawled clear of the edge of the circle of runes
, where the floor held firm. The implications quickly became clear for him. Bel-Danab rushed forward, furiously grabbing her by the hair. “Vile whore!”

Rage carried Amanda through her fear and pain. She heaved back and planted a forceful punch right on Bel-Danab’s nose, crushing it under her knuckles. “You
asshole
,” she raged, grabbing him by his robes to pull him down onto the floor with her. Amanda slugged him in the gut again and again until he fell. “You pull all this shit, but
I’m
vile ‘cause I got
laid
?” She grabbed his head and slammed her knee into his face.

Bolts of
golden force struck Amanda’s side, driving her onto the floor. They didn’t come from Bel-Danab, but rather his apprentice across the chasm, who fought to stay conscious and aid in this fight. Randast struggled to stay on his feet, putting all he could into summoning up another spell to finish off the girl once and for all. Amanda looked to her companions for aid, but found Eric tied up with the two guards. Fallon was nowhere to be seen as Randast barked out the last words to a spell that Amanda knew she couldn’t counter until she caught her breath once more.

Something sailed just past
Randast, large and heavy and covered in flames and barely missing him. Randast gasped as he recognized the burned body of one of his bodyguards. Instinctively he spun, facing the wall of flame he’d created to protect himself. Through the flames, he saw Fallon heave up the body of his other bodyguard, whose own sword protruded from his gut. Fallon charged forward with the helpless man, hurling him into the wall of fire in a straight line for the sorcerer. Randast had no time for anything more than a scream of panic before the flaming corpse of his henchman clobbered him. They tumbled over the edge of the pit together.

The wall of fire quickly faded. Fallon looked out from the walkway to see the chamber greatly changed. Nothing remained of the floor out to the edge of the circle of runes. There was only green light, smoke and a terrible rumbling.

On the other side of the chamber, her lover fought against the last two bodyguards. He slammed his shield into one, driving forward to push the man into the pit. His foe fell screaming in sudden terror, and then was gone. The other one, wielding a spear, rushed at Eric as if to impale him and drive him over the edge as well. Eric parried, sidestepped and continued the fight.

Eric took a couple of wary steps back from his opponent. The guy was good, and Eric was sorely hurt. He shifted to one side, hoping to stay further away from the pit while he tried
to figure out how to take the warrior out. Then the floor shook for a brief but intense heartbeat. A second shock hit, and then a third.

One massive, red claw of some reptilian monster reached out of the pit. Its
talons, each of them larger than a man, drove into the stone floor between Eric and his opponent.

“
Aw, fuck!” Eric burst. He spun away from the remaining bodyguard.
The hell with that dude
, Eric decided. This was well beyond his ability to deal with. They had to get out.

Turned around now, Eric found Bel-Danab leaning on his staff just a few yards away. The wizard seemed for a moment indecisive; his attention seemed split between the pit and the fallen form of Amanda. Rage twisted the sorcerer’s face. He turned on Amanda, raising his staff high in the air as the gem at its top began to glow red. Eric sprinted forward with all he had.

Amanda fought to recover. She managed only to roll over onto her back. “Wretched girl!” Bel-Danab cried. “I’ll have your blood one way or another!”

Amanda reached out to him with her fingers spread wide. A prismatic blast of color shot from her hands, engulfing Bel-Danab in a swirl of lights. His eyes went wide, then shut tight. He shook his head to clear it from its confusion. It cost him vital heartbeats of hesitation.

As Bel-Danab brought the staff down on his hated enemy, Eric’s sword slashed deeply through his side. Blood and gore flowed from the wound. Bel-Danab jerked in pain, then screamed in horror at the sight of how badly he’d been wounded. His staff fell from his hands into Amanda’s lap.

Beyond them, a second enormous claw clamped down over the edge of the pit. The shockwave through the floor cost Eric his balance. He staggered and fell to one knee before he could finish off the enemy in front of him.

“No,” Bel-Danab whispered.

In the heat of the moment, Amanda
didn’t think about the staff’s magic power. She was just happy to have a nice big stick in her hands. She thrust it straight into Bel-Danab’s chest with all her remaining strength. Amanda shoved the sorcerer off the edge and into the pit.

Bel-Danab’s final scream as he fell
ended with a terrible crunch.

Eric didn’t stop to look over the side. He dropped his shield, wrapped his arm around Amanda and heaved her over his shoulder. “Hold onto that staff,” he grunted.

She could manage that, at least. “We got him?” Amanda blinked.

“Yeah,” Eric huffed, already running for the nearest steps. The wound on his leg burned, but he had to ignore it. “You got him, Amanda. You beat the boss fight with rainbows.”

“Rainbows?”

“Fucking rainbows,
girl. Fucking rainbows.”

“Wow.” Her voice
made her exhaustion and confusion plain. “Jason would be so mad at that.”

“Come on!” Fallon shouted from the walkway. She stood over the fallen body of the spearman who had given Eric such trouble. “Move!”

“Stop!” roared a voice that shook the chamber. A blinding stream of fire erupted from the pit, blasting the entryway with enough heat to slag much of the stonework around it. As Eric reached Fallon, the three saw melted rock dripping from the ceiling around their only way out. All at once, they found themselves looking toward the pit.

Emerging from the smoke and flame
came the huge, scaly red head of an immense dragon. Blood and rags from what remained of Bel-Danab dripped from its jaw. “Wait,” said the beast.

Fallon stepped protectively in front of Eric and Amanda, her sword at the ready despite the obvious futility of it all.

“Peace,” the dragon rumbled. “I mean you no harm. You have done me a service here.”

“Then why cut off our escape?” Fallon demanded. Eric glanced at her in awe. She really didn’t back down from anything.

“I would have words, Northerner,” the dragon replied. Its mouth couldn’t be remotely capable of human speech, yet it spoke clearly just the same. “I am in your debt. It is quite difficult to repay the dead.”

“Hey,” Amanda said blearily, “do I know you?”

“We have met, in a fashion.”

“Eric,” she said, “I think...I think maybe you’d better put me down.”

Her friend did as she asked, setting her down gently while sharing a look of trepidation with his lover. “Allow me to allay your dread,” the dragon said. With that, each of them felt a sudden rush of vitality and relief. Their wounds healed in seconds. Though still covered in the blood and grime of their battle, they felt as if they’d just gotten out of bed.

“Bel-Danab plagued my dreams for decades,” the dragon explained. “He sought ever more knowledge, ever more power. His demands increased with each passing year until he determined that
he could force me into his physical service through sorcery.”

“So the snake people didn’t worship you?” Eric asked.

“Not originally. Ages ago, the serpents who knew me for what I was built this structure as a prison. Cataclysm and war in the millennia since have polluted and distorted the knowledge of Set’s disciples. Those who built the outer walls did not understand the true nature of what lay within. In his communication with my dreaming mind, Bel-Danab discerned the truth. He developed rituals to exploit the power of the prison itself to enslave me upon my release.

“He would have succeeded, had his magic been fueled as intended by virgin blood. Hence my suggestion
, Amanda, that you seek solace in the temple of—”

“Okay,” Amanda blushed, “
point made. Moving on.”

“What point?” Eric blinked.

“
Moving. On.
”

Eric sighed, but let it go.
“But how are we even here?”

“It’s like I told you,” said Amanda. “That ritual Bel-Danab ran as we got here—“

“No, I get that part, but you only called out his name because of Jason’s game,” Eric countered. He looked to the dragon. “Is he connected to this somehow?”

“As I said, Bel-Danab tormented me for
years. His magic transcended time and space. I used those same effects to search for help. I had thought to find heroes of this world, trying to inspire someone to deal with the wizard. Instead, my search for help reached much farther than I intended.” The dragon paused. “I had thought those efforts wasted.”

“…you went to Jason for help?” Amanda blinked skeptically.

“I reached out to a strong and courageous heart.”

“…Jason?” Amanda and Eric repeated.

“Perhaps he is more than you expect. But that is of no consequence now. You wish to return home,” said the dragon. “With the staff, you could accomplish this, but only after many years of study. If you were to give the staff to me, I could send you home in moments.”

Fallon bristled with suspicion. “And then what, dragon?” she asked. “What do you intend to do now that you are awakened and freed from your slumber?”