Chapter Thirty Two - Chunky Dunking
The water did not improve as the march continued on, its icy touch pinching and nipping at the toes and shins and calves of the party as they pushing on. Kaelin muttered a stream of quiet cuss words as the water deepen up over her knees, soaking through her clothes, the close rock walls on either side trapping them in the flow of water with no way out. Even the Ash Elves struggled, panting as they pushed on, hands grasping at the wall of limestone, their skinny flesh struggling to retain their warmth. Strangely enough Estella seemed absolutely fine, peering up at the shifting rock shadows about, gazing at the drips and runs of stone, fingers trailing over the smooth rock wall.
"It's amazing," she murmured, "The stream must have carved this passage through the rock and now the rock is trying to fill it up again." She ran a finger tip over the spill of calcite trailing down the left hand wall. "It is so smooth, it almost feels like wax." She peered at a rock formation the twisting way revealed ahead. "It almost looks like wax," she noted.
"Yeah, fine, lovely," Kaelin gritted out, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering.
"Ah have to say," Thorian said, pushing forward, the water bunching up round the top of his shins, "I'm not liking the way this is making my boots feel. I'm not sure I can feel mah toes any more. I know they're there, at least they should be there, but I don't think I can feel them that much any more."
"And we are so pleased that the worse you are suffering is that you have wet and cold boots, my dear Thorian," Jeremiah grunted, "We are so pleased that you are not more inconvenienced by this experience."
Kaelin glanced back at the priest and noticed that, though his mass of beard, his lips seemed to be turning blue and she could hear his teeth chattering above the rattle and gurgle of the stream. She gasped a breath herself and watched as the fog of it spiraled up towards the ceiling so far above them. She did a double take as she realized that Jeremiah's pack seemed to be levitating along behind him, then she saw the stick thin arms holding it up. Jeremiah's vigor pet was fully submerged under the water, the flow rising up over its head. She could just see its glowing blue eyes pushing along under the surface of the water as it trudged along under the weight. Behind it Nanny Tatter's plodded along, her blue veined black eye blinking slowly as she waded along, totally unaffected by the cold, the flow of the water along slowing her down as she passed through it, the flow bunching up round her legs, her stump of a tail wagging back and forth to keep her balance. Kaelin snorted and turned back to face the upstream battle, hitching her pack a little higher. So blasted cold. She pushed herself, trying to make her legs warm up with sheer effort. Ahead, Ulrich perched on Marmaduke's shoulder, holding the light stick high, its light shining off the damped stone, shards of light reflecting from the surface of the water dancing across the walls in a shifting pattern that was almost hypnotic. Ulrich watched the depths of the water, marveling that he could clearly see Marmaduke's feet even through the surface disturbance.
"Quite amazing," he murmured, "Quite amazing."
"What is?" Kaelin grunted.
"The clarity of the water," Ulrich replied, "I've never seen anything so clear. There's no sediment but there is a definite greenish cast to the water."
"That would be a copper deposit," Jeremiah forced out between clattering teeth, "Don't drink the water, it will be poisonous in high enough doses."
"Well, my dear Jeremiah," Ulrich beamed back at him, "I didn't know you could be that concerned about our well fair."
"My dear Ulrich," Jeremiah's smile was more a grimace, "I am a man of god, it is beholden to me to be concerned about the souls of all the party."
Kaelin snorted.
"Did you have something you'd like to say, my dear?" Jeremiah grated out.
"Nothing that you'd listen to," she said, pushing on through the icy water.
Scuttling along on the wall slightly above the King's Special Peter the centipede kept up a running commentary of whistles and clicks, antennae waving over the stone, his many, many feet scraping and scratching over the drip stone of ages. Every now and then he'd turn his head and let out a particularly vehement hiss at Marmaduke as the construct clanked along, carrying his master above the current of the stream.
"Oh dear, oh dear," Ulrich noted, "I do say, old bean, do you think you could keep it down? Such descent between the ranks is unseemly don't you know, wot?"
Peter swung his head in Ulrich's direction and whistled a whole series of clicks and hisses that did not sound at all happy about the situation.
"Yes I understand that you feel that I am favoring the... what did you say? Tin Pot? Unnecessarily, but I am afraid that I do find it some what difficult to hold on to you when you are scuttling sideways like that," Ulrich admitted, "Also I don't think that you would like to fall into the water if my weight shifts wrong and we wind up falling off of that wall."
Peter clicked and crackled for several minutes as they walked along, still annoyed that Ulrich was favoring someone else but he was less vocal about it. Marmaduke marched forward without pause or distraction.
"Oh hello, what's this?" Ulrich said at last, swinging the light stick to the left.
"Can it be a get big soft feather bed and preferably a grand fire place already roaring?" Jeremiah stuttered from the back of the group, some how making himself understood through the chattering of his teeth. He now had his hands jammed into his armpits, trying to hold on to warmth that was rapidly seeping away from him.
"Well its not a feather bed but there is the chance of a fire," Ulrich noted, "To the left, chaps, to the left. Comfort awaits, or at least some dry feet." Marmaduke swung to the left as Peter crawled round the corner into the cave's mouth. Water cascading off him, Marmaduke marched up the stone embankment and gently lowered Ulrich to the ground.
"Thank you muchly good chap," Ulrich smiled as he dug another light stick out of his backpack and pulled the short cord to activate it. The light swelled, spilling over a wide shelf of rock that made the floor of the cave, the stone undulating with the marks of having been water worn at some point in the past. Ulrich slowly swung the light stick back and forth as Quenril, Tasnar and Sabal pulled themselves out of the water and knelt, the cold having sapped their energy and left them knackered. Estella stepped out next with Kaelin and Thorian scrambling out after her.
By the time Jeremiah was stumping up on to the dry ground, shivering and shaking as he did so, which was an impressive sight to see as there was a lot of Jeremiah to shake, Ulrich was already pocking and pulling the structure of a camp fire together from the mass of drift wood that was bundled at the back of the cave. He gave the tunnel at the southern end of the cave a glance, frowning slightly as he thought he heard something shifting down there but then shook his head and continued with building the fire. The tunnel to the north also seemed to be empty so he shrugged and started having a go at lighting the fire while the others pulled off their boots and tipped out copious amounts of water. Nanny Tatters paced to were Jeremiah directed her to the wall and settled down but her head turned to gaze at them, a strange level of intelligence in her magic gaze. Kaelin shuddered and made sure that the fire was between her and Jeremiah's puppet. There was something singularly disturbing about that puppet and part of her seriously wished he'd get rid of it.
"Don't put your boots close to the fire," Quenril advised, pulling some spare cloth out of his pack and stuffing it into his boots.
"Er, why not?" Thorian asked, "We want our boots to dry out, don't we?"
"That is true," Quenril admitted, "But the quickest way to the surface is to stay with the water and therefore they will get wet again just as fast, won't they?"
Thorian thought about it for a while.
"Oh yeah," he nodded, "Yeah, I guess you're right."
"That and if you dry out your boots too quickly they'll crack up faster than the good lady can grow her teeth," Tasnar grinned as he saluted Kaelin.
"Watch it buddy," Kaelin growled, flat dislike in her voice.
"Good lady of the moon," Tasnar bowed to her, "Please accept that I meant it with the highest amount of respect." There was a definite spark of mischief in his eyes as he looked at her. Sabal glared but Quenril looked away, obviously troubled and torn.
"Just when are you going to get it through your heads that I'm not a lady?" Kaelin asked.
"You'll have to forgive my friends," Ulrich grunted, still trying to light the fire, "But, born under the ground and among the Ash Elves you would be considered a highly sort after lady. You're strong, vicious and can kill as easily as you breath. Given a little polish to your skills in politics and you would have made a powerful mid-tier lady of the clan easily and could go higher if you wished to."
"You what?" Kaelin demanded.
"Our sister's chosen speaks correctly," Tasnar pressed a hand over his heart, "Among us, as one of us, you would have been considered a lady to seek to please. We men need the shelter of a strong women, we must twine our fate round hers to survive like the tunnel hopper lives in the shadow of our pets and you are a strong woman. Any man with an ounce of will to survive would try to please you."
Kaelin frowned, trying to work out what it was he was after and therefore didn't see Ulrich wink at Tasnar behind her back.
"Now, with the old rules failing and dead, you as yourself, well, again any man would try to please you," Tasnar smiled at her, meeting her eye. Sabal looked scandalized but Quenril kicked his ankle. Sabal and he started one of their silent conversations, all gestures and expression, a conversation that Sabal apparently lost as he turned his face away and folded his arms. Quenril shook his head and went back to trying to rub some warmth back into his feet. It seemed his cousin was struggling to accept that the world had turned and that they needed to turn with it.
Kaelin frowned some more, still confused, stepping back without knowing it. There was a sharp crack behind her and Ulrich bit a curse short.
"Oh for pity's sake," Kaelin was actually glad to have an excuse to turn away from Tasnar as she still couldn't work out just how she was supposed to respond to his held out hand, "Let me do it."
She pushed Ulrich away from the pile of drift wood and set to work on lighting it. She succeeded and the merry flame was soon dancing up through the bleached wood, crackling and popping as it devoured the kindling.
Noticing Estella sliding up to Tasnar with a determined expression on her face, Ulrich decided to keep Kaelin distracted.
"That is excellent work," he congratulated, "I doubt that I could have done it so well."
"Of course not," Kaelin grunted, "You're a nobb."
"She's been threatened with it being forced all her life," Estella was explaining quietly to Tasnar, trying to get through his horror that a women could be treated as such, "I'm not sure whether it went to whole way but even if it didn't she doesn't know what to do when it is honestly offered. I can relate."
"Do you know why I'm not good at this sort of thing?" Ulrich asked, to cover up the other conversation.
"Maybe because you were born with a silver spoon stuck up your..." Kaelin said.
"Chaps like me aren't breed for this sort of thing," Ulrich interrupted, turning on the worst of his father's pomposity. Well it seemed to be keeping Kaelin distracted from the fact that she was being talking about and the conversation the Ash Elves were having now might help smooth over potential faux pars in the future. Quenril and his kin were, after all, approaching the process of trying to earn relationships with potential partners from a totally different culture, a little instruction now might go a very long way.
"So what Hestia born good are you?" Kaelin asked.
"Style, my dear, style," Ulrich struck a pose, "I bring the flair the party needs to be the stuff of legends."
"She is unsure whether she can trust you to be there for as long as she needs you to be," Estella explained, "It is not a matter of how good you are at killing her enemies, her family was good at killing after all. It is whether you are going to take off one day and not look back. She is not sure whether you are going to become disinterested in building a home with her and move on, leaving her with all the work and the risk of being mother to your children."
"Do the men of humans behave so?" Tasnar asked.
"All to often," Estella admitted, "But it is more than that. Lady Kaelin has no clan or even any family. If a woman of your people gets bored with her mate is she left with all the work of raising their children or does she have the support of family to aid her?"
"Huh," Kaelin snorted at Ulrich, "You're more like the back up if tripping Jeremiah up in front of the monster doesn't work."
"Now, my dear Kaelin," Ulrich admonished, "That really is unfair to our esteemed colleague." Jeremiah preened. "After all, it is not his fault if his gods decreed that he should be the living embodiment of monster bait." Jeremiah's face darkened and he grumbled an inarticulate noise in his throat.
"We must all serve as we are created," Ulrich continued before Jeremiah could break in, "Thorian is the muscle of the team, ready to stop the monsters in their tracks with sheer strength."
"Thank yee," Thorian grinned, "It's nice that someone recognizes how good I am at what I can do, instead of always trying to take the mike out of me for the stuff I can't do."
"Just give her time," Estella advised Tasnar quietly behind Ulrich's conversation, "It will probably take you making the offer several times over for her to make up her mind that she is willing to even consider courting you. Among humans and wolves the path to choosing a mate can be a long and careful road, especially when they have been as badly hurt as Lady Kaelin has been."
"It is different among our people," Tasnar admitted, "Among us if a male makes the offer to a woman who does not think much of him she is within her rights to slit his throat and leave him to bleed out."
"Well at least you won't have to worry about that being the result among humans," Estella smiled, "If anything human women are going to be scared that the throat slitting will be your reaction to being rejected."
"Your kind is very confusing," Tasnar admitted and then they turned their attention to the conversation happening round the fire, drawing closer the to heat of the flames.
"Jeremiah is the dangerous one that makes sure that we all stay aware and don't get complacent," Ulrich nodded to the priest, who smiled back, not entirely sure if Ulrich was trying to insinuate an insult or not, "You, my dear, are our resident kitsune, our fox, the trickster who can gain more for us out of mischief and trickery than brute strength."
"Yeah right," Kaelin grumped, "I'm a wolf, not a fox."
"Maybe, maybe not," Ulrich smiled, "I have to admit that you have surprised me in these last few weeks. Your ability with those bagpipes of yours are quite impressive."
"Parp, pah, purp," Haggis commented.
"Quite so my good sir," Ulrich continued, warming to his subject, "We all have our places within the King's Special and our tasks to fulfill and for the greater good we have to part our parts. By doing this we will grow our strength and find the weaknesses of these perfidious villains who let their selfishness and malice rule them and seek to spread their poison to the rest of the world. If we continue to work together and guard each others backs with all our skills and abilities we will be over come their scheming and treachery and cast their grand schemes into the dust. We are the King's Special and though others my think of us as worthless criminals we will prove that, given the chance to rise up and use our skills in the way we truly wish to use them, we can be the best that the world have to offer."
Even while Thorian cheered and the Ash Elves chorused their own ascent to Ulrich's words Kaelin rolled her eyes.
"Look, if you don't want to admit that you were scared shatless by that ghost just leave it alone and we will do the same," her disdain was obvious.
"Puff, nothing of the sort, wot," Ulrich assured, "That was merely a show to give everyone else in the King's Special the chance to feel brave and prove to them that we can over come even the most supernatural of foes. After all, once you had over come your fear I was able to negotiate with the second ghost so that we could leave without further difficulty. It was an exercise in team building, trust and morale. That is the service I provide to the King's Special, recognizing when the team needs a bounding exercise and providing it, as one born of the noble class should do."
Kaelin was singularly unimpressed.
"Do you like your spleen where it is?" her tone was dangerously level and Jeremiah sniggered as he fed more wood into the fire and sat back to watch the show.
"Now, old bean, would you really?" Ulrich protested but took a step back any way.
Kaelin thought about it.
"No," she admitted, "I have better taste." She turned back to the fire and laid out her socks to dry.
As the fire popped and crackled, casting its liquid light over the walls and ceiling of the cave, the King's Special and their allies gathered near the fire, warming their feet through and drying out their socks.
"That is probably a wasted effort," Jeremiah noted, nodding at the steaming tubes of material.
"Probably," Estella agreed sleepily, nibbling on a chunk of cheese lifted from her pack, the talismans clustered in her lap, "But it will make getting them back on easier." She yawned. "What say you people? We've been traveling a fair time, I don't know if it is night or day but does any one else figure that here is as good as any to make a night camp and get some sleep in?"
"That sounds like a great idea," Kaelin noted and stretched out on her side, ready to soak up the warmth from the fire. She sighed as her muscles started to unwind. She would not have admitted it but part of her urge to pick a fight with Ulrich had come from the fact that she ached all over, ached to deep in her bones. She'd lost count of how many times she'd shifted back and forth already since they had their proper night's sleep after they had taken on the octopod things. She shuddered at the memory of the smell and the taste! She tensed up as her stomach rolled for a moment and then she managed to push the memory away from herself. Yes she had managed that nap after they had munched on the crab legs for lunch but that hadn't been a real sleep, although she had dreamed, it hadn't been long enough. She shifted as she started to drift, the feel of a butterfly's wings beating against her palm. A butterfly and the blue of the ocean that has no memory. She hoped that one day she would see the ocean, she hoped. The ocean that had no memory. Maybe if she stepped there she wouldn't have to have a memory either, maybe she could let the sound of the waves carry the memories she didn't want away from her. She hoped that it was so. She hoped. The edges of the dream drifted up under her and began to lift her away from the aching mess that was her body, Haggis humming a quiet, droning note that soothed her nerves. She felt movement next to her and slitted open an eye. A black cat with bat wings had settled down by her face and was watching Jeremiah across the flames. Kaelin closed her eye again. Estella was right, it was comforting to have someone watching out for her while she slept.
Ulrich frowned looking down the tunnel at the southern end of the cave, the one behind where they had set up camp. He was sure he was catching the echoes of something shifting down there.
Thorian also didn't answer Estella's suggestion, frowning instead at the northern end of the beach.
"What's that in the water?" he asked with a frown.
"The bottom of stream?" Kaelin muttered, refusing to open her eyes.
Jeremiah looked over.
There was definitely something there, the same spot in the water kept rising up and sinking down, as if something was rising up to just under the surface and then sinking back down.
"My dear Thorian," Jeremiah leaned back on his hands, smiling, "Surely there are enough monsters down here to satisfy your need to beat things up without having to invent imaginary foes. If we keep chasing after these shadows you are making up, why, I doubt we'll ever make it back to the surface in time to rescue anyone up there."
Thorian frowned at him, knowing that Jeremiah was taking the mike out of him again. Estella sat up and frowned as well before reaching out and laying the ends of some unbroken long branches in the flames, where they started to smoulder and catch.
Ulrich also noted that Jeremiah had the fire between him and the water. Deciding that the priest was trying to turn the tables on them and use the rest of the King's Special as the monster bait, he stood up and picked up a long, stout branch from the drift wood pile, activating a new light stick to carry in his off hand. He cautiously approached the north end of the beach, eyes focused on the water where it was rippling and then not and then rippling again.
There was definitely something under the surface of the water but through the glare cast by the light stick he could quite make up his mind as to what it was.
"Everyone," he called, "Don't be alarmed but the river is acting... odd." Quenril and his kin frowned as they realized that Ulrich was putting himself in danger again. They yanked on their boots and stood to join him.
Kaelin groaned and rolled back to a sitting position, twisting round so she could peer over, her ears caught the sound of splashing. She narrowed her eyes. Something was breaking the surface of the water near where Ulrich stood, something pale that twitched back and forth, rippling and breaking the surface of the water, sending small waves splashing at Ulrich's toes.
"Something's waving to you," she said, picking up her still damp socks and pulling them on, squishing her feet into her boots a moment later.
Ulrich tracked his gaze back and forth, waving the light stick to and fro over the water, totally missing the moving thing in the dazzle of reflected light he created. Still he took a step back as Quenril and the others stepped up beside him.
"Having give this moment my full and undivided attention," he proclaimed, "I here by decree that Jeremiah should go first."
"I'll back that," Kaelin called over as she stood up, Estella pulling on her shoes and calling the Talismans back to her satchel.
For once Jeremiah didn't verbally rise to the bait but instead he straightened up, folded his legs lotus style, folded his arms inside his sleeves and closed his eyes, grandly ignoring the provocation but internally he was muttering a pray to his god for great misfortune to be visited upon the rest of the King's Special, preferably in the most embarrassing way possible.
Thorian frowned, not sure what to do as he couldn't decide whether he should be putting his boots back on or not as nobody had said whether or not they were going to come back to the fire. Still trying to decide he pulled one sock and boot back on.
Ulrich turned and looked back at the stream, finally spotting the thing that was waving at him.
"Well hello there," he smiled and waved back. For several minutes they waved at each other, neither willing to stop apparently. Ulrich began to frown as it waved and waved and waved and waved some more.
"I do say old chap," he observed, "I know it is impolite to be the one to stop waving first but this is beginning to become a little ridiculous."
It waved some more.
"Now look here, old bean," Ulrich said, "This is beginning to slide from the sublime to the ridiculous."
It waved at him, stubborn in its determination at it was not going to be the one who stopped waving first.
"Alright, under duress and at the risk of being rude," Ulrich lowered his hand and shook out his wrist, "Now could we move on to the introductions?"
It waved at him.
"Very well, my good sir, you asked for this," Ulrich took his long, stout stick and pocked the thing that was under the water. Something grabbed the end of the stick and yanked.
"Uh oh," Kaelin backed up, seeing at last the pale, oval shapes moving under the water.
Ulrich pulled back on the stick, the thing under the water pulling as well.
"Now there, good chap," Ulrich grunted, "There is no need to be unpleasant about this."
He grunted again, widening his stance and lowering his center of gravity.
"Out you come!" he commanded.
"Good Lord..." Quenril queried stepping forward.
"Wahhhhhhh," Ulrich yelled as the thing suddenly changed its tactic, going from pulling to lifting, Ulrich's feet leaving the ground.
"What the Grod?" Thorian started to his feet as Ulrich whipped round in a circle in the air, feet flailing around, a long, drawn out yell rising and falling as he passed and passed by them once more, hanging on to the end of the make shift staff as the crab waved it a near perfect circle as it scritched and scratched it's way on to the bank of water worn stone.
"Wahhhhhh," Ulrich yelled some more as he hung on for dear life, whipping through the air as the crab continued to wave the stick in a circular motion.
Jeremiah watched with smug approval as the crab sized itself up to Quenril and the other Ash Elves, who backed off in fear that if they struck now it could result in Ulrich being loosed, to fly into the nearest wall at terminal velocity. The priest felt a glow of pride. He had asked his god to visit misfortune on the King's Special in the most humiliating way possible and he obviously had his god's favor again as his prayer had been answered almost immediately. Ulrich continued to yell as he was whirled through the air like a lasso. It was almost enough to make Jeremiah forget his dignity and laugh out loud.
"Oh I say good chap?" Ulrich yelled, "As much as I am enjoying this exhilarating ride do you think you could slow it down a little so we can talk like civilized men?"
The crab stopped waving the stick and Ulrich yelped as his grip nearly slipped as he jerked to a stop.
"Thank you muchly," he smiled down at the crab, his tanned skin a little grey with motion sickness, "Now can we have a discussion about this?" The crab's eyes wiggled at him and the look in them wasn't comforting. The crab seemed to be considering whether or not it could eat him before its friends could scrabble out of the water and steal him.
Thorian also saw the approaching mass of crabs, their eye stalks now above the surface of the water as they approached, not bothering to try and hid now. There were a lot of them. Thorian tried to count them up but gave up when he realized that they were going to reach Ulrich before he could finish.
"I'm coming buddy!" he yelled, barreling forward, reaching to grab Ulrich's feet... He sailed passed and sent up a sheet of water as he crashed into the stream. The scuttling mass surged, the surface of the water chopping and shifting as the crabs charged.
"Oh cack!" Kaelin yelled as she realized just how many of them there were.
Estella lifted one of her small axes and threw it but it fell short, pinwheeling over the floor and splashing down in the edge of the stream.
"Oh for pity's sake!" she snapped.
The crab turned in her direction, eye stalks flicking, Ulrich still held a loft. He swung with the motion but then swung deliberately and dropped on to the crab's back. It reared, claws held out in shock, mouth parts clacking, the impromptu staff swishing through the air. Quenril took aim and swung. The length of wood cracked as it bounced off the wall and span into the stream, bubbling downstream with the current, leaving the crab holding on to a shorn off stump.
It had bigger things on its mind as it span and turned, trying helplessly to shake Ulrich off its back as it couldn't reach him with its pinching claws.
"Not today sonnie jim!" Ulrich yelled and seized its eye stalks, squeezing until the crab froze, its eyes going pale, giving it an expression of worry. "I don't like having to use pain to tame my mounts but if that is what gets through that thick shell of yours, I'll use it. Now to the right." He tugged on that eye stalk gently and when the crab rotated that way he relaxed his grip slightly but it was still firm, a warning that the pressure could come back at a moments notice if the crab decided to do something funny. Peter whistled and clicked, letting his length hang down from the ceiling, snapping his mouth parts at the eye stalks of the crabs still in the water.
"Marmaduke," Ulrich called, "Front and center, anchor the line for our Ash Elf comrades." His automatic clanged up to his side, Quenril and his kin standing on the other side, ready to deny the crabs a beach head.
"It's Thorian time!" Thorian burst back up from the water, soaking water, shivering cold and thorough ticked off!
The first blow met the crab coming up and crack it clean in half. The second blow shattered the next crab, its shell bursting in all directions, pieces and chunks raining down across the stream and bouncing off the wall across the water from Thorian. The third crab dashed frantically side ways, desperate to avoid Thorian's blow and so it only lost a couple of legs, the limbs sinking beneath the surface of the water as it flared its claws, splashing up gouts and sprays as it beat the stream in its agony.
The swarm was most decidedly divide in two but half of it grabbed the idea of getting out on to dry land to close with their prey.
"Sharp as daggers that cut through night!" Quenril bellowed, elven blades ringing off of shells as the Ash Elves ducked and wove, always a hair's breathe away from being grabbed by those pinching claws that looked big enough to sheer them in two. Marmaduke swung and swung again but hard shelled bodies rammed into him and knocked him off of his balance, forcing him to turn and stumble, trying to find his feet again. By main strength the half swarm was on the beach, pointed feetless legs scrapping over the stone with a noise that put the teeth on edge.
That wasn't the only noise Kaelin heard. Her ear swiveled, tugging at her to pay attention to what was in the south tunnel. With a growl of irritation she seized a burning brand from the fire and tossed it down the tunnel. The branch bounced and rolled, spraying sparks into the air as it tumbled into the dark.
"Oh hell!" Kaelin yelped as she saw what was crawling towards them in the flaring light of the brand as it came to a stop. Bubbling and plopping, flat surface glistening with a faint greenish tinge, the brittle remains of a bronze shield and a corroded sword suspended in the translucent jelly of its mass. The holes that had been eroded in the forehead of a helmet stared at her like the eyes of the soul that had once worn it.
Kaelin's yell of fear was twisted and distorted as the wolf took control, the change ripping through her limbs. Turning, she dived at the stream. She slashed out at the crab Thorian had wounded but she didn't try again after she missed, pounding on instead, forging through the water and then leaping, landing on the back of a crab. She leapt from one to another, vaulting between shells, ducking and weaving, avoiding snapping claws, her parkour skills tested to the limit. She reached the last crab, landed on it with both feet and leapt into a perfect forward somersault and twist to splash down in the stream on her feet, facing the back of the half swarm of crabs, claws at the ready. Then she staggered, the wolf receding from her, the bone deep weariness coming back full force. She really needed a sleep, or failing that at least four hours of rest.
The crabs still in the stream ignored being used as stepping stones, instead focusing their attention on the threat that stood before them, which, in this case was the large and angry orc-crossbreed that was waving the length of steel that was more like a sharpened baseball bat than a sword at them. They charged legs scrabbling sideways to crowd close to Thorian, claws held wide to grab and squeeze. However, for once the injured one had the sense to continue getting out of the way. Having experienced just how badly Thorian could sting, it showed that it was more intelligent than many of the creatures that the King's Special had faced in the Underworld, making its way down stream until it settled in the mouth of the tunnel that the companions had come out of to find this space.
The less sensible ones learned the hard way that some dinners come with a bill that is too high to pay, closing in on Thorian, mouth parts snipping and snapping as they raised their claws to the on guard position. Thorian, unsurprisingly, hit back first. With a solid sounding crunch his blade parted the nearest crab from its life. The second backed up fast enough to avoid the length of bright steel as it swung towards it. The third backed up, snapping and clacking the claw of its left arm while the other fall to the bottom of the stream, trailing a plume of blue blood in the water.
"It appears your opponents are more noble than you, my dear Ulrich," Jeremiah observed, climbing slowly to his feet without haste as the coagulated slime oozed its slow way ever closer.
The swarm of crabs on the beach wavered and darted back and forth despite their giant size, confused and dazzled by the flaring flames of the fire. Jeremiah grinned and whispered a command to his vigor puppet. It shambled up to the fire and without putting the pack down, gave the blaze and almighty kick.
"Ea-ow!" Estella cried out, burning brand glancing off the back of her hand. On instinct alone she flinched away. Jeremiah smiled as her sudden movement caught the crabs attention.
Estella screamed as a giant crab seized her round the waist and lifted her off her feet, her feet kicking in the air as she tried to force its grip open. Her eyes bulged as it started squeezing, tears of pain starting from her eyes as its grip forced her bottom rib to press into her liver. She beat at it ineffectually with a fist.
"Follow me," Jeremiah commanded his vigor pet and crouched, calling upon the change that he'd felt bubbling inside for days. His god's approval at the danger he'd put Estella in surged through him and Jeremiah grunted as his bones bubbled and shifted. The reward for withstanding the moment of pain was worth every second however.
The wing limbs unfolded with a ripple and a tear. Jeremiah winced at the damage done to his lovely new robes but it was still worth the split seams. He flexed the new fingers of his wings, folding and unfolding them, stretching and testing the membranes. They were perfect and even matched the coloration of his robes. His god had impeccable taste.
Jeremiah stretched into the lift of his wings and leapt, the down beat nearly thumping him into the roof of the cave. He dropped and wobbled in the air as he adjusted effort, lift, updraft and wing shape, calibrating the best combination of the factors to produce the maximum amount of lift for the minimum amount of effort and the most amount of grandeur. Once he was sure he could control the glide he offered up another prayer to his god.
Kaelin yelled and ducked her head, shielding her face as the light, that dreadful light that destroyed, shone out in the cave. Quenril and the others cried out in fear and threw themselves out of the way of the beam of destruction, Sabal throwing himself flat and rolling underneath one of the giant crabs in the effort to get away from that raking glare of blazing glory. Ulrich yanked on his mounts eyes stalks, canting the giant crab sideways as the shaft of radiation chopped into the water, Thorian throwing himself out of the way at the last second.
The swarm of crabs on the beach took the full blast of the blessing of the Dragon of Destruction, turned to perfect, flawless statues of salt between one heart beat and the next, the only crab unaffected being the one that was slowly crushing Estella's ribs. It span to track what had happened to its friends and Estella's flapping feet knocked into the upper raised, transmuted claw of a salt crab statue and it crumbled to nothing, setting in a chain reaction that caused all the rest to collapse into dunes of salt, the white crystals pilled high.
"Cousin?" Quenril called, wading into the mass, trying to find where Sabal had been moments before, "Cousin? Cousin!"
Jeremiah drifted over the steam, pulling up into a hover slightly further on than Kaelin. He checked that there were not any spiders hanging on to the ceiling and then turned his attention to the rest of the battle. He frowned as he noted that the crabs in the stream had managed to duck under the surface of the water and therefore had avoided the power of his god. Thorian also surfaced in a splutter and gasp of icy water, even more soaked than he already was, if that was even possible. Oh well, the orc crossbreed probably need a good bath any way. His kind were known for not being clean. The fact that Thorian often asked for water and warm water at that to bath in, well, that was a detail that Jeremiah chose to forget. Still it was vexing to discover that there was a limit to his god's power, although water was a rather limited defense against his god's glory.
He noted Nanny Tatters dithering on the shore and sent her a mental command. She blinked and opened her maw to devour the time of the crabs in front of her. If she caught either Thorian or Kaelin in the area of effect? Oh well, casualties were to be expected on a journey such as this and he could always wax lyrical about their noble sacrifice to King Tatsuya. Jeremiah smiled as it occurred to him that if he ever managed to get away to a land outside of King Tatsuya's reach then he could make either of them one of the Saints of his new religion and wouldn't that be a torment to their souls. It was enough to make him ignore just how sore hovering was beginning to make his shoulders.
Nanny Tatters began her in drawn death rattle... and then coughed, a great fluid sounding hack that seemed to come up from her very toes. Jeremiah drew his brows down as she coughed and coughed again. It all seemed rather put upon and he clenched his fist to remind her who was in command here and that she had better learn to stay obedient, if she didn't want to wind up as a permanently useless pile of bones.
Nanny Tatters flinched and whined as his Will bend her bones and bubbled through what was left of her mind with agony.
Behind her, Estella opened her mouth and vomited, vomited a huge black stream of oil that seemed impossible, its mass far out sizing what it should be possible for the girl to contain, even if her whole body was just a hollow container for what now poured out of her. It also continued without a break to grab a breath for much longer than it should have done if this was just an almighty stomach cramp. The crab back up, waving her about, the other claw trying to wipe the offending gunk from its eyes but it clung like tar as Estella gasped and gulped to get her breath back, struggling as the crab squeezed tighter.
The tar moved, bunching up in places, flowing in others, a face rising out of the mash of goo, a face of fury and blood lust wrapped up in the scales of a dragon that had defied death itself.
Crabs, it appears cannot, scream but it span and flailed as Valodrael grabbed the arm of the claw that was crushing Estella in a grip tight enough to crack its shell, the claws of his other hand latching on to the edge of its shell even while the rest of his spine and back legs were drawing together out of the pool of tar. The crab tried to clamp on to Valodrael's bulk with its other claw but the pincer just snipped through Valodrael's side time and again, the wound closing up with soft, wet noises, unnoticed in the dragon's fury. The crab waggled its legs in fright as one set were lifted off the ground and then a brutal set of cracks rang out as Valodrael twisted and wrenched its arm free of its socket, dragging connective tissue out of its shell as he did so. The claw spasmed open, dropping Estella to the floor, where she lay gasping, clutching her sore ribs. The crab managed a noise then, its remaining pincer battering the floor, a strange rasping sound coming up from inside it as Valodrael adjusted his grip around the edge of the wound where its leg had once been. He grinned as he started to pull the shell in two different directions with a slow deliberation. The crab flailed with desperation, the noise it was making becoming louder and then there was a sharp crack as its shell split along the seam between top and bottom. With a grizzly tearing rip punctuated by cracks, Valodrael opened the crab up like a book of flesh, exposing its quivering internals to the air, grinning the whole time, grinning like a rat trap, grinning like death itself.
"Cousin!" Quenril cried as the Ash Elf in questioning surfacing from the pile of crab salt that had collapsed on top of him. He was gasping and choking, crystal crusting his skin, jetting from his nostrils at every snort and cough, eyes streaming with tears that cut channels through the salt clinging to him but Tasnar laughed with relief as he helped pull his cousin out from under the mass of grains, the white stuff trickling out from every collar and cuff.
Kaelin rubbed a hand over her brow and then took a deep breath, unslinging Haggis and tucking the blow stick into her mouth. She started blowing into his bag, trying to focus on the tune she wanted to produce, a sleep soothing tune to lull the senses and calm the fray, to cast the others into sleep. She took a deep breath and squeezed Haggis' bag.
The hiccup came at precisely the wrong moment, interrupting the flow of air into Haggis' blow stick and with the pressure she'd just put on his bag it resulted in a serious case of back blow. Kaelin choked, trying to grab a breath but it felt as if her tongue had been forced backwards and was clogging up her throat. Her chest spasmed and heaved, eyes bulging, face turning purple as she tried and tried to shift her tongue, tried to breath. In her arms Haggis made an awful noise, some where between a squeal and a hiccup of his own.
With the slow but unstoppable pace of a glacier the coagulated slime squished out of the tunnel into the camp, closing in on where Estella lay prone. She looked up from nursing her aching ribs in time to have her vision filled by the sight of a corroded shield suspended in greenish jelly bubbling mere inches from her face.
She screamed, a high pitched, nerve shredding sound, throwing herself backwards as the surface of the jelly bulged towards her, clawing her way backwards on her butt until she was clear of its hissing, bubbling reach. She screamed again as it continued to hiss and bubble in her direction, the wood it oozed over beginning to dissolve within its bulging flowing mass, the fizz of its disintegration slowly rising through the slime's mass.
Thorian spat a stream of water as he stood back up in the stream, water draining out of his new armor in rivulets .
"I am not having fun!" he snapped, "I am am not having fun at all!" The crabs in the stream waved their claws at him, spreading them wide in a threat display that was supposed to terrify him. It didn't work. If anything it made it worse for them, spreading their guard wide. The first cracked down the middle, blue spilling into the water. The second was thrown across the stream to smash open against the rock wall, splattering across the stone. The last within his reach had its shell shattered like fragile glass, its body slumping into the water, its grip going slack.
"Thorian!" Ulrich snapped riding the crab up to the orc crossbreed, "Grab Estella and get on Weatherall's back here! The slime shouldn't like the water, especially if its as loaded with copper as Jeremiah said. Let's just get out of here." He turned to face the Ash Elves, Sabal still crusted with salt. "I say chaps, I think it was time we were gone; grab our packs, would you?"
Quenril nodded and turned to wade through the piles of salt to reach the camp fire, aiming for their packs, his kin flanking him. Meanwhile Thorian frowned.
"Er, who's Weath-er- all?" he asked.
"Weatherall," Ulrich smiled and nodded at the giant crab he was riding, "I seem to have a knack for taming the beasts of the Underworld. I'm beginning to wonder if my mother's people ever spent some time down here."
"More likely you have been blessed by the gods," Jeremiah called, "You should give thanks and praise them who have so richly blessed you."
"And I absolutely will," Ulrich called back, "The moment someone can tell me which god it is who is my patron."
"Well mine of course," Jeremiah replied, ignoring the fact his face was turning red with the effort of keeping air born. He'd never really had cause to regret his love of the lunch buffet before but now he was realizing why you never saw a fat bird that could fly. "My god healed you and guarded you. You should give praise to the Great Dragon."
"That remains to be seen," Ulrich muttered, shuddering as he turned away from what he could see behind Jeremiah. The thing may have been dragon shaped but there was something so subtly wrong about it, something that coiled in the purple flame that flowed round its limbs, something in the shine of its eye, that made the mind want to curl up and scream itself hoarse with terror. Ulrich definitely preferred Valodrael. Valodrael may look at you as if he wondered what you would taste like if he ate you but if you were friendly to Estella there was the way to keep him from giving in to that curiosity. That... That... That thing? There were no brakes, there were no breaks you could put on its mind. There was nothing you could barter, offer or trade with it to keep you life or indeed, your sanity. Part of Ulrich worried just how sane Jeremiah actually was.
Jeremiah hovered a little lower over the stream, watching the efforts with interest. Narrowing his eyes, he sent a mental command to Nanny Tatters. She lunged into the steam, water cresting up before her, which was probably what warned the crab to shift out of the way. Nanny Tatters' teeth clashed together but a mouthful of water was all her reward for her effort. Jeremiah frowned. She really was behaving very lack luster.
Estella scrabbled to her feet backing away and then spotted something. Taking her courage in both hands, she darted forward, grabbed Thorian's second boot before the slime could engulf it, snagged the strap of her satchel and scarpered for the edge of the stream. In the water the last of the crabs in the combat struck out at Nanny Tatters and managed to smack her across the face but missed the follow up grab to her neck, water churning to froth around their battling forms. Jeremiah came to a decision and shook back his sleeves, fingers tracing paths of power through the air as he chanted the words.
Ulrich turned and looked over is shoulder as a shadow fell across him.
"Holy buckets!" he exclaimed. Nanny Tatters was suddenly swelling to something half way approaching her original size, air and water being pushed out of the way as she expanded, one of her back feet lifting as she lengthened. "Holy buckets!" Ulrich exclaimed again, almost twisting Weatherall's eye stalk as he tried to make the crab understand it should shift its backside. Peter whistled shrilly as Nanny Tatters' foot came crashing down.
Weatherall switched leading side with almost ballet style grace, not only switching which way he was facing but also twisting both himself and his rider out from under the crushing ton weight of the crone dragon's limb.
"Good work, old boy," Ulrich risked losing his grip on one of the eye stalks to pat Weatherall's shell. He then surreptitiously rubbed his neck. If he was going to ride Weatherall a lot he was going to have to invest in a neck brace, that switch back move had nearly cracked his neck.
Nanny Tatters reared on to her back legs and then crashed down with all her weight. The last crab in the combat burst as her entire weight and force smashed down on its back, like a beetle crushed under foot. Pieces of shell ruptured outwards with such velocity that they broken the surface tension of the water to fountain into the air before pattering back down on the rippling water of the stream. Under the surface ropes of unspeakable things unspoiled in the water. Nanny Tatters performed a bouncing little dance, hoping from one diagonal set of feet to the other diagonal set in a move reminiscent of the dressage move piaffe but on the spot, feet flicking up a deep series of troughs and waves that slopped on to the shore.
Estella dodged passed the prancing dragon feet, ducked under the whisking tail, splashed through the shallows and scrambled up beside Ulrich on Weatherall's shell.
"And I thought my life couldn't get any more crazy," she observed to him, "One of these things tried to snip me in half and now I'm riding another. Remind me, when did I sign up for this craziness?"
"Probably when you decided to join the King's Special out of your own violation," Ulrich grinned.
"Fair point," Estella nodded.
Kaelin leaned against the wall, hacking hard enough to turn the whites of her eyes red, her face twisting as she fought for breath. She'd never been afraid of water before but now it felt like she was drowning without her head being under the surface. Haggis gave a worried drone, trying to help. Kaelin managed to drag a breath into her lungs but then they cramped again. Kaelin felt herself sliding towards the surface of the water and grabbed a nobble of rock to hold herself up.
Quenril and his kin dashed up to the camp fire, snagging not only their own packs but also the packs of the rest of the King's Special before the oozing jelly could engulf them. Well, except Jeremiah's as the vigor was already carrying that into the stream at its plodding pace. Tasnar cried out as the back of his hand brushed the surface of the jelly and the skin vanished with a stinking hiss.
With a roar Thorian dived forward and seized a pair of burning brands from the fire. Lunging he sank both of them deep into the heart of the jelly. With a hiss the fire was extinguished, the jelly flowing shocking speed up the wood towards Thorian's hands.
"Hate to break up the party," Ulrich called as he jockeyed Weatherall forward, "But it really is time to go!" As the Ash Elves made it to the stream behind them, Weatherall snatched Thorian round the waist and hefted him into the air. With his legs disappearing into a blur Weatherall slashed into the stream, herding the Ash Elves in front of him with his bulk and snatched up Kaelin in the other claw before her head could sink below the water.
"Peter, Marmaduke, follow us please good boys," Ulrich called, "Follow on, follow on."
Peter came with an irritated hissing. Despite his every effort he hadn't been able to snag a juicy crab dinner and he'd been pinged by flying crab shell for his troubles. And now his master had chosen to ride on the back of one of the dratted things. It was even worse than when he was riding that ridiculously noisy tin pot. Peter trundled along, hissing and whistling his ire quietly to himself, occasionally directing a particularly venomous insult at Marmaduke and muttering others at Weatherall. In short, he was not in a happy place.
Behind them the jelly oozed forward and flowed over Nanny Tatters' toes as her left foot rested on the bank. She swung her head round, gazing with dumb fascination as her claws started to bubble within the jelly's great bulk, apparently unconcerned about its attempts to eat her.
"Nanny Tatters, hear your master and move your foot!" Jeremiah ordered in exasperation. Really, why did he have to have servants that were so dull?
She swung her head back round to face him and Jeremiah felt a twinge of unease as her one great eye seemed to focus on him for a moment but then she slowly, very slowly lifted her foot clear of the jelly's mass. It hung on for as long as possible but then it had other things to worry about.
Valodrael drew in a rattling breath, the scourge of a winter blizzard over Arctic ice. Then he exhaled, the Chill of the Void echoing through the cave, breath of the King's Special pluming into the air as the temperature plummeted to below freezing, the fire dying, its paltry warm no match for the frigid touch of the space between the stars.
The coagulate jelly started trying to ooze towards Valodrael but its surface swiftly turned rigid, the swirls and whorls of jack frost crystals spreading faster than leprosy spots, quickly meeting at their edges and penetrating deeply into its internals. Some how Valodrael keep exhaling, the icy touch of the Void crackling through the air as the jelly rang and chimed with abrupt ice. Estella watched in amazement as she could see the jagged spires of ice piercing through the slime's translucent form, crossing and crisscrossing, layers of ice grinding together as it filled the slime to the limit, its surface bulging as internal pressure forced its way out.
Valodrael hissed one final breath of wintry cold and panted for a moment. The frozen slime tinkled as its new weight settled slightly. Valodrael snarled at it and lifted his left forefoot, bringing it up and across. With one almighty back hand he shattered the coagulated jelly, shards of ice spraying across the cave, splashing down in the stream, bouncing off of the walls, rattling like smashed glass as it tumbled across the stone, the corroded pieces of metal, the last relics of once brave heroes ringing and bouncing as they were finally released from their prison.
Valodrael snorted and turned away. He stopped and turned back. A claw raked through the shatter remains, flicking pieces of greenish white ice out of the way. He snagged what he had spotted out of the wreckage, lifting it twined round a couple of his claws. The silver shone as bright as the day it had been wrought and the emeralds where no worse for their time spent encased by the rippling internals of the jelly, casting bright green spots of light where the glow from the light stick Estella held up touched them with chemical fire. Valodrael hummed huskily in his throat, considering just how beautiful his hoard would look around Estella's neck. He turned to pace to where Ulrich had brought Weatherall to a halt in the stream, the human concerned for Kaelin's choking form as she still hadn't caught her breath properly.
Kaelin hung limp in Weatherall's claw, eyes glassy and unfocused, breath an alternative gasp and cough. Estella held up a light stick and rooted through her satchel, looking for something.
"Nanny Tatters?" Jeremiah called from where he watched Kaelin trying to not expire, "Would you be a dear and give our wolfish friend a little mouth to mouth?"
"Not..." Kaelin darkened with the effort of not coughing, "Not blasted likely!" Her eyes went crossed as she pressed her lips together, holding her breath as Nanny Tatter's paced closer.
"Try this," Estella held out a flask. Kaelin snatched it and gulped the contents. She coughed once and gasped, not only swallowing but also breathing in the vapors. She gasped again and then her breathing settled out.
"Thank you," she said, passing back the flask, voice thick with a blocked up nose, "Oh ow, oh." She groaned. Ulrich reached out a hand and pulled Weatherall's claw as close to his back as it was possible for it to go, helping Kaelin to step on to the crab's shell.
"Are you better?" he asked as she collapsed beside him.
"Been worse," she muttered, holding her head in her hands, "Oh, I've got a headache."
"Plenty of space to lie down," Ulrich noted.
"Thanks," Kaelin muttered and actually took his advice, stretching out along the back edge of Weatherall's shell with a groan, her color still blotchy with the effort her body had been through.
"Here," Estella leaned over the side of Weatherall, ducking a length of cloth in the icy water. She squeezed it out and folded it, laying it over Kaelin's brow.
"Thank you," Kaelin muttered, putting a hand over the cold pad.
"You're welcome," Estella said quietly, "It's nice to pay it forward."
Nanny Tatters suddenly stumbled as Valodrael snaked between her legs in the smallest size they had ever seen him only to suddenly grow huge, shouldering her back. The two dragons stood nose to nose, simmering violence snapping through the air between them, Valodrael's lips curling back, an unspoke threat. Nanny Tatters blinked and then backed down without being told to. Jeremiah frowned and mentally pushed into her mind, searching for any sign that she was developing a will of her own. He found only the rolling blankness of the mindless puppet, a dark fog of numbness and blank thought.
Valodrael also glared at her for a further moment before turning away.
"For you, my dear," he held up the chain of silver and emeralds that dangle loosely round the claws of his right 'hand'.
"Oh its lovely," Estella smiled and reached out for it, draping the loop of it over her head and letting it settle on her collar bones, "Thank you Val."
"Always my pleasure," he bowed his head to her. He noticed Ulrich watching them and winked.
"Smooth move," Ulrich whispered and looked away at the sound of Valodrael liquefying. He looked back to see Estella blinking Valodrael's darkness from her eyes. He shook his head. There went a very messy dynamic that he had given up trying to judge.
"Er," Thorian called, "Could you, er, get this thing to put me down. Please?"
"Oh sorry old bean," Ulrich smiled and reached out, tapping Weatherall's claw arm. The giant crab swiveled its freed eye to look at Ulrich, apparently weighing up its chances of maybe getting this collection of parasites off of its back.
"Um its squeezing tighter," Thorian complained. Ulrich squeezed its other eye stalk and Thorian relaxed a little as the pressure eased off. Ulrich tapped the arm again and this time Weatherall lowered his arm and released Thorian.
"Thankee muchly old chum," Thorian patted Weatherall's shell, "Well, what are we doing now?" He looked round at the cluster of the group on Weatherall's back, the three Ash Elves wading through the water and spared a glance for Jeremiah above.
"Might need a hat for that," he muttered.
"Here," Estella called to him, "I think this is yours." She held out his boot to him.
"Oh thankee muchly," Thorian grinned and leaned against the wall to pull it back on. The Ash Elves handed out peoples packs so that everyone was carrying their fair share again. Everyone save Jeremiah that was but the vigor puppet was still stumping along carrying the packet above its head as it forged through the water.
"Well, I don't any of us are going to be able to relax at that beach any more, so I say we more on," Ulrich observed.
"The scavengers will also be attracted to here, with so much death," Quenril noted, "We should make haste."
"Can the kervead's swim?" Ulrich asked, "Most of the mess we've made is in the water and up on the surface most insects can't swim."
"I have noticed that the kervead's haven't been swarming," Tasnar noted, "They should have cleared up the mess of the octopods, not have left them to smell so bad the following candle time." The cousins looked at their elective spokesman but for a moment, Quenril closed his eyes, his expression still as he fought to not give away his emotions.
"Would the kerveads that swarm in the chasm outside the Citadel of the Snake Clan be attracted to such a small offering?" he managed to say it like the Snake Clan where other people, not their family, not their people, "Would they be interested in such small pickings when a banquet lays before them? Would the Spider Clan willingly surrender the trading rights with the dwerg?"
Sabal and Tasnar looked at each other and then dropped their gaze, unwilling to say the answer.
"We must assume that the Spider Clan has faced the same trial that the Snake Clan did and they have fallen, much as we did," Quenril said, "So our only hope is now also the Lady's Kaelin's hope."
"You what?" Kaelin lifted the cold compress on one side so she could turn her head to look at him, while Tasnar and Sabal also frowned.
"If the Lady Kaelin can complete the forfeit in time and thus preserve her own life," Quenril explained, "If she can destroy the source of the curse affecting our stolen brethren and the women of the Clans then they may, may regain themselves. If this is true then we have the chance of them being able to control what they have become. We will never be who we were but we may have the chance of continuing on in a new way."
Tasnar looked down again as if he was seriously considering it. Sabal opened his mouth, an angry look in his eye but then his teeth clicked shut and he turned away, wrapping his arms around his chest, holding in the pain that change can bring.
"Good people," Jeremiah called, his face now rather florid with the effort of staying air born in one place, "As much as I love a good pity party, can we please make some progress today? I would like to find some where to land soon."
"He might have a point," Estella agreed. Everyone looked at her in astonishment but she simply raised her finger and pointed to where the remains of the squished crab leaked into the water. The crab that had scuttled down stream away from the fight after it had lost some of its legs had made its way back to the site of the battle and was delicately picking over the spilled remains of its one time brother in arms, pulling off pieces of crab fresh and feeding them into its mouth with the finicky motions of an epicure, mouth parts grinding away as its eyes stalks watched them.
"The light bugs might not being giving us trouble but how long before anything else that was down stream come to see what is leaking into the water?" she asked.
"That is singularly disturbing," Ulrich observed and then patted Weatherall's shell, "Onward Weatherall, onward.We few, we lucky few."
"We band of burgered," Kaelin muttered, lowering the cloth back over her eyes as they started out. The crab's shell was decidedly steady as it moved with its strange sideways gait. With the coolness easing her headache, it was almost...
A soft clap sounded but Kaelin could tell that no matter how quiet it was, quieter even than the beat of Jeremiah's new wings and the swish of the others walking through the water, that it was made by the movement of a large amount of air. It sounded again and then again. Kaelin rolled on to her elbow, catching the compress before it fell into the water.
Nanny Tatters backed up again and lunged at the tunnels opening her shoulders smacking into the walls of limestone as her claws scrabbled in the stream, trying to find enough traction to pull her into the tunnel. For a undead puppet, she seemed strangely desperate to keep up with them and then Kaelin remembered what Jeremiah had done to his doppelganger when Jeremiah the Second had displeased him.
"Your pet's in trouble," she called up to Jeremiah, dabbling the compress in the water and squeezing it out before laying back down and laying it over her eyes.
"Excuse me?" Jeremiah said.
"Your pet," Kaelin pointed without lifting the compress off of her eyes, "She's in trouble." Jeremiah frowned and looked to where Nanny Tatters was threatening to tear her new skin with her efforts to follow her master. Jeremiah tutted and breathed the prayer to his god. There was a thunder clap as something rather large became that much smaller, Nanny Tatters bounding through the water now that she was only pony sized again.
"Oh really," Ulrich sighed, water dripping from his hair on one side, "Did you have to let her do that?" Behind him, Estella moped her face and Kaelin snorted water from out of her nose.
"Oh why would I deny my servant the expression of how eager she is to please me?" Jeremiah asked as Nanny Tatters slowed to a walk underneath him, just before the waves of water she was kicking up splashed over the pack the vigor was carrying. Kaelin frowned before she covered her eyes again. That one was definitely developing signs of a higher ability to calculate her own survival than they had given Jeremiah's puppets credit for. Part of her wondered if the priest would be willing to give up his favored pet but then decided that it wasn't her problem. If Nanny Tatters was coming back to herself then it was not her business to tell Jeremiah that he needed to watch his back.
They pressed on through the tunnel, forging their way through the icy water, its green touch chilling to the feet, Jeremiah's wing beats ruffling the surface. After a while Estella let the talismans back out of the bag to gambol through the air, they cartwheeling forms even more lively than usual as they were back to being seven but careful to keep away from where Peter the centipede trundled along, his antennae feeling over the stone ahead of him. The purple frog settled on her shoulder and hummed quietly in her ear. Above the red cardinal lead the fliers in an exploration of the tunnels roof, fluttering round the eons worth of dripped stone, the new kirin galloping through the air at its side. The black bat cat rippled forward with feline grace, while behind it the phoenix drifted on wide spread wings, its trailing tail peacock wide and speckled with eyes of blue among the red of its feathers, occasionally admonishing the serpent with feathered wings that coiled round it in flight.
Estella smiled as she watched their antics, running her eyes over the strange rock of the tunnel, so smooth in some places it looked as if it had been worked and then in others so uneven were the drip of centuries had molded and shaped great spires and fans of rimstone. Above the run of the stream the drip and plop of water was a continuous chorus in the darkness that was broken only by the light stick that Thorian held up.
On and on they pushed into the dark.
They had stepped out in to the cavern before they had even realized it. Thorian held up the light stick but only the wall to their left was truly visible and in the dark shapes loomed ahead.
"Kaelin," Ulrich whispered, "Can you find a tube marked light, extra in your pack. I think we divided them up fairly evenly."
Kaelin didn't say anything but sat up and rooted through her pack.
"Here," she held it out.
"Hands full my dear," Ulrich point out, "Just point the blunt end away from yourself, as well as anyone else and pull the sting."
"Oh right," Kaelin nodded, remembering the night time fun they'd had at Black Randle's cabin in the woods. She rose to her knees on Weatherall's back and pointed the tube up into the dark. With a sharp yank she pulled the sting. On a tongue of chemical fire, the flare hissed up into the dark.
"Eye shield time," Ulrich ducked his head, "Marmaduke, cover my eyes." The automaton stamped forward through the water and clapped a bronze hand over Ulrich's face, the others copying, even Jeremiah.
Peter hissed with distress as the chemical sun burst into being and dashed back to the tunnel's roof on pure instinct.
Jeremiah ignored its cry of pain and swooped forward, the looming shapes having been revealed to be massive pillars of stone dividing the way ahead into three. He dived low over the water, eyes narrowed as he watched the color change that spoke of how deep the water was. He span round the pillars, wings beating with power.
"I am afraid that there is no point trying to stay with the water, my good people," he reported, "The source appears to be a tunnel but it is under the surface and I cannot tell how far it is until there is an air pocket. As much as I am sure that you are all as disappointed as I am, unless you can breath underwater, I believe that we should return to the tunnels that have dry floors."
Kaelin rolled her eyes at his tone but had to agree with him that diving into a tunnel where you had no knowledge of how long it was and whether there would be breathable air at the end of it.
"So center or left?" Ulrich asked. Jeremiah drew himself up in the air, flaring his wings wide. Gazing down he chanted a prayer, making Quenril and the other Ash Elves flinch and cower.
There was a boom as Nanny Tatters ballooned to full size, her pale, semi-translucent skin stretching to take the sudden change. She swayed for a moment and then shivered slightly before she settled. Jeremiah swooped over and settled on the top of her head, folding his wings after a couple of moments practicing and then sitting down cross legged, like a foreign prince in his howdah, his cushions the fleshy deadlocks that adorned Nanny Tatters head.
There were a lot of splashing from below and Jeremiah looked over the side of her skull to where Thorian and the Ash Elves were struggling to their feet in the water. Ulrich had his ridiculous giant crab down there as well, all of the riders looking some what soggy. Kaelin seemed to have lost that absurd cold compress of hers. Really, people were so willing to over indulge the mongrel. She looked up at him and spat out a thin stream of water, her gaze most decidedly unfriendly. Peter the centipede hissed from where he hung on to the wall of the cavern, his trailing end segments decidedly damp.
With a smile Jeremiah turned his face away and pointed to the middle path, ignoring the burning pain beginning to build in his shoulders. It was embarrassing to even think that he may need to lose some weight to make this flying lark possible.
"Forward, pet, forward," he commanded. Nanny Tatters strode forward, feet leaving massive waves in her wake that chopped back and forth across the cavern, threatening to swamp everyone else traveling. When he looked down again everyone, even those sat on Weatherall's shell were holding their packs above their heads to keep them from being soaked by the water. Today was just getting better and...
Nanny Tatters lurched, collapsing up to her left shoulder in the water, nearly bucking Jeremiah off sideways and heaving up the water as her bulk slammed down into it.
"Brace yourselves!" Ulrich yelled, letting go of Weatherall's eye stalks and grabbing the front edge of his shell. Kaelin also grabbed the edge of the shell, where as Estella wrapped her arms around Ulrich, all of their packs swinging side ways as they had only time to loop their arms through a strap or two. Thorian and the Ash Elves had nothing at all, their yells literally drowning in the surge of water. Estella yelled as Weatherall proved to have a skill they hadn't expected, kicking off from the floor and spreading his legs out flat to either side, his claws in alignment to make water wings that lifted them up the face of the wave and over the top.
There was a thunder clap sound as the wave smacked into the tunnel entrance and forced its way through, dying off in a gurgle that echoed round the cavern. Weatherall waggled and then his feet found the floor under the water again. The echoes died away.
Estella, water running from her clothes, rose to one knee on Weatherall's back, looking round, mouth slightly open, eyes wide.
"Erm," she started, "Guys? Where's..."
Thorian burst through the surface, coughing and spluttering, face dark with fists clenched.
"Where is that fool!?!" he roared, "Where is that blue nosed dangleweed!?!"
Estella breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as she realized that Thorian had picked up her favorite cuss.
"Your favorite cuss?" a voice in her head asked her, "I think you'll find that it was mine first."
"And seeing as you are sharing my head, surely it's shared property by now?" Estella continued to smile. She frowned as no replied was forth coming. Her heart sank.
"Val?" she questioned slowly.
"Well done," she could feel his smile, "That is the first time you haven't apologized for something like that." The pride was unmistakable. Estella felt the warm flow into her cheeks but it wasn't a bad feeling.
"I said, where is that dangleweed!?!" Thorian roared again.
"Please Sir Thorian," Quenril called in a muted tone from where he was helping Tasnar to his feet, "Lower your voice. Some of the rock formations can snap of during loud sounds."
"What?" Thorian asked and looked up at the ceiling, "Ah, okay. I'll be quiet."
Out of sight, Jeremiah was pulling himself back up on top of Nanny Tatters' off kilter head, yanking on the fleshy dreadlocks and taking the time to slap her across the face with an out flung wing.
"Stupid oaf," he muttered, "Straighten up!"
With a sucking sound Nanny Tatters dragged her arm out of the pot hole that had been deep enough to swallow her to the shoulder.
"Marmaduke, hold Weatherall still!" Ulrich commanded. The automaton lunged forward and grabbed Weatherall's back legs as the water rushed back into the hole, dragging everything with it. Thorian grabbed Sabal's collar as the elf lost his footing. With a slurp the water stilled.
"Chunky dunking," Kaelin observed.
"Indeed," Jeremiah said, his mouth twisting like he'd just bitten down on a lemon as he settled himself on Nanny Tatters head again. "Forward!"
"I say old chum, is that really a good..." Ulrich called.
Nanny Tatters stepped off the edge of the rock shelf that was hidden under the water, wallowing into the pool, her whole chest crashing down into lake, water sheeting up either side of her and a swell racing across the cavern to bounce off the far wall and come racing back. Nanny Tatters, already afloat simply rode up and over it but it rolled on towards the rest of the King's Special.
"Surf's up!" Ulrich yelled as the wall of water barreled towards them.
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