by David Drake
“Well, we won’t stay here,” Galo said, clutching the jewel with his left hand. “We’ll go to the next valley, that’s all.”
I grimaced. It couldn’t be worse than where we were.
“All right,” I said, “but we camp there, that’s final. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Galo, but I’ve had about enough of it.”
I didn’t get the last of my words out before he rode off in the way he’d been going. I mounted and laid the goat over my pommel. At least we’d have fresh food tonight, though I’d have to grill the goat. I hadn’t packed a pot to boil it.
“There is something very bad nearby,” Alpnu said. She was riding alongside me again. “Your friend clearly senses things that are hidden to others, but he doesn’t seem bothered by this.”
“I’ve never known Galo to lead us wrong,” I said. “Maybe this’ll turn out to be a good idea too.”
I put in that last bit to make myself feel better. I touched the hilt of my sword. Mostly the long blade just shows my rank; this evening I felt better for the weight hanging against my right thigh. My troopers carry daggers or the short, hook-bladed Etruscan swords. Those are as good as a hatchet to chop kindling or joint meat.
The slope down from the crest was steeper than most of the grades we’d followed, but the valley itself was open. Outcrops poked from the ground. The few scattered trees looked spindly, and even the grass was sparse.
Galo dismounted where the hillside started to flatten, near a face of bare rock. There wasn’t any dry wood, but I could split one of the old windfalls beneath a pair of junipers to expose the punk inside. If I could build the fire before the rain hit, we’d be all right.
“We’ll shelter under these trees,” I said. “Alpnu, you help Galo with the tarps and I’ll get the fire going.”
I split the branch with my dagger and trimmed curls from the heart of it. Alpnu said quietly, “Your friend isn’t listening to you.”
I looked up in surprise. Instead of unloading the packhorse, Galo had spiked the sharp end of his prybar into the face of the bare stone. He put his weight onto it, levering sideways.
There was a crack! and rocks tumbled down. Galo leaped back. The chunks ranged from grit to blocks you could use to build a foundation. Some of the big ones seemed to have been squared off.
“Galo, what do you have there?” I said. I’d started to unpack my fire starter, but I set the bundle down and got to my feet.
Alpnu was watching with an expression I couldn’t read. Her lips moved but I didn’t hear any sounds.
Galo ignored me and stepped toward the rock face again. What had broken away was just sheathing, but beneath it was a bulging plug, a boulder.
Galo thrust his bar between the plug and the living rock, then leaned against it. His bare toes were hooked over a low outcrop on the slope below.
I started toward him, but Alpnu touched my elbow. I glanced at her, but her eyes were fixed on Galo and the cave he was struggling to open.
I didn’t move closer after all. The thick bar was bending. I didn’t know what was going on, but when the strain let up—however that happened—it would be with a bang. Anything in the path of the bar or its broken end would be smashed to cat’s meat.
The earth trembled with a grinding sound. I looked up to see if an avalanche had started on the higher slope, but it was the stone plug beginning to turn outward. It must weigh as much as a warship, but the bar in Galo’s hands was moving it.
I saw what was about to happen and threw my arms around Alpnu as I ran out of its path. The boulder swelled from the mouth of the cave.
It was like watching the sky fall. It didn’t move quickly, especially at first, but it was unthinkably massive when it tipped forward.
Pebbles from the sheathing had remained on the cave’s threshold. Puffs of dust crackled as the boulder’s weight crushed them.
Galo gave a great shout and toppled sideways, clinging with both hands to his bar. The iron glowed faintly toward the pointed end where it had begun to bend.
The boulder began to roll as deliberately as a pregnant ewe, juddering slightly from side to side. It missed Galo’s sprawled legs by what must have been a whisker, and on the other side of the cave entrance it missed me and Alpnu too.
The stone cut a track through the thin soil to the underlying rock. The ground this near the valley floor was nearly flat, but weight kept it moving for as long as there was any slope at all. I hadn’t noticed the ground shaking until it stopped when the boulder finally came to rest in the line of sedges several hundred feet away.
I let go of the woman and jumped the furrow to see how Galo was. He lay on his back, breathing through his mouth like a bellows. His eyes were open but unfocused. The bar in his hands was three fingers’ thick, but the lower end now showed a noticeable curve.
“He ripped his tunic,” Alpnu said in a wondering voice. “When his muscles bulged they tore the cloth, and his tunic hadn’t been tight.”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s just wrung out. You can’t blame him.”
I thrust the butt-spikes of two javelins into the ground so that they stood upright, then straightened and drew my sword. Keeping the remaining javelin in my left hand to parry with, I started into the cave. It was round and almost higher than I could have reached by raising my bare hand.
I couldn’t take a full swing with the sword, but I could still thrust. My point doesn’t have a long taper, but it’s sharp enough to do the job with my arm behind it.
“I don’t think you should go in there,” Alpnu said. “It’s a bad place.”
I shuffled forward. I hadn’t asked her opinion.
Besides, I didn’t need it. I could feel that something wasn’t right, even without the tang of brimstone in the air.
Some light made it past me from the entrance, but it was getting late in the day and the clouds were building up besides. I thought about lighting a fire as I’d started to do, then going in with a torch.
That was a good idea—except that it meant a delay. There was nobody here to wonder if I was a coward; well, there was Alpnu, but I didn’t care what she thought.
Only I’d wonder if I was a coward too, if I didn’t go straight in.
I laughed. My voice sounded like a squirrel complaining, but it really was a laugh. I didn’t expect to live forever, and I’d never figured I was going to die in bed surrounded by my grandchildren either.
The tunnel went back forty-five, maybe fifty, feet, and it stayed just as wide across. My eyes were adapting to the shadows, but there wasn’t much to see.
On the ground near the far end was a lump. Rock, I figured, but the tunnel sides were smooth so it couldn’t have fallen from one of them. It had maybe rolled back from the entrance when Galo levered the plug away.
The tunnel ended in a flat wall with the sheen of metal, not stone like the sides. On the left edge was a crossbolt as thick as my wrist, and there were bumps that must be hinges on the right.
Where does the door lead?
The tunnel darkened a moment, then went back to as much light as before. Somebody’d stood in the entrance behind me, then moved away before I could shout at them.
It’d probably been the woman. From the way Galo had looked when I’d checked him, he wasn’t going to be moving for a while yet.
I stopped in front of the big rock. I could step past it easy, though it was more than I could life. Maybe even more than Galo could lift, though after what I saw him do with the plug I wouldn’t swear to that.
I tapped it with the point of my javelin. There was a clink—what I’d thought was rock was iron—and a crackle of blue light in it that made my hand tingle.
I backed a step. I could hear Alpnu’s voice but not the words; she was chanting or singing at the entrance.
The lump of iron quivered. I thought it was swelling, but that was pieces folding up from the edges and spreading out. There were more blue flickers and a hiss like water starting to boil.
I backed anot
her step and shouted, “Keep out of the way! I may be coming out of here fast!”
I hoped that Alpnu could understand what I was saying. I sure wasn’t going to turn my head away from whatever was happening.
A head lifted, a lump on a bigger lump, and in the middle of it were two trembling flickers where eyes would have been on a man. It was metal but it was alive.
I backed a step and a step and a step, not running—I didn’t turn—but not wasting time either. I wanted room to swing my sword properly.
The central lump rose, lifting on a pair of spindly legs. They were longer than mine and the thing’s arms were touching both sidewalls without even fully extending. Whenever the limbs moved, there were little crackles of lightning at the joints.
The thing came toward me. I lunged, striking its torso just where the neck supported the lumpy head. I hadn’t planned to do that until the instant my right foot slid forward and my arm stretched to full length. You can’t plan a fight, you move when the other fellow leaves himself open.
A blue flash outlined the metal creature and ran up my sword. The shock threw me backwards onto the floor. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe, and the only reason I still held my sword is that my hand was clamped to the hilt as though it was welded there.
The creature stepped forward stiffly, walking on jointed legs like a spider. It extended its right arm toward me. Instead of a hand, it had pincers.
Alpnu shouted something. Yellow light flashed over me and wrapped the creature. The color looked warm after the series of vivid blue-white flashes.
The arm reaching for me halted, twitching. Alpnu grabbed my harness and dragged me back. I barely felt myself sliding over the smooth stone floor, but I’d caught a glimpse of her set face as she bent over me.
The creature worried the light that tangled it the way a kitten plays with a web of yarn. The sticky yellowishness faded. The creature came on again, not quickly, but as surely as the rolling boulder which had freed it.
The sky had started to spatter rain; drops splashed on my upturned face when Alpnu got me outside. I could move again; I rolled onto all fours and stood. My limbs felt swollen, but my legs supported me and my arms worked well enough that I could sheathe my sword.
I didn’t know how I was going to kill that creature, but jabbing it with steel wasn’t one of the choices anymore. I moved away, wondering what was left.
Galo was sitting up now, though he hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. The creature reached the mouth of the tunnel; it paused there, light flickering in its eyes.
“Galo, back off from this thing!” I shouted. “Don’t hit it with your bar!”
Though maybe that was the way after all, given how strong Galo was. The shock would knock him on his back, but if it finished off the creature—
It came out of the cave, walking toward me. I wonder how fast it can run if I decide to leg it for the Crow and the rest of the war band?
Well, that was one of the questions I’d never learn the answer to. One of the blocks from the outside of the cliff face was nearly as big as my torso, too heavy to lift; but I knelt to grab it, then jerked it off the ground. I got it shoulder high when I straightened.
Alpnu stood nearby, her lips moving and her arms lifted to the heavens. I supposed she was praying. That would do at least as much good as when I stabbed at the thing.
I expected Galo to bash the creature with his prybar even if he’d understood what I’d told him. Instead he ducked behind it into the tunnel when it stalked out toward me.
I’d have been furious with Galo if I’d been able to think, but I was focused on the massive stone I held. I saw only a red blur, I felt a red blur, and I took one stride forward and straightened my arms, pushing the stone away.
I don’t know if I was holding the stone when it hit the creature. I pitched backward with the effort of throwing something that weighed twice as much as I did. The blast an instant later sprayed me with powdered rock, the shattered remains of the dense block.
The creature stood, untouched and unmoved; its metal body was slicked by the rain that was becoming heavy. It bent slightly, reaching for me.
A lightning bolt spat from the clouds.
The world turned white. I felt my sprawled body flip end for end, but I don’t know whether the earth had shaken that hard or if it had been my own muscles jerking from the nearby lightning. The creature was a flat black silhouette against the brightness.
I hit the ground again, on my face. I turned so that I could see.
The creature had vanished, all but a pool of metal on the burned ground, shimmering as the rain pelted and cooled it.
* * *
I was shivering from more than the cold rain. Alpnu bent over me and put her fingertips on my temples. I seemed warmer in a way that reminded me of the feeling I’d gotten when her rope of yellow light tangled the creature.
“What was it?” I said.
“That was the guardian,” Alpnu said. “Opening the cave was a mistake, a terrible mistake. Get up quickly. I know what your friend’s jewel is now. It called him to it.”
I didn’t think I’d be able to move, but there wasn’t even the ache I should’ve felt from lifting the stone. I did lift it, didn’t I? Am I dreaming in a fever?
Alpnu tugged me toward the cave. That was a good idea. We couldn’t light a fire with the rain pissing down like this, but at least we could get into shelter.
“We have to get that jewel away from your friend,” Alpnu said. “It may be too late already.”
“Then I hope he’ll give it to me,” I said, talking more to myself than to the woman. Taking something away from Galo that he didn’t want to give up was business for more men than just me.
He’d offered me the jewel back in the Crow’s camp, but something had changed in Galo since then. If he said no, I wasn’t going to fill him with javelins and take it off his body. That was the only way I was sure would work.
We walked into the cave. The floor curved up to both sides like a jar laid over, so I walked in front of her. There was light from inside, which I didn’t expect; the brimstone smell was a lot stronger. I wondered if Galo had lighted a fire and what he’d found to burn.
The iron door at the end of the passage stood ajar. It must have been rusted solid to its jamb. Even after Galo had ripped the bolt from its staples, he’d had to hammer his bar into the seam and prize the panel open. The edge of the thick metal was bent up from his effort.
The red light came from beyond the doorway. It was the color of the coals of a campfire when you stir the ashes off them.
I stopped. I hadn’t noticed Galo for a moment because he stood on the hinge side of the door, shadowed from the red glow. He had a woman against the wall and was thrusting into her. She looked past his shoulder toward me. Her face was as calm as an ivory goddess’s.
“We’ve got to stop him!” Alpnu said. “If it feeds—”
She slipped past me, but I grabbed her by the shoulder. “This is none of our business,” I said. “If Galo wants—”
Galo must have heard our voices; he turned his head. His face was rigid.
He screamed. He was a big man with good lungs; the sound echoed through my bones. I’d never heard anything like it, and I prayed the Dagda grant I that never would again. Blood sprayed from his mouth and nostrils, ending the scream.
Galo’s torso flopped over like an emptied wineskin. I must’ve let go of Alpnu then, because she darted forward.
Galo’s face was loose. What remained stared at me from upside down. I shouted and drew my sword again.
The expression of the woman Galo had had against the wall didn’t change. Her slim, naked body was perfect. The beautiful woman, he’d said, and now I knew what he’d meant.
Alpnu grabbed the jewel around Galo’s neck and tugged at the chain. There wouldn’t have been room enough to get her fingers under it before, when Galo’s skin hadn’t been an empty sack.
The chain didn’t break. The woman
, the creature, that had sucked out Galo’s life reached for Alpnu with its right hand. Its arm extended like a rivulet of water crawling through the air.
I stepped forward and thrust for the creature’s shoulder. I half expected a shock like what I’d gotten from the metal thing, but my point slipped in until the rock stopped it. The creature’s flesh burned black and stinking around the steel.
The air trembled. It wasn’t a sound that I could hear, but it made my hair stand on end.
Alpnu tugged again and the jewel came free in her hand. The chain still hadn’t broken, but she’d pulled the loop over the flopping remains of my friend’s face.
I drew back. The creature’s expression remained frozen in that almost-smile. Galo’s body fell to the tunnel floor. For a moment I saw a round, toothed maw dripping with blood; then it withdrew into the creature’s groin.
Alpnu rubbed the jewel against the floor. It gouged a line in the stone.
The creature’s wounded shoulder knit like a pond closing over a dropped knife. Its left foot extended past me toward the entrance, moving with shimmering suddenness.
“Alpnu, come!” I shouted. I slashed sideways at the creature’s head. It flowed away from my blade, and I struck the wall again. Its extended leg bulged the way a rat moves down a snake’s gullet, but very quickly.
The creature was no longer in front of us. It stood, white and perfect, at the place its foot had reached a moment before—between us and the entrance to the cave. It smiled.
“Come!” Alpnu said as she tugged my left sleeve. “It can’t pass iron this way either!”
She moved toward the door that Galo had opened. The creature’s left arm extended down the wall toward us. I cut at it. My steel crossed the line of not-flesh, which curled away and blackened. The whole world screamed again.
I sprang through the doorway. Alpnu was inside pulling at the door to close it.
“Out of the way!” I shouted. There wasn’t a handhold on this side, but Galo had bent up the edge. I dropped my sword and gripped the bent spot with my fingertips, then pulled. The rusted seam had cracked free, but the hinges were still stiff. It was like trying to pull myself up a rock face.