Refuge: Kurt's Quest (23 page)

[And it will risk much if the others get to the
artifacts before we do.  No, we must forge ahead, and blast through this threat
as well.]

Kurt thought a moment about how he wanted to
approach this unknown threat.  He drew upon his experience as a Panzer
Grenadier officer in one of the deadliest conflicts his people had ever engaged
in. 
Until we started dropping nukes on each other
, he thought, shaking
his head. 
But we need intelligence on this opponent before we go sticking
our head in a trap.  And the best way to get intelligence is to fight for it.
 
He recalled how the armored recon troops had done just that on every front, and
had done such a good job of it that the Americans had copied the technique for
their armored formations in the latter half of the war.  And well beyond it,
with their Armored Cavalry Regiments.

[Jackie.  Wait where you are.  I will join you
with Garios, and you and I will prepare a recon in force, so that the others
will know how to approach, and how to fight.]

He looked over at the Dwarf.  “Do you have some
spells that will help us in a fight against greater undead?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then get them ready.  I know it won’t help
Jackie or myself, and our weapons are already as powerful as they can be.” 
Especially
my sword
, he thought, catching an answering thought from the blade that
told him it would be ready to fight these, its primary enemies on any plane. 
“You can use your magic to get the others ready for battle, and yourself. 
Because when we send the signal to advance, we will need all of you to come and
meet up with us as we retreat, lest we are overwhelmed and overrun.”

The Priest nodded, still not looking happy at the
prospect of battling what to him were the most frightful forms of undead.

Possibly the most frightful forms
, thought Kurt with a
shrug.  
They could just turn out to be a bunch of zombies, and the only
thing we have to worry about is not gagging on the stench as we chop them to
grotesque bits. 
He looked ahead, then through the senses of the wolf, who
had gone to ground and was observing through his nose and ears. 
Of course,
the smart money would be to not bet against the Priest.

*     *     *

It seemed as if they had fought through
kilometers of tunnels, the tentacles striking from the darkness every step of
the way.  He had lost ten more men, including a mage and a priest, though his
force had severely damaged at least six of the tentacles. 
But we don’t know
if each is a separate creature, or part of one big one.  Or maybe something in
between.
  Just as they didn’t know if all of the tentacles that attacked
were new appendages.  In fact, judging by the hack marks and a bolt in one the
things, he bet it had been one they had injured just a half kilometers back.

“Any idea what it is yet?” he asked Millistara,
who had more knowledge of the monstrous than the rest of the party combined.

“Not a clue,” said the Priest, his own eyes in
constant motion.  “It’s like nothing out of any bestiary I have ever seen.  The
closest I can think of is a kraken.  But we are too far from the water.  Or are
we?”  He glanced over his shoulder nervously as he spoke the last words.

And it bothers our redoubtable Priest as much as
any of us
,
thought the Marshal.  And why not, since a heavy squeeze of that tentacle could
kill the powerful Priest just as easily as any other in their party.

Yelling erupted from behind them, and the
Marshal turned to see three men, two with spears, one with only a sword,
squaring off against another tentacle.  The tip was only a couple of
centimeters in width, but by five meters back it had expanded to almost a half
meter across.  That was about all they had ever seen of the creature(s), and
there was no telling how far the appendage extended before it his body, if
there was one.

“Out of way,” roared Krug, moving swiftly to
the action in a motion that seemed graceful for an Ogre.  But he had been
trained to fight in the Arena by some of the greatest Ellala masters, in order
to increase his entertainment value and worth.

The Ogre shouldered aside the swordsman, then
swung the bastard sword in his left hand into the tentacle about a half meter
back. The blade cut through the rubbery flesh and sent the still wriggling tip
flying out into the tunnel.  As soon as he completed the blow, the Gladiator
took two steps forward and attacked a thicker part of the appendage, slicing
completely through it as well with his right hand sword.  He took two more long
steps and attacked again, severing more of the tentacle from its base.  A
blackish ichor spurted from the remainder and the tentacle withdrew into the
tunnel at a rapid pace.  Krug opened his mouth to shout at it when another
tentacle shot out of the tunnel and past the Ogre, obviously going for a grab.

Krug spun on his feet and brought both swords
down in an overhand strike onto the almost meter thick appendage.  The blades
sliced through, and ten meters of tentacle fell flopping to the cavern floor. 
There was a loud roar, and the ground shook underneath, while the tentacle, or
what remained of it, flew back into the tunnel.

“I would say that is one very large creature,”
said the Death Priest.  “And our Gladiator has made it very angry.”

“And I mean to find it and kill it,” said the
Marshal, motioning for his mages to come to him.  “Let’s see it eat some
fireballs.”  He closed his eyes for a moment and contacted his Master
Assassin.  [Have you found anything yet?]

[Not sure, but we have entered a large cavern
than has water at the bottom,] sent Glassini, projecting the image of the space
back over the link.  [A lot of very deep water, from what it looks like.  It…]

The last image the Marshal saw was an enormous
bloated body coming up from that water, along with a score of waving
tentacles.  And then the mind link went dead.  He hoped his assassins hadn’t
been killed by the thing, and doubted that it would get all of them, given
their skill set.

“Forward,” he yelled to the rest of his party. 
“Spearmen lead.  Bowmen behind them.  Mages, with me, and prepare your most
powerful fire based spells.  Priests, right behind the mages, in case we need
some defensive spells.”

A score of Ellala with spears obediently lined
up and ran in formation down the tunnel toward the cavern that the Marshal had
seen through the eyes of the assassins.  Krug ran with them, his longer strides
allowing him to keep up with the faster running Ellala.

The Marshal almost called the Ogre back.  His
plan was for the spearmen to keep the tentacles at bay, while the archers fired
their shafts into the body of the beast.  Krug might disrupt the execution. 
But, then again, the Ogre had proven very adept at fighting the appendages of
this monster, so he let the Ogre run on.

He heard the cavern well before he saw it. 
Roars that sounded like they came from several creatures of different types,
shouts, even a scream or two.  He knew there was a fight going on, but his eyes
were not prepared for the sight.

The cavern was the first thing he noticed, a
large space, at least a hundred meters across, a raised pathway running around
the right to a tunnel on the opposite side.  The wide ledge ahead fell at a
cliff that led thirty meters down to what looked like a cold, deep pool.  The
Ellala spearmen were trying to keep over a score of tentacles at bay, and
beyond them a huge, bulbous head that looked like nothing he had ever seen, or
ever heard of.  It was reminiscent of a Kraken, but not the same.  Two score
eyes looked down from the top of the head, while two larger orbs stared to the
side of the creature, and, instead of the parrot like beak of a Kraken, it had
a wide, round mouth filled with outward pointing, grasping teeth.  There was
the hint of more dentition within that mouth, much more.  One tentacle was lifting
an Ellala toward that mouth, one that was dressed in the black garb of an
assassin, though he could not tell which one.  The Ellala was struggling and
screaming, a high pitched sound that cut above all the other noise.

“Can you save him?” yelled a female voice to
his right, followed moments later by the Master Assassin herself.

The Marshal stared at her for a moment before
his gaze went back to the creature.  “I don’t see how,” he said, just before
the creature popped the assassin into its mouth and the outward pointed teeth
pierced the man’s body in multiple places.

Glassini stiffened as the man who was her
subordinate was eaten alive.  “Kabril was my lover,” she said, turning tear
streaked eyes toward the Marshal that radiated her hate and anger.

And now you have another reason to kill me?
thought the Marshal,
knowing that there was nothing he could have done to stop the man’s death. 
Even killing the creature with fire would not have saved the elf.

“Not your fault,” said the Master Assassin in a
hissing voice.  “Not my fault either.”

Ellisandra turned his attention back to the
monster, which had grabbed another Ellala, this one a Priest, and was looking
to supplement its diet once again. 
How in the hells does it get enough food
down here?  It must need a great deal, unless it hibernates most of the time.

Krug roared again, the sound he had thought was
another monster back in the tunnel.  He swung his left hand blade and cut
completely through the tentacle that was holding the Ellala Priest, dropping
man and appendage the distance to the water, where they both sank out of sight. 
With a turn he swung with the right, and cut through another tentacle.  Three
more came at him, and with rapid strikes he damaged every one of the trio.  The
rest of the tentacles, coming in on the attack, avoided him like the threshing
machine he was.

“We’re ready, my Lord,” said the Chief Mage,
coming up to his side with his four masters slightly behind, six of the
journeymen to their right.

“Then hit it with fire, you fools,” yelled the
Marshal, glaring at the man, grabbing him by the robe and pulling him close. 
“While you stand there doing nothing, it can kill more of my men.”

The Chief gave a head nod of agreement, his
eyes flashing both anger and fear.  He straightened his robe on his body and
looked to his fellows, then raised his hands in the air and started the chant
that would unleash hell on the monster.  The other mages followed suit, and
soon the air around their hands was rippling with heat.

At that moment a tentacle struck at them,
shying away from the heat being generated by the masters and sweeping into the
half dozen lesser mages, pulling them all from the cliff in a chorus of
screams.  A second tentacle came down and crushed a trio of priests, and just
like that the Marshal had lost almost half his magic users, and the power that
went with them.

The Marshal moved nervously back, sweat rolling
down his face.  Small red balls appeared between the five sets of hands.  With
a shout the mages all threw their right hands forward, pointed at the huge head
of the creature.  The bright red balls shot forward, growing as they went,
until five meter wide spheres of energy struck the creature.

The fireball thrown by the Chief may have been
a bit more powerful than the others.  But all exploded with what seemed to be
equal fury, sending a blast of flame over the head (body?) of the creature.

The Marshal held his breath as he waited for
the flame to subside and show him their effect.  It took several seconds, and
it was obvious that the creature was sorely hurt.  All of its eyes, what were
left of them, were whitened from burns.  The larger peripheral eyes were also
blinded.  The creature’s mouth was open in a soundless cry of agony.  At that
moment the limbs went into a frenzy of activity, lashing every which way. 
There was no sight to direct them, but then they hadn’t needed sight to find
their victims in the tunnels.

One tentacle swept into the spearmen, ignoring
the pinpricks of their weapons.  Two of the men were knocked from the ledge to
fall to the water below.  Another tentacle came down heavily on one of the mages,
a master, crushing the Ellala to the rock of the ledge, killing him instantly. 
Another of the mages pointed a finger at the tentacle and a bright blue bolt jumped
from his arm to the creature's appendage.  The smell of burning flesh was
strong from the limb, and it jerked back in spasming agony.

A second tentacle came in, aiming for the
Marshal, who prepared his blade to attack it before it could sweep him away. 
As the tentacle swept in, the Death Priest pointed his right hand at it and
shouted a thundering word.  Black energy flew from his hand into the tentacle,
then reversed course and returned to the Priest.  The tentacle shriveled and
fell as a dead appendage to the floor, then slid over and down.

“Hit it again,” yelled the Chief Mage.  He and
the three remaining mages raised their hands in the air again and repeated
their spells, throwing four more balls of flaming energy into the body of the
beast.  Again the creature was covered in flames for a few seconds.  The flames
cleared, and this time the damage to the skin of the creature was even more
apparent.  Smoke was rising from the body, which was covered in lesions that in
some cases reached deep into the skin to the muscle underneath.