The Labyris Knight

by Adam Derbyshire

  The Labyris Knight

  -: Part Three :-

  Of Twisting Labyrinths, Deadly Pyramids,

  Petrified Forests and Haunted Castles.

  “Nos morituri te salutamus”

  ‘We who are about to die, salute you.’

  De Vita Caesarum (121 AD)

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Grab the Orchid! Grab the Orchid!” Marcus yelled, as the world appeared to explode around him, one of the huge Nirschl heads lunging for his darting body, razor sharp teeth snapping shut inches from his heels.

  “You grab the flower!” Mathius shot back, stabbing furiously with his twin daggers and scoring direct hits on the dense hide of another striking head, only to grimace as his blades bounced off, the attacks completely ineffective. “I’m a little bit busy over here!”

  The assassin tried to gauge where everyone was, aware they were all separated but the air was full of spinning leaves, showering mud and the thrashing limbs of the awakened monster, making it difficult to see clearly in any direction. An arrow whistled by, plunging into the serpentine body snaking past him, making the Nirschl writhe in agitation, its movements snapping the arrow shaft clean off with one rapid ripple of its massive coils.

  Mathius counted off the moving heads, one, two, swaying over by Ives and Aradol, the two men fighting side by side trying to hold the Nirschl’s snapping jaws at bay. Three, another head passed by overhead blotting out the light as its serpentine form nearly rolled right over him, dragging the bloodied and battered form of Weyn, pinned to the side of its jaw. Four, five, both over by Rauph who bellowed out a challenge, swinging his long swords to the left and the right as the monster tried to crush him in its immense coils. The sixth head slid past Commagin who had dived to the side as the Nirschl slithered by, the Dwarven engineer firing crossbow bolts as fast as he could load them but not towards the monster; instead, he appeared to be taking on the group of Minotaur that had been shadowing them.

  Another terrifying snakehead glided through the raining debris, orange eyes not blinking, its body slinking rapidly from side to side as it arrowed across the ground towards Mathius. That made it seven heads, there was only one creature that met this description: Hydra but this was the biggest hydra Mathius had ever heard of, just one head was the size of a small wagon!

  He shoved Marcus roughly to one side as the creature struck, aware the monk was pre-occupied by an attack from another front. Marcus used the unexpected propulsion to dodge beneath the Nirschl’s snapping jaws and grab hold of the vines, creepers and lengths of stringy hair that dangled from its head, before resolutely starting to climb.

  Mathius dodged the other way, timing his move almost to perfection as the seventh serpent head opened its jaws wide, exposing a moist pink fleshy glottis with a flickering tongue and razor-sharp fangs. The Nirschl struck with great speed, darting forward so fast that Mathius nearly missed his step on the slick ground, the edge of the creature’s snout catching him hard on the back and knocking him flat into a puddle as it barrelled past.

  * * * * * *

  Ives screamed out in horror, his wailing tones matching the metronomic waving of his white sword, used like some kind of natural repellent towards the creature attacking him. The huge scaly head swayed backwards and forwards in time to his panicked gestures, its heavy lids slowly sliding closed and then opening again, to reveal deep orange reptilian eyes that intently studied its prey before it prepared to lunge. The Nirschl slowly pulled back, forked tongue flicking out from its mouth, lightly caressing the tip of its snout, then it attacked, rushing forward, intent on ripping the merchant in two.

  Aradol moved up alongside Ives, swinging his ancient blade and splitting the underside of the monster’s snout with his first swing. The Nirschl angled its head up defensively, attempting to slither over them both as Aradol continued turning with the momentum of his swing, snatching up Ives’s white blade with his free hand, before forcing it up into the soft underside of the creature’s jaw, shoving the weapon all the way to the hilt. Blood and gore showered down onto the young warrior as the snake writhed and jerked in pain, frantically trying to pull its head away from the source of its agony.

  The Nirschl reared up into the air, before slamming down again, trying to crush the creature’s that had dared to injure it. However, Aradol was already moving away, dragging Ives clear as the snake’s head hit the ground with such force that both men found themselves struggling to remain on their feet as the ground trembled beneath them.

  * * * * * *

  Weyn groaned aloud, finding himself dropping rapidly towards the floor as the Nirschl head he was pinned to slammed into the muddy ground, knocking the breath from the archer and sickeningly wrenching his right arm. Weyn snatched the quickest of glances, noting that the creature was rapidly slithering towards the cause of the grievous wound Aradol had just delivered. The archer reluctantly released his grip on the slick scales beneath him, letting his whole weight hang from his injured arm and through gritted teeth, struggled to use his left hand to pull the hunting knife from its sheath at his side. Weyn screamed anew as he found himself roughly dragged across the churned jungle floor, his clothing snagging on low shrubs and catching on sharp protruding branches that sliced painfully across his skin.

  Cold mud and dead vegetation rapidly swept up before him, making the archer gasp as if drowning. The Nirschl’s head surged rapidly forwards as it slid across the ground, turning first left, then right, battering and shaking Weyn’s ragged body, until the archer felt it would almost be better to amputate his own arm, than experience any more of this excruciating pain.

  He finally wrapped his left hand around the hunting knife’s hilt and yanked the blade free, only to find himself almost lose it as he roughly collided with yet another low shrub. Sheer determination kept the blade from falling free from his grasp as he swung the weapon up and slashed repeatedly at the hydra’s mandible, trying to work free the arrow that held him pinned so resolutely to the monster.

  Dark blood welled from the creature’s lip and the snake’s slithering course across the ground slowed as it noted the fresh pains from its jaw. The Nirschl lifted its head up from the forest floor leaving Weyn to swing freely and scream anew, its eyes blinking slowly as it took in the sight of the numerous figures of warm prey running about, before it turned and dived towards where one of its own, long, sinuous necks coiled about in a tight circle.

  Weyn saw the impact coming and hacked even more furiously, desperate to free his arm before it ripped from his socket. The archer hacked blindly, the pain in his limb so intense he now had no idea if it was his bloodied arm, the arrow shaft or the creature that he was attacking. He dropped free with inches to spare, the arrow shaft suddenly snapping under the frantic sawing, causing another wave of white-hot agony to lance down the archer’s arm as he crashed into the Nirschl’s trunk with a sickening thud. The archer found himself thrown across the jungle floor, his body limp, as if he were a puppet suddenly cut free from its strings, just as the Nirschl squeezed through the narrow, scale-lined orifice it had been aiming for, in its determined effort to rip free the source of the agitation at its jaw.

  * * * * * *

  Rauph noted his bloodied companion falling apparently senseless to the ground and roared a furious challenge to the Nirschl as two of its heads slid hungrily towards him. The Minotaur’s swords hacked and slashed at the coils about his feet, cutting great fleshy gashes into the monster’s quivering flesh as the twin open maws, filled with needle sharp venomous fangs, arrowed in towards the battling navigator from either side.

  The Minotaur judged which head was the closest, then jumped up, using the wounded body of the monster at his feet as an impromptu step to give him the extra height to launch himself at the nearest hydra’s open mouth. One long sword swung in overhand from the left, catching the creature’s nostril and ripping through it, slicing down through flesh and scale, through the moveable maxillary lip to gouge across
the roof of its fleshy pink mouth before Rauph pushed up hard with the weapon, wedging the blade between the hydra’s palatine and ectopterygoid. His other sword swung in low, severing the end of the hydra’s flickering black forked tongue and sending the tip sailing out into the jungle.

  Somehow, the navigator managed to find a footing on the Nirschl’s bottom jaw and literally stepped inside the snake’s mouth, his feet struggling to find purchase on the slippery surface just behind the hydra’s twitching tongue. The injured tongue continued to jet dark viscous fluid about its mouth, adding to the precariousness of Rauph’s footing. The Minotaur tensed his body, muscles bulging as he strained to force the creature’s mouth wide to prevent it from snapping its jaw closed and piercing his body with its gleaming fangs. Fetid breath rushed from its throat, washing over the navigator and making him gag at the putrid smell but Rauph held on, using the handhold of his wedged sword to keep standing upright as the snake continued to try to close its jaws and crush him.

  A second rubbery tongue flicked across the back of Rauph’s tunic, causing the Minotaur to risk a backwards glance over his shoulder, eyes widening as the second hydra head crashed in, its jaws open as widely as the maw the navigator was forcing apart, its angle of attack at ninety-degrees to the mouth in which Rauph stood. Fangs as long as broad swords and as curved as scimitars, stabbed in from either side, missing the Minotaur’s tensed frame by inches. Deadly poison sprayed from the venom channels of the two sets of fangs as they locked together, creating an illusion that both Nirschl heads were locked in an obscene parody of a passionate kiss with the Minotaur trapped helplessly between them.

  The fumes from the venom made Rauph’s eyes water but he refused to panic, locking his legs and arms, pushing back as hard as he could, forcing the mouth of the hydra wider still, despite the horrific nature of his predicament. With the two heads locked together, neither snake could bite or swallow him, no matter how hard they squirmed or wriggled but the Minotaur instinctively knew that he could harm them.

  * * * * * *

  Commagin noted the two hydra heads collide together and tried to shout a warning to his navigator friend but the collision came so fast he was not sure if the Minotaur heard him. The Dwarven engineer, cursed aloud, finding himself torn between firing his crossbow at the writhing heads and risking hitting his swallowed crewmate; or to continue with his holding action at keeping the Minotaur troops at bay from his position on the jungle floor.

  An arrow ploughed into the dirt at his feet, a second whistling past his ear, causing the engineer to duck his head, before he calmly pushed up his glasses, lined up the sight of his trusty crossbow and let the Lady Janet roar. Crossbow quarrels stitched through the jungle foliage, tearing holes in leaves, splintering saplings and sending the three Minotaur harrying him diving for cover. A sharp bellow informed the dwarf that at least one of his quarrels had hit home and he allowed himself a smile as he reached to reload, a length of immense snake slithering in front of him, temporarily obscuring his view.

  A Minotaur warrior charged from the undergrowth, issuing a challenge to the Dwarf as he vaulted across the mottled scales of the Nirschl, a wicked halberd glinting in his hands. Commagin turned towards his huge adversary and moved to bring his crossbow in line but the warrior was too fast, skilfully swinging his weapon down low, snatching the crossbow clean from the Dwarf’s hands and sending it spinning off into the undergrowth. Commagin opened his mouth to voice his anger at the creature, only to find the haft of the halberd sweeping up across his chin, splitting his lip and snapping his teeth together. The Minotaur continued to whip his halberd about, a superior smirk across his bovine features.

  “So that’s the way it’s going to be eh?” Commagin snarled, wiping his lip and noting his hand had come away red. He scrambled to his feet, devoid of his favourite weapon, before setting his feet and pushing up his sleeves to expose his muscular arms. “Come on then let’s be having you.” He charged forward, completely unfazed by the fact he was about to take on a creature nearly twice his size and oblivious to the fact that a snapping hydra head had just swept through the area he had vacated.

  The Minotaur snorted in surprise and tried to bring his halberd in close but Commagin was quicker despite his age, barrelling in with his head down to crash into the warrior’s abdomen. The Minotaur grunted at the collision, amazed at the force of the impact and the fact that he found himself pushed back across the mud by nearly a metre. However, his astonishment quickly turned to pain as the Dwarven Engineer slammed a clenched fist right between the Minotaur’s legs, once, twice, each time bringing the creature’s horned head lower as he doubled over with the force of the blows.

  “I’ll… teach… you… to lay hands… on the Lady Janet.” Commagin snarled, landing a punch at each syllable and spitting blood from his ruined lip. “You over grown bulls think you are so tough. Well we Dwarves are made of sterner stuff laddie.” The Minotaur shook his head trying to clear his pain glazed eyes, presenting a target to the Dwarf that the engineer found irresistible. Commagin pounced, grabbing hold of one large floppy Minotaur ear that had dangled invitingly close, before biting down on it as hard as he could.

  The Minotaur bellowed in pain, eyes watering, nostrils flaring as he tried to shake Commagin free. The halberd fell forgotten to the floor as the guard reached up with his huge arms to grab Commagin by either side of his head, desperate to prize the Dwarf from his body. Every time the Minotaur tried to squeeze, Commagin bit harder, shaking his head like an enraged terrier and dropping the warrior to his knees in agony.

  In an act of sheer desperation, the Minotaur flung his head to one side, managing to catch the Dwarven engineer with his curved horn, sending him skidding away across the muddy ground. Minotaur hands reached out to touch a bloodied stump where an ear should have been, bovine eyes stared through a haze of maddening pain to watch the dwarf pick himself up from the ground, strands of jungle foliage tangled in his hair, mud smeared across his face and body, the ragged Minotaur ear still dangling from his mouth. His appearance, enhanced by the muddy war paint, looked every bit that of a Dwarven warrior from legend. That was, apart from the glasses hanging lopsided across his face! Commagin tugged hard at the remains of the flesh hanging from his mouth, tearing a chunk off the leathery appendage before spitting it away into the bushes.

  “You won’t be sewing that bit back on.” He taunted. “Do you want your ear back? If you do, why don’t you come and get it?” He worried at the ragged remains ripping another chunk free. “It’s getting smaller the longer you hesitate.”

  The Minotaur charged blindly towards the Dwarf, his raw power and speed surprising Commagin and making the engineer realise that maybe he should not have been so anxious to antagonise the beast. Horns came down, lining up to gore the Dwarf, the points just as sharp and dangerous as the halberd discarded on the ground. For just a second, Commagin considered whether he should have spent more time trying to find the Lady Janet, than having this dust up. The shape of another Minotaur warrior coming out of the jungle passage, this one armed with a bow and determinedly heading in his direction, further reinforced the need for a weapon of any kind. However, by now the first Minotaur was upon him.

  The charging Minotaur crashed into Commagin full tilt, only to find itself hitting an immovable wall of Dwarven muscle. Commagin set himself firmly, his boots only sliding a short distance in the mud before gaining purchase and then he grabbed the gleaming horns as they came either side of him. Instead of attempting to stop the creature in full charge, Commagin had considered the forward motion and power presented by the charging creature and instead of resisting completely, he pushed the Minotaur’s head down with all his might, letting its own enraged momentum slam it face first into the ground. The engineer added further insult by placing his boot firmly upon the creature’s forehead, pushing its snout further down into the filth and muck.

  “Stay down if you know what is good for you.” Commagin warned but the Minotaur
was now completely enraged. Heavily muscled arms pushed up from the mud, staggering the Dwarf, forcing him to step backwards, only to lose his footing in the slime as the Minotaur lurched upwards, lifting Commagin from the ground and dropping the Dwarf heavily onto his back. The Minotaur seized the initiative, kicking out, catching Commagin in the ribs and pushing him through the slime with the force of the blow. The Dwarf rolled about gasping for air, as the bovine warrior grabbed a splintered sapling from the ground, pulling the miniature tree and a good-sized root ball from the mud before swinging it down in an attempt to flatten the Dwarf where he lay.

  Commagin twisted one way then the other, as clods of mud cascaded down about him, the plant smashing into the ground scarce inches from him. The engineer thought he could second guess his attacker, feinting a roll to the left, only to instead roll further to the right but his enemy was so angered, so enraged, that he just followed through his strike, kicking out at the same time and knocking the Dwarf back within striking range.

  There was a roar of triumph as the Minotaur swung the ragged sapling down, dead centre. Commagin threw up his arms in a feeble attempt to block the blow, groaning in pain as a huge shadow slid by overhead. The sapling dropped limply to the ground, splattering the Dwarf with more mud and slime. He opened his eyes in surprise, then blinked several times, unable to believe his eyes. The warrior remained where he had been standing, his muscles twitching the veins in his legs fluttering beneath the skin but as the Dwarf moved his eyes upwards, he realised that the top half of his attacker was missing!

  Commagin continued to raise his eyes, only to encounter the sight of one giant Nirschl head hovering above him, gore dripping from its jaws as it chewed away on the foolish morsel that had strayed too near to it. The Dwarf started to cautiously edge away, moving as slowly as he could in the slick mud without drawing attention to himself, as the monster chewed steadily above him, his actions carefully measured to prevent the Nirschl from displaying the same fatal attraction towards the engineer as it was showing to its current meal. Commagin placed a hand carefully down into the mud only for an arrow to slam into the ground alongside him. Another arrow ploughed the earth on the other side, clearly indicating that the shooter was sighting his weapon and gauging the distances. The next shaft would be directly in the middle, right where Commagin lay.