King of Dust

Chapter 15

Astrid battled to light her final torch in the dark. I could hear the flint clicking desperately. Something shambled toward us, its movements unsteady and difficult. A baby cried. Astrid whimpered and finally lit her torch. What we saw was unimaginable.

Some mound of flesh, a thing made of body parts and algae, dragged itself from the very pile of refuse Yra and I sought to investigate. Astrid cried out as the thing approached. Massive tumors popped and shifted over the thing's joints, and one tumor turned to look at us. No, not a tumor. An unborn child.

In a heartbeat, Urien had drawn the sword made of sunlight. Reckoning, it was called. That accursed weapon, a thing made with my destruction in mind, blazed to life. Astrid took a step back from the heat and Urien charged. With a beautiful stroke, Reckoning left a streak of light in the air, but the monstrosity dodged. The second time it wasn't so lucky. The searing sword burned through the monster's flesh, and it roared out a cacophonous symphony of Human screams.

The beast's arms came down on Urien. One massive amalgamation of fists and other limbs hit our leader, but another swing proved useless and Urien swiftly dodged. I ran at the horror, claws out. I was not going to let this thing hurt my friends. My nails grew long and sharp and dragged through the flesh. It did not bleed, but it cried out regardless. Yra moved in after me with his rapier out, the tip of the weapon gleaming in the torchlight.

In one of the most shocking moves of the century, something exploded into light behind me. Something that glowed much like Urien's spinning blade launched over my head and into the chest of the creature. A massive scythe had swirled through the air, glowing a beautiful spectral blue. I turned to look over my shoulder for a moment to find Astrid with her hand out and shock on her face. The weapon jerked out of the monster at her command and then launched back into it.

With another slice, Urien lopped the arm of the thing off, singeing the wound closed with the sheer heat of the blade. In one sad, final attempt to save itself the creature batted at Urien again, knocking him into the dirty puddle. I raised my hand to strike the thing but then thought better of it. "Yra," I said, "would you like to do the honors?"

Yra drove his rapier into the beast, and it fell. It lay down into the water and breathed its last breath. After all was done, I let out a sigh. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

And then the house groaned. It grumbled and gurgled and lurched as something changed above us. We had only just begun.

"Let's get out of here," Astrid urged. "I don't want to be in this place any longer."

"That was impressive," Urien said as he sheathed his blade, the room growing a little darker from it. "Where did you learn that spell?"

"From watching you."

"Fast learner. Let's go."

The four of us trailed back up the stairs and the way we came. The entire basement hung in an eerie silence as we rushed, eager to get out of the place. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary other than the creepy creaking and moaning that rocked the rooms occasionally. None of us said anything when we came to the tall, one-person wide set of stairs, until we reached the top.

Yra whispered, "Who the hell builds a basement with no exit?"

"Cultists," Urien replied.

At the top, the entire mood of the house had changed. The place was dark. Yes, it had been dark before, but now it was dark. My eyes glanced around the attic only to realize that it was because there were bricks over the windows. Had there always been bricks over the windows?

Astrid seemingly read my mind and muttered, "Were the windows bricked up?"

Before Urien could answer, the sleek sound of metal sliding against metal grated throughout the house. All of us turned slowly toward the sound only to find that the door had disappeared, replaced by swinging blades. Ya, I said swinging blades. What kind of horrible horror story bull was this? The blade swung and chopped like scissors in the doorway. Urien quickly stepped to the door, his eyes peeled for some kind of mechanism, but he found none.