Chapter 6

 

They returned to the square the next morning, after a large breakfast of plain, but nourishing porridge. After keeping his promise not to drink too much, Blake had woken refreshed and ravenous, wanting a huge, greasy bacon-and-egg breakfast to keep him going. But Sue had told him firmly ‘no’.

“Better not to have something that heavy in your belly when you go down into the sewer. Aelfstan’s spell may not be enough to keep you from yarking.”

“Oh.” Blagan was glad he wasn’t hung-over now.

Since they couldn’t very well descend into the sewers in full view of the undead wall, they had to locate a side-street with a similar manhole in it. Fortunately they found one in the second alley they tried, and as luck would have it the street was relatively deserted, running between the backyards of various shops.

The adventurers worked quickly, making sure various items and powers were active, and enchantments up and running. Aelfstan cast his “Disease Resistance” spell over everyone who needed it, everyone save Blagan and Kyanne. Kiara had recently mastered an Invisibility spell and shifted out of sight. “I'll remain in the middle of the group if you don't mind!”

“That's a sure-fire way to get yourself stabbed, creeping around unseen,” Blake told her.

“I'd rather be stabbed by you than eaten by a giant sewer rat,” she declared.

As the strongest Blagan heaved off the manhole cover and started climbing down an access ladder deep into inky, fetid darkness. Kyanne followed, and Sue went next. Then down climbed Blake, Damon, Kiara, Aelfstan and Damocles. Down in the darkness, ankle deep in sludge, Damocles surveyed the size of the tunnel and formed himself into the nastiest creature that would fit - a cave lizard that blended in perfectly with the mouldy grey brickwork. He could clamber up the walls and across the ceiling. Armed with formidable teeth and claws, and a tail that could act as a bludgeoning weapon, he would protect the rear.

Kiara put up a light spell and Blagan clambered back up the ladder to pull the heavy cover back across with a loud, very final sounding clunk.

“Jeez, no-one light a match,” Blake groaned, his eyes already watering. “I'm serious. The whole city could go up! No fireballs, Kiara!”

“You spoil all my fun. I memorised that one too!”

“Enough, you lot. Blagan - d'you know which way to go?”

“General direction only, Sue. The bit of the book ye gave me was on surface fortifications! 'Twas hard enough to get through all those weird foreign terms and such.”

Sue sighed and resisted the urge to slap her forehead. “Alright. I'll have to go up the front with you, to give you directions. Kiara, put another light-spell on a coin or something - I'll need it to see.”

Kiara complied, soon handing over a glowing disc of metal. Sue took it in her left hand and moved up to Blagan, who was muttering under his breath.

With much trepidation the little group got underway. Scarcely had they gone ten metres when they ran into a party of zombies. Fortunately the lumbering undead paid them no heed; they were simply more enhanced cleaners, fixing a section of pipe that had collapsed. Another party worked nearby, cleaning off mould that had partially obscured another access-shaft.

“Relax, relax,” ordered Sue, at the head of the group. “Zombies and skeletons are the least of our worries down here!”

“That's not the best news,” muttered Blake.

As though on cue, a deep, throaty moan drifted down the tunnel. Distorted by the convoluted acoustics, it could have come from anywhere.

“What the frig was that?” gasped Damon, drawing his sword and almost stabbing Blake in the back.

“Watch it!”

“Come on guys - we've been at this a while already. Don't go to pieces just because we're in a sewer under an undead city!” Sue warned.

They continued on. The groan sounded again, louder this time. Blagan managed to avoid a heap of decaying bones and flesh, the remains of an old zombie party, but Sue wasn't so lucky and scuffed through them. “Eww, yuck!” she hissed.

Damon shone his torch down at the mess. “What happened to these guys?”

Aelfstan moved in for a closer look. “I can see teeth and claw marks on the bones - something attacked these creatures, damaging them so much they could no longer function.”

“What kind of something?” gasped Blake. “Do I really want to know?”

Another sound came down the tunnel towards them; a scuttling of claws on stone. Everyone stopped to listen. Those who hadn't already done so drew weapons.

Then a huge, hairy shape came plunging out of the murky gloom towards them, their Magick light glistened off beady black eyes and incisors like twin daggers.

Everyone had fought giant rats in the Wizards and Warriors game. Whenever Sue pitted her gamers against a pack of the creatures, they usually yawned and dispatched them in a couple of rounds. But in real life the sight of a rodent some four metres from snout to tail produced an entirely different reaction. Someone actually screamed. It wasn't Blagan as he charged in with a typical dwarven roar. Or Sue, as she joined him with her sword flashing. They blocked the passage, and only Damocles, by scuttling up the wall and across the ceiling was able to join them.

Blagan's battleaxe struck the giant rat with a meaty thud, driving deep into its stinking, scabrous flesh. Although serious, the wound wasn't enough to stop the monster, only infuriate it even more. Sue came in with her sword, driving it deep into the beast's shoulder for a similar enraged squeal.

“Shoot it with a spell!” Damon shouted to Kiara.

“I can't see the damn thing past Blagan and Sue!” the mage retorted.

Then Damocles skittered across the ceiling. The rat snapped at him as he passed, but missed, enabling the dwarf and apprentice priest to strike again. Two more hits, two more bleeding wounds, but still the rodent fought, coming in with a flurry of claws. Its teeth flashed, twin knives tearing along Sue's arm. She cried out, and then Damocles came in from behind, leaping onto the creature's back, digging in with his own talons and fangs.

The rat reared up in pain - and Blagan came in with an underhand swing, driving his axe up into the monster's throat. It gave a choked gurgle, tried for one more swipe at the dwarf - then crashed into the semi-solid muck on the floor.

“Holy crap!” gasped Blake. “I'll never scoff at giant rats again!”

“That was a pretty damn big rat,” Sue gasped, checking out her arm. The rat's teeth had cut deep, and it was bleeding profusely. Aelfstan quickly stepped in and knitted the wound closed with a simple spell.

“The disease-resistance I gave you should prevent infection, but just in case I suggest ye keep an eye on the wound, and let me know if it starts to swell or you begin feeling ill.”

“Believe me, Aelfstan, you'll be the first to know!” Sue cried. “You're the closest thing around here to a doctor!” She directed her attention to the rest of the group, looking pale-faced and nervous in the Magick illumination. “Is everyone okay to continue?”

She received an unenthusiastic chorus, and then the little group resumed trudging through the sludge. After the ferocious rat encounter, everyone was on their toes, startling at the slightest sound. Several undead cleaners almost lost limbs when they emerged from side tunnels without warning. They passed the group a few minutes later, dragging the giant rat-carcass behind them.

“Where the hell are they taking it?” gasped Damon.

“Probably somewhere more out of the way, where it won't block a major artery,” Sue mused. “It’ll probably end up as part of a wall too.”

Scarcely had they taken another dozen steps when an ominous high-pitched chittering noise reached their ears, and they readied various weapons. Kiara's light glinted off something black and shiny at the very edge of their field of vision, something that appeared to be hanging off the ceiling.

“I hope that isn't what I think it is...” Kiara's nervous voice tailed off into breathless horror. She started backing up, desperately casting a spell with shaking fingers.

The monster scuttled out of the darkness, long antennae whispering against the walls. An enormous cockroach, even bigger than the rat, came charging towards them, moving from the ceiling to the right-hand wall. Blagan un-slung a throwing axe and hurled it. It smacked the monster right between the eyes, cracking its armoured carapace, but hardly slowing it down. Its excited chittering filled the tunnel as it looked forward to feeding on warm, living flesh.

“It'll take more than the Sunday edition newspaper to swat that one!” shouted Blake as Blagan charged in, closely followed by Sue.

Then Kiara released her spell with a scream, and a blinding lightning flash snarled down the tunnel, narrowly missing the pair who were just about to engage the monster. It smashed into the giant roach's head, sending bright, crackling power engulfing its body. Thick armoured segments gave it partial protection, but the searing heat managed to find its way in through joints and breaks, cooking the creature from the inside. An acrid stench of burning roach immediately filled the tunnel. The blast continued down into the ankle-deep muck, which was sufficient to direct some of the force back into Sue and Blagan. Both experienced a good, solid kick of electricity. Sue fell over, and Blagan staggered.

Badly injured, but still conscious and unbelievably furious, the roach dropped from the wall, over one hundred kilos of insect landing on the fallen party-member. As it lumbered unsteadily towards the rest of the group, Blagan found himself flattened against the wall, unable to swing his axe.

“What the Hell did you do that for?” Blake shouted at Kiara.

The young mage was trembling. “I hate cockroaches, alright?”

“You just wiped out Sue and Blagan!”

“At least I didn't squeal like a girl at the sight of that enormous rat!” She began working up another spell.

Kyanne, next in line, came in swinging her deadly blades at the oncoming monster, but her fighting style was designed to cut down humanoids, and find the weak points in their armour. Several times her swords clanged ineffectually off the creature's thick, black shell. It scarcely seemed to notice her, and kept on coming. Then Damocles, in cave-lizard guise, dropped on it from above, gripping with his sticky pads. His bullet-shaped head whipped around on its sinuous neck, sharp teeth snapping at the creature's flailing antennae. Damocles might have looked like a reptile, but he still possessed his highly intelligent mind, and knew severing the monster's feelers effectively rendered it blind.

However destroying its senses enraged it even more and it reared up on its hind legs, trying to dislodge the persistent hitchhiker. Front legs, ending in sharp claws, flailed at the attackers in front, driving the nimble Kyanne back. Blake managed to thrust himself forward, driving his sharp sword blade into the monster's midsection. He had been aiming for its soft abdomen, but jammed his blade into the joins where its legs emerged from its body. Damocles struggled to hold on, but lost his grip and splashed into the sewage, falling beside the unconscious Sue. Blagan managed to struggle out from behind the beast and swing his axe at its heavily armoured back. The shell cracked, but his weapon failed to penetrate and do any damage. He cursed.

Damon tried to edge into the battle, but Kiara and Blake were blocking the tunnel, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Kyanne gave up trying to attack the monster’s body and struck out at its flailing limbs. She managed to slice one off, and stinging fluid gushed from the wound, splashing her in the face. It burned like acid and she hissed in pain.

Damocles skittered out of the sludge and back up the wall to leap onto the cockroach's head. Blagan swung a mighty over-handed blow, almost cleaning up the lizard in the process, and his battleaxe crashed into the insect's carapace, splintering the small crack he had made previously, and driving deep into the softer organs beneath. The monster screeched in agony and snapped at Blake, mandibles closing around his forearm. There was a sickening crunch of bone.

Blake howled.

Then Kiara finally got her act together and released her spell, sending a stream of sizzling manabolts streaking towards the roach's face. The Magickal energy ate into its eyes and brain, burning out the last of its senses. Then Damocles managed to snap his jaws around the monster's head and snap its neck. Unfortunately that couldn’t stop its momentum and it continued to lumber forward. Kyanne managed to leap out of the way, finding a crack in the wall to hang onto, but the stunned, badly wounded Blake wasn't so lucky. The monster's huge, falling body brought him down into the muck with a colossal splash.

A dreadful silence fell in the wake of the battle.

“Well, it that wasn't the biggest dog's breakfast of a fight I've ever seen I'll eat my axe!” roared Blagan. He rolled Sue over before she could drown in the mire. “What were ye thinkin', ye stupid mage? Sending a lightning-bolt down here in such a confined space?”

“I'm sorry, but I hate cockroaches!” Kiara gasped. “I used to have nightmares about them, and after tonight, I think they'll be back!”

“Storm priest! Make yourself useful and tend to the wounded,” ordered the gruff dwarf, still annoyed by the whole debacle. Two down, the shadow elf badly singed and everyone covered in stinking muck - this was by far the worst fight they had been in together. As Aelfstan hurried past him to check on the pair collapsed in the sludge, Blagan turned to Kiara and continued berating her for unleashing that lightning bolt.

Kiara burst into tears.

The dwarf ranted for a few more seconds until he realised what she was doing. He couldn't believe his senses, and gaped at her in amazement. “What?”

“I'm sorry!” she wailed, at her wits' end. “I didn't mean to!”

Blagan's fury dissolved into embarrassment. “Oh, come on - there's no need to be makin' such a row!”

But Kiara continued to cry. Now acutely mortified, Blagan hurried off in embarrassment, wishing that he'd never opened his big trap. Better go and watch the tunnel for more nasties, he thought.

Aelfstan managed to fix up Sue and Blake - their injuries weren't as bad as they looked, but had they remained face-down in the goo for much longer they would have drowned - a truly ignominious way to go. He also healed Kyanne's burns, for which the shadow elf thanked him gruffly. When he approached Blagan to ask if he needed any healing, the dwarf waved him away. He also checked Damocles, but when he transformed himself back into his human shape, he healed any wounds he might have sustained as a lizard.

Now conscious, Sue approached Kiara to rebuke her for letting off that lightning-bolt. But when she saw how upset the young mage was, she said simply, “No more singeing other party members down here, okay?”

“Okay,” sniffed Kiara. All other monsters she had faced with a brave heart, but the sight of that huge, horrendous insect had seriously rattled her, giving her a bad case of the shakes.

The little group continued on in silence. Kiara jumped at each sound, fearing the arrival of another enormous roach, but when they encountered a second rat she didn't even bat an eyelid, and let it have another handful of Manabolts, staggering it enough for Damon to skewer it with his blade. A large snake was dispatched with similar ease.

Shortly afterwards the travellers paused to gut down a quick lunch of their dry trail rations. They could only eat whilst holding their noses. No one really wanted to stop but they knew if they didn’t their energy levels would suffer as time crawled on towards the afternoon. Had they really been down here so long already? The fights were over in seconds but felt like hours, and the travelling took hours but felt like seconds … Or was it the other way around?

They might have thought the weird perpetual night outside disconcerting, but down here in the close, noisome stench of the sewers it was even harder to keep track of time, as though the labyrinthine tunnels had the power to somehow warp the very fabric of the universe. They had already encountered zombies, rats, cockroaches and a giant snake.

But as the afternoon wore on the endless tunnels and constant random encounters started to wear them down. Sue sagged against a wall to catch her breath. “This is really starting to get really tedious!”

“Just as well we started early this morning,” Blake growled. “Imagine if we’d decided to come down here last night!”

“Well, we’re here right now so we have to continue,” grumbled Blagan. He was trying to appear tough, but also looked exhausted.

“Yeah – where the heck is there to sleep around here?” Blake looked gloomily around at the damp stone walls of the sewer tunnels. So far they hadn’t encountered a section that didn’t stink like a public toilet and have at least ten centimetres of muck at the bottom.

“We really don’t want to stop down here,” declared Kyanne. “Not with so many monsters around, wanting to attack. Besides, I don’t think we have much further to go.”

Sue pushed herself up with a grunt. “Yeah, you’re right about that. I think we might have reached the castle wall. Might as well get this over and done with.”

Not long after their short break they came to a crossroads, where their relatively small tunnel was bisected by a much larger passage almost ten metres wide. More murky liquid of an indeterminate depth oozed along it, occasionally bubbling and squelching. Had the travellers not already been used to the noisome stench down here the odour would have floored them. Aelfstan's disease resistance incantation helped in some part to keep their guts under control. Glowing patches of bright green iridescent fungus clung to the walls, and as the travellers watched, wondering how the hell they were going to cross without wading through the water, they realised the patches were moving, cleaning the bricks.

“Main thoroughfare from the castle,” Sue explained. “Important to keep free of obstacles. We’re definitely within the wall now.”

“So how are we goin' to cross? I don't fancy swimmin'!” Blagan growled.

“Give me a rope and I'll carry it over,” Damocles suggested. “I can fasten it on the other side.” He reverted to his cave-lizard form and flipped himself up onto the wall beside the opening they were standing in. Sue unhooked a coil from her belt and tossed the end to him. He caught it in his mouth and started across the curved ceiling, dragging the rope out behind him. It drooped over the water, barely a metre above its bubbling surface.

“We'll have to be careful climbing across that,” murmured Blagan. “One slip and we'll end up in the drink!”

“I'm going to levitate.” Kiara began casting a spell.

“So ... who's first?” Blake asked, looking warily at the thin cord. Hand-over-hand climbing always looked so easy in the movies.

“I'll go,” Kyanne answered as Damocles disappeared into the tunnel on the other side.

The shapeshifter emerged a few minutes later in human form. “Rope's tied around a piton. It should hold! I reverted to troll form to bash it in!”

“I reckon Blagan will still manage to pull it out!” Blake quipped.

“Shaddup.” The dwarf elbowed his counterpart in the ribs. “Just for that I'll let you go in front of me!”

Kyanne grabbed the rope and swung out across the murky sewer, making it look easy as she scuttled along, hand over hand. She reached the other side in record time and moved out of the way so the next person could move across.

Having been brought up in the city all her life Sue had very little experience with this sort thing. Apart from a few school camping trips when young, she had never used a rope like this. With great trepidation she gripped the rope and curled her legs around it, preparing to inch out along its length.

“We are going to be here forever,” complained Blagan.

But then Sue happened to brush one foot against the rope and the oddest thing happened. Her foot stuck to the rope! “What the…” She tailed off in surprise. She pressed her other foot against the rope and it stuck too. “Has someone cast a spell over me?” she called. “My feet have somehow become attached to the rope!”

“No,” called Kiara.

“Try walking along it!” suggested Kyanne.

Sue managed to lift one foot and shift it along. When she touched the rope again it stuck fast. She felt that if she released the rope she would be able to hang upside down. “What do you think’s happening here, Kyanne?” Sue called.

“Remember that ring you picked up? After the undermen fight?”

That was such a long time ago! But then it clicked. “Lightness of Foot!” Sue cried. “So that’s what it does!” She took a gamble and removed her hands from the rope. Something flipped her over and she was now above the rope, standing quite comfortably on it like an expert tightrope walker. She didn’t feel clumsy or unsteady at all. She was able to put one foot in front of the other quite happily until she reached the other side.

“The ring might also have enabled you to cross the water, or whatever that is,” Kyanne told her,

Sue looked dubiously at the sludge. “No thanks!”

“The rope's strong enough to take more than one,” Damocles called. “It's elfin make - very fine.”

Blagan sniffed disdainfully, but Blake decided to start across. He might have been on some very adventurous camping trips when young and stupid, but there wasn't any alcohol in his system now, and falling into a pile of leaves and branches was infinitely preferable to dropping into that radioactive sludge oozing below. He moved along slowly and carefully, trying not to look down.

Blagan caught the rope when there was enough room, and soon two people had swung out across the “river”. Even with Damocles and Aelfstan holding lights at either end of the rope, the Magick glow didn't penetrate far into the noisome darkness. The broad passage fell into darkness almost immediately on either side, and the only sound that reached the travellers was the slopping of liquid, considerably thicker than water, against the tunnel walls.

Possessing the best sight by far, Kyanne spotted the glint of white teeth in the darkness. Then a pair of jaws two metres long snapped closed around Blake and yanked him from the rope. The young man didn't even have time to scream as 20cm teeth dragged him into the muck with barely a splash. A large, scaly back appeared for a brief moment beneath the rope, and then vanished, dropping beneath the mire.

“Blake!” shouted Blagan in horror.

 

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