Pathway

Chapter 155: Heavenstone [4]

Ju Feng was roaring out her Chang Chang' and sprinting toward her, arms spread to embrace her. Would his failing shields protect them both? 

Not from this death. The beholder's large central eye was a rent, shriveled ruin, milky liquid dripping from a slash in the sightless bulge, but the smaller eyes on their stalks glittered with maddened rage. They stared at Ju Feng, growing swiftly nearer. The charging monster would either ram him into the stones and crush the life from him, or roll over at the last instant to shred him with its fangs- teeth adorning a jagged mouth quite large enough to swallow him. 

Chang Chang shuddered, shook her head to clear it, and raised the gore-streaming blade she still held. Ju Feng came gasping up to her, bronze sword raised-and the beholder's eyes vanished behind its own bulk. It rolled over to reveal the gaping maw that would devour her. A powerful blood among her peers of her own kind. She was armed with a weapon that many lacked. 

Ju Feng fetched up against Chang Chang, panting. "Are you alright?"

"I'll live," replied Chang Chang. 

Chang Chang shoved him away, hard, spun about, and dived away. Ju Feng staggered backward and, with a roar of pain, sat down hard on bruising stone. The beholder crashed into the stones where they'd stood, snapping and tearing with its teeth. Rubble sprayed or rolled in all directions as the beholder raked the heap of stone apart, teeth grating on rock. The impact sent it cartwheeling helplessly away through the air-and uncovered a battered, unsteadily reeling them. 

Ju Feng found his feet and climbed grimly out of the heaped stones, growling at the pain of several stiffening bruises. He'd been buried long enough to know the first cold touch of despair and was in a mood to rend beholders. 

"Beholders. Revenant of the guardian," Chang Chang snarled, waddling awkwardly to her feet.

A scream of utter agony echoed around the dank cavern, underscored by the eerie sound of chanting. Ju Feng craned his neck, straining against the large boulders, trying to see what was happening. He was not the only one sentenced to become a drider that day. It was difficult to see anything. Noxious smoke hung on the air, rising from the opening leading to the other side. No matter what happened, they had to reach inside the opening and get the Heavenstone. The scent of fear was strong and sharp in his nostrils. This was an evil place no doubt. The screeching form the beholder beasts rose to a feverish pitch as another scream was ripped from the lungs of whatever they were facing. For a moment, the smoke swirled, thinning, and Ju Feng caught a glimpse of a gruesome shadow play. 

To their right, eight spiders gathered around an altar to which was strapped a writhing figure.. At the head of the stone slab, hovering in the garish green flames rising from a copper brazier, was a nightmarish form. The thing was a mass of bubbling flesh, snaking tentacles, and bulbous eyes. It was like the guardian but different. A Scaran, one of the deadliest breasts of the underworld, summoned from the depths of the Abyss to work its evil here. A wave of fear and revulsion crashed through Ju Feng at the sight of the Scaran. As powerful as the deatheaters. He clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to vomit. 

The spiders raised their arms in exultation as their sounds reached a shrill peak. The scaran extended its tentacles, wrapping them around the head of its sacrifice. The death spider female screamed one last time, back arching off the altar. Then, with horrifying swiftness, the change began. Wriggling legs sprouted from the drow's waist as her belly swelled in grotesque distortion. Her scream turned into a weird chittering that was part anguish and part mad glee. The spiders stepped away, and for a moment Ju Feng saw, in perfect silhouette, a new form standing on the altar where the dark scaran spider. The thing was shaped like a s scaran from the waist up-now neither male nor female-but its abdomen and legs were those of a huge, misshapen spider. 

Tensing his body, he waited for the moment of his doom to come. Before it could, a strange thing happened. A tiny form pulled itself up over the edge of the altar and walked in halting fashion across the stone slab. Ju Feng stared, his fear replaced by puzzlement. What was this creature? It looked like a crude, clay figurine of a scaran, no bigger than a dreadwolf. Only it was alive. 

With jerky steps, the tiny clay golem approached Zak's right hand. It raised a stiff arm, and green firelight glinted off cold metal. A small knife had been fastened to the thing's hand. Zak's eyes widened as the golem slashed downward. The sharp knife struck the leather thong that bound his wrist, cutting it through save for a small thread of leather. With clumsy but surprising speed, the clay golem scuttled into Zak's pocket. Black-robed forms appeared out of the swirling smoke. Cruel smiles cut across dark drow faces. Emerald light pierced the gloom as a fire was lit just behind Ju Feng's head. The flames roared, and something rose from them. Ju Feng arched his head back and caught a glimpse of half-melted flesh and spongy tentacles. Unholy dread turned his guts to water. As one, the spiders began their sounds. A slimy tentacle brushed across the surface as they watched. Ju Feng grimaced, feeling the first tug of pain deep inside his body. Now was his only chance. 

In a single motion, he jerked his right hand upward, snapping the weakened boulder blocking his path with his bronze sword. He made a slashing arc with the bronze sword, taking out the throats of two wide-eyed spidera, and finished the action by slicing the third spider. Even before the bodies had slumped to the floor, Ju Feng leapt to his feet, standing atop the altar, brandishing the dagger before him. He found himself facing the Scaran. The nether being hovered in the magical flames of the brazier, mere inches from his face. It shrieked in fiendish outrage, reaching for him with glistening tentacles, ready to tear him limb from limb. Ju Feng did not hesitate. He slashed with his sword. It was a great battle. It was becoming a stalemate before Chang Chang joined the fight. Then suddenly, Ju Feng lashed out an upward slash, knocking the Scaran over and into the heart of the altar. Sparks flew. The Scaran shrieked again, then disappeared in a puff of smoke, banished back to the Abyss as the magical fires that had summoned it were snuffed out. 

JuFeng spun around. Following cue, Chang Chang spun around too. The remaining beholders had recovered their wits. They lifted their daggers and whips, surrounding him. One raised its claws. Ju Feng kicked out, crushing its jaw before it could realize what was happening. It fell to the floor, squeaking. Another spider raised two claws that glowed with fell magic, ready to strike him down. Ju Feng lashed out with his sword, and the spider fell to the ground. 

Despite himself, Ju Feng grinned. These spiders were smaller the dark nephilia spiders outside the chamber. He could face them without problem. They had sought to work their deadly power upon him. Well this was his justice. These were the ones who gave the deadly guardian his power. 

His grin broadened as he disposed another spider and plucked his sword from its corpse. The hilts hummed against his two hands. It was a generic sword, but the blade was wickedly sharp. Terror blossomed in the eyes of the four remaining spiders. To them he seemed a fiend, a more terrible than a creature of the Abyss. They turned to flee towards the inner chamber, and two more died as Chang Chang drove her glaive into each of their backs, piercing their hearts. They started to pursue the remaining two spiders, but was brought up short by the duo of dreadwolf and giant spider who had been waiting in silence. The spider thrust out its pincers. As it did, Chang Chang performed a move she had invented herself long ago. She poised the glaive high, before turning it low, and was a able to render mortal damage to the spider. 

As the dreadwolf lunged forward, Ju Feng brought his sword's blade down in a swift move, catching the dreadwolf by the neck. Bone shattered with a sound like glass grinding. The dreadwolf went down howling in pain. Ju Feng smiled, making quick work of the dreadwolf. He leapt over it, no longer thinking, driven by instinct to pursue the two spiders before they could enter the inner chamber. They would seal the chamber behind them, making it impossible for Ju Feng and Chang Chang to enter. They couldn't afford that, especially with the cloak figure still somewhere in the tunnel.