Fortress of the Fallen

'What is it?' Gideon asked without looking up. He was studying the features of the composite creature's face: heavy brow underneath the puckering, scar tissue; closed, blue eyelids; black, bloated lips; and a shovel of a lower jaw.

'He's been making his own servants.' Keridwen said in disgust. 'Stealing bodies from grave yards, and then joining what parts he could salvage. He's been creating golems.'

Gideon looked away from the creature, at Keridwen. 'Golems?' he asked, bewildered.

'Yes,' Keridwen explained with a grimace, 'Mindless automatons formed from the parts of dead men and infused with unliving energy. They are like zombies, but physically far more powerful. They are also much more difficult for their creator to control.'

Gideon looked back down at the golem. He was at first too stunned to move when he looked into its now open, hateful, staring eyes.

A low moan escaped the golem's bloated lips; and Gideon felt the cold, thick fingers of the creature's right hand close around his throat. Gideon gagged reflexively from the pressure to his windpipe and expected the creature to crush it like a boiled egg in the next instant. Instead, the creature lifted him off of his feet, by the throat, and hurled him backhanded at the wall nearest Keridwen. Gideon's back slammed solidly into a set of shelves, and as he hit the stone floor gasping to pull air into his bruised throat, the shelf-case teetered forward and crashed onto him. Shattered glass rained down on the floor, and liquids from the many broken vials mixed together as they spilled onto Gideon.

Keridwen reacted instantly; and as the golem sat up and swung its mismatched legs over the edge of the plinth, she conjured a hemispherical, chest-high wall of ice around it, trapping it against the stone wall where the statue squatted.

The golem made an angry sound and punched a large hole in the ice with its fist. Then it was pounding against the ice-wall, blow after blow, and large chunks began to break loose and shatter against the stone floor. Keridwen wrestled with the shelf-case that was on top of Gideon, trying to remove it. She had no idea if he was dead or alive, but she desperately hoped for the latter.

Finally, she managed to push the shelf off of Gideon. The contents of the spilled vials were burning their way through his leather armor, but he was breathing, and as she began unbuckling the armor before he could be further injured, his eyelids fluttered and he was awake.

Just then, the golem freed itself from the wall of ice and lurched toward them. Keridwen wanted to run, but she stayed and helped Gideon struggle to his feet. There was no way that they would be able to make it to the stairs before the creature was upon them. Gideon stepped valiantly in front of the sorceress. Pain was etched onto his face as he moved his sword into a defensive position. The creature stopped a stride away from the ranger, and then drew its fist back awkwardly over its head as if preparing to pummel him with all of its strength.

Gideon saw what he thought was a fatal error on the golem's part, and swung his sword at the creature before it could strike. The blade caught the golem in the neck, just above the wire stitches, but it barely dug into the hard, unliving flesh.

Gideon barely had time to consider that this was the second time his sword had failed him of late, when the golem growled in anger and knocked his sword to the floor. Gideon tried to duck as the creature swung down at him a second time, but only managed to take the punch in his ribs instead of in his face. He heard as much as felt his ribs break, and as he dropped to his knees, a thin stream of blood spilled over his lower lip. The golem locked its fingers together and raised its joined fists high over its head. Just before it could bring them down, however, three small, glowing spheres of alternating red and purple radiance struck the creature in its face, one after another, causing it to stagger backward a step.

Keridwen looked to the other end of the room, where the glowing spheres had come from, and saw Solace leap over the last three stairs. With the arm-guard of his admantium katar secured to his left forearm, and its two-foot, triangular blade extended menacingly over his fist, the Surtari landed in a crouch. Keppen stood against the wall behind Solace. His empty hands moved in a rhythmic, rotating blur; and an instant later he was juggling three more of the red and purple spheres of light, which he launched, one after the other. The first one hit the golem in the forehead, the second in the chest, and the third missed completely, tearing a hole in a portion of the damaged ice-wall.

The creature wailed and charged across the room, fists still upraised. Solace charged as well, and met the golem near the center of the room, taking the brunt of the creature's two-fisted blow on the arm-guard of his katar. Then the Crimson Elf went wild, exchanging strikes with the golem, slash for punch, and finally managed to score a hit on the creature's tough chest. The tip of the katar dug an inch-deep groove in the dead meat of the golem's pectorals, pushing the creature even further into a rage.