Legacy of Steel

by Mary H. Herbert

  The skittering sound of falling gravel came across the room from the corridor she had left. Sara froze. Her blood throbbed in her head, and the hairs rose on the back of her neck. She felt it once again, that insistent warning that something was watching her.

  All at once the hazy words came back to her: "The horax will dispose of the body." The horax. An image formed in her memory of something she had heard about years ago, of a large insectlike creature that lived in subterranean tunnels and fed off the living and the dead. Her breath rushed through her chest, and she hurried forward into the second hallway.

  In the pale light of her lichen clump, she could see two pairs of tracks. One set led into the chamber the way she had come, while the other set led out along this other corridor. Sara stumbled forward gratefully.

  With something to guide her, she could move faster through the ruined halls, though not fast enough to suit her. She had to move carefully for fear of losing the tracks in the darkness or falling into occasional fissures that split the floor. Other arched doorways led off the corridor, but Sara continued to follow the footprints in the thin layer of dust.

  The strange scuffling sound came again, a little louder and a little closer this time. Something chittered in the dense darkness behind her.

  Sara stifled the urge to look back and kept her eyes pinned to the tracks on the floor. She came to a flight of stairs and stumbled up the steps as fast as her shaking legs could carry her.

  "Please let there be an opening. Please let me out of here!" she panted softly.

  Another large chamber opened up before her. This one, too, had been cleared, and more clumps of glowing lichen grew on the walls and the high ceiling. A few rats poked their heads up when she entered, then slipped furtively away into the thick darkness.

  The footprints led plainly across the wide room past a huge crack in the floor to an arched entrance. At the far side, where the tracks exited the room, they joined with a much larger trail of barefooted prints that came up from a staircase. That trail had to be the footprints of the labor gangs that were excavating the temple's levels.

  The movement of air Sara had noticed earlier was noticeably stronger. A definite draft, similar to the smell of the city above, blew through this entrance, stirring her hair.

  Sara clutched her ball of lichen and hurried forward.

  Behind her, at the far end of the room, a long, slender shape, as black as the darkness around it, skittered in through the door. A second followed, then a third. Two more crawled out of the crevice in the floor. They met in the middle of the chamber, chittered among themselves, and all five scurried after the fleeing woman.

  Sara heard them coming. The noise sounded dry and rattling, like the bones thrown by a soothsayer. Fear surged through her. She broke into a trot, then a run. She had to be close to the opening. The breeze was stronger, and the smells were different.

  All at once, the ceiling opened up into a huge hole, and overhead she saw the gloomy night sky of Neraka and the faint reflection of distant torchlight. Dropping her bundle of lichen, she scrambled under the opening and looked frantically for the way out.

  Her shout of joy died in her throat, for all she saw were the sheer walls of the hole. Paths came down the upper slope of the huge crater, but at the bottom, where the hole broke into the remains of the temple, there was a twelve-foot drop down to the old floor. Sara looked around frantically. There had to be something the slaves used to climb out of the ruin. She saw gouges in the dirt walls where ladders must have stood, but now there was nothing. No boxes, no ladders, not even a step-stool.

  What a stupid arrangement! she cursed. They couldn't build a simple set of steps for the slaves to use?

  Suddenly she whirled. Something moved in the darkness, its hard feet scratching against the stone. She could see nothing beyond the faint glimmer of the lichen on the floor where she dropped it. The thing moved again, then another thing clicked along the wall to her right. They sounded large and solid and quite at home in the darkness.

  Sara's hand automatically flew to her sword, only to meet the empty scabbard. Her attackers had left her with no weapons. Or had they missed one? Her heart in her throat, she bent and reached for the slender blade in her boot. She cried with relief as her fingers found the stiletto still safely tucked away.

  "Get out of here!" she shouted at the unseen things, and she brandished her knife in their general direction.

  "There you be," shouted a voice above her. "Are you fine?"

  Sara's head jerked up in surprise. "No, I'm not fine! Please, help "me!" She searched the hole overhead and finally saw a small black figure perched on the edge of the drop-off. It appeared to be peering down at her. "Who are you?" she cried.

  "I Fewmet, the gully dwarf. You give me coin and kind words. I see men drag you off, so I follow," came the raspy, hesitant voice.

  Sara did not think she had ever heard a sound so sweet "Fewmet, please, could you see if there is a ladder or a rope or anything I could use to climb out of here? There's something down here that wants to eat me."

  "Oh, the horaxes. I no like them," commented the gully dwarf.

  "I no like them either!" Sara shouted. "Would you please hurry?"

  She heard a scrambling noise as the gully dwarf climbed out of the crater, then her attention flew back to the horax. They were scuttling closer from several directions. She stamped and shouted and waved her knife, and for a moment they seemed to hesitate. One edged warily into the glimmer of light from the lichen, and for the first time, Sara was able to see her pursuers.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The thing in the greenish light was long and low to the ground, shiny black, and segmented like an armored centipede. It had six pairs of legs and short but powerful-looking mandibles that moved slowly back and forth as if the creature were tasting the air.

  "Fewmet, hurry!" she shouted. She backed up until her shoulders touched the wall.

  A horax made a feint toward her leg. Sara screamed and kicked at its head. The force of her blow sent it rolling back into the darkness. Chittering sounds echoed out of the silence and rattled around her head.

  "Knight woman?" came the voice of the gully dwarf.

  "No can find the ladders. Men move far away. Did find this." Something long and thin fell out of the sky and crashed at her feet, just barely missing her already battered head.

  "What is it?" she yelled.

  "Torch!" he answered proudly.

  Sara swallowed her frustration. "Fewmet, I don't have any way to light it."

  "It already lit. Just blow on it."

  Cautiously she reached out and picked up the torch. One end was very hot and glowed a faint red as if the flame had just been banked.

  The horax suddenly chittered, and two of the creatures charged at her from left and right. Sara did not have time to think. She blew frantically on the torch, then whirled the end outward toward the horax on her left. To her surprise and the horax's, the torch burst into bright yellow flame. The horax chittered in rage and fell back, its eyes blinded.

  The light was so bright to Sara's eyes after the blackness of the ruin that for several moments she couldn't see either. The creature on her right scuttled under her desperately waving knife and fastened its mandibles on her ankle.

  Sara shrieked a cry of mingled pain and rage. She whipped the knife around to an underhanded grip and drove the point downward toward the black shape she could barely see by her leg. Her stroke fell true and pierced the horax just behind one of its eyes. The terrible pressure on her ankle relaxed, and the creature slumped to the ground, mortally wounded.

  Furiously she kicked it in the direction of the other horaxes. One of them grabbed the body and hauled it out of sight. The others fell back to regroup.

  Slowly Sara's eyes grew accustomed to the change of light. The torch burned merrily in her hand, throwing a myriad of dancing shadows on the wall of the corridor. The horaxes remained out of sight, although she could still hear them chittering an
d scuffling just beyond the torchlight.

  "Fewmet?" she called hopefully. "Can you find a rope?"

  Silence met her query.

  "Fewmet!" she bellowed again. To no avail. The night above remained quiet; the gully dwarf had left. Sara fought down a surge of panic. Maybe the gully dwarf had gone for help; maybe he was seeking for a ladder somewhere else. Surely he hadn't just taken off to look for a snack in some trash dump.

  A strange sound burst out of the darkness where the horaxes lurked. A high-pitched humming sound reverberated along the corridor and vibrated down into the depths of the ruin. It lasted several seconds, stopped, and started again.

  Sara shivered. The noise sounded too much like a signal.

  The humming stopped, and a deep silence settled back over the lightless chambers. Then, far away, from somewhere deep within the old temple, came an answer.

  The woman gasped. She dropped the torch and made a desperate leap upward toward safety. She managed to jam the blade of her knife into a crack in the wall above her head, and she hung there trying to find purchase for her feet. But the walls were smooth stone at her level, and her body, weakened from the blow to her head, could not muster the strength to make the sheer climb. The blade of her knife slipped loose, and she tumbled to the ground beside the torch. She lay still, sick and dizzy.

  The horaxes seemed to sense her weakness. Three of them moved closer, clacking their mandibles.

  Sara managed to stagger to her feet. Her ankle hurt like fury and her head was ringing. She picked up the torch and waved it at the creatures. "Get away!" she hissed.

  They stopped just out of her reach, but they did not retreat. They had her pinned against the wall and they knew it. They simply waited, their round, black eyes watching her every move.

  Sara waited, too, her knife in one hand, the torch in the other. Her eyes never left the shiny black horaxes.

  Two sounds simultaneously registered in her throbbing head, a man's voice and the clatter of dozens of horax feet coming along the corridor.

  "Is there anyone down there?" the man's voice yelled.

  "Yes! I'm here! Hurry, please! They're coming!" she screamed.

  "Sara Conby?" the man cried, amazed.

  "Yes! Hurry! I need a rope!"

  Shouts echoed down the crater. Someone called an order, and suddenly a rope snaked down. Before she could wonder how she would find the strength to tie it around her, another rope dropped down, and a man slithered to the ground beside her. He took one look at the horaxes, spat an oath, and grabbed Sara around the waist.

  "Haul us up. Now!" he shouted.

  The horaxes lunged forward. Sara threw her torch at the creatures and wrapped her arms around the man's chest. In the guttering torchlight, she realized she was face-to-face with Morham Targonne. The young knight grinned at her, and suddenly they were hoisted into the air.

  Their bodies banged against the wall as they were dragged upward. Sara held on with all her remaining strength until she found herself lying on the path above the opening.

  The knight chuckled. "You can let go now before you crush my armor."

  Sara lay back on the dirt and gazed upward at the blessed sky. Dawn lit the eastern horizon with pale gray light, and the air was bitterly cold. A few snowflakes drifted down to land on her face. She smiled at the world. She had never seen anything so lovely.

  A wizened face with a long beard blocked her vision, and Fewmet the gully dwarf looked worriedly down at her. "Knight woman all right? I find help."

  For an answer, Sara threw her arms around him and hugged him, rags and all. Then the world whirled through her mind, and she slipped quietly into a peaceful darkness.

  15

  Derrick told Sara later she slept for thirty-six hours.

  When she first woke up, she had no idea how much time had passed. She lay dreamily on her cot, tucked beneath a warm blanket, and let her senses gradually return. Daylight glimmered through the walls of her tent, and someone had kept a small fire burning in her brazier, where her teakettle gently simmered over the embers.

  Memories of her night's activities returned with total clarity, and she wondered what time it was. Was she too late to stop Massard from going to the general? At that moment, she did not worry that he had. She made a vow that she would make Massard pay somehow for that horrible night in the temple ruins. He wasn't going to get away with what he did to her.

  She lifted her head gingerly from the pillow and was relieved to see her skull was not going to split apart. The tent didn't spin around her and her stomach didn't rebel. A dull headache was all that remained. She sat up and rested on the edge of the cot for a minute, trying to decide if she wanted to find the latrine or go back to sleep.

  Voices began to intrude on her peaceful solitude.

  She stretched her muscles carefully, pulled on her boots, and climbed to her feet. The voices outside grew heated, and all of them were familiar. Her curiosity was piqued.

  A large shadow lay across the entrance of her tent, and at that moment, a faint rumbling began to vibrate in the air.

  Sara shook her head. Going back to sleep was obviously out. She untied the tent flaps and stepped outside.

  Cobalt sat blocking her exit, his bulk crowded in the space between the tents. His wings were tucked tightly around his body, and his tail was wrapped around the side of her shelter. His head was turned away from her so he could watch the squires and Massard standing near Massard's tent. An angry growl was building in his throat.

  None of the people seemed to notice the dragon's ire or Sara's arrival. They were too busy shouting at one another.

  Sara edged her way around Cobalt and put her hand on the dragon's foreleg.

  Startled and angry, he slashed his head around to drive off the intruder. Then he recognized her and he yanked his muzzle back just in time. His teeth clashed on empty air.

  "Sara!" he squealed in delight.

  The arguing group stopped in midvoice and stared at her for a full minute before they closed in around her, everyone trying to yell at the same time.

  Cobalt had enough. He rose to his full height and roared in their faces. The people fell flat on the ground. Alarms rang over the tent camps. Guards came running, their swords drawn.

  "Now you've done it," Sara remarked casually.

  The others raised their heads, brushed themselves off, and climbed to their feet as the guards charged in.

  "It's all right," Sara said loudly. "He was just trying to protect me."

  Knight Officer Massard bullied his way past Derrick and Jacson and shouted at Sara, "Get that dragon out of here! He is a nuisance and a—"

  "No." Sara's refusal cut through his words and rang over the voices of the others. The knights and squires suddenly became very quiet. No knight ever disobeyed a direct order without very good reason.

  Massard's eyes narrowed. He had a great deal he wanted to say to this woman, but he knew this was not the time or place. Instead, he fell back on his rank as a superior officer to get back some control of a situation he felt was rapidly falling apart. "Remove that dragon, or I will have the other dragons do it for you."

  Sara moved out in front of Cobalt, crossed her arms, and repeated "No" in a cold voice of adamant.

  "Do you refuse to obey a direct order?" Massard snarled. A flash of anticipation gleamed through his muddy eyes like the flick of a fish's tail. There was more than one way to solve a problem.

  Sara saw that gleam in his eye and understood then he had not yet exposed her secret. He was still looking for a way to turn things to his advantage. She had to strike now to silence him before he tried again to stop her. There were certainly enough witnesses for her purpose.

  "I refuse to obey an order from an officer I believe to be incompetent and incapable of making decisions for the good of this talon. Therefore I challenge you to a duel for the right of your rank."

  Massard's mouth dropped open. Never did he expect anything like this from this woman.

&n
bsp; Derrick, Marika, Kelena, Saunder, and Jacson stared at her, appalled.

  The other onlookers, the guards and knights, nodded in approval. A challenge for ranking was often the way inferior officers were weeded out.

  "A duel," cut in the general's voice. "Are you sure you want to do that, Conby?" The crowd parted, and Mirielle Abrena strode through with Morham Targonne at her side. She ran an eye over Massard, then turned her sharp scrutiny to Sara. "Morham has told me an interesting story, Knight Warrior Conby. So I come here to see how you fare, and I find you challenging your officer to a duel. Is there more you wish to tell me?"

  Sara's gray eyes were glacial when she faced Massard. "No, General. There is nothing more. Is there, Knight officer?" Her words were as sharp and pointed as a dagger.

  He caught her meaning instantly. For a heartbeat, Sara thought he might risk the extent of her knowledge and try to bluff his way clear, but then she saw him study her from head to toe and make up his mind. She could guess what he was thinking—here was an older woman, lighter, smaller, and poorly trained. She would be an easy kill… .

  Massard visibly relaxed. "No, General," he added. "I accept her challenge."

  Mirielle lifted her golden eyebrows in amusement. "Very well. Knight Warrior Conby, since you are the challenger, I will give you three days to recover from the concussion I hear you suffered. Knight Warrior Massard, you may choose the weapons. Do you wish to fight dragonback?"

  "No," Massard answered quickly.

  "Then we will meet at noon of the fourth day in the Arena of Death. Good hunting. Targonne, tell the officer of the watch that Knight Warrior Conby is excused from guard duty tonight. She does not look like she could guard a mouse." The general turned on her heel and left as abruptly as she appeared.

  Morham Targonne bowed slightly to Sara. "I noticed the other night that your sword was missing. I will have another sent to your tent tomorrow." Ignoring Massard, he strode after the general.