Chapter 21: Wood and Steel

Turning toward the steps laid out before him as scores of skittering claws moved across the rocks like a school of fish or a flock of birds, Falinor took two quick steps, raising his sword.

Suddenly Harrkania cried out.

Falinor turned around and saw her flinch with sudden fright as one of the creatures skittered about the stones around her. She swatted at it with her ore, but the thing on the wall moved, jumped and then jumped again, causing the giantess to miss her blows.

With each strike, a cracking echo shot about the corridor and down cavern. Growling, she finally lashed out with her boot and kicked the creature off the stairs. It writhed and wriggled in the air past Orvin’s head and he cringed, crying out in sudden fear of the creature, which fell out of sight.

Chittering sounded all around them as the creatures, squeaking and chitinous, crawled upon the steps. Orvin screamed, kicking and lashing out at the creatures, which recoiled from his strikes. One lunged at him, but Falinor charged up the stairs and struck out with his sword, taking the creature in the back. It split in half as pieces of its armored body cracked and flaked, its innards, a white-grey, oozing out over the steps, its blood like blue milk.

“Watch out!” Falinor called.

Orvin screamed. “Look!”

His eyes were wide, his finger thrust out where Falinor had stood just moments before. As he turned to see what the man was pointing at, his eyes found five more of the creatures scurrying, their many legs a chilling sight along with their chitinous bodies long and arching into narrowing tails that split off into many and ending with sharp toothy mandibles that clicked and clacked.

Gritting his teeth, Falinor strode forward down the steps, and lashed out with his blade, taking one, then two, their bodies separating ozzingly as the armor shattered wetly about and fell.

The other creatures scurried back, and Falinor glanced over his shoulder where Harrkania smashed another creature into a mess of hard and soft splatter. “We move!” he called. Pressing forward with alacrity, Falinor flicked his blade at the creatures, his heart hammering inside his chest as he killed those he could, and passed by those that jumped out of his reach.

“Orvin!” he growled. “Stay close to me!”

“I a-a-a-am-m-m!”

The giantess cried out in high tones, a manner that sounded like she was loosing her balance and might fall. Whirling, his heart hammering inside his chest at the prospect of losing her, Falinor saw her pressed up against the wall, her eyes wide.

“Princess.”

She shook her head.

“Harrkania—are you all right?”

The giantess squeezed her eyes shut and growled.

“Be careful!” he called, unable to go to her. She looked up at him, the look upon her face very much the look of a young girl afraid of bugs in her bed.

“Princess!”

“What?!”

“Stay close.”

“Falinor!” called Orvin, as more of the beasts skittered into their path upon the walls and steps before them.

“Everyone close,” he commanded. “We move together. Do not stop!”

Stepping forward, he swung his sword in short arcs, the tapered end of his deadly blade passing through the bodies of the hungry beasts. Their guts exploded out of their hard shells in strings of slime and hot blood blue blood.

Orvin screamed, but Falinor ignored him, continued to go down the steps. They needed to get out of this confined space where they could hopefully get away from these creatures, or else, be able to fight them on more level terrain.

Pressing on, he navigated the stairs, killing the creatures when they got too close, forcing them back when they were not close enough to strike. Harrkania did well, in that her reach was far longer than Falinor’s, and where he did not want to strike the stone with his blade—despite its indestructible quality, a thing he had learned in his training that stuck, even now—Harrkania was able to fling and lunge with her ore she had taken from the sloop. She did it without any forethought as to the well-being of her weapon, as was the benefit of such a tool.

And the ore was quite good at killing these beasts, with its long reach and flattened end. She cried out angrily, swiping across another and splattering it into a soft pile of oozing and crunchy bits.

Nodding, Falinor saw that she was handling herself well, and pressed forward, increasing the speed of his gait down the steps. He killed another beast, then another on the wall as its fellows watched from affair with little black orbs, wet and shiny, for eyes. Many, many of them now hung back like a flock of vultures, fearful of what Falinor would do to them.

With a smile of triumph, Falinor took the next step—but what happened, he did not exepct. His sandal. It came out from under him and he slipped.

Landing on his backside, he grunted heavily as he slid down the stairs, each angle from the edge of the steps taking him in the back. He must have slipped upon the carcass of one of the chitinous beasts, their oozing blood sticky and slimy.

The creatures seemed to realize his misshap. When they saw him fall, they moved in, skittered across the walls and over the steps above, crying out in their bestial way, like demonic ravens.

“Falinor!” Orvin called, the alarm in his voice apparent. “Falinor—are you all right?”

He swung his blade, pushed his free hand beneath him.

“Look out!” growled Harrkania, and her ore echoed about as she struck several blows in quick succession, one blow after the other.

Managing to get back to his sandaled feet, Falinor continued striking at the beasts while using one hand, and they backed away once again. With the respite, the trio breathed fast and heavy with the exertions of their battle—but also because of the sheer terror of possibly being overrun and swarmed by these prickly beasts hungry for meat.

Orvin said, “Look. They are leaving off.” He stretched out his arm and pointed with his finger.

“They know we will kill them,” said Falinor, swallowing the knot in his burning throar.

“How?” asked Harrkania. “They are only dumb beasts.”

“I do not know,” ventured Falinor, “but we should not wait to find out.” He nodded to her ore. “Impressive work with that.”

She managed a smile. “Thanks.”

“No,” said Orvin, his curiosity getting the better of him—clearly—“Perhaps they are like some species of ant. I have read that in the jungles of Koroixica, that when killed, the Om ants can sense the pheromones of their dead—“

Where in the hells is that even at?

“Good lords and ladies of the heavens, man—we do not have time for this discussion. We move!”

And they moved, striding down the steps, Falinor taking two at a time as they rushed down, their shoulders dragging against the wall on their left for safety. They traversed these dangerous stairs almost recklessly, their fear and haste to be shut of this evil place evident, for they would have never moved so quickly with a chasm so close.

The skittering and chittering continued all around them, the sounds whirling and bouncing off the walls, making the cries far more terrifying than any flock of demonically possessed raven could ever have. The cries coalesced, and formed a confluence behind them, pursuing them.

As Falinor stamped down the stairs, fewer and fewer of the creatures visible, he thought they they were free, and when the stairs ended and flat rock began, he laughed in exultation, wordlessly but full of mirth and excitement.

“We made it!” exclaimed Harrkania, full of hope and life.

“”Quick!” added Orvin, “there must be a corridor that leads out of this dreadful place, yes?”

There was, but when Falinor saw it, he also saw the blockage, the brown and yellow substance connected to the rocks like clinging spores or some alien artifice, the strange mathematically aligned curves to the holes, all forming the same similar shape, dozens, if not hundreds of the little beasts crawling and chittering over it.

“Oh my gods!” Harrkania gasped as she came up short, her dirties ore in one hand and her other against her chest between her breasts.

Falinor turned and hissed, “Quiet!”

“What now?” breathed Orvin. “What do we do now?”

“How do we kill that many of those things?” asked Harrkania, her tone the whiny teenager, but also full of incredulity and outrage.

“I see no other ways out of here,” said Orvin, and the small man, his eyes wide, swallowed as sweat dripped down the sides of his face and into his long stubble. “We could try to go back and—“

“No,” said Falinor. “They will swarm us and tear us to pieces.” Gritting his teeth, Falinor knew they could not kill them all, then hack their way out, and as the skittering from behind increased to such heights, it sounded more like a massive flock of croaking and cawing birds.

“They are coming from above,” said Harrkania. “We must hurry!”

“Wait!” said Falinor, putting out his hand across the giantess’ stomach to keep her from rushing forward. He pointed forward with the tip of his sword. “Do you see the mass?”

“Now is not the time for study,” said Orvin.

“Good gods man,” snapped Falinor. “I know that. But look. The mass… the nest. It is not fastened to the left side of the wall. We may be able to push it and squeeze through.”

Harrkania moved, but said nothing, indicating a peculiarity to Falinor. He turned and saw her glaring down at him, one hand on her hip, the other holding her ore like a staff. “Do I look like I can ‘squeeze’ past anything to you?”

Her words caused him to glance down her body, and her hips and legs. With a convulsion of humor—he could not stop himself—he said, “Princess, this is the only way. We must try.”

“Hmph!”

“We must try,” echoed Orvin.

“Fine,” she said, “but if I get stuck, you two have to pull me through.”

“I would never leave you, Princess.”

“Truly?”

The sounds of the creatures from above were coming closer—far too close for comfort. They did not have time to talk.

“Truly,” said he. Then he announced, “But first!” He began moving his hands along the trajectories to summon his magical Arcanum—all that he could muster, “We do”—he launched the fireball—“this!”

The fireball, bright and hot, launched forward in a crackle. It struck the next and with a minor explosion, emulated it. As the fire spread, the creates howled and clicked, scurried everywhere as others curled up and died.

When the flames of his fireball should have lessened, they seemed to catch, and the inner parts of the nest hissed and crackled and without warning, exploded into a plume of fire that cracked the ears. The beasts that remained flew in pieces or skittered away for safety as the nest shattered and split, whole sections falling outward in every direction.

Falinor shielded his eyes as the shock of the heat hit him, almost too hot for him to handle as a sweet and burnt smell stung his nostrils. Harrkania and Orvin grunted as they weathered that heat and flame.

And then suddenly the light and the heat receded.

The swordsman looked upon what he had wrought, and found that the nest was almost gone, leaving a space large enough for them—even a giantess—to get by unhindered.

Smiling with satisfaction, Falinor glanced up at the giantess and she nodded, her eyes wide and surprised. “Nod bad, Falinor.”

Shrugging by a tilt of his head, he said, “Thank you.”

“The creatures!” Orvin cried, glancing back to the stairs. “They are coming!”

The giantess glanced back from where they had come. “And they sound really angry.”

“Then we go!” said Falinor, and he grabbed Harrkania by the hand and ran, leading her over the chunky wet and burnt pieces of the nest, past the hundreds of dead carcasses, his sandals and her boots crunching across the broken shells.

The conflagration of claws and mandibles and snapping tails rose, and a sound the creatures had not made before, issues in unison from them all as they must have found their destroyed nest. In a deep and moaning sigh all at once pitched in bestial anger and lamentation and rage.

“Keep up, Orvin!” cried Harrkania.

“I am!”

The corridor opened up, revealing light—bright light—and they rushed out of the cold cavern and into the warmth of the day.

The hot and dry nature of this place never felt so good to Falinor as he continued running, his throat and lungs burning as he kicked his legs as fast as he could. His speed was fast, but to Harrkania, he must have barely set her to running.

They ran until the group was well-done of that place, and out into the open.

“Stop!’ cried Orvin. “Stop! I can’t—I can’t run—any—more.”

Falinor let go of Harrkania’s hand and put his hands on his knees, bending and gasping, as she did the same, though not nearly so violently.

The swordsman glanced back toward the cavern, at the hole they had left, and at the cliff side. The beasts were not pursing them. From where they were, in this grey, ash-strewn place of hot air and dry rocks, the interior of that cliff face before them would have never indicated the threat of such an ordeal as they had just survived.

“I am so… glad we got out of there,” breathed Harrkania.

Falinor nodded. Sharing a glance with her, the giantess smiled happily. He was also feeling the same. “Something to write about,” he said, making eyes at Orvin across from her. “Since you cannot sketch it, yes?”

The man nodded. “Indeed! Now, to remember it.” And then he laughed.

And so did Falinor.

But then their mirth was quickly stolen away.

Looking up, the bridge they had espied from before loomed ahead, the spires on the other side spread out before the temple clawing high into the sky, almost like a curse of wrath toward the gods. Inside the magically wrought spires were chiseled out recesses revealing marbled statues of man-like beings, strong of arm, tall and savage in their bearing as they wielded weapons of sword and axe and of staff.

There was something altogether evil about them—and of this place.

Shivers ran up Falinor’s back as a wind skirled passed, howling across the stretch of natural rock which lay prostrated before them in slave-like supplication to their approach.

With a final glance back the way they had come, the trio warily stalked forward. They moved slowly, the learned man among them took in the sights with a strong measure of obvious trepidation, the swordsman in the lead, his jaw set and his eyes forward, and the giantess close beside him with uncertainty in her features, and yet a determination.

A determination ironclad in the trust she had in her friends.

Falinor felt the warmth of Harrkania’s sudden hand upon his. Whether she chose to take his hand because of her fear of this foreboding temple lying before them or not, he did not know.

She glanced to Falinor and he looked into her big large green eyes. He squeezed his fingers over hers, a silent reassurance of whatever came next as they strode hand-in-hand.

She nodded firmly. “Let us get my sword!”

“Aye!”