Ruby Shadows (31 page)

“
Congratulations,
Gwendolyn,” Laish said grimly in my ear. “You have found a way to
pay the tax without giving yourself to me. Now come, we must
go.”

“
What? What are you
talking about?” I asked, but he was already boosting me up on
Kurex’s back and getting up behind me. “I thought there were
preparations we had to make before we could go through.”

“
Yes—we should have made a
deal with the emissary of the Skitterlings for a safe passage. That
is what it was coming to do when you very unwisely killed
it.”

“
Skitterlings? That’s what
you call that thing?”

“
That is the name of their
species. They are a minor demon but though they look like animals
they are a sentient people who can think and reason.” He was
already gathering Kurex’s reins and aiming the big horse towards
the pitch black hole in the side of the mountain.

“
What—you mean I killed an
actual person?” I was aghast. “Or something that can think like a
person, anyway? And there are
more
of them in there?”

“
A whole army.” Laish
sounded even more grim. “And as soon as they realize what you have
done to their emissary, they will mobilize for war. We must go
through the Jealous Heart
now
before they understand what has
happened.”

“
But—” I began.

Laish, paid me no
attention. He was already spurring Kurex forward, into the mouth of
that black and awful tunnel. That tunnel that I now knew was
crawling with hundreds and hundreds of huge spider things that were
shortly going to be extremely pissed off at
me
.

Chapter
Twenty-one

Laish

We raced forward, into the darkness. I was
not worried for myself—I knew perfectly well that the Skitterling
venom, while intensely painful, could not kill me. But I did not
want Gwendolyn to be bitten even once. She was weak from going
without food and riding all day in the scorching sun. Plus, I
wasn’t sure how her human body would react to the bites—not well, I
was sure. So I spurred Kurex onward, trying to get through the
Jealous Heart before the word of the emissary’s death spread to the
rest of the Skitterling tribe.

Overhead, I could hear their masses
gathering. The soft, scratching sound of their many legs and their
high, questioning calls to each other indicated their confusion. No
one simply charged into the Jealous Heart without first striking a
deal with the Skitterlings. Even the demons raiding parties that
went back and forth between Stygia and Minauros almost every night
had long standing agreements with the hybrid tribe. Often the
smallest and weakest demon was left behind as tribute—to be
devoured at the Skitterlings’ leisure. I myself had been prepared
to offer them some of my blood or flesh but they wouldn’t be
interested in that now. Now all they would want was the one who had
killed their emissary—now all that would satisfy them was
Gwendolyn.

Well, they would not have her, I swore to
myself as we galloped through the black tunnel. When I looked up I
could see their eyes glowing poison green in the darkness. Then I
heard the timbre of their calls change from confusion to anger.
Word must be spreading from the mouth of the tunnel, they were
learning what had happened, what my little witch had unwittingly
done.

I spurred Kurex faster even as I felt one of
the Skitterlings drop onto my shoulder. I brushed it off and
another dropped down and then another.

“
Laish!” Gwendolyn’s voice
was as close to panicked as I had ever heard it. “Laish, they’re
coming down! I think there’s one in Kurex’s mane! Oh my
Goddess!”

“
Hold tight,” I told her.
“I’m going to make a light—they don’t like that and it should drive
them back.” She wouldn’t like it either, I was sure. It would
illuminate the tunnel and show her our true danger. “Don’t look,” I
told her, knowing it would do no good. She wasn’t good at following
such orders as I knew from experience.

Leaning a little away from her, I spoke a
word of power. I didn’t like to use the Dark Language so close to
Gwendolyn, fearing to cause her pain but in this case I had no
choice.

Light blazed out around us, illuminating
every crevice and cranny of the vast tunnel. In my arms, Gwendolyn
stiffened and gave a small, breathless scream.

Every square inch of the rocky walls was
teaming with Skitterlings—most of them quite large. The emissaries,
like the one Gwendolyn had killed, were the smallest caste of this
demon species—and the only ones who would willingly withstand the
light. The others were considerably larger. In fact, I saw a few
quite as large as myself crawling on the walls. If one of them
decided to go for us, we would have a difficult time indeed.

“
Goddess,” Gwendolyn
whispered, pressing herself back against me. “They…they’re not all
chipmunks!”

“
What?” I wasn’t sure what
she was talking about at first—I was too busy brushing off the
smaller Skitterlings that had fallen on Kurex and
myself.

“
There are some with other
heads—dogs and cats and goats and owls…Goddess, that one has the
head of a lion—how is that even
possible
?”

“
All terrible things are
possible in Hell,” I said grimly. “Hang on, Gwendolyn, we are
coming to the end of the Heart and it may be difficult to get
out.”

“
Difficult? Why?” She
sounded even more frightened and I felt her grab the arm I had
wrapped around her waist in a tight, panicky grip.

“
Just hold on,” I told
her. The light from my word of power was fading but already I could
see the pale blue illumination from the Stygia end of the tunnel.
We were extremely lucky that this had happened during the daylight
hours. If we had been coming out into a cold, black Stygia night
the Skitterlings would have pursued us for miles. As it was, all we
needed to do was get out of the Jealous Heart and we should be all
right.

If
we could get out. Up ahead I saw the tunnel’s exit…but I also
saw something else. The most monstrous Skitterling yet awaited us,
crouching at the mouth of the tunnel, blocking our way out. He was
as massive as Kurex, though lower to the ground, and had the head
of a man with long wild black hair and yellow eyes. When he opened
his mouth, I saw the jagged, serrated teeth of a shark.

“
Give us the human girl!”
he hissed, his eyes glowing in the dying light, his long hairy legs
poised to spring. “Give us the one who killed our emissary! We will
feast on her flesh in retribution for his death! Give us the
girl!”

There was no time to argue. Outside, just
past the huge demon, I glimpsed the Stygia landscape, a
mountainside covered in ice and snow. In particular, there was a
large drift piled up just outside the mouth of the tunnel.

“
Gwendolyn,” I breathed in
her ear. “Trust me now.”

“
Trust you?
Why—?”

Before she could finish her question I had
caught her by the waist and was lifting her clear of Kurex’s back.
As she screamed, I tossed her lightly over the monster’s head and
out of the mouth of the tunnel. I barely had time to ascertain that
she had landed safely in the snow drift before the huge Skitterling
roared in anger and turned to go after her.

I saw the danger at once. Despite their
dislike of sunlight, their hatred of the girl who had killed one of
their own was greater. He would come for her, even if it meant
going into the sun.

I dug my heels into Kurex’s flanks, urging
him upward. Being a war horse he knew what I wanted at once. His
hooves came down upon the heaving, hairy body at the same time I
shouted a word of power—a killing word this time.

I had just time to see the surprised look on
the Skitterling’s face before its head exploded, spraying black
ichor everywhere. Kurex finished trampling its spasming body
beneath his hooves, neighing wildly and then I urged him forward,
out into the light.

* * * * *

Gwendolyn

“
Gwendolyn,
come!”

I was still struggling to my feet, trying to
brush the freezing snow off my soaked dress when Laish reached down
and dragged me up into the saddle again.

“
What—?” I began but he
was already wrapping an arm around my waist and urging Kurex into a
gallop. We rushed over the snowy, slippery ridge we found ourselves
on much faster than was probably safe but when I looked back, I saw
why speed was necessary.

A horde of the animal-headed spiders was
pouring out of the mouth of the tunnel. They hissed and hooted and
growled as they scuttled towards us. My heart was pounding in my
throat and I thought I might be sick. Would they keep on following?
What if they caught us? I had seen Laish explode the human head of
the one that seemed to be the leader but there were several more
his size and none of them looked like they were giving up.

“
Laish!” I gasped as we
continued to pound down the snowy ridge. “Laish, they’re gaining on
us! I thought you said they didn’t like the light!”

“
They hate it,” he said.
“But just at the moment they hate you more for killing one of their
kind.”

“
What are we going to do?”
I demanded, tightening my grip on his arm. “What are we going
to
do?”

“
We may have to stop and
take a stand.” He sounded grim but calm. “We are coming to the
Drowning Pools soon—it is not safe to gallop through them. They
must be skirted carefully like the sand traps of
Minauros.”

“
Make a stand?” I nearly
shrieked. “Are you
serious?”

“
Deadly serious,
Gwendolyn.” His arm tightened around me. “What is more, I may have
to take my dragon form again. I am sorry if it disturbs you but it
is the quickest way to drive them all back. Words of power will
only work on one at a time and there are far too many for
that.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t
like the idea of seeing him morph into that huge dragon-snake thing
again but I didn’t think we had much choice. The awful human-headed
Skitterling’s words came back to me—
”We
will feast on her flesh…”
it had hissed,
right before Laish exploded its head.
It
didn’t take me long to decide it was way better to watch him
barbeque the spider-things in dragon form than to end up as their
lunch.

“
All right,” I said. “Do
what you have to do.”

Laish stopped and wheeled Kurex around so
that we were facing the seething, teaming mass of spiders flowing
down the mountain side towards us. He dismounted quickly and handed
me the reins.

“
If they overcome me,
Kurex will take you to safety,” he said. “Whatever you do, do not
leave his back.”

“
Laish—” I began but he
was already changing—swelling and morphing into the thing with
black scales, steak-knife teeth, and a furnace in its
belly.

I watched, numb with cold
and fear, my hands gripping the reins, as Laish stepped forward to
meet the flowing horde. There must have been thousands of
them—
tens
of
thousands. The white snow was black with their bodies. Even as huge
and imposing as Laish was in his dragon form, I was frightened for
him.

If his change into a massive fire breathing
monster bothered the Skitterlings, they didn’t show it. They rushed
forward, flowing like a horrible, hairy, many-legged tide and I
knew it was me they were aiming for—me they wanted to kill. And
Laish was the only thing standing between me and being swarmed and
eaten by the awful horde.

“
Get back!” he roared in
that deep, inhuman voice. “The human girl is
mine!”

They paid no attention—still they came and
now I could see their individual heads and faces. So many of them
and such strange mixtures—bird-spiders, goat-spiders, bull-spiders,
grizzly bear-spiders…I even saw one as big as a fishing boat that
had the head of a great white shark. That one was looking straight
at me with flat black eyes, its jagged teeth gnashing in eagerness
to get to me.

The shark-spider was coming faster and
faster but before I could open my mouth to scream, Laish opened
his. A vast jet of liquid fire belched from his glowing throat. He
sprayed it back and forth, covering as many of the Skitterlings
with it as he could, like a fireman working a fire hose.

All around piercing, hissing shrieks went
up. The spider creatures curled into flaming balls, writhing wildly
in the snow, trying to put themselves out. But Laish’s fire was
like napalm—it stuck to their hairy hides and refused to be
extinguished.

But despite the swath of
death and destruction he cut through their ranks, there were
already more Skitterlings coming. Thick and fast they poured from
the mouth of the Jealous Heart, scrambling over the bodies of their
fallen comrades, eager to reach us—eager to reach
me.

Laish breathed his liquid fire at them again
and again. The air was filled with the sounds of dying screams and
the stench of scorched flesh and still they came. They were a
hundred yards away now…fifty…twenty…

“
Go!” Laish roared at me,
taking a moment between jets of flame. “Go now,
Gwendolyn!”

“
I don’t want to leave
you!” I protested, though my heart was in my mouth. What could I
possibly do against the awful Skitterlings? If given the right
materials I might have whipped up a really good curse. But
effective witchcraft takes time and that was what we didn’t have.
Still, I didn’t want to leave Laish alone, especially when I was
the cause of the awful trouble we found ourselves in.