“The whips’ poison filled me,” she said, grinning, “and I filled you.”
“Bitch!”
“I will not be eaten.”
He straightened, as if trying to resemble his old self, but he still appeared wretched. “You will. First, though, why don’t you experience a little more of what you’ve already seemed to enjoy.”
He nodded to the whip-wielders. They stepped forward, raised their weapons and began lashing Layanna. She screamed and arched her back. Avery called her name. One of the guards struck him in the abdomen with the flat of a large pincer. He doubled over. Layanna tried to edge away, but the Speaker, who must be some sort of high priest, subordinate only to the monarch, snapped instructions to his underlings, and they surrounded her, hemming her in. The whips rose and fell, and blood coursed along the floors. Avery’s heart twisted.
“They’re gonna cut her to pieces,” Hildra said, as the humans were pulled away from the area of the dais.
The torture went on, and it quickly became obvious that Davic did not mean for this to end quickly. The whips weren’t heavy enough to slice Layanna to the bone in a few strikes; it would take many, and each one would sting with awful fire. Unable to watch, Avery shifted his gaze, and something caught his attention.
“We’ve gotta do somethin’,” Janx said. Moisture beaded his face, and the leather patch covering his nose hole had become slightly dislodged, revealing a ragged edge of the cavity. “Our hands are free. We could rush ‘em. I think I could take one, maybe two—”
“No,” said Avery. He didn’t fear being overheard by Davic or the Magons, so loud were Layanna’s screams and the heavy breathing of the whip-wielders.
“Janx’s right,” Hildra protested. “We can’t just sit here.”
Avery gestured toward the thing that had caught his eye. “Do you see that?”
Janx and Hildra looked. There, behind the throne, a small archway led out from the room. Wind gusted through it, and Avery could see the stormy sky and a narrow stone walkway spanning nothingness. They were in the hollow of one of the pinnacles of stone, and beyond lay sky.
“Where does that walkway go to?” he asked Janx, closest to the opening. Avery’s glasses had become wet and it was hard to make out details too far away.
“I don’t ... some building, I think,” Janx said. “I see a small round thing standing on a tall spit of rock.”
“Like a temple?”
“Chapel, maybe.”
“Yes, that makes sense. The monarch’s private chapel to the R’loth, just like Lord Haemlys had in Maqarl. And where there’s a chapel to them there’s an altar.”
“Likely.”
‘That’s where they mean to sacrifice us,” Hildra said. “Must be.”
“Yes,” Avery said. “They’ll finish with Layanna, then haul us back there, to the monarch’s personal shrine, and sacrifice us to Davic on the altar, once he’s available, probably after force-feeding you two seafood. That’s where we make our move, on the walkway. It’s their only weak spot. We’re only going to get one chance. Let’s make it a good one.”
“How?”
“The walkway to the chapel is very narrow, isn’t it? Only one person, or Magon, will be able to walk across at a time ...” He spoke on, and Janx and Hildra listened. In the background, Layanna’s screams reached a high note, then tapered off. She slumped, utterly exhausted, with blood pooling all about her on the floor and a satisfied Davic standing over her.
“Now, my dear, you will be eaten. Your knowledge will have to die with you, I’m afraid. You’re obviously too dangerous to be allowed to linger.” His face was still gray, and Avery thought he was trembling slightly. To the Speaker, Davic said something in their language, then told Layanna: “I must cleanse my system. My worshippers will start the ritual, but don’t worry, I’ll be along soon.”
He left the room, and the Speaker turned to the monarch. Both had stood near the stairs throughout the proceedings, gazing at Layanna’s torment impassively. Now one of the Magons hefted her up and slung her over his hard shoulder. At some unspoken signal, the Magons guarding Avery, Hildra and Janx grabbed them and hauled them forward, toward the one who held Layanna. The monarch and Speaker spoke to the gathering for a few moments, then the Speaker turned and led the way toward the back of the chamber, to the archway howling with wind. The Magon bearing Layanna went after him, and Janx, Avery and then Hildra were shoved after this one. The two guards, then the monarch, and several other Magons, perhaps their version of nobles or high-ranking priests—official witness to the holy sacrifice—took up the rear.
Wind shrieked around Avery as he stepped foot on the narrow stone walkway. Gooseflesh prickled on his arms, and his stomach flipped as he beheld the great distance below. The walkway, really a bridge over the howling abyss, led to a small, ornate chapel located, as Janx had said, on the tip of a long, narrow pinnacle of stone whose base erupted straight out of the foamy, chaotic sea thousands of feet below. Arcs of lightning blasted as the crests pounded the pinnacle’s base, and even from here Avery could hear the muted sound of thunder. A screen of cloud stirred around him, but he could see enough through it to be sick.
Leaning to the side, peering around Janx, Avery could see Layanna carried across the Magon’s back.
“Layanna,” he whispered, and her eyes fluttered. “Can you bring your other-self over, even for a moment?”
In a weak voice, she said, “Need ... food ...”
“We’ll have to do it ourselves, then,” Hildra said.
“Now?” Janx said, but didn’t wait for Avery to give the go-head. The big man lunged into action. His large hands reached in front of him, grabbed Layanna by the arms and hauled her off the Magon’s shoulders, in the same motion practically hurling her at Avery, who went down under her weight on the narrow walkway.
Before the Magon that had been holding Layanna could even turn around, Janx had wrapped his hands around one edge of the rear carapace, and, every muscle in his thick arms straining, heaved. The Magon resisted for a breathless instant, and Avery feared its great weight would be too much for Janx, but then it listed to the side, and with a last grunt Janx heaved it all the way over. A thin, high warble escaped its mandibles, and then it plummeted through the mist toward the sea far, far below.
Meanwhile Hildra had engaged the Magon behind Avery, and was giving an excellent account of herself, slashing at its joints with her hook.
At the head of the column, the Speaker spun to Janx, pincers clacking. Janx dodged one snap, stepped inside of the creature’s reach and jabbed him as hard as he could in the eye stalks. The Speaker issued an abbreviated scream and jerked backward, collapsing just inside the chapel’s doorway.
Janx leaped over Avery and Layanna and helped Hildra with the Magon immediately behind them.
Avery, horribly aware of the abyss to either side, feeling the cold wind screaming around him, carefully maneuvered himself and Layanna to a sitting position, then helped her to her feet. She couldn’t walk on her own, but her eyes were blinking and she seemed conscious. The walkway was too narrow for two Magons to walk abreast, but it was just barely enough for Avery and Layanna. With him half supporting her, they stepped into the interior of the chapel.
The Speaker had rolled into the shadows, but at their arrival it lunged forward, snapping a claw at Avery’s head. Avery just managed to throw himself aside. Layanna fell to the floor near the altar, a hexagonal block of living, sponge-like material, eager to soak up blood. Avery wondered if its roots went all the way down through the column of rock to the sea.
The Speaker came at him again, snapping with one pincer, then another. Wide-eyed, Avery ducked and danced back, his legs shaky again. He was in no condition for this, if he ever had been.
The Speaker, he realized, was blinded, or at least its vision had been damaged when Janx tore at its eye-stalks. It lunged and snapped more or less where Avery was, but it was not as accurate as it should have been. Alchemical lamps on tall black iron poles lit the chamber in low light, their red-orange fluid slowly moving in their thick, frosted globes as if the fluid was alive, filling the chamber in lurid, bloody illumination, weak enough to further hamper the Speaker’s sight. Of course, the creature did not need to be too accurate to cut Avery in half in this small room with a big hunk of sponge taking up the middle of the floor space.
Doorways yawned at all four sides, and Avery realized that this wasn’t because multiple walkways led to the chapel but so visitors could appreciate the view, or perhaps simply be awed by the sight of the sea, of which the chapel’s gods were masters. Either way, they provided excellent avenues by which to dispatch the Speaker. Avery attempted to lure it close to one archway, then roll out of the way when it drew close and push it over. The attempt worked, but the creature was too heavy. He shoved against its carapace, and it didn’t budge.
It swung. Snapped.
