Call of Kerberos: Twilight of Kerberos, The - Jonathan Oliver Page 0,71

skull shifted and cracked.

His screams quickly fell silent. The hood relaxed its grip. Win slumped against Dunsany.

The Chadassa turned to Silus. "Now come, follow."

Silus's hands were released and he got numbly to his feet. The sphincter-door peeled open and the Chadassa was already halfway through when Silus tore the pipe free from Win's collapsed hood, his fingers almost slipping on the bony ridges. He ran at the Chadassa and encircled its throat with his left arm, before jabbing the pipe into its right eye, the black orb giving way easily to the jagged edge.

The creature screamed and scrabbled against Silus's hold, its claws tearing shallow trenches into his arm. Silus ignored the pain and rammed the broken pipe into the Chadassa's eye again and again until it dropped to the floor, its cries loud in the confines of the flesh chamber. Silus knelt on the creature's chest and, leaning down hard, he pushed the pipe as far into the Chadassa's eye socket as it would go. There was a loud crack and the pipe met with little resistance as it entered the soft meat of the Chadassa's brain.

Silus remained crouched over the creature for a moment, listening for the approach of more of its kind. But there was no sound of footsteps and, so, Silus got to work freeing the prisoners.

The hoods did not peel easily away from their heads and Silus was careful less he harm his companions in any way, but soon he had the first of them free. He gently extracted the breathing pipe from Dunsany's mouth, stepping back when he vomited copiously onto the ground.

"Am I dead? Is this the seven hells that the Faith used to threaten us with?"

"No, Dunsany, I can assure you that we are very much alive."

Dunsany noticed the corpse of the creature, and then Win's body.

"That... that's..."

"Yes, it is. Now help me get your hands free before they have a chance to do the same to the rest of us."

Using a section of broken pipe, they managed to dig Dunsany's hands from the floor. As he tore at the flesh of the room, Silus thought that he could hear squeals of protest coming from somewhere distant. When he peeled the hood from Jacquinto's head the chamber shuddered. Pores began to open up in the floor and through these oozed a sticky clear substance, while the door to the room began to shrink.

"Come on, we're leaving now!" Silus shouted, giving the crew no time to orientate themselves.

The hole of the door was almost too narrow to struggle through as the last of them left the room, and Kelos and Silus had to pull Father Maylan through the folds of flesh that had begun to close around his body. He tumbled through as the door sealed itself behind him and soon the chamber was lost behind a wall of unbroken flesh.

"I feel strangely reborn," the priest said, getting to his feet.

The corridor in which they now found themselves was made of a material that looked like raw steak. Above them, arches of bone supported the ceiling where thick red cables ran through the flesh, pulsing to a steady beat that echoed down the passageway. Silus put his hand to a wall and it twitched away from his touch.

"Wherever we are," he said, "this place is alive."

"We need to get out of here quick." Jacquinto said. "We have no weapons and there are bound to be more Chadassa on us at any moment."

"What if we made weapons?" Silus said.

He went to where a ridge of bone emerged from the wall and kicked it as hard as he could. For a moment it didn't look as if it was going to give, but then a hairline crack ran up its surface and Silus redoubled his efforts until the bone gave way. He then tore at it before turning to his companions, holding a vicious looking shard.

"It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

The crew of the Llothriall pulled and kicked at the walls until they had variously armed themselves with scimitars of bone and thick cords of flesh. Only Emuel refused to arm himself. "If it comes to a fight, and it is my time, then it is my time." He reasoned.

"And I'd argue that you were being a stubborn idiot if we actually had any time," Silus said, "but for now I think that we should start running."

Behind them the walls of the passage had begun to close up. As they ran Silus had