Authors: Nicholas Anderson
Josie picked up
her bow, checked the vent had been sealed, and ran to the next one. She
was already too late. This hole was wider than the last and the
shriken
were pouring out of it two at a time. Two of them were already free but
were still on all fours. Bubbling out of the ground like that, they
looked like huge spiders or giant black ants. Josie wasted no time.
She skidded to a stop not five paces from the mouth of the hole and launched
bolt after bolt into the writhing mass of bodies. Her only advantage was she
was too close and they were too many to miss.
Her bow felt
significantly lighter when she forced herself to stop shooting. Half a
dozen
shriken
lay in and out of the hole. Some of them were still
moving, but only feebly. One crawled on all fours and seemed to be trying
to get up. Josie kicked it so savagely in the neck it flipped over on its
back and
lay
still.
Looking at the
clogged hole, she wondered if the creatures had done her work for her.
But she knew she couldn’t leave it like that. She also knew she’d never
be able to get to the charge in time. Pulling the final charge from her
pack (the other spare was with Mirela) she knelt on the corpses at the rim of
the vent. Finding a narrow space between their bodies, she held the
charge in place and lit the fuse. She forced herself to hold it until the
fuse was half burnt, then let the charge drop and tucked and rolled. The
blast came almost immediately, followed by a rumble of stones and a cloud of
dust that filtered out around the bodies of the creatures.
Josie got to her
feet and picked up her bow. For a moment, she stood panting. She
heard footsteps behind her. Josie smiled. Mirela had had only five
charges to light. Josie had hoped she would join her before the
end. “Mirela,” she said, without turning, “Just one left.”
There was no
answer.
Josie felt a
chill begin in the pit of her stomach that climbed up her spine to the roots of
her hair. Bringing her bow up and pumping it as she spun, she wheeled
around.
The
shriken
stood,
sickle in hand, not five feet from her.
Josie leveled her bow at its chest and pulled the trigger. The cross’s
arms snapped forward but nothing happened. Without taking her eyes off
the creature Josie knew what was wrong. Her magazine had run dry.
The creature
cocked its head at her, a curious, bird-like gesture. Then its arm shot
out with such speed it was like a black blur in Josie’s vision. The crook
of the sickle hooked around the arm of her bow and her weapon was jerked from
her hands. Josie stumbled back. The
shriken
advanced on her,
cocking its head now to the other side. Josie’s heel struck a stone and
she sat down hard. The creature took a final step and raised its
sickle.
A gray missile
the size of a small barrel struck the creature from the side and drove it
sideways. Josie heard the bones give as her rescuer broke the thing’s
life upon the rocks. There was a croak and a snarl and then the
shriken’s
legs were twitching uselessly and something had pinned Josie against the rocks
and was licking her face.
Dioji had come
home.
***
“We have to act
now,” Dane said. “Elias will be blowing his charge any minute.”
Bailus nodded,
“Awaiting your orders, sir.”
They had been
watching the sentries at the back door for nearly a quarter of an hour, but
their enemies showed no signs of removing. Dane had been running through
plans to deal with the guards but he did not like how any of his scenarios
played out. One problem was one of the creatures might escape to warn the
others. The other problem was he and Bailus might both be killed fighting
them and there would be nobody to set the charges.
Dane turned to
Bailus. “Can you take two at once?”
Bailus
shrugged.
“Probably not.
But I can keep
them busy for a little while.”
“Stay here,”
Dane said. “I’m going to sneak around beside the one on top. When
I’m in place, try to draw the other two out.”
Bailus nodded.
Dane slipped
away, moving silently through the copse in the direction they had come.
The tree cover allowed him to get slightly above and about twenty paces to the
right of the guard which squatted over the door. Dane loaded his
crossbow. As he crouched behind a tree and drew his bead on the creature,
he heard Bailus do something he had never heard him do in his life. Call
for help.
His voice
sounded truly pathetic. As the pleas rose out of the stand of trees which
hid Bailus, the guards in front of the gate began to stir. They looked at
each other,
then
shifted their feet like nervous
horses. They both moved a little ways out from the door. Dane kept
his bow trained on their leader, for so he thought the top guard was, and
watched the other two from the corner of his eye.
They took a few
more steps and then stopped. They looked at each other again. They
looked back at the one above the gate. The leader nodded towards the
sound of Bailus’s voice and one of them started towards the trees.
Bailus was an
open battlefield kind of man; he liked to have elbow room when he fought.
Seeing the creature commit to come to him, he stepped out of the woods to meet
it. He held his hammer like a cane and moved forward in a stoop.
The foremost creature looked back at the one on the door. The leader
nodded and the creature sprang at Bailus.
The attacker
swept its sickle sideways at the level of Bailus’s neck. Bailus ducked
and brought up the handle of his hammer, catching the creature hard on the
wrist as it completed the swing. The weapon flew from its hand. The
creature sprang back and struck out with its flail. Bailus brought up his
hammer, holding the long handle between his hands like a quarterstaff.
The chain joint of the flail struck the haft of Bailus’s hammer. The
swinging end clapped Bailus hard on the arm, but he thrust the hammer outward
at the same time. The chain caught around the hammer haft as Bailus
shoved forward and the flail was jerked from the
shriken’s
hand.
The creature
dodged Bailus’s swing and turned and fled towards its companions. The
second guard charged Bailus. Maybe Bailus could read Dane’s mind.
Maybe he was just a crazy old fool. Whatever the reason, he hurled his
hammer end over end like a hatchet. The spinning head of the hammer made
an awful noise as it connected with the fleeing creature’s skull. At the
moment of impact, Dane pulled the trigger. The leader slumped forward and
tipped over the stone frame and landed on the threshold of the door. The
final creature pulled up hard and turned for the gate. Dane burst from
the trees. He slid down the side of the slope beside the door as the
creature leapt over its dead leader and disappeared into the passage.
Dane wrapped a hand around the standing stone jamb and swung into the dark
doorway.
The creature was
swifter and would have lost him in the dark if it had not looked back over its
shoulder. It stumbled and even as it turned back to its course Dane threw
himself on its back and drove it to the ground. The creature struggled
horribly, with far greater strength than Dane would have guessed from its wiry
limbs. Dane forced one hand under and around the beak and placed the
other at the back of the thing’s skull. He made a sudden, twisting jerk
and broke its neck.
Dane turned
towards the entrance to see Bailus coming quickly on with
both
kegs
and his hammer, the fuses and the slow match pinched in his
teeth. For the first time since entering the tunnel, Dane looked around
at his surroundings. The walls shone with moisture and the floor was damp
and on one side of it a little stream trickled past. From further inside
came the sound of dripping water. The passageway had the same long
rectangular shape as the door. The walls and ceiling were roughly square
and the rocks there had been scarred as though by chisels. On either side
of the passage, wooden beams supported the roof at even intervals. Dane
guessed this had served as an outlet for water seeping into the cave from above
for time out of mind and that the
shriken
, on occupying the cave, had
augmented the natural drain into the rear exit of their lair.
Dane and Bailus
moved further into the tunnel. They came to a place where the beams were
much closer together and held up many wooden planks against the ceiling and
walls. Here they set their charges. As they wedged the barrels
between two of the beams, the earth rolled like a sea beneath their feet.
“That’s Elias,” Dane said as the rumbling reached them.
It took some
time to roll out the fuse; Bailus carefully letting out loop after loop of the
coiled material while Dane removed the lid of one of the barrels and secured
the end of the fuse in the powder. While they were laying the fuse, two
more rumbles reached their ears. “Good girls,” Dane said under his
breath.
The fuse ended
some 15 paces from the mouth of the cave. Dane took the slow match from
Bailus. “Go on,” he said.
“I’d rather you
let me light it, sir.”
“I’m
faster. I’ll pass you on the way out.”
Bailus jogged
for the opening and Dane touched the match to the fuse. The fire leapt
along the length of cord with a sizzle. Dane ran for the exit. He threw
himself against the hillside beside the door and covered his head with his
arms.
Nothing
happened.
Dane relaxed his
face and exhaled but stayed in his defensive position and waited.
Nothing.
He sighed.
“Fuse must have
gone out,” Bailus said, sitting up beside him.
“Give it another
minute.” Dane didn’t fancy the idea of stepping inside again and reaching
the kegs at the same time the flame did.
“We don’t have a
minute,” Bailus said, and he darted around Dane and through the opening.
***
While
Josie was being cornered by the
shriken
, Mirela had problems of her
own. Her fourth and fifth charges lay only twenty paces from each other,
separated by a big boulder. She blew the fourth and rounded the boulder
at a run. She stopped short. Standing just upon the rim of her
fifth flue was the vulture-headed shaman. He simply stood there, looking
right at her as if he’d sensed her coming. As if he’d been waiting for
her. The creature carried a staff with a curved blade at one end that
reminded Mirela of a scythe. He shifted his stance, swinging the staff
into both hands, and stepped towards her. Mirela’s hand went to her
knife. But suddenly, her vision changed and it was as if she were seeing
on two planes at once. In one, the
shriken
moved towards her and
her hand clasped on her knife hilt. In the other, the Lady in white stood
before her and Mirela’s hand closed not on her knife hilt but around the
horn.
“Drink,
Child.”
Mirela began to
laugh. It was a dry, awkward sound at first and she felt silly doing it,
regardless of whose presence she was really in. But the Lady began to
laugh with her and her laughter grew in volume and depth and power.
Soon she was
like a little girl being tickled, staggering about and waving her arms
aimlessly. She paused, trying to get her breath, and leaned forward with
her hands on her knees but laughed all the harder. She straightened up
and threw back her head and laughed.
She was still
embarrassed and she thought her own behavior wildly inappropriate, but then she
found herself laughing even at that. She thought there was some way she
should feel about the creature before her but she couldn’t remember what that
was.
Meanwhile, the
shriken
was not motionless. When Mirela first began to laugh, it advanced on her
as it had before. But as her laughter grew, it staggered and faltered as
though coming up against an invisible wall. Mirela staggered around and
the thing stopped moving altogether. Then something queer began to
happen. The shaman began to shake. It began with its hands and
spread up its arms and then over its whole body. Soon its legs were
shaking so hard it could barely stand. It gave one final convulsive shrug
and fell face forward to the ground and never moved again.
***
Josie dropped to
her knees before the final hole. The crevasse dropped down smoothly for
four feet to the ledge where she had placed the charge. Lying flat, she
leaned her shoulder into the opening as much as she could and extended her
arm. She worked more of herself into the hole until the other side of the
rim pressed against her back. She stretched out with the slow
match. Its tip stopped two inches from the top of the fuse. Working
the match carefully in her hand, Josie maneuvered it until she held the very
end of it pinched between her index and middle fingers. She wiggled it
back and forth, trying to make contact with the fuse. Dioji nosed his
snout into one side of the opening, throwing his bark and snarl into its
depths. She had just touched the two together when the match slipped from
between her fingers, rolled off the sack of powder, across the ledge, and
disappeared down the shaft. Josie pounded her fist on the rock in
frustration. As her anger subsided, it was replaced by grief, and
guilt. She had failed. She had let everyone down. She felt
like crying. Dioji nuzzled her neck and whined.
She heard
running footsteps behind her and whirled to face them. Mirela ran towards
her; slow match in one hand, knife in the other. She slid to a stop
beside Josie.
“Trouble?”
“I dropped my
match.”
“Get clear,”
Mirela said.
“Wait,” said
Josie. She twisted a branch off a nearby thornbush and, taking Mirela’s
match, impaled it securely on one of the thorns at the tip. She did not
have to stretch this time. Guiding the match with shaking hands, she
touched its tip to the fuse. Sparks crackled from the end of the fuse and
then the flame raced along its length.