The Rawn Chronicles Book Three: The Ancarryn and the Quest (The Rawn Chronicles Series 3)

by P D Ceanneir

  ‘The Blacksword urges caution where the Vul’yoi is concerned, he does not trust them and I can see his point,’ said Havoc, still thoughtful at the Ri’s sudden change in subject. ‘I think the sooner we get out of here the better.’

  ‘I agree,’ said the Ri, ‘how do you propose to get out?’

  Havoc pointed towards the top of the pyramid and its peek jutting out of the crater opening. ‘Surely, the Cybeleion will be close to being repaired and on its way, but for now, we climb,’ he said.

  Chapter 22

  The Flood of Tears

  The total damage to the pyramid was clearer as they climbed the stairs and bridges towards the summit. While some of the cracks and collapsed walls were caused by the weather, the thick trunks of the creeping vine caused most of the ruin. It’s root work had dislodged some of the foundations and sections of the walls were gone as the fast-growing plant punched through weaker areas on its continuous climb towards the sunlight. Clearly, it had seen better days. The temple still stood, though, a true testament of brilliant engineering all of those years ago.

  Their little friend, the Vul’yoi who guided Havoc’s group to the surface, went with them as they travelled upward over the zigzag of stair and walkways. Her people stood outside the entrance watching the temple from the grove or the walls of the water channels. As they climbed, they could hear their singing; the walls of the cave enhanced their melodic tones.

  Light faded from the bottom half of the structure as the evening wore on. They rested on the open balcony of the third tier and looked over the parapet. The other balconies were unreachable because of the plant life that grew out of the narrow openings; anyway, the parapets had collapsed to the floor of the cave years ago. The third and fourth tiers were the only ones still intact. The Vul’yoi down below were still singing and had now started swaying in time with their chanting.

  Daylight was fading fast when they reached the fifth tier with its odd curved platform that jutted out from the walls and over the centre of the pyramid. Water trickled down from this level and Havoc could see that a sloped channel attached to the wall was supposed to direct the water around the walls of the construction, but it had broken away years ago so the water just trickled down into the lake motte that surrounded the base of the temple.

  ‘Ah, here is the source of the water, my friends,’ said Lord Ness with excitement.

  At the centre of the platform was a round bowl full to the brim with clear water. The bowl, made from gold and about the size of a modest tin bath, was covered in Skrol etchings that seemed to glow silver from within the encircled glyphs. Inside the bowl were three large egg-shaped stones, bluish-green in colour.

  ‘These are Water Orrinns and extremely rare,’ said Lord Ness, ‘and it seems they are still active, judging by the amount of water they have produced over the years, they may have been responsible for creating the underground river.’

  ‘So, why are they here?’ said Debbdil.

  ‘Irrigation channels,’ said Havoc snapping his fingers, ‘of course!’

  The Ri smiled. ‘Like I said, my Lord, this is not a temple.’

  ‘Will one of you brain boxes tell us what is going on?’ said Powyss in exasperation.

  ‘This is not the Brethac Ziggurat,’ said Havoc, ‘it’s a water tower for the irrigation of the old oasis. The channels go under the fruit grove; they must head back towards the centre of the citadel. I can only assume that the ancient Assassi must have attempted to stop the citadel’s oasis from drying up at some point in the past. The cave-in below may have blocked it up.’

  ‘So why didn’t they just unblock it?’ Tia asked.

  ‘Are you forgetting the Brethac War that the remaining Assassi had?’ said Powyss.

  ‘What Brethac War?’ Havoc asked. Lord Ness told them all about the cenotaph to the dead that they found and the warning it foretold about the creatures within the city.

  ‘So the Brethac was the final straw that broke the Assassi’s back,’ mused Tia, ‘so where does the Vul’yoi fit into all of this then?’ Down below them, on the fourth tier, their little guide stood watching them with a sad look on her face. No one had even noticed that she never climbed the stairs to the fifth level to join them on the platform. She glanced up towards the opening in the crater with a distinctly worried frown. Daylight was fading fast.

  ‘Is this cenotaph the marker to Mortkraxnoss?’ asked the prince.

  ‘I think so,’ said Lord Ness, ‘we will not know more until I interpret the rubbings I made.’

  Tia tapped the Prince’s shoulder and pointed down to the little Vul’yoi. Havoc could see the forlorn look on her face and the tears that dripped from her cheek to fall into the main body of water below them.

  ‘I think you had better say goodbye to your girlfriend, my Lord,’ said Tia in a soft voice.

  One of the Wyverns had found an opening on the far wall across from the platform. It led to a bridge that reached over to the other side of the crater, giving them all a view of the desert and the ruins of the citadel beyond bathed in the red glow of sunset.

  ‘That’s our way out,’ said Powyss.

  ‘I’ll join you in a bit,’ said Havoc, ‘I have to say goodbye to our friend there.’

  ‘Don’t be long,’ said Powyss. ‘It’s nearly dark, and I want to be as far away from the citadel as possible.’

  Havoc nodded then jumped off the platform to land lightly in front of the Vul’yoi.

  ‘I have to go now, little one, thank you for your help,’ said Havoc pointing to the opening in the crater and the fading daylight.

  The girl sobbed and nodded in understanding, she wiped her face.

  ‘Korzac neivich,’ she said, turning her back on him and walking to the balcony. Havoc followed overcome with an urge to give her a hug to reassure her. She leant on the parapet, buried her head in her arms, and cried even more. Havoc reached out and pulled her round. Her wet face looked up at him and he hugged her, she clung tightly to him with her head against his chest.

  ‘I won’t forget you, little one. Someday I will return and take you to my homeland. Will you like that?’ there was an almost imperceptible nod from her. Havoc smiled and was struck by how quiet it was, the singing had stopped. He looked over the parapet and saw, in the dim light, that the Vul’yoi was staring up at the pyramid in silence. An eerie shiver shot down his back when he realised that they were all crying. Are they all linked empathically? He wondered.

  ‘I think the rest of the Vul’yoi will miss us too.’

  ‘Vul’yoi!’ said the girl, but not in her usual voice, this was more of a growl, deep and threatening. Havoc flinched; he gripped the albino girl by the shoulders and pulled her off him, he nearly yelled in shock at what he saw.

  ‘Vul’yoi, Korzac,’ she growled, ‘Korzac, Vul’yoi.’ The deep menacing voice was recognisable enough to the prince without the black eyes staring back at him.

  Powyss led two of the Wyvern across the stone bridge. It creaked and groaned under them, but they made it over safe enough. The sun had just set. Soon the temperature would plummet. He wanted to be out of here as soon as possible.

  He walked back over the groaning bridge. It was a long drop down the steep sides of the pyramid so he erred on the side of caution.

  ‘I think we should take our time going over this, it’s got cracks all over it. Two at a time please.’

  The two native girls walked over slowly, they held hands all the way and gave out tiny yelps when the bridge shuddered and chunks of masonry fell off from underneath it. There was a look of relief on their faces when they reached the other side and waved to Powyss to let him know they were safe. Powyss, as weak as he was, placed a hand on the surface and tried to strengthen the bridge with the arts, but the structure was in a terrible condition. He did the best he could.

  ‘All right, you two next,’ he said to the next two Wyverns Filial.

  Havoc pushed the little Vul’yoi girl away from him as her body jerked in violent spas
ms. He stepped back a few paces, hypnotised by the transformation of the creature in front of him. Down on the grove the thousand strong Vul’yoi had also started thrashing about on the ground.

  The little guide was not so little any more. She grew several feet in front of Havoc’s eyes. There were loud popping sounds as her arms and legs elongated to thin, wiry limbs. Her breasts disappeared, and her head stretched into an oval shape complete with needle sharp teeth and a full head of black quills. If there was any confusion on Havoc’s part about what was happening then the large penis sticking out of its black thatch of pubic hair gave everything away.

  Well that explains a lot, the Blacksword said in an off-hand-way as Havoc unsheathed SinDex.

  The Brethac, Korzac or Vul’yoi, whatever it was, roared at him, whipping its newly formed tail from side to side, flexing its long white fingers and pushing out its steel-like nails till they were several inches long.

  Havoc backed off allowing the creature to come to him, and come it did. It rushed forward slashing the air with its nails so quickly that a thin line of four scratches raked across the Princes shoulder guard. It leapt into the air in an attempt to use its lethal toe claws to pin him to the ground, but the Prince raced forward and slashed upward at the Brethac Korzac’s chest, nearly cleaving the thing in two. The monster screamed in pain as it overshot the stairway railing falling into the water far below.

  The feeling of guilt at killing the guide to their freedom was short lived as he ran to the parapet. Down below the Vul’yoi had made the transformation to the Korzac and were at that moment running towards the opening of the pyramid.

  ‘Seems that I was mistaken, this is a temple of the Brethac,’ he mumbled.

  I did try to warn you, said the Blacksword with a smug sound to his voice.

  ‘Oh shut up!’ Havoc ran to the stairs to the fifth tier, taking them two at a time.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Powyss, his face a mask of worry.

  ‘Get over the bridge quick!’ he shouted, ‘the Brethac are here!’

  On the bridge, the two Wyverns were halfway over when they heard the prince shout. They ran to the other side. Cracking noises echoed out of the bridge’s stonework with every footstep they took, eventually growing louder as they completed the run for the opposite end. They had just made it to the edge when the bridge collapsed into the cave below, smashing into pieces on the side of the pyramid.

  ‘Well that’s just made a mockery of an otherwise damned fine plan,’ moaned Powyss

  ‘We will have to jump it ourselves,’ said Lord Ness. The jump was just less than a hundred feet; a fair distance even for a skilled Rawn, as weak as they were this was going to take some doing.

  Havoc reached the fifth tier then looked down, he saw the Brethac Korzac climb up to the bridges of the second tier. A large number of them headed for the walls and started to climb at astonishing speed. He looked around, trying to find a solution to slowing them down, an edge to help them escape. His eyes rested on the Water Orrinns.

  ‘Tia, help me take Debbdil across!’ shouted the Ri as he put an arm around the Wyvern. Debbdil looked at the ominous gap.

  ‘Erm…It is quite a distance. Do you think both of you can do it?’ there was a tremor of fear and doubt in her voice.

  Tia shrugged beside her. ‘To be honest, I’ve never crossed any distance as great as this.’

  ‘Well there is always a first time,’ said the Ri calmly, ‘it’s all a matter of perspective.’

  ‘Oh good, for a second there I was worried,’ said the Wyvern sarcastically.

  They took as much space away from the broken edge of the bridge as they could to give them a lengthy run up before the jump. ‘Ready?’ asked Lord Ness and the girls nodded in unison. They ran towards the edge, the doorway was barely wide enough for all three of them to run through and Debbdil screamed as the darkness on the other side of the broken edge became all that remained under her feet. Fortunately, Tia had enough energy to create a large and powerful gale to send them high into the air and give them a better trajectory, shortening the distance somewhat. Lord Ness only managed to push all three of them most of the way when his flagging energy reserves ran out. The rocky rim of the cave’s crater was tantalisingly close and as they neared the edge, arms and legs flailing, he gave Debbdil a shove on her back to give her a better chance.

  At one moment, Debbdil heard the rush of wind in her ears the next silence as she descended towards the rim, she could see the concerned looks on the other girls’ faces as they watched in stunned amazement at the jump. She ran in mid air, kicking her legs as if this would get her closer, she felt the Ri’s hand shove her on the back, then her booted feet hit the edge and with a bone jarring thud. She felt something go in her ankle and she yelled in pain. The edge crumbled away from the impact and she toppled backwards, Tia had landed well with a few feet to spare and she gripped the Wyverns hand pulling her on top of her as she fell to the ground at the others feet. There was a scream from the others as Lord Ness fell short of the rim. He hit it with his chest, gripping the rock with his outstretched arms and then slowly slipped as he fumbled for purchase.

  Debbdil, being closer to him, acted quickly and grasped for his arm, holding him in place as the others rushed to pull him up.

  The Ri breathed heavily as he rolled onto his back. ‘There, told you it was all a matter of perspective,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘You are not going to do, what I think you are going to do, are you?’ said Powyss as he watched Havoc pluck one of the Water Orrinns from the golden bowl.

  ‘Have you got any better ideas?’

  Powyss looked down. The Brethac were already halfway up the inside of the Ziggurat’s walls, their snarls and barks echoed around the tiers of the pyramid. Powyss could see their quills bristle and their tails thrash behind them with every four-legged spider-crawl up the black brick walls. Those on the zigzag bridges were already outrunning their wall-climbing companions as they sprinted closer and closer.

  ‘So the Vul’yoi is the Brethac Korzac,’ he said in the form of a final statement of fact.

  ‘Sort of,’ said the prince as he joined the commander next to the stone railing of the fifth tier. ‘Female by day and male by night, not a separate species, but twins of the same.’

  ‘Eh?’

  Havoc shrugged as he held the Orrinn over the edge, ‘don’t ask me how I know that, I just do. Now, I’m going to drop this and activate it to its full potential, and I have no idea what will happen.’

  ‘Bugger it! It is a Water Orrinn. It cannot be any worse than the Wind Orrinn you used at Othell’s Cairn. Lob it in then,’ said Powyss, with a nod of his head towards the lake below.

  Havoc nodded and dropped the Orrinn down the centre of the pyramid. At the same time he incanted Skrol, willing the falling stone to activate to its full potential. Powyss groaned as the needle sharp words of the sub-conscious language lanced into his brain. He wished he had kept his mouth shut.

  The Orrinn fell with alarming clarity to Havoc; he watched it tumble twice before it bounced off the fourth tier stairway then it started to spin on its thicker curved base. The water that jetted out of the top as it twisted through the air dowsed the lower half of the pyramid within a split second. It hit the walls with a high-pressure blast that ripped apart the lower bridges and knocked the wall climbers off the bridge and the south wall, crushing their bodies up against the walls with the force of the waters fountain. Weak brickwork in the damaged side of the temple shot outwards from the spray and the weight of the structure slumped onto the supporting beams that groaned with the stress.

  The Water Orrinn hit the water and sunk to the bottom. For a second nothing happened, and then a huge fountain burst out from the surface, quickly pushing the water level higher up the walls at a rate of several feet per second.

  Havoc picked up the last two Orrinns. Water seeped out of their surfaces as if they were skin bags of drinking water peppered with holes. He threw them off in di
fferent directions as he used the Skrol to make them leak some more and they exploded with a torrent of water that cascaded down the insides of the pyramid, stripping the Brethac from the walls.

  Powyss whooped with the wonder of it all as he watched the creatures flail about in the foaming water. His smile faded as he noticed it was getting higher and higher as the Water Orrinns quickly filled the vast water tower.

  They both heard a hiss behind them and saw some Brethac climb through the gap in the fourth tier and the escape route doorway that led to the bridge. These creatures had been smarter than their comrades, having climbed the pyramid on the outside of the structure.

  Havoc and Powyss pulled their Spit Guns from their holsters and took down several of the creatures. As they reloaded with four more wolfram tipped bolts, they felt the pyramid lurch as the water pressure below them undermined the foundations. The creeping vines suddenly tore loose from the walls as the frothing water ripped out the plant’s roots, pushing out of any crack and opening that the liquid could escape from, and cascaded into the grove. Soon the level of the flood raised high above the channel walls and crashed, as a full formed tidal wave, into the orchard, tearing the trees from the sandy earth and crushing them against the far walls of the cave. Yet more water jetted out from the Orrinns.

  The pyramid lurched again as more of the walls collapsed. The platform with the golden bowl shifted sideways and twisted around as its brick supports cracked and splintered with the strain of holding it up.

  Two of the Brethac leapt onto the platform and rushed towards Havoc and Powyss. Powyss fired a bolt into his assailant’s legs and lashed out with Bor-Teaven, his swords blade spitted the monster’s chest and he struggled to keep his balance as he kicked it off his sword. Havoc dodged a slashing claw and braced himself as the big monster rammed it’s shoulder into his torso. He fell against the golden bowl and felt it dislodge from it’s mount and topple over the edge of the platform. He used his momentum to twist around and grab the Brethac’s wrist, pulling it off it’s feet and pivoted it off the ledge. He heard it’s rage as it fell into the slowly rising water.