Episode CXIV - The Lair of the Huntress

Two arrows, one above the other, shot out of the darkness towards Frostfire, who was only just turning to see what Sarah was talking about.  Against all logic Sarah leapt towards him and despite the fact that she was on the opposite side of the hall when she started, she managed to crash into him and knock him to the ground before the two arrows had passed the point where he stood.  It had felt like it was happening in slow motion, and yet, she realised, she had moved with what felt to be her normal speed.  When she hit the ground with Frostfire she realised her skin was glowing, very slightly, once more.

Just how powerful am I?

But there was no time to think.  She could hear as the next two arrows were nocked this time and knew they would make a much easier target on the ground.  They needed to keep moving and to close the distance on their glowy-eyed assailant.

First, Sarah rolled, dragging Frostfire with her, and the second pair of arrows impacted the spot where they had been.  Next she rose to her feet, everything still feeling as if it were happening in slow motion, and she dashed towards the corner where she had seen the eyes.  She knew she didn't have to worry about Frostfire now.  After her first move it would have been clear that she was the only target that mattered right now.

The eyes were still there, watching her running towards them with unnatural speed.

I'm going to get you, Sarah thought, just you see if I-

The eyes blinked and then were gone.  Sarah ran into a corner devoid of anybody, a lone arrow abandoned in the place where the archer had been.  She spun on the spot, trying to see where the attacker must have gone, but there was no sign of them in the other corners of the room, which, unlike this one, were reasonably well lit by the gas lamps.  The only way they could have gone was into the dark corridor, deeper into the facility.

"What was that?" Dimsun asked.

"The reason we're here," Frostfire replied, picking himself up from the floor.

Dimsun's eyes flickered with curiosity and Sarah realised that, as far as Frostfire's plans were concerned, he was as much in the dark as she was.

"We need to follow," Frostfire continued, making his way towards the dark corridor.

"We need to find somewhere where we can tend to Jansen," Sarah replied firmly.  "Anything else can wait."

Frostfire glared at her, then disappeared into the darkness.

"I don't know how you put up with him sometimes," she remarked to Dimsun as they lifted Jansen from the table.

"The ends usually justify the means," Dimsun replied.

Once Sarah had Jansen over her shoulder - he seemed to be getting lighter, which she did not think was a good sign - Dimsun led the way into the corridor and began lighting the gas lamps along the way.  Each one killed the darkness ahead of it, but never for very much distance and it seemed that Frostfire was already lost out of sight.

"How long have you travelled with him, anyway?" Sarah asked as they made their way along the corridor

"For about twenty years, on and off.  He likes to go on his own most of the time, but when he needs assistance he often calls on me."

"But you weren't with him when he was working for Doctor Barkham."

"No.  I don't always agree with his schemes, you have to understand that and sometimes... some things are just a step too far.  I stayed in Ashvault."

Sarah nodded, though Dimsun wasn't looking.

The corridor stretched on into darkness ahead of them and to the left and the right there were various sealed doorways.  Sarah tried a few of them as they passed, but they were invariably locked.  One or two appeared to have been bashed in, sometimes from their side, sometimes from the other, but whatever had been trying to get through had been unsuccessful each time.

"I'm not sure what I'd have done without you," Sarah confided after a few minutes of silence.  "If you hadn't been explaining things to me - in fact just talking to me - I might have gone mad."

"It only seemed right.  I was aware that we were dragging you into something well over your head."

"It's over yours as well, though, isn't it?  You don't know what it is that Frostfire wants here, do you?"

"Not exactly," Dimsun admitted.  "I knew that he was coming here looking for leverage and I knew that he probably already knew what it was, but beyond that, no."

"And still you follow him."

"Because I trust him."

"Even after last time?"

"Well, this ought to make up for that.  He won't make that mistake twice."

Sarah wondered what Frostfire wanted the 'leverage' for.  Something to do with getting his revenge, she was sure, but exactly who did he want revenge on?

"Are we looking for something to kill... to destroy Ellis, then?" she asked sheepishly.

Dimsun paused, looked at her with an expression of deep confusion, then laughed.

"Have you been worrying about that all this time?  That we were going to kill your friend?"  he laughed again, "Don't worry, girl.  Frostfire might not have got on well with Ellis, but given what Doctor Barkham was making him do to that poor boy it's not really surprising.  No, it's the Noble Society Frostfire wants revenge on.  They are the ones he followed hoping for a better life for his people, only to have them slaughtered, almost to the man."

"And there's something - something that knows how to use a bow - in this empty facility that will enable him to do that," Sarah reasoned, "that and having a Slayer will apparently be handy."

"As I'm sure you've worked out by now, having a Slayer is always handy in Shadow."

Sarah nodded, but she wondered if there wasn't more to it than that.  Frostfire had seemed especially keen to enlist her help and to make her into a particularly powerful weapon.

He wants me to kill Doctor Barkham, she realised with a moment of horrific insight, that must be it!  She wasn't sure what she thought about that, however.  Doctor Barkham and her so-called Noble Society certainly sounded nasty enough, but she had never met them, nor had she suffered at all by their hands - well, if you didn't count the two confused Slatewings chasing her about Larksborough and ultimately bringing her to this mad world.

"Well," Sarah continued, trying not to dwell too much on her thoughts, "I hope we find whoever and whatever Frostfire's looking for quickly, preferably before it kills us.  Besides, there's something about this place that gives me-"

Something howled in the darkness.  Something big and feral.  Sarah wasn't sure if you could tell these things from just a noise, but she got the distinct impression that whatever it was also had teeth and claws.

Dimsun glanced at her, his dull eyes suddenly so much like a weak candle flame, then he turned back down the corridor and continued to light the intermittent gas lamps.  All Sarah could do was shift Jansen’s weight and follow.

They found the first open door not long after that and Sarah was surprised and relieved to discover that it was, in fact, a medical room of some description.  The door had been forced open, so it seemed likely that whoever had targetted it had done so deliberately.  Inside there was a bed, an overturned table and a series of cupboards which looked like they had been ransacked.  Sarah lay Jansen down on the bed as Dimsun began to sort through what remained of the cupboards contents.

“Whoever did this wasn’t too  thorough,” he said once Sarah had settled Jansen and appeared at his side.  “They left plenty of good medicine and other supplies.”

“Perhaps they were in a hurry,” Sarah suggested and, perfectly timed, the silence was punctuated by another distant howl.  “We better do what we can for Jansen as soon as possible,” she added, eyeing the door nervously.

“What about Frostfire?”

“He’ll have to fend for himself until we’re sure Jansen is stable.”

            Sarah righted the table and then Dimsun laid out the various medicines, poultices, bandages and supports.

            “Do you know what to do with all this?” Sarah asked as she eyed the confusing assortment of bottles and pieces of cloth.

            “Mostly.  I think I ease his pain, help him get rest and provide him with a support to try to keep the rib in place.”

            “What can I do?”

            Dimsun eyed the corridor through the broken door.  “Keep watch?”

            Sarah nodded and made her way over to the door.  She propped a small chair in front of it and then sat down, staring into the corridor beyond whilst Dimsun began clattering away with the bottles and bandages behind her.

            She watched and she waited.

            An hour passed.  Jansen lay propped up, but asleep on the bed, his otherwise bare chest wrapped in supporting bandages, his skin looking a little less pale, suggesting that the pain killers were working.  Dimsun snoozed in a nearby chair, whilst Sarah continued to stare out into the corridor, listening to the feral noises of the facility.

            In her hour of vigilance Sarah had determined that there were many different creatures roaming the corridors and rooms of the research station.   She had heard plenty of small animals scuttling and scampering through the ventilation system and had distinguished no fewer than six different bird calls and at least four predatory howls and roars.  She could only assume that the creatures were test animals from the days when the facility was still in use, but now many of them were clearly free and making a fine living feasting on each other.

            It could only be a matter of time before they came.

           

            Something growled nearby.  Sarah lifted her head with a jerk and realised, to her horror, that she had fallen asleep in her chair.  Behind her she could hear Dimsun snoring softly and a quick glance over her shoulder revealed that all was well in the medical room.  She almost sighed with relief, but then the growl came again.

            She glanced towards the source, a shadow moving just on the edge of the lamplight, low and wolf-like and poised, ready to pounce.  It growled again and she saw its head moving on a long, snakelike neck.  Not so very much like a wolf, then.

            It’s okay, Sarah thought, I just have to power up again.  I need to get angry and-

            She realised she wasn’t angry at all.  She was scared and as the creature moved forward, revealing a long body and an extra pair of legs from what she was expecting, the back half muscular and large, she felt very small and insignificant.  Its head, somehow both canine and snake-like, with a flaring hood like a cobra, turned towards her, its tongue tasting the air just inches away from her.

            Oh God, she thought and it wasn’t a prayer, what do I do?

            The creature took another step forward.  It was awkward and mis-matched, without any of the grace of the creatures it resembled.  Its eyes were ugly and dark and they stared at Sarah like the prey that she was.

            I’m going to die now, she thought.

            There was a soft thwock and the creature reared up suddenly, howling before turning on the spot and darting off into the darkness.  Sarah stared after it, heard the sounds of a brief, violent struggle.  The creature howled again, long and pained, and then there was silence.

            Sarah blinked and then a pair of ice-cold orbs of flame approached and, lower to the ground, came a pair of glowing green eyes.  Frostfire emerged into the light looking much the same as he always did.  Rock solid.  To his side stood a short, ugly young woman, her limbs all different lengths, her shoulders resting a different heights, her hair growing in patches and her face a mix of  lumps and stretched lines.  Only her glowing green eyes seemed to have any symmetry to her at all.  Over one shoulder she carried a bow and there was a quiver on her back.

            “I thought you said she was a Slayer,” the girl said in a voice which seemed torn between a shriek and a mannish drawl, “she should have been able to defend herself.”

            “You saw her before,” Frostfire said, “do you doubt me?”

            The girl stared at Sarah with a brief moment of uncomfortable intensity, as if Sarah were a specimen in a museum or under a microscope, then the girl shook her head.

            “You were the one who attacked us,” Sarah said, finding her tongue and rising, stiff and awkward from the chair.

            “Yes,” the girl replied, “and now I’m the one who just saved you.  Swing and roundabouts, I guess.”

            Sarah met her even, glowing gaze, then looked up at Frostfire.

            “Who is this?” she asked, “She’s your leverage, I get that, but… just who is she?”

            “I can answer that myself,” the girl said, taking a step forward and putting out her hand at the end of an  unnaturally long arm, “I’m Lady Diana Barkham of Skullbridge.  I believe you already know about my mother.”

            Barkham, Sarah thought, trying to process it all,  Rosetta’s daughter!  But why is she locked up inside an abandoned philosophical facility?  Why is she hunting monsters in the dark?

            “Diana was being used as a test subject,” Frostfire said.  Sarah stared at him, seeking more answers, but he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so Sarah turned back to the girl herself.

            “Mother needed a special kind of key to break through the Aether and summon the Silverspire – a key with a personality, a key which was alive.  Her early attempts involved taking a human subject and… transforming them, by subjecting them to unnaturally high levels of Hypostatick energy, amongst other things.  Many of these experiments were not at all successful, but she felt she was getting somehow – making progress enough to advance to the best subject she could find, he own daughter.  As you can see,” the girl said, spinning dramatically, “it was not a success.”

            “Rosetta couldn’t bear to look on her.  I remember seeing her locked up once when I first visited here, but Doctor Barkham was keen that I forget everything I saw.”

            “I’m a painful reminder of her failure.  After me she began to try creating a construct using Hypostatick energy alone and soon she managed to create Ellis.  It was easier, then, to forget about me.”

            “And she abandoned you here,” Sarah concluded, realising for the first time just what a monster the Countess of Skullbridge really was.

            “And then you fine people arrive.  I thought you were working for her, that’s why I attacked, but, if you’re giving me the chance to leave here and see my mother again, then that’s a different story.”

            “We have everything we need now,” Frostfire said, “so there’s nothing stopping us from finding Doctor Barkham.”

            “Oh,” Diana said suddenly, staring off towards the walls as if there was something there, “that might get in the way, though.”

            “What might?” Sarah asked, but already she could feel the ground trembling.  The gaslamps began to sway, the furniture rattled across the floor and Dimsun woke up with a start.  Then the ceiling began to rain dust and the shaking grew increasingly violent.  There was a distant sound too, almost like an air raid siren going on and on and on.

            And then the lights went out and shaking stopped.

            “What was that?” Sarah asked, feeling shaken all over again.

            “I think that was the end of the world,” Diana replied calmly.

END OF BOOK THREE

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