The Hag of Calix

  Chapter Four

  IN THE HERMIT'S cave Bargonast dozed lightly on a pile of skins, enjoying the euphoria induced by a skin of root wine. The late afternoon sun angled sharply into the mouth of the cave, and a bird family fussed and twittered in the thicket outside.

  The sudden realization that the birds had gone quiet roused Bargonast from his stupor. Now alert, he opened his eyes just as a shadow moved across the shaft of sunlight. Sensing danger, he rolled off his couch. He grabbed one of the furs and flung it in the face of the Dagran swordsman who rushed at him, weapon at point. While his attacker tried to disentangle himself, Bargonast catapulted his body into the swordsman's knees. The man fell forward and Bargonast's dirk disemboweled him. He howled in agony and his sword, flailing wildly, opened a bloody gash across Bargonast's back before the dirk found his heart.

  Bargonast wrenched the sword from the hand of the dying man and leaped to the entrance, expecting more assailants. A troop of twenty or more was working its way up the slide area that sloped down past the trees. There was nowhere to run. The cave was a trap. Bargonast heaved a boulder loose and rolled it down, starting an avalanche of smaller rocks. The swordsmen ducked behind their shields while the rocks bounced harmlessly past. The sight of their quarry sent them shouting and scrambling up the slide with renewed enthusiasm.

  With nowhere to go, Bargonast fell back into the cave, determined to sell his life dearly. He discovered the walls of the cave narrowed and angled off into a shaft that sloped down into the mountain. He moved back into the blackness and waited. When the Dagrans pushed their way uncertainly into the tunnel, he struck unseen from the darkness. The faint light from the entrance silhouetted his pursuers and Bargonast had the advantage. His blade fell on the first Dagran with whistling fury, cleaving the man's helmet and skull. The second Dagran was thrown off balance by the weight of his comrade collapsing against him. Before he could raise his shield, Bargonast sent his head rolling with one singing sweep.

  The remaining swordsmen fell back, unwilling to face him in the dark. Bargonast knew they would light torches and return. He groped his way deeper into the shaft. He ran his hands along the rough walls hoping to find another passage, but the tunnel led ever downward, unbroken by side entrances.

  The air became warmer and more humid as he descended. Moisture beaded the walls. Bargonast's feet encountered water, first an inch or so, but deepening gradually. Soon it was up to his knees. It grew warmer as he waded; he paused fearing he would drop into a hot spring.

  The sounds of pursuit rumbled faintly behind, spurring him on. He felt the shaft widening and he zigzagged from one wall to the other. The ceiling ascended beyond his reach and the water was up to his thighs. He picked the right side and explored ahead, feeling for a ledge to bypass the deepening pool.

  When it became neck-deep with the bottom sloping sharply away, he stopped. He discarded his breastplate and greaves. He was torn between the fear of swimming into the impenetrable blackness and the fear of his pursuers, now sounding much closer.

  The first faint light from the Dagran torches gave his dilated pupils a preview of what the swordsmen would find. The tunnel had become a huge cavern that arched away into the blackness. The pool reached beyond the edge of his vision. The light increased, accompanied by the clatter of weapons, as the Dagrans splashed into the shallows.

  Bargonast peered with straining eyes into the Cimmerian gloom and found a blacker area in the shadows before him. Hoping it to be an exit, he took another step forward but there was no bottom. His head bobbed under but he came up dog paddling as best he could encumbered by the sword. He swam the intervening yards and found, not an exit, but a shallow niche in the wall. He pressed himself into it just as the Dagrans waded into the cavern.

  Their voices boomed across the water and echoed back. "He's trapped," one soldier rasped. "He's here somewhere."

  "Give yourself up, priest-killer," shouted another. "There is no place to go!"

  "Look, there he is; He's under the water!" The swordsmen pushed forward.

  Bargonast watched with horror as the thing which they had mistaken for him swelled from the depths. It rose in undulating folds until it towered over them, a formless terror. The Dagrans fell back in confusion. A torch hurled into the abomination produced a deep vibrating clack of pain and the folds split into a huge maw filled with pulsing flaps of yellow veined flesh. Indescribable squashy, sucking sounds and a gagging stench issued from the creature. The Dagrans jostled and shoved trying to escape the horror, but the chest-high water slowed their flight.

  The cavern exploded with action as huge tentacles lashed and churned through the water. Terror-stricken Dagrans were swept screaming into the foul orifice, their swords hacking ineffectually.

  A writhing appendage knocked Bargonast from his niche and he pulled in one last breath as he was sucked under the surface.

  He was propelled helplessly through the water, caught in a vortex created by the motion of the creature. He whirled along, taking painful scrapes from the rocks and feeling slimy contact with the threshing tentacles. A gush of current carried him forward at heart-stopping speed. He thought he would be crushed by the weight of the water slamming him into the rocks, but instead he was spewed into calm, cooler water. His chest pumped, wracking, trying to squeeze the last bit of oxygen from his lungs. He dropped the sword that he still gripped and clawed for the surface. He could see light above. It took a superhuman effort to suppress the tortured demand of his lungs; he was blacking out, losing control, as he fought the final endless feet to life. With a Herculean thrust of his arms he broke the surface and gulped air.

  He was in the crater lake of Calix. He struck strongly for shore, not forgetting the nameless horror beneath him. Pulling himself from the shallows, he crawled forward into a thicket and collapsed. When the pain of his lungs subsided, he moved warily along the lake. He was weaponless and unwilling to face another of the hag's surprises.

  There was no movement or other signs of life in the crater. Bargonast grew bolder and strode up the path to the skull cavern. Where the path wound through the aspens he heard voices ahead. He crept forward until he could see a clearing through the foliage. A tall well-muscled man lounged on a cloak talking earnestly to the woman beside him. She was a striking beauty with shining black hair falling past her shoulders. Her voluptuous body was lushly revealed rather than concealed by her scanty finery. When she answered her companion, Bargonast's mouth dropped open at the shock of recognition. The voice was that of Gwenay, the hag queen of Calix.

  Bargonast tugged at the short braids of his beard as his brain wrestled with the incongruity of what he saw and heard. He edged closer. They were discussing a ship. He eavesdropped as the woman, whom he still could not accept as Gwenay, outlined her plan for the renovation of the craft. The man was not enthusiastic. She ordered him to leave. Tword appeared on the opposite side of the clearing and escorted the warrior off in the opposite direction of Bargonast's blind.

  When the woman arose and donned the black cloak, Bargonast realized the raven-haired beauty and the Hag of Calix were one and the same. She walked away, ascending the path to the grotesque skull-rock formation. Bargonast followed silently. He would give Tword and the rangy warrior time to leave the valley before he presented himself.