Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy (56 page)

Steve ignited both hands as he ran, racing to catch up to the two sprinting soldiers, all the while straining to hear if Sarah was still next to him. No matter how fast the soldiers ran, he wouldn’t dare try to outpace her. There was no way he’d leave her behind. Not in here. As they rounded yet another bend in the tunnel, he spared a few moments to glance behind him. There was his wife, just ahead of Rhenyon.

The shouting increased in volume as they progressed deeper into bowels of the earth. Without warning, the dwarf shot by them, heading in the opposite direction as fast as his short legs could carry him. A second later
Pheron
appeared, also running as fast as he could, shouting erratically. Breslin managed to avoid running into the humans, but Pheron wasn’t so lucky. Coming around the bend he ran full-tilt into Rhein as Kern dove out of the way in the nick of time. Both soldiers went down in a tumble of arms and legs. Hot on their trail, however, were a group of guur. As the insects observed the two bipeds fall to the ground, they clicked their pincers hungrily. They were about to feed. Life was good.

Running up to the fallen men, the lead guur prepared to gorge on the highly coveted piece of meat it had finally caught up with. The larger version of these strange bipedal creatures were much quicker than the smaller ones!

Pheron and Rhein started to disentangle themselves from each other when a searing blast of heat was felt directly above them. Lying as still as possible, with one soldier still draped over the other, they waited, motionless, as the entire tunnel was illuminated. Loud screeching noises sounded all about them, and yet they still did not move for fear of being caught in the deadly stream of fire whizzing by less than a foot above them.

A few of the hardier guur managed to survive Steve’s furious attack, only to stumble out of the roaring flames and quickly be dispatched by Rhenyon. These nasty insects
weren’t
nearly as fast when they were being roasted alive! The captain glanced down at his two lieutenants, still lying sprawled on the floor of the tunnel as Steve fired off jet after jet at the swarming bugs.

“
Rhein! Pheron! Stay as ye are!” Rhenyon ordered. “Do not attempt to move!”

“
Fear not, captain,” Rhein called, from underneath the bulk of Jheron’s body. “We are quite content to remain here for the time being.”

“
Ye would not say that if ye saw what was trying to take a bite out of ye!”

Rhein twisted around on the ground to see for himself. Flat on his back, head tilted as far back as he was able to, all he could see between the jets of fire streaking over him were legs. Hundreds of insect legs.

“
Wizards be damned!” Rhein started wiggling out from under Pheron, back towards the safety of the others.

All of a sudden Pheron let out a shout of alarm. From his ground-level vantage point, he had just caught sight of several of the large insects stealthily appearing out of the shadows
behind
them. Had he not been flat on his back, staring back at his companions, he would never have seen them.

“
They approach from behind!”

Steve threw a quick look behind him. Sure enough, a group of about five guur were preparing to attack his companions where they were the weakest.

“
Aw, crap. This is not good.” He turned to his wife, who was trying to make herself as flat as possible against the tunnel wall. “Babe, this is about to get seriously ugly. You need to get out of here. Get out of here now!!”

“
What about the others? If they are hurt, I can’t help them!”

“
We’re gonna have to chance it. I’m not risking you. Not now, not ever!”

Steve shared a quick look with Rhenyon, who gestured in the direction of his men. Steve
nodded
, whispering instructions to his wife.

“
Ready?”

Sarah nodded, hugging the tunnel wall as Steve simultaneously let loose jets of fire both in front of and behind them.

Rhenyon yanked Kern away from an advancing bug, while simultaneously plunging his sword through the insect’s cranium. He pushed him towards Sarah.

“
Ye will be the first. Go now! We are outnumbered here!”

Even in the midst of circumstances as dire as this, Kern bristled.

“
With all due respects, captain, ye can take that suggestion and –”

Sarah lunged forward and grabbed Kern by the wrist. Both vanished right before their eyes, with echoes of Kern’s curses fading away
moments
later.

Steve addressed the two fallen soldiers who still hadn’t regained their feet.

“
I’m going to fire off one helluva blast. Should be enough to back them off a bit. When I do, you two need to move, got it?”

Both fallen soldiers nodded.

Firing off a blast behind him to keep the bugs back there in check, he swung his right arm around to join his left. Before the guur could take advantage of the momentary lapse in their defenses, Steve fired off a massive wall of flames towards the carnivorous insects.

“
Go!”

The two soldiers scrambled to their feet, joining their captain as they fought off more guur from the rear.

Sarah materialized right then, snagged Rhein by his ear, and vanished before his cursing could begin.

Pheron turned, noting Rhein’s absence. He then swung his gaze around the area, taking a head count.

“
Captain! We lost Kern and Rhein! Were they taken by the guur? We have to get them back!”

Sarah appeared again, right before him.
Pheron
suddenly understood what had happened to his companions.

“
Lady Sarah, do not even think about –”

Sarah grabbed the shaking finger and the two of them both vanished.

“
It is just the two of us now, sir Steve,”
Rhenyon
called, hacking through the advancing horde of guur.

One guur hesitated, trying to decide which biped to sink it’s fangs into. Its hesitation cost it dearly; the head and fangs went flying left while the rest of the body flew right.

“
Make that three.” Breslin retrieved the axe he had thrown, eyeing the surviving guur with undisguised hatred.

“
I think I need a mimet!” Steve called.

In a move so blazingly fast that he could barely follow him with his eyes, Rhenyon slashed viciously through an attacking bug, whirled his sword to decapitate a second guur, spun around Steve between bursts of fire, and then returned to his position facing the rear. Steve’s mouth fell open, for in his mouth was the mimet that the captain had so deftly extracted from one of his pouches.

“
Wow!” Spitting the disc into his hand, he replenished his jhorun before firing off a tremendous blast at yet another wave of insects who tried to overwhelm them with sheer numbers alone. Fanning the air in front of him, Steve glared at the
remaining
guur, all of which were now slowly retreating. He cast a look behind. Three guur remained.

“
Would you step aside a minute?”

Rhenyon nodded, flattening himself along the tunnel wall while Steve incinerated everything behind them. With retreat now a possible option again, the three of them turned to face the last of the
attacking
horde.

“
Let’s end this. I’m tired of smelling burnt bugs.”

Steve’s head swiveled as he counted the
remaining
insects. Seven left. Three leapt
towards
him. Make that four left, he corrected, nostrils flaring at the unpleasant odor of deep-fried guur.

The last four bugs paused to determine their next move. Attack or retreat?

Rhenyon lunged then, impaling one guur while decapitating a second. Their numbers halved yet again, the remaining two guur
attempted
a last ditch effort to eliminate this new foe. Deciding to attack the torso and the legs of the closest human simultaneously, both guur leapt in tandem. Both ignited in mid-jump; their charred carapaces landing with unceremonious thuds next to the captain.

“
I really,” Steve kicked the smoking remains of a guur out of his way, “really hate bugs,” he finished.

In one fluid motion, Rhenyon cleaned his sword on the back of his tunic and slipped it neatly back into its scabbard.

“
Nasty creatures, these guur,” he observed.

“
Let us find the female and be done with this,” Breslin said.

“
Lead the way, master dwarf.”

****

“
How dare ye remove us from battle!”
Pheron
was bristling with anger. “I do not recall hearing an order for us to retreat. We left them to deal with those creatures without our help! Return us now!”

Sarah held up her hands to the angry lieutenant. “I know you’re mad, Pheron, but it’s what Rhenyon wanted. With us out of the way, they can go after that ant queen by themselves.”

“
How do ye know it’s what the captain wanted?” Rhein wanted to know.

Standing in the plaza where not twenty-four hours ago they had a pleasant lunch together,
Sarah
explained her actions to the angry soldiers.

“
Steve and Rhenyon were whispering together, and then he told me to get all of you to safety, myself included. Don’t you understand? My husband was worried about me. He wanted me safe. So he looked to Rhenyon to see if that’s how he felt about you three. And your captain agreed.”

“
The captain wanted us gone?” Kern was incredulous. “I do not believe that at all.”

“
I have a feeling that my husband is about to go nuclear,” Sarah carefully explained. “Remember the attack in the orchard? The explosions? Something along those lines. If any of us happen to be too close when he does that, then it’s all over for us.” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Now, Steve will only fight like that if he feels that he won’t hurt anyone. Rhenyon and Breslin can take refuge behind him when that happens. Two people can do that,” Sarah said quickly, observing Pheron ready to interject a complaint, “but not five, and certainly not six.”

Rhein put an arm on Pheron’s shoulder. “She’s right. I certainly don’t condone their decision, but I do see the logic of it.”

“
Do ye feel that?” Kern had squatted down to lay a hand on the ground. “The ground is shaking.”

Pheron dropped to one knee, placing a hand on the rocky surface as well. “Aye, the ground is trembling. Is that from them?”

The rock floor continued to shake for a few moments more before slowly dissipating. The soldiers looked to Sarah for an explanation.

“
I don’t know, I guess it could be them.”
Sarah
held up her hands. “Who’s to say that the ground doesn’t shake around here?”

Pheron straightened. “I can feel it trembling without even squatting down. It was not like that a few moments ago.”

“
I feel it, too. And I could not earlier, either,” Kern helpfully supplied.

Rhein, still squatting, kept his hand firmly planted on the ground. “The shaking has increased in strength. They must really be going at it in there.”

****

“
Well done, sir Steve!” Rhenyon fanned the air in front of him, trying to ward off the nauseating aroma of burnt bug. “Ye got near twenty that time!”