That heartbeat turned out to be a real problem going forward. As we entered the hole descending into the cavern directly beneath the ship, verbal communication became an impossibility. Worse, the reverberations were making my head pound, and I clearly wasn’t the only one suffering its ill effects. Eventually, Belkross took out pieces of wax and handed them around. With everyone’s ears plugged, the humans used hand gestures for very simple communication. Paco stayed at the rear, riding backwards on Turtle. That way, even if he couldn’t hear, he’d be the first line of defense against any Grays who tried to ambush us from behind.
As we went, Seaweed Man conjured up his shade again and sent it on ahead. His eyes turned black again. He narrowed them, frowned, and then turned towards Lilian. He held up a single finger. The shade had apparently spotted a single Gray. Likely the one who’d escaped the initial scuffle. Its job done, Seaweed Man called his shade back. His eyes returned to their normal color, but the tiny shadow remained, continuously hovering above his left shoulder. Despite the Gray God’s heartbeat masking any sounds of our approach, we still moved cautiously, weapons at the ready. Seaweed Man even blessed Belkross’ sword with light. It risked giving away our location, but it was better than tripping over ourselves in the dark.
Eventually, the terrain evened out into a tunnel that swerved left, then right, before finally widening out once more into cavern with a low, stalactite-covered ceiling. Everyone jerked to a halt. The light from Belkross’ sword extended far enough to illuminate a section of the cavern’s floor. A floor covered in gold, silver, and copper coins, stolen clothes and weapons and jewelry, and various knickknacks. And that was just one section. If I strained my eyes, I spotted more treasure, along with bigger objects that vaguely resembled tables, drawers or suits of armor pushing up against the cavern’s walls, or-
I stiffened. The Gray was farther up ahead, his back to us. The only reason we hadn’t been given away by the glowing sword was because the fungus man was down on his hands and knees, forehead pressed to the ground. Praying?
Both Lilian and Seaweed Man readied their bows and the released arrows in near unison. Her arrow struck the Gray in the head and his in the lower spine. The Gray slammed forward, through the small piles of coins, and finally into a nearby chest. His legs continued to twitch, but he made no move to get up. The entire group tensed. Following the Gray’s trajectory, I saw that it had landed near the mouth of yet another cave beyond the one we were currently in. Everyone expected something to come lumbering out in response to its moldy acolyte’s assault. But nothing did. And the heartbeats continued, as loud and steady as ever.
Belkross maneuvered through treasure to the mouth of the cave and then held his sword aloft. As the rest of us followed, I suddenly thought of Great Bear. Like Mother and Direwolf, Bear had been a primal force in the forest, outranked only by the Guardians. While Mother protected the forest’s denizens and Direwolf and his pack kept natural order by culling the weak, thus making room for fresh, young life, Bear was different. Lazy. He lived alone in a cave behind a waterfall. The great beast barely had to lumber out of his home to feast on fish. When left alone, Great Bear was a nonentity in the forest.
When left alone.
One of Direwolf’s sons rebelled from the pack, taking others with him. This faction hunted excessively, and even occasionally ventured out of the forest, into human territory. Mother had confronted Direwolf about this, making an ultimatum: rein in your kin or I will.
But in the end, neither had to do anything. Come winter, the overhunting had left the forest scarce on prey. Either out of desperation or ego, the second pack attacked Bear’s cave. Either to steal his stockpiled food or devour the great beast himself, I don’t know. The only thing I do know (or, really, what Mother told me) was that that winter, Bear ate better than usual.
Back in the present, in this cursed cave, about to enter the Gray God’s “throne room”, I remembered Bear. And wondered whether or not the second pack’s fate was about to become our own.
I strained my eyes to see inside, yet my vision was obscured by curtains of webs running from ceiling to the ground a few feet from the opening. No, not web. More fungus. Belkross glanced over his shoulder at Lilian. She nodded. He turned back and swung his sword. Perhaps reinforced by Seaweed Man’s magic, the blade cut through the mold easily. After a moment, Alton used his own sword to help Belkross clear a passage through. I felt Nakoda tense atop of me, his lance at the ready, as we followed Belkross’ lead.
Meanwhile, Seaweed Man’s shade flew past, swerving around the dangling web like an overexcited fish. Seaweed Man frowned and hurried over to Belkross, touching the mercenary’s shoulder. The mercenary jerked away, looking ready to strike. Unfazed, Seaweed Man simply pointed upwards. In unison, everyone except Alton (who’d ventured a bit ahead) looked up.
I’d been half right. This wasn’t just the Gray God’s throne room, but the gallows.
Grays hung above us, held in place by vines of fungus roped around their necks or torsos. While their eyes were closed, their bodies had begun to twitch and their head rock back and forth, as if they were trying to stir themselves from a deep sleep. Or a shared nightmare.
The only one still oblivious of the threat above, Alton continued to slash at the vines. With one last strike, he made a hole large enough for the party to see into, finally giving all of us our first clear view of the Gray God. It’d once been a humanoid man, that much was clear, but only his skeleton remained. Instead of human flesh, his “skin” was pale mold molded around the bones. The Grey God’s upper torso jutted from the far wall of the cavern, his emaciated limbs dangling towards the floor and his head hanging to one side. Or, to put it more simply (and ridiculously) the Gray God was a skeletal mermaid with his lower half being, instead of fish, a humongous cave of mold and tumors.
And he was waking up.
His arms were trembling, bony fingers twitching, and the tendrils hanging from the wall around him and running across the floor of the cavern were beginning to sleepily slither back and forth like lethargic serpents. And the heartbeat that had been thundering through all of our minds was now gradually, but noticeably picking up speed.
A blur of movement stole my attention. The Grays hanging above us were now fully conscious and wriggling free from their bonds. One twisted his neck all the way around, tearing off the noose, and fell towards Belkross. Paco’s gunshot was almost loud enough to hear as the gunslinger came to the mercenary’s aid.
The bullet popped the Gray’s head like a piece of rotten fruit, knocking it back towards the Gray God. The Gray hit the ground and its blood splattered across the skeletal monster’s body. It jerked once and then very slowly looked up.
Its eyes were milk white. The Gray God was blind, using its tendrils to feel out its surroundings instead of relying on sight. Yet, despite knowing it couldn’t see me, it didn’t matter. A primal part of me-the same part that had been screaming at me this entire time to run away-flipping on its head the moment our eyes met. Lilian’s lessons on magic echoed through my mind, somehow drowning out the Gray God’s accelerating heartbeat. Her words were accompanied by flashes of memory. Specifically of Nakoda and I defending Alton from that devil bird.
Protect.
Promise.
These two words were the key to Mom’s magic. Magic that she had used to protect the creatures of the forest. Magic that ran in my blood. That blood pounded in my ears as Nakoda screamed with all of the breath in his lungs, “NOW, DON!”
I bolted forward.
At this false god.
To keep my promise to Aycenia.
To protect her from having her very nature defiled and twisted by this creature.
=Ivory light flared outward like a wave across both my body and my brother’s, wrapping around his lance like ghostly fire. It surged into my body, reinforcing my muscles and bones, as I jumped over and around the now thrashing tentacles across the floor. I was only vaguely aware of the Grays all dropping down and surrounding our group, some of them unarmed, others with spears, but they didn’t matter. Nakoda readied his lance as we went from twenty, to ten, to five feet from their progenitor. I tilted sideways at the last second. Theis gave the little Rider the space he needed to stab into the Gray God’s belly without fear of accidently clipping the back of my head.
He then yanked it free, and a waterfall of mucus-like blood began to flow from the Gray God’s stomach. It threw its head back and forth in a frenzy (if it was screaming I couldn’t hear it) and reached out with both hands to grab Nakoda. I reared up onto my hind legs to keep that from happening and knocked both arms away with my front hooves. It felt like striking soggy wood.
Somehow, through the adrenaline, I managed to notice a dark shape fast approaching to my right. Belkross. With the same finesse I’d seen him use to cut the wings off of a fly, he sliced his blade through both of the Gray God’s arms, cutting them off just below the shoulders.
Its body thrashing like that of a wild animal’s, the Gray God retaliated accordingly. Four, giant tentacles exploded from the cave wall around it. Three of them shot towards Belkross and the fourth at Nakoda and me. I just barely managed to swerve out of the way in time. Belkross managed to cut one down, but that left him open to the other two. One struck his shoulder and the other clipped the side of his stomach, filling the air with his blood.
By some miracle he managed to keep ahold of his sword. He rolled across the ground but turned that roll into a tumble that sent him back onto his feet. He then jumped further away before the tentacles could do further damage.
Beyond him, the others fought off the Grays. Lilian and Seaweed Man used their bows to strike them down with arrows. Paco did the same using his gun. And Alton…well, he was trying to help. Every time he was about to attack a Gray, Paco would shoot it down, leaving the first mate nothing to do. It was both pathetic and funny how often it kept happening.
But I was in no mood to laugh now.
“Brother,” I whispered, “time to end this.”
He probably couldn’t hear me, let alone understand me, but in that moment Nakoda’s heart and mine were basically one and the same. I charged. The Gray God’s tentacles wrapped around each other to reinforce one another and swung to intercept me. With more strength than his short arms should have allowed, Nakoda knocked the wall of tumorous flesh aside, giving me the opening I needed.
I lowered my head and as I did so, my body focused itself into my head, burning away the cloth tied around my horn. Like an unsheathed sword, I drove that horn into the Gray God’s chest. I swung my head upwards, cutting the monster open up to its throat. Instead of being able to appreciate my handiwork, I had just jump out of their to avoid being bombarded with more blood and organs.
As I landed, a shiver ran up my spine that had nothing to do with the monster I was fighting. I turned back. Lilian was crouched not twenty feet away. She’d ditched her bow and was charging a large orb of black fire with both hands. With a word, she thrust it forward.
At Belkross.
Ignoring his wounds, the mercenary had been in the middle of running at the Gray God. He then jumped, sword in both hands, facing downward. Lilian’s flames hit him from behind and closed around his body. In that moment he became a black knight with fire for armor. He drove his blazing sword downward into the hole in the Gray God’s chest I’d just made.
BOOM!
Black flames forced their way into the Gray God’s mutated body, along with every tendril of fungus around us. Converting the Gray God and everything it had infected into nothing more than plumes of smoke, sulfur, and memories.
We’d done it. We’d kept our promise.
Today, we’d beat our bear.