The Order of Shaddai rs-2 Read online

  “Rommil has turned on you, gentlemen,” Seth said to the soldiers. “I would suggest you use the strength you have left to flee this castle with your lives.”

  The two soldiers took a moment to gauge the situation-three against two. They shrugged at one another, turned, and ran back the way they had come.

  “Where are we going to go, Seth?” Ethan asked, looking around.

  Seth turned and ran through an archway hidden in the shadows. “The dungeon.”

  DUNGEON MASTER

  Jericho only half noticed the advance of General Rommil’s troops down the hillside, through the trees beyond, and into the pocked castle courtyard. His focus remained on Ethan and the promotion of fear. The soldiers advanced without any resistance whatsoever. After all, King Nichols had been under his command in reestablishing his throne and the invitation to the priests of Shaddai.

  Jericho constructed the elements around the boy to encourage panic. Through the spiritual plane, he conjured visions and voices to haunt the boy. He promoted the rush of adrenaline and the myriad chemical components of a take-flight-response to what the boy was experiencing.

  Jericho felt his racing pulse, his labored erratic breathing, and the sweat pouring from his pores. I have you, Deliverer!

  Overwhelming light severed him from the darkness. An ethereal blade lashed out at him from a towering figure that materialized before him. Jericho instantly abandoned his hold on the boy to save himself from the sudden onslaught. The angel rushed his retreat and overtook him with a thunderous blow to the face.

  Jericho reeled. Smoke rose from the white-hot wound left by the angel’s fist. He flew at his attacker, grappled with him, and then stammered back again. “Let me pass!”

  The angel said nothing.

  Jericho shot over the angel, but was quickly intercepted and cast down. He tried to reach the boy through his connection. Nothing.

  “How? Why? What is the meaning of this interference in mortal affairs?” Jericho demanded.

  The angel cocked one eyebrow with curious satisfaction and then spoke. “Prayer.”

  Jericho screamed like an animal, then flew at the angel with his sword in hand. Thunder sounded as their blades smashed together in combat. Jericho wailed on his opponent repeatedly, but ultimately the angel proved too powerful.

  He sidestepped an attack and caught Jericho full force with his heavenly sword. Jericho floundered backward to the ground, realizing his predicament. “No! Not now!”

  His spiritual body began to dissolve while the angel watched. The angel disappeared with a smile on his face, leaving Jericho to disintegrate. The demon watched as the mortal plane, the castle, and the Deliverer faded from his vision. He would have to wait to find him again.

  Seth led Ethan and Levi down into the depths of King Nichol’s castle. Levi carried their torch and a sword recovered from the unconscious soldier. He brought up the rear as they descended the stone steps of a long spiraling staircase.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Levi said, “why exactly are we going into the dungeon?”

  Seth’s voice echoed back from the darkness ahead. “With General Rommil’s forces invading the castle we’ll need a secure way out.”

  “There’s a secure way down here?” Ethan asked.

  Seth hesitated to respond. “There is a way.”

  When they had reached the bottom level, a cylindrical chamber opened up before them. Racks of old weapons lined the wall all the way around. Levi started toward something that caught his fancy. “I could do with one of those.”

  Seth caught him by the shirt as he tipped forward almost falling into a great pit in the middle of the floor.

  “Whoa!” Levi cried as his torch revealed his error. Seth pulled him back. Levi patted the priest on the shoulder. “Thanks, lad. I owe you one.”

  “One?”

  Levi ignored the remark. “Where do we go now? Don’t tell me that hole is our way out of here.”

  Seth grabbed two swords from a nearby rack and placed them through the grime encrusted sash around his waist. “Okay, Captain, I won’t tell you.” He clicked his tongue, then leaped out over the pit. Ethan and Levi watched horrified, until they saw him catch hold of a chain extending up out of the pit where it attached to a pulley system anchored to the roof.

  Seth dangled there, waiting for the others. “You’ll both need weapons, gentlemen.”

  “How in the world did you do that? Your blind…I couldn’t even see that chain,” Ethan said.

  “You’d be surprised how well your other senses develop when you don’t have your sight,” Seth said. “echoing sound, like a click of the tongue or even a whisper, works well to give me a picture of things your eyes can’t even see.”

  Ethan was now even more impressed with the ingenuity of Shaddai’s priests.

  “What’s in the hole?” Levi asked as he pulled a large cutlass from one of the racks.

  “The dungeon is down there and our way out.”

  “But I’ve heard no one has ever escaped the dungeon at Macedon’s castle,” Levi said.

  “One person did.”

  “How do you know?” Ethan asked.

  “Because I’m that person. Now we must hurry before-”

  Torch light filled the stairwell, reflected off of the stone walls.

  Seth loosened his grip and slid down the chain into the darkness of the pit. “Come on! We must hurry!”

  Ethan ran to one of the weapons racks. “Go, Levi! I’ve got to get a sword!”

  Bonifast jumped across the pit grabbing the chain which was still taut with Seth’s weight below him. “I don’t like this one bit,” he complained. Then he slid down.

  Ethan grabbed a medium sized sword from the rack and hefted it for feel. The light suddenly emerged into the chamber with a massive man holding the torch.

  “There you are!”

  The man pulled his great broadsword and swung it at Ethan. Surprised, he tried to block only to have his new weapon knocked away. The man roared at him and swung again. Ethan only had time to evade. He somersaulted backward, missed the chain and plummeted into the pit.

  Ethan flailed in the darkness until his hand brushed metallic links. The chain! He seized it desperately. Searing pain tore through his left arm all the way to the shoulder, but his fall halted. He grabbed the chain with his other hand and began a slower descent.

  After several minutes his feet touched the ground and hands supported him in the darkness. He still couldn’t see anything-not even his hand in front of his face.

  “We’ve got you, lad,” Levi said. Just step down easy. “It takes a minute to get your bearings down here.”

  “Where’s Seth?”

  “I’m here, Deliverer.”

  “Hey, I think I can see a little better,” Ethan said. “Is there some source of light?”

  A torch fell through the darkness above and landed near them on the ground.

  Seth turned toward it. “I feel heat, is that a torch?”

  “They’ve tossed it down from above,” Levi said. “They’ll be coming after it I imagine.”

  Seth pulled his weapons. “Then it’s time to leave.”

  Ethan started to pick up the torch. “Well, we can certainly use this.”

  Seth rushed to stop him. “No! We must get away from it. The heat will draw them.”

  “Draw what?” Levi asked as he began to back away from the torch.

  “Kung lizards.”

  Levi immediately pulled the cutlass from his belt. “You led us into a nest of Kung lizards? Are you insane?”

  Ethan grabbed his weapon and backed away cautiously from the torch. “What’s a Kung lizard?”

  “Warm blooded reptile twice the size of a horse, lad, and mean as they come,” Levi said. “I thought you said there was an escape route down here, Seth.”

  “There is. The Kung lizards tunneled into the dungeon years ago, while I was a prisoner of Nichol’s father. They attacked the other prisoners and the guards,
but I used their own tunnel to make it out to safety. We can use that same tunnel again.”

  The chain began to move and rattle.

  “Rommil’s men are coming down,” Ethan said, peering into the darkness, expecting the lizards.

  “The lizards should be hibernating this time of year,” Seth explained.

  “Yeah, but that torch and these soldiers will stir them up for sure,” Levi argued.

  “Then let’s hurry and get out of here before they wake up,” Ethan said. “I’ll realm shift and find the tunnel.” A look of disappointment quickly settled on Ethan’s face.

  “What’s wrong, lad?”

  Ethan looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. For some reason, I can’t realm shift.”

  “But why?” Levi asked.

  The chain rattled again, and voices echoed from above.

  “This way, gentlemen,” Seth said, leading the way into the darkness. “We don’t have time to solve puzzles right now.”

  They readied their swords and followed the blind priest into the darkness away from the torch. Ethan heard hissing behind him and turned just before entering one of the corridors to a cellblock. A huge slender reptilian head appeared silhouetted by the torchlight.

  Ethan froze and gripped his sword tighter in anticipation of an attack. The reptile turned its head toward him. A tingle shot up his spine. The beast stood only twenty feet from him. Then it turned back toward the torch and the dangling chain.

  A soldier dressed in black and crimson armor slid down the chain into view then dropped to the ground. He looked up to his comrades. “I’ve reached the bottom!”

  The huge Kung lizard lunged forward, snapping a whip-like tongue at the man. The sticky coating on its tongue seized the soldier, holding him fast, then quickly drew him into the beast’s jaws. The soldier screamed as the lizard crunched down upon his armor.

  It pulled him away from the torchlight into the darkness. Ethan heard it tearing away the armor plating as it went for the soft flesh beneath. Ethan ran to catch up with the others, his stomach churning.

  THE NEST

  The sound of trickling water drew Ethan into an adjacent chamber. He barely dared to whisper for Levi and Seth. “Where are you?”

  No one answered. Water continued its babbling just ahead. Ethan crept closer. His feet tapped into a ledge. He felt a cool rim of stone at waist height. Beyond, a pool of ice cold water sat in the chamber, apparently fed from somewhere above. “A Cistern,” he whispered. His eyes had adjusted better to the poor lighting by now. The tiniest fraction of sunlight filtered in from somewhere far above.

  Ethan bent over to get himself a drink. He’d been parched for the longest time. Something hissed behind him. He turned in time to find one of the huge Kung lizards opening its jaws. Someone hit him. He flew backwards into the water.

  He pushed through the surface of the water again to see the lizards tongue shoot out and grab Seth. The sticky saliva held him to the horrid appendage as it pulled him toward his death.

  As the beast reeled him to its mouth, Seth brought one of his swords down across the bridge of its nose. With the other weapon, he slashed through the adhesive tongue. Seth fell loose as the Kung lizard lurched backward. It flailed its body in every direction from pain. Blood sprayed everywhere.

  Seth ran at Ethan with the tip of the lizard’s tongue still dangling from his clothing. He leaped over the rim into the pool. “Stay down!”

  “Are you kidding? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Seth gripped his arm and held him in the pool. “No!” he hissed. “The water hides your body heat from the lizards. That’s the way they track their prey.”

  Ethan stayed put even though the water chilled him to the bone. The lizard groaned and croaked against the pain of its injuries.

  “But won’t that thrashing about attract the others?” Ethan asked.

  “Exactly the reason we don’t want to be walking around right now…Look.”

  Ethan watched as another Kung lizard appeared, then several more. They briefly watched the wounded reptile rolling around on the ground. They sniffed the air-blood. Then they lunged at the poor beast and began gorging themselves.

  Ethan suddenly realized the captain was missing. “Where’s Levi?”

  “He’s down the corridor toward our exit. I left him safe in one of the cells slathered in cool mud from the floor.”

  “Body heat?”

  “Precisely.”

  They remained in the pool as more giant lizards arrived in the chamber to feast.

  “How many?” Seth asked.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I’m hoping the whole nest will come to feed. It will keep them busy. With a fresh kill before them, they’re less likely to pay any attention to us.”

  Kung lizards of all sizes chirped and clicked to one another-mothers calling their young from the tunnels adjacent to the room. Then, unexpectedly, one of the large carnivores turned toward the cistern. Ethan tensed and grabbed Seth’s arm.

  “What’s wrong, Ethan?” he whispered.

  “One of them is coming over here.”

  The pair backed up to the rear of the cistern. “Get below the surface,” Seth instructed.

  They ducked down under the water. The cistern held a water depth of only four feet. Ethan opened his eyes, trying to see the lizard. He kept his blade pointed up toward the beast, just in case it spotted them.

  The tip of the Kung lizard’s snout pushed through the surface of the water. The long tongue curled out, then pulled water like a scoop back into the reptiles mouth. It stood there drinking-the tongue loping through the water mere inches from Ethan and Seth.

  Ethan noticed something clouding the water next to him. The lack of light made it incredibly difficult to see anything. Then he noticed the stump of lizard tongue still attached to Seth’s clothing. Blood from the severed appendage poured out into the water around them.

  The lizard’s tongue picked up the scent in the water. It darted toward the source and found Seth hiding there beneath the surface of the water. Feeling the heat, the tongue attached and drew him out of the cistern by his leg.

  Ethan shot out of the water after him. The tongue held Seth suspended upside down. He became disoriented-not quite sure which way was up. Ethan lunged at the beast. He leaped up with his sword and swiped the blade horizontally across the lizard’s throat. Blood poured out across the earthen floor. The beast released Seth. He tumbled back into the water, recovered and came up again with his blade ready.

  “Ethan, what happened?”

  “Let’s just say, we’re even. Now, let’s get out of here!”

  Ethan helped him out of the cistern and Seth led him to the right corridor. “Bonifast is down this way.”

  With another great reptile bleeding out on the chamber floor, they easily escaped the attention of the feeding frenzy. The Kung lizards remained in the chamber enjoying a sumptuous feast.

  When Ethan and Seth reached the cell where Levi should have been waiting, they found shredded metal covered in blood. Ethan stared in disbelief while Seth felt the twisted edges of prison bars torn asunder.

  “Tell me this wasn’t where you left him,” Ethan said.

  Seth touched his fingers to the blood, then brought it to his nose. The pungent odor startled him, putting a smile on his face. “This isn’t the captain’s blood. The lizard that did this must have wounded itself on the torn metal.”

  Just then, they heard a cry for help down the corridor. They ran toward the sound. Ethan noticed Seth breathing deliberately heavy breaths-using the echoes to guide his steps through the darkness.

  Soon, they came to a wall. The stones had been thrust out into the corridor. “This must be where the lizards tunneled in. It smells awful.”

  “I think the nest is here,” Seth said. “I’d imagine most of them are back there feeding near the cistern, but we’d better be careful.”

  Another cry for help echoed from the hole in the wall.r />
  “It’s definitely Levi,” Ethan said. “There’s at least one of them in there. We’re coming, Levi!”

  Ethan ran through the hole in the wall with his sword pointed in front of him. Seth followed. The miniscule amount of light available in the dungeon became almost nothing inside the nest. Sounds of dirt shuffling around, heavy footfalls and the occasional ring of a sword hitting scaly flesh reverberated from multiple tunnels around them.

  Ethan stopped at a junction. “Which way?”

  Seth stepped up beside him and listened as the sounds came to them again. He darted to the left. “Come on.” Ethan hurried to keep up. Seth definitely had the advantage in this environment. As he ran, Ethan wondered why he still could not realm shift.

  Seth stopped in front of him, causing Ethan to almost slam into his back. Seth listened again, then bolted to the right and down another earthen tunnel. They arrived inside a larger chamber with more tunnels leading away. Ethan began breathing through his mouth. “This place smells awful.”

  Levi flew into the room from an overhead tunnel, then tumbled across a mound of dirt. A Kung Lizard followed on his heels. But when it entered the chamber and found three persons present, it stopped short, raised its head, and hissed menacingly. Ethan and Seth raised their weapons, ready to fight.

  “Ugh! What in the world is this stuff!” Levi yelled from across the chamber.

  The Kung whirled on him, searching for his prey again. Presently the lizard stood between Ethan, Seth and the captain. “Hey! Over here!” Ethan shouted as he tried to direct the lizard’s attention to him and Seth. The beast turned its head back to them. Apparently two tasty morsels were more interesting than one which had somehow landed in-

  “Lizard Poo!” Levi exclaimed. “I’m ever falling into a pile of dung in this place!”