by Scott Moore
“You and Khris can go check the entrance if you want,” Malik said.
He left the rest unsaid, but they got the meaning of his words. He would be going on with or without them. Mollie would not be left behind.
“Let’s go and get it over with,” Khris said, resigning himself to the trek back through the hallway.
Malik started back over the strewn out limbs and bodies. Hopefully Mollie had just gotten turned around a little way into the hallway. They still could redirect her and get back to the entrance before nightfall.
She was not just around the bend. She was not just further where the lights had fallen to the ground. Malik walked the full length of the hallway coming to the entrance to the paintings. He had not seen Mollie. Maybe Embre had been right. Maybe Mollie had beaten them to the entrance. Had she been so caught up in her own thoughts that she did not realize no one was with her? Or maybe she had finally grown tired of carrying them all. She could get the relic back to the old man and then she could strike off on her own. Malik would not blame her for it. If he had been her, he may have done the same thing.
Malik took a few deep breaths. He could not believe his thoughts. Mollie would not leave them. He knew that deep down. Even if she had every right to do it, she would not abandon them to this cave. She would not strike out on her own. She was still here somewhere, and that meant Malik had to continue looking and find her. She could be hurt.
“Mollie!” Malik hollered out for what seemed like the hundredth time.
Still she did not respond to him. Could she hear him? Was she just out of his reach and she could not reply? Malik took a step into the room. The eyes of the monsters seemed to roam toward him with every step. The Saints were gone, disposed of by these beasts. Malik focused on them for so long that one of the massive shapes looked like it was moving. He blinked the bleary tears from his eyes, but it did not stop the creature from moving.
Malik stumbled back running into Khris and Embre.
“Is that…” he got out before the painting growled.
Malik threw his hands up before his face. He may have screamed, but he could not tell over the cries from the two behind him. The creature was no painting. It stepped forward from under the hands of the Saints. It was an exact replica of Egg and his mother, except that this creature stood double the size of the largest monster Malik had yet seen.
It would have been enough to worry about if just the creature showed up in that room. They could have run and screamed just fine without Zimbre approaching from around another bend that Malik had not noticed on his first glance around the room. Zimbre had cuts and scrapes all over him. Blood trickled from Zimbre’s chin onto his chest and it looked like he was free from a few of his teeth. Zimbre stepped forward into the room.
“Embre,” he said.
Malik figured Zimbre had not yet seen the massive moving monster. What had he thought they were screaming at? When Embre did not turn her attention from the monster, Zimbre scanned the room seeing the creature. His face lost all color and his breathing stopped for a few seconds. The monster had turned its attention to Zimbre when he had yelled for his sister. Now the monster was fully focused on Zimbre and not on the three of them.
“Let’s go,” Malik whispered, pushing Embre toward the entrance to the hallway.
He knew Mollie was not this far back. She would not have turned toward the entrance without them, but she also would not have gone back to Sweet Tongue without letting them know.
Zimbre lifted his feeble sword. The monster’s claws were bigger than the sword by at least two times. Zimbre shouted something, trying to intimidate the beast, but it had no effect. Malik turned, with the others, before he heard the sickening crunch of Zimbre’s bones being snapped. The monster did not permit any noise. It was efficient and killed without the added frivolity. Malik ushered the others into the hallway. They were back to square one now. They still had a decision to make. Mollie was still missing, and Malik did not believe she left them to their own devices.
“We still have to find Mollie, but I can understand if you both want to head toward the entrance and wait for us there, or not wait,” Malik motioned over his shoulder.
Malik doubted that Zimbre’s dead body would hold the attention of the monster for very long.
“We came this far,” Khris said.
Malik looked to Embre. She was holding up well considering she just heard her brother ripped into shreds. She only nodded, probably too tired to speak.
“There was another path that Zimbre just came from, which means there is another entrance into the painting room. Maybe Mollie accidently stumbled down it thinking she was following us,” Malik suggested.
It was not much to go on, but it was more than they had moments before. They would just have to go back to the grated door and enter that path.
No one objected to his suggestion. Malik made for the bend in the hallway he was coming to know all too well. There he maneuvered over the littered body parts. He made for the hole in the cave wall where the door had once been. He remembered Zimbre and the others trying to rip the door free from its resting place with no avail. The monster had made easy work of the steel, pulling away a section of the wall with it.
Malik stepped into the room and found a few more bodies scattered here. There were even older bones strewn across the cave floor. Malik could not tell if they were human or animal bones.
“It is cold,” Embre said, breaking the silence.
Malik did not feel any colder. He felt almost nothing at all. His body was running on adrenaline and the will to find Mollie. Even if they got out of this cave, he was not so sure he could make it back to the old man’s home. The prospect of making that long trek back across the rocks and plains almost made him stop right there.
“It is just your nerves,” Malik replied.
That was probably closer to the truth. The temperature in the cave had never been warm, but as exhaustion set in, it became a lot more to handle.
The first thing Malik noticed about the rooms beyond the grate was that the ceilings were so high that you could not see them. Here, the monster would have been able to roam freely without any effort. The walls were so far away from one another that it would have taken a hundred people to stretch across the room. He also noticed that there was nothing in the room at all. It reminded Malik of a castle prison cell. Here, the monster had been trapped by whatever held it here and here it had stayed. Although, at any time it could have left without much effort; Malik turned back to the ripped doorway, or maybe the monster was too big to fit through the opening.
Malik guided Khris and Embre through the open room. Here, every footfall echoed. Malik wanted to call out of Mollie, but the thought of the monster finding them held his tongue. There was no way he was going to find Mollie in this if she had come this way. Why would she not have noticed that she stumbled into the massive room? She could not have missed the fact that she was no longer following the others. Something else had happened to her. Malik stopped moving when he came to that decision. There was no use following this path. He had no idea where it would lead. He had no idea how to find the tunnel that Zimbre had come out of. He did not want to end up in the painted room again, with the monster. He just wanted to leave this cave with everyone in tow, but that seemed less likely with each passing minute.
“Why did you stop,” Khris asked, trying to keep a steady voice.
Malik turned around. He would not take another step further.
“She is not in here,” Malik said.
Khris did not argue. None of them were keen on continuing this path. Wherever Mollie was, she seemed to be out of their reach. They were going to die with her if they kept going and yet Malik found he did not want to live with no one left. If he lost Mollie, then he would truly have nothing.
“What do we do now?” Khris asked.
Malik gave one more glance throughout the cell of the monster. He did not know what to do now. For so long he had only done what Abrie h
ad told him to do. Play in this inn, eat this meal, travel on this road. Now he did not have Abrie. Did not want Abrie, he amended to himself. He just wanted to save Mollie from this place and then leave it all behind. How he got there, he did not know.
“I don’t know how big this place is,” Malik said.
He was working things out in his mind. He did not expect a reply from Khris or Embre in return.
“It could go on for days, weeks, or forever. I have no idea how to navigate the tunnels. We have no food and water for an extended journey. Anything that the mercenaries brought is ripped and tattered with their bodies,” Malik imagined the water and food strewn in with the blood and limbs. He was not hungry after the thought, but his throat still itched for water.
“Are you saying we should turn around and give up?” Khris asked.
He sounded half reluctant and half relieved at the prospect of leaving Mollie behind.
Was that what Malik was ultimately saying? Was there no other option but to accept defeat and get out with their lives? Maybe they could gather up a party with supplies and return to the cave. Malik shook his head at the childish thought. By the time they returned Mollie would be long dead.
Malik took another deep breath, letting it out his nose. The noise emitting from his nose did not match what his mind told him it should sound like. It sounded like a much larger creature was blowing air out of his nose. Malik felt a slight breeze behind him. There had been no wind in the cave, no draft, or any sign of weather. When his hair moved from the force, Malik tilted his head up. Above him was the last thing in the world he wanted to see.
His feet did not need to be told; they were already moving as fast as they could away from the monster.
“I think that may be the dragon,” Khris said, running alongside him.
Malik had never seen a dragon, but that did not match what he imagined they looked like. There were no wings, no massive horns protruding from their skulls, and the monster’s skin was fur and not scales. However, Malik figured Khris was probably right about the name. This was the Crystal Dragon, and it was the guardian of whatever relic Egg had found.
Malik did not reply to Khris. There was no reason to debate the significance of the monster’s name. If they stopped, they would die and there was no way of doubting that.
Chapter 37
The Return
Malik was out ahead of the others by a few paces when he came to the hole toward the hallway. When he was walking around the cave cell, he hoped that the monster would be too big to come through this door. It had been a silly, but small comfort. When he saw the bodies again for the third time, he knew that the hope was nothing more than that. Something had killed these people. There was nothing else in the cave that had tried to kill everything it encountered.
Malik stopped himself before he tripped over a corpse below his feet. Embre and Khris could not stop fast enough to keep from knocking him down to the ground. There, he turned his head looking into the cold, dead eyes of a man. Malik wondered how much it hurt when this man had died. Would it hurt him any more or any less when the monster came for him?
Malik heard Khris scrambling to his feet next to him. Embre was around him somewhere too, but he did not hear her struggling. Had she done the same as him? Just accepted her fate? Maybe if they struggled less, the monster would take pity on them and finish it quickly. Malik doubted deep down that the monster could feel any sense of remorse or pity.
Malik squeezed his eyes tighter, seeing the black dots swimming across his eyelids. He resolved not to open them until it was all over, then it would not matter if they fell open or not. He heard the footsteps coming closer. Each footfall shook the ground a little harder than the last. It would be only a few more moments before he felt the sharp claws in his stomach and the piercing fangs at his neck.
Malik almost opened his eyes. Maybe there was still something to be done. He was not dead yet. He did not manage to get them open. He heard another footfall and then another. He heard Khris gasping for air beside him, dry heaving what little contents he had left in his stomach. Malik did not envy him on the way out. At least Malik was semi comfortable on the ground. He wondered again about Embre and how she was faring, but he did not hear her still.
Malik thought he could smell the beast as it drew nearer. It had the metal smell of blood and the smell of wet fur. It was not a pleasant smell by any means. It made Malik’s nose crinkle and his belly swim. Malik could feel the presence of the monster hovering over him now. He knew it would be over in an instant. He opened his eyes. Even after he had resolved to keep them shut, he opened them. It was not the monster standing over him. At least not the monster he had expected.
“You aren’t dead yet,” said Mollie, reaching her hand out to pry Malik up off the ground.
Malik reached out without thought and grabbed Mollie’s hand. He let her pull him to his feet. Mollie was soaked in blood, but it did not look like she was hurt.
“Where did you go?” Malik asked.
Mollie shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she answered.
That was as far as she was able to get before the real threat came through the gaping hole in the wall. This time it was the monster. This time it was not Egg hanging off Mollie’s shoulder.
“I will explain it later,” Mollie said, pushing Malik backward.
Mollie pulled out her sword. It was bright as the noonday sun. Except it was not the fierce orange of the sun, it was a bright blue. Mollie waved the sword back and forth, leaving small tracers in the air.
Egg slid down Mollie’s shoulder and stood erect at her feet. Egg would not be of much use against the beast, but then again Mollie would probably not be lasting very long anyhow. Malik wished he had his bow with him; even if he doubted, he would shoot it.
“Let’s just run,” Malik yelled to Mollie.
She did not turn around to agree with him. “We can’t. It will chase us as long as we have the relic and we can’t leave it,” Mollie said.
Malik was not sure why she was so certain, but he could hear the conviction.
Mollie gripped her sword now in both hands. Egg brandished its claws out before its body. They were going to be made quick work of. Malik was about to watch the only person left in the world that he cared about die. There was nothing he could do about it. He could pick up a pebble and throw it off the beast, but it would do nothing to help Mollie, Egg, or anyone else still left alive in the cave.
Malik thought about giving a last-ditch effort to convince Mollie to run, but he knew better. Malik had not once been able to convince Mollie of anything. She was not a person who changed their mind easily.
The monster came forward trying a lazy swipe at Mollie’s right side. Mollie dove to the side and came up swiping at the monster’s hand. The monster only had to lift its arm to get out of reach. Even with the length of Mollie’s giant sword, there was just too much ground to make up. The monster came forward again with another swipe. This time it narrowly missed Mollie’s left shoulder. Malik knew that when the beast started really swiping that this would be over.
Malik swallowed the fear building inside his chest. There had to be something he could do. He was going to die anyhow, should he not make it worthwhile? Maybe he could still save Mollie or the others. Malik looked around for anything he could use to help. There were weapons across the ground. Discarded swords, a broken spear, and even a few knives, nothing that would help Malik, but he could give it a shot anyhow.
Malik picked up the closest sword to him. He waved it around a few times, still having no idea how to use it. Maybe he should have pressed Abrie for more information. Maybe Abrie was a liar and a killer. There were too many maybes.
“Over here,” Malik yelled, holding the sword above his head.
He had no delusions that he would be killing the monster with his lack of skills. Even with a lot of skills, he would still have probably died. However, he could distract the beast long enough for Mollie to do what needed to be done.
The monster shifted its feet and peered back over its shoulder. Malik waved the sword back and forth. The monster growled and turned, using its massive arms to pivot across the cave floor.
“What are you doing?” Mollie yelled.
Malik gave the most nervous smile and continued waving the sword.
“You are going to get yourself killed,” she informed him.
Malik thought it funny that she would point that out. They were all going to die, just like the mercenaries that Sweet Tongue had brought. He continued waving the sword until the monster was within ten feet of him. The creature reached its arm out and with a flick it smashed its hand into Malik’s chest. Malik was not as quick to move as Mollie had been. His body flew five feet backward. It would have flown more if it had not been for the very solid wall behind him. Malik hit, expending all his air. The white light that flashed before his eyes preluded the pain that jetted through his body. Malik thought he may have already been dead. What a lame attempt at helping. He had only given Mollie five seconds at the most. That would not be nearly enough to defeat the monster.
“If you are going to do this then get up,” Mollie said into Malik’s ear.
Malik thought his eyes had been open, but when he opened them Mollie was somehow standing right beside him. She must have run over when he had fallen. The light touch on his arm hurt, but also felt comforting coming from her.
“I am not sure I can,” Malik said.
Mollie stood and pulled him. “No time to think about things,” she said.
She pulled him toward her in an embrace. Malik felt the vibrations run through his body as the monster’s claws ripped out a chunk of the wall where he had just been sitting. Malik kept hold of Mollie’s biceps. This was the place where he wanted to die. Looking directly into Mollie’s eyes and seeing nothing else in the world. Mollie moved, leaving Malik reeling forward.
“You circle to the left and I will go right,” she said to him. “We are going to have to find a weak spot on it.”