by Rob Scott
Mark had no idea how long he’d been lost in his reverie. He nudged the man beside him and asked, ‘How far is it to the opposite shore?’
‘Half-aven, last time across,’ he said helpfully, but Mark was still lost. What had Steven said? An aven was about two and a half hours. So seventy-five minutes to cross – but he had no idea how long they’d been rowing. He wondered how fast the shrieking thing could swim, and whether it was chasing them. Maybe there was more than one …
The soldier interrupted Mark’s panicked calculations, adding, ‘But we were coming very slowly, trying not to make a sound, and without torches. It shouldn’t take much more than a third-aven or so to make it back at this rate.’
Great, Mark thought, what’s one-third of two-and-a-half? Steven would laugh if he were here – the maths genius had probably already figured it out. Mark set to the task and, grimacing fiercely, came up with five-sixths of an hour.
‘Well, shit! That’s no damned help,’ he barked in English, making his companion jump. ‘Bugger – no, wait—’ He grinned at the man beside him. ‘Fifty minutes. That’s just fifty minutes. We’ve been out here nearly that long already, I’m sure.’ He had started to feel better when he saw Garec spring to his feet in the stern. ‘Oh no,’ he groaned. ‘That looks like trouble.’
Garec steadied himself and nocked an arrow while peering up at the ceiling. Then Mark heard them too.
It began as a distant clatter, sounding as if someone had dropped a handful of marbles down a wooden staircase, then the flurry was replaced by a steady tapping: something solid against stone. Three or four taps marked time for a few moments before the rattling clatter began again. It sent chills through Mark’s already cold body. When the noise reached their longboats the second time, he realised it was coming closer. It was running across the ceiling. Mark imagined clawed toes clicking off stone. ‘It must have multiple legs,’ he said aloud, ‘or hundreds of toes, to be making that racket.’
He leaned forward and pulled with all his might. Where was the opposite shore? Fifty minutes: that wasn’t very long. One class period. Not long at all. Mark realised he lived most of his life in fifty-minute increments: open with a warm-up question, five minutes, move into a reading or a few minutes of lecture or discussion, give them some guided practice, or extend the discussion, circulate while they work independently, answer questions or clear up problems and close with a reminder of the day’s objectives. Fifty minutes. There was nothing to it. He did it five times a day. Fifty-minute increments were in his blood. Where in all the circles of Hell was the opposite shore?
The unholy scream came again, much closer this time, and Mark was not the only one to cry out in response. He felt his skin crawl, as if the yelp had pierced his flesh and buried itself in his bones like a tiny burrowing parasite. They were being hunted. The clattering came from somewhere up above, like clamorous rain, and Mark hunched down, an involuntary response. ‘Please don’t let it drop down on us,’ he whispered, but somehow he knew that was inevitable. It was dark, so dark … his throat tried to close and he struggled to swallow. ‘Surely it’s too dark for anything to live down here,’ he muttered, knowing he was kidding himself.
By now they were all rowing madly, pulling with all their might. As the strangely terrifying tapping drew ever closer, the coxswain’s rhythm began to speed up. ‘Stroke, stroke, stroke.’ Mark could see Steven standing in the stern of Gita’s longboat; his friend raised one hand and sent a glowing fireball up towards the ceiling. All eyes were on the hazy light of the magic orb as it wafted ever closer to the distant stone ceiling and the boats slowed to a drift. There was a short cry, and a quick bustle of inhuman footsteps as the creature retreated from the light. Mark thought he had seen something, a shadow, maybe the irregular outline of a misshapen form. He coughed, and tried to mute the sound. Above, Steven’s fireball moved slowly back and forth, and each time it came near the creature, there was a brief shriek and a commotion as the monster hustled off.
The light. That was it! Mark craned his neck over the side and called to Steven, a hoarse whisper that emerged much louder than he had intended, ‘The light, Steven, intensify the light.’ Steven shot him an understanding look and almost immediately the light grew brighter, changing from a warm yellow to an intense white. As it did, a hulking dark mass dropped from the ceiling a hundred yards away and crashed into the water with a resounding splash. So he was right: despite the weirdness of any living creature calling such a place home – this monster obviously did – living in constant darkness meant it couldn’t stand light. And if it was the bone-collector, then judging by the size of its charnel-house, it had been down here for some time. Mark imagined it with great round eyes, with pupils as large as his fist; even the smallest pinprick of light would be blinding.
He took advantage of the additional light to turn around and search for the opposite shore. It was there, some two hundred paces out: a gently sloping beach that led up to a series of caves. There was a big opening off to the left, with footprints and tracks leading in and out: that would take them back to the surface and safety – well, of a sort, as long as the Malakasians hadn’t found the entrance yet.
Their coxswain sounded comforted by the bright light; his chant was stronger now: ‘Stroke, stroke, stroke.’
Mark turned back to his oar and was about to take up the rhythm again when he saw the longboat beside them start to turn slowly about. The two vessels had been moving alongside each other, but now their stern bumped gently into his oar.
‘What’s happening over there?’ he asked his companion. ‘There’s no current here, is there? It can’t be that creature; I can still hear it splashing around back there.’
His companion stopped rowing and looked at him for a moment, but just as he opened his mouth, Marked interjected, ‘Oh, shit! There are two of them!’ He started to shout a warning, but it was an instant too late. The longboat beside them exploded in foam and water. A profusion of long, muscular legs gripped the vessel from below, crushing it to splinters and trapping its inhabitants between the broken planks.
The attack lasted only a few moments, but it was long enough for Mark to see what had been making the tapping sound against the cavern ceiling: each leg was encased in armour plating, a protective exoskeleton of some thick chitin-like substance. At the end of each leg, there was a solid mass of dark, muscular flesh, with six or eight long, thin appendages attached, like elongated toes, each tipped with fierce-looking clawed nails. It must have been those nails tapping across the ceiling.
Garec had reacted at Mark’s first cry and was already firing arrows rapidly into the creature’s hidden bulk, but though he was doubtless hitting his target, his strikes appeared to have little effect.
The victims, held fast by the creature’s legs, started screaming for help and mercy, and Mark stared in horror as the elaborate, clawed toes began tearing the Falkans apart, shredding flesh and plucking off limbs. ‘Good God,’ he whispered, frozen in place by the macabre scene.
There was a cry, and a large splash beside him. The feel of cold water on his face startled him enough to tear his eyes away from the carnage. Timmon Blackrun had drawn a short dagger and dived over the side. Mark was incredulous as he watched the corpulent Falkan leader swim the few strokes that separated the two boats. ‘Does he think he can fight that thing?’ he asked out loud.
No one answered.
‘He must think he can.’ Mark answered his own question and looked over at Brynne, but she wasn’t listening; she had her own knife in her hand and had stripped off her tunic. ‘Brynne, no!’ he shouted, but she ignored him and dived in after Timmon, closely followed by Mark’s rowing companion.
Mark could see Garec was almost out of arrows. Before he could talk himself out of it, he stripped to the waist, grabbed his axe and leaped in behind the others.
The water was cold and the chill swept over his body like a sudden Arctic wind. He dived beneath the surface into a cloudy green glow and watched as the
creature began to take shape through the gloom. What was it? It was huge, much larger than the boat. It obviously ate people – there wouldn’t be enough fish in this entire lake to keep something this big alive, even for a Twinmoon. He wondered for an instant how it managed to feed. Did it go to the surface or lurk about in the caves? Did it sneak out at night and steal animals from nearby farms? He shook his head to banish his unanswered questions: this was not the time for Show and Tell …
Don’t try to hack off any limbs! He could hear Sallax’s words – the big Ronan had never seen these limbs, but he was right: it wasn’t the monster’s legs Mark needed to attack. Christ, he’d be at it until spring. Instead, he had to find those big bulbous eyes he was certain it possessed and hack them out with the axe. There was no way they were going to be able to kill this thing, not with such rudimentary weapons; the most they could hope for was to drive it off before it killed even more of Gita’s already weakened force – or any of them: Steven, Garec or Brynne. Blinding the monster would cripple it; if it couldn’t see, surely it would have to give up the offensive.
Mark swam beneath the creature and reached out with his free hand to anchor himself. In the half-light he could see thick hair growing across a nearly flat area – maybe its back, or its underbelly, he wasn’t sure which – but as his hand drew near he realised that what he had taken to be thick fur was actually an expanse of clawed toes similar to those that spiked the ends of each armour-plated leg. The spindly tentacles had already gripped him by the wrist; now they began to pull.
He brought the battle-axe around and lopped off the spindles holding him fast, then surfaced quickly to draw a much-needed breath and to survey the battle going on above. He felt something moving fast, brushing against the bottoms of his feet and realised the second creature was closing in on them. He caught a glimpse of Steven, standing in the stern of Gita’s longboat and looking indecisive. If Steven joined them in the water, he might not be able to control the magic fuelling the now-powerful fireball. They would be plunged into darkness – and that would be the end of them all. These bone-collectors ruled the dark. The water’s chill sent an icy finger along his spine as he kicked back beneath the grim assailant. He hadn’t spotted Brynne but couldn’t think about that now.
Mark came up beneath the monster once again, careful not to get too close, and swam towards one end, searching for an eye, or anything that looked vulnerable, but he found nothing except a narrow, tapered end of the tentacled expanse: wrong end. He was about to swim back when the monster began to sink, dragging the remains of the longboat and its crew with it. Mark could see that many of the crew, although injured, were still alive: it looked like the beast was going to drown the remaining survivors, then drag the whole lot off to a quiet beach to feed.
Something went by him in a rush: the other creature? It had circled around and now came at full speed to attack another of the boats. Please don’t let it be Steven’s boat, or Garec’s. Cold comfort that Brynne was already in the water, but maybe while she was trying to kill the first monster she’d be overlooked by the second.
‘Stay there, Steven,’ he prayed, ‘keep the light burning. Hit it if you can, but keep the light burning.’
He turned his attention back to the bone-collector: its surviving victims didn’t have much time. Dodging an armour-plated leg and lashing claws, he kicked down. Maybe he could tug free some of the struggling soldiers.
Then he saw it: glinting in the light, reflecting Steven’s fire like a pane of glass. It shut off suddenly, but that one quick glimpse was long enough: Mark had found the creature’s eyes. So the tapered end was the creature’s head. Perhaps, in battle, it folded its head beneath itself for protection while it gripped its victims with its mighty arms and legs. Arching its protective back and tucking in its head and underbelly would leave no part vulnerable – but Mark had seen the light reflected briefly off its wide black corneas. He knew what to do.
Mark swam to the surface and filled his lungs then, exhaling slowly, he descended back to the monster’s face. As he passed through a thermocline he realised it was getting too deep: he had just this one chance. The creature, as if sensing his approach, swiped a massive forearm, trying to crush the annoyance, but Mark saw it coming and just managed to spin out of the way. He could see, even in the murk, a number of Garec’s arrows had pierced the creature’s armour after all.
Suddenly he spotted an opening. The beast, a hideously mutated child of the gorgon, lashed out at him with the spiked appendages that dotted its face and neck. Mark chopped away half a dozen of them, but had to dodge and dive to avoid the one free limb still groping for him.
There it was! The creature’s eye opened again, and without even pausing to think, Mark took his best shot, plunging the blade of the battle-axe deep into the iris. The monster screamed, a shriek that resonated throughout Mark’s body and echoed around the vast cavern like a crowd of banshees heralding the death of deaths; it so unnerved him that he inadvertently drew a breath, stopping just in time as the lake water filled his mouth. As he stretched for the surface the monster released its grip on the longboat and its crew. The creature rolled its head, presenting the other eye, and even though he was in danger of choking, Mark could not resist the chance to repeat his success and swiped with his axe as he swam past. This time he wasn’t so lucky: a flailing tentacle sliced a gash across Mark’s stomach, and he clutched the wound as he broke the surface of the lake. He trod water for a few seconds, gasping and coughing out the last of the water. His stomach hurt, but he wasn’t dead.
He looked around. No sign of the monster, and Mark had no idea if any of the victims had survived. Flotsam from the wrecked longboat bobbed on the water around him. He started to push his way past the bloating corpses, feeling weak, exhausted and in pain.
Then Steven’s light went out.
Steven had watched, terrified, as the first longboat was dragged beneath the surface. Standing in the stern, he had hesitated, not out of fear, but to consider his options. Mark and Brynne were already in the water, following Timmon; he saw Brynne fighting bravely, ramming her hunting knife into one of the creature’s forelegs and pulling its victims to safety. Should he dive in and try to blast the creature from below? He could do it, he was sure, but it was already hard work keeping the intensely bright light glowing; he didn’t want to lose his concentration and leave them all in total darkness. There were at least two of these monsters, and it seemed like the light was keeping the second away – but what if there were three, or thirty? He had no choice: right now his magical light was their best defence.
He wondered if he could strike out at the monster without injuring any of Gita’s men, but he was already too late: the longboat was gone. Brynne and Timmon’s crewmen had collected the few survivors and were swimming back to their own boat. There was no sign of Timmon himself. Garec was still standing in the stern, waiting for another opportunity to fire on the beast. Steven could see his quivers were nearly empty.
Where was Mark? Steven shouted ineffectually at the water, ‘Mark, where the hell are you?’
Hearing him, Brynne turned around and began searching frantically, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was a strong swimmer, they knew that, but no one had seen him since Brynne jumped to Timmon’s aid. How long ago had that been? Could he remain submerged that long? She looked up at Steven; they didn’t need to speak. Brynne drew a deep breath and disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.
Steven tore off his jacket and tunic, gripped the staff in one hand and dived in. He swam vigorously and, realising the creature was dragging the longboat to the bottom, followed it. Judging by the number of bodies, it didn’t look as if any of the longboat crew had survived; several of the dead had already been dismembered and large bites had been taken out of limbs and torsos. Timmon’s huge frame floated by. Steven marvelled at the peaceful look on the soldier’s face. He had died in battle – perhaps that was enough for him. Steven was praying that his friend had survived, but dou
bt began to elbow its way past the chill and settle in his bones.
Something rushed by him with a whoosh and Steven was turned over in the strong current that followed in its wake. A second beast was attacking.
Mark? Where the hell are you? Steven struggled with his conscience: if he didn’t return to the surface, another boat might be taken – no, never mind. It was too late: at that speed, the monster would have reached the little flotilla: it probably had a vessel in its grasp already. He needed to find Mark. He needed to keep the light burning.
Keep the light burning, Steven thought, but his lungs ached and the hand clenching the staff was cramping. Mark! Keep the light burning, Steven. Where are you, Mark? It was taking too long. He wasn’t as strong a swimmer; he couldn’t stay submerged much longer. He was torn by the need to find his best friend and the need to keep the orb at its current brilliant intensity, but he had little choice now. He would deal with the consequences if they lived through the next five minutes. As he had beneath the river in Meyers’ Vale, Steven summoned the staff’s magic to fill his lungs with air. The magic came quickly, but his fears were confirmed, for as his breathing eased, the cavern above was plunged into complete darkness.
Steven had to search by hand now, putting aside his squeamishness to grope over the bodies trying to identify Mark, but so far all he had found were dead Falkans. Finally he decided his search was pointless. If Mark was still submerged, he was dead. He summoned the staff’s magic to his fingertips and swam towards the longboats.
As soon as he emerged, the brilliant light returned. He cast it high into the air above the carnage and shuddered as it illuminated the second beast: the bone-collector looked like an offspring of Cthulhu, and it was lying astride the remains of a crushed longboat, using its hideous tentacles to shred its victims. In the stafflight Steven could see blood gushing and splattering into the water as heads were torn from torsos and legs and arms ripped apart. The crack of splintering bones punctuated the air, as did the screams of pain, horror and despair, a veritable wall of sound that echoed about the cavern. Steven shuddered: he would hear these sounds for ever in his nightmares.
