Book 8: Chapter 37: Death's Maw

Book 8: Chapter 37: Death's Maw

Ronkerz’s voice roared out, vibrating the stone under Victor’s feet. “Which Big One shall we choose to face this disciple of death, Rumble Town? I’ll give you a choice! Will it be Zara Bloodmoon, daughter of Rex Hangar and wielder of the Midnight Scythe, or will it be Gorruk the Crusher, Wrecker of Bones, and Ravager of the Lich King?” If the crowd made any noise while Ronkerz spoke, Victor couldn’t hear them, but as soon as he finished, the onlookers broke into two distinct chants. Some rhythmically yelled, “Zara, Zara, Zara,” while others contended with, “Gorruk, Gorruk, Gorruk!”

Victor watched Arona while the denizens of Rumble Town shouted for their favorite champions. She stood still, her twisted black staff planted in the ground before her, while cold-looking blue mist seeped out of the dirt and blasted stone, forming a hazy cloud that rose to her knees. Something moved in the cloud of vaporous air, and Victor thought he saw a faintly luminescent form lurking within it. Was she already summoning her minions? Was Ronkerz going to allow that? It seemed so, for, as Victor glanced up to him, the great simian lord of the dungeon seemed to be basking in the roars of the crowd, enjoying their contest.

Before long, it became clear that the Gorruk supporters would win. Slowly but surely, more and more people stopped chanting for Zara, and the cries for Gorruk grew louder and louder. After a handful of minutes, Ronkerz stepped to the edge of his high cave and held his arms wide, silencing the crowd. “Rumble Town, you have chosen! Gorruk the Crusher, take the field!”

One of the shadowy, hulking figures behind Ronkerz stepped forward and leaped off the ledge, falling to the ground with a tremendous impact that Victor felt through the stone, jarring the bones in his ankles and knees. When Gorruk stood tall, Victor winced—he was an imposing figure. The Big One was a reptilian creature that towered over Arona, easily more than ten feet tall. He wore red leather straps for armor but carried a massive metal-spiked shield and a hammer that looked fit for pounding boulders into dust. He arched his back, angled his alligator maw toward the sky, and roared.

To her credit, Arona didn’t flinch, and rather than quail before his display of brute power, she flung out her hand, scattering a dozen tiny bones in a semi-circle behind the Big One. Ronkerz made it clear he knew things were kicking off by shouting, “Fight!” Gorruk dashed forward, his spiked shield leading the way. Victor thought it was about to be over before it started, but Arona’s spectral companion rose from the mist, placing itself in the giant’s path. Victor’s eyes widened at the sight of the specter.

The ghostly, semi-ethereal, semi-solid being was skeletally gaunt, clothed in ragged, luminescent chain mail. It wore a horned helm and wielded nothing but dagger-like claws on its hands. Still, it was huge, fast, and apparently quite strong. It rose from the mist looming over Arona and was more than a match for Gorruk’s rushing form as it wrapped the claws of its right hand around the edge of his shield and stepped to the side, pulling the giant with it, forcing him to stumble as he windmilled his hammer for balance.

“Take him, Shol-pan!” Arona cried. Again, the specter wailed, and he leaped after Gorruk, raking his long claws in a savage, wild frenzy, tearing long, bloody grooves in the giant’s flesh, ripping the straps of his armor to shreds and sending bright red blood spraying in arcs with each lightning-fast, hacking gash. Gorruk screamed his fury and pain, but Victor felt something was off. The dozens of cuts were deep and bloody, but Gorruk’s scream didn’t have even a hint of desperation in it. In fact, Victor recognized a kindred battle lust in that sound, and he knew Gorruk was just getting warmed up.

As the gashes mounted and Gorruk was driven further and further from Arona, the Death Caster began to surge with deep, cold Energy, preparing another spell. As she lifted her staff, Gorruk roared and whirled, lashing out with his spiked shield. Victor thought the specter, Shol-pan, would evade the blow, or perhaps ignore it, being less than solid flesh, but the shield struck true and, with a splash of blue-white ectoplasmic flesh, Arona’s champion was thrown to the side, crumpled and deformed, tumbling over the charred stones of the arena.

Victor winced, but as he turned back to Arona, the air temperature dropped by a dozen degrees. She held her arms wide, a strained, rictus grin on her face, as a whirlwind of ghostly, ethereal blades exploded into existence, streaking toward Gorruk. The blades howled as they sliced the air, and the temperature continued to plummet as they seemed to suck the very life out of the arena, riming everything with a frigid layer of hoarfrost as they traversed the space. Gorruk had barely turned from his struggle with Shol-pan when the whirlwind struck.

He lifted his shield, roared, and then bright lances of Energy exploded from the spiked surface like a starburst. Where the beams of light shone, the blades disintegrated, and the frost melted. The temperature in the arena immediately began to recover as half of Arona’s spectral blade storm was destroyed on impact. Still, the other half, the straggling, sputtering remnant of the whirlwind, washed over Gorruk and added to the many bleeding gashes on his hulking, green-scaled body. Even so, as his blood pooled on the stones, he stood resolute and straight when the spell faded.

Victor looked at Arona, trying to gauge her strength, but, to his surprise, she’d faded from view in a new bank of ghostly fog. Gorruk strode toward it, but then, with an explosion of grave-scented Energy, like moist soil and fresh decay, the bones Arona had strewn out earlier sprang into the air. They rapidly multiplied and grew until a small army of skeletal minions surrounded the cloud of blue-tinted fog. Each of the skeletons’ skulls, in all their variety, held bright, ghostly blue lights in their eye sockets, and they turned, in unison, to focus on Gorruk. The way they moved in perfect synchrony made Victor shudder as a chill ran down his spine.

Gorruk didn’t wait for the skeletal monsters to act; he charged on a streak of light like a sunbeam toward the one furthest to the left and smashed it to bits with a cacophonous impact of his shield. The skeletal warrior’s bones flew with a clatter, but the other skeletons leaped into action, jumping, charging, and sliding over the ground to engage Gorruk from every side. Some wielded claws, but others held gleaming weapons—hammers, axes, spears, and swords. Considering how quickly Gorruk had killed the first one, Victor thought they must not be very tough, but he was surprised to see them pushing the giant, reptilian man back.

As the monster thrashed back and forth, shaking off the last vestiges of his former body and armor, he whirled to aim one of his crocodilian eyes at Arona. The giant monstrosity heaved and huffed, puffing great billowing breaths out through his enormous nostrils as the eye narrowed in a hungry, almost lecherous stare. Each of Gorruk’s four legs was as big as Arona’s entire body, and they all ended in great, black, scimitar-like claws. As the monster slowly began to circle his prey, for Victor couldn’t see the depleted Death Caster as anything else, Ronkerz’s voice boomed out, echoing off the canyon walls.

“Arona! You may yield! Gorruk’s restraint is limited with his bloodline running wild!”

Arona, holding her staff between herself and the gigantic reptile, took a shaky step back and looked up at Ronkerz’s shelf, then to her right, locking eyes with Victor. What he saw in those depthless black pools didn’t look like resignation or even fear. Determination was plainly written on her face, and Victor sucked in his breath when he realized she wouldn’t be giving up. He almost shouted for her to concede, but something in him wouldn’t let his lips form those words. Instead, he took a deep breath and bellowed, “Kill that fucker!”

Arona gave him a brief nod, and then, just as before, Victor felt the temperature in the arena begin to dip as faintly luminescent, blue-tinged mist began to rise from the ground. Arona raised her staff high and took a deep breath. Victor could feel her gathering Energy; the potential of her spell pulled at him, almost like the weighty nature of Gorruk’s transformation. He leaned forward in anticipation, waiting to see what she would do, but the great reptile wasn’t willing to be patient. With a swish of its enormous tail for impetus, Gorruk launched himself forward and closed his great jaws over Arona with a thunderous snap.

One second, she’d been about to work her magic, her staff held high. The next, only half her body remained to bleed out onto the blacked stone of the arena floor. It happened so quickly that she never cried out. She’d been looking at Gorruk, so Victor never saw her face, never got a chance to see if fear entered her steely gaze. He’d never know if she’d been surprised or embarrassed. He hoped not. He hoped she was too focused on her magic, too full of adrenaline and anger to see Gorruk coming. He hoped she died with that bravery in her heart and that she’d carry it with her to the Spirit Plane.

The ground shook as Ronkerz leaped down and hooked one of his massive arms around Gorruk’s thick, scaly neck. At first, Victor thought he was congratulating him, but when he saw him squeeze, he wondered if he was angry. Would he punish the giant reptile? Would he kill him? As he squeezed Gorruk’s thick neck, holding him steady, Victor saw him snake his other arm into that toothy maw and slowly extract the bloody, saliva-covered other half of Arona’s body. “Too much good equipment here for you to digest, champion.”

The arena broke into an uproar of cheering as Arona’s upper half landed on the stone with a wet squelch. Her bloody, slime-covered face happened to be staring directly at Victor. Those depthless pools had glazed over. Her pretty, pale face had deep tooth grooves ripped from brow to chin, and her tongue protruded from her carefully stained black lips. Victor felt heat rising in his chest, saw his vision tinting red, and, before he realized he was doing it, he started stalking toward the corpse.

“Halt, boy!” Ronkerz roared, and once again, Victor felt the weight of the veil walker’s aura pushing him back. Victor ignored him, his eyes locked on Arona’s defiled corpse. One after the other, he continued to take steps. It felt like walking up a mountain through burning, oxygenless air with ten-thousand-pound chains hooked to his ankles. Still, he progressed—vessels bursting in his eyes, blood flowing from his nose and ears, and veins standing out like rivers of blood on his engorged muscles.

Ronkerz scowled, and the arena grew hushed. He took two strides to Victor and reached up with one of his enormous hands to grasp his neck, halting his forward movement. The grip felt like a band of steel, and it reminded Victor of his time as a slave in the Greatbone Mine, further fueling his rage. He opened his pathways, letting his Core unload into them, ready to cast Volcanic Fury and go for broke, but then, as suddenly as a switch being thrown, he felt the pressure of a tremendous will pushing his Energy back into his Core.

His mind cleared, the red in his vision faded, and Victor realized that his hands were wrapped around Ronkerz’s wrist, straining to pull his grasping fingers away from his neck. Lifedrinker lay at his feet. When had he dropped her? Ronkerz must have seen the clarity enter his eyes because he nodded, then slowly relaxed his grip on Victor’s throat. “That eager to do battle, eh, boy? Well, you’ll get your chance, but not against me. Not yet, anyway.” He glanced down at Arona’s mutilated corpse. “Angry at her rough treatment? I’m not terribly pleased, either. Take heart—I’ll give her a good resting place.”

Once again, Ronkerz moved—faster and more adroitly than Victor’s eyes could properly track. He tried, though, and thought he saw some blurs of motion here and there, but still, almost without any trace, Ronkerz, Arona’s body, and the gigantic crocodilian champion were gone. Victor stood alone in the arena. He stooped to pick up Lifedrinker and, with her resting on one shoulder, slowly turned, soaking in the attention of the onlookers.

He sent some Energy into the runes on his armor, reactivating it, cladding himself in heavy red-black metal, scales, and leather. Lifting Lifedrinker high, he screamed—nothing articulate, no words, just a primal, bloodthirsty cry for battle, chaos, and blood. His outburst was fueled by fear and rage, but when the crowd roared their enthusiasm, the glory in his Core surged, and a mad grin twisted Victor’s lips as he deeply inhaled, soaking up their enthusiasm. They wanted to see him fight, and he would give them something to remember.