007 – Ritual

***

I utterly failed to save Malisent.

She sat in the jail cell for hours, closely guarded by the tribe’s gigantic chieftain. The sun dipped below the western horizon and the sky turned a dark blue. The hours of the night passed by with no attempt at a rescue and no word from me, her only ally. Her last hope. Midnight rapidly approached, and with it the dreaded ‘ritual of refleshing’—whatever that was.

Before the appointed hour, Browsk the Mighty bound Malisent in ropes to prevent her from escaping. He didn’t take any chances. A looming threat of death could drive humans to commit reckless acts, and even with a broken arm, she was a dangerous person. The troll chief forced her to march the corridors with her hands tied behind her back. A yank from a cord would painfully wrench her battered arm.

The females left the chief’s private abode and plodded along after him. They had a part to play in the strange ritual too. Trolls wore little clothing as a rule. To get dressed up for a dinner party, these two had dusted themselves with a fine chalk powder and splashed chicken blood around their mouths. Troll formal wear. To me they looked like big powdered jelly donuts.

In the transmitter silo, the other trolls had erected a tall pole atop a mound of wood, branches, dry leaves, and pine cones. The baby statue squatted nearby, its face frozen in an eternal crying fit. The flickering bonfires reflected off the polished gold. High above, at the top of the silo, a violet circle of moon shown down.

The trolls, full from gorging themselves on flesh, lazed around the room until just before midnight. They rose to their feet at the sound of approaching drums. The tribe answered the pounding beat with howls and hoots, joining together in an animalistic chorus.

Browsk entered through an arched passageway flanked by two drummers and his two obese mates. Behind him, he dragged the human sacrifice in ropes. His arrival signaled that the climax of the feast had arrived. He ascended steps to the raised platform near the idol and shouted to the crowd:

“Grulchomon!”

The trolls repeated the name and began chanting it over and over to the beat of the drums. They drew closer to the center of the room and circled around the platform, doing graceless dances with their hands raised in the air. The drummers increased their tempo and incited the dancers to a frenzy. In front of the idol, Browsk tied Malisent to the wooden stake with her hands behind her back.

The Chieften roared to the crowd in the trollish tongue. He gave an impassioned speech that most of the celebrants could not hear, either due their own chanting or to being at the back end of the platform. Browsk raised his arms to the sky, with a knife in one hand and a torch in the other, the implements of sacrifice. The two pregnant trolls prostrated themselves at the feet of the clay infant.

Malisent was none too pleased with how this all turned out. She looked a great deal more angry than fearful or dejected. Being killed by trolls disgusted her, and dying without a sword in her hand was an unforgivable humiliation.

As she grit her teeth preparing for the flames to come, a raspy, high-pitched voice came from behind her.

“Human. Human no move hand.”

She cocked her head to the side and saw a goblin pop up out of the wood pile. The tiny monster had covered himself with dry leaves to hide in the kindling. Nimblesto reached up with his kitchen knife and began to saw through the thick ropes binding her hands. Malisent looked away and said nothing, so as not to alert the trolls to the presence of the expert thief.

The ritual was now truly underway. At the very top of the silo, the discolored moon went dark, as the shadow of the planet blotted it from the sky. Browsk the Mighty drew his knife across the throats of the two females and splashed their blood onto the front of the clay statue. With this cruel act, the giant infant awoke. It let out a scream from its open mouth, eerily similar to the cries of a newborn baby. The golden head began to loll around, like a ball in a round socket, moving under its own mysterious power.

“Grul-cho-mon. Grul-cho-mon. Grul-cho-mon,” the chorus chanted.

Bowsk dropped the knife and held up his burning torch. Now was time for the ritual’s next sacrifice, this time by fire. He turned to light the newest bonfire on the platform and end an enemy of the tribe.

Before the blaze started, the ropes fell away from Malisent’s wrists.

“Human take sword! Run door!”

The hilt of a sword projected from the leaf pile. Malisent did not hesitate. She grabbed the weapon left handed and drew it forth in a flash. Browsk the Mighty recoiled at the sight of this witch freed from her stake and wielding a sword. She was injured and fighting with a handicap, but he was unarmed and unarmored.

Malisent jumped down the pile and dashed straight for her captor. She thrust the blade deep into his side, causing him to roar in pain. The chief stood twice as tall as the other trolls and displayed a more powerful physique. Even without a weapon in hand, he remained a fearsome combatant. His long arms gave him an incredible reach. He threw wild punches toward Malisent and forced her back across the platform.

The drummers fell back from the battle, dropping their animal skin drums. The trolls in the crowd, one by one, noticed that something had gone wrong and ceased their ecstatic dancing. The chief was fighting. The ritual had been defiled by a human. The idol cried even louder than before. The tribe thronged to the edge of the platform.

Malisent gave better than she got. The chief drove her back with powerful attacks, but every time received a slice or knick on his arms in exchange. The fur on his forearms was matted with blood. He sustained injuries, but she retreated to a dangerous spot on the edge of the platform between the gigantic chief and the raised arms of his angry warriors.

That’s when I began to beat a loud tattoo. I pounded on the chief’s kettle drum, stolen from off his front doorstep. The rival drums had ceased, as had the chanting, leaving only the weird noises from the idol for me to compete with. The trolls looked around in confusion to find the source of this alien music.

I stood at the utility tunnel near the kitchen, the spot where I had first spied the trolls. This time the door to the tunnel blazed with a ring of fire. A thick coating of pine tar burned around me to outline the archway. I kicked a burning barrel into the room, and as it rolled, the liquefied tar left a sputtering path of flame. The area lit up like a landing field for an airship.

Malisent understood that the fire signals marked our exit. She wasted no more time. With a quick sprint and a powerful leap at the edge of the raised platform, the super-athlete cleared the heads of the angry trolls. Browsk desperately tried to grab her with his bloody hands, but she flew from his grasp. She raced across wide chamber, lopping off the limbs of any trolls that dared to stand in her way.

We reunited at the door.

“So this is the weirdest baby shower I’ve ever been to. How ‘bout you?”

“Novice! What took you so long?”

“I thought it would be easier to break you out of jail after you already left.”

“Easier for who?”

The horde of trolls chased after us. Their anger overpowered any sense of self preservation. They wanted nothing more than to punish the two humans who had disturbed the ceremony. Browsk the Mighty hopped down from the platform and lumbered across the chamber toward us, knocking aside his own warriors.

I had erected a barricade just inside the door, one made of tar barrels and grain bags and firewood taken from the kitchen storeroom. I armed myself with a polearm discarded from the chief’s balcony, the same place I picked up a new sword for Malisent. When the trolls approached, jabs from my pointy weapon kept them at bay.

“Light this place up to cover our escape!” I yelled.

Malisent applied a torch to the base of our barricade. The barrels weren’t explosive; they took a moment to catch fire. I had soaked bolts of cloth from the upper storage room with warm tar and and unrolled them across the barricade. They helped speed the conflagration. Acrid smoke poured from the corridor into the silo.

We only had to defend the doorway for a short time. Soon it would become impassable. Because I built the low wall of bags and barrels a couple meters into the hallway, only four or five trolls could get close at a time. But the crush of the crowd pushed them from behind into the flames. They screamed as the sticky fire spilled across their fur. Browsk took his warriors by their necks and tossed them aside as he fought his way to the front.

Across the chamber, Nimblesto scaled the side of the idol. The trolls had foolishly left their god unguarded. He jammed a knife-pole under the idol’s head and used it as a lever. The giant infant cried in dismay.

“Baby stupid. Nimblesto take treasure!”

The goblin jumped on the end of the pole with all his weight. The golden head popped loose from its setting. It fell onto one of the fat corpses and rolled across the platform toward the precipice. The platform stood around two meters tall. With nothing to divert its path, the head dropped onto the stone floor with loud crack.

“No! Treasure break!”

A thin layer of gold plated the statue’s head; it was not solid metal. Beneath the skin, it was a hollow terra cotta vessel stuffed with the bones of previous sacrifices. This brittle material could not withstand the sudden impact, and so it shattered into a dozen large fragments.

Clouds of luminous gas erupted from the debris. The baby’s screams grew deafening for a moment and then stopped altogether as the glowing mist dissipated across the chamber. The tribe of trolls began wailing in abject terror. Their god had been decapitated. The refleshment had failed.

“Time to fall back!” Malisent yelled.

The heat became unbearable and turned the corridor into an oven. We turned to retreat, when a great hairy arm thrust through the blinding wall of flame. A massive hand grabbed hold of me. Browsk the Mighty’s grip almost crushed the bones in my shoulder. I dropped my polearm from the pain. He was pulling me into the barricade to join the burning, howling trolls. Bubbling tar splashed onto me, and the droplets burned on my boots and pants.

My plan had gone so well. Everything worked as expected. But then the fearless chieftain caught me right at the threshold of victory. I was going to die. Again. This time permanently. At least I accomplished something and managed to save the girl before getting murdered by a hideous brute.

Then Orma, the black snake resting on my neck, darted out from hiding and bit Browsk’s thumb. He let out a tremendous roar and yanked his hand back. The snake’s venom must have been incredibly potent to affect him so quickly and deliver a pain worse than the licking flames. I was free but dazed by the attack.

“Come on, novice! This is no time for messing around.”

Malisent yanked me out of the fray and dragged me down the hallway. I stopped for a second to beat out the fire on my legs. More barrels lay scattered around the hall, with cloth wicks hanging from the tops. We set them alight as we passed to discourage pursuit. This place would be an inferno. The rising flames rose up and fanned out against the stone ceiling.

“This way.” I pointed to the barrel storage room. “There’s a secret escape passage.”

About two thirds of the tar supply remained in the room. Igniting these would make a tremendous fire. Malisent slid open the panel to the elevator shaft and looked inside. I coughed from inhaling too much smoke. My mouth tasted like turpentine.

“Where does this ladder lead?”

“Up near the chief’s room.”

“No time to relax. I can’t climb very fast with this arm. Hold my sword for me, novice.”

Before leaving, I lit a bolt of fabric in the store room. No one would come through here. Malisent went up the ladder first, and I lugged her sword up behind. She complained about her injured arm, but she still climbed twice as fast as me. All this running around in one day had physically exhausted me. I had no reserves of energy to call on. Standing next to the fire and jabbing with the polearm had been the last straw. Sweat soaked my clothes. My limbs were trembling going up the ladder. I stopped about halfway up, clinging to the rungs and trying to catch my breath.

A plume of hot air began to flow up the open shaft. Smoke trickled up and made my eyes sting. Down below, the fire reached the elevator as the tar liquefied and spread into a wide puddle. Soon the heat would be strong enough to bake my skin off. I had to keep going.

From below, I heard another scream of rage. Browsk charged into the elevator shaft. His fur was on fire. His right arm was curled up at his side, paralyzed by Orma’s bite. But he didn’t give up. The destruction of the idol had driven him into a mindless frenzy. He didn’t care about anything but killing Malisent. Unfortunately, I happened to be in between them.

I pushed myself to the limits of endurance climbing the ladder. Heat blisters covered my legs. Smoke made the air almost unbreathable and brought the smell of burning troll hair to my nostrils. The chieftain gained on me. His long arm let him take rungs three at a time.

I was ready to give up. I just couldn’t deal with the craziness of this world, monsters and witches. Everybody had a breaking point.

“Don’t die yet, you fool. You’ve still got my familiar.”

A hand grabbed me by the collar, and Malisent helped me up the last few rungs. I collapsed onto the floor.

“This is no time to take a nap. Browsk is almost here. He’s killing himself with berserk rage. We just have to avoid him until his body gives out.”

“I can’t move.”

“Don’t make me leave you behind again.”

“I’ve got one last trick. Look under the roll of purple silk. By the door.”

Malisent followed my instructions and pulled away a sheet of cloth. Underneath was the chief’s treasure box. Without the females inside to work the bar, the suite had been left wide open for me to raid.

“What is it?”

“It’s heavy. But I’m too weak. Drop it down the shaft.”

She grabbed the box with her good arm and slid it across the floor. The chest was not that large, but was incredibly heavy, basically a metal block. I rolled out of her way. At the door she sat down next to me and pushed it over the edge with her legs.

The chest dropped straight down like a meteor. It slammed into Browsk’s head and ripped him away from the side of the wall. Its lid flew open and sent out a spray of metal buttons. They rained downward, bouncing off the walls and flashing in the firelight.

Browsk plummeted to the wooden platform. When he struck the broken section of floorboards, they split apart with a crash. His limp body slid into the hole and disappeared into the darkness. The drop to level negative seven was much more extreme. His corpse would land at the deepest point of the lower levels, back where my crazy adventure began.

“Minion. Tell me. What exactly was in that box?”

“Nothing important. Just a bunch of silver and gold.”

“You absolute idiot,” she groaned.

The rescue attempt had been a success.