Into the Heart of Evil (19 page)

Normally, the team would avoid stepping in streams
like this, since it left tracks that were easy to follow.  This time, however,
there was no resisting the temptation, so as they crossed they happily drug
their hot, tired feet through the icy stream on their way to pick up the trail
of the two mysterious kobolds.

Durik began to feel a strange, wet sensation on
his face.  As his mind slowly made the trip back to consciousness, he
grimaced.  Then he realized he was being licked. 

Sitting up suddenly, his vision turned completely
red and, partially fainting again, he fell back against whatever it was he had
been leaning against.  As his vision came back to him, he opened his eyes and
saw Firepaw standing there, looking at him with deep concern. 

Durik sat up again, this time much more slowly. 
He rubbed the back of his skull where his head had hit the thick bark of the
tree he found himself resting against.  Looking at his hand, he found it
covered with blood.  At first he was a bit startled, then he felt around the
back of his head with his other hand and, finding no more blood, figured it
must have been the blood from the boar. 

The boar!  Durik looked around the woods,
wondering how long he’d been out.  He began to stand up and, as he did so, a
burning sensation from his left leg told him that not everything was fine. 
Looking down, he pulled open a slit cut through the leg of his wolf-skin outfit
and saw a long, shallow gash in his thigh where the boar’s tusk had connected,
shearing away scale and skin to expose muscle.  The blood had begun to congeal
and Durik was feeling the fire that accompanies wounds of this sort when they
begin to stiffen.

Durik saw the concern in Firepaw’s eyes and rubbed
the fur between his ears.  Looking into the big wolf’s eyes, he smiled and
turned to look for Manebrow.  Not far from him, he saw the hulking shape of the
great boar.  Its huge, fat body lay on one side against a tree. 

Approaching the hulking beast from one side, he
saw Manebrow’s axe sunk deep into the boar’s skull.  Confused, and growing more
concerned, he came around the far side of the boar.  Half covered by the body
of the great beast, Manebrow sat leaning on his left side against the tree.  As
Durik pulled the wolfskin hood away from Manebrow’s face, he could see the pain
in his former trainer’s eyes.  Next to Manebrow lay his wolf, with his head on
Manebrow’s lap.  Manebrow’s wolf lifted its head and stood, moving to one side
as Durik hobbled around the tree and knelt next to Manebrow. 

As Durik called his name softly, Manebrow turned
his head slowly, until he looked at Durik with glazed eyes.  “My… leg…” he
muttered.  “Water… need water.”

Durik looked down at where Manebrow’s legs were
covered by the boar’s body.  It was obvious that he was not going to be able to
do anything for Manebrow until he could get this boar off of him.  Standing, he
pushed at the body of the great beast to no avail.  The thing had to weigh as
much as ten kobolds together, if not more.  There was no moving it alone.

Taking rope from Manebrow’s saddlebags, Durik
brought Manebrow’s wolf around the other side of the boar.  Tying one end
around the dead boar’s neck, and avoiding the broken shaft of his spear as he
did so, Durik split the other end and tied it to the saddles of both his and
Manebrow’s wolves. 

Neither of the wolves understood what was going
on.  After all, not only did wolves not take naturally to bearing riders, they
certainly didn’t have any natural inclination toward being used as draft
animals.  But, to their credit, the wolves followed Durik and, after a few
moments of frustration and confusion, they figured out that he wanted them to
pull. 

Slowly, as the wolves and Durik struggled, first
the head of the great beast began to pull up and over its back, then eventually
the body began to roll, following the head.  Durik smiled.  If there was one
thing Manebrow had said repeatedly as he had taught them sparring, it was that
‘where the head goes, the body follows.’  Little had he known that someday he
would use that advice to save a life, much less the life of the one who had
taught him that.

Once the boar’s body had been rolled away sufficiently,
Durik hurried around the far side of the massive body to see to Manebrow’s
right leg was twisted strangely.  It was obvious that Manebrow’s leg was
severely broken at the midpoint of the thigh. 

Durik’s eyes went wide.  Quickly, he went back to his
saddlebags and grabbed the hatchet from his pack as well as Manebrow’s
blanket.  After putting the blanket over Manebrow to keep him warm, Durik began
looking around.  After a few moments, he found two mostly straight dead
branches to use as a splint and, with his hatchet, he cleared off the smaller
branches and cut them down to size.  Bringing them over to where Manebrow sat
against the tree, Durik looked Manebrow in the eyes.

“Manebrow,” he called softly, but urgently. 
Manebrow opened his eyes slightly.  Durik continued, “I’m going to have to lay
you down.”

Manebrow was staring off into the distance as
though he were looking at something a thousand steps away.  “Water…” he mumbled
somewhat coherently.

Durik put one hand behind Manebrow’s back and, pulling
him away from the tree, laid him down slowly.  Manebrow groaned loudly. 
Adjusting the blanket and tearing the wolfskin outfit to expose Manebrow’s
right leg, Durik thought back on the lessons that Manebrow himself had taught
them about caring for such things.  Though he knew what needed to be done, he
was afraid to do it.  Steeling himself, Durik carefully felt Manebrow’s leg
where the break was.  At first Manebrow groaned, then, as Durik was determining
whether there were any fragments, Manebrow began to scream in agony.

After a few moment of this, Durik sat back in
somber understanding of the break.  It was obvious that it was not a clean
break.  Manebrow’s thigh bone was splintered.  Bowing his head, Durik closed
his eyes to fight back the tears.  The terrible realization that Manebrow would
not only never walk again, but that he’d be lucky to survive such a terrible
injury was more than Durik could take. 

Manebrow had not only been the one who had trained
him to become what he was, he was also his staunchest supporter and the true
strength behind his fledgling company.  Tears streamed down Durik’s face as he
laid his hands on either side of the break, preparing to straighten it, hoping
that Manebrow would survive what Durik now knew he had to do.

As Durik gathered the strength of will to cause
such great pain to his friend and mentor, suddenly a thought foreign to his
mind, yet somehow familiar now, broke into his consciousness.  As the thought
began to take shape, a flood of light filled Durik’s awareness.  This time,
Durik saw a dark passageway ahead of him.  Light came from behind him, filling
the chamber he was in and flowing from an opening on the other side.  Beyond
the opening lay the bridge he had seen before in his visions.  This time, a
large group of humanoids were coming out of the intense light that obscured the
bridge, as if they were going to enter the same structure Durik found himself
in.  From in front of him, he felt something calling to him, as if it were
destiny. 

As clear as though the speaker were standing next
to him, a voice whispered words of such power that they echoed through the
chambers of his soul. 

“Be not afraid.”

Durik’s heart was on fire, burning away the pain
and sorrow of moments before.  The power that the soft, potent, yet somehow
distinctly maternal voice conveyed threatened to overcome him.  With every
syllable it seemed to pierce his soul to the very center.

“Open your heart to me, child of Kobold,” the
voice urged almost imperceptibly through the torrent of searing power.  Though
Durik felt the desire in the voice that spoke to him, he knew clearly that it
was his to choose.  As he struggled, he hesitated, wanting to open his heart to
this unseen entity, but afraid of the unknown. 

Mustering his courage, Durik began to accept the
power that was manifesting itself.  To the measure that Durik was able to
accept it, the power flowed through his entire consciousness.  As it did so,
Durik could feel every aspect of his life being laid bare; every pain he had ever
felt, as well as every triumph, every moment of character, and every dark
moment of secret desire.  One by one, Durik gave each one to this great power,
tentatively at first, then completely as he felt acceptance, tenderness, and
finally, approval.

“I will give you power that you may heal him,” the
voice whispered with such unintentional intensity that Durik cried with the
strength of the emotions it conveyed.  “Will you give yourself to me…
completely?”

Durik could feel the intense power that had confronted
him begin to withdraw.  Durik could feel that no answer was expected… yet. 
Though his heart yearned to be one with this power, his tongue was silent. 

As the power withdrew, Durik began to be aware of
his surroundings again.  He was still in the chamber, but things seemed
enhanced, almost transformed by Durik’s encounter with the voice.  Remnants of
this overwhelming power coursed through his body.  Looking down at his hands,
Durik saw that they glowed with a lingering power that felt deeply comforting
to him.  Then, as quickly as the vision had come, it closed again.

To Durik’s amazement, though the vision had
closed, the feeling of lingering power remained.  His hands, still holding
Manebrow’s leg, glowed brightly with a pure, white light that drove back the
dark of the night.  After such an intense event, however, he felt no wonder,
rather just a sense of peace, as if everything was as it should be.  Then, as
naturally as if he’d had this power all of his life, Durik willed it to channel
through him to Manebrow’s leg.  As he watched, Manebrow’s leg straightened, and
the massive bruises and swelling that had come to surround the break quickly
dissipated.  In a matter of a few moments, it was as if Manebrow’s leg had
never been broken.  Durik stood up, looking at his hands in wonder.  Looking
over himself, he saw that the long gash in his leg had disappeared.  As
Manebrow began to stir, the light began to fade and night again closed in on
the two kobolds. 

Slowly, Manebrow opened his eyes and looked in
wonder at his young leader and his glowing hands.

As suddenly as it had come, the power left and he
was again Durik the kobold, normal and mundane.  Durik felt as if a dear friend
had suddenly left him.  The glow in his hands faded immediately.  As they sat
there in the dark of night, the two kobolds could feel a lingering sense of
peace.

Arbelk was not the best of trackers.  He was Deep
Guard, that much was true, but despite the focus that the Deep Guard put on
tracking by scent, he just never had been very good at it.  Certainly Trallik
was much better at it than he.  Tohr and Kahn, the two brothers in the other
team who were also Deep Guard, didn’t seem to be very good at it either.  That
helped console him somewhat.  At least he wasn’t the only untalented tracker
among the Deep Guard representatives in this company.