by Mike Wild
Trix swung back, hoping to make the opposite ledge before company caught up, only to find a harpy heading right for her face, so close she could smell its rank breath. Heart jolting, she kicked out and heard a screech as her boot caught the inside of its right wing. There was a crunch of fine bone, the wing half folded, and the harpy veered. But not soon enough. Trix was enveloped in leathery flesh, felt a scrabbling talon slice deeply into her thigh, then the harpy kicked away, sending her into a wild spin as she was briefly snagged by the hooked tip of its injured wing. For a few seconds her dizzying rotation made it seem as if harpies were coming at her from all directions. By the time she regained some equilibrium, they actually were.
“Ralph? Ralph!”
She spotted the old man and realised she needn’t have worried. He’d found himself a niche in the arch, an uneven hollow safe from the incoming harpies’ talons from which he could also defend the two of them. His hands had already begun to flicker with fire and ice. But safe or not, he, like she, needed to get the hell out of there, not least because through the incomings she could see at least one trebuchet across the chasm turning towards them. Bloody Nora, it never ceased to amaze her how quickly things went tits up down here, almost as if someone somewhere had a really shit set of dice.
A whistle from above leavened her mood somewhat—Yuri, rappelling down to join them. The Russian hung onto his rope with one hand while scything his axe with the other, gleefully separating heads and wings from a number of harpies getting too close. Two encroaching on Trix, meanwhile, abruptly dropped from view, flaming and frozen, as Ralph’s spells took them out of the game. For her part, Trix had unslung crossbow and fired in rapid succession four bolts, two of which pierced the hearts of harpies near Ralph, and two near Yuri, the latter between the eyes. The three-way defence continued, harpies falling like big black flies, and Trix suddenly regretted that she, Ralph, and Yuri had never worked together before—they made a hell of a team. But even a hell of a team was bound to struggle against overwhelming odds. The balance had to be tipped somehow. Trix ran through possibilities, mentally scanned her inventory, weighed the odds, and then decided. The one currently haranguing Yuri would do.
“Kick it my way!”
“What?”
“The bloody harpy! Boot it up the arse!”
“If you say so, English.”
Yuri booted. The harpy flailed, began to bank to exact retribution, but Trix was ready. As it entered her orbit, she bucked on her rope and wrapped her legs tightly around its torso. The harpy tried to pull away, taking Trix with it until her rope was near horizontal and began to creak. The creature was a big specimen for her kind—strong. All the better. Trix cut herself free and grabbed on fully, holding a bony ridge on the back of its neck that was kind of a petrified mane. The harpy screeched and flapped under her, albeit less buoyantly than before, and its head turned, mouth snapping at her, but it didn’t have the reach. Hot spit splashed in Trix’s eye. She wiped it away with the same hand she carried on down to her sheath and extracted the knife therein. The knife of charm she’d taken from Baldur’s Crate flipped in her grip before she briefly let go of the harpy to ram the knife with both hands into its mane.
All hell broke loose. Trix supposed she wouldn’t be too happy if someone had rammed a blade into her neck, either, but she’d thrust deep because the knife’s enchantment had only a small chance of success, according to Ralph, and it was her way of bucking the odds. Still, the pink glow that spread from the entry wound seemed to have little initial effect, the harpy engaging in a series of enraged manoueuvres that would have shamed the mechanical bull Trix had ridden in the Three Feathers that time she’d made an arse of herself. But this time, she stayed on, enduring a nosedive, a loop the loop, and an attempt to scrape her against the side of the bridge that might have worked had the charm not just then kicked in. All of a sudden, the harpy’s eyes turned milky white, and Trix was in full control.
Trix swooped. And whooped. This was a first, even for her. But no joyride, she knew. Her ultimate target was the trebuchet, but as that was still shifting into firing position, and she needed to bank anyway, there was no reason why she couldn’t lend the others a helping hand. She dug her thighs into the harpy’s flanks, steering it back whence she had come, and was gratified to see all four of its clawed appendages open like grapples as it headed in. A harpy badgering Ralph was the first to be plucked from its business—plucked, skewered, and violently discarded—and then one of a pair that was swiping at Yuri while retreating obstinately out of his reach suddenly disappeared from frame as Trix’s mount slammed into it like a piston, crushing its thorax and dropping it like a stone. Trix couldn’t help herself—she patted the harpy’s neck as if it were a faithful horse, pleased with it and herself for seemingly having chosen such a good thrall.
Too good, it seemed. She hadn’t noticed until now the paroxysms her riding this particular harpy was causing in the ranks. Far more than one might expect from having an enemy in their midst. The screeching and frantic flapping going on about her, not to mention further waves of creatures rising from the depths as if in response, gave her pause, and she studied the thing anew. Bigger, yes; stronger, certainly. And that mane into which the knife was thrust was lengthier than others, and peculiarly distinctive.
The queen. She’d only gone and charmed the bloody harpy queen.
Oh, that was fucking great. The upside was that she was now drawing all the harpies away from Yuri and Ralph. The downside was the same as the upside: everything moving in the air coming for her. Trix glanced frantically around, seeking escape, finding incomings on every side. She spurred the queen on, dipping and diving, and it thudded through harpy after harpy, talons tearing where they could, trying to find a way out of their massing cloud. A harpy came from the left, flailed away as its throat was torn out; a second, from the right, screeched agonisingly as one of its wings was torn clean off. For a moment Trix found herself wholly upside down as the queen rolled in flight, talons slashing at the undersides of two others, disembowelling both and sending them into a dive trailing black intestine in their wake.
Upside, downside, upside down. There was an answer in there somewhere, she knew. And then she had it. Up. If she could get them up …
Trix pulled back on the queen’s mane, gaining altitude. A steep climb. She could feel the creature straining beneath her, not only in the way her wings beat so heavily but in resistance in her body. The charm was beginning to wear off, she sensed—fair enough, the compulsion to attack your own never lasted long—but she needed to maintain it a little longer. She grabbed the hilt of the knife, gave it a twist deeper into the mane, hoped it was enough. It got her an agonised protestation but also where she wanted—into the midst of the aerial clash of magics continuing to be exchanged between the two sides of the chasm.
It was like entering a crucible of ice and fire, the air thick with spells and destruction. Trix flung the queen left and right, side to side, up and down, dodging the detonations, but it was only a matter of time before one of the exchanges connected. But Trix didn’t intend this to last long: the free will she had was her advantage, she knew—the harpies in pursuit, intent only on ridding the queen of her presence, had become mindless of the danger to themselves. Consequently, as they followed her into the crucible, a number were snuffed like moths in candle flame, others petrified in flight, still others exploded or imploded, caught in the grip of forces capable of rending reality itself. Their ranks were reduced to just a few singed or crackling stragglers carried more by momentum than murderous intent. Then even they dropped, literally, out of the chase as from a distance Ralph zapped them with one or two of his own conjurations.
Trix looked to see how he and Yuri were doing. Smiled as she saw that, freed from the harpies, Yuri was extricating the old man by zip-lining the two of them back up the rope to their original route. The trebuchet—as well as a number of mages and archers—were still tracking them, though, so time to get back to b
usiness. She dug her heels into the ever-more-recalcitrant queen—Oh ho, no, missus, not while I still need you!—steering her away from the target, almost to the far side of the chasm, and then banking round on a direct collision course.
The trebuchet crew, mages, and archers didn’t even see them coming until it was too late and so struggled to level projectiles of any kind. Just as well, as by now Trix was actively fighting her mount and couldn’t have dodged if she’d tried. She fought a few seconds more before history repeated itself, and she became unsaddled from her mechanical bull. This time, though, by choice, a none-too-graceful leap with more than a hint of desperate flail that took her in an arc over the top of the trebuchet just as the queen, unable to pull out, crashed into its just-lit fireball beneath her. The queen detonated, the trebuchet detonated, and the whole kit and caboodle blew sky high, the shock wave slamming mages and archers off in all directions, their magics and shafts loosed indiscriminately and destructively into the midst of their own.
Fuckin’ ’ell, Trix thought. So much for the stealth approach. She picked herself up with a groan from behind the barrel where she’d landed, relieved to see her last-minute abandoning of ship had gone unnoticed in the chaos. She scanned the bridge and picked out Yuri and Ralph making their way down the last arch, almost at its end. She indicated the two of them should make for the inlet and she’d join them as soon as she was able. She plucked a half-burned cloak from the ground, swung it about herself, and began to make her way cautiously through the enemy camp towards the chasm’s edge.
It was an eerie experience. So much activity and yet no life. Where across the chasm the arming and firing of trebuchets, the launching of bolts, the hustle and bustle of supply lines, the very stuff of war, had been accompanied by shouts and roars, cries and commands, the sounds of stress and exertion, here amongst the reanimated there was nothing but the creaking of ancient wood and groaning of ancient rope. Kh’Borian’s thralls went about their business in utter silence other than for a rustling of their tattered robes and clank of armour. Even as some fell about her—downed by an energy bolt or fireball or hail of crossbow bolts—their only sound was the clacking of a collapse of bones or all-but-empty gear. This wasn’t the only thing that spooked her—she was no stranger to encounters with the undead, but to be in the midst of so many of them at once, each and every one working to a single purpose, their lack of soul seemed to suck at her, their empty if glowing eye sockets drain her, and Trix found herself holding her breath not only to remain undetected but lest she breathe out and her breath vanish into the horrible vacuum around her, never to return.
A hand clamped around her ankle, halting her progress. She looked down and, despite herself, let out a gasp. She knew there was a possibility of some of her own people being amongst this number, but to actually encounter one …
An arm and a ribcage, all that was left of a human form. The tattered remains of army fatigues. Her heart thudded as, for a moment, she thought this could be Ian. But then she caught sight of a still-surviving name tag on the fatigues. Owens. Corporal Owens. Christ, she’d known him. Would know him again when Kh’Borian’s soulstripper took effect any moment now. Trix swallowed nausea and moved on.
She reached the chasm’s edge and climbed down. Yuri and Ralph were waiting for her. They all of them, now, were standing on a kind of stone sluice in front of the inlet. The green sludge she’d seen from across the chasm had a gaggingly foul stink.
“I should have known sooner or later we’d end up in a sewer. There’s always a bloody sewer,” Trix sighed.
“Much as I hate to shatter that particular cliche,” Ralph commented, “I remind you that, for the creatures beyond, the days of bowel movements and voiding of bladder are long since … er, passed.”
“Then what is that stuff?”
The old man paused before answering. “Mass putrefaction, Patricia. The liquid remains of countless dead.”
XVII
Soulstripper
The inlet was as dark as the grave. Appropriate, considering they were paddling through the dead. There was no sign of even a distant light source, and the only indicator of ingress was a foul swell and slosh about their shins. The gases from the putrefaction meant they dared not use flares, and the only safe illumination was what magic Ralph could muster. He mustered it for the fourth time since they’d entered, a glowing blue-white blob that swirled in his palm before being flung forward to light their way. Its light didn’t last—something down here was sucking anything vital away.
“Blyat,” Yuri’s voice echoed as his shadow loomed like Nosferatu. “The stink is worse than Grandpappy Yoreltsin’s knick-knacks.”
“Knick-knacks?”
“I spare you repulsion by using this loose translation, English.”
It wasn’t just the darkness and stink that was off-putting. There was also the wailing. The sounds of battle faded, the background noises found elsewhere in the levels all but muted, the wailing was as yet distant but still seemed to come from all around.
The sound of a great many souls in torment.
The sound of the soulstripper.
Trix frowned. It was possible that bastard was between themselves and the teleportal, or the location of the crystal, in which case they’d have to deal with it as and when. But for now she had to concentrate on finding the right direction. Having lost Shen’s signal once more, all she had to navigate was the mental map of her visions, which she was trying to relate to the area through which they moved. Her first test came about a hundred yards in at a junction. Onward, left, right. After a moment’s hesitation, Trix went to turn left, but Ralph clamped a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you not hear it?”
“The wailing?”
“No. Something else.”
Stilled, she did hear. The same sloshing their feet made, only more so, like a tide. Something with a bigger footprint than their own but that didn’t necessarily possess feet. Ralph lobbed a blob towards the sound and was rewarded, if that was the word, with a view of what appeared to be a glistening wall moving across another junction at the far end of the pipe. Pushing its way through the putrefaction in the manner of a worm, it filled the space in which it travelled and seemed to go on forever. It was still moving by when Ralph’s blob faded.
“What the hell is that?”
Ralph coughed. “A compelling reason to take a diversion, I think.”
They went right. But relief was short lived. Another worm was crossing the far end of the pathway here, too. As impassable as the first, it forced them to backtrack and take the pipe leading straight on. But here, too, they were halted, startlingly, as the business end of a worm splashed heavily into the putrefaction from above. The wave of organic rot it created rose reekingly above their waists, but they didn’t notice, transfixed by what nosed towards them. Its entire front was maw—a single, dripping, tendrilly orifice sluicing through the putrefaction, sucking it in as it came, like a whale ingesting plankton. They turned again, but another worm—perhaps one already seen—now undulated across the original passage. It did not look as if the exit would be unblocked before the other’s feeding brought it upon them.
“Bollocks,” Trix said under her breath.
“In here,” Yuri said. “Quickly.”
The Russian manhandled them into a small niche. It was barely deep enough for refuge, and they crammed together, backs pressed hard against unyielding stone, in Ralph’s case, stomach pulled in. The worm eclipsed the niche quickly after, blotting out what little light they had. Holding their breath in the pitch blackness, they listened as it moved by. Its rank mass rubbing against stone, spilling into the niche, brushing their bodies and threatening to make them gag sounded like offal being kneaded and pulled apart.
Then all went quiet.
“Has it gone?” Trix whispered.
Yuri stuck out a finger. There was a squelch. “Nyet. Stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“Please keep your voice down, Patric
ia.”
“Well, what the fuck is it doing—waiting at traffic lights?”
“Let’s see,” Ralph said. He managed to summon a blob, despite his arm being pinned. As its blue glow lit the claustrophobic space, Trix exclaimed once more, and this time Yuri joined her, barking a Russian expletive neither she nor Ralph had heard before. Because while they’d all expected to see the worm’s flesh, it was what composed it that was such a jolt: a grey membrane in which writhing forms—unwhole, but some unmistakably human—were trapped, pressuring its surface with the splayed palm of a hand, the jerk of a knee, or an agonised face with wailing toothless mouth.
Trix’s heart thumped. “Jesus Christ.”
As she spoke, the worm began moving once more, returning whence it came. Ralph stepped into the open, followed it, watched it disappear into the pipe from which it had first splashed. He turned, nodding, began to wade the other way.
“Ralph?”
Yuri and Trix followed as he returned to the original pipe and the direction Trix had wanted in the first place. He was onto something; she knew that look. There, the worm that had first blocked their path was retreating like its kin, and trailing it through the labyrinth of pipes they caught glimpses of more doing the same. All pulling backwards or upwards to who knew where. Their worm’s exit was the slope of some kind of overflow sluggishly delivering at least part of the putrefaction in which they stood. Ralph stooped, gazed upwards, nodded again.
“What is it, old man?”
“They’re not worms,” Ralph declared. “They’re a root system.”
“A root system?”
“Feeding tubes, at least. Taking nourishment from the putrefaction.”
Trix pulled a face. “That is fucking gross. What kind of—oh.”
She stopped mid sentence because Ralph was pointing up. And because it had hit her that the agonised wailing from the soulstripper had grown much louder. The sound like a thousand banshees in mourning was now coming from almost directly above. The very way her mental map was telling her to go.