by Edwin McRae
“Of course, Mark,” answered Citadel. “I couldn’t agree more.”
18
Through the bars of his cage, Serik witnessed his horse die. He'd seen many fall on the battlefield, but this was different. The jaundiced creatures literally ate the animal alive. Had Serik not been the next course on the menu, he might've found the whole process quite fascinating.
The barren-dwellers had a concoction, a nasty smelling substance that they brewed in a large, iron pot. He recognised the make of the pot. It was standard issue, reiver military. The creatures had either raided a nearby outpost or a sizable reiver force had met tragedy in this part of the ruins. He hoped for the former, for if it was the latter then the reivers had a lot more to worry about from these ruins than they might’ve thought.
The creatures force-fed the concoction to the horse and then proceeded to cut pieces from the poor, living beast over several days, consuming only what they needed each time, sustaining the horse as a kind of living larder. While the creatures clearly had the knowledge and equipment for cooking, serving Serik a plain meal of boiled root vegetables each day, they didn't cook any of the horse, instead consuming it raw. It seems that they preferred their fruit straight from the tree.
Based on that analogy, Serik could understand the preference. Apples plucked directly from the branch always tasted better than ones stored for even a few days. But the sheer callousness of the situation shocked him. By now, the horse had been almost completely stripped of its exterior muscles. It was a raw skeleton draped in sinew, a cage filled with weakly pulsing organs. When the creatures finally let the animal die, Serik knew that his time had run out.
It was just on midday, judging by the position of the sun. Serik watched his captors brew a fresh batch of their concoction over the communal fire. He looked at the creature guarding his cage, its black eyes intent on the brewing process rather than on him. It didn't matter. Serik had found no way to free himself. On hindsight, he probably should’ve stayed and helped the sergeant battle the murdering bastard. Instead, he’d gone from the fire and into the frying pan. Well, without the frying bit since these creatures were about to strip and eat the raw flesh from his living body over several, agonizing days.
"Looking forward to dinner, are we?" Serik asked his guard.
The guard turned and looked at him, its black orbs wide and curious. It made a hissing noise through its spiky teeth and cocked its head.
"Yes, I think you're an ugly piece of shit too."
The creature hissed again, as if satisfied that Serik had caught her meaning. Serik looked to the knife tucked into the guard’s loin cloth and considered his only viable escape option. Wait until they open the cage, steal the knife, and drive it into the guard’s throat. Hardly ideal, but it was better than the alternative.
"No, you're not eating me alive."
The creature growled, as if in disagreement, and then turned back to watch the preparation of whatever potion it was that the creatures used to sustain life beyond natural bounds.
A shame, thought Serik. The inquisitors would reward him quite handsomely for a recipe like that.
Serik retreated into the back of his cage to quietly plan his tragic ending, only to have his reverie broken by the sound of slicing flesh followed by some moist gurgling. With a start, he looked up to see the guard drop to her knees, clutching her throat as blood poured between her fingers. As she keeled over, a new figure took her place, a woman with long, platinum hair and a faint smile on her plump face.
Serik saw her smile and raised her a much larger one. “Sergeant, I don't think I've ever been more happy to see you."
The sergeant rolled her eyes, but her smile remained as she set to work with her dagger on the bindings that held the cage closed. Serik watched out for the creatures, willing them to remain fixated with their brewing ceremony. The sergeant cut through the last of the bindings and opened the cage as quietly as she could. Then the two of them crept out of the creatures’ village as quickly and stealthily as they could.
As they reached the sergeant’s horse, tethered a little way off, Serik paused to take in his surroundings. They were in the middle of what was once a large town, a settlement of grand stone buildings, many of which still stood three or four storeys high. Serik looked up at the mountain peaks to get his bearings. Carver’s Way was still a good day’s ride from where they were, and as soon as the creatures noticed his absence, it would be a fraught journey with rabid hunters on their heels at every step.
He turned to the sergeant. "If we head for the road, they'll catch us without a doubt."
She nodded. "Already thought of that."
"Deeper into the ruins then? See if we can lose them?"
"Then double back to the road once the heat dies down, yes."
"Agreed."
The sergeant mounted up and Serik slid up onto the horse behind her, putting his arms around her sturdy waist to steady himself. The sergeant drove her horse south just as the creatures realized that their next meal had escaped.
It wasn't long before Serik saw one of the creatures peering down at them from one of the taller ruins. It was a good vantage point, another sign to Serik that these creatures weren't mindless savages. They were intelligent and all the more dangerous for it. He pointed the scout out to the sergeant.
"I see him," acknowledged the sergeant.
"They'll be on us soon.”
The sergeant's voice was grim, almost fatalistic. "We can't outrun them, not through these ruins. They likely know every nook and cranny of this place, and will drive us towards the perfect ambush spot."
"Afraid so. We need to find somewhere to hide, or at least somewhere we can fight them on our terms."
The sergeant nodded and urged her mount onwards. As time passed, more scouts appeared on the taller buildings, occasionally calling to each other in a high whine that sounded unnervingly like a cat demanding food from its owner.
"They’re talking to each other more frequently now. Probably means we’re almost at the ambush site," observed Serik, doing his best to keep the anxious tremor from his voice.
“Reckon that's right." The sergeant pointed at a large structure nearby, its entranceway gaping wide and dark. "We could try our luck in there. Can’t defend the opening. Too big. But if we delve deeper, we might find somewhere that we can hold. A bottleneck where they’ll have to come at us in ones and twos."
"Good thinking, and a building that size should have more than one exit. We don't want to get ourselves cornered."
The sergeant nodded her agreement and turned her horse towards the crumbling edifice. As the creatures around them saw what they were doing, they started to whine with more urgency, drawing in more of the foul things with every call. By Serik's estimation, they were surrounded by half a hundred of them.
"Alright, sergeant. Let’s do this.”
“Already done, sir,” she muttered as they passed into the gloom.
Cracks in the roof leaked shafts of daylight, offering just enough light for Serik to tell that this had once been an impressive building. It had been a temple, judging by the eroded carvings and broken archways, or perhaps a throne room filled with pomp and circumstance. Now it was just an empty reminder of ancient arrogance and folly.
The horse’s hooves echoed from the crumbling vaults as they ventured deeper. Serik looked back at the entrance and was unsettled to see fifty or so pairs of eyes looking back at him. The jaundiced savages had stopped just short of the shadows and were peering into the gloom at them, wide-eyed, their needled mouths agape. Those expressions looked disturbingly fearful to Serik, although he was quick to discard that notion on the basis that he had no idea how these creatures would express themselves. They were humanoid, but certainly not human.
"Our new friends seem reluctant to join us," Serik remarked.
The sergeant glanced over her shoulder and pursed her lips. "Yeah. I wonder what's stopping them."
Serik considered the possibilities and c
ame up with three.
One. The savages were wary of following them into a situation where their prey might end up having the advantage. While Serik hoped this was the case, he was realistic enough to rate it as the least probable reason.
Two. This was some sort of sacred site for these savages. Perhaps they believed some primordial god or coagulation of spirits lived in this grand old grave. That was definitely more likely, although it also led him to the third and most unsettling of his three theories.
Three. The savages were more afraid of what they would encounter in these ruins than they were hungry for their prey.
"I think we should keep going, but my instincts tell me that we should be as afraid of this place as we are of the things waiting just outside it."
The sergeant’s frown deepened. "What could possibly be more frightening than getting eaten by those fang-mouthed fuckers?"
Serik was about to admonish her for lacking imagination when the ground about them burst open. A dust-clogged maw reached up out of the ruptured earth, snapping blindly. Several clouds of dust and gravel later, it was joined by a dozen slavering siblings. Each mouth was attached to a rubbery tentacle that swayed and lashed as the orifices sought the prey they had sensed from beneath the dirt.
The horse reared, throwing its riders before galloping ahead, dodging between the tentacles as best it could. It didn't get very far. The first tentacle latched onto its right rear leg as a second took out its front left. The horse crashed to the ground and more tentacles joined the first two, latching on like lamprey eels to a stricken dolphin.
Serik and the sergeant watched in mute horror as the tentacles sucked the horse dry of blood and body fluids. In moments, the animal was a mere shell of skin, bone and dehydrated sinew.
The sergeant drew her sword and shouted "Blade of Doom". As the serrations sprung up on her now glowing weapon, the tentacles swiveled in her direction.
"Could you not have whispered that command?" Serik hissed at his companion.
The sergeant shrugged. "They can probably smell our blood anyway."
Serik grunted, having to accept that she was probably right, and activated his Hastened Wits skill.
To Serik’s eyes, the tentacles slowed, taking on the somber grace of rushes bending in the wind. He knew he had only seconds to decide on a strategy before both of them ended up like empty wine skins. These tentacles had to have a source, not far beneath their feet, a source they would have to entice to the surface in order to make it vulnerable. The sergeant was going to have to draw it out while he worked out a way to destroy the beast once it showed its ugly face.
"Sergeant?"
"You’re going to order me to charge those things, aren’t you."
To his speeding mind, her words were comically slow, and the glare she delivered him made all the more intense by its gradual formation. It left him wondering whether he was more likely to end up on the end of her serrated sword than the tentacles were, so decided that diplomacy might be the best option.
“Only if you want both of us to live."
"How do you plan on making that happen?"
Serik had no further time to waste in conversation as the tentacles were already extending towards them. With a sigh, the sergeant leapt forward to meet them, slashing her sword through the leading horror, separating mouth from fleshy appendage with a single, sure strike.
Leaving the sergeant to her job, Serik focused on their surroundings. He found his potential weapon in a cracked pillar teetering on the brink of collapse. He could scale the crumbling wall nearby, balance on the remains of a balcony, and with his "Surge of Strength" skill, topple the pillar down onto the monstrosity as it made its appearance.
"Kill more of those tentacles! Draw it out!" he shouted and then sprinted for the wall.
"Right!" was all the sergeant could manage as she sliced through another writhing appendage.
As Serik climbed the rugged masonry, he saw more tentacles burst up around the sergeant, surrounding her completely. There was no going back so he didn’t waste time shouting a warning. He clambered up onto the ledge and activated his Surge of Strength skill, pausing a moment as his muscles stiffened and grew, bulking out across his body until they were straining at the confines of his chain mail and breeches.
Down below, the sergeant screamed as one of the tentacles dodged her sword and latched onto her thigh. She cut the length away and then wrenched the mouth from her flesh. Blood sprayed from the wound as the sergeant staggered back, barely avoiding another mouth that snapped the air mere centimeters from her face. She met the mouth her with sword, bisecting it right down the middle, turning one tentacle into two.
Serik mustered his determination and lunged for the pillar, pressing his hands against the worn stone while bracing his feet upon the edge of the ledge. Pushing with all of his accentuated might, he felt the pillar give a little under his straining hands. Summoning every ounce of will he possessed, Serik pushed.
His shoulders burned. His back strained. His legs quivered, and his calves and achilles felt like they were going to snap. Just when Serik thought that either his body would break, or that his strength would simply give out, leaving him to plummet to the stony floor, the pillar gave up its standing resistance with a resounding crack. Seeing the great weight of stone descending, the sergeant struck down one last tentacle, and then threw herself out of the pillar’s toppling path.
As if sensing the iminent escape of its meal, a great and hideous maw erupted out of the dirt. Rubble and dust exploded upwards, showering the sergeant and Serik in jagged pebbles that nicked and scratched their exposed skin. The thing had no eyes, no nose, no identifying features other than a wide and gaping sphincter that served as its mouth. The pink flesh within glistened as it undulated and Serik marvelled at this ghastly wonder of prehistoric anatomy.
Several tentacles latched on to the desiccated horse and dragged it down into the mouth. He watched, his gorge rising in his throat, as the pulsing aperture closed about the stricken animal, and swallowed it down into whatever digestive damnation awaited it.
In moments the horse was gone, and the sphincter opened again, layer by layer, its wet flesh relaxing outward in concentric circles. Serik was reminded of some ghastly flower, its bud blossoming in the rising dawn. A flower that was soon crushed under the weight of several tons of masonry. Jagged stone pierced and pulverised the creature’s naked innards. Blood erupted upwards, a geyser of steaming, scarlet fluid that rained down upon the ruined chamber, soaking the tentacles that fell limply to the stone floor, and drenching both the sergeant and Serik where they stood.
Serik almost slipped from the ledge as he tried to wipe the disgusting morass from his face. Below, he could hear the sergeant coughing and spluttering as she too attempted to free herself of the beast’s stinking fluids. Serik managed to claw the bloody gruel from his eyes and spit the worst of it from his mouth, and then he chuckled as the notifications rolled in before his bleary eyes.
Congratulations!
You have slain a Legendary creature, the Mouth of Gahratha.
Your XP reward per party member = 250 XP
You have gained Level Seven
in the Commander class.
Progress to Level 8 = 1050/1700
You have earned 2 Attribute Points.
Your Surge of Strength skill
has increased to Tier 3.
Your strength multiplier increases to x3.
Spell duration is extended to 3 minutes.
Your Hastened Wits skill has increased to Tier 4.
Time compression increases by a factor of 4.
+40% resistance to magic that influences the mind.
By the amused "Huh!" he heard from the sergeant, she too must have received some positive notifications. Yet the best news was yet to come. The jaundiced savages were still outside, their black, staring eyes even wider than before. At least, that's what Serik thought the best news was until a distant rumbling reached his ears.
"It seems that we legendary beast slayers are about to be rewarded for our efforts."
The sergeant nodded, a grin cracking the bloodied mask of her face.
19
To Mark, the mine looked like any other he’d seen in a fantasy RPG. A big, uneven hole in the rock with some rail-tracks sticking out like a mechanized tongue. A few overturned ore carts lay here and there. Some rough and ready miners’ huts stood nearby. Simple one-room shacks, each with a rudimentary chimney. Not the finest of shelter for the miners, but then they were only meant as overnighters.
The way the foreman had described the operation, most miners would do a few days at the mine, return with their ore to the village, sell up, and then have a quiet few days at home until the money ran out. Sounded like a nice work-life balance to Mark.
He looked to the foreman who was standing in the middle of the tracks, hands on his broad hips, ample belly hanging over his belt.
“So these creatures...what did you call them again?”
“Cave Ghasts.”
“They were humanoid?”
The foreman’s wrinkled face grew even more creased as he struggled with the foreign word. “Can’t say as I know what that means.”
“Two arms, two legs, walking upright, usually with a mouth, nose and eyes in roughly the same places as us.”
The miner scratched his balding head with a calloused hand. “Yup, sounds about right, except for the eyes bit.”
