Chapter 17
Things came down the avenue. Things that weren‘t human, or even of this world. They looked like freight cars with legs and teeth, tossed people and cars aside like matchbox toys or squashed them underfoot until they resembled prickly pear jelly. I saw the team open fire on them with their sidearms which was as about effective as throwing eggs at them. Heard them yell for me to get back and shuddered as Andrews and Smitty were crunched into hamburger. I scrambled out of the car before I could be squeezed out as toothpaste in time to spot the boxcar things being ridden by Druz. Stood there on the hood of the car with the coin in my hand. I chanted the words; felt the stone glow and bolts of green flame pulsed from my hand to bore holes through the boxes until they resembled Swiss cheese. With gooey marshmallow insides.
Their innards were gross. Slimy, sticky and smelled worse than rotten cheese and a jock's cup after a three -day old road kill. When they went up their riders went up with them, but two got past me, and these things big as they were, could turn on a dime. Came back to gallop near me.
They had things like tentacles near their mouths that could shoot out of their jaws and coiled around cars picking up SUVs with ease. Threw them at me. My green flame goo dissolved metal faster than I could say shit, and while my attention was forward on them, tentacles attacked me from out of the rear. Wrapped around my arms and snugged them into my body so that I could not move my hands. Another pried into my mouth and gagged me so that I couldn‘t speak. I was lifted into the air and smashed into the side of the building. All I could think about was the Spiderman movie where Doc Oc beat up Spidey.
I was grateful Smitty had made me keep on the collar, if it hadn‘t been cradled in the stiff plastic, my neck would have snapped like a pencil. Wasn‘t helping the rest of my body, though. I felt my shoulder crunch and the pain made me loopy.
I heard vaguely, the sound of a Druz screaming at the thing to drop me, not kill me, and it obliged by dumping me from twenty feet up in the air. The Druz continued to screech at the thing and it caught me in its arms before I hit a parked car or the concrete. Those blue eyes glared down at me. I still couldn‘t say anything, still had a hunk of tentacle jammed in my mouth and more wrapped me from knees to neck. He saw my eyes blink.
"Ah, you're still alive," he said in a voice of gravel stuck in like a tin can. "Soldiers! To me!" He ordered, and a score of his men surrounded us. He threw me over his shoulder and pulled out a long, circular knife.
Murphy and Reilly screamed my name. The Druz snorted and sliced my calf. It flared icy and then the pain burned. I bucked and tried to get free, to scream and all I could do was bite into that rubbery mass of limb. It tasted awful and tingles of numbness filled my mouth. I swallowed the acrid tasting saliva and as it flowed, it brought more of that numb feeling to my body. I watched him milk the wound and let blood from my leg drip. It did not fall to the ground, but rather floated in the air. Gathered itself into the shape of a doorway and glowed as if it was bloodied fire, flames trickling off its edges. He pushed the gate open with his blade as it glistened, glistening with my blood. Where the blade, blood and gate met, it hissed and sparked.
"Hurry!" He ordered to his men. "The Gate won‘t stay open long with this small offering!"
He was the first through it, and when the last...man-thing leaped in, I heard Murphy‘s despairing voice and the gate snapped shut on someone‘s heels. Someone or something that didn‘t make it from the abrupt cut off scream.
We emerged in a hallway, gray, misty, with holes in the mist that seemed to be like doorways; and the one who carried me hurried past hundreds with his troops before they settled on one no different from any of the others. Through this doorway, we exited into a great hall that looked remarkably, like Grand Central Station only with the lights turned down low. At the far end of the room was a chair, a simple chair, made of wood that glowed like that creepy fungus you saw growing only in the depths of a dark cave. The whole place smelled like ozone and bit at the back of my throat, made my eyes burn and water. I was afraid I would vomit and choke on it.
The soldier carrying me dropped me at the foot of the throne, and I stared up at the face of the ruling individual. He was and a Druz even larger than the usual, large enough to double as King Kong and as ugly. He kicked me in onto my stomach and spoke in his tongue; I had no trouble understanding the harsh language or his words. "Where is the Seillach Pangorum?"
I couldn‘t answer him. With the gag in my mouth, nothing could emerge but that didn‘t satisfy him so he kicked me again to roll me across the floor as if I were a log bound for the fireplace.
"Take him to the pit chamber and make him ready for the Questioners," he ordered and I was heaved up by the bonds on my chest and thrown back over his shoulder. His muscles felt like hard wood, and they smelled like yaks. He marched backwards through the hall and took the left - hand turn into a narrow corridor to descend several stone staircases into a wide hallway, broad enough for four horses to ride abreast. The rooms were open, except for barred fronts.
These chambers were below the level of the corridor and hundreds could march abreast even with animals. There were rooms off that and most were open save for a few with barred grilles.
The walls, floors and ceilings were all of stone, a bland tan that showed blood and scorch marks quite clearly. In several places, I saw the outline of human bodies and what had been done to them showed up as a road map of torture. Guttering torches kept the place semi-lit and left black streak marks on the wall and ceiling. The chamber floors were dropped down ha lf a level from the hall he trod so that we could look down on those that housed many unlucky occupants. Not many were alive and those that were ignored us as we passed.
He peered into several cells and chose one that was empty. It looked no more special t han any of the others save that it was at the end of the hallway and near a door that went up from the glimpse, I saw through the open planking. He carried me in the room down a set of short steps and laid me on the wooden table. Held me there with one massive hand on my chest. Presently, three more Druz wandered in, dressed in long robes splattered with blood. On bands on their foreheads were silver circlets that pressed into the flesh and made indents, made them look even more ugly and ape-like. Out came more of those round knives and he sliced off the tentacles replacing them with chains made of wood on my wrists and ankles. I raised my eyebrows at that.
Surely, wood was easy to break. They left the gag in.
"Ironwood," he grinned at me, his teeth were not so friendly and definitely not human or friendly. "It's spelled to prevent axes or fire from harming the chains and cuffs." He ran his hands over my body, disrobing me as he did so, ignoring my feeble attempts to deny him.
Lingering on the cut on my calf, his huge fingers squeezed completely around it so that fresh blood oozed out. I winced, it burned like hot ice. To my astonishment, he licked my blood off his fingers and his eyes rolled back in his head. He shuddered as if he was aroused. "Ahh," He groaned. "So good, so pure, so much power imbued in his blood." He bent his head to my cut and I felt his teeth sunk in as he sucked. My entire existence dwindled down to that spot and I felt my life being pulled through it into his throat. My struggles became null as I ceased.
The others beat him until they made him let go, knocked him into a corner and worked him over until he was unconscious or dead. I felt light-headed, cold and lethargic. One of the others lifted my eyelids and felt the pulse in my neck. "Is he still alive? If Gleygus drained his power, we are all dead."
"Yes. Gleygus drank much before we stopped him. The Lord warned us that his blood was like an elixir, it has the power to seduce men. We must warn the Priests, they alone can guard him against the Blood lust. I feel it working on me, even now. Bind his wound, lest he bleed more and tempt us." They wrapped the dead Druz's sash around my calf and left me alone as two stood guard outside the bars. Once again, I was alone and at the mercy of my enemies.