Miri used her mindsense sparingly, checking for any slight vibrations in the air that would indicate movement. Nyx kept her Vis in reserve, ready to use it against any potential hostility should they encounter any. Rion had never been in a cave before, and he did his best not to show his fear. There were times that the boy wanted to stay so close to Miri, he would inadvertently bump into Nyx who happened to be moving slowly just ahead of him. When Rion ended up kicking her ankle too many times, she made a quick turn and quietly pushed him away, prompting the boy to take a slower, less apprehensive pace. While Jinn had been in the tribe’s fungi caves before, his fear of enclosed, dark spaces made him jittery, as he imagined endless, squirming swarms of norpions ready to pounce on him. Jinn’s paranoia increased to the point as he would occasionally glance back and shine his torch down the passage that they had just passed through, hoping that there was nothing behind them, before hurrying along to catch up with the others.
Eventually, the cavern soon branched out into numerous tunnels ahead of them. Miri simply chose the largest passageway and they continued onwards. For several hours, no one said a word, hoping that their silence would not disturb whatever was residing in this lightless place. As they continued onwards, it was soon apparent that the caverns did indeed harbor life, but it was unlike anything they had ever seen. Strange, six-legged bugs were seen crawling along the floors. What made these lightless denizens odd was that many of them were pale, some were even translucent. Devos would sometimes hold his breath as he looked down and noticed strange, tiny water creatures that swam in the small pools along the floor, their pale skin glittering under the torchlight. The old man would sometimes spend far too long looking at something before Jinn tapped his shoulder in order to silently urge him to move along.
Another few hours passed as they kept on going. Miri noticed that the passageway up ahead seemed to expand. She looked up and saw that the cave ceiling was now over twelve yards tall and sloping higher. The wind also began to pick up, as the flames of her torchlight had begun to flicker. She turned to face Nyx, who was right behind her. “I think there is a large cavern up ahead. Be ready,” she said softly.
Nyx just nodded before turning and whispering the message to Rion. Miri could see Devos walking up and peering over the boy’s shoulder, his eyes expressing an eagerness to see what was ahead. With her other hand gripping the black spear, Miri held her breath and moved forward until she could see that the passageway led into a large, subterranean chamber. The moment she stepped through the entryway she made a slight gasp.
The cavern that stood before her had a high ceiling that stretched out into the darkness, well beyond the radius of her torchlight. Gigantic stalactites that resembled inverted sharp mountains loomed down on her. The entire chamber was like a gigantic cyst, a hollowed out space deep in the bowels of the world. Miri moved forward so that the rest of the group could enter. Miniature streams of flowing water formed tiny gorges along the smooth stone floor. An unclean odor assailed their nostrils as they fanned out and began to examine a place where no human had come upon for perhaps millions of cycles. Rion stayed close to Miri, while the Striga walked over to the base of a nearby stalactite in order to rest her tired feet. Jinn and Nyx stayed close to each other while Devos wandered over to what looked like a mound of white stones at the far side of the cavern.
As Devos got closer, he quickly saw a child sized black boulder jutting out of the smooth floor ahead of him. He turned to the others, his excitement at a fever pitch. “Look, over here!”
Miri quickly stood up as Devos’s echo reverberated across the cavern and into the adjoining tunnels beyond. Gesturing at Rion to get up and follow her, she quickly moved over to where the old man was. “Devos, could you not shout out like that? Your words must have woken up whatever god sleeps down here,” she whispered.
“I-I am sorry,” Devos said sheepishly while Nyx and Jinn walked over to them as well. The old man pointed to the black boulder in the middle of the cavern. The stone was black onyx, and like the menhir they had found out in the canyon, this one had the unmistakable symbol of the Gorgon as well. “But I needed you all to look at this. The monument you see before you is also that of the Gorgons.” He turned to look at the boy while bringing his torch closer so the carved glyphs on the rock were more evident. “Rion, can you read any of that?”
The boy could barely keep up as he studied the etched writings. “It says, ‘Kaelr fought the many beasts in the dark when his light went dim, he killed so many that the caverns ran red with blood. He banished the rest to be forever in shadow, forever blind, and then he went back out into the world of the light.’ That is all that is written on it.”
While Devos conversed with the boy, Miri moved closer to the mound just ahead of them. As she used her torchlight to further illuminate the strange pile in front of her, she let out a muffled cry. What stood before her was not an accumulation of rocks, it was a mountain of bones. Everyone turned to her direction in mute shock. Miri put her spear down, then picked up a humanlike skull and held it close for a better look. Its forehead had somehow been elongated forward, and the bones had fused over what was once a pair of eye sockets. The jaw bones were larger, and filled with rows of triangular, sharp teeth. Large, protruding holes at its side seemed to indicate that whoever the skull belonged to had bigger ears than ordinary men. Miri threw the skull back into the pile and picked up her spear. “We need to go, now,” she said tersely.
Suddenly, the shrill sounds of multiple wailings could be heard coming from every direction. Jinn pushed Nyx behind him as he tensed up, spear on the ready. Rion’s heart began to beat faster as he got behind Miri, who was facing the tunnel that they had just came from. Devos stood beside them, while holding out his torch to try and determine a way out. Almost instinctively, Miri and Nyx quickly began to use their mindsense, sending out mental feelers to try and locate where the shrieks were coming from. Nyx was far too eager as she reached out with her thought probes, and was quickly met with an incoherent barrage of madness, fear and rage. The young Striga cried out as her knees buckled and she nearly fell over, but Jinn reacted and quickly grabbed her by the arm after dropping his torch onto the ground, where it soon fizzled out after getting dunked into the water of a nearby stream.
Miri had been able to keep her thought blocks in place, so she weathered the mental feedback better than Nyx did. She held out her torch to Rion. “Take this,” she said. “Make sure you do not drop it.”
The boy nervously took the torch from her as Miri pulled at her war shield that had been slung over her shoulder. Jinn also had a shield slung over his back and he quickly copied her as Nyx had recovered and was now standing on her own two feet. Devos was tempted to pull out his knife, but he just kept his other hand on the weapon’s grip instead, ready to draw it out at a moment’s notice.
Miri stole a glance at Nyx. “Are you alright?”
Nyx nodded as she held her spear with both hands. “I was unprepared for the mental reaction. I thought they were human, but it seems they have the minds of beasts. Their jumbled thoughts nearly overwhelmed me.”
Miri turned to look at Devos as the shrieking seemed to get closer. “Can you think of a way out of here?”
Devos shined his torchlight close to the pile of bones. “If the legends state that Kaelr fought a battle here, then perhaps this mound of bones is his legacy.” The old man started shifting through the large pile, he figured that there must have been hundreds of creatures that had been slain for a mass of this size. The one positive clue that he could deduce was there were no shrieking noises coming from this part of the cavern.
Rion’s entire body began to tremble. The boy’s hands shook as he feared for the worst. Miri nudged his elbow with her shield arm as a small token of reassurance. “Stay calm, Rion,” she said.
Right at that very moment, a horde of horrible things poured out of the tunnels in front of them. Miri grimaced as she was unable to keep count, for there must have been hund
reds of the creatures. Nyx and Rion both cried out in horror, while Jinn silently let out a worried breath. At first glance, their pale forms resembled that of small, hairless children, but that was where the comparisons ended. Their bodies consisted of thin, gangly arms and legs with squat torsos and flaccid, deathly pale skin. What was most terrifying of all were their eyeless faces, with just two small slits where their noses ought to be, with huge, drooping ears dangling by the sides of their abnormally large heads. Each creature had a large mouth with serrated teeth and their hands ended in stubby claws. The entire horde began to shamble forward, their monstrous heads swaying back and forth while their mouths emitted ear-piercing shrieks that seemed to bore into one’s skull.
“Orlas,” Devos muttered under his breath. It was a name for a tribe that had ventured deep into the bowels of the earth and never returned to the surface. He remembered an obscure, ancient tale that told of a sightless people who were banished by the gods into a dark underworld as punishment for feeding on their own young.
Miri held the war shield close to her body while keeping her black spear in a thrusting position, just above her right hip. The moment when a few of the creatures shuffled closer, she thrust out her weapon and speared the torso of the closest one. The pale being let out an ear-piercing wail as it staggered backwards while clutching its stomach wound, prompting the rest of the horde to stop in their tracks, before turning on their wounded comrade as they ate it alive. Jinn and Nyx quickly did the same, thrusting their spears forward before pulling them back to keep the monsters at bay. Although the swarm of creatures stopped advancing as a few of their wounded brethren cried out to warn the others, it was clear that Miri’s group had been surrounded.
Devos continued to rummage through the pile of bones. As he crouched down near the edge of the mound, he noticed that the torchlight he was carrying in his other hand began to flicker as he brought it closer to the cavern floor. That was when he noticed a hairline crack on one of the rock slabs on the floor beside him. There must be another tunnel hidden underneath. He turned to look at the youth, who was standing beside his sister. “Jinn, I found a tunnel underneath this slab, help me!”
Jinn backed away from the front as he crouched down beside the old man. He quickly placed his shield down beside him. “Where?”
Devos planted the torch on the side of the mound of bones to keep it upright, then used both hands to try to pry the stone slab that was next to him. “Over here, help me.”
Miri concentrated as she worked with Nyx to try and calm the agitated horde of creatures using their mindsense. The multitude of hostile thoughts were a problem as they each entered a different mind one at a time, only for the other creature to devolve back into a white-hot rage once they moved onto another. Nyx could barely concentrate as she would have to shift back and forth from her mindsense to using her spear in order to keep the swarming monsters from overwhelming them as they edged ever closer. Miri had more experience as she was holding her own, while Rion was almost in tears as he nervously hid behind her.
Nyx jabbed her spear at another blind orla that got too close. She glanced at the quivering boy. “Rion, get Jinn’s shield and help me!”
The boy nervously looked down at the floor and found her brother’s shield. Rion crouched low and picked it up. The inner straps were much too large for his thin arms so it hung loosely on him as he hefted it up to shield his body. One of the smaller orlas got through the two women as it tried to grab onto the boy. Rion shouted an alarm as he waved the torch in front of him, hitting the side of the creature by the ear. The orla yelped in agony as it retreated back to the others of its kind.
Jinn grimaced in pain as he used all of his strength to pull the slab up. His arm muscles ached as the solid slab began to move up, slowly. Devos silently cursed at himself for being too old to lend his strength. Jinn groaned as the slab was almost lifted, but his arms began to buckle from the strain and the stone started to slide back into place. Reacting quickly, Devos grabbed the spear lying on the floor and began to use its shaft as leverage to tilt the slab back up once more.
This time, the orlas began a more organized advance, as several of them began to edge out towards the sides of the platform that Miri and the others had been standing on. The two Strigas were using their mindsense to instill fear in the horde to prevent it from surging forward, but they were clearly running out of time as they were slowly being driven back. Rion would dart back and forth using his torch to ward off any of the smaller creatures who were not noticed by either Miri or Nyx.
With the spear acting as a lever, Jinn finally got the upper hand as the stone slab came free, revealing a narrow, sloping tunnel that seemed to go even deeper into the ground. The torch that Devos had placed on the mound had begun to flicker violently as a chill draft of wind came rushing out from the hole underneath them. Just as the old man stood up and was about to tell the others about the exit, the frenzied horde of orlas would no longer be denied. The creatures surged forward in a mad rush to get at their prey, their hunger cries at a fever pitch.
Rion screamed as several orlas tired to grab him. He fell onto his back as one of the creatures tore the burning torch from his hands. The boy was able to prevent one of the monsters from biting him as he thrust the shield out in front of him. The orla’s fanged mouth had bitten into nothing but hard leather and bone. Miri ran backwards as she grabbed the back of Rion’s cloak and pulled the boy upright. Nyx was able to spear a few of the creatures before they grabbed hold of her weapon and tore it loose from her hand. Two of the bigger orlas jumped on top of her, sending the teen girl onto the ground. She used her mindsense to stun one of the creatures, but the bigger one leapt on top of her chest and tried to bite her in the neck. Nyx cried out for help as she used her arms to hold the creature’s head back, but it was clear that the orla was winning as its fangs got closer to her jugular.
With a desperate cry, Jinn grabbed his spear and lunged forward, using his weapon as a barrier to thrust at the creatures that were about to devour his sister. The young man’s charge pushed about a dozen of the creatures backwards, allowing Nyx to wriggle free and escape. Two of the creatures had gotten to the top of the mound of bones and pounced on Devos, just as the old man was pulling the torch out. The teller struggled with the creatures clawing at him as he thrust the torch into one and pulled out his dagger and stabbed the other, forcing the creatures off of him.
Miri pushed Rion towards the tunnel underneath them. “Go!”
The boy just stood there. He was in shock, and a numbing sense of catatonia overwhelmed his senses as he saw the others struggling against the horde of beasts. Just as a group of orlas ran towards him, Rion was yanked back into reality when Devos grabbed him by his cloak and pulled him along as they both jumped down into the tunnel, leaving the smoldering torch behind on the cavern floor.
Jinn yelled out as he was pulled into the center of the horde. He flailed wildly with his spear, but the strain on the bone shaft was too much and it finally shattered with a loud crunch. He screamed in agony as the swarm of orlas began biting into his flesh and pulled him down onto the ground. One of the creatures bit down onto his exposed throat and tore into his windpipe. Jinn gurgled in his own blood as his senses began fade out into the overwhelming darkness. The last thing he saw was one of the little orlas chewing out his eye.
Nyx only saw the last part of it as her brother was overpowered by the majority of creatures around them. “Jinn!” she sobbed while trying to reach him.
Miri grabbed the younger Striga by her elbow. The rest of the horde had sensed easy pickings as they started to move away from the others to get at the newly slain carcass. “They are distracted. We must go, now!”
But Nyx wouldn’t be dissuaded. The young Striga tried to get at her brother until Miri used her own mindsense to calm her down. With tears in her eyes, Nyx said a silent goodbye to Jinn as she went down into the tunnel, just ahead of Miri, who used her spear to cover their escape.
Without torches now, the four of them were in the dark. Nyx and Rion had lost their backpacks, while the only things Devos had in his pack were telling stones and a waterskin. Miri knew they had to increase the distance between their enemies, so they could not tarry. She opened up her mindsense and sent out mental feelers to gauge the tunnel ahead of them. It seemed that the passageway was circular and smooth, with very little obstacles.
“I will lead,” Miri said softly. “Rion, grab hold of my cloak and use it guide your way. Devos, take hold of the boy’s cloak and walk after. Nyx, are you fit to stay at the rear?”
The teen girl let out a sob, but her mind was focused. Miri sensed that she had accepted her brother’s sacrifice. “Yes,” Nyx said softly.
“Very well,” Miri said as she turned and began to walk along the passageway.
Rion was about to ask where Jinn was, until he realized what had probably occurred. The boy kept his mouth shut as he concentrated on his steps, making sure he would not slip and fall. He sensed the taut tug on the edge of his cloak, and he knew that Devos was following right behind him. Since Nyx could use her own mindsense, she discreetly followed a few steps behind the old man, her stone dagger gripped tightly in her hands. The teen girl was hoping that one or two of the orlas would go down this tunnel so she could kill them, but none of the creatures had come through the hole.
The slight air currents ahead of them became more pronounced as they kept on going. After an indeterminate amount of time, a thin point of light seemed to be up ahead. Now that she had a visual reference, Miri quickened her pace as the dot of luminosity soon became bigger. Before long, they came upon a well-lighted aperture that led out into an open crevasse. Stretched out before them was a flat plain of desert, its vermillion sands spread out as far as the eye could see. They had been underground for so long that each one of them had to squint their eyes from the intensity of the sunlight above. What made the sight even more incredible was the distant outlines of a gigantic black pyramid, just at the edge of the horizon.
Lands of Dust (The Dying World Book 1) Page 20