Heights of the Depths (35 page)

“Change of plan,” said Arren. “We follow that.”

“You realize we still can’t jump up to it, right?” said Berola sarcastically.

“Of course. But it has to come down sometime. And when it does, we are going to be there waiting.”

Porto

“Stay back!” Eutok shouted, and
 then he waved his axe threateningly and bellowed, “Stay back! Or let he who would be the first to die come at me!”

They attacked en masse.

Eutok struck first, his axe cleaving the skull of the nearest Piri, truncating its scream. He yanked the axe clear and swung it at another, and still another. Karsen deftly wielded the Minosaur horn as effectively as if it were a short sword, slicing and gouging and driving the Piri back. One came up behind him and he lashed out with his powerful hooves, crushing the Piri’s head against the wall. The tunnel reverberated with the sounds of smashing and screeching and still there seemed to be no end to them. For every one that they managed to kill, another three seemed to appear to take their place.

Karsen cried out. One of the Piri had gotten near enough to sink its teeth into his leg. He grabbed it and yanked it clear, slamming it against the nearest wall, causing blood from the Piri to splatter all over it.

Then Eutok let out a howl of fury. A Piri had ducked under the sweep of his axe and leaped upon him. He tried to grab at it and then another Piri jumped upon him from behind and another and still another. He staggered, trying to tear them away from him, but they were holding on too tightly.

“Eutok!” Karsen shouted, and he tried to get to the Trull, and suddenly he tripped over a Piri who had thrown himself directly under Karsen’s hooves. Karsen went down and before he could fight his way back to standing, a Piri landed upon his back. He tried to reach back and grab his assailant, but then another was grabbing his arm, trying to sink its teeth into him. Karsen twisted his arm around and grabbed it by the throat, squeezing as hard as he could. The Piri’s throat crunched beneath his fingers and he tossed it aside, but then two more were grabbing his arm, immobilizing it.

That was when a high pitched voice cried out, “Wait!”

It was one of the Piri who had clambered atop Eutok. He had frozen exactly where he was, and he was sniffing at Eutok like an animal inspecting its prey. The other Piri had likewise stopped their assault. For a long moment everyone was paralyzed, and then the Piri whose shout had brought everything to a halt pointed at Eutok and said, “He has been with a Piri.”

The other Piri exchanged confused looks. “What do you mean—?”
said one.

“He has been. With. A Piri. A highborn, from the smell of it. Her scent is all over him. He reeks of her. He has not been with her for some time, but her scent lingers.”

Not sure if he was perceiving a possible out or was just incredibly desperate, Karsen called out, “Yes! He was with Clarinda. Clarinda of the Piri.”

Instantly the Piri backed away from him, staring at him in shock and amazement. They remained upon Karsen, pinning him to the ground, but he did not attempt to struggle. “He was her lover!” Karsen said.

“Shut up, Karsen!”

“He told me all about her. He told me of his love for her. And…”
His mind raced. “She was taken! Taken away! Kidnapped from the arms of her loving mother!”

This prompted alarmed murmurs. “We had not heard of this!” “Did
 you hear?” “Who would dare?” “They must die! Whoever did this—”

“They will die,” Karsen said, grabbing back their attention. “I can assure you of that. Eutok there is going to take the Truller car further back in the tunnels, and he is going to use it to get to her and bring her back!”

“Is this true?” said one of the Piri.

The answer, of course, was that it was not. Eutok glared fixedly at Karsen for a long moment, and then said with a growl, “Aye. It’s true.” He did not sound terribly convincing, but apparently it was sufficient to fool the Piri.

The Piri who had identified Eutok as being Clarinda’s lover—and who apparently was the one in charge—spread wide his arms and declared, “Very well. I, Wojim of the Porto tribe of the Piri, declare that you are free to go. Go and rescue Clarinda, the daughter of our mistress. Let her know that the Porto tribe of Piri have drank many a feast in her name, and she is revered by all.”

Even though he knew he was asking for trouble, Eutok could not help but say, “I had the impression that the Piri would be appalled by my being with one of your own.”

“We are,” said Wojim, and there were nods from the others. “But I do not feel it is our place to question the choices of a highborn such as Clarinda. And if she is in distress and you can rescue her, then who are we to destroy you simply because we may find your involvement with her to be repulsive?”

“Well…thank you,” said Eutok, clearly unsure how he was supposed to react to that.

“We are grateful to you,” said Karsen. “To all of you. And I can promise you that Clarinda will be reunited with her mother, and we will make certain to let her know that you were instrumental in—”

Wojim looked in amusement at Karsen. “What do you mean, ‘we?’ The Trull is to be set free. You, we’re going to eat.”

“No!” shouted Eutok, and he tried to get to Karsen, but there was far too much of a mass of Piri between him and the Laocoon. And suddenly his arms were pinned by Piri who had come up from behind him and immobilized him. He struggled furiously. Any one of them, even any five of them, would have been unable to do anything against him. But the crowd of them upon him, with more piling on every moment, made it as hopeless as trying to fight against an incoming tide.

Karsen saw the faces leering down at him, the burning red eyes all the more terrifying as they contrasted against the pale skin, and the lips drawn back exposing those horrific fangs. 
This is how it ends, then. This is how it finally ends. What a stupid way to die, and I never do find Jepp. My mother was right. Maybe that’s the most horrific thing of all. That my mother was right. She warned me that my feelings for Jepp would bring me to nothing but disaster, and now here she was proven right. I can practically hear her voice now, saying…

“Get off my son, you bastards!’

One of the Piri who had been atop him twisted around to see who had spoken, and the next thing he knew, his head had been crushed, driven straight down and into his shoulders.

He slumped over and visible directly behind him was Zerena Foux. She was wielding a club that had a huge red splotch on it. The aged Mandraque, Rafe Kestor, was right behind her, waving his sword threateningly, shouting, “Who first? Who desires to be the first to meet with disaster at the hands of my flashing blade?”

Mingo Minkopolis was right behind him. “I don’t think blades can have hands, Rafe,” he said in his typically imperious tone, but then he glanced around and saw the stray bones of Minosaurs scattered around the caves. When he realized what they were, a frightening growl issued from his throat. “I told you, Zerena. I told you Porto was heavily populated with Minosaurs.”

“The operative word being ‘was,’” said Zerena.

“You…monsters,” snarled Mingo. “You dared kill my people? 
You dared?
”

“And we’ll dare far more than that!” said Wojim. “We’ll feast for many cycles, my people! Take them! Take them a—!”

Something amorphous dropped from overhead and enveloped Wojim. He staggered, clawing at nothing, and he tried to scream. It was a reflex and it was a mistake; the blob seeped in through his mouth.

“Gant!” Karsen could not believe it. It did not seem remotely possible that the Bottom Feeders had simply shown up out of nowhere.

There was a bizarre popping sound like a cork exploding from a bottle, except in reverse. Within seconds, as the other Piri looked on in stunned shock, the blob vanished entirely within Wojim. Wojim shook his head back and forth a few times and then his eyes focused on what was in front of him.

“All of you, back away immediately and let us pass unmolested. If you do not,” said Gant, having taken full control of Wojim’s body, “then he dies.”

The Piri looked at each other, seemed to shrug in unison, and one of them said, “Go ahead. More for us.” There were nods of agreement and then, again in unison, the Piri charged.

With a roar of fury, Mingo plowed through the nearest group of Piri, sending them scattering in all directions. Zerena swung her club, batting Piri aside, and Karsen almost got his own head knocked off as he clambered to his hooves. “Mother, how in the hell—?”

“Not now!” she shouted over the howling of the Piri as she and the other Bottom Feeders started wading through the Piri onslaught.

“But—”

“Not now!”

“Fine!” He turned and saw that the Piri was still coming nowhere near Eutok. Instead Eutok, seeing that Karsen and his clan were under assault, was preparing to leap into the fray with his axe. Realizing that would be a waste of resources, he shouted, “Eutok! The hotstars! Get them to the Truller! Hurry!”

Eutok hesitated, then nodded and darted down the tunnel.

The Bottom Feeders converged upon one another. The most berserk of them all was Mingo. Karsen had never seen the Minosaur so crazed. He was not fighting in anything approaching an elegant manner. Instead he was running this way and that, slamming full bore with his head into anyone and anything that got close to him. Piri would jump in front of him and scream defiance, and his response was to gore them with his horns before throwing their lifeless carcasses to either side.

Rafe Kestor, never the most reliable of individuals when it came to maintaining his concentration, remained focused on his whereabouts this time. He utilized his sword with remarkable dexterity, cutting through the Piri who endeavored to get near him.

But there were more Piri, and still more, and even though the floor was running thick with Piri blood, there seemed to be no diminishment of their forces as they continued to attack.

“Fall back! This way!” shouted Karsen. “This way!”

The others did as he instructed, Mingo clearing the way with another furious charge. The Minosaur alternated between trampling the Piri and continuing to gore them, while the rest of the Bottom Feeders followed closely behind.

They turned the corner with the howling of the Piri right behind them. Eutok had finished jamming the hotstars into place on the cart and was trying to shove it back into place on the tracks. “Keep them back!” Karsen said as he ran to Eutok’s side, and together they shoved the Truller onto the grooves in the ground. It dropped in with a “click” and Karsen could hear an abrupt build up of energy.

“Get in! Get in!” he bellowed. Gant, still inside the Piri’s body, was the first to scramble into the car, dragging Rafe Kestor behind him. Kestor was still swinging his sword at the air, apparently unaware that he wasn’t actually coming into contact with anything. With no time to waste, Eutok grabbed the Mandraque from behind and tossed him headfirst into the Truller.

The car was beginning to tremble with suppressed power. Eutok clamped a hand down on the outside to hold it in place. “Now or never, Karsen!”

Zerena Foux grabbed Mingo by the arm as Mingo gored another of the Piri. Mingo whirled, his eyes wild, and for a moment Zerena’s own life was in danger. “Mingo! We are leaving!”

It took her words a moment to penetrate his blind fury, and then he nodded in understanding. His eyes seemed to clear and then he managed to say, his voice thick, “Go.” She did and he followed behind her, backing up, glaring at the Piri who tried to follow him. They were right behind, never letting up, waiting for him to let down his guard for even a split instant so that they could overwhelm him.

Karsen had still not entered the Truller car, instead standing there brandishing the Minosaur horn. Zerena backed up until she was by his side. “I can’t believe—” he started to say.

“Get in the car,” she said.

“You first, Mother.”

She looked at him in angry astonishment. “Oh my gods. When are you going to learn that—ahhhh!!” That last came because Karsen had dropped the horn, grabbed his mother bodily, and heaved her in. She landed with a heavy thud, startling Rafe Kestor who was still a bit vague on how he had wound up in the vehicle in the first place. Karsen leaped in right after her and then shouted, “Mingo! Come on!”

The car lurched, and Eutok staggered. “I’m losing my grip on it!” His huge feet skidded once, twice, and suddenly the Truller yanked clear of him. It started to roll, building up speed with every second.

Eutok fell backwards and suddenly he was lifted in the air. Mingo had him, having slung him under his arm, and he was now in full charge. The Truller was speeding up, and so was Mingo, but the car was quicker.

Mingo leaped.

He slammed into the back of the Truller car and Eutok fell head first into the vehicle. Mingo tried to hold on, but his massive hand slipped off, and he started to fall.

Karsen lunged and grabbed the nearest thing he could get a grip on: Mingo’s left horn. Then Zerena was beside him and she snared the right one. The car was speeding up and Mingo was being dragged along behind it.

“This…isn’t…helping…” Mingo said, his voice strangled, in imminent danger of being decapitated. Behind them, the Piri were charging, screaming in fury, their hands outstretched.

Then Eutok reached over, grabbing Mingo under the right arm and pulling as hard as he could. It was just enough leverage for the Minosaur to get purchase, and just before the car accelerated to the point of no return, the three of them hauled him into the Truller.

“Were you trying to tear my head off?” he said, still rasping as he touched his throat. He pulled down on his skull as if he needed to shove it back into position.

“At least you’re here,” said Karsen and suddenly he yelped as a hand cuffed him in the side of the head. “Mother!”

“I warned you,” began Zerena. “I warned you that—”

Karsen punched her. He did so with no hesitation and full strength. It caught Zerena completely by surprise. There was a loud crack and blood began to pour from her nose and upper lip as she fell to the floor of the Truller, which was continuing to build up speed. Eutok had scrambled forward and seized control of the vehicle lest its velocity overtake it and the Truller go hurtling clear off its track.