Amates 31, 1277. Still underground in the ruins. Felt like mid-afternoon to my stomach.
Using the bridges was a good plan. It was a great plan. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same plan.
”Did they see us?” Mikasi panted while he ran. Nicodemus trotted easily along beside him.
An arrow shattered against the bridge next to him. Mikasi yelped while the splinters shattered around us. I skid to a stop long enough to flip a middle finger at the archer on the bridge overhead. It didn’t really help our situation any, but it made me feel a little better. I raced to catch up with the others.
“Oh, they saw us,” I replied once I caught back up.
“Hell and high tides, don’t they have enough to do?” Ki snapped.
Ki’s question was a good one but mostly answered itself. A good three stories above us on another bridge, the Crimson Company had spilled out from a door into one of the stalactite buildings.
We kept outside, following the Ancient Order signs posted on each bridge for directions. Unlike us, the Crimson Company chose to cut a path through the ruins. Which meant they woke anything with ears and an appetite for eating the living. Case in point was the pair of pony-sized dripfang prowlers that were hot on their heels right at that moment.
Dripfangs are a nasty piece of work. Imagine an ill-tempered crocodile that can cling to walls and ceilings using hooked claws. A reptile covered in luminescent algae spread over its rocky hide that let it blend in with its gloomy surroundings. It was an ambush predator that either dropped on prey from above, or ‘fished’ them off the ground with a prehensile tail and crush them. I blame an Ancient Order mage on a drunken bender for creating something like that.
“Door!” Ki shouted and pointed ahead of us.
Our bridge was curved like most others in Long Deep. It hugged the outside of a five story stalactite and had occasional stairs that led inside the suspended building. The bridge was narrow, a walkway at best. The stairs told me it was probably Long Deep’s version of a ‘side street’.
Past the bend, we saw this side street ended at a set of steel bound, wooden double doors set into the ‘lighthouse’ stalactite. Letters were carved into the door frame on either side. I couldn’t make out what the writing said. The glowing mushrooms overhead gave off enough light to see the letters, not read them.
“Go!” I urged while I dodged more shattered arrow fragments.
We really didn’t need any encouragement. The Crimson Company wasn’t out of arrows yet, and eventually, their aim would get better. I bit back some of my favorite profanity and mumbled a quick prayer that those doors were unlocked. We really needed off that bridge. It was getting messy.
Then the spurt of arrows stopped. We kept running, but I dared a quick glance over my shoulder at the bridge overhead.
It had become a bloody battlefield.
A third dripfang had joined the fight. The creature had scaled a nearby building, then slipped along under the bridge before it jumped into the middle of the mercenaries. Screams were everywhere.
“Siren’s tits,” I snarled while I skidded to a stop.
“What are you doing?” Ki exclaimed.
“Something stupid. Worry about that door.”
“No,” Ki snapped. “Tela, I get it. I remember when we were trapped by dripfangs the last time we were here, too. They’re what? Three stories up on another bridge? What will you do, throw a dagger? Throw your whip?”
“Stuff it. You know that won’t reach. Just prep a light spell for Blind Man’s Bluff,” I snarled while I dug through my bag.
“What?”
“Do it, Ki!”
Ki’s glare made it really clear he didn’t like this one bit. But he did as I asked, anyway. While he pulled light into magical yarn and wove a spell, I found what I hoped I still had with me. A length of cord as long as both my arms. I hauled the cord out, wrapped it around my palm four times, then quickly braided the rest.
In a minute, I snatched up a marble chunk and put my improvised shepherd’s sling to work. I let fly with my broken marble stones and connected on the second try. The stone slapped the haunches of one dripfang with a loud pop. Started, the creature spun around with an angry hiss. That’s when Ki cut loose with his spell.
Magic leaped between Ki and the dripfang to strike the creature square on the snout. It belted out a furious hiss that was almost a roar, while glowing yellow light blocked its view. I’m sure to something like a dripfang that lived mostly underground, that magical light hurt like all hell.
I didn’t wait, but snatched up more marble stones and let them fly. There wasn’t a wide gab between that bridge and ours, but the railing and the sweeping curves made any attempt to aim tough. But I managed another two hits on a second dripfang with the same result.
“Tela, they’ve got this. Let’s go,” Ki exclaimed while he ran for where Mikasi struggled with the double doors.
I managed two steps before the window to my left exploded, frame and all. A hailstorm of stone, wood, and glass filled the air like a deadly cloud. I tackled Ki just before that mess swarmed us. We avoided the worst of it, but there was still plenty of debris that rained down around us.
The worst either of us had was a few bruises, small cuts, and a heavy coating of chalky gray-white dust from age. I rolled over, then scrambled to my feet. Ki was a second behind me. The first thought I had was that this was another dripfang from the same murderous hunting pack. It was much worse than that.
“Oh, hells,” I muttered under my breath, “a fang weaver.”
Thirty nindel away at best, no more than a short sprint, was a nightmare combination of pony-sized scorpion and a scowling, shaggy-haired human. A giant nasty ball of anger walking around on too many legs. I swapped my Sun Orb to my left hand then fumbled for my whip. Right then, I desperately needed reach.
“Ki, warn Mikasi about the fang weaver. Help him with the door, I’ll keep this thing busy.”
“Not alone, you’re not,” he snapped. “I’m sure Mikasi knows already. A fang weaver is hard to miss.”
I didn’t argue, even though I wanted to. There just wasn’t time.
The fang weaver sprang forward, tail up and black claws out. It raked the air with those claws while we dove to either side. I got to my feet, stepped back, and cracked my whip. The popper slapped an ugly red welt on the thing’s shoulder.
On the other side of the weaver, Ki snatched faint strands of light from the air. Quickly, he wrapped them around his hand, then slammed a trio of glowing yellow-white arrows into the creature’s side. Unfortunately, they barely made it through the creature’s thick hide.
Despite that, it took a step back. The fang weaver was a little bruised, slightly singed, and a lot ticked off.
“This is going to be a long fight,” I sighed.
Ki glanced to his right where he left Mikasi, then gave me a quick nod before he jerked his head toward Mikasi and the doors. I got the message, or hoped I did. Mikasi had the doors open. Time to make a run for it.
The fang weaver lashed out before we could run. It swiped claws at the two of us, then stabbed at me with its tail. I jumped right, avoiding the tail, then cracked my whip against its midsection. As for Ki, he ducked under its claws, then launched another trio of magical light arrows into the thing. The bolts slammed into the fang weaver’s wide, armored back while my whip crack made it almost double over. It hissed in rage and kept coming.
It was a bloody dance over the next few seconds while we traded blows with the beast. It was fast, but we managed to keep a heartbeat ahead of those claws and tail. At one point, the claws missed me but tore my shirt. Ki got battered twice when the weaver clubbed him with its tail. Then there was the ugly moment when it spit two of its paralytic mouth fang-spikes at me. I was just lucky my shoulder bag got in the way at the last second.
By then, I could feel the fatigue setting in with desperation lurking just behind it.
I arched backwards and avoided claws to the throat. In not quite a flail, I stumbled back, the jumped left to avoid the tail. Before I could get my whip into motion, the fang weaver lunged in and backhanded me across the mouth. The world exploded in stars while I flew backward and hit the bridge hard and had the wind almost knocked out of me.
Nearby, I heard Ki yell something before there was the sizzle of magic. It sounded like fire, something Ki only used when he was really upset. I heard the fang weaver let out a shrill shriek of pain. I shook my head while my vision cleared and I stumbled to my feet.
“This is stupid,” I muttered. “We’re getting nowhere. This thing’s got more armor than a Quillback rhinoceros. It’s like trying to slap down a wall.”
I touched the back of a hand against my mouth and winced. That wasn’t going to feel good tomorrow.
Suddenly, Ki sailed through the air before he hit the bridge hard right next to me. He grabbed his chest where the fang weaver had clubbed him again with its tail, then wheezed while he tried to get his air back. The beast skittered right for us, but before it closed in for the kill, I snapped my whip near its face. That made it back off a few steps. It hissed, smoke curling up from the fresh magical burns along its right shoulder.
“Ki, you alive?”
“Yes,” he coughed. “I just feel like the dog’s breakfast.”
I cracked the whip again when the weaver tried another step. Then once more before it got settled, only that time I aimed for the burn wound.
That it felt.
It grabbed the burn and skittered back a few paces. Just as it got settled, a bright yellow-white light erupted on the fang weaver’s face. The creature shrieked in surprise, then stepped back while it tried to wipe the spell away.
“Run,” Ki shouted in a hoarse voice. “That won’t last long.”
It was music to my ears. I curled my whip around my chest and ran. Ki was right beside me. Seconds later, we heard the fang weaver chasing after us.
We reached Mikasi, Nicodemus, and the open doors in no time.
“Get inside,” I panted at Mikasi as we ran up.
“Wait! There’s something you need to know,” Mikasi waved a hand at the doors that had swung open into the room.
I glanced back the way we came. The fang weaver had shaken off most of Ki’s spell and was headed right for us. The manic, staccato sound of his eight feet against the marble tiles punctured the air. It was like being chased by a stampede of hammers. A sound that ran right up my nerves.
“Quick, what?” I asked.
“The doors,” he replied. “I have a feeling something bad happened here to the locals.”
“How bad?”
“Bad,” he said with a dark tone and quick glance at the doors.
I followed his gaze and didn’t like what I saw. They were elderwood doors belted in two places by iron or some other sort of dark metal. Deep cuts crisscrossed the center of the wood in a haphazard pattern from axes, blades, and even a few claws. Some were big enough that they had to be fang weaver claws.
A design burned into the door had been cut apart a long time ago into a shabby mess. The doors hung from a dingy, gray-brown door frame that still clung to a few pieces of ancient paint.
Two things leaped out at me. First, I didn’t see a lock. Second, there were letters haphazardly burned into the door frame. Blurry letters that moved.
They looked all too much like the blurred like the letters in the Xinder Codex back in Talabrae’s Deep. More important was that every letter along the door frame had started to glow like a metal bar heating fast in a forge.
I grabbed Mikasi by the shoulder.
“Mikasi, how did you get the doors open?”
“Balanced the counterweights,” he stammered, then pointed at a loose tile at the floor on the right side of the frame. “It reset the mechanism. The latch, or lock I guess, is some sort of water clock.”
I stared at doors, damage, and door frame in shock. Realization set in and I didn’t like what it whispered to me.
“It’s running away?” Ki gasped while he caught his breath. After a second, he glanced around while his tail twitched in curiosity. “What in the high tides scares that thing?”
“Quick, get inside,” I said.
I raced inside the room, then pulled on one of the doors. The others ran after me. Ki grabbed the other door. Mikasi helped me with mine.
“What’s happening?” Ki asked while he yanked on the heavy door.
“A water clock kept these doors shut. How many rooms do you know need a timed lock in a city? Especially an Ancient Order city?” I jerked my chin at the door frame outside the room. “Look at the door frame. Mikasi was right. Something bad happened here. Whoever closed these doors didn’t want them opened back up.”
I pointed at the door lock that was on the inside of the doors.
“Especially, not from the outside. Shut the doors!”
Around the door frame, outside the room, the mage-lock letters glowed with the yellow-orange fury of the sun. The bright light felt like getting needles stabbed in the side of my head.
Ki yelled out something, but I missed it as the magical inscription erupted in a tidal wave of light, heat, and sound that consumed the entire bridge. At the same moment, my entire world turned into a thick haze as I fell back into darkness.
