Breaking out of Northastr’s defenses had proven far simpler than breaking in – the Pharyes had never imagined that I might plow straight through their docks and demolish the gate on the far side too, so they’d stationed few defenders on that side.
As a result I was sprinting freely through the tunnel roads, unimpeded by Varangian armies or massed golems, ascending up along the path that was soon to be the raid team’s escape route. On my way I took out any troublesome traps or weapons as I passed along the well-smoothed and carefully managed passages.
My body still stung all over from various cuts and burns, but I was nowhere near exhaustion this time, let alone collapse – if anything my energy seemed more endless than ever. That was a great relief, after the tribulations I’d faced in the past.
Prior to the raid my record had been two resounding defeats by the Pharyes forces. After almost dying to the Pharyes at grand Chasm and again at Vitrgraf I’d been starting to wonder if they were simply unstoppable. Now I could add one draw to the results. Not much, but at least I knew that I could fight back should I have to. If nothing else my sojourn in the Underworld had furnished me ample experience in fighting for my life and using my natural advantages.
It wouldn’t do to get arrogant however. The Pharyes had still beaten me twice. They were dangerous even now, especially in numbers… as Ael had tried to warn me.
Even after breaking out through the final gate and leaving the Northastr region those numbers were surprisingly high. As I advanced I clashed with multiple crawlers, all striding down at top speed towards the fortress yet seemingly unprepared for me. I drove each off after destroying any particularly dangerous weaponry, but the sheer amount of activity in the tunnels that far out from the base was concerning – we’d anticipated a clear run for the escaping crawler once we made it through the outer defenses, so an ambush could derail the entire escape.
Worse yet would be if the Valkyrie team ahead became embattled while trying to make their own preparations. There was no way to send a warning to Berenike either – just as I had been, they too were totally cut off until we could reunite.
I felt my fingers twitching, my hands shaking as I ran. Clenching my fists tight I felt blood ooze from between my digits. It would be good to see Berenike and Nefret and the others again… very good. I could hear Berenike’s voice and picture her sisterly grin… see Nefret’s beautiful smile and feel her hand on my shoulder.
That made me think of Aggy and Chione, of Shukra and Karlya… of Arawn… of Aellope….
Brushing away tears just smeared blue and red gore across my face.
I needed to see them, all of them. I had to know they were alright. Starting with Berenike and Nefret. I had to make sure I got to them quickly, before anyone… or anything else could.
Pharyes attack was from the worst case scenario. The Pharyes had yet to produce anything so… terrifying… as that creation of fused chitin and flesh that had pursued me. Even now I felt as if those composite eyes were burning at my back.
It was still alive down there, injured but far from death… cursing me with those glowing, burning pits of vitriol and unknowable loathing.
In reality it was almost certainly just the burns and gashes of countless mundane attacks, but the Formorians had already marked my flesh once… their brand still clinging to my skin even through magma and plasma.
Straining my legs, I felt the smoothed rock crumbling between my toes as I kicked at the ground to accelerate myself, the glowing flora and fauna of the Underworld smearing beautiful trails in my vision as I rushed through caves and passages.
Perhaps it was unsurprising that the Pharyes had called in reinforcements from up above. The Formorians had certainly taken everyone by surprise with the size and ferocity of their assault. If not for the similarly swollen ranks of the defenders the base really could have fallen….
The whole plan had been folly, from the very start. How could I have thought that throwing so many lives into mortal danger was right, let alone the best choice? I wasn’t a goddess, and certainly nothing like Myr, yet it was just the sort of scheme I could imagine of him.
That thought made me sick.
The blood of my victims was still coating my hands.
Hundreds, thousands of Formorians were dead… and who could say how many Pharyes might have been slain had I not turned back….
But no-one had conceived a better strategy either.
What was it then, callous disregard and megalomania… or pragmatism?
Ivaldi, Uldmar, Beyla, Gastores, Sulis, Berenike, Nefret, even Patch, everyone had agreed in the end. Everyone had agreed to sacrifice Formorian lives to save the Chasmites.
Had they all felt so terrible too? Did they feel the same grief and guilt when they took life from creatures such as the Formorians… or indeed the Pharyes….
Ael’s face came to mind, her soft, superior smile fading as she grew serious.
“One never relishes the taking of a life – of any life – but the needs of the people dictate what must be done. I would gladly end the lives of ten foes to save any one of my subjects, and only a fool would spare an enemy bent on her destruction.”
I could hear the words as if she had spoken them herself, but even as I tried to argue back the image distorted, vanishing into the rippling of tears and blood washing down my face.
A fool.
That was exactly what Ael would think me now… Berenike and the others too. After volunteering to do this, now when it was long past too late I still nurtured my doubts and my growing regret.
Despite the horror and malice of the thing, I couldn’t even bring myself to slay the titan.
I told myself it was driven off. With its injuries it would be no threat to anyone for some time. But what about after that? What of when it was healed… or repaired… fresh lives merged into the whole to revitalize the colossal mass of conjoined flesh.
A shudder ran through my aching body.
I couldn’t kill it though. Not after seeing so many of its kin slaughtered, torn apart, screaming and bleeding out there in the barren cave, fighting and dying because of me.
It hurt to think that they might well have accomplished nothing at all – the Pharyes were safe inside their machines, they and their golems fighting tooth and nail to save any Varangian who fell in the battle.
It hurt more to think that some of the Varangians might have been overwhelmed before they could be reached.
But the losses must surely have been low.
That was what I told myself… and the thought made me want to vomit.
‘Low.’ The deaths must have been ‘low’. Not none, not no-one. People were probably dead, people I didn’t even want to fight, people we were trying to make peace with. And I was trying to comfort myself with the idea that only a few of those lives were cut short in terror and agony… by me.
There should have been a better solution. I should have insisted that we find an alternative.
Perhaps we could have negotiated the peaceful release of the captives. An end to the war without any need for raids and killing.
That at least was folly. I knew it even as I thought it.
The Pharyes Kingdom held all the cards, every strategic and tactical advantage, and had proven more than willing to kill to achieve their goals. Negotiation was impossible while they possessed thousands of hostages. The only peace that could have been reached was the surrender of the Empire and the domination of the surface by the Deephold.
The Harpy Empire was a flawed, unjust and inequal society, but at least the Stormqueen cared about those she ruled over. A subjugated surface would have been little more than a slave state, the people exploited and used as ‘monsters’ fit only for labor, the land stripped of resources for the sake of fuelling the cities of the depths.
Convinced as I was of the necessity, my thoughts still spiraled as I traversed the Underworld. I’d left behind the last resistance, and the wildlife wanted no part in my business, so there was little to distract me from the preoccupation.
Not until something swooped down towards me.
I tensed, ready to dodge or retaliate, but the diving figure called out in a familiar gravelly voice. In a moment the inverted silhouette made sense, and I jumped up in delight to meet the Valkyrie.
“Berenike! You’re safe!” I exclaimed as I pulled her into an embrace.
The harpy gave an exhalation as I squeezed her, and I eased up my grip before I gave her a bruise, but even so I couldn’t help but bury my face in her feathers and hold her close. She returned my hug, her wings taking the weight of us both until she found a spot to alight.
“It’s good to see you too, Saf, but are you alright?”
The concern in her voice surprised me, and for a moment I wondered if she’d seen the turmoil on my face, but then she set me down and I felt the way her feathers and down stuck to me as we separated, gooey blue sludge and burnt blood trailing between us.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got you covered in… a lot of stuff.”
Berenike plopped her hand down on my head, ‘ruffling’ my matted and gooey hair as much as was possible.
“Never mind that, girl, what happened to you?!”
“I just… ran into some trouble with the Formorians. They attacked with way more force than we thought, and lot of them got… killed….”
I trailed off as I looked up at her worried features, and felt my eyes starting to water.
This wasn’t the time, I told myself. We were against the clock, the coming crawler expecting us to play our parts in clearing the way for their escape.
“I know it was part of the plan but… it was wrong to sacrifice living people like that…. We almost got a lot of Pharyes killed too….”
Berenike shook her head with the air of a baffled young mother trying to understand why her toddler was crying for the third time that hour.
“Saf,” she said, her strong, hard voice unusually soft, “I’m asking if you’re injured – and if the plan worked.”
Looking down at myself again I understood at once. My hurts might be cosmetic and… psychological… but under all the gore and the lacerated and burned ruins of Patch’s clothes it was hard to tell.
“Right! Sorry! I’m fine, really Berenike,” I said, taking her hand. “The plan all worked too, it’s fine, I just… I was pretty shaken by everything that happened. But I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Sure you’re fit for this?” she asked. “Maybe I should take you to the crawler and double back….”
“No,” I said firmly, giving her larger, muscular fingers a squeeze. “I’m seeing this through no matter what.”
With that we set off once more, flying together towards the rendezvous point.
~~~
Outside the crawler rocked with jolts and thumps, the weapons booming and crackling in response as the mechanical creature hissed and whined at the strain of flight.
The dock was swarming with allied and opposing golems and returning Varangians, but there was nothing Gastores could do. Disembarking to fight would have been suicide even if he could have kept up with their vehicle. Instead they were cooped up in the cargo holds, blind and helpless, their fates entirely in the hands of Captain Beyla and her Pharyes crew.
Not that the young ogre’s thought dwelt long on the outside.
The events of the raid and their quest into the bowels of the Underworld all seemed faint now, distant and unreal, a pleasant dream to which there was no return once awake.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Uncertain, anxious cheers rose up as the captain announced that they had broken through the main gate and the crawler started to accelerate, but Gastores’ arms remained at his sides. They were escaping, but they left too much behind.
He was far from the only despondent figure in their module.
Others were afraid, panicking as they felt themselves being carried away from Northastr and away from any trace of hope.
Sulis was doing her best to explain, but there were too few rescuers and too many panicked escapees.
“We have to return!” a naga woman pled, clutching the arm of the sole Skidbladnir in their compartment. “My partner, they should be here too! We were taken together!”
“I’m sorry,” the pilot said, in her best Cycloan. “I’m sorry. We can’t. We brought… everyone alive. We have to… get away now.”
The red-scaled older naga gave a groan as another of her kind pulled her away.
Belatedly Ripides reached the woman, and started to explain as best he could.
“What about their body? If they’re dead what did the invaders do with them?!” she hissed, tail trashing in anguish.
In his misery Gastores wondered just what had been done with the remains of the dead. Perhaps Encheiro’s body was still somewhere within the hateful labyrinth of steel and machines. Perhaps all that had been left of her was already gone, disposed of by her murderers.
Either way, her bones would never return to the ossuary wells. When his time came, Tavos’ body would feed the erdroots as had the great Cyclops of legend, while his bones would be put to rest with those of his ancestors and his family…. But his mother would not be there. There would be no reunification in the end… they would be parted in eternity.
More voices were raising, audible over the reports of weapons and the impacts on the hull, too many for Sulis to assuage. Even as the sounds of battle died away, left in their wake, the cries of the passengers only grew louder.
They were the victims of the Pharyes and their war, realizing that their lives too had been torn apart forever.
“Where is he?!” a beastfolk man demanded. “You took my son too, so where is he?!”
“We have to turn around, my wife is still in there!” screamed a young harpy. “Elani! Please!”
She looked no older than Gastores, yet she was tearing out her own feathers as she fought with her rescuers to reach the door.
“Let her go!” another shouted.
“Where are the rest of us?!”
“What did you do with Antos?!”
“What happened to my husband? Is he at Chasm?!”
“Don’t you dare tell me my Vasos is dead!”
“Macaria was in my cell, but I can’t find her anywhere! Are you sure she got on?!”
“Someone help, please! I can’t find my little girl!”
Gastores pressed his hands to his head, as if to block it all out.
Those voices would be Encheiro’s family, once they realized the truth. Once they learnt that she was gone forever… all because of him… and because of the Pharyes.
All around more voices were raising, not just those who’d lost people. They were demanding to know why they’d been attacked, why their homes were destroyed, why they were taken and imprisoned.
He clutched at the scruffy mess of curls atop his head, as though to stop it spinning.
At his side a harpy was shouting, asking what her people had ever done to the Pharyes, asking who they were to come to the surface and kill and abduct the innocent.
Innocent people like Encheiro and the other… fallen….
The Pharyes had taken them along with the rest, only to let them die. All those captives, dozens, perhaps hundreds of people who might have been saved if only they’d been left in Chasm. Taken all for nothing, just to die in some hole far underground, afraid and alone….
They joined hundreds more slain in the attacks.
Lives sacrificed for the sake of the Pharyes’ war.
~~~
Swooping through Underworld caverns, around stalactites and over vast gulps, Berenike and I made short work of the final leg of our trip.
With leaps over the drops and kicks off the cliffs I could have traversed the route not much slower, but travelling this way there was nothing to fear from wandering fauna – or indeed the more grabby varietals of flora.
Flying with together brought back memories of our previous fateful trip to Grand Chasm, but this time there was no leeway to converse. As the Valkyrie worked her wings I was exercising my essence, using spells to drive off the more hostile wildlife that might otherwise delay the crawler.
There were also two unexpected stops to tangle with hostile crawlers, both of them having scuttled down the very path ours was to walk up. The first was a small train, only a half dozen modules, quickly disabled with some well placed arrows and magic, however the second was huge, far too large for us to entirely stop with just a spell or two.
In the end, with time critical we settled for disabling the head and some of the weapons and piling as much rock down on the body as we could manage, pinning it in place. It was pure luck that we met the train where we had, in a large open cave floor, where other vehicles could skirt around the rockslide. We could do nothing about any passengers who might try to interfere with the plan, but we were already running late.
Captain Beyla had given us clear accounts of how long it would take to traverse the planned escape route, and her crawler would surely already be well on the way. What worried me more than the unexpected activity along the path was that, thanks to my unplanned assistance in driving off the Formorians, other crawlers from Northastr could be free to pursue. They walked at the same pace, better if they were unburdened with passengers, and they knew the ways up and out of their territory as well as Beyla. That made our prompt arrival at the rendezvous with Nefret and the other harpies all the more critical.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t wonder at the place around us however.
A long extinct path for subsurface lava flows, we were flying up a tunnel running for many miles through an area of dense and hard rock pillars called The Columnar, a structure like a forest of stony polygonal trunks. While there were gaps and faults in the formation, none ran far enough to allow transit across. Instead they were the veins and arteries though which boiling water rose up from the depths far below, as if the whole vast formation were a series of pipes supplying volcanic spring water to the surface.
As such the path we were on, the Columnar Traverse, was the only road through. It was wide enough for three crawlers to stride together, and often several times as high, but in other areas it narrowed into a tunnel more like a bore-hole. I could imagine it must have been bulldozed for us long ago, when a surge of magma had torn through under great pressure.
The wandering burrow it had eroded into the Columnar was spectacular, lined by the selfsame glistening pillars that gave the region its name. They were thick as treetrunks in places, and many were startlingly beautiful in their perfect lines and regular geometry, but some areas were distressed and twisted, the lines warped, even turning to flow sideways at points before righting themselves again later.
I had been prepared for the wonderful geology, even if I could enjoy it only briefly, but I was shocked by the illumination. Everywhere there was moss, glowing and rippling with rich azure and teal shades and shimmering in the cracks between pillars, making it feel as though we were somehow passing under the ocean.
“Wow,” rumbled the equally rocky voice of my friend.
Looking over my shoulder, I smiled as I saw the way she craned her neck to take in the towering structures all about. Despite the urgency of our mission Captain Berenike was suitably impressed herself it seemed.
“It seems… a terrible shame that it’s going to be ruined,” I said after a moment.
“Ivaldi said it goes on for miles, there’s going to be plenty of it left.”
“I know… it just would have been nice not to damage it at all….”
“Saf,” she said, giving my tummy a squeeze in her arms. “I know you’re soft-hearted, but don’t start weeping over the rocks on me now.”
I grinned despite myself as she gave me a wink.
“I know, I know. Escape is more important. Don’t worry, I’m ready to do my part.”
“I know you are, Saf.”
Reunion came abruptly, just a short minute later as Berenike flashed around a sharp twist in the tube and we saw the chosen site, a straight section where a fault in the ceiling had created a large chasm overhead, broken columns hanging down like chandeliers in the gulf.
What we’d not expected to see was a light show to match them – yet flashes of magic and aulogemscis lit up the far end of the straight, and we saw harpies in flight, exchanging fire with Varangians and golems.
Berenike was about to set me down, presumably so she could pull the bow from her hip and join the fighting, when a voice called out from above us, flying over.
“Captain you’re here!”
It was Nefret, her shield and axe in hand. The opulently plumed purple and gold noblewoman towered over us as we flew up to meet her, but she cast me a warm and welcoming smile.
“It’s good to see you again, is everyone alright?!” I called.
“For now, but we had to divert people away from preparing to deal with this.”
She jabbed her tail towards the attackers as she spoke.
“Will we be ready in time?” Berenike asked.
“It depends on when they reach us,” was the anxious reply. “We expected them to already be here.”
“There was some… trouble with the Formorians,” I explained quickly. “I’ll explain later, we’ve got to get ready, they can’t be far behind us!”
~~~
Captain Beyla’s nails bit deeper into the leather arms of her chair as around her the crawler thrummed, racing up and away from the depths that she called home.
When they might return she knew not, for theirs was an escape into exile for her and her crew.
How long such exile might last none could say. If the Justicar could be deposed, if the King could be saved and the Kingdom healed, they might be home and safe in the Deephold again in only a succession or two… but war was seldom so simple, and peace even less so. Successions might become full sequences, even entire years.
That thought was a melancholy one, yet she still urged her vessel on, willing the machine to stride even a little faster. The alternative was capture and execution, and with their deaths, the death of hope for her King and her people.
“More reports, Captain. Lord Hlesey says things are getting ugly in modules 33 to 35! The surfacers won’t listen to him, they’re demanding we go open the bay doors! Sulis just arrived but they won’t listen to her either.”
Captain Beyla held back a groan. They had known it would be difficult to transport so many people at once, but they had expected a certain degree of cooperation – even gratitude from those they’d risked everything to rescue. Her crew had been totally unprepared for the hostility and fear from those they were saving.
It had all gone wrong when the surfacers started noticing how many people were missing – how many fellow captives hadn’t survived – and started to turn on their saviors. They could still have talked things down, had the surfacers among the rescue team been able to explain the situation, but there were too few, scattered among the train of modules and drowned out by hundreds of frightened and hurt voices.
“Get Sulis, have her address the whole crawler this time,” she ordered. “We need this under control now, before it gets physical.”
Someone had to make clear to the fools what was at stake, or else the raid could be foiled by the very people it was engineered to save.
“Detecting another signature up ahead, Captain!”
Beyla would have liked to curse, but she allowed her crew to see no outward emotion.
There were too many signals in the tunnels, crawlers everywhere above and around them racing down towards Northastr to reinforce against the forewarned Formorian assault. Most were in other paths, filtering through from the direction of Southtown, but some were returning from the supply routes leading further north, via the Columnar Traverse, making collision inevitable. Worse, with so many signals in so many interconnected caves and tunnels it was difficult to read the precise locations of each.
“Details.”
“Another disabled crawler, larger this time. Some modules are still active, and it looks like they’re deploying golems.”
Her head whipped around to view the instruments for herself.
“You can tell from this range?”
“There are hundreds, Captain. They’re sealing the road off completely!”
Too many by far. They couldn’t just blast their way through without a fight this time.
~~~
All about voices were raised in anguished cries.
Anger, fear and grief were thick on the hot, close air of the crawler’s cargo bay.
That made sense to Gastores. Many of the voices seemed even to come from his own thoughts, echoing out into real space as he lay against the hull, as though it were one huge sounding box.
“We have to turn back! We can’t leave the gaffer behind!”
“We can’t trust them, they’re killers just like the rest!”
“It’s your fault she died, you filthy dirt-dwellers!”
Tears were washing down his cheeks as if trying and failing to wash out the memories of Encheiro that looped interminably in his head.
He wanted it to just end. To stop thinking and feeling things, even if only for a while.
Instead her saw her face.
He could picture her that night as if she were still standing there in the barracks. He could hear her voice as they talked, as she reveled in another win at dice and as they talked about the harvest, and about his worries….
He remembered her pride as she showed him around Tavos’ new workspace, and the joy with which she’d embraced her youngest that day.
She’d talked about little else for days afterwards.
“Let me out! Make it stop!” cried a voice.
Gastores wondered if it was his own, but no, the sound came from over by the cargo bay doors.
Around the doors golems were lined up to keep them back, but the crowd had quickly overcome their fear of the machines on realizing that they weren’t attacking them. Now several ogres were wrestling with one of the Triskelions, trying to force their way through to the control panel. Others were being held back by their own, or even breaking out into struggles.
“Stop it, we have to trust them!”
“You didn’t see what they did to Pella!”
“Has no-one seen my daughter?! We have to go back!”
“Quiet everyone!”
That final voice was different. The notes were hard and angry, the tone synthetic, but still it could only be Sulis. She was speaking through the voice gems, probably to the whole crawler at once.
However the uproar went unabated, some voices even shouting back at the disembodied naiad.
“Stop arguing and listen!” she ordered. “This is important! The Pharyes are helping you escape, you have to work with them! There are enemies ahead and more behind! Everyone who can fight must join forces to break through!”
Some small part of Gastores’ mind wondered how anyone could be persuaded by such a berating. He could hear panic in her voice too, but while that was better hidden it made no difference. People in woe and panic needed empathy, not orders. But then who would trust killers like the Pharyes anyway? Who could fight alongside people who had taken their loved ones lives for nothing?
Predictably, the news only added to the chaos.
Some were all for gambling on their new allies, joining the fight and winning their freedom, but others were demanding proof, or a change of course to avoid fighting. The loudest, if not most numerous, were still those pleading or threatening with their ‘captors’ to go back for their loved ones, or simply release them all there and then.
Many of the shouts turned to screams as an impact rocked the crawler, setting off fresh alarms, the cacophony drowning much of Sulis’ words.
It was hopeless, Gastores reflected.
Sulis was brilliant, kind and ingenious, brave and understanding… but she didn’t get people. At least not non-naiads. Certainly not enough to reach a colossal crowd of panicking and frightened captives, many grieving, all uncertain of who to trust.
If only Berenike had been there, she would have known what to do. She was a leader, a courageous and intelligent woman who could stir the hearts as well as heads of those following her. She would have gotten through to them, made them understand what had to be done.
But the Valkyries weren’t with them. They were up ahead waiting.
At this rate they would never make that intended rendezvous.
They were going to die there, blown apart by the pursuing crawlers and their golems. Or worse, they would be captured again, to be hostages, tools used to subjugate their people and then put to death when they were no longer useful.
“What we gonna do, Gas?!” Ripides asked, shaking his shoulder.
He hadn’t noticed the other approaching through the crowd, but Gastores could only shrug off his touch.
He wished the other would just leave him alone. He’d already done enough, enough harm to last many lifetimes.
“There’s nothing we can do. Even Sulis can’t make them listen.”
“We gotta do something,” Ripides insisted, grapping his arm and pulling him up. “Get yourself together, kid! We made it this far thanks to you, now you gotta help us out again! You gotta think of a… a plan or a trick or something! A way to get us out this mess!”
“Let me go!” he barked, “there’s nothing I can do about this, Ripides! I don’t have any plans! I don’t know how to fix this! I’m not some genius like Sulis, I just got lucky!”
“Well get lucky again then!” the other insisted, with absurd determination.
“I can’t! I don’t know-”
Another boom sent shudders through the crawler, throwing people off their feet as the machine swerved in motion.
Ripides held him upright through the shock, and put his hands on Gastores’ shoulder as he forced the younger ogre to look him in the eye.
“They need you, Gas! I need you! Sulis needs you! We don’t know what to do or how to get people listening! I know you’re hurting, I am too – I knew the Captain longer too! But that don’t matter now, what matters is them who are still alive! If you really think she died ‘cause of you then make it right by savin’ everyone here! Save her kid an’ save the rest of us too, ‘cause we’re not gonna go home if we don’t!”
Another blow rocked the crawler. A line overhead burst and fresh screams filled the air as green fluids sprayed those below.
A harpy collided with Ripides, knocking the man sideways.
Gastores caught him as he was falling, popping the larger ogre up with two arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
With a free hand he wiped the slimy tears and snot from his brow and around his eye.
“I wasn’t thinking. Or… I was only thinking about myself and Encheiro. But I can’t keep doing that. I have to think about Tavos, and mother and father and Petrino too, about how they must feel, and about what they need.”
“Then you gotta plan now, right?!” Ripides asked eagerly.
“None at all.”
Ripides gaped at the ogre as he crossed to the nearest voice gem.
“Hello? Captain Beyla?” he called. “Put me on with all the modules, quickly!”
Sulis’ increasingly demanding, anxious broadcast distorted, then cut out, and a moment later there was a crystal hum as the system fed him through, distorting as the sounds fed back into themselves, the sound rising to a whine for a moment as Gastores collected his scattered thoughts.
“Hello everyone. I’m Gastores, I’m an ogre from Grand Chasm. Please just… listen to me for a minute.”
His uncertain start was rebroadcast all about the module and the greater train, but while many faces about looked confused, others were still shouting or wrestling with the golems.
“I’ve come a really long way to find all of you and try to help you, and I nearly died on the way – so you can go back to fighting and trying to break out afterwards if you want to, but please just hear me out first. I don’t want this to be where I die, at the bottom of the Underworld, in a metal box… so far from my mom and dad and my little brother….”
Around him, the rescuees had fallen silent.
The golems were carefully disentangling themselves from several ogres by the door, and others were still eying the controls, but at least for the moment he had a chance.
“I didn’t come down here planning to team up with the enemy and stage a raid on a giant fortress to break you free. We were just meant to be a rescue party, to find our loved ones, the people we lost… friends and family we couldn’t protect, or who gave up everything to protect us….”
A crack had entered his voice, but he wiped his cheeks with a free hand and kept talking.
“When we met this crawler, and the people called Pharyes, we were attacking them, to try to free another of our own, but the fight ended with a truce. We were able to talk to them for the first time and see that… as brutal and… evil as their Kingdom is, not everyone in it wants to hurt us. The people on this crawler, they want to stop the invasion the same as we do, and that’s why they’re risking their lives to help us free everyone. So that you can’t be made into hostages, or forced to fight against our own people.”
Uncertain looks abounded, eyes of all shapes and sizes appraising the passive forms of the golems and the Skidbladnir in the module and swapping glances as if silently asking one another if it could be true.
Gastores couldn’t see of course, but he imagined similar looks were being exchanged throughout the crawler’s other modules.
“That’s why we have to work with them… even though it’s hard. Even though it hurts… so much… to think about what their kind have done to us. Because if we give up this chance now, we’ll never get home. We’ll never… get back to the surface… and all the people waiting for us.”
He needed to keep going, before the words failed him, or the spell was broken and the crawler fell into a true riot, but his body rebelled, forcing him to pause for a moment, to swallow and to moisten his mouth.
Against the whine of pumps and hum of gears there was silence. Even the guns seemed to wait on his next words.
“I know how hard this is, to… to leave people behind. To… give up on a friend, on someone you love, or someone you let down…. But I… I can’t save her any more…. I got her killed, but now… I just… we… I have to go home. I have to get back to Petrino… he’s so scared. He still has nightmares every night. I… I promised him I was coming home to him…. I’ll do anything.”
A sob took him, and Ripides put an arm around him as Gastores cried into the gemstone.
Another hand reached through the crowd to grip his, than an arm took them both by the shoulder.
A wing wrapped them from the other side, and crying faces pressed in close.
But it wasn’t over. They still had to break through. If they wanted to see their homes and loved once again they had to fight.
“Everyone… will you help us? Please?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
Roaring shook the air, howling, baying voices, cheers, cries and all manner of rejoinder making the crawler tremble, as the people of Grand Chasm answered him.
There would be no riot.
It was short minutes later that they doors were opening as they had demanded, but the people disembarking stepped out side by side with golems and Pharyes, lining up to meet their common foe.
Gastores himself was there too of course, mace in hand as they spread out into the cavern where their foes awaited, but when the call went up to charge he was left behind in an instant by the zealous assault of hundreds of Chasmites, fighting with all they had.
Though supported by Skidbladnir and golems or their own, they were armed with no more than metal pipes and beams, debris shaped into hammers and even simple rocks made crude clubs. All the same the enemy golems were dashed under the wave of improvised weapons, beaten down by ten times their numbers in an attack of stunning vigor and ferocity.
Nothing would stop the escapees from returning home.
If their rescuers should falter, they would rescue themselves.