Crypt of the Violator

by K. J. Coble

  “Light’s going to be a problem,” Durrak growled as those bearing torches began the climb out.

  “Vidar!” Strayden shouted.

  Grimacing and clearly hesitant, the man joined them in barring the way down the hall, his torch fluttering, but enough to show the monsters beginning to creep towards them.

  “Shields,” Strayden said hurriedly and dragged his off his shoulder, one-handed, clumsily. He felt Durrak doing the same at his side and Vidar behind him.

  He’d only just gotten it in place on his left forearm and the straps tightened when the spiders rushed them. They came on in near-silence, only the terrible thump of their feet on the floors—and walls, as at least two scuttled up onto them and one continued until its approach took it along the ceiling. Vidar’s light flashed yellowly off glassy eye-bulbs and pairs of fangs.

  “Skulls for Gruzh...” Strayden whispered without passion.

  “Blood for Gruzh,” the others answered tightly.

  The first of the spiders reached Strayden with a sudden surge of speed, looked like it would try to bowl him over. He leaned into his shield and took the impact on the elmwood and steel boss, grunting as the blow forced him back and hobnailed boots ground on flagstones. The spidery stench hit him again, almost overwhelming, and his flesh seethed as a hairy pedipalp wrapped over the top of his shield rim, brushed his right cheek.

  Beside him, Durrak roared and fought the same fight, shouldering into the attackers, their weight driving him back. Writhing shadows above revealed the ceiling-mounted monster trying to scuttle over them. Vidar shouted and thrust his torch up at it, fire making contact with a hiss, pitch splatting off and flecks of it singing the back of Strayden’s neck. But the beast retreated with one of those inhuman screeches.

  The pressure against Strayden intensified. Forelegs shoved out to either side of him, scuffed for a grip on the stone. He could feel the thing trying to envelop him in the deadly embrace of its appendages. But doing so gave him the opportunity he needed. With a surge of maniac strength, he shoved back again, and the legs struggling for purchase stretched out in resistance.

  One-handed, Strayden brought his axe down on the leg. The swing had been off-balance, but terror-fueled strength made up for it and the blade chopped through, halfway between joints, clanged as it struck the floor beneath and kicked off sparks. A terrible shriek exploded from the spider-thing and Strayden its whole form flinched. Sensing another chance, he shoved again and it gave way, trailing the maimed limb. For an instant, Strayden was looking straight into all its eyes.

  Its retreat left an opening and Strayden hacked again, over his shield. The notched edge blasted through the leg where it met the thorax and gore spumed in awful streamers the width of the corridor, painting the other monsters, spattering his shield. The spider flopped over and writhed into its hideous companions, barred their way momentarily.

  The flailing knocked Durrak’s opponent off-balance, a blow striking its abdomen and folding its weight forward onto its forelegs. The Nuburran raised his shield and brought it cracking down on the spider’s thorax, just behind the pedipalps. An eye splashed apart as the steel rim ground into the carapace and pinned the beast to the floor.

  Roaring with effort, Durrak raised his axe as high as the hall’s confines would allow and brought it down with a wet crunch, chopping through the roof of the thorax and sending a twitch down all its legs. He ripped the bearded blade loose, raised it again, brought it down again with a crackle and splash of otherworldly guts.

  “Back!” Strayden hollered to Durrak—though they didn’t have far to retreat.

  Maimed and slain horrors now barricaded the way. But that didn’t stop the dangling spider from attempting another rush over them, along the ceiling. Strayden had a glimpse of a scorched, withered crater where eyes had been before Vidar’s torch had roasted them. The thing slowed, twitched one way and then another, seeming undecided how to get down and at them.

  Strayden made the decision for it, hacking overhand at its back. It was a poor swing, glancing off the beast’s chitinous thorax, but the impact jarred its grip loose. It fell, still gripping with two rear legs on one side, and swung loose, slammed into Strayden’s shield as he threw it up reflexively. The blow carried him glancing off the wall and he went down on all fours. Hairy feet and mass thumped down beside him.

  Squealing unmanfully, he sprang back from the thing as it flopped over and righted itself. Steel flashed and Durrak’s axe bit into its thorax before it could turn to savage him. But the steel caught in the chiton. Tossing torchlight highlighted the sudden panic on Durrak’s face as he tried to wrench it clear. Beyond him, twitching shadows revealed the rest of the hairy, many-legged tide beginning to force its way around the corpses.

  “Gruzh!”

  With the battle cry, Strayden slammed his axe into the thing’s abdomen, tore a gory trench through the bulbous mass. The spider screeched and flopped again, the violence of the motion ripped it free of both blades, but tore wounds further open to speckle walls and men. It reared up, legs slashed this way and that in some defensive flurry.

  Durrak chopped straight through, axe cleaving the thing’s hairy, craggy underside. The spider-monster simply exploded, showering twenty feet of corridor in gore.

  Sputtering and every inch of his skin writhing in disgust, Strayden retreated again. “They sure make a mess in dying!” His laugh came out more like a sob.

  “We’re running out of time,” Durrak replied. He glanced over his shoulder. “And we’re out of room!”

  “I know it!” Strayden glanced over his shoulder, saw the edge of the intersection behind him, the drop-off into the hall-trap, heard the rush of the sand. The others were gone, though, led by Asyra back along the rope and over to the other corridor. But to join them, Strayden’s little rearguard was going to have to somehow hold off the monsters and retreat along the line.

  “You first,” Strayden heard himself say to Durrak.

  The Nuburran glanced at him in surprise—knew of his arachnophobia—but didn’t attempt to protest.

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Strayden insisted. He nodded at Vidar. “They don’t like the flame. Or, at least, it dazes ‘em.”

  Durrak shouldered his axe and shield with undisguised haste and backed around the corner without another word.

  The spiders seemed to understand the weakening of their defenses, began creeping forward anew, no rush this time, but advancing up the corridor like a shadow does as the light weakens before it.

  “Keep that light handy,” Strayden told Vidar.

  The spiders drew near. With a desperate curse, Vidar waved his torch before him, caused them to flinch back a few feet. But it wasn’t retreat; their horrid many-eyes glittered with some inhuman intelligence. They were looking for their opening.

  Sweat glued the leathers under Strayden’s mail to his flesh. Shield, axe, and gear seemed to increase in weight every moment they stood there, at the edge of the fall. He realized now, with a frantic inward howl, the mistake he’d made. They should’ve followed right after Durrak, as fast as they could, risking whatever bum-rush the beasties attempted. At least they would’ve been out ahead of them. Now, they were stuck, holding their ground; unable to switch from fighting to the climb back along the trapped hall.

  Someone was going to have to hold the abominations off. Alone.

  Shit...well...Gruzh hates a coward...

  The prayer had barely finished flitted through Strayden’s mind when the spiders lunged at them. One scuttled in low, seeming to aim for his shins. Strayden slammed his shield face into the thing’s thorax with a crunch, pinned it to the floor, followed that with a whistling overhand chop of the axe that brought another crunch and spouts of ichor. Screeching, the thing flinched back, nearly tearing the axe from his grip as it did so.

  Another horror scrambled over its mauled kin to hammer Strayden’s shield and helmet with its forelegs. He shoved the elmwood and steel into its ungodly face and pushed back
, ignoring the clumsy blows that beat shoulders and helm. Rage born of panic drove a roar from his chest and propelled him forward a couple steps. His boot squished into something still squirming and the momentary frenzy withered. He retreated again.

  The hiss of sand down the hall-trap chute scrawled at his ears and his heels briefly touched the edge of the drop. He steadied himself, felt hobnails tacky with gore squeak on dusty stone. Vidar was to his left, waving wildly with the torch, dripping sword held at the ready in his other hand. The other Vothan would have to cross behind Strayden to get to safety. He’d need to somehow give him room, even with the arachnid press before them.

  “Vidar! Time to—”

  Shadows bunched beyond the play of his torch light, and erupted. One of the spiders vaulted over its kin and hung in midair, legs spread hideously, for an instant. Vidar saw it coming, pivoted, and thrust out with his sword before him. The point crunched through the underside of the hurtling monster’s thorax, kept going, burst out through the other side in a purple-red spray.

  But momentum carried it on. Strayden had a horrid glimpse of Vidar’s face by the last flutter of his torch, creased in terror. The spider struck him like a boulder, swept both of them over the edge, into the trapped hall. The force was strong enough to carry them its whole width, slam them off the opposite wall. Steel pinged as Vidar’s sword glanced off stone. The falling torch made a willow-the-wisp pattern in the dusty air before disappearing. Arachnid legs and human ones flailed in the current of rushing sand, were lost from sight.

  Vidar’s scream seemed to go on forever as he was carried away.

  Strayden had time for neither grief nor fear. Another rush slammed into him. He threw up his shield reflexively, leaned into the blows that would carry him after his fallen comrade. Elmwood clacked, splintered. Ebony points, shiny with chemical-stinking ooze, burst through the shield face, were too high to reach Strayden’s forearm, but clenched, began to tear. Seams between planks popped. The steel rim groaned as pressure deformed it.

  Shoving once more for room, Strayden threw an overhand hack, felt the axe bite, heard the crackle of spider hide and the squeal of its pain. The pressure twitched away for a moment and he took advantaged, tore his wrist free of the shield straps. He whirled over the edge of the corridor, fell the dizzying yawn of the fall into rushing sand below, as he flung out his now-freed hand—

  —and found the rope still affixed to the wall, got it!

  Hemp strands bit into his palm and every joint of fingers, wrist, elbow, and shoulder strained as his full weight dragged at them. He swung out wildly, then rocked back, struck the wall with enough force to daze. Somehow, he held on, axe still in one hand, the other twisted in a coil of the rope. Pain and tingling clenched his fingers. He couldn’t hold long with one.

  An arachnid shadow loomed out of the hall from which he’d come, legs spreading around its edge for purchase to Strayden’s left. He dangled there, frantic, with none of the thing’s natural affinity for sheer surfaces. Fangs dripped, glistened in torchlight from up the corridor. A desperate glance that way showed Strayden his comrades at the other hall entrance, shouting something he couldn’t hear over the sand’s rush, scuffling to do something he couldn’t see.

  The spider spread its mass over him as he looked back at it, descended with almost relish for the killing bite. Its eyes shimmered like jewels from the chamber they’d plundered.

  A rush of air was Strayden’s only warning before a wooden shaft punched one of those eyes in. Arrow fletching quivered as the spider flinched back with a squeak of what almost sounded like shock. Legs fumbled for renewed purchase. Their thump almost hid the hiss of a second arrow before it slashed between spread fangs and buried itself in whatever passed for the thing’s throat.

  No squeal accompanied the spider’s fall into the sand chute, nor its tumble down into the endless, dusty dark.

  “Go, you big, Vothan dolt!” It was Asyra’s voice. “Go!”

  Floundering to untangle his wrist from the twist of rope, Stayden righted himself and shoved his axe handle through his belt buckle to free his other hand. The wood bit his hip, slid, and wedged awkwardly behind the belt, but he was able to grab onto the rope with both hands. Relieving the strain on his left, brought feeling back into the fingers—and pain—but he was able to put his boots to the wall and begin the side-scuttle back to his comrades.

  Another arrow ripped the air, just over his head. Another shriek told of a spider stricken. Strayden didn’t look back now, couldn’t, knew the fear would freeze his guts. He kept going, hand-over-hand, kept his eyes on his comrades. Asyra dangled halfway into the hall, a torch held out to light the way as Aelren knocked another arrow, drew back, and loosed. This passed so close to Strayden’s head he felt the ring of fletching brush the peak of his helm—heard, too, the thock of a steel head piercing chiton.

  “Come on!” Asyra shouted. “You’re almost there!” Her eyes widened suddenly. “Come on!”

  Aelren knocked and loosed three arrows in rapid succession, the first ill-aimed and glanced off the corridor wall, the last crunching into something right behind Strayden. He felt a blow and a momentary drag as something hairy and barbed struck his backpack, caught, and then broke loose. The force twirled him about for an instant and he saw a spidery mass fall away into the rushing sand. The flesh along his spine writhed as he realized how close the beast had gotten.

  Asyra held out her hand. “That’s it. Right here!”

  Sobbing for breath, every muscle trembling with overexertion, Strayden reached out and took it. Aelren stepped back and more hands appeared—Durrak’s—to help drag him through. He felt solid stone under his feet again and stumbled to the floor, brought squawking Asyra down under him.

  She flexed at the elbows and knees and flipped him off unceremoniously. “Now?” she spat. “You’d try that now?”

  Sprawled on his back, too relieved to be alive, he didn’t have the energy to protest his innocence.

  Aelren stepped back to the edge of the corridor, knocked another arrow and loosed. “Light!” he barked, knocking another one. “I need more light! They’re still there!”

  Durrak stepped to his side with a torch in one hand, held out into the hall, and axe ready in the other one. “Gruzh...” he cursed as he leaned out to look. “We need to keep going!”

  Strayden dragged himself to his feet, aching from every joint. A pinch at his hip reminded him of the axe tangled in his belt, beginning to hinder his legs with its length, and yanked it free. The others were beginning to fall back down the hall, towards the long stairway back up to the surface. Asyra was kneeling at Xass Kham’s side. The Xyxian clenched his midsection, face locked in pain, and didn’t look like he could get up on his own.

  “He’s hurt?” Strayden asked.

  Asyra shook her head. “He’s all locked up, won’t say anything.” She touched his clenched fingers, tried to peel them back, but couldn’t force the way. “I think he might have gotten bitten, during the scrum.”

  Strayden clenched his teeth, fought down the endless crawling of his skin. “I’ve got him,” he growled and once again shouldered his axe in order to lean forward and pick the Xyxian up. The man made no resistance as he hefted him. He didn’t help, either, sagged like a bag of bones. Cursing, Strayden flung the smaller man up over his left shoulder, careful not to gouge him on the axe, protruding over the right.

  “Gah!” He grimaced at Asyra. “For such a little guy, he weighs a ton!”

  “You’ve got him?” she asked.

  He nodded stiffly. “Just lead the way, girl.”

  She drew her short sword and scampered on ahead, sidling past the others, who all hastened to follow. Strayden started after them, jointed protesting. He called over his shoulder, “We’re leaving lads!”

  The retreat down the hall took only moments. Strayden reached the stairwell and paused, half-turned to watch Durrak and Aelren. The motion glanced Kham’s head off a wall, set a twitch of pain through his
slim form but triggered no complaint or even a groan. “Sorry, m’lord.” To his comrades, “Lads! Come on!”

  They backpedaled down the hall to the stairwell. Aelren tensed, lifted his bow, and loosed again. Something clattered in the near-distance but it wasn’t clear that he’d hit anything. Durrak’s torch was guttering low. Asyra’s light was fading as she scrambled up the stairs.

  “It...doesn’t’ look like they’re following any further,” Durrak said.

  “Let’s not stick around to find out,” Strayden replied and started up the stairs.

  The climb out of the dark was a blur of struggle, Xass Kham’s mass bouncing on Strayden’s shoulder all the way. Terse whispers passed between Aelren and Durrak, the pair pausing every few steps to check for pursuit. None seemed coming. Silvery light above presaged open night air and freedom.

  Strayden reached the top, blinking painfully in moonlight that seemed as scathing as midday after their ordeal in the blackness. The others were waiting at the edges of the pits that they’d triggered open earlier. Asyra’s eyes flashed expectantly.

  “Keep going!” Strayden growled. A glance around at spidery carvings pumped fresh loathing through his nerves, made his voice harsh. “Don’t stop until we’re clear of the ruins!”

  They retreated from the dome. Strayden and Asyra paused at its exit to watch for Durrak and Aelren. The pair appeared from the stairwell and rushed to join them. Durrak cast his almost-dead torch aside and shook his head. “None of them, now. It’s like we passed some barrier they wouldn’t cross.”

  The retreat hastened on, now Asyra leading the way out of the ruins, as Strayden began to lag under Kham’s weight. The picket posts below Zadam were disturbed with shouts. Torches fluttered and men were hurrying up the slope. Strayden cursed inwardly.

  So much for keeping things quiet...

  They passed through the last crumble of outer wall and Strayden had had enough, slowed to a halt and slid Xass Kham down off his shoulder. “Get some water!” he croaked. The Xyxian was lolling in his grasp, as though gone limp. With a surge of anxiety, Strayden put a hand under his head and lowered the man down into the sand on his back.