The Rat in the Pit IV
As the ground bucked, Wurhi of Zabyalla tried to scramble from the growing fissure. The river yawned behind her, swelling and washing over the sands; its roar filled her ears and her fur grew slick from its spray. Her heart shook harder than the stones beneath her feet, yet even terror could not spur her body to movement, and it gave out all the same. Far too much strain and not enough blood. She collapsed to the stones, and the crawling sensation of the change took her - the beast within too fatigued to remain.
Soon only a small Zabyallan woman, bloodied and weakened, lay upon the ground.
“Wurhi!” Kyembe cried.
She dragged up her swimming eyes.
Ahead, the battle was over.
The victor was the mountain.
Both slave and cultist bolted for the exit, fleeing the summit’s fury in a chaotic swarm. Kyembe the Spirit Killer ran toward the growing fissure. Golden light played about his hands as his long legs crossed the distance. “Wurhi!” He clasped her and poured healing energies into her body. “At last, I have you! I have you, my friend!”
Wurhi of Zabyalla found herself sobbing. At last her ordeal was coming to an end. But one of their number was missing.
“Cristabel!” Kyembe cried. “Hurry!”
Wurhi trembled and forced her body to turn. How was the saint to cross the maelstrom opening between her and safety?
Her eyes went wide.
The Solidblade Knight had rushed into the seats and hefted the cyclops’ oaken club over her head. Roaring Amitiyah’s name, she charged toward the arena’s crumbling centre, spun as though preparing for a hammer toss, then cast both the titanic club and herself from the edge of the seats.
Knight and tree shot through the air, landing hard upon the rapids. The titan’s club bobbed and bucked while Cristabel clambered over the top and sprinted across like a charging bull, leaping from the end as it was sucked into the turbulent river.
Crash!
Her armoured body met the collapsing edge of the arena and she scrambled up as it crumbled away. She sprinted toward the two gaping southlanders, lifting her visor to expose a sweat-washed, freckled countenance filled with relief. “We are reunited!” she pronounced. “We are reunited at last!”
Kyembe blinked at her. “Cristabel, at this moment, you might be the most attractive woman I have ever met.”
“Admire me later!” St. Cristabel retrieved her bearing sword. “When we all still live and are not buried beneath a mountain!”
“Fair!” Kyembe stuck Wurhi’s sword through his belt and lifted her up. “Hang on to me!”
As he and the Traemean fled from the collapsing cavern, Wurhi’s eyes drifted across the field. Death had reaped a fine harvest this night. The cyclops’ body sank through the weakening floor which crumbled beneath its weight. Acolytes and werewolves – now transformed to men in death - littered the field alongside too many escapees. She winced at seeing the latter: they had come so close to freedom only to die with it just beyond their grasp.
Her breath caught as her gaze fell upon a miserable sight.
The sabre-toothed tiger lay in a pool of its own lifeblood, its form still, as the ground began to crumble near it. The beautiful beast had saved her twice and given Milos as much trouble as any of them. He had found his opportunity to rebel against a cruel master, but it had come at a terrible cost.
Wurhi sighed. She would remember him as he had been: beautiful and terrifying, not broken on the sand, with chest rising weakly-
Wait, chest rising weakly!? Yes! He lived!
“Cristabel!” the Zabyallan screamed. “Stop! He’s still alive!” a desperate hand pointed to the hunting cat. “Save him! He helped us! Please, save him!”
The knight took in the situation at a glance and changed course without hesitation. She hoisted the titanic cat onto her broad shoulders as though he were a sack of yams. Her vitriol turned sweet as it touched the valiant cat’s flesh. “Come, brave beast!” she ran after Kyembe. “This is no grave for one such as you!”
“Or any of us!” the Sengezian shouted. “Run for life, Cristabel!”
And she did.
Solidblade Knight and Spirit Killer - each bearing a wounded warrior - charged through the crumbling arena, leaping across stones as they broke away from the floor. The river lapped at their heels and the ceiling coughed veils of stone dust. Lycundar’s mountain thrashed and sought to smother all within, as though the wolf god himself were voicing his rage. Kyembe and Cristabel darted into the tunnel where the cult had fled, dodging plummeting rocks and holding their breaths against rising dust. Stone flecks stung their eyes. Lungs burned from exertion.
“We’re close!” Wurhi screamed. Fresh air beckoned her nose from ahead. “We’re close!”
Up ahead moonlight shone into the opening of the grand tunnel.
It grew with every step forward. Still, the mountain roared louder.
Stone heaved beneath their feet.
The ceiling crumbled above their heads, determined to bury them.
Then, quite suddenly, the air turned crisp and cold as they stumbled through the mouth of the tunnel. They were outside.
The palisade before the cavern had fallen and their eyes could barely pierce through the blowing snow. Yet they kept running. Through the blindness they ran. Through the biting cold. They ran until they at last ran into something.
“Oof!” cried a voice like scratching glass as Cristabel bowled over a small figure. “Who the he-Bloody piss! You’re alive!” Merrick the Hawk cried.
What was left of the slaves turned wearily toward them. Wurhi was pleased to see familiar faces: Saxa, Agron and Gannicus panted with their hands on their knees. Perhaps only a score of others had lived through the ordeal, and all watched the summit’s silhouette as it gave a great sigh.
THOOM!
The earth bucked so hard that some pitched from their feet. A cloud of stone dust – ushered by thunder - belched from the heart of the mountain to spray into the wind. As the last shocks faded, the great cavern that led into the nightmare had sealed itself.
The arena of Lycundar had hosted its final battle.
The mountain would never again take the cult into its belly.
“No! Sacred Alpha! Our home!” came a cry. Wurhi looked sharply to the west. There, marked against the snow in silhouette, loomed the remains of Lycundar’s cult. They were broken. Only a pitiful number remained of what once could have been an army. Four lonely werewolves raised their muzzles and bayed their sorrow to the moon. Black robed men wrung their hands and tore their hair.
Yet, the remains of the wolf god’s followers still outnumbered the former slaves three to one. They turned to glare at the survivors. “Filthy lambs!” one cried. “We will see you pay for this! Our fallen brothers will grant us strength!”
Groaning, Kyembe raised his ring and Cristabel set down the hunting cat to draw up her sword. The freed captives slowly raised their bronze. All were wan with weariness, but their eyes burned in resolve.
They would not die here.
Not now.
Not without a fight, and not by the hands of these scum.
“You will go to feed our god…” the lead acolyte snarled. “Even if it cost us our lives to see it do-”
Whish! Thnk!
A crossbow bolt struck the threatening man deep in his chest.
All froze.
“I think you have drawn quite enough lives for one lifetime.”
An iron-black steed rode out of the blowing snow, bearing the lean form of Jeva. He was clad in a silvery chain shirt and held a device for which his cult was known: a steel-limbed crossbow.
He raised a hand as though summoning soldiers for the twilight of the gods.
Riders emerged from the white with the clink of steel. Riders bearing armour and weapons that sported a cold gleam. Riders whose eyes held the bite and focus of iron.
The Cult of Steel had come. In force.
“Remember,” Jeva said. “Steel to hurt and silver to finish the wolf-men.” He pointed to Kyembe, Wurhi, Cristabel and the other survivors. “Leave these folks be, they are allies.”
The seneschal’s cold eyes returned to Lycundar’s children. “Execute the rest.”
Spurs touched flanks. Hoofs churned the snow. Blades rang from their sheathes.
Screams and howls shuddered through the night as steel, bronze and silver bit flesh, hellfire flashed, and vitriol ate bone. When at last the wind died and the snows began to settle, the field bore the pierced remains of the wolf god’s own, sprinkling ash, and the pungent odour of vitriol.
On the night of the full moon, this cult of Lycundar had been slaughtered to the last.
No more would men stalk the streets of Laexondael, desiring to emulate the wolf.
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