Chapter Four

Gra-Tuke gripped his axe tightly as he peered into the depths of the cavern. He could see no movement, but his instincts screamed to him of evil from the depths. Steeling himself, he began to descend into the darkness, carefully placing his feet to ensure secure footing and prevent a potentially disastrous slide down into the depths.

His concentration was broken as Elisha slid past him giggling with glee and lighting her way with crackling lightning. Watching her with amazement, he absently placed his foot a little bit too far forward. It quickly slipped out from under him on the slick surface and he joined her sliding down the steep slope. He did not giggle.

Luckily, the slope ended much more gently than it had begun and when they tumbled to a stop together at the bottom, they were not really injured, but any attempt at stealth had certainly been lost.

"What were you thinking?" Gra-Tuke growled at her. "We could have both been killed in the fall. How could you be so reckless?"

Elisha giggled a bit louder, pointing at Gra-Tuke's waist, completely oblivious to his ire. "You need, a…" she broke out in a full belly-laugh, "belt? Or do you like your pants around your ankles?" She collapsed to the floor of the cavern, laughing uncontrollably, lightning cracking throughout her hair and between her fingers.

Gra-Tuke roared in anger, hitched up his pants, and did his best to knot them to his shirt. He glared at Elisha and picked up his axe, shaking it in her direction. He was enraged, but this girl's laughter was so infective that he found himself suppressing a grin. He quickly turned away, clamping down on his own smile.

"Compose yourself, woman, we have work to do." His jaw hurt from the effort required to keep his voice level and not give in and laugh along with her.

Elisha, still laughing, rolled over to a kneeling position and wiped a tear from her eye. "Yes, work. Work, work, work. Come on, lighten up, big guy. If you don't have a sense of humor, you'll get killed in this business."

Gra-Tuke had turned back to face her, the anger fading as the mirth slowly took hold. His grimace relaxed and he smiled back. Briefly. "There. I lightened up. Now can we get going already? Time is running out and I can brook no delay."

All mirth had left Elisha's voice as she rose to her feet. "Well, if you're so all-fired up to get going and start fighting, you might want to turn around now."

Gra-Tuke spun around, axe a t the ready as a group of waist-high demons, the offspring of some fallen god poured into the chamber chanting and calling out to their god for support. He charged into the thick of them, axe flashing as it slashed through their flesh and bone alike.

Elisha, for her part, filled the cavern with pockets of electricity crawling along the floor in a seeming haphazard pattern. Whenever one of the fallen demons was touched by the crawling electrical charges, the charge leapt into them, causing them to shake violently for a moment before dropping to the floor, lifeless.

In a matter of moments, all of the fallen demons lie dead at their feet and the two companions stood ready to take on more. Gra-Tuke, himself, was amazed at the power of the young sorceress' power. He had attacked as fast and as furious as ever, yet she had easily felled more than he. She had even killed the shaman that he had only noticed by the ball of flame that had passed within inches of his head.

"Your lightning powers are amazing to behold. You must have felled three times as many of these as I."

Elisha chuckled. "They weren't all that tough, so it was pretty easy. If we run into something really tough, it may go a little bit different." As she spoke, she searched the bodies of the dead, looking for anything useful. "Damn, no mana at all. I guess I'll just have to wait to recharge."

Gra-Tuke decided to perform his own search of the dead and was surprised at how much the sorceress had missed. He squeezed the essence out of a combination of the demon's internal organs into empty vials. With a shake, the contents began to glow with the familiar blue of the spiritual energy commonly referred to as mana.

He handed the vials to Elisha, nudging her out of her meditative state. "Here, you missed these. I'm actually surprised that a sorceress wouldn't know how to find such things.

"Where did you find those?" She was shocked as she had searched the bodies completely. She didn't hesitate in drinking down the contents of one of the soothing blue vials.

"Well, that one came mostly from the livers of those two with a piece of that one's spine." Gra-Tuke responded, pointing at three of the savaged bodies.

Elisha nearly choked in surprise. "That's NOT funny!"

Gra-Tuke looked at her, his face locked in a deadpan expression of puzzlement. "No, it's not meant to be funny. Is something wrong?"

She stared at him in horror. "You mean, I just drank…Eeewww! Oh, don't even. Ugh!" She started fumbling in her pack, looking for something to wipe the taste out of her mouth.

"Perhaps it would be better if I told you that I found them tucked in one of their boots."

"Yes, you musclebound dolt!"

"Well, it would be wrong, but if it makes you feel better, I found them hidden in their boots. Now, gather yourself. There are many more where these came from." He started down the dark corridor, just barely suppressing a grin. It doesn't take electricity to shock someone, little girl.

Quickly, Elisha joined him still wiping her mouth out with a cloth she had pulled out of her pack.


In the hours that passed since their first encounter with the fallen demons, the pair had refined their fighting strategy, working together surprisingly well as they killed demon and undead alike. It seemed as if the growing horde had not expected the pair to attack their base of operations and were not ready for them. This helped things along considerably.

They had fought countless demons and undead and now were confronted by the most unusual zombie of them all. It was clad in armor and glowed with a sickening yellow light. It was surrounded by a half-dozen other zombies, but both could tell that this one was special.

"You think this one's the leader?" Elisha stared at the glowing zombie and considered the last mana potion she had left. Despite Gra-Tuke's amazing ability to find more of the potions (she had stopped thinking about where they came from), she only had one left.

"I'm sure it's a learder of some sort, but zombies aren't exactly the smartest of things we have run into here. If it leads, it must lead through sheer power. This will be a dangerous test of our abilities." Gra-Tuke repositioned his hands on his axe and prepared to leap into battle.

"Do you think you can take the big one while I work on the others?" All mirth had left Elisha's voice and she had become deadly serious at the sight of the glowing creature.

"I will do as best I can, but my axe has become very dull and the haft has begun to crack. I don't know how much more of this it can take."

Elisha nodded, wondering why the musclebound idiot still relied on physical weapons when the power of the elements was so much more reliable. That is, as long as the mana held out. She signaled her readiness and waited for Gra-Tuke's response.

He bunched his legs under himself and prepared to launch himself at the glowing zombie. With a wave at Elisha, he was off and running. She followed somewhat behind. Once he closed the distance to the group, he weaved his way through the slow-moving zombies, dodging their clumsy swings. He neared the glowing zombie at nearly the same time as Elisha began her own attack.

Elisha stood several paces from the zombies and simply stared in amazement as her companion spun, ducked, and twisted past the rough circle of zombies surrounding the glowing one. She was snapped out of her trance as one of the zombies reached out for her. She reacted with a wave of crawling electricity. The zombie nearly exploded.

Meanwhile, Gra-Tuke swung his axe in a great arc, aiming for the joint between the neck and shoulder of the undead monstrosity before him. The zombie's arm raised up in defense, but not fast enough to stop the axe. The blade bit deeply into the glowing, corrupted flesh and stuck halfway into the shoulder. Grunting from the effort, Gra-Tuke pulled hard on the axe to dislodge it, but the strain was just too much for the battered weapon. The handle snapped in two, sending the now off-balance Gra-Tuke stumbling backwards into the crowd of zombies.

With surprising speed, the zombies began to slam their decaying limbs into the fallen hero's body. The blows rained down upon the struggling barbarian as he tried in vain to regain his feet. His vision swam as a particularly potent blow struck the back of his head. The voices of his ancestors began to call to him, beckoning for him to let go and join them.

Elisha very nearly panicked and ran when she saw the barbarian thrown backwards into the crowd of the walking, moaning dead. She did panic, but instead of turning tail and fleeing, she launched as much crackling energy as she could muster. She reached down to the depths of her soul and pulled spiritual energy from deep down inside, tapping reserves she never knew she had.

The sensation was something she had never fully experienced before. It refreshed her spirit, body, and soul. It vaguely reminded her of what her instructors had called training plateaus, but this was by far more intense. She felt a new wellspring of power and unleashed it upon the zombies. They fell away from Gra-Tuke, twitching in their final death throes. Quickly, she rushed forward to him, placing herself between the barbarian and the glowing zombie still intent on both of their deaths.

"You want some spark?" Elisha blustered, brandishing a crackling fist at the approaching creature.

It simply moaned in response. She swore that she actually heard it moan the words "corpse fire." She shrugged and thought to herself. If it wants to be a corpse on fire, I can make that happen. She downed what was left of her last mana potion feeling the spiritual power coursing through her body. She then stepped forward and unleashed all the crackling energy she could muster, sending it crawling across the floor and leaping into the zombie.

The glowing zombie was engulfed in the energy, but still managed to struggle forward, despite Elisha's best efforts. She grew increasingly worried as she was nearly exhausted, and still the abomination advanced. Only a few more steps and it would be upon her.

Gra-Tuke shook his head, clearing his vision at last. The blows from the zombies had stopped suddenly and he was finally starting to recover his wits. Out of the haze of his swimming vision, he began to make out two shapes in front of him. One resolved itself into Elisha, crackling with more energy than he had ever seen her use before, and the second was the glowing zombie, engulfed within the energies Elisha was generating. The zombie was advancing, apparently not terribly affected by the energy. Gra-Tuke knew Elisha was in trouble.

He rolled to his feet and grabbed his…his axe was missing? His vision flashed across the cavern floor, scanning for his trusty weapon. Quickly, he remembered what had happened. His memory was confirmed when he saw the axe head protruding from the zombie's shoulder. It seemed as if all of the crackling lightning was arcing to the weapon, but the zombie did not seem to notice.

It was now a step from the young sorceress, and she was staggering backwards, her energy waning, her body exhausted. Gra-Tuke stepped forward. With no weapon in his hands, he decided to improvise.

He balled his fists together and slammed them down as hard as he could on the head of his axe. It hurt his hand terribly, but it drove the axe head deeper into the zombie's decaying flesh. The zombie moaned and struck at Gra-Tuke, a blow easily avoided with a twist of the body. Gra-Tuke desperately slammed his fists down upon the axe-head again and again, driving it deeper, like a wedge into a log. Finally, like the logs he had spent so much time splitting, the zombie fell in two pieces.

Panting, Gra-Tuke stepped back as Elisha rushed up to him. Both thoroughly exhausted, they leaned on each other. They marveled as a shaft of pure, white light, highlighted the area. It refreshed them enough that they could stand on their own again.

"That didn't go quite like we had planned it, eh, big guy?"

"No, everything seems to have gone wrong." Gra-Tuke bent down and picked up his broken axe. The axe head was still intact, but the shaft was ruined. Interestingly, the axe-head seemed to glow with a faint blue light now. "My axe broke, and well, everything hurts. Not the glorious victory I had expected."

"Hey, now, silly, you still have the axe-head. Charsi can fix the stick part no problem and…hey, let me see that." Gra-Tuke handed her the axe-head which she examined closely. "You see this glow? There's some magic in there. I have a scroll that might help me figure out what magic it is."

Elisha spent the next few minutes pouring over the axe, following the instructions on the parchment precisely. Finally, she smiled and handed the axe head back to Gra-Tuke. "Let's get back to the camp."

"Yes, let's return to the armed camp where they point arrows at me every time I move. That's precisely where I want to go."

"Oh, lighten up already. It'll be fine. Come on already." She started the long walk back through the caverns without looking back.

"Wait a minute. What did you find out about my axe?"

"Oh, that? It's broken and needs to be fixed." Her grin was growing as she began to skip her way through the cavern.

Gra-Tuke hurried after Elisha. "Is that all? Nothing else?"

"Oh, well, it does have a small enchantment on it…" She broke into a run, jumping over stalagmites and dodging around pillars, giggling the whole way. "But, if you really want to know, you'll have to catch me!"

Gra-Tuke charged after her, surprised at the speed the woman could muster over such short distances. He was gaining on her, but she had a big lead. He knew, however, that he could run her down over the long haul. Just like a deer. Run all you like, I will catch you in the end.

Near the entrance to the cave he did finally catch up to her, only to see her touch a strange rock formation and take off running as effortlessly as if she had not taken a single pace at all. He pursued as best he could, but simply could not catch her until she paused at the gate to the Rogue's camp.

Not breathing heavily at all, she laughed at him as he came huffing and panting up to her.

"How…could…you…keep…running like that?" His chest was heaving, sucking in air in great gulps.

She chuckled at him, "Magic, silly." and then proceeded to trot off to see Charsi about fixing a few items. Gra-Tuke followed, unsure of what magic she was referring to.