As Idaria withdrew the dagger, she was struck hard across the jaw by the remaining monstrosity. Golgren sprang and caught the elf before her head could strike the rock floor. As he used his maimed arm to set her down as gently as possible, he seized the dagger, which the slave had somehow managed to hold in her grip.
The blade was covered not only in some thick, putrid liquid, but also traces of a more familiar sight.
Blood. Blood that Golgren guessed came from a thin stripe of a wound running along Idaria’s other arm. Somehow she had turned her own life fluids into death for the horrors.
Even as he took all of it in, mulling its significance, the remaining creature loomed over them. Leaning over Idaria, Golgren drove the dagger into the beast. He hoped that enough of her blood remained on the blade to kill it and save the pair.
The howl that escaped the creature was terrible. Gobbets of flesh dropped from the area of the wound, but, unlike its predecessor, the creature did not fall back and die. It was clearly badly wounded, but whatever the elf had done to make herself poison to the other fiend was no longer as strong.
With a sudden swiftness that none of the awful figures had shown before, an oozing hand stretched out and grabbed at Golgren, enveloping his wrist and the blade he was holding.
Another howl escaped the Grand Khan’s attacker. The oozing hand pulled away, ripping the dagger free. The weapon went flying to the side.
The thing shambled away from Golgren. As it did, the magical illumination began to fade.
The half-breed’s narrowed eyes shot to his fingers, where the signet was gone.
He grabbed for the wounded creature, whose misshapen hand was twisted perversely, not only due to holding the blooded blade, but from what it still carried. However, even as Golgren’s fingers snared the monster’s hand, his adversary took on a new form, showed a new ability, becoming incorporeal.
And in the next blink of an eye, it utterly vanished.
“No!” snarled the Grand Khan, grasping at the empty air. He glanced back down the tunnel, looking for the others, but the illumination lasted just long enough for him to see them vanish also.
The half-breed ran for the dagger. He seized it up and made his way to the unconscious elf. Just as Golgren leaned over her, the last light faded around them.
Darkness returned to the ancient tunnel, a darkness that Golgren suspected might prove eternal.
XIII
As the griffon was the symbol of Garantha, so was the mastark the symbol of Sadurak, the city situated nearer than any other true city of the ogres to Ambeon.
The warlord ruling Sadurak in the days of the Great Chieftain Donnag’s rule had been Donnag’s own cousin, but had made the mistake of defending Donnag to Golgren. Since that time, a balding, one-eyed warrior named Jod had ruled with an iron fist, his authority extending all the way to the outlaw town of Pashin farther southwest. Golgren had need of outlaws only with interests akin to his, and Jod saw to it that any illegal activity there had to have his permission first.
Sadurak was perhaps half as large in size and population as Garantha and perhaps half as rebuilt. Jod was a loyal follower, but he didn’t fully comprehend the intricacies of recreating the glories of High Ogre civilization. He therefore relied mostly on what Golgren dictated to him, not all of which he well understood. Although the formerly marble white walls surrounding Sadurak were in the process of being restored, they were being done so with whatever color and quality stone could be quarried from nearby.
With the elves no longer officially available for slave toil, Jod needed his people to work the quarries. That meant that in addition to whatever criminals had been condemned to hard labor, his own soldiers had to spend shifts beating gigantic iron nails into the rocks with huge, flat-headed hammers.
The warriors at the task wore no breastplates, only their kilts. In most cases, they looked like a legion of corpses, for the sweat that matted their hides also collected all the dust their labors raised. It coated the ogres from top to bottom, save for where light cloth bands draped over their eyes and a larger pieces covered their nostrils and mouths. More than a few had pale, red marks upon them-wounds caused by flying stone chips.
The ogres had long lost all knowledge of quarrying as the outside world knew that job, and so had developed methods, good or ill, that suited them. As Jod-on a personal inspection-rode among the workers, he nodded in satisfaction at the latest block of marble emerging from the much-ravaged ravine. It was roughly cubic in shape, with more than three-fourths of it already dislodged and freed. Workers were busy hammering nails into what was considered the base, nails to which powerful ropes were being attached. The ropes already strained against the block, for above there were other ogres preparing for the marble’s final release and lift.
A lean, young ogre male suddenly came up on the edge of the ravine and sounded three notes on his goat horn. Two workers finished hammering in a nail and rushed away, tools in hand.
Above, the ropes tightened. Eight there were in all, the ends of some ropes stretching far enough back over the top that Jod could not see their lifters. He could spy four other ogres diligently setting spikes at intervals along the top. The overseer estimated their locations and again nodded.
When the spikes were in place, the trumpeter sounded one long note. The four who had set the spikes immediately swung at them with their hammers. They struck in unison before halting.
The horn repeated the same note. The workers struck. The pattern was repeated.
After the fifth repetition, a slow groan briefly rose above the sounds of work. Jod guided his horse a bit farther back, just to be safe. The ropes strained as those at the end increased their effort. The block was nearly free.
A cloud of dust arose from the south. Jod steered his mount around, curious.
A sea of warriors coalesced from the cloud. At the head rode scores of riders, ranks of unmounted fighters behind them.
Jod was aware of all the forces under his command, and so he knew the warriors were not any who served in Sadurak. He recalled there had been some missives sent to him, questioning the absence of one force led by an eager young warrior whom Jod had met and knew was favored by the Grand Khan himself: Atolgus. Jod assumed Atolgus had marched his force into the wild and either gotten lost or been killed by a subordinate. That was how bad leaders were dealt with in the old days too.
But seeing the newcomers, the commander wondered how they had chanced upon Sadurak. Certainly, there were no other hands expected in the area; Golgren would have informed his loyal officers if any were coming. The newcomers-
Jod suddenly bared his teeth. A surprise. The veteran warrior had fought too many battles to think any surprise was a happy one. Either the warriors were fleeing from something, or they were something with which he should be wary.
“Varkol! Varkol!” he shouted to the figure holding the horn.
The trumpeter paid him no mind, for renewed groaning warned everyone that the block was breaking away. Jod shouted again, waving his arms to get the trumpeter’s attention.
Varkol finally looked his way, but misunderstood the gesture. He blew the next series of notes, the ones that gave warning to the rope wielders that they were about to contend with tons of falling marble.
An arrow suddenly pierced Varkol’s chest. The younger ogre, just finished with his sounding, toppled off the edge of the ravine.