The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (3 page)

“Gods in paradise, they’re everywhere,” Malek said softly with astonishment.

“Wizard, I hope you got a spell to fly us all over the ridge or a flying carpet in that bag of yours,” Borik said anxiously.

Azerick shook his head. “I have nothing that will span that distance. I have a gate spell that allows us to step across a wide expanse but it reaches only three or four hundred yards at best. It is several times that distance to the ridge.”

“Why aren’t they trying to eat us right now?” Maude asked.

“The fortress was built on bedrock of sandstone. The sand is only a few inches deep here. It looks like the sandworms cannot or will not come all the way out of the sand,” Azerick replied.

“So how do we get out of here?” Borik demanded.

“I think that is the purpose,” Azerick explained. “The helm was not difficult to get to; it did not need to be since the thief was never going to leave here alive. That pulse we felt probably woke the creatures who act as natural guardians. It is quite ingenious and effective.”

“Well I’m so glad you’re impressed with the method of our death, wizard. I would sure hate to think we were going to die in some boring fashion like old age in our own beds,” Borik complained bitterly. “Got another icebeer?”

Azerick pulled out a skin of beer, cups, and small sticks he had collected for the task and froze everyone an icebeer. The sorcerer then sat down on a block of stone, nibbling his own icebeer, and wracked his brain for a solution to their current problem.

Maude could tell that despite appearances, the wizard was deep in thought so she followed his example and sat down as well. She only hoped his ponderings were focused on getting them out of here. If it were Tarth, the gods only knew what would be going through his mind at a moment like this. Then again, even the gods probably feared to tread in the elf’s mind for fear of going mad themselves. Thinking of her lost friend brought a new wave of despondency but she let it come, having no pressing need to shove it aside at the moment.

Azerick finished his frozen treat and stood up. He took small steps forward, shoving the tip of his staff into the sand. Even that slight vibration set the nearest sandworms into motion a few yards away. He drew a long line with the staff where he felt the bedrock end. He then grabbed his staff by the end and rhythmically thumped the ground with the arcanum ball.

Almost immediately, several sandworms struck with the speed and aggression of barracuda. One of the creatures bit down on the end of the staff, swallowing the gleaming orb at the end like a fish on a lure. Azerick triggered one of the engraved runes on the staff, which briefly flared with a blue light, sending a powerful jolt of electricity through the arcanum sphere.

“Help me hold onto this!” Azerick shouted as the creature involuntarily clamped down and began thrashing about as the electricity coursed through its body.

Maude leapt up, grabbed the staff just above Azerick’s hands, and heaved back so that she was not stepping across the line. The frantic writhing immediately caught the interest of the other sandworms that began attacking their wounded and flailing brethren. Borik and Malek darted forward and used their weapons to hack at the sandworms that were intent on cannibalizing one of their own.

Maude and Azerick managed to land the beast largely intact. Azerick pulled his staff from the creature’s mouth, glad to find that it had not been damaged in any way, hunkered down, and took a close examination of the carcass.

The creature was well camouflaged for its surroundings. Its snout was cone-shaped and long thorns or thick hairs covered its body. Azerick could find no sign of eyes or ears. Using the knife he had taken off the Rook, Azerick cut one of the thorns from the sandworm’s hide. He set the small horn on a flat stone and pressed the sharp blade down upon it, cutting it in half. Azerick nodded thoughtfully when he found that the horn-like structure was hollow and filled with a fluid similar in consistency with lamp oil.

Azerick looked up at the others who were watching him intently. “It senses us by our vibrations through these protrusions. I imagine they are incredibly sensitive. No matter how softly we tried to walk, they would feel exactly where we were and devour us, and at the rate they can travel we would never outrun them.”

“So what do we do? Sit here until we starve?” Borik asked sourly.

Malek shook his head. “That could take a very long time. Azerick has enough food in that bag of his to feed an army and I have a prayer that will create water. We would die of old age before we starved.”

“Or die of boredom,” Borik muttered. “Does that prayer of yours make beer too?”

“Nope, just water.”

“Rather throw myself to the sandworms,” Borik muttered some more.

Azerick was not about to admit defeat just yet. There was a way out of this he was certain. He did not know a spell to get them across without touching the sand but he could make a minor change to a spell he knew. It was not like creating an entirely new spell, such would be impossible unless they were going to spend months sitting on this slab of rock, which they may end doing if he did not figure something out.

He had spent a great deal of time thinking about what Duncan had said about sorcery and rune carving, that the only limits was a caster’s imagination and ability to control the power they drew. Azerick had practiced altering some of the spells he already mastered with varying degrees of success. He simply needed to figure out which one might contain the solution to their dilemma.

“Could we make a bridge out of the stone blocks lying about?” Maude asked, looking at the toppled ruins.

“I don’t think so, Maude,” Borik answered. “Those stones weigh over a thousand pounds apiece. Without rollers and pulleys, it would be near impossible. Plus we would have to step onto the sand to place them unless we could roll them across the one just set down.”

“I might be able to make a bridge,” Azerick said suddenly.

“You got a hundred or so dwarven bridge builders in that bag too?” Borik asked sardonically.

“No, but I have a spell that will create a series of stone spikes to jut up from the ground,” Azerick started to explain.

“I hate to picture what would happen if one of us slipped off and landed on the tip,” Borik interrupted. “Frozen beer on a stick is delicious. Dwarf on a stick, not so much.”

“I think I can modify the spell to make cylindrical columns instead of tapering to an impaling point,” Azerick continued. “If I have them jut straight up and tightly packed together I should be able to create a walkway a few feet above the sand. Keep a weapon handy in case these worms try and strike at you though.”

“Sounds better than the plan I came up with,” Maude said.

“What plan was that?” Malek asked.

“Don’t give Borik a drink for a few hours and then throw a wineskin out as far we can. When he goes running after it, drawing away all the sandworms, we run the other direction.”

“Oh, hardy har har. You’re about as funny as you are feminine,” Borik retorted.

Maude glared back at him. “On second thought, save the wineskin and just throw the dwarf.”

Azerick was unsure how far away he could cast his stone spike spell and how long he could make a single path. He reexamined the changes he would have to make to the spell and stood just behind the line he had drawn marking the end of the bedrock. He bent his focus to the Source and drew upon its seemingly limitless power. A hundred yards away, dozens of stone cylinders, each about a foot cross, sprouted out of the sand like a multitude of tree stumps about four feet tall.

“Hate to tell you this, wizard, but that’s a mighty long jump for someone whose legs are barely two feet long,” Borik informed him.

“If I tried to make a solid path we would be lucky if I could span half the distance we need to go, and that is greatly exaggerating my ability,” Azerick explained.

Azerick cast another spell and opened a magical gate between them and the end of the raised stone path.

“Be careful when you step through; it causes some disorientation for a moment. Walk straight through and do not step to either side.”

Maude took a deep breath and walked through the portal. She immediately stepped out onto the narrow ledge and felt the ground swaying and spinning under her feet. The warrior forced herself not to try and compensate for the dizzying effects of the long step. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and carefully took a few tiny steps forward.

When she opened her eyes, she felt more stable and turned just in time to catch Malek as he stepped through and almost tumbled over the edge. Arms frantically wind milling, Malek breathed a sigh of relief when Maude grabbed the end of his war hammer and pulled him up straight.

Borik warily stared at the shimmering rip in the air before him, not at all trusting such a mode of travel. “Maybe you could all go back and make, I don’t know, a flying boat or something and come back to pick me up. Just leave me the beer. I can eat one of them sandworms if I get hungry.”

“It is perfectly safe, Borik. Maude and Malek are both on the other side ready to catch you if you fall. I have used it several times. Trust me, it’s safe.”

“What if it closes before I get all the way through and half my leg stays here and the rest of me is way over there?”

Azerick reached into his bag and pulled out a wineskin. “Do you know what this is, Borik? This is the last of our beer,” Azerick said before the dwarf could answer and promptly threw it through the portal where it slapped onto the narrow stone bridge.

“Hey, what’d ya go and do that for!” Borik shouted as he darted forward, reaching for the skin.

“Welcome across,” Malek said as the dwarf stepped onto the path and scooped up the thrown wineskin. “How is your balance?”

“Eh? Oh fine, I got a low center of gravity,” Borik replied and showed off by hopping from one foot to the other while draining the wineskin.

Azerick stepped through with little problem, being somewhat used to the aftereffects. The portal snapped shut as soon as Azerick crossed and they all walked single file towards the far end of the path. Maude had to lead since there was no room for anyone to get past.

Azerick repeated both spells once more. A couple of the more aggressive sandworms tried to snap at the adventurers as they stepped upon the bridge but they were mostly out of their striking range. Two of them got some deep wounds for their efforts thanks to Maude’s sword and Borik’s axe. The wounded creatures were immediately attacked and devoured by their cannibalistic brethren.

Before they were halfway to the safety of the rocks, Azerick could no longer cast his stone spike and dimensional gate spell and was forced to tap into the power stored in his staff. If he had not been wearing the ring that Xornan had given him to fight in the arena, he would never have been able to make it across even with his staff.

Azerick stepped through the gate and onto the path about five hundred yards from the low ridge of stone.

“We have a problem,” Azerick said as he stepped through. “I don’t think I can cast both a stone spike spell and a dimension gate, and neither will get us all the way to the rocks by itself.”

“How short will we be?” Maude asked.

“My gate will get us the farthest so, a hundred yards give or take.”

“We’ll never make it. Those things are on us almost the second we step through,” Malek pointed out.

“Our only hope is to draw them off and try to make the run before they turn around and can catch us,” Azerick told them.

“Can you draw them off?” Maude asked.

“I think so. I should be able to use the runes in the staff to crate a racket and strike the ground with rather significant force. It should be sufficient to get their attention.”

“I would like to once more draw everyone’s attention to my short legs,” Borik said. “Dwarves are many things but being fleet of foot is not one of them.”

Maude smiled wryly at the dwarf. “Don’t worry, Borik, Malek and I will make sure you keep up. Go ahead and cast your spells, Azerick.”

Azerick pushed up his sleeves, faced the opposite direction from their route of travel, and triggered several runes on his staff. About three hundred yards away, the minute moister in the air froze solid, creating balls of ice the size of melons which plummeted from the sky and slammed into the ground sending sprays of sand several feet into the air. By the suddenly shifting sands, the party could see that the sandworms were all racing towards the sound of the disturbance. Sharp cries of pain screeched from dozens, possibly scores of mouths as the creatures were pummeled by the strikes.

Azerick turned towards the distant ridgeline and spent the last of his and the staff’s power casting a gate spell. Maude, Malek, and Borik sprinted through the instant the gate snapped open and Azerick followed closely behind. Having the hundred-foot-tall ridge suddenly appear three hundred yards closer in a fraction of a second was by far the most disorienting experience they had experienced thus far. Even Borik staggered as his short legs pumped up and down as fast as he could make them go.

Maude and Malek each grabbed one of the dwarf’s thick wrists and half carried him across the sand suspended between them like a child holding the hands of its parents. Azerick glanced behind him just as the last of the ice strikes crashed down. The moment the frozen barrage ceased, the sandworms sped towards the fleeing humans with relentless abandon.

“Pick up the pace, people!” Azerick shouted.

Azerick pulled out a scroll, read it on the fly, and released a searing bolt of lightning directly into the path of the pursuing worms. The electrical bolt blasted into the leading ranks of monsters closest to the surface. Those behind immediately tore into the wounded, drawn by their thrashing and screeches of pain. Still more continued their dogged pursuit but suffered deep gashes from the shards of glass the lightning created when it struck the sand. The uninjured sandworms ripped into those that had the bad luck of being cut by the glass shards.

The sandworms were right on his heels and struck with frightening speed. Strong hands grabbed him and pulled him up onto the rocks at the same time he swung his staff at one of the lunging beast. The sorcerer turned around and found himself standing between Maude and Malek several feet up the side of the ridge that surrounded the ancient fortress.