The Last Pantheon: of spiders and falcons Read online

  The ogre's blood ran down James’ hands and onto his blade, the ogre back stepping now, swinging high then low to keep his human enemy at length. No use, James pushed past every laid attack with shield and sword, countering every effort of the beast. He closed in on his ten foot tall adversary, stepping forward under the blade of his foe, shield raised. He feinted the block when the blow came, sidestepping to the right, and he slashed out. As the ogre sword hit the hard earth, James’ blade went up through the jaw and mouth and into the base of the killer's skull.

  It twitched and trembled as it strained to lift its weapon for another attack. James did not wait to test what it had left. He pulled the blade free, placing it perfectly into the center of the upper chest and out the back of his enemy, dropping it lifeless to the ground. He took a knee, staring at the snow, the blood, and the headless bodies of the two young boys. He could not cry, numb from the battle and the horror of this morning, and his only thought was that he had no idea what year or day it was. He notched another mark upon the back of his shield, then slowly put the knife away. James closed the eyes with trembling fingers, the wide blue eyes of two young red-headed boys, their faces in silent screams on a chain of skulls.

  After another heave of dry bile, James stared at the blade of Arlinne stabbed in the cold ground, wanting someone to put it through him, someone to come by and end his life, wretched as it was. Off in the distance he heard a crash of stone. He looked around the southern wall where he had heard the noise, expecting an ogre army was responsible, hoping perhaps. He saw a cloud of debris rise up on the cold wind far into the ruins. James thought he heard the faintest singing of an angel from another direction. It was all so surreal, so strange, yet James knew the ogre were still here. Plagues and rumors, scattered tribes or not, James had always felt this place owned a part of him. Now, he stared to the ruins of Arouland, alone, and it seemed that his days had caught up and it was time to pay the last of tithes.

  “They call for me. By Alden, I will come.”

  Expecting his wishes to have been granted, and for his day to finally arrive with a last battle against the ogre of Avegarne, he stood to face the western waste and whatever was to come from it. James felt neither the wind nor cold, just his moment of death approaching. He held the sword to his chest and saluted the tower of Arouland, and walked into the ancient ruined city with a smile. He walked to meet his end.

  Beasts I:I

  Upper Tunnels of Unlinn

  Western Wastes

  Chazzrynn

  The cavern was cold, colder than he had ever felt in his entire life, however short that had been. He touched the rough stone passage, feeling bits of frost on his fingers, What a strange cold that grows on the very walls he thought.

  The gray skinned minotaur carefully stepped heel to toe, quietly following the cavern his father had told him would lead out. His thick hide did not suffer the chill air, his bare feet and taurine muscled body could tolerate almost anything with such adrenaline flowing. Saberrak gripped his axe with his left hand tightly, not knowing what was around the next turn, and his vision was keen, even with light to be found. There had been no light for hours now. He smelled the air, slowly, so as to not stir even an echo of sound. Trolls ahead, he knew their stench, ogre also. The gray beast had fought and killed many of them both, bastard cousin races, in the arena of Unlinn where he was born and raised.

  “Take the passage to the left of the arena, son. Follow it until it splits, and go left again. Watch on your right for stairs, and when you see them, head upward, Saberrak. From there I know little, as it has been many years since they took me. But upward is cold, that cold will lead to light and air, and they both lead to your freedom.”

  The words of his father echoed in his mind. So far, Tathlyn had been correct.

  The minotaur moved round the corner, crouching to hear if his pursuers were any closer. His owner had surely met with the rotted king of the underground. Saberrak knew who was hunting him, knew they had sent the deadliest of his stock after him, and not alone. Chalas Kalaza, the feared brown minotaur champion, and two whites that followed with him, had been chasing Saberrak for almost half a day and a half. The white shaggy albino minotaurs he feared little. Bigger and stronger, yes, but feral and more like animals than any other of his race were. Saberrak knew he could outthink and out move them. It was Chalas that Saberrak held a healthy fear of, as he was at least a foot taller and undefeated in the arena since Saberrak was a young bull. The gray one smelled again, knowing they would not give up their hunt, and waited until he knew if they were together or separate. That fact, would decide whether he took them and made a stand, or continued toward the surface.

  “Up there you will see the sun, clouds, sky, and stars. Two moons will dance at night, one green, one white. Son, do not stop moving, you know who they will send after you.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “Everywhere, son. Everywhere and anywhere you can.”

  His chain and hook tied loose around his belt and leather loincloth, the gray minotaur heard nothing and continued up his dark road underground. Only the remnants of recent words with Tathlyn the gray made noise to Saberrak. One step at a time, he knew at the sign of the cold that he was near. His father had told him which cavern to follow and when the uprising distraction from the gladiatorial arena happened, he did what he was told. His younger brother was left there, and many others that were on the wrong side of the arena, deep in the earth, when the moment struck. Tychaeus had been as much a friend as a brother, and friendship in the deep slave city of Unlinn was something rare and to be kept quiet. Brothers often killed one another to prove themselves in the arena, many times on false promises of freedom. Saberrak had refused to fight both his father and brother, instead taking the lash several times. His scars grew uncomfortable, feeling them tingle with life and sensations that had been very long lost. So many scars, markings of hundreds of battles and kills, he had those and his slave tattoos to remember this place by.

  “Where are you Chalas, which way will you come?” Saberrak the gray listened down two passages, his ears catching nothing save silence.

  Saberrak had hoped to be with many other minotaurs, a few humans, even dwarves that had been enslaved or born into slavery like he had. They had all been hunted down by the pet gladiators of the owners or lost in these strange winding tunnels. He had heard the screams and echoes. Depending on the violated property master, ogre, troll, or a host of other races, an attempted escape could mean anywhere from fifty lashes and the pit, or death outright. Saberrak’s master, Zeress the Black, a foul ogre warrior with a passion for tattoos and marking his combatants, would have a public slaughter and charge double in the arena for the viewing. He would also do it himself, Saberrak had seen, with his metal whip and curved serrated blade. It was a known custom to cut a minotaur's horn as a sign of defeat and dishonor and the gray beast had seen his master perform a few of those displays to ones who disobeyed, seen it entirely too close. He kept his horns low, his senses keen, and his steps slow and steady.

  His rewards for loyalty were black ink to mark victories. Saberrak rubbed under his eyes where two mirrored patterns adorned his face, tattoos mimicking the curved horns on either side of his head. He had been awarded, more forced, to accept those markings from a pit fight with just himself against a Bori giant from some nearby mountains, a massive man that stood twice as tall as he did. His test of “manhood,” Zeress had called it, a fifteen foot tall test that Saberrak the Gray was not supposed to survive.

  He could smell them now, Chalas and his two bestial cousins, close, and Saberrak picked up his pace in the quiet darkness. He climbed over ledges, around stalagmites, and over underground pools that seemed lifeless and dreary. He dodged small chasms that he found ways around, and down slick and cold drops into still more cavern. Using his chain and hook, he climbed over a ledge twice as tall as he, hoping the minotaurs that pursued would lose his trail. The horned gladiator could hear now, his enemies cl
osing, sloshing the water, and the clack of hooves. The white minotaurs, besides red eyes and shaggy hair, had hooves instead of feet, unlike the rest of his kind. Most minotaurs suspected this was due to their closeness to beast as opposed to man. His kind, the grays, were known for hunting, his red cousins famous for their fearless brutality, the dark browns for their wickedness, and his black skinned relations for their silence and wisdom, passing down generations of history to one another. None of them truly recognized their unkempt albino descendants as anything but a disgrace to the minotaur breed. The gladiator snapped out of his thoughts and prejudices and moved on.

  A hundred or so steps behind me he thought, keep moving.

  Saberrak saw light, and not the thousand torches of the arena or the foul smelling lantern radiance either. White light from cracks in the top of the cavern, yet they were too far to reach. There were plants growing through the cracks, or had been growing but they were now dead from the cold; roots of some sort, he imagined. Over fifty feet for certain, but there they were, seven, no, eight beams of soft light from ceiling to floor and a bit of a cold stirring movement in the air. He kept moving in this strange environ despite the fascination. the minotaur was well aware of his chase and the consequences of his capture should he fail.

  “I will return, for you and Tychaeus, soon father.”

  “Don’t even think it, son. Once you are out, do not return. Don’t look back ever.”

  “I cannot live with that.”

  “Live with the knowledge that we will escape, and when we do, we will find you.”

  “Who do I meet with again?”

  “Heathen the Red, in the city of Valhirst. He will find you in time. He and I have met, long ago.”

  He rounded a turn in the cavern that had still more lines of white from above and the walls were lined like the deep city of Unlinn. Chiseled stone it was, manmade and not natural. Saberrak smiled as he moved quicker now, and he thought of how he fled a city under the ground to escape to a city built underneath a city on the surface. Regardless of his ironic conclusions, the smells of troll could not be denied as Saberrak sniffed the air. And the blood was fresh. The gray warrior could distinctly sense, eyes focusing and caution taking his movements down, the odors of fresh blood. It was none like he had ever been near or passed before. His breath now visible from his bull nostrils, Saberrak crept with a silence only his breed could claim.

  The violence sounded brutal and was just as savage to his eyes once he peered around the side of a broken underground wall. Glowing streams of white light forced down into this perfectly round pit. Trolls, three of them, at least nine feet tall, swarmed about a man of incredible size. He stood the same height as Saberrak and looked just as muscled, yet human. His long beard stretched over his dirt covered chest. Chained to pillars of stone at least eight feet across, this man stood silent and barely moved as claws from the horrid troll cowards ripped his flesh, spilling blood from dozens of wounds. His only motion was to look up, meeting Saberrak’s gaze from fifty or more feet away. He knew Saberrak was there.

  Those eyes, glowing with a blue light from within, it was inhuman. Saberrak stared back at the man being ripped apart and staring at the gray minotaur with those effervescent blue eyes. The sickly green and deformed trolls continued pleasuring themselves with the torture of this man who was chained with restraints that could hold a giant. The maiming continued and Saberrak crept closer, unable to release his eyes from the stare across the room, gripping his axe in one hand and the chain and hook in the other. His father's words echoed more loudly.

  “Do not stop or get slowed. Do not stand to fight. Run, and keep running, you cannot afford to waste time on anyone, or anything, until you are free, son.”

  “Understood.”

  From behind, in a rush of echoed stampeding, the hooves of a white minotaur broke the silence and Saberrak's unknown approach. Blood covered and screeching in their bestial troll tongue, the three wretched and warted trolls turned to see an albino minotaur charge into the pit with its head down and a great curved scimitar in its hands. They also saw the gray gladiator, positioned on the other side of the entry, whip out his grappling hook round the charging beast’s horns. The hook caught its eye and lodged deep into the skull. Saberrak raised his arm and planted his feet forward, lifting the white off the ground with its own momentum. It roared in pain and thrashed, reaching to get the hook from its deep embrace. With two calculated steps, watching his foe reach for the huge curved sword, the gray warrior struck down with his double edged axe into his pursuer’s chest and buried it deep through bone and vitals. He raised his weapon again, this time bringing it down across the first gaping wound.

  Blood splashed into the air and landed with a quick splatter. More blood poured from the deep crossed cuts on the twitching albino’s chest and Saberrak crouched. His head lowered, eyes fixed upon the trolls that he assumed would come for a meal, the gladiator whipped the chain free from his adversary’s eye socket and horns, and began spinning it playfully as he approached the slope down. It was over before anyone could react.

  Saberrak snorted, huffed his breath hard and heavy, then took step after slow step toward the trolls.

  “If you must fight, if you are trapped, kill quickly and without mercy.”

  “I know, father.”

  Saberrak felt no fear, not a tremble, he had fought trolls in the arena. He killed ones with armor and spikes adorning their soft yet strong figures. He knew where to hit a nine foot troll, and that was in the back or through the side with something sharp and heavy. The gray had been told that the only part of a troll that was bone was the spine, the rest, including the skull, was just cartilage and prone to regrow given enough time. The only way to put one of these swamp colored, black-toothed fiends down for good was to cut through that spine. The first two came directly, screeching to the third back and forth in whatever hissing language that they used. Saberrak noticed that one was moving round the left side to get behind him. He grinned a bovine smile and twirled his greataxe.

  The chained hook flew out at the feet of the first troll, catching tight into the flesh. The beast laughed at the minotaur, until he hit the floor, seeming to enjoy the pain. Saberrak’s axe swung high, taking off the left hand of another troll cleanly, then he swung again with a stroke from the back blade using his great strength to cleave the weapon into its flank. Dark green blood coated the axe and the smell of oily rotten fish was all the minotaur could compare the penetrating stench to. The third troll, still moving in from behind, would be hard pressed to get the minotaur now as he dove between the front trolls, standing up only to sever the spine of the tangled one with a mighty two handed chop from above. The steel blade hit the stone floor, echoing loudly in the pit.

  “I would run.” Saberrak snorted, glaring now at two trolls instead of three.

  Saberrak rapidly stepped aside the second troll, who was still stunned by his wounds, and used him as a shield from the craftier one behind. The horned gladiator lifted from below, hoisting the tip of the axe into the crotch of the green demon with no hand. Face to face, it cringed and grabbed the minotaur. Saberrak let out a low roar, anger and determination filled his throat as he stepped back, lowered his head and rushed forward. He crushed the two into the wall. His curved horns soaked in troll blood from the screaming beast he had just punctured and carried, the minotaur pulled his adornments free from the soft flesh and suddenly cut the wretch in half just under the ribcage with a fluid stroke of his double headed battle axe.

  “Last chance.” Saberrak growled.

  The pieces fell to the floor, rolling downhill in a disturbing visage of soft flesh and pattering and twitching parts. The third troll, fearless as his horned enemy, ripped into Saberrak’s flesh. The shoulder bled first, then his chest, leaving deep cuts and running blood from its black, dirty claws. The minotaur raised his axe, deflecting more heavy clawed hands that were knocking him back step by step. But the beast made a fatal move as it thought it had the u
pper hand, and it tried to bite the horned warrior over the axe and take him by force. Saberrak lifted his weapon, turning one of the ichor covered blades inward at the swamp demon’s throat and then, with his hand between the double blades and the other on the lower handle, he pushed. With pure arm strength, being pushed down the slope, the minotaur’s axe cut clean through the neck. Green blood sprayed all over as the head came clear off. It was rolling and screaming curses, then landed at the feet of the tortured man.

  Saberrak kept focused on the body of the troll, still using its black eyes from afar to guide the movements of a headless torso. The axe pulled back, one handed now, as Saberrak pushed the unstable creature back with a strong-arm blow, followed by an arcing cleave from the axe just inches above the hips and cutting the spine. The collapse ended the motion and the eyes of the screeching head closed. The minotaur looked at his wounds, still dripping red. They would heal, he thought, and eventually be just another unpleasant reminder of home.

  The gray approached the man, looking for his wounds, yet there were none to be found. The man stayed perfectly still, breathing deep breaths, staring at the minotaur as he came closer. Saberrak one hefted his axe over his head, striking hard into the chains that bound the man. The noise was deafening, and again Saberrak struck the chains, though he knew not why. Over and over, the minotaur chipped his axe blade, yet managed to get through the chains obviously meant for something of a monstrous size, not this human. Finally, after what seemed like hours of hard labor, the four chains were cut through. Not a word, the man made no gesture from behind his unkempt and ancient beard to talk, speak gratitude, or communicate. He just stared with those inhuman eyes, naked and filthy in the dark.

  “You are free, human, no one should endure what you have…from one slave to another.” Saberrak stopped, looking at this person, stained from years of imprisonment by the looks of it, yet healthy, standing eye to eye with the minotaur, full of strength. No human he had met came to his shoulders in height. Saberrak looked around, there was no waste, no smell of it, no bones or food.