Chapter 27
The room was stone, a dark sandy color unlike the color of the sand Donnia had been forced to stare at for so long. She had no idea how much time had passed. For all she knew it could have been two or three days or as long as two or three centuries. Looking down at her hands, the truest teller of age, they looked just as they had before meeting the medusa, scarred from battle, calloused from her sword, but they showed no signs of advancing age. However long she had been a statue had not changed her body; it was as if she had been literally frozen in time while the rest of the world had continued on.
She had not ventured far when she found Dorna. A look of pure terror was permanently etched on her face. Her hands were raised in front of her face trying in vain to protect herself from a now invisible foe. Dorna still stood as a statue, frozen with just her mind to keep her company.
Donnia reached out to her, lightly touching her arm and spoke softly, "Hold on just a little while longer. I will find a way to free you. Don't succumb to the darkness. Just hold on." With that Donnia turned and left the little room that housed Dorna's frozen form as though it were some kind of treasure, not a person fighting to keep her sanity as Donnia herself had done.
Donnia approached what seemed to be a great hall that had but one occupant; a tall lizard-like man who looked as though he were in charge merely by the way he stood. Donnia slowly approached him, her hand going to her weapon by sheer instinct, though as she moved it there began to wonder if it was there at all. A wave of thankfulness overcame her as she gripped her greatsword. She had barely stepped into view before he turned to her.
"I see you have awoken, my little treasure. When I found you I was unsure if you were truly a statue or another victim of Heurodis. Either way, you are mine now; I found you and I'm going to keep you." His deep voice resonated throughout the hall they were standing in. He was not speaking loudly but Donnia was able to hear him quite clearly despite her distance from him.
"I belong to no one; least of all you," Donnia spoke back to him, keeping her voice as low as his, it also carrying quite well in the room. She had not just overcome a medusa's curse only to become a possession.
He grinned, if one could call it that, at her bravado, but was not impressed. "The way I see it, you were left in that desert for an untold amount of time. No one ever came to claim you, protect you, find you, so you're mine."
The words stung in their truthfulness. No, no one would have come looking for her, save the halflings she had left behind to find Dorna and Telwern. It was then that Donnia realized how much she missed her parents. They would have gone to look for her had she disappeared, but they were gone, and with them, everyone in Donnia's life was gone as well. She knew no one would have come to find her, protect her, for there was no one. She was everything she had. Despite her sudden sadness at realizing her aloneness, she was not about to become someone's possession. "You cannot claim another's life as your own, no matter the circumstances surrounding their discovery. The only person I belong to is me." And even then it's not always true, she continued in her head.
"You are a spirited one, I'll give you that. But I can't have you going around with these ideas in your head. So, I'll just have to fix this little problem of yours." As he finished the last word he produced a small collar from a pack he wore at his side. Donnia was quick in her movements at any other time than this. Before she could dodge him or knock the collar from his hand, it was fastened tightly around her neck, barely allowing her room enough to breathe deeply.
Donnia began to pull her sword from its sheath to attack, but as she did a sharp jolt of pain coursed through her body. It seemed as though every nerve in her body had been set aflame. Her hand jerked away from the hilt of her sword as she dropped to her knees. Her breath was ragged, her heart racing, her fury unbounded. "What...have you...done...to me..." she managed between gasping for air.
A cold glint came to his eye, "You are now my slave, and you shall ever be my slave as long as that collar is around your neck. While wearing it you must stay within the bounds of this city, but may only enter certain areas of it. You cannot attack me nor any of my other slaves unless they were to attack you first. If you were to try and escape the city, thinking you could bear the pain, think again. What you felt was just a small jolt compared to what you would feel if you attempted to leave here. The only way to remove the collar is to have me remove it myself. No other being in the Realms can remove it, for if they try, you, and they, will die. Do you understand?" he asked at her doubled-over form on the floor.
Donnia weakly nodded her head in ascent. She slowly rose to her feet, feeling very sick to her stomach, her head pounded, and her joints felt as though they were made of parchment. Once she regained her balance she stood before him through the obvious pain it caused her, not bent over clutching to her stomach, but instead stood tall, not showing a sign of weakness, hoping he might reconsider what he had just done. "You will pay for what you have done to me; make no mistake about that..." Just as she was about to sat something else, the floor lurched beneath her feet. She feared it was another spell of dizziness from the jolt caused by the slave collar, but she noticed that her captor also lost his footing. As she adjusted to the rhythmic swaying of the floor, she noticed that it was not just the floor that was moving, the entire building they were standing in was shaking. "What is going on?" Donnia asked him accusingly.
"Heurodis. She's trying to raise Undrentide to its once past stature and importance, ever so literally."
Donnia narrowed her eyes at him, thinking over what he had just said. "What do you mean 'raise'?"
He sighed, "I mean that she is trying to get the great flying city of Undrentide back into the sky."
Donnia's eyes flew open in shock. She had heard the tales as a young child from her parents of these great cities that floated high among the clouds. They were magnificent places filled with only the best of the magic-users in all the land. She thought they were just a myth, a legend even, but to know that she was actually standing in one of the greatest of all of the flying cities herself was near to overwhelming.
After a few short minutes the city stopped shaking and returned to its rest again in the sands of the Great Desert. Donnia once again turned her attention to the lizard-man before her. She longed to be able to strike at him, to make him suffer for what he had done to her, but she knew that there were other things that were more important at that time. "What of my companion? I saw that you brought her back with you as well. Will you be able to return her to flesh?"
He turned his gaze from the ceiling above to look at Donnia when he answered, "Yes, there is a potion that can turn your friend from her stony form. But it will cost you. It is a rare find indeed and I cannot afford to just give it away."
"Name your price."
He asked a very high price, but money meant nothing to Donnia. She had more than enough to keep her healthy for many, many years to come and she could allow Dorna to be frozen any longer than necessary.
Just as she was about to turn back to free Dorna from her prison, her "owner" called out to her, "You cannot leave just yet. I must give you your assignment."
Donnia slowly turned to face him, "Assignment?"
"Yes, your assignment. You did not believe that you could just exist here without earning your keep? The city is still over one third buried in the sand, but already we have uncovered something that we cannot destroy ourselves. Some of the old inhabitants of the cities kept golems as guards over their belongings. Those golems still exist today. Since you obviously seem to be more than capable of taking down a golem, I will leave that task to you and your friend. There are ten of them throughout the city. If you were to destroy all ten I might grant you and your friend some extra privileges."
Donnia nodded, "I will return when they are all destroyed."
The sweat ran from her face in streams, flowed freely beneath her armor. Dirt, grime, dust, and blood clung to every part of exposed skin and discolored her armor. Dorna was in no better condition. Nine golems had been found thus far and nine golems had been destroyed. True, Donnia had faced many golems before, of all different kinds, but one never adjusted to their immense size and no one could ever predict how hard the battle would be to destroy them.
The city of Undrentide had long been dead. Only recently had their been any activity, all of which began with Heurodis' wish to bring the city back to its original power and stature. The only inhabitants of the city were desert beetles and large spiders. They had roamed freely throughout the city, but most were now reduced to carved-up corpses having tried to attack Dorna and Donnia.
They had spoken little but Dorna was in awe of her new-found companion. She had heard stories of the Hero of Neverwinter and how she had taken on an entire army of Maugrim and Aribeth's forces and defeated them when they had been backed by the power of the Old Ones. The Hero had searched over most of Faerun looking for those who had caused the plague so that they could be dealt with. Dorna could only dream of the fame that Donnia must have encountered. She thought that Donnia would be happy about all of this; being recognized for her work to save the city and ultimately the rest of Faerun from the Wailing Death and Morag, having people offering goods, food, money, and who knows what else in their show of thanks. However, every time that Dorna could look into Donnia's face and eyes, it was not happiness that she saw there.
Her eyes were dark. The skin around them was near to black with exhaustion. Her bright emerald orbs were dull and lifeless, their color near to unrecognizable. There was something always behind her eyes that made Dorna ache to know what it was. She could guess though; lack of hope. She wondered why Donnia felt that way. They were so close to finishing their task. Soon they would be able to visit the library and other rooms that were now cut off to them by their slave collars. Dorna hoped that those rooms would contain clues as to how to stop Heurodis. It seemed that the city was shaking more and more often and it was becoming more and more violent each time. She wondered how long it would be until the city really would leave its place in the sand and take it place once again in the sky.
While Dorna continued on her thoughts as to why Donnia had lost her hope, Donnia herself was only thinking of the task before her. She could not afford to think on anything else until that tenth golem had been found and destroyed. After that, she would only think of the next thing that must be done. She feared that if she looked too far in advance that she would not be able to deal with the here and now. And the here and now was what had the power to kill her, while it was the rest that had the power to destroy whatever was left of her spirit and hope that had not been shattered since leaving Neverwinter.
By this time, the two women had figured out the quickest and easiest way to destroy the golems; to attack their joints. Once the limbs were inactive the rest was easy; hack and slash until it was reduced to a pile of gravel.
Turning another one of the countless corners in the city streets both Donnia and Dorna could hear the tell-tale sounds of a moving golem. The stone-on-stone racket reverberated between the buildings leading the predator to their prey. Like many of the others, this golem was still advertising its creator in a repeated phrase. Idly, Donnia wondered how many times the golem had repeated that same phrase. The thought made a small smile appear on her lips, but she quickly dismissed it focusing rather on how they would sneak up on this golem so that they could begin their attack from behind and not have to try and get behind it once they had been spotted; for that was no simple feat.
Without speaking the two already knew the other's approach; Donnia would go first, attempt to deactivate one of its knees before Dorna would come in and repeat the process on the other knee. Her sword raised and at the ready, Donnia slowly and quietly moved in behind the golem. Having basically lived in her armor for so many years, she was able to move in it as freely as she was able to in her cotton tunic and pants. She was thankful for that range of movement as the golem must have detected her presence and whirled faster than any being that large should have the ability to do so.
The golem leered, if a creature of stone can do so, down at her from well over twice Donnia's height. It was half as wide as it was tall, giving the golem an obvious advantage of size and it also seemed to posses the ability to move quite quickly in the event it should need to, as in this moment now.
Almost without warning the golem raised one arm and brought it down with such speed and precision, Donnia barely had time to register what was happening and move out of the way before the great arm crashed into the floor right where she had been standing only a few short moments before.
The golem raised its arm from the giant crater it had left in the walkway and once again turned to face Donnia. She hoped that she could occupy it long enough so that Dorna would be able to succeed where she herself had failed.
She barely had time to spare a glance at Dorna before the golem once again demanded her attention. This time the golem moved as though it was once again going to try and crush her like a small bug, but as its arm came down from above, Donnia failed to see the other arm sweeping in from the side. She noticed to late and the great stone arm hit her hard and threw her into the opposite wall 15 feet from where she had been standing. The air was crushed out of her lungs as the arm hit her in the side causing pain to radiate from the wound she had suffered from Aribeth in that last fight. Her body flew into the wall hard enough to break the stone and leave an imprint of the form of her body as she fell from the wall and onto the floor, blood flowing freely from countless places on and inside her body. She lay there, crumpled on the floor as Dorna was able to come in undetected and destroyed both knees by throwing her war hammer into each with enough force to bring the golem down closer to her level.
Dorna prayed inside her mind that she could dispatch this nuisance quickly enough so that she could help Donnia before it was too late.
With the golem stationary Dorna made quick work of blasting out its shoulders to keep it from doing the same to her as it had done to Donnia. Dorna stopped and stood to face what was left of the once great golem; a tall torso with the head still attached that was having horrible noises coming from it that would have been borne of pain could the thing feel. She tightly gripped the handle to her hammer, not praying for true aim for she knew she had the ability without the interference of her god, but instead prayed that her companion would survive and that this golem would fall in one more blow, for that was all of the energy that Dorna had left.
Twisting her body to get a greater range to build her momentum, Dorna swung her hammer with both arms with all of the might she had left and sent the hammer flying powerfully into the head of the waiting golem. With a sound that could hardly be described, the head exploded into millions of pieces as the hammer rammed into it.
The torso fell over, crashing loudly into the floor, but Dorna barely registered the sound as she rushed over to pick up her hammer and moved quickly to Donnia's side. Donnia had not moved from the place where she had fallen after being thrown. Her arm was limp when Dorna raised it in her own. Dorna suddenly wished for the ring her teacher, Master Drogan, had given her and his other students that would teleport them back to his side should they ever come to harm greater than they could control. Thinking on her old teacher who had been killed in teleporting her and Telwern to this part of the desert pulled at Dorna's heart, but she did not have time now to think about it; Donnia needed her undivided attention.
Dorna quickly reached into her pack and removed the strongest healing potion she had and hoped it would be enough. She raised Donnia's head slowly and carefully, not wanting to cause more injury than she had already suffered. She pulled the cork out of the bottle with her teeth and spit it aside, and forced Donnia's lips to part and slowly poured the potion into Donnia's mouth hoping that instinct would overcome her incapacity to move and that she would swallow and not choke on the potion.
Dorna's pleas were answered as Donnia slowly swallowed the potion. Once the bottle had been drained, she kept Donnia's head propped up with her arm while the potion took effect. Dorna noticed as the shallow breaths being drawn by Donnia started to return to the normal deep breathing she would expect after such an ordeal.
Suddenly Donnia sat up and looked about her to find the enemy that had been there when she had lost consciousness, but no enemy was in sight. She saw only the shattered remains of the golem that had put her in this condition. The sudden movement had caused her to become very dizzy and her head was pounding. Donnia sat very still and cradled her hand softly with both of her hands as she waited for the room to stop spinning about her.
Dorna rose and offered a hand down to help Donnia rise from her position on the floor. Donnia gladly accepted the help and took her hand in her own and the two of them managed to get her off of the floor. Once Donnia was standing securely without wanting to fall over from the great dizziness that had overcome her, she looked down to Dorna. "Thank you," was all she could think to say. She wanted to say more, but no more words would come.
The dwarf woman smiled, "You are more than welcome, my lady. Shall we report back that all of the golems have been destroyed?"
Donnia said nothing but smiled in return. As the two started to walk to return to the main hall the great city shuddered again all around them. Without a word the two broke into a run; they were running out of time.
[A/N: Wow, I'm so glad that you all enjoy my story so much. I will keep on putting up the chapters as I complete them. Throughout most of the rest of the summer the chapters should come pretty quickly as I am out of school and don't work most evenings. More than likely I will be posting my story to ladiesofneverwinter.com sometime, or just putting a link there back to here. Either way, that sight is wonderful. So, thanks for all of your positive feedback. It's what keeps me writing!]
The room was stone, a dark sandy color unlike the color of the sand Donnia had been forced to stare at for so long. She had no idea how much time had passed. For all she knew it could have been two or three days or as long as two or three centuries. Looking down at her hands, the truest teller of age, they looked just as they had before meeting the medusa, scarred from battle, calloused from her sword, but they showed no signs of advancing age. However long she had been a statue had not changed her body; it was as if she had been literally frozen in time while the rest of the world had continued on.
She had not ventured far when she found Dorna. A look of pure terror was permanently etched on her face. Her hands were raised in front of her face trying in vain to protect herself from a now invisible foe. Dorna still stood as a statue, frozen with just her mind to keep her company.
Donnia reached out to her, lightly touching her arm and spoke softly, "Hold on just a little while longer. I will find a way to free you. Don't succumb to the darkness. Just hold on." With that Donnia turned and left the little room that housed Dorna's frozen form as though it were some kind of treasure, not a person fighting to keep her sanity as Donnia herself had done.
Donnia approached what seemed to be a great hall that had but one occupant; a tall lizard-like man who looked as though he were in charge merely by the way he stood. Donnia slowly approached him, her hand going to her weapon by sheer instinct, though as she moved it there began to wonder if it was there at all. A wave of thankfulness overcame her as she gripped her greatsword. She had barely stepped into view before he turned to her.
"I see you have awoken, my little treasure. When I found you I was unsure if you were truly a statue or another victim of Heurodis. Either way, you are mine now; I found you and I'm going to keep you." His deep voice resonated throughout the hall they were standing in. He was not speaking loudly but Donnia was able to hear him quite clearly despite her distance from him.
"I belong to no one; least of all you," Donnia spoke back to him, keeping her voice as low as his, it also carrying quite well in the room. She had not just overcome a medusa's curse only to become a possession.
He grinned, if one could call it that, at her bravado, but was not impressed. "The way I see it, you were left in that desert for an untold amount of time. No one ever came to claim you, protect you, find you, so you're mine."
The words stung in their truthfulness. No, no one would have come looking for her, save the halflings she had left behind to find Dorna and Telwern. It was then that Donnia realized how much she missed her parents. They would have gone to look for her had she disappeared, but they were gone, and with them, everyone in Donnia's life was gone as well. She knew no one would have come to find her, protect her, for there was no one. She was everything she had. Despite her sudden sadness at realizing her aloneness, she was not about to become someone's possession. "You cannot claim another's life as your own, no matter the circumstances surrounding their discovery. The only person I belong to is me." And even then it's not always true, she continued in her head.
"You are a spirited one, I'll give you that. But I can't have you going around with these ideas in your head. So, I'll just have to fix this little problem of yours." As he finished the last word he produced a small collar from a pack he wore at his side. Donnia was quick in her movements at any other time than this. Before she could dodge him or knock the collar from his hand, it was fastened tightly around her neck, barely allowing her room enough to breathe deeply.
Donnia began to pull her sword from its sheath to attack, but as she did a sharp jolt of pain coursed through her body. It seemed as though every nerve in her body had been set aflame. Her hand jerked away from the hilt of her sword as she dropped to her knees. Her breath was ragged, her heart racing, her fury unbounded. "What...have you...done...to me..." she managed between gasping for air.
A cold glint came to his eye, "You are now my slave, and you shall ever be my slave as long as that collar is around your neck. While wearing it you must stay within the bounds of this city, but may only enter certain areas of it. You cannot attack me nor any of my other slaves unless they were to attack you first. If you were to try and escape the city, thinking you could bear the pain, think again. What you felt was just a small jolt compared to what you would feel if you attempted to leave here. The only way to remove the collar is to have me remove it myself. No other being in the Realms can remove it, for if they try, you, and they, will die. Do you understand?" he asked at her doubled-over form on the floor.
Donnia weakly nodded her head in ascent. She slowly rose to her feet, feeling very sick to her stomach, her head pounded, and her joints felt as though they were made of parchment. Once she regained her balance she stood before him through the obvious pain it caused her, not bent over clutching to her stomach, but instead stood tall, not showing a sign of weakness, hoping he might reconsider what he had just done. "You will pay for what you have done to me; make no mistake about that..." Just as she was about to sat something else, the floor lurched beneath her feet. She feared it was another spell of dizziness from the jolt caused by the slave collar, but she noticed that her captor also lost his footing. As she adjusted to the rhythmic swaying of the floor, she noticed that it was not just the floor that was moving, the entire building they were standing in was shaking. "What is going on?" Donnia asked him accusingly.
"Heurodis. She's trying to raise Undrentide to its once past stature and importance, ever so literally."
Donnia narrowed her eyes at him, thinking over what he had just said. "What do you mean 'raise'?"
He sighed, "I mean that she is trying to get the great flying city of Undrentide back into the sky."
Donnia's eyes flew open in shock. She had heard the tales as a young child from her parents of these great cities that floated high among the clouds. They were magnificent places filled with only the best of the magic-users in all the land. She thought they were just a myth, a legend even, but to know that she was actually standing in one of the greatest of all of the flying cities herself was near to overwhelming.
After a few short minutes the city stopped shaking and returned to its rest again in the sands of the Great Desert. Donnia once again turned her attention to the lizard-man before her. She longed to be able to strike at him, to make him suffer for what he had done to her, but she knew that there were other things that were more important at that time. "What of my companion? I saw that you brought her back with you as well. Will you be able to return her to flesh?"
He turned his gaze from the ceiling above to look at Donnia when he answered, "Yes, there is a potion that can turn your friend from her stony form. But it will cost you. It is a rare find indeed and I cannot afford to just give it away."
"Name your price."
He asked a very high price, but money meant nothing to Donnia. She had more than enough to keep her healthy for many, many years to come and she could allow Dorna to be frozen any longer than necessary.
Just as she was about to turn back to free Dorna from her prison, her "owner" called out to her, "You cannot leave just yet. I must give you your assignment."
Donnia slowly turned to face him, "Assignment?"
"Yes, your assignment. You did not believe that you could just exist here without earning your keep? The city is still over one third buried in the sand, but already we have uncovered something that we cannot destroy ourselves. Some of the old inhabitants of the cities kept golems as guards over their belongings. Those golems still exist today. Since you obviously seem to be more than capable of taking down a golem, I will leave that task to you and your friend. There are ten of them throughout the city. If you were to destroy all ten I might grant you and your friend some extra privileges."
Donnia nodded, "I will return when they are all destroyed."
The sweat ran from her face in streams, flowed freely beneath her armor. Dirt, grime, dust, and blood clung to every part of exposed skin and discolored her armor. Dorna was in no better condition. Nine golems had been found thus far and nine golems had been destroyed. True, Donnia had faced many golems before, of all different kinds, but one never adjusted to their immense size and no one could ever predict how hard the battle would be to destroy them.
The city of Undrentide had long been dead. Only recently had their been any activity, all of which began with Heurodis' wish to bring the city back to its original power and stature. The only inhabitants of the city were desert beetles and large spiders. They had roamed freely throughout the city, but most were now reduced to carved-up corpses having tried to attack Dorna and Donnia.
They had spoken little but Dorna was in awe of her new-found companion. She had heard stories of the Hero of Neverwinter and how she had taken on an entire army of Maugrim and Aribeth's forces and defeated them when they had been backed by the power of the Old Ones. The Hero had searched over most of Faerun looking for those who had caused the plague so that they could be dealt with. Dorna could only dream of the fame that Donnia must have encountered. She thought that Donnia would be happy about all of this; being recognized for her work to save the city and ultimately the rest of Faerun from the Wailing Death and Morag, having people offering goods, food, money, and who knows what else in their show of thanks. However, every time that Dorna could look into Donnia's face and eyes, it was not happiness that she saw there.
Her eyes were dark. The skin around them was near to black with exhaustion. Her bright emerald orbs were dull and lifeless, their color near to unrecognizable. There was something always behind her eyes that made Dorna ache to know what it was. She could guess though; lack of hope. She wondered why Donnia felt that way. They were so close to finishing their task. Soon they would be able to visit the library and other rooms that were now cut off to them by their slave collars. Dorna hoped that those rooms would contain clues as to how to stop Heurodis. It seemed that the city was shaking more and more often and it was becoming more and more violent each time. She wondered how long it would be until the city really would leave its place in the sand and take it place once again in the sky.
While Dorna continued on her thoughts as to why Donnia had lost her hope, Donnia herself was only thinking of the task before her. She could not afford to think on anything else until that tenth golem had been found and destroyed. After that, she would only think of the next thing that must be done. She feared that if she looked too far in advance that she would not be able to deal with the here and now. And the here and now was what had the power to kill her, while it was the rest that had the power to destroy whatever was left of her spirit and hope that had not been shattered since leaving Neverwinter.
By this time, the two women had figured out the quickest and easiest way to destroy the golems; to attack their joints. Once the limbs were inactive the rest was easy; hack and slash until it was reduced to a pile of gravel.
Turning another one of the countless corners in the city streets both Donnia and Dorna could hear the tell-tale sounds of a moving golem. The stone-on-stone racket reverberated between the buildings leading the predator to their prey. Like many of the others, this golem was still advertising its creator in a repeated phrase. Idly, Donnia wondered how many times the golem had repeated that same phrase. The thought made a small smile appear on her lips, but she quickly dismissed it focusing rather on how they would sneak up on this golem so that they could begin their attack from behind and not have to try and get behind it once they had been spotted; for that was no simple feat.
Without speaking the two already knew the other's approach; Donnia would go first, attempt to deactivate one of its knees before Dorna would come in and repeat the process on the other knee. Her sword raised and at the ready, Donnia slowly and quietly moved in behind the golem. Having basically lived in her armor for so many years, she was able to move in it as freely as she was able to in her cotton tunic and pants. She was thankful for that range of movement as the golem must have detected her presence and whirled faster than any being that large should have the ability to do so.
The golem leered, if a creature of stone can do so, down at her from well over twice Donnia's height. It was half as wide as it was tall, giving the golem an obvious advantage of size and it also seemed to posses the ability to move quite quickly in the event it should need to, as in this moment now.
Almost without warning the golem raised one arm and brought it down with such speed and precision, Donnia barely had time to register what was happening and move out of the way before the great arm crashed into the floor right where she had been standing only a few short moments before.
The golem raised its arm from the giant crater it had left in the walkway and once again turned to face Donnia. She hoped that she could occupy it long enough so that Dorna would be able to succeed where she herself had failed.
She barely had time to spare a glance at Dorna before the golem once again demanded her attention. This time the golem moved as though it was once again going to try and crush her like a small bug, but as its arm came down from above, Donnia failed to see the other arm sweeping in from the side. She noticed to late and the great stone arm hit her hard and threw her into the opposite wall 15 feet from where she had been standing. The air was crushed out of her lungs as the arm hit her in the side causing pain to radiate from the wound she had suffered from Aribeth in that last fight. Her body flew into the wall hard enough to break the stone and leave an imprint of the form of her body as she fell from the wall and onto the floor, blood flowing freely from countless places on and inside her body. She lay there, crumpled on the floor as Dorna was able to come in undetected and destroyed both knees by throwing her war hammer into each with enough force to bring the golem down closer to her level.
Dorna prayed inside her mind that she could dispatch this nuisance quickly enough so that she could help Donnia before it was too late.
With the golem stationary Dorna made quick work of blasting out its shoulders to keep it from doing the same to her as it had done to Donnia. Dorna stopped and stood to face what was left of the once great golem; a tall torso with the head still attached that was having horrible noises coming from it that would have been borne of pain could the thing feel. She tightly gripped the handle to her hammer, not praying for true aim for she knew she had the ability without the interference of her god, but instead prayed that her companion would survive and that this golem would fall in one more blow, for that was all of the energy that Dorna had left.
Twisting her body to get a greater range to build her momentum, Dorna swung her hammer with both arms with all of the might she had left and sent the hammer flying powerfully into the head of the waiting golem. With a sound that could hardly be described, the head exploded into millions of pieces as the hammer rammed into it.
The torso fell over, crashing loudly into the floor, but Dorna barely registered the sound as she rushed over to pick up her hammer and moved quickly to Donnia's side. Donnia had not moved from the place where she had fallen after being thrown. Her arm was limp when Dorna raised it in her own. Dorna suddenly wished for the ring her teacher, Master Drogan, had given her and his other students that would teleport them back to his side should they ever come to harm greater than they could control. Thinking on her old teacher who had been killed in teleporting her and Telwern to this part of the desert pulled at Dorna's heart, but she did not have time now to think about it; Donnia needed her undivided attention.
Dorna quickly reached into her pack and removed the strongest healing potion she had and hoped it would be enough. She raised Donnia's head slowly and carefully, not wanting to cause more injury than she had already suffered. She pulled the cork out of the bottle with her teeth and spit it aside, and forced Donnia's lips to part and slowly poured the potion into Donnia's mouth hoping that instinct would overcome her incapacity to move and that she would swallow and not choke on the potion.
Dorna's pleas were answered as Donnia slowly swallowed the potion. Once the bottle had been drained, she kept Donnia's head propped up with her arm while the potion took effect. Dorna noticed as the shallow breaths being drawn by Donnia started to return to the normal deep breathing she would expect after such an ordeal.
Suddenly Donnia sat up and looked about her to find the enemy that had been there when she had lost consciousness, but no enemy was in sight. She saw only the shattered remains of the golem that had put her in this condition. The sudden movement had caused her to become very dizzy and her head was pounding. Donnia sat very still and cradled her hand softly with both of her hands as she waited for the room to stop spinning about her.
Dorna rose and offered a hand down to help Donnia rise from her position on the floor. Donnia gladly accepted the help and took her hand in her own and the two of them managed to get her off of the floor. Once Donnia was standing securely without wanting to fall over from the great dizziness that had overcome her, she looked down to Dorna. "Thank you," was all she could think to say. She wanted to say more, but no more words would come.
The dwarf woman smiled, "You are more than welcome, my lady. Shall we report back that all of the golems have been destroyed?"
Donnia said nothing but smiled in return. As the two started to walk to return to the main hall the great city shuddered again all around them. Without a word the two broke into a run; they were running out of time.
[A/N: Wow, I'm so glad that you all enjoy my story so much. I will keep on putting up the chapters as I complete them. Throughout most of the rest of the summer the chapters should come pretty quickly as I am out of school and don't work most evenings. More than likely I will be posting my story to ladiesofneverwinter.com sometime, or just putting a link there back to here. Either way, that sight is wonderful. So, thanks for all of your positive feedback. It's what keeps me writing!]