Dragon Lords, page 14
part #1 of Swords and Skulls Series
He and Jhara had scrambled as far away as they could from the circling fiends without being flanked, but now steel would have to decide their fate.
“Slay them!” Cthan shrieked in hoarse fury from a walkway not a dozen paces from where they gathered. “Catch them and cut off their privates, you fools! We cannot relieve this cavern of its treasure with these salamanders spitting acid at us. Kill the outlanders! Kill all these wretched Thrules.”
“What do you expect us to do?” sneered Rafa. “Pull them in with our teeth? They have feet as swift as wolves.”
Cthan scrutinized Rafa with a rancorous grunt. “Fifty gold talons for the first to cut off the outlander’s head. Twenty for the girl’s. No—take the wench alive!”
A roar went up amongst the swarming Behundrians and they came charging hard down the walkways at both fugitives.
A quick glance told Vetra that only a head-on assault would make any difference. Throwing caution to the wind, he ran to meet them. Rejecting the odds, the mercenary swung his sword in whistling loops and drove in hard and furious. His blade struck bone in a splatter of crimson; sword met sword in a clanking echo around the skull-littered walkways. Raging blades bit into flesh while steel smashed through sinew, driving the foremost attacker back like a mule into the other Behundrian jackals.
The man died instantly and his guts spilled out on the stone. His colleagues seethed forward, struggling to get around the standing corpse that was wedged between opposing forces, eager to stab at the berserker and win their reward.
Vetra roared and drove his blade more fiercely into the cluster. He could see the bearded dead face lolling in front of him. He could smell the hot rank breath of the men behind. Jhara’s whip snapped past Vetra’s shoulders and cut into Behundrian flesh. Their fates hung in balance; men’s muscles strained and grisly shrieks rent the air. Dragon guardians snapped, gnawing at the enemies’ backs. Vetra felt the mass of men surge and a chill wave of horror as the line of Behundrians shivered under the first beast’s mauling assault. He released his lock on his attacker’s sword arm in a sudden twist and unleashed a flurry of slashes. The next man fell dead, ribboned with cuts. Another took his place, his blade arching, but was soon cleaved to the bone. The mercenary showed no mercy. The blood flew from his blade and boiled in his veins; a battle lust was upon him, and for the moment he was unstoppable.
Fortune did not favour the blood-drenched Behundrians. For all their numbers, they were hampered by this lack of space and the lizard attack from the rear. Despite their initial advantage, another of the brute dragon guardians appeared, lumbering up from a side path like a ravenous ghoul. The thing ripped into their flanks, and the ones in the back screamed and fell, hands outstretched, clawing at stone as they either slipped into the lethal waters or the monster rended them with teeth and claws and dragged them away in its jaws.
Vetra saw a creature shaking its maw like a dog and a screaming victim tossed like a windblown leaf into the pool.
Vetra gave ground, snarling as dying men pushed forward like zombies. They struggled to escape the snapping jaws, the sharp claws and trampling feet. The first two in the thing’s path died horribly, crushed and mangled between sets of serrated teeth. Down they went trampled by its clawed feet.
Sandwiched between foes, Jhara fought tooth and nail at Vetra’s back. Yowling like a banshee, Jhara kicked with savage force and lashed out her whip at the three rogues who tried to grab her and pull her down.
Vetra abandoned his fight. The wall of flesh was pressing in on him. He pushed Jhara aside and smashed his bloody falchion like a club into her nearest attacker’s face. The other he kicked in the stomach and sent him gasping into the waters. The Behundrian reached for the ankles of his fellow man to save himself, only to end up pulling him in too. Vetra ran with the girl, barely keeping ahead of the mad rush of the surviving horde who drove from behind, while the dragon guardian made grisly work of anybody left in its path.
“Fight back to back!” he snarled at Jhara over the din of the tortured screams and eviscerated bodies. “The narrow walkways give us an edge over their numbers!”
Down the walkway they scrambled. Vetra’s feet skipped past an intersecting path, his eyes roving for solution, knowing a wrong turn could be their last.
Another ball of black mucus came slapping at their feet, perilously close. He stumbled sideways to avoid it. Not a dozen feet away, three Behundrians crouched on a narrow walkway, weapons drawn, cringing. They realized they had taken a wrong turn several steps back, now they stared into the snouted face of one of the waddling beasts that had swung past a narrow bend and was fast gaining on them.
Vetra wasted no time to observe the carnage. Behind them, yelping attackers wheeled in confusion. Boots rang on stone.
The girl turned and feinted and cut a man just as he was bearing down on her. Vetra marvelled at her fluid skill. She moved just as he had taught her. In a quick follow up lash, another chunk of flesh ripped free from the man’s sword arm. He wailed, clamped a free hand to staunch the growing gush of blood. Twirling, she ducked the man’s strike, and sent him howling into the steaming water with a swift kick. Immediately a swarm of spidery tentacles engulfed the writhing body. The blubbering shrieks were lost in the hiss of water.
The man’s comrade shrank back, the whites of his eyes showing fear, blade hanging limp.
Vetra sucked in a breath. The slimy things must have infested the waters since the demise of the dragon lords. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine what had impelled the lords to allow such vermin in their splendorous hall.
He raced on, fingers hooked on Jhara’s arm. They clambered for a point along the far edge of the cavern, but a half dozen Behundrians read their intentions. Vetra found the way was soon cut off. “Is there no end to you rats?” he cried, sneering at the enemies who blocked his path.
Cthan’s rogues leapt forward and snarled, striving to cut them off before they could get to the next crossway. Too late. They leaped over a narrow gap of water onto a cross path which headed back toward where the men quailed, struggling with the dragon guardian.
Vetra cursed this place. The irregular web-like layout of the walkways made it impossible to predict any enemy’s movements for more than a dozen steps. A sudden turn down a crosspath or a doubling back down another could leave a man sandwiched between foes.
A long stretch of open water lay between them and the three Behundrians. The stone path had sagged over time. None wished to chance that water and the loathsome squid creatures that teemed within.
Vetra weighed his options.
The doomed trio slashed at the dragon guardian that was menacing them from behind, trying to keep it at bay. No such luck.
A glob of acid spewed from a gaping maw and hit a man square in the temple. He danced a devil’s jig, howling, clawing at his face which melted away in a waxy ruin before the astonished onlookers could react. The gasp died in his throat. Black goo sizzled from his flesh and he sank, twitching, legs draped over the side, his arms the other. In an instant, crawly, green, plant-like tendrils pulled the sightless body under.
Vetra and Jhara halted in dismay. Water foamed over the stone at their feet.
To race across that long sunken stretch invited disaster. No matter—the beast decided it for them. It charged across, unafraid of what dwelled in that frothing cauldron. Vetra stood grimly poised to face the thing. Jhara held back attackers at the rear. Sucker-vine tentacles hooked onto the running beast’s forelegs and claws, but these were stamped to oblivion in its angry dash toward them.
Vetra staggered back, pushing Jhara hard into him and onto an intersecting path that sank into water not three strides out. He wheeled and crouched low as the beast’s head reared up to smash him from the side. Had he stood where he was, he would have been mowed down by nothing less than the driving force of a battering ram.
A noisome wind hit him as he ducked under that looming wall of flesh and ripped his sword across the thing’s throat, and while dark fluid spurted forth, dripping on him and staining the decayed stone, a slippery white tentacle arched from the water to grab its twitching leg. Wild cries sounded behind him.
The thing died with a hissing gurgle, blocking the path.
Vetra shoved Jhara back. Taking a run, they leaped over its humped back. The Behundrians came after them howling. They bounded over the beast’s glistening hide with another raging dragon beast snapping at their heels.
Vetra and Jhara leaped between winding paths, the stone lapping with blood and corpses. Vetra’s feet slipped in a wide pool of blood. Jhara crashed into him. Her whimper and sob sounded in his ear. “We’re doomed! There’s nowhere to run.”
They pulled each other to their feet, and the blood drained from Vetra’s features. Another monster with fanged snout bore down on them. The skin of his back crawled. They scuttled down a cross path and Vetra cringed at the meaty sounds of carnage as the beast tore into fleeing Behundrians. Whatever sorcery animated these brutish killers, it could only have been brewed from the blackest pits.
He closed his ears to more gristle-rending sounds and his hand fled to his blood-matted scalp, a growing lump gathering there where a grazing rake of sword had glanced off his skull.
“Come on,” he muttered at Jhara. “We don’t want to fall into ruin like those unfortunate sods.”
“Cthan’s rogues will catch us and corner us!” she protested.
“Move!”
They scrambled over corpses and a menacing whoosh flew past their heads. Vetra looked back to see a hill Thrule’s boomerang catching the loping beast full in the eyes. It stumbled out of control and splashed into the frothing water. Grinning with satisfaction, Vetra clapped the approaching Thrule on the back. He saw the sweating man had a healthy supply of boomerangs strapped to his back. “Great throw, friend!”
Vetra’s sharp eyes took in the scene in a glance: the fleeing figures, the hacking blades, the shambling beasts. His mind registered all. How to win this fight? Lehundr and Aus were knee deep in hewn corpses and cloven skulls. Aus, the Thrule marksman crouched and stabbed and launched boomerangs at advancing foes. Zren raged like a ghoul, his sword gripped and flailing, tossing ear-heavy curses and hacking with unfettered lust. Of the Temple Thrule leader there was no sign; Vetra assumed she had fallen.
His inner sense told him to take a weaving course toward the clotted path where Dunon, Gefzad and Aus battled not a stone’s throw from the cavern’s edge against a guardian.
Arching and twisting in its confidence, the monster got too close to the water and found its foreleg gripped by a probing tentacle. With a mournful croak, the beast bit at the curling menace, but more tendrils came lurching out of the water. Like sucker vines, they were alive with force. Festoons of the snake-like things wrapped around its other leg, then its neck, and slowly dragged the creature into the seething water. Its head came bobbing up. There it thrashed, seeking release, sending keening moans into the air. But snaking cords soon webbed over its snout, fangs and into nostrils, and it dropped from sight.
Vetra closed with two blood-drenched attackers. His sword found soft flesh beneath the leather. One attacker gave a last sighing gasp and Vetra put a foot on his chest to pull out the blade. He slipped on the spurting blood, lost his grip, was unable to pry the weapon loose from the breastbone in time to prevent the blade from falling into the steaming water. Instinct took over. He kicked the corpse away and winced as his only weapon bubbled away into oblivion.
The mercenary’s eyes roamed about the chamber. He felt naked without his sword. Not long would he last amid these fiends without familiar, protective steel. His flesh quivered with the thought of being rended by these foes.
Six feet out in the water, another guardian thrashed, struggling to stay afloat. Crossbow bolts stung its neck. Now its snout and humped back rose above the steaming bubbles. Vetra’s eyes caught the glint of scimitars lying not far away on the stone walkway, in the hands of dead men, mauled by the guardians. It gave him an idea.
“Skirt around that way!” he shouted to Jhara. “We’ll meet at that adjacent walkway.” He stabbed out a finger.
“It’s insane!” she cried. “You’ll be eaten alive.” She saw what the mercenary was planning—and she caught him in a convulsive grip.
“Do it!” cried Vetra.
No sooner had he uttered the cry when a blade came whistling by his head. He made a last savage leap.
Over the guardian’s head he launched himself onto its back, now crawling with great, green, slimy tendrils. Even as the shiny, flesh-flecked teeth snapped up to chomp him, his feet were in the air again and he was lunging for the opposite walk. Where was Jhara?
He came slamming down on the crude-cut stone, his boots in the water, and the fingers of one hand clawing on the wet stone. He half expected the creature’s lips to vomit out deadly goop.
He pulled himself up and over, legs burning with pain from the scorching water, and the feel of sucker-vines latching onto his leg.
Scrambling to his feet, he jigged around, a frantic fury upon him, smashing boot heels down on the crawly things that wished to twine around his ankles. He grabbed an abandoned sword and beat it against the things creeping up his legs. He shook the horror out of his head, feeling his limbs quiver.
No time to lose.
Sword in hand, he regained his footing and lunged for Cthan and the rogues who guarded the junction. Jhara was alone and against many. He cut the first opponent down in a wave of red, cleaving flesh to the bone, then faced the others.
Cthan darted away, laughing, directing others to take the place of the dead minion. “Hold him! The fool has nowhere to go.” He raced back toward the island, where the dragon eye lay.
Vetra caught a glimpse of that fathomless orb, pulsing away like a ghoulish, living thing. It vibrated as if it were of demented, elemental origin, alive and quickening, shining a weird translucent glow.
Cthan had been lucky, or smarter than his hapless men. He and Rafa bolted along a narrow ledge that lapped over with water. Leaping over those sections, with the intent to skirt around the guardians, they closed with Lehundr and Aus, and the boomerang thrower who came rushing up to assist them.
Dunon, Gefzad and other hill Thrules saw the Behundrian enemies storming up to murder Lehundr and Aus. They came at Cthan and Rafa from the rear with howls of rage on their lips.
Cthan gave a rancorous roar. He turned to engage Dunon, who was snarling from lips caked with froth. Dunon turned at a whizzing blade that sliced close to his ear. He stumbled, tripped by a foot snaking out.
Gefzad jumped over and caught Cthan’s whickering blade. It would have driven into Dunon’s ear. Cthan’s blade slid rasping over Gefzad’s hilt and Gefzad’s finger was shorn off. His blade again locked with Gefzad’s. With a quick, snake-like flick, he ran the Thrule through the chest. The gape-mouthed man toppled across the pathway with a squashy thud.
Vetra watched as jelly-like forms swarmed over him, the man’s face a parody of comic surprise. Cthan booted him out of the way. The rogue came driving onward. Dunon was inches behind and tried to jab past his man to get to Cthan’s jugular, but the path was too narrow and he could do little without suffering damage, nor do much for fear of skewering his own man.
Ten feet in front, the boomerang thrower parried Rafa, and realized that even with a patch over his eye, the man was more than his match. He drew back in defeat.
“Retreat!” came Vetra’s pained voice rising across the water. He called to Aus who was spidering his way back with Rafa’s opponent to regroup. There both he and Dunon were but two dozen paces away on a parallel walkway.
Lehundr pulled back the boomerang thrower and ran with Jhara, to Vetra’s place of cover.
The boomerang thrower slipped and Rafa, seizing the opportunity, ran a sword through his back, his face lit in fierce triumph. Aus gave an agonized bellow.
“Forget him!” cried Vetra. “To the ledge! The beasts can’t follow us up there.”
Cthan turned and glared at the mercenary. “You’re a dead man!” Hearing Rafa’s triumphant cry from not far away, he shambled off to the pedestal where gleamed the dragon’s eye. Dunon and the two others came spitting curses after him, blades flailing. “Coward! Fight like a man!” Dunon cried with frothing anger at Cthan’s back as he stumbled after.
Cthan ignored such insults. He strode with blade hoisted with an imperious grin to carve out any Thrule flesh that would thwart him.
The rest of the Behundrians, crowded by circling guardians, foiled Vetra’s plan of regrouping. They cut off Dunon and Aus, with a wall of bristling blades.
“Up the ledge!” Vetra thundered in frustration. He and Jhara reached the opposite shore while Lehundr puffed behind them. Now the shadow of a towering dragon lord statue fell over all of them and they scrambled past its massive stone feet. They reached the ledge that wound up the cavern wall.
Up the crumbling slope they scrambled, a crust of fallen jewels crunching underfoot, sparkling in the luminous glow of the water. Cthan’s men saw what they were doing and gave angry shouts. Cthan gesticulated in wild fervour. Half of the forces raced to cut them off at another stairway leading to the same ledge. Vetra clenched his fist grimly and hoped the others could make it in time.
There was an advantage to this route. The sinister dragon lords could not scale the wall, and the Behundrians would be hard pressed to take them on the high ground.
The plan was flawed. Foes were coursing behind them, and up ahead on the straight section of ledge, squeezing past dead bodies, encircling the defenders in a knot. A flash of figures appeared in the dimness and he and Jhara and Lehundr raced to meet them.
They were backed out on a ledge. Below the waters boiled. There was no way to escape.
