James Somers - The Order of Shaddai

Ethan flailed in the darkness until his hand brushed metallic links. The chain! He seized it desperately. Searing pain tore through his left arm all the way to the shoulder, but his fall halted. He grabbed the chain with his other hand and began a slower descent.

After several minutes his feet touched the ground and hands supported him in the darkness. He still couldn’t see anything-not even his hand in front of his face.

“We’ve got you, lad,” Levi said. Just step down easy. “It takes a minute to get your bearings down here.”

“Where’s Seth?”

“I’m here, Deliverer.”

“Hey, I think I can see a little better,” Ethan said. “Is there some source of light?”

A torch fell through the darkness above and landed near them on the ground.

Seth turned toward it. “I feel heat, is that a torch?”

“They’ve tossed it down from above,” Levi said. “They’ll be coming after it I imagine.”

Seth pulled his weapons. “Then it’s time to leave.”

Ethan started to pick up the torch. “Well, we can certainly use this.”

Seth rushed to stop him. “No! We must get away from it. The heat will draw them.”

“Draw what?” Levi asked as he began to back away from the torch.

“Kung lizards.”

Levi immediately pulled the cutlass from his belt. “You led us into a nest of Kung lizards? Are you insane?”

Ethan grabbed his weapon and backed away cautiously from the torch. “What’s a Kung lizard?”

“Warm blooded reptile twice the size of a horse, lad, and mean as they come,” Levi said. “I thought you said there was an escape route down here, Seth.”

“There is. The Kung lizards tunneled into the dungeon years ago, while I was a prisoner of Nichol’s father. They attacked the other prisoners and the guards, but I used their own tunnel to make it out to safety. We can use that same tunnel again.”

The chain began to move and rattle.

“Rommil’s men are coming down,” Ethan said, peering into the darkness, expecting the lizards.

“The lizards should be hibernating this time of year,” Seth explained.

“Yeah, but that torch and these soldiers will stir them up for sure,” Levi argued.

“Then let’s hurry and get out of here before they wake up,” Ethan said. “I’ll realm shift and find the tunnel.” A look of disappointment quickly settled on Ethan’s face.

“What’s wrong, lad?”

Ethan looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. For some reason, I can’t realm shift.”

“But why?” Levi asked.

The chain rattled again, and voices echoed from above.

“This way, gentlemen,” Seth said, leading the way into the darkness. “We don’t have time to solve puzzles right now.”

They readied their swords and followed the blind priest into the darkness away from the torch. Ethan heard hissing behind him and turned just before entering one of the corridors to a cellblock. A huge slender reptilian head appeared silhouetted by the torchlight.

Ethan froze and gripped his sword tighter in anticipation of an attack. The reptile turned its head toward him. A tingle shot up his spine. The beast stood only twenty feet from him. Then it turned back toward the torch and the dangling chain.

A soldier dressed in black and crimson armor slid down the chain into view then dropped to the ground. He looked up to his comrades. “I’ve reached the bottom!”

The huge Kung lizard lunged forward, snapping a whip-like tongue at the man. The sticky coating on its tongue seized the soldier, holding him fast, then quickly drew him into the beast’s jaws. The soldier screamed as the lizard crunched down upon his armor.

It pulled him away from the torchlight into the darkness. Ethan heard it tearing away the armor plating as it went for the soft flesh beneath. Ethan ran to catch up with the others, his stomach churning.

The sound of trickling water drew Ethan into an adjacent chamber. He barely dared to whisper for Levi and Seth. “Where are you?”

No one answered. Water continued its babbling just ahead. Ethan crept closer. His feet tapped into a ledge. He felt a cool rim of stone at waist height. Beyond, a pool of ice cold water sat in the chamber, apparently fed from somewhere above. “A Cistern,” he whispered. His eyes had adjusted better to the poor lighting by now. The tiniest fraction of sunlight filtered in from somewhere far above.

Ethan bent over to get himself a drink. He’d been parched for the longest time. Something hissed behind him. He turned in time to find one of the huge Kung lizards opening its jaws. Someone hit him. He flew backwards into the water.

He pushed through the surface of the water again to see the lizards tongue shoot out and grab Seth. The sticky saliva held him to the horrid appendage as it pulled him toward his death.

As the beast reeled him to its mouth, Seth brought one of his swords down across the bridge of its nose. With the other weapon, he slashed through the adhesive tongue. Seth fell loose as the Kung lizard lurched backward. It flailed its body in every direction from pain. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Seth ran at Ethan with the tip of the lizard’s tongue still dangling from his clothing. He leaped over the rim into the pool. “Stay down!”

“Are you kidding? We’ve got to get out of here.”

Seth gripped his arm and held him in the pool. “No!” he hissed. “The water hides your body heat from the lizards. That’s the way they track their prey.”

Ethan stayed put even though the water chilled him to the bone. The lizard groaned and croaked against the pain of its injuries.

“But won’t that thrashing about attract the others?” Ethan asked.

“Exactly the reason we don’t want to be walking around right now…Look.”

Ethan watched as another Kung lizard appeared, then several more. They briefly watched the wounded reptile rolling around on the ground. They sniffed the air-blood. Then they lunged at the poor beast and began gorging themselves.

Ethan suddenly realized the captain was missing. “Where’s Levi?”

“He’s down the corridor toward our exit. I left him safe in one of the cells slathered in cool mud from the floor.”

“Body heat?”

“Precisely.”

They remained in the pool as more giant lizards arrived in the chamber to feast.

“How many?” Seth asked.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I’m hoping the whole nest will come to feed. It will keep them busy. With a fresh kill before them, they’re less likely to pay any attention to us.”

Kung lizards of all sizes chirped and clicked to one another-mothers calling their young from the tunnels adjacent to the room. Then, unexpectedly, one of the large carnivores turned toward the cistern. Ethan tensed and grabbed Seth’s arm.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?” he whispered.

“One of them is coming over here.”

The pair backed up to the rear of the cistern. “Get below the surface,” Seth instructed.

They ducked down under the water. The cistern held a water depth of only four feet. Ethan opened his eyes, trying to see the lizard. He kept his blade pointed up toward the beast, just in case it spotted them.

The tip of the Kung lizard’s snout pushed through the surface of the water. The long tongue curled out, then pulled water like a scoop back into the reptiles mouth. It stood there drinking-the tongue loping through the water mere inches from Ethan and Seth.

Ethan noticed something clouding the water next to him. The lack of light made it incredibly difficult to see anything. Then he noticed the stump of lizard tongue still attached to Seth’s clothing. Blood from the severed appendage poured out into the water around them.