Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,38

that punched the air from his lungs.

From somewhere nearby there was the thud and crunch of living bodies impacting with long dead ones, as Silus's companions tumbled after him. He scrabbled his way to the surface and, looking around, he could see where some of their lightstones had fallen. Silus crawled his way to one of them and, raising it, he could just make out his friends, struggling to their feet.

"Well, I suppose that was the quickest way down." Father Maylan said, wading towards Silus. "Gentlemen, shout if you're amongst the living."

All answered and soon they had picked themselves up and were peering into the darkness that surrounded them.

This room felt bigger than the one from which they had descended and, as their eyes adjusted, they began to make out rows of columns rising to a roof far above them. The glow of their lightstones was thrown back by their smooth, reflective surfaces and Silus realised that the columns were made of glass. Within them, cloudy liquid moved sluggishly.

"What does this do, do you reckon?" Ioannis said, and before they could stop him he had turned the wheel he'd found attached to one of the columns.

A massive thunk echoed through the room and a rain of dust sifted down from above. Then, with a rumbling hum that rattled the bones on which they stood, the liquid starting rushing through the vast columns, gradually clearing as the cloud of particles that muddied them were sucked up through the ceiling. A soft glow began to infuse the room then, starting at the base of each column and working its way up as thousands upon thousands of tiny, glowing creatures were pumped through the mighty glass cylinders. Silus moved his face closer to one of the columns and could see that each creature was no larger than a mayfly, composed of a glowing, rapidly beating heart surrounding by hundreds of cilia.

"Gods, this place is huge!" Dunsany said, and Silus turned to see that the light had banished the shadows, revealing the full extent of the room.

As he looked around him there was a sudden, searingly painful flash of insight and Silus knew the nature of the death that had come to consume this underwater citadel.

Silus was amongst them as they stormed through the tunnels, threading their way through the under-levels of the citadel. In their hands they held staffs with glowing ruby gems set in their tips, the burning hearts of the stones pulsing with the fire barely contained by their facets. Ahead of them Silus could hear the first wave of their brethren laying waste to the outer defences and they soon piled into their rear of that skirmish, burning or slashing any of the mongrel creatures that made it past their brothers. The yards of tunnels they passed through were soon decorated with the bodies of their enemies; some burnt to a crisp, others gored beyond recognition.

They flooded into the great hall and the wave of their attack washed over the creatures milling there in panic, some with their young hugged to their chests as they made to flee to the upper levels. But they were soon overtaken and added to the pile of their dead, already several layers deep. Some fought back and some took down their assailants, but the sheer number of their attackers prevailed in the end.

And Silus stood amongst the growing mounds of the dead, covered in blood, the battle cries rising around him like some hideous chorus. The creatures that poured from the mouths of the tunnels fought with a joyous ferocity, never once pausing between kills. Even in the black pits of their eyes, Silus could see the terrible lust that possessed them, and he felt some of that same hunger himself.

Looking down Silus flexed his claws. They had yet to be baptised in the blood of his enemies but that would soon change.

For Silus did know the nature of the death that had come to the citadel of the Calma, because he was, himself, part of that terrible horde.

With a guttural, animal cry he launched himself at the creature cowering before him and knew his own name.

Chadassa!

Chapter Eleven

Querilous Fitch hated the way this place smelled. No matter how thoroughly they cleaned the chamber, the stench of burning heretics still clung to the walls. For a while they had tried adding aromatic oils to the naphtha used to incinerate the accused, but all that had done was add a cloying perfume to the odour of