The Curse of the Gloamglozer (24 page)

‘
Quint!
’

It was louder now. He
must
be getting closer. ‘I'm coming, Maris!’ he shouted back. ‘Just hold on!’

At the far end of the tunnel, he skidded round the
corner – and stopped dead. His jaw dropped. The dimly glowing tunnel ahead was empty. There was no sight of the strange lights: no flickering, no flashing. And though he strained to hear, not a sound.

‘But I was so sure,’ he murmured, his voice low, trembling. ‘Maris!’ he called. ‘MARIS!‘

Apart from his own echoed cries, there was nothing. He shook his head and advanced slowly.

‘She can't just have disappeared. She…’

And then he heard it: a soft, scratching sound. But where was it coming from? Not from in front of him, that much was certain. He turned round, retraced his footsteps and listened intently.

There it was again. Scratching. Scraping. And, unless his imagination was playing cruel tricks, a low slurping sound. His blood ran cold.

Cautiously, he rounded the bend and there, not a dozen strides ahead of him, was a crimson light fanning out from a low hole at the bottom of the tunnel wall like a pool of blood.

‘Sky curse this place!’ he shouted. ‘I must have walked straight past it.’

As his anger echoed round the tunnels, the scratches and slurps fell abruptly silent and the red light disappeared.

Puzzled, Quint walked over to the low hole, crouched down and peered in. His heart pounded loudly. Before him lay a long, narrow tunnel. If Maris had come this way then he had no choice but to continue on his hands and knees to find her. But what if she hadn't? What if it was a trap?

‘Maris?’ he called out, listening nervously for a reply as the echo faded away.

At first there was nothing. Quint waited silently. Still nothing. Then, just as he was about to continue his search elsewhere, the same scratching, slurping sounds resumed from the far end of the winding, tube-like tunnel.

‘Maris?’ Quint called again.

This time a weak, tremulous voice answered him. ‘Qui … i … int,’ it faltered. ‘Help … m …
mffllmfff
.’

Quint's stomach sank as her cries were abruptly stifled. But she was still alive. That was the important thing. She was
still alive
! He felt for the hooked pikestaff.

‘I'm coming, Maris,’ he muttered grimly.

Heart hammering in his chest, Quint dropped to his knees and crawled into the tunnel. As the hole through the rock grew narrower, the walls squeezed in at his sides and forced his shoulders down. The rough rock beneath him frayed the knees of his trousers and grazed the palms of his hands.

‘Can't be far now,’ he muttered to himself encouragingly.

His body shook, his face glistened with cold sweat. All round him, the rock was edged with the bright red light which was once again streaming down the tunnel from somewhere up ahead. The scratching was intermittent now, and much less insistent, but the hideous slurping was low and regular.

‘Oh, Maris,’ Quint said. ‘Be brave. I'm coming as fast as I can.’

He craned his neck to see ahead. And there it was – a bright circle of light in front of him. The end of the tunnel.

‘Nearly there,’ Quint murmured.

As he drove himself on those last few strides, head down and teeth clenched, the quality of the air changed. It became cooler, damper, and his ears picked up the

empty, echoing resonance of a great hall. Again, with effort, Quint craned his neck to peer ahead. He was even nearer to the end than he'd dared believe. Just in front of him a wedge-shaped heap of scree fanned out into an opening beyond. He found himself peering into what seemed to be some great cavern.

‘Be on your guard,’ he told himself. ‘Keep your eyes peeled and your ears pricked.’

He edged himself forwards to the very end of the tunnel. All at once, the vile slobbering noises started up again, louder than ever.

‘
No
,’ he breathed, and tried to draw back – but his hand skidded on the slippery scree, his body lurched forwards and he slid helplessly down out of the tunnel in a noisy flurry of dust and fragments of rock.

The slurping stopped. The red light went out. Quint scrabbled to his feet and looked round him wildly.

He was indeed inside a cavern – a vast, egg-shaped chamber which was dark, chilling and filled with spectral lights and flitting shadows. The walls were pitted and rough to the touch, and – he noted with growing panic – without any means of escape save for the narrow tunnel he had come in by.

‘Sky protect me,’ he murmured, his breath coming in jerky gasps.

Whatever had attacked Maris must be out there in the darkness somewhere. Watching. Listening.
Waiting
for him…

‘Stay c… calm,’ he told himself. But his heart was thumping fit to burst. How
could
he stay calm in this terrible place? Everything about it filled him with fear…

And then he heard it: the ominous wet snorting and snuffling so difficult to identify. It was coming from the oppressive shadowy darkness some way to his right. His heart missed a beat. He was shaking from head to foot.

All round him, the glimmering lights began to sparkle and flash from the rough, pitted wall and Quint could just make out countless tiny glisters which clung to its jutting ridges and jagged protuberances. Occasionally, one would detach itself and fly through the air, flickering in the corner of his eye as it passed.

A cold sweat bathed Quint's face. There were so many of them. With a shudder that racked his entire body, he realized where he must be –
inside a glister lair!

The revolting noises grew louder. Quint shivered. He must find Maris before it was too late. Rallying all his dwindling courage, he stepped cautiously forward, towards the sound. The flashing lights bounced off the bumps and boulders strewn across the cavern floor. Quint's footsteps echoed round the cavern. He dropped to his knees and tried to move as silently as he could.

Had the creature heard him? Or smelled his blood? Did it still have Maris in its clutches, or had she managed to give it the slip in this vast cavern? Was she even now crouched down in some corner, scared and alone, waiting for him to rescue her?

Quint edged closer to the awful sound. Then, with a sickening jolt, he saw an indistinct dark shape ahead of him. He paused. The glisters flickered above him and Quint shivered with horror as the hunched figure of a massive creature came briefly into view.

‘What the…?’ he whispered.

The creature flickered with light as if in response to Quint's voice – but did not turn.

It was awesome – a great formless blood-red beast
constantly shifting its shape like a sackful of fighting fromps. Now round, now long; now perfectly smooth, now a writhing mass of eyes and tentacles. And all the while, inside its glowing body – no matter what the shape – a chain of dull red lights coursed endlessly along its throbbing veins.

‘It's dis-
gust-
ing,’ Quint groaned, sickened by the sight of the repulsive, blood-red creature.

He turned away. He wanted to go. But where was Maris? He couldn't leave without her.

Quint looked round desperately, squinting into every crack and crevice for his missing friend. He stumbled forwards. His foot struck a bump on the cavern floor.

As the noise echoed throughout the cavern, the slurping sound stopped and, once more, the light inside the great creature went out. It was listening. A few moments later, the crimson light flickered into life again and the disgusting sounds began with renewed vigour. Rooted to the spot, Quint stared at the creature in horror.

And then he saw it! Sticking out from beneath the enormous formless creature was a foot.

‘
MARIS!
’ Quint bellowed, and dashed forwards – only to trip and fall heavily to the ground. He sat up nervously. It had felt as if someone had grabbed at his ankle.

All about him the chamber was lit up as the countless tiny glisters flashed and flickered in response to his own terrible fear. Suddenly Quint saw what had tripped him.

It was a corpse – a leathery mummified corpse with shrunken lips and sunken eyes, frozen at a moment of

absolute terror. He had stumbled against its left hand – which had become detached from the rest of the body and now lay in the dust some way off.

Quint gagged emptily. ‘No, no!’ he groaned as he scuttled back, terrified, horrified, yet unable to tear his eyes away from the appalling sight.

The corpse had once been a treasury-guard. Quint recognized the tooled leather breastplate and spiked helmet. But this was one flat-head goblin whose immense strength and fighting prowess had failed to save him. And if
he
had fallen victim to the monstrous blood-red creature …

‘Maris,’ Quint whispered, bile rising in his throat. ‘MARIS!’

Pikestaff raised high, he staggered forwards – stumbling for a second time. With his arms flailing wildly, he managed not to fall – and looked down to see a second corpse. Like the first, it had been frozen at the point of death with its gruesome gurning head bent backwards at an impossible angle and its arms and legs akimbo.

It was not alone.

All round him, as the glisters flashed and sparked brighter than ever, Quint now saw that the entire floor was littered with dead bodies – woodtrolls, slaughterers and mobgnomes, identifiable only by their amulets and their hair; academics, their gowns wrapped round their bones like funeral shrouds; and curious shrunken individuals, with limbs like driftwood and clothes that Quint had only seen in history books.