Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li: The Morcyth Saga Book Three (6 page)

Kneeling down next to the small pool of
water, he concentrates on Miko, willing the image of his
surroundings to appear upon the water. In his exhausted state, he’s
almost unable to focus enough to call forth the magic.

The image wavers and then suddenly comes
into clarity. He sees Miko lying upon the beach, unconscious, with
the waves crashing over him.

In a panic that he might be washed back out
to sea, he quickly forms one of his seeker bubbles and gets up to
follow it. The bubble moves back toward the beach and then follows
the coastline to the left.

Moving as quickly as his wobbly legs will
carry him, he makes his way along the coast as he follows the
bubble. After ten minutes, he sees a form lying in the surf, far
down the beach. Canceling the spell, he breaks into a run and races
to Miko’s side. He’s lying face down and doesn’t look to be
breathing.

When he reaches his side, he turns him on
his back and discovers in relief that he is, in fact, still
breathing. Grabbing him under the arms, he begins to pull him up
the beach away from the pounding surf.

Laying him in a relative safe spot, he
kneels down next to him as he tries to bring him back to
consciousness. He tries shaking him and calling his name but that
fails to work. Striking him hard across the face twice causes his
eyes to snap open. He suddenly begins coughing and then starts
vomiting up seawater.

Leaning him on his side, he pats him on the
back until the vomiting fit is over. James then helps him to sit up
as he continues coughing until his lungs clear.

Through red eyes, he looks around at their
surrounding and between coughs asks, “Where are we?”

Shaking his head, James replies, “I don’t
know. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of people around here.”

Looking around, Miko asks, “Jiron?”

“I don’t know,” James tells him, “haven’t
found him yet.” He then looks into Miko’s eyes as he says, “I was
too worried about you.”

“Thanks,” he says just as another coughing
fit strikes him. When it’s over, he asks, “Think he made it here
like we did?”

Shrugging, James answers, “Hope so.” Getting
up, he looks around until he locates another clear pool he can use
to find Jiron the way he’d found Miko.

Kneeling down again, he concentrates on
Jiron, the magic coming a little easier than it had earlier. Having
a brief rest, even so short a one has made a difference.

Miko comes over and sits across from him as
he watches the water. The image shifts and then they see Jiron. He
has his knives in hand and is fighting off three other people
who’re attacking him with spears.

James ends the spell and stands up abruptly.
The seeker bubble forms and begins to float away from them, back
the way he’d come when he had been searching for Miko. He moves to
follow it.

“Is he close?” Miko asks as he joins James
in following the bubble.

“Don’t know,” James replies as he hurries,
almost running as he follows the fast moving bubble. His begins
panting as he starts using up what reserve of strength he has left.
“But the area he was in looks to be similar to what is here, the
same trees and grass anyway,” he explains. “If we’re lucky, he
shouldn’t be too far away.”

Running along beside James, he says, “Let’s
hope not.”

As they run along the beach after the
bubble, they suddenly hear a crashing sound from further inland.
They come to a halt when a large lizard-like creature the size of a
rhinoceros lurches out onto the beach in front of them.

“What the hell is that?” Miko cries out.

The creature must’ve heard him, it turns its
head in their direction and lets out a roar. It pauses only a
moment before charging toward them. An answering roar comes from
behind them as another of the creatures comes out from within the
vegetation.

James takes out one of his slugs from the
belt around his waist and propels it at the one in front of them
with a touch of magic. It strikes the creature in the foreleg and
lodges itself beneath the skin.

Crying out in pain, the creature stumbles
slightly and then resumes its course toward them.

“You’re going to have to do better than
that!” Miko yells to James when he sees the slug did little to slow
it down.

Reaching down, he picks up a stone off the
beach the size of a baseball and throws it at the creature,
tripling the amount of magic he usually uses with the spell.

This time when the stone hits, it strikes
the creature in the chest and blasts out the back, spraying bone
and gore.

At the sight of what happened to that one,
the creature behind them roars and doubles its speed toward
them.

James doesn’t have time before it’s upon
them to do anything. They jump to the side but the creature grabs
his leg with his mouth, teeth sinking into his calf as it lifts him
off the ground.

Crying out in pain, James reflexively lets
loose a blast of magic that burns into the creature’s side. Roaring
in pain, it lets go of his leg.

As he falls back to the ground, he rolls
away from the creature, blood welling quickly from the wounds the
creature’s teeth had inflicted. He comes to a stop then begins
scooting backward along the ground away from the creature, his leg
unable to support him enough to get to his feet.

Miko throws sticks and rocks at it to try to
divert its attention from James to no avail. It looks around and
sees him there on the ground. With another roar, it charges
forward, slowed only slightly by the wound in its side.

James takes out another slug and throws it
at the charging creature. In panic, he calls forth a tremendous
surge of magic which leaves him gasping and dazed. The slug strikes
the creature where its neck leaves the main body, and the
incredible force of the impact almost completely severs its head
from the rest of its body. Attached only by a thin layer of skin
and muscle, its head lolls to the side as it falls to the ground,
blood spraying forth upon the sand.

Miko rushes around the dead creature to
where James is lying with blood pouring out of his leg. “James!” he
cries as he comes and kneels down next to him.

“Miko,” he gasps through the pain throbbing
in his leg, “give me your shirt.”

Taking off his shirt, he hands it to him.
Wrapping the shirt around his wounded leg, he ties it as tightly as
he can to stop as much of the blood from escaping as possible.

“We can’t stay here,” he tells him.
Gesturing over to the trees, he says, “See if you can find me a
walking stick, large enough to help support me. We’ve got to get
out of here before the smell of blood draws others.”

Nodding, Miko runs over and returns shortly
with a six foot long stick.

Taking the stick, James says, “Help me
up.”

Miko takes his arm and helps him to his
feet. Once he’s up and stable, Miko let’s go as he leans heavily
upon the stick. “You gonna make it?” he asks.

“I sure plan to,” he replies.

He takes some wobbly steps but finds that
with the aid of the stick, he’s able to move down the beach as they
resume following the seeker bubble. Making their way around the
dead ‘rhino-lizard’ as James calls it, they quickly move away from
the dead animals.

Leaning heavily upon the stick, he and Miko
work their way down the beach. Suddenly from behind them, a cry can
be heard as another of the rhino-lizards comes out of the
vegetation and commences to tear into the closest dead one.

Miko glances back toward the feasting
creature and shudders. “What are we going to do now?” he asks.

“First of all, we need to find Jiron and
make sure he’s okay,” James tells him.

“But you’re barely able to walk,” he
replies.

James pauses as he glances to Miko. “Be that
as it may, I can’t let this stop me from helping a friend. I may
not be able to walk well, but I am still a force to be reckoned
with.” Turning away, he continues down the beach.

After walking beside him in silence for
several minutes, Miko says, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know, we just need to find him,” James
reassures him.

They continue down the beach for another
half an hour when they come across two sticks stuck in the stand
with shells and a skull hanging from a rope tied between them.

“What is that?” Miko asks.

Coming closer, James can tell it was put
here by someone. The primitiveness of it makes him think of a
‘totem’. “It was probably placed here by locals to warn trespassers
to keep out,” he tells him.

“Maybe we should too,” he says.

“I would if Jiron wasn’t up there,
somewhere,” he says, pointing further up the beach.

“He might be okay now,” Miko says hopefully.
“He is a good fighter.”

Nodding, James replies, “You may be right.
Let’s find a pool and I’ll try to locate him again.”

They move a little inland, away from the
pounding surf but not within the vegetation which may hide a
rhino-lizard. Looking around they locate a pool that’s shielded
from the wind whipping in off the water, so remains fairly
flat.

James settles down around it as Miko joins
him. Concentrating on Jiron, he watches as the image begins to
shift and then suddenly they see Jiron, strapped to a pole as it’s
being carried by two of the natives. He widens the image and they
see six others carrying spears, traveling with the ones carrying
Jiron.

Letting the image go, he turns to Miko and
says, “I don’t think he’s okay.”

“No, it didn’t look like it,” he replies.
“How are we to get him free?”

“Won’t know that until we get there,” he
tells him. Leaning upon his walking stick, he gets back to his feet
and then returns to the beach. Continuing down their original
course, they don’t travel very much further before they come across
a well trodden path extending into the swamp area. James pauses
before it as he contemplates what to do. He glances to Miko and
shrugs, before turning to follow the path.

After moving several hundred feet deeper
into the swamp, the air begins to smell foul. The stench of decay
and gaseous fumes permeates the air. “What is that foul odor?” Miko
says, holding his nose.

“Some areas, like swamps, give off odors due
to stagnant water and other rotting decay,” replies James. “Though
I’m no expert on these sorts of things, just something I’d read
once.”

The further they go into the swamp, the
thicker the swarms of mosquitoes become. Miko is becoming quite
slap happy as he continuously kills bugs that land on him. For
every one he kills, it seems another dozen or more take its place.
The fact that he’s bare from the waist up makes it even worse.
“This is unbearable,” he says after killing his hundredth mosquito.
His back has dozens of raised bumps from where they’ve gotten to
him.

“I know,” agrees James as he kills another
one. “Let’s stop for a second.”

He tries to remember the shows he’d seen on
the Discovery Channel about bugs and attempts to come up with a
spell to help keep them at bay. He formulates his thoughts before
releasing the magic and then suddenly, a cool mist settles about
their exposed skin. It takes only a second before the smell hits,
the most god-awful smell James has ever come across.

Miko begins gagging and tries to move his
head to get away from the smell, but it’s all over them. “What did
you do?” he gasps, trying to breathe without smelling which is nigh
on impossible.

“Tried to keep the bugs off us,” replies
James, eyes beginning to water from the stench.

Miko quickly realizes that whatever the foul
smelling mist may be doing to his senses, it is in fact keeping the
bugs away.. No more of those pesky mosquitoes are landing on him,
or even coming close for that matter.

“It worked,” James exclaims in satisfaction.
“I’d rather have stink than bites, wouldn’t you?” he asks.

“If it just wasn’t so bad,” Miko begins, but
then nods his head in agreement. “Next time, try to put some
perfume in it, okay?” The rain had by this time all but slacked off
and doesn’t seem to be washing the pungent stuff off of them.

“Okay,” agrees James as they once again
start following the trail deeper into the swamp. Further along,
they come across the skeletal remains of one of the rhino-lizards
they’d run into earlier. It’s half sunk in the water, lying next to
the trail. The top half of the animal, the part not in the water
still has rotting, decaying flesh attached to the bones. The
section within the water looks to have been picked clean.

Miko eyes the carcass as they pass and
observes small fish swimming in and around the bones. Not paying
attention to where he’s putting his feet, he accidentally steps off
the trail and into the water.

Suddenly a flurry of activity surrounds his
boot as the water begins to churn. Pulling his boot out of the
water quickly, he finds three of the small fish are attached to his
boot. Appalled, he rubs his boot along the ground, and quickly
scrapes them off before running to catch up with James. This time
he’s paying much closer attention to where he places his feet.

From up ahead, they hear the sound someone
coming down the trail toward them. James begins to leave the path
and enter the water in order to hide in a copse of trees when Miko
grabs him by the arm and shakes his head vehemently. Pointing to
the small fish swimming there in the water, he warns him quietly
“They’ll eat you alive!”

Nodding his head, James turns around and
quickly leads them back down the trail to a group of trees they
passed just moments earlier. Moving carefully off the trail and
making sure not to step into the water, they hide amidst the trees
as they wait for whoever is approaching.

A group of four warriors appear out of the
swamp as they come their way down the trail. Each is carrying a
lethal looking spear as well as wearing a necklace of bones, one of
which looks to contain a human ear as well as the bones. They hold
very still as the natives come closer.