The Crucible of the Dragon God tok-4

by Mike Wild

  Inside the cabin, a rather confused Aldrededor steadied his insensible wife while The Mole vibrated so much it seemed in danger of coming apart. Kali, however, seemed little concerned. She rammed the vehicle again and again against the wall and, as there was a series of judders and snapping and clanking sounds from its lower regions, it at last clicked with the ex-pirate what it was Kali was trying to do. She was not trying to destroy the whole vehicle, but only part of it.

  Aldrededor turned to look out of the rear observation slat, directing his gaze right and groundward, and sure enough the tracks on the vehicle's left hand side were breaking apart, its connecting links buckling and separating as the bolts holding them together sheared and loosened. As he watched, the individual plates of the tracks folded, piling up against the hatch, and then the whole lot came loose, flapping away behind the Mole like a discarded belt.

  The Mole dropped onto its metal wheels on its left hand side and was in danger of going into a spin. However, Kali handled it expertly and instead quickly plunged the vehicle through the canal to a rise onto the opposite bank, where she began the same process again. A minute later, the tracks on the Mole's right hand side joined their discarded opposites. Dropping fully onto both sets of wheels now, the vehicle accelerated along the canal bank, spurting a shower of sparks and leaving a rather confused looking yhang-dor in its wake.

  Both Kali and Aldrededor were flung back into their seats.

  "Wahoooo!" Kali shouted.

  Behind her, Dolorosa stirred slightly. "My 'usband, what is 'appening?"

  Aldrededor shrugged his arms helplessly and smiled. "Kali Hooper, she is making it up as she goes along."

  The Mole continued its flight along the canal bank, three or four times its original speed now that its wheels had been freed of the constraining gears of the tracks. Kali smiled as the compass on the control panel informed her they were heading west, exactly the direction they needed to go. Her smile faded, however, as Aldrededor informed her that the yhang-dor was once more in pursuit. Now that it had a perfectly straight tunnel to traverse, it wasn't gaining on them as fast as it would had the tracks still been present, but it was still gaining.

  "Okay, I've had enough of this overgrown toothbrush," Kali declared. "Aldrededor, take the levers."

  The ex-pirate scrambled back over the seat. "Kali Hooper, what are you doing now?"

  Kali flicked the hatch lever and grabbed the crackstaff she had stored beneath her seat, then climbed towards the opening, wind whipping at her hair.

  "Just keep on in this direction, Reddy! Back in a mo…"

  "You're the boss, Kali Hooper."

  Kali heaved herself out of the now opened hatch and steadied herself against the side of The Mole, its passage far from smooth now that it was running only on metal wheels. Nevertheless, she managed to lock herself into a secure position so that she was staring back along the side of The Mole, and raised the crackstaff. Some two hundred yards behind the vehicle, seemingly untroubled by the shower of sparks the Mole still trailed, the yhang-dor roared, its maw opening, displaying its countless razor teeth.

  Somewhat hampered by the fact that she had to cling on for dear life with one hand, Kali steadied the crackstaff as best she could and fired, loosing a bolt of energy that ricocheted off the canal bank and into the ether, while simultaneously almost blowing her off the Mole with its recoil. She anchored herself and fired again. This time the bolt impacted with the weeds on the wall, frying them before again ricocheting back down the long, dark tunnel. Trying not to look at the tunnel floor, as it raced blurringly by immediately below her, Kali fired once more. The bolt careened off the tunnel roof and back down at forty-five degrees into the stagnant water, where the canal erupted with a sudden geyser of steam.

  Dammit! she thought, this was going to be next to impossible unless she found a better position.

  She looked up and, deciding, flung the crackstaff onto The Mole's roof with a grunt, then climbed up after it until she was scrambling on top of the vehicle as it swayed under her. There, lying flat and facing straight back, she lodged the crackstaff beneath her, took aim and fired. An energy bolt slammed into the canal bank directly in front of the yhang-dor, blowing shrapnel in its face.

  Adjusting her aim slightly, she fired again, and then again, and the bolts scythed along the creature's side, burning a path through its layer of bristle. The creature roared and reared, momentarily slowed, but then continued coming on. Kali fired again, again and again, the energy discharges reverberating in the confines of the tunnel. The length of the yhang-dor flared with multiple hits. It launched itself up and around the tunnel walls.

  Keep still, you slippery fark! Kali thought as it spiralled towards her.

  But it did not stop her firing and this time all but one of her multiple shots found their target. Almost pulsating with the blue of the energy bolts now, and shedding sections of skin from where its bristles had fried away, the creature's roar had become one less of anger and more of pain. But still it came on. It was a tough bastard, without a doubt. However, Kali was certain that all it would take to finish it was a few more shots. Particularly if she could get one straight down its throat.

  She was lining up just such a shot when her world suddenly span. The Mole was skidding, trying, for some reason, to come to an emergency stop. A moment later, it succeeded, and she found herself tumbling from the roof to land on the ground with an undignified oof.

  Ahead of them, the roof of the tunnel had collapsed completely.

  "I am sorry, Kali Hooper," Aldrededor said from inside the cabin. "There was nothing I could — "

  Kali double-taked on the collapsed tunnel and then on the approaching yhang-dor, estimating they had perhaps thirty seconds before it caught up with them.

  She leapt into the cabin, sealed the hatch behind her, and flicked the Mole's cannons on to full power. Through the forward observation slat she could see the sonic pulses staring to effect the fallen debris. A second later, she pulled back as a rain of pulverised stone and rock began to impact with the vehicle's front. But in her heart of hearts Kali knew that there was really no time, that the collapse looked far to thick to penetrate before the yhang-dor was on them. And sure enough, a second later, The Mole lurched horribly.

  Suddenly all that Kali could see through the observation slat was a set of thousands of razor sharp teeth, then something horrible and squishy and, then, utter blackness.

  In the darkness, Aldrededor swallowed so hard Kali could actually hear it. "Did what I think just happened happen?"

  "A-ha."

  On the back seat, no doubt disturbed by the impact, Dolorosa stirred. "All is quiet. Have we stopped being chased by the theeng?"

  "In a manner of speaking, my dearest." Aldrededor said. "Why don't you go back to sleep?"

  "Bossa lady? What issa wrong?"

  "Oh, I think we're in the shit," Kali said, casually. And paused. "Or will be soon, anyway."

  "Kali Hooper, I must ask you not to use such language in front on my delicate flower."

  "Aldrededor, it was your 'delicate flower' and her desire to flow that got us into this mess in the — "

  Suddenly The Mole lurched again, far more violently than the first time, and all three of its passengers clung onto their seats as it began to move forward. The relative quiet of the last few moments was replaced by the noise of a series of loud crashes that, together with the thwooming of the still active sonic cannons, was deafening. Kali realised that, with the combination of the yhang-dor's momentum and the cannons themselves, they were actually ploughing through the obstacle ahead of them. Not only that, if her senses weren't betraying her, but up.

  What was more, the cannons were clearly damaging the yhang-door from the inside, and by virtue of the fact that its resultant screeching was becoming louder than the cacophony caused by their passage through the roof-fall, it didn't like that at all. It began, in fact, to vibrate and spasm around them, and Kali was just beginning to wonder what woul
d happen to the Mole when two things happened at once.

  The yhang-dor smashed through the last of the blockages and promptly exploded, and the forward observation slat — after taking a moment to drain itself of clinging gore — exposed the interior of the cabin to a brilliant white light.

  Either they had just ascended to Kerberos, Kali considered, or The Mole's two day journey through the Lost Canals of Turnitia had been considerably shortened by the fact that they had been forced to move a lot more quickly than anticipated. And if she was right, they were just where they wanted to be. There was only one way to find out.

  Kali activated The Mole's hatch, then licked a fleck of snow from the end of her nose. Yup, that tasted right. She smiled and turned to a somewhat stunned Aldrededor and Dolorosa.

  "Welcome to the Drakengrats. I think we walk from here."

  Chapter Eleven

  Three dots moved across the pristine white landscape. Some leagues, and a day's climb, behind them, the landscape was stained by a great splotch of yellow gore that spread away from a jagged, irregular hole in the snow. Next to that sat the skewed, abandoned remains of a broken machine from which smoke curled lazily into the pure mountain air. Ahead of the dots lay a series of jagged peaks, rising ever higher until they seemed to touch the clouds themselves. But the majesty of these seemed, for the moment, lost on those who trudged wearily through the snow.

  The crunching of their boots echoed through the ether, and then the echo of their voices — and then that of a slap.

  "Do notta droppa the litter!"

  "It is but a crust, my darling."

  "Anda who willa pick up the crust in this Gods-forsaken place, hah? No, 'usband, it issa the litter!"

  "My wife, we are dreaded pirates of the high seas — we have done worse things."

  "We were pirates, my 'usband! Nowwa we are the respectable proprietors of a tavern witha the great potential!"

  A cough echoed alongside the voices, and a second passed.

  "Nowwa we are the respectable manageers ovva taverno witha the great potential, and we — "

  "Nice butties," the owner of the cough interjected. Its tone suggested the matter should be closed.

  "I amma sorry, boss lady," the first voice said again.

  Kali stared at Dolorosa and Aldrededor as the two of them ate and trudged wearily alongside her, chewing on her own surprise stew butty ruminatively. That she had finally decided to eat one of Dolorosa's mushy concoctions was a reflection that the current trek had, for all of them, turned out to be more gruelling than expected. Even her normal wariness about one disturbing aspect of the ex-pirate's signature dish — that it never, ever cooled down — had been set aside in favour of getting something warm inside her. Because the one thing that could be said about the Drakengrats was that they were farking cold.

  She hadn't expected to lose The Mole, of course. With The Mole this whole affair would have been one hells of a lot easier, but at least they had the furs and equipment she had instructed Aldrededor to bring with the vehicle. Trouble was, even with The Mole, they would have faced the same problem. That she didn't have the faintest idea where she, Aldrededor and Dolorosa were meant to be going. It was all right for the old man to send her to 'a place in the clouds' but there were a lot of clouds, and a lot of mountains beneath them — exactly which one of them had he meant?

  Kali could only hope that she and the others stumbled across some kind of clue. A signpost 'To The Crucible', perhaps. Or another explosion that no one for leagues could miss. Or, best of all, another pack of k'nid swarming from the place they originated, so that they could follow their trail back whence they came.

  Yes, just like those.

  Exactly like those, in fact.

  "Kali Hooper, something comes," Aldrededor pointed out, rather unnecessarily.

  "It issa the theengs like-a leaves fromma the Flagons."

  Kali stared up the narrow pass they had been negotiating. At its very top, the k'nid were swarming over the ridge like a dark avalanche, before tumbling down the white mountainside towards them. At the speed they were moving, she estimated they had about two minutes before the things were on them.

  "Hide," Kali instructed, in a tone which left no doubt how important a manoeuvre that was going to be.

  "Hide-a, she says," Dolorosa protested, throwing up her arms. "And-a how exactly are we meanta to do that?"

  "My wife is correct, Kali Hooper. There is nowhere for us to go."

  Her attention having been so fixed on the k'nid, Kali hadn't noticed they were in a part of the pass totally devoid of any cover and edged by sheer rock faces on either side. She might be able to make a leap up them to safety but the Sarcreans had no chance of doing so, and there was no way she was leaving them down here alone.

  For the first time since they had started on their journey, she truly regretted allowing them to come along and, for a moment, felt a totally uncharacteristic bolt of panic. Her friends were going to die unless she did something quick.

  Kali was about to unsling her crackstaff, ready to make a last stand when -

  "Looka!" Dolorosa cried suddenly, and pointed up. "There!"

  Kali snapped her gaze to where Dolorosa pointed and, at first, wasn't sure what she was looking at. Then she realised that something was caught, flapping in the wind, on a sharp piece of rock thirty feet above their heads. It looked to be, of all things, a large torn piece of white sailcloth. But that was impossible, surely. After all what kind of ship — wrecked or otherwise — would have been able to find its way here?

  Impossible or not, it appeared to have galvanised Dolorosa. Eyes sparkling, she turned to Aldrededor and said: "I never though I would havva the chance to say this again, my 'usband, but we must battena down the hatches!"

  Aldrededor's eyes also sparkled. "My wife, I love you!" He turned to Kali and pointed at the cloth. "Kali Hooper, if you would be so good as to…"

  Kali didn't have a clue what they were on about. "Why?"

  Dolorosa thrust her face in hers, her dark eyes narrowing. "Because, bossa lady, it ees oura turn to save youra life, forra once. Nowwa do as I say!"

  That was good enough for Kali and she went for the cloth, reaching it in three acrobatic leaps, delivering it seconds later to the hands of Dolorosa. The ex-pirate and her husband pulled it taut and then held it about a foot above the snowy ground, whereupon Kali was ordered to lie underneath. This she did without argument and, a second later, Aldrededor and Dolorosa joined her, pulling the cloth down tightly over them all.

  To an outside observer they would now look like nothing more than a small rise in the snow.

  "We used to-a use the sails to secure our cargo inna the bad storm," Dolorosa whispered in what, Kali had to admit, were quite cosy confines. "Eet issa what gave-a me the idea."

  "You are a genius, my wife."

  "I havva my moments, yes."

  "Hang on," Kali said. "All we've done is hide under a big piece of cloth. Do you really think that'll fool the k'nid?"

  "Whya not? Itta fooled Short Jack Copper when thatta slimy bastardo boarded our ship. We-a waited for his men to come aboard and then sprang from beneath the sail like-a the… like-a the — "

  "Springy things?" Kali offered.

  "Like-a the springy things, yes! And thenna we keelled them all witha oura very sharpa knives! It wassa horrible!"

  "A-ha. Dolorosa, why are you whispering?"

  "So-a the k'nid do notta hear us, of course."

  "Dolorosa, they're hurtling murderously down a mountainside towards us, probably causing an avalanche as they come. I doubt they'll hear — "

  "Be silent now, Kali Hooper," Aldrededor interrupted. "They are upon us."

  Aldrededor was right. Distracted as she had been with her surreal exchange with Dolorosa, the approach of the k'nid swarm had somewhat taken a back seat but there was no mistaking it now.

  The sound of their approach was audible even over the winds blowing through the pass, and it was building second
by second to a level that would soon be deafening. The sound began to approach a crescendo and Kali, Aldrededor and Dolorosa remained utterly still, in readiness.

  The sensation of the k'nid passing was difficult to describe — like being massaged by a horde of heavy insects, each and every insectoid leg discernable as a fleeting touch to the very bone — and for the few seconds it took for their numbers to progress over their hiding place, Kali felt every nerve in her body scream out with a desire to leap up and flee from her frozen position. She did not, of course, because that would have meant instant death, though resisting the desire was a struggle. Next to her she could see Aldrededor and Dolorosa suffering in the same way. The only way that they could communicate was with their eyes, but the message they sent to each other was nonetheless clear.

  Do not move, do not cry out.

  They remained that way for what seemed to be an interminable time but was likely only seconds and then, miraculously, it was over.

  Even so, Kali waited a few seconds before moving the piece of cloth off their prone forms. It was heavier than she expected, laden with a layer of snow that the k'nid swarm had caused to avalanche over them, but Kali wasn't complaining as that snow had likely offered an extra layer of protection.

  The three of them stood and stared down the mountain pass, catching view of the tail end of the swarm as it moved out across the peninsula.

  Kali turned her gaze upward, biting her lip. "No doubt now where they're coming from. You two okay, ready to move on?"

  "We are ready, Kali Hooper."

  "Wait," Dolorosa said. "There ees something…"

  The thin woman moved ahead of them, bending to pick up something glistening in the layer of fine, disturbed snow. It was some kind of band and Dolorosa bit it and turned it in her hands, shrugging, before handing it to Kali.

  "What issa this theeng?"