V

RUNNING OF THE BULLS

Just outside The Dancing Turtle, Duchess Morgovia shouted at Par Tanch, Theta, and their companions. “Run, bulls, run,” she said while the entire throng of slavering Evermerians (blood lords, one and all) looked on. ““That way lies the sea,” she said as she pointed in the direction of the docks. “That way lies your ship. Your only escape. Your only chance. Make for it now if you want to live. Run! Run, bulls, run!””

“Run bulls! Run!” shouted the crowd.

“Moo!” shouted others, laughing.

Glimador, Guj, and Bertha looked back to Theta for some direction, terror on their faces, as the crowd parted around them.

“That way lies only death,” said Artol to Theta.

“Into the inn,” said Theta.

Two hulking Evermerians stood between Theta, Artol, and the inn's door. Artol pivoted, and elbowed one. Its teeth and jaw shattered. It dropped.

Theta shouldered the one closest to him, knocking the man back two steps. Theta's falchion was out in a flash. With a wave of his hand, almost too fast to see, his stroke entered the Evermerian's shoulder and exited at the opposite hip: he cut him in two.

Artol opened the door of The Turtle. The inside stood deserted. The others needed no prodding. Sir Glimador Malvegil, Par Tanch, Captain Slaayde, Bertha Smallbutt, Guj, and Ravel scurried back toward the inn's door as fast as they could. The Evermerians didn't try to stop them, but they pushed and shoved them at every opportunity, laughing, and taunting. Twice, they knocked down both Bertha and Ravel. Slaayde fell as he tried to help Bertha up.

“Not that way,” shouted several Evermerians within the crowd. “Run for the sea! It's your only chance. Run for your ship, bulls. Give us a merry chase. Run for your lives,” they repeated over and again. The Duchess tried to push her way through the crowd toward the group, but she made little headway, the Evermerians oblivious of her in their frenzy.

If the crowd had surged forward and swarmed them at that moment, it would've been the end. Only Theta and Artol would have had a chance to make it inside. The rest would have been torn apart. But the crowd didn’t attack. They just stood there, slavering, howling, and taunting. They wanted no quick and easy kill. They wanted a chase. They wanted sport. That gave the group the moments they needed to get inside, to whatever little protection the building might provide.

Ravel was the last one in. Just as he passed the threshold, a dainty hand surged forward and grabbed him by the back of his neck. The Duchess.

One-handed, she wrenched Ravel from his feet and pulled him back outside. Artol lunged to aid him, but wasn’t quick enough. The Duchess’s teeth sank into Ravel’s neck in an explosion of blood. He screamed and extended a pleading hand toward his comrades, even as Artol slammed the door shut. Theta lowered the crossbar into place.

“What are you doing?” shouted Bertha. “Open the door. We've got to help him. He's not dead, for Odin's sake. Don't you hear him? He's screaming. He's not dead. We can still save him. Do something!” she said, eyeing Theta.

“There are too many,” said Artol.

“Dead gods, what do we do?” said Tanch.

“We’ve got to move,” said Artol.

“Out the back, and fast,” said Theta. “Stop for nothing.”

“They'll kill us all,” said Tanch as he backpedaled.

“We've got to go,” said Slaayde as he pulled Bertha along by the arm.

“Ravel,” she yelled, tears streaming down her face as she struggled against Slaayde's grip. “He’’s your friend,” she shouted at Slaayde.

“We’ve got to go,” said Slaayde.

The group was halfway across the taproom when the inn’s front door burst open with a loud, splintering sound. In streamed a group of Evermerians. Most of those in front were covered in blood. They slowed to lick it from their hands; to lick it from each other's faces and clothes; their appetites wet for the slaughter. A command from the Duchess held them back.

The taproom went eerily quiet despite the throng of Evermerians that crowded the door. The only sounds came from outside: the yells, taunts, and catcalls of the Evermerians as they chased down their prey (the seamen they captured off the schooner, and the human slaves that the Evermerians called ‘Bulls’), and the shrieks and pleadings of those whom they caught. Those sounds grew more distant by the moment. Both sides eyed each other, the tension growing.

Glimador stood near the back of the taproom. His fingers moved in subtle motions this way and that as he murmured ancient elvish words taught him by his mother. With those words, he called forth eldritch energy from the grand weave of magic. That energy, wild and chaotic as it was, bent to his powerful will and did his bidding.

“Run,” shouted Slaayde.

“Yes, run,” cried the Duchess, her face bathed in red, bits of Ravel’s torn flesh hanging from her hands. ““Give us a merry chase, will you? You’re good for that much, aren’t you?” She turned to her subjects. ““Have your fun with them my lovelies, but do not dare kill them. We're going to drain them, slowly. We're going to carve delectable pieces off of them night after night until the festival is over. Only then shall we let death take them. A just punishment for harming members of our family, and spoiling our Bulls Run, wouldn't you say? But hear me well; you will leave the wizard for me. He is mine and mine alone. I have plans for you, Par Sinch,”” she said, her eyes wide and wild. “Oh what beautiful plans I have for you.”

She motioned to her fellows, and eight Evermerians armed with swords, claws, and wicked teeth surged forward to engage Theta and Artol who stood at the van. The warriors met the frenzied charge with icy stares and grim resolve. Two gods of the sword, two giants among men, against a cadre of superhuman creatures of the night. The battle: steel and strength, honor and courage, against the soulless darkness, the heartless offspring of the nether realms.

“Take off their heads,” yelled Artol, as he smashed his battle hammer down atop the skull of one of his attackers.

Glimador's spell completed, there appeared a shimmering blue barrier across the inn’s open door. The energy of that sorcery crackled and sparked as it spread across the inn’s front wall, covering and sealing every window. Evermerians broke the glass and pressed against the translucent barrier, seeking entry. They pushed, then they clawed, and they pounded, at last using every ounce of their preternatural strength, but the mystical barrier held them back. The press of numbers availed them naught, for no matter their efforts, the barrier would not yield. They howled and they raged, but the barrier dampened much of the sound. Most importantly, it kept them out, but it also kept their fellows in.

The Duchess's movements were calm and controlled despite the mania that ruled her face. Her concentration on her prey, she ignored the battling swordsmen around her and was oblivious of Glimador's spell. She sauntered forward, her festival dress a ruin of blood and gore.

Guj stepped toward the Duchess, his massive axe in hand. He howled some battle cry and swung the weapon with all his considerable might. The Duchess stepped in, faster than anyone should be able to move, and caught the weapon's haft in her hand, stopping the blow cold. She twisted her arm and wrenched the axe from Guj's hand. Her fist shot out and crashed into Guj's jaw. He reeled back, but she grabbed him with one hand and then punched him with the other. Before Guj could even raise his hands to defend himself, he was struck by four punishing blows that knocked him senseless. The Duchess lifted the 250-pound lugron into the air, twirled around, and threw him across the room. He spun around and around and crashed into Theta and the Evermerians that he battled. The whole group went down in a heap.

As the Duchess turned her attention toward the others, Slaayde's saber slid between the ribs of her upper chest. The steel blade pierced her heart, and its tip exited her back. The Duchess's eyes went wide and she groaned in pain. Her knees buckled for a moment, but then she caught herself and did not fall. Her hand shot out and clamped down on Slaayde's throat; his air, instantly cut off.

Slaayde strained against her with both hands. He tried to pull away, but her grip was too strong. He tried to peel her fingers back one at a time, but they wouldn’t budge, not one of them. She held him in a death grip from which he quickly realized he could not escape. He couldn't draw a single breath. His eyes started to glaze over.

Just then, Bertha clobbered the Duchess over the head with a bar stool. “Get off him, you bitch.” The stool shattered but the Duchess remained standing. She staggered forward and lost her grip on Slaayde. Blood streamed down her forehead, but this time, it was her own. She stuck out her tongue — it stretched out, impossibly long, and she lapped up her own blood as it dripped down her nose and cheeks.

“I was saving you for tomorrow, cow,” she said as she grabbed Bertha and pulled her close. Bertha, for all her fury was powerless to resist that iron grip. She beat her fists against the Duchess's chest — all to no effect. “But now I think I'll drink you dry today.” The Duchess’s mouth opened wide. Her fangs twinkled in the inn's dim light. She bit down hard on Bertha's neck as the quartermaster screamed.

Slaayde looked up, his head throbbing, his neck so stiff he could barely take a breath. He saw Bertha's blind dagger thrust. By some boon of the gods, the blade sunk directly into the Duchess's left eye. Then he saw the spurt of blood that shot from Bertha's throat. She was hurt. It looked bad.

“No!” he yelled.

The Duchess howled in pain and fury, grabbed Bertha's wrist (the one that held the blade) and crushed it, the bones splintering within her inhuman grasp. She dropped Bertha and staggered backward, clutching at her face, the wound forever marring her ageless beauty. “No!” she screamed. “My eye, my face.”

Bertha fell back limp in a faint. Slaayde caught her as he tried to rise, but was knocked back down by her weight. He immediately applied pressure to the puncture wounds at her neck, trying to staunch the bleeding.

The Duchess had had enough of that fight, and turned and made for the exit. Only when she reached the magically barred door, did she realize that she was trapped. “Attend me,” she shouted to her minions. Those who lurked around the door drew close to her and those few that still fought with Theta and Artol withdrew to her side. Some surrounded her protectively, while others sought to break down the mystical barrier.

Around Theta lay several bodies, two with their heads severed, and two others with their necks twisted 180 degrees around. Two more Evermerians lay dead at Artol's feet. Artol's armor was battered and slashed in several locations, but the plate and mail held.

The Duchess had only six or seven of her fellows left; the rest were trapped beyond the barrier.

“Let’s finish them,” said Artol to Theta.

“Best we get clear before that barrier falls,” said Theta. He and Artol backed toward the kitchen door, Theta dragging Guj by the collar. “Glimador,”” said Theta. “Will your spell hold on its own?”

“No,” said Glimador. “I must remain to keep it up.”

“I can make it hold,” said Tanch.

“Then do it,” said Theta. “Slaayde, pick her up, we've got to go now. Out the back.”

“Get off of me,” said Guj as he struggled to pull himself to his feet. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and his eyes teared.

“We've got to go, my love,” said Slaayde as he pulled Bertha up while trying to maintain pressure on her throat. “We've got to get out of here now.”” She was barely conscious; hurt seemingly more from shock than from the wound itself. Her eyes pleaded for help. She moaned in pain and tears ran freely down her face.

“It burns,” she muttered.

Slaayde wrapped a cloth about her shoulder and neck and pulled it as tight as he dared.

“Move,” said Artol. We'll hold them here until you get clear.”

“I can fight,” said Guj.

“Then help the others,” said Theta. “There may be more of those things in the kitchens.”

Guj, Bertha, and Slaayde crashed through the kitchen door, searching for the back exit, Bertha supported between the two men. The heat within the kitchen was oppressive and washed over them like a wave. The smell of meat, spices, and vinegar filled the air. The place was bathed in a bluish light from oil lamps of exotic vintage. The kitchen was cluttered but clean — more than such a place was wont to be. Rows of huge pots or, to be fair, vats, simmered on wood burning stoves, one after another after another. There was enough food bubbling in those cauldrons to feed hundreds.

The room was deserted save for the inn's proprietor who sat on a stool in a back corner, guarding a door that presumably was the inn's rear exit. His cooks and serving maids were all outside for the running of the bulls.

The group had caught only a glimpse of the proprietor earlier in the evening. Then he appeared a jovial, bald man of impressive girth. Though still just as wide, his skin now had a distinctly gray pallor and tusk-like fangs extended from his upper jaw, one of them oddly bent and twisted, as if from some old injury. Long claws lived at the ends of his fingers. He wore butcher's coveralls and a belt that held several large cleavers and knives. He lifted an opaque jug to his mouth while keeping an eye on the group, and took a long swig. Thick red liquid that looked like blood, dribbled down his chin.

“Well, well, got by the others, did you?” he said as he stood up. “Think something of yourselves for that, do you? You shouldn’’t. Most of them are just children. Not much experience or skill, and even less discipline. I’m not like that. I’ve been around for a long time. I've dealt with your kind before —— uppity bulls what think they can escape us. What think they’re something more than food. You’re not. When I’m done with you, you'll take your rightful places in the meat locker. We’ll make a merry feast of you. You'll not get by me.”

Guj and Slaayde looked at each other. “He's more your size, don't you think?” said Slaayde.

The proprietor charged toward them. Guj pulled a hammer and a dagger from his belt and moved a couple of steps forward. Halfway to where Guj stood, the proprietor snatched up one of the huge, bubbling pots in his bare hands, spun around, and flung it with terrific speed at Guj. The lugron dived to the side with nary a moment to spare, as did Slaayde and Bertha. Boiling stew exploded in all directions, burning whatever bare skin it touched.

Just as Guj was getting up, a second pot crashed above his head, drenching him in scalding liquid. Luckily, his armor and heavy clothing shielded him from much of it. Then another cauldron hit the same spot, and then another. Guj tried to scurry clear on his knees. Then the proprietor crashed into him, crushing him to the floor. Guj howled as his face hit the hot stew that puddled on the floorboards. Both he and the Evermerian twisted and turned, trying to make their feet, hampered by the hot stew and slippery floor.

Guj's dagger sank into the proprietor's side even as the Evermerian's cleaver sliced into Guj's shoulder. Then began a furious series of strikes: hammer and blade against razor sharp cleavers. Parry and slash, strike and bash, the battle raged for several moments, neither opponent able to beat down the other's defenses, though each scored several wicked hits that drew blood.

Glimador slipped through the kitchen door, Tanch just behind him.

“Fry him!” shouted Slaayde from behind a table, his hands still applying pressure to Bertha's wounds. She’d fallen unconscious again.

Tanch quickly sized up the situation. He mouthed strange, foreign words, harsh and deep, and then a cone of blue fire emerged from his hand. It raged toward the proprietor, and enveloped him (though it left Guj untouched). The Evermerian screamed — a pitiable, bloodcurdling wail that went on and on as the mystical fire consumed his fleash. That fire hovered about his head and refused to go out. The proprietor staggered this way and that, and knocked over more pots, large and small. At some point, he found a pot of water and dumped it over his head, dousing the blue flames that assailed him.

His face was a ruin, a horror: both eyes gone, the flesh of his cheeks melted and sloughed down, his teeth exposed and blackened. Once the flames were gone, he no longer cried out, though through clenched jaw he growled like a cornered animal. Such injuries were not survivable. Yet the Evermerian still lived, still stood, and had some fight still left in him.

Glimador was on him. He slashed the proprietor across the chest with his sword, once and then again, to no discernable effect. Shockingly, the Evermerian still held one of his cleavers and swung it with uncanny speed despite his grievous injuries. Glimador dodged the blow and chopped down with his sword even as the Evermerian raised the cleaver for another strike. Glimador's slash severed his forearm. Another strike took the Evermerian in the throat. The sword stuck in his neck and Glimador had to dive to the side to avoid the claws that now flailed this way and that. Glimador snuck behind him, and brought his dagger down with all his strength into the top of the Evermerian's skull. The proprietor fell to his knees, blood streaming down from the top of his head. He raised his hand to grasp the dagger but had no strength left. He collapsed face forward to the floor and moved no more.

The sounds of a desperate melee issued from the taproom. Glimador retrieved his weapons and headed in that direction.

“Stop,” said Slaayde. “If those two can't handle them, you'll be of little help. We need to get out of here while we can. I need your help with Bertha. I can't carry her alone.”

“Guj can help you,” said Glimador as he looked toward the lugron. Guj was on his knees, though slumped over. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him, mixing with the spilled stew. The lugron's eyes were open, but it was clear enough that he was dead, a cleaver lodged in his chest. Glimador moved to Slaayde's side and together they hefted Bertha to her feet and carried her between them. They and Tanch moved as fast as they could to the back door that the proprietor had been guarding.

Only it wasn't the exit. It was another room — dark, frigid, and it smelled of death. Waves of cold air poured from the room. The light from the kitchen allowed them to see only a few feet inside. The floor was wet. There were dark shadows barely visible in the distance, as if drapes or tapestries hung from the ceiling. They dared not step inside until Tanch grabbed the nearest lamp from the kitchen, stepped into the doorway, and raised it high.

The light revealed a slaughterhouse. Pigs, sheep, and goats hung from the ceiling on hooks, their throats cut open, buckets of blood beneath them. Rows upon rows of them. And to their horror, they saw that interspersed between the animals, hung the bodies of men. Pale or blue, dead and drained — in preparation, no doubt, for the proprietor's stew pots. Blocks of ice were stacked here and there, no doubt, brought down from the island's mountains. The floor was slick with a mixture of slushy water and blood.

“Dead gods,” said Tanch. “They really are cannibals.”

“Let's find a way out, now,” said Glimador.

“We ate that stew,” said Tanch. “Gods forgive us. I'm going to be sick. I want to be sick,”” he said holding his stomach.

They moved through the room as fast as they dared given the darkness, the slick floor, and the potential for more Evermerians skulking about.

“There's no way out,” said Tanch. “There's no door, no windows, nothing.”

“Not even a hatch in the floor or ceiling,” said Glimador.

“Back to the kitchen,” said Slaayde. “There has to be another way out through there. No inn has only a front entrance.””

As they approached the door that led back to the kitchen, they saw Theta and Artol dashing through the kitchen, a tide of howling Evermerians hot on their heels.

“Oh shit,” said Glimador. “The barrier fell.”

“They're all coming this way,” said Tanch. “We'll be trapped.” Theta and Artol raced into the meat locker, and promptly slipped and fell on the slick floor as Glimador slammed the heavy iron door shut behind them. Artol careened into Tanch, knocking him over and sending the lamp flying. Nary a moment later, the Evermerians crashed against the door. They pounded on it, howling. Glimador set the deadbolt just as Tanch's fallen lamp sputtered out, plunging them into darkness. Utter and complete darkness, for not even a glimmer of light shown through the door due to the tightness of its seal.

“Shit,” was said all around.

“I saw a crossbar,” said Slaayde.

“I've got it,” said Glimador. He fumbled with it for some moments trying to set it in place in the darkness as the Evermerians pounded on the door, howling, laughing, and cursing taunts.

“Get that lamp lit,” said Artol.

“It's in pieces,” said Tanch. “I can’t get it to work. We're doomed.”

A light appeared in Theta's hand, brighter than was the lamp. The illumination came from a short metal rod that glowed as if white hot, yet he held it freely in his hand. It gave off as much light as several candles.

“Will it hold?” said Slaayde looking at the door and then at Theta's light and back again.

“For a while, it seems,” said Artol. “You a wizard, too, Theta?”

Theta shook his head.

“But you've got quite a bag of tricks,” said Artol.

“Let's move,” said Theta as he turned his head, looking around. “We cannot linger here.”

“There's no way out,” said Slaayde. “We're stuck here.”

“It's a tomb,” said Tanch shaking his head and wringing his hands. “Our Tomb.”

“We searched high and low,” said Glimador. “There's no way out of this room, save through the door we came in.””

The pounding on the door grew louder. The metal strained and threatened to buckle.

“Can you put up that barrier again?” said Theta. “And reinforce it, as before?”

“Yes,” said Glimador and Tanch. “But it won't hold forever.”

“Do it,” said Theta.

“Why bother?” said Tanch. “There's no help coming. It's just delaying the inevitable.”

“Where life yet remains, there is always a chance,” said Theta.

“Hope?” said Tanch. “Is that what you mean?”

“No,” said Theta. “Hope is not a strategy.”

Glimador set to work invoking his sorcery. Tanch stood by to aid him.

“Why a crossbar on the inside of a meat locker?” said Glimador.

“Who cares?” said Tanch. “Just set the spell, quickly.”

“What of Guj?” said Artol.

“Dead,” said Slaayde. “What happened back there?”

“They came at us again,” said Artol. “But we gave them what for. Theta took off the Duchess's arm with that falchion of his. Just as we had them, the barrier fell and they poured in on us like a wave. There was no stopping them and no holding them. We had to turn tail.”

“A strategic withdrawal,” said Theta.

“The door is caving in,” said Artol. “Make ready.”

“I have it,” said Glimador as he completed his spell. The shimmering blue barrier appeared and spread across the full area of the door, just as it had in the taproom. Tanch added his words and the barrier brightened and pulsed.

“It will hold now, for a time,” said Tanch. “Not only the barrier, but the door itself. So long as the magic remains, they'll not be able to tear the door asunder.”

“Did you kill her?” said Slaayde to Theta.

“Any normal woman would be dead from the wounds she took,” said Artol. “Yet she still stood when last we saw her, cursing us all the while.””

“They heal like lighting,” said Theta. “They kept fighting when they should've been dead. Arms cut off, thrusts to the chest, throats cut open, and yet they kept coming. She's still out there, for certain.”

“They're going to break through that door eventually, magic or no,” said Artol. “Unless they decide to wait us out.””

“What do we do?” said Slaayde. “Bertha needs tending to. We can't stay here.”

“Go up to the door and yell at them,” said Theta. “Taunt them. Threaten them. Make as much noise as you can.””

“What do you plan?” said Artol.

“To make a hole,” said Theta. He passed another of the illuminating metal rods to Glimador. “Ready your hammer,”” he said to Artol. Theta pulled out the massive battle hammer that he wore strapped to his leg, hefted it in both hands, and walked to the back wall, Artol following.

Tanch, Glimador, and Slaayde started yelling and returning the Evermerians' taunts.

With a grunt, Theta swung his hammer at the stout masonry wall and blasted several bricks to bits. The wall was thick. Artol took position opposite Theta and put his own hammer to work. A few mighty strokes each and they were through the two and half foot thick wall, with a hole large enough for them to squeeze through.

Theta slipped under, looked around for a moment, and waved the others through. They found themselves in a warehouse; no one was about. They ran to the far side, found a door, and slipped out into the night. They crossed the street and stopped in a shadowed area to get their bearings.

“They're gonna find that hole, and quick,” said Artol. “We may only have a few minutes before they're on us again.””

“Which way?” said Tanch.

“Three blocks east,” said Theta. “Then turn south and make for the docks. If we're lucky, the way will be clear.””

“They'll have people waiting for us at the longboat,” said Artol.

“We could head to the villa,” said Glimador. “Ambush her on her return.”

“No. There's no victory to be had here,” said Theta. “Only death or escape. It's an island. We make for the ship. We'll fight our way through. There's no other way.”

“What if The Falcon is taken?” said Tanch.

“Then you may yet have a warrior's death,” said Theta.

“They'll not take The Falcon,” said Slaayde. “Not my ship. Not my crew. They won't even get out there because Tug will hold the docks,” he said, his eyes red and watery. “He'll be there waiting for us.”

“Can you manage her?” said Artol to Slaayde and Glimador.

“For a while at least,” said Glimador.

“I don't understand why she's still out of it,” said Slaayde. “She didn't lose enough blood for that.””

“The bite may have been poisoned,” said Theta. “But we can’t deal with that now; we've got to move.”

“What are they?” said Glimador.

“Stinking spawn of hell,” said Slaayde. “Just like everyone else I've met since you bastards first boarded my ship.””

They all looked to Theta.

“I don't know what they are,” he said. “No more talk. Let's go.”