by D. M. Almond
Looking back at his companions, he hoped they were not experiencing the same fatigue. Bipp’s eyes darted in every direction, as if the skex might attack if he did not keep them in his sights. Strangely enough, Nero walked along as if he was out for a casual stroll. Looking at the android, one would have no idea of the complex robotic processes working to lower his leg pressure and make each step with silent precision.
Corbin held up a hand and lunged forward on silent feet to grab hold of Logan.
“What?” Logan yelped in surprise as he was pulled sideways. When he turned, he understood. He had been so preoccupied with keeping an eye on his friends that he had almost walked directly into a lumbering skex that towered over those around it. Worse, the skex seemed to sense something was amiss and began to stir.
The companions made a mad shuffle to fall back, all waving arms and wide eyes. Logan and Bipp ducked around a pair of the skex when the stirring beast’s legs clacked against the rocky floor. Logan caught a glimpse of Isaac’s glowing orange eyes and Corbin’s voulge, as they hid behind another sleeping skex across from him. He tried to scan the area for Nero, but the android was nowhere to be seen.
The skex let out a mewling sound that he assumed was some sort of yawn and stood to stretch its pincers. Go back to sleep, go back to sleep, Logan frantically thought. The huge predator circled in place as if chasing its tail and settled back down in a heap of scraping armored plates and a cloud of dust.
Logan sighed and thanked the gods, leaning on Bipp.
The skex shifted fast as a watchdog, lifting the top half of its body in the air. Tentacles emerged from its maw to wiggle around in the air as if tasting it. Logan held his breath, praying it would just fall back asleep and let them be.
The skex rose again and turned clockwise until it was facing their general direction. Rows of glowing red eyes suddenly peered from the shadows, and Bipp let out a tiny whimper. Logan clamped a hand over the gnome’s mouth, but it was too late. The skex was on the move.
The large monster scurried between two others, slipping right past where Corbin and Isaac were hiding as it scanned the area. Logan realized in the pit of his stomach that the creature was making a direct line for his location.
He pointed to the left, and Bipp nodded. Logan took his hand off the gnome’s mouth, and they moved as quickly as possible around the sleeping insect, using its girth as cover. They inched toward its sleeping face just in time, as the curious skex came skittering around to where they had been.
They kept moving inch by inch, and Logan found himself pressed between a pair of skex. One’s head directly faced him. The hot stink of rotting meat came through its deep breathing, full in Logan’s face. To his rear was the upper back of a skex lying on its side. He knew he needed to be very careful here. If one of the insects woke, it was in prime position to chew them to pieces, and a skex could gnaw through bone in seconds. If the other rolled even a couple feet to the right, it would crush Logan and Bipp under its hulking weight.
Meanwhile, the woken skex stopped and opened its mouth. Its tentacles played through the air again as if they were feeling for something. Bipp pulled on his pant leg, urging them to get further back. The skex was moving slowly now, but one glimpse of them, and it could easily close the distance in an instant. Logan had seen just how fast the dangerous predators could be up close and far too personal. Once these monsters began to feast, there was not much that could slake their hunger.
He took a narrow step, pressing himself deeply enough between the two skex that his cheek was only inches away from them. Logan had a sudden feeling of being trapped and a flashback to the time he had been hiding behind Morgana’s dresser when it fell on him and pinned him to the wall. It had been hours before anybody found him in his failed game of hide and seek.
The skex’s legs chittered a step forward. It made soft gurgling noises as its tentacles licked the armored plating of the sleeping insect beside it. Logan took another step back, blocking Bipp in the narrow space left between the two creatures. Behind the searching skex, he saw his brother come out from his hiding spot with the voulge raised overhead like a spear. Isaac was trying to stop him, but Corbin ignored the mage and stalked in with a look of solidarity. Logan knew that look. It was the face Corbin made when he became the hunter.
The skex suddenly scrambled up the side of the resting insect beside it. At first Logan thought the creature meant to eat its kin, but then he realized it was only getting comfortable as the skex rested its entire body in a heap over the other beast. Its tentacles retreated and the skex’s head nudged its sleeping companion, who wiggled slightly and turned a pincer to lock with the newcomer’s. The skex’s eyes faded to a dull pink and then snuffed out entirely.
Logan’s relief that they had not been caught was spoiled by the fact that they were now blocked in. He lost sight of his brother behind the black armored exoskeletons.
Bipp got off his hands and knees and carefully skirted the skex to assess the situation. Logan mouthed the word bollocks, and the gnome shook his head. Logan furrowed his brow, and the gnome explained by pointing out a spot near the newly slumbering skex’s tail. There was just enough room for them to crawl under the barbed stinger, which rested on a nearby skex.
Logan nodded emphatically and motioned for Bipp to lead the way. Fear made them move like skilled assassins, making no sound at all. When they came to the opening Logan almost moaned. The space between the tail and the ground couldn’t be more than two feet wide. Bipp could get through with ease, but he was not so sure his own body would fit. And if it did, what if he brushed against the skex’s tail? Who knew how sensitive the beast’s chitinous plates were?
Logan quickly masked his trepidation when Bipp turned around to see if he was ready. He patted the gnome’s back, pushing him to go first. Bipp fell to his hands and knees and scurried through the opening fast as a mole rat.
The skex mewled and shifted its body, slapping the tail down to the dirt. Logan was just quick enough to move out of the way as the stinger clicked across the ground. He waited like a frozen statue until the monster settled again and then dared to look up.
Bipp stood on the other side, waving his arms for Logan to join him. But where can I go? he wondered, looking around for some other way out. He was surrounded by sleeping skex. Everywhere he looked was another hulking body.
Movement caught his eye, and Logan looked back toward his companions. Nero was back, and Corbin was waving toward him. What do they want me to do? Logan thought, wondering why Nero was holding Corbin’s voulge. Bipp pointed at Logan then the polearm. You want me to look at Corbin’s voulge? Why? No, wait, is Nero going to throw the voulge at the skex? Logan frantically shook his head and put up his palms. They’re mad. If this beast so much as makes a peep, the entire cavern will be down on us faster than we can blink!
Corbin gritted his teeth and looked like he wanted to shout. It must have been killing him not to just send out a telepathic message, but the mage had clearly said it was too dangerous until they better understood their enemy. Corbin held up a fist and then straightened out his arm and lifted it up in the air.
Logan gave up trying to understand. Sure, whatever you want, he nodded.
Nero climbed up Corbin and stood on his shoulders, and they stepped as close to the other side of the skex tail as they could. Ever so slowly, Nero lowered the voulge over the top of the beast, locking the bladed side under his right arm. When the base of the polearm rested in the dirt, Logan finally understood.
Ingenious! He wasted no time stepping onto the steel shaft. Without looking down, he raced up the weapon as if it were a balancing beam. When he was far enough across, he hopped off into the dirt. A pebble skittered underfoot and bounced off a skex’s head, but the beast only continued its steady breathing.
Nero dropped the voulge down to Corbin and climbed off his back. Logan wanted to give his brother a great big bear hug at that moment. Bipp silently bowed to Nero. The group of them drifted away from t
he restless skex until they were far enough to stop and whisper.
“The way out lies just ahead,” Nero said.
“That’s good,” Logan said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of this hell hole.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Corbin said.
“What now?”
“Our path is obstructed,” Nero explained.
“Damn it all.” Logan spat on the ground.
“Can we sneak around it?” Bipp asked, squinting to try to see what the android was referring to. All he could make out was the skex on either side of them and a valley of shadows ahead.
“The creature is too large. It could be a female,” Nero said. “There are other tunnels, but they are virtually overflowing with the creatures.”
“I say we punch a hole through the thing and be on our way,” Bipp said.
Logan snorted, earning himself a dark glance from the gnome.
“I might have a spell I can use to keep her fast asleep,” Isaac said.
Logan blanched. “Then why didn’t you use it a couple minutes ago?”
“Naturally I’ve been saving it for an emergency,” Isaac said. “No use jumping the gun and throwing out all our cards at the slightest hint of danger, lad.”
Logan opened and the shut his mouth, standing there awestruck. The group was on the move again, and he took up the rear. “Not like my life is worth a measly spell or nothing,” he muttered.
Bipp nudged Logan’s hip and pressed a stubby finger to his mouth, signaling for him to be quiet. Logan suddenly wanted to scream.
They came to the slumbering skex that blocked their path. It was much larger than those around it. The bulk of the insect’s body was perpendicular to the tunnel opening, almost as if it were trying to keep it blocked off. The tunnel behind it was large enough for the skex to fit inside. Its curved back faced them, and its tail rested curled around a group of three smaller skex. Are those its children? Logan wondered.
Isaac muttered an incantation, and Logan felt the air around them growing thicker, like it was being drawn together in a dense cloud. The mage flicked his staff at the creature, and a cloud of grey smoke descended upon its head like a crown. Once it settled in place, the mage turned and gave them the signal to move.
Corbin was first, strapping his voulge behind his back and scaling the side of the skex as if it were a rock wall. Once he reached the top, he pulled a rope from his bag. Corbin tied one end around his waist and dropped the other down to them. Bipp was the next to go up, wrapping the rope around his forearms as he climbed the slick armor. He slipped once, and everyone backed away fearfully. The skex did not stir.
“Damn good trick you pulled there,” Logan said to Isaac.
“Hurry now, I don’t know how long the spell will last,” Isaac said.
Nero deftly scaled the beast. Once at the top, he helped Bipp down the other side. Isaac floated up and over the skex as Logan joined them at the top. He and Corbin hopped down the other side, into the tunnel.
Logan cried out, coming too close to the skex on his landing and skinning the back of his thigh against one of its sharply pointed legs.
“Are you alright?” Corbin asked, checking him for signs of injury.
“I’ll live,” Logan said, more concerned with looking for signs of the skex moving. He heard its armored body scraping against the stone, but it did not look like the creature stirred. “Is it…?”
“Behind us!” Bipp yelled at the same time that Corbin shouted, “There’s one in the tunnel!”
Logan turned in time to see the gnome’s hammer flying into an incoming skex face. The weapon bounced off the creature, which stopped for a moment and then charged in. Logan felt a dread-filled deja vu grip him as he saw its red eyes. A pit opened in his stomach, knowing these tight quarters were no place for a hand-to-hand fight against one of these creatures.
“You must dispatch the creature quickly,” Isaac said, turning to face the way they had come. “My spell will wear off any moment, and I must prepare a defense!” He raised his hands in the air, pointing his staff sideways, and began muttering another incantation.
Nero’s arrows whizzed by, but they clattered harmlessly off the incoming skex’s armored hide.
“Aim for the eyes!” Logan shouted, snapping his arm out to open Gandiva. The mystical boomerang opened with a sharp click, looking like two eagle wings joined together with a flat edge where the blade would emerge when thrown.
The skex let out a trill, calling to its hive in the cavern behind them. The beast was upon them now and seemed bent on charging in and bowling them over with its girth. One of Nero’s arrows pierced one of its glowing red eyes. It roared and tried to rear back, but the tunnel ceiling was too low, and the shaft was pressed farther in.
Corbin seized the advantage and lunged forward with his voulge, pinning one of the beast’s claws to the side of the wall. It tried to break free, but he held his weapon firm. The skex swung its other pincer in, forcing him to duck. Unfortunately his maneuver was not quick enough to avoid a glancing blow to the head. As his body crashed sideways, he lost his grip on the voulge, leaving it pinned to the skex’s pincer.
In the cavern behind them, the sounds of waking skex could be heard. Even the largest creature to their backs was beginning to stir, its myriad of angled legs twitching.
“Better hurry up with that spell!” Bipp cried out.
Isaac did not respond. His eyes were swirling vortexes of orange fire, and his words were like a river of flowing glyphs that encircled his staff.
Logan screamed for his brother and let Gandiva fly. The mystical weapon shattered the beast’s jointed claw, shearing it in a spray of yellow ooze and releasing Corbin’s voulge. It squealed and thrashed about, battering the walls of the tunnel.
“The damn thing’s going to bury us alive!” Bipp yelled as he ran forward and snatched his hammer from the rocks at its feet.
Nero let many arrows fly, but it only took one, which shot straight into the skex’s tentacled mouth and into its brain, to kill the beast.
Gandiva came circling back to Logan, and he ran forward to pull Corbin to his feet. His brother was heavy, disoriented by the blow to his head.
There was a loud roar behind them, and the skex that had been sleeping was pushed forward against the tunnel entrance. On the other side of the creature, the skex horde was battering her to get through and devour the invaders. Corbin pointed at his voulge and muttered something that Logan could not make out over the swelling howls.
“Come on, Isaac!” Bipp hollered, stepping back out of range as the mortally wounded skex fell limp to the ground. “We better climb over it while we can,” he said.
Logan snatched up the voulge and handed it to Corbin, who used it to balance his weight and move slightly faster. Without another word they crawled over the side of the slain monster. He winced as Corbin fell face first down the other side, but there was no time to dwell on scrapes and bruises. Nero and Bipp came over the monster, and Logan looked back at Isaac.
The female skex bucked twice, and her legs became a flurry of chittering movement. She let out an ear-splitting screech and suddenly clambered to her feet, turning to face the meat that had wandered into her hive. Logan knew in that moment, without any idea how it was possible, that this was the queen of this particular hive. Behind her, an army of moving bodies and raging red eyes moved in.
Isaac turned to face Logan and screamed, “Run, you idiot!”
Logan could have sworn he lost his mind when Isaac’s body suddenly sprang toward him, leaving a dozen translucent versions of himself in his wake. He tried to keep his eyes on the mage, but when Isaac flew overhead, Logan fell backwards, sliding down the body of the skex. As he hit the ground, Bipp was there, frantically tugging him to his feet and dragging him for a few steps before Logan was able to stand upright. Isaac was ahead of them, yet somehow the images of him still floated behind.
The mage’s ruse worked well enough. The skex fell on his illusion
, thinking they were attacking the invaders. “Get ready for it, boys!” Isaac shouted.
Logan did not like the sound of that.
The tunnel rocked sideways as an explosion went off behind them. Logan’s body hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of him. He was blinded for a moment by a bright orange light, and his ears popped. He lay on his back for long minutes before Nero hovered over him. Logan was not sure what was happening, but he knew Nero was pulling him to his feet. The android was speaking, but it sounded dull, like a mumble behind the ringing in his ears.
Logan looked back at the tunnel and was shocked to see it was gone. In its place stood a wall of boulders and dust. He turned to see if his friends were all alright and caught his brother yelling something at the mage.
“You daft old bat!” Corbin shook his fist in rage. “You could have killed us all!”
Isaac did not seem moved by Corbin’s heated words and waved him away. “It was a necessary risk, far more calculated than you seem to grasp.”
Bipp was wiping the dirt out of his eyes and laughing. “I’m just happy to be alive.”
Logan stalked up to Isaac with his fists bunched tight, and Corbin backed off. He dimly heard his younger brother tell him not to do anything rash, and Logan shot him a look that could melt ice. He turned back to Isaac, “You know something? You really are one crazy son of a bitch.”
Isaac smiled in a way only the truly insane could muster, and Logan began to laugh as hard as he could, broken by fits of coughing up dust.
The ringing in his ears was slowly fading, and he heard his brother say something about the air. Logan felt it too; they all did. Cool air was gently brushing against his skin.
Corbin ran forward and they quickly followed. As soon as they came around the corner, Bipp let out a scream and hopped up and down. The air was much stronger now, gusting up from the raging waters of the Green Serpent River directly below.