by Guy Estes
Again, it tried to stab her. She hacked into its arm, again cutting it but not seriously injuring it. It backhanded her with the same arm, dropping her in the sand ten feet away. Aleena forced herself to rise, knowing that death was only a few steps away and closing rapidly. Hacking and slashing were getting her nowhere. The only option left was the thrust, or stab. It focused all of a warrior's might into a small point, reaching deep within an adversary. The creature charged. Once more wishing for the versatility of a straight blade, Aleena met its charge head on, forcing the tip of her blade into its chest. The monster's hands slammed together on her head. The claws only grazed her scalp. The main force of the blow was delivered with the heels of the palms, sending her to the edge of consciousness. Aleena went to her knees, and the beast staggered away and fell.
When her eyes focused, she could plainly see that it was dying, her scimitar sticking halfway out of its chest. She stood and shuffled over to it. It was still alive. Aleena approached with caution. The beast slowly turned its head and regarded her through eyes of fading light. A low, gurgling sigh escaped its hideous features as its eyes glazed over and it expired. Aleena waited to make certain it was dead before trying to recover her weapon, then she grasped the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. She tried again and got the same result. She stood on the corpse and grabbed her sword with both hands. Grudgingly, it loosened a bit and slid out. It was almost like trying to withdraw a nail from a plank with her bare hands. The blade abruptly came free and sent Aleena stumbling.
She studied the carcass while calming herself. Aleena thought she'd read about every creature known to man, even those that no longer existed, but this thing she'd just slain was totally unknown to her. She would have preferred keeping it that way.
With a shriek like nails drawn across slate another beastly brigand slammed into her, pinning her to the ground. This one was built like the first but its pebbled hide was grey in color. The screaming horror raised a hand to smash her head, but in so doing it freed her sword arm, and Aleena hacked into its neck. Its tough hide prevented the blade from going very far, but Aleena's steel had gone far enough. It opened two major blood vessels. The creature's eyes widened as it realized that its natural armor had failed it and it was a few moments from joining its comrade. It got off of her and stumbled away, its hand pressed to its neck. Blood continued to squirt between its fingers, and it sank to the ground and expired in short order.
This time Aleena did not allow herself to be distracted by victory. She slowly turned around, eyes scanning for new threats. She found them. From the direction in which she'd come a multitude of beaked horrors, hissing and screeching, now sallied forth. Some were clothed in rags while others went naked. All had skins of some dull color, from olive green to sickly grey, and putrid yellow to fecal brown. None were amused.
Aleena took in the sheer numbers her enemies held. It was obvious that she could not take them in a direct confrontation. That left one option. She turned and ran. They followed. And they were faster.
Naturally, Aleena thought, as she made this observation.
The canyon curved sharply to the right, and as she came around the bend she saw that the ravine suddenly widened from a narrow passage to a broad avenue about one hundred feet wide. Here, her pursuers slowed to a near stop. They looked at each other, gibbering and hissing in what Aleena took to be some subhuman language. They seemed to reach a consensus and started forward again, only this time they were walking slowly, as if wary of booby traps. Aleena, separated only by a few yards, backed away from them. She saw that she could now outrun them, but she realized that if these creatures were being so cautious in their own back yard, there was probably a good reason for it.
The sand in front of one creature suddenly heaved up and over the screaming beast, then came down upon it and covered it completely. Its muffled cries could be heard for several dreadful moments, then nothing. Another met its demise the same way. Aleena had read something of these subsurface monsters. They were built something like a sting ray and they buried themselves a few finger inches beneath the sand, waiting for prey to wander by. Then they would spring upon it and kill it with a bellyful of venomous spines. If their victim was immune to that form of attack they would merely suffocate it. They were always found in large groups. Aleena and her antagonists seemed to have stumbled into a feeding ground.
Aleena decided that the best thing to do would be to try to make her way out of this hellhole and leave the two parties to deal with each other. She turned her back to them and concentrated on safely navigating this hunting ground. Then the sand erupted about four feet in front of her and came down upon her. Though the attack was lightening quick, Aleena's fine reflexes enabled her to get her sword up in time. The sheet-like predator ended up impaling itself, but its weight still pinned Aleena to the ground, a few spines pricking her skin. It was like being covered with a lead blanket. Aleena squirmed and wriggled, finally managing to get her upper body free, only to have several more spines puncture her in the process. The tiny wounds itched and burned, like
wasp stings, and she received many more while freeing her legs.
Aleena tried to ignore the poison she knew to be coursing through her system and to concentrate on immediate survival. It would help immeasurably, she decided, if she could find a way of locating the submerged predators before they struck. They were only a few inches beneath the sand. Perhaps they did something just prior to an attack that revealed their location. Aleena focused all of her attention on the ground as she threaded her way forward.
There! Was it her imagination or did the sand shift about ten feet in front of her? She took no chances and gave the area a wide berth. The canyon was filled with the cries and shrieks of her pursuers, some in fear or pain, others in rage. Aleena ignored them, only occasionally surveying their situation to make sure none of them had gotten too close. Again, she noticed the sand before her bunch up. It was a small, nearly imperceptible movement, and had she not been looking directly at that exact spot she never would have seen it. She eased around this spot, then stopped to once more observe her other enemies. They, being more numerous than she, were having a somewhat more difficult time.
In addition to the living carpets there seemed to be a more sinister predator beneath their feet, for Aleena saw several of her antagonists buried up to their knees or waists. A couple of them were in up to their necks. Even as she watched, a tan tentacle shot up and swarmed around one's ankle and jerked his leg under. It screamed and clawed at the muscular appendage, but the arm continued to drag it down, as inexorable as gravity. With a sigh, Aleena concluded that all of these monstrosities could go straight to the seven hells and headed for the nearest canyon wall. She was quite certain that her original foes had forgotten all about her and she would be allowed to climb the slope unmolested. She progressed all of three steps before she felt some obscene thing embrace her leg with enough passion to nearly snap it. Her blade followed her gaze down and chopped into the sickly arm wrapped around her calf.
This creature's hide wasn't nearly as resilient as those of the beaked things. Her fine weapon had no trouble convincing the thing to leave her, spontaneous amputation being a marvelous persuader. Aleena decided that caution could follow everything else to the seven hells and sprinted for the canyon wall, the nearest, which was also the lowest, being directly opposite of where she'd originally entered. Living carpets sprang up in her path or to her flanks, but the slender girl dodged and twisted like a serpent, hurdling the occasional tentacle lain out to snare her. As the egress of this infested feeding ground enlarged in her sight, one of the flattened things reared up and slapped down on her right foot, piercing it with a dozen venomous spines and making her foot feel like the victim of a swarm of hornets propelled by a sledge hammer. With a cry composed of agony and anger, Aleena reversed her grip on her sword and stabbed down with both hands as she fell. Dark blood welled up around the mirrored steel, and the beast slid away, dragging its
spines across her burning foot. Aleena hobbled on, part of her wondering how much venom had been introduced into her body. Was her effort at escape merely delaying
the inevitable?
She decided it would be best to find out and continued limping for the exit, which was now less than ten yards away. Four tentacles sprouted from the sand before her and barred her way. Aleena pulled up short, then turned around to find more tentacles awaiting her. She moved to scale a wall, but that way was quickly sealed off, too. She was completely encircled by a thicket of waving arms. They were too close together for her to slip through. They suddenly stopped waving and stood straight up, their muscles alternately expanding and relaxing. Aleena started forward to hack her way through while wondering what the thing was doing. She found out.
The sand beneath her began to shift and slide, then it began to sink, dropping Aleena so quickly that her mind hardly had time to register what was happening. Her neck was already at the level her feet had occupied a moment before, and she was going deeper by the second. A great cone of sand had formed, rimmed by the creature's tentacles, with a terrified Aleena at the sinking bottom. Alone in a strange wilderness, surrounded by inhuman enemies, Aleena suddenly went from Chosen warrior to scared little girl who was on the verge of screaming for her mother when one of her internal voices spoke up, the one she'd labeled the Instructress.
Get yourself out of this! The solution is there if you but look.
Aleena was able to rein in her runaway hysteria just enough to follow the Instructor's advice. The most obvious solution was to climb out, but the sand was too loose, and even if she did get to the top of the pit, there were those arms waiting for her. The next idea that occurred to her was to strike back, but none of the monster's body was within reach.
But part of it soon will be, the Instructress calmly pointed out.
Relief trickled into Aleena's soul even as she chided herself for not seeing the obvious. Since the pit the thing had created was ringed with its arms, it was a fair guess that at the bottom would be its mouth, a tender spot on even the toughest creature. She gripped her weapon and emptied her mind of all else save inflicting maximum damage in minimum time.
The sand beneath her feet began to flow even faster. Then she could hear it sifting down into a great empty space as she was hit with the unmistakable stench of a predator’s breath: the smell of decaying flesh. The tenuous ground then disappeared, replaced by a pit of maroon tissue, glistening and spongy. The pit's depth was slightly less than Aleena's height, but she did not care to look upon the bottom, for on the bottom waited a great fleshy cup lined with a carpet of teeth that bore pockets of rotting meat. And at the center of that cup was a tongue, flopping and dancing, becoming short and stiff then long and prehensile. The whole assembly produced a maddeningly depraved sucking, slurping sound, as if the thing wished to taunt her by imitating the mating call of a lonely slave trader.
Aleena let out her breath and quit resisting, allowing herself to fall down into the greedy mouth. She spread her feet to keep from falling into the toothy cup. The monster sensed her resistance and shot its tongue up to caress her and wrap itself around her torso. It began to pull, showing her that its tongue alone possessed more strength than her entire body. Her legs began to buckle. Aleena let them collapse, falling down to use her full weight to drive the blade down into its soft oral tissue. Her next sensation was that of being deafened while being shot from a catapult. She saw a rapid exchange of light and dark. Then she knew nothing.
Hot grit pressed into her cheek. Consciousness returned to Aleena but she kept her eyes closed. It felt good to lie on the warm sand, but she had the sense she had been out for only a short time. When she opened her eyes they were seared by the angry glare of the sunlight off the sand, forcing them closed again. The memory of what had happened rushed back at her, making her sit up. Obviously she had survived the subsurface predators, but what about the beaked things that had been the first to attack her? Had they survived also?
Aleena opened her eyes and looked around. The creatures blanketed the canyon walls, sitting on rocky outcroppings or wedged in fissures or hanging on to the sheer rock faces with their claws. They hissed and stirred, appearing to Aleena as if they were anticipating something. From out of a big crack in the canyon wall strode one of their kind, but this one was different. It stood a full eight feet in height, and its skin was a glossy midnight blue. The eyes were glowing yellow triangles. Unlike the others, it had no eyebrows, nor did it have fingertips. The last joints of its fingers were talons eighteen inches long the same shade of blue as its skin. It wore a formerly white loin cloth. It calmly strode towards Aleena, flexing its wicked fingers, wiry muscles dancing underneath its leathery hide. The other beasts were making a noise that Aleena felt certain was a cheer. She hung her head and sighed.
"Nevawn’s claws," she moaned, "you cannot be serious."
The thing stopped its advance when she spoke, but it did not appear dissuaded. Aleena shook her head with disbelief. She may not have understood their language, but she knew a challenge when she saw one. She got into a defensive stance.
"This may sound like a silly question," she told them, "but what happens if I win?"
They looked at her in the way one would look at a talking monkey. Aleena waited for the attack. It was much quicker than she expected. The beast hurled itself into the air and came down to crush her, but Aleena, too, was fleet of foot, and she scrambled out of the way and slashed it across its back. She broke the skin, and in a couple of places she even managed to draw a drop or two of blood. The thing's arm swept around to backhand her, but she ducked the blow and swept her blade up between its legs. She got a cry out of it that time, and it even doubled over a little, but then it was wading in again, its right arm drawn back for the slash. Aleena ducked the blow, but she held her scimitar up so that the creature's arm slammed into its edge. While her strength was not enough to inflict severe injury to this thing, its own power was. Her blade cut its forearm to the bone.
Aleena smiled. She would turn the beast's own strength against it. Its right hand swept up in an uppercut as it tried to rip her belly open. Aleena leaned out of range, hearing the talons sing past her face. It turned its uppercut into another slash at her head. Aleena again ducked and held up her blade, but the monster pulled its blow and avoided injuring itself this time. It had figured out her strategy. Aleena was now out of ideas. She swung at it, but it caught her blade between its claws and twisted it from her grasp, sending it spinning away. A travesty of a laugh rumbled from its chest as it closed for the kill. That was a mistake. Aleena felt something within her, like magma boiling and heaving within a volcano, growing and expanding until it could no longer be contained. The Strength of the dragon was free.
Aleena launched a jumping front kick into her enemy's belly, knocking it back and forcing it to its knees. The inhuman spectators fell silent. As the thing rose she drove the heel of her palm into its face, smashing the beak and spinning it away from her and knocking it down again. She came up behind it, grabbed its shattered beak with both hands and wrenched its head completely off its shoulders. Then she turned to the spectators and held her trophy aloft in a silent gesture of victory and challenge.
The things all looked at each other. They were silent, uttering no shrieks or cries, not even a single, solitary hiss. None of them were as mighty as the one they'd just sent up against her, and she'd bested him with her bare hands. Aleena tossed the head aside as she would a crumpled piece of paper, recovered her scimitar, and left the canyon. None tried to stop her.
Aleena did not know how far she'd wandered when the end of the canyon came into view, but that was the moment the Strength decided to leave her, retiring to whatever part of her soul it occupied when it wasn't removing her from some predicament she'd gotten into. Aleena could not help but wonder if it really did have a will of its own. She found an outcropping in the rock walls and collapsed within its shade, spending a f
ew seconds wondering about the poison in her veins before dropping off into a dreamless void.
* * *
Ilian wept. She was helpless to prevent it. Rocking with Aleena’s doll had soothed some of her pain, but it was doing no good this day. Her only child was missing and presumed dead, or hoped, rather, since she'd been taken by slave traders. How many times had she been in town on an errand when she would hear Aleena's voice? Ilian would turn to the sound, joy rushing through her heart, only to find that the voice had belonged to some other girl. How long had she prayed, prostrating herself before Tamura and Donya and begging them to return the blessing they'd taken from her? Still, they would not relent.
How could you, she silently raged at them. How could you inflict such torture upon me? Did you have to allow my child to be born so that I could know her and love her and cherish her before you tore her away by a means more foul than death? On top of all that, you made her Chosen. Why, if you were going to curse her so in a few years? Answer me! Are you even there to feel my wrath? Or are you nothing more than some collective fool's paradise?
Not getting any answer, Ilian wept harder. She noticed that when she closed her eyes there was no difference in her vision. It was all an empty void.
Rather like my life, some corner of her mind noted.
"Sister," Riona crooned as she rustled into the room, "Why are you troubled?"
"Why am I troubled?" Ilian choked. "What could I possibly have to shed tears over? Not much, I suppose. I've only gone blind, my husband is crippled, and my daughter stolen! What have I to weep for?"
"Ilian, you still insist on agonizing over Aleena?"
