Alex Bledsoe - Burn Me Deadly

My disconnected rational mind tried to puzzle through this. What the hell was in that cave, anyway? I knew some cave gasses were poisonous, but I’d never smelled anything like this one. And had I imagined the blue light coming toward me, or had I really seen it, along with the dark shape behind it? I rolled away from the puddle of bile and gulped mouthfuls of clean mountain air.

I would have to go back down. If Liz was in the cave, she might be just beyond that blue light, passed out in the darkness. I refused to admit any worse possibility. I’d wrap a wet rag around my mouth and nose, and crouch low to stay out of the strongest fumes. Yeah, that was a plan. But I’d need the canteen from Argoset’s saddle.

I stumbled down the hill toward the horse. As I approached he tugged on the reins and whinnied; the smell from the cave still clung to me. I took off my jacket and threw it aside, then made soothing noises. He tossed his head skeptically and clopped his hooves on the hard ground, but didn’t try to run off. I opened the blessedly full canteen, washed the sick taste from my mouth and cleaned the smell from my mustache and beard. Then I let the horse drink from my cupped hands.

My head still pounded, but my stomach no longer wanted to leap out of my belly and run off into the night. The wind suddenly blew hard and cool, and I poured more water on my face to take advantage of it. The sensation drove the last of the quease from me.

I tore a piece long enough to rap around my head from the ornamental sash along the bottom of Argoset’s saddle blanket. I returned to the hole, and when I peered down, I thought I saw something or someone duck back into the shadows. I caught a fresh surge of that weird gas smell. I dropped to my stomach and waited, peering over the edge into the pit, but neither heard nor saw anything else. The odor quickly faded.

I hadn’t imagined it; the thing had been dark, and roughly the size of a man’s head. And it had been quick. Both Candora and Marion had dark hair. A mountain lion could also be dark, had reflexes like that and in such a tight space would be as lethal as either man. I imagined it crouched just out of sight, claws spread, muscles trembling in readiness. And if it was one of those two men, they’d also be waiting there in the darkness, with knife or sword or brute strength at the ready. They were both younger than me, and Marion was definitely stronger. I had no choice, though-I’d have to tackle whoever or whatever it was.

I was about to pour water on the strip of cloth and tie it around my head when a high, unmistakable scream reached me on the wind.

Liz. A terrified Liz. And nothing terrified Liz.

There was no way to accurately gauge direction, and for a moment I simply spun in place, unable to decide which way to go. It hadn’t come from the hole, so given what I knew about the area, it seemed most likely she was in the old miner’s hut. It wasn’t far away, if my sense of direction wasn’t too fuddled.

I ran to my horse. He gave me no trouble about heading rapidly down the hill or plowing through the scrub. We crossed the trail that led to the hut and made great time, until I reined to a stop just below the final stretch. I tied the horse again and rushed up the trail on foot as quickly and quietly as I could.

When I was within sight, I ducked behind the same boulder as before. A lamp flickered inside the little hovel, its deceptively homey glow drawing the few insects that lived this high. The wind made it hard to hear distinctly, but I thought I briefly caught a woman’s muffled whimpering, as if through a gag. I carefully peeked over the rock and saw three horses tied outside the little building. I could see nothing inside the windows, until Doug Candora appeared in one. He wore a sleeveless tunic, and was wiping something red from his hands with a cloth.

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

Long ago I’d watched someone I loved murdered, and nearly died myself trying to save her. I still heard her screams in my sleep, but not as often since Liz came along. If I was too late to even fight to save Liz…

Candora tossed the bloody rag out the window. He stretched, as if he’d been working diligently on something. Splatters of red covered his tunic.

I drew my sword. There would be no stealth now.

Once again I kicked open the door.

I’d seen a lot of carnage in my life, and inflicted a fair bit as well. But what I saw brought me up short, and if I hadn’t been sick earlier it would’ve definitely made me so. As it was, my stomach wrenched and tried very hard to find something else to expel.

The distinctive odors of blood, offal and terror filled the little room. Marion, all six and a half feet of him, was tied down naked to the big, crude table. The single lamp hung from a hook above him. He was missing body parts, and not all of them external: his belly and chest were expertly sliced open, and there were spaces among the organs where there shouldn’t be. Blood soaked the floor under the table, and red footprints marked where his killer had circled him during the procedure. The ropes holding his wrists and ankles to the table legs had nearly cut down to the bone from his futile struggles. Judging from the look on the eyeless mess of his face, he’d been alive through most of the mutilation.

The sight was so chilling that a full second passed before I looked around for Liz. She hung from the manacles, her feet just off the floor. She was also naked, and her body was bruised, scraped and dirty. She’d almost chewed through the cloth gag tied around her head, and blood trailed down her arms from where the manacles bit into her wrists. Painful as it was, it appeared to be the worst of her injuries; she had not been tortured, at least not the way Marion had been. She looked unconscious, and her breathing was raspy and labored. I’d heard prisoners make the same noise after being restrained in one position too long; soon she’d be unable to breathe at all as her exhausted muscles simply couldn’t expand her lungs.

Absorbing this took another second. Then I realized that there was no sign of Candora. There literally was nowhere for him to hide in the little hut, and I’d come through the only door. Had he jumped out a window? Bloody footprints showed me where he’d paced several times between Liz and Marion, but none of them headed toward the door. He instantly became a low priority, though, as I scabbarded my sword, rushed to Liz and lifted her so the weight came off her arms. I looked around for something she could stand on and intended to say, Hang on, honey; I’ll get you down.

Instead at the first touch, Liz sprang to life and kicked me in the chest.

I stumbled backward into the wall. Candora appeared, having hidden his slender form behind Liz’s hanging one, the one place in the room where I couldn’t see him. He was in mid-thrust with a knife aimed at the spot I’d just occupied; Liz had saved my life.

Liz tried to kick him as well, but he wasn’t as off-guard as me. He brushed the blow aside and, apparently as an afterthought, slashed her across the top of one thigh. She arched her back and screamed through the gag; I knew that had to hurt. Candora sighed as if all this annoyed him no end, then rushed me.

I kicked him in one knee with my metal-capped boot, at the same time turned inside his stab and ended up with my back against his chest, his knife hand pinned under my arm. I spun and slammed him into the wall three times while simultaneously bending his thumb back from his knife hilt. I saw it was identical to the one I now carried in my boot; Team Solarian, indeed. Candora was tough; he held on until I felt the bone snap.

He bellowed in pain and thrashed like a decapitated snake, but the slight build I’d observed at Angelina’s was no joke or disguise: he really wasn’t very strong. No wonder he had to dope Nicky. I punched him in the chest, knocking the wind from him. Then I hit him with both a left and a right to the jaw. He dropped to the ground like a bag of salt.