| |
––––––––
Goblin Dungeon
––––––––
“THAT’S NEW,” I MURMURED as a monster I’d never seen before turned the corner ahead. Hexam sent me a worried look with one head, but kept the other two trained on the creature. If he was disturbed, it meant this thing had to be more dangerous than most of the monsters that dwelled here. “What is it?” I asked my companions.
“I believe it is a manticore,” Dacrith replied. “I’ve never seen one in the flesh before, but I’ve heard they are humanoid beings that are crossed with a lion and a scorpion.”
The creature had the head, arms and torso of a man and the body and legs of a lion. A long thick scorpion tail, complete with a stinger, curled up over his back. He also had two menacing pincers growing out of his shoulders. Venom that would no doubt be deadly dripped from the stinger. Lustrous black hair hung to his shoulders and his face was handsome, but his expression was pure evil. He held a double-bladed axe in one hand and carried a shield in the other.
Like most of the creatures that were being sent to kill us, this one was huge. He towered over us as he padded forward on silent feet. His paws would no doubt be equipped with the claws of a lion as well. We hadn’t even engaged him yet and I knew he would be a killing machine.
“At least there’s only one of them,” I said.
“Guess again,” someone muttered sourly from behind me. I glanced back to see two more manticores had silently crept up on us. One was blond and the other had brown hair. Both were just as handsome as the first one.
“One drop of their venom is strong enough to kill,” Dacrith warned me. “Do you have a plan?”
We were surrounded and couldn’t retreat to a smaller side hallway where they wouldn’t be able to follow us now. We had no choice but to face them. It was an effective trap and we would be sure to lose more of our troops during the battle. “Try not to die,” I replied with a shrug.
“That is a terrible plan,” Dacrith said mockingly.
“Do they have any weaknesses?” I asked.
“I’ve heard that they can’t turn around very quickly,” he replied.
Their bodies and tail were long, so that made sense. It gave me an idea of how to fight them without us all dying in the process. “Split into three groups,” I ordered and pointed at my second in command and one of the other Unseelie warriors I knew to be a good fighter. “You two are in charge of the other teams,” I said. “Work together to keep them occupied while a couple of you work your way around behind them. Chop their stingers off so they can’t use their poison, then start slicing off their paws. They won’t be able to fight very well if they can’t stand up.”
“I like this plan much better, brother,” Dacrith said with a fierce grin. We quickly chose warriors for our teams, then split off to face the manticores.
Hexam was wary as we closed the distance between us and the black-haired creature. The manticore gestured at me with his axe, beckoning me to battle. Instead of growing in size to match our enemy, the Cerberus shrank down until he was roughly the size of a Labrador. Usually, he raced into the fight eagerly. This time, he slunk over to the wall and sat down, clearly unwilling to participate.
Our foe rushed forward before I could admonish the hound and his stinger swung over his shoulder. I lifted my shield just in time to deflect it, then leaped back before any of the venom could splatter on me. One of my warriors wasn’t quite as quick. A droplet landed on his arm, then oozed beneath his armor and he began to scream. His face turned black and he fell to the ground, legs kicking and clawing at his throat.
I was too busy trying to avoid the axe, claws, pincers and stinger to pay close attention to the fallen fairy. His death had been agonizing. It was a warning to the rest of us to avoid the poison, but that was easier said than done. I heard the pained shrieks of warriors from the other two groups and knew we were in trouble.
Although I’d been told by the Seer that I had to embrace my inner darkness in order to win my freedom from this place, I rarely succumbed completely to my Unseelie rage. Doing so made me go berserk. I lost all control to the point where it was hard to tell friend from foe. Not that any of the Unseelie fairies were my friends. They were just minions to me. Hexam and Dacrith were the only two that I didn’t particularly want to see die. At least not yet. But if I didn’t do something drastic, we were all going to end up as bloated corpses.
Stepping back from the fray, I glanced down at the fallen fairy. His eyes bulged and his tongue had turned black and protruded from his mouth. Green foam had pooled around his grotesquely swollen head. It was enough to bring my anger to the surface. The manticores intended to kill us all, but my rage was focused elsewhere. Prince Sindarian had sent these things here. He was the one who I ultimately needed to defeat. To get to him, I would first have to kill his pawns.
Allowing my rage to swell, a red haze dropped over me and I went into motion. Moving with blinding speed, I rushed at the manticore. Its stinger swept forward, but I dodged it. I blocked a swing from his axe, then neatly lopped the stinger off. He bellowed in pain, but I was just getting started. The red haze deepened and I gave up on thinking and became a killing machine.
Chopping in a frenzy, I ignored the bodies of the dead warriors as I followed the original plan I’d come up with. Both of my swords whirled and sliced through the air, severing the deadly pincers that had already cut at least one of my allies in two. Next, I lopped off his two front paws before they could tear me apart. Falling to the ground, the manticore still had his humanoid arms. The shield swept at me, but I ducked under it and rammed both swords into his chest. His axe slammed into my side, biting deeply into my flesh. I barely felt the pain as I pulled my swords free and reached up to slice them across his throat.
Yanking the axe out of my side, I tossed it away and turned to take in the scene. Over half of our men were down. Dacrith was battling a manticore with only four of his warriors to back him up. The other team was faring just as badly. None had managed to follow the plan.
Succumbing completely to my Unseelie side again, the red haze turned black. It now felt as if my body was being possessed by someone else and I was merely an observer. I sprinted towards the blond manticore just as his stinger zoomed towards Dacrith. He managed to twist aside, narrowly avoiding being skewered. Then the black haze took over completely and I lost the ability to see reason.
When I was in this state, I could almost anticipate my enemies’ movements before they struck. The blond manticore shifted and I knew he was going to try to stab me with his stinger. Dacrith and his men were desperately trying to keep him occupied so someone could slip behind him and lop off the venomous tip of his tail. I didn’t bother to sneak. Instead, I launched myself into the air with my wings and landed on the creature’s back. He reared up in reaction and I leaped forward, slicing his stinger off and landing on the ground. Dacrith shouted an order and they focused on chopping off their foe’s pincers, paws and hands, rendering him vulnerable.
I raced towards the brown-haired manticore, who had just finished stabbing the last remaining warrior from the third group to death. He swung his axe at me and I blocked it with my shield. Moving with uncanny speed, I lopped both of his hands off, then my helmet was raked open by his claws when a paw swept at me. A pincer stabbed at my face, but I dodged aside even as my helmet repaired itself. Lost in fury, I hacked and stabbed the monster until it went down.
Catching movement from the corner of my eye, I reacted to it and stabbed upwards. Hexam had launched himself at the manticore just as his stinger had descended towards me. A tiny part of me that was still sane recognized the hound as an ally. I managed to pull back a second before my blade would have pierced his heart.
Whining uncertainly, Hexam’s middle head had caught the scorpion tail in his mouth with the stinger only inches away from me. His other two heads watched me anxiously as I tried to get a hold of my rage again. While the black haze was beginning to lift, it wasn’t leaving as quickly as usual. It was getting harder to return from my berserk state, but the thought wasn’t particularly frightening. In fact, I was starting to wonder why I bothered to fight it at all. I was stronger, faster and far deadlier when I allowed my basest instincts to take over.
“Are you well, Jake Everett?” Dacrith asked warily.
Turning to my second in command, I took in the greatly reduced numbers of our team. A mere six of my minions remained. “I’m fine,” I replied with a grin he couldn’t see behind my helmet. “It looks like we’ll need to make another trip to our base for reinforcements, though.”
The survivors exchanged grim looks at my uncaring tone. Hexam dropped the manticore’s tail and trotted along behind me as I headed away from the carnage. It had been just one more battle among the dozens we’d already faced.
Eventually, we would run out of allies and then it would just be me, death and the Cerberus left. I wondered how long it would be before Dacrith made another attempt on my life. I would kill everything in this prison in order to escape, including the creatures who were my allies.
