The Destroyer Book 2 (14 page)

There was the sound of movement in the distance behind me and I spun around to see something disappear back into the mist outside of my field of vision.

It was much larger than a rat.

I heard Greykin's labored breathing from the shaft above me at the same time that I saw the fog part on my right side. My sword came out instantly and I turned to face the creature, but it had already retreated. I wanted to run though the darkness after it but I guessed that the Old Bear would be mad if I didn't greet him after he descended the ladder.

"Greykin," I called up to the big man.

"What?" he yelled down the shaft. He still sounded very far away.

"There is something down here. A large animal I think."

"I'm going as fast as I can. What else do you want me to do?" He started to cough, and it echoed off of the shaft and spread out into the cavern like the dammed river I used to kill the Elven army so long ago. The tube had been tight around my body and I guessed from the tone of his voice that the Old Bear was having a frustrating time descending.

"I just wanted to tell you." I cringed at the sound of his echo and scanned the edges of my vision for movement. Nothing.

"Maybe you should teach it how to read!" Greykin called down after his coughing spasm ended.

"I don't think that will be possible. Paug only spent a few hours teaching me. I don’t have any books in my backpack to use as an example." It seemed like a weird request.

"It's a joke, Skinny! If you see it again put your fucking sword in it ‘til the damn thing dies!" he yelled. I nodded and looked around me again. Perhaps Greykin's shouting and coughing scared the creature away.

"What was it?" the Old Bear said as he landed heavily on the ground next to me.

"I don't know."

"Was it big?" He pulled out his axe. His large body was covered in sweat and his breathing came out in ragged, pain-filled gasps.

"Yes."

The rest of the soldiers followed down the ladder and we fanned out with our backs facing each other, weapons drawn.

"I didn't notice any creatures last time I was down here,” Danor whispered to Greykin and me.

"Where do we go now?" I asked the handsome mustached man.

"If we head a quarter of a mile north, we will see the foundation support beams of the castle. Each has a stairway that leads up them. I'm positive that one of them will lead us up to the dungeons beneath the fortress."

"Let's get our asses moving then. If this thing was going to attack, it would have done so by now," Greykin commanded.

"I tied a rope around the ladder last time since there are no walls to chalk. Head that way." He pointed in a direction I assumed was north and began to walk. A few of the other men lit additional torches to ward off any creatures.

There was another sound of movement to our rear, but I guessed no one else but me could hear it. The creature sounded like it was just outside of the edge of our mist-obscured vision. I thought that we might have scared it away, but I realized that it was stalking the group.

"It is behind us," I whispered as loud as I dared. "It sounds as if it is dragging something large and wet." Everyone stopped moving and tightened the circle.

"Throw your torch at it Kaiyer," Greykin asked. "You're almost out anyway."

"Light another one first!" a soldier spoke with a crack of fear in his voice. He handed me a spare brand and I fed it to life with mine.

"I'll listen for it again,” I said and the group grew quiet. Their hearts were beating fast and their breathing came in excited gasps.

"There is moving water to our north?" I asked.

"Yes. There is an underground river that feeds into the ocean. You'll see it as we get closer to the support structures," Danor whispered. "Do you hear it?"

I was about to respond when the same scraping noise emerged from our west. I threw my torch toward the source of the noise as quickly as I could. The brand flipped like an expensive coin until it landed on the ground, spraying bits of charcoal and oil above the fog. The creature made a loud hiss that I was sure everyone heard and then it slithered away out of the light. It moved like a snake that had just had sand kicked it its face. I imagined the creature was coiling back and getting ready to strike.

"What the fuck was that?" one of the men asked.

"It was huge!" another soldier said a split second before the large serpent creature struck forward and clamped its massive jaws around his midsection. The man screamed as the serpent pulled him in its maw and up into the air high above our heads.

“Wurm!” Greykin bellowed. I never imagined anything could scare the Old Bear, but I understood his terror when I saw the wurm. The creature’s hide was scaled like a lizard, covered in oily, congealed mucus. The scales shone gray, brown and green, the putrid decaying mucus glistening in our torchlight. It was at least six feet in diameter, with small, mutated arms growing out of the sides of its swollen belly at sporadic intervals. Each arm ended in a misshapen claw, dripping black slime. The arms twitched as if attempting to walk, but it moved like a snake, slithering with powerful flicks of its muscular body.

The monster thrashed its head sideways like a dog playing with a toy. The man ripped in half, spraying blood and limbs over us and ending his scream in a cantata of dynamic volume changes. Then it pointed its massive jaws up to the ceiling and gulped down a large chunk of the meat and leather armor. Its bird-like jaws opened in three pieces instead of two. Dozens of fist-sized black eyeballs lay on each side of its maw and I imagined that the beast saw in all directions at once.

"Kill it!" Greykin screamed as he jumped toward the monster and landed a powerful overhand chop into the snake's armored flank. It gave a terrifying scream as his blow cut through the scales and I noticed several rows of spiky teeth inside its mouth cavity. It whipped its tail around and knocked the big man aside as if he weighed ten pounds. Then it dove toward another of my companions.

The warrior tried to slash the monster across its eye cluster, but he moved too slowly and it bit into the side of his right shoulder. Repeating the tactic the beast had with the earlier meal, it lifted this soldier into the air and shook him like a rag doll. The man screamed in horror until his torso tore loose. The soldier fell down on the misty ground in front of the snake, but the creature seemed more interested in consuming the man's limb before going for the kill.

I jumped forward past the other warriors who were frozen with fear. I bent back my left arm and then spun it forward, harnessing the energy of my run, my hips, and power from the Earth. My attack landed true and I cut across the serpent's chest in a diagonal path that sundered two of the mutated arms off of its front side. The beast screamed and dropped the arm it had been about to swallow. The stench of blood and gore overpowered my nose through the scented scarf I wore and I almost stopped to vomit.

Fortunately, I realized that the monster was coiling back its grotesque body to strike at me. I threw myself backward and managed to roll clear of the snapping jaws. The creature's breath reeked of shit and disease. I imagined that even a cut from one of those teeth would probably end someone's life by way of painful infection.

The rest of the men charged forward and aimed savage cuts at the beast. A few of them connected but bounced off of its armored scales as if it were crafted of stone. The monster swung around its tail again and crushed a terrified man beneath its long torso.

Greykin let out another battle shout as he slammed his axe into the wurm's belly like he was chopping down a tree. The creature screamed again in surprise and my brain threatened to liquefy and pour out of my ears. The screech echoed across the massive cavern and I wondered if there were any other monsters that now knew we were down in this underground. I dropped my torch and sprinted forward, taking a gamble that the monster would coil back in the familiar way and attempt to strike at the Old Bear.

Luck was on my side and the creature proved predictable. As it darted forward to sink its horrible teeth into my friend, I leapt on top of its carapace-covered head and drove the point of my long sword deep in between the two opposing clusters of eyes. There was a slight resistance as the blade slid past the armored skull before I felt the tip penetrate the squishy brain. The beast flopped on the ground next to Greykin. Then it began to twist, thrash, and coil as its reptilian brain sent false signals to the rest of its putrid body.

The big man let out a yelp as he threw himself out of the way to avoid being crushed. I flipped off of the creature's head, dashed away, and then winced in disappointment when I heard my sword snap. I hadn't been quick enough to yank it out of the wurm's skull and it had rolled on top of the blade's handle. We watched it coil around itself and thrash its many grotesque, clawed appendages for a few seconds before the Old Bear commented.

"Fucking burning cow shit on a stick!" Greykin cursed.

"I have never seen anything so horrible," Danor said. His face was white.

"Can we do anything for Cedrig?" my big friend asked. I assumed he spoke about the man whose arm the monster had ripped from his body. He was still screaming but the blood poured out of his body like a river. Danor nodded and grabbed a medical pack out of my backpack. The other men seemed to still be in shock and they waited until the creature had stopped moving before they approached Danor to help with any possible first aid.

"The creature's mouth was putrid. He will probably succumb to an infection, if he has not already lost too much blood," I said to the big man, but he stared at the corpse of the massive snake and I didn't think he heard me.

"Greykin?" I asked as I touched his arm. He blinked several times and looked at me.

"I never believed I would see one of these monsters. I thought they were myths to scare children. If we didn't have other pressing matters, I would want to have some of our sages study this creature." He sighed. "Of course, we need to take back our kingdom first."

"It smells like corruption," I said as I wrinkled my nose. The big man laughed and put his hand on my shoulder.

"You are quite the stoic my thin friend. I don't think there is anything that concerns you. Everyone else shat their pants, aye, including me, but you actually did something."

"Not true Greykin, you were the first to attack it."

"I happened to be the closest. Thank you for slaying the beast. I thought it was the end of the road for me." Greykin put his giant hand on my shoulder. "The more we are around each other, the more gratitude I owe you." His words filled with emotion and the big man's eyes shone brightly in the torchlight.

"You would have done the same for me." I smiled at him and shrugged a little. I knew he would have ripped apart mountains to save his friends.

"Too bad about your sword," he remarked as we approached the giant corpse and my broken blade.

"I have a spare." I pointed to the short blade at my hip. It was only a foot in length, but I could kill with the weapon, as long as it wasn't another monster-sized mutated serpent. I thought about grabbing a blade from one of my dead companions, but they had all dropped into the sea of mist. It might take me hours to find one.

"He's gone," Danor called over to us. The other men took off their skull caps and bowed their heads.

"We should bury our comrades," the mustached man said as he handed me back the unused medical kit.

"It will take too much time, lads. We have a mission to accomplish. I don't want to stick around here with all this blood. There might be more of these monsters, and I am sure they all have noses." The men looked shaken by his words. Danor sighed in worry and then nodded.

"How much longer?" Greykin inquired.

"Ten minutes at the most," he said and the group began to walk again. The mists seemed to grow thicker and the men jumped at imaginary noises. Every minute that passed could be counted by the Old Bear asking Danor about our time, and I didn't think it helped relieve the group of their fears.

After he asked the fifth time I heard another scraping noise behind us. I was at the back of our party and didn't like the idea of being the first meal it would target. I pulled my blade out of its sheath and spun around to run backward.

"There is one at our rear," I spoke as calmly as I could over my shoulder.

"Are you sure?" Danor almost screamed in panic.

"Should we run?" I said as I looked down at my short sword. I doubted it would penetrate the creature's skull. I would have to use the Elements if the creature attacked.

"We are almost there. Hold the line," Greykin shouted in encouragement and I turned around to face the backs of my companions.

We continued to move, so quickly now that when I felt a cold trail of sweat down my back I was not sure if it was from fear or exertion. I had experience fighting men and Elvens; I could use my weapons and magic. I could heal myself if I made mistakes. These wurms were new. They could rip me apart with little effort. I had always been skilled, disciplined and hardworking, but also lucky. For the first time I felt my life was not in my own hands.

Perhaps this was the night my luck would run out.

The sound of the river had grown so loud that I was sure the other warriors heard it roar. I couldn't see through the darkness and mists, but I estimated that it lay less than a hundred yards away. We all ran now and I found it difficult to listen for the sliding sounds of the monster over the cascade of the water, the slamming of boots into the stone, and our fearful breathing.

In correlation to our running speed, the thick layer of mist that hugged the ground had grown almost two feet high, making it impossible to see anything below our knees. When one of the men tripped and fell, screaming with fear, I wasn't surprised. He collapsed in front of me and I bent over to pull him upright. As soon as my hands closed around his shoulder I smelled the putrid stench of the mutated snake descend upon me like a sticky spider web.

I dove to my side and narrowly avoided its snapping jaws. The creature aimed for me and not my fallen comrade, but the warrior still screamed as if the monster had sunk its beak into his own torso. I continued my roll and came to my feet in a crouched position. I somehow managed to keep my torch and my sword in my hands. This snake was smaller than the first beast we encountered, but still reeked of death and poison.