The Fanged Crown: The Wilds (23 page)

With a sucking noise, the carrion that was spread out across the bottom of the pit oozed across the ground to the beast. It slid along its tentacles and up the bony core to the top of the shattered skull, until every inch of the monstrosity was covered in a gray, fleshy coating. Reddish-blue veins branched across the outside of the new skin, lacing the hunks of meat onto the skeletal frame. For a moment, the creature froze. From his position on the floor of the pit, Harp gawked at the creature above him, a monster that now resembled a marine animal, landlocked in a lake of decay.

In the moment of silence, Harp heard a low thud and then another. Kitto turned to him wide-eyed as the noise increased into a constant rhythm. Harp could feel each stroke pulse through the ground into the soles of his feet.

“What is that?” he asked breathlessly.

“The beating of its heart,” Kitto said awestruck.

“Oh, Verran, what have you done?” Harp whispered. The creature shuddered as it took its first breath and expanded until it almost filled the pit. Looming above them, it cast Harp and Kitto into darkness. As it rose higher into the air, its four tentacles towered above Verran, Boult, and Majida, who were still on the ledge.

“Get out of there,” Majida yelled down to Harp and Kitto, who were huddled in a corner of the pit. But the smooth walls of the chasm offered no handholds. The two men skirted the edge of pit until they were directly below the others on the ledge, but the creature’s ever-expanding bulk threatened to crush them .against the rock.

The meaty tentacles flailed in the air uncontrollably, and one of the appendages crashed down on the ledge between Boult and Majida. Boult kept his footing, but Majida was knocked off balance. She lunged across to the slope below Zo, but slid down the gravel and almost fell into the pit. Digging her fingers into the soil with her legs dangling off the edge, she managed to hold on until Zo climbed down and hauled her up to higher ground.

Using his crossbow as a club, Zo swung at any tentacle that came near them while Majida pressed her palms into the ground and recited an incantation. As her lips formed the ancient words, a snarl of shiny black thorns sprang out of the ground at the bottom of the pit. As long as arrows and as wide around as a man’s wrist, the hooked thorns radiated like a starburst in the dirt surrounding the monster.

“Those are Banethorns,” Zo warned the others. “They’re poisonous.”

“We’ve got to get them out of there!” Boult shouted, stepping quickly along the ledge to Zo and Majida. “Get me rope!”

Zo threw his pack on the ground, and Boult rummaged through it. When a tentacle flailed dangerously close to the dwarves, Zo slammed the wooden crossbow against it and deflected the blow. The tentacle retreated momentarily and crashed down again.

“Where’s your damn rope?” Boult demanded, turning the pack upside down and dumping the contents onto the gravel.

Zo didn’t have time to answer as he batted another assault away from Majida, who was still kneeling on the ground. Below them in the pit, spiky green leaves and mace-headed brambles rose out of the soil, twisting into thick, knotted vines that looped around the fleshy creature like chains. The hooked tips of the thorns dug into its skin while the

poisoned sap seeped into its exposed veins. The creature struggled against the vines and thorns, and hunks of its flesh ripped away as it was pinned down under the clawing plants.

“Get off the ledge!” Harp called up to Verran. Verran didn’t move. Muttering to himself, he leaned down and touched the wall above Harp’s head. Under Verran’s fingers, strands of the emerald vines flowed from brambles surrounding the monster and up the cliff to the ledge. Instead of black thorns, they were adorned with delicate yellow flowers.

“Climb!” Verran urged them.

Harp and Kitto scrambled up the vines, reaching the ledge just as the pit below was overtaken by the poisonous plants. The brambles engulfed the creature, and the men joined the dwarves on the other side of the chasm. With all four tentacles grasping the edge of the pit, the creature made one last effort to pull itself free from the twisting brambles. But it couldn’t free itself from Majida’s thicket, and the poison from the thorns pulsed through its veins until it reached the beast’s core and its beating heart was stilled.

When the chasm was filled to the brim with twisted black vines, and there was nothing but silence in the air, Harp checked to make sure everyone was still standing. Kitto was bruised and a little bloody, but he assured Harp that he was fine.

“What just happened?” Boult demanded. “Who should I thank, and who should I punch?”

“Thank Verran and Majida,” Harp said. “They saved us.”

But Boult wasn’t in a thankful mood. “Did you know something lived down there?”

“Nothing lived down there!” Zo said indignantly. “Majida! Do you know where that came from?”

Majida looked at Verran. “No,” she said finally. “I

don’t know. But we should get below ground as soon as possible.”

Majida and Zo turned and walked into a narrow channel in the rock behind them. With smooth walls streaked with glossy bands of red and pink, the channel was an old riverbed that twisted through the rock. Above them, the storm clouds had blown away, and the sky was blue and clear.

“Did something happen, Verran?” Harp asked quietly as they followed the others through the channel.

“I didn’t do anything!” Verran said defensively. “If she says I did, she’s lying!”

“Easy,” Harp said.

“I hate Chult,” Verran said angrily. “And I hate her.”

“You saved me and Harp,” Kitto reminded him, but Verran strode away from them. Harp thought about calling him back, but decided against it. As Verran stalked away, Harp saw a large circle of blood staining the back of his shirt, just below the base of his neck.

“Was he injured?” Harp asked, but neither Kitto nor Boult had an answer. Verran had been on the cliff through the battle, and Harp couldn’t imagine what blow would form sueh a perfectly round wound on the boy’s back. With Verran in such a state, he couldn’t imagine getting answers out of him either.

ŚŠŚ<§>• ŚŠŚ<§>

The channel ended at the edge of a massive cliff. They stood on a small parcel of flat ground where a handful of rune-marked trees clung to the edge of the cliff, their silver-tipped leaves rustling in the light breeze. Below them, the carpet of green seemed endless—like the world went on forever, and the jungle owned it all.

“Those trees mark the beginning of the Domain,” Majida told them. The circular basin with the golden dome was almost

directly below them. They had circled through the jungle and stood on the spiked mountain range that they had seen from a distance earlier that morning. Harp couldn’t see the ocean from his vantage point, so he knew that they must be facing south or southeast. The Crane seemed very far away.

“Is that where we just were?” he asked, pointing to the southern waterfall and the ruins.

“Yes, those are the ruins of Hisari. The mountains are called the Crown in, well, in most languages spoken in the jungle.”

“Hisari lies at the foot of the Crown,” Verran murmured.

“Yes,” Majida said. “Hisari means City of the Royal Mouth in the language of the Scaly Ones.

“Royal Mouth?” Verran asked dubiously.

“A better translation would be City of Kings,” Majida said. “So they are the Crown of the City of Kings.”

“Which came first, the city or the mountains?” Boult asked.

Majida smiled sadly. “The Scaly Ones played with nature as if it were a toy. You’ve seen the husks. But flesh was not the only thing they shaped to their pleasure. There is a legend that each peak holds a gemstone so vast that a demon was enlisted to carry the jewels to the pinnacles and bind them into the rock.”

Majida tugged a length of muddy rope and pulled up a trap door, its boards rotted and warped. They peered into a dark shaft with a rickety ladder leading down into the darkness. Majida lowered herself over the edge and began down the ladder.

“Go ahead,” Zo said, looking at Harp.

Harp climbed down the shaky ladder. The sunlight from above illuminated the glassy black walls of the shaft where thousands of fossils were left from the time when it had been a sea. The soil of the seabed had been filled with

tiny snail-like creatures and helix-shaped worms. After so many years, their forms were outlined by white quartz that glittered like ancient stars in the deep black of the walls.

At the bottom of the shaft, Harp stood next to Majida and waited for the others. In front of them was a wooden door without a lock, and Harp could see a faint glow of light under the bottom of the door.

“Do your scars hurt?” Majida asked.

“Sometimes,” Harp replied. “They’ve faded a lot. You should have seen them right after I got out of Vankila. They used to split open all the time.”

“Split?”

“Yeah, I could brush up against a doorframe and end up bleeding buckets. It took almost a year for the skin to really heal.”

“I can help you with them,” Majida told him.

“Thank you, but nothing works,” Harp said regretfully, “I’ve tried everything.”

“Well see.”

“Majida, do you think that Verran had something to do with that creature coming to life?” he asked. Above them, Kitto was halfway down the ladder, and the others would be right behind him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But there is something about him…”

“What?” Harp prompted.

Majida smiled sadly. “He’s at a crossroads.”

“I don’t understand,” Harp said. “It’s very similar to the place you are standing,” Majida said.

“Are you sure I’m at a crossroads?” Harp said. “Because I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well.”

When everyone had climbed down the ladder and the trap door was closed above them, Majida pushed open the wooden door. An unexpected flood of sunlight made Harp

shield his eyes. Blinking rapidly, he stepped into an enormous subterranean room. High above them, crystal-encrusted stalagmites hung from the cavern’s dripping ceiling. A narrow streambed flowing with azure water bisected the cavern floor, which was composed of the same black rock as the walls of the shaft.

“Fire-rock and mud-rock in the same place?” Boult muttered to Harp. “Something incredibly hot exploded here to get that combination.”

The walls of the cavern were slopes of gray, pockmarked rock that let water seep into the cavern as well as sunlight. The rock was so porous that Harp could see the silhouettes of vines and flowers dangling on the other side. In the center of the massive cavern, a bronze urn burned with a glittery orange flame.

“Welcome to the Spirit Vault,” Majida said. They stared at the cavern.

“Why do you call it that?” Harp asked.

Majida smiled and pointed to the far side of the cavern. The wall was the same glistening black as the shaft, but in place of sea fossils, the crystallized bones of a giant creature protruded from the obsidian wall.

Spanning from floor to ceiling, the bones were at least double the height of a giant and more than four times the size of an average man. While the bones of the creature’s torso, arms, and legs were humanoid, the slant of its skull was distinctly feline. Spiny filaments of wings jutted out from behind its back, and broken chains dangled from his shackled wrists. With its wings outspread and palms opened, the creature looked as if it had been blasted back against the wall by some immense force that had made the cavern into a tomb.

“What are those?” Harp said in awe.

Zo gave him a quizzical look. “Those are the bones of a god.”

2 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR) Chult

.hat’s not a god,” Verran said. “That’s just some monster.”

Zo’s eyes widened, and he sputtered harsh words in Dwarvish, but Verran didn’t look abashed at all. Harp thought he looked defiant, and a little pleased, as if he took pleasure in angering the dwaryen chief.

“You know, Verran,” Harp said as gently as he could. “You shouldn’t judge something you don’t know anything about.”

“It’s not a god,” Verran repeated. Furious, Zo turned bright red under his beard.

Majida sighed. “Zo, would you ask Lethea to prepare a place for our guests to rest? And food for them to eat?”

After Zo had stomped out of the cavern and down

a tunnel in the wall behind them Harp glared at Verran.

“We’re guests here…” Harp began irritably, but Majida interrupted him before he could chastise the youth.

“You’re right, Verran,” she interrupted, staring intently at the boy. “It’s not a god. But there’s no use trying to dissuade someone from their beliefs, is there?”

“What do you mean by that?” Verran asked petulantly.

Harp and Boult exchanged glances. Ever since the waterfall, Verran had been touchy. Harp wanted to attribute it to hunger and tiredness, but Majida’s fears about the boy were worrisome. And there was the strange emergence of the the creature in the pit. Without proof, Harp didn’t want to think that Verran had anything to do with it. But considering how he had melted Bootman, it was hard not to wonder.

“The Captive is not unrelated to you,” Majida told them. “The Practitioner is searching for the Torque, which was created from one of the broken links of his chains.”

“What does the Torque do?” Kitto asked.

“The Domain’s legends say many things,” Majida said with a touch of amusement. “Various myths assign it powers from dismemberment to the utter extermination of the dwarves.”

“Can you narrow that down?” Harp asked.

“Only to a guess,” Majida said. “I think it gives the wearer heightened protection. Like a shield, it gifts them with the Captive’s endurance, if not his strength.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” Boult asked.

“I am unraveling our legends in search of answers,” Majida said. “And as you know, in the realm of myth, truth is always suffocated by fear.”

“If the Torque is so powerful, why don’t the yuan-ti just use it themselves?” Boult asked.

Majida shook her head. “The Scaly Ones can’t use it.”

“Why?” Harp asked.

“I don’t know how the magic was ordered around the