The Black Talon

XXI

Golgren’s hand burned as if it were utterly consumed by fire, and for a moment the ogre, unable to see, wondered whether he had lost his remaining hand. Yet he still felt the flex of his finger, so, despite the intense pain, he knew his arm was intact.

Of the piece left to him by the gargoyle, he knew nothing. Whether it had been destroyed or simply vanished, the grand lord did not care. He had instead sought the object Idaria had pressed into his hand, the ring with the odd signet. She had been most insistent that he take it and even had said something about Tyranos giving it to her to pass to him. Golgren had been certain because of that that it would help against the f’hanos.

How had the other thing found its way into his palm? His fingers had snared the ring. He felt its shape as he pulled it free of the pouch, and yet when he opened his hand, the accursed starburst was there. How had that happened?

“Come, come, Grand Lord,” a voice growled in his ear. A powerful set of hands dragged him to his feet. “You can’t lie around here all day!”

“Tyranos?” Golgren’s vision began to clear a little, but what he saw around him made no sense whatsoever.

The area for some distance resembled the aftermath of an inferno. The ground for several yards was baked black and entirely flattened. Pressed deep into the charred soil were the crusted remnants of several skeletons.

The imposing wizard turned him around, forcing him to look in all directions. Tyranos did not appear very pleased to see the ogre, but Golgren did not have to guess why. By coming there, the wizard likely had revealed himself to the Titans and whoever else might be observing the events through magic; that undoubtedly included whoever animated the macabre horde.

“I should’ve let you die,” Tyranos stated bluntly. “But we can’t have that yet, can we?”

Though Golgren was dazed, he was finally registering everything that was going on. His warriors were being decimated, just as he had feared and just as Dauroth, no doubt, desired. Thinking of the Titan made him instinctively grab at his chest for the vial.

“Looking for something there?” asked the wizard. He gestured, and the already-damaged breastplate ripped in two, along with the tunic underneath. “Now just where is that vial I’ve wondered so much about? I have my own use for that vial, not that you’d understand what I have in mind.” Tyranos stopped short. “What by the Sea Queen-?”

The leonine human had reached to grab the vial, trying to tear it free. Golgren screamed, the pain eating at him.

Just as suddenly as he had seized the sealed vial, Tyranos let it go. The mage raised his hands angrily, cursing the sky.

“Damned spellcaster!” cried Stefan, coming up from behind Tyranos and standing protectively before Golgren. “Send your dead back to their graves before I oblige you to join them!”

The mage looked over his shoulder. “You blame me for these undead? Are you mad, Solamnic? Are you-stand aside!”

A staff materialized in the spellcaster’s left hand. It shot to full length, its bottom tip stretching past the frowning knight’s head.

“That’ll be your end!” declared Stefan, thrusting his weapon at the spellcaster.

Tyranos grunted in pain as the sword lanced his side. If not for the wizard’s quick reflexes, the knight would have run him through.

At the same time, both Golgren and Stefan realized that Tyranos had not been aiming for the Solamnic, but at another f’hanos charging toward the Solamnic. The staff struck the undead warrior directly on the breastbone. A silver aura briefly surrounded the skeleton, and the ghoul went flying.

“Damned swift with that weapon of yours, aren’t you, you cursed fool?” Tyranos clutched his bleeding wound. “And after I saved both your miserable hides!”

The knight looked chastened and doubtful. “I-you-saved us?”

Tyranos glared at Golgren. “Tell him!”

Golgren rubbed his chest. “I have trouble believing this also.”

As Stefan stepped closer to the spellcaster, Tyranos grew furious. “You two are impossible! That starburst was not supposed to possess any power after it was taken from its puppet, at least that was what I thought! I had him leave it as a warning for you, but only-”

“A warning?” Golgren grew cold with distrust. “By a gargoyle … by one of many gargoyles … ”

Tyranos bared his teeth. “Not all gargoyles serve-”

“Look out!” Stefan shouted.

A huge paw nearly slammed down on the three of them. The skeletal mastark had moved silently and quickly sneaked up on them, despite its lack of flesh and muscle. Even without flesh and muscle, its heavy bones could have easily crushed them.

Golgren and Tyranos were momentarily thrown away from Stefan. The grand lord spotted the wizard’s magical staff, an item he had often coveted, which had fallen to the ground. Grabbing it, Golgren held it over the spellcaster’s throat.

“Traitor!”

“Drop this foolhardy notion, oh Grand Lord. You think if I controlled these creatures, I’d let one of them tromp all over me?”

“If not, then why don’t you destroy them!”

Tyranos snorted. “You overestimate me, Grand-”

The undead mastark loomed over them again. The wizard threw himself to one side as the fleshless foot came crashing down.

Golgren, on the other hand, suddenly clamped his teeth around the staff and grabbed hold of the bony limb. He climbed up the creature’s leg with a dexterity that was astonishing. He felt driven by fury, driven by the need to prove himself.

The mastark tried to jab at him with its long, curled tusks. When it was clear that Golgren would not let go, the huge f’hanos tried to buck and spin and shake him off.

Golgren wanted to cry out when the creature’s tusk tore away what remained of his tunic, painfully scraping his skin, but he held tight to Tyranos’s staff.

The scarred tusk came at him once more.

Golgren released his grip, wrapping his good arm around the mastark’s tusk and letting it lift him up.

The mastark wildly shook its head back and forth. The ogre reached up for its neck.

Then Golgren noticed a movement to his side. The grand lord scrambled to pull himself up as an undead warrior-possibly the mastark’s original handler-also climbed up the side of the beast, trying to reach him. The skeleton wielded the long, hooked bar normally used for guiding the great beasts.

The long iron hook came at Golgren just as he succeeded in getting one leg up around the mastark’s neck. He used that leg to push at the hook but only partially fended it off. The hook drew a jagged red line in his leg, and Golgren was wracked by fresh pain.

The ogre leader tried to beat at the skeletal warrior with Tyranos’s staff, momentarily stymieing his horrific foe. His arm ached, yet he held on while continuing to stab at the f’hanos.

The undead beast continued to shake and sway, but the ogre leader finally managed to get a good grip and reach the top of the mastark.

The moving mastark proved devilish to try to stand upon, though. Golgren satisfied himself with a crouching position, holding the staff while watching the f’hanos, which had not given up.

The skeleton lunged at him with the hook again. Golgren caught the hook with the staff and twisted the weapon around. He disarmed the creature, which immediately lunged forward in an obvious attempt to send both of them plummeting over the side.

Golgren swept the staff across, catching the f’hanos just above its ankles. It stumbled, then slipped down. One bony hand sought the grand lord, but he kicked it away.

As the creature fell off, Golgren struggled forward. The mastark appeared more determined than ever to shake him off. It was all that he could do to inch his way toward the creature’s skull.

Below, the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying told Golgren that his followers were in dire straits. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tyranos, moving in a blur, and Sir Stefan, eyeing him. The grand lord swore at Dauroth and the Titans.

The gigantic beast whirled in a circle as it tried to reach or topple its unwanted rider. Golgren inched forward.

At last, he made it to the top of the mastark’s skull. The undead giant reared, almost succeeding in shaking off the pest atop it.

Golgren readied Tyranos’s staff. He knew the power it contained. That he did not know how to wield that power did not worry the ogre leader. Some sixth sense made him certain that it would do what he ordered it to do.

So Golgren raised up the staff and struck the mastark’s skull with the crystal head.

The silver light flashed so bright, he pulled back in startlement. The staff slipped from his hand, and he lost his balance.

At the last moment, Golgren snagged one of the dead beast’s ribs. He dangled there, surrounded by the silver light that covered the gargantuan f’hanos from tusk to rear. The skeletal giant shivered and creaked, and as the grand lord struggled, parts of the behemoth began breaking off.

Golgren tried to use the rib to slide toward the ground. However, he had only just begun when the beast began to lurch and trip. A heavy bone struck the ogre in the shoulder.

He fell. Golgren was certain of his death, but then the air suddenly thickened beneath him and his descent slowed. Unfortunately, ribs and bones rained down on him from all sides.

“C-consider that another debt that you owe me!” growled Tyranos, shaking the gleaming staff, which had fallen down and was back in his hands again. “And no-no thanks to you! You could have destroyed it! What by the Maelstrom were you thinking?”

Golgren did not bother to answer him, especially because he did not know what to say. The urge had come upon him and he had acted.

With a deep moan, the mastark finally collapsed. Its skull came plummeting down, crashing within a foot of the pair. Ogre and wizard rushed away from the massive crumbling skeleton.

Just as the last parts of the giant f’hanos came crashing down around them, more of the ghoulish warriors swarmed at them from all directions. Tyranos battered away two in the lead as Golgren seized a weapon from one of his fallen warriors.

The pair that the wizard had swatted away had already resurrected themselves. Tyranos let out an oath. “Would you mind telling me what you did with my own staff to make them stay dead?”

“The skull! It was the skull I struck, wizard! Atop!”

Tyranos tried again, trying to hit the two skeletal warriors on top of their skulls, and that time the one he managed to hit on top of its head fell down in pieces and stayed down without moving. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

From Golgren’s left there came a war cry and the sounds of several weapons clanging. Khleeg, somehow still mounted, was trying to lead a band of warriors to the rescue of the grand lord. The sight would have heartened Golgren if there were not so many f’hanos between the loyal officer and his master.

Indeed, the rescuers were blocked; then they began to be forced back. Golgren tried to steer toward Khleeg, but once again they were swarmed by undead who converged on them from everywhere.

“We must be away from here!” Tyranos shouted. He raised the crystal head of his staff to the sky, groaning with pain. Blood still dripped from the wound Sir Stefan had caused.

Reminded of the Solamnic, Golgren searched around for Stefan, wondering what had become of the knight. He saw no sign that he was alive. He regretted the human’s passing, if only for the hope that, should they both have survived, there might still be a chance of some sort of alliance between ogres and knights.

Golthuu-and Silvanost-seemed to be dreams that far exceeded his one-handed grasp.

“Be ready, oh Grand Lord!” Tyranos called.

“For what?”

Something huge swooped just above them. With a wingspan far wider than the ogre’s height, it circled around for another pass.

Golgren recognized the scaly behemoth: the gargoyle from the palace corridor. Arms outstretched, the winged beast’s intention was clear: to grab both figures and take them into the air.

The idea did not sit well with the grand lord, but he accepted it as the only escape. With Tyranos, the ogre fought to clear the area to give the gargoyle proper room to land.

With an evil grin across its wide mouth, the winged fury closed on them. The wizard, closer to the creature than Golgren, raised his arms to reach up to his rescuer.

Golgren did the same.

Then the entire world trembled. The ogre was tossed off his feet just as the gargoyle took hold of Tyranos.

A sound like raging thunder but a thousand times more ear splitting shook Golgren to his very core. He heard cracking and tearing, and realized that the ground just ahead of him was opening up, great chunks of rock collapsing into the huge gap. A f’hanos just closing to reach him stumbled and fell back into the swiftly widening crevasse, vanishing from sight.

All around Golgren, the land shook harder and harder. In every direction, huge pieces of earth and stone tore apart or shot up into the air. Ogres and undead alike were tossed about like playthings.

Tyranos and his pet gargoyle had vanished in the sky. Golgren fought to maintain his balance.

He fell to his knees, rose, then almost immediately fell down again. The one thing that the grand lord had accomplished was to achieve a low vantage from which he could see better what was happening all around him, but that view only left him cold.

The entire landscape from the edge of Garantha to far to the west was caught up in a quake of tremendous magnitude. The legions of f’hanos were perishing by the scores, most of them falling into horrific gaps, which opened and suddenly closed again. His own followers fared no better. Golgren witnessed a horse and rider simply sink beneath the land without even the chance for a scream, while other ogres fled in outright panic as relentless rock flows poured over them.

As for the city itself, its walls stood unperturbed, untouched. The towers did not tremble in the least nor were there any plumes of dust and smoke as filled the air about him. Garantha was safe and sound and, strangely, entirely untouched. The citizens surely knew what was going on outside the city, but for them it was merely a monstrous spectacle to watch in awe.

It was a spectacle courtesy of Dauroth.

“The land will be ravaged for mile upon mile!” Kallel declared. “Is this not dangerous?”

Dauroth stared down the other Titan. “It is justice.”

“But how long dare we keep this going? It will deplete our energies, risk pushing some of us to collapse. We need more elixir, and there is barely enough for one last round as it is!”

There was less than that, even, if truth be told, but Dauroth was not concerned. After the fight it would be simple enough to gather the elves that Golgren had put in the stone stockade and squeeze from them every drop of necessary blood. That would give the Titans an ample supply of that precious resource until the new sources of rejuvenation could be properly tested.

“We will keep this up until the f’hanos and the grand lord share a common grave from which neither shall ever rise again! From this vast destruction will emerge at last the golden age for which we have toiled so long! There will be no further question in the mind of the people that it is the Titans who are their hope, who are their saviors, their teachers.”

“But so many will be lost!” pointed out another Titan. “The blame for all of that-”

“The blame for all of that shall fall upon the half-breed, naturally.”

The other Titans could not argue. Among ogres, a failed ruler, a dead ruler, was an easy scapegoat for mistakes and catastrophes; such had been the course of things too often in ogre history.

Dauroth focused on the spell again. An exhilaration that he had not experienced in decades filled him. He was thrilled to be destroying Golgren, he finally realized. Until that very moment, the lead spellcaster had not understood just how much he had despised the grand lord.

What a joyous event it shall be! Dauroth thought merrily. I shall make the grand lord’s demise a day of celebration!

First he had to finish the task. Like most true vermin, the mongrel was proving adept at hanging on to life. The Black Talon would have to increase its magical efforts. If one or more of the inner circle should suffer fatal consequences from his action, so be it. Dauroth had always preached that to reach the golden age would require sacrifices from many.

With but a single sung word, Dauroth drew more magic from his cohorts. The others let out gasps as they felt the power draining away from them, but there was not even a feeble protest, not that any protest would have changed his decision.

You will be squashed, Grand Lord, the Titan promised. You will be squashed even if I have to rip apart all of Kern and Blode to do it.

It should have been Idaria’s chance to flee the ogre realm, but still she stayed loyal to Golgren, trying to find and help him, searching through the chaos. Although her thick iron chains yet bound her, she still moved with the grace and perfection for which her race was famous. Where ogres and fleshless undead toppled into chasms and were lost, the elf nimbly shifted from one momentarily stable place to the next.

It was because of the Titans that she was so determined to save Golgren. Only Golgren stood against them. Only Golgren would see that her enslaved people were not herded like cattle to the slaughter, providing more and more blood for the foul elixir of the vampiric spellcasters. She had believed him when he had said that he would release the slaves shortly after his coronation. If Golgren made such a promise, he would fulfill it. Her sacrifice of honor and freedom-of her own body-her spying for the Nerakans would finally be vindicated.

It had been simple to elude her guard, who had been more interested in saving his own hide than in chasing after some mad elf. From there, though, Idaria’s mission had proved far more difficult. Her mount she had abandoned far back because the animal was at far greater risk than she under such conditions. Idaria carried only a dagger; any other weapon would have been too unwieldy. The dagger was more for comfort, for it was useless against the undead. Fortunately, she eluded them; the quake was keeping them busy.

How long Dauroth and his followers would-or even could-keep up their monumental spell was the question. Even among the most advanced elf mages, such an effort would be highly taxing.

In the distance, she caught a glimpse of Khleeg. The ogre was no longer mounted either. Around him had gathered perhaps half a dozen other warriors. The ogres battled desperately against undead attackers. Yet there was no sign of Golgren, and Idaria moved on. She didn’t care about Khleeg’s fate.

She alighted on a rock, and that rock sank into the rupturing land with a suddenness for which even the elf could not adjust fast enough. Falling, Idaria got tangled in her chains. Her dagger went bouncing away, disappearing in a new chasm.

As she struggled to free herself, one of the f’hanos appeared. Twice it staggered and nearly fell over, thanks to the continuing tremors, but still it lumbered on toward the elf. The hollow areas where its eyes were missing somehow radiated malevolence and, although unarmed, the creature had nails and teeth more than capable of rending her soft flesh to bloody gobbets.

Unable to free herself, Idaria blindly groped for some weapon. Her fingers slipped over something metal and rounded on one side. Without hesitation, she threw it at the undead.

The piece of metal bounced off the skeleton without having any effect on it, and Idaria saw that it was part of a breastplate. The ornate design identified it as having belonged to the highest rank among the ogre army: none but Golgren himself. Despite the menace bearing down on her, her eyes followed the clattering armor, which looked banged and battered as though it had been ripped off the grand lord’s body by some terrible force.

Then she heard a labored grunt from the direction of the ghoul. She turned to see a figure in ravaged silver armor barreling into the creature from behind, smashing the f’hanos into a wall of rock.

Stefan, his helmet lost and his face scratched and bleeding, seized the half-shattered undead and flung it into the nearest widening hole. He bent down to help Idaria.

“My lady!” he gasped. “I saw the merest glimpse of silver hair, but I couldn’t believe that it was you in all this danger! You should be in the city … or in flight to some land beyond this one!”

“There is nothing in the capital for me if Golgren dies,” the slave retorted, “and there would be even less for my people, whom he has promised to free!” As the Solamnic helped her to her feet, she added, “If there is any chance he lives at all, I must find him. I found a fragment of his armor-”

“Stripped from him by some base mage-Tyrus-Tyron-the name-”

“Tyranos?” Idaria frowned. “What is that one doing here, and why would he choose to slay Golgren?”

“No more talk!” He pushed her against the most stable rock around them then raised his sword. Driven by fury, the blade smashed through the chains binding her wrists. Taking a deep breath, the knight repeated his maneuver on the shackles keeping the movement of her legs limited.

“Only Kiri-Jolith knows how you ever got this far so bound! My sword may never again be as sharp as before, but it was worth it to finally cut those dreadful chains! I’m only sorry I can do nothing to remove the pieces from your wrists and ankles, my lady!”

“It is all right.” She gasped. Then, suddenly, she looked beyond him, a strange light in her eyes. “Then Golgren is still alive?”

“When last I saw him, yes! For an ogre, he has a quick wit, but I can’t say how long that’ll help him!”

He started to pull her in the direction of the city, but Idaria resisted, pointing at the line of the quake quickly running toward them along the already heaving and buckling ground.

“Not that way!” Idaria warned, tugging at Stefan.

He tried heading in the opposite direction. No sooner had he turned than another roar like thunder erupted and the land in that direction also exploded into boils and rupturing cracks.

“There’s nowhere to go!” the Solamnic yelled.

Again, the elf pointed. “To your left! No! Here! Follow me!”

“But, my lady-” But the sure-footed elf had started off in a zigzagging path, and he allowed her to pull him along.

“Wait! Why do we not go there?” Stefan abruptly demanded, tugging at her to stop and pointing ahead. “Look! It could take us to Garantha! To continue in your direction leads us away-”

“I must find Golgren!” the slave insisted, tugging at him.

“There is nothing you can do for him, my lady! There is nothing even I can do! You think I’d abandon a comrade of any sort? I-”

His words cut off with a gasp that startled Idaria. She looked where the Solamnic was gaping and shaking his head.

She followed his gaze to see a pair of f’hanos converging on them. They even had bits of loose armor dangling from their bony bodies, but other than that, Idaria could not see that they were any different from the other undead that surrounded them.

Yet the knight muttered the same thing over and over as he stood, slack jawed, his sword hanging limply in his hand. Idaria finally made out his words, which only puzzled her more.

“Forgive me,” the Solamnic repeated. “Forgive me … I couldn’t do anything … forgive me … ”

The two horrors were nearly upon the bedraggled duo. Idaria did not want to abandon the human, but he stood there as if frozen in place. “Sir Stefan! Come! Sir Stefan! Why do you-?”

Then she realized that there was indeed something different about that pair of f’hanos. Not only were they shorter of stature than any of the others, but their skulls were differently shaped and lacked any hint of the tusks of ogres. The skulls of those two were much closer to those of elves.

Except they were human.

“Willum … Hector … please forgive me,” the Solamnic pleaded.

The slaughtered humans had once been Stefan’s comrades.