Chapter 7: I Stood On Broken Legs

I first awoke under water, then in a scarcely lit cell across the floor from a rat king with one surviving monarch. He crawled slowly, himself near death and barely able to drag his fellow lords behind him. Several of them had their stomachs burst open and were birthing maggots. It had begun to pick up speed when the skittering of a large insect halted it. A shadow passed over the rat, and after a screech it was gone. What followed then was a low clicking and the sound of a spike scraping against stone, then utter quiet.

  After a time sounds began to manifest again. The moaning of an old man in intense pain, the clacking of loose teeth, the screams of children, a young woman calling tearfully for her baby. The voices were of varied kindreds, though the children did sound for the most part human. Now and then I would hear the padding of soft but heavy feet, followed the scuffling sound of a thing moving through a tight space, and then there would be one less voice in the gloom. I remember smelling the odors of rotting skin and feces of various kinds.

  A day passed before I saw the thing waiting in the corner emerge again. I glimpsed a two pronged foot clamp down on a worm the creeped under the cell door. The foot was there for only an instant, and I heard the clicking sound again after it vanished. The worm was quite large, and I guessed the foot to be roughly the size of an infant's hand.

  Another day passed, during which neither I or my cellmate ate, unless something crawled under the door of course. The morning after a small mouse pattered across our cell. As I anticipated, it was attacked, but this time I saw the hidden creature used its tongue. It was a thin, red ribbon of translucent flesh that almost seemed to glow. It wrapped around the mouse and sliced off its head, leaving the body between us. I almost retched. I kicked it back, angry and devastated over the senselessness of my predicament, and instead of the clicking sound I heard a soft, mournful wheeze.

  The next day I dared to stand, unconcerned with what might happened if I came too close to the creature in the corner. There was a small, wooden bucket for me to relieve myself in, which I did, then I stood on the tips of my toes to peer out the small barred window in the door. The hallways was as dimly light as my cell, with torchlight that seemed green when reflected off the oily black walls in the hall. I shouted, announcing who I was and whom I served, but my voice was lost in the see of agonized cries.

  I waited til the sounds had calmed a little before shouting again, but instead of a guard hurrying with a ring of keys, I heard soft, heavy footfalls coming our way, and furious clicking in the dark corner behind me. I decided to back away from the door and sit down. Not long after there was the noise of clawed feet scratching at the wall outside. My cellmate clicked and clattered in its corner as the sound shifted to the cell next to us, and then with terrible fear I heard it scratching at the wall behind my back. Fortunately, the walls were solid and smooth, and eventually our hunter left us alone.

  I cried on the fifth day. I wished for death more than I'd ever wished for anything, and went through hundreds of reasons why that was natural. The opening of our cell door took me out of my dark cloud, and when I saw Oscar with his arbalest at low ready I was elated.

  He was very careful to stay quiet while urging me to hurry. There was a dead guard in the hall outside of a kindred I'd never seen. It bore a head like a goat's, though that is only a crude comparison. Its body was long and slender, its arms sinewy and hands fingered like a humans, though the count of its digits was well past five.

  Oscar led me down the hall and around a corner that led to a small guardhouse. We went in and stepped over another pair of bodies, then up a spiraling staircase. I felt along the wall as I had when following Brother Astartes, and to my horror I felt a number of holes. As if summoned by my dread, I heard soft but heavy footfalls in the dark behind us. I shouted Oscar's name only a second before I felt a wet mouth wrap around my ankle.

  Oscar turned and loosed a barrage of bolts from his arbalest. As each sparked off the wall I caught faint glimpses of the predator. It was long and low to the ground, with leathery black skin and an eyeless face. Oscar tried to fire on it, but it kept shifting away from his bolts. He then leapt over me, using the walls as launch points to kick off of, and slashed at the predator with his gladius. Soon it released me, but it had him in its maw just as quickly. To my abject horror I heard a snapping sound followed by a scream, and Oscar sent a flurry of bolts wildly upward before dropping his weapon. Fortunately it landed near me, so I picked it up and pointed it at the predator. Oscar threw me a cartridge of bolts with his free hand, while working his gladius deep into the predator's flank with the other. I loaded the arbalest as quickly as I could, pulled back the charging handle, then stood with my shoulder braced against the wall and took aim. I missed, and Oscar continued to scream as more snapping echoed off the walls of the spiraling stair. I went into a panic, and fired several more shots that all sparked on the steps about Oscar. He managed to stab the beast in the head, but it did not seem to matter where his blade punctured it. It kept slowly working its jaws higher up his leg and shattering more bones.

  What happened then took me several days to piece together. My cellmate had followed us, and when I thought Oscar was sure to be devoured, a long, flat, translucent red tongue wrapped around the predator's throat several times, then pulled suddenly away. Viscous blood poured from its neck and it let Oscar go, whirling about to defend itself. Oscar lit a flare and I saw a dozen brown legs with two pronged feet wrapped about the predator as they both tumbled back down the stairs.

You are reading story Erebus at novel35.com

  I helped Oscar up and we made our way as quickly as we could, though by the time we were in sight of the door he gave me the flare and told me to go on without him.

  "I can't leave you," I said, on the verge of tears.

  He spoke a command with his eyes that I could not refuse, and so I hurried up the stairs and through the door. There were two more Vandals and a tarrasquin coming towards me. They asked where Oscar was, and all I could do was shake my head. We then ran through dark tunnels and another cell block, then finally found our way out of the oubliette and were in parts of the sanctum I knew. From there it was simply a matter of not tripping over the bodies of the Dolomites and nearly a hundred Vandals and Ossarians. A few tarrasquins were also in the pile of bodies.

  Above ground was a sight that brought me to my knees wailing, for all whom I had known and cared for were slain. The westing house was a pile of rubble, and Anassa lay on her back with the other giantesses beneath her. She was shot through a hundred times at least, and her eyes had been cut out along with her tongue. About the giantesses bloody grey bodies were the rest of the excrutiants, and all of Ossary had been turned out for the slaughter. My home had been reduced to a pile of smouldering rubble, blood mingling with the smoke. Martas lay under a broken piece of wall by my knees.

  "Kendra!". I rose to my feet and began running this way and that like a madman. Then I saw Dolores. Her head and eye were bound with bloody bandages, as was her right hand, She held a spear in her bandaged hand, and her clean one held Kendra's. I ran to them wrenched Kendra from Dolores and held her so tied she might have choked.

  "She's unwell," I heard Dolores say.

  "What happened?"

  Nothing gold can stay, Kendra sang into my robe. I let her go and looked at her. Her face was pale, and there was dried vomit in the corners of her mouth. "Are you hurt?", I asked her desperately. She shook her head. I looked again to Dolores.

  "We were attacked," she said. "I can tell you more when we're somewhere safe. Where's Oscar?"

  I then felt sad for Dolores, and I let Kendra go and ran to her, embracing her apologetically. She patted my shoulder and gently pushed me away. She was trying very hard to hold back tears. With a loud cry she summoned what remained of the Vandals, and along with the few remaining tarrasquins who survived the assault we left. It happened so rapidly I don't remember much more than holding Kendra's quivering body close to mine as we were marched away. I thought I saw Albedo Adept standing atop the ridge of the vast bowl our home was nestled in, but when we crested it there was no one. Only the fossilized ruin of Tarthas awaited our approach.

You can find story with these keywords: Erebus, Read Erebus, Erebus novel, Erebus book, Erebus story, Erebus full, Erebus Latest Chapter