‘Cap’n!’ Silo snapped at him, as he began to back up frantically. ‘They’re comin’ in behind us, too!’
It was that, and the realisation that Silo had a flaming torch in his hand, that pushed Frey forward again. He thrust his own torch out before him and poked his head out of the end of the tunnel. It emerged close to the floor, so he scrambled through and then pressed himself against the wall, waving his torch about and aiming every which way.
Silo came hot on his heels. As soon as the Murthian found his feet, he shoved his shotgun one-handed into the tunnel mouth and fired with a deafening boom. A fine spray of blood coughed out of the hole and settled on his cheeks and nose.
‘Should hold ’em for a while,’ he said.
Frey stepped over the ghall that he’d shot, which was lying on its side in a loose tangle of limbs. It was a scrawny thing, its narrow ribcage visible, and it had long, thin arms and legs that ended in webbed digits. It was the size of a child, and its skinny body made its huge jaws seem larger still. Its pupils were enormous and froglike, dilated and blinded by death.
‘I never even heard of anything like this,’ he said to himself.
‘What you don’t know about Samarla could fill a library, Cap’n,’ said Silo.
‘What I don’t know about libraries could fill a library,’ Frey replied. His nose wrinkled in disgust. There was a terrible stench here, too strong to be coming from one small body. ‘Let’s get a look at this place.’ He raisesqut="0" widd his torch, and Silo did the same, adding his light to Frey’s.
The cavern was strewn with bones. Fish bones, animal bones, and that was definitely a human skull right there. Most of them had rotting bits of flesh still attached, and there were chunks of fur and bits of rodents and monkey tails scattered among the carnage. They could see the edge of a black pool, and as their light fell across it, they saw a half-dozen ghalls there, crouched threateningly, with several more slinking out of the water.
‘Well,’ said Frey. ‘This is bollocks.’
More of the creatures were gathering now, emerging from the depths of the cavern where the light didn’t reach. They slunk closer with terrible purpose, hissing quietly. No longer afraid, not in these numbers. Frey and Silo had climbed right into their lair.
‘Don’t shoot ’less they come at you,’ Silo murmured, glancing about. He swung his torch one way and then the other. Shadows lunged as he illuminated the nearby folds and cracks in the rock, but Frey saw nothing that might have been a way out. Croaks and shrieks were coming from the blood-splashed hole they’d entered through. As he watched, a ruined tangle of bodies was pushed out of the hole to slop nauseatingly on to the floor, and more ghalls crawled through.
A grim feeling settled on him, dampening his fear, stifling regret and remorse. The kind of feeling he got when all his choices disappeared, and there was only do or die. Or, in this case, do and die. But under the influence of this morbid sense of the inevitable, death didn’t mean anything. It was just a word to him now.
Time to fight, until he couldn’t.
There was a splash as a ghall broke out of the water, and a rapid slapping of wet feet. He swung his torch towards the sound. The creature came fast, but not fast enough. He straightened his arm and shot it through the chest. Its charge became a tumble and it fetched up in a heap near his feet. Frey booted its corpse in the chops for good measure.
The others didn’t seem fazed by the death of their companion, or startled by the noise. They circled like careful predators around a wounded beast, probing warily and then pulling away. Frey and Silo retreated before them, stepping backwards over cracked bones and rancid flesh.
His arse bumped against the wall of the cavern, and he realised he could retreat no further. They were hemmed in. The ghalls at the edge of the torchlight seemed to have multiplied, an audience of savage, lipless faces with masses of backward-slanting teeth for catching and ripping. There had to be two dozen at least, slipping from the water or clambering over the rocks like grotesque salamanders.
‘Silo,’ he said. ‘Reckon we’re surrounded.’
Silo made a tutting noise. He jammed his torch into a gap in the rock behind them, freeing his other hand, then chambered a new round into hi rouo; s lever-action shotgun.
Frey took stock. Two bullets left in his first revolver. A full one in his belt, and the cutlass too. The need to hold the torch was a handicap, but he wouldn’t relinquish the light. Not for anything.
He spat on the ground. ‘I’d love to see the Iron Jackal’s face when he finds out I’m already dead,’ he said with half a grin. ‘Now that’s irony.’
‘No it ain’t, Cap’n. It’s just some shit that happened.’
‘That there is the best description of my life I ever heard,’ Frey said. ‘You do have a way of getting to the heart of things, old mate.’
Silo looked at him, as if surprised by such an expression of affection. Frey was surprised himself, but he didn’t think it mattered much now.
‘Good knowin’ you, Frey.’
Frey gave him a rueful smile. ‘Kinda wish we’d done it sooner, huh?’
Silo shrugged. ‘It’s how it is.’ He nodded at Frey’s pistol. ‘You savin’ a bullet for yourself?’
‘Nah.’
‘Me, either.’
One of the ghalls opened its jaws and made a long, low croak, which was taken up by the others. It rose and gathered until it became an unearthly screech, a primal battle-cry that rang through the cavern and pounded at their ears with its hideous discord.
Frey raised his revolver and shot the two ghalls nearest to him, just to shut them up.
As if that were a signal, the ghalls attacked. Silo’s shotgun boomed. Three of the creatures were caught in the blast, pulverised into a soggy mass of wrecked flesh. Frey dropped his pistol and reached for the other, but somehow his hand found the hilt of his cutlass instead, which had jumped of its own accord into his grip. It was a better idea than the pistol anyway, he reckoned, so he pulled it free. It swung out in a vicious arc towards a ghall that was springing through the air towards him, and halved the creature diagonally from collar to hip. One of the chunks thumped into Frey’s shoulder and spun off, but he was already into his next swing by then. The sword led his arm, and he could only do his best to go with it.
Silo’s shotgun roared again and again, cutting swathes through the ghalls. They were soft-skinned and easily shredded, but they were fast and nimble and came from everywhere. Frey dodged and sliced and thrust, fending off the ghalls with his torch while his sword hand was busy. They feared the flames, but only enough to make them hop back a little and find a new place to strike. Fresh corpses were sprawled among the old, bleeding over the bones. But more appeared, attacking randomly and without coordination, and more after that.
To Frey’s right, Silo fired again, and something clicked in his head. Five shells. He’s out.
‘Take my pistol!’ he snapped, sidestepping so Silo could reach it. Silo didn’t need telling twice. He dropped his shotgun and snatched the pistol from Frey’s belt, bringing it up in time to shoot another ghall that came springing out of the dark.
‘Come on then, you toothy little bastards!’ Frey yelled. He was suddenly angry. Rage was flooding in to fill the void that was left in the absence of fear. He was angry that he should die down here, angry that his life would be left so unfinished, angry at the bullshit set of circumstances that had condemned him to finish things in the dark. And by damn, he was gonna take it out on somebody.
Perhaps, in some dim way, they understood the challenge in his voice, because they came at him in numbers then, and Frey was glad of it. Let’s have this over with. Teeth gritted, he let the blade take him, hacking left and right as they scrabbled and sprang. He felt webbed hands scratching at his body, clawing his clothes, but he threw them aside and stabbed them, or shoved his torch in their faces. Everywhere he glimpsed movement, horrors swarming from the flickering shadows. But his cutlass knew its business, and drenched itself in the thin, salty blood of the ghalls.