Dragon Apocalypse (The Berserker and the Pedant Book 2) (20 page)

The Berserker and the Last Door

PAIN SHOT THROUGH Gurken’s hand as the muscles cramped and stiffened.
 
He relaxed the grip on his axe and stretched his fingers.

“One hundred and thirteen doors,” Gurken said.

Pellonia set a hand on Gurken’s shoulder as he stretched his hand.
 
“Poor guy.
 
Hand sore from turning knobs?”

“Har har har,” Gurken said.
 
He shrugged his shoulders, dissolving her hand.
 
“You’re quite amusing.
 
I only wish it were from knob turnin’.”
 
A Phage jumped out from behind some debris, lunging at Gurken.

“Magicae sagittam!” Maximina said, waving a pair of wands.
 
Six glowing white-hot arrows appeared by her side and whipped out at the Phage.
 
They struck it square on and it fell to the ground, dead.

Gurken nodded towards Maximina.
 
She nodded back.

Antic skittered over to Maximina, but Pellonia picked him up before he could get there.
 
The scent of sulfur filled the air as Antics pincers quivered, Maximina’s eyes flicked open, and she took a step back.
 
Pellonia set Antic on her arm and stroked his head as he purred contentedly.
 

Maximina swallowed and said, “Antic says that except for the queen’s chamber, the armored terrorpods… err… the ants have cleared out the Phage on this ship.
 
Just the one door left.”

“Here we go,” Gurken said as the door swung open.
 
He stepped out of the way as ants streamed into the room.
 
Brilliant flashes came from the room, lightning snapped and crackled, and an acrid smelling smoke billowed out of the door.

Gurken, Pellonia, Maximina, Clem, and Apocalypse charged through the door and into the cavern, flashes of light causing their shadows to silhouette and dance along the walls.
 
In moments, hundreds of ants lay on their backs, shriveling and twitching as the last traces of lightning sparked between them.

On the other side of the room, not twenty feet away, the wall was covered from floor to ceiling in writhing tentacles of various sizes.
 
Occasionally, a clump would fall to the ground and stand up.
 
In front of the wall stood Rufus and the mysterious man in the silken robe.
 
Rufus held an orb in his hand, lightning crackling.
 
He smiled.

“Hullo there.
 
I’m afraid I can’t let you kill the Phage queen,” Rufus said.
 
“Fulguri!”

A bolt of lightning shot towards them as they dove out of the way.
 
It struck Clem, who did not attempt to evade, knocking him back into the tunnel.
 
More Phage popped off the wall of tentacles and advanced.
 
Slurp-pop slurp-pop. Tentacles sucked at the floor as the Phage moved towards them.

Maximina reached into her magic sack and pulled out a skull and the jar of will o’ wisps.
 
She opened the jar and the wisps trickled out into the air.
 
She waved a hand over the skull.

“Surgere!”
 
Will o’ the wisps twirled in the air around the skull, twisting like a glowing hurricane as they were sucked inside.
 
Motes of light shot from the eyes of the skull and flew through the room, settling on the ant corpses.
 
As they enveloped the corpses, wisps of smoky light coalesced into an image of the ant. The smoky ant images lay down into the ant bodies.
 
The ants quivered and stood up, marching awkwardly at first, then with more conviction.
 
They met the advancing Phage head on and fought with grim determination.
 
Ants were crushed, tentacles were severed.

Pellonia looked at Maximina.
 
Maximina shrugged.
 
“A dash of necromantic wizardry comes in handy,” she said.
 

Pellonia smiled and nodded.
 
“You’re amazing.”
 
Maximina blushed.

“No!” Rufus cried.
 
“Those souls were mine!”
 
He gritted his teeth.
 
“No matter, there will be more.
 
We’ve got a surprise for you.”
 
The sound of giggling came from the wall of tentacles.
 
Three Pellonias emerged from the tentacle wall. They were glowing a frosty blue, and a chill fell over the room as they emerged.

The first Pellonia held an axe of ice.
 
Gurken recognized the axe as Sjekira, the axe gifted him from the frost giants.
 
It was made from solid ice that would not — according to the frost giants — melt and was enchanted to freeze any foe it struck.

The second Pellonia wore a glimmering bracelet, Narukvica.
 
It bestowed on its wearer an immunity to cold.
 
Whoever wore it would know no chill, no matter how deep the freeze.

The third Pellonia wielded the mystic hammer Cekic.
 
Any that struck someone brandishing Cekic would freeze in an instant, and one blow from the hammer would shatter them.

“Did you forget something in Arendal?” the Pellonias inquired, batting their eyes with faux sweetness.

“How did you get those?” Gurken asked.

“After we, The Lightning Brigade, retrieved the Sphere of Annihilation, the Bureau of Adventurers Guild asked if we would like to pay the ransom on the items they held as collateral against our taxes.
 
Imagine our surprise, because we hadn’t put any items on reserve, and we’d already paid our taxes.”

Pellonia glared at them.
 
“So you paid our taxes and got our weapons?”

The Pellonias smiled, and one of them said, “Good heavens, no.
 
You owe a lot of taxes.
 
Because of our newfound notoriety from saving the city from the plant beast and retrieving the Sphere of Annihilation, they decided to release the weapons to us.
 
Your taxes are still pending.
 
Don’t worry, we made sure they knew all about you.”

“Hello!” Rufus shouted, waving his arms to gather everyone’s attention.
 
“They aren’t the surprise. This is the surprise.”
 
He grinned and gestured to an enormous fleshy sphere, easily five feet in diameter.
 
It floated in the air a foot off the ground; its mottled flesh was stitched together and there was a huge indentation in it above a smiling mouth filled with sharp, pointing teeth.
 
Tentacles thrashed and squirmed on top of the sphere, one of them grasping an orb.

“Behold her, Hinenuitepo.
 
The goddess of death and ruler of the underworl—”

“Did you say a beholder?” Pellonia asked, interjecting.

“A behold… no, no. I said ‘Behold her,’ as in look at—”

“Seems like another rather vague name,” Gurken said.
 
“It could refer to anything at all.
 
One must behold something in order to see what it is.”

“That’s not wha—”

“It’s hardly the worst name we’ve come across,” Maximina added with her own interjection.
 
“Quite a good one if you ask me.
 
Beholder.
 
Sounds intimidating.
 
Has some heft to it.”

“Very well,” Rufus said, squinting at them.
 
“You all have fun.
 
I’m a bit busy, I’ve got to go help Arthur open a portal and end the world.”
 
Rufus and the mysterious man in the silken robes turned and walked away, robes billowing in the air.
 
The beholder floated toward Maximina, ice crackling in its orb.

“Gurken!” Pellonia shouted.
 
“Take out the beholder!
 
Maximina, keep the Phage busy.”

“I don’t know,” Gurken said.
 
“I haven’t been myself lately.
 
My axe is broke, and that beholder has just as much right to live as we do.
 
It seems I’m only good for opening doors.”

“Those goblins you befriended are the problem, aren’t they Gurken?
 
Ever since you’ve come to understand the enemy, you haven’t been able to get a good rage going.
 
Well screw that, you’ve got to be yourself.
 
Kill that beholder or he’ll kill us!”
 

“You’re right, Pellonia.
 
Dwarfen runes or no, I’ll kill the beasty.”
 
Gurken glared at the beholder, tightened his grip on his axe, and growled.

“Great, I’ll handle the Pellonias.”

“Sure, sure you will,” the Pellonias said in unison.
 
Then they giggled.
 
“Three against one, this will be fun.
 
Hey, that rhymes.”
 
They clapped their hands and squealed.

Clem strode back into the room, stopping at Pellonia’s side.

Pellonia corrected them.
 
“Three against two.”

“Clem smash you!” Clem said.

“Oh, that was good!” Pellonia said, nodding with satisfaction.

“I shall smash them,” Clem agreed.

Gurken stepped toward the beholder.
 
He shook the handle of his axe, in a vain attempt to light up the dwarfen runes.
 
Kenaz, the dwarfen rune of vision, the vital fire of life, and the power to create your own reality remained dormant along with the rest of the runes.
 
Gurken snarled and ran toward the beast, axe raised above his head, shouting an ancient dwarfen battle cry.

The fleshy orb that was the beholder hovered, the tentacles slipping and flipping around on top of its head.
 
The tentacle holding the orb turned toward Gurken and a small circle formed on the surface of the orb, shrinking and expanding as if it were a pupil on an eye on the top of a tentacle stalk.
 
Blue light discharged from the orb, a frosty halo swirling around it.