by Angus Watson
The platform was maybe twenty paces by five, cut into the side of The Pyramid two thirds of the way up. The entrance, a square doorway three paces high seemed to be open, but such was the blackness within that it was hard to tell.
A long way below, back in The Meadows, the frog-faced mountain monster had almost sunk back into the mess. Wasp men hovered above it like everyday wasps over rotting fruit.
Still no sign of Paloma.
“Let’s go,” said Wulf, leading the way with Sofi.
Sassa waited until last, still hoping that Paloma might appear. A six-legged monster with a long nose, the largest animal she’d seen so far, was walking west to east, heading for the valley that led out of The Meadows.
“Sassa!” someone shouted. She turned. Thyri Treelegs was standing between her and the entrance, sax in hand, red-eyed, tears running down her face. Everyone else had disappeared into The Pyramid.
“Why did you kill Garth?” Thyri shouted over the roar of the tornado.
“To stop him killing Finn!” Sassa yelled back.
“So you did kill him!”
Shit on a tit. She’d walked into that one. “It was him or Finn! Thyri, this is not the time. When we’ve got the coffin—”
“Who were you to decide?” Thyri raised her sax. Her tanned face was mottled purple. The veins on her neck looked like they would snap.
“Not now, Thryri!” Sassa shouted, walking nearer. “When we’ve –
Thyri’s arm moved in a blur and Sassa saw a flash. She felt a blaze of pain across her neck. She opened her mouth to say something but only a horrible gurgling groan came out.
Fuck a mother-fucking duck! she thought. She’s slit my throat! Thyri, you dick!
She put her hand to her neck. Warm blood pulsed between her fingers.
Finn followed Chogolisa into The Pyramid. He couldn’t see past the big woman and the coffin on her shoulder, which was annoying. He should have nipped in ahead of her, but he’d been busy watching for Paloma to come running. She wasn’t dead. She’d catch up soon.
He touched the wall. It was the same rough black rock as the exterior but it glowed with a weird light that he could only describe as black. He tried to look around Chogolisa again. No. He could see nothing but big, muscular and magically lit Owsla arse. The tunnel, as far as he could tell in the dark light, was as wide and high as the door that had led into it. The air was dry, and he guessed it was usually odourless, but since Wulf and Keef were ahead of him, the primary smell in there was sweat.
The passage seemed to be sloping gently downwards. It turned. It kept turning and heading downwards. The pulsing that had been thrumming in Finn’s head since they’d approached The Pyramid strengthened into a throbbing headache.
I’m dying, he heard.
Where had that come from? Was it part of The Pyramid’s nastiness? Was the Warlock Queen dying? He dared hope.
I’m dying and my baby will die.
Sassa! Why would she… Thyri and Sassa had been the last people outside The Pyramid. He spun round. They weren’t behind him.
Without thinking what he was doing–without thinking to tell anybody else what he’d heard–Finn set off at a sprint, back the way they’d come.
I’m dying and my baby will die, Finn heard again.
The journey back up the spooky passage seemed a lot, lot longer than the walk down. Was it some kind of magic? he thought. Was he doomed to be running for ever upwards, trapped by the Warlock Queen? Finally, there was a square of blinding light ahead and then he was out, blinking in the sun.
Sassa Lipchewer was kneeling, eyes closed, breathing quickly and snottily through her nose, hands clasped around her neck, trying to staunch the blood that was seeping out around her fingers. Thyri Treelegs was looking down at her. She saw Finn and turned to him, sax raised. Her face was a mess of tears.
“Step away, Thyri,” he shouted. “You’ve made a mistake, but we can mend it. Let’s stop the bleeding.”
“No.” Thyri came at him, weapon in her hand, like she had so many times in their idyllic evening training sessions, back when he’d been so in love with her.
Finn grabbed for Foe Slicer’s hilt. But his scabbard was empty. Paloma had Foe Slicer.
“No!” Thyri slashed at his head.
He ducked the sax and whacked a balled fist into her wrist.
Her mouth opened and she bent forwards.
He punched her hard on the nose with a left.
She staggered.
He hit her jaw with a swinging right.
She reeled.
He swung another punch.
She leapt clear.
“You’re no match for me, Boggy,” she yelled, straightening and raising her sax. “You don’t have the balls!”
I’m dying and my baby will die, he heard again
Sassa was dying. He loved Sassa like a sister. He’d find balls.
He ran at Thyri. She swung her blade. He jinked back to avoid the cut, then surged forwards and shoved her two-handed in the chest.
Thyri Treelegs staggered two steps backwards, then gasped in horror when the third step met thin air. She waved her hands in circles, trying to stop herself from falling.
Maybe Finn could have reached out and grabbed her. He didn’t try.
Thyri fell backwards, off the edge of The Pyramid. She screamed as she bounced down the rough rock side.
Finn rushed to Sassa. She was lying on her side, eyes open now but staring blindly. He gripped her wrist and felt for a pulse. He didn’t find one.
Finn the Deep stood and looked over the edge. Thyri was lying on the baked soil a few hundred feet below, limbs splayed and misshapen. The giant rabbit hopped across and bent its head as if to sniff her. Mother rabbits sometimes ate their babies, Finn found himself thinking.
No, he commanded.
Perhaps he was too far away. Perhaps he didn’t really mean it.
The rabbit lifted its head and hopped away. Thyri was gone.
Chapter 10
Raiders
Sitsi Kestrel took the lead with Sofi Tornado and Wulf the Fat. The Warriors and Warlocks had lashed torches and flints to the coffin for them to use in The Pyramid, but they didn’t need them because the ceiling, floor and walls of the rock-hewn corridor gave off a freaky glow.
Not that there was much to see. The passage wound downwards in ever enlarging spirals. There was no sign or sound of anything alive, but she had an arrow strung. She had only three arrows left. Hopefully she wouldn’t need any. They’d find the dead Warlock Queen and leave the coffin and that would be that.
As if it was going to be that easy!
The corridor wound down and down. Sitsi was convinced they must be under the earth by now. Her suspicions were confirmed when the corridor straightened out and stretched off a long, long way into dimness. It seemed to be narrowing and curving slightly but it was hard to tell. She’d tried to keep track during the spiral descent but it had been impossible. She had no idea which direction they were heading. The corridor turned a few times more, as if to reinforce her confusion, then began to slope upwards.
They walked along, everybody silent, not even a wisecrack from Keef.
“Who’s missing?” said Sofi a short while later.
“Sassa?” asked Wulf.
No answer.
“She stayed back with Thyri, looking out for Paloma,” said Chogolisa. “Finn did, too, I think.”
“Finn!” Sitsi called quietly. “Finn, Finn, Finn,” echoed back from the vibrating walls.
“He’s always a dawdler,” said Keef. “He probably stopped for a—”
“Shush,” said Sofi.
“Sofi, my wife is missing,” said Wulf. “And so is—”
“Shut up!” barked Sofi.
Wulf saw sense and did so.
Sitsi strained to listen. Behind the constant hum of The Pyramid was a louder hum. A rumble even.
She looked up the corridor. Nothing. But the rumble was getting louder…
&n
bsp; A great boulder dropped from the passage roof some hundred paces ahead. It slammed to the floor and rolled towards them, glancing off the corridor walls.
“Run!” Sofi shouted.
Sitsi sprinted, but she could feel as much as she could hear the boulder charging ever closer. There was no way they were going to outrun the rolling rock.
Crushed by a boulder deep underground the Desert You Don’t Walk Out Of, she thought. Had someone asked her to guess how she was going to die, it would have taken her a while to pick that one.
Paloma Pronghorn felt something furry prod her exposed midriff. She jabbed with Finn’s sword and it desisted.
The beast that had bitten into her shoulder had let go, but she’d been trapped in the shifting sea of monsters, churning around with them, for what seemed like an age. She had no idea which direction was up, let alone how she might head that way.
Something clamped around her ankle. It felt like a gummy mouth. She kicked at it but the grip only tightened. Something warm and wet licked the underside of her foot and the lips around her ankle sucked hard, pulling in her bare leg so the grip was around her knee.
She kicked and tried to bring Foe Slicer down to chop at it, but she couldn’t move her arm in the press of beasts. A sharp suck from what she was now pretty sure were lips, and the mouth was around her thigh. She writhed and struggled and yelled even though she knew there was nobody to hear her cries. She was panicking. It seemed reasonable, given the circumstances.
Paloma managed to get her fingers around the lip of whatever was trying to eat her leg and push. It pushed back, hard. She was driven along, through the pile of monsters.
And suddenly she was clear–free of the monster morass, rising into the air, a monster’s mouth still clamped around her leg. It was some kind of huge worm or snake, she guessed. Whatever it was, she was now unencumbered and able to chop Foe Slicer into the bastard animal.
It went limp and she fell onto a pile of writhing fuzzy things with teeth. She pulled her leg free of the mouth and leapt up. The worm–a great thick purple-blue thing with a gummy mouth, now leaking from a gash across what one might call its neck–shot back under the seething, beastly surface.
Ha! thought Paloma.
Thirty paces away creatures tumbled as a great round thing rose from their midst. It was like a spider but had far too many legs… It wasn’t a worm that had gripped her, it was one of this creature’s tentacles.
More of those disgusting mouth-ended tentacles reached for her.
She looked about for The Pyramid, spotted it and ran, leaping from beast to beast, running along wet, whale-like flanks, sprinting up long necks and leaping off heads, and sometimes lopping off smaller heads with Foe Slicer as she flew by. It was a lovely weapon. Some wasp men flew towards her but she left them behind. She was too quick for wasp men.
Soon she was running around monsters rather than across them. Then the land was free of creatures, apart from the great black rabbit that the Wootah and Calnians had rode in on. It was chewing something. Was that blood dripping out of its mouth?
Paloma ran past it, towards the black pyramid with the tornado at its peak. She felt an urge to turn back. There was something very wrong with this man-made mountain. But there was something a lot more wrong with the sea of monsters behind her, and her friends were ahead. She sprinted up the rough stone side and reached the platform in a few heartbeats.
“Hello, Finn!” she said.
Finn looked up, tears in his eyes, Sassa’s lifeless head in his lap.
Chogolisa stopped. “Run, Chogolisa!” Sitsi yelled, heading towards her.
“You run. I’ve got a boulder to stop.”
“You’ll never do it, it’s too big and too fast, even for you.”
“Have any other ideas?”
Sitsi hadn’t. They’d been walking along the upward-sloping passage for a long time when the boulder dropped. They didn’t have a hope. But there was no way Chogolisa would stop it, even with her strength. At best it would slow down as it rolled over her large body, but it would soon speed up again.
Sofi stopped, too, as did Wulf. Sitsi turned to watch.
Sofi, Chogolisa and Wulf stood abreast.
The boulder was twenty paces away, then ten.
Wulf sprinted forwards.
He leapt, swinging Thunderbolt.
The boulder exploded around him. Sofi and Chogolisa turned, hands over their head, as stones and shards whacked into them, followed by a wave of dust, followed by Wulf the Fat, walking nonchalantly and swinging Thunderbolt by its leather lanyard.
“That,” said Chogolisa, “is no ordinary hammer.”
“Boulder’s stopped!” yelled Sitsi to Keef, who was still running down the passage, a child under each arm.
“Yeah, I know!” he called when he was nearly back to them. “Just practising my double child run and carry!”
Sassa Lipchewer’s neck was bleeding but not jetting. Paloma took her wrist.
“I tried that,” sniffed Finn. “She’s dead.”
Paloma pressed the tips of her fingers into Sassa’s artery. There was quite a strong pulse.
“If I’m ever injured and you’re the only one around, Finn,” she said, “go and find someone else to treat me.”
She looked at Sassa’s neck again. If that bleeding didn’t stop, she would be dead soon.
Paloma leapt to the edge of the platform, placed Foe Slicer’s edge against the stone and sawed with all her strength and speed.
“What are you—”
“I’m sawing The Pyramid in half.”
“What?”
Sword and rock started smoking. Paloma pumped her arm all the faster. “Get her ready!” she called to Finn.
“Sassa,” Finn said, “I’d like you to prepare yourself. You’re about to have a very hot—”
“Not emotionally ready, dickhead! Make sure I can get at her neck with the blade, and hold her very, very tight.”
Paloma leapt back and pressed the red-hot blade against Sassa’s neck.
There was a sizzle followed by the sharp tang of burning flesh. Sassa screamed, then whimpered.
“You can do the emotional support stuff now,” said Paloma.
“Shall we wait for Sassa, Finn and Thyri?” asked Chogolisa.
“We press on,” said Wulf. “We have to assume they’re okay. Our priority has to be getting the coffin to the Warlock Queen.”
Sofi Tornado was glad that Wulf had said it.
Without the constant thrum of The Pyramid, she might have heard what had happened to the others. As it was, she had to strain to hear the footsteps of the people just a few paces behind her.
They walked on, along the apparently never-ending corridor. She could hear something ahead now, something large scraping on rock as it moved, but she didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t an immediate threat and they had to keep going. So there was no point mentioning it to the others.
In her vision quest the queen had been an actual person. Were they going to meet her at the end of this underground journey and hand over the living boy and the dead boy?
And how far was the journey? The corridor was curving to the right. Only slightly, but they’d come a long way. Sofi had been trying to keep track. By her reckoning, they weren’t far from where they’d started.
Sitsi was next to her, scanning ahead. In the vibrating corridors Sitsi’s sight was a lot more use than Sofi’s hearing.
Wulf had fallen behind. She glanced back. He was holding Ottar’s hand. Keef was holding Freydis’s. A few paces behind them Chogolisa was carrying the coffin. It was a poisonous burden. Chogolisa would never say as much, but Sofi could tell the coffin was weakening, even sickening her. It would be good to be rid of it.
Sofi had her own burden. The Wootah were not going to like it when it was time for Ottar to die–nor were Sitsi and Chogolisa, come to that. Presumably someone as powerful as the Warlock Queen wouldn’t give them a choice. Chances were she was going to kill them all
. Why not? She clearly had utter disregard for human life. Sofi considered the idea of dying in a few hours, or maybe even a few minutes time. She didn’t feel too bad about it.
The beast, or whatever it was ahead, was getting louder.
“The passage widens,” said Sitsi. “And I think there’s… it’s gone. I saw something move. Something big.”
They walked on and into a large room. Its walls glowed with the same shadowed luminescence as the passageway, but Sofi couldn’t see the roof.
The monster heard them and turned. Standing hunched on two thick legs, it was maybe four paces tall. Its lumpen, one-eyed head was set to one side, as if it had originally had two heads but one was missing. One arm was as thick as the thickest tree trunk, but cut off at the elbow. The other, more slender but still marvellously muscled, ended in a metallic looking club. It was this club that Sofi had heard dragging along the ground.
It was the most humanlike of the Warlock Queen’s creation that Sofi had seen so far although, had it stomped into your village, you wouldn’t have said to yourself oh look, here comes something humanlike.
“Hello!” said Wulf, striding forward. “We mean you no harm!”
Sofi blinked. She meant it harm. She hadn’t considered trying to befriend the thing. Perhaps it would work.
The giant watched Wulf approach. For all its deformity, it did not look aggressive.
“Shall we?” asked Sitsi taking a step forward.
“Hold,” said Sofi, “but be ready.”
Wulf raised an arm. “We are the Wootah and the Calnians,” he said softly. “We are here to return the Warlock Queen’s child. I say return. We didn’t take the boy. We’d never have done that. But we are bringing him home.”
The giant cocked his head as if studying him. It opened its larger arm in a gesture that seemed to say you may pass. Then, with all the indifference of someone sweeping an ant off their leg, it swung the arm back and sent Wulf flying. The Wootah man hit the wall halfway up with a crunch and dropped to the ground.
Sofi charged, Chogolisa and Sitsi at her side. Sitsi’s bow was unstrung, brandished like Paloma’s killing stick.