Aces and Eights
Part 7: Exploration
I am not sure how much time passed
while I was out, but I felt, intuitively, that my state of unawareness had not
been a long one. Sitting up, I grimaced at the distress I felt; my head throbbed
painfully with each beat of my heart. I looked around, wondering where the thief
had gone. Also, I wondered why he had not killed me when he had had the
opportunity.
Standing, I realized that--while I
was unconscious--my body had shifted halfway back to human. One leg felt like it
had lagged behind the other, though, leaving it a bit longer. So I finished the
form alteration--willing the changes as quickly as I could, until I had
recovered my symmetry. Once again, I viewed the world with the eyes of man,
rather than wolf. I looked around, easily spotting the thief's trail; his tracks
told me that he had left the small campsite running.
A sudden thought made me check for
the Trump, but it was still tucked away in my pack in the place where I had left
it. A further inventory of my possessions, however, revealed that the original
object of my hunt--the phoenix--was missing.
"Damn!" I whispered to no
one but myself.
I discovered nothing else missing.
My ring was still on my hand, and my own Trumps were still in place. Also, the
small bag of enchanted acorns I keep within a pouch at my belt was there. This
rounded out my inventory of important possessions. Unlike the mundane items I
carry, any of these things, if stolen, would cause me a great deal of
irritation.
Again cursing the loss of the
pendant, I quickly donned my boots and shirt, then set out after the man I had
so recently had within my custody. I considered as I ran. The power that had
rendered me unconscious had felt as if it could have done a lot more damage, had
I not successfully defended against it. The tattoo, the Trump . . . I wondered
suddenly, knocking a low-hanging limb away from my face, whether the thief's
mysterious master could have actually drawn the tattoo onto his servant,
empowering it with an energy similar to that possessed by a Trump. I was no
expert on the subject, certainly, but it did seem feasible. An interesting idea.
Faintly, I felt some sort of
sorcerous disturbance ahead of me in the forest. It flowered briefly, building
to a potent level of power, then withering away and dying as quickly as it had
formed. This caused me to wonder about my tactics. If my quarry were preparing
an attack, rushing ahead could prove extremely harmful to my health. Conversely,
if the man were enacting some escape, I could miss him by cutting back my speed.
Though he had been endowed with a
functional magic ability, he had not struck me as a practicing spellcaster. He
seemed, instead, to be a person--not unlike me--who had been mystically
augmented. So, onward I ran.
I broke through the next clearing in
time to see the tattooed man begin to fade away within a localized fog of
iridescence. I sprinted forward with a snarl, but could not reach him before he
was Trumped away. Standing alone in the now silent glade, surrounded by the
greens and the browns of the forest, I cursed aloud.
It seemed that the man had--once he
was far enough away from where he had left me unawares--used a previously
undisplayed ability to send out a sort of SOS beacon. That would explain the
disturbance I had felt. Someone on the distant end had, apparently, heard and
responded to his ephemeral signal, then Trumped him home.
The fact that the man had not used
his power while he was at my mercy told me that it must require several moments
of intense concentration to use.
I blew out a long breath. I was not
about to call back to Luke for help at that point--I would have looked less than
competent. Besides, I was angry, and the matter now felt like a personal thing,
whether it really was, or not. Reaching for the odd card at my belt, I hoped
that my horse would be able to find its way back to the old guy who had sold it
to me.
As I stared at the Trump,
concentrating, the tower gained substance, clarity. I felt a sea moistened
breeze and heard the cry of a gull. Leaving one world behind me, and moving into
another, I stepped forward onto the shore, gravel crunching beneath my boots.
I put away the Trump, then turned
full circle, taking in the panoramic green of the sea, the bone color of the
cloudless sky. The ash gray tower was the only visible architecture. Cautiously,
I made my way toward the tall structure. As I approached it, I could see that
the only door in sight was bronze bound and twice my height.
When I was about thirty feet away
from the door, I heard a flapping sound from above. I leaped back and glanced
upward.
The creature was spiraling down
slowly, bat-like wings opened into the wind like leather kites. I considered
making a run for the door, but if it was locked, my back would be exposed to the
descending thing, an idea that I did not care for.
Since I had no knowledge of this
Shadow, and could not be sure as to whether any of my gunpowders would work or
not, I reached over my shoulder and dragged out my short, heavy saber. Just as I
readied my sword, the gargoyle came down on me like a load of bricks. We fell to
the sand, but I managed to score a hit to its scaly left thigh. Perhaps due to
my attack, it faltered, and seemed slightly slow in recovering. I rolled away
from it, but, by the time I was on my feet again, the gargoyle was coming toward
me. It took several hops forward, then, with a wing assisted boost, it leaped at
me again.
This time I lunged into its attack,
and was more successful, slicing cleanly through the meat of its right shoulder
and punching a neat slit in the leathery wing behind it. Screeching, the thing
barred its teeth and snapped its head forward. In a horrible, snapshot instant
of clarity, I saw that its teeth were transparent, seemingly composed of some
glassy substance.
Wanting to avoid those jaws, I
jammed an elbow up under its chin. The gargoyle made an abrupt gagging sound and
reeled slightly. My saber was still imbedded within the foul creature's
shoulder, and I did not want to lose my hold on it. So, still gripping the hilt
as tight as I could, I crossed over with my left, landing a solid punch to the
right side of the gargoyle's head. Then, while it was staggering, I twisted and
yanked the sword free. This time it did not come cleanly, but scraped through
bone. I had an instant to wonder if the thing's skeletal frame was as
see-through as its teeth.
Wings flapping fiercely behind it,
the gargoyle lashed out with its claws. I tried to block the attack, but
received several scratches anyway. It seemed then that my opponent had been
trying to use the fury of its attack to stage an immediate upwards retreat. It
was lifting up off the sand, kicking out with the claws on its feet, when I
sidestepped to the left and sent my saber in a downward arc through the light
bones of its right wing.
About half the wing was sheared off
and fell away, leaving my opponent grounded and bleeding messily. I seized the
opportunity and lunged forward, my blade penetrating its chest.
The gargoyle shrieked loudly,
thrashing and pushing away, trying to free itself. Its remaining wing beat
against me, creating more painful scratches. I twisted the saber, and the
gray-skinned creature grew silent and sank to the ground. A pool of thick orange
blood began to stain the sand around the corpse.
I removed my sword from the body and wiped the blade on my cloak. "Yuck," I said.