Vincent, disoriented from drifting off, was about to ask what Menik was talking about when he heard it for himself. The cavern reverberated with the sound of shuffling flesh, accompanied by rapid clicking. He flinched at the cracking of stalagmites below, which snapped like bones.
“You have a channeler's eyes, Vincent,” Menik whispered, “keep them toward the ground or else they may be spotted.”
“What is it?” Vincent whispered. But before Menik could answer, a voice came from the chamber below.
“Father? Where are you...”
It belonged to a terrified young girl, perhaps no older than four or five. A brief silence followed before the shuffling and clicking continued. Vincent sat upright, suddenly alert. There was a child down there and she was in danger. Menik placed a hand on his shoulder.
“It is one of the stormspawn,” he said.
“Father, where are you?! I'm scared.”
“Then we need to do something about it!” Vincent clenched his fist. “There's a kid down there! That thing's about to kill–”
“–You misunderstand me, Cordell,” Menik whispered into his ear, “there is no child down there. Listen to the voice. It is the stormspawn speaking.”
The beast shambled about, chuffing, filling the cavern with its strange rattle. Somewhere below, it clacked wet mandibles and scratched at stone with a hundred claws. It uttered vocalizations that resembled several species of animal jabbering. The creature stopped for a moment and began to rip into flesh. It had found Menik's fallen landrider, and from the sound of it, was now eviscerating the corpse, slopping wet entrails on the stone.
“Father...Father...why can't I fly...” it crooned in the child's voice, “Moni licked my back...silly. No! Get away! I don't like it...I don't like it...monster. Cheese...bread...I want to fly.”
It was subtle, but Vincent could hear the wrongness to the words now that Menik pointed it out. The voice was young, but it was laced with a bestial quality, as if a creature of labor had learned to pick up a child's dialect. The stormspawn continued to “speak” in the girl's voice, using it to form incoherent thoughts as it tore through unseen ligaments and sinew. Whimpering, she cried for her father, coughed and gagged as she ran out of breath. Then she talked about what kinds of foods she liked. Occasionally, the voice would break and drop several octaves, whereupon it would resemble a bull sobbing, or a cow giggling.
Vincent felt the trace again. Whoever was casting it was much closer than before and he had to resist the urge to call out to them. Whatever the hell that thing was doing, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible. The beast became a child again, screaming as she was assailed by the stuff of nightmares before abruptly shifting into an adult male who talked about fishing. It mixed both adult and child into one dissonant entity, scrambling their words into nonsensical gibberish. Then they both screamed with an ululating wail that seemed to shake the cavern itself before dropping into silence.
The welt across Vincent's chest throbbed like pulsing fire and he held his breath. He was convinced that the beast would soon hear the thumping of his heart and smell the sweat gathering at his pores. Moans filled the cavern, wailing from tortured souls. The beast became a woman, panting in labor. The woman barked and began to choke on her own voice before becoming a child again, squealing.
I'm...terrified. Vincent thought to himself, I shouldn't be. This is only a dream.
“Somebody approaches. Get up...watch your head,” Menik whispered.
A light illuminated the opening above. Fresh tree roots dangled from its edge and several bushes leaned toward the fall, their balance, precarious. Below them, the stormspawn showed no sign that it had noticed, as it continued to gnaw on the landrider's corpse.
The spark flew over the opening, passing it before doubling back. A moment later, a mirage appeared. A fluctuating image of a winged figure flitted along the rim. Vincent recognized it as one of Slade's abilities. She quickly drew the spark back to her form and hid it, perhaps seeing the stormspawn at the bottom of the cavern. Her obfuscated figure navigated the perimeter with a nimbleness that belied her speed. When she couldn’t find a way down, she left. A few minutes later she returned and dropped the lore that kept her hidden. She stood with a length of rope tethered to an unseen anchor. She held one end while kicking its slack into the chasm.
“A kiolai?” Menik whispered, “Rokish's damn tail, what is she doing here? What is–”
Before he could finish the sentence, Slade spread her wings, leapt off the rim holding the end of the rope in her hands, and glided across the cavern to them. Menik dropped a couple of muffled expletives as she landed on the slope and clasped onto the remnants of a stalagmite. She sent rocks tumbling into the cavern. The stormspawn went silent for a moment, then it began to pant like a dog that had found something exciting. Slade scrambled up the slope and crawled into their alcove.
“Vincent!” she barked, “your hand.”
“What?!”
She didn’t wait for him to comprehend. Instead, she grabbed his hand and thrust a ring onto it. A desperate, eager scrambling came from the bottom of the chamber as the creature scratched against stone and tried to climb. “Listen to me Vincent! Picture a chain-activated switch.”
“Slade...what?! I don't–”
“–Do it!” Menik demanded, apparently catching on to what she was trying to do. “Do as she says and imagine there is a handle or a chain you can grab.”
The stormspawn was trying everything it could to climb the walls. It filled the cave with the sound of its lustful panting, like a demonic canine scrambling after a bone. Vincent was afraid to look at the slope, for fear of seeing one of those faces rising over it, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from it. Slade shouted at him again to get his attention. Right...imagine a handle. As soon as he tried to, an image overlaid his reality. He saw Holan super-imposed on his vision, pacing back and forth as she waited for her owner to return.
“Do you see Holan?” Slade asked.
“Y-yeah.”
“Imagine clinging to her back...then 'pull'.”
Vincent wasn’t sure what she meant, but it was easy to picture himself sitting on Holan's saddle, his hands gripping her cords. When he had this image fixed in his mind, he “reached” out to it and “pulled”. There was a flash of agony as the world collapsed in on itself, flinging him from one instance to another in the blink of an eye. It yanked him from the cave and wrenched him onto Holan's back in the posture he had imagined.
His brain, unable to comprehend the transition from standing to sitting, sent him spinning with disorientation. The world canted as he lost control of his faculties and found himself tumbling off the saddle and crashing to the ground. Stars danced across his vision, and he found his hand over his mouth with blood running between its fingers. He had bitten his tongue and since he had fangs, it absolutely killed. But adrenaline drove him to his feet, and he stumbled into Holan. He held onto her fur and waited for the world to stop spinning. He could see flashes of light coming from the opening in the ground at the bottom of a bowl-shaped sinkhole.
“S-stay here!” he said to Holan, who was pawing at the dirt and chuffing. “Stay!”
He tried his best to shake off the lingering dizziness, but his mind was still reeling with the after-effects of the teleportation. Several times, he fell as he made his way toward the opening. However, he could already feel the disorientation beginning to pass. When he got closer to the aperture, he saw the rope Slade had brought. It was tied to a nearby tree. He grabbed onto it and used it as a lifeline to guide him the rest of the way. When he peered over, he saw them both struggling to climb it. He wasn’t sure what was in the darkness below them and he didn't want to know. Menik swung his tail at something, using the weapon on its end as a flail.
“Come on!” Vincent shouted.
He lay flat against the ground and reached an arm out, ready to grab Slade when she came within reach. Though they scaled the rope more easily than any human could, using their claws to grip its threads, the stormspawn hiding in the darkness grabbed its end and sent them flying. Several times, Menik was sent crashing into the cave's features, saved only by his armor and by the fact that he could grip the rope with his clawed hands, the spurred sabatons on his feet, and his jaws.
Slade grasped Vincent's hand and he helped pull her up, snarling with the effort. As soon as she had all fours on the dirt, she whirled around and laid next to him, both waiting to grab Menik, who kept swinging around like a winged pendulum. He had his jaws locked into the rope while he spun in place, using his wings to control and slow the swing. Then he began to scale upward, one foot after another. Below him, a face rose into the spark's light, leering and sallow. Behind it, Vincent heard the weeping of people and of beasts, wails of torment obfuscated by the creature's vulgar panting.
Its rictus began to ascend with slow, patient deliberation, neck drifting upward as if carried by the buoyant skull within. Its gaze shifted from a leer grin to a dazed, stupefied grimace. The creature's shifting expressions were alien and ineffable, forever locked in the uncanny valley where everything was an imitation of life. Though its aimless eyes weren’t looking at Menik, its head followed his movements, swaying like a cobra's.
At the corner of Vincent's eye, he saw a dot moving in the night sky, another spark following a giant winged form. Leaping up off his feet, he chased after it, shouting. At first it didn’t seem like the zerok heard him. But then it turned sharply and flew in his direction, chased by the spark. It was Madeen, the zerok who led them to the storm. Where in the hell had she been? They could have used her!
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“Quick!” Vincent shouted, “we need your help!”
Madeen did not need to be told what to do. She seemed to ascertain Menik's predicament as soon as she landed. Without hesitating, she walked over to the rope, grabbed it in her massive beak and pulled. The rope cut into the dirt as she walked backwards, lifting Menik away from the stormspawn's clutches. The creature watched with a laughing expression frozen on its face as its prey was stolen from it, yet it made no effort to stop him. In fact, although its head continued to follow the sway of the rope, both of its eyes, no longer aimless, were focused on Vincent, who felt a squirming in his chest. It spoke to him.
“I miss you, Vinny.”
He went numb and time stopped. When Menik pulled himself over the edge, Vincent didn’t take notice. All he could do was stand with dumbstruck eyes and watch as the stormspawn receded into the darkness, its masculine facials being absorbed by shadows. He was shaken out of his trance when Slade called his name.
“We must go!” she said, “there are more of them around.”
The three of them climbed onto Holan, with Vincent sitting between them both.
“Kiolai, I don’t know why you are here,” Menik said, “but you saved our skins. Weapons?”
“Right flank. Crossbow. Elthyte bolts.”
“Sister rings, Elthyte, and a Kelton Ash?” Menik whistled, “I didn’t know a bounty hunter could afford such things.”
Vincent thought he could sense Slade grinning as she enveloped the three of them in her light-bending aura. It wasn’t a ward, nor was it any conduit he could identify. It skirted the edge of his extra senses, just barely evading perception. Yet he was given the impression of a hundred invisible ribbons flitting about.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“Shella's Island.” Menik withdrew a collapsible crossbow from a holster on Holan's flank and a quiver of bolts that looked as though they were carved from pink jade. After arming himself with both, he inspected the saddle, finding a length of buckled cord running from one flank, over Holan's back, to the opposite side. “Has your Kelton been trained to 'slice the wind'?”
“She has been trained, yes. But are you well enough to endure it? I see your wing has been stitched.”
Menik remained silent as he proceeded to unbuckle the cord. “Vincent,” he said, “your tail is in the way.”
Instead of waiting for him to move it, he shoved it aside and lifted the cord, holding it like the rein of a horse with one hand. Then he stood on his legs and backed up until the cord was taut, and braced himself. He bent his knees and rested the crossbow over the arm holding the cord.
“Kiolai, your horns are unguarded,” he said, “give Vincent your wings.”
“What?” Vincent asked as Slade extended her wings back to him.
“'Hold onto them for stability, he means,” she said, “we will ride fast, and I may have to maneuver to evade the tantalons. Ideally, you would sit right behind me and hold onto my kalcs, but he is right, my horns are unguarded. You would risk getting impaled on them.”
Vincent could barely register what was being said, which is why he didn’t quell away from grabbing the bat-like appendages whose webbing flanked his sides. He was only half-present. His mind was still reeling with the words the creature had spoken to him. That voice, spoken from a form whose flesh belonged in hell, cut at his memories.
“Are you ready?” Slade asked, “do not waste those bolts.”
“Just go!” Menik shouted.
Slade dug her feet into the footholds on the saddle and sent Holan lunging forward. Cold air, filled with damp ozone rushed at the three of them as they pounded through the darkness, chased by the spark. Menik's webbing flapped like a kite as he shifted from foot to foot. Falius’ celestials peeked through breaks in the clouds. Shadows raced across the hills. The afflicted tantalons stood as black silhouettes with heads swaying. Each of their moonlit faces wore expressions as distinct as individuals. Some of them stared at the moons with their bulging orbs. Others turned toward Holan with giggling curiosity and began to head her way to investigate.
Some stood as still as statues, legs frozen in mid-step while others bounded across the meadows. Their behavior was strange and disconcerting, they did things Vincent could not comprehend. They twisted their forms into unnatural poses, curled on their backs with crumpled legs like dead arachnids, and bent their necks at impossible angles. They moved without purpose, acted without intent, as if driven by some malfunctioning piece of programming rather than by instinct. Above them, Madeen flew, her shadow drawing the creatures' attention. A couple of the aberrations gave chase like children pursuing butterflies.
Vincent knew they must be headed the right way when he began to see the slain tantalons. Even dead, their corrupted forms disturbed him, and some instinct must have told Slade to stay clear of their corpses. Several fallen landriders lay among the massive bodies, ensnared by thick strips of flesh that had ripped themselves free from their hosts' skeletons. He thought he saw a severed wing or two, but Holan was moving too fast for him to be certain.
The closer they got to their destination, the more tantalons they encountered, both dead and alive. They had their first close call when one turned to look at them, or rather, at the source of the noise caused by Holan's galloping. The aura cast by Slade's lore kept them hidden. But the creature was close enough for Menik to let loose a bolt into its face. The back of the tantalon's head bloomed and petals of flesh sprung open as its cranium erupted. They were gone before it even had a chance to hit the ground. Two more came bounding from both sides like excited puppies.
“Right!” Slade shouted and she lurched in that direction.
Vincent felt something tear in his shoulder as he held onto her wings. In his periphery, he saw Menik standing on Holan's flank with impossible verticality, feet planted in her side. He used his wings to catch the air, spreading them parallel to the ground to provide just enough lift so he wouldn't fall, while also holding onto the cord for support. With his free arm, he let loose another bolt, striking the tantalon in the leg. The flesh flew off the trunk like bark flying off a tree that had been struck by lightning.
He banked his wings and used the wind to lift himself out of the way just as the tantalon's head crashed where he'd been a moment before. Madeen came diving out of the sky and swooped down over the other one. Vincent didn’t see what she had done, only that her attack caused a geyser of blood to spray from its neck. Its grinning face frowned in surprise as it fell, and fingers of muscle wriggled from its wound.
They passed several decapitated beasts whose heads lay like features of the land. The air filled with the sickly-sweet scent of their corrupted fluids. When Holan got too close to one, it came to life, wriggled toward her using its exposed viscera, then leapt. The maneuver required to dodge the attack sent stars dancing across Vincent's eyes. Several more of them turned toward the landrider, skittering like macabre hermit crabs that used ribbons of muscle to crawl instead of chitinous legs.
Their slack-jawed faces opened in an uncanny expression of astonishment as they gave chase, wriggling like tadpoles. Slade called out her directions and Menik kept shifting from one side to the other, depending on where she banked. The cord, in conjunction with the aerodynamics provided by his wings, allowed him to remain anchored to the beast while he fired off the bolts.
Eventually, they came upon Shella's Island. It stuck out like a sore thumb among the soft fields, a ring-shaped gorge encircling an isolated plateau of land. Several sparks bobbed and weaved among the soldiers who took refuge at its center. The formation was surrounded on all sides by a herd of stormspawn, who were desperately trying to find a way over. The bridge was piled up with massive carcasses, which acted as a barrier to prevent the tantalons from getting to the plateau, and the shandan from getting off. Slade, seeing that they were safe from any immediate threat slowed Holan to a trot as she looked the scenario over.
“I count ten...no, eleven dead,” Menik said, panting, “I recognize the brothers' work. We are missing...twenty soldiers. Madeen, have you...” He paused, waiting for the zerok’s response. “Thank you. Can you fly around to the other side and tell us how many there are?”
The zerok's silhouette passed over the celestial as she circled the plateau.
“Damn!” Menik exclaimed, “but they are safe? Akhil's plan worked? What does he want us to do?”
“Hey...” Vincent whispered to Slade, “why don't you use your uh...your fire blade? The one you used on the Devourer? That thing equaled about a hundred of these and you blew it inside-out.”
“Calimere's Light did not cause that destruction by itself,” she said, “it only ignited the gases produced by the Devourer's digestive system. I destroyed one of its stomachs. And that is only because the stars weakened it first.”
“What do you mean they are changing?” Menik asked, still speaking to Madeen.
“Changing?” Slade repeated.
“Look...” Menik pointed.
Vincent had to lean to the side to see what he was talking about. The tantalons were no longer showing interest in the soldiers on Shella's Island. Instead, they were staring toward the horizon, heads swaying buoyantly. Several of the fighters trapped on the plateau paced back and forth with their landriders, clearly just as confused by the sight. This new behavior wasn’t just exhibited by the ones surrounding the plateau, it was being displayed by every single one of the creatures. Each of the stormspawn had their gaze fixated in the same direction.
“What in the hell...” Vincent whispered.
The transformation was slow at first. Their necks began to stretch, lifted upwards by their skulls, still swaying softly. Then their massive legs crumpled. Bones cracked as they folded inward into their bodies, moving as lumps through their flesh. Next, came the tails: the tips were sucked into the body like inverted socks. After that, the tantalon's sides imploded like deflating footballs.
As their bodies collapsed, the necks remained upright as if suspended by invisible strings. The tantalons’ eyes rolled back into their grinning, vibrating faces, which wore expressions of salivating ecstasy. Their imploded biomass traveled into their necks, bloating them outward as the creatures were raised higher and higher, pulled upward by their own heads. There they hung, levitating, illuminated by the celestials in the sky.
They were no longer recognizable as the Jurassic-era creatures they originally resembled. Each one of them wore humanoid faces, each one was an individual. And throughout the metamorphosis, they never stopped their unceasing, rhythmic panting. When all matter was forced into their swollen necks, only the lungs were left in the bags of flesh that used to be their bodies, allowing the stormspawn to fill the night with their lifeless, diseased wheezing. It was a chant they all partook in, a hellish cadence that filled the voids between one nightmare and the next with the sound of suffocation and the gagging of sickness.
They ceased moving. Their skulls stopped vibrating and their respirations went silent. They simply remained suspended in midair, frozen in some sort of stasis. Nobody said a word. The sight was both too captivating and too eerie to interrupt. All Vincent could hear was the clenching of teeth as he and his present company tried to find the meaning in the display. Even Madeen coasted in the air as if unsure whether she should flap her wings or not.
The beasts opened their mouths wide, wider than should have been possible until their jaws spread to 180 degrees. A bubble of black fluid rose from their throats. As it spilled over their lips, their eyes fell back into their heads and the skin on their skulls began to slough off. Their faces limped, sagging and stretching the eye-sockets into ghoulish bean-like shapes. The black fluid gushed forth as the biomass broke down. The heads peeled away, followed by the necks, spewing as they continued to melt. as if their bodies were nothing more than bags to hold their black ichor.
They all dropped to the ground and began to froth. Steam rose from their matter as flesh broke down into foam and black spume. The air filled with the smell of sickness as rivers of ebony fluid poured onto the grass, sizzling like water hitting a hot skillet. Even the slain began to melt and bubble. The tantalon carcasses on the bridge liquefied and ran off the sides like wet tar. Nothing was left behind, not even bones. Every single aberration had been reduced to black fluid before fizzling away. When it was finished, it was as if nothing had ever happened.