Tibtarnitallimardarian sat limply on the throne, thickly muscled arms draped over armrest, clawed hands open, well muscled legs outstretched, clawed feet angled out. His barrel chest and muscular belly heaved in great breaths, his fur loincloth slightly askew. His head rested chin on chest, corners of beak-like mouth edged up, black eyes, set beneath thick brow sporting four crooked horns, were half lidded, dull as if from sleep.
Orlon stood paralyzed at the sight, nape hairs on end. Yes, he had come to believe the quest was for real. Yes, with each step, each danger faced, each death, the obtaining of the Holy Pike, he knew they were ever nearing its end. Yes, he knew when they entered the mountain the weight of the world’s fate rested squarely on his shoulders. Yes, yes, yes… And yes, he wondered how weaponless, without the knack for magic, Sharna had gotten Tibtarnitallimardarian to be so sedate…
"The farmer’s wife assigns her children chores! The captured mouse scurries every which way in hopes of escaping the cat! The Holy Pike calls upon you Orlon, the pure, purest of the pure, to perform what is expected of you. And you must hurry in doing so before we find ourselves trapped in the clutches of Tibtarnitallimardarian."
Orlon glanced at Ty the Parson, at the weapon held carefully in his hand, at the staid monster before him, then his eyes were locked on the Holy Pike. Somehow the rough shaft felt comfortable in his hand. The silver point glowed softly, and its glow beckoned him forward.
Slowly, he made the short walk to the platform, stepped up onto it and stopped directly before the evil being seated on the golden throne. The glow of the pike’s silver point reflected off the half closed eyes, yet the creature did not react. Orlon gulped and looked back at the Party, all waiting expectantly, none more so than Tarl Bimbo, who mouthed, "What are you waiting for?" When he turned back, he reset his feet, hefted the pike over his head.
Eyes closed, he plunged it into Tibtarni—whatever’s forehead.
Tibtarnitallimardarian went…limper.
The half closed eyes glazed over.
Dark blood overran the face.
An unbelievably strong force blew the Midget back.
Orlon landed in front of the Party—hard. Nevertheless, he got to his feet, eyes on the Holy Pike, and what he witnessed shook him to his very foundation. Smoke seeped from between the shaft and the now dull silver point. The carved letters along the shaft melted away to be replaced by new letters… In the blink of an eye the shaft turned black.
Ty the Parson knelt before him, pulled back his hood and placed a hand on his shoulder. Orlon braced himself for a shaking.
"The baby in womb is met by wire hook! The condemned man receives last minute reprieve from the king! You have removed the evil, Orlon, and freed the world from its grasp," Ty the Parson said, a smile on his busy lips. Then in a flail of limbs that brought him up to a wide-legged stance, staff pointing at door, he said, "The occupants crawl beneath smoke to escape the burning house before being consumed! We must escape this place before its evil stench invades our very s—"
"Victorious!" The weak declaration turned all eyes to the crumpled heap that was Majestus Sinobe. "I was victorious. But I am broken in twenty places."
Shing went to and examined him. "We will need a stretcher," he concluded.
A look around brought his slit eyes to the poles above the throne. He edged around it and its occupant, and two strokes of his magnificent sword freed the poles from the wall. These he brought back and laid parallel to each other. With no other cloth handy, he procured the magic man’s coat, draped it over the poles and with quick cuts along each side produced a series of tie strips, which he tied around the poles. He and Tarftenrott lifted the crumpled heap and placed it on the stretcher.
"Oh. Oh!" Majestus Sinobe moaned during the transfer. "Careful with me, please. Oh, oh. Oh!"
They lifted the stretcher to a chorus of his moans and pleas for carefulness.
"We must go," Ty the Parson stated flatly and started toward the door.
"Wait," Brak Dugan said. "We’re forgetting this." He wrenched the pike from the forehead of Tibtarnitallimardarian.
"He touched the evil," Grash declared.
Blades bit deeply into the wandering farmhand’s flesh again and again, soon reducing him to a pile of gore, beside which lay a small plow.
"We must go," Ty the Parson repeated just as flatly, but with more urgency.
"Don’t leave me."
The weak appeal turned them to a splatter on the wall, beneath which lay a twisted mass of flesh and copper chainmail. Atop this rested a battered head, watery eyes looking at them pleadingly.
Shing transferred his end of the stretcher to Tarl—Majestus Sinobe moaned and pleaded for care all the way, and after—and went to examine Expendendale. Tibtarnitallimardarian had done a brutal job on him, he found, leaving no bone unbroken, at least twice. A string of entrails trailed from the splatter on the wall to a gash in his side.
"I will need a sack," the Oriental Ranger said, and in answer, Ty the Parson produced a sack with straps from a sleeve and passed it to him.
With care, Shing scraped the entrails from the wall into the sack, followed them down to the pile, which he carefully placed in the bag, head on top. He donned the sack, ready to go.
Yet again Ty the Parson stated flatly, urgently they must leave, and this time they followed him out the door—to skid to a halt in the hall beyond. The doorway was aglow! They looked from it to each other, uncertain. Ty the Parson, however, hurried on down the hall, leaving the Party trying to catch up to him. When he went through the doorway he twisted and bound aside. There was a loud snap…
XV. Eunuchs
A Eunuch flew by Ty the Parson’s crotch into the noose that appeared in the twisting, bounding man’s hand. A yank both tightened and jerked the noose, snapping the creature’s neck. The noose mystically released the dead Eunuch in time to catch and snap the neck of another as the Parson landed and dodged the bite that would have done him in. And so it went nonstop. The room was rapidly filling with the loin seeking creatures.
Try as he might to reach the other doorway, Ty the Parson was met by such an onrush of Eunuchs he was pushed back, his noose barely saving him from so many snapping jowls.
"Orlon, cling to me," Sharna ordered as she lunged forward to meet the wave of creatures.
Orlon’s reaction to her order earned him a confused, then disgusted look from Tarl Bimbo. He not only hesitated, he blushed. Memory of his physical reaction to clinging to her during the first Eunuch attack embarrassed and confused him and filled him with fear she had noticed…. Memory of the red eyed, fang tooth snouted nightmares—the gruesome fate of Rae, however, set him into motion. He jumped forward, wrapping an arm around her waist, letting his other hand come to rest on her silky leg to keep a distance.
Close behind him came Shing and Grash, taking up positions to either side of her, forming an arrowhead, her saber swishing and swirling and decapitating Eunuchs, their swords serving as guard against any who might get through her onslaught. Tarl and Tarftenrott, and their ever moaning and pleading for care burden, took up position behind them. Ty the Parson took up the rear, darting back and forth as the battle surged and ebbed.
So the battle went, forward and backward, forward and backward, forward and backward… Minutes slipped into an hour, two… More and more scaly, bipedal and headless bodies littered the floor, to be stomped on and mashed by the combatants with each advance and retreat. And with each sway of the conflict the three warriors knew by their ever tiring sword arms it would not be long before they and those they defended would be overrun.