He extended a hand and placed it on Kit’s forehead. She gasped, and Gyre watched the long cut on her stomach knot and close, as though it had never been. Naumoriel withdrew, and the construct’s tentacles lifted him up again.
“Conserve your energy as much as you can,” the ghoul said. “I do not have much left to spare if you run low.”
“I will.” Gyre inclined his head. “Thank you.”
“We proceed.” Naumoriel looked up the valley, then over his shoulder. “We are nearly there, but we do not have much time.”
As his canopy resealed and the war-construct stalked off, Gyre bent beside Kit. “Doing all right?”
“Yeah.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “That was … weird.” She looked up at him and swallowed. “Thanks. You could have let him leave me.”
“Partners, right?”
“Right.” Kit grinned. “Nearly there, he said?”
“Let’s hope.”
This valley was much like the other, scrub grass and small trees, but there was no sign of any goats or rabbits, no animals larger than an insect. That was hardly a mystery, though, given the plaguespawn. The ground sloped steadily upward, sometimes in rocky patches they had to scramble past, which the ghoul constructs handled with surprising agility.
They skirted an outcrop of boulders, where the valley’s little stream burbled into a broad pool, and found themselves looking at a flat wall of rock, perhaps a half kilometer off across a stretch of scrub grass. Above it, a mountain rose steeply to a jagged, snowcapped peak.
“There it is.” Even distorted by his construct, Gyre could hear the satisfaction in Naumoriel’s voice. “At last.”
“It, um. Doesn’t look like much,” Kit said.
“There is a door into the mountain,” Naumoriel said. “I will open it.”
“I think you should hurry,” Gyre said, looking over his shoulder.
Plaguespawn crowded the valley behind them. There were dozens, hundreds of the twisted things, in every possible size and shape, bones and muscles and eyes combined at the whim of a mad sculptor and brought to horrifying, shuddering life. The largest of the beasts glided through the swarm, the others parting around them like a silent wake. Gyre counted two—three—five of them, each the size of Naumoriel’s war-construct, walking on multiple legs with long, twisted arms wrapped in skeins of bone armor.
“We can’t fight that,” Gyre said.
“We do not have to,” Naumoriel said. He still sounded calm. “We only have to reach the door. Now, run.”
Gyre met Kit’s eyes, and they ran.
The war-construct was slow to accelerate, but it gradually picked up speed, legs moving in a blur as it stomped through the grass. Gyre put his head down, arms pumping, but he felt the upward slope cutting into his pace. Kit darted ahead of him, lighter on her feet. The remaining constructs brought up the rear.
The plaguespawn came after them like a horde of locusts. The fastest took the lead, bounding like wolves. Teeth clattered and gnashed, and claws of splintered bone unfolded. Four of Naumoriel’s constructs peeled off and threw themselves in the path of the leading monsters, smashing the lightly built plaguespawn to bits, but the lead wave simply parted around them to continue the pursuit. A few moments later, one of the giants arrived, its huge claws cracking rock and metal to tear the constructs asunder.
Halfway there. Gyre was falling behind, Naumoriel’s construct surging ahead like a runaway wagon, Kit hard on its heels. He concentrated, and with a click in his skull the world went slow and shadowy. His steps became leaps, as though gravity had gotten lazy.
Another seven constructs turned and planted themselves in the path of the plaguespawn, leaving only a pair beside Naumoriel. The war-construct had nearly reached the wall, and it planted its legs stiffly and slewed to a halt less than a meter from the rock. Its tentacle-arm brought up a small, flat-ended device that Gyre recognized as a ghoul code-key, like the one Kit had used to open the way to the destabilizer. Naumoriel pressed the thing against the wall, and something deep inside shuddered to life. The ground shook under Gyre’s feet.
Slowly—too slowly—the rock began to part. Kit turned and started firing her blaster at plaguespawn only moments behind them, blowing three of them apart before her sunsplinter went dry and the weapon emitted only a thin whine. Gyre drew his sword, watching the shadow-paths of the coursing monsters multiplying like a wave.
“Inside!” Naumoriel bellowed. He’d turned his war-construct around, swinging its massive claws in horizontal arcs that sent the broken bodies of plaguespawn tumbling. “Now!”
Kit needed no urging. She holstered her blaster and ran for it, darting between the legs of the war-construct and through the gap in the rock. Gyre went after her, ducking under the swipe of a claw as it left shadow-trails across his vision. It was dark beyond the door, but his silver eye showed him a vast, high-ceilinged space, and—
He was on his knees. What? There was a click, and the world of shadow-lines faded. Then the vision from his silver eye went black, leaving him with only the thin line of daylight from the doors behind them.
“Gyre?” Kit skidded to a halt. “Gyre, what’s wrong?”
I … I can’t … He couldn’t move, as though his limbs were lined with lead. Couldn’t speak. Unconsciousness beckoned, like a deep, black sea.
“Naumoriel!” Kit said.
Dimly, Gyre saw the war-construct back through the door. With a grinding crunch, the rock face abruptly reversed its motion, the huge slabs sliding closed again. Naumoriel’s claws smashed the plaguespawn that threw themselves at the gap, driving them back, and his two surviving constructs handled anything that got past their master. A moment later, the doors closed, with a spurt of black blood from the desperate plaguespawn caught in the gap.
“Naumoriel!” Kit shouted. “Something’s wrong with Gyre!”
“I expect his energy bottle is exhausted,” the ghoul said as his war-construct turned delicately about. “Replace it.”
Gyre fought for consciousness as Kit rummaged in his pack. He felt her pull the bottle away from his side and fasten another to the strap on his belt. As soon as it was close enough to his skin, it grew warm, and he could feel power flowing into him. His silver eye flickered to life again, pushing back the darkness.
“Gyre?” Kit said, standing back. “Are you okay?”
Gyre tried to speak and nearly vomited. He swallowed hard, nodded, and pushed himself to his feet, swaying a little.
“I’m …” He swallowed again. “All right. I should have switched that out earlier.”
“I didn’t realize it would hit you so badly,” Kit said, handing him the exhausted bottle. Its glow was totally dead.
“Neither did I,” Gyre said. “Remind me not to do that again.” He took a long breath, stomach settling. “Are you okay?”
“So far.” She rummaged in her pouch and came up with a vial of nighteye, adding a drop to each of her eyes. After blinking for a moment, she stared around with huge, dark pupils. “Wow. This place is … big.”
“It is unique,” Naumoriel said. “We had never attempted anything like it before, and certainly nothing like it has been constructed since.” The canopy of his war-construct popped open, and he took a deep breath of the cold, dusty air. His undistorted voice echoed from the distant walls. “Welcome to the Leviathan’s Womb.”