Chapter 11: The Voice
Blondie and I run at the island full tilt, with Bressac covering us from a distance. Even on all fours, the fungal bombard can scuttle back way faster than I thought it could, but a well-timed rifle shot from Bressac knocks it off-balance for a sec and gives us a chance to catch up. In the last couple of seconds before we close in, though, I slow down a bit so Blondie pulls ahead of me – just in case the thing has some kinda trick up its sleeve.
Like when we hit the carriage, staying back pays off. As soon as she's close enough to reach it, the thing jets out another cloud of poison gas that catches Blondie full-on. Idiot woman must not've held her breath, 'cause she immediately staggers back, blinded and hacking her lungs out. I step left and lunge in past her – the creature's head is facing the wrong way away from me, so I aim low and stab it between the legs, then rip downwards.
Wound like that'd put a man – or woman – on the ground dying, but it ain't human no more, so it just hisses and keeps trying to get away. I kick hard at one of its knees, and the bombard falls writhing to the dirt. Before it can get back up, I get around it and start kicking and stomping it in the head. At the same time, Blondie recovers enough to smash it with her pick, and together we hack, stab, and batter it till it stops movin'.
Once I'm sure it's dead, I take a sec to spit on the carcass.
"Fucking freak," I pant, still outta breath.
Blondie looks for a moment like she's gonna reply, then opens her mouth and gags. I step back quickly, but didn't have to bother: nothing left in her stomach but a thin string of bile that trickles out of her mouth and down her chin. Then she starts coughing again, and shiverin' like she got a fever. That thing really poisoned her good: hell, she might keel over without me having to do a thing.
The sounds of battle are dying down, so I take a quick look over at the others. Guy and the Hellion've made a deadly pair, especially considering they were away from the torch and fighting in the shadows. Musta been four or five came at 'em all told, but only two are left. Even as I watch, one of the two keels over dead at their feet. The last one's still swinging blindly at them, but they'll probably finish it off before a minute's up. Bressac's jogging toward Blondie and me, looking 'round for anyone else.
I hear a splat and turn back to see that Blondie just dropped her pickaxe into the mud – musta slipped from her hands during her coughing fit. Golden opportunity if ever there was one: before she can grab it again, I quickly get up close and step down on it. Blondie slowly looks up at me, and I just smile, enjoying the expression on her face as she realizes she got nothing to defend herself with.
"You bastard," she chokes, her eyes on my knife. I make sure to grip it tight in case she tries something.
"Nothin' personal," I leer. "It's just the times ain't quite as desperate now."
She steps back a few paces, and I laugh. By the time the Hellion and Guy are finished killing that last fungal, Bressac and I'll have Blondie prisoner, and the glaive-bitch'll have to surrender if we got a knife at her friend's throat. Then we can take whatever we want from them – including the treasure.
"Now," I say, "Let's talk about that trinket you stole…"
I'm interrupted by another bout of the phantom laughter, coming from the darkness out of torch range.
"Yes," it sighs. "Turn on each other. I knew you would…"
"Shut up!" I roar. "You gonna come out and fight us, or are you only good for big talk and playin' tricks with the light?"
More laughter.
"Light," it hisses, "To see your doom."
Then, without warning, something I thought was just a boulder stands up just out of light range.
It's a giant. A real one, I mean: even bigger than Guy. Tall as two men standing on one another's shoulders, back all covered in thick shelves of fungus, and as I watch it rips a sapling clear outta the ground for a club. Son of a bitch was hiding there the whole time – toying with us. Didn't think these freaks had enough human left in 'em to like playin' games with their food.
Guy and the Hellion, who've just finished off the fungal they were fighting, turn and look at it in shock. But Bressac's got the worst of it, because the giant's right on top of him in two steps. He screams and fires a shot point-blank at it, but it's like a pinprick. With a groan, it swings the tree across in a sweeping arc that catches Bressac with a crunch and hurls him twenty feet to land motionless in the mud.
I look back at Blondie for a sec, then take my foot off the pick and run toward the others. They run at us too, and the four of us meet in the middle then turn to fight it.
"Get behind him!" bellows Guy, and slashes in at the giant with his scourge. "C'mon, asshole!" he hollers at it, to get its attention. "I been lookin' for a fight my size!"
But even as the Hellion, Blondie and me all split up to try and circle around it, the voice comes echoing at us from the darkness.
"Light, to see your doom," it repeats. "And darkness to meet it!"
Then my torch goes out again.
"Son of a bitch!" I scream, and hurl the useless piece of wood into the darkness.
My eyes ain't had time to get used to the dark yet, but I can still make out Guy and the giant facing off from one another. I can't tell where Blondie and the Hellion are, though. Giant leans down and I hear a hissing noise, but I don't fall for it again: I hold my breath and screw my eyes shut before the cloud can wash over me. But even though I manage not to get poisoned, I end up stumbling off in the confusion: when I open my eyes again I got no idea where I am.
"Alone," comes the voice, "and blind…"
"I catch you, woman," I howl, "You'll wish you'd never been born!"
In reply, I see a ball that glows faintly swing out of the darkness at me. It catches me in the shoulder, and a hot puff of something smells sickly sweet washes over my face just as I'm breathing in. I start coughing, and my tongue starts to tingle – more of the poison gas.
"Blind," comes the voice again, "in the dark…"
The glowing ball appears again, but I dodge this time and manage to hold my breath long enough to avoid it filling my lungs again. This time, I keep my eyes on it – from the way it moves, and a faint clinking I heard, I realize it's some kind of poison incense burner on a chain.
"Let it fill you," it calls from behind and in front and beside me. "Let it grow inside you…"
I focus, and when the burner loops back, I slash out at it with my knife. The chain tangles around the blade, and both the voice and I yank on it at the same time. I manage to wrench it outta the voice's hands, but the handle slips from my grasp and both knife and burner fly off into the darkness. I don't waste time, but stumble forward to where I felt the pressure on the burner while groping out with my hands.
I manage to snatch hold of something. Feels like a fur coat. I grab out with my other free hand, and it closes on what feels like a human wrist – no fungus or nothin'.
"I got you now, you fucking cunt!" I snarl. The thing hisses, and I feel it snatch at my collar and then close its free hand on my throat. It's surprisingly strong – could probably choke me out if I let it. But I ain't letting it.
Rule one of grappling – fight dirty. I let go of the coat and reach over to where the face must be. It tries to twist its head back as it realizes what I'm about to do, but before it does I manage to find an eye socket and gouge in my right thumb. It screams in agony, and keeps trying to twist back, but I step closer so it can't get away then use my other hand to grab at the thumb round my throat. I yank it backward, the wrong way, and feel the bone break.
The voice's screaming is everywhere as I push my thumb into its eye up to the knuckle. It's stopped trying to choke me, and's grabbin' at my hand to try and pull it off. I curl my left index and middle fingers like a fish-hook, then put 'em into the open mouth and rip sideways. Then I drive my right knee into its crotch before using my left hand to gouge out the other eye too.
"Who'ths blind now?!" I rasp, my voice comin' out all slurred and funny for some reason. "Whooth fuckin' blin' now?!"
It falls to its knees, still screaming. I take my hands out of its sockets, put them on the back of its head as a brace, and then drive my left knee into its face – once, twice, three times. On the last blow, I feel something give way with a crack, and it finally stops screaming and falls backward dead into the mud.
"Cahhh," I say, and realize I can't breathe.
Adrenaline kept me going through that fight, but now I've killed the thing I finally notice how my throat's closing, and my tongue's all swelled up. Explains why I couldn't speak properly. No time to worry about the giant still out there: I take my pack off, and start going through it for the antivenom – after a few seconds, I find the bottle, and quickly pull the cork and drink it down. Whoever made this stuff knew what they were doing, cause the second I swallow the tingling stops and I can get a proper breath again. Still gasping, I pat myself down to make sure I'm not hurt, and realize as my hand touches the handle that I never drew my spare knife – it's still in the sheath. Could've finished the voice off a lot quicker if I'd remembered, but no point worrying about that now.
The next thing I do is quickly check the voice's corpse for anything valuable. Yeah, it's risky, but I'm betting Guy and the others'll keep the giant tied up long enough for me to finish, and I might not find the body again once I get moving. I've done this before and know the usual places to check even in the dark, so it's only a few seconds before I touch a bag full of hard things that could be gemstones. I stuff the bag in a pocket. Finally, I pull the last two torches out of the pack: one I stuff in my belt for quicker access, and the other I have to hold between my thighs while I try to strike the piece of flint I got.
After a few more seconds, the torch flares to life, and I grab it and struggle to my feet, drawing my other knife as I do it. I don't bother looking at the voice's corpse, because it don't matter what it was no more now it's dead – instead I whirl round until I can make out the others. Then I start running toward them.
It's fucked. Guy musta went in with his bare hands, too – got the giant in a headlock, and forced it to one knee. The branch it was using as a club is lying in the mud: he must've wrestled it from the giant's hands. But it's not defenseless: even as I watch, it blasts him in the face again and again with clouds of poison from the spores all along its back. Guy's face is all bloated and horrible: his eyes swelled shut, his tongue and lips ballooned out three times bigger than they should be. I can't believe he ain't dead, but somehow he's still holding on.
The Hellion, for her part, is hacking away at the giant's exposed legs and back with her glaive, while Guy pins it in place so it can't fight back. For a second, I can't find Blondie, then I notice a figure writhing in the mud – she's so covered in the stuff I can't recognize her, but there's no one else it could be with Bressac already dead. Her face is swollen up too, and she's clutching at her throat.
The giant's struggles are getting weaker – the Hellion's reaved it open all over, and hacked up its spine and organs: like Guy, it's got no right still being alive. In the light of the torch, I watch the Hellion take one last, mighty swing that spills a whole bunch of its guts into the mud. As the giant starts going limp, Guy pulls back on its head with all his might, and the neck finally gives way. He lets go, and it falls motionless to the ground. Guy remains standing for a moment, swaying a bit, then falls down facefirst over its corpse. He don't move either. I glance over at Blondie, and realize she's stopped moving too.
The Hellion looks around, and our eyes meet. That's when it hits me. Guy and Bressac are dead. Blondie's dead. The voice, the giant, and the mushroom men are all dead. All that's left is the mud, the corpses, the Hellion, and me.