Of Truth And Beasts Part 50

"A'ye!" Ore-Locks said breathily.

Wynn swung around at his exclamation. His large hand was pressed into another depression in the coal. That hollow was so large that his hand looked small as he drew it along the depression's inner surface. Wynn slipped in, trying to see into the hollow as Ore-Locks withdrew his hand.

Under her crystal's close light, the hollow's back was smoothly cut in parallel grooves. These marks weren't like the ones Chane implied were made with claws. These were smoother, closer together, like . . . like teeth had bitten through the black coal.

She shook her head, reminding herself that whatever had been down here couldn't still be here. Then she heard a low, rumbling whine.

Shade stood off behind Wynn, not drawing near. The dog's jowls quivered as she flattened her ears, looking at that huge hollow under the crystal's light.

Wynn decided not to move on just yet. Whatever happened here warranted further investigation.

Chuillyon walked right through an open portal into a chamber similar to that of the Fallen Ones back in Dhredze Seatt. But this one was huge.

It still surprised him that Ore-Locks was leaving these portals wide-open. Such negligence would shock Cinder-Shard, though Chuillyon certainly could not complain. He could not have opened them himself, but how had Ore-Locks done so? How could even an errant stonewalker know the combinations for locks used a thousand years ago?

"What is this place?" Hannschi asked, looking around with clear worry on her smudged face. "These effigies are . . . different from the last ones."

Shodh examined pieces of a broken effigy lying on the floor. "What do the carved bands represent?"

This was the first openly curious question he had asked in a long while. Chuillyon had no time to explain dwarven vices or the place of the Fallen Ones in their beliefs.

He saw no other ways out of here except for two jagged breaches in the walls. The wider breach to the left of the entrance was just another vertical shaft, as in the hall of the Eternals. He doubted Wynn or the others had the equipment or skills to climb down.

He looked at Shodh and asked, "Which way?"

The glance Shodh cast back seemed almost hostile. The young man closed his eyes with a thrumming chant. When his eyes opened, he looked to the taller, narrower breach.

Chuillyon scowled in frustration. Perhaps he had again underestimated Wynn. As he approached, he held his crystal through the opening. It did not open into a shaft, and instead, he found a rough and raw tunnel running in both directions.

Hannschi came up beside him and leaned in to see around the opening's sides.

"Well, onward again," Chuillyon told her tiredly.

A shudder shook the hall's floor, and he turned.

Shodh still stood among the basalt debris, but his eyes widened as he looked toward the wide breach at the hall's other end.

Gha.s.san reached an open portal and carefully peeked around its edge. There was another ma.s.sive hall waiting beyond, but this one was filled with near-black faceless and formless effigies. Representations of bands were carved in the stone all around each one, but they did not keep Gha.s.san's attention long.

Chuillyon's young male companion stood at the hall's center, while the old elf and the female looked into a tall breach in the right wall.

With no one looking Gha.s.san's way, he slipped in behind the nearest tall, black effigy. From his hiding place, he tried to hear what the others said, but they were all quiet. In frustration, he thought of dipping into Chuillyon's surface thoughts, hoping the old elf would not feel his presence.

But then Gha.s.san heard the sound of falling rock. Dust billowed from the wide breach in the hall's end just behind him. The floor shook and vibrated as he heard more debris tumbling down the shaft.

Gha.s.san froze, ready to bolt from the hall.

"What was that?" Shodh said.

A cloud of dust billowed from the wide breach in the hall's end nearest its entrance.

"We should move on, as this place is not stable," Chuillyon said, and turned as Hannschi stepped through the taller breach.

A ripple in the tunnel's inner wall caught Chuillyon's eyes. He instinctively lurched back, trying to grab for Hannschi.

A loud hiss came as a cloud of umber vapors filled the tunnel inside the breach.

Chuillyon covered his face with a sleeve, as the cloud enveloped Hannschi. She wheezed and choked as he s.n.a.t.c.hed the back of her cloak and jerked. Then he caught sight of a wriggling form protruding from the tunnel's inner wall.

Only instinct kept him clutching Hannschi's cloak as he threw himself back and fell. Muddy orange vapors spilled out of the opening, rising over the breach's top lip and drifting upward. Before Chuillyon could roll off his back, Shodh knocked his grip free and pulled Hannschi farther out on the hall's floor. He dropped to his knees, and she collapsed in his arms, her head lolling to one side.

"No . . . no!" Shodh stammered, all composure gone from his horrified face.

Sau'ilahk saw Wynn's glowing light ahead and even heard her voice. From what he could tell, she stood at some dark crosscut in the tunnel.

"Keep searching," she said, her voice barely reaching him.

Sau'ilahk's excitement grew. He longed to drift closer, but he was too close even now. Yet he could not bring himself to withdraw. What had she found?

Wynn suddenly appeared to drop out of sight, as if she sank lower than the tunnel floor. By the glow of a crystal's light, Chane and Ore-Locks appeared to be on the crosscut's far side, and a fair distance away from Wynn.

"What are we looking for?" Ore-Locks called.

"Any more of the same," she called back. "Or anything unusual."

Sau'ilahk's urgency heightened. What did they search for?

A rumble carried down the tunnel from behind him, and he could not help turning to look.

Light spilled into the tunnel from the breach where he had planted his servitor. The elves must have come, but his stone worm could not have made that rumbling sound. He hung there, watching, until a crack like thunder echoed through the breach and down the tunnel.

Chuillyon regained his feet, prepared to repel whatever had a.s.saulted Hannschi. He drew his sleeve over his nose and mouth and looked through the breach, but he saw only the rough stone of the tunnel's inner wall through the thinning vapors.

A crack of breaking stone filled the hall.

Chuillyon whirled as the sound pierced his ears. More stones crashed down the chute inside the wide breach at the hall's other end. A billow of dark dust bulged out of the opening, and a charred stench filled the hall's air.

It was not dust, but smoke.

Flame bellowed out of that breach, reaching toward the hall's midpoint. Shodh shouted something, but the fire's roar drowned him out.

Before the flames had begun to die, a monstrous form crawled out of the wide breach on all fours, its bulk spreading the cloud of smoke.

As the flames erupted, Gha.s.san tried running for the entrance, but he stumbled as he was a.s.sailed by searing heat. Something charged right through the fire, and he ran back behind the first effigy, rushing to its far side to see what was happening. All he saw amid the flames was something huge and four-legged, with a ma.s.sive head on a long neck. It charged straight toward Chuillyon and his people.

Wynn tensed at the thunderous echo rolling down the raw tunnel. A soft, red light filled the pa.s.sage's distant end back where the narrow breach led into the Chamber of the Fallen. But she froze before calling to the others.

A dark silhouette stood in the tunnel between her and that pulse of orange-yellow light.

Shade spun and lunged two paces past Wynn. The dog's growl began to twist into something akin to a cat's angry mewl, and her hackles rose in the light of Wynn's crystal.

Wynn's mind went numb. She knew Shade's sounds, but she couldn't accept what it meant, and kept whispering, "It cannot be. It cannot be."

Wynn couldn't take her eyes off the black figure framed by the orange glow farther up the tunnel. Then a crack of stone erupted behind her, followed by the sound of falling rocks.

Wynn twisted about as billowing dust and dirt rolled toward her.

"Chane!"

Chane was farther down the tunnel with Ore-Locks when three sounds stunned him in rapid succession. Shade let out a loud mewl of warning, and Chane shoved the cold lamp crystal into his pocket, reaching for his swords. Before he could draw them, he heard rocks falling overhead, and then Wynn cried out, "Chane!"

A cloud of dust and loosened earth filled the coal pocket between him and her, nearly blocking out her crystal's light.

Chane heard rocks crashing down within that cloud, and still he lunged forward. He felt Ore-Locks grab his cloak and jerk him to a halt.

"Let go," he snarled.

He turned in a frenzy, but faltered at the dwarf's gaping mouth and wide eyes staring upward.

Ore-Locks shouted, "It is coming from-"

The rest was drowned in a thunder of crashing rock. Dust filled the air around both of them. Chane grew wild to reach Wynn as he looked back for her, but that choking cloud obscured everything.

Something lashed at him out of the dust.

He caught only a glimpse of a great, snaking tail with a barbed end, and he tried to duck. Its bulk caught him across the chest like a swinging tree trunk and slammed him against the tunnel wall. As the world darkened for an instant, he heard a metallic clang, and then Ore-Locks cried out.

Chane crumpled to the floor as the snaking tail whipped away. He clawed at the tunnel wall, trying to get off his knees, but a sudden pain made him fear he had been broken inside. Dust began settling over fallen stones in the crosscut, and he struggled up, looking for whatever had attacked them. At first he could not see Wynn at all, for something blocked his line of sight.

He barely made out the huge tail as its barbed end sc.r.a.ped the stone floor. Though the creature faced away from him, he could see it was taller and broader than a draft horse. Its back nearly reached the ceiling. Wynn's light from beyond it exposed something else shifting on its back.

Folded leathery wings covered its upper body.

Chane saw the glint of scales all over it, down across its flexing haunches to its taloned rear feet. But the light around it was the wrong color, orange instead of the white from a sage's crystal.

The creature shifted suddenly, stepping away up the tunnel with a sc.r.a.pe of claws.

Chane's panic sharpened as he finally spotted Wynn and Shade beyond the creature. But he also saw that the flickering orange glow came from far beyond them.

"Run!" he tried to shout, but his maimed voice was drowned out by an echo of falling stones. As he drew both swords, for an instant he thought he imagined . . .

Someone stood in the tunnel's darkness between Wynn and the distant orange light.

That light suddenly died, leaving only Wynn's glowing crystal, and all that mattered to him was reaching her.

Wynn saw a monstrous head snake out of the dust cloud, and the whole creature followed with a grinding sc.r.a.pe of claws upon stone.

Shade lunged back around her, barking and snapping.

The reptile opened its long mouth, and an acrid stench stung Wynn's nostrils. It hissed as clear fluid spilled out of its maw. A shower of spittle sprayed out as its large, sooty rows of teeth clacked together . . . and sparked.

"Shade!" Wynn screamed, grabbing the dog and throwing them both toward the tunnel's far wall.

Spittle ignited, and flame burned along the wall where they'd been standing.

Wynn hit the far wall, toppling over Shade. She tried to keep Shade down as her staff clattered away across the floor. A curtain of fire spread along the far wall and the ceiling above from whatever the creature had spit at them. Wynn felt her forearm begin to sear.

Her sleeve was on fire!

She thrashed and whipped her arm against the tunnel floor, smothering her sleeve. While flailing, she caught a glimpse up the tunnel.

Before the flames died, Wynn clearly saw a black robe and wafting cloak illuminated by the fire.

She almost lost her fear of the beast coming at her as she saw him.

Sau'ilahk was there, watching her.

As flames suddenly erupted near Wynn, Sau'ilahk rushed halfway to her. She had not yet led him to the orb, and he could not let her die. Somehow she grabbed the dog and rolled clear, evading the worst of the fire.

Sau'ilahk still heard a roaring far behind him, but it did not pull his attention. He could only stare at the winged, reptilian creature filling the tunnel beyond Wynn.

That noise behind him, and the blast of orange light at the breach, could mean only one thing. There were at least two of these creatures down here.

Sau'ilahk did not think Wynn could escape them. Perhaps he could save her, but she had already led him into the seatt's deepest place. The search could not reach much farther.

He had no fear of these creatures, no matter how long he remained. Their teeth and claws, even their fire, could not touch him. He could search at his leisure, ignoring them.

Wynn froze, staring at him, as if not believing her eyes. The sight of her stricken face sparked a sudden joy within him, and then he saw the creature behind her open its maw again.

A howl echoed sharply up the tunnel.

Shade charged toward Sau'ilahk. Chane rushed the creature from behind. Wynn scrambled for her staff.

Sau'ilahk had always hoped to kill her slowly. But the orb was all that mattered now.

Wynn would die, anyway, her last sight being that of him.

Sau'ilahk focused down the tunnel past Chane, past Ore-Locks, as far as he could see. And he blinked through dormancy.

Wynn almost screamed in anguish as Sau'ilahk vanished, and Shade snapped at empty air like a wolf gone mad. Amid terror, Wynn spun to face the creature behind her. She couldn't help thinking that Chane had been right all along.

The wraith had survived and would now beat her to the orb.

The last thing that should happen was for the orb to fall into Sau'ilahk's hands-to be reclaimed by the Enemy for whatever purpose it served. She couldn't allow that at any price.

Whirling back, she saw Chane charging the creature from behind. She raised her staff, hoping to blind the creature before it spit fire again. Its maw was open and fluid dripped out, but it didn't clack its teeth again.

The creature raised its large head, and its black orb eyes stared up the tunnel at Shade. Wynn was caught in hesitation when it suddenly snaked its head back around. Chane dodged aside, but the creature looked beyond him, fixating on Ore-Locks still lying against the tunnel's side.