Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

I removed my boots, my clothes and climbed down the rock and into the water. I found a cave. It always came down to caves. Grass and seaweeds grew everywhere in abundance, but not around the cave entrance. The cave went into the rock, the rock the tower stood on.

I climbed out of the water, ripped opened my bag and assembled my skeletal crossbow. Then I took out a howler. They were small and metallic, with springs and latches. I’d discovered their use last night. I twisted the spring and flicked the switch. Then I set down both the crossbow and howler and stowed my boots and clothes in the bag. I tied the bag tight. I made sure everything was ready. Then I readied the crossbow and set the howler in the groove. I judged angles, muttered to myself and flicked the switch, aimed, shot. The howler tumbled end over end. I winced as I watched. I had shot it too high. If it went off while in the air-

It plopped into the water. A half-second later, I heard something. Would sea monsters hear that? Would they care? I grabbed the bag and watched the water. It had to work, or were the sea monsters all away. I could have just-a vast shape shot out of the cave. It was like an eel, but longer than a galley. It had rows of teeth. Another followed behind. They swam wickedly fast. They seemed angry. A third and fourth monster shot out after them. I waited. Was there a fifth?

I slipped into the water and climbed down the rock. I aimed toward the cave mouth, soon hung above it. The murky water hid the sea monsters. I hoped it hid me from them. Despite my urgency, I waited. No more monsters shot out. I let go of the rock and floated down before the entrance. Once I touched bottom, I trudged as fast as I could.

The tunnel twisted forever. It was darker here, smelly and foul. I shoved my feet against rock and angled my head forward. What if the eels returned before-I shook my head, told myself not to think about it. Even so, I imagined the eels, the sea monsters, zooming back. They would swarm like crocodiles. Those teeth would chomp and I would be many grisly chunks of flesh.

I glanced over my shoulder. Did the water stir? My hand tightened around the sealskin bag. I churned my legs and still moved too slowly. I rounded another bend. A terrible moan echoed behind me then. I knew that was the sea monster’s call. They had returned. They headed for the cave and they might already be in it. I’d hoped that once out they might explore.

Another moan sounded and a third. I already surged through the water as fast as I could. The light increased. If I still had a heart, it would have pounded. It would have hammered blood through my body. Everything lay in the bag, including my knife. I might have scooped up a rock. It would be as effective as my deathblade here-useless. There had been four sea monsters. Had all four returned?

Two, three or four, the number made no difference. They were longer than a galley. Their teeth were like a hundred deathblades all stabbing at once. Maybe I should have kept another howler and dropped it when the first eel appeared. I could rummage in my bag for it.

A shriek echoed behind me. I looked up. Water shimmered above, light. Wild hope flared. I might make it yet. I surged to the rock. It was craggy but slimy. I thrust the end of the bag into my mouth and clenched it with my teeth. I began to climb.

I heard them! The water carried the terrible sound of their swimming. My hand slipped off a slimy rock. I hugged the wall. I desperately tried to stay on. If I lost my grip and sank, it would be over. Erasmo would win. I kept climbing, and a second later, my head broke the surface. The pit was a pool sixty feet in diameter. The rocky wall went up another thirty feet. A guardrail rose above that. The light came from a central basin, it roared as flames danced. I might have heard other sounds. Water was still in my ears so I wasn’t sure.

I surged up out of the cold water. I climbed much too slowly. The thought hit that I could climb faster without the bag. I clung to the rock with one hand, grabbed the bag with the other and flung it wildly. If I missed, if it didn’t clear the railing, it would plunge back into the pool. Then I would enter the fortress of my enemy stark naked, without any of my Darkling tools. The bag sailed. I climbed. I couldn’t afford to watch. I heard a thump and took that as success. A splash would have signaled failure.

I dared increase my rate of assent. The rock was cold, slick with moisture. In other places it was sharp. I cut my hands and feet.

Then water sluiced off something huge. It bellowed rage. It made the air rank with a stench. I twisted my head and looked down into the face of a sea monster. The mouth could have swallowed an elephant. The frilled gills made it seem obscene. It was green and slimy. Another head poked up, and a third. The three eel-like monsters glared at me. Then the first shot up like a striking snake.

I desperately shifted sideways. The monstrous head smashed the rock where I’d just been. Chunks rained off. One rock struck my neck.

The next few seconds were the most horrible since my return. One after another the monsters struck. They smashed the rock with jarring force. My hold shook. My body trembled. I acted like a lizard. I shifted one way, the other, down and up. The monsters bellowed louder and louder. They had sounded angry at first. Now they were furious, close to berserk. The roars deafened me. It must have woken the entire tower.

Then the most glorious thing happened. My hands locked onto the metal of the railing. I hoisted higher, scrambled up over the rail and onto the wet floor. My bag lay several feet distant. I was in the Tower of the East, and for this second undiscovered. The bellows of the sea monsters still crashed around me. I grabbed my bag and dashed to a hidden niche.

It was a big room made out of rock. The light came from above the railing. A fire burned in a giant basin. Double doors stood sixty feet away.

I stood in dancing shadows in a curve in the wall and put on dark clothes, my cloak, boots, belt and deathblade. I wanted to laugh, to join the sea monsters in their bellows.

The doors creaked then. I heard squeals, rusty wheels. I peered around my niche. An octo-man entered backward. He pulled something. Ah, it was a sled with small wheels. Bloody slabs of beef lay on it.

“What’s all the shouting for?” he asked. “I fed you six hours ago. Go into the bay if you’re so upset.” He pulled the slab to the edge of the railing.

I poised on the balls of my feet.

He picked up a long pole with a hook on the end. He stabbed that into the first side of beef and grunted as he hefted it off the slab. He carried it and hurled the beef over the railing. Then he dropped the pole and put the tip of his tentacles on the metal. He watched, and he screamed.

I grasped his ankles and heaved him up and over. He sailed into the watery pit, and the sea creatures gobbled him up. After that, I hurried for the door.

***

The sky sickened me. It blazed with titanic flames. It made the tower hot like a desert. The vast flames cycled through colors: yellow, orange, red and purple. They flickered like lewd dancers, erotic one moment like sinuous women, and then they leered like perverted sadists the next. The sky was not one continuous flame or band of fire. Each licking flame was its own individual, a gargantuan thing.

Behind them was darkness, the night. I found no source for these flames. It made the air hazy. It felt as if I had stepped into the antechamber of Hell.

I was on the roof of a three-storey building. The inner tower was like a city with many low brick houses. They squatted close together, seemed to huddle in misery. I’d seen altered men in all their various forms. None of them looked up at the flames. They hurried with heads down and those that had them with shoulders hunched.