Fortress of Lost Worlds (3 page)

It must be, the samurai reasoned at last, that this place functioned as a complete refuge, responding to the need of whatever creature sought shelter here.

Whatever creature sought shelter here.

Gonji’s skin prickled. He glanced about the cavern circumspectly, but there seemed nothing to fear. He had crossed the Pyrenees several times, knew its lore, yet he could recall nothing about this.

Still,
something
troubled him. There was a long-ago campfire warning. Whose? Concerning
what?

He shrugged at last and moved deeper into the system of caverns. Which was to be preferred: succumbing helplessly to the pitiless wrath of winter or matching strike for strike with some unknown, faceless terror?

They crept deeper into the beckoning womb of the glowing cavern system.

Hearing the gurgle of water, Gonji discovered a small cavern wherein bubbled a cool mountain stream. Wending down from the snowmelt high above them, it poured through a fissure and meandered along an eroded course that carried it into other caves beyond. Flowing like molten gold in the basking rays of the heat stones, it emerged clear and cold in the samurai’s scooping sallet. Tasting it gingerly at first, Gonji found it delightful and, abandoning all caution, slaked his thirst. Tora awaited no invitation, doing likewise.

In this cave Gonji discovered shelves of rock, untouched by the light of the glowstones, in which sprouted mushrooms of a familiar, edible variety. These he wolfed down with audible appreciation, staying his eagerness after a while out of both discipline and common sense. For although his belly grumbled for more, it would be tender in its shriveled state; further, the warrior who glutted himself to bursting in the face of possible enemy action burdened himself with
two
enemies.

Higher up on the cave wall—a short reach from Tora’s stirrups—there grew a curious dwarf tree that, upon close inspection, was found to yield small berries that were tart but edible. These Tora took a liking to, though his interest soon switched to the leaves of the tiny tree itself.

The tantalizing thought occurred to Gonji:
What else might I discover in this mount-of-plenty if I move still deeper?
But he quickly remembered that his life followed no such serendipitous progression and dispersed the seductive vision of a cave in which table was set with trout, fresh bread, and French wine. Instead, he sat back and counted his blessings, then inventoried his fingers and toes.

The layered weather-wrapping he slowly removed had barely preserved his digits against permanent damage, but indeed no serious harm had been done. When the prickling burn of frostbite had ceased, he rose and tried to make Tora as comfortable as possible while soothing and examining the faithful steed. Satisfied, Gonji was again drawn to the amazing heat stones.

Gathering several of these into a pile, he scraped and chipped at them with his
tanto
knife. He learned that as he worked off outer layers of the rock—which crumbled readily under pressure—the stones grew both brighter and hotter. The core itself, he painfully discovered, would cook flesh or boil water in its blinding yellow or cobalt sear. He constructed a fine hearth and nodded with self-satisfaction.

No more running. Here I make my stand this night.

With deep reverence and measured movements, he sat cross-legged before the pulsing glow. Holding the magnificent Sagami horizontally before his vision, he drew its gleaming blade slowly from the scabbard. His eyes diminished to dark slits of flickering ebon as he studied the heavenly coruscations flashing from the wave pattern of the blade’s working.

If any night fiend or cave-haunt dare disturb my harmony…

Memories tortured his serenity. He ground his teeth when he thought of the gargantuan cave worm that had tried to eat its way through the militia of Vedun. Of the wyvern’s strafing flight, spewing missiles of filth; of the Black Forest dragon; the weeping vampire sisters; Wolverangue, the Hellspawn…

Gonji smiled thinly and replaced the splendid blade. He laid it along his left side—the place of easy draw—and set about heating water for a ritual cleansing that was long overdue. This he pursued with many a thought, many a reworking of unfinished poetry, given to marking the events of an itinerant life of mystery and wonder. He laved each major body scar as though it were a shrine, pausing long at the cicatrix along his shoulder blade to recall a paean to lost love.

Dressed again, he ate more of the mushrooms as he pored over an unfurled map.

Hai.
He nodded as he formed his resolution,
there lies the next station of unfinished business.

Without consciously acknowledging it, he had been drifting toward Spain—toward Aragon again—for a long time. Ever since, in fact, the lycanthrope had begun to take such pains to obliterate his spoor. In Aragon, Gonji would confront Duke Alonzo Cervera, explain at last, whatever the cost, the complete details of their wretched crossing three—was it four now?—years before. The full tale of Theresa’s horrible fate in Hungary during the Szekely clan war.

Theresa’s—and that of Gonji’s unborn child.

He nodded grimly to see the course he would have to follow if he were to be direct: To reach Zaragoza without delay, he must cross the Segre River. Must pass Barbaso and the dreaded Castle Malaguer. Must, perhaps, dare the hand of the Inquisition itself.

Karma.

* * * *

The panic of disorientation.

Gonji rolled away from the glowing mound and drew the Sagami with a sharp whine.

He was sweat-drenched. His eyes cast about wildly before fixing on Tora’s snorting muzzle. The chestnut stallion’s face looked slick, his eyes frenzied.

The warmth had lulled Gonji into slumber. He had no way of knowing how long, what time of day it might be in the world beyond the mountain sanctuary. But what had awakened him?

Ogros.

The samurai licked at cracked lips.
Ogros—
what? The legend—now he remembered, at least partially. An old woman, smiling old woman, telling her Gypsy lies to a captive campfire audience.

Beware Ogros. Ogros what?

Something. The Hunters of the Night. Children of the ancient mountain. Older than man, and still more ravening.

For endless minutes before he began gathering his belongings, Gonji listened to the chanting that rumbled up to his ears from somewhere—
everywhere—
in the cave system. Rhythmic, heavily accented, undeniably primitive.

He was the invader. The interloper. He had used their mountain uninvited. The hunters—the Hunters of Night—he had arrived at night—invaded their home while they hunted—
who?

Ogros.

It mattered not in these things whether fact followed supposition. Sanity demanded that the lurking shapeless terrors be named and objectified.

They moved from the cave as warily and noiselessly as possible, Tora being little help there in his eagerness to find open air. The darkness seemed to part less readily before the quickening of the glowstones. Gonji fought back the gooseflesh that accompanied his sudden realization that the enchanted caves’ operation rendered him a conspicuous target.

The chanting rolled through the tunnels, vibrant and vigorous.

And Gonji realized with sagging heart that, even as they made their escape, he had no idea where escape lay: His poor sense of direction had done him in again. Cursing, he moved them in a different direction. They crossed the mountain stream twice before he thought he recognized a cavern they’d been in. Gritting his teeth, he dragged a recalcitrant Tora through the archway.

He stepped on something that gave under his foot, emitting brittle snapping sounds as it seized him by the boot.

The samurai gasped aloud and drew his
katana,
the keen blade flashing downward but striking empty air. Gonji kicked viciously twice before shattering the maddening thing against the wall. The illumination of the glowstones at last caught up with his slashing vision: a rib cage.

The chamber was filled with bones. A charnel cell filled with discarded skeletons of men, animals, and things that were part of both but altogether neither. There were paintings on the walls, their subjects unpleasant enough that Gonji turned from them quickly and, setting his jaw and concentrating on calming his fears, turned back again. Certain now that no escape lay in that direction.

The savage chanting echoed in the depths of the mountain as they searched for the exit. Gonji kept the Sagami fisted at his side as he peered into one chamber after another, awaiting the framing of each slowly dawning vision in the indifferent light of the magic stones. Blade clenched in two-handed middle guard, he anticipated in each murky glow the attack of some coil-sprung horror. Now and again Tora would stamp back so fretfully from a cavern entrance that the samurai would back away from that haunted cell, sword at the ready, until another would threaten with its imminent adit.

He at last happened on a chamber whose contoured arch seemed familiar. Furthermore, a wash of frigid air pulsed from the cave—by now a welcome sensation; the bite of the merciless winter wind was much preferred to this nefarious place. But when he stepped into the archway, there issued no nascent sparkle, no hint of magic from the ensorceled stones. Only a peculiar odor coming in wisps that the cold air sought to deaden.

Gonji selected a stone about a span in diameter that glowed magenta in his gloved hands. He beat one side of it against a wall until it blazed like the August sun, and he could no longer hold even its farther side. This he tossed into the freezing antechamber.

Even in the bounding, strobing light, the shock of what he saw set his hair to bristling. Carcasses hung in the deathly air of the cave. Animals and men. Streaked with the reflected colors of frost and blood. Suspended upside down to swing gently in the air currents. Some whole, some sectioned. Preserved or curing for obvious future use.

The samurai grimaced, his fingers working over the hilt of the Sagami. A naked man hung nearest him, arms reaching limply for the floor, face set in a rigid distortion by gravity and dishonorable death.

Gonji’s breath came in gasps of frustrated anger as he yanked Tora around and hurried back the way they had come. He moved too swiftly for the rock glow to keep pace, relying now on faulty memory of their steps, pausing scant seconds when he became too disoriented, the chanting welling up through the foreboding mountain tunnels.

He found the stream again and used its splash to set his course, eschewing caution for speed. He felt certain that he must turn off to the left at some point. But where?

After a tortured few moments of plunging through the threatening darkness, he paused and cast about helplessly, straddling the stream gully, allowing the stones to ignite, illuminating the tunnel and drying his wet boots. He regulated his breathing while he calmed Tora with a reassuring hand. Was it his imagination or was the chanting growing louder? Nearer. It was insistent in its pulsating rhythm. Now Gonji fancied that he could discern syllables:
huk-huk—huk-huk—
Throaty and militant. A chant suitable for the breaking of backs and skulls.

There issued from a cavern farther ahead a soft, shadow-dappled archway flicker. The telltale sign of habitation. It waxed and waned tauntingly, sunset red to burning rust.

Gonji gritted his teeth and let go the reins. He could not resist a look at the enemy, for surely it must lie in wait beyond that arch.

Huk-huk—huk-huk
—

He scampered in a crouch toward the cave, blade at the ready. Negotiated the head-high slope to peer warily within.

Nothing moved inside. The outre glow emanated from piled glowstones heaped into four mounds. A branching of the stream—or perhaps another stream altogether—formed a serene raised pool near the cavern’s center. The gnarled branches of a tree—a larger version of the one he’d partaken of—veined the air above the pool. On it the berries grew to palm-sized bulbs resembling tomatoes. Sustenance for a long, cold ride.

Gonji scurried into the cavern and selected several of the ripest fruits, stuffing them inside his greatcoat. He sampled one. They overflowed with sweet pulp and cloying juice. Then he caught the scent—the unmistakable scent of searing human flesh. And he at once understood the meaning of the mounds of glowing stone.

He dropped the fruit he’d been eating and rushed back to Tora. They hurried along the stream. Into an empty cave, and through another. The chanting increased in pitch, the reverberating echo turning Gonji to and fro in search of safe exit. His lips wove a tapestry of favorite imprecations.

(something to kill and the power to kill it)

Another blast of cold air from a passed cavern entrance. This one clean and sharp with the tang of ice. The nerve-racking languid glow filled the entrance at last. He recognized it, knew their location. Through this one into the next—

Blinding silver sunlight—tongues of sifting snow—he’d found it!

Dragging Tora inside, he halted and considered: the stones. Very useful when building a fire was impossible. Nodding curtly, he turned back.

“Hai.
Wait here, dumb beast.”

In the adjacent cavern most of the rocks were too large. He selected a few small ones, looked them over as they began to glow, mind racing to fashion an efficient plan. Put them inside his wraps? In Tora’s saddle pouches? What?

He dropped these inside the coat, where they gathered at his belt. He began to feel foolish. He moved into the main tunnel, heedless of the chanting now. With the Sagami in the crook of an arm, he picked up more glowstones of useful size. He was about to turn back when his eye caught the wash of yellow glare spilling from one—
two—
nearby caverns.

The stones fell from his arms.

The chanting was mixed with satisfied grunting now, and clearly the latter issued from the brightly glowing caverns ahead. More chants split from the main chorus, becoming localized, nearing his position.

He watched the garish light with dawning fear. Remembered the soft magenta tones that had burned in response to his
own
body’s needs.