Image credits (in order of appearance): Victoria Blotta, Petr Joura
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A roar resounded through the tunnel as Razos ran. Sweat drenched his leathers, his breastplate felt like a blanket of lead, and his body burned with pain. Still, he did not stop. He could not stop.
A second roar followed the first, and Razos pushed himself to run faster. The rocky ground would have shredded leather boots and fleshy feet, but Razos’s black, cloven hooves crashed down upon it with impunity, propelled onward by a body that had been strengthened from years of training and fighting.
Risking a glance over his shoulder, Razos, due to the infravision that all glayruks had, saw that he was still being followed by a hulking, toad-like beast that was covered in slime and had a lower half that looked like a giant spider. The abomination’s sleek, black legs, which were like larger versions of the four that protruded from Razos’s back and shoulders, carried it forward with far more momentum than its bulk would have suggested.
And it was either angry or hungry.
Probably both.
Razos had seen many of the predators that prowled Lurxaak’s underworld, but he had never seen anything like the beast that was currently chasing him. He had tried to dispatch it with his magic, but every spell he had cast had simply sloughed off. Normally, he would have then resorted to his axe, but between the thickness of the beast’s hide and the sharpness of its claws and teeth, Razos had had no desire to get close to it. Therefore, his only option had been to run.
The tunnel ahead became a fork, and Razos immediately ran toward the left-hand path. Not only was it the smaller of the two tunnels, glayruk wisdom also dictated that following the left-hand path brought about the best outcomes.
Razos certainly hoped that it would be true in this instance. He heard another roar, though he was thankful that it was more distant than the last two had been. Part of him dared to hope that the beast would get tired of chasing him, but such good fortune was rarely the case in the unforgiving underworld known as Lurxaak.
Using his spider legs to scale the tunnel wall up to the ceiling, Razos pressed himself up against it and cautiously continued further on. His dark, ruddy skin allowed him to blend in with the surrounding rock while the crooked horns upon his head could easily be mistaken for small stalactites. To complete his ruse, Razos dropped his backpack and his staff, which was a length of gnarled bone crowned by a ruby. He doubted that the beast would be interested in such material possessions; the primary law of Lurxaak was to eat or be eaten.
And Razos Mephiston was determined to eat.
Another one of the beast’s roars heralded its appearance in the tunnel, and it stopped to survey the area. Each moment dragged on in measured silence; Razos counted his heartbeats, silently hoping that he would live to hear the next one each time.
For a moment, he thought that perhaps he should try to cast another spell; he had not yet expended all of his sorcerous power. He pushed the notion from his mind. It had been borne from desperation that he could not afford.
The beast’s roar of frustration came like the ringing of a victory bell, and Razos breathed a sigh of relief. His tenacity had allowed him to live to fight another cycle. Dropping down from the ceiling, he collected his possessions and continued down the tunnel. He moved at a cautious pace, keeping his staff ready as he drew his axe, an iron weapon with an arcane rune upon its head, from a loop on his belt.
He lurched into a stop and pressed himself up against the tunnel wall as he heard the shifting of rocks up ahead. The glayruk continued when nothing emerged. He briefly considered using sorcery to see if anything was being hidden from him, but he knew that if there was a predator lying in wait, he would be dead before he could finish the incantation.
He started moving again at the cautious pace he had set before. This part of Lurxaak was entirely unknown to him; he was far from the necropolis of Mephzaaryk that he and the other glayruks of Clan Mephiston called home, having been sent out on patrol to investigate rumors of an outpost being set up by Clan Azdolmon, with whom the Mephistons had warred against for millennia. Theirs was a continuation of the war between Asmodeus and Mephistopheles, despite having worked together to free themselves from the oppression of the Lords of Hell. Old hatreds died hard, and the Azdolmon had committed an act that Razos deemed unforgivable: they had killed his sister Zavari. As a result, Razos eagerly volunteered for missions that gave him the opportunity to kill Azdolmon glayruks, though he didn’t care much for the other Mephiston glayruks either.
That was why he had fled when a pack of the toad-spider creatures had ambushed his cohort, and Mephiston protocol dictated that his survival was a priority since he had learned the arts of sorcery. He knew that between the protocol and the favor of Hellfire Lord Calzethos, he would not be disciplined upon returning to Mephzaaryk. The only problem now was getting there.
The tunnel through which Razos currently traversed curved into the opening of a cavern. Clinging to the wall as he approached, he picked up the scent of fresh blood and the sound of tearing flesh. His spider legs allowed him to vaguely sense the tremors caused by the movements within the cavern.
It was definitely occupied.
Daring a glimpse inward, Razos saw two glayruks sitting against the wall. One was a female who was taller and more muscular than Razos, and she wore a red tabard that had the black inverted pentagram of Clan Azdolmon upon it. The other glayruk was the opposite: male, lanky, and limber. He wore black studded leather but bore nothing to indicate his clan. For most traveling glayruks, that was the best option.
Two full backpacks were lying between them while a bestial corpse was lying in front of them. It looked like a giant, bronze-scaled lizard with six legs, each of which ended in lethal claws. Three horns crowned the creature’s snout, and a pair of gossamer, fly-like wings lay flat against its back. Its tail ended in a long, thick, blade-like appendage.
The two glayruks in the cavern carved at the corpse with their weapons. The female employed a pair of putrid orange feyrferreus swords while the male dug in with a pair of serrated daggers that were for tearing rather than cutting. At that, he was succeeding. He and his companion ate the carved chunks of flesh raw; there were few things that the glayruk palette wouldn’t tolerate.
Suddenly, the Azdolmon glayruk stopped eating and stood up.
“We are being watched.” Her voice was deep and commanding, and she looked into the tunnel in which Razos stood.
He emerged only because he had to, brandishing his weapons and speaking an arcane word. The rune upon his axe’s head glowed bright blue for a fleeting moment as the weapon’s edge became caked with jagged rime.
The Azdolmon glayruk dropped into a fighting stance and crossed her swords. “You must be one of the Mephistons. Only they would be stupid enough to approach an Azdolmon warrior so brazenly. That doesn’t bother me though; my blades could use another bloodbath.
“You start it,” Razos growled back, “and I’ll finish it.”
“Stop!” The third glayruk interposed himself between Razos and the Azdolmon. “There’s no need for fighting.”
“Our deal does not include tolerating a Mephiston,” the Azdolmon glayruk said coldly.
“Perhaps not, but we could use a sorcerer where we’re going.”
“And where exactly is that?” Razos asked with the same frigidness that had been displayed by the Azdolmon glayruk.
The third glayruk gave a wide grin that revealed a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. “The Howling Depths of Malythor.”
“You are insane. That place is a myth.” Razos had heard of it before. While silence normally dominated the caverns and tunnels of the capricious underworld in which the glayruks lived, the Howling Depths of Malythor, which were rumored to be in the deepest, most remote caverns and tunnels, contained a hurricane within them. Legend held that it was caused by their raging patron, a god of storms who had been chained for all time as justice for crimes that had been long forgotten. Razos had never believed in the legends.
The third glayruk’s grin widened, and his beady eyes glowed with a ferventness rarely seen among his race. “I thought so too, but one of the caravans passing through the City of Thirteen had a weapon that had been taken from there: it was a hammer of purest silver with a head that was wreathed in lightning. Rumor has it that there are more like it. Many more. Can you imagine how much gold there is to be made off them?”
“You are from Clan Maamos, aren’t you?” Remaining neutral in the wars between the other clans, the glayruks of Clan Maamos, who were descended from the archdevil Mammon, focused their efforts on trade and diplomacy, though Razos knew from experience that they were willing to play both sides of a conflict if it suited them.
“What was your first clue?” the Maamosite asked.
Razos ignored the rhetorical question; Maamosites were also known for their silver tongues. “What’s in this venture for me?”
“A third of the treasure, of course.”
“I have no desire to see any weapons of Malythor fall into Mephiston possession,” the Azdolmon glayruk said. She had neither adjusted her stance nor lowered her weapons.
The Maamosite pulled a sizable ruby from one of his belt pouches and held it out toward the Azdolmon. “Perhaps you can be persuaded to turn a blind eye…”
Silence fell in between the three glayruks as the Azdolmon meticulously examined the ruby. Finally, she sheathed one of her blades and snatched the gem from the Maamosite’s hand. “Fine. It’s not like the Mephistons would be able to make any real use of them anyway.”
Razos grinned. “You may live long enough to regret that statement.”
“That’s enough,” the Maamosite said, “There will be no more quarrelling between you two. Right now, we have a common goal. Now, sorcerer, would you do us the pleasure of lowering your weapons and introducing yourself?”
Razos did exactly that. The rime upon the edge of his axe dissipated.
“Well met, Razos Mephiston. I am Skallech Maamos, and my companion is Qulrissa Azdolmon.”
Razos nodded to each of the glayruks in turn as he fully entered the cavern. “Well met.”
“Please, sit and partake of the haryx that we had the good fortune of finding.”
Giving a nod of thanks, Razos sat down, carved a chunk of flesh off the haryx’s corpse, and began to eat. The meat was both stiff and bloody, but it served to stoke the hunger that he had forgotten about. Though Qulrissa’s appetite proved to be equally ravenous, Razos ate his fill. Skallech ate what was left over, but none of the glayruks went hungry.
“Now that we’ve all had a chance to calm down and eat,” Skallech said, “We can discuss the plan…”
* * *
In theory, Skallech’s plan was simple: get to the armory that contained the weapons of Malythor, return to the Sêzdeh, the City of Thirteen (named for the thirteen glayruk clans to whom the city belonged equally), and not get killed in the process. It was the details that had Razos reconsidering his decision to join the Maamosite’s venture.
The only way to reach the Howling Depths of Malythor where the weapons lurked was through a portal that was, naturally, located in the recesses of Ux Phaxxath, a long-abandoned necropolis from the time of Old Lurxaak that was undoubtedly crawling with undead and other, worse horrors that Razos tried not to think about. But, if the weapons of Malythor did exist and were as powerful as the legends said, then there would be much knowledge to be gained by studying the enchantments, and Razos refused to allow the Azdolmon to have access to them without also taking them for himself. Skallech had made both him and Qulrissa sign a contract of nonviolence until they had returned to Sêzdeh. From there, Razos would be able to navigate back to Mephzaaryk easily enough.
He and his companions set a quick pace through the tunnels and caverns, dispatching any beasts they came across with blades and spells; it hadn’t taken them long to fall into a rhythm of battle that left both Razos and Qulrissa with a grudging respect for the other. Razos was particularly thankful for the fact that they did not encounter any more of the toad-spider beasts. Even after multiple cycles of mulling over his encounter with the abomination, he could surmise only that it had come from the Primordial Chaos-Void of Ag’graaza, from which all demons came.
The three traveling glayruks encountered no others of their kind, either. It seemed like the other members of their race were avoiding them entirely; they only saw hoofprints that indicated that other glayruks had passed through recently. None of them complained about it. The less who knew about an Azdolmon and a Mephiston working together, the better off they were. Both Razos and Qulrissa were hoping that their clans would not execute them for consorting with the enemy.
By and large, therefore, they travelled in silence, though Skallech occasionally tried to break it with a joke, or, in some cases, a compliment about how they had performed in battle. The most he received in response was a grunt.
* * *
“We’re here,” Skallech whispered in awe as he and his companions stepped into a cavern that stretched out further than their eyes could see.
Seemingly at the center of it stood what could only be Ux Phaxxath. Stone walls that had remained standing despite millennia of war and neglect barred access to the towering, rectangular mausoleum beyond. Four stone monoliths stood around it, one at each of its corners. The enormous bestial skull at the top of the mausoleum presided over the austere scene. Skallech had mentioned that the necropolis had been built by the serpent-men who had ruled Old Lurxaak to shepherd the mightiest among them into the afterlife.
“Is there anything else we should know before we enter?” Razos asked. A glayruk, especially a Maamosite, could rarely be trusted to tell the whole truth the first time around.
Skallech paused for a moment. “Not that I can think of.”
“If I find out you’ve hidden anything from me, all agreements between us become null and void.”
“Well… Now that I’ve thought about it some more, I recall that the basilisk skull upon the mausoleum could become animate.”
“That would have been good to know beforehand.”
“In my defense, I didn’t want you to run off after I had already let you in on the plan.”
“Enough bickering,” Qulrissa cut in as she began stalking toward the walls of Ux Phaxxath.
Skallech followed, and Razos, despite his better judgement, joined the other two glayruks. It did not take them long to close the distance between themselves and the wall, and they soon found that webs of fungus in lurid, warm tones of yellow and green crawled across it.
“Rhorcaen,” Qulrissa said as she stopped and readied her swords.
Before either of her companions could respond, tendrils of fungus lashed out at them.
Two swift chops from Qulrissa’s blades ended the threat quickly. All three glayruks stepped back.
The rhorcaen fungus lashed out once more, this time with tendrils that wove into an elongated maw with barbed teeth that specifically targeted Qulrissa. As she sidestepped with more agility than her bulk would have suggested, Razos spoke a sentence of arcane words that had a torrent of flames blazing forth from his bone staff. The fungal mouth was soon nothing more than ashes that rained down upon Razos and his companions.
“You’ll have to use more flames than that if you want to stop the tendrils,” Qulrissa said as she gestured at another patch of rhorcaen with her swords.
Razos didn’t wait to find out what kind of monstrosity the fungus would form next; another incantation allowed him to incinerate the latest writhing patch.
“Well done,” Skallech said as he walked up to the wall and began to poke at it with his spider legs. “I don’t feel any tremors directly behind the wall; we should be alright to scale it.”
“Should be,” Razos reiterated dryly.
“Afraid of a wall after everything we’ve already faced, Mephiston?” Qulrissa asked.
“Not afraid, just practical.”
Razos was the first of the three glayruks to start scaling the wall, though Qulrissa and Skallech were not far behind, their spider legs constantly reaching for indents and protrusions wrought from millennia of erosion. Even though Qulrissa had signed the same contract Razos had, he found himself pleasantly surprised when he got to the top of the wall without a sword in his gut.
“Lovely,” Skallech said as he planted both of his hooves on the top of the wall.
Webs of rhorcaen covered the other side of the wall, as well as the ground between it and Ux Phaxxath proper, making a few hundred feet seem like a mile.
And the fungus webs were already starting to stir. Tendril after tendril began to rise inexorably, and they soon wove together to form mottled humanoids with heads and hands that were like flytraps.
“How much fire do you have left, Mephiston?” Qulrissa asked.
“Not enough,” Razos replied grimly.
Skallech had already pulled out his daggers and flourished them. “Then let’s get to cutting.” Maamosites as a rule didn’t like to fight, but Skallech knew that he had to lead by example, at least some of the time.
He leaped off the wall, landing right in front of one of the risen rhorcaen creatures and shredding it with his daggers. Qulrissa joined the fray shortly thereafter, carving through her foes with wide, brutal strokes of her metallic orange swords. Once she and Skallech had cleared a decent berth, Razos also joined the fighting, beating the rhorcaen creatures down with his staff so that he could bring his axe to bear. The only sorcery he used was the minute amount that was required to cake the edge of his axe with rime; his foes all came from the same vast patch of fungus, and so striking at it directly with ice slowed all of them down. As a result, Razos and his companions cut down their foes with relative ease. It wasn’t long before they were standing before Ux Phaxxath itself.
Before they could enjoy their victory, a chorus of sharp cracks tore through the air as all four of the surrounding monoliths became ensorcelled in black energy. Each passing moment saw the sorcery glowing brighter and pulsing more rapidly.
“Did you know about this?” Razos hissed at Skallech.
“I think I might have confused the skull with the monoliths…” the Maamosite replied, “But, I do believe that this is your department.”
Razos, having already recognized the sorcery around the monoliths as being necromantic in nature, began chanting a spell that he hoped would work. Glayruk sorcerers spent most of their time learning destructive elemental magics, but necromancy was taught as well, the sum of what little knowledge the glayruks had managed to take from Hell and preserve throughout the millennia of unfettered inter-clan war that had followed. Razos could not say that he was feeling particularly confident about the current situation.
He finished reciting his incantation right as a beam streaked forth from each monolith, soon coalescing into a singular path that was a direct vector to his heart. A cocoon of shimmering force appeared around Razos as he made a last-ditch effort to dodge the necromantic ray by throwing himself to the ground.
He had moved too slowly. The ray struck Razos’s side, causing his spell to shatter as he bit back a cry of pain. More necromantic energy had already started to ensorcell the monoliths.
“To the door!” Razos called as he scrambled to get back up on his hooves and dart toward the door. He knew that he was only alive because of his spell.
Both Qulrissa and Skallech ran to meet Razos. The door of Ux Phaxxath was a stone slab with a dual-headed serpent engraved upon it. The two heads were turned against each other, and their mouths were open to reveal vicious fangs. Emeralds served as the serpents’ eyes, still shining despite the webs of cracks upon them.
“I hope you have a plan to get us in,” Skallech said.
“I’m sure he does,” Qulrissa replied, “He’s the only smart Mephiston I’ve ever met.”
Razos gave a wry grin as he began to recite a counterspell; he had not needed to cast any divinations to know that the door had magical auras about it. Legend held that Ux Phaxxath, for whom the necropolis was named, had been a powerful sorcerer in life and had personally warded his tomb before his death. Some even speculated that his soul continued to wander the necropolis. Razos hoped that that was not the case.
As he finished casting his spell, he pointed his bone staff at the door. A wave of ethereal sorcery burst from it and washed over the door. Slowly but surely, it began to grind open, sliding down into the surrounding necropolis. Razos dared to throw a glance at one of the monoliths and saw that the enchantment about it had nearly reached its climax; the tip of the structure was already engulfed in a seething sphere of darkness.
The words to another incantation began to flow forth from Razos’s mouth as he realized that the next black rays would strike before the door finished opening. Surprisingly, both Qulrissa and Skallech remained calm. One word frenziedly followed the next in Razos’s incantation, and the last one had him pointing his staff at the patch of ground behind his companions.
Just as had happened the first time, a black ray streaked forth from each of the four monoliths before joining into one that descended upon the three glayruks. Razos spoke the last words of his spell, and a wave of earth reared up to shield him and his companions from the tenebrous onslaught. The ray struck the earthen barrier and shattered it, causing dirt to rain down upon Razos and his companions, but they were left unharmed. The door of Ux Phaxxath finished opening shortly thereafter.
“I hope that you recognized the symbol on the door,” Skallech said to Razos as they entered the necropolis with Qulrissa.
“It was that of Yserian,” Razos replied, “the Elder God of Serpents. I am aware of the bad blood between him and your progenitor, but at least you have me with you.” From the tomes within the halls of Mephzaaryk, Razos had learned of the wars between Mammon and Yserian, as well as how Mephistopheles had aided his fellow archdevil. Razos allowed himself a wry grin as he found a measure of amusement in how the epics of the past had a way of repeating themselves in a more mundane fashion.
Qulrissa chuckled. “Yes, between Azdolmon feyrferreus and Mephiston sorcery, you should be quite safe.” She grandiloquently flourished one of her swords.
Even though Razos had gotten used to fighting alongside Qulrissa when fighting alongside an Azdolmon had previously been unthinkable, he had never been comfortable with the sight of her swords. Feyrferreus, more commonly known as Hellsteel, was formed from spilled blood that was cured by the residual necromancy that was always left behind when glayruks went to war. Razos tried not to think about how many Mephiston lives had been claimed to forge those swords; he pushed the thought from his mind as he entered Ux Phaxxath alongside Skallech and Qulrissa, thankful for the fact that all three of them had escaped the monoliths’ rays. Razos, Qulrissa, and Skallech then found themselves at the beginning of a stone hallway that was immaculate despite its age. Razos, who was at the front, moved to take a step forward.
“Wait a moment,” Skallech said, “This is my department.”
Razos nodded and took a step back, which put him next to Qulrissa and made him once again aware of how large and muscular she was.
“You already know that I don’t bite, Mephiston,” she said, “at least, not on the battlefield.”
Razos gave no response.
Taking a step forward, Skallech gently tapped the tip of one of his upper spider legs against the wall. Nothing happened. Crouching down, Skallech reached out with one of his lower spider legs and tapped the floor ahead with it. The section of floor disappeared, the result of an enchantment placed upon it, revealing a square pit with a bottom that was lined with rusted spikes. More than a few skeletons were impaled upon them.
“Lovely,” Skallech said with a nervous chuckle.
“That’s a word for it,” Razos replied as he glanced down into the pit. Being stuck next to Qulrissa didn’t seem so bad now.
With a combination of their spider legs and agility, the three glayruks passed over the pit without incident, and they proceeded through the halls of Ux Phaxxath cautiously; Skallech checked for traps at every junction, sometimes more often, while Qulrissa and Razos constantly kept sword and spell at the ready. As they went deeper, they began to see reliefs upon the walls that exclusively depicted serpents, both the basilisks of old, which bore between one and three heads, and the serpent-men who had worshipped them. More than a few of the reliefs depicted sacrificial rites. Urns, which were engraved with slithering runes in a language that was no longer spoken, were nestled around the reliefs in seemingly random locations that had been arranged with great care. Though Razos could see that Skallech and Qulrissa were the only ones with him, he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched, though he did not deign to share his fear.
Skallech, being a Maamosite in the center of a Yserian necropolis, would likely become even more paranoid than he already was. He flitted from step to step and constantly flexed his spider legs to feel the walls, floor, and ceiling. “Danger can come from anywhere,” he had said. As far as Razos was concerned, the Maamosite was being overly paranoid.
Qulrissa was little better. She walked in a fighting stance and held her blades up constantly, sometimes a little closer to Razos’s neck than he would have preferred as she grumbled about how “Snake sorcery was no match for a good feyrferreus sword.” That made Razos more than a little paranoid on top of the fact that Skallech had later managed to detect the presence of a concealed pit of acid. When the three glayruks were able to spread out by entering a room, they did so at the expense of having to contend with risen serpent-man skeletons and zombies, long forgotten but guarding Ux Phaxxath even in death. Razos was thankful for the fact that fire worked well against desiccated flesh and brittle bones.
Eventually, Razos and his companions came to a modestly sized room that had no undead. Urns lined the walls, separated only by engraved inscriptions in the same language as the runes upon the urns. Much of the back wall was taken up by a pair of ornate stone doors that had the holy symbol of Yserian engraved across them; the grand two-headed serpent towered over Razos and his companions.
Razos didn’t wait to start casting a spell that would allow him to see any enchantments about the door, though Skallech didn’t check for any traps. Qulrissa had planted her hooves near the entrance and assumed a defensive stance. Razos stepped behind the Azdolmon glayruk as he recited the final words of his incantation.
He then saw the door glow with bright green and red auras, indicating both transmutation and destructive magic. The strength of the auras was what concerned Razos most.
“What’s the verdict?” Skallech asked as he watched Razos’s brooding expression grow darker.
“Not good,” the Mephiston glayruk replied, “Not good at all, but I will see what I can do.” He cast a glance at Qulrissa. “Be prepared to fight.”
She flashed a toothy grin. “I always am.”
Razos began to cast a counterspell, though he didn’t have a good feeling about doing so. Having no other options, he mustered as much sorcerous energy as he could, finished his incantation, and pointed his staff at the door. A wave of bright yellow force burst from the ruby tip of his bone staff and crashed into the door. In an instant, the emerald eyes upon the two-headed serpent began to glow; three rays of sizzling acid streaked from each one, going straight toward Razos. Throwing himself to the ground, he narrowly evaded the six rays.
“What the hell was that?” Qulrissa snarled.
Razos looked up and saw that the engraving upon the doors had emerged from them as its own entity rendered in stone and fully three dimensional. Where once there had only been two emerald eyes, there now were four. The two-headed stone serpent let out a pair of grinding hisses as it surged straight toward Razos.
Qulrissa charged to meet the elemental aberration head on, hacking at it with her swords, one after another. Skallech moved to support his companion; his daggers were soon tearing through the air as he drove them toward the emerald eyes upon the serpent’s left head. The Maamosite wasn’t sure how to damage a foe that had neither flesh nor blood nor bone, but a haphazard guess led him to believe that his best chance was in aiming for the eyes.
Razos, thankful for the fact that his companions had joined the fray first, began to cast a spell, choosing one that would allow him to shape earth and stone.
Qulrissa’s swords bit into the serpent’s right neck; the blows mainly served to keep the head from attacking her. The serpent’s left head jerked up to dodge Skallech’s daggers, and it wasted no time in coming down upon the Maamosite. He leaped back as Qulrissa hacked at the descending head with a sword. Its edge tore into the serpent’s head, sending it off course and leaving a decently sized gouge.
Razos finished casting his spell. He pointed his staff at the stone serpent, and its tail melted into the floor. It tried to lash out at Qulrissa and Skallech, but the two glayruks had already moved out of its reach. Knowing that his spell wouldn’t last forever, Razos gave the serpent a wide berth as he made his way to the now-blank door. Skallech and Qulrissa followed.
“That’s going to be a tough one to get open,” Skallech said. Even without any enchantments upon it, the doors were still thick stone slabs that he knew even Qulrissa would struggle to move.
“Perhaps another application of Mephiston sorcery will do the trick,” the Azdolmon glayruk said as she looked at Razos expectantly.
Razos smiled dryly. “I suppose that is my department.”
Stepping forward, he cast the same spell that had allowed him to melt the serpent’s tail into the floor. The final word of the incantation had him pointing his staff at the doors. As he felt the release of the sorcery he had gathered, the tops of the doors began to bubble as they turned to mud. The doors wilted like melting candle wax until they were only semi-solid mounds of earth, revealing that which lay beyond.
Razos and his companions had been expecting to see the most ostentatious room Ux Phaxxath had to offer, with Ux Phaxxath himself buried within. There was only a cavern, though it was not empty.
Webs of rhorcaen fungus utterly ruled the inside such that it was difficult to tell that they were rooted in rock. At the center of it all, stood a serpent-man skeleton that was as covered by rhorcaen webs as the rest of the cavern. In its hands, it gripped a hammer of purest silver with block-like geometric runes engraved upon its head.
“A silver hammer of Malythor…” Skallech whispered. He was already starting to salivate.
“They actually exist,” Razos agreed dryly as he tried not to consider the implications for the Mephiston-Azdolmon war.
Suddenly, a howling wind whipped through the cavern and hurled bolts of forked lightning through the air. Razos and his companions leaped out of the way.
Who dares to seek entrance into the Howling Depths of Malythor? The wailing, screeching voice was not one that Razos, Skallech, and Qulrissa heard with their ears, but rather with their minds.
“We have to take the hammer,” Razos said as he dropped into a fighting stance and sifted through his mind for a spell. He knew that rhorcaen fungus formed its vast webs by consuming corpses and using them to fuel its growth. As a result, the webs possessed a modicum of intelligence, but not enough for actual speech…
Seething lightning flared into existence around the head of the silver hammer as bright blue light ensorcelled the skeleton’s eye sockets.
Both Qulrissa and Skallech readied their weapons as Razos began to cast a spell. The possessed, rhorcaen-covered skeleton raised its hammer and swung it at Razos. Though the weapon was nowhere near close enough to strike him, it spat a bolt of forked lightning that slammed into his chest. A cry of pain burst from his mouth as he was flung to the ground and lost his incantation. Only the memory of having remembered it remained.
Qulrissa charged forward. She closed the distance with a wrathful, yet disciplined, stride, soon hacking at the monstrosity before her with one of her swords. A jagged motion had the skeleton batting the weapon away with its free hand as it swung its hammer at Qulrissa.
You shall be the first sacrifice to the thunder god!
A gust of wind lent strength to the skeleton’s swing. The silver hammer slammed into Qulrissa’s shoulder, and the sickly sound of cracking bone followed as she fell to the ground with a cry of pain.
Skallech had already retreated to the edge of the cavern, close to where the doors had been, though he made an attempt at fighting; one of his daggers whistled through the air as he threw it at the skeleton. A lightning bolt from its hammer saw the dagger turned to slag in midair. Skallech was many things: a thief, a merchant, and a negotiator being the most prominent among them, but he was no warrior. That was why he had hired Qulrissa and Razos.
The Mephiston glayruk could not help but feel an uprising of anger as he watched his Azdolmon companion fall. To see such a proud warrior felled so easily was an insult to all glayruks.
And Razos Mephiston did not let insults go unpunished.
He rose to his hooves with the words to a short, wrathful spell frothing from his lips. In an instant, jagged icicles sprouted from the edge of his axe, and he hurled it at the unliving hand that held the silver hammer of Malythor. The monstrosity that wielded it moved to dodge but was too slow. Razos’s axe buried itself in his foe’s chest; tendrils of frost seeped outward as the icicles and iron shredded through the fungus.
A raging telepathic howl boomed from the hammer as it exerted its will upon its host only to find that the speed at which it moved had been drastically reduced.
You are only delaying the inevitable. the hammer seethed. In the end, all will be consumed by the rage of Malythor, and chaos shall reign supreme!
“Not if I can help it,” Razos grunted back as he pointed his bone staff at his foe.
As he was about to start casting a spell, Qulrissa called out to Razos. He threw a glance at his companion and saw her reaching out with one of her feyrferreus swords.
There was a time not so long ago when Razos would have considered it anathema to accept a weapon from an Azdolmon, but every rule had an exception. Seeing that the skeleton-rhorcaen monstrosity had managed to take only a single step forward, Razos darted over to Qulrissa, dropped his bone staff, and snatched up her sword. A quick glance down told Razos that the Azdolmon would not rejoin the fight; blood from the wound upon her shoulder had already soaked through her leathers with no signs of stopping. He hoped that her constitution was as sturdy as it seemed.
As Razos raised Qulrissa’s sword, gripping the hilt in both hands, a lightning bolt streaked from the silver hammer of Malythor even as its host continued to move at the pace of an overfed haryx. Razos ducked under the lightning bolt as ground-eating strides propelled him toward mortal combat. The lightning bolt slammed into the cavern wall, incinerating a patch of rhorcaen.
Razos rose as he lurched forward to close the last of the distance and bring Qulrissa’s sword down upon his foe. The fungus-covered skeleton moved to parry, and the silver hammer of Malythor spat another lightning bolt. Though Razos moved to step out of the way, it still grazed his side, flowing into his breastplate and sending burning pain seething through his body. His sword-stroke did not falter.
Qulrissa’s sword fell upon the fungus-skeleton amalgamation like an executioner’s axe, swiftly amputating the arm that held the silver hammer of Malythor. Razos had learned early on in his training that feyrferreus cut more viciously than other metals. He had never truly appreciated that fact until now, and Qulrissa’s sword felt so natural in his grasp. He had almost forgotten that it was of Azdolmon make.
An image of Zavari, elegant, proud, and deadly all at once, flashed through his mind.
Almost.
The silver hammer of Malythor clattered to the floor, and the blue light within the skeleton’s eye sockets faded away. Razos set his hoof upon the hammer’s head.
“You have been defeated,” he said in a cold, matter-of-fact tone.
A malevolent, telepathic presence that was like the onslaught of a hurricane raged into Razos’s mind. Foolish glayruk! I have not been defeated. Quite the opposite, actually. You may have crippled my current host, but you have given me a better one.
Before Razos could respond, he heard the grinding hisses of the two-headed stone serpent behind him. A quick glance over his shoulder allowed him to see it entering the cave, and Skallech was already moving toward it. Perhaps a warrior would be made from the Maamosite yet.
The storm within Razos’s mind intensified, and he found himself picking up the silver hammer of Malythor. Surprisingly, it felt more natural in his grasp than Qulrissa’s sword, and he could feel the raw, unbridled sorcery roiling within it.
Do you like what you feel, Razos? the hammer hissed. It could be yours if you wanted.
The lightning around its head intensified, and a bolt streaked forth to annihilate the two-headed stone serpent that Skallech was barely fending off. When the dust cleared, only the four emeralds remained, and the Maamosite wasted no time in pocketing them.
Razos would have been lying if he had said he didn’t want the power within the hammer for himself. But at what cost? He looked down at the remains of the rhorcaen-infested skeleton, and that told him the truth:
If he accepted, then he would only be a tool.
But think about all of the Azdolmon blood we could spill… the hammer said, Starting with that one right there…
Razos knew that the hammer was talking about Qulrissa, and his response consisted of only one word:
“No.”
He dropped the silver hammer of Malythor and walked over to Qulrissa. Without saying anything, he crouched down and began to cast a spell. The last words saw him resting a hand upon Qulrissa’s wounded shoulder. Humming violet energy flowed forth, causing her flesh to start knitting itself back together. Once the spell had finished, Razos stood up and offered a hand to his companion, one that she took.
“You healed me,” Qulrissa said.
“At least temporarily,” Razos replied, “You know as well as I do that the healing that comes from repurposed necromancy is temporary, but at least it’s better than snake sorcery.”
Qulrissa’s puzzled expression didn’t change. “The contract only said that we were not to fight each other.”
“I know.”
Razos turned around and walked over to Skallech.
“Well done,” the Maamosite said, “Now we just need to find the portal.”
“No,” Razos replied bluntly.
“Why not? We’re so close… and think of the gold!”
“Qulrissa nearly died.”
“But she didn’t. You saved her life, and I think you two make a great team.”
“I’ll begrudgingly agree with that,” the Azdolmon glayruk said as she rejoined her companions, “and I agree with Razos. That weapon’s only goal is to bring about the ruination of all that our kind has established here, and any other weapons in Malythor’s armory will only bring more of the same. If you wish to continue this venture, you will do so alone.”
“But I paid you!” Skallech retorted.
Qulrissa gave a stereotypically diabolical grin. “We could kill you right now and no one would be any wiser.”
For one of the few times in his life, Skallech found himself speechless.
Razos grinned at Qulrissa. “Perhaps you Azdolmon are good for something after all.”
“Don’t push your luck, Mephiston.”
Saying nothing more, the three glayruks egressed from the cavern, and Razos used his sorcery to collapse it, burying the silver hammer of Malythor in hope that no others would come looking for it. Skallech took solace in the fact that he had at least managed to pocket the four emeralds, though he said little as they left Ux Phaxxath, noting only the absence or presence of traps. It wasn’t long, however, before they were traveling through the tunnels that led to Sêzdeh, the City of Thirteen, relatively empty-handed but better for it.
The End
Read the first tale of my other diabolical antihero, Zeraga Baal'khal, here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-i-awakening
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