On the ground were two figures, one human, the other less so.
All around them were a seething horde of Ultari. There were dozens of them moving around the pattern’s edge as if they too were taking part in the ritual. Every time the chant reached a crescendo, the presence above clotted and become more solid. When that happened a strange ripping sound came from the edge of the chamber, and another Ultari emerged to join the dance. Rik looked at the walls. He could see they were covered in frenziedly pulsing pods. There were things inside them, trying to get out.
“He’s wakening them. They were dormant but now they are emerging from their hibernation,” said Asea. “He’s feeding them energy and intelligence.”
Rik felt his mouth go dry. This did not look good.
The two humans caught his attention. One was Bertragh. The factor’s face was transformed by an odd mix of terror and exaltation, and his gaze was fixed on the other man’s with a look of near-religious rapture.
Man was perhaps the wrong word to describe the other, Rik thought. He was human in outline, but a shell of chitin, similar to that on some of the corpse-riders enclosed his body. The only human part visible was his face; even his head was shrouded by insect-like armour. The face was twisted by some transforming inner force so that it looked no more human than Lady Asea’s mask. The eyes glowed with the odd greenish light. The words it chanted sounded like nothing that could be torn from a human throat.
On a lectern of chitin atop an altar raised from the middle of the floor, was an open book. Rik felt utterly certain that it was one of the ones they had sold to Bertragh back in Redtower, just as he was certain the man doing the summoning was Zarahel. The figure turned and Rik felt sickness churn within him. The back of the armour looked as if it were a huge spider clutching Zarahel in its limbs. Had it spun the armour round him like a cocoon, Rik wondered?
The man-thing raised its arm and shrieked more verses of its spell. The air above him shimmered and a circle was formed through which more of the greenish light spilled; the demon god emerged. It looked superficially like the Ultari but there was something about it that suggested a monstrous centipede. It seemed to stretch back endlessly into infinity. A multitude of limbs kicked and wriggled on its side.
“This is where Uran Ultar waited like a trapdoor spider,” said Asea. She barked orders to her servants. One of them unstrapped the urn from his chest, and she began to croon the words of a spell over it.
“Too late,” Zarahel shouted, an inhuman triumph evident in his voice. “Too late, interlopers! The way is open. The Spider God returns. Bow to me! Bow to Uran Ultar and he may spare the humans. You have witnessed his rebirth. It is fitting that you live and watch him kill the Terrarchs. They will be the first of many.”
The Foragers halted, stunned. They looked at each other like men awakening from a dream. Rik wondered if they were going to obey. If he thought he could have believed Zarahel he might have considered it himself, but he did not.
While the soldiers hesitated, more of the Ultari emerged through the pods on the wall. The enormous god- beast writhed and forced his way through a portal that somehow seemed too small for him. It was as if he was coming from a much larger world, and somehow needed to shrink down, to constrict himself to enter this universe. Rik halted briefly, overcome for a moment by this hint of cosmic revelation.
Hesitation was likely to prove fatal. Rik raised his rifle, sighted on Bertragh, and opened fire. The factor fell, and as he did so, the light around the portal flickered. Obviously the merchant had been one of the poles of power for the spells.
Sardec raised his sword and brought it down. “Fire!”
The rest of the Foragers opened fire. A storm of shot erupted around the Ultari, Zarahel and the gateway. Zarahel remained upright, his chitinous external skeleton chipped away, to reveal brownish substance beneath. Some of the Ultari collapsed. Ichor flowed where balls caught weak points in the carapaces but far more of them bounced off than bit home. “Aim for the joints, men,” Sardec shouted. “They are the weak points.”
In a moment all was chaos. Men moved away from one another, trying to get distance between them in case of some sorcerous response from the demons or their master. A few remained in place, ramming balls home into their muskets. Others fixed bayonets, knowing that close combat was inevitable and wanting to be prepared. The smell of ozone warred with the stink of sorcery.
“Form up around the Lady!” Sardec shouted. “She is our only hope.”
Lady Asea’s eyes were closed as she crooned her spell. Her two servants flanked her now, long curved swords out and swinging in intricate patterns. They were loosening their muscles and preparing to fight.
Zarahel shrieked something to the Ultari in their strange chittering tongue. They moved towards the Foragers with the clockwork precision of automatons. Return fire was sporadic now, a ragged volley from those who had their weapons ready.
Rik saw another of the Ultari go down, all of the legs on its left side ceasing to work. A ball appeared to have lodged home in a nerve cluster. He finished ramming the ball home himself and held his shot ready, not wanting to open fire until he had a clear target. Weasel knelt and fired. The Barbarian unlimbered his chopping blade and moved over to be nearer the Lady Asea.
Rik turned to see that Leon was there watching his back as always. He had a bayonet clipped onto his rifle. His face was white. Sweat beaded his brow. Rik could almost sense his terror. “Now I am really scared!” he said. His voice was barely audible.
The Ultari impacted on the first of the Foragers now. Long blade-like forward appendages lashed out. Men fell, torn apart by the monsters’ irresistible strength. Rik froze for a moment at the sight. He could not believe he had ever dared go hand to hand with one of those things.
Zarahel laughed triumphantly at this evidence of what his new pets were capable of. There was a mad quality to his mirth that suggested he was no longer quite human, that some other entity shared his body, looked out through his eyes.
Behind him Uran Ultar continued to drop from his extra-spatial lair. His lower appendages were just over Zarahel’s head now. They reached out as if to caress him.
Rik raised his rifle and snapped off a shot, hoping to put a ball through the wizard’s eye. Smoke billowed obscuring his view momentarily. When he could see it appeared his shot had ricocheted off the carapace. Zarahel was unharmed. In fact, a change was coming over him. He seemed, now more than ever, an unholy hybrid of man and spider, more demonic than human.
The Ultari line converged on Asea. Few men dared stand in their way. Those that did lived only for heartbeats before those huge scything blades tore them apart.
“This looks bad, Rik,” said Leon. Rik did not disagree. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and began to fumble through his pack for the things he had bought from Wyrm Hunter Karl.
Sardec stood beside the sorceress, blade ready to defend her. He was appalled by the fury of the Ultari. This small group could overwhelm his entire force. And more were hatching all the time.
“What shall we do?” he asked Lady Asea, before realising she could not answer, that she was too caught up in her spell. Beside her, her two black garbed servants kept up a steady stream of arrow fire. One arrow bit home, crashing into the central eye of the nearest Ultari. It reared up in agony and as it did so the second servant sent an arrow plunging into the weak spot where leg met carapace. The thing collapsed in the middle, its legs unable to bear its weight.
A look of concentration passed over Asea’s face. Out of the darkness the ripjack pack emerged like thunderbolts. They raced forward, hissing and snarling, and began to swarm over one of the demons, sinking their teeth into its carapace, snapping at legs, clambering up over the creature’s back, looking for weak spots. It was a battle of savage primordial fury. The ripjacks were almost as large and almost as strong as the Spider God’s children and they were driven by a berserk terrified fury.
The Ultari reared trying to throw them off. It lashed out with its scythes. One of the ripjacks was not quite quick enough and was impaled. The blades passed right through its body and pinned it to the ground. Sardec was awestruck. Somehow, while working her magic, she had managed to retain control of the pack with some small part of her mind. He had never heard of any sorcerer doing anything like it. For brief moments the Ultari were thrown back.
Sardec readied Moonshade, determined that this time, he would not be taken unawares by an Ultari. Already the spider things were reforming and attacking the ripjack pack. He looked at the men and saw that they were scared. This was not a place where human courage could hold. It was too deep beneath the earth, too dark,
