Wilderness Double Edition 15, page 14
The creatures began talking in their guttural language, grunts, hisses, and trilling so alien as to make Lou want to cram her fingers in her ears to keep from hearing it.
Her abductors unexpectedly halted.
Lou could see trees and a nearby knoll. Several of the NunumBi squatted and roved their hands over the ground. To Lou, it looked as if they started to peel the top layer of sod back. A dank, earthy scent wafted to her nose as she was borne to the edge of a gaping cleft and the creatures started down.
Lou remembered the Shoshone legends, how the NunumBi lived deep underground. They were taking her into their realm! She knew that once they did, any chance of escape was gone. So she resisted, bucking and swinging her whole body from side to side. It earned her a cuff on the jaw that almost knocked her out.
Through swimming senses Lou saw the stars high above, saw them recede farther and farther as she was carried deeper and deeper into the domain of the demons. Choking back tears, she closed her eyes and did not open them again until much later when the band halted.
A pale glow illuminated their immediate surroundings. Lou saw that it emanated from veins of rock in the wall, veins that gave off a garish green radiance. They were on a broad shelf. From below blew a cool breeze tinged with a foul odor, like that of rotting apples. Some of the NunumBi were conferring, others resting.
Lou was surprised when she was roughly dumped on her back, then ignored as if she were of no consequence. Craning her neck, she couldn’t see the stars. She did notice a narrow ledge leading upward and assumed it was the route the creatures had used. Beyond the shelf another ledge wound lower.
Several moved to the edge of the shelf. At a sharp gesture from one, they flattened and peered downward. The others froze.
If Lou hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn they were afraid, that below was something capable of scaring even the NunumBi. When the three dwarfs crawled backward from the brink and the whole bunch gathered to confer in excited trills and hisses, she inched forward for a look-see.
Lou really had no notion of what to expect. A tunnel, perhaps. Or a drop-off hundreds of feet high. But before her astounded gaze unfolded a cavern of gigantic proportions, a cavern so vast, all of sprawling St. Louis would fit in it.
Stony spires laced with more glowing veins bathed the cavern in light, intermixed with bizarre and outlandish rock formations of every shape and size. Some were no bigger than a pony; others reared toward the cavern roof like miniature mountains. Lou saw a dark ribbon of water winding across the cavern floor and what might be whitish plants growing along its banks.
“Great God Almighty,” Lou breathed. It was a world unto itself, an entire underground domain, existing unsuspected under the very feet of humanity.
Mesmerized by the unearthly splendor, Lou gave a start when something directly below her moved. A huge bulk lumbered out of the shadows and stood for a moment close to a spire, the green glow lending it a ghastly hue befitting its ominous presence. It was as tall as two or three men standing on top of one another, with a girth to match. Endowed with bulging muscles, with biceps as thick as barrels and thighs as sturdy as tree trunks, it had a mane of dark shoulder-length hair and wore a loincloth. In one brawny hand was an enormous club.
The shock of seeing it was nothing compared to the shock Lou received when the thing turned toward the shelf and she saw that it had a single large eye in the center of its sloping forehead. Recoiling in terror, she bit her lower lip so she wouldn’t scream.
It was madness! Sheer and utter madness! The NunumBi, the cleft, the cavern, and now the monstrous cyclops! None of it could be real, and yet all of it was. Lou shuddered to think what else might lurk lower down, what other ungodly grotesqueries might prowl the nether realms.
The evidence of her own eyes notwithstanding, Lou pinched herself, hard, in the futile hope it would wake her from the nightmare she was having, that she was really warm and safe under her bedding and not at the threshold to the bowels of the underworld, her life soon to be forfeit.
Hairy hands closed on Lou’s ankles and she was violently hauled backward. One of the NunumBi stabbed a finger at her, then at the cavern, then made a hissing sound that Lou interpreted as a warning to stay away from the edge, or else. Or else what? They’d slay her? They were fixing to do that anyway.
“Oh, Zach,” Lou said softly, forlornly. “My sweet, wonderful Zach. I’m so sorry. I would have loved to be your wife. Please forgive me.” And tears she couldn’t deny trickled down her cheeks.
The object of the young woman’s devotion was at that moment exerting his tracking skills to their utmost. By torchlight Zach King was following the trail left by his fiancée’s captors. Spoor was scant, but there was enough. A heel print there, a scuff mark there. On around the lake he traveled, until he came to a spot where, for no rhyme or reason, the tracks vanished.
Zach lowered the torch. The imprint of a single small foot was clearly embedded, but beyond it the soil was undisturbed. Hunkering, he placed his rifle down to examine the ground. The grass and weeds were much drier and more brittle than they should be, stems snapping at the slightest touch. Puzzled, he poked and prodded, and an entire clump came loose in his hands. Under it, where there should be a shallow hole, was a flat, smooth surface that reminded him of a cured animal hide.
Zach brushed more weeds and grass aside. It was a hide, although from no animal he could recognize. His exploring fingertips slid under an edge. Lifting, he discovered a cleft so deep, he couldn’t see the bottom when he held the torch in it.
His sister had been telling the truth, Zach realized. This was the spot where she saw the “little man,” and the wily NunumBi had taken steps to ensure no one else found it. They were so adept at camouflage, it had fooled even his father.
Rising, Zach pulled and tugged, creating an opening wide enough for him to climb into the cavity. The stygian dark below would intimidate most men, but he never hesitated. Lou was down there somewhere, and he was going to find her.
Zach lay on his belly and swung his legs over the side. Groping for a foothold, he slowly dipped lower until his belt scraped the rim. He was concerned the only way down would be to climb, which he couldn’t do holding both the torch and the rifle. Then his left foot scraped against a stone or other projection. He tested it by applying more weight, and it held. Sliding his other leg next to the first, Zach steadied himself and extended the torch as low as he could. To his delight, he was standing on a narrow ledge that angled downward. By moving sideways with his face to the wall, he could go on.
The torch was sputtering. Zach estimated it would hold out another five minutes, maybe ten. After that, he would be as blind as a mole.
A cool but rank breeze rose from the depths. Zach hurried, scraping his rib cage against jutting rocks. It occurred to him that he might be hastening to meet his own death, but he forged on. His pa had once said there were things in life worth dying for, and Louisa certainly qualified. For her sake, for the sake of their love, he would brave any danger, dare any risk.
Hardly a minute elapsed before the ledge widened enough for Zach to walk normally. It wound around bend after bend, and he never knew what awaited him around each turn. The creatures were bound to spy the torchlight, so he had to be ready for anything.
Another minute went by. Two. The cleft was more like a chasm, Zach reflected, a narrow shaft penetrating into a region few men, if any, had ever beheld. But where had the opening come from? It hadn’t been there six moons before when he was hunting and passed over that very same stretch of ground. The walls showed no sign of being scraped or nicked by tools or claws, so it was doubtful the NunumBi had dug their way out.
The torch was fading fast, much faster than Zach had anticipated. In anger he shook it, and the shaking brought to mind an incident several months earlier, about the time of the Grass Moon or slightly before. The family had been on their way home from a visit to the Kendall place. Scott Kendall was a good friend of his pa’s, a former free trapper who, along with his wife and daughter, lived two days’ ride to the south.
On that particular trek back, as Zach recollected, they had been crossing the last high ridge when their horses commenced to act up by nickering and stomping and refusing, to go on. Zach had been perplexed by their antics. So had his parents.
Along about then the trees around them began to shake and shimmy. Zach’s sorrel had bucked and plunged, almost pitching him off. Intent on staying in the saddle, he’d barely heard a low rumble from deep under the ground. And he hadn’t felt the ground itself shake, as his folks said it did.
“That was an earthquake,” his father had answered when quizzed by Evelyn. “We don’t often get them here.” His pa had gone on to say that sometimes earthquakes flattened buildings, destroying whole cities. They diverted rivers, split dams.
And if a quake can split a dam, Zach thought, can’t one also split the ground? Was that how the NunumBi had regained the surface after being gone for so long? Had the earthquake reopened an old ‘doorway’ to the outer world? If so, it didn’t explain the attacks. Did the creatures want his family out of the valley because in ages past it had been part of their territory? Or did the NunumBi relish killing humans on general principle?
So many questions, so few answers.
Zach came to a sharp bend and started around it. The ledge widened again, into a broad shelf. His torch was almost out, but he saw, ahead, on her knees, her wrists and ankles bound, the one he loved. As soon as she saw him, her eyes became saucers.
Overjoyed by his good fortune, Zach sprang toward her. “Lou! They left you here alone? Not so smart, are they?” he crowed.
She sought to speak, but she had been gagged. Tossing her head, she struggled against her bounds like a woman possessed.
“Hold still. I’ll have you loose in two shakes of a doe’s tail.” Zach dropped the torch and whipped out his knife, then saw her eyes stray past him in alarm. Spinning, he learned that he was the one who wasn’t so all-fired smart. NunumBi were detaching themselves from nooks and crannies and advancing with claws hooked to rip and rend. They had used Lou as bait and he had walked right into their trap.
Zach would acquit himself as a Shoshone warrior should. Planting himself in front of Lou, he raised his rifle.
Minutes earlier, Louisa had swiped at her eyes and squared her shoulders. Some of the creatures were looking at her, and she refused to weep in front of them. They might take pleasure in her misery, and she would not give them the satisfaction.
Three NunumBi, maybe the same three as before, crawled to the edge of the shelf to gaze into the cavern.
Lou gathered that they were so worried by the ogre with the club, they wouldn’t move on until it was gone. She smiled. It gave her satisfaction to know there was something the NunumBi feared. It also gave her an idea. An insane idea that might get her killed but also might grant her an opportunity to escape.
Sitting up, Lou rested her chin on a knee and closed her eyes as if she were distraught. But her eyes were open a crack, her legs coiled for what she had to do. She watched the trio who were watching the ogre, and when they slid back and rose to rejoin their fellows, she hurled herself at the edge, rising to her full height and cupping both hands to her mouth.
Lou’s aim was to shout at the top of her lungs to get the giant’s attention. To lure it to the shelf. Either the NunumBi would battle the cyclops and possibly perish, or they would retreat back up the cleft to the surface. Either way, the confusion might permit her to flee.
But Lou hadn’t reckoned on their uncanny quickness. The three who had been spying on the giant were on her as she raised her hands. One executed an amazing leap and smothered her outcry, while the others seized her about the waist and legs. She was slammed onto her side, the blow jarring her spine and whooshing the air from her lungs.
Claws lanced at her throat but stopped a pine needle’s width shy of sinking into her flesh. All the NunumBi were clustered around her, and Lou sensed her reprieve would be short-lived, that many of them would like to slay her right there for what she had just done. In that terrifying moment when her life hung in the balance, a hideous roar swelled from the immense cavern and snapped up the heads of the NunumBi.
Two dashed to the brink, crouched, and looked. Whatever they saw had them back in a twinkling. A rapid exchange of guttural sounds resulted in Lou’s being seized. Before she could comprehend what they were up to, they had ripped lengths of buckskin from her shirt and were binding her wrists and ankles.
Lou fought, but she was a sparrow against hawks. A surly creature ripped off another strip and attempted to shove it into her mouth. When she bit at his fingers, another grasped her jaw and forced her mouth wide so the gag could be stuffed in. Seized by the elbows, she was dragged to the middle of the shelf. Then, like rabbits melting into high grass, the NunumBi disappeared into cracks and crevices lining the wall.
Why had they left her there, helpless and alone? The answer to Lou’s unvoiced query came in the form of another hideous roar, closer than before. The monster had seen her and was on its way up! Frantic, she rubbed her wrists and ankles back and forth, but the creatures had tied her too well. She would never free herself before the ogre arrived.
A pair of red eyes gleamed at her from a crack. Lou kicked a rock at it, a childish act born of fury. She cocked her head, listening for the giant. Footsteps from the other direction went unnoticed until the person making them was halfway across the shelf.
It was Zach! Lou’s heart swelled, then instantly constricted as his peril sank home. She fought to warn him, to spit out the gag or loosen her hands, but could do neither. His knife flashed out and so did the NunumBi, converging on her beloved from all sides as he took a stand in front of her. Never had she been prouder of him. But pride without life was as worthless as fool’s gold, and they both might lose theirs, either to the scarlet-eyed devils who ringed them or to the massive behemoth clomping steadily upward.
Zach King heard the heavy tread of gigantic feet but had no time to speculate on the source. The NunumBi had him surrounded and were closing in, their claws hooked, their rapier teeth bared. He sighted down the Hawken and at point-blank range shot one in the face, the impact flinging it over the edge of the shelf.
A thunderous boom reverberated, echoing again and again into the distance. Zach snatched at a pistol, but as he did the creatures were on him, tearing the weapon from his grasp, pinning his arms and locking his legs. They brought him crashing down with half of them on top. The dwarf holding his left arm let go to scrabble out from under the heap, and Zach punched one straddling his chest. Claws closed on his neck and glittering teeth arced toward his throat.
Lou screeched, or tried to. Her sweetheart was about to die, and she couldn’t lift a finger to help him. Or could she? Her ankles were bound, but she could still move her legs. Swiveling on her rear and tucking her knees to her chest, she drove both feet into the head of the creature on Zach’s chest. It tumbled, and Lou drew her legs up to kick another. She didn’t see where the NunumBi who pounced on her came from, but suddenly she was on her left side with a dwarf perched on her shoulder and claws rising toward her jugular.
Zach was fighting for all he was worth, punching, gouging, kicking. His blows, though, had no effect, other than to make the creatures mad. Again he was smashed flat, his wrists seized as if in iron clamps. Another dwarf took the place of the one Lou had kicked, its hairy hands reaching for him. This time Lou couldn’t help. This time he would die.
Twisting his neck, Zach saw one of the little brutes about to rip Lou open. “Nooooo!” he cried, heaving upward in boiling wrath. But the NunumBi were not to be denied, and held him down.
It was then, with both of them moments away from grisly ends, that a horrendous roar seemed to shake the very shelf. The NunumBi glanced toward the other end, where the ledge continued downward. Snarls and growls burst from them in a bestial chorus, as, bristling, they charged.
Zach rolled onto his stomach to push himself erect. He glimpsed something that filled the opening past the shelf, something gigantic. It was in shadow and he couldn’t view it all that well, nor did he waste precious seconds trying. Whatever it was, it was a godsend, for the NunumBi had temporarily forgotten all about Lou and him. Scrambling onto his knees, he pried at the knots on her wrists, then spotted his knife lying close by. Two slashes made short shrift of the buckskin. Two more freed her ankles. As he pulled her up, she yanked the gag out.
“Run, dearest! Run!”
Zach started to sprint toward the ledge that would take them to the surface. Remembering his rifle and other pistol, he veered to claim them, but Lou wrenched on his arm, nearly yanking him off his feet.
“No! Forget them! Just run!” Lou pleaded. “For God’s sake, run!” The unholy din behind them had reached earsplitting proportions, roars and shrieks and howls in riotous bedlam.
Zach wasn’t inclined to do any such thing. Guns were too valuable. No Shoshone warrior would leave one on the field of battle, no mountaineer would give his up unless it was pried from his lifeless, cold fingers. He resisted her pull, saying, “We need them!”
“Please! Let’s go while we can!” Lou dug in her heels.
Stunned that she would dispute him when he knew what was best, Zach gripped her arm-to drag her if need be. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a war being waged, the dwarfs thronging around the giant in the shadows, slashing and rending in fierce abandon. One was circling, seeking an opening, when an enormous club crashed onto its head, shattering bones and pulverizing flesh, crushing the creature to a miserable, wretched pulp.
