I readied the grip on my ax, but suddenly something was falling from above. I managed to move just enough that I wasn’t struck flush, but still there was something hot that splashed on my face and burned in my eyes. “Gragh!” I grunted and stumbled back. With one eye open I saw that some of the winged goblin creatures were flying about, holding pots of what had to be something akin to burning oil. Though the boiling liquid razed my skin, I could not lose my sense. The fat gut butcher was still upon me, and I had to throw myself aside and roll as his cleaved came whizzing down searching to split me open. The metallic whine of the ground being slashed open rang in my ears.
Flashes of arcane fire shot through the room. “Eeee! Vixerai! She’s returned!” the winged creatures screeched as Vixerai’s fire orbs came hunting for them. Vixerai was indeed in the air, hurling her fire orbs at them.
“Vixerai!” I called to my succubus. “Hold the door!”
She dashed back toward the door with a beat of her wings. I sent my chain claw whizzing out from me, and in an instant it coiled around the fat butcher’s grotesque, swollen ankle. He was already leaning back to bring his cleaver down on me, and as I pulled on the chain his foot went sliding out from under him and he fell back flat with a wet thud.
Flyers were still floating about. A pot full of boiling oil came falling toward me, but this time I expected it and zig zagged as I ran so that it exploded by my feet rather than on my face. Fat Gut Butcher was beginning to stand, but as I ran I drove my foot into his head, drove it so hard that I felt his skull shatter as I leapt off of him. Leaping high into the air, I whipped my chain claw about me—as I had seen great gladiators wield the whip as a weapon, back in Kenessos. My chain claw writhed around me as I whipped it this way and that, smashing flyer limbs with its links, or raking them open with its clawed end. As I landed, broken flyers fell to the ground.
I turned and saw the fat butcher was standing once more, his giant cleaver in both hands. I gripped my own two-handed weapon. “My chain won’t bring you down…” He began lurching toward me, one eye dangling from his skull having been shattered, his gut swinging behind his apron, so fat that he could have been pregnant with a full grown horse. He broke to a full hulking run, gut swinging, and I charged to meet him. My legs began springing me up as if to leap, but at the last moment I ducked. His cleaver went slashing above me, narrowly missing decapitating me. I planted my foot, coiled my hips, and unleashed a torqueing ax blow that cleaved his fat gut clear open, turned it to a bright red mouth that spilled bloody innards. He fell, face flat to the ground as blood poured out of him.
As I panted the breath back into my lungs, blood and innards continued to pour from the butcher’s unmoving corpse. It was strange how much the blood flowed, all of it toward me, pooling at my feet. Then this blood began clearly moving of its own will and my eyes rounded. I stepped back, but the blood held onto me like a kraken’s tentacle. “What sorcery is this?” Suddenly, the blood lurched up, taking the shape of a man’s torso, all still blood-red. This half man gripped onto my leg. Blood seeped in through my greaves. More humanoid figures began emerging from the fat butcher’s spilling guts, all seemed to be blood taking intelligent form. I counted three, all as malleable as liquid. They latched onto me, seeped through the small joints in my armor and clothing. Where they touched my furred flesh, I burned. I burned as if hot oil or corrosive acid were feasting upon me. I tore at these creatures latched onto me, tore at their heads and limbs, but this was in vain. My claws burst one of their heads in a spray of blood, only to have the same blood latch onto me and go on burning me. Their power was not dependent on their humanoid forms. I roared in pain trying desperately to claw the blood creatures off me, only to rake my own flesh open and leave the blood creatures unharmed.
“Rothan! I heard Vixerai’s voice cry above me. “Forgive me!”
I glanced up to see a volley of her fire orbs flying at me. They burst upon me, lighting me up in arcane flames. I roared out in pain, flailed about as flames licked at me.
My back crashed against the ground. The flames left me. I groaned and tried to get off my back.
“Rothan.” Vixerai was kneeling beside me. “It was the only way to get those creatures off you. They are unharmed by weapons of the flesh.”
My body was wracked with pain, but I pushed through it. “Charred is better than dead.”
“How will you go on?”
“The power of Fenris heals me with time. Come, we must make haste.” I walked across the stilled chaos of the room, fresh carcasses of butchers and flyers now joining the rest of the slaughtered.
We left through the double iron doors, emerging into a long stone passage. I smashed the door handles with my gauntlets. “It will slow down any who come down here.”
“Why did we not flee rather than fight?” she whispered to me.
“Those flyers would have called for help in their confusion, once they realized someone had killed a butcher.” I kept my voice at a whisper, my eyes alert. “I knew if I attacked them the noise of our fighting would be confused by the constant screams of all the creatures slaughtered down there. And so this was the lesser risk of being discovered.”
“But someone will find them, all the dead. Someone will come to fetch the meat.”
“Until then, at least we have some time. Now, come. We have all the more reason to hurry. Lead us first to the mind gem.” The thought came to me, wondering how Charlotte, One Eye and the rest must be faring now that they had entered into an audience with the queen of this infernal keep.
Vixerai nodded, then she flew close in front of me as I stalked down the passage. “There is a secret passage up to the main levels of the island. It runs through the mines.” Vixerai ceased flying as we crept down a corridor. The walls here were mosaic, seemed far different, clean new white stone compared to those of the slaughter house and its near chambers. I heard the sound of metal tools ringing in the air. Vixerai became even more cautious. She slinked into a crouch as she came to the end of the corridor, which opened up to a large cavern.
20
I peered out from the corridor with her, and saw that truly this cavern was enormous, enough that a small fleet of ships could have harbored within it. Though here rather than water there was only darkness that filled its depths. How deep the cavern went, I could not say, but I did peer up and saw that it rose far up until it ended in barely visible stone a half mile above us. At our level there were wooden lattices built, all along them creatures, with broad backs and long sinewy arms and wounds on them betraying the removal of wings. They were hard at work with pickaxes, shovels, mining at large metallic veins encrusted along the cavern’s surfaces. A complicated set of pulleys, ropes, karts dangled all throughout the cavern, like a complicated net that at any moment could be brought down by a fell god’s hand.
Vixerai crept out onto the rim of earth that surrounded the cavern’s maw. I stayed close to her, the stone surface flush on my back. I sidestepped along a thin ledge, while Vixerai silently swooped up until she landed on a wider part of the rim. I went on sidestepping, my eyes fixed on the wingless creatures hard at work. They were driven by large slave masters, the same in size and bulk as the butchers. However these had pig-like faces, with massive tusks that were capped off with iron or gold razor sharp sheaths. These pig creatures also had the legs of a giant boar and demon wings that were far too small for them, yet somehow carried them aloft if need be. There were near a dozen of these pig demons spread all about, all armed with a whip in one hand. In the other they carried different weapons, one a cruel hammer that had a pike on one end and its hammer head sculpted to resemble a man-like creature with limbs shattered into pieces. Another carried a cruel scimitar, its pommel adorned with six harpy heads tied to it by rope. Still another wielded a long halberd whose blade gave off green fumes the color of viper poison. There were still more flyers, dozens, the same kind that had helped the butchers. And these carried small tools and small buckets all about. Truly, this wor
ld must have been a hell for the hundred or more harpies who were hard at labor, working in rows that wound their way around the scaffolding which spiraled all up and down this vast cavern.
Once I crossed the narrow portion, I crouched next to my bird maiden. “We have to get up there,” she whispered and gazed up at the rise of the cavern. I looked about me and saw that the climb would be difficult. The caverns surfaces were not even, but rather jagged, in some places full of sharp stones that seemed to grow down from protrusions in the stone walls. All the while, I could not let any in the cavern see us, even the harpies, for in their sudden shock they would surely make too much commotion.
“You must climb,” Vixerai whispered in my ear.
“Don’t worry. You just fly up,” I whispered back.
She seemed confused. I nudged her to give me some room. Taking one glance about me, I planted my foot, aimed, and launched myself. I sailed silently into the air, tucked my limbs close to me, then came diving into one of the large metal cauldrons carrying mined ore up along the pulley system. Metal flakes rattled about me as I fell into them. I stayed buried under them, only the top of my wolf head peering out. The rim of the cauldron gave even this part of me cover from sight… as long as any of the workers or guards on the scaffolding high above did not peer down. I kept watching above me. When I heard the clink and clang of mining tools digging away at rock and the crack of whips and guttural commands, I knew I was not discovered. I slowly rose, buried there amid ore. I spotted a shadow dart across the air far above. Vixerai. I went on being pulled up, listening to the whine of pulleys as they turned. Poor bastards, I thought, as I gaze up at several layers of scaffolding all with harpies and other slave creatures furiously working. Finally, the cauldron I was in was pulled up into a narrow tunnel where the cavern ceased and there were no workers about me, only darkness. I stayed silent, patiently buried within the cauldron. I heard the faint flutter of wings and smelled my succubus’ scent. Her claws latched onto the rim of the cauldron and one of her fire orbs lit up her small, pretty face.
“You saved yourself quite a lot of work,” she whispered to me.
“And a lot of killing. Possibly saved being killed myself.”
She gazed up at the long crevice we were being carried up. At its end, there was a bright light, from this distance only an orange dot. “The furnace.” It was as if she picked up on my curiosity.
“We’re being carried into fire?”
“Very close to it. Yes. There are workers up there as well. They melt the ore to fashion all manner of things.
As our cauldron kept nearing the end of the cavern, the light intensified, as did the heat and the smell of molten metal.
We rose out from the darkness into the burning heat of the furnace room. It was vast, at least a thousand feet across, and made of hard flat stones with decorative dragon heads sculpted along the tall ceiling. Like the mine below, there was scaffolding that crossed all throughout the room, though it was made of metal instead. At the base of the room was a vast pit which housed a row of furnaces, each the size of a small watchtower. These were each housing torrents of fire within them. Rows of cauldrons like the one I was in were moved by pulleys, just above the furnaces and the fire rising from them, and held there long enough that their metal contents were turned to liquid. The workers here seemed to be made of stone, and subtly glowed from magma which seemed to flow through them as blood through veins. They were long-limbed, thrice the height of a man, but as they were made of stone they must have weighed 100 times as much as one. As below there were overseers as well, and these were ironically smaller than these giant stone creatures. They were demons, man-sized, their skins the color of brass or crimson, with long black wings arching from their backs, with cruel scimitars and others with staffs that glowed with an intense white fire.
Unless I wanted to be charred, I had to leave the cauldron I was in. I gazed about and saw that Vixerai had already perched herself high on a ledge that ran all near the ceiling, just below the row of sculpted dragon heads that ran along the top of this vast chamber.
I spied the right moment, and then leapt off the cauldron. Letting my four limbs absorb the impact of my fall, I landed as silently as possible, near one of the furnaces. While there was much fire in them, they were the only light in this vast chamber, and so the room’s edges and ceiling remained mostly in shadow. I skulked to the very edge of the room, below where Vixerai had perched. I crouched and watched for a moment as gangs of stone workers stomped about, unconcerned with molten metal sparks that jumped all around them as veteran sailors were with sea foam spraying onto the deck of a ship. The demon overseers shouted commands here and there. “Drop that in!—We need six more measures!” and the like.
The pulleys dropping metal, the furnaces bellowing, shadows dancing all along the room, the sound of molten metal sizzling all about, the acrid smell of furnaces churning fire, plumes of smoke rising all over the room—there was far too much commotion for the overseers to pay heed to a silent shadow such as myself sneaking about. I used a stone support beam that ran up the wall all the way to the ceiling as further cover, and I began climbing. My clawed gauntlets dug into the stone. Once I had climbed about half way, I sent my chain claw shooting up, let it coil around one of the sculpted dragon heads above. The chain slithered me up so that a moment later I was perched on top of one of these dragon heads, gazing down at the display of dancing light below.
Vixerai’s wings caressed my back as she perched next to me. In this regard she was truly like a bird. She was not cautious as those without wings, and could easily perch anywhere without hesitation.
“We need to get you wings,” she whispered in my ear.
“Don’t tell Tiloshar, or she just might do it,” I said as I gazed about for a way out of this place. Vixerai gave me a look of curiosity but knew this was not the place to ask.
“There are vents there.” She pointed to the far side of the room and there were metal grates along the ceiling’s rim. I nodded and we began making our way there. I leapt from dragon head to dragon head, taking gliding leaps through the shadows. Vixerai merely let herself soar. We reached the vents, and with a whip of my chain claw I pulled myself to them.
The vents were more difficult to climb, as their surface was smoother than the stone tunnels we had been climbing. They were lined with metal, and so I had to work more carefully. We climbed in silence, hot smoke wisping all around us.
When we finally came to the vent’s end, we were in a long corridor with metal pipes running all along its bottom. “The heat from the vents heats water flowing in these pipes,” Vixerai explained. She flew down the corridor until we came to an iron door. She opened it and we were at a set of winding stairs. We crept up and came to a small chamber with two different doorways. Vixerai did not hesitate and went to the one on our right side. We crept down two more passages, then another flight of stairs, these zigzagging as they climbed upward.
“It seems we are far from this gem, Vixerai.” I was getting impatient. “Our companions are with Sombrala. Who knows how they fare?”
“This was the only way. The upper portions of the island are watched at all times and they are filled with many more of Sombrala’s servants.” She swooped into a wide corridor, then came to a set of twin double doors so tall they could have fit a sailing ship through. “These are Sombrala’s private halls now.”
She pushed the doors open and they slowly parted. They revealed a gallery, like a king’s hall, but vast, so vast that three galleons could have fit inside. It was wide, with a forest of smooth stone pillars as fat as grown Skaldean pines. The floor was of white stone, as the rest of the hall was, and it was dimly lit so that everything was mostly covered in shadow. The floor was made up of great stone blocks and vast mosaic shapes that resembled winged creatures of some sort. There were central stairs, wide enough that three scores of men could have walked up them shoulder to shoulder.
As we went up the first flight of stairs, I s
aw that behind the shadow of the pillars on this level there were various crypts, massive stone coffins decorated on the top with insignia and sculpted designs.
“There, at the top of the stairs ahead,” Vixerai said, pointing another level up. At the top of those stairs there was another set of double doors. All along the walls leading up to these doors there were massive bookcases, filled with more books than must have existed in all of Skald. “Those are the doors that lead to her treasure rooms. I know there is a key, hidden somewhere in those books.”
I crept forward, alert to any guards that might be nearby. “I am of little help with matters of arcane lore. But I will watch over you while you search. Hurry.”
“As you say, my mate.” Vixerai swooped past me. She could soar in this tallest of chambers. She began hovering about the book shelves, running her delicate fingers along the spines in a hurried search.
My fur stood on end as I heard a noise: stone grating on stone. I turned to see the massive stone lid of the coffin nearest me begin sliding open.
“By Fenris…” I said, gripping my ax, then turning to Vixerai to alert her. “Vixerai!”
A massive bone hand thrust out, throwing the stone lid off. It went twisting through the air and came down with a resounding crunch of stone slamming against the mosaic floor. The creature that emerged was a skeleton, but this was no man’s bones. It was one of the pig demon’s we had seen, standing more than a dozen feet tall, its rib cage big enough that a grown man could have fit inside it. The skeleton had tusks, and it donned the brass colored armor befitting a warrior, elegantly wrought pauldrons, spiked gauntlets, a half helm that was lined with cruel blades all along its crest, and a heavy plate breastplate. As it rose by some foul magic, dust fell away from it and kicked up around its opening coffin. Its eyes lit up with arcane fire as it became fully conscious and gripped a massive war mace whose spiked head a grown man could have barely lifted, much less wielded in battle.
Wolf Blade: Chains of the Vampire Page 19
