Page 116 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
My senses were filling with awareness of life inside that wood, like how I sensed draca’s bindings at a distance but… this was diseased and hurt and helpless. “We will be safe. It is not… ready.”
“Notready?”
“I cannot explain, but I am certain. The barrel is not well sealed anyway.” When it sloshed, a brackish liquid had spilled from under the wooden lid. It was puddling slowly on the earth below. “If it could get out, it would.”
“Although I am enjoying my tour of Hartfield,” Mr. Knightley noted politely, “I am not sure the cellar casts it in the best light.”
“I show guests my framed embroideries. You are not a guest.”
Gingerly, he tapped the blunt side of the ax against the long, oval lid. Nothing moved. He bumped it harder, and the lid shifted slightly, stretching the sealing pitch. He gave a resigned sigh, stepped back, and swung. The hatch broke loose and fell off the far side, revealing a roughly sawn hole two feet across and longer than I was tall.
Inside, viscous liquid rolled in glutinous ripples around a humped, unnatural shape. I moved the lamp to see better.
It was unmistakably a huge crawler. There were the jointed, sharp legs and the heavy, lobster-like rings of shell. But crawlers had their own insectile grace, lethal and swift and flexible. This body was bloated, much thicker than any crawler I had seen, and distorted, composed of many thick lumps or masses, all wrapped inside a single translucent, organic sheath.
“Look,” I said, “It is more than one. They have put many crawlers together. They are… merging, somehow.”
“Is it how they make those giants?” Mr. Knightley asked, revolted.
“This is unnatural, even for crawlers. There is cord tying them together. The shells have been cracked so their flesh meets. It is some gruesome experiment.”
“Perhaps they are dying,” Mr. Knightley said hopefully.
I removed my gloves and crammed them into my dress pocket, took a bracing breath, then, ignoring Mr. Knightley’s warning, dipped my fingers into the liquid to touch the translucent sheath.
Agonizing pain. Fear. Primal, pounding life in transformation.
I wiped my damp fingers on my dress. “It is a metamorphosis. A miracle of natural life that has been wickedly distorted.”
“You cannot be sorry for these vermin.”
“I am,” I said simply. “They have been brutalized. They are not dying, though. They are full of life. They will emerge as something new.”
Quietly, Mr. Knightley said, “We must kill them.”
I did not answer.
“Emma, those girls will be brought here. Shackled and—”
“I know you are right. I am just sad to be among such suffering. These creatures are victims too, in their own way. But we must save the girls.”
“Should I just…” Mr. Knightley mimed chopping with the ax.
“Step away!” a man’s voice ordered behind us. I turned.
Mr. Elton stood on the cellar stairs, his pistol pointing at us, Augusta trapped under his other arm with his hand over her mouth. His eyes were fevered, his hair mussed. Fresh fingernail scratches bled on his cheek.
“Emma!” he exclaimed delightedly. “How considerate of you to return. The French have soured on Woodhouse witches, but I kept faith you would prove useful. Even though you cast spells with your… pert lips and bright eyes…”
“Angry eyes,” I corrected. “You are inmyhouse without my permission. And I would rather be a witch than a hypocrite and false clergyman and traitor.”
Mr. Knightley had turned with me. He was dangerously still, the ax clenched in both hands.
Mr. Elton adjusted his aim to the center of Mr. Knightley’s vest.
“I would not fire that,” Mr. Knightley said, “if I were you.” Mr. Elton grinned dismissively. Mr. Knightley carefully removed a hand from the ax andpointed to the lamp I held. “See how the flame spreads inside the glass? Like firedamp. Whatever foul mixture you poured into these vats has rendered the air combustible. It needs only an open spark.”
Was that true? I had read about a catastrophic explosion in Felling that killed ninety miners. Or was this a bluff?
