The Hunter (25 page)

“Of course,” said Keri as she rose to her feet, for despite the Madrelli’s kindness, she did not wish to give Braldt or carn
the satisfaction of thinking her too frail, too girllike, to continue. She was determined to hold her own.

“Good,” said Batta Flor, reluctant approval for this female two-foot clearly visible in his eyes as he handed her a torch.
Their fingers touched and they smiled at each other, for each of them knew that their fears were shared and understood. It
was a silent bond between them.

Once more they began their ascent of the mountain, and now that they knew what they were looking for, it was easy to see places
where the hot rock had flowed, bleeding out the side of the mountain. The sites of the flows were
clearly marked by spills of the smooth, glassy rock identical to the plateau where Keri and carn had nearly gone to their
deaths. In most instances the rock was shiny black in color, darker than any night sky. But in other places, the smooth flows
were red as blood and sometimes streaked with white or yellow.

Some of the flows emerged from openings in the mountain and others were closed by the stony cascades. But in every instance
where entry was possible, Batta Flor deemed it unacceptable for one reason or another. They found what they sought, shortly
before night fell, Sun the Giver, an immense crimson ball, immersing himself behind the dark peaks, slowly, reluctantly, as
though unwilling to plunge them into darkness. His bright rays fingered the dark opening of the cavern mouth, staining it
like blood without lifting the darkness that lay beyond as they lit their torches.

Batta Flor entered first, then Carn and Keri, who turned at the last moment and found the slim sickle of Mother Moon rising
over the edge of the pale horizon and touched her head and her heart in a sign of obeisance before following after her brother.
Braldt entered last with a whining Beast following close on his heels, wondering if and when they would ever see sun and moon
again.

It was not as quiet within the mountain as Braldt had
thought it would be. He was conscious of the great weight that surrounded him, the masses of rock that could snuff out their
lives with one twitch of the rocky flank into which they burrowed.

There was no sign of the shadows although there were sounds aplenty, whispered rustlings just beyond the circle of their light
and a multitude of creaks and groans and rumblings that emanated from the mountain itself. There was also the constant sound
of water dripping from a hundred different points, the falling water creating a multikeyed backdrop to their every step. Into
this strange world crept the small band, feeling their way forward and banishing the darkness with their torches.

The passage was wide and smooth and tall enough so that they were able to walk side by side. Their torches illuminated the
tunnel, reflecting off the dark, glassy surfaces and holding back the darkness. The light refracted and splintered off every
angled edge and filled their eyes with a dazzling glare.

The tunnel appeared to plunge directly into the heart of the mountain without even the slightest downward angle and it was
this that concerned them most. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” asked Carn, carefully marking the wall beside him
with a string of arrows to indicate the way they were traveling.

“All tubes go down sooner or later,” replied Batta Flor. “They cannot do otherwise for they were born in the very heart of
the mountain.”

“What if a tunnel collapsed in on itself, we could be following a path to nowhere!” Carn persisted.

“Then we will turn around and go back, following your excellent trail of arrows, and find another tube,” answered Batta Flor.
“But this tube appears to be well formed, I do not think that it will end.”

Carn muttered beneath his breath but said no more. Keri kept close to his side and trod on his heels several times, but even
though he threw her an exasperated look, he did not chastise her, which was most unusual.

Beast appeared to be the most nervous among them and it was clearly evident that he did not like the close confines. He trotted
forward to the edge of the circle of light and then halted abruptly, his ears plastered flat against his skull, teeth bared
in a throaty growl, and eyes glowing in the torchlight. He allowed the others to overtake him and then hung back at Braldt’s
feet, all but tripping him up in his desire to remain close. Numerous times he rose up on his hind legs and scratched Braldt,
begging to be picked up, whining low in his throat. But Beast had grown quickly and was no longer the tiny pup he had once
been. It would have been an added burden to carry the pup and Braldt refused, ordering him down with a harshly whispered word.
Thereafter, Beast slunk behind him, his belly nearly scraping the ground, tail tucked between his legs and whining nervously
all the while.

It was the Madrelli who next sensed what Beast alone could hear, holding up his hand to stop them. And then they could hear
it as well, a soughing sound, like wind gently drifting through the branches of a forest, stirring the leaves with its passage.
But there was no wind in this place. And then it seemed that they could smell the presence of another as well, a scent like
musty leaves left to crumble and rot. The sound came again, this time closer, almost daring to edge past the circle of light,
and Beast began to bark, high and sharp, clearly the sound of alarm. The sound swelled in the narrow enclosure until it beat
upon their eardrums and shut out all other sounds.

Then Braldt saw it. A long, thin, segmented body,
nearly the length and thickness of his arm bearing aloft two immense pincers. It was pure white in color, or perhaps merely
no color at all, and was propelled into the circle of their torchlight by a multitude of swiftly moving legs. The rear portion
of its body carried no appendages and was lifted above the ground and arched forward ending in a third and even more deadly
looking pincer that opened and shut with a continuous rattling clack.

Braldt could see no eyes on the horrid creature, but it seemed quite able to track them, moving when they did, stopping and
changing direction as they did themselves. Hesitant at first, it grew bolder after a short time and advanced toward them on
its scuttling blur of legs, headed straight for Keri, singling her out as though it could sense her fear.

Keri screamed and the thing moved even faster, a gaping maw opening in the bulbous segment that was its head. Keri screamed
again and brought her spear down with all the strength she could muster, plunging the point into the hideous head, skewering
it like a fish in the water.

None of them were prepared for Keri’s move. Braldt and Carn had raised their own spears only to have Keri strike the first
blow. No one was prepared for what followed. Either the thing did not have a brain or it was situated elsewhere for the blow
did not kill it. Instead, it flung itself about madly, thrashing and flapping wildly, the strength of its gyrations so strong
that it pulled the spear from Keri’s grasp. Dragging the spear along, the wound spewing a pale greenish ichor, the thing flung
itself at Keri, all of its pincers opening and shutting in a frenzied manner, turning head over heels, the base of the spear
clacking against the ground and the walls as the creature backed toward Keri, the third and largest of the pincers reaching
for her legs.

Keri retreated from the awful creature until she bumped into the walls of the tunnel and could go on farther. She looked down
on the thing, her eyes wide with terror, and even though she gripped her sword in her hand, she seemed frozen with fear, unable
to think, much less act.

Braldt had no such problem, stepping on the base of
the spear as it clattered along the ground. He brought the creature to a halt and with two well-aimed strokes severed the
monster into sections. But still it did not stop, each section continuing on, writhing forward as though each contained a
mind of its own. The tail continued toward Keri while the midsection wandered off the way they had come and the head minced
its way toward Braldt.

Braldt’s action seemed to have freed Keri from her trance and she yelled aloud and attacked the thing, sword swinging until
it was reduced to numerous small bits, and still she continued hacking at the remains until they were little more than a pool
of gore. Only then did she stop and rest upon her sword, breathing heavily.

Braldt, Batta Flor, and Carn made short work of the remaining sections and soon there was nothing left that could harm them.
Only Beast was not satisfied with their efforts, continuing to circle the various bits that still twitched and writhed upon
the ground, even after death, growling and slavering though he would not venture close enough to touch them. Finally, he too
slunk away from the grisly remains though he watched them constantly as if afraid that they might resurrect if he relaxed
his vigil.

“What was that thing?” Keri asked as they hurried on, all of them anxious to leave it behind them.

“Some sort of stinger, grown large,” said Batta Flor. “We have seen them in the control chamber, but they are small things,
smaller than my little finger. Their bite is painful but not deadly. I would not care to test the venom of one so large.”

Keri shuddered at the thought and held her spear away from her body and shook it to remove the last of the creature’s pale
blood. “I do not like them,” she said firmly, and the manner in which she uttered the words caused them all to laugh, for
none of them had liked the ugly thing any more than she.

“It was brave of you to move so swiftly,” Batta Flor said softly as though uncertain how Keri would receive such words from
one who was not of her tribe. To his relief, she grinned broadly and seemed to relax. “Yeah, it was kinda
brave, wasn’t it. You know, you men could move a little bit faster next time and not leave all the work to me.” And smiling
at their astonished expressions, she held her torch high and led the way forward.

They met many such stingers in the time that followed, although none so large as the first. Keri seemed to have overcome her
fear of them, although not her dislike, and she took great pleasure in cutting them to bits or smashing them beneath the heel
of her boot.

They saw other things as well, some which they could put a name to and others for which there were no names. There were rats,
ranging in size from the tiniest mouse to those large enough to carry Beast off in its jaws. There was an abundance of bloodwings
and numerous giant slugs and centipedes, most of which fled at the first sight of their torches.

There were others for which the flames appeared to hold no fear. Among these were the shadows that blended in with the rock
and sometimes were not seen until after they had passed, and these attacked with all the stealth their limited brains were
able to command. Fortunately, Beast had an uncanny knack of sensing the lizards and his loud alarms gave them adequate warning.

It was Beast himself who discovered the most deadly of the dangers that were to confront them, all the more dangerous because
of its very innocuousness. They were in a portion of tunnel that was broken and shattered and filled with bits of fallen rock.
Water dripped from the ceiling and lay in shallow pools and Beast bent forward to lap from one of them, treading on a large
patch of what appeared to be moss or fungus. Instantly Beast leaped into the air, shrieking with pain and jumping up again
and again, each time landing on the moss. No one could comprehend what had happened until the lupebeast pup managed to leap
clear of the harmless-looking stuff and began licking his paws and crying piteously.

Braldt bent down and examined the pup’s feet that had already broken out in a huge mass of watery blisters, some of which
burst under the ministrations of the pup’s tongue,
revealing the angry red flesh beneath. Beast whimpered and looked up at Braldt with pleading eyes.

Carn crouched down and examined the moss, careful to touch it with the point of his spear, keeping it well away from contact
with his skin. “Look,” he said, severing a tiny bit of the plant and raising it for all to see. “Look there, on the end of
each little bit of foliage there’s a tiny bubble. If they are broken the fluid contained within is released.”

“Obviously, it is capable of burning the skin,” said Braldt. “Look what it has done to Beast’s feet and they are thick and
toughened with travel.” Beast began to cry again and Braldt saw that blisters were forming on his tongue as well which had
begun to swell inside his mouth.

Braldt realized that if the pup’s tongue swelled much farther, it would inhibit his breathing, perhaps fatally. At the very
least, it would send the young creature into hysterics and a hysterical Beast was not something they needed. Thinking swiftly,
he pawed through the contents of his pouch until he found what he was looking for, a horn of the healing ointment. He knew
it would work on the pup’s feet, but he had no idea if it would be effective on his tongue or if the pup would even tolerate
being ministered to.