Still, Seure would do just as well as Clarent when it came to actual fighting especially after I’d used it for a bit. The main difference when it came to actual fighting ability had more to do with me being used to Clarent. After all, I’d trained with Clarent for a long time. I was used to it. This new weapon, Seure, while incredibly similar, still felt a touch off.
There was nothing for it. After all, the whole reason I was here was to get help finding Stygian Iron so I could reforge Clarent.
“Ready to kick some ass and chew bubblegum?” I looked to Annabeth as the last of my armor settled into place.
“Chew bubblegum?” the sculptor asked, face scrunched up in confusion. “What’s bubblegum?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, taking a step toward the portal. “Because we’re all out.”
11
Stepping through the shimmering expanse of red energy was sort of like stepping through a spider web. The magic seemed to cling to me, sticking to every part of my body as it ripped off the glowing red sheen I’d gained by sacrificing my blood to the bowl gods.
Only, once I finished brushing myself off and stood there in the darkness of the other side, I realized how terrible of an idea this was. For one, just a few feet away was a series of black stalactites and stalagmites, but beyond it, I could see only a greenish mound.
“Um… where’s the beast?” I asked, staring at the huge mound of dirt directly in front of us. It was, quite literally, the only other thing here of note. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a beast?”
“I have no idea,” Annabeth shrugged next to me, taking a step closer and using the torch she’d stolen before jumping through the portal to peer into the darkness beyond the massive stalagmites. Stealing the torch had pissed Mina off, but I was glad Annabeth had taken it because otherwise we’d be trapped in pitch black darkness. “Do you suppose the mound does something? Maybe it summons the creature?” She waved her torch around a bit. “The wall ends about fifteen feet back, so… unless it does, we may be trapped in here.”
“Well, if that doesn’t sound ominous, I don’t know what does,” I replied, willing a bit of energy into my sword. Blue light began to emanate from the blade, and I used it to light my way while shimmying through the gaps in the rows of stalagmites.
As I moved forward, I reached out and touched the stone wall to my left. Only, instead of feeling like rock, it felt like damp scaly flesh. Heat radiated off of it, and I swear, it nuzzled my fingers a little.
“Maybe we don’t go in there,” Annabeth said, moving up beside me. “The air feels like wet breath.”
“Annabeth, I hate to say it, but I’m not sure where else to go,” I replied, pointing inside the maw with my sword. “There’s nothing else here.”
“What if this cave is the beast and—”
She probably would have said more, but a thick pink tentacle exploded from the mound, striking her in the chest with enough force to knock her off her feet. She hit the ground with a bone-shuddering thud, and her head rebounded off the rock. She lay there dazed as the throbbing blue-veined tentacle wrapped around her leg before pulling her deeper within the cave.
I leapt forward, grabbing Annabeth by the arm and trying to haul her backward, but a fat lot of good it did. My feet didn’t so much skid on the smooth stone floor as go out from under me. I fell hard on my ass as the tentacle dragged us toward the mound despite my best efforts to stop it. Try as I might, it was just too strong. No. I’d have to try something else.
“You can’t have her,” I cried, slashing at the tentacle with my sword. It struck with a clang that reverberated in my ears, and a flash of sparks from the impact both blinded me and ran down my arm, but that was about all it did.
I reared back, ready to try again while bracing my feet on the ground and pulling with all the strength I could muster. Only before I could bring my sword down again, the stalactites overhead began to descend. Not quickly, but fast enough for me to avoid being taken if I let go and left Annabeth. Only I couldn’t do that.
There was no way in hell I was leaving her to be eaten by this. I called upon my magic, allowing it to flow off the edge of the weapon as I got ready to blast the mound. Darkness filled my vision as the jaws slammed shut behind me like a steel trap. The smell of rotting meat hit my nostrils and turned my stomach as I unleashed my blast, but if the jet of sapphire plasma sort of evaporated upon contact with the mound.
“Fuck!” I looked around, trying desperately to orient my vision to the murk, but thanks to the flash of energy from my attack, I couldn’t see much despite the glow of my sword, which was also when I realized we’d somehow lost the torch.
Letting go of Annabeth for a second, I scrambled to my feet on the spongy earth and called upon the power of the red gem in the hilt of my sword. Hellfire sprang to life in my free hand, and I flung it at the tentacle instead of the mound. The fireball hit the tentacle with an explosion of force that threw me from my feet.
The tentacle jerked backward, releasing Annabeth and disappearing into the mound as the whole cave rumbled violently. The smell of burning flesh filled my nostrils, and warm, musty air clung to me, making me feel sticky and gross.
Ignoring the spasming cave, I took a quick glance around, and when I didn’t see the tentacle anymore, I knelt down beside Annabeth. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, so all I could see were the whites. The tentacle had released her, but she still seemed to be unconscious. That was no good because I had no idea how to heal her if she didn’t wake up on her own.
“Please wake up,” I whispered, moving between her and the tentacle and raising my sword to protect her should it attack again.
When it didn’t immediately attack, I reached down with one hand and shook her gently, trying to rouse her. She didn’t respond. Worry crept up my spine as I looked around but saw no signs of an exit. The ground rumbled again, and the tentacle pulled back into the mound.
I grabbed Annabeth, ready to shield her when the ground beneath my feet opened. We pitched downward into the murky darkness, and as a terrified scream ripped from my lips, the ground slammed into me with bone-shuddering force. Only instead of exploding like a bag of jam, my body bounced into the air. My arms went out, windmilling in the empty air as I fell again and hit the ground once more. This time I didn’t bounce nearly as high, and by the third time, I didn’t even leave the ground.
I lay there, trying to figure out how to breathe as my body howled in agony while thanking my stars for my armor’s supernatural durability. I got to my hands and knees and spit out a mouthful of blood before pulling myself to my feet and looking around. The ‘room’ was lit by what looked like effervescent neon yellow cilia extending from the walls.
“Guess this is what they meant by the belly of the beast,” I mumbled, ignoring the waving cilia as I stared down the long dark tunnel ahead of me.
I tested the ground, wondering if it would bounce when I walked, but while it was spongy, it didn’t have that much give. No, it’d probably only made me bounce because I’d fallen really far. It made me feel lucky because otherwise, I’d have just been dead.
“Annabeth, are you okay?” I asked, making my way over to her unconscious form. Only, as I approached, I realized she was definitely not okay. Her left arm lay twisted awkwardly beneath her, no doubt broken by the fall.
Hopefully, she would heal soon because I had no idea how to help her. I mean, I could have made her a split or something, but admittedly, even after spending a lot of time in Hell, I wasn’t exactly sure what the limits of her demonic healing would be. The last thing I wanted to do would be to try to help her and have the bone heal wrong or something. After all, she was a sculptor, her hands were, quite literally, her livelihood.
“I wish Sally was here,” I mumbled, taking a deep breath and resolving to have her teach me some basic first aid and physiology when we got back because I had no way of knowing whether her arm would heal in a few minutes or if it’d take hours.
The only th
ing I could do would be to protect her until she awakened. Then I could ask her what to do, assuming she knew.
“Guess I’m carrying you,” I said, bending down to grab her. As my hand touched her body, she twitched. I pulled my hand back and stared at her. “Annabeth, are you okay?”
She didn’t respond.
“Annabeth?” I stared at her for another moment, and when she didn’t move, I knelt down next to her. As soon as my hand touched her skin, she jerked way more violently than before.
I scrambled backward, sword gripped tightly in my hands as eight spindly green appendages that reminded me of scorpion legs stretched out from beneath her.
“Stop!” I cried as her whole body was hoisted into the air. The legs began to move, carrying Annabeth’s body down the tunnel. I wasn’t sure where it was taking her, but something told me it wouldn’t be anywhere good.
Not wasting a second, I ran after Annabeth but found it surprisingly hard to keep up with the creature. Its nimble three clawed feet picking along the slimy ground like it was made to do this, which it probably was.
My chest was heaving with effort by the time I caught up to the bug. Up ahead, the path we were on looked like it was about to drop off. The creature stopped short of the edge and slowly lowered itself to the ground. Then it sort of flipped, tossing Annabeth to the ground beside it.
A creature resembling a humongous green scorpion stood beside Annabeth. Its actual body wasn’t big, only about the size of a football, but that didn’t mean its huge, lantern-sized claws and stinger weren’t terrifying.
“Don’t touch her!” I snarled, stepping toward it with my sword raised and calling upon my magic. If it so much as twitched, I was going to blast it to smithereens.
It turned and regarded me with a thousand magenta eyes. It opened its mouth and let out a high-pitched warble, shattering my eardrums and making me fall to my knees, clasping my head.
As my sword hit the ground beside me, the scorpion lunged at me. I dodged just as it landed on the spot, and I snatched up my fallen weapon.
The creature’s claws tore gouts in the fleshy floor beneath as I came to my feet covered in sticky slime. The scorpion whirled around, tail rearing back to strike as I pounced, using the muscles in my legs to propel myself high into the air.
As it buried its stinger in the spot where I’d been only a moment before, I came down on top of its body with all the force my bulk could muster. The creature’s legs buckled, snapping with a sound like breaking twigs as I drove my sword through its body, pinning it to the dirt. Its carapace smacked into the ground as I unleashed a blast of sapphire energy while on top of it. The scorpion exploded like a goo-filled melon.
The smell of sulfur filled my nostrils as I scrambled backward, worried the creature’s foul guts might be poisonous, or you know, dissolve my flesh like acid.
Thankfully, that acid thing didn’t happen.
Chest heaving, I took a deep breath, my eyes still watering as I turned toward Annabeth so I could make sure she was okay.
She was not okay.
A dozen more scorpions surrounded her. They regarded me curiously as though they couldn’t quite figure out what I was doing there. To be fair, the feeling was mutual.
I had half a mind to try to run away, but there was no way I was leaving Annabeth behind. No. It was time to fight them all off. Taking a deep breath, I gripped my sword tightly.
My muscles tensed as I got ready to attack them with wild abandon. Only before I could, the middle one knelt down. Its spindly legs folding up beneath it like an accordion. I stared at it in confusion as the others followed suit.
“What’s going on?” I asked even though I was sure the creatures couldn’t understand me.
“Hello.” The word warbled inside my brain, and I got sort of dizzy as its head moved outward from its body on a long stalk that hadn’t been visible before. Had it been retracted inside its carapace? “Can you understand me?”
When I didn’t immediately respond, it turned toward the others and sort of shrugged. They shrugged back.
“It’s not a demon. Maybe it’s too young to understand?” one of them asked, the sound like a trumpet blast in my brain. “How old do humans need to be before they can talk?”
“No. It seemed like it was talking a moment ago,” the creature furthest to my left said as it stepped past the others, examining me with its magenta eyes. “I think it’s just dumb.” It looked me over again. “I say we eat it.” Those words made a chill run down my spine. If there was one thing I certainly did not want, it was to be eaten by a bunch of giant scorpions.
The others nodded, clearly taken with the idea. Well, that was no good. No good at fucking all. Pushing down my fear, I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
“Sorry,” I said aloud, and all of their eyes fixed on me at once. It got eerily quiet as they watched me stand there holding my sword in a white-knuckled grip.
“You can talk?” the one who had hello replied in my head, only this time the words had a confused lilt to them. “Why did you not respond earlier?”
“Erm… well, see here’s the thing, people don’t usually speak directly into my mind…” I shrugged because I didn’t have a better answer.
“How can that be? Are you broken?” the one who had wanted to eat me asked, its voice grating on my brain. “If he’s defective, we should definitely eat him. Keep the species strong and all that. Why we owe it to the entire human race to eat him.”
“I’m not defective. My species is just different,” I replied, waving my hand frantically. “We talk out loud. Not mind to mind.”
“Okay,” one of the middle ones said, coming forward. “Why are you here?”
“He’s after the children,” another hissed.
“Look what he did to Jenny,” the one to its left chided. “He killed her for no reason!”
As they all began to nod in agreement, the far-left scorpion spoke up. “I still say we eat him.”
“Wait,” I said, holding my hands in the time out sign even though I wasn’t sure they’d understand the gesture. “That one is named Jenny?” I pointed to the crushed scorpion.
“Yes,” they said at once, and it was like a cacophony of horn blasts in my mind.
“Okay…” I mumbled not sure what to do with that. “Um… sorry about Jenny.”
“Don’t be. She was sort of a bitch,” the one in front chirped, and the others reluctantly agreed.
“All right,” I said, taking a deep breath and meeting the scorpion’s million magenta eyes as best I could. “What is your name?”
“You may call me Bill.” He turned and pointed to the left one who wanted to eat me. “That’s Ted.”
Ted nodded at me like he hadn’t just suggested eating me.
“Okay…” I mumbled for the second time in as many minutes. “Those are kind of odd names for scorpions.”
“They aren’t our actual names,” Ted said, shaking his head like he still thought I was dumb. “Those are your mental equivalents of our names. You would not be able to pronounce our names.”
“So, you mean it’s my fault you’re named Bill and Ted?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It seemed kind of… invasive. Then again, if it kept them from eating us, I was okay with it. “
“In a word, yes,” Bill said, nodding. “Would you like me to introduce the others?”
“No. I already feel like my brain is going to explode,” I said, shaking my head.
“We get that a lot,” said Ted.
Bill elbowed him with one spindly appendage. “No, we don’t. He’s the first of his kind we’ve ever seen.”
“Why do you always have to be so particular?” Ted squealed, glaring at Bill. “Besides, you’re ruining this excellent adventure.”
“Excellent adventure? More like Bogus journey,” Bill snorted, stepping away from the other scorpion and rubbing his multifaceted eyes with his two front appendages.
“Whatever,”
Ted added, glaring at Bill as the huge scorpion moved closer to me.
“Anyway, we have a small issue. See our job is to feed the monster.” Bill pointed to the cliff as two of the scorpions began dragging Jenny’s corpse over to the edge. They tossed her off the cliff with about as much concern as I’d have given an empty soda can.
“So, what’s the problem?” I asked, raising one eyebrow as I made a mental note to trust these scorpions a whole hell of a lot less far than I could throw them.
“Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you don’t want us doing that with your mate over there.” He nodded toward Annabeth.
“Um, yeah, please don’t do that,” I replied, wondering if I should grab Annabeth’s arm or something just to make sure they didn’t try.
“Hence our problem.” Bill drummed his front legs on the ground. “The beast will likely not even notice he’s consumed Jenny. Not enough meat on her chiton.” Billy shrugged. “At least, he’s never noticed before.”
“What happens if you don’t feed him?” I asked as a bad feeling settled in my stomach.
“Then this chamber fills with stomach acid.” Bill shrugged like it wasn’t a very important concern even though it sure seemed like it was to me. “You must escape before that happens.”
“Wait, you’re going to help us escape?” I asked.
“Of course. We’re not murderers. We’re only supposed to feed dead things to him. You’d give him a stomach ache.” Bill looked at me, and I got the sense he was smirking. “He’ll try anyway though. He’s dumb like that, which is why he has us.”
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my face with my hand. I wasn’t quite sure if I could trust the scorpion, but if it kept me from being dissolved in acid, I was all for taking the chance. “So how do we get out of here?”
“There are only two ways out. One is to enter lava plains down there.” The creature pointed over the cliff again. “The other is to go the back way, but that is not without danger. It is guarded by the seven, each of whom is deadlier than the last. Both will lead you to Wrath’s plateau.”
The Builder's Pride (The Legendary Builder Book 3) Page 7