Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (50 page)

Quentes scrabbled back along the blood-slick floor and felt a gun under his hand. He raised it and pulled the trigger, the searing heat of a burner striking the monster full in the face, but the flames just flowed around the demon as it turned to inspect him once more. Then the claws swept back into view, dark and huge. He felt it strike him. The world collapsed into blurring darkness and brief pain before it was all extinguished and the dark consumed him entirely.

‘I hope you’re happy now, Toil,’ Kas hissed as they skirted the stone shell of a building to discover a slanted fissure in the rock ahead.

‘Happy?’

‘That gods-damned grenade!’ Kas said. ‘Looks like you got your wish.’

As though to emphasise the point another rumbling roar raced through the tunnels. Lynx looked past Kas at the fissure. It would be hard going to get through, but the sound had come from that direction. If they wanted to get back towards the rift and find the other group, they needed to head that way.

Toil went to the fissure mouth and held her lantern up high. The faint light of the rock around them illuminated how tough it would be. After a few moments she shook her head and pointed to the far end of the chamber where a small tunnel led out.

‘Let’s try another way.’ She paused and cocked her head at Kas. ‘Happy? Not sure about that, but if we find those Charnelers all dead, you’ll owe me a drink.’

‘You get us out of here,’ Kas replied, ‘and I’ll stand you more’n one drink. That ain’t the bit I’m worried about.’

‘Come on then.’

It took them a long while to find an alternative path, during which they heard muted roars and explosions. By Lynx’s estimation they had skirted back past the lower bridge, where Sitain’s group had been, but as they found a series of staggered ramps leading up they saw no one. It was a sapping climb and the sounds of violence had fallen worryingly silent again, but there was little more they could do without risking running into Charnelers. Finally they ventured to the outer edge of the rift wall and peeked out of a long bank of windows down at the fire-lit ridges below.

For a moment Lynx didn’t see it, so staggered was he by the yawning chasm ahead. The great lamps only emphasised just how huge the rift was, each hundred-yard-long bridge looking small and fragile across that great space. Then a great shape moved on the far side, lit by fires of its own behind a veil of darkness. It was massive, that much Lynx was sure of, with four long limbs that resembled bat wings as it clung to the rift wall. A long glowing spray of tongues flickered out, questing into the burrows of great doorways and windows.

Inside those chambers, Lynx could see sparks and flickering lights as though the creature’s tongues were sparker-trails. The unease that had been growing inside him hardened and he turned to Toil.

‘You know what that is?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she whispered back. ‘Beasts of the deepest dark don’t have names, but it’s assumed they’re what are called golantha in ancient scripture. Most adventurers won’t see one in their lifetime. Wisps refer to them as Darkest Lights if they have to mention them, but even they don’t really know anything about them.’

‘And still you decided to poke its nest?’

‘Couldn’t see any other way. You weren’t volunteering alternative plans so far as I recall.’

‘What do you know about them?’

Toil frowned at him. ‘They’re big and dangerous. What more do you want?’

He met her gaze for a while but either she was telling the truth or he couldn’t tell when she was lying. His disquiet remained, however, an instinct he’d learned to trust in the dark of the To Lort mine – suspicion as a first resort, when it was dangerous to live any other way.

‘What’s it doing?’ Kas whispered from her vantage point. ‘Rooting for anyone left alive?’

As they watched, it paused and turned its blunt head. Lynx’s heart seemed to stop for a moment as the half-hidden horror raised its tusked snout as though it had heard them. Then its mouth opened again and the long whips of tongue flashed out, probing like a snake. In its throat Lynx saw flashes of light, a gullet edged in curls of flame. But it wasn’t looking up at the four mercenaries. Soon its attention was dragged down and the tongues quested towards the levels well below them.

‘It’s no elemental,’ Lynx breathed, ‘but that’s magic still. Fire and lightning, night magic surrounding it too maybe.’

‘So?’

Before he could reply, the golantha abruptly pushed off from the slope it clung to and threw itself across the rift. A powerful stroke of each crooked limb seemed to propel it a long way before it dropped down on to the bridge, covering forty yards in a single bound. The creature itself was twenty yards long from its broad head to stubby tail, but moved with remarkable agility and Lynx realised the blur of darkness trailing each limb was, at least in part, a leather frond of wing.

It ran with snaking speed along the bridge, ignoring the great stone bowls of fire, until it neared the far side whereupon it rose up and leaped, again beating at the air with all four limbs to hurl itself on to the rift wall above the bridge. There was a rumble and crack of stone as it landed, followed swiftly by a deafening roar, and they all reeled from the noise.

As the sound died away Toil looked out over the edge again, soon joined by the others. The slope was such that they needed to lean precariously out to get a good view. Now the ground did shake as the golantha ripped at a gallery with one sweep of its claws and screams came from within. The white flash of icers skipped off its body, making it flinch and snap at the source of the shot. The orange flower of a burner bursting over its forelimb it ignored, but eagerly lashed forward with its flail-tongue at the assailant. More icers struck its flank, prompting another roar. This time its tongue was wreathed in spitting arcs of lightning as it struck back.

‘Burners don’t seem to hurt it much,’ Lynx muttered, watching the monster move swiftly across the slope towards the lesser bridge. A figure in black and white was still caught in its jaws as it went, shrieking madly until it bit down. There was a crash and a flash of light. For a moment Lynx thought the Charneler’s cartridge case had exploded, but the body was not ripped in half nor the golantha injured.

‘It’s the magic,’ he said with mounting certainty as the remains of the Charneler were allowed to fall, uneaten, from the crackling strands of tongue. ‘That’s what it’s after.’ He turned to Toil, anger mounting inside him. ‘Did you know? Or suspect, at least?’

‘Know what?’

‘That it fed off magic – when you divided us up, did you mean to keep Sitain away from you?’

‘Sitain’s the only other one with a lamp!’ she snapped back. ‘We couldn’t go together!’

‘But you put her with the person we’re most likely to leave behind and the hardest hearts in the company.’

‘You’ve been underground too long,’ Toil spat. ‘It’s messing with your head, making you paranoid.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Hey!’ Kas shouted, stepping between the two of them. ‘Now’s not the fucking time for any of this.’ A rumble of noise from Reft’s throat indicated the big man agreed with her. Kas went to the edge again. ‘More importantly, it does look like it’s hunting someone down there.’

Lynx looked out. The golantha was working a diagonal path up the rift wall, away from them but ascending too. If it was after Sitain, it didn’t look like she could get away from it easily. As he watched, it ripped away a section of pillars and drove inside, worming its narrow body into the space beyond. The sound of destruction continued and Lynx realised the interior wasn’t as safe as they’d hoped. He looked around, realising the great support pillars and archways were well spaced – enough for even a large creature to get into so long as it could smash away the thinner parts.

‘Let’s go.’

‘Go?’ Toil said, astonished. ‘You want to go and fucking fight that?’

‘I want to see if the others need help.’

‘You’re mad! We’ve got to pull back, let it root out the Charnelers then make for the bridge once it’s sated.’

‘We’re going,’ Lynx stated, glancing at Reft. The big man nodded, Kas too. Toil looked from one to the other, her face tight with anger, but eventually she swallowed it and shook her head wearily.

‘You people are mad. Deepest black, stupid and mad! Come on then, without me you’ll be stupid, mad
and
dead.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Lynx said through gritted teeth.

They retraced their steps a short way, heading down with as much caution as they could muster. What had happened to the remaining Charnelers, Lynx couldn’t say. Perhaps they’d all fled into the ruins, perhaps they’d stayed to fight and been massacred. Either way the sounds of gunfire had faded and the quiet was broken only by the occasional muffled crash of stone.

As they neared the sounds of its progress, Lynx realised the golantha had worked itself a long way into the interior now. The broad tunnels and grand scale of the Duegar ruin apparently worked in the monster’s favour, easily accommodating its lithe body. Once they’d closed on it Toil led them deeper into the ruin, trying to skirt around the creature rather than attack it directly. Rounding one great natural pillar Lynx glimpsed a group of Charnelers on a high walkway, fleeing from the golantha.

He raised his gun, ready to fight, but only the last of the group spotted him. Instead of shooting he just yelled a curse and carried on going, no doubt saving his ammunition for the native horrors. Lynx was happy to do the same and followed Toil in a long arc around the monster. As they neared whatever it was hunting, he felt a jolt in his guts. The sound of gunfire rang out once more, this time from somewhere close at hand.

Rounding the next corner he almost fired at a figure across the chamber until Toil raised a hand in front of him. Lynx looked closer and realised it was Anatin, the greying mercenary commander bent over and exhausted. He was cradling his left hand, which looked like it was wrapped in a rough bandage.

‘Where are the others?’ Toil called.

Anatin yelped and looked up, clapping a hand to his heaving chest as he realised who they were.

‘Fuck!’ was all he said at first between panting breaths.

Lynx’s eyes widened. Anatin’s hand wasn’t bandaged – the stump where his hand had once been was. A belt was tight around the arm, keeping pressure on it, but somehow the man was still going despite his injury.

‘The others?’ Toil repeated.

‘Ashis fell behind,’ he shouted with a shake of the head. As he made to continue, a larger figure appeared behind him, emerging silently from a tunnel; Teshen.

‘About time,’ he called as Lynx’s group hurried over. They reached the pair just as Varain and Sitain also appeared, both looking exhausted but uninjured. ‘Damn thing’s chasing us.’

‘Charnelers?’

‘Sure, them too maybe. Didn’t seem so important all of a sudden. One put an icer through Anatin’s wrist as Ashis went down, but no one’s so keen to stop and fight right now. A couple tried to pin us down and got munched for their efforts.’

‘Ashis’s gone?’

The man’s face was blank and hard. ‘We won’t get back to her. Either the Charnelers have killed her or she’s eating a burner right now.’

Lynx nodded, though he felt a sickened feeling in his gut. Seeing someone die was something he was used to, but leaving them to die alone in the dark cut him to the quick.

‘Where is it?’ he said, forcing himself to focus on something else.

Teshen pointed back behind them. ‘We ducked through the smallest doorways we could find. It’ll be looking for a way round.’

‘It’s not giving up the chase?’

‘No chance.’ He cocked his head in Sitain’s direction. ‘Reckon we’ve got something it wants.’

Lynx nodded. ‘Looked that way from where we were; any magic it can sniff out.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ Teshen looked first at Anatin then Toil, but neither spoke immediately.

‘We give it what it wants,’ Toil said slowly, looking straight at Sitain.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ the young woman gasped.

‘Nope.’

‘What? Tie me down and leave me like a sacrifice while you run for it?’

Toil gave her an evil smile. ‘Could be worth a try. You a virgin?’

‘We’re not doing that,’ Lynx broke in, half-afraid Toil was serious. ‘But you’re good bait, better than our cartridge cases even.’

‘Plus we need those if we’re to kill it.’

‘I’m not sacrificing myself so you can get a clean shot! In case you’d not noticed, the damn thing’s been shot at a few times anyway.’

Lynx shook his head. ‘I’ll do it. Burners didn’t seem to have much effect so hand those over, they’ll smell like magic all the same.’

He opened the looted cartridge case that hung at his waist and pulled a handful of icers from it. These he put into his own before swapping in most of his remaining burners and sparkers. ‘Cough up all of you, burners and sparkers – grenades too if we’ve got any left. The golantha looks like it’s made as much from fire and lightning as anything else under that armour. A bag of tasty treats for it might make me the best option.’

‘Golantha?’ Teshen asked as they all complied.

‘Ask Toil,’ Lynx said with a shrug. ‘Mebbe another day, though. Let’s move from here before it finds a way through, hey?’

‘How’s this going to help us?’ Anatin demanded as they started walking. ‘You’re taking all our most powerful cartridges – icers aren’t doing much more than beestings to the bastard.’

‘Enough beestings and it’ll go down,’ Lynx said, ‘but I’m not waiting for that. Can we lure it somewhere and collapse the roof on it?’

‘I doubt it,’ Toil said. ‘The Duegar built their cities to last centuries. To take down a large stretch would be damn hard.’

‘Okay, so we lure it out to a bridge, kick it back down the hole it crawled out of and hope the fall slows it up enough to get ourselves across. The Charnelers guarding the far side are dead I reckon.’

‘Burners and sparkers don’t hurt it,’ Toil said, ‘but earthers will. Nothing shrugs off the force of an earther impact easily. That’s why icers sting it; it isn’t the cold that hurts.’

‘How many earthers do we have?’