Extinction

Chapter Thirty

When Ryld saw the metal object peeking out of the snow, he thought it was another bit of battlefield debris. Corroded and pieced with black spots, the brooch looked centuries old. Then the shape of the piece caught his eye. Quickly he stooped to pick it up, then winced as something on the brooch stung his hands. Holding the brooch by the edges, he sniffed, and caught an acrid odor. Acid?

Turning the brooch over confirmed his guess. Only portions of it looked ancient. The clasp on the back was undamaged, and sections of the metal were still brightly polished. It was no battlefield remnant.

He peered at it more closely, trying to make out what design had been on the front of it. When he at last confirmed his guess, he shuddered.

It was Halisstra’s brooch—the insignia that marked her as a noble daughter of House Melarn. Something must have surprised her, out on the wind-blasted plain. Had she been wearing the brooch on her piwafwi? If so, she might have been injured when whatever had aged the metal had struck her.

Searching the ground carefully, Ryld saw none of the usual signs of a struggle. Two deep footprints and a mark made by the hem of a piwafwi showed where Halisstra had squatted for a time, and a confused overlapping of footprints showed where she had whirled rapidly around, but there were no other prints in the snow.

Had she been attacked from above? Ryld imagined a black dragon swooping down on Halisstra, blasting her with its acid breath, and shuddered. But, no, that didn’t seem to be the answer. Aside from Halisstra’s footprints, the snow was undisturbed. Flapping wings would have stirred it up with their downdraft, and a black dragon’s breath would have left spray marks in the snow.

It must have been a ghost—perhaps one similar to the officer Ryld had encountered—or some other noncorporeal creature that had startled Halisstra. Whatever it was, it seemed to have done no more than destroy her brooch. Halisstra had moved away at a walking stride in a straight line to the south. The trail she’d left was as before, normal and unremarkable.

No … not quite. About a pace to the right of Halisstra’s footprints was an irregular line of dimples in the snow, as if something had dripped onto it—but not blood, Ryld saw with relief as he stooped to examine them. There was no trace of red, and the droplets were very small. Bending closer, he sniffed and caught the same faint, acrid odor. Cautiously, he touched a callused fingertip to one of the holes, held it there a moment, then jerked it back when he felt a slight sting.

Acid.

Wiping his finger, he considered. If Halisstra had run into a malevolent spirit, it certainly had a strange way of manifesting itself. Ryld had once encountered a ghost that left smears of blood on the ground wherever it walked—the ghost of a man whose throat had been slit. Had the spirit that confronted Halisstra—assuming that’s what it was—been killed by acid?

Whatever had made the droplet trail in the snow, Halisstra had followed it. Her footprints overlaid the holes in several places. Grimly, Ryld followed the trail.

It didn’t lead far. After about five hundred paces, Ryld spotted a black, gaping hole in the snowy ground. About three paces across, it looked as though it had been punched open from below. A scatter of rock and loose earth encircled it. Halisstra’s footprints led to the edge of the hole, paused—then continued, as if she had descended into its depths. The trail of droplets also led to the hole’s edge.

Drawing Splitter, Ryld crept forward, studying the ground. The hole sloped down into the earth at a gentle angle. Scuffs in the snow showed where Halisstra had placed her feet on the slope, but the droplets ended at the hole’s edge. Whatever had led her to the hole hadn’t gone inside.

Squatting at the edge of the hole, the weapons master used the point of his sword to prod the debris that had been thrown up around it. The soil was frozen solid. The pit had been created some time ago.

Cocking an ear to the hole, Ryld listened, but if Halisstra was moving around down in the black depths it was impossible to near her above the moan of the wind. Snow had started to fall again. The flakes landed feather-light upon his head, then melted, sending trickles of icy water down his neck. His breastplate was cold even through the padded tunic he wore and his vambraces creaked each time he moved his arms. At least the tunnel would provide shelter from the wind and snow.

Clambering over the lip of the hole, Ryld cautiously descended the slope. Frost on the floor of the tunnel made the footing tricky for the first dozen paces or so, but after that it widened out, and the floor was clear. As his eyesight adjusted to the darkness inside, he saw that the tunnel forked. One path led off to the left, another straight down.

Knowing that Halisstra’s only means of levitating had been her brooch, Ryld chose the left fork. He was relieved to see, after a pace or two, six pebbles that had been set on the ground to form a triangle, pointing out of the tunnel. Halisstra had indeed gone that way—and she’d left a marker to guide herself back out.

Ryld walked briskly for some time, following a more or less horizontal course for some distance but not in a straight line. Instead the tube snaked back and forth in a series of wide, gentle turns, often doubling back over itself again. At each of those junctions Ryld paused and searched carefully and found a triangle of pebbles. Thanks to Halisstra’s marks he was able to make good time.

Eventually the cave veered off in a fairly straight line for nearly a thousand paces, only to abruptly bend downward at a steep angle. There, Ryld paused. He’d been trying to decide what would have created such a sinuously curved tunnel. He’d once seen Pharaun use a spell to bore a path through stone, but the end result had been lance-straight and oval, with walls whose stone looked highly polished. The tunnel he’d followed Halisstra into was round, and rougher, with occasional jagged-edged niches that looked like something had taken a bite out of the wall, and its floor was littered with patches of loose stone. Bending to examine one of those, Ryld saw that the stones were rounded, like river stones, but pitted. Mixed in with them were fragments of metal—scraps of armor from the battlefield above—that looked as if they had been tumbled in a stone-polishing drum filled with acid instead of water. The edges of the metal were smooth, yet the metal itself was deeply pitted and crumbled when Ryld stepped on it.

Ryld stood again and tightened his grip on Splitter. The cave hadn’t been created by magic; it had been bored through the rock by a living creature.

He’d been praying that it was an ancient pathway, and not freshly made, but the lingering smell of acid in the air told him otherwise. The fact that the odor was getting stronger the farther along he went didn’t bode well. And if he was right in his guess about what kind of creature had made the tunnel, Halisstra shouldn’t have been facing it alone.

Cautiously, Ryld picked his way down the slope ahead. He moved slowly at first, aware that any tiny avalanche of stone caused by a misstep could alert the creature below to his presence, but halfway down his ears caught a faint noise: the sound of a woman singing. His heartbeat quickened as he recognized the voice as Halisstra’s. She was casting one of her bardic spells—but why? Was it merely in preparation for what was to come, or was she already under attack? Grimly, he hurried forward, not caring that his feet were skidding on the ever-steepening slope.

Ahead, the bottom of the tunnel opened into a larger space, a cavern that looked as though it had been formed by the tunnel coiling back upon itself several times in succession as the creature created a nest for itself. The patch of floor that Ryld could see was dotted with puddles, and the acid smell was strong.

Moments later, he neared the bottom of the slope and saw that his guess had been correct. At the far end of the cavern was an enormous purple worm, larger even than Ryld had expected—perhaps thirty paces long. It was coiled like a snake, its head lifted and mouth gaping wide, acid dripping between teeth the size of daggers. Halisstra stood just in front of it with her back to Ryld, songsword in hand, staring the monster down. The charm spell she was singing seemed to be working. The worm swayed in time with the tune, its tiny eyes fixed and staring. Ryld felt a fierce admiration. Halisstra was the epitome of a drow female: strong and fearless, capable of handling any threat.

Wary of disturbing her magic, Ryld halted at the bottom of the slope. He managed to do so without making any noise, but when he stepped forward into the room his ankle twisted as an acid-weakened stone crumbled underfoot. His foot slipped into a puddle of fresh acid—fortunately, his boot leather protected him—but the slight splash alerted Halisstra to the fact that she was no longer alone in the cavern. Her head jerked quickly around—just long enough to see who it was—and a startled look passed across her face. All the while she continued to sing without pause, but the momentary loss of eye contact with the purple worm broke the spell. Whipping its head from side to side, sending acidic spittle flying in all directions, it shook off the effects of the charm spell. Then it struck.

Lunging downward, mouth gaping wide, the worm descended on Halisstra. She barely had time to lift her sword and thrust upward with it as her head and shoulders disappeared into the worm’s mouth.

Ryld leaped forward, shouting to draw the creature’s attention. He saw the broken point of the songsword thrust jaggedly out at an angle through the worms cheek, just below one eye, but the creature seemed unaffected by the wound. Even though Ryld ran forward with all the speed his magical boots were capable of, the worm was quicker. Like a curtain falling the mouth continued to descend upon Halisstra, engulfing her to the chest, waist, and knees. Then the terrible purple-black jaws struck the ground on either side of Halisstra’s boots—and clamped shut.

Ryld closed with the creature a heartbeat later. He swung Splitter with all of the strength his sinewy arms could muster, intending to cut off the monsters head, but in that instant he heard Halisstra’s muffled scream from inside the worm’s gullet and saw a bulge moving down its throat. Worried that he would slice Halisstra in two as well, he twisted the sword aside in mid-swing. The blade struck a coil of the worm, cutting deeply into its purple hide and exposing the pinker flesh beneath.

The worm writhed in agony, uncoiling with such swiftness that it crashed into Ryld, hurling him backward. Anyone other than a master of Melee-Magthere would have been knocked flat, but Ryld had been trained to keep his footing. One of the first things he’d learned as a novice was how to roll his body with a blow and use feet, knees, and elbows to spring upright again.

As the worm continued to thrash he rolled nimbly back, then leaped forward again to strike a second blow in another portion of the worm’s body. As the monster’s head whipped around in an attempt to bite him, Ryld did the unexpected. He leaped backward, and levitated.

The worm’s mouth crashed down into the spot where Ryld had been standing, teeth splintering on the stone floor. An instant later the head reared up again, mouth gaping as it lunged upward. Instantly negating his levitation magic, Ryld plummeted to the ground, landing lightly on bent legs and bounding aside. That brief glimpse into the worm’s mouth and throat—which were empty—told him that his fears had been realized.

The monster had swallowed Halisstra whole.

Rage seized him then, stronger and fiercer than any battle had ever provoked before. He found himself howling in an anguished voice, eyes hot with tears.

“Halisstra!” he cried.

Rushing forward, he slashed at the worm’s throat. If only he could kill it quickly, there might still be time to cut Halisstra free before the worm’s digestive acids killed her—she would be disfigured, but she would live. And that was all that mattered.

Howling with each sword stroke, Ryld slashed deep rents in the worm’s body. The creature had enough intelligence—instinct at least—to jerk its head and neck back, keeping them out of range of the sword, but with each fresh wound to its side it slowed. Encouraged, Ryld pressed his attack home, aware that each passing moment was lessening Halisstra’s chances. Stupidly, the worm lowered its head, giving Ryld a clear swing at its throat. Moving forward, he obliged it—then realized a heartbeat later that it had been a clever feint.

Even as Ryld leaped in to attack, the worm whipped its tail forward, revealing a stinger in its tail that Ryld hadn’t seen before. The stinger glanced off the bottom of Ryld’s breastplate and plunged into his stomach with the force of a knife blow, burying itself in his gut. Nearly blinded by the sudden rush of pain, he flailed backward, pulling himself free of the deadly barb. For two or three staggering steps he managed to hang onto Splitter, but with the pain of the wound came a rush of agony that felt like fire, sweeping in an instant from his wounded gut to the tips of his fingers and toes. In that terrible moment, Ryld knew that he had been poisoned. Suddenly too weak to hold his greatsword, he let it fall.

He heard the clank of metal striking stone dimly, through ears filled with the sound of a labored, pounding heart. The pain was as intense as if someone had filled his gut with boiling water. He crashed to the ground, barely managing to break his fall with one outstretched arm. Clenching his stomach with his other hand he slowly forced his head up, intending to look the worm in the eye before it swallowed him whole.

At least, he thought as the poison pounded in his temples, he would pay with his own life for having caused Halisstra to lose hers. He would die beside her—a slow, painful death was exactly what he deserved.

To his surprise, he saw that the worm was not pressing its attack but had drawn back against the far wall. He must have wounded it more grievously than he’d thought. Then, to his horror, he saw a bulge form in the worm’s side—and disappear. A bulge that could only have been made by a creature moving inside it.

Halisstra! She was still alive!

He saw that the tip of the songsword was still protruding from the worm’s cheek and he realized she had nothing to save herself with.

Ryld tried to rise, tried feebly to reach for Splitter, but found that his body no longer obeyed his will. Each breath only increased the roiling agony in his gut, and the air around him seemed to have become tinged with gray. The arm he was using to support himself collapsed, and the floor rushed up to strike his face. The stone, he noticed dully, felt cool against his burning cheek.