Staff of Shigmar: Chapter 9, Part 3

12 May 2026

Welcome back for another installment from the second book of our epic, Staff of Shigmar! We return to our heroes, still moving through the elemental realm of earth, and learn who they think is trapped, about to be sacrificed by the strange creatures of this stranger place, and the argument over who each believes he sees. . . . (2 February 2015) We remind all readers that this book, Staff of Shigmar, as also the first book, is free for download from Smashwords! Glossary links: Book 2, Book 1

Chapter 9, Part 3

The others nodded, and all moved quickly onto the path. Almost as soon as they entered the left way, a clearing opened, different from the others: this one was a depression, like a shallow bowl, with rocks like standing stones around the rim providing cover, as if they were supposed to see into the bowl without being seen by any who might be below. They took cover behind the rocks, looking carefully down. They could hear clinking sounds, and a rhythmic grinding sound that they soon discovered was stony chanting. Below, they saw a flat area at the bottom of the depression, a stone pillar at its center, surrounded by a score of the stone creatures, who appeared to be dancing and chanting around the stone pillar. Next to the pillar stood another stone creature, waving a rod topped with some kind of feathers. The stone pillar was revolving slowly, at the same speed as the creatures who circled, but in the opposite direction, and sinking slowly into the sand. As it turned, they could see chains binding something to the pillar, then they saw what was clearly a female figure, which caused them all to watch the pillar more closely.

“It looks like . . . ,” Tevvy started to say, before the others, since his awemi eyes could see farther than the eyes of his companions, “but that can’t be true; she can’t be here,” he finished looking both concerned and puzzled.

“Who do you see?” Klaybear asked.

“An awema I know, named Elanor,” he whispered, “she graduated from my father’s school with me; we grew up together, I think our mothers . . . ,” he started to say, but was interrupted by the kortexi.

“The figure is too large to be an awema,” Blakstar objected, “she is a wetha; she looks like . . . ,” he trailed off, not completing his thought.

“Your eyes are wrong,” Thal said, “and I don’t know how you could know her, she is from the village near my master’s tower.”

Klaybear did not speak, more puzzled than before, as he thought he saw Klare chained to that revolving pillar, about to be sacrificed to some stone deity.

“You wethem are blind!” Tevvy exclaimed, “she’s shorter than me, so she cannot be who you think she is!”

As they argued, the stone pillar lurched and sank deeper into the sand; the figure chained to the pillar screamed. Blakstar growled and leapt to his feet, and, before the others could stop him, he was running down the hill, brandishing his golden, flaming sword. They were so stunned by his sudden action that no one spoke or moved until he reached the bottom of the depression and shouldered his way past the circling stone creatures. Klaybear, Tevvy, and Thal stood and followed him, but as they stepped out from behind their cover and started to run down the hill, the kortexi had swung his sword at the creature next to the pillar, cutting off one of its stony arms. Predictably, it fell down before Blakstar, prone upon the sand. They heard Blakstar’s command, echoing around the shallow bowl.

“Release her!” he shouted, “and send her back!”

The prone stone creature waved its remaining arm, and both pillar and victim vanished. Blakstar stabbed his sword into the single glowing eye of the prone creature, destroying it. The circling creatures stopped, apparently stunned into inaction by the sudden appearance of the glowing kortexi.

“Idiot!” Tevvy exclaimed, stopping. “What’s he going to do now, surrounded by twenty creatures who are not going to be happy that he interrupted their sacrifice? Run, you fool!” he shouted at Blakstar. “Before they close ranks!” Tevvy grabbed and stopped Klaybear and Thal, dragging them with him as he turned back up the hill.

Tevvy’s shout brought Blakstar back to himself, and he immediately ran toward the others, removing the heads from two of the stone creatures as he passed through their circle and started back up the hill. The other creatures turned and started after the fleeing kortexi and his companions. Tevvy and the others reached the top of the bowl and turned at the entrance to the path. What they saw stunned them: the stone creatures did not run after the kortexi, but their short legs had vanished, and they were rolling forward on the stone that formed their lower torso, quickly moving up the hill and nearly upon Blakstar.

“Can you slow them down?” Tevvy asked.

In reply, Klaybear whipped out his staff, pointed it at the stone creature closest to the kortexi, shooting a bolt of green fire, which struck the stone creature and blew it apart. Thal raised his rod and shouted, “Plotugel!” A stream of water issued from the tip of his rod, hitting the sand behind Blakstar and freezing into a sheet of ice about ten feet square. The stone creatures behind the kortexi lost traction, but only for a moment, until their bulk broke through the ice. However, that moment was enough, and Blakstar reached the place where the others waited. They backed into the path, Klaybear swapping his staff for his mace as Blakstar turned back to fight the stone creatures. Klaybear smashed the head of the first one to approach; Blakstar stabbed the eye of the second, and the stones that made up the two creatures fell apart, blocking the entrance to the path. They turned to follow Tevvy and Thal, who had already reached the fork.

“We should turn again at the fork in the path,” Blakstar said, looking over his shoulder, “to slow them down again.”

Klaybear looked back and saw that the remaining stone creatures were pushing past the stones of their fallen comrades. “Not for long,” he noted.

“It will be enough,” Blakstar added as they turned down the other path.

They again turned and waited only moments before dispatching two more creatures and blocking the path. Klaybear looked up and saw more of the stone creatures coming from the previous clearing toward them.

“There are more coming,” Klaybear said as they turned to flee again.

“I saw them,” Blakstar replied, looking over his shoulder periodically as they ran. “We will have to turn again, soon.”

Klaybear nodded, looking ahead. “It doesn’t look like we have far to go; the others appear to have entered another clearing.”

“And what will they find?” Blakstar asked. “More of these creatures, I suspect. They are nearly upon us,” he noted after glancing back again. “We need a good archer,” he mumbled.

Klaybear heard and smiled, getting ready to turn.

“Now!” Blakstar exclaimed, stopping suddenly and turning to stab his sword into the eye of the closest stone creature. It fell apart, causing the creature behind it to stumble. Klaybear brought his mace down hard, crushing the stone head of the second creature. The two creatures’ remains blocked the path and again, momentarily halted their pursuit. Blakstar and Klaybear turned and ran, hoping they could catch up to Thal and Tevvy before their pursuers could catch them again. They heard grinding stone behind them, and looking back, saw their pursuers pushing the stones blocking the path out of the way.

“They are getting better,” Klaybear quipped as they ran.

Blakstar shook his head. “How many more are following us?”

“It is hard to tell,” Klaybear replied, “since vision here is obscured by dust.”

“Too many for us to handle easily, I’d say,” Blakstar said.

“I fear you are right, which seems to contradict what we were told,” the kailu noted, “equal opposition.”

The kortexi looked back and saw the stone creatures were, again, gaining on them, and turned back to Klaybear. “We’ll have to stop them just before the next clearing opens, if we want to have any chance of surviving.”

“Let’s hope there are not more of them waiting for us,” Klaybear replied.

Blakstar nodded. “A little further, I think,” he noted, continuing to glance back periodically. They could see the opening twenty yards ahead of them, and they took four more strides and turned, ready to attack. When the first pair of stone creatures neared them, Blakstar lunged forward, stabbing out the eye and sidestepping as the pieces of the stone creature rolled past him. Klaybear swung overhand and sidestepped, bringing his mace down on the second stone creature’s head, crushing it. The pieces crashed into the remains of the first, blocking the path behind them. Before they could leap over the stones, the next pair of creatures were upon them, so they both repeated their previous actions, sending more stones to pile against the others blocking the path behind them.

“I think we made a mistake,” Klaybear said.

Blakstar nodded, lunging for his third stone creature, stabbing out the eye; Klaybear swung at his third, crushing another stone head. However, the pursuit had caught up to them, so the stone remains of these two did not roll as far as the others, which gave the kortexi an idea. “Go!” he shouted to Klaybear. “I’ll hold them here!” He turned to lunge toward his fourth stone creature, stabbing out its eye. He parried the swing of the next creature, but before he could stab out its eye, a bolt of green power passed over his right shoulder, then it struck the eye of the creature whose blow he had parried. The bolt flashed and sizzled for a moment, the creature shuddered and fell apart, the orange gem going suddenly dark and sliding from the eye socket.

“Now!” Klaybear shouted from behind, and Blakstar ducked and rolled beneath a second green bolt, coming to his feet again and leaping over the stone remains that had stopped just behind them; Klaybear stood grinning at him, pointing his staff toward their pursuers. The kailu opened his mouth to speak, but stopped suddenly, hearing Thal’s voice from behind them.

“Duck!” the white maghi shouted, pointing his rod in their direction. Both dropped immediately to the ground. “Strelo-sporna-okwum!” A bolt of yellow lightning leapt from the tip of Thal’s rod, touching the eyes of the next three stone creatures, who were trying to push the stony remains of their fallen comrades out of the way. All three stopped and started shaking, as smaller bolts of lightning forked from Thal’s main bolt, surrounding their bodies with crackling electricity.

On the ground, Klaybear heard and recognized Thal’s incantation. “Stay down!” he hissed to the kortexi. Both felt their hair standing up, hearing the bolt of lightning crackling overhead. As quickly as it had flashed to life, the bolt winked out, but the three closest creatures remained, for a few moments longer, encased in forking bolts of lightning, shuddering and grinding, until the lightning winked out, and the three creatures fell apart, the charred remains of their gemstone eyes falling to the ground.

“Quickly!” Thal exclaimed, “while we have time!”

Klaybear and Blakstar jumped to their feet, half leaping, half crawling over the stones blocking the pathway and entering the sandy clearing where Thal and Tevvy were waiting for them. This clearing was as small as the first one they had entered, what seemed to them days ago; there was no other pathway, except the one on which they had entered, and the boulders surrounding this small clearing leaned over the clearing, threatening to collapse and cover the sandy space.

“Over here,” Tevvy said, waving to them from the side farthest away from the path. “I think I found the way out.”

They could hear the grinding sounds of the stone creatures, pushing the remains of their fallen comrades out of the way. They rushed over to where the awemi squatted, brushing sand off a portal stone, next to a pile of bones that included a skull. Thal squatted next to him, examining the stone.

Blakstar nudged the bones with his boot. “Looks like he didn’t quite make it,” he noted.

Klaybear nodded. “That could have been us, if we did not get lucky back there,” he added, turning to the others.

“There,” Thal said, touching a symbol on the stone with a glowing finger.

A gray shimmering archway, similar to the one opened by Blakstar’s sword, flared to life in the air before them. At the same moment, the stones blocking the pathway into the small clearing ground out of the way, and their pursuers rushed toward them. They stepped through the archway and back into Shigmar’s tomb.

Come back on Thursday as our heroes move into a different elemental realm, one that will not test their combat skills, but their ability to endure extreme conditions. For those who wish to read on, get a full ebook copy from Smashwords for free! If you prefer print, purchase your copy from the link provided. Good reading!