by Aaron Bunce
Is it Renlo’s blood? Or from the… Thorben shook free from those thoughts, another wave of guilt and grief threatening to wash up. He didn’t want to consider that Gor killed Renlo…and all because the guildsman tried to save him. He didn’t feel worthy of that kind of sacrifice.
“You are hiding because you are a coward,” Gor spat, his breathing loud, ragged, and wet. There was something about his voice that sent a chill down Thorben’s back. Something he couldn’t immediately identify.
“You’re also a fool. Do you hear them? Do you? They’re coming for all of us. They’ll tear us apart, one by one. They’ll feed on us.”
The big man turned, a horrible wound coming into view on the side of his head. The skin on the left side of his scalp was torn, leaving his ear to hang slightly off-kilter. The light struck his eyes and Thorben instinctively ducked, the necklaces jingling once again.
“Ha ha ha,” Gor laughed crazily, and Thorben heard him turn.
“Ferret…fisher…weasel, and you,” the big man snarled, the smack of the spear abruptly stopping. “All are slinking, slippery, thieving vermin. You took that ring when I wasn’t looking. Did Renlo know? Did he see? Did he give it to you? He was guild…my brother.”
Thorben listened, but without the tapping spear he couldn’t tell where the man was. He couldn’t seem to hear his boots, or his breathing, either. Had he gone?
Thorben held his breath and listened. A droplet of water plinked not far away, and another sound, perhaps a breath of wind, moaned. Then he heard something moving behind him, or it could have been in any other direction. Every sound echoed, reverberating off the short walls, making it impossible to tell.
He heard it again. It was soft, like the patter patter of bare feet against stone. Thorben turned, the scrape of his soles and the rustle of his pants grating against his nerves. He took Jez gently by the arm and pulled her forward, urging her to move. The girl crawled forward, stooped over, her hair falling like a dark, tangled curtain over her face. Thorben moved to Iona next, but couldn’t crawl with half the grace or stealth as the girl.
“Come come, we need to move. Quick and quiet,” Thorben whispered and helped Iona off the ground. The broker grimaced and fought, tears filling his eyes and running down his cheeks. His boot scraped the ground, but managed to limp along after his daughter.
“Oh, they’re close now, Owl. I can’t wait for you to see them up close, like I did. They’re horrible…twisted, brutal, and wonderful. I killed one, you know. Slit it from belly button to neck, and then hacked its head clean off, and still its body writhed and moved, as if trying to find its missing piece. I survived because I cut Renlo. I cut him deep, and those things tore into him. As soon as they had his blood, his flesh, they didn’t care much about me. That’s how I got out of there. They’re ravenous. But it was you, Owl, you killed him. Not me.”
“We just need to get out of here…get far enough away from him and we can make a run for it,” he whispered, trying to encourage Iona forward, but the broker was struggling to even crawl, his wounded leg dragging like a dead tree limb behind him.
Myrddin moved above him then, the dweorg’s hollow, dark eyes scanning the space.
“He’ll not outrun them. I don’t think you will, either, Thorben long legs. I see them. They move like no beast I’ve ever seen before – swift as a gust of wind and quiet as a shadow. They are death.”
Iona gasped and collapsed, his body smacking the stone, blood dribbling from the bandage on his leg and dripping onto the floor.
“I hear you,” Gor hissed. A flurry sounded not far away, and Thorben turned just as the big man scuffled and landed hard, his upper body leaning over the wall behind them. Gor’s head turned, down the row, his glassy eyes locking onto him. “There you are…Owl!”
Thorben’s chest tightened and he sprawled back onto Iona, the broker writhing and fighting to push him off. Gor’s face was horrible – blood smeared, dirty, and covered with oozing lacerations, his eyes wide and bloodshot. His mouth cracked in a wide smile, half of his teeth missing or rotten.
“Mani flail me,” Thorben cursed and rolled free. He pushed up, wrenched Iona from the ground and shoved the man behind him. His hand dove into his bag, his small knife jabbing under one of his fingernails. Thorben cursed and pulled the knife free, fumbling for his rock hammer, but the tool had fallen from his belt.
Jez and Iona smashed into his back as they edged away from Gor, the large man kicking over the half-wall. His bulk knocked a number of offerings to the ground, his boots landing and smashing them to dust.
“Your blood will flow now, and when they’re feasting on your corpses, I’ll stroll out of here.” Gor leveled the spear at him, the blood-covered sword held tight in his other hand.
Thorben lifted the knife between them. It felt small, so horribly inadequate. Movement flitted off to his right, and then left. He turned to track it but there was nothing there. Another shadow moved to his left, and this time Thorben caught sight of pale, streaking flesh and wispy hair.
“Iona…they’re…”
“All around us,” Jez said, her voice strained. Thorben whipped around in a circle, almost cutting Iona in the process. Dark forms jumped in and out of the shadows between fires, making almost no noise. But then they were all around them, perched on the half-walls like massive, fleshy, disfigured vultures.
The dreygur looked even less like people now. The closest beast leaned forward on its stone perch, its jagged fingernails scraping against the rock. Its head twitched to the side, the knobby bones in its neck popping and shifting, before swinging out and lengthening. The macabre face lifted high in the air, its wide, dark eyes horrible and unblinking. The creature opened its mouth, exposing twisted, jagged teeth, and issued a most peculiar noise. It chirped, its thin, black tongue flicking against the air.
The air filled with a chorus in response. Iona moved, and the closest creature shifted, sniffing at the air and edging along the wall.
“You see, Owl? Aren’t they magnificent?” Gor asked, moving slowly towards him. Thorben watched the dreygur move in, disappearing between shadows, closing in around the big man. Their bodies were still changing, shifting and morphing. Wispy hair fell away, boney ridges appearing under its skin. The closest dreygur clicked loudly and leaned forward, the shriveled nose falling off its face, the desiccated flesh dissolving to dust before hitting the ground. The flesh surrounding the nasal passage shifted and flowed, growing into something that looked far more beast.
Jez shifted, moving back, but none of the creatures seemed to notice. Thorben looked down to Iona’s leg and the fresh trickle of dark blood. He looked back up to Gor. The man was bleeding from a dozen wounds, not to mention the gore that wasn’t his own. The creatures attacked Hun, whose nose had been bleeding.
“They smell the blood. They’re tracking the blood,” Thorben whispered, realizing the truth of it. Both men practically rank of blood and sweat. An idea formed in his mind, and he lifted the small knife to his wrist. “Iona, when I give you the word, take Jez and run.”
Mani, take me quickly, he prayed silently, but a hand snapped out and wrenched the knife free from his hand. Iona held Thorben back, his other hand reaching down to pull the ragged bandage from his leg.
“No.”
“Take Jez, Thorben. Keep her safe,” The broker said, lifting the small knife before him. Blood dribbled out from the wound on his leg, soaking into the stained fabric and spattering the ground.
“Father…no!” Jez cried and tried to push past, but Thorben held her back.
“I have so much to answer for, all those men. Their deaths are my burden. They are on my conscience. Jez, I hope that someday you can forgive me. But, please, find your brother. Find him, and keep him safe. Do it for me!”
Iona turned and moved towards Gor, the tattered bandage falling to the ground. The dreygur moved in eagerly, chirping and clicking, their circle tightening as the two men drew closer together. Thorben pushed Jez back at the sa
me time, hoping beyond hope that one of the beasts wasn’t directly behind them.
“What do you think you’re doing? Now you want to be in control?” Gor growled, glancing to either side at the approaching dreygur.
“I was never in control, Gor, and that was the problem. I never should have come to you and your guild when Priscilla ran off. I should have been a man and found her myself.”
“That is because you’re weak.”
“Men like you will always need men like us, because you’ve got no stones. It’s up to strong men like me to…”
“My wife never listened to me, never took me seriously. Just like you. She tried to control me, just like you. She took everything from me and ran. You put coin in my hand and lorded the debt over my head. You held me at sword point and made me trick all of those delvers…made me watch them die. Enough, Gor. I have control now! I say when it ends.” Iona reached up and ran the blade across his forearm. Fresh blood appeared, dripping onto the stone. The dreygur started to chirp and click more loudly, their heads popping up, their tongues lashing and tasting the air.
“Stop doing that!” Gor growled, swiveling the spear around towards the nearest creature. The beast turned its head down to consider the spear but did not back away. Its dark eyes swiveled from the shiny blade up to the man’s blood-spattered and scratched face. Calculating. Emotionless. Ravenous.
“I have the control now. Do you hear me? I am strong,” Iona said and lumbered forward.
Gor snarled and pulled the spear around, catching Iona in the stomach, but the smaller man didn’t stop moving his legs. He pushed, grunting and crying, clawing towards the bigger man until the spear tip pushed through his back. The guildsman staggered, releasing his grip on the spear handle and lifted the sword to strike, but Iona fell against him. The broker’s hand swung in again and again, plunging Thorben’s short knife into Gor’s chest, arms, and neck. The blade slapped hard, steel punching through the big man’s heavy jacket and shirt, sliding deep into skin and muscle.
Blood ran and spurted, the two men falling back in a heap.
“Run, Owl! Run…run…run,” Iona howled, his hand driving the knife into Gor’s chest. The dreygur swarmed in, their pale, twisted bodies propelling them forward with an inhumanly silent grace.
Jez punched and kicked, clawing to push by, to run to her father’s aid but Thorben wrapped his arms around her thin frame and lifted her free of the ground. He carried her away, despite the pain in his own body, pushed forward by a singular purpose – to survive.
He carried Jez down the path between short walls, dropping her feet to the ground when a twinge bit into his back. Myrddin stood in a dark shadow, glowing against the darkness. He held his arm up and pointed to their left. Thorben pulled Jez around, the girl weeping openly.
“We have to go back…we have to help him,” she moaned, her lip trembling.
Thorben urgently moved her along in silence, lacking the words to argue, or even console her. They ran back along the new path. Myrddin appeared again, motioning them right this time as he navigated them through the maze of half-walls. Thorben pulled Jez around another corner, just as Iona screamed out behind them. No, it wasn’t just a scream. The man said his name.
Jez planted her feet, jerking him to a halting stop. He turned, to see Iona’s face appear momentarily through the throng of churning, pale and frantic bodies. The broker’s arm snapped out, lobbing something dark into the air.
“I’m sorry,” Jez’s father mouthed and promptly disappeared back into the throng. Gor bellowed and threw one of the creatures against a wall, but he too disappeared under the mass of churning, clawing, and biting monsters.
Jez pushed Thorben aside and sprinted forward.
“No, come back,” he yelled, but the girl deftly caught the bag before it hit the ground, planted a foot, and turned. She sprinted by him, stuffing the bag of relics into his hands, before running towards their path to freedom. He followed, tying the bag to his belt and passing Myrddin, who promptly disappeared and reappeared further up the ascending path, his glowing figure a distant, glowing beacon.
Thorben ran, stumbling forward on aching legs. His heart hammered and he gasped for breath, but refused to stop. Jez easily outpaced him, the young woman moving up the slope with all the speed and grace he lacked.
Thorben watched Jez disappear into darkness ahead, and tromped heavy-footed after her. He finally reached the spot where she had vanished, the brazier’s light shining off the bottom few steps of the steep stairwell. He lifted his foot onto the first stair and then the next. A scream rang out somewhere in the massive chamber behind him, the sound bouncing and echoing off the walls of corpses.
Thorben sucked in a breath, forced it out, and gasped in another. He looked up the steep stair, Jez ahead somewhere in the impenetrable gloom. Then he turned, despite every fiber of his being begging him to move forward and up.
The road spanned behind him and down, before opening up on the wider chamber far below, the maker’s shanty a distant cluster of small buildings. The brazier’s warm light pushed the darkness away, but pooled in the skeleton-filled hollows, only the amber and gold armor left to glint and shine.
The braziers in the distant shantytown started to go out, the buildings slipping quickly into darkness. In the span of a few heartbeats the darkness swallowed the buildings and crept up the steep road, moving like a surging beast straight towards him.
Thorben turned and pushed up the stairs, his hands crawling out to either side to find the walls. He fumbled up half-a-dozen stairs one at a time – the risers short and obviously designed for dwarf legs – before taking two, and then three at a time.
The darkness closed in, the small amount of light flickering in from the passage behind dwindling with every step forward. Then it was gone. Thorben fumbled up the steps, his numb and tired legs jerking ungainly in the act, his boots missing steps as frequently as he found them.
“It’s just darkness. It is just darkness. It cannot hurt you. They won’t come. They won’t come,” he mumbled, but his reassurance didn’t help. In the quiet between loud breaths Thorben could hear Jez somewhere ahead, her boots scraping against the stone, her gasping, desperate noises amplified in the tight space.
A light appeared ahead and above – not a torch, but faintly green. It was Myrddin, the ghostly dweorg waiting for him at the very top of the stairs. He was waving, encouraging him forward. Thorben staggered up another chunk of steps but had to look down, the distant light making the climb even more cumbersome.
A noise echoed from the stairs behind him, and he tried to ignore it, dedicating all of his focus to finding the next step and hauling his body forward. But it was there, audible even over the ringing in his ears and his raging heartbeat. The beasts wouldn’t come for him. They were preoccupied…busy.
You’re meat, and predators won’t pass on an opportunity to feed. Of course they are coming for you.
Scritch scratch…scritch scratch.
“It’s nothing…it’s nothing. Just move faster. You’re almost there. Just move faster.”
The numbness crept up into his thighs and hips, the act of climbing beyond tiresome, beyond the familiar burn of fatigue. He refused to stop. Find a step – push. Find a step – push.
Myrddin grew closer, the dweorg’s hand sweeping violently through the air, as if Thorben was caught in a current and he was trying to pull him along. The dwarf’s light just made the darkness around him feel deeper, the distance between them emptier – a void his body refused to cross.
“Yer almost out. Faster. Faster,” Myrddin called, his ghostly voice not echoing in the space.
Thorben fell forward and clawed his way up step by step, but he couldn’t tell how many steps lay between him and the exit. The passage was featureless and black between him and the glowing dwarf, a terrified, animal part of his brain telling him that he would melt into the stone, the darkness, at any moment.
The scratching grew louder behind him, closer
. He hobbled up two more steps as something brushed against the back of his left leg.
No! Thorben jumped, failing to swallow down a terrified cry.
Scritch scratch. Scritch scratch.
He kicked, the exhausted muscles barely flipping his foot forward and onto the next step. He hauled himself up, pushing against the stone walls, moving for the next step as something clamped around his left ankle.
“Myrddin!” Thorben cried out as he tipped forward, almost kissing the stone. He kicked free, his boot connecting with something solid. A grunt followed and the pressure released on his leg. He clawed forward, managing another step, then two. Myrddin was there, a dozen paces away, his greenish glow bathing the steps between them in a faint light.
“Fight! Climb! I can’t pull you out. I’ve awakened the gate and am ready to close it, but I can’t help you, too. I haven’t the strength for both. Hurry!”
Claws bit into the back of his leg and he flopped, missing the next step. His shins banged against the hard stone, his balance tipping and sliding back. Thorben fell down several steps, kicking to no avail. He rolled over, strong, clammy hands crawling up his legs, pulling him down…down and into the darkness.
“No! No! No!” he fought, the bag of relics flopping at his belt and rattling against the stone. The horror appeared, pallid, gray flesh gleaming in the dim light, blood and pulpy meat spattered over its face, mouth gnashing, exposing jagged, yellow teeth and a black, flicking tongue. Its eyes shone black and unblinking as it clawed at him, pulling at his arms and snapping, fighting to pull his neck to its mouth.
“No,” he fought and pushed, hooking the creature under the jaw with a hand, struggling with all of his strength to hold the gnashing teeth at bay. The dreygur’s neck shifted and popped, elongating in his grasp, the head creeping closer, its mouth snapping snapping snapping. He grunted and kicked, pushing the beast back a little, but another of the creatures clawed at his feet, another beyond that fighting to pull itself over top of the others. They were a snarling, clicking, slathering mass, filling the tight stairwell, fighting each other to tear him apart, to devour him.
