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Ted had run in blind panic, not looking back or pausing at Ragnar's shout. He slipped, his feet flew shoulder high, his head cracked upon the ground with a booming thud. He screamed a curse, a squeaking, wordless roar of pain and shock. He held his head between both hands and rocked it back and forth. He moaned, then twitched, then twisted and convulsed, and finally lay still.
At last he breathed. Ted's eyelids snapped open wide, and then he growled, his teeth showed sharp and long. The sound took on a human tone, his growl became a sob that shook him head to toe. Still sobbing, Ted slowly rose, but he did not stand, instead he dropped to hands and knees. His spine was arched, bent unnaturally. His arms stretched out and in a leaping sprint he left the wondrous room of moving maps and fled, galloping through the western arch.
* * *
"Curse you barbarian!" Emiel screamed, then threw himself into the melee.
Ragnar was buried under an avalanche of grey, withered flesh. The hall was a whirl of motion, where hands without an arm attached ran about like obscene spiders, limbs like awkward snakes squirmed without direction and, to one side, a headless torso flailed blindly like some mad and mobile windmill. All this amid a score of animate dead, still roughly whole, that forced their way over the writhing carpet of the living dead. The northman was at the center of this ghastly, hellish scene, lit eerily by the obscured lantern light.
No whispered voice aided Emiel now. His sword was just a sword, but he used it well. With the bell-like guard he smashed a corpse aside then cut away a clutching hand in a graceful sweeping arc. He could not push them all away but forced them back just enough to give Ragnar the opening he needed.
"Ahhhh!" Emiel screamed, and with a burst of strength flung two of the festering dead aside. Another of the stinking swarm came upon him even as he cleared the others from his path.
Ragnar struck out with the steel topspike of his axe, spearing low into a ribcage and lifted the wriggling horror off of its feet. He strained, and, with a heave, tossed it into another walking corpse.
Emiel stood by his side, his sword blocking a swinging arm or cutting deep and grating across bone, but lifeless flesh ignored the vicious wounds. An axe cut close above his head, Emiel ducked low, a startled, graceless move.
"Sorry." Ragnar sheepishly exclaimed, his axe suddenly a danger to friend and foe alike,
"Let's go!" Emiel replied. "These things just won't die."
"I've had fun enough. Come then while we can." Ragnar did not turn, but backed away with a seemly haste.
Emiel took a parting shot and cut a tendon behind a knee, then clear of any reaching arm, he turned his back and ran. As he ran he stooped and grabbed the lantern, not forgetful in his rush, but mindful of Ragnar's merely human sight.
* * *
The lantern jangled in his hand and sent light bouncing from the walls in a dizzying cascade. Emiel and Ragnar left the hall and their pursuers behind. They passed through the room of shifting scenes and sculpted walls, Ragnar never gave it a glance this time, and turned right and out into the smaller entrance chamber. They paused for a moment outside the open metal valve and eyed Emiel's recent handiwork.
"Very Nice." Ragnar said and gave a wasted tug at the firmly wedged iron spike that locked the door wide open.
"Shut-up." Emiel snapped. "Let's get the horses and be gone."
Ragnar laughed but said no more. He grabbed the large bundle he'd left before, then froze. "AHH! Vatun's hairy toes! I've left my cat back there!" He turned and started back toward the way they'd come.
"No you don't." Emiel cried out. "That staff is best lost. That's our luck turning for the better."
Ragnar strained against his own good sense but gave the struggle up as lost, his cat-headed staff as well, then cursed and threw his bundle across the room. "Why did I not leave it here!" he moaned.
"Stop acting like a child. We are wasting time. We need to get the horses out and down that long hall before those things can catch us." Emiel sputtered out. He gave the barbarian a push to shake him from his tantrum.
Ragnar glumly bent and grabbed the dark, amorphous bag. He held it in both his arms and stomped, beating angry feet against the oerth, and followed Emiel down the long corridor.
* * *
There was a trail of scent he followed down the dark corridor. A familiar smell, sour-sweet and rancid, a member of his pack had passed this way.
All his pain was gone, and all his fear as well. A great sense of freedom had come over him when he had released the bestial spirit that slept within his blood.
All awkwardness was gone. His form had changed and an animal grace was in his every move. Claws extended from his toes and had torn his boots to shreds. His legs had bent into curved powerful shanks, and his body sprouted a grey-brown fur. He was now more beast than man.
Though he could not see his other senses were keen and bright. Touch, taste and sense of smell, all felt enhanced, but oddly so. He had the feel of a slow descent, not in a sudden leap or fall, but sinking down into the oerth, of vast weight and mass above his head.
There was a frightened squeak which sounded before him. Then a friendly swarm of greeting crys, the little brethren welcomed him. They scurried under foot as he brushed through a great swarming pack.
He sensed an opening and squeezed down a tunnel gnawed into the stony floor. He dropped like an acorn from a tree. A straight, long fall through a narrow shaft. He twisted in the air and landed hard but on all fours.
Beneath him there was a moldy sack of long since rotted grain. It broke his fall, but split along its seams. He tumbled, poured out amidst a cloud of mold, then rolled, then leapt, and found himself nose to nose with another of his kind.
He sniffed. The smell was right. A name passed through his clouded mind. Mikhel! It came to him in a sudden flash, his memory returning from where it had been lost amid the senses of a rat.
* * *
(To Be Continued)