Chapter Sixty-Eight: Skaiaset
"HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, SHOOT IT!"
My throat was raw from the screaming, but I couldn't help it. Having a giant wyrm queen bearing down on me was making it very hard not to scream.
Wyrm Queen. Yep. Turns out, all the wyrms living deep within Mount Goldmont were part of a hive in a network of caverns that extended far, far belowground. And like many species of insect, this hive had a queen. The wyrm queen was significantly larger than the 'regular' wyrms, which were already large to begin with. Almost thirty feet from head to tail, with an effective firebreathing range of one-hundred yards - the length of a football field - and razor-sharp fangs longer than my arms, the queen was a force to be reckoned with.
The queen had been waiting for Cass and me at the ledge in front of the entrance to the passageway we'd taken into this place. Probably seeking revenge on us for killing her entire hive, the queen had blocked our exit, blanketing the entire cavern in flame. All my attempts to fight, and then evade the monster were unsuccessful - the queen was too big, too powerful, and too fast.
So Cass and I had to get creative.
And by 'creative', I mean I dumped Cass on a ledge in the side of the cavern and was now leading the wyrm queen into her line of fire. That, and praying that she did not miss.
I folded my wings in close and corkscrewed to the left, barely avoiding the wyrm queen's latest fiery attempt to turn me into a tasty Sprite-kabob. I maintained my current trajectory long enough to outlast the queen's blast of fire, and also long enough for me to reach the cavern wall on the opposite end of the space from Cass's position.
I launched myself away from the cavern wall, heading straight towards Cass. This was it; the part of the plan where messing up meant death for one or both of us. I tucked my head down instinctively as I dove right under the oncoming wyrm queen. The gigantic underling let out a roar of irritation, flapping its wings madly to turn itself around in midair. But it recovered insanely fast and was coming up on my tail within two seconds.
That was fine, though. Necessary for this plan to work.
And, right about now, I was shouting the 'HOLY SHIT' rant at Cass. I'd waited until I could almost see her eyes before folding my wings and dropping through the air like a stone. The moment I was out of the way, Cass opened fire. Now, for those of you who have never heard an M16 assault rifle being fired, they are fucking loud. And inside a cavern, where everything echoes? They're fucking louder.
As a sprite, I'm perfectly capable of flight without having to use my wings, allowing me to arrest my own fall before I hit something. Ignoring the physical discomfort I was experiencing due to listening to live gunfire with an eagle's hearing, I was able to glance upward and see that the wyrm queen had forgotten me and was now heading for Cass.
Cass had switched her rifle to automatic, which she rarely ever did, emptying an entire magazine into the underling's head. Even as the wyrm queen opened its jaws, flames spilling from between its fangs, Cass held her ground and kept up her fire.
It was enough.
I could feel the Eagle's consciousness going into full predatory mode, which I was counting on. In the past, the Eagle and I would have fought for control of my body, but this time I got 'out of the way', allowing the Eagle to spread my wings and bring us back around and up in a tight loop. It was a move that I would not have been capable of making on my own.
While I let the Eagle take over flying, I kept enough control of my body to retrieve my sprite-matter sword. As the Eagle put me right up to the wyrm queen's underbelly, I drove my sword upwards and carved a bloody line from the queen's stomach to its neck. By the time the queen released its fire breath, it was already plummeting down into the depths of the lower caverns, viscera and the like falling from the wound that had killed it.
I had to swerve out of the way to avoid getting caught under the falling corpse. As it dropped past me, I held out a hand, focusing on my Aspect and using it to hold the corpse in mid-air. With my sword, I quickly removed the wyrm queen's head and captchalogued it into my sprite sylladex - Cass was going to need a head to bring back to the Dwarves. Once I had the queen's head, I released my hold on its corpse and allowed it to fall away into the darkness.
I let my sprite-matter sword dissolve back into light. Sensing that the threat was now taken care of, the Eagle's consciousness ceded its share of control back to me, retreating into the airier, more mountainous regions of my imagination, where it seemed to enjoy spending most of its time.
I gave several powerful wingbeats, propelling myself back to the altitude of Cass's ledge. I wrapped my arms around her and took back off, promptly returning us to the entrance ledge. Wordlessly, we dusted ourselves off, walked through the entrance chamber, and descended the stone spiral stairs before beginning the long walk through the dark tunnel that led to the outside.
Three days. That was how long it took for Cass and me to clear out the wyrm nest. Three days and three nights, all spent in darkness, where the only light was Cass's flashlight, my fire, and the luminescence generated by my sprite body. Oh, yeah, and also the fire from all the wyrms that were trying to roast us. Though since all that fire was aimed at us, we really never had the chance to step back and appreciate it.
The queen made its first appearance right after we'd killed the wyrm door guards, the ones who'd tried to burn Cass and me to a crisp in the entrance chamber. The queen had swooped down from above and driven us from the ledge outside of the entrance chamber. To avoid getting killed by the queen, we had to plunge down to the very bottom of the cavern network that was home to this hive.
It took us three days to work our way back to the top. During the nights, we would hole up in a hiding place and sleep. We killed too many wyrms for me to keep count. We kept on killing them until, gradually, the caverns fell silent. Killing the queen had just been the maraschino cherry on the sundae. By now, despite the sleep we'd gotten while underground, we were still pretty damn tired, but neither of us wanted to sleep in these caverns. So we now forged onward, determined to reach the surface.
Even while we were underground, we could hear thunder raging above. But the longer we walked, the less frequent the thunder became. The storm was moving away. Gradually, though, the sounds of the thunder morphed from echoes and vibrations, to the actual boom, letting the us know how close we were to reaching the surface.
It was not until light became visible at the far end of the passage that Cass broke the silence. "You remembered to get the head, right?"
"Yeah." I yawned. "I got it."
"Good...didn't occur to me to ask until now."
"You're just tired, is all," I said to her. "You haven't really been sleeping well these past few nights."
Cass grunted in the affirmative. "Bad dreams."
"Hallmark of a Derse dreamer."
"You have no idea."
We kept walking towards the light, which turned out to be somewhat deceptive - it still took us a long while to reach the surface. We emerged from the dark, narrow passageway, onto a natural ledge in the cliff face where the passageway's entrance was located. Normally, Dwarves would need to climb the cliff face to reach it, but I'd simply flown up to it.
Rather than immediately take to the skies, however, Cass and I decided to rest. We'd emerged from the mountain just as Skaia was setting. The storm that had been pounding Mount Goldmont earlier must have blown off to the east, somewhere out of sight - we still heard the thunder, but all we could see was the Skaiaset...which was enough.
"Now, will you look at that…" I murmured, my eyes widening as I took in the sight.
There were still clouds in the sky, but that did not ruin the Skaiaset at all - the light of Skaia, refracting through those clouds at the extreme angle of the horizon, painted the western sky with a brilliant display of colors. The low sky, closest to the horizon, was a brilliant gold, struck through with rays of orange from some of the clouds. The larger, darker clouds were colored red and purple, with the higher reaches of the western sky rendered a deep maroon. It was breathtaking.
The western face of Mount Goldmont was shining a deep yellow in the light of the Skaiaset, almost radiating heat.
Cass was just as dumbstruck as I was. Clear Skaiasets like these were rare on this stormy planet. Her mouth was hanging slightly open as she took in the sight, but she quickly became aware of this and promptly closed it. "I've never seen so many colors in a sunset, before," she said.
"Wanna watch it?" I asked her.
Cass nodded. We both sat at the edge of the ledge, Cass dangling her feet over the side, and me...well, I could only dangle the wispy light trail that formed the lowest point of my body. But for now, I just imagined that I had legs, too.
"Three days...we were down there for three days… Can you believe that?" Cass paused to give a yawn of her own. "I could sleep for a week. We really need to figure out a better way of spending time together. Too bad that date you asked me on never worked out-" Cass cut herself off, but it was too late.
"All I wanted to do was take you to China Grill." I continued to chuckle. "That's all I wanted. Just some good Chinese food. Just a restaurant. Like normal people. I could've done without the underling-infested jungle and the wyrm's nest."
It wasn't until I registered the silence coming from Cass that I realized the impact of what I'd said. I cursed myself on the inside - I remembered from my experience in the dream bubble that Adam had convinced Cass to skip school to go on a date with him, only to have this plan foiled when the school was hit by one of the Reckoning meteors. Adam had wanted to take her to China Grill, which was this pretty cool Chinese buffet in town, but...well, the point was that it was Adam who'd said all that, not me.
From how Cass had cut herself off right after speaking, she'd clearly forgotten that fact, even if only for a moment.
I had to stop thinking that those memories belonged to me. I'd just created another giant awkward silence, which I'm probably just perpetuating by letting my inner monologue go crazy, like this-
"Sorry," I said, interrupting the vapid mental flow. "Uh...look, I know I'm not the same person as Adam, I just...his memories… Sorry. Won't happen again."
I focused all my attention forward, watching the Skaiaset's colors slowly grow deeper and darker. Cass said nothing in response. That is, until I felt movement against my left hand… I looked down, but only with my eyes, and saw, to my amazement, that Cass's hand was now touching my own.
Shit, I wasn't expecting that. Um. Should I just…?
Stop thinking, maybe?
I held Cass's hand, interlacing my fingers with hers, and smiled.
END OF ACT V