The Soul Sphere: Book 01 - The Shattered Sphere (30 page)

Alexis had never let her concentration lapse. She had fully expected something in the area to set free the beasts she and Lucien had mounted, and as the sound of stone moving against stone came from both right and left, her eyes never left the statue beneath her. A lattice-work of cracks appeared in the stone shell, starting at the pincers and working its way back. A bead of perspiration trickled past her temple and tried to sting her right eye, but she blinked it away. Like a wave washing up onto the beach the stone façade cracked and fell away, freeing the massive scorpion beneath, but unexpected was the fact that the stone shell over the creature’s back, where Alexis was poised to strike, remained in place. The metamorphosis took only a second and then legs, pincers and—Alexis was sure without even seeing it—the deadly tail were freed. She drove her spear down as hard as she could, wincing in pain as the blow was deflected off the stone armor and the shock jolted her arms and shoulders. The scorpion whirled, trying to reach her with pincers or tail, or to throw her clear. Realizing she was in the one place she could do no damage, she tried only to maintain her balance as the scorpion spun right, then she leapt off to the side, unaware how close the first arrow Tala had fired had come to skewering her leg as she flipped through the air. She landed lightly and then thrust her spear before her to parry the scorpion’s right pincer, which had followed her flight and had sliced forward for a killing blow.

Lucien’s concentration was every bit as sharp as Alexis’, and he too let nothing distract him from his target. The stone had melted away from the scorpion beneath him as it had from the other, and his warblade was no more effective against the shell remaining on its back than Alexis’ spear had been. Lucien had taken up the killing position readily enough, although with some small sense of shame. A goblin warrior attacked with skill and strength, not with surprise, not from behind. In his present company he had allowed himself to step up onto the monster’s back, telling himself that to attack in such a way was acceptable and that they deserved no better, using magic as they did. As the warblade deflected off the beast’s stone shield, Lucien went into a battle fury, his already formidable skill heightened by his rage. A human warrior driven to such anger was prone to make a fatal mistake, but a goblin battle chief in a full-blooded fury was a thing of awe to behold. As he dropped to the ground and found targets not covered by stone, the warblade flashed and tore through the scorpion as easily as it might have rent the air.

The scorpion wheeled left, then right, then tried to retreat, but never could gauge its opponent nor gain a footing for battle. Its right pincer was cloven in two beyond the natural joint, rendering it useless, the left was sliced off. Twice it tried to sting with its tail, the stinger moving with blinding speed but only finding a stone floor. The first blow caused a few chips of stone to fly through the air. The second, much harder, drove the tail in an inch and forced it to become stuck for an instant. As the scorpion bunched its muscles to free itself the tail became taut, and at that moment Lucien’s warblade flashed and removed the tail three feet above the stinger. Now weaponless, the scorpion backed away as the goblin moved in to finish it.

Rowan started forward as soon as the cracks appeared in the scorpion statues, then charged when Alexis’ first blow deflected off her opponent without doing any damage. Opposite the now-living creature he could see Demetrius and Corson racing to the attack as well, and from behind he heard the twang of Tala’s bow.

Alexis was in a purely defensive mode. She batted away a succession of pincer attacks, doing no damage but taking none herself. With the others racing to her aid she would have been content to remain where she was and occupy the scorpion’s two forward weapons, but her real concern was the tail. As the terror advanced, forcing her back, it also boxed her in, giving her precious little room to dodge when the tail flicked forward.

The scorpion’s motion made it difficult for the group to take advantage of their superior numbers. As it spun, Demetrius and Corson had to swing in a wide arc to try to flank it—approaching under the raised tail was not an option they wanted to pursue. Rowan was forced to halt and retreat a few steps as the gigantic scorpion corralled Alexis back toward him, then he too tried to move around to flank the creature.

Tala waited with her bow poised, watching the battle unfold in front of her and looking for an opening. She tried to forget the near disaster of her first shot, knowing her mind needed to be as steady as her hand if she was to help her friends. As she saw the tail start to come forward, she loosed an arrow.

The missile found its mark, and while it could not stop the forward momentum of the scorpion’s sting, it may have slowed or deflected it enough to save Alexis. The stinger just missed her as she rolled to the left, instead cracking impotently against the stone floor. She tried to use the momentum of the dive to regain her feet, but the scorpion swiped at her with its right pincer, catching her full on the head and sending her sprawling face-first to the ground. She allowed herself only an instant to reclaim her spear before she rolled to the right again, swinging the wooden shaft above her blindly as she moved. The random swing was a fortunate one, batting away a follow-up pincer attack.

Seeing Alexis down, and the scorpion’s tail again pivoting in front of him, Demetrius gave up on flanking maneuvers. Praying the scorpion was focused fully on the fallen prey in front of it, he jumped in, hacking at the base of the upraised tail. The blow did not sever the tail cleanly, but it bit in far enough to render the stinger an ineffective weapon, though still a danger as the scorpion writhed in pain, causing its tail to thrash around haphazardly.

Rowan was given an opening as the creature turned from Alexis to Demetrius. He took out several legs with one powerful slash of his blade, then leapt back before a wildly swinging pincer could connect with his head.

As Corson had started forward behind Demetrius he saw that everyone but Lucien was battling one scorpion. Thinking the goblin might need help, he veered to the right and drew back his sword to strike. His mouth parted in a surprised gasp at the speed and fury of the goblin battle chief, and he had a moment to wonder if he might have been struck down as well if he had ventured within the warblade’s range. As Lucien finished off his opponent, Corson turned in time to see Rowan, Demetrius, and Alexis eliminating the other. With a soft sigh he sheathed his unbloodied sword.

“Everyone okay?” Demetrius asked, taking in the scene around him.

“Better than those scorpions,” Alexis answered, giving the one she had battled an extra jab with her spear. “Thanks for the help—all of you.”

Corson turned away at the words, at first feigning a study of the hallway ramp that had pushed Demetrius back, then doing so for real. He pushed with feet and hands but felt no give. His feeble attempt to scale it only resulted in modest progress before he slid back down, his boots and fingers unable to find purchase on the smooth stone.

Lucien joined him, and together they put their shoulders against the blockade and pushed. Again they met with failure. As Alexis and Rowan stepped forward to help, the floor/wall slowly dropped back into place on its own. Opposite, the stairs they had first descended reappeared.

Now it was Demetrius who studied the floor. “I felt no give beneath me when I triggered the thing.”

“A pressure pad does not need to give to be set off,” said Rowan.

“True enough.” Demetrius started forward, gauging his steps and counting as he went. When he felt he was at the right point he leapt forward. To his relief, nothing happened. Another half-dozen steps convinced him he had passed the trigger cleanly.

The others followed his lead, and soon they were making their way forward again. The hall stretched another forty feet before turning right, where it widened into a pair of parallel halls split by a wall. Demetrius stepped into the left hall, looked around the corner, and stopped. “A maze,” he announced.

“Go right at every opportunity,” Tala suggested. “It is slow, but we will eventually reach the end.”

Demetrius retraced his steps to the maze’s entrance and set out again, going right this time instead of left. He worked his way around a wall, always veering right, when the now familiar sound of stone-on-stone sounded once again. The walls began to move, forcing him to hop a couple of steps left to avoid the one nearest him. When they ground to a halt he realized he was now dealing with a new maze. He turned to see that only Tala was with him. The others had been cut off by one of the moving walls.

“We’ll see you on the other side,” said Corson, his voice sounding distant as it made its way through the stone.

Tala took the lead, beckoning Demetrius to follow. She managed a handful of turns before the maze shifted again. The wall directly in front of her slid back as if to make way, while those on the right and left both moved left. She danced ahead, turning to see if Demetrius could follow. Her eyes lit up as she saw what the moving left wall revealed, and she grabbed Demetrius’ hand and yanked him forward.

Demetrius, feeling unthreatened by the wall, was surprised by the look on Tala’s face and the urgency in her grasp. Following the direction of her gaze he turned, and beheld an ice-blue vortex in the floor, like the one that now served as the castle’s courtyard above but smaller. The wall finished its movement and the portal was hidden from them once again. Demetrius hated to think what would have happened had he been pushed left by the wall.

Tala was ready to voice a warning when she heard Rowan call out. “Be careful! There are areas here with the blue portals!”

“We just dodged one ourselves,” Tala replied. To Demetrius she said, “And here I thought this room no more than a nuisance to slow us down.”

They huddled close as they walked, keeping away from the walls as much as possible to increase both their decision time and their options when the next shift occurred. They realized their plans to always move right were being foiled as well, so they tried their best to simply make progress away from the entrance, guessing the exit to be placed as far away from that point as possible. They knew it was an assumption, maybe not even a good one, but for now it was the best they could do.

Eventually a rhythm in the wall shifts became apparent—roughly every ten seconds—even if no pattern to the direction of movement did. Often a wall section would move one way and then double back to where it started. If he felt they were being forced in a bad direction Demetrius would often hold up a hand, and they would wait for a new pattern to see if their choices were better.

The thing Demetrius feared the most happened after they had been in the maze nearly ten minutes. They had stopped any effort to stay in verbal contact with the others, the voices fading as the ever-changing room managed to force the two groups apart. They had glimpsed only a handful of the portals, and seen no other traps or dangers, and had made steady if slow progress across what was shaping up to be an extremely large room. For a moment a path several wall lengths long opened in front of them, and they pressed ahead until the next shift. A wall cut them off in front, while those to the right and behind closed in. To the left the nearest wall pushed back, revealing a portal. This last change had left them in a rough cell one square long and three wide, with the portal at one end and Demetrius and Tala at the other. Demetrius drew his sword while they waited for the next change.

“What good will that do?” Tala asked, gesturing at the weapon.

Demetrius shrugged. “Maybe as a wedge. I don’t know. I guess I just want to go down fighting.”

“We do not know that—”

The walls ground to life again, the rumble coming from every direction, but of the walls surrounding them only one moved—the one to their right, forcing them one square closer to the portal.

“Could be coincidence,” Tala said without conviction.

“I actually think it is,” Demetrius answered, rubbing the sweat from his brow. “Just bad luck. But one more bad break…”

They waited, the seconds stretching out, leaving them to listen to the sound of their own pounding hearts.

The wall to the right lurched again, coming at them. Demetrius saw the wall across the portal move away, but the leap over the blue void was too far for him by several feet, even if he had time and space for a running start. He tried the sword at the base of the moving wall, but it was thrust back at him, the space between wall and floor too small for the blade to fit. He scanned the wall frantically, desperate for another option.

“Back!” Tala yelled.