MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1)

by James Hunter

  The wolves moved in concert, darting in as one—overwhelm and incapacitate, a common pack strategy. They were big enough to do it, too. Levi could survive an attack from these two, but it would cost him precious time, perhaps time enough for the rest of the pack to close in and encircle him. Against six or seven of these beasts … well, Levi wasn’t one for math—for numbers and figures and odds—but he knew his chances were slim in that scenario. So, he needed to prevent them from closing in. From cutting off his exit route.

  Grimacing, he shifted his left hand, stretching and hardening his fingers into spikes of gleaming obsidian. He planted his feet, bending his knees, preparing for the inevitable hit from Busted-Skull, angling in from the side—that one, he’d just have to wrestle to the ground. Once he’d dealt with Ground-Beef, he could smash its head in right and proper, for good this time.

  He wound back his arm, a pitcher preparing to hurl a fastball, then whipped the limb forward, flicking his wrist at the last moment. The sharpened spears of obsidian separated with a crack—the pain was an enormous living thing, like dipping his hand in magma—but worth the price.

  Five spears sailed through the air like rockets, slamming into Ground-Beef, passing through scale and impaling muscle with ease. All five missiles scored a hit, and three found their mark true: one embedded in the creature’s throat, another protruded from the center of its milky eye, and the last buried itself in its amputated mouth. The creature stalled, staggering drunkenly about, then flopped onto its belly, legs splayed out, gore leaking from his face and neck.

  Levi cradled his left hand, now sans fingers, against his chest, golden ichor flowing freely over his hands and trailing onto his forearm. He swiveled toward the remaining Sprawl beast barreling toward him and braced for impact, muscles tightening on instinct.

  He caught sight of Busted-Skull tearing toward him, as expected, but he also saw Ryder—just to the left and behind him. Not at the temple, like he’d instructed, but instead holding strong, clutching a pistol in one shaky hand. She raised the revolver, steadied the gun with her other hand, stole a handful of deep breaths, then unloaded the weapon at the wolf charging Levi’s position. The shots weren’t terribly well placed—several flew wide and disappeared into the early morning light—but a few blasted the creature in its side and legs.

  Busted-Skull seemed unperturbed by her interference, but it did shift its focus, head turning toward the sound of the shots, assessing this new threat.

  A small opening, but a valuable one.

  Levi shot left, slamming his bleeding, fingerless hand into the ground, a shallow divot blooming from the force of the blow. He willed the gout of ichor liberally coating his maimed fist into the dirt, shaping it and using it to connect to the rock below. He was weak from his wounds, but not so weak he couldn’t call out to the land. The ground rippled then bucked, and a shaft of sand, thick as a baseball bat and long as a pool cue, erupted from the ground at an angle, tapering off to a razor point at its end.

  In a moment, the ichor worked its own special brand of magic, transmuting and transforming the sand into a lance of nearly invisible, fire-hardened glass. The wolf never slowed its madcap charge toward Levi, and never saw the spike—assuming it could see at all. It ran, full-bore, into the earthen javelin.

  The glass spear entered in below the sternum, and the creature’s body weight did all the heavy lifting, driving the stake through its armored exterior and deep into its chest cavity. The Sprawl wolf skittered, claws raking at the ground, but his momentum was too great to be stopped entirely, even by the glass spear. Instead the shaft snapped and the creature pitched forward, crashing into the ground with a thud, the broken spike still jutting from his torso. Busted-Skull’s huge body summersaulted over, back plowing a shallow furrow through the sands before the thing came to a herky-jerky stop.

  Levi didn’t waste time watching the spectacle—there were more wolves out there, and Ryder’s effort would be in vain if he didn’t move fast. He gained his feet, ignoring the burns along his body and the blaring pain in his hand, and bolted toward Ryder. He scooped her up in a flash, using his good hand to sling her over his broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he sprinted outright for the temple, and never mind what might be approaching at his back.

  A chorus of yowls and heavy panting chased Levi into the temple’s cavernous entryway—a boxy opening, ten feet by ten feet, which tore into the dark interior of the ancient complex. Unsurprisingly, Chuck was already tucked inside, kneeling on the floor, shoulder against one wall, pistol held out and ready. His gun was a mean .50 Desert Eagle: a nasty piece of chrome capable of punching baseball-sized holes in any creature unwise enough to stand on the wrong end. Levi knew a thing or two about guns, but didn’t care much for them. They were unreliable, with far too many variables to consider: bullets, distance, wind speed, cover.

  When Levi swung a sledgehammer fist, he knew exactly where it would land and exactly what it would do. Simple, straightforward, effective.

  Not to mention, Levi enjoyed the closeness of the kill. Shooting someone with a gun would get the job done, but it lacked the intimacy of a spiked mace to the face. He enjoyed feeling the blood splatter against him—he thought to the acid coating his body … well, usually he enjoyed it—and cherished that moment when the life finally sputtered and died. The last flash of a light bulb before it went dark for good.

  That’s the old Levi talking, he reminded himself. He acknowledged his problem, but he was not that man anymore. At least he didn’t want to be.

  He bent over and dropped Ryder onto her butt, then wheeled about, surveying the professor’s abandoned camp, searching for signs of pursuit. It didn’t take long to spot the other members of the Sprawl pack—three of the creatures remained. He’d dispatched two, with a little help from Ryder, and it appeared someone had killed a third, which lay in a crumpled and bloodied heap not far off. Based on the extensive damage to the creature’s face and torso, Levi suspected Chuck’s Desert Eagle was the responsible party.

  The Mudman nodded in approval.

  Strangely, though, the remaining three wolves, two females and a male, ventured no closer.

  Instead, they tooled around out front, pacing or turning in impatient circles as their swaying mouths scoured the ground like bloodhounds picking out a scent. Whatever they sensed or heard kept them at bay, which was a welcome break. Here, in the narrow temple entrance, Levi and his companions had a much better chance of fighting off the creatures, but it was no sure victory. The wolves were powerful beasts in their own right, and with Levi wounded, a pitched battle could go either way.

  Frankly, Levi was surprised they weren’t already trying to force their way in. They didn’t strike him as particularly skittish things—they’d moved in boldly, unafraid—which begged the question, Why weren’t they pressing their advantage?

  Levi looked left, right, up, eyes sweeping over the walls riddled with ancient script. He had a nagging suspicion it was the temple complex keeping the things at bay. The Mudman lumbered forward, crouching down and dropping one hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “Have any of them tried to get in?” he asked.

  Chuck shook his head. “Naw. Just hangin’ ’round out there. That mean sonuvabitch right there”—he pointed his pistol at a particularly thickset female with a puckered wound in one shoulder—“eased off the second I got in here.” He shook his head again.

  Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Levi thought. Not in the Good Book, that one, but there was wisdom in it all the same. This couldn’t be a good sign. Despite their apparent lucky break, Levi knew this could only mean trouble—even more trouble than the wolves.

  The Mudman needed to think, and he also needed a few minutes to tend to his wounds. “Keep watching,” he grunted. “Let me know if they come any closer.” He moved deeper into the hallway and sat down, leaning his broad back against a wall.

  Troubling notions careened through his mind like a rockslide: unspoken worries he had no answers for.
He sighed. Better to deal with his injuries first, then he could decide what the best course of action was. Often, he found, occupying his mind with some simple and concrete task was the best solution when he had a difficult problem to tackle. Give the issue a little leeway, let it drift a bit so he could gain some distance and perspective.

  He went to work like a mechanic with a busted up car on his hands. He dredged up a heap of loose gravel and gritty sand and unceremoniously set about packing his gold-soaked wounds. He used his good hand to cram dirt in, packing the material until it formed a brown clot. The cool sand, rough and granular, was a soothing balm for his hurt, a topical antiseptic and bandage in one. Next, he shoved his fingerless left hand into the remaining pile of rubble, corkscrewing his stumpy nubs into the stone again and again. A pestle grinding away in a mortar.

  The motion was further agony; the corkscrew of his hand reopened the gaping holes where fingers had been, causing the ichor to flow freely again. His stunt with the glass spear had robbed the limb of much of its strength and had caused his knuckles to close improperly. Sometimes, with such an injury, the only way forward was actually a step back. In another few minutes the lacerations would close nice and neat, though he’d be short fingers on his left hand for a while yet. Likely, it’d take a trip to his bloodstone—lounging in the shade of Skip’s knobby tree—to fully recover.

  That was a worry for later.

  He stole sporadic peeks at the wolves while he worked.

  They’d settled down. No more pacing, now.

  The remaining members of the pack had dragged over the corpses of their fallen kin, and sat in a rough circle, anteater-mouths sucking out the juices of their dead as they guarded the entryway. Watching them, Levi could only come to a single conclusion: they were afraid to enter the temple. That had to be it. Nothing else fit. The fact that the beasts remained also meant the wolves expected whatever was in the temple to drive Levi and the others out. Once more Levi’s mind circled back to a question he didn’t really want to answer:

  What could be in here that even Sprawl wolves didn’t want to cross?

  SIXTEEN:

  The Temple

  “The hell you mean we’re going in?” Chuck asked, eyes squinted, forehead wrinkled, incredulity thick on his face. “I ain’t goin’ in there.” He pointed down the hallway disappearing into black. “I ain’t no dummy. Those things out there”—he waved vaguely toward the wolves—“are scared to be in here. If they’re scared, we should be scared, too, know what I’m sayin’?”

  Ryder bobbed her head in agreement. “Gotta throw my vote with Chuck, Big Guy,” she said. “Those things aren’t gonna come in here, so it seems smarter to wait ’em out. I mean we don’t know what’s in here, but eventually those things will go away, then there we are.”

  Levi grunted and folded his arms. Idiots, both of them. He wanted to chastise them for their lack of forethought.

  Outwait the wolves … Not likely. Scavengers like that could be very patient, especially since they had shelter and a ready supply of food. Idiots. He took a few deep breaths, pushing away the growing surge of irritation building up inside his chest. Better a patient person than a warrior; one with self-control than one who takes a city, he reminded himself.

  “Wait for them to leave,” he replied, flat and cold like the arctic tundra. “And what if they don’t? How long will our supplies last? You’ve got water and food for a couple days, maybe? I’ll survive, but I can’t promise you two the same. Those creatures out there … well, they do have food and water. More than enough for a few weeks I’d wager, so I can’t imagine they’ll be in any rush to leave.”

  “Yeah, but—” Chuck said.

  Levi held up a massive clay mitt. “I’m not done. Even assuming those things leave, an assumption that could cost us everything, it doesn’t change anything. We’re out here for one reason, to find Professor Wilkie.” He shot Ryder a level look. “If you want to figure out what happened to you, we need to find him. He’s our lead. Our only lead. Since his body’s not out there in the tents, it might mean he’s inside here somewhere. And, even if he’s not”—he shrugged beefy shoulders—“maybe this place can tell us a thing or two. Understand me?”

  He pulled out the photo of the altar he’d lifted from the professor’s work tent, unfolded it, and tossed it onto the floor, glossy side up. “Could be,” he continued, “this temple is somehow related to whatever the Kobocks are up to.”

  Ryder solemnly considered the words, chewing at her bottom lip while her hands caressed the barrel of the snub-nosed pistol. “There’s no other way?” she asked after a time.

  Levi shook his cue-ball head. “Outworld’s a big place, kid, but some things are buried too deep. We don’t find this professor, we don’t find the answers.”

  In his mind, he could see rain beating down from above as he crawled from a body-filled pit, lumbered to a concrete pill box, and saw the strange altar with its ruby eyes within.

  “And we both need those answers.”

  “Alright,” she said with only a slight pause, “I’m in.”

  “Yeah, but—” Chuck said again.

  Levi ground his blunt teeth and lumbered toward the man. “You,” he said tersely, “don’t have any say. One, this isn’t a democracy. Two, if it was you’d still be outvoted. And, three, you’re my guide—I’m paying you to take me where I want to go, and where I want to go is that way.” He gestured toward the hallway behind them. “Lead me or don’t get paid.”

  Chuck frowned, muttering under his breath as he kicked at the stone floor with one foot, ornery and stubborn as a mule. “Fine, you lumpy, ass-ugly son of a bitch. But I expect better compensation. So make me an offer or I’ll sit my black ass right here and take my chances.”

  The Mudman paused, jaw clenched, brows knitted. In general, he disapproved of sin in all its various forms—adultery, fornication, idolatry, murder—but greed, he found, was the most useful, rivaled only by vanity. For a few green bills, bills not even worth the paper they were printed on, people would risk bloody death. He didn’t care about the money, and since this place was undoubtedly dangerous, having the guide along could be the difference between life and death. “Fair enough,” he replied. “Double the rate. Twenty grand, even.”

  Chuck turned and surveyed the ancient stone walls, eyes boring into the temple as if he could somehow discern the threats ahead. “You need me more than I need you,” he said, a shifty grin tracing his lips. “Twenty-five and I’m in. Otherwise”—he frowned, a look of complete indifference—“like I said, I’ll take my chances with the wolves.”

  “You get twenty or I throw you to the wolves. Then we’ll see how much you need me,” Levi replied, stretching out his tree-trunk arms and popping his meaty neck with a crack. He didn’t care about the money, but Chuck was a sneaky sort and fear could be nearly as good a motivator as greed. Both greed and fear would be best of all.

  “Bullshit.” Chuck’s grip tightened around the massive pistol in his hand. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  He glanced at Levi, studying the Mudman’s deadpan features. “Come on, man, you’re just playin’, right? You wouldn’t do it? No way.” Levi flexed his good hand, fingers curling and uncurling. Chuck turned to Ryder, worry growing. “He’s playin’ right?”

  Ryder gave him a waggle of her shoulders.

  “Fine, twenty even, asshole. But I’ll remember this bullshit.” Chuck bent over his pack, unzipped the main compartment, and rummaged around for a heartbeat before liberating a pair of hefty black Mag Lights. He tossed one to Ryder, tucked the other under one arm, zipped up the pack, and hastily slung it over his shoulder.

  “If I die, Mudman, I’m gonna haunt you. You hear that? I’ll be pestering your lumpy, gray ass for the next millennium. Ain’t nowhere gonna be safe. You sittin’ on the john? I’ll be there, tappin’ at your shoulder. You tryin’ to get your mack on with some other nasty-ass mud-woman, I’ll be sittin’ next to you tellin’ her what a colossal t
ightwad dick head you are. And don’t think I can’t do it. I know people, Levi, I know people.”

  “Duly noted,” Levi replied. “Now lead the way.”

  Chuck clicked on the flashlight and held it up in his left hand, his monster Desert Eagle never leaving his right. He frowned, shot Levi one last evil glare, then turned and stalked forward, muttering obscenities the whole while. Levi motioned Ryder to follow, while he took up the rear guard—just in case the wolves grew bold enough to venture into the temple’s interior. Levi made his way over to the wall as they walked deeper into the building, ignoring the dancing beam of Chuck’s flashlight, instead directing his senses into the blocky stone infrastructure composing the complex.

  His awareness spread through the wall, into the floor below and ceiling above, but everything felt muffled, muted. Part of that was due simply to the foreignness of the earth here, but there was more to it as well. Something lived in this place—maybe the odd vegetation he’d see outside?—and it fought off the intrusion of his questing mind. After fifteen feet the tunnel turned into a deeply sloped walkway plunging deeper into the ground, deeper into blankness—the flashlights did next to nothing to banish the gloom.

  For ten minutes, they treaded onward, Chuck in the lead, Ryder in the middle, Levi trailing behind, fingers brushing along stone.

  The doorway loomed out of the murk in an instant, one moment absent, the next moment present. A gateway, like nothing Levi had ever seen before. A pale-green metal wall, the color of split pea soup, spanned the entire length of the tunnel. He ran a hand over its surface. The metal looked like steel, but wasn’t—the texture was off. Soft, fleshy, spongy, like a piece of overcooked tofu. Even with Levi’s extensive history and long life, he couldn’t put a name to the material. In the wall’s center hung a massive door of overlapping and interlocking green metal plates, the kind of thing one might find in a high-tech military bunker.