Misery

A surprise assault upon the blockhouse at night forces Aaron and Lysa to work together.

4.

Misery

He went to the river a few minutes after Lysa had left and washed in a state of numb detachment.     The cold water didn’t revive him and he didn’t even notice the lightning flashing all around him and the wind gusting as he staggered out of the river.      His whole life seemed over at that moment and though the storm released its pent up strength as he was about to cross the threshold of the bunkhouse, he didn’t even care.

Sergeant Wilkks said something about some men on guard duty, but he only shook his head without a reply.    Who cared at that moment about the whole stinking dukedom?     The men in the bunkhouse seemed almost as fearful of him as they were of the tempest raging outside.     They made a path for him as he crossed through the room and looked away as he passed.

Lightning revealed Lysa’s bunk as he passed it and she was already in bed, wrapped tightly in her blanket and apparently asleep.

He almost stopped and went over to her, to apologize for what he had said to her and try to explain.

But he had already hurt her and he probably would only make it worse.     With his head hanging low, he pulled back the curtain separating his section of the room.     Lysa or one of the men had taken the make-shift bath from that afternoon out of the room and he was certainly glad of that.      He threw himself on his cot, only dimly aware of the thunderstorm that shook the bunkhouse.      For a long time he stared at the ceiling, silently wishing he was dead.     He was confident he would not possibly be able to sleep.

Yet soon he was drifting in an exhausted, dreamless slumber.

 

***

At first he thought the sounds were very violent claps of thunder that shook the structure.    Aaron came awake with a jolt, for a long moment terrified that he had slipped into another remnant nightmare.   But this wasn’t a dream.     From all sides there came the sounds of large objects being thrown against the sides of the bunkhouse.     The wood was cracking and popping from the force of the objects, but was holding fast.    

Aaron leaped to his feet, grabbing up his father’s enchanted longsword.     There were no windows in the wooden structure, so there was no way to see what was going on outside.

Half-naked, wearing the same pants he had bathed in (that were still wet); he pushed back the curtain.   The room was full of wide-eyed men who had also jumped from their cots when the assault upon the building had began.

“What is it?”   Lysa asked from beside him.   She had quietly slipped out of her cot and stood nervously looking around, with her own sword in hand.     At each impact against the wall of the building, she flinched, looking to him for an explanation.

“Is your plate armor in the bunkhouse?”   He asked her.

“What?”  She asked, distracted by a loud crash against the side of the roof.

“Your plate armor - is it here in the bunkhouse?”

“Um… yes, Lord.”

“Put it on… quickly.”

“But-“

“Lysa, something is trying to smash the bunkhouse.    It sounds as if rocks are being thrown at us.    There could be a Hill Giant or Ogre out there.   In fact, there could be a number of them.     Sooner or later they are going to make a hole in the roof or a wall, or perhaps think of smashing in the door.    We’ve got to be ready.   Now hurry; get your armor on.”

“Okay.”  She didn’t argue and rushed back to her section of the bunkhouse where she had laid out her suit of armor.    He had instructed her on combat while wearing armor earlier in the week and thankfully they had both kept their armor in the bunkhouse.

“Men, listen to me.”    Aaron said to the terrified soldiers, “I want all of you to quickly don your armor and gather your weapons.    We’re going to have a fight on our hands soon and whoever or whatever is tossing those rocks against the side of the building is stronger than humans.”

“What about the door?”   Sergeant Wilkks asked.

“Push the cots against the door.    I hope the horses are alright, but we can’t worry about them right now.    Why didn’t the guards raise an alarm?”   He asked the Sergeant.

Wilkks looked slightly surprised, “Lord, you placed them down in the forest to guard the stairway we discovered.”

“What?!    I did no such thing, Sergeant!”

“Lord, Charlie Levont told me during dinner tonight that you had ordered the perimeter guard to be repositioned down around the stairway and changed the guards on duty, then added two others to join them.”

“Sergeant, I did not speak to Charlie about that!    So six men are down there now?”

Wilkks told him the names of the men that Charlie had claimed to be on guard duty with him.   “They left during the dinner and we haven’t seen them since.   I was awake when the attack began.   I thought I heard some muffled sounds coming from the direction of the forest.    I sat up in bed and listened, but all I could hear was the end of the rain falling lightly, but it stopped and after that it was just thunder once in a while.”  

“I wasn’t sure what I’d heard, but when I didn’t hear anything more after some time, I just laid down and maybe half an hour passed.   I was about to go to sleep when I heard the sounds of something moving around outside and that is when they began throwing rocks at the cabin.”

As if accenting the Sergeant’s words, a loud crack from above them told of a heavy stone thrown against the outside of the roof.

“Hurry, men!”   Aaron urged and left the Sergeant so he could get his own armor on before the walls were breeched.

As he passed Lysa’s area, he found that she had slipped on her arming doublet, but was struggling with properly attaching her breast plate to the back plate.    Her hands trembled as she frantically tried to click the pieces into place.

He rushed over to her, “Raise your arms, Lysa.”

“I can do it myself, Lord; you need to get your armor on.”   She protested.

“Hush!   Do as I tell you.”  

She obeyed his orders and raised her arms over her head, just as a large rock caused a section of the log wall near her to crack against the impact.    She jumped in alarm, crying out in surprise.

“You’re alright.”   He reassured her as he snapped the plates in place.    Quickly he scooped up the pieces for her upper arms and began buckling them on her.

“Lord-“She began to protest.

“Shh!   Let me help you.”

“But-“

“Lysa, don’t argue with me!”

“You need to get your armor on!”

“I will after I get you fitted out.”   

“We don’t have time, sir, I can manage.”

“It’s easier to have someone to help you.”

“I thought Paladins didn’t need anyone.” She snapped.

“Well, do I know everything?    Of course they need people.”

“So you were wrong then?”   She pressed.

“Lysa, this is not the time for a debate.”

“I just want clarity, Lord.”

“When I receive clarity, I’ll pass it along.   But for now I need to focus on you.    There!     Now where is your helmet?”

“You’ll need help with your armor, first!”

“I can do it.”

“Yes, but quickly?”   

Another rock hit the cabin, splintering the wood.

“Alright, I give in - help me get my armor on.”  

This seemed to greatly please her, for she smiled briefly and then followed him around the curtain.

“What do you think it is?    Do you think there is more than one?”   She asked as he slipped into his arming doublet.

“I don’t know - a Giant or an Ogre would have tried the door by now.”     She had his breastplate snapped to the back plate in an instant and quickly moved to the leg pieces while he worked on the arm plates.    Part of her training had been assisting him in donning his armor, so she moved with practiced assurance.

“So what are our options, Lord?”    She finished with his leg plates in record time and helped him as he finished with his vambrace and gauntlet.   He was extremely glad that she was there to assist.   

Several rocks were now being thrown sideways against the walls of the bunkhouse and they caused the wood to pop and crack, but thankfully the walls held - for now.

“We’ve got to get out of this building before they bring it down on us.    But it offers us safety from those rocks.    If we can draw them away from the cabin, perhaps we can fight them easier.   They shouldn’t have an endless supply of stones, and from the sounds of them, they are quite large, so they would have had to have come from some other place.”

“I want to get them away from our cabin and the stable - if I can draw them away, I’ll try to get them to chase after me toward the forest to the west.      They wouldn’t be able to toss rocks amongst the trees, and if they are as large as I suspect, they won’t be very maneuverable there.”

“Lord, you’re not going out there in the dark!”   Lysa’s eyes were wide with fear.

“I don’t plan on confronting them, only leading them away from the cabin and stable.”

“On foot?!”

“Unless I can get to Griz.   They may not follow me.”

“They’ll kill you!”   She grabbed his arms, “Surely there is another way.”

“This cabin won’t stand many more of these rocks.   Besides, I want to see what we are facing.”

“But-“   She began to protest, but he didn’t have time for a long debate, so he pushed past her and informed the soldiers what he had in mind to do.

“When they chase after me, get the horses somewhere safe… if they aren’t already dead.     Try to stay out of the range of their rocks and take them out with arrows.”

He quickly moved toward the doorway and some of the soldiers pulled the stacked cots away.  

“Close the door behind me in case this doesn’t work.”   He told Sergeant Wilkks.    Aaron was surprised Lysa had not said anything else to him, though she was right beside him.

“Ready?”   The Sergeant asked, and Aaron nodded.   Wilkks quickly flung the door open and Aaron rushed out into the dark.

 But he wasn’t alone.

“Lysa!   For Yesh’s sake, what-“

“I’m coming with you!”

“It’s too… LOOK OUT!”    At his warning, she leaped to the left, while he jumped the other direction, just as a huge rock crashed down between them.   It was so large that it completely covered the doorway, but they didn’t have time to ponder it for the creature that had flung the rock stood a short distance away.

For an instant, both Lysa and Aaron froze, horrified at what faced them.

It was quite large, standing probably 15 feet high and extremely broad shouldered.   But it was something out of a nightmare.    

At first glance it looked like some sort of rock golem that a wizard would create.    It was vaguely humanoid in shape, made up of black and grey rock.    But between the pieces of rock that covered it were what looked like glowing orange-red sections of hot lava.    Somehow the lava stayed attached to the rest of the creature instead of flowing downward with gravity.  

The ‘head’ of the monster had two small pools of lava where eyes should have been, and though it was hard to imagine that it was truly alive, it seemed to sense them and move of its own accord.

There seemed to be only one of the rock creatures, but before they could even formulate a strategy to fight it, the monster attacked.

It was amazing to see - the brute simply flexed one of his arms and lava flowed down the arm quickly pooling around his hand in a glowing orange mass that resembled hot glass about to be shaped into a bowl.    The lava ball grew larger and larger with incredible speed.

Running around the boulder that blocked the doorway, Aaron grabbed Lysa by the shoulder and they both ran as quickly as they could in their plate armor, toward the stable which was located next to the bunkhouse.  

But as they ran, they watched the monster and when he suddenly raised his arm, they knew what he was about to do.    The creature made the motion of someone throwing something and the huge ball of orange lava that had surrounded his hand was flipped off.

As it arched across the air, it changed from lava into a blackish-grey stone.    Lysa and Aaron dove in different directions as the rock - which was the size of large piece of furniture- crashed down between them.

Jumping to his feet, Aaron saw another wonder while watching the strange rock figure.     The earth where the monster’s feet touched the ground glowed a bright orange and it looked as if the beast was pulling soil up through the bottom of his feet.

“It’s using the dirt and mud as fuel!”  Lysa whispered as she joined him, “He’s absorbing the ground and converting it into melted rock, then throwing them at us!”

“Well, he seems focused on us now.”

“Lord, the stable is smashed to pieces, but all the horses are gone - hopefully they ran to safety, but they are not there.”

“Get ready - he’s forming another orange ball.    Let’s back toward the palisade wall so we’ll have more time to jump out of the way when he throws it.”

They moved quickly backwards and the rock monster turned toward them and took several steps forward.   Amazingly, his steps were as quiet as a cat’s, though he moved slowly.

By the time their backs were against the wood of the palisade wall, the creature had generated a huge orange ball, using both hands to hold it.

“This one is going to be the size of the one that blocked the door of the bunkhouse, so move quickly.”  He warned Lysa and she nodded.

The creature lifted both arms over his head and flung the massive orange globe toward them.   Lysa and Aaron bolted in separate directions, and though they moved quickly, they narrowly missed being pinned by the huge rock.   It came down, like all the others, as solid rock and the impact against the palisade wall splinted the structure.

“Come on!”  Aaron yelled over to Lysa, “Follow me, let’s get him down toward the forest.”

In their plate armor, on ground slippery from rain, they moved very sluggishly, but thankfully the rock creature did as well.

He turned toward them, generating another rock globe on each hand this time.  

They were probably 25 yards away from him, having run through the hole in the palisade wall made by the last rock that he threw, when he flung two more rocks at them.

The first rock glazed Lysa on the shoulder, knocking her down.   Aaron raced over to her and had just bent over to pull her to her feet when the second rock slammed into his side.

He was sent tumbling a few feet and laid there stunned and in pain for a moment.   Lysa now stumbled over to him.

“Aaron!”  She cried out, forgetting titles then, but he was already struggling to sit up in his armor.

“I’m alright - thank Yesh those rocks weren’t larger than they were!”

She pulled him to his feet and they glanced back to see the glowing ‘veins’ of lava as the monster slowly moved to follow them.   Even at his slow pace, each swing of his long legs moved him about 10 feet forward.

“Can you run?”   Lysa asked him.

“With that thing behind me?   Absolutely.   Let’s go.”    They hobbled forward, now heading downhill toward the forest in the distance.     The monster kept moving at his slow pace and they began to pull away from him.     Three times the creature stopped and generated lava globes and flung them in their direction.     His aim was extremely good, but they dodged them each time.

When they reached the edge of the forest, Lysa and Aaron were panting for breath.  

“Armor… not made… for running…”  The young Duke gasped, leaning against the trunk of a tree.   

Lysa was too exhausted to reply verbally as she gulped in air on her hands and knees.

 

Aaron looked behind them, up the hill toward the camp.     The rock monster was closer than he’d hoped.  

“Catch your breath quickly, Lysa.”   Aaron told his squire gently, “Our foe is not far behind us.”

“How are we going to stop him?”   She asked, weakly getting to her feet.    Aaron helped her stand; though doing so caused a sharp pain in his side where he had been hit with the rock.

“I don’t know - swords probably won’t stop him.    He’s a construction of some sort - a modified rock golem or something.”

“Some of Helios’ creations?”  

“Most likely so, but where did he come from?   We’ve not seen him before today, and most of the other of Helios’ creations were killed by the Hutcaiah when they were briefly here.”

“Maybe that stairway the men found has something to do with his appearance?”

“Well, let’s go look - maybe we can find those six guards - I didn’t order them to guard those stairs so maybe they are connected to the monster’s appearance.”

“We’d best hurry, Lord; the creature will be in rock throwing range soon.”

 

They hurried toward the site of the stairs, keeping an eye on the progress of the monster as it lumbered down the hill toward them.   They would not have long until a decision on action had to be made.

 

“What happened here?”   Aaron exclaimed as they found the stairways in the dark.     The soldiers had built a campfire -probably to give them light to see by- and it had made it through the thunderstorm of earlier that evening, though it was now nearly spent.

Yet even in the dim light of the dying fire, assisted by an occasional flash of lightning from a second storm in the distance, Aaron and Lysa could quickly deduce what had happened.

The stairwell edges were hidden by piles of rocks and debris that had been pulled from the stairs.   They had stacked the rocks close to the edge of the excavated stairway, leaving a path for them to work.

Aaron was amazed that six men could do so much work in such a short length of time.     Of course the rocks filling the entrance to the stairwell were not large, but still it showed a determination.    ‘Greed’, he told himself, for it was clear that this was what motivated them to lie to their Sergeant and disobey his orders.    They had speculated that the stairs led to a tomb that would be full of gold and valuables.

“Notice the boulders, Lord.”   Lysa whispered to him as they cautiously prowled around the site.

“Yeah, I noticed that.     Maybe the monster was a guardian of the stairs or something.”

“He’s in rock throwing range now, Lord.”   Lysa told him.

“There is no cover here.    The men are probably struggling to get out of the bunkhouse with that boulder in front of the door, so for now it’s going to be us alone against the creature.”

As if the monster heard them, they could see that he had stopped and was forming a glowing orange globe on each of his hands.

“Uh oh.”  Lysa groaned.

“I have an idea.”   Aaron said, also whispering (though he didn’t really know why he was), “Let’s go down into the stairway.    If he’s a guardian of this, he’ll probably not throw rocks that would damage the structure and that will give us a few more minutes to figure out a plan.”

Cautiously they moved around the piles of rocks surrounding the stairs.     The six soldiers had cleared a path of rocks along one side, large enough for a man to use.    But something had been disturbed and had exited up the stairs, knocking a much larger path for itself as it came.    From the crushed look of some of the rocks, Aaron guessed it had been the rock monster that had come up the stairs.

There was still enough of a path that they could descend to the bottom, but it took them far longer than they would have liked.   At the bottom of the stairs was a large arch made of stone and behind it a dark passage.  Glancing upward they expected to see the form of the creature looking over the edge with a large orange globe prepared to toss at them.

But they saw nothing.   It was raining now, a steady, warm rain as another storm system went over them.

“It should have reached us by now.”   Aaron said after a few minutes of waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“What was your plan if it had?”   Lysa asked.

“We would go see what lies beyond the archway at the end of the stairs.”

“Do you think the monster has turned back toward the bunkhouse?”

Her words worried Aaron, for how could anyone know how such a creature would think?   

“Wait here, I’ll go peek.”    He ascended the rock covered stairs as carefully as he could, until he could peer over the edge.   Through the pathway free of excavated rocks, he could see the monster standing only twenty feet away.   It had both arms up as if frozen halfway in throwing something.    But something was different about it now.    The orange ‘veins’ of lava that flowed across his body were gone, as were the two ‘eyes’.    It stood there like some sort of weird stone statue.

A hand on his shoulder made Aaron jump, but it was only Lysa, who had noticed him staring at something and had joined him to look.   She glanced at the creature for a moment and snorted, “He’s stopped.”

“Inactivated, like a golem.”

“Do you think a wizard was controlling him, then?”

“No, or we would have seen him.    A golem has to be within sight of its wizard.    This one operated independently.”

“Then why did it stop?    The orange is gone from him.”

“Well, it started raining again.    Maybe he can’t operate in the rain.    The attack on the bunkhouse began after the storm had moved through.”

“What happens when it stops raining this time?”

“That’s a good question.    I don’t know - it might not even be the rain, it could be something else that deactivated him.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We need to find those six soldiers and then free the other men from the bunkhouse, if they haven’t freed themselves, and find our horses.   Then we’ll figure out what to do with that creature.    If we could submerge him in water, maybe that would permanently deactivate him.”

“Then we’d best get moving, in case this is only a brief shower.”

Aaron agreed, “If any of them are still alive, they’d most likely be found underground.    So let’s go see where these stairs lead.”

The two Paladins turned and slowly descended the stairs.

Reviews

[Elina]

"...very violent clasps of thunder..." Perhaps "claps" instead of "clasps."
"Half-naked, wearing the same pants he had bathed in (that were still wet)..." This section is a little wordy. You might switch your sentence up a little and split it into two to prevent a run-on.
"...back to her section of the bunkhouse to where she had laid out her suit of armor." Perhaps, "...the bunkhouse where she..."
"...and move under its own accord." I think it should read "...move of its own..."
"...what these stairs led to." I'm not sure if you meant to put led, here. but to keep it in the proper tense, this should be lead.