Home > Guardian of the Dark Paths (Children of the Ajda #1)(8)

Guardian of the Dark Paths (Children of the Ajda #1)(8)
Author: Susan Trombley

She stood straight to look around at the cave. The ceiling was so high that her meager lamp only illuminated the occasional stalactite hanging low enough to dip into the bubble of light. The cave was also so large that it stretched off into darkness in every direction. She caught the sound of water dripping, softly echoing, somewhere in the distance.

With a sense of fatalism and a growing bit of hope, she made her way deeper into the new cave, leaving the seamed area and the mine tunnels behind. A quick glance back had her gasping, then rushing back to where the seam had been.

Now it was only a cave wall. She ran her hands over the uneven stone that had been shaped by geological forces rather than tools, panic filling her. Then she pounded her fists on it, her efforts fruitless, only serving to remind her that she was a mass of aches and pains and various splinters that were now probably buried so deep in her skin they would have to be cut out.

She screamed in a combination of fear and frustration, with fear overtaking the lead at the end until her scream rose to a shriek. The sound was returned on a terrible echo that snapped her out of her panic. She staggered away from the cavern wall, desperately searching for a way back into the mine. There was no sign of the seam. No sign of any kind of tunnel heading back the way she’d come. Her foot twisted as she stepped on the rock she’d kicked into the sand.

Bending down, she slowly picked it up and studied it as if she could comprehend what was happening.

A faint sound of sand shifting behind her had her stiffening, her head jerking upwards as she spun around. The rock dropped from her nerveless fingers as she slowly turned her head, her lamp illuminating only a short distance in front of her.

There was nothing there but darkness, but her thudding heartbeat told her otherwise, as did the raised hairs on the back of her neck.

As she stood there staring in the direction she thought the sound had come from, her eyes desperately strained to see something beyond the cone of light. The shadows seemed to coalesce into a shape. A massive, humanoid shape formed from the darkness that stepped into the edge of the light.

It had to be over seven feet tall, and unlike the slender, bat-cat creature she’d survived through luck alone, she knew she wasn’t going to escape this monster. A huge body covered by some kind of armor might weigh it down enough to make it slower than her, but she had nowhere to run. Her only escape had disappeared at her back and this creature stood between her and the rest of the cavern.

It straightened from a slightly hunched position, and she swallowed through a dry throat as it stepped further into her light, revealing a face covered by scales, thin lips pulled back to bare two rows of sharp teeth. Reptilian eyes glared at her, narrowed in a humanoid face. Two slitted nostrils beneath a nearly flat nose widened as a long, forked tongue flicked out from between the sharp teeth.

The creature had no visible ears, but it did have a crown of what looked like spines on its head that seemed to twitch as it approached her. She stood frozen in horror, her jaw slackening until her mouth gaped open as the creature moved closer to her. Close enough for her to smell the odd, leathery scent of it tinged by some kind of indefinable musk. Close enough for her to hear its angry hiss rising in its chest. Close enough to see the shadow of a long, crocodile-like tail whipping behind its legs.

Close enough to recognize the necklace of human teeth and fingerbones hanging around its neck.

She screamed again, then turned to the side, her light darting away from the creature as she took off at an oblique angle.

She ran as if she had even the ghost of a chance, unable to hear if the monster pursued her through her own footsteps and pounding heart. It moved far more silently than her if it did, but the alien scent of it seemed to fill every desperate breath she took to fuel her mad dash.

The light bounced erratically as she ran, the wild shadows making it difficult to see the path in front of her. When one step came down on empty air, she tumbled forward, falling face first into a pile of sticks that reeked of rotting things. She flailed, her fingers closing around one of the sticks, dragging it closer as if her paltry weapon would have any chance against the creature.

She rolled onto her back, adrenaline once again blocking her pain and focusing her panic. Her lamp revealed the horrors of the pit she’d fallen into.

They weren’t sticks. The round bulge digging into her thigh wasn’t a smooth rock. The rotting scent was from the corpses that stared blankly at her, in various stages of decomposition. Most of them were nothing but bones and tattered rags.

Some of them appeared to be wearing military uniforms and broken-toothed grins exposed by a few remaining tatters of torn flesh.

From what she could see as panic threatened to overwhelm her again, they were all humans.

She turned back on her stomach, crawling towards the rock wall that surrounded the pit, her breath coming in short, harsh bursts through her mouth to avoid sucking in most of the stench. She tasted the death and decay and it made her want to vomit, but terror kept her moving.

Digging through the bones to pull herself forward, she felt something beneath a pile. Her fingers closed around the butt of a rifle. She cried out in triumph, stopping her crawl long enough to quickly excavate it from the mass of reeking death.

It finally broke free, the weight of it heavy with a loaded magazine. The M16 wasn’t a new weapon and had clearly lain in this pile for some time, but it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in that moment.

With newfound hope, she finished her crawl to the edge of the pit. She shouldered the weapon and began her short climb out.

As soon as she rose above the edge of the pit, the leather-musk scent of the creature drifted to her on some moist cavern breeze. She pulled herself out of the pit and climbed to her feet, swinging the M16 off her shoulder to hold it ready in front of her.

She had no idea how to use a weapon in real life, though she’d become an expert at video game shooters. She knew where the safety was, and saw that it was off. She knew, theoretically, how to use the weapon. She released the magazine, and a quick check showed her that it still held some ammo. She clicked it back into place and pulled the charging handle.

Once the weapon was ready to fire, she turned, searching the cavern with her head lamp. The barrel of the rifle trembled in front of her as she turned first one way, then the other. She was well aware that this wasn’t a game. The weight of the unfamiliar weapon helped steady her muscles, but not enough that she was certain her aim would be true if the creature came at her.

It charged her with barely a sound. If her ears weren’t straining to pick up any noise other than the shift of bones in the pit and the steady drip of water somewhere within the cavern, she wouldn’t have heard the slight crunch of sand that told her it was coming from behind her.

She spun around, her finger reflexively squeezing the trigger.

The sharp retort of the weapon almost deafened her to the pained growl of the creature as it darted back into the shadows. It left a wet spatter of blood that shined in the light as she glanced down at it.

A sense of elation filled her. She finally had the upper hand. If it came at her again, she would blow its brains out.

Something staggered her as it struck her arm, pain and a growing numbness in that limb following the sharp impact. The weapon fell from her hands to thud uselessly in the sand.

Shock delayed her reaction to the dart sticking out of her arm, as some kind of poison burned through her blood. The dart wasn’t that large, but it was the toxin that threatened her.

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