The Nightmare Beneath the Sand

The Nightmare Beneath the Sand 10

A Note:  This runs co-current to Chapter 9. Thank you. 

Once he had separated from Alaric, Leon headed for a hidden spot away from where they had. He pulled off his bag, deciding that he should leave it behind for what was to come. He could always head back up, having memorized the layout of the maze for just such a plan. Taking his bag off his bag, he put it into a corner before removing a bottle of water. He found the water bottle harness and pulled it over his head before wrapping the waist strap around his waist.

He then picked up the sword and stared at it, pulling it free from the sheath. The pommel was round with an ankh carved into the metal while the grip looked to be rewrapped in red dyed leather. The cross-guard was simple, just a straight piece of metal but it looked good enough to do its job. The rain guard was just as simple. It was the fuller that was interesting.

Down the well of it, there was a prayer for strength and the ability to take the creature down if not kill it. Leon stroked his fingers over the amazingly small prayer before taking a deep breath and returning it to its sheath. It had been obvious to him when he had first seen it as it was obvious now that whoever had made it had not been used to creating such a sword. They had created it with a guiding hand that had built it for someone of his style of fighting and of his body type. It wasn't too big. It wasn't too small. And it was perfectly balanced.

Placing it on his back, he adjusted the belt that held it in place a few times, making sure that it wasn't going to move as much as it would normally. He adjusted the rest of his things around it before nodding.

Ready for what was to come, he doubled checked that his headscarf was firmly on his head and his earbud was still in place before standing up and leaving the room. Listening to his lover breath before nodding, Leon turned to the left handed path and went down it, picking up his pace into a soft run, glad that he had kept his conditioning for long distance running up as he found the metal column.

He had read that the column had been placed into the maze when the maze had been just a way to amuse the creature as a way as to call out a challenge. Pulling the sword free, he used the pommel to hit the column hard, feeling it reverberate throughout the area and ring out through the maze. He heard his lover mutter about how the sound was loud and long, idly wondering if he would have the chance to find out how the sound was carried throughout the maze but pushed that thought aside.

He felt the ground shake under his feet, hissing as he shifted, the creature coming after him quickly. Deciding that he should start to run, he turned down where he could feel the tremors coming from and caught a look of the creature.

Running down away from the creature, his eyes wide, Leon choked on a hysterical laugh. "The fuck? When did a Chinese Dragon get fucked by a Mongolian Death Worm?" he yelled as he hooked a hard left down a long hallway that he knew would lead to the fourth floor and where he needed to be.

He had to keep it away from his lover as the other man worked his way down the smaller hidden paths where he could to get to the book. He frowned as he swerved down a path that lead down to the fourth floor, falling onto his ass as something in his brain shifted and a soothing warmth spread through him. As the warmth spread, he barely noticed when he slid down the soft sand of the path and landed on his feet, continuing to run.

"The hell?" he panted, swearing, and finding a small room that he could rest in for a moment while he tried to regain his balance. His lover's voice came through in his ear as he pulled the door open.

"I found one of your ex-students."

Panting, Leon closed the door behind him. "Did you?" he asked quietly. "I've got two seconds before I have to head out." He winced at the growling creature that slithered past his hiding place.

Alaric's grunt and the sound of him drinking from his bottle came to Leon as he did the same thing, drinking from his bottle in light sips. "Found her journal. Keep doing what you need to do, I'll speed scan and see what she was doing here," he promised Leon. Leon grunted around his water bottle and sucked a bit more water into his mouth, letting it trickle down. Shoving his bottle back into place, he turned to the door.

Opening the door, with a quick look around, he started to run with the sound of ruffling papers in one ear, keeping the other ear cocked to the creature as it caught wind of his scent again. Alaric's voice came again as he dodged around a corner, a piece of stone catching his headscarf and forcing him to pull it off, freeing his hair with a curse. Continuing to run, he came across a large room, mind labeling it that it was the fighting room. It was one of four rooms where a person could face the creature without worrying about running into walls and had three ways out.

Two of them were for the humans, and one was for the creature itself.

Sliding to a stop in the middle of the room, Leon looked to the two hallways and waited for the creature to come after him. He could hear it talking about how it would rip and tear his body apart before devouring his soul, denying him the afterlife for all of eternity. Tilting his head as a voice whispered that there were people outside, waiting to come to the creature and release it upon the world, he frowned.

"I'll think about the fact that I'm hearing voices later," he muttered, pulling his sword free and holding it in a careful two-handed hold, adjusting his stance. The creature slithered out of the hallway with a hiss, eyes staring down at him as it stood up, as much as it could, on it's hindlegs. "Bring it, bitch," he hissed, watching it swing it's tail at him.

He grunted when he threw his body to the side, dodging the tail by a narrow margin, rolling and coming back up onto his feet. Once more, he lifted the sword and held himself in position, waiting for it to make it's move. The hiss made him shudder in disgust, but he kept his position.

Suddenly the creature paused, eyes narrowing as it turned his head to the secondary hallway, mumbling something about another human being in it's maze. Once more, Leon ignored the fact that a second voice was translating the words that rolled and rumbled in a different way than the languages that he knew. He yelped when the creature turned and went down another hallway, quickly following behind it, calling it out for ditching their fight for something not worth it's time.

He skidded around the corner just in time to hear his lover taunt the creature and roll past the protection border of the book on the pedestal. He snarled, feeling the warmth from earlier flare through him as he hefted his sword once more. "It's your turn to go down, worm!" Leon cried out as he ran to the creature. He would destroy the creature or hold it off long enough for Alaric to do what he needed to do and then walk out of the maze.

He would then do his job, maybe punch the bastards who had decided to open the damn tomb up, and then go home. He would tell Alaric to contact the father he had never known and spill his history to his lover.

He figured it was time considering they were fighting a creature as old as time together.