This would not be an attractive place to die, Rik thought. Not that there were any of those, unless, as the Barbarian claimed, it was in the arms of a Sorajan whore in the great Palace of a Thousand Pleasures in Sorrow, but this was a particularly unprepossessing one.
His thoughts drifted all too easily to demons and the Darkness in the shadowy gloom. Barely controlled fear churned in his stomach; fear of the dark, fear of the weight of the mountains pressing down, fear of demons, and wizards and whatever other unnatural things might lurk down here. Bad as the weather was up top, he suddenly wished he was there or back in the camp, or in the sooty alleys of Sorrow; anywhere but here.
Uran Ultar had numbered many demons among his servants, at least according to all the stories Rik had heard. Perhaps not all of them had been destroyed along with Achenar. He offered up a prayer and hoped that God was listening. It was strange. He had more or less rejected the concept of a good God the orphanage priests had beaten into him except when he was in danger. His old faith usually came back to him then or at least the hope that there was something behind it.
The corridors wound on downwards. At first he thought it was his imagination but then he began to notice that there was a faint glow emerging from the walls. He had thought that it was merely the reflected light of the lantern playing over crystal veins, but then he noticed as he looked back that there was an ever so faint glitter that never quite faded behind them. It was as if a layer of something overlaid the wall.
He looked back at Hopper. The former miner shook his head then rubbed his broken nose. The expression in his deep set eyes showed he had never seen anything like this before and more than a touch of fear. Rik was not reassured. He almost bumped into Leon before he noticed that they had stopped and were staring at another mystical sign carved into the wall. The Lieutenant studied it thoughtfully. Master Severin hunkered down beside it, nodding his head as if he had some clue as to what they were looking at. All Rik knew was that he did not like this one little bit.
“Protective rune of an odd sort,” Severin said.
“Why odd?” Sardec asked.
“Unusual. Not of any school I know. Could be a divinator or a ward but it has no halo.”
“You mean you did not sense it till you saw it?”
“Correct.”
“I think it’s safe to say our dark wizard knows we’re on his trail,” Sardec said. There were a few half-hearted chuckles but the atmosphere of fear only deepened.
They pushed on down.
“I wonder how deep this mine goes, Rik?” asked Leon.
“Perhaps all the way down to Hell,” said Gunther. Rik wished he would shut up. This was not the sort of talk he needed to hear.
“But the Light will shield the righteous,” Gunther added. “Are you righteous?”
“You’ll get my righteous boot up your arse, if you don’t shut up,” said the Barbarian from up front. It was a measure of the Lieutenant’s involvement in his own thoughts that he did not intervene.
The strange scent increased. It smelled vaguely of spices, of cinnamon as well as rotten meat. The Barbarian noted that there were odd scrape marks on the floors and then they entered a large chamber-like cave and stopped short.
“Why would a wizard come here?” Leon asked Rik in a tone that suggested he genuinely expected an answer. His voice echoed somewhat under the high domed ceiling. “Why did he brave the demons?”
“Perhaps you are asking the wrong question,” said Rik. “Perhaps he came here because there are demons.”
It made an awful sort of sense. It was the thing wizards were always supposed to be doing, communing with demons of the Pits in pursuit of forbidden wisdom. It reminded him of some of the things the Old Witch used to say back in Sorrow, about the Ancient Ones having knowledge that men would sell their souls for. Of course there were other things demons would barter for as well as souls. He thought of the missing people. Maybe the wizard they were after was making some sort of deal.
The Foragers all looked at each other uneasily and then at the Lieutenant and the wizard for guidance. Rik could tell they were all thinking of turning tail and running. He did not blame them. He was considering it himself. Fighting demons in this deep, dark and lonely place was not his idea of soldiering. The Lieutenant looked at them and smiled sardonically. He brandished his truesilver blade, making a couple of quick cuts in the air. He looked as if he would chop down the first man to run but he said; “There is no demon this won’t cut.”
“It is the blade of the righteous,” said Gunther, a look of grim satisfaction on his face. Well, there’s one man who won’t run, thought Rik, deciding that he would not run himself. Anywhere the Lieutenant could stay he could stay too.
“I am not afraid to fight demons,” said the Barbarian. His voice sounded a little shaky but he added. “What demon of this miserable wee land can compare to the Aer of my home?”
Suddenly the Lieutenant held up his hand for quiet. Rik did not need to be told why. He could hear it too. From somewhere up ahead came the sound of soft scuttling.
It looked like something had found them.
Chapter Seven
The Foragers looked at one another. The noise ceased, to be replaced by conversation between a human voice and one that belonged to something eerily other. It was high-pitched, gibbering and insane, possessed of a timbre that was not the product of any human throat. Rik could not make out the words, and he doubted he could understand them anyway. They had the strange, cracked quality of one of the ancient demon tongues used by sorcerers in Sorrow.
“Form up men,” said the Lieutenant. “Stand ready. We are discovered.”
“What makes you say that?” muttered Weasel, edging away from the direction the sound was coming from and putting his back to the wall. Rik looked around. Most of the men had drawn pistols or knives even those who held torches. Sardec gestured for them to fall back. Space was confined and he needed room to wield his blade. The Barbarian stood beside him, a look of determination on his face.
“Don’t shoot until I give the order. Don’t want to hit our own accidentally or have a ricochet get us. This is blade work, men, unless you get a clear and certain shot.” Only the slightest trace of strain showed in Sardec’s voice.
Rik’s fingers tightened on his own weapons. Something was coming towards them, something large and heavy, something that made a strange slithering sound mixed with scuttling as it moved. His imagination conjured up the vision of a massive serpent coming to devour them or a huge spider, its slimy sides scuffing the stonework of the walls. Severin raised his arms and began to chant.
The demon came into view, and it was worse by far than anything Rik had expected. In the gloom it was not possible to make out all the details and for that he was glad. What he could see was quite bad enough to live in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
The thing was perhaps the size of a small bull, with a body that at first suggested that of a great spider till he noticed that it was armoured and segmented like a centipede’s. It moved along on six columnar legs, jointed several times. In the centre and front of its torso, where the eyes of a spider would have been, was a head that resembled the body of a squid. It had eight stalks and at the end of each stalk was an eye. In the centre was the mouth. What looked like two long stabbing prongs constantly retracted and extruded on either side of it. Worst of all were the huge blades that emerged from the front of the torso. Once they might have been legs, but they had changed and adapted till now they were massive scythes, poised to strike. They were an odd venomous green, and Rik felt sure that their touch would mean poisonous death.