Great Ape, Chapter Three: Passage by Sword

[Lord Zombiac]

Chapter Three: Passage by Sword


Sun dogs shone in the sky when the knotted, stocky figure wandered into our camp. He had diamond bright eyes, wore the skins of snow leopards and carried a great, broad axe over his shoulders.


Fondo and Stonesister asked his name and what he wanted. He replied that he was called Gester Rainsword, that he was weary and cold. He asked to share our fire, have some water and whatever we could spare for his sustenance. Since I was closest, I took him to Loomgrin and Loomgrin nodded and approved. Gester was given a cool draught, a slab of toasted bread, and bidden to sit down and tell us what he knew of the area.


“This is a dangerous place. Avoid it at all costs. To pass this way, you will only find grief.”


“This road will save us many days of climbing hillsides,” replied Loomgrin, “and besides. We are dangerous people ourselves.”


Gester looked around and shook his head.


“Not enough of you. My company was bigger. We had trained for many years to be the King’s elite forces. We specialized in destroying arms of terrible power. Now they are all dead. All but me. And what I have seen can not be unseen. I am bound to the Cloisters of Morrn, where the blessed sisters might attend the wounds in here.”


He pointed to his forehead and those brilliant eyes lit up with a disturbing light.


“What might we find if we pass this way?” I asked, “I have seen my share of unearthly creatures. I may have more knowledge of this thing than others.”


Gester stared directly at me and spoke.


“You will find a monster, the Murderous Odauntutaunt. Four legged, yet clothed, head hooded, like a cobra. Body seeming to be draped with thick ropes of moss. But in reality, those are the shredded brains of victims it assimilates into its own flesh. It can outrun anyone. Its strength is immeasurable. Its brain is the most horrible thing it owns. It works not with magic, but with mind powers. It can take over your body, overpower your will, fill you with visions you can neither brook nor fight. It is my enemy. I flee from it. At the Cloisters of Morrn I am putting away my axe, never to fight again. I will learn magic. Perhaps I will fare better next time around when I am a wizard. But wizard or warrior, I will always be mad.”


Gester bit the dry toast and allowed his eyes to close for a moment. He spoke as he chewed.


“I can take no pleasure from eating. Inside of me a fear is harrowing. Stay away from there.”


“Surely we can avoid or defeat one creature,” said Loomgrin.


“It is served by a company of Grogens,” Gester replied, “they raid the villages in these mountains. I was sent by the King to find this...”


Gester reached in his animal skins and produced the hilt of a sword. It flashed with wild colored jewels and the light seemed to dance in circles around it.


“When this had a blade it was called the Hypno. I’m keeping it. I shall rebuild it.”


Stonesister leapt to her feet and reached out, as to touch it. But she kept her distance.


“Does this Odauntutaunt,” said she, “have more treasures such as this?”


“Such as this? No. Silver, badly tarnished. Gems, cracked and milky. What gold it has is wrought into great heavy idols, both useless to carry and filled with curses and bad magic. Perhaps there is a trinket or two that could keep you in comfort and ease for a few weeks, but many ugly things would you have to search through. It collects all manner of filth. This creature lives in a great pit. No one can fathom its purposes. If you dare to try, you will become mad.”


“You say you flee this creature?” I asked, “I too am on the run. Perhaps we can camp here while you head to those peaceful cloisters. We would have the high ground and perhaps ambush the thing as it came out to seek you. That would buy you some peace.”


“You can not ambush a thing that hears your very thoughts. It speaks into your skull. Right into your brain. No words could be as terrible as the thoughts it expresses. Stick to the hills, I tell you. Or turn some other way. This country is filled for miles with madness and misery, all wrought by the Murderous Odauntutaunt.”


So speaking, Gester Rainsword drank down his water, curled up on the ground and uttered the only pleasing word we had heard from him.


“Fire!”


Everyone had come around the fire now and watched him for further utterances, but the man said nothing and soon was asleep. He looked deeply weary. It filled us all with concern.


“What shall we do then?” mused Loomgrin, “we have a city needing watchmen only two days journey, if we take our intended road. Yet this wandering madman has struck a chilling tone in me.”


“Two days in that valley would be maddeningly long,” suggested Fondo, “any minute that thing might come out of the blue.”


No one yet spoke of the hills. Spending extra days climbing and stretching our supplies was not a thing anyone seemed yet willing to embrace.


“What about turning back?” asked Stonesister.


“Not for me,” I said, “I know there are assassins and bounty hunters after me. I paid many of my stolen jewels to be warned of their coming, and it has served me well more than once. I do not go back.”


“We might split up,” suggested Piper Tom, “we’ve already had a good sell-sword go his own way.”


“Leave if you want to,” said Loomgrin wearily, “this Murderous Odauntutaunt, frightening though it is, is likely the most dangerous work ahead of us. We admitted from the beginning that we were going into some lean times, willing to become watchmen and such.”


“I’m willing to till a field,” remarked Fondo, “I could settle down somewhere... but not here. There is more chill here than just the air.”


“We could pass,” I said, “we could pass by night.”


“By night?” cried Stonesister, “lunacy!”


“No,” I said, “the Grogens will want their fire. The creature we fear will probably avoid them. There is no point in keeping the company of Grogens. We can stay just out of earshot of the fires, walk slowly and lightly.”


“And sleep where, Zombiac? There road goes on for at least two days-- longer if we pad along in darkness.” croaked Piper Tom.


“Who besides Zombiac and myself want to go on this way? Who would go back and seek more battles and more pay?” asked Loomgrin, his voice suddenly loud and not without a measure of bitterness.


All raised their hands.


“I see.” he said, weary of voice, once again.


“Two could try sneaking through at night better than many,” I said, “and if the two are me and Loomgrin, we may even have a chance to kill this monster.”


“It is still afternoon,” said Loomgrin, “we stopped because we tired early and wanted the warmth of fires on this cold day. Zombiac and I will sleep now. Stay warm, for we will be walking in the cold, dark valley while you sleep tonight. Go in the morning. This place is dangerous. May we meet again in times of glory!”


Soon there were three lying in the damp earth by the fire pit. Those who came and fed the fire did so solemnly, as if they felt bad to desert us. I closed my eyes and slept a little, hearing the others make their camping arrangements in hushed tones. No one was happy, nor had we really been before. I was up before sunset, hungry and daunted, watching Loomgrin and Gester Rainsword sleep, impatient for them to awaken. I wanted to tell Gester our plans before parting company, and ask his advice, though I knew it would be not to venture forward.


I took some bread and chewed aimlessly. We had hired ourselves out in many campaigns. People came and went in our group. Yet this place seemed to be a grim turning point. Unpromising work and cold country lay ahead. I only wanted to keep my distance from assassins. Loomgrin only wanted to hear of where he might find his daughter. News from his homeland was that she had not appeared. Perhaps she had thought, at the crucial moment, of some other place. Loomgrin had taken her to many lands, and so she might be in any of them.


Together, just the two of us had stuck together, and now there was an ominous danger that lay ahead. I had no one to speak to so I ate bread and drank water. We had feasted before, true, but I did not want to spend the last of my jewels on food that we might have to abandon if some stalker showed up on the behest of Baelbozurg.


Perhaps it was better we faced the madness in the valley and die in glory, fighting the nightmarish thing. Perhaps it was better we had one last huzzah and purge this land of a terrifying predation. Perhaps Loomgrin, despairing of ever finding his daughter, might be steeling himself to the same fate.


At length Gester woke up, then came Loomgrin, groggy and sullen. I waited until Loomgrin sat up and told Gester of my plan. As I thought, he called it foolhardy, but he admitted two might be able to pass secretly.


“There is a trick I learned to dampen my thoughts and keep them quiet from the probing of telepaths, such as the Murderous Odauntutaunt. Perhaps it is why I lived while my company died. Perhaps it was why I was able to steal the Hypno. Hold your hand out and see fire in it. Feel fire in it. Make fire in it.”


As he spoke, Gester held his hand out and focused his blazing eyes upon it. Then a golden flame emerged from his palm and danced into the air and was gone.


“I can not conjure fire,” I said, stupidly.


“The important thing is that you try. Someday I will call up real wizard’s fire, a fire that consumes and annihilates everything it touches.”


“We have no magic,” said Loomgrin, “our trust is in metal and steel.”


Gester Rainsword nodded quietly to himself. The company had begun to settle around the fire and made forth a war chant. They sang their goodbyes to us. Loomgrin hefted Mustardseed and leaned his head to one side with a snappy jerk.


“It is well,” he said, “were we to go.”


I tested the heft of my own short sword myself and nodded. Then we left them all behind and entered the darkness below, stealing through the shadows until the war chant faded and the only sound was the thrumming of blood in our veins.


At that point every moment seemed to pass in a livid, lingering terror.


In the darkness we slipped unerringly into our quieter senses. Sound and balance grew paramount until it seemed that oceans of time had passed away. Yet we saw no sign of Grogens baking their skulls in fire. We observed no hint of babbling horrors to come from a master mind that could overpower all others.


So the time passed, almost until I began to doubt any threat would present itself. Then, at last, we heard distant hooting, saw the glimmer of flame and smelled the stinging odor of singed hair and flesh lingering in smoke and fumes.


“Grogens,” Loomgrin uttered dimly, “stay close to the trees, Zombiac.”


I nodded, though he never could have beheld my bobbing pate. The unpleasant sound of mirthful half-apes began to build and we dropped the pace to ensure our steps were undetectable by anything living.


So it went, until we had passed three fires and began to see starlight in the widening clearings.


“What did you say, Zombiac?” Loomgrin suddenly asked.


“I said nothing,” I replied.


“Be still,” warned Loomgrin as a furrowing sound twitched ahead.


“You must kill him,” said a clear voice in my head, “before he kills you.”


“Did you hear that?” I asked, leaning into the mountainside.


“I have heard nothing but meaningless laughter,” Loomgrin replied, “steel yourself, for we are ill-prepared!”


Then the presence vanished and we quickened our pace, as the shadows took on an eerie, fathomless depth.


“I am fighting the urge to run,” whispered Loomgrin.


The air suddenly exploded with a swift fury, as if swarms of wasps had been unleashed. Yet instead of the sounds of angry wings, there was a cloying silence that urged me to shout.


“There is no hope!” I cried, “It knows we’re here! It is toying with us!”


The first images that poured into my head were those of wild beasts and of human cruelty. Then torrents of darker, wilder things dazed my mind and made the grip I held on my sword loose and tenuous.


In the darkness a presence loomed before us and reared onto its heels.
“Damn you!” bellowed Loomgrin, swinging Mustardseed fitfully.


I roared unceremoniously and sprang savagely ahead with my own weapon, feeling the wild, devouring darkness pitch and yawn.


Then the nightmares flooded my senses and I almost fell to my knees weeping and trembling.


“Fight it, Zombiac!” cried Loomgrin. Something lashed out with the fetid smell of a lingering crypt blazing in arcs behind the solid, raking hand. I sneered and thrust my sword forward.
The thing scurried in unreachable places and mocked us with lewd, jeering peels of laughter.


“We can not hope to survive!” I gasped, in despair, for now my body itself seemed to be controlled. I began to kneel.


Loomgrin flailed about, in the dark, without reason, swinging his sword at every shadow. I fought to keep from lowering my sword. The voice in my mind screamed, with a primordial hatred, for me to surrender. If Loomgrin was under such attack, it was not working. He had gone completely berserk. Now frustrated in the dark, perhaps mad from the visions in his head, he bolted off to a camp of Grogens and loosed his fury upon them.


The sweet, pure sound of steel clashing with steel somehow gave me heart and I sprang to my feet, shook off the terrible nightmarish images and swung my sword around defiantly.
Abruptly the clamor of battle stopped and Loomgrin called out, “Zombiac! Come to the light of this fire. At least we shall see this Murderous Odauntutaunt and look it in its eye.”


I called out his name and swiftly ran in that direction. Before long I was there. Loomgrin was covered in the blood of fallen Grogens. The grey streaks in his hair and beard gleamed crimson in the firelight.


The voice, close enough to be a whisper, returned, saying:


“So you think you might fare better if you could see me, I who could shred your brains with a look in my eye! Very well! I come!”


Suddenly pillars of white fire blazed up high and the forest began to burn in great heaps. From amidst this brilliant light and terrible heat came the monster. Like an ape, it went on all fours but might equally stand on two legs to wield a sword. It wore clothing made of black sack cloth and its head was indeed like a hooded cobra’s head. I would not look into those eyes. I could feel their power. Even to glance at them would be certain death. The thing seemed the size of an elephant. It went back on its heels and grew even stronger. It drew a sword that seemed to be made of solid crystal, which captured and intensified the light of the inferno it had conjured.


Conjured? But Gester had said it had no magic, just the power of its mind.


“My sword against yours, Odauntutaunt!” called Loomgrin, his berserk rage still stirring him to frenzy. He began to run forward.


Odauntutaunt lifted a towering, blazing pillar and swung it at him.


“It isn’t real!” I cried out, but Loomgrin did not care. He staggered to avoid the illusionary blow and fell full force onto the corpse of a Grogen. The dead Grogen’s uplifted sword pierced his mighty heart and he wailed and sagged into a ball of pain and shock.


I stepped forward.


“I do not believe in your tricks and I have beheld horrors worse than your nightmares in my former master’s own hall.”


“But you are exceptionally easy to control. You do not really know yourself yet. You are untested. I could make you drop your weapon now and bare your breast to my sword.”


“Beast you may be, but why not take me like a man? Sword against sword?”


The pillars of fire vanished and the creature laughed and began to stride towards me. As it drew near I watched keenly for its first move. It might leave itself open, and if I could block the first blow and strike back quickly I might hurt it.


But it swung remarkably quickly and in ways I could scarcely prepare for. It was all I could do to block the rain of swordplay and dart back, trying to gain the time to form another tactic.


Then I saw in the shadow of the firelight a strange thing. From the Murderous Odauntutaunt came a very small shadow, like that of a dog, and it came from only one leg.


I advanced into the monster’s furious press, giving the beast at least a blow for blow rain of equal fury. Then, when it took a moment to figure out how to deal with me, I tumbled and rolled to the leg and swung at it.


Instantly, the sword dropped from above me where the power of the creature’s mind had held it. The real Odauntutaunt, no larger than some cur in a village, lay mortally cleaved, grasping yet for the sword, impossibly large for this creature to wield with anything but the power of its dying mind. It had not even the power left to make words in my brain. It simply snarled and barked as close a series of sounds to speech as it could muster, then it died.


So this was it. The pathetic monster that had terrorized villages all up and down these hills. It was eerie enough, with its growth of shredded brains, and its cobra-like head, but in the end it seemed little more than a common dog.


It had killed my first friend. I could see that now. Loomgrin, who could command vast sums as a sell-sword, had perished at the sword that he had carelessly allowed to stick up from the ground. Killed by a dead Grogen, all because his mind had been overwhelmed.


That mighty and rock thewed, hulking warlord had been overcome by mental trickery from a dog like creature that could not have even lifted its own sword by its own hand.


I had not the heart to do anything but get his body away from that foul Grogen, lay him out in his blanket, and put his sword in his hand.


I was on my own, and the city ahead had lost all its appeal. Perhaps there were some wars to the west where I might loose myself in battle and evade the henchmen of the wizard who wanted me dead. I would use one of my last jewels to hire a messenger and send that messenger to the Cloisters of Morrn. The message would be for Gester Rainsword, that Odauntutaunt had fallen by my hand.


Having little to fear from the debauched Grogens scattered in the woods, I climbed into a sturdy bower and made an ape’s bed to sleep in. I would walk to the end of this road and visit the city ahead only briefly.


I had never been nor felt so utterly alone.