The Pleasure of Memory (75 page)

The mage laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “Whatever happens,” he said, “We’ll face it together. We’ve been through a lot in a handful of days. I won’t leave you.”

Beam laughed at that. “Damn me, Brother, I don’t think you have a choice.”

∞

Koonta walked in from the darkness and stood before him. She was looking down at his sword. Even without listening to her thoughts, he understood her apprehension. He cupped his hand over the caeyl in the pommel, but it did little to dim the light. The damned thing was practically a beacon now, a goddamned bonfire raging on his hip.

Another dreadful howl fractured the cold silence. It was immediately joined by another, and then another. Beam studied the tunnel trailing them. Whatever they were, they were too damned close. He heard them scratching around the shadows of the marble floor, heard them sniffing and snuffling about as if searching for something.

He dragged a hand over his mouth and ordered himself to calm. He wasn’t even sure that the fear gripping him was of his own creation. The terror radiating from the minds of his companions was pummeling him like a winter squall.

Chance slipped the tattered linen from the head of his staff. The dazzling blue glow of his caeyl nearly overpowered the red light of Beam’s sword. Beam took the move as guidance and removed his hand from the Blood Caeyl. As their combined lights fractured the darkness, five sets of tiny yellow eyes erupted from the shadows a good ways back in the tunnel.

“They’ve only kept their distance because of the torches,” Beam whispered, “They’re afraid of the fire.”

“Agreed,” Chance whispered back, “So perhaps we can give them some incentive to back off.” He looked at the torch Beam was holding before them.

Beam nodded. Then he heaved the torch.

The flame flipped through the gloom and bounced across the marble in a burst of sparks. As it rolled deeper, a chorus of screeches erupted and five ghostly figures leaped away from the flames and seemed to flow up the walls. Beam couldn’t believe his eyes. They were climbing the marble like huge spiders.

“Look at them,” Koonta whispered to him, “They must be seven feet long.”

Beam could only nod. Though outwardly cool, the psychic intensity of her anxiety felt like ice in his stomach. She was good and seriously scared. He tried to push it back, but her emotions were gripping him more eagerly than his own worries.

The creatures scrambled along the walls and ceiling like white spiders, finding purchase on the carvings of the dead Baeldons, and even the seams in the marble. Once past the torch, they dropped into the middle of the corridor again and began creeping slowly toward them, staying toward the middle to avoid the sporadically mounted torches on the high walls. Some walked nearly upright while others skulked on all four limbs. Their wiry bodies were slick with white oily fur, their forearms long and wiry. Their heads hung so low they seemed to grow out of their chests without benefit of a neck. Blunt, toothy snouts and red, beady eyes were smeared across flat faces between fleshy, oversized ears.

The lead beast arched its back dramatically, threw wide its long arms, and released a bone-grinding screech from a mouth thrown open to unbelievable proportions. Beam thought of the sharks he’d seen in his few years at sea, with their oversized mouths and rows of razor teeth. As the beast screamed again, the longer hair on its shoulders flared out like a threatened cur.

Beam thrust the business end of his sword toward the foremost creature. “What in the Nine are those things?”

“I don’t know,” Chance whispered, “It resembles a...a gor’naeyd. But they’re so white, so big...”

“Gor’naeyds?” Koonta said in obvious surprise, “There’s no such thing. They died out centuries ago. ”

“I’m as shocked as you are,” Chance said.

“I damned well doubt that,” Koonta said with an odd laugh.

The lead beast snapped left and right, clacking its teeth oddly and releasing a staccato series of bubbling sounds. Two of the creatures immediately swept up the walls on either side of the tunnel as if moving on command. The leader threw its head up and clacked its dagger-like teeth again. The two remaining gor’naeyds swept up along its flanks, slithering in on all fours. The leader then rose straight up and began shuffling toward them on two legs like a general leading an army of warriors.

“They’re making a formation,” Koonta’ar whispered to Beam, “They’re not just attacking in a pack. They have a strategy.”

“Gor’naeyds were very intelligent predators,” Chance said, “It took the Baeldons years to exterminate them.”

Beam threw him a look. “Exterminate them?” he whispered, “I don’t think it took.”

The beasts were moving forward with a lethal sense of determination, two nearly on the ceiling, leaping from Baeldon to Baeldon, and two just forward of the leader. They were barely thirty feet back now.

Beam looked over at Koonta’ar. Her fear was thankfully melting away, replaced by something warmer and far more powerful. Her warrior’s instinct had taken hold. She was game for the fight.

“Koonta” he said as he flipped the buckle open on his weapons belt, “I think—”

“You’re ready to give me the bow?” she said.

“You don’t know how ready.”

She’d pulled the bow free before he even had the belt off. She was grinning at him as she spanned it far more easily than he’d ever been able to. “Maybe you have a sensible side after all, jh’ven?” she said, slipping a bolt in place.

A pulse of primitive violence seized Beam’s mind. It came from the lead gor’naeyd. It was so vile with rage that Beam wavered under the intensity of it.

“They’re coming,” he whispered.

The lead creature threw out another mind-numbing wail, and the other beasts flew forward. Two white anti-shadows raced along the ceiling’s edge, leaping across the Baeldons with unbelievable speed. Two more crawled in tandem at the sarcophagi’s feet, pouring along the floor like liquid.

They were coming too fast. One of the wall-bound monsters suddenly raced ahead of the others, scaling the ceiling like it could fly. It leapt out from the wall, flying down on Koonta like a streak of lightning. It landed on her before she could even get a shot off. She hit the ground hard with the shrieking gor’naeyd straddling her. Her bolt ricocheted off into the darkness.

Beam wheeled on the beast and sliced its spine open. Blood sprayed the sarcophagi as the creature flipped away from Koonta’ar, still screeching raucously. Beam quickly silenced it with his sword.

Koonta was back on her feet and reloading the crossbow. Her right bicep was striped red, though he sensed she was unaware of the wounds. She wheeled the loaded crossbow toward Beam and yelled, “Duck!”

Beam flinched as the bolt streaked over his shoulder. The dead beast slammed him from behind, sending him rolling across the floor. When he pushed himself back to his knees the gor’naeyd was glaring up at him from the floor with a bolt growing from its throat and crimson bubbles simmering from its mouth.

As he shoved the vile beast away from him, he looked over at Koonta, who winked back at him. In that moment, he understood that she was loving this. This was what she’d been born for, for the battle.

The gor’naeyd leader released another blistering wail and the remaining beasts launched themselves forward. Beam swung his sword at the nearest, but it evaded him with a vertical leap that landed it on the ceiling ten feet above him. Before Beam could react, the creature reached down and slapped his weapon away as easily as a cat bats a mouse. The sword clattered off into the darkness. Beam landed hard on his back with a monstrous claw seizing his throat and another wrapped around his head. The beast’s hot, putrid breath blew in from a raw cavern of teeth that were clacking inches from his face.

His stomach lurched as the creature flew up the wall with him still locked in its claws. He dug his fingers into the paw locked around his throat, but it was as tight as a shackle. The pressure on his head was unbearable. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet. The monster’s face was growing unclear, fading from focus behind a fog of glittering spots.

Then a bolt materialized in its skull just an inch above its beady pink eye. A red bulls-eye swelled in the oily white hair around the shaft. And yet, the grip choking Beam’s neck didn’t release.

The room flashed in blue light. The beast seized more convincingly this time, and this time the pressure of the crushing paw slackened. They both dropped from that perch high above the floor. Beam landed hard, clubbing his head against the foot of a Baeldon. He tried to stand but couldn’t get his footing on the slick, bloody floor. He fell hard on his back and slugged his head against the marble.

The world was spinning giddily. He couldn’t seem to focus. He rolled himself to his side and saw that the last monster had Koonta! He tried again to stand, but couldn’t find his balance. Unable to support himself, he collapsed onto the warm corpse of a gor’naeyd.

His head was pounding insanely. The world swirled sickeningly around him. He tried to push away from the odorous body, but couldn’t find purchase. And just as unconsciousness seized him, he saw a battle-axe the size of a wagon wheel flip through the air above him.

∞

Jhom dragged the final gor’naeyd off the Vaemysh warrior with his massive arm wrenched around the monster’s neck. The creature’s mouth opened, but made no sound. Jhom inserted his short sword between the creature’s ribs. The white carcass slumped to the ground, settling into a swelling pool of blood. Jhom squatted beside the corpse and wiped his bloody blade across the grimy white fur.

“Gor’naeyds,” he said, looking up at Chance, “I thought you told me they were all dead.”

“That error’s already been pointed out to me.” Chance dropped to both knees and rolled Beam onto his back, and pried his eyelids open. Satisfied the half-breed suffered no more than a head blow, he sat back on his heels and drew a steadying breath. As the excitement waned, he felt the dull ache of exhaustion return.

Koonta was standing across the corridor from him. She fell back against the granite and slid down the wall into a sitting position with her legs out into the corridor. One of the dead gor’naeyds was sprawled across the marble at her feet. Its white fur was almost as bloody as she was. She seemed completely nonplussed by its presence.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her.

She held a hand to the back of her neck and examined her palm. “A few scratches,” she said, “No more.”

Chance watched Jhom inspect the corpse. “Your timing’s impeccable,” he said to the Baeldon, “I’ve never been happier to see you.”

“You’re keeping a peculiar set of travelling companions these days,” Jhom said, grinning at him.

“You haven’t seen anything yet. This company’s full of surprises.”

Chance stood his staff upright beside him and used it to climb to his feet. He crossed over to Koonta and squatted before her. “Toss me that,” he said over his shoulder to Jhom.

The pack slid to a stop at his feet. Chance took Koonta’s head and urged it forward. One quick look at her neck and he knew she’d lied to him. She was more than scratched. Her face was ashen and she was sweating profusely. He felt her cheek. Her skin was as cold as ice. Her teeth were lightly chattering. Her eyes were locked on Jhom.

Chance took her arm and looked at the gouges streaking her biceps. She didn’t resist his efforts. “Koonta’ar,” Chance said as he inspected her, “This is Jhom’ne Fenta. He’s an old and true friend. You’ve nothing to fear from him, he’ll stand by my word.”

“Call me Jhom. I hail from the clan of Barcuun’d Gheghe.”

Koonta’ar stared up at him in silence. Her eyes were hollow and filling with blood. She tried to speak, but her teeth were clattering too hard to allow it.

Jhom squatted behind Chance. “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” he told her, “We’re brothers of the stone, Chance and me. If you’ve a bond with him, you’ve my bond as well.”

Chance pulled a vial of medicine and a roll of fabric from the pack. He bit out the cork, then tore off some of the gray cloth and poured tonic into it. Pulling her carefully forward, he began cleaning the wounds on the back of her neck. It was a worrisome sight. Three gouges ran the length of her neck from the base of her skull down into her back. They weren’t particularly deep, but they were already inflamed and hot to the touch.

“I believe this is going to be a good story,” Jhom said to him, “Isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chance said as he worked.

“Where’s Luren?”

The name sent his stomach roiling. Chance braced himself against the cold angst summoned by the thought of the boy. But he didn't let himself linger there, instead forcing his attention back to the task at hand.

“It’s not good,” he said as he worked Koonta’s wounds, “I think they have him.”

“They? You mean the Vaemyn?”

“I mean Prae.”

“Prae?”

Chance had no energy for a conversation as dour as this one was going to be, not right now. Koonta’s neck wounds were worsening as he watched. The inflammation was spreading faster than anything he’d ever seen before. Her entire neck was hot and red, and she was shaking so hard he worried she’d break a tooth.

“There’s a hell of a lot to tell,” he said, dribbling the elixir over the wounds, “And precious little of it’s good.”

XXXIX

DEATH OF A ROGUE

EAM PUSHED HIMSELF UP FROM THE COLD MARBLE.

He ran his fingers up over his head and through his hair, which felt wet and sticky. He winced as he found the source of the blood.

He eased himself back down to the floor. His skull was pounding. His pulse was throbbing unreasonably just behind his eyes. He wondered if he was back in the cave, but then he sensed Chance’s essence at the periphery of his thoughts and remembered everything.

He forced himself back upright and sat back against the wall. He touched the side of his head and winced. “Tell me I’m dead,” he whispered.