'Father!' shrieked Guest.
The cry was torn from him, as if with hooks. The murkbeast had the Witchlord! Had him, had seized him!
And Guest, in shamed horror, found himself rooted to the spot, paralyzed by his own terror. He could not do the manly thing. He could not dare the forward step, even though his father was down, was -
Was -
Was getting up…
'Uh,' said Lord Onosh, grunting.
Then he spat out mud.
Then he turned to Guest, and said: 'There are little brutes in imitation of the big one. A little one grabbed me, but my hand was enough for its strangulation.'Guest was still unable to speak, but grunted, hoping his grunt did not betray too much of his wet and shit-sliding terror.
'Come,' said his father. 'It's safe.'
Obedient to this encouragement, Guest drew his sword and began to venture toward his father.
The mud in the cave was particularly sticky, or so it seemed to Guest. His boots bogged deep with every footstep, and it was a physical effort to pull each foot free from the morass.
'Slowly,' said Lord Onosh, sensing or seeing Guest's distress. 'Slowly does it. Slow and steady.'
'Slow and steady,' said Guest, his voice trembling involuntarily as he took up that refrain.
Even as he said it, a tentacle uncurled itself in lazy leisure and reached out in Guest's direction.
'Careful,' said his father, thinking the tentacle was but feinting.
Then the heavy weight of the tentacle slammed itself down on Guest's shoulder, slapped home in a positively convivial manner, then abruptly whipped itself around his neck and started to tighten.
'Gah!' said Guest, with a choked cry barely a hair's-breadth from strangulation.
The tentacle was pulling on him. Not with any unduly monstrous force, but with a sufficiency of effort to shortly secure his death. Guest had been judged by the murkbeast, and condemned, and sentenced to death by hanging!
When he realized that, the Weaponmaster became icy calm. The worst had happened. The murkbeast had him.
So.
When a dog seizes upon your hand, you must not pull it away, for that is what the dog is expecting. Rather, you must plunge that hand fiercely down the dog's throat, and use the other hand to destroy the brute which has seized you.
So thinking, Guest ceased to resist. With a mighty lunge, he hurled himself at the murkbeast. Taken by surprise, its tentacle momentarily slackened. By rights, Guest should have used the slackening to attack the murkbeast. But – weakened by fear, and by long habit of irresolution – the Weaponmaster yielded to the entirely human impulse to free the slack of the tentacle from his neck.
By trying to do so, he lost his chance. The murkbeast recovered itself, fed strength into the tentacle, held Guest tight, then abruptly jerked him off his feet and hauled him toward its gaping toad-mouth.
'Father!' screamed Guest.
But his father could not help him now. The murkbeast had him, and would engulf him in moments, sucking him down to a suffocating doom, or breaking him with its bone-munching strength.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cornucopia: horn of plenty rumored to lie in the Stench Caves of Logthok Norgos. Many people have died questing for this legendary generator of wealth, most notoriously Uri the Valorous, far-famed master of insouciant courage. It is possible that the murkbeast which dwells near the entrance to the caves bears much of the responsibility for the 100% fatality rate amongst cornucopia-questers. The above-mentioned murkbeast currently has Guest Gulkan by the ankle, is dragging him toward its maw, and looks set to munch him down in moments.
As Guest Gulkan screamed, the murkbeast wrenched him toward its maw. With one convulsive spasm of strength, it got his booted foot inside its mouth.
Then stopped.
'Gods, gods, gods,' sobbed Guest.
Lazily, the murkbeast tasted his boot.
So there was Guest Gulkan, down on his elbows in the muck, his sword in his hand but in no position to strike. His foot was in the murkbeast's mouth. And it was… it was making up its mind. Thanks to its prodigious strength, the murkbeast could torn its prisoner from limb to limb had it so wished. But the thing had bruited down a sating surfeit of the Mutilator's soldiers, and had no true appetite for further human flesh.
Even so, the thing was seriously considering gulleting Guest Gulkan as well. The murkbeast was like a small child which has stuffed itself with sweetmeats to the point of vomiting, but is still tempted by the gross and slimy glitter of a candied cherry, and deludes itself into thinking it can munch down that cherry while still escaping the painful and inevitable consequences of further gluttony.
'Help me!' said Guest, in a very whimper of uncontrolled and uncontrollable terror.
The cut-thrust heat of action was over. Time had slowed to a slow ooze, and in that ooze the Weaponmaster had all too much opportunity to consider the dreadfulness of his situation. Here we must remember that Guest Gulkan had already lost his limbs on one occasion, arms and legs having been torn away by the Great Mink in an arena in Chi'ash-lan. That being so, he knew the truth of pain, and knew that there is nothing worse.
'Be still,' said Lord Onosh, urgently.
This was the most useless of all conceivable advice, for Guest was already being still. Very still. Furthermore, he had absolutely no intention of being anything else. But his studied quiescence did him no good at all. The tentacle wrapped round his ankle tightened. Then wrenched. Then pulled off his boot. Guest screamed.
'Has it hurt you?' said the Witchlord.
That sobered Guest sufficiently to allow him to give voice to an obscenity. Upon which the murkbeast swallowed his boot, decided it liked leather, and helped itself to the other.
'The boots have gone,' said Guest flatly. 'It will be flesh and blood next.'
At which, Lord Onosh hesitated. Then kicked something.
Stooped. Grabbed something from the muck, and began to haul it towards the murkbeast.
'What are you doing?' said Guest.
'I'm – '
The murkbeast sucked roughly on Guest's feet.
'God's grief!' said Guest, sobbing in uncontrollable terror.
'Hold on, hold on,' said his father. 'I'm coming.'
Indeed, the Witchlord was floundering through the mud with all the speed he could muster, dragging with him the corpse of one of the Mutilator's guards. As he closed the distance, Lord Onosh sheathed his sword and held the corpse in front of him as a shield.
The Witchlord's approach put the murkbeast in something of a minor quandary. If this dumb two-legged animal was going to walk right into its mouth, then there was no need for the murkbeast to waste time by capturing it. But what if it changed its mind? Best to make sure…
So thinking, the murkbeast extended a lazy tentacle and grabbed the corpse which Lord Onosh was holding in front of him as a shield. Lord Onosh heaved mightily on that corpse. Thinking it held a living animal with its tentacle, and thinking that animal was struggling to get away, the murkbeast heaved mightily on the corpse, wrenched it from the Witchlord's grasp and hauled it towards its mouth.
Lord Onosh then tried to attack, thinking to close with the monster and kill it while it was corpse-consuming. But the mud was too thick, too clutching, and he was still floundering even as the murkbeast opened its mouth wide enough to swallow both Guest Gulkan and the corpse simultaneously. Guest felt himself being sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.
'Your sword!' yelled his father. 'You still have your sword!'
