Conquest Unbound, page 6
Two heads lashed at him before he could retreat. Yanking the reins, he spiralled to the left, darting under the maw while thrusting up, his trident flashing with blinding speed. Golden light flared as it punched through the coiling neck of the first head. The other twisted close, lashing up at Ishcetus’ underside, but the deepmare’s tentacles wrapped around it, grappling with it to prevent its bladed mandibles from inflicting anything more than surface wounds. The first head coiled away with a shriek, and Cycladaean angled his trident down, thrusting again, punching two prongs clean through the beast’s lamprey mouth.
A third and fourth head surged in simultaneously, and Cycladaean spurred Ishcetus forward. The deepmare detached itself and hurtled towards the central mass of the monster. Cycladaean skewered the third head with a lightning-quick thrust while the bladed mandible of the fourth tore through his cloak and clanged off his breastplate with staggering force. Nearly knocked from his saddle, he twisted, bringing his trident up and over his mount to strike on the opposite side, landing another thrust into the fourth writhing maw.
His heart thundered as his blood roared through his ringing ears. The thrill of battle was upon him, and he experienced that moment of perfect focus one could only feel when in a situation where one wrong movement would mean certain death. He thrust again towards the main body of the monster, stabbing into yet another mouth, bizarrely leering from the beast’s chest.
The larger, jawed head reared up, and Cycladaean instinctively pulled Ishcetus away. The deepmare’s tentacles were coiled around another maw, which ravenously thrashed up towards his mount’s underside. He thrust down as Ishcetus broke free, skewering the maw and forcing it away, giving himself room to manoeuvre.
He pulled the reins, giving another rearing head a savage thrust as Ishcetus propelled itself upward and away from the monster. The kharibdyss howled again, and while Cycladaean certainly felt the impact, its effects were lessened thanks to his retreat.
Free from immediate danger, he locked his gaze onto that of King Akhamar, who stared back, a cold snarl curling across his features. Cycladaean returned the expression and spurred Ishcetus into another charge, directly towards Akhamar.
The king had left him to die. They’d had the perfect opportunity. Together, they could have ended the beast. But it would seem that King Akhamar had an ulterior agenda, just as Saranyss had warned. Cycladaean was not about to meekly ignore the obvious.
As Cycladaean hurtled closer, the king and his retinue realised what was happening, and began to raise their weapons to receive the charge. Scores needed to be settled, and so Cycladaean angled his trident as Ishcetus propelled him through the ethersea towards his rival. He saw Akhamar’s eyes widen. Whether it was from fear, shock or anticipation, it did not matter. It was immeasurably satisfying. Cycladaean yanked the reins back, and Ishcetus’ finned tentacles splayed out, halting the charge but a few strokes from Akhamar.
He would not shed the blood of his fellow idoneth, not unless he had to. A false charge would be enough of a message. He would not bow meekly to the unsubtle games of the Dhom-hain. It was clear enough why Akhamar and his allies had not lent him their aid, and Cycladaean would leave no doubt that he would repay any further treachery with his own righteous retribution.
False charge aside, there were things that needed to be said, and Cycladaean’s rage would be vented. ‘Scheming coward!’ he roared. ‘We had a chance to slay the beast, and you spoil it for your own petty schemes!’
Akhamar snarled something back, but Cycladaean could not hear it over the thundering of his own heart. A pair of morrsarr guard approached, their crackling lances lowered in threat. Halos of biovoltaic energy sizzled around their undulating mounts.
Sound returned in a disorienting rush, and Cycladaean grit his teeth at the pain reverberating through his skull. He braced his trident, ready to meet the morrsarr guard should they dare attack him.
Akhamar raised his hand, his expression curled into a sneer visible through his visor. ‘Your charge against the beast was most inspiring, outsider. We simply did not wish to steal your glory…’
‘Oh, I’m certain of that,’ Cycladaean spat, his face curled into a rictus as an icy flush of rage coursed through his veins. ‘I’m sure my glory was your chief concern, coward.’ Dimly, Cycladaean realised insulting the king in front of his retinue might not be the wisest idea, but at that moment, he did not care. He glanced back, taking his eyes from Akhamar and his guards for a moment to see the kharibdyss throw itself off the slope of the continental rise in an avalanche of dust and oozing debris. The allopexes broke off their pursuit, and darted back towards the rest of the hunters.
Akhamar and his steed lurched forward in a threatening manner, but Cycladaean did not flinch. The king pointed with his glaive.
‘Insult me again, outsider, and I will cull your treasonous tongue by removing your head. I gave you an opportunity to prove your honour in battle against the beast alone. But you were the one who fled like a coward.’
Cycladaean’s lips curled into a sneer as he let out a cold, caustic laugh. ‘Go on, king, try to take my head.’ He twisted his trident in his grip, and pointed it at Akhamar once more. At their proximity, Pontumahár’s prongs almost touched the serrated tip of the king’s glaive.
The morrsarr guard circled around, and a chorus of whispers went through the akhelian, but they hardly distracted Cycladaean. He knew enough of the Dhom-hain. If a duel was coming, they would not intervene.
The oncoming bulk of the leviadon, approaching from below, did cause him to pull back, however. Its speed was not aggressive, but it was more than enough for both deepmares to part and give it room.
‘Fools! All of you!’ Saranyss shouted from atop the leviadon’s howdah, now at the level of the rest of the hunters. She glanced between Cycladaean and Akhamar. ‘We fight for the safety of Rúndhar and you choose to turn this into a dispute!’ She rounded on the king. ‘Callous and cowardly! Issue a duel in court or send assassins in the night tides, but do not jeopardise the hunt you declared to be so sacred!’
Cycladaean pulled Ishcetus further away. He didn’t know whether or not Saranyss had true authority over Akhamar, but he respected her open rebuke of the king nonetheless. He felt the rage slip away, funnelling into the black, cold void in which all unwanted emotion went to die. When Saranyss turned to Cycladaean, he gave her a nod of acquiescence, and retreated, already following the beast’s path of carnage to the continental shelf. He would be the one to set the example, to set aside their differences, and return to the hunt. Such would play into his endgame.
As the other hunters rallied and followed, the leviadon took up position in the fore of the hunting party. Cycladaean shared a glance with Saranyss. He’d only sought to put the fright of his retribution into Akhamar. That much seemed to have worked, at least. Perhaps now, the Dhom-hain would be more wary of him.
When Akhamar gave the order to begin the descent and pursue the beast deep into the Halosheen Void, Cycladaean waited, ensuring that the other hunters were well ahead of him before doing the same. Beast or no beast, he would not show his back to an enemy again. And now, it seemed, he was surrounded by enemies.
The tracks of the beast scrambled down the oozing slope of the aeons-buried caldera that was the Halosheen Void. The descent was steep, and Cycladaean wondered how the kharibdyss had managed to drag itself up the slopes before.
With the party’s descent slowed by Saranyss’ intense efforts to keep the unbearable pressure of the hadal depths at bay, Cycladaean took the time to lean forward and inspect Ishcetus’ wounds. The deepmare’s movements were ever so slightly slowed by the slashes it had taken, but he knew the beast would not allow itself to be hindered by such minor injuries when the hunt was on once more.
Eventually, the slope flattened into a wide, alien landscape of smoking fissures and overgrown thickets of giant crimson-blooming tubeworms. Boulder-like, slimy stromatolite mounds grew along the edges of glimmering brine pools that eerily resembled the glassy surfaces of the ponds and lakes Cycladaean had seen during the surface raids he’d joined. The ethersea became warmer, and the volcanic fissures became more commonplace as the kharibdyss’ tracks led towards some form of mountain looming in the distance, obscured by the hadal murk.
‘The beast must have its lair in a cavern somewhere within that mountain,’ one of the akhelian called.
But the mountain was not, in fact, a mountain. During Cycladaean’s first foray into the seas of Ghur, he had trodden the warmer Atleus Ocean, and visited the court of the Nautilar. The ‘mountain’ before them bore a close resemblance to the gargantuan being upon which the Nautilar enclave had built its capital. This one was much smaller, but the resemblance was enough for Cycladaean to realise it was the same type of creature.
It was a scaphodon, and by the looks of it, it was aeons dead.
Cycladaean’s jaw tightened as the ossified husk of the immense, many-limbed isopod came into clearer view. The shell of the beast was half a league long, and almost a quarter-league high. The massive bony segments of its dorsal armour were overgrown with a forest of spindly, pale bryozoans, while dozens of massive crustaceanoid limbs, each as thick as a leviadon, jutted from its side. Beneath the flanged protrusions of its upper armour, gargantuan gill-vents were overgrown by drooping, bioluminescent marine lichen.
The rear section of the scaphodon husk had sunk into a network of fissures, putting one of the gill-holes at the relative level of the seabed. The beast’s tracks led inside, into what was undoubtedly a claustrophobic warren that would favour the kharibdyss, rather than the hunters.
Cycladaean shot a caustic glare at Akhamar. ‘I trust your plan to allow the beast to escape to more favourable ground was deliberate?’
‘Silence, you conniving parasite!’ Akhamar hissed. ‘Your words of division have cut deep enough, even out here! If you speak again, I will sever your head, if only to silence your lies!’
‘I’ll give you one swing, before I obliterate your soul with the light of Teclis’ judgement,’ Cycladaean replied, a cold smile twisting his lips. He raised his trident as his grip on Ishcetus’ reins tightened. Pontumahár glowed with savage intensity. ‘In all the courts I have visited, I have never encountered an akhelian as stubborn and regressive as you. Would you wish your people to degenerate into the very beasts we hunt? Into little more than predator or prey? Has Ghur twisted you so?’
The morrsarr guard shifted their position at the insult, curling around Cycladaean’s flanks. Cycladaean smirked, seeing the eyes of the fangmora riders around him. They had once looked upon him with arrogant disdain. The dismissal of a weakling outsider, hiding behind extravagant colours, too soft to ever match one of the Dhom-hain. But now he saw hesitation in their eyes. They saw an outsider that had fought alone against an unknown terror of the deeps. They saw an outsider who openly defied their king, who stood alone against the shoals of foes surrounding him, unblinking and unafraid.
The intensity in their eyes, swallowing their hesitation, told him enough of what was coming. They were going to try and kill him. Saranyss’ warning had not been an unlikely scenario. He did not know whether she knew, or merely suspected, but it was enough. He could see it. The other hunters had instructions to slay him at King Akhamar’s command. The predatory glances he’d received should have warned him prior, but Cycladaean had refused to believe that the Dhom-hain would stoop so low. Even after they’d left him to die against the kharibdyss, he had refused to accept such a possibility. But now he could see their anticipation. Confrontation was coming. And they were afraid of it.
Cycladaean did not let his revelation show. He would play the fool, and ensure that these unsubtle assassins would not gain the advantage they thought they had. Instead, he gestured with his trident towards the half-buried gill-vent the beast had slithered into. He took a diplomatic tone.
‘Or we can finish what we set out to do, and settle our differences later…’
Akhamar stared at him, unblinking hate burning in his gaze, but he said nothing. He spurred his deepmare forward into the gaping tunnel in the scaphodon’s porous exoskeleton, leading the hunting party deep into the gloom of the long-dead behemoth’s innards.
Cycladaean followed just as soon as the other hunters entered, smiling to himself. He would not let them strike at him first.
Inside, the same bioluminescent lichen illuminated the petrified tunnels, while giant, gaunt anemones reached out for them with slimy, translucent tentacles. The tunnels were wide enough for most of the bond-beasts, but there was no way for the leviadon to fit. As such, Saranyss and her beast remained outside, where she could channel the ethersea into the scaphodon husk.
Moving through the labyrinthine warren, they emerged into a massive hollow cavern. Ribbed and vast, it was several hundred strokes across, at least, and blooms of pale bryozoans grew like fanned branches from almost every surface, while veritable drapes of lichen hung like tentacles from the ceilings and walls. Eviscerated pieces of all manner of benthic creatures littered the glassy brine pools dominating most of the chamber’s floor, eerily preserved alongside the desiccated remains of countless smaller crustaceans and fish. Dozens of tunnels branched away in every direction, and Cycladaean realised that the kharibdyss could be hidden within any of them.
‘Fan out, seeker shoal!’ Akhamar commanded.
In response, the morrsarr guard split into small groups, channelling their mounts’ biovoltaic energy into crackling electrical fields that would allow them to flush any hiding creatures out from whatever cover they might find. The allopexes joined the search, relying on their acute sense of smell, and the keen eyes of the huntresses riding them.
Cycladaean panned his gaze across the cavern, directing Ishcetus as close to the ceiling as he could. He glared at Akhamar. Now they had to hunt the kharibdyss in its own territory. Every brine pool, every tunnel and every clump of overgrown mess could contain the beast. Nowhere was safe. Cycladaean was not about to risk his own life to sniff out the beast, for he was certain that when the ambush came, it would be the death of whomever was nearest to it. He’d let someone else be the live bait.
But his thoughts were cut short, for the ambush came sooner than any had expected.
The kharibdyss erupted from one of the lightless, brine-flooded tunnels directly beneath one of the allopexes, voraciously tearing into its prey with all five of its maws. One of the mounted huntresses loosed a single retarius net into its midsection prior to being skewered in the throat by a descending mandible. The allopex thrashed, sinking its dagger-like teeth into one of the serpentine necks, tearing a gaping wound in it before being eviscerated by the other maws.
Akhamar, the next nearest to it, drew his deepmare away from the monster as clouds of brine and crimson haloed around its thrashing form.
‘Dhom-hain!’ the king roared, raising his glaive. ‘Carcinclaw formation!’
It was all the cue the hunters needed.
The gunner on the remaining allopex loosed a harpoon, the missile piercing deep into the beast’s rubbery flank and eliciting another shriek as a trio of morrsarr guard rushed in, their hooked spears crackling with biovoltaic energy as they drew the beast’s attention. Two other groups of fangmora riders darted in from the flanks while Akhamar followed the first group into the charge.
Cycladaean did the same, but arced wide, following one of the flanking parties. Even with the threat of the beast present, he would not show his back to the other hunters.
The first trio of morrsarr guard darted in. Two of the riders deftly evaded the thrashing heads to deliver keening strikes with their biovoltaically charged spears, sending the beast reeling away, its wounds sizzling. The third rider was engulfed, mount and all, by the primary head, which had already consumed much of the allopex and one of the huntresses.
As the survivors of the first group of morrsarr coiled away, deftly avoiding their flanking compatriots, the beast howled again. The ear-splitting roar tore through the ethersea, crippling the fangmoras and sending Akhamar’s deepmare staggering back. Cycladaean had kept his distance this time, recognising the telltale signs of the imminent howl before it happened. The kharibdyss tore into one of the flanking groups of morrsarr guard, eviscerating all three of them in a matter of moments.
As the roiling mess of debris, blood and brine shrouded the beast once more, Cycladaean cursed, realising that their advantage might again be lost. Rushing in alongside Akhamar, he pierced its halo, and caught a glimpse of its rapidly closing wounds before putting the full force of his momentum into a singular thrust, impaling Pontumahár’s prongs deep into the gullet of one of the beast’s heads. Ishcetus’ tentacles coiled around another head to immobilise it as Cycladaean twisted in his saddle and thrust again, spearing another head while Akhamar’s glaive scythed through another throat.
Blinded by a fountain of black blood, Cycladaean barely registered another akhelian darting in, his crackling lance skewering the beast in the flank only moments before the monster’s pronged tail lashed out in retaliation, impaling the rider and his eel.
The kharibdyss staggered back, three of its heads lolling uselessly as it thrashed away, howling in what sounded like pain. While the noise was less debilitating, Ishcetus recoiled nonetheless, narrowly avoiding another swipe of the kharibdyss’ spiked tail. Akhamar’s steed, similarly stunned, was not so lucky, and three of the tail spines pierced its flanks, knocking it and Akhamar away. The king sagged in his saddle, clearly dazed.
Cycladaean wasted no time. The beast was wounded, and it was dragging itself into one of the brine-filled tunnels where they could not follow. If it escaped now, it might regenerate, and Cycladaean did not want to know if it could regain control of its crippled heads. He knew it had to have a weakness, and he realised that such would either be its larger head, or its centre of mass. He could only guess.
