by D. A. Metrov
Malgor pumped his wings as hard as he could and made for the mountain valley just ahead.
Brighton, hanging on with all his strength, strained to keep the steam dingy in his sight. Handower soared down through the rain and wind, heading toward the wrecked vessel. They were just in time to see a twenty foot wave rise up over the rocks, then come down on the boat’s broken hull in a merciless blow. When the whitewater receded, the wreckage was gone. Shattered to bits. Washed away to settle on the bottom of the sea.
Brighton caught his breath. Where is she? “Bill!” His heart already throbbed in agony. Handower soared over the storm-battered seabanks. Lightning flared and thunder shook the coastline. The giant surf danced with glee.
The rain stung Brighton’s face. The rampaging drops hit him so hard, he could barely keep his eyes open. How can Handower possibly stay airborne? He’s a bird, not a fish. Even the fish know enough to take shelter on the sea floor until a storm passes. But Handower circled around again, as if he, too, had now taken it upon himself to find Lizard Bill. She might still be down there, clinging to a ledge or cowering in a crack like a stubborn crab.
But Handower could see she was not down there, not among the rocks. The Magradore’s vision was like a great magnifying lens scanning the tiniest details along the base of the cliffs. He could see every scrap of seaweed, every bubble of foam, even when they were visible only for an instant before the storm water washed them away again. The great bird managed a scream. Brighton did his best to keep looking down. But most of his focus was required just to stay on Handower’s back. He knew the mission was over. Handower’s scream had told him so. Lizard Bill was gone. She and her robot swallowed by the furious sea.
A multi-fingered explosion of lightning came down around Brighton and his bird. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the falcon’s back. The thunder followed, so sharp and loud, he thought he’d be separated from his body.
“Home, Handower!” Brighton shouted, gritting his teeth with all his might. He assumed Handower would be only too willing to turn tail and head out of the storm. Instead, the falcon circled round again. “It’s no use!” But Handower had seen something—a sole, incongruous speck that had bobbed up from the surging waters, then disappeared again beneath the turbulence.
Handower dipped. Brighton clung to the saddle. Then he saw it, too. It was Mitor, floating like a cork, and Lizard Bill clinging to his back. Her long, drenched hair hung down over her face. Her mouth gasped for air between onslaughts of water.
Did someone just shout my name? How could that be? Maybe I’ve already drowned. Maybe I’ve become spirit. And it’s God himself calling out to me.
“Lizard Bill!”
Bill managed to open her eyes to see Handower’s massive shape hovering overhead. She gasped with disbelief. Mitor was barely able to stay afloat, but not for much longer. The storm roared. The waters around Mitor and Bill rose in fury. The rain drove itself even harder. The winds picked up as if intent on preventing the rescue of these two impudent intruders. As if it were the duty of the elements to drown them or otherwise disappoint their regent, the mighty Kragmaur.
“Take my hand!” Brighton leaned as far down over Handower’s side as he dared, his other fist gripping the saddle horn. He knew Handower’s effort to hover over Bill and Mitor was beyond heroic—it was almost supernatural. The bird beat his wings, despite the fact they were soaked through and through. Brighton could feel him fighting to go as low as he could without hitting the churning waters. As it was, Brighton could see the tips of his flight feathers dipping beneath the surface.
He could also see Mitor sinking, the choppy surges throttling him up and down. The robot, too, flapped his wings to stay afloat. But like Handower’s, they were soaked and waterlogged. Lizard Bill reached up. Water punched into her open mouth. She choked and gagged. Brighton realized she couldn’t see, but she reached. Blindly stretching her fingers as far as they would go. He knew he’d never get a hold of her this way. Without thinking, he pushed himself up onto his knees, roared with abandon, and dove off Handower’s back. He hit the water and broke through its surface. He turned about in a blinding spume. His head bobbed up again, his mouth frantically sucking air.
“Are you mad?” Bill managed to shout just before another tongue of water slapped her head under as well.
Brighton swam toward her. And she toward him. It was as if they were nothing but gnats, trapped in a tub stirred by some mad washerwoman.
The distance between them grew shorter. Mitor tumbled back and forth in the furious whitecaps. Handower hovered above.
Brighton reached for her hands. Their eyes pierced each other’s souls, and shared, in that brief instant, an eternity of secrets. Secrets about them. Locked in Akashic vaults, penetrable by no one. And that sharing caused such explosions of glory and light within their hearts even Kragmaur momentarily lost hope of destroying them.
The waters slammed them together. Brighton gripped her with the strength of a thousand giants. He’d never held her before. He realized how small and feminine she felt in his grasp. The feeling sent torrents of warmth through his heart the likes of which he had never known.
A massive wave crashed on top of them, breaking them apart. The sound of the storm went silent. They felt the ruthless waters whipping them back and forth, tearing them to pieces. They saw nothing but bubbles. Brighton caught a glimpse of her as her body spun past. He reached out again, but an unstoppable force carried him backward, and drove his skull into the side of a rock. In an instant, his world went black.
Chapter Thirteen
THE UNDERWORLD
Pello and Biffee scrambled over slippery, mist-covered rocks. For the most part, they’d been able to skirt Kragmaur’s tempest by keeping to the high inland ridges.
“Brighton and Handower,” Pello called out. “He can smell them.”
Biffee sniffed the air. He, too, caught the undeniable scent of the Magradore flying just off the coast. “Ah, yes. And Bill?”
“Bill, indeed,” Pello answered.
“Lucky lass. Young Aviamore must have plucked her from the sea.” Biffee froze in mid-step. If he would have put his foot down, he would have found nothing beneath it but air.
Pello stopped, too. The monkrats realized they were on the edge of yet another bottomless gulley. Not really bottomless. There had to be a bottom down there somewhere. But they couldn’t see it. A few more steps and the brothers would have found themselves plummeting all the way to certain death on the jagged rocks far below.
“They’ll have to head for higher ground,” Biffee said in a daze.
“Right.” Pello backed away from the frightening drop.
They scurried along the edge of the precipice looking for a point narrow enough for them to bridge. They had to climb several hundred leapspans where the canyon walls drew closer. And much steeper. They were forced to slow down and pick their steps carefully.
“What’s that smell?” Biffee said, wrinkling his nose.
“Dunno. Stinks, eh?”
They moved across the mouth of the canyon, nothing more than a ditch now. It was filled with thick brush and loose boulders. They were halfway across when they came upon something unexpected—the mouth of a small, dark shaft.
They stopped, glanced at each other, then moved closer. They winced as the stench grew stronger. Biffee coughed. Pello narrowed his eyes and stuck his head into the opening. Biffee followed suit. They perched there, their forepaws over their noses and mouths. They peered down into the darkness, and saw the yellowish fumes rising up from the belly of the mountain.
“Smelters,” Biffee said.
They stood there, speculating in silence about what might be going on in Perpetua’s underworld. They knew the war back in Valkyrie was about acquiring ore to make fuel, which someone must be selling somewhere else in the world. But no one knew much more than that. Nor the extent of the mining system. Nor who was behind it.
As they stood there wondering these t
hings, the tunnel seemed to sense their presence. It rumbled, slowly at first, then louder as if it had a mind of its own. It belched up rust-colored fumes, and its mouth seemed to open. Pello and Biffee choked and gagged and stumbled away. They slipped and slid in a way that was most uncharacteristic for monkrats. But they helped each other across to the other side of the gorge. Then headed back down to the invisible pathway that would lead them to Drakton.
The shaft spewed up thick, ugly smoke. It was pleased it had chased off the nosey wanderers who’d come upon its hiding place high on the mountainside. Slowly, the foul clouds thinned again, leaving nothing but blackness that led deep into a mysterious, hostile world.
Wark had never been inside the mountains, not this deep anyway. It was not the nature of a raven, or any bird for that matter, to venture underground. And so the chancellor was even more concerned for his beloved wife. She must be terrified, he whispered in his mind. Held captive by monsters. He looked around at the vast labyrinth of caverns and tunnel networks. They were dimly lit by the occasional gas lantern or torch jammed into the wall. Must be what it’s like inside a termite mound.
Wark alternately hopped and flapped his wings taking care to be as quiet as possible. He had no idea where he was going, nor which tunnel to take. All he knew was that he must keep moving. He was constantly forced to take cover when gorpes appeared.
Suddenly they were everywhere. Soldiers, mine workers, sentries on the lookout for intruders such as himself.
Listen, Wark! She’ll call out for you. And her voice will carry down here. His ears were acutely attuned to the minutiae of sounds that echoed about the underworld. Heavens, what if they’ve gagged her?
He shook off the picture of Sharpeye bound, gagged, and unable to cry out. He moved with greater speed, furious at the thoughts of what her captors might be doing to her. One moment, he recalled their wedding celebration—the most joyous day of his life. He and Lady Sharpeye, and all the citizens of Valkyrie, had feasted and drank redberry ale and danced until the sun came up. The next moment, he imagined himself tearing her abductors to shreds. And leaving their remains as decoration on the walls of their own vile abodes.
He stole through the darkness, his ebony black body blending with everything around him. His long flight feathers made gentle whoofs of air as they lifted him along a few leapspans at a time. Ever since he’d entered the underground, he had refused to acknowledge the weakness that was growing in his knees. And the nausea in his belly. He denied the fact that the deeper he ventured into this cold, putrid domain, the more the air grew thick with fumes and smoke.
He fought to ignore the fact the smog was making him sicker and sicker. He was heaving now. He lost his balance and fell against the wall. He leaned there, gasping. His vision grew dizzy. Footsteps grew louder, and closer—gorpes, coming his way. He ducked into a nook and huddled there, his burning eyes squeezed shut, until the phalanx of enemy soldiers passed him by.
I won’t let you down, my lady. I swear it!
He took flight down a long, dark tunnel.
He came to another large cavern, and lit back on the ground. He peered into a sulphuric haze, and watched the silhouettes of gorpes moving within it like a medley of ghosts.
What’s that noise? He tuned his hearing to the distant hiss that was different than anything he’d heard so far. Water?
Intrigued, he hopped along behind the cover of boulders to get a better view. A dozen more leapspans and he saw it—an underground river, moving in a powerful hush, deeper into the rocky kingdom.
And all along its banks, gorpes were loading skiffs and barges with ore. And much of the cargo was falling into the crystal clear water, turning it sludgy brown.
Wark marveled at the sight. No one in Valkyrie ever imagined that this was going on here. Naturally, there were monkrats and others who’d explored the natural caves that existed inside Perpetua’s mountains. And of course, there’d been reports of underground rivers that roared like blood-filled veins through the body of the giant.
But no one had visited Perpetua’s interior since the fighting had begun three years ago. And the fact that gorpes had dug out such an extensive system of tunnels and corridors in that short time was mindboggling.
Where is she? Wark’s stinging eyes darted everywhere. Sharpeye was nowhere to be seen or heard. Keep going, Wark. You will find her.
And with that he darted through the shadows, down to the riverbank. He took cover behind the wooden ore crates that were waiting to be loaded by gorpe workers. The miners used sheer brute force to push the heavy containers on crude rollers down to the waiting steam barges.
Wark spotted a small, steam-powered skiff. It was unattended and tied to the side of a loading dock. He slipped toward it, barely evading the workers who were all around him in the thick, toxic smoke.
Wark tumbled into the skiff. He lay there, on his side, wondering how he would continue on. His eyes burned so badly he couldn’t keep them open. The strength was gone from his limbs. His head hurt, and he felt he would vomit. Thankfully he hadn’t eaten since the day before, so there was nothing to come up from his belly. He used his beak to untie the craft, and felt himself float away with the current. He pushed the throttle into position, starting up the little steam engine and propelling the craft forward. He turned the rudder upstream. He soon became lost in the gentle sound of pumping steam and the grimy haze that hung over his head. Sharpeye, stay strong. I’m coming, my love.
And the little steam skiff, that looked empty to the few who noticed it drift by, disappeared into the heart of darkness.
Gretch was prostrate, on his knees and elbows, on the floor of Dredgemont’s laboratory. And though he felt humbled and pathetic down there like that, he reconciled his disgrace with a knowing that he was about to be rewarded.
“Sire, the last Falcon Rider is dead,” he said with firm conviction. He could smell his own foul breath coming back at him from the granite floor just beneath his nose.
Dredgemont’s shadow slid across the far side of the room. It moved behind the silhouettes of vapor-spewing beakers and cauldrons and hissing instruments.
Why isn’t he speaking? Gretch wondered. And before he knew what was happening, he found himself flying across the room, borne through the air in a bundle of roaring blue light. He crashed into a wall of glass containers that shattered and covered him with formaldehyde and the gangly remains of small, stinking corpses.
When he opened his eyes, Gretch saw the Cobalt Cutlass aiming down toward his face, and Dredgemont’s shadowy form behind it.
“Master, I thought the news would bring you pleasure.” And my promotion? Gretch was humiliated to realize he’d lost his bladder. He was trembling in a puddle of his own rancid urine. He had never trembled, let alone lost his bladder. Never in his whole life. Yet, this frail-looking, little old man caused him to do so with his magical weapon—the loathed Cobalt Cutlass.
Again, Gretch wondered why Dredgemont wasn’t answering. The old troll could hear the man’s raspy breathing. The searing brilliance of the cutlass made him squint.
“Gretch, do you know how much I love you?” the scratchy voice finally said, confusing the troll even more.
Gretch began to hyperventilate. What he had just heard gave him reason to believe he was about to be executed. It was just too incongruous with the reality of lying there on the floor. Wet and hurting. Covered with broken glass and debris.
“Because I love you so, do you know how much more it hurts when you lie?” Dredgemont’s voice cackled in the darkness.
Gretch cringed. He knew right then and there he should have had the courage to follow the Falcon Rider into the heart of Kragmaur’s storm. To find his remains, and deliver them as proof of the young man’s demise. He wanted to cry out that he’d seen Brighton Aviamore’s death with his own eyes. That he’d seen the young man and Handower both, slammed into the frenzied sea where the waters choked the last breaths from their mangled bodies. But he dared not say another w
ord lest it be an untruth. He sniveled and closed his eyes again.
“Gretch?” Dredgemont said in his deceptive, sing-song manner.
Gretch opened his eyes. Just a crack. He was taut with distrust, his massive, gnarled hand protecting his jaw.
“Yes, master?”
“The only reason you’re still alive is because I pity your stupidity. I know you believe the young man was killed at Cape Kragmaur. But the truth is, he was not. I can still sense his presence.”
“Your wisdom is...” Gretch searched for the right words, never knowing the correct thing to say. “...divine?” He squinched his face again.
“Gooood, Gretch. Divine. My wisdom is divine, for I am God of the Underworld and soon to be supreme master of the entire, miserable planet.”
Gretch had thought about this once—the notion of a god, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal. Though he never imagined such an entity would have the feeble appearance of the thing that now stood over him. Neither had he ever imagined that the entity would be so wicked and hateful. Still, he knew, if anything had supernatural powers, it was the Cobalt Cutlass.
“Now listen closely, my pathetic hack,” Dredgemont went on, as Gretch fought to prevent the groans from escaping his throat. “I’m giving you twenty-four hours to bring me the head of Brighton Aviamore. Furthermore, I want you to issue a proclamation: a kettle of gold awaits him who brings me his falcon. Alive, of course.”