Sailor on the Seas of Fate - Michael Moorcock [12]
Elric and his party were the first to enter, finding themselves in a damp, warm passage which curved almost immediately to the right. They were followed by the others until all stood in this passage warily glaring ahead, expecting to be attacked. But no attack came.
With Elric at their head, they moved on for some moments before the passage began to tremble violently and sent Hown Serpent-tamer crashing to the floor cursing. As the man in the sea-green armor scrambled up, a voice began to echo along the passage, seemingly coming from a great distance yet nonetheless loud and irritable.
"Who? Who? Who?" shrieked the voice.
"Who? Who? Who invades me?"
The passage's tremble subsided a little into a constant quivering motion. The voice became a muttering, detached and uncertain.
"What attacks? What?"
The twenty men glanced at one another in puzzlement. At length Elric shrugged and led the party on and soon the passage had widened out into a hall whose walls, roof, and floor were damp with sticky fluid and whose air was hard to breathe. And now, somehow passing themselves through the walls of this hall, came the first of the defenders, ugly beasts who must be the servants of that mysterious brother and sister Agak and Gagak.
"Attack!" cried the distant voice. "Destroy this. Destroy it!"
The beasts were of a primitive sort, mostly gaping mouth and slithering body, but there were many of them oozing toward the twenty men, who quickly formed themselves into the four fighting units and prepared to defend themselves. The creatures made a dreadful slushing sound as they approached and the ridges of bone which served them as teeth clashed as they reared up to snap at Elric and his companions. Elric whirled his sword and it met hardly any resistance as it sliced through several of the things at once. But now the air was thicker than ever and a stench threatened to overwhelm them as fluid drenched the floor.
"Move on through them," Elric instructed, "hacking a path through as you go. Head for yonder opening." He pointed with his left hand.
And so they advanced, cutting back hundreds of the primitive beasts and thus decreasing the breathability of the air.
"The creatures are not hard to fight," gasped Hown Serpent-tamer, "but each one we kill robs us a little of our own chances of life."
Elric was aware of the irony. "Cunningly planned by our enemies, no doubt." He coughed and slashed again at a dozen of the beasts slithering toward him. The things were fearless, but they were stupid, too. They made no attempt at strategy.
Finally Elric reached the next passage, where the air was slightly purer. He sucked gratefully at the sweeter atmosphere and waved his companions on.
Sword-arms rising and falling, they gradually retreated back into the passage, followed by only a few of the beasts. The creatures seemed reluctant to enter the passage and Elric suspected that somewhere within it there must lie a danger which even they feared. There was nothing for it, however, but to press on and he was only grateful that all twenty had survived this initial ordeal.
Gasping, they rested for a moment, leaning against the trembling walls of the passage, listening to the tones of that distant voice, now muffled and indistinct.
"I like not this castle at all," growled Brut of Lashmar, inspecting a rent in his cloak where a creature had seized it. "High sorcery commands it."
"It is only what we knew," Ashnar the Lynx reminded him, and Ashnar was plainly hard put to control his terror. The fingerbones in his braids kept time with the trembling of the walls and the huge barbarian looked almost pathetic as he steeled himself to go on.
"They are cowards, these sorcerers," Otto Blendker said. "They do not show themselves." He raised his voice. "Is their aspect so loathsome that they are afraid lest we look upon them?" It was a challenge not taken up. As they