Page 90 of Black Onyx
“No, but I’m guessing it's not too far,” Storm says grimly as he guides his horse around something on the floor, and we all follow single file.
“Oh, gross. Are those bodies?” Loki asks.
I look down as I pass the pile of licked-clean bones on the floor with fairly large teeth marks in them.
“Looks like it. From the teeth marks, I think it's safe to assume the Void beast is fairly large.” I reply.
“I know it might’ve been unlikely, but I was kind of hoping it would be the size of a cat or something,” Loki replies wistfully, and I chuckle.
The tunnel is still sloping downwards slightly and beginning to get narrower.
“Maybe we should’ve left the horses at the entrance?” Mayhem mutters into the silence.
“It’s too late now, they won’t be able to turn around in this tunnel, and we all know they aren’t great at walking backwards.” Rival points out.
“Hopefully, it’ll open up into a cavern or something, and they can turn around and escape back out before the Void beast decides to snack on them,” Reaper adds.
“Silence from now on; I think we’re getting close.” Storm orders before turning to look at Reaper, “does Ryu understand that he’s not to interfere unless given a direct order?”
“Yes, he’s not happy about it, but he’s been listening. He understands the reasons why.” Reaper replies with surety.
“Good,” Storm nods.
“I think we should dismount while we can and leave the horses here. We can come back for them and turn them around after we’ve dealt with the Void beast. I don’t want to risk it eating Revel.” I suggest. “I also don’t think we should throw up any more of the witch lights than we have now when we’re with the Void beast unless we really have to. Remember it’s used to living in the dark, and too much light could aggravate it even more.”
Storm nods his agreement, and we all dismount, giving the orders to our horses to stay put.
We stay silent as we move forward. Our weapons are drawn. I jump slightly when I feel something touch my leg but quickly realise that it’s just Kill’s tail taking advantage of my proximity to touch me. He likes to make out like his tail is an entirely different entity when it does things like this, but I think he uses that as an excuse just so he can touch me at every opportunity, and I think it’s cute as fuck, so I’ve never bothered to call him out on it. I don’t plan to.
My nose wrinkles as we get near the end of the tunnel, and I can just about make out an enormous cavern beyond the end. It smells rancid down here, like rotting meat, faeces and something sweet that is turning my stomach. I have a feeling it's going to be even more challenging than we thought to get this creature to believe that we’re not here to harm it.
We slowly approach the cavern at the end of the tunnel and send the witches' lights ahead to light up the space just a tiny amount. We stay silent as we look around. I don’t see anything, no movement, just black shadows. Intuition sparks, and I call my magic forward to give me the same sight that I have when I’m in the Void. It automatically switches on when I’m in the Void, but maybe it needs to be activated when I’m outside of it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Void beast had magic of its own.
I feel my magic move to my eyes just in time to see something rush towards us from the other end of the cavern.
“Fuck guys, scatter!” I yell and then fling my magic at them all in the hopes that they’ll be able to see what I can.
“Thanks, Love!” Loki yells, diving out of the way as a giant paw, the size of his torso, swings towards him.
I’m guessing that means that it worked.
As it tries to figure out which one of us it wants to follow, I study it as best I can while not staying still. Thanks to my Void sight, I can see it well enough. It's bigger than a carriage and kind of canine shaped, except it’s got six legs and not four, with enormous paws. It also has two heads and four eyes on each one; its snout is long and filled the teeth that have jagged edges. It certainly looks terrifying, and I can understand why people were wary of it, but I still think it deserves to be taken home and not killed.
We’re all dodging the attacks that it’s trying to get us with, but everyone is also throwing distraction spells around and trying not to harm it still.
“We’re not here to hurt you!” I hear Storm yell, and it’s completely unheard by the beast.
It swings around and swipes a paw at Loki, who gets pushed back several feet from the force of it. He winces in pain and looks at the claw mark slicing his side. Appearing to shake off as the others continue to distract the beast, he quickly jumps back into the fray. I dart around it, watching it and the others and throwing rapid-fire distraction spells when it gets too close to hurting one of them. We won’t be able to get it to listen until it calms down, and I’m hoping it’s going to realise that we aren’t actually hurting it soon and start to listen.
“We want to help!” Storm yells again, and the beast turns its attention to him.
It starts barrelling towards him, and there’s nowhere for Storm to go. He’s somehow managed to get himself blocked into a corner. At the last minute, he slides through the Void beast’s legs and comes out the other side. Why didn’t he use his wings? It would’ve been far quicker for him to escape and a hell of a lot less risky. The beast immediately turns on him again, batting him with its spiked tail that Storm barely manages to dodge in time.
The rest of us continue trying to distract it, but nothing seems to be working. It seems to have become singularly focused on Storm. Maybe it thought he was shouting insults at it or something. We have no idea if it can actually understand us. This is falling apart quickly, and I can see the plan of us getting through this without hurting the beast fading just as fast.
Storm darts around the cavern, the beast hot on his heels and gaining quickly.
“For fuck sake, Storm, fly!!” Killian screams at his brother, a desperation in his voice.
