MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (10 page)

He reached out, pushing his senses deep into the ground while also drawing the golden ichor within him to the top of his skin, preparing it for transmutation. That was the true secret behind his abilities: the alchemic, transmutable nature of the ichor flowing in his veins. True, he could shapeshift, but only because his gray flesh was saturated with the golden substance beneath, lending it similar, malleable properties. Yes, he could heal even the most grievous injuries, but only because the ichor—almost a living substance—fought furiously to keep its host alive.

The ichor was powerful stuff, capable not merely of taking the shape or appearance of a thing, but of becoming that thing in truth.

The earth—his mother and father—called out to him, welcoming him home and offering him whatever assistance he required: layers of burnt-red sandstone hummed like a gentle laugh from a long lost friend; pockets of silvered mica, cloudy quartz, and chalky feldspar—all like siblings—each yelled at him, all vying for attention. Running beneath all of those lay metamorphic and igneous rock, their call like a sturdy and steadfast military cadence. That was what he needed: the igneous rock, with its rough patches of buried obsidian, which could be honed to a razor edge, sharper even than a surgical scalpel.

That would do nicely.

He held the picture of the volcanic glass in his mind, envisioning the slick texture of it under his fingertips. The ichor within him vibrated, his skin crawling as the substance responded to his unspoken command. Spikes—pencil thin, black as ebony, and sharp as death’s scythe—ruptured from his arms, legs, and torso, impaling the Kobos covering his body. It wasn’t a painless process for Levi—he felt each spike rip through muscle and skin, perforating his body. Sometimes, though, painful things needed doing.

Besides, Levi’s wounds were only superficial and well worth the paying, especially considering the outcome.

The clinging Kobos shrieked and wailed, falling away as spikes stabbed into hands and chests, gouged out eyes or sliced through roving tongues and biting mouths. The creatures slipped away like water droplets rolling off a rain slicker, and tumbled to the ground. They twitched and flailed as purple lifeblood leaked away, staining the pavement. Soon their thrashing ceased. Death a relief from the pain. Levi retracted the spikes back into his body; minute puckered holes now peppered his form, each leaking a small rivulet of molten gold.

The Dread Troll was firmly on his feet now and moving toward Levi. But the creature moved with unsure feet, hesitation and uncertainty marking his movements, etched into his body like lines worked into a slab of clay.

“
Ustorfa og siskat divpu
!” the Thursr commanded in a guttural tongue while edging left, positing himself between Levi and the minivan.

The two remaining Kobos responded in an instant, retreating a few paces before wheeling around and dashing toward the van. Toward Ryder. Though the words were unclear, Levi understood the situation just fine: whatever this lot had been expecting, Levi was
not
it. So, the troll would hold off the Mudman while the remaining underlings snatched the prize.

Not if Levi had anything to say on the matter.

With a tremendous effort of will, Levi smashed his foot into the ground, ichor exploding outward from his sole on impact. The ground split, and a crack as wide as a man spread out before him, zigzagging along the pavement and swallowing one of the Kobocks as it fled, sucking the creature down before shuddering closed with a
groan
and a
crunch,
leaving behind only a jagged scar marring the black macadam. Not an easy trick, that, even for a creature of the earth.

Before Levi could deal with the last Kobo—now raking claws at the driver side door, leaving furrows in the paint—the troll lunged forward with burly arms swinging. Levi slipped away from the first strike, but the troll’s other fist lashed out, quick as a viper, sinking into Levi’s face. The hit landed like a tractor-trailer and fractured Levi’s jaw, leaving his chin tethered to his face only by a loose fold of skin.

Levi staggered left and back, groping at his face while forcing a surge of ichor to his jaw. With an inarticulate roar, he cranked at his chin, yanking the whole thing back into place. For a brief moment pinpricks of white exploded in his vision. He shook his head clear and circled right, buying a few seconds to reroute the ichor into his face, shoulders, chest, and arms.

Bony ridges of swirling pink rose quartz sprouted from his gray skin like thick scales: a coat of rocky ringmail, impervious to anything the Thursr could dish out. He’d be ponderously sluggish covered in the thick rock, but a heavy threat called for heavy armor. His mace-headed hands solidified into rectangular blocks of purple quartzite, dotted throughout with shards of black obsidian.

The troll shot in with a jab, connecting a solid blow to Levi’s nose. Levi’s head, rooted in place by slabs of stone, didn’t move an inch, whereas the troll recoiled with a yowl, cradling a now mangled hand to its chest. Much better.

Levi stomped forward, capitalizing on the brief opening, going on the offensive.

He hammered rocky limbs into the creature’s body and face. Hot blood splattered onto his chest and trunk with each blow. The troll lashed out with feet and hands, but steadily withdrew at the Mudman’s brutal onslaught. Levi pressed on, impervious to the troll’s attacks, not giving the creature an opportunity to break away and regroup. It took only a handful of seconds to maneuver the Thursr against the wall of the rest stop bathroom.

Then the real work began. Levi spread his feet wide and laid in with his fists, smashing bone with every strike, razor-edge chunks of obsidian slicing open its skin.

With no place to go, the creature dropped, curling into a tight ball of muscle and fur, portly thighs pressed into its middle while beefy arms wrapped around its skull. Levi didn’t relent, but rained down crushing blow after crushing blow—he would beat this creature to death. Beat him until there was nothing left to beat.

“Oh shit! Help! God, it’s through the door. Help!” Ryder screamed.

The last Kobo.
How had he forgot about that?
The bloodlust,
that was how.

Levi spun.

He’d finish the troll once the girl was safe. She was the priority—

The downed creature grabbed hold of Levi’s wrist, just behind the mace head, and planted claw-tipped feet into the Mudman’s side. Levi jerked at his arm, frantic to pull the limb loose from the troll’s death grip. In turn, the downed troll mule-kicked, simultaneously tugging at Levi’s limb.

The rocky mail covering Levi’s skin protected him from external blows, but didn’t reinforce the muscle beneath. Pain built in Levi’s shoulder, an excruciating pressure as the creature subjected Levi to an impromptu version of the medieval stretcher. Levi fought, but with no luck. After a tense, brutal round of tug-of-war, the shoulder gave. The arm ripped from its joint with a
squelch
as the limb separated at its seam.

Though Levi could heal rapidly, growing a limb from scratch was out of the question. He could change his basic form, but he only had a finite amount of material to work with. True, the ichor itself could transform into anything and theoretically with enough of it, he could
grow
a new limb. In reality, however, there was only so much ichor coursing through his body at any one time, and if he ran out … well, he expected death was a likely possibility. That meant major healing required the transmutation of raw materials, a lengthy process even for the ichor, which meant time and resources. Neither of which Levi had at the moment.

What’s more, Levi was acutely aware of pain.

He pitched over to the side, a barbaric howl escaping his throat as he rolled and flailed in the high grass next to the parking lot. His remaining quartz club-hand vanished as he clutched at the bleeding nub, trying to staunch the flow of blood. The wound pumped out more and more liquid gold, spurting with every thud of his heart.

The Dread Troll—badly beaten and covered in blood, but far from dead—scrambled to his feet and hefted Levi’s arm high into the air, upheld like a prized trophy. The stolen limb bobbed up and down as the creature teetered, left then right, on unstable legs.

Levi ignored the Thursr, focusing instead on the arm wound, which was his most pressing concern. With a grunt, he dug his fingers into the dirt around him, clawing out a clump of dry, red-brown earth. He jammed the clod into his shoulder pocket, focusing all his attention on the jagged hole. The ichor loss slowed, absorbed into the fresh earth, leaving a smooth, tender scab of dirt over the wound. A temporary stop-gap measure at best, but one that would keep Levi from bleeding out until he could repair the damage properly.

The troll suddenly loomed over Levi, now wielding the Mudman’s amputated arm as a weapon. The stolen limb—still bearing its purple quartzite mace-head—collided into Levi’s face with a peal of thunder. Several of Levi’s blunt teeth rattled in his mouth; rosy chunks of rock flew free in a swirl of grit and dust.

“Help!” Ryder shrieked again.

She would have to take care of herself. There was nothing Levi could do—he was in no position to help anyone, not even himself.

In a cruel reversal of fortune, the troll towered over Levi and hammered at him with his own weapon while the Mudman curled into a ball, desperate to protect and preserve his vital bits. He didn’t have organs, at least not like those a human possessed, but still he found his face, chest, stomach, and groin were more vulnerable to serious damage than his back, arms, or legs. The club fell over and over again, thudding into his shoulder blades or hammering at his spine and neck. Long term, Levi knew, the fetal position was not a winning strategy. It would protect him for a time, perhaps, but in the end the troll would obliterate him.

If he wanted to walk away, he needed to do something different. Anything would be better than lying there, being bludgeoned into an early grave. What he needed was an opening, just a brief reprieve to act. That, he could make.

Levi rolled onto his back, stretching out and dropping his lone arm away from his face, for all the world looking like a man on the verge of giving up the ghost at last. The move offered the Thursr an opening too good to pass up. If the troll was savvy and quick, it could cave in Levi’s face and end this tussle in a flash—an opportunity no killer could overlook. In order to make it count, though, the troll would need to reposition itself. The beast snarled, its tusked mouth pulling open while a fat tongue licked blood from its muzzle. It moved, straddling Levi’s chest and lifting the pilfered arm above its head, preparing for the killing stroke.

Perfect. Levi’s remaining arm shifted into an obsidian blade, three feet of thin, gleaming black, both edges sharp and serrated like a bone-saw.

The troll paused, pilfered limb raised high, eyes growing wide in panic as it realized its mistake.

The Mudman thrust the deadly blade directly into the troll’s now exposed groin, aiming for the fat arteries and connective tissue running along the inside of the thigh. The lance cut clean through the boorish beast’s tender bits, a gout of red pouring out in a stream. The creature pitched to one side like a felled tree, dropping Levi’s arm and grabbing at his crotch while he struggled to find breath. A pool of blood seeped out and encircled the troll’s legs.

It was wrong to kill—even murderous creatures like the Thursr—but in that terrible moment Levi relished in the act. Hot, sticky liquid trickled around him and he felt satisfied. Sadly, there was no time to dwell on his victory. Not with the last Kobock still living and sharp-tongued Ryder in danger.

He struggled to his feet, whipping around, expecting the worst.

Instead he found Ryder standing over a dying Kobo, a jagged piece of glass—swaddled in a thick swath of fabric—clenched in one quivering fist.

She’d done the beast in.

He smiled at her, his most reassuring look; though, covered in blood and minus an arm, he must’ve looked terrifying. Needless to say, she didn’t return the friendly gesture.

The smile slipped and disappeared. He cleared his throat. “Back in the car,” he snapped. “I’ll be right there.”

He turned away and set to work, dragging the broken bodies off one by one into the high grass, forming a mound of battered corpses. Once done, he dipped fingers into the gaping hole in his shoulder and drew out ichor. He carefully splattered droplets around the grisly dog pile, forming a rough and ragged circle of gold. He bent over with a heavy sigh, suddenly weary to his core, and pressed ichor-covered fingers into the dirt, connecting and communing with the loamy earth.

Take them,
he commanded with a thought.
Hide them from the eyes of men. Consume them. Let their twisted bodies nurture you.
The earth grumbled and moaned in protest—as if unwilling to accept the rank meat of the Kobocks and the Thursr—then, reluctantly, assented. The splattered ichor flashed like a tiny solar flare, and in a bubble of muck, the bodies sank, disappearing into soggy ground, which quickly hardened.

Levi felt empty and hollow. He needed to get home. To rest and heal.

He trudged over and retrieved his arm, his movements unsteady, resumed his church face, and headed back to the van. He let out another groan as he surveyed the damage. Claw marks crisscrossed over the driver’s side door, marring the paint and biting into the metal. He frowned. He’d have to get the panel replaced—no amount of work could repair that level of damage. The Kobock had also broken out the window, which might attract unwanted attention, though there was nothing Levi could do about it.

He shook his head in resignation, as though to say,
Such is life
, then pulled the door open and brushed chunks of glass from the dark leather upholstery. Then he awkwardly slid into the cab and placed his rocky, amputated arm on the center console, where the cup holders were. Ryder, face pale, hands shaking and still clutching the fabric-wrapped shard of glass, stared at the limb, then Levi. Limb, then Levi.