~8~ It Came from the Dark
Merlin didn't stir, even when his name was repeated and his slimy prison shaken. It was impossible to check his pulse from under the gunk, but his face was warm, and that gave the companions hope that he yet lives.
"Come on. Let's him down," said Arthur, sticking the butt-end of the torch upright on the sticky floor. After that, he was at a loss of where to start.
"There's more of them," Gwaine said grimly. He was looking at the other cocoon-like figures on the walls, and there were indeed other bodies, corpses long dead and rotten, and difficult to differentiate from the slime.
"There's nothing we can do for them. Help me!" Arthur drew a dagger and started slicing away at Merlin's prison. The sticky, elastic-like substance resisted the blade stubbornly.
The other two men followed suit, with little more success. "Let's try pulling him free," said Gwaine. "Knives aren't working; just use brute strength—you know: arrg!" The knight tried to act out with his invigorating words, but he couldn't grasp on properly to the cocoon, so the display was pretty anticlimactic.
Lancelot started to dig his hand into the muck, grimacing in disgust, and his fingers eventually broke through until his forearm was behind Merlin's back. "Maybe—" he grunted, "we can pry him out."
In addition, Arthur started to peel away layers, small pieces, of the prison, thinning it. Bit by icky bit, they worked the manservant free.
The prince eventually yanked off a large chunk from across Merlin's chest, and the youth slumped forward. Arthur caught him. He tugged him loose of the last bits of the cocoon and placed him gently on the ground, before shaking him in an effort to revive him.
Merlin's chest was rising and falling, to their great relief, but it was slow, as though he were sleeping.
"Sleeping, eh?" said Gwaine, unstrapping something from his waistband. "Well, there are a few ways one can wake a man from his beauty rest—" He upended his water skin over Merlin's face just as Arthur stood in protest. Merlin's eyes shot open and he sputtered water from his mouth. Gwaine's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Wow. That actually worked."
Merlin gazed at them all vacantly for a while, but eventually he focused, and his look became relieved, and then terrified.
"Out! Get out!"
"Merlin—" Arthur kept the servant down on his back. "Calm down. What's the matter?"
"There's something in here! We have to go, now!"
Before Merlin had finished speaking, Lancelot had straightened and both he and Gwaine had drawn their swords in precaution.
"What? What's in here?" Arthur demanded, glancing up and down the tunnel.
"The Olitiau."
"...The what?"
"Please, we must go!"
"Alright, then. Get up." Arthur helped Merlin sit upright, but when he tried to stand him up, the servant crashed back down. "Come on, use your feet!"
"...I can't."
"What?"
"...Arthur, I can't feel my legs."
The prince froze, then glanced at the knights in alarm. Back at Merlin, he said, deadly calm, "You mean...you can't feel this?" He grabbed the servant's foot and shook it.
"No." It was obvious that Merlin was trying to rein in his rising panic. "You...you must leave me here. Go, before it comes back."
"We're not leaving you here, idiot." Arthur hooked his arms under Merlin's armpits from behind, and started to hull him upwards.
"Don't be a prat. Get out!" Merlin's struggles were feeble.
"Gwaine, help me."
Aaaw-thaaah...
Merlin choked. "It's coming—get outta here!"
Leeeave him, Aaaw-thaaah...
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Arthur snapped, but at Merlin or the voice he wasn't sure.
"Down!" Lancelot tackled them all at once, and over the tangle of legs and arms something slashed through the space they once occupied. By the flickering light of the torch, that something resembled a tail.
"Here we go again," Arthur muttered.
Lancelot was the first to stand, and he placed himself between the Olitiau and his companions, sword at the ready. "Get Merlin out of here!" he yelled, and swung his blade through the shadows. Gwaine picked up the torch and stood beside the knight, and the creature was thrown into light.
At first, it appeared to be a giant, man-sized bat, but it was grotesque, and had humanoid legs. Its leaf-shaped ears twitched as it assessed the travellers, and its amber eyes narrowed at them. Sticky saliva drooled from gaping jaws. Bat wings, leathery membrane stretched across elongated skeletal fingers, filled the whole tunnel. Behind it lashed a whip-like tail, tipped by two curved barbs. Stingers.
"Yeesh, you're ugly," Gwaine grunted, and swung the torch. The Olitiau hissed, head flinching back, and then it lunged forward, spitting. A glob of mucus splattered across Gwaine's arm. "Yuck!"
Lancelot stabbed at the colossal bat, forcing it to retreat a step. The Olitiau replied with a tail slash.
"Don't let it sting you!"
The knight ducked under the barbs with Merlin's cry, and then tried to cut the tail with his sword, but it was too fast.
"Gwaine, go!" Lancelot retreated after the ruffian knight, not turning his back on the Olitiau. Gwaine helped Arthur carry Merlin as Lancelot covered them. They fled as quickly as possible, but the monster easily kept pace, refusing to lose its prey.
"Go! Move it!" Eventually sunlight was visible in the cave, and that was all the companions needed to redouble their pace. But so did the Olitiau, until the light became too unbearable. With a hiss, it backed into the dark, and the travellers were out at last in the late-morning sun, which shone into the ravine from the east.
"Wait! Don't leave me here!"
They all skidded to a halt at the sound of the young girl's sobs.
"Help me, please!"
"Don't listen to it!" Merlin yelled. The others looked at him incredulously.
"Merlin, there's someone trapped in there. We have to do something." Lancelot approached the cave.
"No! It's lying to you. It's just a voice! Get away—"
Lancelot grunted as the double-barbed tail lashed out from the darkness and clawed across his defending hand, drawing blood. His sword fell limply. Gwaine lunged forward to pull the other knight back from the tunnel entrance, dropping Merlin's legs to do so. Arthur was thrown off-balance. The prince began to fall back off the narrow ledge just as the Olitiau burst from the cave in a flurry of wings, eyes shut against the light. It collided with the knights, wrapped its wings around Lancelot, and knocked them all over the edge.
"Mörĭ!" Merlin cursed as he fell, and the Olitiau squealed once before a horrible cracking rang through the air. Then the warlock tumbled down the ravine, hit his head, and was enveloped in warm darkness.
† † †
Dusk was falling when he opened his eyes. Small pinpricks of light were viewed from the slit of the ravine far above. They were so beautiful, he forgot, just for a moment, that his head was throbbing like a drum and his body was bruised black and blue. Well, his top half was; his legs were still numb and immobile.
Groaning, Merlin rolled onto his front and felt his pounding skull, only to find his face right in someone's foot. He recognized it as Arthur's, who was still unconscious. Grunting in pain, Merlin grabbed the prince's boot and shook it. "Hey, dollop-head. You okay?" Arthur moaned, and opened his eyes a crack. They looked about sightlessly for a few seconds before shutting again. Merlin shook him harder. "Look. You've got to stay awake." Nothing.
The warlock rolled back, rested for several more minutes, and then glanced to his other side—only to flinch as he saw the Olitiau staring at him.
No, it wasn't staring at him. It was dead, amber eyes glazed over. It was on its back, splintered wings spread out to the sides, and its jaws, sticky with bile and blood, were gaped open. Judging by the position of its head, its neck was broken.
On a lower ledge, Lancelot, unconscious, was being moved to a better location by a grim-faced Gwaine. The ruffian knight unscrewed a cap from a water skin and splashed it over Lancelot, and he woke instantly.
"Rise and shine, m'lady," said Gwaine, and turned to Merlin. He didn't seem surprised to see him awake. He wandered over and nudged the warlock's leg with his foot. "You feel that?"
Merlin almost shook his head, sick, but he blinked as he felt a slight numb twinge in his calf. "Wait..." Yes, he was definitely feeling something. "I...I think I can..." But no, he still couldn't move his feet. He stared flatly at the Olitiau. "It stung me last night. I remember losing the feeling in both legs, and then suddenly getting very drowsy."
Gwaine nodded tiredly. "Yeah, and it appears Lancelot was in the same predicament." He helped the knight sit up, and grasped his arm. There were two black punctures, a couple inches apart, on the back of Lancelot's hand, surrounded by raw red flesh, and ringed by purple.
"I can't move my arm," Lancelot grunted, gritting his teeth. "Damn, that hurts."
Gwaine glanced over at Merlin. "Where were you stung?"
"My lower back, here." The warlock flinched as he reached behind himself and touched the punctures. They burned deeply. "Ow."
"Turn over." Gwaine leaped lightly onto the ledge and lifted Merlin's shirt, still encrusted in some of the mucus cocoon, to inspect the wound. "Yeah, the very same. Yours looks less red, though. I hope that means it's healing. Thirsty?" Standing, the knight jumped back off the ledge and kicked the Olitiau carelessly in the head on his way along the ravine. A couple minutes later he returned with a full water skin. "Had to picket the horses down a ways. They couldn't stand the smell. And guess what? I found yours, too! It was wandering a bit down there, calm as you please." He helped Merlin sit up and gave him the water, just as Arthur woke once more, grunting and holding his head.
As the prince, too, sat up, he nodded once at Merlin, who did the same in turn. That was gratitude given and received.
"You seem to know about this monster, Merlin," said Lancelot. "Why did it, you know...?" The knight trailed off.
Merlin drank from the water skin before passing it to Arthur. "Olitiau are solitary, deceitful creatures that lure prey by sounds. I don't know too much about them, but I do know that they paralyse with one stinger, and put victims to sleep with the other. Then they use spit to wrap the prey up like a cocoon, and wait a few days before eating it." Merlin was staring into nothing while his spoke, but he, too, paled at the memory and the 'what-ifs' that ran through his mind. "Apparently the pers—prey tastes better after it has been...marinated...in the cocoon for a while."
Gwaine's eyes narrowed. "And...is the 'prey' still unconscious when the Olitiau start feeding?"
Merlin just stared at the knight, silent, and swallowed bile.
After a while, the stench of the dead monster started to prove too much, and they prepared to move. Merlin had a serious case of the jelly-legs, so they had to half-carry him to his horse. The picketed beasts' eyes were rolling in distress, for the rotting odour of the Olitiau clung to the knights and servant like a cloak. Especially Merlin, who was crusty with a thin layer of dried Olitiau spit. He knew he had quite a battle ahead of him in washing it all off.
Gwaine gave Merlin his horse for the ascent, given that the warlock's bay was without saddle and it wouldn't be logical for the man with little feeling in his legs to go bareback. Arthur had offered at first, but Smokie wouldn't let Merlin sit in the saddle without cringing away. Even though they all thought that peculiar, they let it go and concentrated solely on reaching the surface.
Despite their desire to get as far away as they could from the ravine, it was too dark to see much, and they would end up just breaking one of the horses' ankles in a hole. So they rebuilt the old camp fire, but this time, no one stayed awake for a watch.
The haunting voice winds had stopped, and never rose up again.
The name 'Olitiau' is not of my making. There is a fabled creature in Africa that is a giant bat, about the size of a dog, I think. My Olitiau isn't like that, I just used the name. Just so you know :)