by Tom Lloyd
‘Let’s go.’
They advanced cautiously, though they could still see the last man of the second wave ahead. A handful of dragoons flanked her along with the lieutenant and a grenadier – all keeping a weather eye on the dark spaces on the sharply sloped rift wall ahead. The dragoons had their guns raised, ready to fire burners at the first flash of movement even if it wouldn’t save their lives. The mutual assurance of death was as much as Uvrel could offer, but these were mercenaries. If they had a code it was no different to that of rats – fierce and remorseless in the advantage, but scampering, cowardly vermin at any other time.
As they reached the far side Uvrel couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, but no gunshots split the night – not at them anyway. Some brief battle had waged further ahead then fallen silent as the second group arrived as reinforcements, while sporadic shots continued to come from the levels below. She glanced behind at the far side where a huge archway and slope led directly away from the bridge, as though expecting the view to change and the stone walls would peel away to reveal the Skyriver.
If only we knew how far it was to the surface, she thought for the twentieth time since they’d reached the rift. A scouting party had been sent a short way, but reported no obvious signs of the surface so she’d not let them go further. The choke point of the bridges would have to do. Uvrel didn’t know how many exits there were but she wasn’t willing to risk her prey slipping past.
‘Find them!’ she said out loud, startling one of her hardened dragoons with the sudden sound.
Ahead of her she saw the faces of the dragoons in the second wave turn in the shadows, the rift-side avenue bathed in the great lamps’ orange glow, highlighting the darkened swathes of stone, which had been scarred by the firebombs of the first rush.
‘Sweep these chambers, root them out – keep pressing until they’re dead!’
Insar guide us, Uvrel added in the privacy of her mind. Lord of the Still Night, watch over us, Lord of the Quiet Dark defend us. Exhortations of god on the battlefield was best left to frothing fanatics, in her opinion. She led men and women of cold pragmatism so while some might be comforted, more would be distracted.
Uvrel led her small group forward, following the soldiers past two scorched bodies into a large half-lit assembly hall. Some strange breed of plant that glowed with inner light had colonised the upper levels, so she didn’t need the torches to see the bodies of her troops. Six – no, seven – dead just in here, the telltale scars of burners and sparkers marking bodies and stone alike.
At the far side the second wave were working their way forward, moving in pairs around the edge of the hall towards a tunnel mouth. Uvrel suppressed a scream at their caution, knowing the others had died because of intemperance, but also certain the mercenaries weren’t waiting to spring a trap. She ran forward ahead of her escort with her gun drawn, up the slope to one side and fired a burner down into the shadows lurking within. Yellow light roared along the stone passageway, flames spilling out around the edges even as they were channelled on down into the ruins beyond.
‘Save your caution for the other end of that tunnel!’ Uvrel roared, waving the dragoons and cavalry troopers forward. ‘Find those creeping rodents. I want their heads!’
Sitain slumped to her knees, gasping for air. Her heart battered against her ribs, threatening to burst its way out, but the iron fingers of Teshen closed around her arm and hauled her upright.
‘Keep going.’
‘I can’t,’ Sitain wheezed.
She looked back the way they’d come, the curved tunnel marked with whorls of blue that followed the workings of the mages who’d carved this place. Her hands shook with the exertion of running up two flights of stairs and through a host of chambers with Teshen to rejoin the others.
Before he could reply there came more footsteps behind. The big man gave a short growl then, unexpectedly, tossed Sitain aside and turned on his heel. She fell with a thump, sliding over the smooth stone into a corner of the chamber while Teshen disappeared through a doorway ahead, making for the night-lit chambers beyond where the others lurked with Sitain’s lamp.
The pain of striking stone wasn’t enough to eclipse the panic in Sitain’s heart. She fumbled for her mage-pistol, drawing it on the second attempt, but her legs refused to obey her and she could only sit huddled and pathetic as the boots drew nearer. Her eyes blurred at the heaving breaths she was taking, the room around her fading from view until a flash of movement made her bite her tongue in alarm.
A Charneler surged straight past her, his path lit by the flickering shadows of a torch carried by the woman behind him. That one also ignored her, failed to see Sitain in her quest to press forward, while a third seemed to stare straight at her with his gun levelled. Terrified, Sitain forgot all about her weapon, caught in a primal fear, and held her arms up across her face as though that might stop an icer punching through her body.
Something seemed to erupt from inside her. With her eyes screwed up in fear she barely saw the shadows wash forward over the soldier. He staggered as though dazed by a blow, wide-eyed and confused, then the haze receded again. He gave a wordless shout and raised his gun, while Sitain shuddered and stared straight into the depthless black of the gun’s muzzle.
The shot never came. A dark glitter of movement slashed in through the air – sharp lines of deepest purple and black moving in staccato fashion. The Charneler saw something, but he never knew what as the mass of jagged movement darted past and left long, perfectly straight wounds in its wake. In the half-light he seemed to falter then fold as the thin lines of blood all over his body widened and became a torrent. Sitain shrieked at the tide of blood that washed towards her, hardly noticing the first two Charnelers who gaped at the death of their comrade.
Before the pair could recover themselves, Teshen was between them, lashing out at both in the same movement. The barrel of his mage-gun slammed into the woman’s throat, the man had Teshen’s dagger driven so hard into his chest that the force bowled him over. Teshen ignored the fallen man and slashed at the woman with his knife before she could even paw at her crushed gullet. Both died without a sound. Teshen paused for a moment with his gun levelled at the tunnel before relaxing as no more followed.
Sitain scrambled sideways as blood continued to creep towards her, forcing herself to tighten her grip on the pistol so she didn’t drop it. Teshen pulled her upright once more and looked her straight in the eye.
‘Spirits watch over you,’ he muttered, his words sounding as much a blessing as an accusation. Sitain could only gape in response.
‘Ready to move now?’
Before she could find the breath to speak, the air around her shuddered once more, light and dark turning in on themselves as movement too fast to follow swept left and right past her and out of sight once more.
Only an impression was left in her mind – not words, but sensations and that lingering memory of dark gems glittering at night, when the night elemental had visited her out on the road. The impressions they left coalesced into words in her mind.
Flee.
It hunts.
Chapter 27
Commander Quentes watched the flames dance below him and failed to dispel the image of funeral pyres from his mind. They cast a grainy yellow light over the rift that its great curtain of darkness seemed reluctant to accept. A small portion was illuminated, just enough to show how high the rocky roof was above them.
As for below, there was little revealed. A suggestion of depth, no more – but it reminded Quentes of the vastness of the ocean. A depth never fully seen, but one that always lurked beneath and impossible to ignore.
He found himself chewing nervously on a fingernail. The taste of grime and grit lingered long after he realised and removed the finger. It was a habit from his childhood, one he could barely remember now, but as he stared at that wall of dark Quentes felt his hand twitch once more.
No place for a soldier, this, he thought, mage-gun clutche
d tight in his hands though he saw no target.
Though there were guards on the stairs watching their backs, he couldn’t help but regularly glance around at the shadows of the stairways behind him. He wasn’t the only one – they all feared the maspids, though most hadn’t even caught sight of one yet. They’d heard the screams or seen the looks on the faces of those who’d seen the aftermath.
The scouting party sent down to investigate that light at the foot of a great stairway hadn’t returned. They’d just vanished into the bowels of this vast tomb and now Quentes felt a chill in his bones as though he was already dead.
A sound broke his brooding, one unlike any he’d heard before. So deep he thought it was an earthquake, rising up from the unknown depths of the rift below them. The sharpshooters and dragoons all looked at him with panic in their faces, but Quentes had no answers, only terror of his own. The air seemed to shudder as the sound grew – building from a distant rumble to the throaty roar of a lion as big as a mountain. Quentes felt his guts clamp at the sound, but he couldn’t stop himself looking out over the stone parapet as one of the sharpshooters whimpered and pointed.
There was something moving in the void. Some sort of light shone there, ice white and describing a shape he couldn’t make sense of. Then it moved and wisps of pale flame blurred the darkness. Quentes yelped and his knees gave out beneath him. He dropped down, distantly feeling his chin scraped raw on the stone as he hugged the parapet for support. The voices of his soldiers were incoherent noise, howls and shouts he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t move, his breath caught in his lungs – a veteran of a dozen battles, enfeebled by terror at last.
‘Screw this place!’ raged a dragoon beside him, grabbing Quentes by the shoulder and shaking him uselessly. The commander just stared back unseeing when the man hauled him around and yelled into his face. ‘Orders? Sir? Fuck!’
The dragoon slapped Quentes around the face, rocking his head back but still unable to break the cage of fear. He released the commander and left him sprawling against the parapet. Quentes watched him with glassy incomprehension as the dragoon reached into a bag on his hip and pulled out a painted iron sphere. Into a small hole he inserted a mushroom-like plug, the stalk sliding most of the way into the sphere while the cap curved to match the outer shell.
‘Not today!’ the dragoon keened. ‘I ain’t dying today.’ His breath was ragged and tight, his hands trembling as he struggled to even arm the grenade.
Eventually it was done and he gave the grenade’s pin a twist before looking over the parapet again. Quentes lurched drunkenly to follow, gaze inexorably drawn down into the black. The light was still there, moving closer. Swift purposeful movements, angular lines painted in light and dark like some sort of huge infernal spider. He saw the grenade sail past him and plunge into darkness, vanishing from sight. His breath caught in his throat as the darkness consumed it and the horror below continued upwards – the light growing, the blur of flame and shadow pulling ever closer.
Fire exploded across it, a great cloud of orange that just for an instant illuminated some long dark body before enveloping it in flames. Quentes moaned as much in hope as in fear, blinking at the bright flash of flame, but then the fire fell away and the monster continued, the fires that shrouded it only renewed by the explosion.
‘No!’ howled the dragoon.
There were more shouts behind him, voices so stricken with panic they sounded like animals waiting for slaughter. Quentes could only watch. It was close now, perhaps a hundred yards below them, and the first of the sharpshooters found the courage to fire. More followed, the white threads of icers punching through the dark, followed by the spiky trails of sparkers and fat yellow burners. Some hit it, others failed, but it kept coming.
Fifty yards, twenty, the horror unveiling yet still shrouded in dark. Fires burned within a cloud of shadow, white flame shone up between great plates of stony armour adorned with spines. Gunshots rang out as it turned its misshapen head up and paused, long hooked claws caught on doorways and balconies. Long burning eyes ran from above a horned muzzle around the sides of its blockish head. Tusks jutted down from its mouth, illuminated by the fire within. Four crooked, spiked limbs extended from its sinuous body, each one trailing a tattered curtain of black, like wings.
The demon roared once more and the world shuddered around Quentes. His bowels loosened and the steel trap of terror tightened around his mind. Screams echoed in his ears – his own or those of others, he was too far gone to know. His bones seemed to creak at the force of its voice. His eyes blurred and felt ready to burst under the pressure. A wall of shadow washed over them like a sandstorm, dimming the light of the bridge lamps, and the gunfire stopped.
The dragoon beside Quentes faltered, half-fell on him and a second grenade spilled from his hand. It fell slowly over the parapet and the demon darted forward to meet it. White glowing threads lashed out from its mouth to catch the grenade before it hit the slope, a tongue of searing whips enveloping the iron ball and greedily withdrawing. No explosion met it, just a brief, intense burst of light as the horror’s jaws closed around it.
The demon threw itself forward and for a moment Quentes looked it full in the face. Its head was the size of a pony, with greyish tusks bigger than his leg. A stink of sulphur and burning oil filled his nose as the heat of its presence scorched his face and knocked him back like a hammer blow. Through the madness of pain and fear Quentes saw shadow-wreathed claws gouge through the stone ceiling of their vantage point and sweep up a handful of soldiers. Their screams were short-lived as the foot closed around their heads and crushed the life from them, the demon snapping once, twice at the clawful of bloody, ruined flesh then discarding them with a flick.
Quentes scrabbled back along the blood-slick floor and felt a gun under his hand. He raised it and pulled the trigger, the searing heat of a burner striking the monster full in the face, but the flames just flowed around the demon as it turned to inspect him once more. Then the claws swept back into view, dark and huge. He felt it strike him. The world collapsed into blurring darkness and brief pain before it was all extinguished and the dark consumed him entirely.
‘I hope you’re happy now, Toil,’ Kas hissed as they skirted the stone shell of a building to discover a slanted fissure in the rock ahead.
‘Happy?’
‘That gods-damned grenade!’ Kas said. ‘Looks like you got your wish.’
As though to emphasise the point another rumbling roar raced through the tunnels. Lynx looked past Kas at the fissure. It would be hard going to get through, but the sound had come from that direction. If they wanted to get back towards the rift and find the other group, they needed to head that way.
Toil went to the fissure mouth and held her lantern up high. The faint light of the rock around them illuminated how tough it would be. After a few moments she shook her head and pointed to the far end of the chamber where a small tunnel led out.
‘Let’s try another way.’ She paused and cocked her head at Kas. ‘Happy? Not sure about that, but if we find those Charnelers all dead, you’ll owe me a drink.’
‘You get us out of here,’ Kas replied, ‘and I’ll stand you more’n one drink. That ain’t the bit I’m worried about.’
‘Come on then.’
It took them a long while to find an alternative path, during which they heard muted roars and explosions. By Lynx’s estimation they had skirted back past the lower bridge, where Sitain’s group had been, but as they found a series of staggered ramps leading up they saw no one. It was a sapping climb and the sounds of violence had fallen worryingly silent again, but there was little more they could do without risking running into Charnelers. Finally they ventured to the outer edge of the rift wall and peeked out of a long bank of windows down at the fire-lit ridges below.
For a moment Lynx didn’t see it, so staggered was he by the yawning chasm ahead. The great lamps only emphasised just how huge the rift was, each hundred-yard-long bridge looking smal
l and fragile across that great space. Then a great shape moved on the far side, lit by fires of its own behind a veil of darkness. It was massive, that much Lynx was sure of, with four long limbs that resembled bat wings as it clung to the rift wall. A long glowing spray of tongues flickered out, questing into the burrows of great doorways and windows.
Inside those chambers, Lynx could see sparks and flickering lights as though the creature’s tongues were sparker-trails. The unease that had been growing inside him hardened and he turned to Toil.
‘You know what that is?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she whispered back. ‘Beasts of the deepest dark don’t have names, but it’s assumed they’re what are called golantha in ancient scripture. Most adventurers won’t see one in their lifetime. Wisps refer to them as Darkest Lights if they have to mention them, but even they don’t really know anything about them.’
‘And still you decided to poke its nest?’
‘Couldn’t see any other way. You weren’t volunteering alternative plans so far as I recall.’
‘What do you know about them?’
Toil frowned at him. ‘They’re big and dangerous. What more do you want?’
He met her gaze for a while but either she was telling the truth or he couldn’t tell when she was lying. His disquiet remained, however, an instinct he’d learned to trust in the dark of the To Lort mine – suspicion as a first resort, when it was dangerous to live any other way.
‘What’s it doing?’ Kas whispered from her vantage point. ‘Rooting for anyone left alive?’
As they watched, it paused and turned its blunt head. Lynx’s heart seemed to stop for a moment as the half-hidden horror raised its tusked snout as though it had heard them. Then its mouth opened again and the long whips of tongue flashed out, probing like a snake. In its throat Lynx saw flashes of light, a gullet edged in curls of flame. But it wasn’t looking up at the four mercenaries. Soon its attention was dragged down and the tongues quested towards the levels well below them.