by Martin Ash
'Swordbearer! We see you! We are with you! Swordbearer, hang on! Hang on!'
With difficulty Leth inched his head around. Below him he saw Rasgul running, leaping from rock to rock, striking down children with his scimitar. Blood poured from wounds on his thigh and cheek, but he scrambled to a platform closer to Leth's position, and from there was able to draw the attention of the children who pounded Leth. Many now abandoned their attempts to dislodge Leth and turned to deal with the former Abyss warrior.
Count Harg, also blooded, now broke free from the main battle and followed Rasgul's example. He clambered to another vantage and similarly drew the child-warriors to him. Huuri and Juson fought on at the tunnel entrance.
Leth forced his way onward. The ledge was almost within reach now. He could not tell exactly what was supporting his weight, but knew that a single tiny miscalculation would bring him plunging down. The floor immediately below was a mass of boulders and stalagmites; if he fell he would almost certainly break limbs if not actually kill himself. He cursed the helm and sapphire armour. Though they protected him from the missiles that still struck him, no matter the armour's suppleness, it made traversing this face immensely difficult.
At last his fingers gripped a narrow crevice above the ledge. He brought his rear leg up, skidding and fumbling until it found a toe-hold. Now he could bring his other leg up and rest the foot upon the ledge itself. He pushed with his other hand, managed somehow to get his weight onto the forward leg, hauled himself across and was at last balanced precariously on the ledge.
He risked a look down. Rasgul was whirling his scimitar, striking down the children who clambered towards him. Bloody bodies and limbs were piling up on the cavern floor, and between Ascaria's bellows the cavern was filled with the cries of the dying. The sight was too horrible to bear, and Leth forced down his fear, not daring to let rise into consciousness the knowledge that it could be his children who were being slain down there.
He turned back, made himself concentrate upon his task. The fissure gaped just ahead of him, the ledge widening a little as it entered the dark. He hauled himself forward and at last collapsed exhausted upon his knees in the blackness between the folds of protecting rock.
He could afford no time to rest. Hardly regaining his breath he scrambled up and began to feel his way gingerly forward. At first he was in total darkness. He gripped the rock on each side of him, tested each step with one foot on the uneven ground. A little way ahead of him a bleak jag of rosy light glimmered, showing a ragged outline of rock. He pushed on towards it.
The crevice narrowed. Leth was forced to his knees, squeezing between what had become hardly more than a crack in the warm rock wall. He removed the sapphire helm to ease his passage, and became more aware than ever of the heat of the air against his face. It seemed that the helm even offered some protection against that. Once through the crack he replaced the helm, feeling vulnerable without it.
He eased forward into the weak glow of light, and found himself at the lip of a chasm. He was at the far end of the great cavern, and beneath him was the gulf out of which the flickering dark bloodlight issued, more intense now than ever. Far off to the other side the great red cataract tumbled, its spumes and vapours rising high. He could no longer see the child-warriors, nor his companions: the main body of the cavern was obscured by a dark shoulder of rock humping out near to where he stood. Ascaria's baleful roars split his ears, louder, much closer. They seemed to fragment the very air about him.
At first Leth thought he was at a cul-de-sac, for the cavern face dropped away beneath him and there seemed no way forward. But then he spotted, beneath him, small steps roughly hewn into the rock, leading down into a dark vertical cleft which seemed to descend as far as the chasm floor. It was a dizzying descent, but the only one available.
He began to work his way down. The steps, though relatively evenly spaced, were barely wider than his two feet placed side by side, and his right hip and shoulder clipped the rock as he went, almost pushing him off. Fortunately a short way down the smooth face inclined slightly inwards, and he was able to lean into it, clinging with the flats of his hands and tips of his fingers.
He reached the bottom at last, drenched in sweat. The sulphurous fumes were stronger here, as was the stench of decay, making the air difficult to breathe. He stood within the cleft and could see nothing bar the shivering bloodlight above. Cacophony rattled off the rock to either side of his head, painful in his ears. Were Ascaria's bellows more intense, or was it merely that he was drawing ever closer?
Leth crept forward, coming cautiously from the shadows of the cleft and peering around. Then he stood stock still. The bloodlight shimmered, drenching him, drenching the surrounding walls, dazzling so that he could barely see. But what he could see held him rooted to the spot, powerless to react. He was on a flat, wide area where strange fires danced and threw weird shadows in the eerie, intense light. And facing him across the floor of the cavern was the Great Sow, the Kancanitrix, Ascaria.
iii
Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. Not in his wildest imaginings, his most delirious nightmares, had he envisaged anything like it. The sight left him agape, filled him with awe, cold, paralyzing horror and a deep, overpowering revulsion.
Ascaria towered some seventy feet into the sweating, trembling red air. She was almost as wide as she was tall, and seemed formed of some utterly strange, fluid-like, fleshy stuff. She was a grotesque, obese mound, a vast mass of rolling, undulating, bloated flesh, mottled red through murrey to deep blood, veined pink with patches of filthy brown merging into grey and mordant black. It could be said that her shape was vaguely that of a gigantic female, squatting in a lake of glutinous liquidy stuff that seemed to be of the same substance that formed her. Four huge mammaries spilled from her chest and flabbed out limp and swollen across great rolling swathes of loose fat that formed the outer layer of her naked belly. The nipples were near black, each distended and larger than a man's clenched fist. The face was a hideous mockery, half-woman, half-pig: a broad, blunt snout, eyes that were almost buried beneath waves of blubber, and a slobbering wide, toothless mouth rimmed by loose, soft, drooling purple lips. She lacked a neck, the head being a relatively small blunt conical form rising out of shoulders like hills. From her skull long twisting hanks of matted hair hung lankly, lifeless crimson weed reaching as far as her bloated abdomen. She squatted in the pink-red lake, and Leth saw that it bubbled, slowly, and churned and gathered about her great pendulous thighs and ankles, drawing at least some of its substance from a small river flowing from the base of the great cataract at Ascaria's back.
As he gaped Leth had the impression that she was not wholly formed. Her gross towering body had a fluid, unfinished quality, as though it might shudder and remould itself at will. Surrounding Ascaria and the lake in which she rested and out of which it seemed she truly was formed, was another utterly alien phenomenon. A barrier of swiftly leaping, licking, darting tongues, reaching perhaps to the height of a man's head. They were deep unreflective olive black in colour, and now that he saw them Leth stared at them, mesmerized, his mind swimming, for intuitively he understood that he was looking at fire. Obsidian fire.
The Dark Flame.
The heat was formidable, the air choking and noxious. Leth's hand rested on the hilt of the Orbsword, but he could not draw it, for he could not find the will to move.
Ascaria, it seemed, had not seen him. She sat oblivious, bellowing and baying, her throat and lips quivering, slow waves of fatty motion coursing over her massive chest and bulbous abdomen, making the fluid stuff in which she sat shiver as if in protest. And now Leth discovered the meaning of the second sound he had heard, the loathesome slurping, sucking noise that was audible in those brief moments when Ascaria paused. For he watched, horrified, as she reached down with a massive, ballooning red paw and plucked forth something that was at first obscured by the dancing black flames and clouds of dense pink and red vapour that rose all
around her. She brought it high. It squirmed in her grasp. She lifted it to her gaping mouth, placed its upper parts briefly between her obscenely soft lips. Her little piggy eyes closed in a moment of apparent ecstasy, and the vile slurping sound violated Leth's ears. Then she tipped back her great head and lowed. At the same time she released the thing she held, which tumbled, limply rolling over the bags of loose flesh that formed her, coming to rest in the viscous pink sludge beneath her. There it came dazedly to its hands and knees and began to crawl away towards a gap in the black flames to one side of the Kancanitrix.
A child, Leth saw, and felt his gorge rise. A child no more. Pathetic now, crawling imbecilically from Ascaria's abominable bulk, hardly even knowing that it lived.
The fury and horror rose, boiling Leth's blood. But so intent was he on the ghastly spectacle he was witnessing that he wholly failed to notice the Acolyte who crept up on his left flank, amethyst-flaming javelin poised.
Too late! Leth glimpsed the movement from the corner of his eye. He twisted towards it even as the Acolyte let the javelin fly. The flaring weapon hummed through the air, straight and true to its target. Leth made to propel himself to the side, but was unevenly balanced and had no time. The javelin buried itself into the ribbed plackart of his breastplate, which protected his lower ribcage. The force of the blow almost lifted Leth off his feet. It threw him back, and he crashed onto his buttocks on the ground.
He stared in horror. The sapphire armour had failed to block the missile. The shaft of the javelin protruded three feet from his ribcage, burning white and purple, vibrating in a blur of motion. A great moan escaped Leth's lips.
Is this it? Have I come so far only to die here at her feet?
He grasped the shaft and tried to wrench it free, but it was buried deep and would not shift. More, it was forcing itself deeper and he could not stop it. Why did he feel no pain? He braced himself, for it would surely come. The javelin's vibrations coursed right through him, through his armour, through his hands and arms, through his flesh, his bones. It was alive and intent, burrowing obediently into him.
Oh Galry, oh Jace, I am so sorry. Oh Issul, I have failed us all.
His head sagged forward. He felt suddenly weak and utterly exhausted, overcome with the terrible futility of it all. He dragged his eyeballs up to peer through the visor slits at his murderer. The Acolyte stood some score or so paces away, its head-cocked, regarding him with a quizzical expression on its bland avian-human face. Its broad beak moved; Leth had the impression it was speaking, gloating perhaps, but its words were drowned by the dreadful noise of the Kancanitrix.
But still he felt no pain.
And something inexplicable was happening. The javelin was growing shorter, boring into him, but he seemed untouched. No pain, no spurts of boiling steam as it vapourized his innards. Its flame-radiance was crawling rapidly across the surface of his breastplate, and further, over the entire suit of the sapphire armour. Leth stared in astonishment. A light, purple-blue aura radiated from him. He felt it tingling upon his skin. The last stub of the javelin-shaft melded into the armour, and he still felt no pain. He was alive. The sapphire armour had somehow taken the javelin's energy and transformed and redistributed it across its own surface. And now it glowed, radiant with whatever magical force the javelin had stored within it.
The Acolyte was jabbering something, though its words were still inaudible. Its round black eyes were wide and alight with disbelief as it watched the enemy in the glowing armour climb to his feet. And Leth advanced, renewed now, with single-minded intent. He drew the radiant blade from its scabbard. In a dozen swift paces he was upon the Acolyte, who had begun first to back away in confusion, then turn and try to flee. It was not quick enough. With a single blow Leth struck it dead, then turned to confront Ascaria again.
She seemed oblivious to his presence. She had gathered up another child and placed its head between the sinuous red mass of her lips in the obscene dream-stealing kiss. And the opaque black flames licked high in front of Leth. They gave off no heat; their composition an unknown. But between them there were occasional breaks letting onto narrow paths of the oozing liquid slurry out of which Ascaria rose.
Leth raced forward, passed through one of the breaks. The red-black ooze lapped about his ankles, slow and slightly viscous. But it grew no deeper as he advanced. The noxious stench was overpowering here, and he gagged, the fumes scouring his throat and lungs. He rushed on, the Orbsword held high. Ascaria rose mighty and mindless above him, swathed in clouds of her own dreadful vapour. How could he hope to slay her? He stood at the point where the mass of her colossal sweating body merged with the liquid stuff. With all his might he swung with the Orbsword, striking cleanly and deeply into the 'flesh' of her knee. The Orbsword passed through, and out with almost no resistance. It was as though he had run it through a mound of aspic. It left no wound. Ascaria was unharmed. She seemed still to be completely unaware of him.
Could she feel? Could she even see?
What was she?
He struck again, summoning every iota of strength in his body, stabbing deep into her dreadful matter. The Orbsword penetrated to its hilt and beyond, so that Leth's hand sank into her as far as his wrist. The liquid meat gathered around him, jellified, quivering and searingly hot, but still Ascaria lowed and bellowed and showed no reaction to his assault or consciousness of his immediate presence. He withdrew his hand and the sword and stepped back in frustration.
How to kill her if she could not be killed?
Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed something large and round floating towards him across the surface of the lake in which he stood. A cacosa, opening its maw to eject its wet brown mass. Three others came over the wall of dark flame some way behind. And there were running figures between the flames, goles and Acolytes, skirting the encircling flame, racing around to cut him off.
One eye on the cacosa, he began to retreat towards the edge of the lake, to get himself onto the other side of the dark flames. But he could see the Acolytes and goles were coming in large numbers, from all sides. There were child-warriors among them. And there was nowhere he could run.
The cacosa ejaculated its ball of sticky sputum. Leth darted back and it shot past him and splashed into the lake just beyond. He ran, leaping through the gap in the flames and back onto the solid flat rock. Just before him the cliff face rose. Two goles were coming at him from his left. A terrible roar rose from deep within him, and he ran to meet them, struck once, twice, thrice, and they fell gasping before they had even struck a blow.
But others menaced him from forty paces away: goles, Acolytes, child-warriors and a pair of cacosas. They had slowed, approaching him warily, fanning out across the flat rock causeway. Behind him a similar number came from the other direction. They were too many. There was nowhere he could go. He searched around him desperately, but there was no way out and he sensed he was lost.
There was a brief moment of near silence as Ascaria paused to gather breath. In the hiatus, a new sound, a shout from somewhere above. 'Swordbearer!'
Leth wheeled to look up. High above him the Abyss warrior, Rasgul, stood wide-stanced upon a ledge of rock. His hands were cupped about his mouth. Leth saw his chest heave as he yelled out. Leth strained his ears. 'The Flame! You must--'
His words were drowned as Ascaria resumed her terrible cacophony. Leth spun to face the wall of black flames. As he did so a cacosa rose over it and came towards him, its maw beginning to open. Leth ran at it, took it by surprise, and thrust the Orbsword deep into its bulk before it could eject its gross matter. The monster spun away, spluttering, vomiting its own flesh. Diminishing in form, it rose in a spiralling ascent above the pool then dropped into the liquid behind the flames.
Leth wheeled around. On each side the goles, Acolytes and warrior-children had advanced ten paces or so. He sensed they were wary of him, yet confident that they could overpower him by sheer weight of numbers. The Acolytes no longer carried flaming javelins, fearful
of using them after witnessing their effect on Leth's armour. Instead they held bright curved falchions or hand-axes and combat-pincers similar to the goles.
Leth swivelled from one group to the other, the Orbsword before him. How many could he hope to kill? Six, seven, before they overpowered him? Less if the cacosas succeeded in trapping him in their spittle. They were all edging forward, fanning around him.
Again Ascaria's ear-splitting lowing ceased for a moment.
'Swordbearer! The Flame! It is the Flame you must destroy!'
Leth glanced up, confused. Rasgul was frantically pointing.
'The Flame! The Dark Flame!'
Leth stared at the wall of flame. Ascaria began another earth-quaking roar. Two volleys of dark brown spittle shot towards him.
The Flame? The Dark Flame?
He leapt to the side and spun. The spittle squelched onto the ground behind him. He came to his feet, incredulous, not daring to hope. It seemed mad, yet it was all now that he could do.
He sped forward and plunged the Orbsword into the wall of Dark Flame . . .
iv
There was a moment of utter stillness.
Nothing moved, nothing breathed, nothing made a sound. It was though all of Orbelon's world itself had caught its breath.
And then life returned with shocking vigour.
From far above Leth's head came a roar like nothing he had heard before. The Kancanitrix threw back her great mottled red head, the flab of her mouth falling open, and she issued a sound of chthonic thunder. Her massive arms had risen high as if to clutch and claw the cavern roof, huge rolls of loose flesh rippling and swinging under gravity's drag. The entire congealed mound of her body arched and shuddered, its mass oscillating with a heavy, liquid sound.
