by Martha Carr
“Send it right back to Ambar’ogúl.” Cheyenne nodded. “Got it.”
“No, Cheyenne,” Persh’al said behind her. “Whatever that thing is, it doesn’t belong on either side of this portal.”
“What?”
“That thing lives in the portal.” Persh’al cracked his green whip and glared at the hulking thing.
“And that’s where it’s gotta stay,” Corian added.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Cheyenne couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing when the enormous creature emerged from the widening split in the portal ridge. Black tentacles waved in all directions like dozens of reaching limbs, clawed hands and barb-tipped legs morphing in and out. The creature’s center was a huge, nebulous blob, constantly shifting to show a glaring red eye, a row of razor-sharp teeth in a gaping maw, or a puckered nodule oozing black slime.
One massive claw rose from the crevasse and slammed down onto the ground. The earth shuddered again, and Cheyenne nearly staggered into Persh’al before she righted herself. Then the creature stepped forward with another foot that looked like a giant bird’s talons before the shape muddled into some other tenuous form. The thing bellowed so loudly, Cheyenne clapped her hands against her ears and stumbled backward.
“Did I make it do that?” she shouted above the wailing howl rising from the shifting black glob.
“I doubt it,” Corian replied. “Just moved up the timeline a bit. Let’s go.”
Without waiting for anyone to say anything, the Nightstalker disappeared in a blazing streak of silver light and darted toward the shifting, undulating creature crashing across the clearing. Black fluid sprayed in every direction when his lightning-quick attacks sliced through the morphing body. The creature roared again, its mass jiggling like black Jell-O before two tentacles whipped out in quick succession. Corian went flying toward the trees lining the clearing, skidding backward as he landed on both feet with a clawed hand digging into the dirt.
Cheyenne dodged another lashing tendril as the monster sprayed sizzling black goo at Persh’al. The troll ducked and rolled away, letting out a battle cry as he sprinted toward the ever-shifting mass. A pincer the size of a house snaked out from the center of the shapeless horror, the sharp-tipped ends open in anticipation of cutting the troll in half.
The halfling reached out with her tendrils and curled them around the edge of the claw before it reached Persh’al. The pincer cracked when she jerked it aside and half of it thumped to the ground. The troll dodged the other razor-sharp pincer and struck it with his green whip.
On the other side of the clearing, Lumil and Byrd sent their attacks flying into the globulous thing. Red and green sparks flared on contact but didn’t do much else. Corian broke into Nightstalker speed again and headed for the center of the beast’s looming shape.
The halfling didn’t even think about it before slipping into her enhanced speed and joining him. The sight of that undulating black mass slowing to a crawl as she ran toward it almost made her stop in her tracks.
There were faces in that black, shifting flesh. So many faces pressing against the thick, slimy film of the monster’s flesh as if they were pounding against a window, trying to get out.
“Ignore it,” Corian shouted as he slashed at the creature’s center.
“Help me!” a voice shrieked from within the monster’s nebulous form.
Cheyenne hesitated only an instant when she saw a female face pressing against the monster’s skin. Then the face morphed into a huge mouth with dripping fangs before a tendril materialized where the eyes had been. The halfling sent two bolts of crackling black energy into that transforming visage without a second thought. Black and purple light crackled along the beast’s flesh.
More black sludge erupted from the impact site, suspended in mid-air as the half-drow unleashed attack after attack on the changeling creature. Corian did the same beside her, then a shimmering blast of black energy erupted from the surface of the monster’s skin and sent them both hurtling backward across the clearing again, smacking them out of enhanced speed.
Cheyenne landed on her ass in the dirt and growled. Beside her, Corian chuckled, his blazing silver eyes locked on the creature. “Always on your feet?”
He dipped his head. “Mostly, yeah.”
Corian offered her a hand up as Lumil and Byrd kept shouting and screaming and ripping into the creature with their attacks. Persh’al lashed his whip across the next two tentacles that darted out to meet him and severed them both with his slicing magic.
“We’re not making a dent in that thing,” the halfling snarled.
“I know.”
“What the hell do we do?”
“Push it back, Cheyenne. This thing has one foot in this realm and the other where it belongs.”
“It doesn’t have feet!”
“Correct. But if this thing gets loose, we’re facing a much bigger problem Earthside than any of us planned for.”
The halfling snorted as they took off running toward the creature again. “No shit.”
She hurled ball after ball of her crackling black energy and watched the attacks send ripples of force up through the undulating mass, which kept wavering between solidity and a nauseating gooeyness. How the hell do you send something back when nothing stops it?
Corian’s silver light darted back and forth across the massive creature. Black sludge sprayed in every direction as the Nightstalker hacked and slashed and lit up the monster. When Corian stopped to stave off the black darts headed for the goblin team, the beast let out a quick grunt and nearly doubled in size. Its hulking form rose even higher in the darkened clearing, and five more pillars of black stone burst from the earth, stretching just as high.
“The stone,” Cheyenne muttered. She darted away from the creature, which stood as tall as a four-story building now, lashing its claws and pincers and tentacles at its assailants. “Corian! It’s the stone—”
A plume of black smoke jetted toward her. Cheyenne lifted a shield, splitting the smoke in two before it raced across the clearing and doubled back toward her again. The closest cloud of black smoke let out a blood-curdling scream as it barreled toward the halfling. She shot a sphere of black energy at its center, but that did nothing. The halfling raised a shield again, and this time, the smoke fragmented and disappeared.
This damn thing’s drawing energy from the black stones, just like the Border Reservations.
Cheyenne reached toward the closest black spire and felt around for that resisting pressure in the air. There it was, right at the tips of her fingers.
The monster roared and lashed out at her with half a dozen whipping tentacles. She slipped into enhanced speed and fired round after round of her crackling black energy before the tentacles severed in a suspended spray of oozing black sludge. The torn pieces of monster drifted toward the ground, and Cheyenne dropped into a crouch.
She slammed both palms down into the dirt and pushed.
A wave of moving earth bucked beneath her and headed for the creature. The ground exploded between Corian and the nightmarish thing. It sent the Nightstalker tumbling back across the clearing as the monster heaved and recoiled against the wall of regular earth rising in front of it.
Cheyenne swayed where she crouched, and her drow speed fell away. The nebulous beast lunged toward her, its entire body drawing up to open in a giant mouth lined with dripping fangs. Another bellow erupted from that mouth and nearly knocked the halfling backward with a fierce gust of air and its nauseatingly reeking breath. Smells like fear and death. And something else.
She didn’t hesitate before reaching out with both hands toward the black pillars of stone. Her magic found that resistance again instantly, and Cheyenne put all her strength behind it when she tugged.
The closest pillar cracked and moved sideways, but nothing else happened.
“Come on!” She reached out again, but the monster sent two more tentacles wider than she was toward her. The halfling darted away f
rom where she’d crouched as one tentacle smashed into the ground. Dirt and chunks of rock hurtled toward her. Cheyenne cried out at the sharp sting of something heavy hitting the base of her skull, and she stumbled toward the edge of the portal ridge.
“Cheyenne!” Corian darted toward her, but even with his enhanced speed, he wasn’t quick enough to reach her before another five-foot-wide tentacle smacked the ground and cut him off.
Gritting her teeth, the halfling reached for the feel of the black stone one more time. Only now, instead of trying to break it, she pushed up and forced the stone to rise higher.
The monster screeched and undulated, trying to turn toward her before she darted around the huge pillars. It was a tight squeeze between the first pillar and the closest tree, but she managed to get in there and slap her hands down on the rock jutting from the ground. It was so cold, her hands burned instantly, but she held on.
“Damnit, Cheyenne, get away from that—”
The monster spat a glob of gray ooze toward her and the pillar. Cheyenne darted aside and was vaguely aware of the ground hissing and sizzling behind her. She leaned into the pillar instead and reached out with her magic.
If I can manipulate earth while I’m Earthside, this better fucking work.
Her magic stretched along the entire length of the portal ridge, farther than she realized it could go. All she felt was cold and darkness and something like fear but not quite. An anxious waiting, just below the surface. Then her awareness returned to her, and she whipped her hands off the black spire and out to the sides.
The column of jagged stone burst into thousands of fragments and followed the direction of her hands. The shards of black rock hurtled into the monster trying to squeeze its way around the pillars toward her. Every piece of stone was absorbed in an instant, but Cheyenne still had a hold on each of them.
When the shards of stone had disappeared, the halfling hooked the fingers of her drow magic around the cold energy she felt inside the nightmare heading toward her and shoved it all to the side as if she were jerking open a sliding door.
The creature groaned and let out an earth-shattering bellow. Then it slid sideways, jiggling and writhing as the stone shards inside it pulled against the beast’s hulking mass.
Cheyenne pulled again, and the creature skidded across the ground toward the massive crevasse it had ripped in the earth to get into the clearing. Snaking tentacles whipped across the ground, writhing and sputtering into claws, barbs, and pincers as they tried to get a grip on anything to stop its descent.
Pushing with all her might, the halfling directed the shattered black stone and the beast around it into the open chasm. She might have screamed at the effort as the ground rocked again beneath her feet. A thin barbed tentacle struck at the ground and found its way around her ankle. Cheyenne hit the ground. Just send it back. Keep pushing.
The creature dragged her with it as it morphed and bellowed and squeezed into the rent earth. The halfling couldn’t release her hold on the black stone, and she didn’t have to.
The air in front of her burst with crackling silver light and Corian’s extended claws came down on the tendril around her ankle in a blur. Dark ooze spurted from the severed limb before the creature slid down, down, down into the darkness.
“Damnit! What the hell were you thinking?” Corian grabbed her under the arms and pulled her away from the edge of the crevasse. “This isn’t another training session, by the way.”
“I know.” When she got back to her feet, Cheyenne brushed him off and reached for the glistening black spires of the portal ridge again. “I got it.”
“You can’t just play around with this until something sticks,” he shouted. “We don’t even know—”
Black sludge sprayed from the open crevasse like a geyser, and Cheyenne threw up a shield around them both before it rained down from the sky. “You wanna wait around to find out what else is down there?”
Corian’s silver eyes darted to her face, then he snarled and stepped back.
The halfling lowered the shield when it was safe and reached out for the black pillars again, searching with her magic. Might work as a barred door, at least for a little while.
When her magic found the energy in all that frigid, searing stone, she pulled on it again and roared with the force of her magic coursing through her. The jagged stone spires surrounding the massive crack in the earth shuddered and broke almost as one at the base. Rock crashed against rock, drowning out every other sound in the clearing as the spires toppled against each other, rolling and bouncing and turning into a latticework of fallen stone. Huge plumes of black dust and brown dirt sprayed up in a cloud around them, and after the last smaller pebbles had finished bouncing down on top of the fallen portal ridge, the clearing fell silent.
The wall of pitch-black magic stayed where it was, reaching up into the sky along the length of the jutting ridge of stone. Then it flickered once or twice and let go of the darkness.
Sunshine slowly filtered back into the clearing, and Cheyenne stumbled sideways before dropping into a crouch.
“Hey.” Corian bent to put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she wheezed. “Just give me a minute.”
The Nightstalker removed his hand and stepped back, staring at the destruction across the portal. His lips twitched on his feline face before finally curling into a smirk. “That was definitely not what I expected, either.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
When the wave of dizziness subsided, Cheyenne rose slowly to her feet and studied the fallen pillars lying over the crevasse of the newest Border portal. A stream of cold air rose from the gaping split in the ground beneath the broken black spires, but nothing else stirred.
“Probably just a temporary thing, huh?”
Corian threw his head back and roared with laughter.
She turned toward him and raised an eyebrow. “It’s not that funny.”
“Not tha…” Another laugh burst out of him before he pulled himself together and cleared his throat. “No, Cheyenne. This issue in front of us isn’t a laughing matter, I’ll give you that. But you? You never cease to amaze me.”
“Thanks. I think.” The halfling headed toward the open part of the clearing and sucked in a sharp breath. She glanced down at her ankle and the puncture marks through the fabric of her pants. “That’s not good.”
“We’ll take a look at that later, kid.” Corian’s smile had faded, but his blasé glance at her wounded leg made her feel a little better.
“What the hell did I just watch?” Byrd shouted as he raced toward them.
Lumil flung a glob of black goo off her fist and joined him, cursing in O’gúleesh. “That was much worse than any crossing I’ve made. I’d make them all again at the same time if it meant I never had to deal with this shit again.”
Behind Corian, Persh’al flicked out his hand, and the green whip of his magic disappeared. “I tell you what, halfling. You sure as shit didn’t get that from L’zar.”
“Look at you with your massive insights into the obvious.” Byrd thumped his palm against his forehead and shook his head.
Cheyenne shook out her hands, the chains clinking against her wrists, and let out a quick, heavy breath. “Didn’t get what from him?”
“All that.” The troll waved his hand over the broken spires crushed against each other, then nodded at the mound of natural dirt and earth still jutting up toward the portal ridge where she’d raised it. “That’s some next-level drow shit.”
“And who made you the expert on that?” Lumil asked, folding her arms.
Persh’al blinked at her and gestured toward the destruction across the border ridge. “We’ve all seen enough drow magic to know that’s not usually in the bag of tricks. Unless you’ve seen that before and haven’t gotten around to telling us the story fifty million times already.”
The goblin woman smirked and tilted her head, her flop of yellow hair spilling down over one eye. “No. That was
pretty damn impressive.”
When Lumil nodded at Cheyenne, the halfling just nodded back.
“So, now what?” Byrd asked.
Corian scratched the side of his fur-covered face and shook his head. “This thing seems pretty blocked off. For now. And we still don’t know if any of this happened on its own or if someone’s working double-time to open the portal from Ambar’ogúl.”
Persh’al stared at the black rift in the earth, barely showing between the toppled pillars. “You really think she has that kinda firepower over there?”
The clearing fell silent as the O’gúleesh magicals exchanged uncertain glances.
Cheyenne watched their interactions with a small frown. Nobody wants to come right out and say it. Whatever it is.
Corian shook his head. “We’ve been Earthside a long time, Persh’al.”
“You said you’ve had reports.”
“I have eyes back home, sure, but not enough to see everything.” The Nightstalker’s nose twitched into the beginning of a snarl as he glared at the fallen spires. “And I only know one person who’d be able to sniff out the truth behind this.”
Lumil scoffed. “Well, good thing we know where she is. Oh, that’s right. We don’t.”
“True.” Corian turned toward Cheyenne and fixed her with his glowing silver eyes. “But Cheyenne does.”
“What?”
“You know where to find Maleshi Hi’et?” Lumil folded her arms and grinned despite the dark frown wrinkling her turquoise brow.
The halfling glanced at the goblin woman and the Nightstalker. “Not on a Sunday.”
Persh’al chuckled softly.
“Cheyenne, we need to find her.” Corian stepped toward the halfling and dipped his chin to look at her beneath the furry tufts of his brows. “She’s the only magical I know who has the skill to track the origin of this new portal without us having to make a crossing back to Ambar’ogúl.” He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the crumbled stone. “Which I’m even more hesitant to do after the last ten minutes.”