Sea of Death

"You've got it," the young man said just as he got very busy. So many of the apes had died on the spikes that now there were pathways in many places, and he had all he could do to stem the tide. He thrust and cut in a blur of motion, seeming to be everywhere at once. Although he bled from a bitten thigh and arm, and the monsters' nails had clawed cheek and leg, Gord was not seriously hurt. He had lost count of how many of the yellow-haired white apeoids he had killed. Out of the corner of his eye, Gord saw Leda crouching down next to one of the dead apes. He wanted to ask her what she was doing, but then he heard the girl start chanting and knew that she was working some spell, so he dared not interrupt.

An apeling leaped through the air, mouth agape, fangs bared to bite off his face. Gord caught the thing with dagger and sword, the shorter blade taking the apeoid through its upper jaw, the longer one piercing its abdomen. He held the creature above his head for a moment, its blood dripping down upon him in a gory shower. Then, using all of his might, Gord hurled the corpse full into a trio of its charging fellows. Two of them were knocked down and stu

"That does it, Gord. I'll be fine now – see if the others need help," Leda shouted to him. Then, in a different, deeper voice, the dark elf said, To me, apelings! Kill any of your fellows that come near!"

Gord turned quickly to look at her. Leda was gesturing to the forms of dead baboons nearby, and the corpses were responding. Before his eyes, about a dozen of the dead apes rose up, blood-smeared, entrails spilling, to form a crescent around the girl, their backs toward her, facing their own, living kind with ready fangs. Indeed, Leda seemed able to care for herself, with some strange and grisly assistance, so Gord took advantage of the moment to go to the aid of the hard-pressed nomad warriors.

"Two can play your game!" Gord shouted to the mute creatures that had momentarily recoiled from the stone spikes and the fury of the young adventurer's blood-drenched blades. He sprang upon the bridge of dead monsters, stabbing and thrusting as he advanced, and fought to the side of the spiky area farthest from Leda. The apelings there sought to recoil from the savagery of their foe, but those behind the ones in front were not quick enough. A severed head flew; another baboon, its arm lopped off, fell writhing on the hard, blood-covered floor of the chamber. Using each weapon-stroke with murderous efficiency, whirling and darting continually, Gord chopped his way through the pack. Now the survivors were moving backward, toward the chamber door, and Gord was able to get clear and join the beleaguered nomads. Another of the men had fallen beside Nizamee, but Achulka and the one called Jahmut were still holding their own.

"Die! Die!" he shouted over and over as the young adventurer fell upon the group of things that were between him and the steppemen. Two of the yellow-maned baboons fell instantly, caught from behind as Gord assaulted them like a whirlwind.

Heartened by this, the two tribesmen still able to fight redoubled their own efforts, calling "Illa-Thuffi! Illa-Thuffi!" as they struck about them with their swords.

Gord cleared a path through the dozen or so apeoids who were clustered to attack the tribesmen. Counting those already killed by the nomads, not half of the creatures were left alive. Hie remainder turned suddenly in panic or fear, bounding and capering to escape from this red-smeared room and the terrible humans who were cutting them down in droves. Gord thought that some spell of Leda's might be at work, helping the panic to wash over these near-mindless little killers, but he didn't spend any time dwelling on the matter. "Cut them down!" he called to the two nomads, and then the young thief leaped after the routing troop of albino monsters, leaving red tracks wherever his blades touched their blond-maned heads or dead-white backs as the things sought to flee.

Both Al Illa-Thuffi warriors joined Gord in the work of slaying the apes as they scrambled to get clear of the chamber and back to the safety of wherever they had come from. Then, from outside the chamber, in the passage where the remainder of the pack was routing through, human voices cursed and shouted.

"Stop! and "Back! Back!" echoed in the arched corridor beyond the doorway. "Kill!" and "Obey!" could be heard as deep-voiced commands directed to the retreating monsters.

The two Thuffi warriors were busy finishing off some wounded apeoids that were thrashing about or attempting to crawl to escape. As the voices shouted their orders to the things beyond, Gord acted to delay a second inrush of the terrible little monsters. Kicking aside a carcass and cleaving one of the braver apes as it tried to re-enter the chamber, the young man grabbed the thick door with his left hand and began to swing it back toward the closed position.

A flying spear grazed his shoulder, for the light coming from inside the room made Gord a distinct target. In the next instant, the swinging door stopped and bounced back slightly, as if it had struck something. As the door rebounded, there was a thud and an audible groan from the empty air – and. amazingly, a crossbow bolt that had been heading directly for Gord abruptly stopped in midair. Scarcely a second later, a heavy billet of wood with protruding spikes came flying through the doorway and struck Gord's chest.

The spear wound was only a trifle, and the hurled aklys, as the spiked club was called, did little more than bruise Gord, for the mesh of elfin armor beneath his robe warded off the piercing iron hooks and points. But the metal projections of the aklys caught on the heavy cloth of Gord's burnous, and the one outside the chamber who had thrown the weapon hauled hard on the leather thong attached to the club's handle. Gord was jerked from his feet and toppled headlong toward the stone floor. Before he struck the rough granite, however, something only scarcely softer broke his fall.

Fortunately, Gord's comrades were right behind him as all this occurred. Achulka grabbed Gord's feet and hauled him out of the doorway and back into the room, just as Leda got behind the half-closed portal and shoved with all her strength against its thick planks. The door banged closed, and an instant later Leda dropped its bar down. In the interim, several more spears and a half-dozen quarrels had been discharged into the room, but none had scored a hit. More missiles could be heard thudding into the planks of the great door even as the dark elf shut it fast.

The invisible mass that had held Gord away from contact with the floor had been dragged into the chamber along with the thief. Grateful for this invisible cushion but u

"Invisibility ring," she said to Gord and the nomads as she put the loop of dull metal into her sash. "He is a strange-looking sort," she added, gazing down at the form.

The corpse was that of a thin, pygmylike albino, a human who closely resembled the yellow-maned baboons that had attacked them. "He was slain by that little bolt," Gord observed, noticing the object that was protruding from the corpse's upper back. "The flesh is black around the shaft… poison?"

"Yes," Leda answered. "Are either of you wounded?" she then asked, turning to the nomads.

"Not heavily, and not from such missiles," Achulka replied, "although I fear that the apes have done for our brothers. Perhaps we were too hasty in removing the Arroden charms…"