Dhurka and Glag hit the ground rolling. No one noticed. Torrents of flame poured from the mouth of the Red Quean. Leigh and Gavriel were hard pressed to hold the fire at bay, while Vi and Drang were desperately searching for an opening.
“We made it,” Glag hissed gleefully.
“Quickly, while the Red Quean is busy.”
Glag produced a pair of daggers, one black, one white. Dhurka took the white blade. She tested it with her thumb. She hissed. The blade was keen.
“Perfect. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us begin.”
The goblinesses locked eyes. As one, they raised the blades and plunged them into one another, heart to heart, blade to flesh, white to black and black to white. They collapsed in a tiny heap.
Still, no one noticed.
***
The Grandmaster laughed, light dancing across his features. He stood on a stone ledge far above the fracas below. He had an excellent view of the Quean. Without his board, however, he did not have an omniscient view of every piece in play.
The deaths of two tiny pawns, beneath his very feet, went unnoticed.
***
“I hate fighting underground!” Gavriel’s brow was beaded with sweat as he countered the blasts of dragonsfire.
“Tell me about it.” Leigh covered a gap in the shield of shadows Gavriel had produced.
The onslaught paused for a moment. The voice of the Red Quean boomed throughout the cavern.
“Stop flitting about like that! Stand still and let me swat you like the flies you are. I will not stand for this indignity. Guards! Guards! Off with their heads!”
The dragoness sent a lance of flame blasting towards Drang. The barbarian nimbly dodged aside. He rolled to his feet and struck a heroic pose.
“We shall not allow thy evil to persist, foul beast! Your reign of terror will soon be ended!”
That earned him another spate of flame. Drang took a batter’s stance and swung the flat of his sword at the incoming fireball. The two connected with an actinic flash and the flames sped back towards the dragoness.
They splashed harmlessly off her scales, but elicited a roar of fury. Her tail lashed out and Drang was forced to beat a hasty retreat.
“Drang’s gotten better,” Gavriel said to Leigh.
“We teamed up with Danicae the job before this one. Some of it must have rubbed off.”
“Ah. I’ll wager that wasn’t all that was rubbed. Danicae being Danicae.”
“Ugh. Working with her was a nightmare.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Hey, chatty Cathyra, a little help here?” Vi hollered.
The swordswoman dodged the flailing tail and leapt upon it, running up the red ribbon of flesh towards the dragoness’ head. The Red Quean reared up, throwing Vi from her back. The swordswoman somersaulted in the air and landed lightly in a defensive crouch.
“Gavriel!”
“Oh, for–”
The sorcerer’s hands flew into action.
***
The sword quivered. He was here! The one who had orchestrated the death of her last bearer. He was here, and he would die. No one and nothing would stand in her way. It was only Just.
***
The Red Quean roared in triumph. Drang and Vi lay in a tangle of limbs, dazed by the blow that had sent them tumbling. Leigh’s eyes were rolled up in the back of her head and the sorcereress’ body was weighing down Gavriel’s arms. He had managed to catch her just as she passed out from over-exertion.
“Bow before me, insects! Prostrate yourselves and offer unto me all obeisance and riches at your behest. For lo, I am and forever more shall be thy Quean. Worship me.”
That did it.
“Bytche, please.” Gavriel shoved Leigh off him and onto a pile of rolled up tapestries. “We are so not your subjects.”
The Red Quean snorted.
“A scruffy monkey in a cheap robe? You dare speak to me thus?”
The cavern suddenly went deathly still.
“Oh, you did not–” Gavriel’s voice was an icy sable razor.
“I do as I please,” the dragoness hissed. “I will not be threatened by a two-bit sorcerer wearing knockoff Ahr’manhi.”
Darkness blazed forth from Gavriel’s eyes. Black lightning snarled at his fingertips and a shockwave of penumbral energies radiated out from him in a ripple of concentric rings.
“Two-bit sorcerer? Knockoff. Ahr’manhi?”
Gavriel advanced slowly towards the Red Quean. Rock fractured and split as he passed.
“There’s only room for one Quean on this level, and sister, it sure as spellshot isn’t you! You want to dance? Well bring it, ’cause girl, it is on!”
***
Valeral and Leibrev broke free from the endless loop. They stood, gasping for breath and bloody, once more returned to their right minds.
“I knew allying ourselves with those two was a mistake,” Leibrev said.
“We didn’t have much of a choice,” Valeral replied, “we needed their help to get this far.”
“And they betrayed us.”
“You really expected different from the likes of Dhurka and Glag? We had a good deal. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, or would have been, if they hadn’t pulled that last trick.”
“Well, they made it to the deepest levels. They got what they wanted.”
“And we have to go after them. The others don’t know what’s they’re in for.”
“No,” Leibrev chuckled, “but Dhurka and Glag don’t really know what’s in store for them if they try to take that bunch on headlong.”
“Let’s try to get there before that happens. I don’t want to have to dig my way out of here.”
“Good point.”
***
Goblin bodies cracked and split wetly. The remains of Dhurka and Glag fell to shreds as a reptilian form rose from each corpse. Membraneous wings flared in the shadows.
“Yesss.”
“Reborn.”
“Queans to rule a Kingdom.”
Cackling, they spread their wings and launched themselves into the air. It was time to join the battle.
***
Titanic forces rocked the cavern. The Red Quean thrashed about, bellowing in pain. Gavriel sat astride her neck, leashing her to his will with crackling lines of power. Vi and Drang had recovered and were bringing Leigh around.
“This is unheard of.” The Grandmaster smiled. “Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.”
In a thunderous voice he called out, “Red Quean Gambit, Grandmaster Stratagem.”
The Red Quean bellowed in agony. A vast torrent of crimson flame spilled forth from her mouth. It poured out, faster and faster, and the dragoness imploded with a crack.
Gavriel fell to the ground, stunned. Drang threw himself in front of Vi, protecting her from the shockwave. It bowled him over and cast him aside like a rag doll. Leigh collapsed back down upon her pile of tapestries.
The flames soared upwards only to spiral down into the open maw of the waiting Grandmaster. Vast feathered wings exploded from his shoulders, feathers gleaming a glossy black. His eyes gleamed red as he absorbed the power of the Red Quean.
Laughing, he looked down upon the scattered forms below.
“Now you face not a King, but a Grandmaster. Welcome to the endgame, peasants.”
Vi struggled to rise. The Grandmaster stepped off the edge of the ledge and began to float down slowly.
“You have provided me more amusement than I have seen in centuries, but now, it is time for you to die.”
***
The moment approached.
***
Coruscating manacles of fire lashed out, binding the unconscious forms of Gavriel and Leigh. The Grandmaster descended ever closer towards Drang, still out cold on the floor, and Vi, who stood over him protectively.
Her hands tightened on the hilt of her sword.
Vi, the sword whispered in the depths of her mind. Vi, listen to me.
“It’s about time you showed up. A little help here?”
I can help you, but you have to let me in first. Like you did when we found Valeral. I can’t fight him without you.
“You expect me to be calm? Now?”
I can’t help you unless you let me in. Just breathe. Deep. Slow. Open your mind…Yes!
Vi felt a surge of fiery exultation. The spirit of the sword blazed across her consciousness and she found herself swimming in a sea of memories and feelings, light and above all else, an unswerving obsession with Justice.
Parts of it were like coming home. Memories, feelings, the lines began to blur. Boundaries shifted, thinned, vanished. Vi could no longer tell where she ended and the spirit of the sword began.
The strange and harmonious resonance keened throughout her body, before Neniel seized control. Vi went spiraling down into steely darkness. Still aware, still merged with Neniel, she found herself thrust into the role of sword, while Neniel took up the mantle of warrior.
Vi reeled mentally as Neniel thrust her sword out towards the approaching Grandmaster.
“Halt! In the name of Justice, I mark thee, wizard. Oathbreaker! Betrayer! Kinslayer! For your crimes, you will die this day.”
Neniel raised her sword and wings of white light shot out from her shoulderblades. She leapt into the air, sword at the ready, fanatic glee gleaming in her eyes.
The Grandmaster laughed.
“You pitiful fool, do you really think–”
The rest of his sentence was lost in the furor of battle. Dhurka and Glag dove into the fray, trailing streamers of queanly majesty (and no small measure of newfound power).
Neniel shrieked and darted in to join the fray.
***
“Mother!”
Leibrev rushed to Leigh’s side. Valeral followed more cautiously, his eyes locked on the melee roiling in the air above.
The White Sorceress groaned. Her eyes fluttered. The manacles about her wrists flashed. She stiffened, briefly, then collapsed back into unconsciousness.
“We have to get those manacles off of her.” Leibrev’s hands hovered nervously over them, not quite daring to touch.
“Watch my back. I’ll have a look at them.” Valeral knelt down beside the stricken sorceress, touching his hands to her temples.
Leibrev, sword in hand, watched the airborne battle closely.
“Make it quick, Val.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, work faster. I think we’re playing timed rounds for this ches game.”
***
The Grandmaster snarled and lashed out with his stolen power. Twin whips of flame skeined out from his hands to wrap around the respective necks of the upstart Queans Dhurka and Glag. Lightning arced from his mouth and eyes, striking downwards to carve open a vast fissure in the floor beneath.
Leibrev shouted and dove. His sword went skittering across the floor and fell into the crevasse, but the warrior managed to grab hold of Drang and pull him back from the edge before the barbarian tumbled into the abyss.
The Grandmaster raised his hands and cracked the lash of fire. Dhurka and Glag went screaming downwards. Fire tore at their wings as they slammed into the edge of the crevasse and plummeted out of sight. The Grandmaster turned, eyes blazing, to face Neniel.
Neniel leveled her sword at the Grandmaster. White light burst forth from the steel and bathed the cavern in its radiance. Words of ringing challenge poured forth from her mouth, old words, words long lost to the hearing of the modern age.
The Grandmaster’s eyes widened.
“I see there was a piece in play I missed. Well, well, well…”
***
Leibrev stared upwards.
“Uh, Val, I don’t think that’s your Aunt up there.”
Valeral’s face was grim.
“No. It’s not.”
“So where is she?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
To Be Continued…
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