46
They reached the main cavern to the sounds of arguing. To Fletcher’s shock, Didric was standing over the tangle-haired slave, the tip of his blade drawing blood as it pressed against the boy’s heaving chest, the injured gremlin still clutched in his arms. The other teams stopped their destruction of the eggs to watch. Only half the room had been cleared.
‘There’s no room for you,’ Didric snarled.
His spider-like Arach scuttled between his legs, its cluster of eyes turning to Fletcher as he ran to the scene.
The Arach had bound the boy’s ankles with glowing gossamer, the white threads unspooling from a hole beneath its fearsome stinger. Fletcher wasted no time in slicing through them with his khopesh.
‘What are you doing?’ Fletcher demanded of Didric, pulling the slave upright. ‘They’re on our side!’
The gremlin in the slave’s arms chittered nervously, and the boy jiggled it as if he were silencing a baby.
‘You’ve done it now, Fletcher, you complete idiot,’ Didric exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘There are a dozen slaves here. How do you expect the Celestial Corps to fly all of us out now?’
Fletcher’s heart sank as understanding dawned on him. Didric could be right. The rescue party would be well on its way by now, and there would be no time for reinforcements.
Didric shoved the slave to the opposite tunnel, where Rufus was still cradling his mother. The others followed, cringing away as Didric aimed a kick at them.
‘There will be enough demons to carry them,’ Fletcher said, more hopeful than certain.
‘There will be three to a demon, if you’re wrong,’ Didric growled. ‘How are they supposed to outrun the Wyverns with all that weight on their backs? I can tell you now, I won’t be taking one of them on my ride.’
‘We’ll deal with that later, Didric,’ Malik ordered from across the room. ‘They land in five minutes. Get back to work.’
‘I’ll get back to work when I’m good and—’ Didric began, but stopped as his eye caught sight of something near to the entrance.
Fletcher turned to see a grey torso squirming out of an egg, clawing apart the translucent sack that coated it. Beside it, another egg fell on its side, then a grey fist punched through its outer layer and scrabbled at the ground.
The new-born goblin’s eyes turned to them, pale globes that swivelled back and forth. It opened its mouth and gave an ear-splitting shriek, the cry echoing around the cave and down the tunnel. Cress put an arrow through its skull.
More eggs began to shake and split, hundreds of them, scattered around the ground they stood on. An answering call came echoing down the tunnel – a tumult of screeches that set Fletcher’s teeth on edge. The slumbering goblins had woken.
‘Burn them. Burn them all!’ Othello bellowed. He unleashed a whirlwind of flame that billowed through the nearest pile of eggs. It tore through them like rice paper, shrivelling and charring them until they were no more than withered black sacks. The rest of the team followed suit. Lightning bolts crackled throughout the cavern, eggs exploding left and right, splattering the air with their mangled contents.
‘Sylva, your vial – I’m out of mana!’ Fletcher yelled, as the first goblin charged out of the tunnel, brandishing a war club. Sylva hurled the vial from across the room and Fletcher caught it by the tips of his fingers. In the same moment, he parried the goblin’s flailing club.
Athena swooped in and buried her claws in the goblin’s head. It spun away, squealing, giving Fletcher time to gulp down the bottle. It tasted sickly sweet, like honeyed lavender water.
The mana spilled from his core like a tide of white light, roiling through his veins and down his connection to Athena and Ignatius. Supercharged, Fletcher blasted a ball of fire through the goblin’s chest.
Almost immediately, the pulses of mana began to drain from Ignatius, but Fletcher had had enough of the disobedient Salamander.
‘That’s it! You’re getting out of there.’ He whipped a kinetic lasso into the lake and tugged the demon out, sending him tumbling through the air to land steaming at his feet.
Ignatius shook his head, as if to dislodge an unwanted thought. The demon seemed larger somehow, but there was no time for a thorough examination. More goblins erupted from the tunnel, screeching their war cries, and the bass roar of orcs echoed behind them.
‘Back to the pyramid,’ Fletcher ordered, sending a crackle of lightning through the frontrunners. As he turned, a new-born goblin gripped his ankle, tripping him to the floor. Ignatius slashed its face to the bone with a swipe of his claws and it spun away, squealing.
Then they were up and running. As he neared the entrance, Fletcher saw the others were well ahead, with Othello and Sylva acting as rearguard.
A kinetic ball blurred over his shoulder, the yelp of the downed goblin behind dangerously close. Othello arced another over Fletcher’s head, the explosive force showering him with soil and screams. He glanced back to see the first wave of goblins in disarray, many of them screeching in agony as they burned in the lava they had been blasted into.
‘Come on,’ Sylva yelled as Fletcher sprinted by.
The three barrelled headlong down the tunnel, with Ignatius and Athena scampering behind. Ahead, Sariel and Solomon waited at the base of the pillar. The others were well on their way up the stairs, Jeffrey included.
‘Up, up!’ Fletcher yelled, and they sprinted up the steps. It would not take long for the goblins to regroup.
Solomon went first, for he was the slowest, his stumpy legs struggling to mount the steep steps. Fletcher and Sylva protected the rear, while Othello removed the blunderbuss from his holster and aimed it at the tunnel entrance.
‘What do you see, Fletcher?’ Sylva asked breathlessly, as they backed up the stairs. ‘Are we gonna have a welcoming committee at the top?’
Fletcher allowed his sight to align with the scrying crystal over his eye, still showing Ebony’s point of view.
‘The orcs aren’t entering the pyramid, and the shamans are too far away,’ Fletcher answered with relief. ‘Looks like Mason was right.’
‘Well, the goblins will have no such qualms,’ Sylva said, as the yowls of hatred echoed down the tunnel. ‘Watch out, here they come.’
The goblins stampeded out of the tunnel, brandishing javelins, spears and clubs. The first projectile whistled between Fletcher’s legs and he scrabbled to throw up a shield spell. It was just in time, for a dozen others clattered against it not a moment later.
The first handful of goblins mounted the steps, tripping over themselves in their bloodlust. There was a snarling veteran leading the charge, its shoulder scarred from an old bullet-wound. Ignatius took it down with a well-placed fireball, sending it tumbling into those behind in a tangle of limbs.
Forced to hold the shield in place with his left wrist, Fletcher fenced one-handed with his khopesh. Sylva backed him up with great sweeps of her falx, rending the goblins apart to send them tumbling back into the pit below.
‘Firing,’ Othello bellowed, and Fletcher ducked instinctively.
There was a thunderclap, followed by a gout of sulphurous smoke. The spray of buckshot scattered into the horde below, a furrow of dead hurled to the ground as if a giant invisible fist had slammed through them.
‘Loading,’ Othello yelled, as the ranks closed and more goblins lunged from the tunnel to take their places.
A blue crossbow bolt whipped into the goblins still on the stairwell, taking one through the shoulder. It plummeted down, wailing and flailing until it hit the baying masses below with a sickening thud. A second quarrel followed in its wake, plucking another goblin from its perch.
‘You’re almost there,’ Cress called from above. ‘I’ve got you covered.’
Fletcher took the brief respite to look up at their progress. Othello was frantically reloading his gun, his hands shaking as he poured the gunpowder down the barrel. Cress kneeled on the bridge just above them, firing her bolts with deadly accuracy. Lysander remained beside her, unable to join the fight. He was too large to avoid the javelins that still peppered them from below.
‘Watch out,’ Sylva yelled.
Fletcher turned just in time, sucking in his stomach to avoid a spear thrust that would have gutted him. He slammed it down with the flat of his blade and lashed out with his sword’s hilt. It caught the offending goblin squarely in the face, and the creature spun to teeter on the edge of the stairs. Athena swooped by with a screech of fury, tugging it into empty space.
A flare of pain across Fletcher’s abdomen told him the spear had left its mark. Emboldened, the goblins charged around the pillar once more, swinging their clubs over their heads.
‘Firing,’ Othello bellowed again. This time, he shot directly down the staircase, the acrid smoke billowing between Sylva and Fletcher’s faces. The devastation was concentrated into an expanding cone of shrapnel, leaving a charnel house in its wake. The blood-soaked remains sickened even Fletcher, and sent the survivors screaming back down the stairwell, fighting to get past the more eager goblins behind them.
In the lull that followed, the team staggered up the final steps and on to the platform, while Cress kept the immediate stairway clear with her crossbow.
‘Screw this,’ she said suddenly, slinging her weapon. She popped the cork of her mana vial and gulped it down. Shuddering as the mana flooded her body, she pointed her battle-gauntlet at the stairway. A wave of flame erupted out, spiralling down the stairs and sweeping them clear of the goblins arrayed along it. It was brutal to watch, like a tidal wave flushing the rats from a piece of flotsam. The inferno pooled at the bottom of the pit, seething and roiling like liquid fire. Those that did not throw themselves back down the tunnel were incinerated, their squeals of pain harsh in Fletcher’s ears.
Silence descended, broken only by the sizzle of the cooking corpses below.
‘I’m out of mana,’ Cress said, peering down and wincing at the sight. ‘But they don’t know that.’
‘Me too,’ Sylva said, scraping the blood from her falx against the edge of the platform. ‘Used it all up burning those eggs.’
Fletcher’s reserves were low, but he reabsorbed the shield back through his fingers to replenish them. Just enough for a few more spells.
‘I’ve saved my vial,’ Othello said, frantically reloading his blunderbuss. ‘And I’ve still got some mana left over. Solomon’s mana levels increased with his size.’
The Golem rumbled at hearing his name, his face splitting into a craggy smile.
Then, as the first goblins began to venture into the pit once more, a howl echoed around the room. It came from the passageway on the other side of the platform. Fletcher looked in his scrying crystal, to see Ebony was hovering above the pyramid. Below her, dozens of creatures streamed by the waiting orcs and into the front entrance.
‘Demons,’ Fletcher breathed, his eyes widening with horror.