The squeals of a nightmarish fiend reverberated off the stone walls as Vorm tugged at the arm of a petite female aristocrat. He groaned as he shrugged off the beheaded batlike creature, noticing the large gouges that its claws had left in his pale barrel chest.
"Damn poisonous fiend." He cursed the magical being who had summoned it as he rifled through his pouch for his last bit of potion.
The night had taken its toll on his body; it had been a good time, but even a barbarian had his limits. In the end, he knew he was making it out of this tower alive, and that is what mattered most.
He took one final look around before popping the cap of the healing potion. There was less than a mouthful left; such a small portion would only delay the effects of the poison.
Probably should've been a bit more careful with the stuff. Curse that necromancer and his beasts.
A screeching scream shook him from his thoughts. He pointed the beautiful young woman with fiery hair and skin as dark as the night towards the unnaturally cold stairs.
Vorm pondered over the many killing blows he had delivered to the body of the giant beast and how he might not have the strength to fight another one. It was a monstrous marriage of a raven and a bat. He just had to ignore the impossibility of the monsters that he fought. Trying to figure out what a necromancer's creations were was a good way to go insane.
The woman yanked herself free from his grip, rolled her long nightgown up in her hand, and walked after him, frustrating the abnormally large man. Few had ever had the gall to even look at him funny, but this woman all but ignored his commands and glared at him as if he were a disobedient servant.
Two days had passed since he had agreed to take on this job, and while he had been sympathetic to the duke, he was beginning to regret it. Keita, no matter how beautiful, was starting to annoy him. Even with his golden hair matted with the blood of several foul beasts, his sword drawn, and his anger boiling over, this woman acted as if it were her right to be saved.
A low guttural growl rolled up his throat as he remembered how much money this one was worth.
"Come, princess, there is still knife work that needs doing!"
He snatched the dress from her hand and cut off the fabric from her upper thigh down. She gasped in horror and would have gone to cover her exposed legs if he hadn't charged down the ancient staircase.
His savage eyes scanned the windows for any of the winged beasts as they made their way to the bottom.
"I was fine," she whined. When he didn't respond, she said, "You know I was fine."
"What," he snarled, having to bite his tongue not to say anything he'd regret.
Her almond eyes shot open with shock as if it were the first time someone had talked back to her in such a manner. "I was fine back there. I didn't need your help. I had them exactly where I wanted them," she said, yanking her hand away from him.
She glanced at him as if he were nothing more than a savage brute as she rubbed the spot where the sorcerer had put cuffs on. "Just five more minutes and I would've had them eating out of the palm of my hand."
"I'm sure, princess," Vorm said, ignoring the incessant woman's response. He felt a subtle shift in the air, and a screech broke the night apart. Vorm shoved his hand back against Keita's chest, pushing her against the wall. She instantly smacked his hand away from her with a surprising amount of strength.
"How dare you?" she exclaimed, her cheeks burning red. "I could have you hanged for touching me in such a way." She adjusted her yellow nightgown, making space between herself and Vorm.
Vorm gripped his sword tightly in his right hand and drew his barbarian axe from its back sheath. It was a giant double-bit axe decorated with the visage of eagles flying from the center towards its edge. The long, thin blades of the axe made it perfect for cleaving flesh and bone.
"Best get that magic of yours at the ready. The sorcerer has never been one to give up his prize without a fight."
Suddenly, her entire demeanor changed. Where moments before he saw a spoiled brat, was a powerful mage. Her brown eyes shone with the light of the divine, and her posture was intensely powerful. "Don't touch me again. If you need me to move, just tell me."
"Alright, princess," he said with a small smile, pulling at his left cheek.
"The name is Kieta of the House Rutherfurth. You are going to address me as such." She raised her hands into the air and started chanting in the language of the kings, filling her palms with flames.
"Whatever you say, princess," he said with a bit of jest in his voice as he started down the stairs once again. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, following him with her hands raised before her and her palms facing outwards.
His grey eyes scanned the area and peered out of the nearest window, searching the darkness for any threats. He had called in a few favors to distract the watchers of the sorcerer, but a distraction only works for so long. He spotted the slightest movements coming from the eastern stars. Any other pair of eyes would've missed it, but not his; he had trained in the art of hunting since birth and could notice the tiniest of inconsistencies.
"How many are there?" Keita's voice came out of the silence, interrupting his train of thought. "Are there more monsters? How about cultists? I heard the voices of at least a dozen worshippers when he brought me here." Though she acted confident and in control, he heard fear in her voice.
It was a fair question, but he didn't feel like being fair. "Yes, there are cultists in the cultist's temple."
"Excuse me if I want to know more about those who seek my death," Keita scoffed at his rudeness.
"You talk too much," Vorm said, picking up the pace while making sure not to slip on the steep stone stairs. "I don't know the extent of dark forces that this master of mysticism has at his disposal, and I would prefer not to find out."
There were just a few stairs until they reached the bottom of the tower when one of the black beasts landed a few inches in front of them. It was a hideous beast twisted and distorted from its years within the pits of Hemoria.
It had large bug eyes, a nose that hooked up, the ears of a bear, and bits of other animals that he could only guess. It was a monstrous chimera, unlike the ones that he had seen in the circus. Most never got bigger than a dog; this one was the size of a bear. The sorcerer must be powerful indeed to create such a monster.
It slashed at Kieta with a long-clawed wing; its claws were as long as war knives. Before the beast could cleave through the young princess, Vorm struck the blow aside with his sword.
He swung his massive axe, bringing it down on the shoulder of the chimera. It howled in terror and shock as if it had never experienced pain before. The thing thrashed its horned head at Vorm, landing perfectly on his sword.
Vorm shoved his sword through the beast's long throat until his cross guard rested on the beast's neck. He planted a heavy heel on the beast's skull, kicking it off his sword before stomping it to death and ending its spasms.
Vorm turned to Keita, who was sprawled out on the ground with her eyes wide open. He had seen that look before; it was the type of look that foretold many years of mental suffering.
"Can you walk?" he asked, offering her a bloody hand.
Keita's eyes lowered back to normal, and she flew up without taking his hand. She glared at him as if he had insulted her and began patting off her dress, consciously avoiding the many blood stains that now decorated her torso and legs.
"Of course, I'm okay. It takes more than that to harm me. You forget your place, barbarian."
Vorm ignored the last comment and instead gave her a stern glare. "There are more dangers ahead of us. The way I entered is now off limits to us. This is, unless you keep your words behind your teeth."
Keita rolled her eyes, fixing her hair before lighting a fireball inside of her palm. She followed him down the stairs, murmuring incoherently. He followed her, wondering what her plan was and whether she was leading them to their deaths.
"The cultists have gathered there. We cannot go that way anymore." She reached the bottom of the stairs, evading Vorm's grasp. She came to a sudden stop in front of a large open door. Vorm threw himself behind the door. "They know that we are here." Keita nodded, continuing to murmur.
"Could you quit that incessant noise? I have to think up a plan to get us both out of here alive." He closed his eyes, knowing that even at his best, he couldn't take on that many people; there were just too many of them.
There were only two ways in: through the front door and the sewers. The only issue was that both were just behind those doors. There had only been a handful of cultists when he arrived, but now he could hear hundreds in that long chamber.
Keita took a step past Vorm, ignoring his commands, walked through a thirty-foot-tall doorway, and stood in its center. Before her was a hundred-foot-long and thirty-foot-wide hallway filled to the brim with hooded cultists armed with jagged knives and black magic.
Before Vorm could yank her back behind the doors, she stopped murmuring. Vorm felt a sudden and harsh heat against his cheek, the type of heat he felt once when he fell face-first into a fire pit after getting blacked out drunk.
The cultists drew their long daggers and leaped into action, but before any of them could take a step toward her, the entire room was encased in an inferno. Bright blue flame filled the room, turning everything within the stone walls to ash. A moment later, the fire simmered to nothing, and all within the hall had turned to ash.
Keita turned to Vorm, her entire body encased in flames, but through the flames, he could see her smug smile. A moment later, the blaze went out, and she coughed up a clot of blood and fell to her knees. Vorm caught her before her head struck the ground.
He held her in his arms for a moment, shocked by the amount of raw magical power that was in this woman. He was awakened from his thoughts with a distant screech. "Good on you, princess," he said, tucking his arms beneath her before sprinting out the front door.