“Master Cyrus, look out!”
Cyrus felt steely grips grasp his shoulders. He elbowed at the darkness. Teeth clenched at his neck. Cyrus palmed a bony face, crushing a nose on impact. The grip loosened. He felt sand rain down his back.
“Thank the Angels, Edward.”
“Just keep digging,” Edward growled.
Cyrus heaved stones as fast as he could. His skin goose-pimpled as he waited for the next savage to strike. Rocks began to slide, bruising his toes and snagging his gloved fingers. He peered over his shoulder. Fibian’s two eyes darted about like fireflies.
“We’re getting close,” Edward said.
The shafts of light began to grow larger. Tier hollered out in pain.
“Tier?” Cyrus cried.
“Keep digging!” Fibian demanded.
Cyrus heard footsteps scramble towards him. He turned but found only darkness. A crossbow snapped. A body crashed to the floor at his feet.
“You must dig!” Fibian demanded.
Cyrus pulled at rock until his fingers bled. He began to see gray skies and snowy hills beyond the stone barrier.
“We’re almost through,” he called back.
“Make sure the opening is big enough for Madam Tier,” Fibian said, “Then climb through.”
Another rockslide gave way, splashing gray light over the threshold. Cyrus scrambled free from the slide, twisting his right ankle on the uneven ground.
“Angels!”
Behind him, Fibian used his mechanical hand to drag Tier towards the newly exposed exit.
“Run,” he yelled, slaying three wendigo with one sword stroke.
Cyrus searched for his crossbow. It was lost in the rockslide. He placed Edward in his jacket and climbed free of the volcano.
“Fibian, hurry,” he called back, hopping on his left leg.
The froskman appeared at the opening, Tier in tow. The yeti was unconscious, her head bloodied. From the darkness within, her lifeless body was jerked backward.
“No,” Edward shouted.
Cyrus reached in and grabbed Fibian by the coat. The froskman dropped his sword and held onto Tier with both hands. Tier began to rouse. Cyrus and Fibian dragged her into the light, along with the faces of several silently screaming white wendigo. Again, the wendigo yanked Tier backward. Tier’s head seemed to clear. She began to kick free. Several more horrified faces appeared out of the murk. Cyrus pulled as hard as he could manage. The yeti would not budge.
“I am losing my grip,” Fibian said.
Cyrus could feel himself and Fibian begin to give ground. They were being pulled back into the cave.
“No,” Edward screamed.
The sound of several bows thrummed from over their shoulders. Oily black arrows buried themselves in the faces of many of the wendigo. Grips loosened. Cyrus and Fibian gained the upper hand and pulled Tier free of the mountain. All four crashed to the ground at the foot of the rock slide.
“Who goes there?” demanded a high-pitched voice, the words warbled around the edges.
Cyrus froze, his skin flushed and sweaty beneath the furs.
“Water klops…” Edward whispered.
Chapter 22
OUT OF THE FUNERAL
AND INTO THE PYRE
A BLACK NET CRASHED over the group. Cyrus tried to escape. He became caught up in the sharp mesh. He slipped in the snow and twisted his ankle further.
“An escaped yeto with a pair of cave weirds?”
Cyrus looked up. He saw a fat klops, wearing a steel helmet, staring down at him. He kicked and tore at the netting.
“Stay calm, young Master,” Fibian whispered.
Another creature loped up the snowy hill, his crossbow trained on the group. The villain was about five feet tall. His legs were like narrow tree limbs and his chest was encased in armor too large for his frame.
“They’re wearing clothing,” he said, confused.
Cyrus looked around. There were six klops in total. Two had bows and four had crossbows. All weapons were aimed at the group. All were charged with poison dipped projectiles.
Cyrus looked to Tier. The yeti seemed weak and confused.
The gills in the pudgy klop’s neck flared.
“The cave weirds better not be getting any smarter.”
“You fool,” spat the skinny klops, “If it was two of their like, they’d be dead already. Look around you, daylight.”
“Maybe that’s what the clothing’s for,” retorted the fat scoundrel.
“Chain ‘em up,” ordered the skinny klops.
“We’ve only shackles for the yeto,” the fat one said, “The other two are too small.”
“Whatever they is, I say we kill ‘em all,” said a third, his nose crooked and bandaged in bloody cloth.
All six klops focused their aim.
“Wait a minute,” Cyrus shouted.
“It talks?” the fat one asked, its lips chapped and cracked.
“Aaah!”
The klops furthest from Cyrus grasped his neck. The other five looked back, their weapons still trained on the trespassers. The villain pulled his hand away and stared at a snow-white spider, hissing in his palm. Then the fiend dissolved into a mound of sand.
“What in the deep?” the skinny klops asked, his aim drooping.
Tier erupted like a bear from her den. She ripped the netting from overtop of the group and barreled into the first two klops. Their arrows spat off in random directions.
Fibian charged the next two. The klops fired their arrows at the froskman. Fibian caught the first with his good hand and took the second on his mechanical arm. He stabbed the first klops through the eye-slit of its steel helmet and clubbed the second with his wood and metal forearm.
Cyrus picked up a rock and took cover behind Fibian. His ankle was swollen and hot in his boot. The remaining klops ran off down the hill.
“It’s going to warn others,” Edward cried.
Cyrus scooped up a bow and arrow and remembered Fibian’s training. He lined his target up with the arrow shaft and pulled the nock to the corner of his mouth. He exhaled and let go. The arrow buried itself in the klops’ calf. The fiend tripped to the ground and began to crawl down the ravine. Then he rolled to his back and started to claw at his throat, before moving no more.
“Filthy poisoned arrows,” Tier spat, rising to her feet, “Got what it deserved.
“Your rifle?” Edward asked, crawling across Cyrus’ back.
“Lost in the cave,” Tier said, feeling her forehead.
The flow of blood from her scalp seemed to be ebbing.
“These klops weapons will have to do,” Fibian said, drawing the arrow from his mechanical hand.
He inspected his artificial arm’s workings, then pumped its lever several times, recharging its grip.
Cyrus picked up a quiver of arrows; Fibian and Tier collected crossbows.
Fibian took the lead as they made their way down the foot of the scraping volcano and through a barren gully. Sharp cliffs reinforced each side of the path, while dark skies pressed down from above.
Fibian peeked around a bend in the gulch. Cyrus joined him. Fibian put a finger to his lips, then pointed up.
Crouched on teetering cliffs, fifty feet above the twisting culvert, two water klops stood lookout on each side of the ravine. Off in the distance, further down the pass, two more forms perched atop opposing sides of the gorge.
“There will be sentries all the way down the pass,” Fibian whispered, “It will be difficult to take them out with a bow from this range.”
“I don’t trust the aim of these klops weapons,” Tier said, “One mistake and they’ll send warning all the way down to their main encampment.”
“We have to try,” Cyrus said, “What if you two take aim at the furthest one with your crossbows, and I aim for the nearest with my bow?”
“Or I could take to the cliffs,” Fibian said, “take them out one at a time.”
“Too risky,” Tier said.
Cyrus and Tier looked at each other, then reluctantly nodded.
“Wait a minute,” Edward said, “I think there’s a safer way. Cyrus, remember the klappen’s lair?”
Chapter 23
SHEEP IN WOLVES’ CLOTHING
CYRUS LIMPED DOWN THE RAVINE, trying to project the impression that he belonged there. Blood pounded through his system. The klops armor smelt of rotten seaweed and skunk cabbage. To finish their filthy guises, Cyrus and Fibian had coated their furs with klops blood and hid their faces behind helmets of steel. Cyrus found shackles on one of the dead klops. He had fit them to Tier’s wrists. She walked between Cyrus and Fibian, her head down and shoulders slumped.
“Remember,” Fibian said, quietly, “Our goal is to get within the camp and find Gammal. No unnecessary risks.”
“Walk more hunched, like they do,” Edward whispered.
The spider hid within Cyrus’ collar. Cyrus hunched low, favoring his right leg.
“What’s you got there?” shouted a lookout from the clifftop.
Cyrus’ skin nearly leaped from his body.
“An escaped yeto,” Fibian said, trying to imitate a klops voice.
The hum in his words seemed too smooth to Cyrus.
“Where are the other four?”
“Dead, back that-a-way,” Fibian replied, “The yeto got ‘em.”
“You better not have eaten any of ‘em,” the sentry shouted down.
The lookout directly across the ravine sounded a deep, trumpeting horn. Several more sentries, further down the gorge, echoed the call.
Was that the alarm? Should they turn and run? Cyrus froze.
“Keep moving,” the first lookout ordered.
His voice sounded bored and unconcerned.
“They are just announcing our arrival,” Fibian whispered, “We are undetected. Our identities are safe.”
Cyrus exhaled a long-held breath and continued forward.
Over the rise, dark gray smog befouled the skies. The water klops mines, Cyrus thought. He and Fibian escorted Tier down the winding pass, past three more sentry posts, and around a bend in the gully. Two armed guards stood atop a stone gate. One climbed down.
“An escaped yeto?” he shrieked, “How did it get out?”
Cyrus shrugged, shaking his head and adjusting his helmet. He was sweating and itchy, as if under a hot lamp.
“I’m asking a question,” the guard continued, poking a black tipped spear into Tier’s throat.
Tier roared like a bear, baring her large, white teeth to the gums. The klops leaped backward, falling to his backside. His partner on the wall chuckled. The first guard tried to regain his composure.
“Take it to General Morte,” the klops shrieked, grasping up his spear.
He thrust the weapon towards the gate entrance.
“We’ll see how fierce you are after he’s done with you,” the guard seethed, his bulbous eyes shifting back and forth between Cyrus, Fibian and Tier.
The four stepped through the passage. The path opened up onto a frozen precipice. Below, a massive worksite splayed out, touching all four corners of a barren gorge. Near the far edge of the mine, set into the foot of a soaring mountainside, a pair of hulking, steel doors towered over the camp. Above the doors, four columns of smoke issued from the living rock.
It was as if a black star had fallen from the heavens and crashed to earth, clearing rock and rubble for the water klops to breed. The sounds of shouting and hammering rang throughout the camp.
“Keep moving, yeto,” Fibian said, prodding Tier with his crossbow.
Cyrus’ began to feel as if the entire camp was closing in. There’s hundreds of the monsters, he thought.
“Make way,” a thick klops shouted.
“Yeti…” Edward whispered, from Cyrus’ collar.
Four of Tier’s kinsmen crossed their path carrying a massive, steel plate. Three squat klops cracked them with whips. The yeti’s feet were shackled together. Their coats were matted and oily, and their flesh clung to their ribs like a starving wolf’s. One looked up.
“Tier?”
“Keep moving,” one of the klops shouted, striking the giants with his whip.
The group carried on. Cyrus and Fibian marched Tier across a mix of sludge and snow.
“How do we find Gammal?” Cyrus whispered.
“I will recognize him,” Tier said.
Around them, yeti labored shoulder to shoulder, constantly under klops supervision. The smell of metallic gases and bog stench mingled in the frigid air.
To Cyrus’ left a large, oval quarry yawned deep and wide. The pit had been excavated ten feet at a time, creating a massive theater-like crater, three layers deep. Within, yeti were chained to large iron forges, pounding out massive sheets of four-inch-thick steel. Above, water klops bickered and fussed as they fashioned crude swords and rickety armor from poorly smelted iron.
A fight between two klops broke out on the path in front of Cyrus.
“Watch where you’re swinging that thing,” a black-bearded klops screeched.
“Shut your fool mouth and stay off my heels,” retorted a tall, weedy scoundrel.
A large scar distorted the left side of his face.
“My fool mouth?”
The bearded creature swung a blackened mallet at the taller klops. He missed his mark by several inches. With a leather glove, the taller klops wielded a blazing shaft of misshapen iron. It cleaved the wretch’s bearded head from its gnarled body. The gray mound rolled towards Cyrus’ feet. Its neck smoldered, cauterized from the heat. With crooked, black eyes, the dead klops stared up at Cyrus, aghast and soulless. Cyrus kicked the head away. Two nearby klops chuckled nervously.
“No, he’s mine!”
Cyrus looked up and found the weedy scoundrel locked in a battle of tug-o-war with another klops. Both were trying to eat the bearded one’s body.
“Move, you little imps!”
A six-foot-tall water klops kicked and shoved his way through the mass of smaller klops. The two fiends fighting over the carcass abandoned their tussle and cowered away like battered hounds.
“I told you lot, no kin-flesh.”
The brute weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds. Its skin was a lighter shade of gray, and its face and arms were stained in a network of swirling and jagged tattoos.
“Wha- what gives you the right?” squeaked the weedy creature, his mouth quivering, but his hairless brow furrowed.
“Might is right,” the large klops growled.
In one powerful motion, the brute drew a hulking battle-ax from his back and split the creature in two. The workers surrounding him shifted backward in a wave of gasps and curses. Then the large klops lopped off one of the scoundrel’s forearms. He began to gnaw on the limb.
“What have you fools got there?” he asked, nodding towards Tier.
“This yeto’s been causing fights with its kin,” Fibian said, adding gravel to his voice, “We’re moving it to another pit.”
Cyrus did his best to hide his fourth finger within the three-fingered gloves. Would the klops believe the lie? If Fibian had said they had found Tier beyond the gate, who knows what the brute might have done.
The klops grasped Tier by her chin hair, pulled her head down and inspected the dried blood on the side of her brow. The brute’s slit nostrils flared as he sniffed at Tier. His green eyes were penetrating and sunken.
“Keep moving,” he said, turning away and taking a swig from a leather wineskin.
Thick purple liquid stained his lips. He nodded towards the southeast corner of the mine.
“The armorers need more help, but if the yeto makes any more trouble, kill it.”
Chapter 24
DR. LEGE
CYRUS AND FIBIAN MARCHED Tier off in the direction the large klops had pointed. They passed several more villains shouting orders while gangs of chained yeti pounded out massive
steel plates of varying shapes and sizes. Cyrus felt so naked and exposed hidden under the stolen armor. Where was Gammal?
Along the way, several yeti recognized Tier. They whispered her name or nudged kin working at their side.
Their path took them dangerously close to several deep pits. Within, small groups of yeti waded through slush and slag, splitting rocks with iron sledgehammers.
“Couldn’t they break free at any moment and destroy the klops?” Edward whispered, from Cyrus’ collar.
“You would think so,” Cyrus replied.
He looked up into the surrounding cliffs.
“Fibian, what are those?” he asked, nodding upwards.
“Cannons,” Tier said, “Enough to wipe out the entire camp.”
Atop the circling wall of rock, twelve guards manned huge cylindrical steel tubes similar to Tier’s hand-held weapon. The cannons all aimed down into the mine.
“Tier?” a female yeti asked.
She stood on the path before them. The sight of Tier seemed to pull the giant from her sleep-deprived stupor.
“Helle?” Tier said.
She looked the yeti up and down.
“What have they done?”
Helle was bent, bony and pale. She looked down at Cyrus and Fibian, then stepped away.
“These are no water klops,” Tier said.
She hesitated for a moment.
“These are friends.”
With his mechanical arm, Fibian pulled off his glove, exposing his almost delicate, five-fingered, webbed hand. Helle’s eyes shifted about in search of onlookers. Then she looked down at her chained ankles.
“Go to the large tent in the center of our camp,” she whispered, “There, you’ll find Dr. Lege.”
“Thank you,” Tier said.
The group continued on into a vast dilapidated slum. Within, rock and lumber littered winding pathways as leather shelters stood torn and crooked along the icy lanes. In front of their meager homes, several yeti crouched over huge steel caldrons, boiling what could only be rat or bat meat stew.
They arrived at the largest of the massive leather tents. A large white yeti stood guard in front of the shelter.
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