Flintlocked, page 17
But thankfully, the scaly-tailed abomination didn’t attack us. Instead, it walked off, disappearing up the next tunnel.
A sigh of relief left me as my body relaxed. “Thank fuck for that.”
“Weird,” Elwood said. “They usually attack.”
“Maybe that one was a pacifist,” I said, still relived the beast had moved on.
“Stay alert. It might just be waiting for us around the corner.”
That’s just great.
We made our way up the tunnel before taking the left fork where the skreever had gone. As soon as we did, Elwood stopped again. “Oh, shit.”
There was no need to ask what the matter was. I could see for myself. Up ahead, in the middle of the tunnel, a group of skreevers had gathered, and they appeared to be feeding on something.
“What are they eating?” I whispered, my stomach muscles tensing again.
“I don’t know,” Elwood said. “But we need to get through here, so we’ll have to scare them off.”
As Elwood advanced up the tunnel as casually as he walked the street earlier, a few of the skreevers turned to stare at him, screeching aggressively. When two of the skreevers turned and ran toward Elwood, he thrust out his hand and unleashed a jet of fire that enveloped both skreevers, turning their screeches of aggression into squeals of pain as the fire scorched their bodies, filling the tunnel with the smell of burnt fur. When the other skreevers saw what Elwood had done, they backed off from their meal, reluctantly running away. The two skreevers that Elwood had set on fire rolled around in the filthy water for a moment to put themselves out. Then they both turned tail and ran, disappearing into the darkness.
“You really showed them,” I said to Elwood, smiling.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go see what they were eating.”
I had little interest in seeing what the skreevers had been eating. Whatever it was, I was sure it would be disgusting, but I followed behind Elwood anyway, knowing there was no way to avoid what lay up ahead.
When Elwood reached the skreevers’ meal, he hovered his torch over it and then said, “Jesus Christ.”
“What?” I said before I could make out what lay in the shallow water. “What is it?”
“See for yourself.”
I didn’t want to, but I looked anyway, if only to satisfy my morbid curiosity. And when I saw what was lying there in the water, I twisted my head and vomited.
“You all right?” Elwood asked me.
“No… Jesus… what the fuck? Is that really—”
“A body. Yeah, it is.” Elwood raised his torch and looked up for a second. “There’s a hatch up there. Someone must’ve dropped the body down here.”
My face twisted up as I stared at the bloated looking corpse, which lay face-down in the stinking water. The body was in such a horrific state—half-eaten by the skreevers—it was almost impossible to tell what sex the person was. Elwood, not as squeamish as I was, bent down and turned the floating corpse over. When I saw what had been done to the face, I immediately turned and vomited again.
“You okay there?” Elwood asked me, his eyes still on the dead person.
“What do you think?” I said, wiping away sick from my mouth. “The face has been eaten off!”
“Skreevers don’t mess around. Another couple of hours and they’d have this corpse eaten down to the bone. That’s probably why it was dumped in here in the first place.”
“So the skreevers could eat it?”
“Yeah, and get rid of any evidence.”
“Should we tell someone about this? Who do you report these things to? The police?”
Elwood nodded. “Law enforcement here is complex. Each guild has its own enforcers. But then you have the Grelkin Legion, which is more like a military presence, serving as beat cops and muscle when arrests need to be made. You also have the Kilvernian Senate. They make the laws, but they have a problem enforcing them, which is where the Grelkins come in usually. Basically, things aren’t very clear cut, and there’s a lot of overlap and stepping on toes. It can get messy.”
“So, we just… say nothing?”
Elwood sighed as he stared down at the corpse. “That’s usually the best policy, and the best way to avoid awkward questions from gobby Grelkins, who’ll just try to pin this shit on us, anyway.”
“Really? Why?”
“Just to sort it out quick and appease the Kilvernians.”
“You mentioned guilds. Who are they?”
“There are ten official guilds in Mysteria that deal with various aspects of society here,” Elwood said. “There are lots of unofficial guilds as well, and I think our friend here may belong to one of them.”
“How do you know?”
“Look at the tattoo on the right arm.”
Squinting in the torchlight, I could just make out a diamond-shaped tattoo with what looked like a crescent shape inside, and something else angled over the crescent. “What does it mean?”
“It means the person wearing this tattoo was a member of the Thieves Guild,” Elwood said. “That’s a key on top of a crescent moon.”
“So maybe they stole from the wrong person and got killed for it.”
“Maybe. I know the guild master of the Thieves Guild. She would want to know about this. She will also want revenge, no doubt.”
“So, you’re going to tell her?”
“I’ll have to. I owe her a debt. Maybe this will help clear it.”
“Is there anyone you don’t owe a debt to here?”
“You.”
I shook my head at him as he crouched down to get a better look at the tattoo. “There should be a number on the key, if I can make it out… yeah, there we go. Forty-two.”
“What does it mean?”
“The number matches up with the person’s identity,” he said. “I guess whoever tossed this guy down here didn’t expect him to ever be found.”
“Now what?”
“We keep going. I’ll contact the Thieves Guild later.”
“I was hoping you were going to say we’re getting out of here.”
Elwood gave me a look as the flames from his torch created dancing shadows on the brickwork behind him. “We still have a job to do. Let’s push on.”
I had to force myself to carry on with Elwood as we moved deeper into the labyrinthine sewer system. Seeing the dead body—and the skreevers eating it—had put me on edge so much that I jumped at every little sound. I also couldn’t keep the thought from my mind that I would end up dead in the shallow water as well, being munched on by giant rat creatures.
“How much farther do we have to go?” I asked Elwood, glad we hadn’t seen any more skreevers in the last ten minutes.
“There’s another level below this one,” Elwood said. “An even older sewer system that this one was built on top of. That’s where we have to go. That’s where the skreever queen will be.”
“Have you seen one of these things before? How big are they?”
“Skreever queens are huge,” he said. “They spend all their time in a semi-catatonic state giving birth. As long as we don’t wake the queen up, we should be fine.”
“And what about all the other skreevers? Won’t they want to protect their queen?”
“They will, which is why I need you to keep them back while I get the blood from the queen.”
Anxiety coursed through me at the thought. “Really? I’m not sure if I can do that.”
“Just use your fire,” Elwood said as we emerged into a large open space. “Once I get the blood, I can teleport us out of here.”
That was something. At least we wouldn’t have to traipse all the way through these tunnels again with pissed-off skreevers on our tail.
In the open space we were in, Elwood stood for a moment as he looked around, the light from our burning torches barely illuminating the darkness that seemed to press down on us.
“Are we lost?” I asked.
“No, I’m just a little unsure of where… Aha, there you are. Let’s just follow the skreevers. They should lead us to the queen.”
We waded through deeper water in the middle of the space before climbing some steps to a crumbling platform.
“It fucking stinks here,” I said. “What is that stench?”
“Skreever shit,” Elwood said, smiling.
“God, I think I’m going to be sick again.”
“Buckle up,” he said, crossing the platform to what looked like a squarish hole in the middle. “Remember why we’re doing this. Believe me, this will all be worth it when you can move freely without having to worry about being taken out by Eliminators.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
The hole in the platform wasn’t big, and to me, it looked like it would lead to Hell.
“We’re almost there,” Elwood said. “We just need to jump down into this hole here.”
“But we don’t even know how deep it is.”
Elwood held his torch over the hole for a second, and then let it drop into the darkness. The torch fell about ten feet before landing on a crumbled brick floor.
“It’s not that deep. We can drop easily. I’ll go first.”
Carefully, Elwood positioned himself on the edge of the hole, holding on to both sides for a moment, before sliding forward and letting himself drop, landing nimbly just by the burning torch, which he picked up. “Throw the bag down to me.” Holding the canvas bag over the hole, I let it drop so Elwood could catch it, along with my torch. “All right. You next.”
Fuck this shit.
Sitting on the edge of the hole looking down at Elwood, the drop seemed a lot farther than I first thought. But Elwood had made it down all right, so…
I slid off the ledge and let myself drop into the space below. But when I landed, I slipped and yelped as I fell to the ground, which felt squishy. “Fuck,” I groaned, and Elwood held his hand out to help me up.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, but what is all over the ground here?”
“Skreever shit.”
“Fuck,” I said again as Elwood hoisted me up.
“Get used to it. It’ll be everywhere down here. Also, try to stay quiet from here on in. I’d prefer not to alert the skreevers to our presence just yet.”
“I think I already did when I landed. How did you get so nimble, anyway?”
“I played a lot of squash back in the day.”
“Of course you did.” I had a quick glance around the confined space we were in when Elwood handed me my torch again. “I can barely stand up straight in here. I’m feeling claustrophobic already.”
“Suck it up,” Elwood said. “I don’t like it any more than you do. Let’s get going. The nest shouldn’t be far.”
“The fucking nest,” I said. “Even that word chills my blood.”
I could hardly breathe as we inched our way along in the narrow tunnel, which I kept thinking would collapse on top of us at any moment. It stank to high heaven of shit, ammonia, and rotten meat as well. A few times, I gagged as my stomach churned. Even Elwood, who so far hadn’t been bothered by anything on this perilous expedition, looked like he was going to be sick once or twice.
Soon enough, the tunnel ended, bringing us out into a massive chamber that was crawling with skreevers of all sizes. When Elwood and I lit the chamber with our torches, it was all I could do not to scream. The whole floor seemed to be alive and squirming, with hundreds of skreevers all piled on top of each other, most of them seeming asleep, thank God.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. In the very center of the chamber was a massive, hairless lump of quivering pink flesh. At the sight of the monstrous thing, with its blind white eyes and enormous incisors, my eyes widened in horror and my leg muscles tightened as if preparing me to flee. The skreever queen lay on its side as it gave birth to more skreevers, which some of the bigger skreevers immediately licked clean. The queen’s swollen, hairless belly was dotted with dozens of teets, attached to which were baby skreevers who suckled away at the milk. The urge to flee was overwhelming, but Elwood gripped my arm, preventing me from moving.
We were standing on a ledge, and if we wanted to get at the queen, we would have to jump down into that pit of horror. Or, at least, Elwood would. There was no fucking way I was jumping down into that stinking mass of flesh and teeth.
“Most of them are docile and half-asleep,” Elwood whispered in my ear as I tried to stay calm. “But once I get down there, they’ll all wake up. When they do, I need you to start roasting them. Got it?”
I nodded as I looked at him, afraid to speak. He kept looking at me, worried now that I couldn’t handle this. And I didn’t blame him for thinking that, because I didn’t think I could handle this horror show, either.
But Elwood didn’t give me any choice as he dropped into the pit with the bag and his torch, inevitably stepping on and rousing the skreevers from their slumber. At first, there were a few screeches, the skreevers probably wondering what was going on. But then those few screeches turned into a cacophony of angry screams and snarls, underpinned by a deep, unholy groaning sound that came from the queen.
As the skreevers jumped up and attacked Elwood, some of them sinking their sharp teeth into him, Elwood unleashed his fire upon them. The skreevers’ angry screeches turned immediately to screams of pain as flames engulfed them.
Without thinking, I thrust a trembling hand out and unleashed my own stream of fire, adding to the inferno gathering pace in the pit of vermin. In seconds, I felt like a god. I mean, I was making fire come out of my hand! And the magic, it felt like it was discretely observing me, like a dark figure standing in the shadows of my mind, a slight smile on its face as it watched me give in to the exceptional power flowing through me.
Despite the nagging feeling that I was doing something wrong—forbidden, even, leaving myself open to manipulation by some unseen entity—I gave myself over completely to the magic as it lit my every nerve on fire. My eyes bulged like a mad man’s as I reveled in my ability to cause so much pain and destruction to the skreevers. I was superior to the beasts in every way, and if the little bastards didn’t bow down to my godly power, then they could all die instead.
In no time, the chamber was filled with smoke and the stench of burning hair and flesh. There were was so much smoke, I could barely even see Elwood anymore as he scrambled to get to the queen.
Despite all the fire I was unleashing, some of the skreevers still attacked me, sinking their sharp teeth into my legs. Even launching themselves at me while they were on fire, forcing me back as I fought to get the bastards away from me. My stream of barely controlled flame almost roasted Elwood as he continued to struggle in the pit below.
Then I felt a lacerating pain in my groin that made me scream louder than the skreevers. With my face screwed up in agony, I looked down to see that a smallish skreever had latched onto my groin with its teeth, and its incisors had bitten through my pants and pierced my ball sack.
“Oh, fuck!” I shrieked, not knowing what to do as I saw the blood spread across my pants, and the evil red eyes of the skreever as it steadfastly clung to me, hanging from my pants like some demented, oversized polecat. “Get the fuck off me, you bastard!”
The skreever defiantly bit down harder, and I felt more of my scrotum get crunched in those teeth. That’s when I halted my stream of fire and reached down to grab the skreever. Gripping the skreever’s neck, repulsed by the feel of its oily fur, I tried to pull it off of me. But that only resulted in more pain as the skreever stayed latched on. “Oh, fuck, you little bastard!”
To add insult to injury, another skreever scurried up to me and sunk its teeth into my calf, its long incisors piercing muscle, bringing forth more screams from twisted mouth. Then the pain reached an intolerable crescendo as more skreevers swarmed me like a furry plague, attacking with as much aggression as I’d ever seen.
On the verge of being eaten to a second death, I was soon to be like one of those poor bastards in a zombie movie that has to watch while a bunch of rotters dine on their guts until they die.
Fuck that.
Glaring down at the vicious rodents still hanging off me, my only wish was for them to be destroyed, to be wiped out of existence for daring to attack me like they did.
Die-die-die! Fucking die!
With demonical will, I made all the skreevers explode like they had tiny bombs in their guts. Fur and flesh were obliterated in a glorious explosion of blood and guts that splattered all over me.
A twisted smile spread across my face as I reveled in the destruction I had just caused.
And as blood dripped down my face, my chest expanded with pride, my body flush with unstoppable power.
Now for the rest of the bastards.
Staring down at the mass of skreevers like an angry god about to smite his worshippers, I willed each one to suffer the same death as the others. One by one, the skreevers exploded, filling the pit below with gore.
It was as easy as popping balloons, and I reveled in every second of it.
In response to this wanton destruction of her children, the skreever queen gave an unholy bellow at the sight of its progeny exploding all around it, and the monstrous thing suddenly rolled over, standing up on four legs that could barely support its massive bulk.
Through the smoke, I saw Elwood position himself behind the hairless pink monster as he drew its blood into the huge syringe, doing his best to squirt the blood into one of the glass jars he had brought with him.
When I saw the queen turn its head toward Elwood and open its massive jaws, I screamed for him to watch out. But with all the screeching and screaming inside the confined chamber, he couldn’t hear me, his attention taken with filling the jars with blood and fending off the smaller skreevers.
Jumping down into the still burning pit, I tried to do to the queen what I had just done to its progeny. But as I willed the beast to be destroyed, nothing happened, and I soon realized that I must’ve depleted most of my magic during the skreever massacre. I could still conjure fire, however, so I directed my stream of flame at the queen’s head, roasting its pink flesh until it turned black and the monstrous thing’s screams became as high-pitched as its smaller progeny.
