Chapter Thirty-Three
Whatever it was, it took its time coming. They crouched at the rear of their alcove and armed themselves as best they could with chunks of jagged stone from the floor. Harsan wished for the sword the ancient warrior had carried, but it was lost beneath the deadly moulds in the corridor below. He thought of having Morkudz extinguish his little ball of radiance, but then he realised how stupid it would be to fight any foe in almost total darkness! And some of these creatures of the Underworlds could see without light!
There was a ponderous crunching on the stair above them. Then a panting, whistling sound, as of an old crone negotiating a steep hill. Pebbles bounced and rattled down past them.
Better dead than unready. Harsan put his head around the comer.
At first he could make out nothing but velvety blackness. Then something glinted iridescent greenish-purple; more glimmers appeared: reflections from polished surfaces. Armour? Those surfaces moved and rotated in a curiously mechanical way, almost like the paddles of a millwheel…
They were mandibles. Behind them was a forest of legs, claws, and what might be feelers! Above these, three circles of round, faceted, amber light must be eyes.
The thing was as big as Lord Thumis’ sacred altar! It filled the narrow tunnel from side to side and almost from top to bottom. There was no room for it to turn, no way that they could rush up past it.
“A DlaqoV' Morkudz gasped. Harsan had not felt the Heheganu come up beside him. “A carrion-beetle, like those that emerge in the corpse-pits outside the city where the dead-slaves and paupers-are thrown!”
“How do we fight it?”
“Are you mad? We cannot. Its carapace is as sound as a targe of steel, and its mandibles are like scissors! They will snip you in two!”
“Then we die here. Make noise!” he cried to the others. “Scream, bang on something-yell! It may retreat-or go on past.”
It did not. Three pairs of bottle-green legs pushed the beetle down the tunnel toward them as inexorably as any conquering army. A saw-toothed proboscis twisted to probe into the niche, the blade-edged mandibles just behind.
They huddled against the rear wall of the alcove. The proboscis scraped and clattered against the stone, and the Dlaqo slowly twisted its bulky body over until it lay almost on its side, one set of legs twisted underneath it, the others scrabbling against the rocky ceiling. Another pace or two and it would be in upon them.
It struggled, then stopped.
The Dlaqo could not turn far enough to get into their refuge! They were safe for the moment.
The monstrous carapace, as big as a small boat, rolled this way and that, the plates on the creature’s belly visible, stretching and sliding over one another. Its smaller front claws struggled for purchase. The proboscis attempted to withdraw. As it did so, Mirure whacked it with her torch-club; one might as well beat Thenu Thendraya Peak with a twig!
The monster squirmed and emitted hissing, chirruping noises. The stench of rotted meat nauseated them. It halted. An impasse., The three eyes glared at them balefully. The limbs ceased to chum.
“We could always wait until it starves to death,” Simanuya suggested in a tremulous voice.
“We would be skeletons before that happened,” Morkudz retorted scornfully.
“What else? We cannot go either way.” That was Tlayesha.
“La,” Taluvaz panted, “Mirure, light your torch!”
Wondering, the girl knelt and did so. Ruddy light filled their niche, and the smoke made them cough.
“Now reach around the comer and throw it there, underneath the thing’s hindquarters!”
The wisdom of this immediately became clear. The powerful rear legs kicked and jerked as the torch blazed up beneath the Dlaqo 's abdomen. It whistled, then screeched in an eery, almost human voice. Then it pulled itself over and blundered forward, down the stair.
Mirure shouted something in her throaty N’luss tongue. She waited only until the beetle was past and then ran out to retrieve her torch. Before anyone could stop her, she danced up behind the creature and applied the flame again from behind to its blunted, atrophied wing-casings. These did not burn, but they did smoulder, and a cloud of greasy smoke arose from the Dlaqo's offended posterior. The N’luss girl yelled something that sounded like a joyous war-whoop and pursued the behemoth down the stairs, torch waving. It ploughed into the piles of mould, carried all before it like the prow of some mighty ship, and plunged on out mto the dank corridor beyond.
Mirure stopped, retreated precipitously to avoid the cloud of angry spores, that poured up after her. Her eyes sparkled, and Harsan saw that she was laughing. Truly, the N’luss might be barbarians, but they did have a certain style!
They stood together, arms about one another’s shoulders, and rested. Harsan found that his legs were shaking; he sat down. The others joined him. Taluvaz said something in sibilant Livyani to the warrior girl, and she replied in kind, still repressing giggles that were probably more of relief than of amusement.
At length Harsan managed to soothe his shuddering limbs back into obedience. “What now?” he asked. “The path back up is open.”
“About that I have doubts,” Morkudz said slowly. “If you are indeed pursued by Lord Sarku’s minions, I question whether the crushing of a few of his Undead soldiers will deter them. There will be many more-and other beings as. well.” He did something, and his little globe of radiance rekindled upon his palm, a trifle stronger than before. Mirure put out her torch; it served better as a weapon than as a source of light.
“Then?”
“The Dlaqo will have cleared the corridor yonder of much of the mould. When the spores become quiet we can still travel that way.”
“And when the beast finds room to turn about and come back?” Simanuya sneered. “Its outrage will know no bounds!”
“I hear nothing now. My hearing is better than that of any human. The moulds will do their work upon it as well as upon us. It lives and hence must breathe.”
“How can you urge that we go on down-into that place?” Tlayesha seemed close to tears, and Harsan moved to comfort her. She let him embrace her, but she would not be still. “No. No, let us go up! If we must fight, die, then let it be where there is a sky-air-” Behind her, the glassblower and Itk t’Sa murmured agreement.
“I know more of this place than you,” the Heheganu continued in his soft, patient voice. “The regions near the great hall that you collapsed are familiar to us. I do not think that the path that leads to the exit by the Mouth of the World is there-or if it is, then it can be reached only by one who knows its secret. Instead, near the Crystal River one soon comes to the precincts of the buried shrines of Lord Sarku, Lord Hrii’ii, and Lord Ksarul, maintained by those hierarchies after the levelling of Purdimal during the last rite of Ditlana a thousand years ago. There will be priests, warriors, temple servitors…”
“You did not speak of this before,” Harsan accused.
Morkudz raised sloping shoulders in a shrug. “None inquired,” he said simply. “And there was then a chance for us to pass them all by before any serious pursuit could be organised. Now I believe it is too late. If we are to live, then our choice is apparent.” He said no more but arose and began to descend the shallow steps outside of their alcove.
They followed him, watching both for spore clouds and for the return of the Dlaqo- beetle. The corridor was empty and silent, a swathe of pallid mould ripped from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, as though Chlen — beasts had been harnessed to a plank to clear a roadbed through mud.
The flagging was still ankle deep in mould, cold, viscous, as slippery as the organs of a corpse. It was quiescent now, its spores spent. All but Tlayesha and Itk t’Sa wore closed footgear of some sort. The mould would not affect the Pe Choi, but an act of iron will was needed for the girl to plunge her open-sandalled feet into the stuff. Harsan offered to carry her, but she waved him away. He promised himself that once this was over-if it ever was-he would praise her, make love to her, kiss her for her courage, tell her how much strength he had drawn-and continued to draw-from her. He would have spoken now, but that in itself might undo her precariously balanced calm, he thought. Tlayesha was delicate, slender, and nowhere as strong as the tall N’luss woman, but she possessed the stamina of mighty Hrugga of the Epics himself! Still, even she could bear only so much.
