Chapter 10
I followed his focus and discovered that the locket had slipped out from inside my shirt.
The trinket swung to and fro, glistening in the light from the gemstones set into the walls.
Vhulkar knelt in front of me and wrapped his spindly fingers around the locket.
A puzzled expression crossed over his face as he studied the facade.
“What is this?” he murmured, more to himself than to me. He turned the locket over, and this way and that, studying all angles. His eyes narrowed before they flickered up to my sallow face. “Where did you get this?”
“I’ll tell you…if you…let me…go,” I wheezed out.
Vhulkar wrapped his long fingers around the locket and gave it a yank.
He must have intended to rip the chain from around my neck, but the metal was stronger than he expected.
All he succeeded in doing was sending me tumbling face-first onto the floor.
My sudden drop made him lose his grip on the locket, and I squished the trinket beneath my shivering body.
The man leaped on top of me like a wild animal. His bony fingers shoved my collar out of the way and grabbed the back of the chain. He yanked the metal upward and shoved the locket against my windpipe. I choked and clawed at the necklace even as he tried to draw it over my head.
Only it wouldn’t work. The necklace wouldn’t move more than a few inches from the bottom of my neck. Every effort to pull the chain over my head only succeeded in yanking the rest of my body with it.
“Give it to me!” Vhulkar screamed as he continued his abuse of my throat. “Give me the necklace!”
“Stop!” I choked out as I grabbed the front of the necklace. “It’s not coming!”
Vhulkar dropped the necklace, and I fell flat on my face onto the hard floor. He climbed to his feet as I raised myself onto my arms and rubbed my throat with one hand. I could already feel the bruise forming on the flesh.
Vhulkar stumbled back, his dark eyes full of fury and confusion. “You lying wench! You are using your magic to keep me from that necklace!”
I managed to pull myself to a seated position and kept my hand wrapped around my throat as I glared right back at him. “I don’t have any magic! Maybe the necklace just doesn’t like you!”
He lifted his sneering lips and raised one hand, which he wrapped around his own bauble. “You will give me that necklace!”
My face contorted with agony as my muscles seized. I tried to twist my way out of the pain, but my body wouldn’t obey my mewling pleas.
Vhulkar wrenched his hand away from his magical bauble, and the stiffness vanished, but not the soreness. He stabbed a finger at my necklace. “Give it to me!”
Would could I do with the thing, even if it was magical?
I could hardly lift myself onto one arm, while my other trembling hand reached for my necklace.
The metal had a strange warmth to it as my fingers wrapped around the coils.
I tried to draw the necklace over my head, but my success mirrored that of Vhulkar. The necklace refused to leave me.
I collapsed back onto the floor, breathing hard and with my muscles twinging with pain. “It won’t come.”
“It is yours! Take it off!” he screeched.
I shut my eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s not mine, and it won’t come off!”
“Then I will have your head if it means I will have that necklace!” Vhulkar screamed as he grasped his talisman. A heavy shadow emanated from between his fingers, and his hand vibrated.
The hellhound near the jerked its head like a broken toy before its hideous yellow eyes fell on me. My breath caught in my throat, and I tried to crawl away on my stomach. The creature growled and lunged at me, its jaws open and ready for a nice chomp of my head.
That’s when a shadow came up behind the beast, and a shimmering blade slammed down on its head.
The weapon pierced the incorporeal skull and stabbed straight to the floor, pinning the beast to the dirt.
The hellhound thrashed about, and I noticed Vhulkar tightened his grip on his talisman as his hand began to shake even harder.
The new attacker stood erect, and my heart filled with warm hope when I recognized the handsome visage of the king.
His eyes seemed to glow slightly in the dim light, and his expression was a fierce battle of disgust and anger.
He brushed his hand over his exposed arm and drew out the strange scales, and placed them in his knuckles.
The hellhound still writhed at his feet as he slammed his weaponized fist into the thing’s head. The creature let out a fierce yip before it dropped to the floor as a puddle of black ooze, which then vanished completely into the ground.
The king straightened and lifted his dark gaze to Vhulkar. The man took a step back and furiously rubbed his talisman. The darkness grew more intense, and I heard the faint echo of hellhounds from somewhere deeper into the tunnel system.
I stabbed a finger at Vhulkar’s chest. “His necklace! He’s calling more nethral!”
The king’s eyes widened, and he leaped at the man. He grabbed Vhulkar’s jewelry chain and yanked it. Vhulkar’s necklace didn’t have the same magical protection as mine and easily snapped, leaving the king holding his talisman.
“No!” Vhulkar screamed as he lunged at the king.
His Highness pointed the dagger at Vhulkar’s throat, and the man stopped dead in his tracks. The king studied the face of his foe, and his expression showed he didn’t like what he saw. “Vhulkar. You were banished from my realm for your rash experiments.”
“I-I only wanted to help your kingdom, Your Majesty!”
I snorted. “Help by taking over the forest…”
The king narrowed his eyes at the man. “Then you’re the one who’s been controlling the nethral and sending them to attack my people.”
Vhulkar swallowed hard as the color drained from his face. “I-I only wanted to show you the power of the nethral.”
A strange expression passed over Scalyvar’s face. The moment was brief, but I couldn’t help but get an overwhelming sense of bitterness. “I am well aware of their powers.”
“Then you know you cannot destroy my sensor flask!” Vhulkar pleaded as he clasped his hands in front of himself. “Y-you don’t know what you’re doing! If you destroy that necklace, then there will be nothing to control the nethral!”
“I see no downside to this,” the king countered.
Vhulkar dropped to his knees and walked on them up to the king. “I beg you to reconsider!” He stabbed a quivering finger at the spot where the hellhound had deteriorated. “There will be more! Many more! Their pit is not far off! We’ll be killed by the things!”
“Show me where it is.”
Vhulkar’s face contorted with fear and fury. “Why? So you can destroy my life’s work?”
“So I can destroy a great evil.”
He sat up and sneered at him. “I won’t help you.”
Scalyvar tightened his fingers around the glass. The object shattered in his hand, and the bits rained down on the floor. A terrible ooze flowed out of his palm and dripped onto the floor, where it sank into oblivion.
Vhulkar screamed and scuttled forward like a dog clinging to a few scraps left by its cruel owner. He scraped up the bits and pieces, crying as he coddled them against his chest. Sobs racked his body for a few moments before he whipped his head up.
His terrible dark eyes glared at the king, who stood coldly over him. “You monster! Are you so jealous of their power that you would destroy your one chance to save our kingdom from oblivion?”
Scalyvar stared at him with an expression of indifference mixed with a slight hint of something else. Was it pity? The king didn’t say a word, but opened his hand and tilted his palm. The remains of the flask rained down on the floor in front of Vhulkar.
The king strode past him and over to me, where he knelt in front of me with eyes of such bountiful kindness that all the pain in my body faded away. He stretched out his hand to me and spoke in a gentle whisper. “Can you stand?”
I stared at him for a moment before I shook the cobwebs from my mind and set my hand in his palm. “I-I think so-”
“What is the sense in asking her to stand?” The shrieking question came from our companion.
He struggled to his feet even as the king helped me to mine.
Vhulkar spun around to face us with his hands clasped tightly against his chest. He clutched onto the remains of the glass, and the broken bits had cut deep into his fingers.
Blood dripped from them as a wide, open-mouth grin spread across his face.
“You won’t get out of here alive. Even now, they smell my scent.
” He lifted his bleeding hands above his head, and the droplets dripped onto his face.
“They’ll take all of us! None shall be spared their wrath! ”
He broke into maniacal laughter that echoed off the hard walls. The king wrapped his arms around me, both holding me up and away from that insane man. His insanity did have its reality, however, as I heard the faint pounding of padded feet from the door.
Hell was coming, and it was hungry.