W ith enormous presence of mind Goda managed to hook her leg over one of the bars. She pulled herself up again, panting hard. She could never have imagined herself capable of these acrobatic tours de force . All that exercise, all those drills, all that training with heaving and hauling-it was all paying off now. She would never complain again about the harshness of that regime.
Ropes with grappling hooks flew past her, fastening themselves to the bars. Some of the monsters were attempting to demolish the artifact, while their comrades, at risk to their own lives, tried to provide cover from attacks by Ireheart and Sirka.
“Faster!” Boindil called up to her. He knew what was making him feel giddy; the woman’s dagger had been coated with poison and it was starting to work.
Goda crawled over to Furgas. “You did not get rid of me.”
He drew a rattling breath and drew out his dagger. “And you have not killed me.”
“I’m going to make up for that.” She avoided his lunge, grabbed his useless arm and removed the knife. It was easy for her now to overcome the fatally wounded Furgas and to ram his own dagger into his body. The man gave one final groan and died.
Now she was faced with the part of her task she was not happy about. She fumbled around in the magister’s warm vitals until she found the hard object she was searching for.
“I have it!” she yelled triumphantly, to boost the morale of the defenders below. She cut the diamond out, then gave the corpse a shove so it plummeted to the ground.
Goda did not bother to clean the stone but pressed it, filthy though it was, into the setting, then closed the four fastenings. She stared at the stone. “Come on now! Do something!” She rubbed it to make it work.
A new roar sounded from the chasm and a wall of white fire shot out of the cleft, surging across the ground. The burning bodies of ubariu and undergroundlings were hurled through the air before slamming into the cliff face and extinguishing like sparks. The armored vehicle that was nearest was consumed with fire so that the iron plating peeled off and the wooden frame beneath turned to ash.
The kordrion pushed itself out into the light. With a louder roar than ever, which broke whole boulders off, it forced its way free and was approaching on all fours. It gave another roar of victory as it left the darkness of the abyss. Goda couldn’t gauge its size accurately. Twenty paces high and sixty paces long?
The army ran back from the chasm’s edge, overwhelmed by horror…
The kordrion reared up and unfolded its pale wings. The world grew dark, as if a cloud had covered the sun.
“Goda!” yelled Ireheart, as he felled his last opponent by slamming into its ribcage. Ribs broke puncturing heart and innards. The three of them, he, Sirka and Rodario, had managed to prevent the destruction of the artifact. “We’re waiting!” His legs gave way and he collapsed, sinking down onto the body of his victim. His sight was going, colors swimming together confusedly.
Sirka stared at the huge pale mass of the kordrion. “Tungdil,” she whispered in horror, grasping the fact that her companion could not have survived. That white fire melted stone and steel.
“He’ll be OK,” said Ireheart, fighting the effects of the poison and rallying. “The scholar always survives. He is a friend of the gods.” But his face too darkened in concern. A monster like this had never been seen before. It was trampling the ubariu and undergroundlings, sending out another plume of white fire, killing five hundred fighters at one stroke. The last of the armed vehicles was overturned and burnt. Nothing remained but a glowing hulk. The kordrion was growing stronger with every moment it was able to spend outside its prison-gorge.
Goda hit out in despair and fury at the stone that was failing them so. She heard a slight click and it slipped down into place in the setting.
A bright silver light shot along the bars of the artifact, slamming into the mighty rings: the symbols started to glow faintly and then increased in brightness with an opal sheen that made Goda think she was losing her sight.
When her vision cleared she saw a glittering sphere had overlaid the rings of the artifact. A second globe enclosed the opening to the Black Abyss.
She could no longer see the first kordrion, a severed claw and part of a wing being the only evidence that it had ever emerged from its dungeon. A second version raged wildly behind the delicate but impenetrable barrier; as if possessed it hurled itself against the thin membrane, to no avail.
“I’ve done it,” she whispered, hardly daring to believe it. She gazed at the diamond’s matt shimmer. She laughed out loud. “I’ve done it!”
“Yes, you have!” Ireheart returned her joyful words. He tried to stand up, but felt very wobbly. “Come down carefully so I can hug you!”
Rodario placed his hand on Sirka’s shoulder. “Tungdil will have made it, too,” he encouraged.
She let her eyes roam across the sunken battlefield, now filled with the cadavers of beasts and the corpses of her own people. A number of monsters had escaped the axes and swords of their opponents and were fleeing over the edges of the crater to disappear into the distance.
“But the kordrion has got away,” she stammered. “The artifact did not work in time. What now?” She looked at Rodario. “There’s no hope. The books say-”
“Don’t give up, let’s wait and see. The old books aren’t always right, you know.” He leaned on her shoulder for support. “Come, let’s go over to the ravine to find Tungdil.”
She gave him a grateful smile. Together with Goda and an unusually pale Ireheart they made their way over the mountain of bodies.
But neither Tungdil nor Flagur returned from that battle.
XXI
The Outer Lands,
East of Letefora, At the Black Abyss,
Early Autumn, 6241st Solar Cycle
Sirka was standing by the protective globe, with one hand on its shining surface. She could feel a tingling in her fingers from the energy it contained.
On the other side she could see the kordrion’s head; it had slunk back into the ravine to rest and was observing her with its topmost pair of eyes. Its ugly skull lay on its claws; every so often it selected an ubariu corpse and swallowed it with obvious enjoyment, before taking up its original position. And waiting.
Ireheart joined her. “It’s waiting for the barrier’s strength to let up.”
“That one and a thousand others,” said Sirka sadly. “I know we can’t open the barrier even for a few minutes to go and look for Tungdil. The kordrion would be out like a shot. One of them free is bad enough.”
Ireheart watched her face. “You’ve been keeping watch for three orbits now. You’ve hardly eaten or drunk anything. Come over to the camp,” he begged. “The scholar wouldn’t want you to starve yourself to death on his account.” He wiped a tear from his eye.
She swallowed hard. “I’m coming,” she said and turned round.
The banners of the ubariu fluttered over the crater. Reinforcements had arrived and a temporary camp had been set up where their injured could be cared for and from which any monsters remaining at large could be pursued and hunted down.
“They say the kordrion has taken to the hills,” he told her, to break the silence and to take her thoughts and his own away from their pain.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“Who do you mean?”
“Tungdil.”
Ireheart took a deep breath but found breathing ever more difficult. He was relying on his dwarven constitution to help him recover from the poison. It had not killed him outright, so it was not going to do so now. “Common sense would say yes. Only four hundred warriors have survived out of twenty thousand.” He fought down his despair. “But I haven’t seen his body with my own eyes. And no one has been able to tell me how he died. So I don’t give an orc’s fart for common sense. I say he’s still alive. He’s cutting a path through the ranks of the beasts and is looking for the way out. He will cleanse the ravine of evil and he won’t stop until they’re all dead. One fine orbit, there he’ll be, all of a sudden. And if it takes five hundred cycles.” A new tear trickled down through his beard.