Valkeryn 2: The Dark Lands (26 page)

Just as it had been with Murdak, Goranx’s blows and rakes of his talons were caught and held. Samson held on, and even leaning forward now, roaring into the larger Lygon’s face. The strain made his face flush red, but the unnatural strength of the smaller being was unbelievable. Mogahrr hissed, clearly becoming unsettled.

She turned to the ever-present Orcalion and nodded to the Panterran archers. A word from him, and they readied their bows. It seemed win or lose for the human, his fate would be sealed.

Samson laughed, and just as Goranx was being physically lifted, pushed back like Murdak had been, the huge Lygon arched forward, extending his neck and opening his cavernous mouth wide. The massive jaws lined with ivory daggers fully enveloped the human’s head. There came a sickening crunch, and Samson’s arms dropped. Blood arced into the air, and Goranx turned to spit the head from his mouth. Becky threw up, and Edward sat down hard.

Goranx got to his feet, dragging Samson’s headless body with him. He held it aloft as he walked around the arena’s perimeter. He stopped before Mogahrr, threw it to the ground, and placed one of his huge feet upon it, crushing down hard.

Mogahrr grinned and nodded. ‘And to the victor, goes the meat.’ She laughed, turning her yellow eyes on Eilif momentarily, and then reaching out to stroke Marion Briggs’ head. The Delta Force colonel stood as if in a trance, but there were tears on her cheeks.

Chapter 29

Never Give Up

Arn landed hard on the slippery shell of the giant crusta
cean, quickly grabbing on to the serrated edge. Its black bulbs of eyes retracted and it immediately started to submerge, Arn guessing more from surprise than pain. He held on, following it beneath the water, the beams of moonlight the only illumination in the inky black river. At ten feet down his breath gave out and he kicked away, breaking the surface and shouting to Grimson to get to the bank. If the young Wolfen was safe it would give him some comfort to know it was only himself he needed to worry about.

He shook the hair from his eyes and trod water, spinning about – the youth was nowhere to be seen.

He swiveled again – there was no sign of him along the bank. He must have made it…
please let him have made it
, he prayed as he started to stroke towards the rocky shoreline.

Arn swam hard, but now understood why Grim might have had trouble making it to the shore – in close the current was strongest, creating an eddy that pushed him back from the land. The moonlight continued to bathe his body, giving him more stamina than he should have had, but still, his progress was slow and he was tiring.

To his horror, he saw two long black bulbs pop to the surface. The twin periscopes approached for a moment, and then vanished. Arn knew that below the water something as wide as a truck was closing in on him with a pair of claws large and sharp enough to cut him in half if it got him in its grip. Something bumped against his an
kle, and he spun – there was nothing on the surface, but that didn’t mean the giant thing wasn’t directly below him by now.

He looked to the land – still too far. He would have had trouble fighting the thing on the shore, but if it came at him from below, he was doomed. He tread water, panic setting in – it seemed the choice was not going to be his. Arn pulled his knife.

The periscopes reappeared and then a small island rose next to him. Arn felt his heart race.

‘Not something you ever encountered, huh grandfather?’ He held up the small knife, the blade shaking in his hand.

Never give up
, a small voice whispered.

Huge claws lifted from the water, bumps and serrations on their inner edges for gripping and cutting meat. Arn quickly searched for vulnerable spots on the glossy armor. Depressingly, there were none.

‘Fight it, Arn’. A voice – this time, not the whisper of his long dead grandfather, or perhaps his inner mind, but a young one he recognized. Grimson.

He wanted to turn to look for the youth, but his gaze was locked on the leviathan as it loomed over him.

Never give up-never give up-never give up.

A net flew out of the dark and fell across the giant crustacean’s back and raised claws. It was immediately pulled tight by rope lines connected to the shore. Voices were raised in triumph and then in straining grunts as the thing tried to firstly rip the netting from itself, and then pull back into deeper water.

A rope was tossed to Arn and he was pulled through the current to the shore. A hand was offered – a human hand. He looked up into the face of the girl he had seen earlier.

‘Too late for swimming, I think, yes?’ Strong white teeth showed in the dark.

Arn climbed out, feeling his muscles twitch from the previous exertion. He straightened, and saw that just behind her stood Grimson grinning, between two males, who were barely taller than he was. Arn stood a head above all of them. The expression, small but perfectly formed came to mind.

‘Human… you’re human!’

‘Hu-
man
?’ The girl looked perplexed.

Shouts came from the water’s edge and he turned to see that a dozen small humans were being dragged closer to the edge of the water.

She slapped his shoulder. ‘Come.’ And then pushed him towards the rope. ‘We must all pull the mugrab from the water – it will not be easy as it has many strong legs.’

‘Why do you want to get that thing out of the water?’ He shook his head, but grabbed one end of the rope. He continued to look at her. ‘But how did you get here? No, no, forget that. What happened to everyone… to us? Where did…’

Her voice sharpened. ‘Concentrate.’ She slapped him again, and then made a tugging motion. ‘If the mugrab gets our warriors into the water, they will be taken. Pull, pull!’

Grimson grabbed the rope behind him, and Arn looked over his shoulder and winked. ‘Let’s do it.’ He sucked in a deep breath and pulled. It reeled in a few feet and he moved his hands forward and pulled again, and then again, actually turning the huge crustacean in the water.

Arn could feel the moon’s electric-like energy flow through his body and it seemed to deliver to him as much combined strength as most of the warriors on all the other rope lines. Instructions were yelled, and one by one, they abandoned the ropes closest to him, and gathered their forces on a single rope to balance his herculean efforts.

Foot by foot the rope came in, and then one enormous sharp leg daggered into the flat rocks at the water’s edge. There was nothing for it to grip onto and it continued to slide towards them. More legs came up, and then the thing gave up its tug-of-war fight to stay in the water, and clambered up to face its tormentors.

Still meshed in the net it towered over all of them, sea grasses, sponges and barnacle type shells crusted to its under-body – it was a moving island, fifty feet around and easily that high again. A strong smell of silt, decay and stagnant water enveloped them. The creature tugged at the ropes entangling it, and tried to feed some of the strands into continually moving mouthparts that looked like a pair of circular saws moving over each other.

Arn shuddered. If the tribe hadn’t arrived when they did, he would more than likely have been fed into that mouth right about now.

More instructions were yelled, and the tribe fanned out with multiple ropes, keeping the mugrab in place. They brought out spears – long poles with black, fire-hardened tips. Many were seized by the creature and snapped like toothpicks. Jabbing at it did little more than scrape some of the slime from its thick shell.

There were more shouted instructions from the woman now pacing behind Arn, and other members of the tribe threw piles of twigs, and then larger branches, beneath the thing. A brave soul sprinted forward, tipped some liquid onto the piles and then rolled away, to the cheering of his fellows. Another warrior came in fast, rolled again, and stopped at the woodpile. He struck at something like a tinderbox. A tiny flame appeared to dance in the centre of the mass, and then spread along the liquid. He too rolled out to the delight of his tribe.

In a matter of seconds a twenty foot circle of flames was created beneath the mugrab. The crustacean became frenzied, and tugged more forcibly against the ropes. Arn felt his feet slide, and saw that many of the men were being dragged from their feet and some even flung aside.

One of the natives had the misfortune to roll in too close, and was snapped up by a claw. His screams were cut off in an instant when the giant biological shears came together cutting him in two… and to Arn’s horror, none too neatly.

‘Pull-pull-pull.’ The girl began the chant and the tribe quickly took it up. They separated into two groups, one each side of the flames, some managing to loop their ropes around boulders, or wedge their heels against anything that allowed them to lock the thing in place

Hissing now came from the mandibles that worked furiously, and its body danced and shuddered. The hissing became a scream, and steam started to escape from its mouth – the giant water creature was being cooked alive. In no time it pulled its legs and claws in and fell on top of the flames, its mottled green body quickly turning bright red.

Arn dropped the rope and breathed in deeply, inhaling the delicious smell of roasting crab.

‘Mmm, I’m starved.’

Grimson joined him, holding his nose. ‘Phew. You Man-Kind eat some disgusting things.’

*

The cooked meat was wrapped in broad, smooth leaves and hoisted up onto their shoulders. Arn had a hundred questions, mostly met with confused looks or shrugs. However, he learned the tribe was called the Panina and the young woman’s name was Simiana. She was clearly in charge of this band of warriors even though she appeared to be the youngest amongst them.

When Arn asked was it a war party, she had looked bemused and explained – as if to a backward child – that even though there were other races close by, none would think of warring on each other. For what? There was plenty of food, water and land for all. The Panina were a happy and satisfied race, and anyway, Wyrmragon looked over all of them.

‘Wyrmragon?’ Arn asked.

Simiana laughed. ‘Surely you know of Wyrmragon, the one true god.’ She wore a beauteous smile and inhaled as though smelling roses. ‘The god of us all, and you too.’ She turned her smile on him. ‘And who was made flesh for us… all.’ Simiana placed a hand on Grimson’s head, ‘… even you too, young Wolfen.’ She took plenty of time inspecting Grim, running her hands over his fur, feeling his ears, and trying to pull down his lips to see his teeth. Arn could see that Grim wasn’t happy about the examination, but Arn thought it made a nice change not to be the oddity and the one prodded and gawped at by every member of a new race he met.

‘We have heard your kind existed.’ Simiana stroked Grimson’s shoulder. ‘Like the Ursa but far smaller.’ She dropped her hand and turned to Arn. ‘And you say he is the son of a ruler… from a kingdom?’

‘Yes. Grimson is a prince. Or maybe even the king now if his sister…’ Arn trailed off momentarily. ‘The Valkeryn kingdom doesn’t exist anymore.’

‘Yes, our elders tell us that there are some like him that live on the far side of the sea.’

Grimson’s ear’s pricked up. ‘The Far Wolfen? We seek them. Where is this sea?’

Simiana pointed. ‘But could you swim over the horizon? There are things in there that would swallow you whole.’

Arn snorted. ‘Well, there are things on land that would make a meal of you pretty quickly as well.’

Simiana laughed. ‘True.’ She looked Arn up and down. ‘We will be at our village soon. The king will want to meet you… and the prince of the vanished Wolfen.’

Simiana strode ahead, berating some of the food bearers for struggling with their packs. Arn and Grimson walked together, Grim’s eyes narrowing as he watched the Panina female bully them back into order.

Arn also watched the slender woman, but with a greater appreciation for her physical form than her leaderships skills.

‘So, this is how we ended up.’ he shrugged. ‘Not so bad.’ He looked down at Grimson who was pulling a face.

‘These are not the great Ancients, the masters of this world that our forefathers talked of.’

Arn shrugged. ‘Maybe not anymore, but let’s hope their elders have records, writings, or something that can tell us more.’ He tore away a piece of the loose cord that was dangling from his huge bundle of meat and used it to tie around his head to keep his hair back. He noticed that many of the natives were watching him, and shortly afterwards, the men had their own hair tied back just he had done.

Grimson stayed close as they wound their way through the dark vegetation. He continued to study the race of small brown people.

‘They are like you, but not like you.’ He snorted as though there was something unpleasant in his nostrils.

Arn frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Grim tilted his head. ‘They look like you, move like you and sound like you… but they are not.’ He raised his head and sniffed deeply. ‘They smell different. I can sense it.’

Arn nodded. The Wolfen had exceptional senses and Grimson was also one of the few Wolfen who had a degree of second sight. If he sensed something didn’t fit, Arn knew he should pay attention.

Arn looked across at Simiana walking out to the side of them. She glanced across her shoulder and smiled. Her features were perfect – olive skin, small upturned nose and large light brown eyes. He smiled back, and continued to watch her. ‘I think she’s pretty fine.’ She giggled and motioned forward with her head. Arn turned just as branch whipped back into his face.

‘Serves you right.’ Grimson looked up at him with annoyance. ‘You are not paying attention, Arnoddr – it will get you killed.’

Arn hoisted the huge pile of meat from one shoulder to the next, grunting under the strain. Even with the moon’s glow giving him an unnatural strength, the weight pressed down as he began to feel the effects of hours of arduous walking that had brought him here.

Arn pointed. ‘Grim, cut me a long vine will you.’

The youth walked off a few paces, and in no time returned with about twenty feet of flexible green vine. Arn paused, dropped his package onto the ground and wrapped the wine around it. Then he looped it over both shoulders and hoisted it again. Now the weight sat squarely up on his shoulders like a backpack.

He exhaled. ‘That’s better. Thought it was going to cripple me.’

They continued on for another few minutes, and when Arn looked across at the tribe, most of them had found some vine and were now carrying their packs just like Arn.

‘Seems you have a lot to teach them.’ Grim said with little enthusiasm.

‘Hmm, seems that way.’

They pushed on as the trees grew even larger, becoming enormous banyans, their gigantic trunks so vast it was hard to tell where one mighty tree started and another finished. The ground seemed firmer from much use, and Arn could smell cooking, leather, and body odor – the smell of group habitation.

There was an ululating cry from Simiana and rope ladders dropped, making Arn and Grimson jump. Looking up they could see huts, bridges and walkways amongst the canopy –a village in the trees. They’d found the home of the Panina. A home in the sky.

‘Tree houses.’ Arn grinned. ‘You live in tree houses.’

She returned the smile with a shrug. ’It is safer.’

Platforms came down on pulleys, and many of the warriors climbed on and were quickly hauled back up.

Simiana motioned to the next platform. ‘King Troglan will wish to meet with you. He will have many questions, I’m sure.’

‘Good, so do I.’ Arn and Grim stepped onto the platform and rose skyward.