Zaldizko - Chapter 27 Hells Labyrinth Pt.1

“BLOODYHELL!”

My screams were muffled by the force of gravity pushing against my face. I involuntarily cursed at every poke and jab felt from protruding edges. We fell at a ludicrous, uncontrollable, speed through winding tourmaline and obsidian tunnels.

‘DUCK!” Death shouted in my inner ear.

I narrowly missed jagged rock that almost saw my head off. My ears swelled with heat, rang with pain. The zooming way before me was a blur.

“ARGH!” I yelped, involuntary tumbling into Brystagg.

We dropped down a straight vertical tunnel of pitch-black darkness and landed on black rock made visible by subdued red light.

“Ouch!” I winced at the tender pain I felt to my thighs and rib cage.

Lyra and Buru’s cursing followed us down.

I mustered some strength to roll away from their falling forms and had unfortunately moved to the spot to be underneath Colin.

“Gef off meh fool,” I gagged with tears squeezed out of my eyes.

Colin rolled off me.

“Did any of you magis geniuses think about using a spell to cushion our fall?!” I complained when I had reclaimed my breath.

“Could you do a spell falling at those high speeds?” Lyra answered with a loaded question.

Fair point.

Brystagg had lost his hat. His stylish, messy crop of brown hair brought thoughts of Leinard to my mind. I had to get back to him and return Death to his body. No idea on how I would do either, but I would find a way when I got there.

“Are you okay?” His calm voice pulled my thoughts back to the present.

He checked on our condition, using his hira magic to heal superficial wounds.

Colin wrapped a bandage around Buru’s waist to stop yucky bits of pus and blood oozing out of the wound to his side.

“You can’t heal that?” I asked Brystagg pointing to Buru’s wound and gulped at the murderous glare he gave me in response.

Lyra sniggered. “He’d have to perform bestiality to do that.”

“I’ve healed what I could for you guys to walk unaided.” Brystagg’s murderous eyes were redirected to hers.

“You have my thanks Sire.” She changed the subject.

“Meh be fine,” Buru calmly reassured everyone.

“You’re like that saying, strong as an ox.” I lightly joked and copped a glare from him.

“Meh not an ox.” He firmly asseverated.

“Aah.” I nervously scratched my head, realising I had struck a sore spot.

“Geeze Famine, your ignorant mouth is astonishing. Ox are castrated creatures, forced to labour. It’s clear he’s proud of being otherwise.” Death’s chiding voice stirred an ache to my temples.

“I didn’t mean it that way” I groaned, turning my attention to Colin to change the subject.

Colin was focused on taking stock of his inventory.

I checked own gear, satisfied to see that the guns were still cased in their holsters, the portspell and bag of shrill marbles were in my belt pouch next to Small Cap.

“Mirror, guns, marbles, looks like I still have them.” I ticked off my inventory aloud.

“Marbles? You sure about that?” Lyra derisively questioned.

I poked my tongue in response to her wryness.

“Settle down children,” Brystagg said to call order.

We gathered around him to discuss our next steps.

Gurgles and scratching noises made us go quiet.

“Oh, my, my, it’s been a while,” hissed a familiar voice with a tone far from being warm and welcoming.

“It can’t be!” Lyra gasped. Her blue eyes were dilated with fear.

The creature’s fleering was making me feel skittish.

“You boys and girls haven’t changed. The same delectable morsels, delightful.” Sniggered the banshee balancing a homburg hat on its creepy redback spider head that had human features. Its pudgy backside wagged up and down as its legs tested spring for a pounce.

Colin reflectively formed a protective barrier around us.

“I’m doing my best not to crap myself here. Doesn’t that thing’s face and voice resemble too much of that piggy cheeks Homburg creep!” I shuddered.

I was surprised to see Lyra looking as spooked as I was.

“Sire, if he’s” Her voice trembled.

Brystagg pulled her into a hug and lovingly kissed her forehead. “It’ll be alright.”

“Eh!” I blurted.

My fear was overridden by shock from seeing the man’s display of affection.

“Don’t tell me that both of you?!” I wagged a finger at them to finish off the rest of my question.

Both replied with an affirming look in their eyes.

“Couldn’t you have done better?” I blurted my impressions of their relationship to Brystagg and copped a painful kick to my stomach from Lyra.

“Yep, like daughter.” I groaned.

My eyes narrowed at Colin and Buru’s stifled laughter.

“Well thanks to an idiot, I’ve calmed down.” Lyra coolly closed further discussions on the matter.

Our focus returned to the homburg banshee parading our barrier.

I cursed at the sight of banshee reinforcements entering the cavern I just realised we were in. Although, I don’t know how long it had been a cavern since the walls were continually reassembling themselves like building blocks. The layout of the place changed every few minutes. Right now, the place was enormous enough to hold more than twenty clutters of redback spiders the size of children.

Colin frowned and placed a finger over his maplink-eye.

“This is no good. The tunnels are reforming at absurd rate. Even the fixed paths are moving to merge with other random paths,” his hands nervously signed.

“What does that mean? No fixed paths?” I signed my questions, rephrasing Colin’s information by voice for the others.

“That means the tunnels are reforming to make one pattern. There’ll eventually be no walls.” Brystagg gulped.

A sickness churned my stomach, my heart pounded with irregular beats when I realised his words and fear. Hell’s Labyrinth would become one space that was free for all and without a barrier keeping it separated from the Second District. The city would be vulnerable to mass demon attacks.

Jarring bangs and thuds to our barrier drew our focus back to the present issue.

Walls would be the least of our problems if we weren’t able to escape the banshee manically smashing against our barrier with their intentions to make a meal of us.

I gasped when I recognised the human resemblance on some of the banshees and saw that Brystagg had noticed this too from his troubled expression.

“Sire, whatever happened to the BHT was twenty years ago. You’re not responsible for this!” I shouted at his face to snap him out of thoughts that would hinder our escape.

“Famine, they were my people. I’m responsible.” Brystagg’s voice was level. He was doing his best to hold in his emotions.

“Then take responsibility, end their banshee misery to give their impressions back their humanity.” I faced him with will and resolution.

Brystagg chuckled and patted my head. “You’re a conundrum. I can’t decide whether your dumbness is to disguise your intelligence or something else.”

“I’d go for devilishly handsome.” I positively answered.

“What’s to figure out? Dumb is dumb.” Lyra smirked. “Famine has a point. Let’s end their misery once and for all.”

She unsheathed her koto sword for action.

I glanced about the faces of Colin and Buru who were also ready to dish out the pain.

Brystagg steadied his hands and unsheathed his guns.

We positioned ourselves around the barrier for the best vantage point. Brystagg briefed us on a plan of attack. Colin reversed the barrier to repeal the surrounding banshee.

It was now or never. I released a round of gunfire when the barrier was lifted.

The cavern walls quaked from the high-pitched shrieking, fierce scratching on rock and the intense rush of battle.

“This isn’t working!” I shouted over blaring gunfire.

I instinctively crouched to avoid an oncoming spider, aimed my guns and fired. Spider bodies and icky bits of limbs thudded to the ground.

More replaced the fallen.

My fingers were cramping up from rapid firing. Hot smoke stuffed up my nose. The taste of iron was drying out my throat. My eyes drooped. I was staggering, so bloody exhausted.

“We’ve no choice! For Death!” Brystagg shouted near my ear.

No fair. Pulling out that card. Of course, my body would respond with an adrenaline rush.

He pressed his back to mine to steady my stance. We held out our guns and fired rounds, stepping in a clockwork circle to blow off spider heads and spindly limbs aiming for us.

I saw Lyra dodging web attacks, smoothly hacking a clutter to pieces. She was enthralled with oncoming attackers that she hadn’t detected the one behind her.

Bullet projectiles from my guns caused the spider at her back to explode before it could carry out with its nasty stab attack.

Lyra heaved with a thankful sigh. She continued with her skilful slash attacks.

Buru was next to her, pulverising, shredding spider body parts with his bare hands and using the webbing roped around his arms to smash banshee into each other before tearing free.

I was worried he’d be poisoned by the viscous spider gunk his hands were in contact with. So far, he appeared to be okay.

Colin entered our firing circle. He called upon a bidea wave to dissipate a massive ring of spiders into glittering air.

“Why the hell didn’t you do that earlier?!” I shouted.

“It hurts my head that’s why,” he clumsily signed.

Lyra and Buru also entered our area when they saw a new formation of banshee surround us.

Colin was preparing himself for another bidea wave when the banshee turned tail and fled.

“Why?” I gulped.

The crunching and grinding sounds from the walls and floors containing us provided an answer.

The floor broke apart.

“Shit!” My voice trailed off as we fell.

My heart thumped with threats of stopping. We ducked our heads, dodging flying red bricks that were reforming walls around us.

“Aargh!” I heard Buru cry out next to me.

Our descent unexpectedly stopped. A new floor had been reformed under our feet. I glanced in an L-shaped corridor that opened out to a generous rectangular room.

“Buru.” I sheathed my guns to check his arm.

It was badly bruised, possibly broken. He was heaving for breath; his skin was clammy and the wound to his side was leaking blood onto the bandage. I sensed his pupils were dilated. Not good.

“Buru, Imma gonna do this sorry.” I swallowed down an awkward breath, convincing myself that what I was about to do was to save a friend’s life.

“Here goes.” I scrunched my nose, yanked his head towards mine and squeezed my eyes closed when I used my hira magic to heal his dangerous wounds.

This experience was the most taxing on my energies by far. I sighed with relief when Buru released me with a healthy roar at the end of it.

The minotaur ripped off the bloodied bandage to reveal a healthy, wound free waist; his bruises were gone.

“Famine, how long have you had this squeamish power?!” Death was stupefied.

I stumbled about the spot, shook my head and reclaim my clarity.

“I’m going to forget this sight for all of eternity,” Lyra squirmed.

“Please do.” I groaned, mustering my strength to stand steady.

“Thank you, Young Lord.” Buru slapped my back with his hearty appreciation.

I ignored Brystagg’s raised brows and mouth twitching with sarcasm.

Rushing figures from the far end of the rectangular space put us back on alert.

My arms weren’t strong enough to hold guns. Death provided an answer for a weapon when he nudged the bag of shrills towards the top of the belt pouch.

I cupped an iron marble in each hand and raised my arms for the throw.