I needed to get out of here.
"There are dozens of flasks here. Stop wasting time. We need to find the woman." Dust's voice sounded very far away, and I had to strain to hear his words.
There was no time for me to climb back and engage the men. There was no time for me to continue my careful descent. I didn't know how far this tunnel would continue, but if they dropped one of the jugs of moonshine down here and then followed up with the burning lamp, I would be lit on fire and cooked alive in the chimney. I needed to reach the bottom of this dark place.
I pulled my arms away from the wall, set my body in the middle of the dark shaft, and then loosened my feet from against the sides. My body started to slide down against the walls and I prayed to the Priestesses that I could slow myself before I hit the bottom of the shaft. It was impossible to tell how fast I fell, but I felt heat on the bottom of my thick leather boots.
There was also some noise, a scraping sound that seemed to fill my ears. It came from my boots sliding against the rock of the shaft and I wondered for a few moments whether Dust and his cronies could hear me. I hoped that I was too far away. I hoped that I wasn't going to hit the ground suddenly and break my legs. I hoped that--
Suddenly, I felt nothing, and I gasped as I seemed to float in an endless void. My cloak unfurled behind me, and my weight hung on the magical garment. I hadn't even thought to extend my wings, but maybe that was part of the magic. The Priestesses had told me that the Alula would try to keep me safe.
I heard a smash echo from the inky blackness above me, and then I heard a shower of glass bounce off the walls of the shaft. I twisted away from my position and guessed that I had moved away from the exit hole, or I would have been covered with the glass and moonshine.
"It is deep..." I thought a voice whispered from above.
I guessed that the lamp would explode brightly when it hit the moonshine, but there was a bit of warning. A slight glow outlined the tunnel above me, and I was able to cover my eyes with my arm a second before the world turned into a sun.
The air turned hot with a whooshing sound, but my arm protected my face from the sudden shock of light. I pulled my forearm away from my face to study my surroundings, and I forced my mouth shut against the surprise.
I floated in a massive cavern that stretched in all directions. I could see the floor beneath me, since some of the dripping, flaming moonshine escaping from the edge of the shaft, and the fallen lamp sat in a pool of bright molten fire on the ground far below me.
Between the bones.
There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of bones scattered across the cavern. Massive rib cages, long serpentine spines, and skulls that were bigger than Rafa's tavern. These immediately caught my attention because they were lizard looking, with horns on the crests and massive teeth jutting out of the jaws like saw blades. I angled my body down and floated toward the lamp's light. It had fallen near one of the medium-size skulls, and the teeth were each five feet long.
What kind of creatures were these? Why were they inside the floating island? There had always been legends about strange monsters that lurked in the hidden depths of the city, but I thought those were just miners' tales. These bones did look old, maybe even ancient, and I reached my hand up to tap on part of the skull. It felt as if it was metal and even made a sound that seemed denser than wood.
The lamp was made of brass, and I saw that, while it still burned, most of the moonshine had been consumed from the surface of the handle. I used the edge of my Alula to dab the remaining flames away from the metal, and then I wrapped my hand in the cloth before I picked up the lamp. It was still warm against my palm, but the magical cape protected my skin from blistering.
Despite standing in the massive underground graveyard of monster bones, I felt a lot safer than when I was in the shaft. The moonshine would finish burning the edges of the tunnel in a few minutes, and then I could fly to the hole and climb back up to Rafa's kitchen. Dust was probably gone by now.
Or I could stay down here and explore these strange bones.
I shook the lamp a bit to estimate the remaining oil. It was the same one I had carried with me into the cellar, and it felt as if it had about a quarter of its fuel left. I could probably eke out an hour of flame, so I let the cloak fall from between my palm and the lamp and took to the air again.
Perhaps I should have been scared, since I'd just escaped Dust's attempt to burn me alive, but I only felt a strong curiosity about the giant graveyard. All these bones of giant creatures piled into this strange cavern. How did they get here? What were they? I flew slowly over the ground and looked for anything in the endless sea of white that might provide a clue.
Then I saw the eggs.
There was a pile of them, each a grayish cream color and the size of my entire body. I flew toward them and landed a few feet from what appeared to be a bowl-like indent in the sand. At a rough count, I guessed there were twenty-four of the eggs. I reached my hand out to touch one, and the surface felt like a smooth river stone.
But it was warm.
A hundred questions tumbled through my mind, but I had no idea how to find the answers to them. I would have to report my findings to Ocellina, and maybe the captain would recommend that the Priestesses send a search party down here to investigate the place. It would have to be Potentia at first, so we could fly down, but once my sisters confirmed my findings, we would build a rope system to lower down other researchers.
This was a historical finding, and I felt a smile touch my lips when I thought about all the new information the Priestesses would be able to learn about our island. I almost couldn't believe that what I touched was real, but there was no doubting my eyes and the warmth beneath my hand.
The egg moved.
Or at least I thought it did. It was probably just my imagination, but it felt as if something inside the shell knocked against my hand. I left my palm on the warm surface and nothing else happened for half a minute, so I pulled my hand away and took to the air again.
The edges of the shaft were still alight, as was the spot on the ground below it, but I realized that I couldn't go too far from the location. Even with my personal lamp, I'd have trouble finding the entrance to the tunnel in complete darkness with only the small flame to search with. I drifted away from the eggs and flew back toward the hole in the ceiling.
Something cried behind me.
It wasn't really a shriek, more like a whine of hunger. The sound was loud though, and I turned in the air while my heart jumped in my chest.
There were three snake-like monsters flying through the dark air toward me.
Chapter 11
They looked like worms, or maggots. Their skin was a mix of scales, slime, and white ooze. The faces of the flying monsters were lizard-like, but with covered bubbles of pale flesh where the eyes would be. I saw that they flew on tiny wings, but there were three on each side, and they fluttered like a humming bird's.
They did have jaws, and the one leading the pack opened a toothy maw as it shot toward me. The three- foot-wide mouth was lined with hundreds of razor-looking teeth and each point gleamed orange from the light of my lamp.
I twisted my wings left and my body yanked away from where I had hovered a second earlier. I felt the long torso of the giant flying snake rush past me, and I had to flap my Alula again so that I avoided a smack from the creature's tail. The other two angled toward me, and I forced my wings to lift upward in a somewhat unnatural movement for the magic. I launched myself down like a dropped brick and the two creatures slammed into each other ten feet above me.
As soon as the pair collided, they bit, and then they both screeched. I couldn't tell if it was from the satisfaction of biting prey or the pain of being chomped on, but the snake-monsters coiled around each other and plummeted toward the layer of bones far below. I didn't pay too much attention to how they landed though, because the first flying monster had circled around in the air and was making another dive toward me.
The flame in my hand sputtered as I sped through the air, and I spied a massive skull towering over the rest of the bone rubble. I angled toward the left eye socket and commanded my wings to pull strongly. They almost felt as if they were part of my body, and the muscles in my own back flexed with the effort of the feathery strokes.
The eye socket was two, maybe three feet in diameter, and I knew that my wings couldn't fit through. I commanded the Alula to convert back to its cape form half a second before I dove through the hole, and I extended my arms in front of me as if I was diving into a lake. I heard the fabric flutter behind me and the flying snake monster screech, and then I flipped around so that my feet hit the far interior side of the skull.
The monster had come in after me, and I pushed off with my legs against the skull to dive to the ground. I had to drop the lamp when my shoulder met the sand, and the flame flickered dangerously.
I spared a glance over my shoulder and saw the creature had turned against the inside of the skull and was angling toward me again. I sprinted ten steps, jumped up against the opposite side of the bone dome, and then commanded my Alula to fling me back into the air. The worm monster's scaled body stretched below me, and I was able to run across the long body for a second between beats of my blue wings.
The monster angled back to try to bite me, and while I should have been terrified, I was more interested in how the creature could locate me so easily with no eyeballs. Could it smell me? Hear me? Feel my wings beat? Perhaps the answer didn't matter, since any of them meant that I would probably get eaten if my lamp flame went out.
I dove to the sand, turned my wings back into a cloak, rolled across the ground, sprang up against the inside of the skull, kicked off the bone into a backflip, and then commanded my wings to yank me backwards away from the hungry maw of the maggot-monster. The thing snapped its ooze-covered jaws a foot away from my face, and I leaned backward to plummet the three feet to the ground.
I landed next to the lamp, and I scooped the light in my hand as I dashed past it. The worm creature turned to seek me again, but my plan had worked, and the monster had fallen into my impromptu trap.
It had tied itself into a knot by following me around inside of the giant skull.
The beast screamed with hunger when I flew out of the eye socket and into the open air of the cavern. I doubted that it would be able to unknot itself quickly, and it wouldn't be able to escape the skull prison while it was tangled. So I doubted that I would need to worry about it in the near future. I also wouldn't need to worry about the other two worms that had chased me. They were both still tangled up next to the fire on the sand. It looked as if one of the creatures had perished and the other monster was in the process of eating its corpse.
I would have to worry about the half dozen more creatures that had just hatched and were beginning to fly toward me.
"Shit," I said over the sound of their humming-bird wings echoing inside of the cavern.
I had been too surprised by the attack of the three monsters to comprehend my terror, but the sight of the newly hatched giant maggots reminded me that I should be scared. There was no way I could out fly and escape six of the creatures.
Some moonshine was still burning on the lip of the shaft, but I knew I'd have to risk getting seared if I wanted to escape these monsters. I flew up toward the tunnel and prayed that I would make it to the mouth before the first flying snake reached me.
The cries grew closer as I rose through the air, and I kicked my legs with the beating of my wings as if I was trying to swim faster through water. The bright lip of the shaft looked so far away, and a glance at the approaching maggots made my heart drop.
I was almost there. The flames burned only twenty feet above me. I flexed my back against the wings and prayed to the Priestesses that I would make it there in time. Then I was at the lip of the fire, and I dove up into the shaft with my hands pointed as I did earlier into the eye socket of the skull.
I told my Alula to turn into a cloak as soon as my arms reached the shaft.
The light of the lamp in my hand illuminated the walls of the tunnel as I shot past the flames. I didn't feel any burning around me, and I guessed that I had been too fast to catch fire. With the loss of momentum, my upward dive turned into a fall, and I pressed my feet against the walls of the tunnel when gravity began to pull me down.
I glanced down and saw one of the worms slide across the flames of the shaft exit. It missed the entrance, but another beast came up from below, and its gruesome face slid into the narrow tunnel.
Then it slithered up toward me.
This one looked smaller than the others, but its oozing maw opened wide enough to take my foot with one bite. I pushed up with my legs and started to climb, but after a handful of seconds it became obvious that the worm would catch me.
I pressed my arms and back against the side of the tunnel and kicked down with my boots when the snake got close enough to snap at me. My heel caught the monster on its nose, and it fell away from me with a deafening screech. I thought that my attack might have gotten rid of the snake, but it was able to wiggle against the sides of the tunnel and hold itself in the shaft.
Then it started to slither back up after me.
I climbed a few more feet and braced my arms against the walls. The creature made the same attempt to bite me, and its effort earned it another kick to the nose. It fell down again, but caught itself before it slid all the way out of the shaft. One of the flesh-colored bubbles on the side of its head opened, and a black eyeball burned with hatred in the light from my lamp.
I scooted up another few feet while I kept my eyes on the monster. It opened its mouth to screech at me and then started to wiggle up the shaft. I repeated the kick to the creature's face before it could chomp me, but the beast had learned from the previous two boot stomps, and it didn't fall as far.
I pushed against the shaft walls with my back and legs while I reached for my rapier. The blade was a bit too long to draw gracefully while I was wedged in the shaft, but I managed to get the weapon out a few seconds before the maggot-monster reached me again.
I shoved the point of the sword into the creature's single open eye as soon as it was in range. The blade sank deep into the hate-filled orb, and the monster released a deafening scream. I relaxed some of the pressure my legs exerted on the walls of the shaft, and more of my body weight pushed down on the hilt of my sword. The monster tried to wriggle away from the pain, but I just pushed down with more weight, and felt the tip bump into the back inside part of its skull.
It let out a final shriek, snapped its jaws around empty air, and then its massive maggot body went limp around my sword. It relaxed its pressure against the shaft, and its ugly face bounced between the sides of the tunnel as it fell away from me. The fire at the lip of the shaft was only a dim glow now, and I watched the corpse of the monster fade into the blackness of the chasm.
I sheathed my rapier and wasted no time climbing. I didn't know if the other monsters would try to come after me, but I figured that putting distance between myself and the opening was a good idea. I hadn't made it more than ten feet or so before I heard another one of the beasts collide with the opening to the tunnel. I looked back down and saw that two of the maggot-lizard-snakes were trying to fit into the hole at the same time, and they snapped at each other as they forced their maws into the too narrow shaft.
I climbed with renewed vigor and tried to ignore the sweat cascading from my palms. Every five pushes up the shaft I checked down below me, but the light from my lamp didn't reach all the way down, and I could only see the faint movements of the two monsters struggling to fit into the tunnel. If one of th
em fell away, then the other would be able to squeeze inside. I only had a few more moments of reprieve, but there was an endless amount of tunnel still to climb before I reached Rafa's cellar.
I looked up the shaft, and my breath caught. It seemed as if the Priestesses had granted me a boon. There was an offshoot from the tunnel about eight feet above me, and I climbed up to the ledge as quickly as I could. This new branch ran horizontal at almost a perfect ninety-degree angle, but the hole was much smaller, maybe only a foot and a half across in circumference. It would be a much tighter fit for my shoulders and sword, but the monsters trying to eat me wouldn't be able to crawl in after me.
I wasted no more time thinking about it. I squeezed my shoulders into the shaft and pushed with my boots against the far wall to help force my body the rest of the way. The fit was much tighter than I was comfortable with, but I figured that the monster's stomach would be a more uncomfortable fit.
The sheath of my sword scraped on the ground while I pulled myself along on my elbows. I was moving much faster than when I climbed up the main shaft, but after what felt like a half an hour, my back was sore and the walls had started to feel as if they were getting tighter around me.
I kept crawling.
It must have been an hour, maybe two, and my hands were raw, my back was screaming, and even my elbows and knees complained against the padding of my armor. I figured that I owed myself a break and took a few moments to catch my breath. As soon as I stopped moving, my mind seemed to catch up to my body, and I began to think about what I was going to tell Fallon and Captain Ocellina. After considering for a few moments, I realized that I would have to leave Fallon out of the conversation. She would be angry about me visiting Rafa without her.
After a few minutes, I felt more relaxed and began to crawl forward through the tunnel. The lamp still had almost a quarter of its oil, and I prayed that the shaft would eventually lead to the surface of Petrasada. I longed to see the sunlight and feel the wind on my face. I wanted to fly above the city and twirl through the clouds.
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) Page 9