The Crucible of the Dragon God (19 page)

She looked up and saw that there was a rise in the bank up ahead, and hoped that Aldrededor had noticed the same thing. Thankfully, the ex-pirate proved to be as reliable as always and, a second later, The Mole veered up the bank, its tracks churning and sloughing liquid and weed as they went. Kali threw herself through the open hatch of the vehicle.

Aldrededor immediately swapped places with her, allowing Kali to take control of the levers, but not before activating the one to seal the door. Before it closed something long and serpent-like hove into view outside the hatch, overtaking The Mole. Suddenly, all that was visible through the observation slat was what appeared to be a large reptilian mouth filled with thousands of tiny, razor sharp teeth.

Oh no
, Kali thought.
One bloody great gob trying to eat me is enough for one week, thanks very much.

Kali quickly yanked and pushed levers, a combination of moves that threw The Mole into a skidding u-turn and shook the cabin, awakening Dolorosa just as the rear end of The Mole slammed into the body of their pursuer, before racing off in the opposite direction. Except that racing wasn't quite the right word. Because even though they were once more free of the drag effect of the canal water, The Mole was a machine built for tunnelling, not for speed. Only the fact that the lengthy creature seemed to need a few seconds to literally catch up with itself bought them distance. The trouble was, that distance would be eaten up in seconds. Kali decided to use the only advantage they had and steered the Mole towards where a number of branch junctions left the main canal. She hoped to use them and subsequent branches to stymie the creature's manoeuvrability, constantly shifting position to lose it in the maze of tunnels. But to do that she'd need to know the creature's location at all times.

"Dolorosa, open the rear slat. I need you to keep an eye on that thing."

"Whatta theeng?" Dolorosa said, shakily attempting to light a cheroot.

"The bloody great
theeng
outside!"

"Eeet was real?"

"Yes, Dolorosa."

"Eeet ees following us?"

"Yes, Dolorosa."

"
Heeeeeeeeeee...
"

"Oh, crap. Aldrededor?"

"I am doing it, Kali Hooper," Aldrededor said, climbing over his seat to stub out the cheroot and flip the observation slat. "My beloved," he said by way of apology, "she had the embarrassing experience with a large slithering thing many years ago."

"I'm betting I don't want to know the details, right?"

"You are correct, Kali Hooper."

"Hokay. Where is the bastard?"

"It has just finished turning towards us. Moving now."

"Then hang on - we're going right."

Kali spun the Mole, skewing it as she tried to eke as much speed as possible from the machine.

"Where is it now?"

"Turning into the junction. It does not look pleased."

"I don't care if it's suicidal. Aldrededor?"

"Still with us and gaining, Kali Hooper."

Kali spun the Mole into another u-turn.

"Turning left again, straight on, right," she warned her shaken passengers. "Sharp left, coming up... now!"

"Kali Hooper, what is this thing?" Aldrededor asked, clinging on. "Despite the tale of Two-Faced Bob, I do not recognise it as a serpent of the sea."

Neither did Kali. She'd seen a couple of such beasts in her time and this resembled neither of them, reminding her more of some
worm
than any subaquatic behemoth. From what detail she had managed to see, the thing was certainly the shape of one, though covered, along its considerable and most
unworm
like length, with a thick coating of barbed bristles that appeared not only to give it traction on any surface to which it adhered but also propelled it along. From the amount of collisions it was shrugging off, it had to be quite hardy. She imagined that beneath the bristles there was a protective coating that was more shell than skin. Its bulk was another thing. No creature designed like this should be as big or as wide as it was. Kali was starting to suspect that the k'nid were not the only unnatural creatures she had encountered in the past few days. Its whole physical make-up and the fact that it had seemed to first be drawn to them when she had touched the symbols on the wall had actually begun to make her wonder whether the creature had not always been such as it was. Perhaps once upon a time it had been some
tool
of the tunnels' builders - a life form that kept their canals clean and navigable, perhaps - but, in the unimaginable length of time since they had become sealed and disused, it had nurtured itself on what it had once removed, mutating as it did into what they faced now. In that case, in a sense, it had every right to not look pleased, because it had lived here longer than humans had walked the peninsula. This was its home.

Kali was suddenly flung against the control panel as the Mole was impacted hard from the rear. Outside, there was a loud roar that sounded almost like one of triumph.

"
Aldrededor?
"

"Apologies, Kali Hooper. A sudden spurt of speed. It seems our friend is becoming more adept at the chase."

"Then let him chase this,"

Kali said, gritting her teeth. Suddenly she was pushing and pulling the levers as if she had used them all her life. The Mole started to buck wildly as she threw it through a number of accelerations, decelerations, sudden twists and skidding turns that the unwieldy creature could not possibly hope to keep up with, screeching at last to a halt in tunnel.

"Aldrededor?" Kali asked over the stressed rumbling of the engine.

"No sign, Kali Hooper."

"Then it looks like we're out of the... oh fark!"

Kali stared through the observation slat at a branch of the canal that was
branchless
, stretching ahead of the Mole for as far as its headlights could penetrate, which made it look like forever. And for all she knew, it might go on just that far. In other words, there would be no dodging left or right and no u-turns here.
If
the creature managed to catch up they would be totally exposed.

"Kali Hooper?" Aldrededor said again.

"What, Aldrededor? Can you see anythi -"

The creature slammed into the side of The Mole and sent it crashing from the bank into the canal, overturning it until its buoyancy righted it once more. In the cabin, Aldrededor clung on to Dolorosa, while Kali squeezed herself tight between seat and control panel. Outside the cabin, the creature roared while the rest of its lengthy form followed its head into the tunnel.

"Dammit!" Kali shouted, gunning the engine of The Mole, riding it up onto the canal bank. "Doesn't this thing ever stop?"

Aldrededor sighed. "It is as persistent as my wife's advances and there is no way we can elude it now."

"Wanna bet?" Kali said.

She was as fired up as The Mole itself. She rammed her foot to the floor and the vehicle responded by accelerating to the speed it was designed for, even she realised that with their current limitations and circumstances they had no more chance of fleeing their now immediate pursuer than one of the Hells Bellies would have outrunning a shnarl.

"Kali!" Aldrededor said with uncharacteristic seriousness

"Aldrededor? You don't get out with me much, do you?"

"I do not."

"You don't really know how I work, do you?"

"I have a feeling I am going to find out."

"The fact is, Aldrededor," Kali said, making a slight course correction and ramming levers forward, making The Mole lurch, "I make things up as I go along."

"Kali Hooper, you are heading straight for the tunnel wall."

"Oh, yeah," Kali said, nodding determinedly.

Kali aimed the Mole at the wall and then, at the very last second, swerved. Instead of hitting the wall head on, the vehicle careened against it along its side, stripping away weed and algae until metal grated hard against the stone beneath. Rather than pulling away, Kali teased the Mole even further to the left, again and again, as if she were trying to smash through the wall. In fact, wasn't her intention at all.

Inside the cabin, a rather confused Aldrededor steadied his insensible wife while The Mole vibrated so much it seemed in danger of coming apart. Kali, however, seemed little concerned. She rammed the vehicle again and again against the wall and, as there was a series of judders and snapping and clanking sounds from its lower regions, it at last clicked with the ex-pirate what it was Kali was trying to do. She was not trying to destroy the whole vehicle, but only part of it.

Aldrededor turned to look out of the rear observation slat, directing his gaze right and groundward, and sure enough the tracks on the vehicle's left hand side were breaking apart, its connecting links buckling and separating as the bolts holding them together sheared and loosened. As he watched, the individual plates of the tracks folded, piling up against the hatch, and then the whole lot came loose, flapping away behind the Mole like a discarded belt.

The Mole dropped onto its metal wheels on its left hand side and was in danger of going into a spin. However, Kali handled it expertly and instead quickly plunged the vehicle through the canal to a rise onto the opposite bank, where she began the same process again. A minute later, the tracks on the Mole's right hand side joined their discarded opposites. Dropping fully onto both sets of wheels now, the vehicle accelerated along the canal bank, spurting a shower of sparks and leaving a rather confused looking yhang-dor in its wake.

Both Kali and Aldrededor were flung back into their seats.

"
Wahoooo!"
Kali shouted.

Behind her, Dolorosa stirred slightly. "My 'usband, what is 'appening?"

Aldrededor shrugged his arms helplessly and smiled. "Kali Hooper, she is making it up as she goes along."

The Mole continued its flight along the canal bank, three or four times its original speed now that its wheels had been freed of the constraining gears of the tracks. Kali smiled as the compass on the control panel informed her they were heading west, exactly the direction they needed to go. Her smile faded, however, as Aldrededor informed her that the yhang-dor was once more in pursuit. Now that it had a perfectly straight tunnel to traverse, it wasn't gaining on them as fast as it would had the tracks still been present, but it was still gaining.

"Okay, I've had enough of this overgrown toothbrush," Kali declared. "Aldrededor, take the levers."

The ex-pirate scrambled back over the seat. "Kali Hooper, what are you doing now?"

Kali flicked the hatch lever and grabbed the crackstaff she had stored beneath her seat, then climbed towards the opening, wind whipping at her hair.

"Just keep on in this direction, Reddy! Back in a mo ..."

"You're the boss, Kali Hooper."

Kali heaved herself out of the now opened hatch and steadied herself against the side of The Mole, its passage far from smooth now that it was running only on metal wheels. Nevertheless, she managed to lock herself into a secure position so that she was staring back along the side of The Mole, and raised the crackstaff. Some two hundred yards behind the vehicle, seemingly untroubled by the shower of sparks the Mole still trailed, the yhang-dor roared, its maw opening, displaying its countless razor teeth.

Somewhat hampered by the fact that she had to cling on for dear life with one hand, Kali steadied the crackstaff as best she could and fired, loosing a bolt of energy that ricocheted off the canal bank and into the ether, while simultaneously almost blowing her off the Mole with its recoil. She anchored herself and fired again. This time the bolt impacted with the weeds on the wall, frying them before again ricocheting back down the long, dark tunnel. Trying not to look at the tunnel floor, as it raced blurringly by immediately below her, Kali fired once more. The bolt careened off the tunnel roof and back down at forty-five degrees into the stagnant water, where the canal erupted with a sudden geyser of steam.

Dammit!
she thought, this was going to be next to impossible unless she found a better position.

She looked up and, deciding, flung the crackstaff onto The Mole's roof with a grunt, then climbed up after it until she was scrambling on top of the vehicle as it swayed under her. There, lying flat and facing straight back, she lodged the crackstaff beneath her, took aim and fired. An energy bolt slammed into the canal bank directly in front of the yhang-dor, blowing shrapnel in its face.

Adjusting her aim slightly, she fired again, and then again, and the bolts scythed along the creature's side, burning a path through its layer of bristle. The creature roared and reared, momentarily slowed, but then continued coming on. Kali fired again, again and again, the energy discharges reverberating in the confines of the tunnel. The length of the yhang-dor flared with multiple hits. It launched itself up and around the tunnel walls.

Keep still, you slippery fark!
Kali thought as it spiralled towards her.

But it did not stop her firing and this time all but one of her multiple shots found their target. Almost pulsating with the blue of the energy bolts now, and shedding sections of skin from where its bristles had fried away, the creature's roar had become one less of anger and more of pain. But still it came on. It was a tough bastard, without a doubt. However, Kali was certain that all it would take to finish it was a few more shots. Particularly if she could get one straight down its throat.

She was lining up just such a shot when her world suddenly span. The Mole was skidding, trying, for some reason, to come to an emergency stop. A moment later, it succeeded, and she found herself tumbling from the roof to land on the ground with an undignified
oof
.

Ahead of them, the roof of the tunnel had collapsed completely.

"I am sorry, Kali Hooper," Aldrededor said from inside the cabin. "There was nothing I could -"

Kali double-taked on the collapsed tunnel and then on the approaching yhang-dor, estimating they had perhaps thirty seconds before it caught up with them.

She leapt into the cabin, sealed the hatch behind her, and flicked the Mole's cannons on to full power. Through the forward observation slat she could see the sonic pulses staring to effect the fallen debris. A second later, she pulled back as a rain of pulverised stone and rock began to impact with the vehicle's front. But in her heart of hearts Kali knew that there was really no time, that the collapse looked far to thick to penetrate before the yhang-dor was on them. And sure enough, a second later, The Mole lurched horribly.