Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach, Jeff Inlo [buy e reader .txt] 📗

took a long glance and spotted the second giant waiting at the opposite end of the tier. It stood directly between Ryson and the door to the next level as if a final obstacle, a security measure in case the intruder outmaneuvered the first giant. It made no attempt to join the fray, thus Ryson remained content with circling about his current position and keeping the first guardian safely away from the others.

Utilizing the respite afforded to her by the delver’s actions, Holli pulled upon the sleeves of the dwarves as well as Lief. Tun pulled his arm away as if insulted, but followed her intentions. She brought them along side the algors, circling close together.

She shouted hoarsely over the continuing disturbance. “Ryson will occupy the sand giant, but we move no closer to the sphere.” She strained to be heard as she held up two fingers. “We have but two options - remove the noise or remove the giants.”

“The sound comes from below,” Lief responded, his neck bulging from the pressure of his shouts.

“The sphere?” Holli questioned keeping her phrases short and mouthing her words firmly to help convey them.

“Yes,” Lief nodded strongly. “It must know we’re here. A defensive move.”

Holli shifted her darting eyes about the cave seeking an answer. She looked down the hole in the floor to the next tier. A direct path existed to the sphere of Ingar, but one obstacle remained, the elfin obstacle. Darkness covered that which waited, but she knew what stood between them and the talisman.

“To reach the sphere, we need the delver, but he is best suited to keep the guardians at bay.”

Lief shook his head. “What?”

“We can not get the sphere without Ryson,” Holli repeated.

“What chance have we of that?” Lief questioned.

“Either someone else must occupy the giant or we must destroy it,” Holli yelled.

Lief turned to the algors. “Is there anyway to stop them?”

“Only the music,” the algors responded together.

Lief and Holli barely heard the answer. They acknowledged it with a shrug. “It seems we must destroy them,” Lief yelled hastily back at the algors. “Can you take away the power that brought them to life?”

The algors did not hear the full question and the elf was forced to shout it in repetition. Upon finally understanding, the algors simply shook their heads in denial.

Holli took a long moment to size up their new adversary. She sought weaknesses to be exploited, but found only the lack of true speed. Otherwise, the sand giant appeared invulnerable. Her analysis was cut short by the swift turn of the elder dwarf.

“Bah, this is madness,” Tun mumbled in an ordinary voice and was thus not heard by those that stood about him. He set off toward the sand giant with haste in his step.

His sudden decision caught the others off guard. They watched first in confusion, then in dismay as the prince stormed forward down the tier.

Holli, Lief and Jon called for Tun to stop. If he heard them, he ignored them. His intentions became clear as he unhitched the maul from his belt.

“No!” Jon screamed and broke into a charge to halt his brother.

Holli and Lief followed almost immediately. Their great speed pressed them quickly beyond Jon, but as if in response, Tun fell into a gallop of his own. It became all too evident that they would not reach him in time.

Tun’s eyes narrowed, his brow knitted. He brought his arms back, both hands tightly gripping the handle of his maul. The sharpened edge pointed at the giant. His mouth opened wide with a yell that actually surpassed the volume of the sphere’s hum.

The war cry surprised Ryson, who leapt clear of the onrushing dwarf. It was too late for him to intervene as he identified Tun’s body leaping through the air. He stood well out of reach as the metal blade of the dwarf weapon swung violently through the air. It crashed into the sand giant with enough force to crumble a brick wall, with enough power to actually cause a fissure in the giant’s chest, but not with enough might to vanquish the sentinel.

The weapon embedded itself in the very center of the giant and Tun held to it with the same ferocity in which he swung. His feet dangled from the ground, levitated by his hold on the axe and the sand giant’s height. He pulled to free his weapon, but with no footholds, he lacked the leverage. He swung both legs forward and upward and actually drove the soles of his boots into the chest of the sentinel. He crouched into a ball, planted firmly upon the midsection of the sand giant. He pressed down hard with his feet as he pulled upon the weapon. Slowly, grudgingly, it loosened. He rocked back and forth, pushing and pulling, pressing and yanking. The blade moved back and forth, more of the blade worked free, but still it remained embedded in the sandstone.

The giant suffered no pain, not from the strike and not from Tun’s efforts to rock the blade free. Its blank eyes fell upon the dwarf as if Tun were nothing more than a fly buzzing around its head. Almost defying the dwarf’s existence, the giant remained more watchful of the delver. Its focus quickly left the dwarf and again seized Ryson. The delver did not move.

Others, however, were rushing forward. The sand giant swerved about to meet them. More intruders were progressing down the tier and threatening to pass. The sentinel could not have this and it moved to intercept. It took a path which would set itself to meet the onrushing pack while maintaining a presence between the delver and the far end of the tier. It ignored Tun even as the dwarf continued his attempt to free his blade.

With the sand giant’s altered movements, the elves came to a halt. They held their bows, though they knew the weapon was useless. Further, with Tun still attached to its chest, it made the use of arrows more dangerous than beneficial. Holli yelled over the continuing crescendo for Lief to spread apart. They sidestepped in opposite directions just as Jon reached them.

The younger dwarf pulled to a halt, his mace still in his belt. He stared at the spectacle of Tun upon the giant’s chest. He could not withhold his alarm and for one of the very few times in his life, he yelled an order to his older brother. “Tun, let go of the maul!”

Tun simply growled a refusal.

“Don’t be a fool!” Jon persisted.

The remark brought Tun’s wrath. He yelled with enough anger to be heard by all. “The giant must be destroyed! It breaks beneath the blade. It will crumble upon my next swing. I will use the sledge.”

As if to exclaim his point, the blade broke free of the giant’s hide. With the weapon clear and nothing to hold his weight, Tun tumbled backward to the ground. The momentum of his fall sent him several paces away from the giant. He hit the ground in a tangled, uncoordinated heap, but struck to his feet as the tumble caused him no harm or injury.

He twirled the maul in his hands and now allowed the blunt end to face menacingly toward the giant. He would not repeat his mistake. The back end of the maul, shaped like a sledge hammer, would not embed itself into the giant like the axe head. It would pulverize the sentinel.

Again, the dwarf charged the sand giant. Again, he pulled back his arms ready to lend a powerful swing to the momentum of his onslaught. The heavy head of the maul crashed upon the giant’s hip, sending fragments of sandstone in every direction. The sledge broke clear of the giant, leaving a gash the size of Tun’s head behind, just above the sentinel’s left leg.

The giant shook from the blow. Its feet stayed firmly planted, but the loss of so much of its form left it somewhat off balance. The injury caused it no pain. It did not even examine the crater left in its hip. There was no loss of blood, no damage to the muscle, for the giant had neither. It was comprised entirely of stone, and the gash proved that point.

The blow, other than weakening the sentinel’s equilibrium, caused one other significant reaction. The sand giant reassessed its evaluation of the dwarf as a threat. While it had no concept of self-preservation, it understood if it was destroyed, it could not protect the passage to the next tier. Such was its awareness that it decided to end the life of the dwarf.

With swiftness diametrically opposed to its makeup of stone, it plucked Tun from the ground. The dwarf still held his weapon, even managed to haul his arms back for another strike, but such was no concern of the sentinel’s. With both of its hands firmly holding the dwarf just above the waist, it squeezed as it brought its hands together. Tun would not scream, but a nauseating pop echoed through the tier and signaled his end. The giant discarded the dwarf like a sack of rotten fruit.

Tun was tossed several paces and hit the ground with rolling momentum. The rattle of his bones could not overcome the sound of the low groan emitted by the sphere, but those that watched witnessed the crumpled, disjointed gyrations of his body. Tun never felt the snapping of his bones, the breaking of his legs and arms, for he was already dead.

Jon, and now even the algors, rushed to the fallen dwarf. As Jon checked for signs of life, the algors attempted to spread their healing power over their fallen comrade. To no avail, the power of the algor was to heal not to restore life.

Holli, Lief and Ryson found no time to check upon Tun’s condition. The attack upon the dwarf filled each with rage. Holli and Lief again fired arrows, choosing the eyes of the giant as their aim. Each struck the intended target, but the eyes were made of stone just as the rest of it. The arrows bounced away leaving no damage.

Ryson held tightly to the handle of his sword. He rushed forward, zigzagging in a swarm of motion and speed. He drove around the sentinel, quickly darting about with twists and turns. The giant attempted to seize the delver as well, but each time it reached out, it obtained nothing but the breeze left behind by Ryson’s movements. As the delver circled, he stabbed and swung the blade of his sword at the guardian. The blade cut through the air like a hundred daggers. It struck upon the giant with precision, but there was no effect.

Ryson lacked the strength of the dwarf and could not break the stone as Tun had accomplished. More disturbing, however, was the lack of the flame from this magical sword. Ryson expected the blade to light with the same fire which destroyed the spider-crab. It did not. Each time it struck the sentinel, it impacted with no more power than an ordinary blade.

The lack of effect brought an end to the delver’s attack. He broke off the encounter, ran to Holli’s side for an explanation. Just as he reached her, a soul wrenching wail exploded over the droning hum. It tore his attention away from the elf, away from the sword, and placed it upon the cry’s origin.

Jon knelt beside his brother, Tun’s head in his lap. Jon was still wailing as the algors rose and turned away. The scene struck at Ryson, tore at his soul.

#

Outside Sanctum, at its peak, Ingar laughed to himself. He kept his glee hidden from Matthew and Mappel but he drank in the desperation, the anguish which now rose