Soul Under the Mountain (Legend of Reason Series) (29 page)

The creature stared in confus
ion.
It cocked its head both ways, letting out short, quiet grunts. Slime dripped from its jaws as it snapped them shut a few times, and it clicked its claws together slowly.
Arrows bounced off of its bony plates, and several stuck into the thick skin, but it ignored them and continued to stare.

Rommus ran at the creature again at full speed. Again the chest opened and a powerful streak of light was emitted. This time the Thrahk missed, and Rommus got close enough to strike. He gripped his sword tightly and swu
ng with all his might at a leg.

He did not get the result he expected.
Instead of the Thrahk falling immediately to the ground, the sword just slipped right off the thick bony plates. He had never been close enough to a Thrahk to study their anatomy, but he assumed that the bony armor was covered in a thin layer of skin. He thought that if the sword could pierce that skin, and reach the blood inside, then the sword's magic would send the beast directly to the void. He had seen it happen many times, but without skin to cut, the magic did not work.

It was too tall to reach up and
stab in its underbelly. The long spears could barely reach, and his sword certainly wouldn't. His mind raced to think of how to bring the creature down, but no ideas came. Before he could act, a huge boulder crashed into the shoulder of the beast. The bones had clearly been pulled out of socket or broken, but it did little to slow the Thrahk down.

The left arm hung limp, but the chest opened once again. T
his time the trebuchet that had launched the boulder was the target.
The war machine was instantly destroyed, leaving behind just a few timbers that the beam had missed. Every soul between the Thrahk and the trebuchet had been lost.

Rommus ran to the right and headed for the injured left arm. It was dislocated and seemed that the Thrahk could not move it at all. The arm was long enough and hung low enough that he thought it might be possible to climb up to take a swing at the upper arm where there was no bony armor. Rommus tried to position himself in the best spot to grab on when the creature passed, but he slipped in the thick mud.

The giant feet stomped closer and closer. Rommus assumed the armor would protect him from being crushed, but if his face was forced down into the mud, he feared he would suffocate. He scrambled to his feet with the help of two soldiers in just enough time to avoid the coming Thrahk.

He grabbed the mighty wrist as it passed and hoisted himself up. He tried to dig his boots
into the palm or use the claw-like fingers to stand on, but the hand was limp and lifeless. It was impossible to use it for something to stand on since the fingers
just fell away under his feet, and i
t took great strength
just
to hold himself up. He could only use his left arm, since in his right hand he held the sword.

Before he even got a chance to swing the sword up and try to cut the skin of the upper arm, the Thrahk grabbed him with its functional hand. Rommus was dizzy for a moment as he watched the battlefield twist underneath him in his vision as the Thrahk lifted him up high over its head. Both of his arms were pinned against his sides,
making it impossible
to swing the sword. As he looked down into the mouth of the roaring beast, he feared what would happen if it decided to bite off his head. There was only one way to discover if the armor would protect against that, and he didn't want to find out.

But the Thrahk lowered him through its stinking breath toward its enormous open mouth. Rommus could see the soft, wet steaming fleshy insides of the throat waiting to gulp down parts of his body or all of it entirely. The back of the throat vibrated when another deafening roar escaped from the lungs.
Ropes of saliva spewed forth
, coating everyone
nearby in a hot, slimy mess.

Rommus heard quiet tinkling sounds. At first he thought it was the soldiers futilely attacking the bony armor covering the legs, but he soon saw that there were arrows bouncing all over. The noises he heard were the arrows hitting his own armor when the Medoran soldiers missed their target. It seemed that they were aiming for the face, and since Rommus was hovering right near the open mouth, he was in the way.

Two arrows hit the roof of its mouth. It aggravated the Thrahk and it paused, using its thick gray tongue to attempt to dislodge the uncomfortable arrows. While its head was lowered slightly, another arrow burst through the lower eyelid of one eye, going right through the eyeball and stopping at the top of the eye socket. The creature screamed in agony, whipping its head back and forth. Dark blood pooled between the eyelids and dripped down the face; a ghastly tear of blood oozing from a completely inhuman monster.

It dropped Rommus.
He flailed as he fell helplessly toward the ground. It was only luck that saved him when the sharp sword slipped into the belly of the beast. It slowed him enough that he was not injured when he hit the ground face first. Blood and gore splashed down all around him as the guts of the Thrahk poured from the wound above. The monster still stood, impossibly balanced in the moment right after death, but its slackened muscles would not hold it up for long.

Rommus slipped over and over in the mud as he tried to avoid being crushed by the falling creature. Soldiers rushed in to help him get to his feet, but ended up only being able to yank him back out of the way before the Thrahk fell in front of them. The head landed mere inches from them,
as
a massive, disgusting glob of bile spurted out of the throat.

A few cheers went up but there was little
time
for celebration. The other Thrahks were still attacking the shields and there were far too many to kill in the way they killed the one they had just dispatched. Many of them were injured and a few had died, but dozens still sent their beams of energy at the weakening shields. The posture of the Mages made it clear that their strength was beginning to fail. If the shields did not hold, there would be nothing the Legions could do except retreat, and that would allow the Thrahks to enter Medora and systematically destroy every city. It would be an easy task after that for the Bhoors and Vindyri to come in behind them and slay all of the people of Medora.

Rommus could not allow that to happen. He searched his mind for any ideas as he wiped some of the sticky gore from his helmet. He wiped the hilt of Archenarius on his cape so that he could grip it firmly, and then he stood.
He watched the boulders fly thought the air at the incessant enemy, and he watched their terrible magic chip away at the
Medoran
defenses. There just wasn't enough time to come up with a plan that would work. They were coming too fast.

"Get me a spear or at least the shaft," Rommus said. "Some rope too. Hurry."

A soldier immediately handed over his spear and some rope was taken from some of the timbers of the trebuchet that was destroyed by the Thrahk. Rommus
placed his golden sword at the tip of the long spear and began tying it tightly to the shaft. He tied most of the blade snuggly to the spear, leaving only a few inches of the tip sticking out at the end. He had essentially turned his magical sword into a makeshift magical spear. It was crude, but functional, and with the extended reach, he could use the magic of the sword to bring down the mighty monsters in a single stab from the ground.
It was a little foolish to place his cherished weapon at the end of a stick, but he felt he had no other options.

Brave soldiers ran behind him as he rushed out to meet the nearest Thrahk. It greeted them with the same ferocity and rage as the one before, and this one was even a little bigger. The soldiers did not attempt to stab at it, but instead ran around it, trying to draw its attention away from Rommus. After a while, the confused monster followed the running soldiers, twisting its head around and snarling in frustration. It tried several times to grab one of the pesky humans, but they stayed far enough away that it was impossible.

When Rommus shoved the tip of the sword into the soft skin of the belly, the Thrahk immediately died. The sword had stolen the soul of
the
creature and sent it to dwell in the void. The massive body collapsed to the ground, never to harm another human being.

This method was effective for killing another two Thrahks, but before any more could be killed, horns were blown and the remaining Thrahks halted their assault. They slowly turned around and lumbered back to their masters in the distance. It seemed, for the time being, that the Medorans had turned back the assault.

But then Rommus heard another roar behind him. It wasn't the booming roar of a Thrahk, but it was just as menacing. He turned to face the sound to see two man-like creatures swinging heavy war hammers at the surrounding soldiers. One took a hit right to his cuirass, and he flew though the air as if he was a child's doll. He was dead on impact.

The other soldiers did their best to fight off the strange purplish men, but their spears could never find their mark. They were batted away with ease and then broken to splinters with the hammers. One of the beasts lifted up a soldier by his neck and crushed it into mush. His head nearly came off of his body when it fell to the ground.

They were more like animals than men, but they must have had more humanity in them than the Thrahks because they sang as they slaughtered. It was an incomprehensible assemblage of grunts and ancient words, but it was perfectly timed to their motions, and both beasts sang the same thing. It appeared that they enjoyed the killing. It was artistic expression more than it was
mindless butchery.

Rommus soon found that he was the last man standing. He had tried to free his sword from the spear, but it had been tied too tight. He gave up and pointed the entire weapon at them and lunged forward. The one he aimed at leaned back to avoid the thrust, and the other one parried the spear with his hammer.

"That sword cannot harm us, Rommus Tirinius. Give up now."

They knew his name. It was clear that they had come for a purpose, and were not just random creatures recruited by the Bhoors to fight in the war. They had stopped their eerie singing
and began circling their intended target. Rommus choked up on the spear shaft and thrust again.

But it was easily deflected. After missing, a powerful blow from one of their hammers hit him from the side. He tumbled away from them and tried to get up to escape, but another blow crashed down on his back and knocked him back to the ground. The armor protected him from any injury or pain, but he was unable to get to his feet.

Again and again they took turns hitting him. The air was filled with a crackling laughter as both of them smashed his armor. Rommus was already exhausted from fighting the Thrahks, and these beings were not allowing him to even catch his breath. The mud made it hard to find a foothold, and it covered the shaft of his spear in a slippery mess.

He was finally able to time an attack between their choreographed swings. He swung his spear at one of their legs, but only managed to cut off a few of the leather strips that hung from his belt. While it didn't do the beast any harm, it did surprise him, and Rommus used the opportunity to spin around and slice at his neck.

But the other one grabbed the shaft and stopped it.
His grip was so strong that it felt as if Rommus had swung his spear at a solid wall. He even saw the shaft bend and nearly break under the pressure. Such strength was nearly impossible to imagine from beings that were not all that much larger than a man, but somehow they possessed it.

Rommus stood there stunned. He tried to pull his spear out of the powerful grip, but it was no use. Before he could think of what to do, the beast leaned in and bit the shaft of his spear just beyond where the sword was tied.
Splinters flipped through the air and the purple
creature
spit out chunks of wood from his huge mouth. In his hand he held the top of the spear, along with the golden sword Archenarius tied to it.

The other one punched him and knocked him off his feet. Rommus tried to stand, but before he could, he was picked up off the ground and thrown through the air.
The next thing he knew, one of his foes had picked up one of the boulders fired by the catapults and heaved it onto his back, pinning him against the ground.

The creatures laughed as they walked away
with his sword
.

Chapter
35

For weeks the battle went on at Taburdum. Storms or extreme cold would cause both sides to withdrawal until the worst of the weather passed, but generally they met on the battle field every day. The Bhoors had returned to more conventional warf
are, opting to send in soldiers
instead of using the Thrahks. The Thrahks were still used from time to time, but since the Medorans had protection from them, the Bhoors did not risk an attack very often. The Thrahks were kept out of sight for the most part,
being kept somewhere east of the battlefield near the border between Medora and Vindyrion.

The weather had warmed some, although the coming spring brought seemingly endless rain along with it. The damp conditions brought pink and white buds to trees, but it also brought misery for the soldiers fighting. Everything was covered in mud. It found its way under their armor, coating their skin in a gritty, grimy slime that would quickly tear apart their skin if not washed off soon enough. It also made traversing the battlefield treacherous—let alone combat.