They both grinned. “It still sounds so absurd,” Kara said. “Much like some of the stories drunks used to tell me at the Golden Keg.”
“I do not even think there was a story more fanciful in my books.” He shook his head. “Who knows, if we survive this, perhaps I should write a book called—Kara, the Heroic Savior of Stelemia!”
“As long as the story includes her loyal knight, Aemon, who steadfastly stood by her side.”
His smile brought a little warmth to her heart and for a few brief moments, held the roiling turmoil inside her at bay.
Wrynric passed around food and water. After they’d eaten their cold bowls of salted mutton and mushroom stew, they extinguished the torch and set the order of watch. The old warrior would go first, then Minard, both taking four-hour shifts, as per usual. So far, Aemon hadn’t complained about not being given an opportunity to take watch. Deep down, he might've been thankful, as never before had he been put through such physical hardship as traveling through the Great Dark. If he felt anything like Kara, he was probably more tired than he’d ever been.
Still, she hoped he didn’t see it as an affront to his sense of manhood. Men cared about what other men thought of them, and hated to appear weak in front of one another. The fact he had yet to be called upon to stand watch suggested Wrynric didn’t think him up to the task.
Kara got comfortable and was asleep in moments. Then the dream came to her. A dream of twisting, poisoned passages, metal doors and ageless voices. When she jolted awake, she didn’t need the voice to warn her of danger, for a creeping sense of dread settled over her, smothering her soul in cold terror.
Something was coming.
She looked around with her dark-vision and caught sight of Minard, who sat near the edge, staring out into the darkness. He drummed his fingers up and down his staff, likely his technique for staying awake during his watch.
He looked relaxed. How could he not sense the approaching dread?
Kara crawled over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped. “What the—”
“Shh,” she whispered. “Something’s down there.”
“Below us?”
“Yes. I can feel it.” She used her unnatural vision to scan the jagged paths below them. The bacteria glowed in the distance, but the rest of the chamber floor was bathed in a dark so deep, even her eyes had trouble seeing through it.
After a minute of searching, she’d seen nothing. Had her instincts been wrong? Or was it just paranoia playing tricks on her? The voice hadn’t warned of danger like it had with the jamalgana.
The growing dread made her insides feel like lead. There had to be something out there. Though tired beyond all reason and in great pain, she had to wake the others, for they needed to flee before whatever was down there caught up to them.
Minard helped Kara wake the others and two minutes later, they stood ready to leave. Kara had saved the men once from the jamalgana, and they clearly trusted her enough not to question her now.
Though they were all tired, they climbed up a moisture-slick wall using dozens of natural foot-holds. Once they reached the top, another climb awaited them. After making that climb, they climbed another, then another, each more treacherous than the last.
Still, the dread lingered.
They were about to collapse from fatigue when the silence was broken by a ghastly moan. Wrynric shoved Kara behind him, drew his sword and raised his shield as the other two men hefted their weapons. Erinie held the torch high, her free hand digging into a pouch.
Kara’s dread manifested before her as three figures clambered over the edge of the cliff and slowly rose to their feet.
As the figures drew closer, the torchlight reflected off their eyes, giving them a fel, unnatural gleam. Three naked, human-like creatures, reeking of decay, shambled toward them. Kara had never seen anything so vile.
They looked like walking corpses, given life.
These are Children of Ryhana, the voice cried. You must flee!
Wrynric bared his teeth. “The Lost Sun protect us. They’re rotmen. Aim for their heads, for that’s the only way to kill them.”
The first of the rotmen lunged forward, its dead eyes on Kara. She gripped the passkey as the presence inside her screamed.
Chapter 24
AEMON
Aemon raised his mace and watched as the rotmen moved side by side, toward them. They looked human, but their bodies were twisted, sinewy masses of muscle and protruding bone under pale, almost-translucent skin. Their large, pale eyes were sunken into their man-like faces and viscous liquid the color of bile dripped from inch-long fangs jutting out of their puckered mouths. Wafting around them came the putrid smell of festering death.
The rotmen were things born of dark, inscrutable nightmares, and they had come to feast on human flesh. All three were transfixed on Kara and did not react as Minard and Wrynric charged them.
Aemon positioned himself between the monsters and Kara. “Stay behind me,” Aemon ordered, without taking his eyes off the nearest enemy.
Minard drove his staff into the face of one of the rotmen, and it let out a pained moan as dark blood spurted from its nose. The blow would have killed a human, yet the rotman recovered in an instant and swiped at the monk with its serrated claws. As Minard backed away, he swung his staff in a great arc and struck the monster on the right arm, rupturing pallid flesh and crunching bone.
The rotman let out another moan, then raked the air with its claws in a frenzied attack that would have disemboweled Minard had he not backed off. The rotman lurched after him, and he barely managed to stay out of its reach. Their battle began to take them some distance from the group, and perilously close to the edge of the cliff.
Wrynric engaged another, using his shield to smash it in the head. Its face a broken, putrid mess, the rotman still managed to take hold of the old warrior’s shield. The monster snapped at him over the top of it, splattering the old warrior with thick, copper-colored ichor. Wrynric struggled to hold it back, his feet slipping on the wet rock.
Erinie mixed powders from her pouches into a small metal bowl while trying to stay out of the melee. Her focus was on the two monsters attacking the men and she did not seem to notice the third rotman, who circled around the fighting and came for Kara.
Aemon prepared himself for the coming fight. The monster would need to get through him before it could reach Kara.
But did he have the courage to face it?
Aemon froze, the familiar fear and indecision paralyzing him. He watched in slow motion as drool ran down the rotman’s chin, black tongue protruding from pale lips, its vacant eyes on Kara. The rotman shambled closer and closer, and all he could think of was how painful it would be when those teeth sank into his flesh.
Something snapped within him, jolting him back to his senses. This was no time for cowards. It was time to be like his hero, Rexus of Acid Lake.
A hero of the ages.
Raising the mace over his head, Aemon charged the rotman and gave it a crushing blow to the side of its skull. Blood and gore splattered over him as he struck again and again, crushing limbs, breaking bones, shattering teeth and jaw. Its broken arms flailing about, it fell back with a long, drawn-out moan.
Aemon raced after the rotman and rammed his mace into its guts. The weapon exploded through the slimy, pale skin and sent pungent, purple intestines spilling over Aemon’s feet.
The rotman made a noise that might have been laughter, but its mouth was too mangled to be certain. It reached for him with one of its shattered limbs. Aemon backed off, but the rotman went after him, leaving a ragged trail of viscera in its wake. Chunks of brain ran down the side of its face, its left eye ruptured and hanging near its mouth by a bloody retina. The ghastly sight made Aemon’s stomach churn.
It truly was a walking corpse.
“Look out,” Kara cried, as the rotman Minard faced knocked him aside and raced toward her. Aemon instinctively imposed himself between it and Kara.
Roaring in defiance, Aemon held his mace high, waiting to bring it down onto whichever rotman reached him first. Time to make good on my vow. I made an oath to protect Kara with my life, and now that time has come.
Aemon readied himself to make his final stand.
His life flashed before his eyes. His mother’s cold embrace, his father’s apathy for life, Morgon's head resting on a pillow of coins, his teacher Tallis’s kindly face, and the meow of a stray kitten he once saved. Last came an image of himself sitting beside the office window at the bank, looking longingly at the Capital Spire, thinking of home.
He had been a boy then. Now he was a man.
Aemon charged the nearest rotman and drove his mace into its neck. The mangled remnants of its face vomited brown ichor over him, almost blinding him when it spattered into his eyes. Spitting and cursing, knowing he had little time to spare, he spun around in a circle to gather strength, then arced his mace into the side of the rotman’s leg.
The shattered leg bone tore through the rotman’s sinewy flesh and the monster collapsed into a heap. Without thinking, Aemon brought the mace down onto the remains of its head, snuffing out its unnatural life forever in an explosion of brain and skull.
It had all happened in seconds, yet in those brief moments, he felt stronger than ever before. His heart pumped power through every vein and artery, bringing it to every extremity, pumping, pumping until it made him feel invincible.
Covered head to toe in putrid gore and vile excretions, his vanquished enemy broken at his feet, he let out a roar of triumph. This time, the glory was all his. In that moment, he stood as tall as Rexus of Acid Lake!
The roar died almost as quickly as it had begun. The other rotman lunged for him. In his exaltation, he had forgotten the second monster. He backed away and stumbled on a protruding rock, catching a glimpse of Minard still racing up behind it, staff held high, but too far away to help...
The rotman let out a guttural, throaty laugh, its long, purple tongue dripping bile. “Boooy, I am empty,” it moaned and reached for him.
They could talk?
Eyes wide with horror, Aemon looked to Kara for aid, but she watched on impassively.
“Kara!”
The rotman was six feet from him when its back erupted into flames. As heat washed over him and singed his hair, Aemon crawled away before the flames could engulf him.
Still the rotman came.
Erinie hurled white powder at the burning rotman and the flames roared with renewed intensity. The monster let out a long, repulsive moan as its flesh was consumed. The air filled with intense heat and smoke. Aemon kept crawling until he bumped into Kara. She stared at the oncoming inferno with an odd, distant look, the flames dancing in her eyes.
Aemon staggered to his feet. Kara did not move, so he dragged her away before the rotman could reach her. Suddenly, she raked his arm with her nails, tearing into his skin. He cried out in pain but kept dragging her until the monster collapsed in a fiery heap.
With two of the rotmen dead, Minard hurried over to Wrynric and helped lay the finishing blows to the final enemy. When it collapsed, they used staff and shield to pummel it until nothing remained but a bloody, pulverized mush of dark blood, shattered bone and ragged gore.
When their grisly business was done, the only sound was crackling meat and their harsh breathing, the smell of roasting flesh sickly-sweat in the air.
Blood ran through Aemon’s fingers from the deep scratches in his arm. His heart shriveled. Kara had inflicted them, his blood dripping from her hand.
What was happening to her? Why had she not tried to help him?
He clenched his jaw, angry at her for the first time since they had met. She stared at the flames, but her face was blank. The adrenaline started leaving his system and an intense weariness overcame him.
Aemon jumped as something grabbed his shoulder. “You should have seen the look on your face when that thing was almost on you.”
Minard!
Aemon shoved the grinning monk away. “Leave me alone.”
Minard steadied himself. “Don’t be like that. I only wanted to say you fought like a Chosen of Ibilirith.”
Aemon narrowed his eyes. “Is that some sort of jape?”
The insolent monk feigned innocence. “No joke. I mean it. You fought well.”
“You did, son,” Wrynric said. “They’re few things more terrifying than a rotman. Even seasoned warriors are known to cower before them.”
Were they playing with him or being serious? They seemed sincere, but he was used to other men belittling him. Veladan had done it, his older brothers had too and so had Minard. Why would now be any different? The monk probably wanted Aemon to get his hopes up so he could crush them.
Wrynric patted Aemon on the shoulder. “Once again, Kara is alive because of your bravery. She couldn’t have a better guardian than you.”
The old man’s eyes told the truth. He was not making fun of Aemon, nor was Minard.
Aemon did not know to react to their praise. He attached his bloody mace back to his belt. “If it was not for Erinie, I would be dead. She deserves the praise, not me.”
Erinie washed her hands in a puddle of water to remove the flammable powder from them. When they were clean, she said, “We all did well. We’re alive and the monsters are dead.”
“Why don’t you prepare more of that fire-powder?” Minard asked.
Erinie dried her hands on her robes. “Because it’s too unstable to carry around in prepared form. I, for one, don’t want to be blown up.”
“We need to leave,” Kara said. “There’s something out there, and if we don’t hurry it will find us.”
Wrynric scanned the darkness beyond the glow of the burning rotman. “Kara is right. The smell of blood will attract scavengers.”
Kara went and stood beside the old warrior. “There are beasts watching us already, but there’s something else too. Something familiar. Something...” She stopped and glanced around like she did not know where she was.
Erinie touched her on the shoulder. “Something familiar? What is it you sense out there?”
“I... don’t know what I was saying, but I know we need to hurry and find the Metal Man.” Kara strode over to the rock wall and started to climb.
Wrynric plucked her off. “Slow down, girl. There’s a rope not far from here.”
Aemon sighed. Kara’s mind seemed all over the place. Was she going mad?
They quickly wiped off the blood and gore, then Erinie tended to their injuries. She layered a brown paste over Aemon’s scratches. The paste made him grit his teeth as burning pain shot up his arm, but he refused to cry out, for it would be a sign of weakness and might attract more enemies.
She wrapped a dressing over the wound. “Now you don’t have to worry about the scratches becoming infected. You can thank me later.”
They gathered their equipment and followed the old warrior to the rope. After a long and arduous climb, they hauled up the rope and hid it. Kara would not let them rest, so they moved off again.
The next set of passages were easygoing in comparison to all the rope climbs, and it felt like they were making decent progress. The last passage ended at a large sump. According to Kara, it was roughly four hundred feet wide. Three waterfalls cascaded from heights unknown into the sump, forming a murky, black lake.
They made their way around the water’s edge through a field of large white-and-gray rocks. Sharp stalactites hung high above them, dripping icy water down the back of their necks. The area smelled of wet stone and something else Aemon could not place.
A splash near the shore made them draw their weapons. Six eyes watched them from the murky water, the pupils reflecting the torchlight.
“G
et moving,” Kara hissed. “There are strange-looking people watching us.”
A cold chill ran down Aemon’s spine as he hurried away from the water. Kara kept an eye on the watchers, as the group continued through the boulder field.
“What did they look like?” Erinie asked when they were well away.
“They were much like the rotmen, but scaly and with fish-like eyes,” Kara replied. “One of them held a crude bone spear and another a rusted sword.”
Erinie glanced back the way they had come. “I have no idea what they were. I don’t think they were there when we passed through this chamber all those months ago.”
Wrynric grunted. “Yet another monster to add to the long list of ones we’ve never encountered before. Lucky for us, they weren’t hostile.”
Several miles away from the sump, they spent the night on a gravel island in the middle of a stream. Aemon’s dreams were filled with talking corpses and vile death. He flew awake as cold hands reached for him.
No, it was not hands. It was water. In the hours they had slept, the water level had risen significantly. As he watched, he could see the water still rising.
“This island will soon be underwater,” Minard said, as he stood from his watching place beside Erinie. “We need to get moving before the way out is flooded.”
It took them an hour to make their way through the half-flooded tunnels and onto higher ground. Higher ground gave them no respite, for they endured an exhausting half-mile belly-crawl through a set of passages that steadily sloped upwards.
Aemon thanked the divines when he emerged from the passage and was able to stand again. Erinie used the map device, then led them to an opening in the floor. They took turns climbing down. Aemon went last and had descended thirty feet when he reached the bottom. Brushing grit off his hands, he caught his breath.
They stood on a road, carved into the rock much like the ones in Stelemia.
“We ran across this ancient highway on our way to find the passkey,” Erinie said. “Who built it or why remains a mystery.”
Aemon ran a finger along the road’s surface and was surprised at how smooth it felt. The workmanship was so fine that even the best stonemason in Stelemia would be put to shame.
Heir to a Lost Sun: A Caverns of Stelemia Novel Page 35
