Chương 135: 125. Ádyton

When the thing you are hunting has fed on men long enough to learn from them, you have stopped being the hunter. You became the lesson. Act accordingly. — Codex of the Long Watch, Founding Tenet Arthur came off the last tread with Breakwater leading and his left hand well clear of the wall. He had counted forty-two steps. The cold here was several degrees lower than the floor above and the air had a weight to it that pressed against his face. The cella was round, perhaps forty metres across.

The colonnade continued down here, shorter drums holding a ring of columns around a central floor of dressed limestone. At the far side of the room a second opening climbed away into blackness. A flat shimmer hung across it, like heat off tarmac.

"Second stair," Arthur whispered.

"I see it." Donna had come off the bottom step and gone sideways along the wall.

"Nobody touch anything that glows until the room is clear." A low plinth of dressed limestone stood at the back wall, bronze sheathing still bright along its lower edge. The niches down both side walls held small bronze plaques. Behind the plinth, cut into the wall, was a figure. Then the thing that called this temple its lair came out of the shadows and stood where they could see it. The head was a wolf's head, long and heavy and correct in every proportion such a head should have.

The rest of it had been getting notes from somewhere else. The thing was perhaps double the size of the alpha from the container yard. The progenitor looked at the four of them across the temple floor. The forelimbs were longer than any wolf he had seen in the chambers above, the digits articulated, the claws curved and clean. Its head was lowered, and its eyes were on them. Then it reared back, rising onto its hind legs, and stood fully upright.

For a long moment, the four humans stared at a creature that walked like a man.

"The matrix is enormous," Sarah said.

"It is ten times the channel volume of the ones above."

"Sarah inside my arc," Arthur said.

"Donna, my left, and stay off the open floor. Steve, take a shot the second you see a window." It began to circle at twenty metres and it kept its head turned in on them the whole way round. It did not charge to test the shield. It did not feint. Arthur turned with it and kept the shield square, waiting for the charge. The charge did not come. After twenty seconds of that he understood that they were read.

"Steve, take the shot," Donna said, her hands tight on Ravener.

"We need to force its hand." Steve brought Harrow up and Convergence leapt towards the wolf. The progenitor was not there. It had taken two long strides before the rod finished coming level, and though Harrow adjusted the arc to find the target, the correction was not enough. The interlocking waves of heat and cold collided uselessly against the wall above the plinth. The progenitor stopped some ten metres out over a broken column and put both forepaws on it. Arthur's hands went cold.

He put the mass of that half-drum at a quarter of a tonne, if anything. Then he watched the beast pick it up.

"Behind me," Arthur barked.

"Now." The throw was flat and low. Arthur brought Breakwater up and triggered Structural Reinforcement just as the limestone drum hit the centre boss. The impact wanted to drive him back and Structural Reinforcement wanted to keep him in place. Between the two opposing forces, his body paid the price. The shockwave tore straight up his left forearm, ripping through the muscle that had knitted together only an hour prior. He felt the tissue give way, his fingers going half-numb against the shield grip.

He gritted his teeth and held the shield up with what was left.

"Arm," Sarah said from behind his shoulder.

"And knee."

"I know." The shattered column rolled off the iron face and smashed against the floor. Arthur dropped the shield slightly to clear his sightline, only to see the progenitor moving, but not towards him. The progenitor hit the nearest column at full stride and kept going. The drum stack shifted, and the column came down across the floor in a roar that threw limestone dust into the air. The creature did not stop. It drove through the ring at a second column and then a third.

The thunder of falling masonry filled the chamber as a grey wall of dust billowed off the flagstones, swallowing the ambient Ether-glow and swallowing them with it.

"Sarah," Arthur called.

"Where?"

"It is on our right, six metres, it is coming round—" Something huge went through the grey dust fog to his right, fast and silent. Then he heard the impact. Sarah's hand lifted from his shoulders, and there was a wet sound of claw on flesh, followed immediately by the dull thud of her body hitting the stone floor.

"Donna, she is down and we are blind."

"Ten seconds," Donna said, and burned Threshold Drive. He heard her go past him with the axe swinging in wide, frantic arcs. Ravener struck flesh twice in the gloom, both hits skidding off dense bone. The progenitor took her hits and shrugged them off. Arthur moved blindly towards the sound of Sarah's fall, Breakwater extended at arm's length, unsure of what lay in front of him. Then a claw clamped onto the rim of his shield, trying to wrench it clear.

Instead of fighting the pull, Arthur drove his frame forwards into it, bringing his maul up in a brutal upward arc. The weapon met empty air as the claw let go, the beast bounding past him into the fog. Sarah was against the base of a niche with both hands pressed to the floor, trying to get her knees under her. The rake had opened her left shoulder, four lines through the coat and the shirt and everything under them. The arm was not taking any weight.

"Field Triage is gone," Sarah said, her breathing shallow.

"The impact broke my focus when I hit the stone. I cannot see the matrix." Arthur hauled her up by her coat collar, positioning himself in front of her. Donna dropped out of Drive somewhere to his left, her breathing heavy. Steve found Sarah's side and dropped to one knee beside her. They stood blind in a room choked with dust, trapped with the apex predator of the hill. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Steve, keep it engaged until Sarah is mobile," Arthur barked.

"Fire shots in an arc. Keep it from closing in." Something scraped across stone in the dark and then came the sound of stone breaking. A column drum came out of the grey haze at Arthur's left side, and he barely had time to react. He got Breakwater half across, and the impact came through the shield and into his left forearm. The shield held. The arm behind it did not. Sarah had her right hand under her own coat and the warm light gathered against her shoulder. Her face went hard and stayed hard.

A faint violet thread jumped at Arthur's forearm and attached itself, the warm glow of healing spreading across his abused arm. Off to the right, Steve loosed two fire lances into the dark where the stone had been thrown. He paused for a second, then launched a third.

"Field Triage is coming back," Sarah said through gritted teeth.

"Where is it?"

"Still on the left. But moving back. Steve, aim about six feet to the right from your last shot." Steve adjusted and sent a lance whistling through.

"It is too fast." Sarah shook her head.

"Then we are done here." Steve had both hands on Harrow and neither of them was steady.

"It will not close on the shield, and it is too fast for ranged."

"It came into melee range before," Donna said.

"We were just too slow to use the window."

"It came into melee range, because it was going for Sarah." Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Sarah," Arthur said carefully.

"Do you think you can overload this one?"

"A shutter, maybe." Sarah did not hesitate.

"A second, maybe. The matrix is too large for a total shutdown. I might get the muscles to lock for a breath."

"A second is enough for Convergence," Steve said, firing another shot in the general direction of the creature.

"And Convergence is enough for me," Donna said, lifting Ravener.

"It is also half a second of a woman standing in the open with her arm hanging off."

"Then I'm the bait," Sarah said, taking her hand away from her shoulder.

"I could try the ranged overload."

"If the pattern holds, it will throw a column at me to open its way to Sarah." Arthur nodded.

"I eat the throw and bank Counterforce Plant. Sarah's ranged overload works at about six feet. She staggers it. Steve follows with a concussive blast to drive it back towards me and clear the dust cloud. Then Steve hits it with Convergence, and Donna and I use that window to put it down."

"You have to stay at least six feet away." Arthur looked at Steve.

"Steve, start moving back. Move to Sarah's right."

"Six feet from where?" she said.

"From everyone. Face it, keep the right hand down, do not look at any of us." Arthur forced himself to say the rest of it.

"It has to believe nobody is coming. That we are all too far away to reach you."

"That is fine," she said, shrugging off her coat to free her arm.

"Steve, if the overload works you will have about a second to get both your shots off."

"I think Donna has been a terrible influence on her," Steve said, taking his position.

"She is far too calm." She limped out onto the floor with her ruined arm hanging at her side. A small woman, hurt, alone and out from behind the shield at last. Arthur counted every step she took. She got to about three metres and stopped with her back to them, a hazy silhouette in the swirling dust cloud. Arthur braced himself, raising Breakwater, waiting for the heavy stone to come whistling out of the fog. Instead he heard Sarah scrambling back.

"It will throw at me," Sarah gasped.

"Damn it." Arthur lunged for where Sarah was, and a column came out of the dark. He triggered Counterforce Plant but had no time to set his stance, he pulled ambient Ether instead, right before the column crashed against the shield. The impact threw him across the floor. The plan was unravelling already. Sarah was on the floor again, clipped by the shield's edge, and the progenitor came at her at a speed nothing that size had any right to. She raised her left hand, her fingers glowing violet.

A skidding sound echoed across the stone as the beast's claws slid uselessly across the floor. The overload had killed its momentum. Steve's concussive blast came next and missed the creature completely. Sarah was not where she was supposed to be, and the creature was following her. But the force of the blast cleared the air around them. The progenitor stood rigid just four feet from Sarah, its claws raised, muscles locked in place. Convergence came next.

Extreme heat down one channel, absolute cold down the other, meeting inside the beast. The matrix lit up in lines of fire and frost, and the wolf went into a spasm.

"Steve, keep channelling as long as you can," Arthur called from somewhere behind, still lost in the dust. Donna moved. One moment she was sprinting towards Sarah, the next she vanished into the blurred speed of Threshold Drive, bringing Ravener down on the locked beast. Her first strike severed the left hamstring; the second landed on the exact same spot. The progenitor's leg buckled under its weight. It threw a wild swipe at Donna, bringing its twitching muscles under control.

Donna caught the claw on the flat of her axe, but the impact of the force pushed her back across the smooth floor. The progenitor dropped to all fours, trying to drag itself back into the dark cella. Before it could melt into the gloom, a roar echoed from its left. Arthur closed the distance. He had discarded his shield, his left arm hanging limp, but the matrix in his right arm glowed with the stored energy of Counterforce Plant. The force of the limestone column was waiting to be released. Arthur discharged.

He swung the maul down and half a tonne of borrowed drum flowed from his arms into the side of the creature's skull. The left side of the face caved in. Almost simultaneously, an axe buried itself in its back, gap-seeking finding what it was meant to find, and a lance of fire exploded against the base of its neck.

ETHER ABSORBED: +3, 600 LEVEL UP: LEVEL 23 INTEGRATION: 2, 025 / 4, 480 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 3 SARAH LEVEL UP: LEVEL 22 INTEGRATION: 3, 023 / 4, 224 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 3 All of them stood motionless, and then almost in unison they all sat down.

"Three thousand six hundred," Steve said eventually, from his knees.

"The guardian at Sounion was three." Then there was a second notification. ETHER ABSORBED (PROXIMITY BONUS): +900 INTEGRATION: 2, 925 / 4, 480 SARAH INTEGRATION: 3, 923 / 4, 224 Arthur felt the Ether arrive as a slow warmth and suffuse his muscles. The ambient glow in the walls had gone down a shade. Sarah picked herself off the floor and crouched next to Arthur. The warm glow gathered under her palm and ran into the torn muscle for the third time in a morning.

"Torn flexors again, same ones." She worked the arm steadily.

"It's a miracle you've kept this forearm."

"We burned every technique we had," Donna said, looking at the body.

"Convergence, Counterforce, Threshold Drive, Reflex, the shock. All of it, at once, and that was just barely enough." She knelt down and had the core in her hands inside a minute, and for a long moment she stood staring at it. It was the size of a fist. Every core Arthur had seen had a faint luminescence in it. This one was dense with light all through. She held the core out for everyone to see it. That core has taken in more Ether than anything you have killed. It was fed for months, and it was fed deliberately.

I would not bind it to any vessel you currently own.

"Why not?" Steve asked. Because none of your current vessels has the capacity to fully absorb this one.

"So it sits in the pouch till we find something worth binding this to," Arthur said • • Donna called out from near the plinth.

"There is something here." Growing out of a floor joint, in a room that had never held any light, was a plant. Ferned grey-green leaves ran up a stem about a foot long. At the top of the stem sat a flat white head of tiny flowers.