He and Hun’shwa craned upward.
What had appeared to be outcroppings of rock dotting the domed roof began to move, scurrying on jointed legs with sharp, armored tips scrabbling and scraping. Each was the size of a large dog. As he stared, Tol’chuk saw others squeeze though the cracks, dragging themselves inside from the mountain’s slopes.
“Demonspawn,” Hun’shwa growled.
One crawled directly overhead. It appeared a monstrous cross between a crab and a scorpion. But this one had a mouth. Hanging by its rear legs, it clattered at him with its front pincers while baring fangs. Green oil dribbled from its open maw.
Tol’chuk backed from under it. Hun’shwa also retreated.
“Come, my children!” Vira’ni beckoned from below.
Suddenly, from behind them, an og’re began to bellow a short way down the tunnel. Tol’chuk knew there were more of these creatures crawling into the passage from the open sentry posts and spy holes, attacking the other hunters from the flanks and rear, driving them forward like the previous attack.
Any retreat was cut off.
Tol’chuk cursed himself for not thinking like a spider. He had never imagined anything could cling to the smooth slopes of the Fang. Now the ceiling crawled with demonspawn, while below he spotted a dark shadow in the steamy mists. This time it did not hide.
“Come, Tol’chuk. Bring the Heart to me and I’ll let your slumbering people live. One bauble for so many lives.”
A wet gust swept down from the openings above, shivering his hot skin. Thunder rumbled anew as the heart of the storm struck. The wind parted the steam below.
Perched at the edge of the Dragon’s Throat was a creature of nightmare: half woman, half spider. The demoness crouched atop eight jointed appendages, her eyes staring directly at Tol’chuk.
Hun’shwa fell back. One of the crab creatures dropped from the ceiling. Responding with the instinct of a true hunter, the og’re swung his club and batted the beast backhanded. It flew, mewling, over the tiers and crashed to the stone.
A scream arose from Vira’ni. “No!” Hissing with venom, the demoness spun atop her chitinous legs and grabbed something bundled behind her. Tol’chuk spotted an array of similarly trussed objects.
She swung around, bearing her bundle in one of her pincer-tipped legs. It took a breath for Tol’chuk to recognize the object, wrapped thickly with webbing. Then he spotted an arm waving from the cocoon: a child, an og’re child that struggled against its binding.
Vira’ni held it over the molten pit of the Dragon’s Throat. “One of your children for one of mine!”
“No!” Tol’chuk cried.
Her eyes met his for a heartbeat—then she dropped the babe. Flailing its arm, the child fell into the crack. As the form struck the molten rock, flames flared up, lipping out of the throat. Then the child was gone.
There had been no cry—only the silent one in Tol’chuk’s heart.
Vira’ni whipped around and grabbed two more web-bound children. She held them over the churning pit of molten rock. “I’ll only ask one more time, Tol’chuk. Come to me! Bring the Heart!”
“Don’t,” Hun’shwa warned him. He had retreated to the threshold of the Eye. Behind him, the cries of the hunters deeper down the passage had died down to sporadic howls.
“Go help the others,” Tol’chuk ordered his clan leader. “Save as many as you can and leave this place.”
“I will not!”
Tol’chuk ripped open his thigh pouch and yanked free the Heart. It burst to a radiant brilliance. “Do as I command!” he shouted.
Hun’shwa staggered backward at his bellow. He hesitated another moment, then seemed to spot the resolve in Tol’chuk’s posture. With a final grunt, he fled into the darkness.
Tol’chuk turned back to Vira’ni. He stared at the tumble of bodies around, then at the two dangling children.
“I will not let the innocent die in my name,” he mumbled, and met the gaze of the spider queen. He knew in that moment that some battles could never be won. He would not see his entire people sacrificed . . . not even to save the Spirit Gate. It was a burden he was born to bear, the curse of his lineage. Like his forefather, he would forsake his promise. He would give up the Heart to this evil in order to save his tribe.
“Come to me!” she commanded again. So with demonspawn skittering overhead, he climbed toward the steamy floor and the cursed fate that awaited him.
Mogweed hung back from the others . . . but not too far back. The passages were hot with smoldering bodies and flaming bits of debris. Most of the bodies appeared to be cratered ruins, as if something had burst out of their chests and bellies.
At first, the group had proceeded quickly. In the fiery wake of the og’re hunters, there had been little to slow them. Only a few palm-sized scorpions, limping on broken legs or half burned, scrabbled over the stone.
Then the screams had started, echoing down to them. They proceeded more cautiously. Mogweed had wanted to turn back, but the others overruled him.
Fools, he thought. And I’m doubly the fool to follow them. Besides his fear of retreating alone, Mogweed had another concern that kept him with the others: Tol’chuk. The og’re was the key to freeing him from the curse of this conjoined body. If the craggy giant was in danger, Mogweed’s only hope was to aid in his rescue.
Just ahead of Mogweed, Jerrick moved deftly. The captain, though old, still bore the elv’in gift for speed. Mogweed had to half trot to keep up, but he kept close to the walls, darting past side tunnels, skirting any openings. In the front, Magnam and Jaston led. The strange winged child skipped at the swamper’s side, oblivious to the danger.
“Not much farther,” Magnam whispered, beginning to slow.
The screams had died down to howls and an occasional bellow of rage. “What’s attacking them?” Jaston asked.
The answer crawled out of a hole in the nearby wall. The creature was all armor, spear-tipped tail, and snapping pincers. It skittered out of its hiding place and, before anyone could move, it climbed up the wall on its articulated, spiny legs, going for the advantage of height.
“No you don’t, you crawling scab!” Magnam swung out with his ax, moving with speed that belied his bulky shape. He swatted the creature from its perch.
The monster landed on its back, quickly springing up and lashing out with its pincers. The d’warf spun with his ax and cleaved the closest claw. With a mewling howl, it skittered backward.
“Don’t like that, do you?” Magnam growled. He struck out with his ax again, nicking its raised tail. The beast spun on him, striking with lightning speed. Fanged jaws stretched wide as it sought flesh to bite.
“Careful,” the swamp child warned in Cassa Dar’s voice. “It’s pure poison.”
“Poison it may be, but I’m the cure.” Magnam kicked the creature up against the nearest wall, holding it in place with his boot. Its legs scrabbled at him, but he slammed his ax into its midsection with a crack of armor shell. Green ooze flowed from the wound, steaming over Magnam’s boot, etching the leather. “I just polished those!” he shouted, and brought the ax down again and again. Soon all that was left was a mash of scale and twitching limbs. Magnam scowled and backed away. He studied his fouled ax head, searching vainly for something to wipe it on, then gave up. The sounds of a similar battle continued farther up the passage. Magnam waved them on. “Let’s go!”
Mogweed peeled himself off the wall and followed, eyeing each shadow now with suspicion.
Jaston clapped the d’warf on the shoulder. “That was some damn fancy ax work. And you say you’re just a camp cook.”
Magnam shrugged. “What cook doesn’t know how to prepare crab?”
Jerrick hissed from a short distance ahead. The elv’in captain had sped forward and now crouched at a bend. “Trouble,” he said with his usual elv’in stoicism, but energy crackled around the hand he had raised toward them.
They joined him. Beyond the turn, the passage ahead was a battlefie
ld, almost blocked with og’re bodies. Farther up the tunnel, a handful of og’res used torches as flaming brands or clubs to hold off more of the crablike creatures. The entire passage crawled with them.
“We can’t go that way!” Mogweed whined.
“We can’t go back,” Jaston said.
The group glanced behind them. Another dozen monsters scrabbled out from neighboring passages or through sentry holes in the wall. A pair fought over the remains of the creature killed by Magnam.
“They must’ve been drawn by the blood of their own,” Magnam noted.
They were surrounded.
Jerrick stood up and moved to the far wall. He had a good view up and down both passages. He lifted his arms, one hand pointed each direction.
“What are you doing?” the swamper asked.
“Clearing the way,” he said simply. “I suggest you stay low.”
His eyes drifted closed. Energy danced around his fingers, crackling outward, shooting from fingertips in dazzles.
Mogweed ducked to the floor. The others crouched.
The child at Jaston’s side pointed at the elv’in. “Sparkly!” Jaston pulled her arm down.
Around them, the air began to smell of lightning, and the power tingled Mogweed’s skin. Somewhere beyond the walls, thunder boomed. Mogweed kept half his attention on the elv’in, half on the passages, where the creatures in the lower tunnel were drawn by Jerrick’s display and skittered toward them.
“What are you waiting for?” Mogweed mumbled.
Jerrick heard him. “The heart of the storm.” The el’vin craned his neck. His white hair plumed out sparking with fire. A nimbus of energy shimmered over his form.
Magnam drove back one of the crab demons with a swipe of his ax. “You’re looking impressive, Cap—but these bugs are about to climb up our arses.”
“It comes . . . ,” Jerrick whispered. His skin grew translucent, but now several of the beasts from up the tunnel scuttled toward them. Mogweed gripped his dagger.
A single crab raced toward the elv’in, running up the wall. Mogweed bit his lip, frozen in indecision and fear, as the creature came racing like a moth to a flame. At the last instant, Mogweed leaped forward, dagger raised in defense.
“Down!” Jerrick screamed.
Mogweed was blown back as energy blasted outward, blinding him. He struck the wall and crashed to a heap. He blinked away the dazzle in time to see crackles of lightning flowing out from both arms of the elv’in. The creature that had threatened a heartbeat ago lay on the floor, a smoking cinder, legs curled tight.
Mogweed rolled to watch lightning chase down both corridors, crackling from the elv’in and diving in through the spy holes and sentry windows. This was no wild energy, but a living thing, snapping and forking to strike every one of the foul creatures.
Up the corridors, the og’res saw the destruction and dove to the floor. The deadly barrage swept over them and beyond, leaving them untouched.
Then like the flicker of lightning in a storm, the display vanished. The passage went black as pitch until Mogweed’s eyes readjusted. The passage’s flames seemed dim and feeble after the living lightning.
“You did it,” Magnam said, rising to his feet.
Jerrick still stood in the corridor, but he suddenly slumped limbless to the floor. The swamp man barely caught him before the captain’s head struck the floor.
“Captain Jerrick!” Jaston called.
“Drained . . . ,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering closed. “Freda . . .”
Jaston held him. The captain’s pale skin remained translucent, his breathing shallow.
Mogweed slid to his other side. “Is he going to be all right?”
The swamper frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think he struck at the demons with just the heart of the storm. I think he used his own, too.”
Mogweed believed him. He doubted even Meric could have displayed such force.
The elv’in captain took one more deep breath, exhaling one last time. “My love . . .”
For a moment, Mogweed thought he heard an answer, the same words whispered again from afar. But maybe it was just an echo. Then Jerrick lay still.
“He’s gone,” Jaston said.
Magnam joined them. He eyed down the passage, where five or six og’res were climbing to their feet with shock. “I don’t see Tol’chuk.”
Mogweed saw the d’warf was right. From the group down the passage, a single og’re bulled forward—Hun’shwa, the og’re leader. He worked through the piled dead toward them and glanced to the limp form of Jerrick. He curled a fist to his forehead, bowing his head in a moment of respect. “He died a warrior. He will be honored and remembered.”
“Not if we don’t live to tell the tale,” Magnam said. “Where’s Tol’chuk?”
Hun’shwa lowered his arm. “He went to face the spider wit’ch alone.”
“What?” the d’warf gasped. “And you let him?”
If an og’re could look chagrined, this one did. “He commanded it.”
“And you obeyed?” Magnam rolled his eyes. “What happened?”
Hun’shwa quickly related the tale of Vira’ni and what lay at the tunnel’s end.
“More of the creatures.” Magnam sighed. He stared around the group, his brow furrowed. “An ax, a sword, a dagger, and an og’re’s fist against a spider queen and her horde. This is not a recipe for victory.”
Mogweed stood, wrapping his arms around his chest. “Then what are we going to do?”
The d’warf focused those hard eyes on him. “There may be a way.”
“How?” Jaston asked as he lowered the elv’in captain to the floor.
Magnam did not glance to the swamp man. He continued to stare at Mogweed. “It will depend on this one here.”
Mogweed took a step back. “Me?”
Tol’chuk straightened from his crouch, glancing back up to the Dragon’s Eye, the entrance to the huge cavern. Thunder rumbled away. A moment ago, lightning had burst out of the Eye and lapped into the chamber, like the forked tongue of a snake, then had vanished away.
Unable to fathom this display, he twisted around, clutching the Heart in a fist. His lungs burned, and the scent of brimstone and sulfur filled his senses.
Two steps down and across the pit, Vira’ni still stared toward the Eye, her face transfixed in a horrified expression. Her dark hair lay limp against her pale skin, soaked by the constant steamy mists. From the waist down, her form merged with that of the spider. Its ruby shell glistened and shone, pebbled with beads of condensing water.
Overhead, her demonspawn had frozen in place, becoming again just rocky bumps on the ceiling.
With the wit’ch distracted, Tol’chuk searched quickly for a weapon. All around him lay the sprawled members of the other clans; ropes and mounds of webbing shrouded their still-breathing forms. He saw no weapon among them. No one dared come to this sacred place with a club or bone ax.
He did not know what to do. All he knew was that two of the tribe’s children were in danger, dangled over the pit by the wit’ch. He tightened his grip on the Heart. The chunk of heartstone was the key to the Spirit Gate; to give it up threatened the whole world. But right now, his world was nothing more than these two children.
Vira’ni moaned. “My babies!” she cried. “Someone slew my babies.” Her limbs shook with her rage. Tossed about, the og’re children cried out.
Tol’chuk hurried down the last steps and faced Vira’ni across the crack in the floor. Here the heat was near to unbearable, wafting up from the molten heart of the mountain. A constant hissing roar seemed to flow from the Throat along with the scalding steam.
He lifted the heartstone to draw her attention. In the misty chamber, the Heart shone with its own light. “I have what you want, Vira’ni! What your Master wants! Do not make more children suffer!” He pleaded with his eyes and posture.
Vira’ni narrowed eyes still smoldering with fury. For a long moment, she locked gazes with him.
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Tol’chuk feared she would toss these children into the molten cauldron as she had the other. “Please . . . I know you be a mother, too. Show mercy.”
One eye twitched. “A mother . . . ,” she mumbled.
“All mothers fear not only for their own children, but all children,” Tol’chuk pressed.
Her brow furrowed with confusion, and she gave a nod at his words. She glanced to the og’re young in her grip as if surprised to find them there. “ Poor, scared things . . .” She began to pull back the children.
Then from across the cavern, the familiar flinty scrape of claw on rock sounded. Both Tol’chuk and Vira’ni turned.
Out of the Eye, one of the demonspawn skittered into the chamber. It was badly singed, missing one pincer and two of its eight legs. A mewling escaped its throat. It tried to clamber down toward the demoness that had birthed it, but it mostly fell and rolled, a pathetic sight.
“My little one!” Vira’ni cried, anger rising in her voice. She tossed one of the og’re children aside and beckoned with the free claw. “Who hurt you, my sweet?”
Tol’chuk silently cursed the untimely return.
As the loathsome child reached her side and scuttled under her swollen shell of a belly, raw fury flamed her next words. “We will make them pay! For each of my babies harmed, I’ll take a score of yours!” She rattled the last child in her grip. “And I’ll start with this one!”
A new noise sounded from the Eye, and a band of og’res burst into the room, brandishing torches. To Tol’chuk’s surprise, he saw among them the stout figure of Magnam and the wiry form of the swamp man. And from their midst burst some winged creature. It sailed over the room, keeping a distance from the demon-strewn roof. Tol’chuk squinted and realized it was some strange child. What new demon was this?
But Vira’ni seemed equally confused, craning her neck. “It’s a little girl.”
Tol’chuk frowned. Had the others chased this new creature in here? Words in Og’re reached Tol’chuk—from Hun’shwa. “Be ready!”
Tol’chuk glanced to him. Ready for what?
Vira’ni followed the flight of the demon child. Then suddenly her expression shifted to one of shock. Her gaze darted downward. “What’s wrong, little—” Then a scream burst from her as her bulbous rear suddenly arched high, as if shoved from below.