TST (24 page)

Azerick treated the debilitating wounds with his scant supply of healing potions. The rest he used raw ground herbs to make a poultice to deaden the pain, prevent infection, and speed healing. They posted guards at the three tunnel entrances leading into this particular chamber.

Zeb sidled up next to the young sorcerer as he sat with his back against the clammy cavern wall. “How long do you think they are going to let us rest before they hit us again?”

Azerick answered without opening his eyes. “To be honest I’m surprised they have waited this long. If we get a full rotation of sleep it will be a miracle,” he answered.

Azerick knew better than to believe in miracles and rightfully so. Barely more than three hours passed before the twang of firing crossbows and the shouts of men and gnomes woke him. He jumped to his feet with everyone else as the clanging of metal on metal resounded throughout the cavern.

“Toron, take most of the men and defend the forward tunnel, I’ll handle the rear,” the sorcerer instructed.

Azerick followed the sounds of battle to the tunnel they had traveled down a few hours before. One man was down with a quarrel through his chest while four others showed bloody wounds but were still battling furiously against twice their numbers in gnomes. Azerick sent missile after brilliant missile streaking into the ranks of cavern gnomes until his spells forced them back or killed them.

“You men fall back, do not pursue them,” Azerick ordered.

As the wounded humans slowly retreated, the tenacious cavern gnomes regrouped and renewed their assault. As the short, sinewy creatures charged forth with a cry of anger, Azerick wove another spell. Being in a world surrounded by stone had its advantages. He directed his stone spikes to sprout from not only the floor but the walls as well. Stone spears slammed into the forward ranks of the attacking gnomes, skewering several of them and completely blocking the passage for the ones behind them.

Azerick watched as a solitary gnome stepped forward and raised a fist-sized gem over his head. Balor came running up behind him as the gnome glared at the sorcerer and spoke an incomprehensible stream of words. The stone spikes that Azerick had raised suddenly crumbled to dust as the gem flared brightly.

“Azerick, the gnomes have retreated up front. One man is dead and another has a bolt in his gut. Zeb wants to know what you want to do now,” Balor reported hurriedly.

“Get the bolt out of the man and have him drink this,” Azerick said as he handed the sailor a small metal vial. “Then get everyone moving as fast as you can, I do not like the looks of this.”

Azerick expected the cavern gnomes to charge the instant the magic-wielding gnome cleared his spikes from the passage but they stayed back as the strange gnome raised his gem once more. He uttered another stream of strange but obviously magical words and the ground began to tremble beneath Azerick’s feet.

“Go! Tell them to run as fast as they can!” Azerick ordered Balor and the rest of the men that stood with him.

Balor and the others ran back to the rest of the group with a one last look at the sorcerer and yelled for everyone to get moving. Balor reached the wounded man and saw that a blood soaked wad of cloth had replaced the bolt in his stomach. He popped the cork and emptied the contents into the stricken man’s mouth. The potion stopped his bleeding almost immediately. His shipmates then helped him to his feet and carried him along.

As the gnome’s gem flared and the rock trembled, three mounds of earth started rising in front of Azerick. The mounds quickly began to take shape. The tops of the mounds formed a rough approximation of a human-like head, thick arms sprouted from the sides, and legs formed beneath them. The creatures were so large that they had to stoop to fit into the passageway but Azerick doubted that would hinder their ability to crush him to a pulp one bit.

He released a powerful bolt of lightning into the earth elementals. Chips of sharp stone flew off the creatures and blackened scorch marks seared across their wide chests. The stone juggernauts ignored the trifling damage and rumbled towards him, causing the ground to vibrate under his feet with each step. The sorcerer sent a flight of magic missiles into the lead elemental followed by a jet of intense flame. More stone flecks flew off the stone titan and blackened its surface but failed to slow it down in the least.

Azerick made one last desperate attempt to slow the creatures down. He erected another barrier of stone spikes extending directly in front of him to several yards down the halls. The sharp monolithic shards scored tracks along the elementals’ stone bodies but caused negligible damage. With single-minded determination, they swung their huge fists and feet, snapping and battering their way through the granite spears as if they were no more than dry corn stalks.

Azerick ducked as the lead elemental swung its maul-like fist at his head. Sharp stone flecks peppered the side of Azerick’s face and neck as the elemental’s massive fist crashed into the cavern wall. He heard the whistling and caught a glimpse of steel as it whisked past the top of his head. With a roar of defiance, Toron cleaved a huge gouge of stone out of the elemental where its shoulder and neck joined.

If the massive attack bothered the extra-planer creature in the least, it did not show. It silently swung its other huge fist at the big minotaur that had dared to interrupt its assigned task. Toron brought his axe back around in another powerful blow in the opposite direction. Steel met stone in a colossal impact that set Azerick’s ears to ringing. Finely honed steel won out against the unnatural stone and severed the arm of the elemental just below the elbow.

Azerick was forced to roll out of the way to avoid being pummeled by the hundred-pound chunk of arm that narrowly missed crushing his head. “Toron, let’s go! We need to catch the others.”

The big, stubborn minotaur was loathe to flee combat but he knew there was discretion in valor and followed the sorcerer’s instructions. He leapt back as the elemental swung its remaining arm at him, intent on killing these weak creatures of flesh. Azerick and Toron ran back in the direction in which the rest of their band had fled.

“How far ahead are they?” Azerick asked the minotaur who puffed in deep breaths behind him.

“A few hundred yards at best given the speed they were moving. They have some wounded that will force them to a slower pace,” Toron’s deep voice answered.

Within minutes, Azerick and Toron spotted the light of the rear element just ahead of them. Azerick shouted out a greeting before the guards filled them with crossbow bolts in a case of mistaken identity.

“Where is Zeb?” Azerick asked one of the rear guardsmen.

“He’s leading the column up front,” one of them answered with a jerk of his thumb.

“Go find him,” Toron rumbled. “I will stay back here and help guard our rear.”

Azerick had a hard time reading the expression set in Toron’s non-human face but the glint in his eyes spoke volumes. “Don’t do anything foolish, Toron; we still have need of you.”

The old minotaur’s grey muzzle curled up into a grin revealing a row of sharp teeth. “Foolishness is in the eye of the beholder.”

Azerick could not order him to do anything, but he hoped the minotaur would not sacrifice himself needlessly. He had grown somewhat fond of the big creature in the short amount of time he had known him. Azerick raced up to the front of the column of fleeing humans and found Zeb breathing heavily but pressing steadily onward.

“Glad to see you made it back, lad. What the boys told me they saw before you ordered them off had me a bit worried.”

“What I saw before I left still has me worried,” came the sorcerer’s serious reply.

Zeb grimaced at the dire words. “So what’s our situation look like now?”

“Not good. The gnomes brought in some kind of spell caster that has some rather potent earth magic. He summoned three earth elementals, which is a feat I could not hope to achieve. Worse yet I have nothing in my spell inventory that I can think of that will cause them any serious harm,” Azerick answered.

“So are they indestructible or what?”

“No, not quite. I think Toron could chip one into rubble with that axe of his, maybe two in his prime, but not all three.”

“Can we outrun them?”

“For a time. They don’t seem that fast but they are tireless. I think the gnomes will be content to let the elementals hound us until we exhaust ourselves then sweep in when we are at our weakest,” came the sorcerer’s fatalistic answer.

“Do you have a plan?” Zeb asked.

“Not at the moment. Just keep moving and hope something presents itself,” he replied.

They increased their pace now that Azerick and Toron had caught back up to them for as long as they could, but fatigue and their own wounded men soon forced them to slow down. Azerick made his way to the rear of the column to check on the rearguard and to see if their enemies were catching up to them.

“Where is Toron,” Azerick asked Balor when he failed to see the minotaur.

“He keeps stopping whenever the tunnel gets narrower. Doesn’t say why, just tells us not to worry about him and to keep going,” Balor replied.

Azerick started to head down the tunnel after Toron when he heard footsteps and heavy breathing coming at him. Azerick readied a spell but let the energy dissipate when he saw the dark shape of the unsymmetrical horns on top the large shadowy figure. Toron grinned brightly when he saw Azerick standing in the circle of light that his enchanted stone threw off.

“Toron, what are you doing back here?”

The grey muzzle grinned even wider. “Slowing those giant dirt clods down a bit to buy you all more time,” came his glib reply. “Whenever the tunnel narrows enough that I know it will allow only one of those creatures through and restrict its movement, I wait and chip off a few more chunks of it. I left one of them crawling on the ground after I took its leg off. Same one that lost its arm to my axe earlier as a matter of fact. I think we can call that one out of the fight unless that gnome can put it back together.”

Azerick saw Toron try to stifle a gasp of pain when he breathed in. “Are you injured?”

“The downed creature’s friend wasn’t too happy and paid me back a bit is all. Caught me squarely in the ribs. I’ve lived through worse,” he assured the sorcerer.

Azerick wondered how old he had been when he had received those wounds but pushed the thought out of his head. “How much time do you think you have bought us?”

“We were gaining ground on them for a while and I managed to increase that lead with my harrying, but we’ve been slowing down for a while now. I would say we are only slightly further ahead of them than we were when we first fought them. I give us an hour at best if we do not slow down any farther.”

Azerick doubted the group’s ability to maintain even this somewhat sedate pace for much longer. If something did not present itself soon to give them some sort of relief, they were in serious trouble.

“Save your energy for a last stand. Your axe will serve us a lot better in a concerted fight than your slowing actions are likely to bring us at this point,” Azerick advised.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Toron sighed as he ran a thumb over the notched and blunted edge of his axe.

“If we get out of this we all owe you our lives, Toron. I’m glad you came with us,” Azerick told the minotaur sincerely.

“It is I who owe you for giving me the chance to live and die like a true warrior. I thought I was going to die a feeble old man,” he said resolutely.

“You may yet still get the chance,” Azerick replied.

Toron glared down at the sorcerer. “That’s a hell of a thing to say!”

Azerick threw the old minotaur a wink, clapped him on his broad, hairy shoulder, and ran back to the front of the group.

“Any changes up here, Zeb?”

“It looks like we’re coming up to another large chamber. Just pray that nobody is waiting for us inside.”