Chapter 30 Shadow Terror #2
Lark lost track of time, unsure how much of their twenty-four-hour window of access to the tracking charm they’d spent walking through the abandoned mine.
Again, the walls opened up to another vast chamber, this one a more natural cave.
The stone landing spanning the length of the giant cave jutted out along the entire left side and then ending abruptly in a drop-off.
The chasm dropped deep into the earth. A waterfall, barely visible in the gloom at the far end of the cave, thundered out from the cliff wall, the water disappearing into the midnight abyss.
Ezra slowed to a stop before the stony outcropping.
The light of the lumistone exposed a horrible scene.
Mounds of corpses, dwarf and elf, littered the ground from an epic battle.
Hundreds of soldiers from the struggle lay strewn about, every one of them killed in a conflict between dwarf and elf.
Their skeletons wore ring mail armor, thick leather surcoats, and chest plates.
“They’re dead,” Ezra whispered, his hammer falling to the stone floor and dragging behind him as he was overwhelmed by the shocking scene. As though she had been present during the fight, Lark could envision clearly how the dwarves and elves had fought one another. It was clearly a melee.
“Gambrian elves?” Lark said, noticing that their clothing and weapons were of the same style as Cheyanne’s.
“How did I not hear about this?” Ezra exclaimed.
“There weren’t any survivors,” she said, the only rational explanation that came to mind.
“But someone would’ve checked on them. Someone should’ve been expecting ore, smithy service, or something,” he said. Ezra’s reaction echoed through the chamber.
“They were so close to the exit,” he said with a shake of his head, motioning with his hammer. As his motion parallelled the chasm, Lark spotted the dimly lit entry carved into the wall there. “Only a short exit tunnel away from the outside world. What could’ve driven them to this madness?”
A strange clicking sound like something tapping on stone sounded behind them.
A low, throaty groan emitted from one wall.
The hair on the back of Lark’s neck rose.
The sound was evil, a creaking forced through clenched jaws.
Ezra flashed his light out at the creature, finding its horrifying form standing on bent legs, dragging long arms. The creature emerged from the shadows into the light of the lumistone.
Wolfish in form, the hairy, black creature stood tall, it’s claws as long as a daggers.
It spread its wings wide, exposing the full width of its body.
“Shadow terror,” Ezra said.
A fraction of a second later the monster lunged at them.
Ezra spoke a shortly worded spell, but the magic went wild, missing its mark as the creature bounded from one side of the cave to the other in a single wingspread leap.
Lark dodged, slashing at the air but missing.
She reached for the power from the bond, but the magic wasn’t there. She couldn’t channel.
The creature came at them again. Her sword hissed through the air at the beast. This time the steel made a satisfying slicing sound on wet flesh as the shadow terror crashed by.
Ezra only just barely managed to get out of the way as it passed them.
A howl erupted, vibrating through the chamber like an earthquake.
“Lark, get to the exit,” Eza called to her.
They ran, and the shadow terror giving chase.
Lark followed as Ezra wound through the fallen elves and dwarves.
The duo charged across the landing, tired but too fearful to stop as they raced for the opening to the world above.
Light from the outside world rimmed the stone doorway at the end of the short tunnel, highlighting their escape route.
They were there, passing through the last short tunnel when the shadow terror caught up with them.
Lark felt the air rush behind her back as it swiped, followed by a crunch.
She looked back to see that it had been wedged in the tunnel entrance.
Its claws scratched at the floor as the creature squeezed deeper into the narrow doorway, its snapping and snarling, its jaws just feet away from them.
“I thought you said they can only get as large a human. That one is a giant,” Lark said.
Ezra attempted to spell-cast through the runes on his hammer.
The door highlighted in thin lines from the sunlight lurched open a crack, then stuck, apparently wedged in place.
Light streamed in from the outside. He reached the door, working his fingers into the crack, prying at it to force it open enough for them to squeeze through.
Lark slid her hand in near Ezra’s and applied her weight against the stone as well.
It scraped against rock on the floor as they strained with all their might.
Fresh air from outside washed in over her.
Ezra moved the door farther with a powerful push, exhausting the rest of the power from the Yogos on his hammer.
Lark was just stepping through to the forest behind him when something snapped around her ankle.
Sharp searing pain shot up her leg as she was ripped onto the ground and dragged back into the mine.
She clawed at the shadow terror’s barbed tail, but its grip was too tight.
She slid on her backside through the short tunnel, bumping across the rough stone in the chamber’s landing, heading toward the chasm.
Elf and dwarf skeletons parted around them as she stabbed and hacked at the beast. With one of its long claws, it sliced her hand, forcing her to drop her sword.
The metal clanged against the ground a moment before she was pulled off the landing’s edge.
She hung by her leg wrapped in the shadow terror’s clutches, peering straight down into the abyss below, an endless pit of darkness.
“Lark!” Ezra’s frantic voice called from the stone landing in the chamber.
His voice was drowned out by the sound of wingbeats rapidly approaching.
The shadow terror snapped its wolflike head to attention at something approaching from the cave roof.
Expansive wings spread over them, and the terror’s barbed tail let go of Lark’s leg.
She clawed through the air trying to grab hold of the winged creature, but the terror had let her go. Once again, she found herself falling.