The screams echoed down the tunnels and Erik, Calis, and the rest of the company moved as cautiously as possible. A bright light shone ahead, from where a battle appeared to be taking place. Occasionally the sound of struggle paused, and then the clash of steel and shouts resumed. The hissing scream of Pantathians was punctuated by what Erik recognized as Saaur war cries and something else, something that raised the hair on the back of his neck.
Erik used hand signals, despite the din sounding ahead, against the faint possibility that someone might hear them coming. Renaldo moved to where Erik stood, at the van, and both of them stepped forward far enough to see what was ahead.
A vast cavern, as big as any they had encountered opened before them, a circular well similar to the one when they had used to enter the mountains. It rose so high overhead that Erik had no idea where it stopped, but they had arrived near the bottom.
Below them, one revolution down the circular ramp that hugged the inside of the well, a scene of desperate horror greeted them. The largest cache of Pantathian eggs they had seen so far lay in a vast pool of bubbling water. Erik quickly apprehended details. A stream of water ran down a wall into the pool, and Erik presumed it was cold, for the eggs would be cooked otherwise. The ice melt from above and the hot water from below must be mixed to keep the eggs incubated.
The pool was easily sixty feet across, and crouched in the middle was a creature so alien Erik couldn’t define it. He waved to those behind him and stared while the rest of the company filed out of the tunnel and spread out along the lip of the ramp. Erik felt pain in his shoulder and found Calis’s hand gripping him tightly. Erik whispered, “Captain?”
Calis blinked and said, “Sorry,” as he removed his hand.
Erik knew he was startled but was surprised at how much.
The creature in the pool stood seventeen or eighteen feet tall, with large leathery wings on its back. It was a pearlescent black in color, with emerald green eyes. It divided its attention between savaging the remaining eggs in the pool—picking them apart and pulling the tiny Pantathians from within, devouring them with a gulp—and fighting a battle with the surviving defenders. The creature’s head was horselike, but it had wide-set curved horns, like a goat, and each arm ended with human-looking hands, five fingers with long sharp talons where nails should be.
“What is that thing?” asked de Loungville.
“Mantrecoe,” said Boldar. “You’d call it a demon, I guess. It’s a being from a different plane of reality. I’ve never seen one, but I know about them.” He turned to Miranda and said, “Did you know?”
She shook her head and said, “No. I thought we faced something else entirely.”
“How did it get here?” asked Boldar. “The seals between this realm and the Fifth Circle have been intact for centuries. If one of those things had come through the Hall, we would have known.”
“It didn’t come through the Hall of Worlds, obviously,” said Miranda, straining to watch. Then she said, “Now we know where the Pantathian magic users are.”
Suddenly a keening howl filled the room as the creature screamed in pain. It turned to face a group of serpent men who were incanting a spell against it.
Calis said, “Over there!”
He pointed and Erik saw a tunnel, about twenty feet beyond the other side of the struggle. “What?”
“That’s where we need to go.”
“Are you mad?” asked Erik, before he could remember who he was speaking to.
“Unfortunately, no,” said Calis. To Bobby he said, “Start walking the men around the ramp to just above that door and then drop a rope. Try not to call attention to yourself. I don’t want to have to deal with either side of this struggle if we can avoid it.”
De Loungville signaled and Erik took the lead, moving as close to the wall as he could, so that at times as he circled the well, following the ramp’s rise, he saw only the head of the creature as it ducked, weaved, and tried to get past magic wards and blasts of energy. Twice waves of searing heat rose off the battle below, and once he was almost blinded by a flash of light so bright it left him blinking for a moment.
He reached the position above the tunnel entrance Calis wanted, and turned so the man behind him could pull a rope out of Erik’s backpack. Erik saw nothing to which he could tie the rope, so he braced himself and nodded for the next soldier to shinny down the rope and head up the tunnel.
Each man followed orders without thought or hesitation. Two archers waited nearby, ready to fire at either the Pantathian magicians or the demon, but both sides seemed intent on their struggle.
After the tenth man descended, Calis approached and said, “How are you doing?”
“My arms ache, but I’m all right,” said Erik.
Calis said, “I’ll hold this for a bit.” He took the rope with one hand, and Erik was again impressed with just how much more powerful the Captain was than he appeared to be.
More men climbed down, ducking into the tunnel. Erik couldn’t judge, but it seemed to him the contest was slowly turning the demon’s way. Each time the Pantathian magicians launched an assault, the creature returned even more viciously. The magicians appeared to be tiring, if Erik could judge these alien creatures.