Escape from Undermountain - Mark Anthony [79]
As it turned out, it was deeper.
* * * * *
Artek sat up with a groan. Bits of garbage tumbled from his shoulders. It felt as if his body had been trampled by a stampeding herd of Vaasan thunderhooves.
"Where… where are we?" asked a tremulous voice. It was Muragh. The skull still dangled from the belt of Artek's priestly garb.
"Good question," Artek said hoarsely. His darkvision adjusted, piercing the perfect blackness around them. They were in a small, rough-hewn cave. Beneath them was a heap of rotting refuse and rusting junk that had been tossed into the garbage pit so far above. Sudden panic clutched his heart. Where were the others?
He shook his head, trying to clear away the disorientation of the nightmarish fall. Then he remembered. After they had leapt into the pit, leaving behind the bloodthirsty priests of Malar, the hole had angled, and they had slid wildly down a steep stone slope, unable to stop their descent. Once again, Undermountain had pulled them deeper. Even Guss had been trapped, for the passage was too narrow for him to spread his leathery wings.
It seemed they had slid for hours, plunging ever deeper into the bowels of the world. Then, without warning, the tunnel had divided. Beckla, Corin, and Guss had fallen to the left, while Artek and Muragh had bounced to the right. The screams of the others had vanished in an instant. A few moments later, the harrowing ride had come to a jarring end. The tunnel had ended, and for a moment Artek had fallen through empty air. Then he had landed atop the garbage heap. Foul as the refuse was, he knew he should be grateful, for it had cushioned his fall, leaving him with bruises instead of broken bones.
Artek half-climbed, half-slid off the midden heap and stood stiffly. Sweat beaded on his brow. The darkness was hot and oppressive here. The weight of countless tons of rock pressed heavily from above. A sharp metallic odor hung upon the air, stinging his nostrils and burning inside his lungs. Then he heard a weird clicking sound that drew closer as he listened. He saw a dark opening in the far wall of the chamber-the source of the sound.
"Do you hear that?" Muragh asked nervously.
Artek nodded grimly. "Something is coming."
"Quick!" the skull whined in terror. "Hide us!"
"Wait a minute," Artek muttered. "I'm the one who should be afraid. You're already dead, you know."
"And it's an experience I don't care to repeat," Muragh replied with a shudder. "Now move it!"
Much as Artek would have liked, there was no time to reproach the imperious skull. Moving silently, he padded toward the cave's wall and pressed his body into a shadow-filled fissure. The eerie clicking noise drew nearer. A red glow appeared in the opening in the far wall. A moment later, two creatures scuttled into the chamber.
Bugs-that was Artek's first thought. But they were like no insects he had ever seen. They were easily as large as a man, but flat and round, with small heads and eight appendages, two of which ended in strangely shaped claws. Each seemed to have a lantern attached to the back of its head, and it was from these that the ruddy light issued. In all, they looked like weirdly distorted sea crabs. The blotchy carapaces that covered their backs were the exact color of rusted iron.
No, Artek realized in shock, their shells didn't simply look like iron. They were iron. And so was the rest of them. There was no doubt. His heat-sensing darkvision could discern the difference between living tissue and dead metal. Whatever these creatures were, they weren't alive at all, but some sort of mechanical devices. Yet they seemed to move with a rudimentary intelligence as they made for the garbage heap.
To Artek's further surprise, a tinny voice emanated from the pincer mouth of one of the creatures.
"Whrrr. Ferragans search for metal," it droned. "Good ferragans. Clkkk."
"Yes, search fallings from above," the other creature echoed in a metallic buzz. "Scrrr. Find metal. Squch be happy.