by P D Ceanneir
‘Acolytes? You mean the Order of the Brethac Ziggurat?’
Not as such. One such acolyte, a powerful and dangerous man, is controlling The Order. His intentions are not always what they seem, even to the Order of the Brethac. He is solely a servant of the Earth Daemon.
‘Who is he?’ Havoc asked with keen interest.
Someone you know very well, she said and suddenly turned away from him, I must go now.
‘Wait! I have so many questions...’
Another time, Havoc, answers will come. Farewell.
The watery form of the Sea goddess faded into the grey motes leaving Havoc to float alone with his thoughts amidst the tranquil currents.
Both the light from the Powerball and the Muse Orrinn dimmed as the four found the source of the orange glow. Niches carved out of the walls held bowls of liquid, which burnt away slowly giving off an orange-blue flame. The blue smoke from the burning substance left a slick residue on the high ceiling. They walked for some distance until they heard rushing water and came to an opening blocked by a curtain of thrashing white water.
‘Must be part of the water table that fed the Assassi Oasis centuries ago,’ remarked Lord Ness loudly over the din of the waterfall, ‘we are too far underground now for it to have any effect on the surface, which is probably why it dried up.’
At the side of the waterfall was a spiral staircase leading up to the next level. They climbed it with the Blacksword leading the way and came out onto a balcony corridor with a row of stone arches on the left side. Through the arches they could see a vast cavern with complex structures at different levels. The cavern, curved at the top far above their heads, harboured stalactites in their thousands hanging down from its rugged ceiling where bacteria mixed with algae gave off a luminescent glow that brought the closest thing to daylight to these caves.
The waterfall was now on their left and it cascaded down into a wide trough that curved around the cavern where it met other, smaller, waterfalls that spilled the collected torrents into a large lake far below them. Above the lake was a honeycomb ball of grey coloured spheres and spiral walkways that seemed to float above it. On closer inspection, a thin pillar of rock, which protruded out of the lake, held the whole structure aloft. Branching out from the conglomeration were many wide stone bridges that connected it to various points along the cavern walls. The Brethac creatures were swarming around the construction like ants on a nest. On the nest’s flat level roof, where fires burnt on top of tall stone pillars, they were performing a strange dance and barking musically to one another.
‘Busy little bees,’ said Tia as she scrutinised the complex hive that the creatures danced on, it was whitish-grey with a hint of a blue sheen especially where it curved at the top and bottom. The winding ring of walkways contrasted differently as a dark grey and it passed by dark circular openings at each level. Every dozen feet or so the walkways were lit by a flaming brand encased in a rusting iron cage to illuminate the spider web of bridges which branched off seamlessly from these walkways, but the flickering torches made their shadows shift over the far walls of the cavern in an eerie dance.
The Blacksword nudged Tia and pointed upwards. Above the dancing creatures’ heads were two wicker structures like large round balls hanging from ropes from an even larger circular wicker platform. The Blacksword could clearly see that the captured Wyvern caged inside other wooden barred cages on the platform itself along with three of the creatures, but the problem was getting to the wicker platform. The large, sturdy looking structure seemed to float loosely above the hive, but he could see many thick ropes-vines holding the thing aloft. Each end of vine attached to the cavern ceiling by huge iron hooks. The only way to get to the platform was by way of one stumpy stone bridge that protruded from the cavern wall to their right, but left a gap of sixty feet or so to the platform edge. This bridge was higher than their current position so the group continued along the arched corridor in order to find another row of stairs that led upwards.
They reached the far end where they found a row of iron grills in the wall of the next corridor junction that showed another room down below them. The room’s dim torchlight revealed a long stone table soaked in blood and parts of human bodies; limbs and torsos hanging from hooks or wrapped in chains. Over to the right of the room sat a naked girl, probably in her early teens, sitting hunched in the corner crying. By her colouring and features, she was a native of the desert peoples. Another girl of about the same age and a few months pregnant lay on her back in a pool of blood, her eyes stared lifelessly up at them as they looked through the bars.
‘By the gods! The poor girl,’ whispered Lord Ness.
‘Do you think she miscarried?’ said Powyss, but no one answered him because the door to the prison opened and two of the Brethac creatures walked in. Both of them sniffed the dead girl and one of them wrapped his fingers around her ankle and dragged her out of the door, she left behind a slick trail of blood. The second girl screamed as the other creature grabbed her long black hair and dragged her out too.
The Blacksword felt Tia move closer to him, but he did not reciprocate. He realised that she only needed comfort from him after what she witnessed.
They continued onwards and found the stairs leading to the short bridge. Two of the fiends guarded the top of the stairs, but that did not stop Lord Ness and the Backsword rushing them silently and cutting them down from behind.
‘It looks like they have a pulley system to lower the cages down individually,’ said Powyss as he peered over a rocky parapet that led to the bridge, ‘we may have to jump over.’
Tia could see that the commander was right; each cage ball had a round hook at the top attached to a long length of twisted vine that acted as a sturdy rope, the end of which was loosely coiled at the far side of the wicker platform next to a rusty old winch on a thick metal arm. At that moment, three of the creatures rolled one of the cages to the edge and hooked the winching rope to the top of it. The single girl inside cursed the beasts with every lungful of breath and the language was in the Falesti tongue. The other four girls, two in each cage, were shouting out their friend’s name, which was Debbdil.
Down below, on the top of the nest, they could all see that the dancing creatures had stopped and were watching intently as the native girl from the prison was unceremoniously dragged, kicking and screaming, into the centre of the ring of flame-lit pillars. The dead girl was there too, lying spread eagled on a flat stone table, as one of the Brethac used his sharp nails to easily rip open her swollen stomach and extract the red, glistening half-formed embryo. The others mewed as they watched their colleague do this as if honouring the dead child and watched as he stalked off the nest to one of the long bridges clutching the bundle in his arms.
Then they turned as one and descended upon the body of the dead girl, tearing her to pieces as the beasts roared in a hunger-fuelled fury. They made short work of her girl’s flesh, leaving a red smear of ripped flesh and broken shards of bone on the table. One of their number absent-mindedly chucked her tattered guts to one side as if it was a soiled rag.
Throughout all of this feeding frenzy the other girl screamed and gibbered in fear and shock. Then the Brethac creatures, covered in blood, unceremoniously threw her small naked form onto the table where they preceded to rape her in turn.
The girl’s painful screams reached Tia’s ears and she held back a sob and looked away. Powyss put a tentative hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but she shrugged it off.
‘I’m alright,’ she told them, ‘if they catch me I’ll fight the bastards to the death before they can do that to me.’ They all believed her, her eyes were full of anger.
The creatures on the wicker platform pushed the cage ball containing Debbdil over the edge and started lowering it down to the hive with the winch.
‘We need to act now,’ said the Blacksword, ‘one of us will have to find another way out of here. The entrance we came by is out of the question with the Wyvern, there must be another way.�
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‘I’ll go and find it,’ said Powyss and he disappeared down the stairs.
The Blacksword then took a few steps back and ran along the short bridge. He jumped the sixty-foot gap from the bridge to the cages using the Arts to harden the air to push him forward and give him more lift. He landed behind two of the Brethac and cut them down before they turned around. The third attacked with a snarl and his claw outstretched, but was quickly slashed open from groin to chest by SinDex in one neat upwards cut.
The Blacksword flicked the latch locking the winch and Debbdil’s cage stopped halfway down. Lord Ness and Tia joined him on the platform and while the Havant helped the Blacksword winch the cage up, the Ri disintegrated the chain and padlocks on the other cages freeing the other four Wyvern Filial. Each girl, grimy with sweat and dirt, barely controlled their delight by giving him a tight hug and a kiss on each cheek, which made him smile in surprise. There were other girls, three natives in all, who had barely managed to cover up their dirty nakedness with old rags taken from long rotted corpses that shared their cages with them. All three were very grateful to be free even though fear still etched their thin faces.
Lord Ness looked down at the creatures below through the finely woven hemp and thatched branches that made up the curved edge of the wicker platform and wondered how the things could get to them from down below. The platform with its ball cages hung far above them from dozens of rope-vines angled up to iron hooks hammered into the rocks of the vaulted ceiling. This seemed to be why the platform and the cages were made from wood and rope; it was light enough to put little, if any, strain on the securing ropes. Granted, as prisons go, due to its construction, no one could escape even if they got out of the cages. Nevertheless, why would the Brethac make it so hard for themselves to get to the captives? Do they climb up the winch ropes? That would be impossible now that the Blacksword and Tia were winching it up.
The answer to his questions came with sickening clarity when some of the creatures, who had finished their sport with the young native girl, looked up towards the winch wondering where their next plaything was. The Ri watched with his heart in his throat as the monsters stared in disbelief at the ascending cage. Then, as one group, they separated and sprinted for the many stone bridges that connected the nest to the walls of the cavern.
Once they reached the walls, Lord Ness knew how they were going to fail in the rescue. The Brethac could climb. They scaled the walls with practised skill like black and white spiders. He could even hear the tinkling sounds of their claws digging into the solid stone of the cavern walls.
‘Ah, guys, we have a problem,’ he said to Tia and the Blacksword.
The Blacksword looked around him at the tide of Brethac climbing the walls of the colossal cavern. Once the creatures reached the ropes securing the wicker platform to the ceiling all they needed to do was climb down them and attack.
‘Hold them off!’ he hissed to the Ri who raised his eyebrows at the absurdity of the order, but went about it with his usual aplomb. He used the wind element to lift two of the uncoupled spherical cages at the same time and throw them at the lead climbers. Halfway to their destination, he summoned the fire element and the cages burst into flames, quickly covering its entire structure. They both hit the wall at the same time and exploded over a large area knocking off dozens of Brethac in the process, but for every ten he killed, twenty took their place and his energy reserves were still low from the draining effect of the previous night’s storm. The Powerball he had formed earlier was somewhere in the corridor they had just left. He summoned it to him and extinguished it, absorbing the small amount of energy it gave him. He then started throwing fist sized Fireballs at the approaching creatures that were quick to dodge the flaming missiles.
‘I can’t keep this up for long!’ he shouted. Out of nowhere, Powyss landed on the platform.
‘What part of “rescue the girls and quietly leave” did we not understand?’ he frowned as he looked around him.
Tia and the Blacksword had finally finished winching Debbdil’s cage back up. They both gripped it, pulling it over the platform’s short lip and Tia slackening the winch so it landed with a thump at the edge of the platform. The Blacksword let her out of the cage; the short girl thanked them with a big smile, but gave the tall-cloaked figure a fearful look.
‘Did you find a way out?’ Tia asked Powyss.
‘Not really,’ he pointed to a cave two levels down on the far side that now had Brethac exiting its entrance. ‘I only had time to look in that cave mouth; it only leads to the lake which flows into a river.’
‘Does the lake have a current?’ asked the Blacksword.
‘Yes, its flowing north, if that is what you mean.’
‘Good, then that is your way out,’ he said, ‘when I give the signal, cut the ropes.’ He said pointing to the thick vines holding the platform. Then ran to the edge and jumped off the platform.
‘Damn it! I hate it when he does that,’ groaned Powyss. Tia watched as the Blacksword landed lightly and sprinted forward, cutting his way methodically through the creatures still on the hive surface with the long black blade of the Sword that Rules. She noticed that the native girl was now slumped face down on the stone table and did not move or breathe. Her limbs were crooked at odd angles due to her being passed from one Brethac to another during her rape and blood dripped from between her legs adding to the red ???? that stained and steamed on the floor and from the chill of the cavern. Tia felt sadness and anger well in her.
‘What is he doing?’ asked the tall dark haired Debbdil, ‘if you cut the ropes we will fall on the hive.’
‘I think he is about to show us the solution to that question,’ said Powyss. The Blacksword stood in a circle of dead as other Brethac surrounded him; he pulled down his hood and grinned menacingly at them. Strangely enough, they all stopped and looked at him as if he was some human oddity. The creatures’ hesitation was all the time he needed as he carved his way through them showering the hive surface in their blood.
The Brethac on the walls had reached the vines and some had started climbing down in groups of fours or fives while others had continued towards the top of the cavern roof, obviously to drop down onto the platform.
‘Cut some of the ropes, Commander, it will reduce the amount that reach us,’ ordered Lord Ness. Between the two of them, they cut five of the Brethac filled vines. Powyss watched as one of the ropes he cut swung back with seven of the things clinging onto it, they all slammed into the cavern wall with their backs and then fell a hundred feet to their deaths, taking some of the wall climbers with them. His whoop of joy was short lived when more of them started falling onto the platform from the roof above.
Tia managed to cut two ropes and heard the creatures hissing snarls as they fell away. Suddenly, two of the beasts landed next to her as they dropped down from the cavern ceiling. Debbdil screamed and stayed behind the Havant as the things attacked. Tia dispatched them both with sweeping strokes of her sword. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Powyss and the Ri protect the rest of the girls as they bunched together in the centre of the platform. Lord Ness had cleverly set fire to six more of the vines leaving just eight attached. Already the platform was straining against the weight of them and the additional weight of the attacking Brethac. The burning vines made sharp twanging noises as sections of rope burnt away within it. Powyss pushed two more of the cages in front of him with a burst of gale energy and made them shatter into thousands of tinny shards that punctured a multitude of wounds into the screaming creatures when they moved forward to attack.
Two more landed by Tia, she summoned the earth element allowing an area of the wicker platform to soften into a clinging glue as the Brethac landed. They sunk through the surface allowing Tia to dispatch them easily by decapitation.
Down below, the Blacksword had made it unharmed to one of the bridges; he left a trail of dead behind him as he ran along its sandstone structure. Brethac swarmed out of the hive caves and
leapt to the bridges to attack him, but they were cut down or swatted off the by a strong gust of wind that the Blacksword had called up.
Seven of the creatures landed on the wicker platform at the same time, and with quick jerky movements, attacked Lord Ness as he protected the women. The speed of Belthoin was exceptional as it sliced off a limb of one and snatched away the life of another. However, one of the things got by him to reach out its sharp claws impaling one of the native girls in the chest. The Ri twisted around quickly and took the creatures arm off at the elbow. He then blasted the thing away with a wall of hardened air. It spun away from them and hit two others of its kind, forcing all three to topple over the edge of the platform. Blood gushed from the girl’s chest as she cringingly pulled the twitching arm out of her body and collapsed to the ground shaking in fear and shock.
Tia fended off the long nails of one of the monsters. This one, she noticed with disgust, had an erection; she dodged the lethal claws and swung her sword down to hack off the arms and the engorged member with one sure stroke. She yelled with glee as it screamed like a child and as its life’s blood spurted from the three wounds. Debbdil fearfully shouted Tia’s name from behind her. She was having problems of her own; two of the Brethac must have landed behind them during the fight. They made a lunge for the Falesti girl, meaning Debbdil’s only retreat was the cage-sphere she had originally been trapped in, so she quickly climbed to the top of the eight-foot wicker ball and used her booted foot to kick down at one of the monsters while the other one climbed the other side. Tia leapt into the air and sliced open the closest creatures back as she landed, but the force of the blow nudged the cage ball backwards to teeter onto the edge of the platforms lip and Debbdil’s weight and that of the monster on the other side did the rest. Tia could only watch helpless as the ball and the raven-haired girl fell over the side. The winch rope uncoiled at her feet. A looming shadow behind her warned her of attack by another Brethac, so she quickly lashed out with her sword, sticking flesh, and stooped down to grab the rope. She quickly turned and deftly looped a slack coil over the snarling beasts shoulder just in time, as the paid out rope tightened, the monster gurgled in pain as the rope gripped sharply around him pinning his arms to his torso and pulled him off his feet towards the pulley arm. He hit it with terrifying force as it punched through his chest and so stopped the cages descent.