The Cache, James Brogden [ebook e reader TXT] 📗

low door much like any other, except that it had a circular depression in the wall above it, just about the same size as the medallion.

It fitted perfectly.

The Seal, locked into place by something powerfully magnetic, pulled itself out of her hand, and she stepped back in alarm. The concentric slide-controls around its central stone moved on their own, clicking into position, and she heard a heavy grinding of unseen gears and pistons as the door opened from the bottom up. A gust of stale air blew around her. The gap was less than two feet when something gave way with a scream of hydraulics and a judder that she felt through her feet, and jammed.

She went dark, folded herself into a corner and waited, heart pounding.

Nothing happened. Nothing lurched out of the gap to snatch at her. Nothing came out of the tunnel, alerted by the noise of the ancient mechanism. She eased herself down on the floor and put one arm through the gap, flexing her fingers wide to activate the biolux tattoos, and peered in. There was some kind of jumbled mound on the other side, gleaming in the meagre illumination.

She slithered under the jammed door, praying that it would not unjam and crash down again, slicing her in half like a worm. But it didn’t. She stood straight in the room on the other side and gasped in amazement.

A mountain of packages sealed in some strange kind of oilskin that shone like polished metal, canisters, tins, bottles and containers of every shape and size lay amidst the wreckage of the shelving from which they’d toppled. Many had spilled or burst, their contents spoiled, but the majority appeared to be intact. She picked up a small bar of something that lay nearby, tore open one corner and sniffed at it. It didn’t really smell of much, certainly not something rotten, so she tried the tiniest of nibbles. The taste was rich, heavy and sweet, and her mouth instantly began to salivate. Before she could stop herself she wolfed the whole thing and three more, squatting on her haunches and scoffing with both hands. Whatever was in them, it surged into her blood like battery acid, burning the fatigue out of her muscles and clearing her head. She was so overwhelmed by the sensory overload that she didn’t notice what had entered the room behind her until it spoke.

Ours now.

She spun, knife in her hand, expecting Hadzor Jaax and his men, backed up by the prime adjutant’s arbiters.

Instead she saw an army of crawlers.

They crowded under the door, pulling themselves into the room on pale limbs. No two were alike – most of the eyes that stared at her were blind and white but others glittered with malevolence. Most had legs but some dragged themselves along the floor and up the walls with wide, sucker-lined hands or hooked claws. She saw faces that had melted into torsos, vertebrae that protruded from the skin in barbed spines, figures that carried their naked organs ahead of themselves like offerings, and others with jaws that hinged wide to reveal multiple rows of teeth and snake-like tongues that lashed and leered. Some were even wearing the ragged remains of clothing. The one that had spoken – which she assumed was the leader either because of its ability to use human speech or because its deformities were the most extreme – was being carried by two of its brethren. Part of its skull was missing, or else had been removed, and in the naked, pulsing brain underneath a milky eyeball rolled at her.

We have waited a very long time for this to be opened, it said, and she was amazed at the perfect clarity of its speech before realising that it had no mouth, and was speaking directly into her mind. Shocked and revolted, she back-pedalled up the pile of ration packs, stumbling as they slithered out from beneath her.

Many wanted to eat you, it continued. But you were thinking so loudly about opening the cache that we thought we’d wait to see if you could do it. And you did, for which we thank you. But now it, and you, are ours.

‘Blessed Saint Geller, protect me,’ she whispered, still backing away awkwardly, and hauled out the iron bar to defend herself.

The crawler’s mocking laugh filled her skull. Oh child, do you have any idea what it is that you are actually praying to?

‘What… what do you mean?’

Then consider this a mercy. We’re putting you out of your ignorance.

At some unheard command they surged towards her.

She clubbed at pale flesh and felt something snap beneath her iron bar before her feet were snatched from underneath her and she fell into the pile. Then a crawler was on top of her, snapping and drooling, while another seized the meaty flesh of her right calf and worried at her like a rat fighting over a scrap. No mercy of a swift fall or a bullet here; they were going to eat her alive while she watched and screamed. The stench of them choked her, and the darkness was raucous with their looping howls.

A burst of gunfire from the hallway crashed over the din and for a moment everything froze. Something uttered a high-pitched, gibbering shriek and there was another rattle of shooting, and the room exploded into frantic motion as the crawlers abandoned their prey and attempted to flee.

Lyse lay, dizzy with shock, listening to the screams of battle. Only arbiters possessed proper firearms, which meant that Prime Adjutant Domitia was close, which meant that Jaax was too, but at this very moment Lyse couldn’t have cared less. This place and everything in it was hers. She had found it by law of salvage, and if her claim wasn’t honoured then Master Cracius would vouch for her, otherwise he wouldn’t get his share.

Then the pain in her savaged leg woke up, and she cried out. In the dim glow of biolux her blood was black;