by Rhys Ford
My foot hit the edge of an outcropping. It was slender but enough to give me a little bit of relief, and I dug my toe into the space, hoping to push off of it and increase our ascent. I had two knives on me—not enough to kill a black dog, with its acidic spit and nearly impenetrable skin—but they were going to have to do. Kerrick couldn’t outrun it, and I doubted he could fight with his shoulder popped out of joint. Another splash of spit and I could almost swear I heard the ainmhi dubh cackling at me with the high-pitched rolling growl that emanated from its toothy maw.
This time the rumble came with a shake of the ground, and just as I cursed the skies for adding a thunderstorm into our mix of bad luck, the rock wall blinked, and I found myself staring into a black-slitted golden eye as wide as I was tall.
Seventeen
I DIDN’T know what we were on. But whatever it was, it wasn’t happy. Kerrick was swearing up a storm on my back, and the ainmhi dubh yelped and scrambled back from the ledge. The walls shook and rolled beneath my feet, and then the earth tore apart and cracks appeared on the cliff face on either side of us.
“Climb!” Kerrick shouted in my ear. “Get us to the surface!”
If the sheets of rock that tumbled from the cliff didn’t motivate me, the animalistic groaning coming from an opening slit among the cracks got me moving. Kerrick obviously knew what it was or at least had an idea. All I had going for me was the pressing instinct that we were going to die a horrible death if I didn’t get us out of that cavern.
There were niggling whispers in the back of my skull, urging me to grab hold of the black dog and use it, turn it to my will. Kerrick would be its first kill, followed by—I shook my head and refused to listen to the madness that crept through my thoughts. I could taste the ainmhi dubh in my blood. It was an odd awareness hovering in the back of my mind, and it was insane. I couldn’t control the black dog any more than I could control the weather or the creature breaking out of the cliff. But there was something residual lingering in my essence, perhaps a genetic memory my father left behind. Tanic cuid Anbhás was the Lord Master of the Wild Hunt, the bogeyman that other monsters were afraid of. I did not have his powers. I would never be him.
The feel of Duffy’s body coming to life beneath my hands flashed through my scattered thoughts and fought for dominance with the burning pain in my thighs and shoulders and my very real fear of whatever was going to chew me off of the cliff.
I was sweating, my hands nearly too slick to hold on to the rope, but I was giving it my best panicky sprint-up-a-vertical-wall that I could. Whatever was in the rock was waking slowly enough for me to get clear of its debris-shaking movement.
And then the ground fell out from underneath my feet, and Kerrick and I were catapulted into the air and flung out of the crevasse by a massive twisted coil.
I’d like to say I landed on my feet. But then I’d also like to say I woke up every morning to a cup of hot coffee and chocolate pie, but that was a lie too. We tumbled in the air, an eight-limbed beast with two fronts and a joined back. Halfway through the arc of our fall, Kerrick dropped out of the harness, his unresponsive limbs unable to hold on to the straps and loops. The loss of his weight altered my trajectory, skewing me away from the front end of the transport, and I landed a few feet beyond and rolled through the grasses and dirt.
Right into another sinkhole.
“Shit! Shit!” Skidding, I grabbed at anything I could and finally snagged a small bush while I windmilled my feet, trying to find purchase on the rocks. My joints jerked painfully when I finally came to an abrupt stop, and then my spine twinged and reminded me I’d just taken a pretty hard-core beating against hard rock.
Panting heavily, I wasted no time. It took me a good half a minute—agonizingly long seconds—to pull myself out, but when I finally did, I paused to reassure myself that my knives were still in their sheaths. Then I shed the harness and left it on the ground. The transport blocked my view of what was going on, but the monster from Kerrick’s fissure reared up onto its hind legs, gave me a very good view of its stony mass, and dropped back down into a hunch.
It crouched on the ground between the transport and the enormous fracture we almost died in. Hunched over, it was hard to tell how tall it was, but I guessed that, if it stood up, it was easily fifteen feet. With bony plates I now recognized as the scallops set into the cliff face, it resembled a pangolin, with an armament of jutting horns covering its face and running down its spine.
Every inch of my body ached, and I’d pulled something along my ribs, but I was going to have to suck it up. Another of Cari’s shotgun blasts got me moving. I broke into a full-out sprint through the grasses, and the stalks whipped at my bare skin and left a thousand tiny cuts behind. I rounded the front end of the transport and immediately slammed into the sticky, scaly haunch of a snarling ainmhi dubh.
I have skinned more than my fair share of the Unsidhe black dogs, and in return, more than a few of them have taken their pound of flesh from my body, both before and after my escape from my father’s clutches. Most of the Wild Hunt monsters I took down for a bounty were ainmhi dubh that had gotten loose from their masters by overpowering them and then breeding, or the Unsidhe who created them died in the Merge. There are ainmhi dubh who are so ancient that they grew wings and could take flight—massive creatures that continuously grew more powerful, fed by arcane power through the tether to their creator.
They were eternal machines, hard to kill and even harder to tire out. Shaped into whatever form their master preferred, they were driven by hunger and viciousness, and while they could reproduce, the original magic that made them disintegrated through the generations as each litter became weaker and more malformed. If left unchecked, the ainmhi dubh could ravage the countryside of its people and wildlife within a year. And those were just the weak ones.
The one I’d just run into was definitely not weak. And it most definitely had a master.
Whoever made it knew what they were doing. The ainmhi dubh was a powerful-bodied creature. Its nearly hairless hide gleamed in the late afternoon light, and a blue-black sheen rippled over the darker mottled spots that clustered about its haunches and ridged back. About the size of a half-grown bear, it was formidable, and as I drew my weapons, the ainmhi dubh’s muscles bulged, and it coiled back.
It launched itself at me, eyes glowing red and long fangs shimmering with its caustic spit. I didn’t know if it was the one that had stood over the edge of the crevasse or if there were multiple ainmhi dubh circling the transport, but there wasn’t really time to do much more than react.
Pity all I had on me was a pair of knives and a bunch of blown-out bruises.
The giant rock-encrusted creature looming just outside of my peripheral vision was a distraction. So were shotgun blasts, but I was more concerned with the ainmhi dubh. It struck me with both its front paws and drove me down into the dirt. I had a brief moment before the wind was knocked out of my chest, and I sent Pele a prayer of thanks for giving me the knowledge that the ground beneath me was solid.
I brought my arm up, jabbed my elbow into the creature’s throat, and dug down as deep as I could to hit its airway. It gave me the response I wanted. The black dog began to choke and gag on its pressed-in flesh. Disoriented, it staggered to regain its balance and stepped off my torso.
It was risky, but I chanced a quick glance at the melee behind me, hoping to get a good look at what was going on before the black dog struck again. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad.
I couldn’t see Kerrick, but I also didn’t know where he’d landed. Cari stood a few feet away from me, armed with one of my shotguns, her back toward the transport as she kept another ainmhi dubh at bay. In true stubborn Sidhe lord form, Ryder was armed with a long dagger and a determined grimace. I couldn’t tell if the black dog was bloodied or simply wet with frothy sweat, but they definitely had it cornered.
Unfortunately, right behind it was the orange-and-red striated rock creature we’d woken up.
My leap was a good one, and I caught the ainmhi dubh as it rose up. Growling, it snapped at my leg and ripped apart my jeans, but they were already meant for the trash after the fall into the cave. Still, its spit hit my skin, and the burn from the acid traveled quickly. Blisters bubbled up in tiny pockets of seared flesh and then quickly disappeared and left behind a ghostly pain as my arcane-concocted body absorbed the damage.
Much like the ainmhi dubh, I was hard to kill, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done.
The creature twisted on itself and snapped its massive jaws at my face. I yelped and nearly lost my balance, but the edge of the transport caught me in the middle of my back, and I rolled around its bumper as the ainmhi dubh slammed into its armor-plated front end. Despite the transport’s sophisticated shock system, it rocked back and forth at the impact. The ainmhi dubh’s dense body absorbed the hit, but it shook its head, probably trying to shake off the reverberations through its bony skull.
The massive cave creature chose that moment to rear up as far as it could go and stretch its long front limbs up in the air. Its shadow swallowed up the sun and dimmed the light in our clearing. Throwing back its blunt head, it cracked open its short snout and screamed, blasting the prairies with its outraged cries. I didn’t know what it was, but I certainly felt the effect of its immense weight when it slammed back down onto its curled-over front paws and sent a shock wave through the entire area.
The boom was larger than any blast I’d heard before. I was knocked off my feet, facedown in the dirt, and as I tried to right myself, the grasslands came alive with fleeing animals.
Creatures I’d never seen bolted from their hiding places—everything from a herd of tiny yellow deer the size of Chihuahuas to a giant sloth, its brindled fur tinged green with moss. The sloth ate the ground up with its elongated strides and kicked up dirt where it dug its claws in. A pack of laughing dogs, their enormous mouse-like ears pressed flat against their skulls, rushed past the transport from a clump of frilled stalks.
The ainmhi dubh was confused, unbalanced, and ravenous in its rage. I took advantage of that. There were no rules for trying to survive. Ryder liked to hold philosophical discussions about ethics and morals, and most of the time I agreed with him, right up to the point where I was facing down something with a lot of teeth and the idea that I was lunch.
I hit the black dog while it was disoriented, stretching my body as far as I could after I leapt at its head. It wasn’t easy to take an ainmhi dubh by surprise, but I hurt too much, and the bruises under my skin were slowing me down. Something hitched in my ribs, making it hard for me to breathe, and I tasted blood back in my throat—a sure sign I’d broken something in me.
There were times when I felt Odin and Pele heard my mewling pleas for their benevolence. It was hard to ask for mercy from gods with a taste for destruction, but they were the ones who called to me and required little of my interaction. Mostly we went our separate ways. I didn’t attend any church and never made any formal sacrifices other than consecrating the occasional spilled beer or shot of tequila to one of them just so it didn’t go to waste.
But whether it was luck or the hand of a god steering my aim, my knife plunged straight into the ainmhi dubh’s eye.
It began to buck as it tried to throw me off, but I scrambled to get onto its back. Digging my heels into the bony plates along its belly, I fought its contortions while I gripped the hilt of my knife with one hand and pounded at the pommel with my fist.
An ainmhi dubh skull was hard, but I liked living. It spun about, and its slimy pelt twisted loosely between my clenched legs. I continued to pound the knife through its socket, and then its teeth caught my knee and a fang ripped my calf open. The pain was incredible. My muscle was massively torn, and the hit of acid that cauterized the edges of my lacerated skin nearly made me lose my hold. I hung on out of sheer fear. If I dropped to the ground, it would be the end of me, and the ainmhi dubh would feast on my bones.
Another slam of my fist and I felt something give beneath the tip of the knife. Another hit and the crunch was both edifying and frightening. I knew what was coming. I’d done it before, but if I was in pain now, it was about to get much worse.
One final blow of my hand against the end of my knife and the ainmhi dubh’s skull split open.
Its death throes were a storm of movement, and I forced myself to hold on as I yanked my knife toward me to leverage the bone apart. The blade caught on something, and I twisted it, more to make sure the ainmhi dubh would die than to hold on to my weapon, but one final thrust of its strong haunches and I was sent spinning from its back.
I broke something when I landed—something in my right arm. Numbness hit me immediately when I slammed into the ground, but I needed to get as far away from the ainmhi dubh as I could. Even with its brain cleaved in two, its instincts would drive it toward its prey, and I was the closest thing to it.
Or at least thought I was.
A boulder landed next to me, at least four feet from my right side. Another followed, slamming into the ainmhi dubh and pulverizing it into the ichor-soaked dirt. I blinked, wiped the blood from my face, and realized the boulders were actually the rock creature’s front paws. It straddled me, and its long torso blocked out the sky as its legs tensed, its body stiffened, and it craned its neck forward.
Its bellow deafened me, momentarily shocking me into a silent world. With blood running from my ears, I got to my feet, stumbling as I moved. Fifty yards to the left and the creature would take out the transport, leaving us stranded in a no-man’s-land where getting to the nearest civilization would take days of walking through inhospitable prairie lands and canyons.
“Get in,” I screamed at Ryder, who was aiming at the second ainmhi dubh in the clearing. “Get into the transport and go. I’ll find Kerrick.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he shouted back as he fired at the black dog. It took the hit to its chest, and the impact pushed it back. My hearing was spotty, and Ryder’s words faded in and out. “Cari, do you see Kerrick?”
“I see him. He’s behind the transport,” Cari yelled back. She ratcheted out a pair of empty shells from the shotgun and reloaded before they hit the ground. “Kai, can you get into the centipede? Ryder, cover me and I’ll grab Kerrick. Start moving. I’ll be on your six, Gracen!”
Trust was hard, but I was with two people I trusted a lot. Ryder had gained a lot of my respect over the last month, and while I still didn’t think he could hold his own in a bar fight, I had faith he would do his best. Cari was one of the best Stalkers to ever strap on a gun, but it was hard to not see her as a little girl. I was too hurt to do anything but trust that they would complete the job, and as hard as it was for me to let go, I left them to get Kerrick into the transport and battled my way into the driver’s seat.
Because as much as I believed they could retrieve Kerrick, I didn’t think either one of them could drive the transport out of there without killing us in the process.
I left a trail of blood across the seats, but I didn’t care. I could feel my skin sealing up around my broken bones and torn flesh as the tormenting and agonizing healing process began. Firing up the transport took a couple of jabs of my finger, and I was more than grateful to see the mapped-out egress flare up on the main screen. The centipede’s engine drew the rock creature’s attention, and it slowly turned its head and studied the long metal vehicle.
There was no way to read its expression. Up against the cliff face, it’d been invisible, and standing against the sun, it looked like a carved statue, something a mad hermit would leave behind after a lifetime of isolation. There was no intelligence in its golden eyes—not like the ainmhi dubh had—and there was no way of knowing if it wo
uld pursue us or drop back down into its canyon once it no longer felt threatened.
Considering it had an ainmhi dubh smeared through its toes, I couldn’t even begin to imagine why it thought we could threaten it, but I didn’t want to stick around to ask.
“Got him!” Her voice was fuzzy, but I understood her. Cari heaved a semiconscious Kerrick into the main cabin. His head lolled back, but his eyes, while clouded with pain, tracked my movements. Cari pushed him in as far as she could and then grabbed her discarded shotgun and laid down cover for Ryder. “He’s close. Get ready!”
I gunned the vehicle as soon as I saw Ryder slide through the open doors. Without waiting for Cari to close the transport up, I put the centipede into gear and shot as much power through the cell chambers as I thought the engine could hold. The tires spun in the dirt and then grabbed at the ground and the centipede lurched forward.
“Come on, baby.” I patted its dashboard and urged it to go faster. Sparky didn’t build for speed as much as she did for durability, but no matter how many plates she welded onto a vehicle, there was no way anything was going to survive that creature’s direct hit. “Just get us out of here.”
The grasses whipped around the transport. It passed through the uneven prairie and left a wake of chaff and torn leaves. Something hard struck the centipede’s rear end and skewed it to the side, and I heard something crumple on the roof, but that wasn’t the time to stop. There was always the chance the creature could move at a greater speed than the transport, but I didn’t have any C-4 to shove down its throat or any hope I would live long enough to detonate it.
Ryder fell into the passenger seat and was half thrown into the door when the transport hit a hidden boulder. We rolled over a short hill, and the engine picked up speed and carried us away from the cavern’s inhabitant. I glanced at the side mirror as I navigated through the labyrinth of green and red lines laid out on the screen and tried to keep us on a safe route, but at the same time, I needed to know if the creature was following.