Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 3 The Iron Gate Read online

  Even the silence of the thing’s wake was enormous.

  How much time had passed, Ampeánor could not have said. He glanced at the hand that gripped the knife. The knuckles and fingers were like bones. He wiped the sweat from his brow and raked back his hair. He remembered to breathe again.

  His chest was bleeding. He must have cut it scrambling up the roots.

  ‘Well, Southron?’

  On a lower branch stood the barbarian. The man clambered down easily, despite the burden of the pack. He made his way among the roots and threw down his pack. He strung the bow.

  ‘Was that what you smelled in the dirt? Why not speak clearly, like a man? Or did you hope the thing would kill me, and free you from your oath?’

  Gundoen grinned. He jerked his head toward the ditch. ‘Wait and listen,’ he said.

  In the dull, deep silence of the valley Ampeánor heard a thin, bright braying. The sound split the darkness like a streak of color. Then it was gone.

  ‘Now,’ said Gundoen, ‘the edge is off his hunger. But I think you’ll do no more riding.’

  ‘Was that my horse? I never heard such a sound from horse before. Did that, that thing get it? By Goddess, tell me what it was!’

  ‘A Darkbeast,’ the barbarian said.

  For a moment, Ampeánor could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Do not ask me how he came to here,’ Gundoen said. ‘He’s here and he’s ours, and that’s that.’

  ‘Then why do we stand here? We must find our way out of this accursed valley.’ Ampeánor knelt for the pack. Calmly, the barbarian put his foot upon it.

  ‘Too late to run, Southron. I never faced a Darkbeast; the call never came to me. But I spoke with oldsters who hunted them, and I heard ballads of past hunts. Just now, our Darkbeast gobbled up your horse as you or I would swallow half a gamebird. Good luck for us! Darkbeasts are slower when their bellies are full. It was a trick of our hunters to set out a string of old ponies as bait, and when the Darkbeast ate his full, set upon him with spears. Now we can attack.’

  ‘The two of us, against that? Can you think of no more pleasant way to die?’

  ‘Shut your mouth, open your mind. Listen. Where there is one Darkbeast, there will be others. And they will have sharp bellies. There is only one talisman that will keep a Darkbeast at bay, and that is the scent of another Darkbeast’s blood. It is the only way.’

  ‘We could follow the path out of this valley. We could go from tree-trunk to tree-trunk and when we met one of these creatures we could climb beyond its reach.’

  ‘Our first would be the last,’ the barbarian said. ‘He would wrap himself about the tree and sleep, while we sat on bark and starved. Would you rather face him now as you are, or later, when you are sick with hunger and he is sharp and eager?’

  He looked away and resumed softly, as if to himself, ‘Ara-Karn faced a Darkbeast alone, with a bow and fire for his only weapons. He took its head to Urnostardil. It was a deed none would have deemed within the power of one man. Later I adopted Ara-Karn as my son. I will not flee what my son has faced.’ He took his foot off the pack.

  ‘Southron,’ he said, ‘do as you like. Gundoen will fight.’

  He slipped the bundle of arrows on his back, stooped and caught up the long lance. ‘This I will need,’ he said. He spoke now as if his mind were already busy with the details of his attack. Ampeánor glimpsed what made this savage a general of greatness.

  With the easy movements of a great beast of prey, the barbarian slouched off among the roots.

  ‘Wait,’ Ampeánor called. The barbarian stopped.

  ‘You are my prisoner,’ Ampeánor said. ‘Just now fear had me. I had never before seen such a creature. It has passed. I will not return to Tarendahardil without you. I will help you fight this beast.’

  Gundoen smiled. ‘I knew you would, Southron. Here – you’ll need it.’ Ampeánor caught the lance in the hollow of his right palm, with the stinging slap he knew of old.

  * * *

  ‘There he lies.’ The barbarian spoke with a soft eagerness.

  ‘Will it be aware of us?’

  ‘Not by smell – not with this mud of his own juice on us.’ Gundoen smiled. There was fire in his light eyes. He looked like a young man seeing again his first love after a year’s absence. It was death he was in love with, Ampeánor realized – death, and the horrible, bloody struggle to come.

  Filling the hollow path before the two men, scaled and finned like a fish, legged like a centipede and clawed like a cat, the great reptilian body extended without end to either side. Ampeánor guessed the thing at a quarter fastce long. Its height was some four fathoms.

  Far to the right he heard rumbling, like thunder. It was the breathing of the thing.

  The armor of the Darkbeast was more intricate than Ampeánor had thought. The plates of black armor looked heavy and hard as coral-crusted stone, but the greenish, scabrous leather which joined the plates was weirdly beautiful. From the edges of the armor legs emerged, short curved things less than a fathom in length. The ugly grayish claws seemed hewn of stone. As the thing slept, shudders passed down its length in ripples, disturbing the plates and causing the legs to twitch and claw. Beneath the legs, a part of the belly was exposed, covered with yellow-green flesh, soft and pulpy, oozing a slime so noisome it made Ampeánor choke.

  Such was the thing these two men meant to kill.

  Beside it, they were less dangerous than newborn field mice.

  Ampeánor wore his armor and held his lance. At his back he had his sword, on his belt his war-knife. How strange an irony it was that he, the High Charan of Rukor, should fight the greatest battle of his life here in an unknown valley beside a barbarian. He tossed up the lance and caught it. He felt like laughing. He too loved this moment.

  ‘Come on, but make no noise,’ the barbarian whispered. ‘He will hear the snap of a twig. Smile later, Southron, after we have cut out his teeth to make our ornaments.’

  They followed the path. The barbarian carried on his back a bundle of deadwood.

  ‘Why do they inhabit these tunnel-like paths?’ Ampeánor asked.

  ‘They dig them with their claws, and press the earth down with their bulk. In the darkness, lesser beasts plunge over the edges of the path and are trapped. The Darkbeasts crawl along and eat whatever comes in their way. They are not fussy eaters.’

  ‘So there will be other hollows like this in the woods about us?’

  ‘The whole valley will be marked with them. But mistake not, Southron: he is not confined to this worm-track.’

  ‘Sleeping, it seems slow, and far away.’

  ‘That will change when we prick him. A Darkbeast is a head, belly, muscle and armor, and little else. That armor is harder than iron. We will be able to wound him only about the head and along his belly – there, where the flesh oozes like pus. The belly cuts easily. Your knife alone would do it. But cut it and you die. The poison gushes from the wound and covers you. Then he rolls over to crush you under him.

  ‘The head is bone, horn, eyes and mouth. Also tongue: beware that! They smell with their tongues, throwing them to catch and taste the air. His tongue is as tough as leather and as sharp as a knife. It also drips poison. That poison doesn’t kill, but instead infects a man slowly, leaving him maddened for life.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘If we had poison to dip these arrows in, that would be best. As it is, there is but one way.’

  The barbarian crouched down on the moss. He pointed ahead.

  Half in darkness at the outer edge of his vision, Ampeánor saw the Darkbeast’s head. It was rough as a mountain cliff, big as a horse. The breath sounded like the blast of a hundred bellows in the forges of Ul Raambar. The stench was almost a living presence. The huge globed eyes reflected wet, silvery light.

  For a moment his soul quailed. The evil of the thing was so vast and ancient that it seemed impossible anything might harm it, let alone two men. He hoped the barbarian’s pl
an held some reason for hope.

  ‘Tell me.’

  Gundoen lowered the bundle of wood onto the moss. ‘First,’ he said, ‘we blind him and hack out his tongue. Then we cut his head off.’

  Ampeánor wanted to laugh. ‘And just how are we to achieve these slight things?’

  ‘I will blind him, with arrows and fire. As for the rest, my lord, you will have to go down into the pit and see what you can do.’

  * * *

  While the tiny men laid their plans, the Darkbeast slept on.

  Once, long, long ago, when even the shape of the mountains had been different, the Darkbeasts had come from beyond the dusky border.

  There they roamed sea and land alike. In sunless seas they feasted on unknown fishes and the plants of darkness; on lightless lands they devoured whatever moved and smacked of blood. But food had grown scarce, and some Darkbeasts were tempted to go farther, even into the light.

  They swam, of course. Deep beneath the waves there is always darkness. But they must rise from time to time to breathe.

  They emerged like long reefs into the light, and there they lost the way back to the darkness.

  Most died, and left their armor on the floor of that small pool which, in ages to come, creatures that ran like bugs across the land would name Elna’s Sea. And one group drove themselves upriver, and found some sanctuary here in the Sontil’s gloom, in the shadow of the mountains.

  That had been a great quest, and those Darkbeasts thrived here in these brooding woods, until their monstrous appetites reduced the woods to a necropolis. And the Darkbeasts grew sluggish, and went for months fasting. And one by one they failed to waken, so that their bellies turned to yellow dust and their armor fell between the high arches of the rib-bones. The bones choked the outer paths and those paths were abandoned, for no Darkbeast will approach the carcass of another. One by one they died.

  He was the last.

  Even so, Gundoen had been right not to hope to flee. For this Darkbeast knew these grounds as a man knows the body of his beloved, and he had strewn them with his traps. He had caught the smell of the men along with that of the horse. He rested now while the bones and flesh of the horse jellied in his gut, but he would rouse himself again and take up the track of the men. They would not escape him.

  As he slumbered, the Darkbeast dreamed of past feasts, of those few moments in his long life when even he had had his fill and might not move for surfeiting. It was a happy dream and it was with happiness that he snorted and snuffled and tasted the air as if even now some fat and toothsome herd drew near.

  * * *

  Gundoen bent low and blew upon the wood. The smoke thickened, and sparks leapt about beneath the chieftain’s breath.

  ‘Now hasten,’ he said. ‘He will smell the smoke.’

  He caught up the bow. At his feet a score of arrows were bound with twigs. He waved one over the fire until the twigs lighted, nocked it and shot it full into one of the Darkbeast’s great silvery eyes. He snatched up another arrow before the first roar burst from the massive jaws.

  Ampeánor watched the second streak of flame tear into the monster’s eye. The river of scales and fins rippled from the head into the obscurity beyond.

  Again and again Gundoen shot. The death-birds plunged into the silver yolk of the eyes.

  The Darkbeast shook in the confines of the tunnel. Its forepart reared up, towering four fathoms above the men.

  ‘Back!’ Gundoen shouted.

  The great tower wavered from side to side, as if searching. The sharp tongue slashed the air. Silvery fluid poured out of one eye and dripped down on the tongue. Then the thing seemed to catch sight of them with his good eye. Eagerly it bent its body forward.

  The tower began to fall.

  Again Gundoen shouted, but the sound was lost when the mass crashed to the earth, spewing moss to all sides. Ampeánor was thrown against a root but the barbarian held his footing and shot three more arrows into the Darkbeast’s good eye. A gaping wound opened in the globe, draining slime. Gundoen’s mouth opened but Ampeánor could hear nothing over the storm of the beast’s rage. Gundoen hurled a flaming branch into the wound of the thing’s eye. Forty legs dug up moss, the great body twisted back into the pit.

  For a moment there was stillness.

  ‘Now, Southron!’

  They ran to the edge of the hollow.

  Below them writhed the long black and yellow body. It was as if a range of hills heaved and fell. Hundreds of legs kicked and clawed, caving in the sides of the hollow. The beast was blinded, and for the moment filled only with its own agony; it remained formidable.

  Ampeánor clapped his palms over his ears. Gundoen ranged up and down the path, emptying his pouch of arrows into the belly of the beast. When the last arrow was gone, the barbarian took up his bow and smashed it on his knee. For a moment Ampeánor thought the barbarian had lost his wits. Then Gundoen ripped the axe from Ampeánor’s hand. Ampeánor understood. The barbarian had done his part; Ampeánor’s task remained.

  He must go into the pit with the beast.

  He looked again upon that vast and evil form. He took up his lance. He drew his sword. He lifted his head and sang the war-song of the Torvalen. There was no fear in his heart now. It was the supreme moment of battle, when the mind is drowned in a tide of blood. Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor, had become as much of a beast as the thing before him.

  Still singing, he leaped into the darkness.

  Ampeánor struck the greasy earth and fell forward, so he escaped the cut of the thing’s tongue. Still on his belly, he flung himself closer to the jaws. He rolled onto his back as close as he dared. Above him the great tongue slashed back and forth. Ampeánor lay his lance to one side and took the sword in both hands. He remembered what Gundoen had said. When the tongue emerged again, Ampeánor leapt to his feet and swung the sword against it with the full strength of both his arms.

  He might as well have struck against a pillar of stone.

  The steel bit into the tough muscle of the tongue half a span, then the sword was torn from his grasp. The tongue broke his armor and hurled him against the side of the pit. The tongue struck him again, and he lost his senses.

  The fearsome bellowing woke him.

  From the corner of his eye, Ampeánor saw the huge head turn so that the jaws opened from side to side of the tunnel, the more easily to reach him.

  He slid and fell. The tongue snaked out once more. It spun him closer to it. He was lying on the floor of the hollow. Something touched his arm – it was his lance. He reached for it but fell again. Another blow of the beast’s tongue rolled him onto his back. The breath flowed over him, sickening as the fumes of embalmers’ jars. He held the lance by instinct – it was the hands which gripped it, not Ampeánor.

  He rolled to the side of the pit. The hole of one of the beast’s eye-sockets swung before him.

  It occurred to Ampeánor that somewhere behind the eye must lie the brain.

  He drove the lance, legs kicking and digging at the wet ground. It caught on something hard, bone or armor. Ampeánor stabbed again. The lance plunged into the gaping, putrid hole, sliding easily, as if into mud.

  For a moment, everything about the scene became clear. Ampeánor saw it all as though revealed in the full light of Goddess.

  He was crouching on the Darkbeast’s muzzle, one foot jammed into the nostrils. Its head thrust forward, its tremendous jaws convulsing, but Ampeánor hung on.

  Above the thing’s brow, Gundoen balanced on the beast’s neck. His massive arms rose high. In his bare, blood-soaked hands the barbarian held the wood-axe.

  The axe struck the leathery space between the armor plates and dug into the neck. The Darkbeast writhed and twisted. The barbarian wrenched the axe free. He gave it another stroke. The coils of the beast rose in black-green arches. Yellow and a scarlet slime spewed from its belly.

  In that one instant Ampeánor saw all this and more. Then he felt the lance in his hands and j
abbed it deeper.

  The Darkbeast gave out a roar that shook the very boughs above. The barbarian fell behind the neck and Ampeánor was hurled from his perch. His foot twisted and broke as it tore from the beast’s nostril. He rolled about, his ribs afire, each limb a separate agony. But the roaring of the beast went on.

  The sword lay half-covered with blood at the side of the pit. Ampeánor reached for it. He crawled on his elbows, dragging his body behind. His hands grasped the sword.

  Somehow he regained his feet.

  He stood, swaying, for a moment.

  There was no sign of the barbarian. The beast writhed and roared. Its body arched into the air like the ramparts of some fantastic castle. A hundred legs clawed and snapped. The Darkbeast had done itself more damage than either Ampeánor or Gundoen had. In its agonies it had clawed open the length of its own belly. That it still lived was a wonder. Yet even so near death, the great jaws opened and snapped, the fearsome tongue whipped about, the coils arched and fell.

  Ampeánor was in little better state. His armor was broken, his ankle broken, one shoulder a dangling agony. He was cut, scraped, crushed; streaming blood, mud and the oozing of the beast; half-blind, half-deaf, half-dead. When he breathed, he coughed; when he spat, he spat red.

  He mounted the muzzle. He clambered up to the open eye-socket. Behind the socket he found the small opening that was its ear. With his last strength, Ampeánor drove the sword in to the hilt.

  The Darkbeast screamed.

  * * *

  It was a scream which belike had never before been uttered anywhere on the face of the world. It shook the branches of great trees, pierced the high mantle of leaves, and entered into wind and cloud. A few lonely, passing birds heard that scream, and scattered into the bright, clear depths of air.

  The ancient Darkbeast, last of his kind, ruler of the Sontil, was dying.

  How many ages had it been since he had broken from his egg? Others had hatched after him, but he had survived them all. He had ruled the forest and constructed many cunning paths and traps. And once there had come to him the scent of men. There were many of them, and his hunger had been so great that he had ventured even into the southern fringe of the wood, where the brightness hurt his eyes. It had been worth the pain, for he had found the ten thousand laborers of the Emperor Pharokul. Ah, what a feast! He had driven them into the gloom. Those he had not been able to eat right away he crushed and swept into his pits. For weeks he had eaten them, surfeited and bloated. Now, as he lay dying, he remembered that feast.