“HOW LONG UNTIL YOU RETURN WITH HIM?”
“Ah, that is difficult to predict, Master. The corridor is some
distance away, as
I
said. And your chambers are considerably farther,
as the man is in the opposite direction from them.”
“MAKE HASTE, WIKKELL. I HATE TO BE KEPT WAITING.”
“I shall return as soon as possible, Master.”
The purple blot upon the air swirled and faded, leaving the cyclops alone in
the dim green light. He tried to swallow again but found his mouth too dry to
accomplish that simple task. He had purchased more time with his lie… well,
perhaps not a lie, only an exaggeration. But best he hurry and accomplish that
which he had told Rey was imminent.
Otherwise…
The image of himself as a steaming puddle of ooze upon the floor thrust
itself into the cyclops’ thoughts. He increased his speed.
Though he was wide awake, Deek had a dream. In it he lay at the feet of
Chuntha, who loomed over him as if she were ten times her normal size.
“Where are the people I sent you to fetch?” she demanded.
Deek could feel himself exude the oily flux that passed for sweat among his
kind.
“I—I h-have n-not yet a-arrived at t-t-their
l-location, M-m-mistress.
I-it is… ah… s-s-some d-distance a-away.”
Chuntha increased in size, towering over Deek. She bent and picked up the
worm as if he were no more than a hatchling fresh from the egg. She held him in
her hands as she sometimes did that wand-bone of hers. With the slightest
pressure, she could squeeze him into mush. “Hurry, Deek. I grow impatient.
You do not want that.”
Without a sounding rock to scrape upon, Deek could not speak, but no, he
definitely did not want Chuntha impatient with him. No.
Deek awoke to find
himself
crawling along as
before, the bat, his guide, still flitting back and forth above him. Had he the
ability, he would have sighed. In lieu of that, he merely increased his speed.
Conan had listened to Tull’s story with interest, but he was not ready to
accept the older man’s conclusion. And were he to find the way out, best he
begin looking immediately. He said as much.
Once again to his surprise, Elashi failed to contradict him.
“Aye,” she said. “The sooner we are shut of this place, the
better.”
Tull shook his head. “I think you’re daft, lad, but I’ll not see you
wandering about in the caves without my assistance. May be that you can do what
I could not. You shall have my knife’s help.”
Conan grinned. This was more like it. Far better to be up and doing
something than to sit passively awaiting Fate’s bidding. “Good,” he
said. “Then let us be about it.”
With that, the three departed Tull’s grotto.
Wikkell stood staring at the waterfall. “Are you certain they went this
way?” The Blind Whites affirmed that this was so.
The cyclops brooded for a moment. Well, if they went this way, he could also
go thus. He began to wade into the icy water. It deepened quickly, rising as he
stepped into it. Three paces and the water level
was
nearly at his chin.
Too deep for the humans to have waded
through it.
Perhaps near the edge it was shallower…?
Indeed. As Wikkell sidestepped, the pool’s floor angled upward. In a moment
the water was only knee-depth. It was tricky going, with that rushing cascade
right next to him. He moved his splayed feet over the slippery bottom with
care. The fugitives must have edged along like this until they were past the
waterfall.
Wikkell slipped on a protruding bottom stone. He would have fallen into the
depths of the pool, but he waved his arms wildly and instead overbalanced
toward the flowing waterfall. He fell into it—
And through it.
Ho-ho!
he
thought as he drew himself to his feet
and stood erect. The water hid another chamber and tunnel! He turned and stuck
his head through the waterfall, now seen to be little more than a thin but wide
cascading sheet.
“This way, blind fools,” he said. “They went this way.”
From a shallow crevasse in the stone floor, Deek watched as One Eye first
disappeared into the waterfall, then pushed his head through it and called to
the Blind Whites.
When the creatures had all moved through the sheet of rushing water, the bat
flitted down and alighted next to Deek.
“D-d-did y-y-ou k-know of t-this?”
The bat affirmed that it did. The other end of the tunnel entered into one
of the Bloodbats’ breeding chambers, in point of fact.
“I-is t-there a-a-another w-way to the c-c-cham-ber?”
Certainly, the bat said. You do not think that we fly through that water
whenever we wish to leave, do you?
“T-t-take m-me t-t-there.”
As you wish, the bat said, seeming bored by it all.
Deek felt a small surge of happiness as he slithered off after the
supercilious bat. The prey would not be coming back this way, not with One Eye
and the Whites blocking egress. If he could get to the other end in time, he
could be there to capture them. With the help of a breeding cave full of bats,
it should be easy enough.
“What lies at the ends of this tunnel?” Conan asked.
Tull pointed. “That way is the bat cave, where they breed. The other
way you already know about; it’s the waterfall.”
“Is it possible to slip past the bats?” Elashi asked.
“Aye, lady, if one is careful and quiet. Mostly they sleep, when they
ain’t breeding.”
“Then let us go that way,” Conan said. As young as he was, his
voice carried a tone of command. It was all well and good to joke with Elashi
when they were ambling along a mountain trail, but when real danger threatened,
Conan’s instincts would not be thwarted by words. He would play her games only
as long as it suited him.
Conan took the lead, with Elashi and Tull following.
The journey to the breeding cavern took less than an hour. As they neared
their destination, Tull halted them and began to whisper.
“The bats do not see well,” Tull said. “But they sense
movement. Slow motions hardly register. If you think one sees you, hold still,
and like as not it’ll drift back to sleep without bothering you.”
Conan nodded, noting that Elashi did the same.
“One thing, though,” Tull said. “They can smell blood a long
way off. If you get a scrape or cut, they’ll be on you like flies on offal—no
offense, lady—and there’ll be hell to pay. Four or five of ‘em can drain a
White dry in a minute, and
there’s
likely a hundred of
‘em hanging from the ceiling in this cave. Take care you don’t brush against a
sharp rock.”
Conan drew his sword.
“That won’t do you
no
good,” Tull said.
“Not if you face a hundred of ‘em.”
“Perhaps not,” Conan said. “But if they come to drink my
blood, they will pay dearly with their own.”
Tull chose not to speak to
this,
and with Conan
still in the lead, they moved off.
Wikkell asked, “Do you know where this tunnel leads?” and realized
the futility of the question before the chattering Whites could frame a reply.
Of course they did not know; until he had shown them, they had not realized the
passageway even existed. Well, he would find out soon enough.
“H-h-how l-long?”
Soon, the bat said. Can you not smell the breeding chamber’s lovely essence?
Deek did notice a foul, musty odor wafting down the hallway, but
fortunately, had not complained of it.
“That smooth track turns and goes this way, m’lord.”
The Harskeel nodded. It had a feeling that whatever had made that track
would lead them to Conan. “Stay with it,” the Harskeel ordered.
The bats were larger than Conan had anticipated. They hung upside down from
protrusions on the roof and walls of the chamber, enwrapped in membranous wings
so that they looked like giant flat-faced, tailess rats more than anything
else. Here and there
a pair were
joined together, but
for the most part, the hanging bats were still and quiet.
Slowly, carefully, the trio moved across the cave. There were rocks strewn
all over, which made for dangerous footing, and spires of rock jutted up from
the floor like talons waiting to snag an unwary victim.
More than a dozen openings led away from the cave, some of them at floor
level, others higher up along the glowing green walls. There were three such
exits directly across from where the trio had entered, and it was for the
center opening that Conan, Tull, and Elashi made their way. Tull had indicated
that this was the longest and largest of the local hallways, with abundant
hiding places should someone or
something
come along.
They were halfway across the large cavern, the bats overhead sleeping
peacefully, when trouble arrived. And as trouble was wont to do, it arrived in
droves.
Behind them, a gravelly voice said, “There! Get them!”
Conan spun about, sword at the ready. From the tunnel they had recently
vacated, eight or ten of the Blind Whites poured forth, chattering. Behind them
lumbered a creature unlike anything the Cimmerian had ever seen. Tall it was,
half again Conan’s own height, with a hunched back and a single pink eye. It
shambled forward, as fast as the Whites for all its size, gnarled and muscular
arms outstretched, fingers splayed wide as if to gather in Conan and his
friends.
The leading Blind White chose that moment to trip upon a loose rock. He
fell, and misfortune guided him so that he was impaled upon one of the
stalagmite talons, the point of which emerged from the hapless creature’s back.
If the sounds of the chattering Whites had not been enough to awaken the
bats, the gout of blood from the clumsy one certainly was. Overhead, the bats
came to life.
There was more. Behind Conan, Tull swore. Conan spared him a glance and in
the background saw a single bat emerge from another tunnel, followed by—Crom!—a
ghostly pale worm as big around as a man! The beast slithered across the rocky
floor toward the three people, bent on its own hellish purpose.
As the bats began to swoop down, screeching in high-pitched voices, the
Blind Whites snatched up rocks from the floor and hurled them at the flying
creatures. Though they must have been aiming at the sounds, their throws were
none the less accurate than if they had eyes. Bats were struck by the stones
and knocked from the air.
“The
men,
get the men!” the cyclops
yelled, its voice a roar. The Whites, however, were too busy to pay the
one-eyed creature much heed.
A bat flew at Conan, and the Cimmerian slashed with his blade, hacking one
wing off. The bat spiraled away, screeching.
“There he is!” came another voice.
Conan looked for the source of this new threat. From the tunnel behind the
great white worm came seven or eight men, armed with pikes and carrying
torches. Conan recognized them a heartbeat before their leader appeared. The
Harskeel!
The bats also noted this new intrusion into their nesting area, and it
seemed no more pleasing than the others. Dozens of them swooped down upon the
pikemen and the Harskeel. The men jabbed and cut at the flying creatures with
their short pikes, but
to
little effect.
Bats screeched, Whites chittered, the Harskeel and his men screamed, the
cyclops roared, and the giant worm scraped across the rock. Pandemonium ruled
the cave.
“Best we leave!” Tull shouted as Conan chopped another diving bat
from the air.
Conan swung his sword again, barely missing yet another bat. Aye, now there
was an idea whose time had come.
Departing from the bat-infested cavern was not as easy to do as to say. As
Conan slew still another darting bat, something leaped upon his back. He
twisted, hurling one of the Blind Whites to the floor. Elashi finished the
creature with a thrust of her blade.
Blood gouted.
“This way!”
Tull yelled.
Moving on a surface made slippery by gore, Conan and Elashi sought to follow
the older man.
One of the pikemen managed to slog his way toward them, brandishing his
weapon. “Halt!” he called. Then “Urk!” as both a bat and a
Blind White fastened themselves to him.
Behind Conan, the giant cyclops roared and used his massive fists like
hammers, battering aside men, bats, and Whites foolish enough to get in his
way.
To Conan’s left, the sluglike worm crawled closer, swatting at the
occasional White with the tip of what the Cimmerian assumed to be its tail.
That segment of the worm whipped through the air with more speed than the young
Cimmerian would have thought possible, smashing the apelike creatures, spinning
them away like children’s dolls.
Conan cut another bat from the air, slinging its hot blood into Elashi’s
face. “Watch what you are doing!” she yelled.
Tull said, “Here!”
Conan and the desert woman hurried through the sudden clearing of
antagonists to the tunnel in which Tull stood, urging them to him. In another
moment they had made their exit.
Running down the tunnel, Conan asked, “Where are we going?”
“Does it matter?” Elashi said.
“Away from
that place!”
“This tunnel has a number of twists and branches,” Tull called
out, a wheeze in his voice. “We can lose any pursuit here.”
“Perhaps they will not pursue us at all.”
“I think that might be wishful thinking, lass. It strikes me that all
of ‘em are after you and the big ‘un here.”
“Wonderful,” Elashi muttered.
“Just
wonderful.”
The Harskeel was willing to allow all of its men to die could it but attain
its prey, but there was no point in permitting them to be slaughtered without
achieving that goal. The tunnel into which Conan and the girl—and that old man,
who was he?—had fled was all the way across a cavern full of strange creatures
bent upon destruction. Best to retreat and gather his energies for a later
pursuit, the Harskeel told itself.