Читать книгу The Great Horror: Discovery - Patrick Mew - Страница 6

Chapter 6

All except the last two passages, that is. The first of those two dead-ended with a bar-windowed door, as if it was a prison cell. Within was a figure that appeared to be elven but with dark, almost ebony-black, skin. It heard the approach of the party and sat up quickly, backing away from the cell door and looking through the window with wary red eyes. A cloak covered the figure before they got close to the cell's window, but Kunya already knew what it was from the gleaming eyes.

“It is alright, dark elf; we mean you no harm if you mean us none. I am Kunya and we are here clearing the goblins from this den. If you are being held here I assume that means you are in bad blood with them as well, and you are welcome to aid us if that is what suits you. If not, you are welcome to leave.” The wizard had to stand on her toes to see through the bars and Kida went to work on the lock, popping it open after a minute of work.

The dark elf seemed leery to answer, and silence enveloped them for a tense moment. “Thank you, human. I'll go with you if only to spill the blood of my captors. They deserve such from me for locking me away like some animal for slaughter. My name is Xron.” He was formal but spoke little of the situation's details.

“Do you need a weapon?” Rusga asked, brandishing a couple of daggers. Xron shook his head.

“Hah, no, I am my own weapon,” the dark elf replied, his hands glowing with purple energy. It crackled and made the party's neck hairs stand as he grinned maliciously. “Forgive the appearances, but it takes raw emotion to call forth that power.” Kunya paused for a moment to think about what she'd just seen.

“I do not believe I have ever seen one in person. This is exciting for me since I have only seen this sort of power described in books. A warlock, if I am correct?” The dark elf nodded, dismissing the energy. “Most interesting. A wizard, a sorcerer, and a warlock...” she said, pointing to herself, Kida, and Xron in turn. “There is a lot of magic here.” They continued along on the other fork of this last path. It straightened out as it went on, the tunnel becoming smoother and abruptly shifting material to something much harder than the packed earth and clay of the rest of the den.

This section was much more structurally sound, having been lined with carved stone blocks and lit with wrought-iron sconces on the walls. Three meters in each dimension, it was perfectly straight instead of twisted and turned like the others. Their footsteps echoed toward the surface as stairs descended some thirty meters down the hall, terminating in front of a large iron door. It depicted scenes of madness and slaughter with terrible visages of pain, suffering, and insanity under a bleak, black sun as storm clouds gathered in the distance. Two handles, each a ring with a fanged skull for the knocker, stood out from the landscape. Only later would the significance of this scene become apparent.

“Time to get to work, Kida,” the catfolk announced, nudging his friend forward.

“Alright, alright, give me a few minutes to look it over.” She went looking as she had with the trapdoors at the top of the goblin nest, prying into every corner and crack she could find and looking for the signs of traps. Xron joined her, evidently possessing the same sort of skills, and the two worked together. After a minute they were satisfied that there was nothing to surprise them. “Looks clear to me, though the handiwork on this door is something else. I've never seen detail this painstaking or this horrifying. Who on earth would design this?”

“I do not know,” Kunya answered, inspecting it in detail. None of the imagery looked familiar to her nor had she read about anything quite like this. “Whoever it is, I hope we do not cross them unprepared, should we cross them at all.”

“Agreed.... yeugh.” The kitsu retched at the scenery and the other four looked at it in turn, grimacing slightly as Kida stood back and waited for the doors to be opened. Bows drawn and steel ready, the two warriors each took a handle and pushed them open. The dark elf charged his hands with the mysterious purple energy again, ready to blast it forth upon an enemy. What greeted them was something altogether unexpected.

As the doors parted and the chamber ahead became visible, the six were taken aback by what stood in the room. Four goblins and two orcs, each bearing finely crafted armor and weapons, stood in a half-arc in front of a strange creature. It was tall, at least two meters in height, and humanoid in frame. Bulging blue-white eyes and glistening, sickly greenish-gray skin stood out prominently and in place of a chin, three tentacle-like appendages draped from its face. Its four six-fingered hands ended in wicked fingernails and it wore finely-made black silk robes. It pointed a hand toward the party and uttered something in a strange language, then vanished. The goblins and orcs readied weapons and moved forward with an unnatural cunning, far beyond what their species should have.

“Meet them head on!” Algan bellowed, charging forward with the spear. Each orc carried a massive axe in two hands and two of the goblins each carried a mace and shield; all four wore a breastplate made of black iron as they moved in formation. The other two goblins moved behind this line by about twenty meters. “A classical defense formation. Too bad it won't be good enough!” The human smirked with arrogance as the creatures finally reached him. As they closed he swung at one goblin, tripping it to the ground just in time for Riun to cut it to pieces as he moved overhead. The tribesman knew what waited in the back lines.

“Come forth and fight me withou-” he began with a roar, but his speech suddenly ceased. Normally full of emotion and vigor his face and body were motionless for an instant, and then his legs sluggishly carried him to the nearest wall where he sat and did nothing further.

“Oh crap,” Kida said, turning about to face the two robed goblins. “A Charm spell? This isn't good.” She ducked a couple of fiery rays that passed too close and retaliated with the crackling blue energy that Algan was all too familiar with. It streaked around the warrior and failed to connect with his target. “And a shield too?! Kunya, do something about this! Riun is charmed!”

“On it,” a sinister voice answered. The dark elf, concealed in a globe of supernatural darkness, sent forth a bolt of his eldritch energy and connected with one of the sorcerous goblins. It screeched in pain and fell unconscious, bringing Riun back to his senses as the spell broke.

“Well, that works too. C'ayulrrhuse'r,” Kunya replied, chanting her healing magic as Rusga took a battering hit from a mace. The crunch of bone caused the catfolk to grit his teeth and wince in pain until the spell took hold and refreshed him. Once it completed, he swung his blade in a great arc and cut down the one that struck him a moment earlier. After, he backed away to catch his breath.

“These guys are tough,” Rusga panted, ready to defend himself in case one of the orcs made its way over. Algan was handling them admirably, nicks and cuts appearing and disappearing all across his body as he returned the scratches to his opponents. Content to watch, Kida and Rusga stepped back but Riun was having none of it. Furious with whatever had made him take a seat he slew the other mage by lopping its head off and proceeded to join the fray. He stood back to back with the warrior as the orcs circled them both. All four eager for bloodshed they traded blows for a couple of minutes before the creatures finally succumbed to the various wounds across their bodies – missing fingers, deep gashes in their sides and legs, and chunks of flesh torn from their arms. Once again gore littered the battlefield where the group had been, and once again whatever treasures found home in the den were theirs for the taking. Now was not the time for that, however.

“So my suspicions were true. There was another force directing the goblins … the only questions now are what was that thing, and what does it want?” The wizard sat upon a clean patch of floor and pondered long while the other five plundered the equipment and arms from the defeated. “I honestly do not know. I have to research this in more detail.”

“Let's get back to town first. Then you can worry about research; you know this isn't the place for that,” Algan said in response. “I don't know any more than you do but if it opposes us or comes after our village we'll slay it like the rest.” Riun nodded in agreement.

“Whatever it is, it isn't natural,” Rusga piped in. “I know it isn't from this world. I'll ask my mentor about it at some point and see what I can find, since we've killed the majority of their forces. Our job is done and the remaining ones should be broken enough to be no threat to either the town or to the balance of nature.”

“That is fair. We will head back to town after we gather the spoils and then we can go our separate ways until we find out what we can. Oh, and you owe me ten gold pieces. There were fires all over the place on the surface,” Kunya said, adding a chuckle with the last words.

“I... damn it, so I do...” Rusga answered, frowning slightly. “Ah well, a deal is a deal. Take that from my share since I don't have any coins right now.”

“Very well. Let us clean the place out. Would you like to carry the bodies to the surface for scavenging animals and the like?”

“That would be preferable, yes.” The catfolk hauled a couple of the corpses up and the others followed suit except for Xron, who wouldn't have anything to do with the bodies after their abuses. About an hour passed before the six gathered up anything that was salvageable and disposed of the fallen enemies in several piles around the clearing. A small fortune of coins and supplies came together, some one thousand gold pieces' worth in total though rough estimate.

“Good grief they had a lot down there,” Rusga said, admiring the pile of goods. “They've been stealing for quite some time to get all of that.” Kunya and Algan nodded.

“A majority of that belongs to our town rightfully, but the supplies have been missing for so long that I doubt anyone expects to get them back free of charge. Even if we handed them out to the proper places we would probably still be paid for the trouble,” the warrior said, resting on a crate of rations. The oaken wood sagged under his weight and that of his equipment.

“Oh well. It can't be helped, then.” Rusga, Kida, and Xron sorted through the goods and packaged them into fewer containers to reduce what had to be carried. The animalfolk salvaged together what lumber they could get and put together a makeshift cart to carry the crates in so that nobody would have to use packs for the goods and coins, and they set out through the woods back toward the village.