Chapter XVIII: Nerubians Ruin Everything (draft one)

XVIII: Nerubians Ruin Everything

The lake had been huge and on the verge of overflowing, if the jagged teeth of broken ice protruding from the banks could be taken as dependable indications of the once-was waterline. Now it was more of a crater. Standing at the edge, I could make out moving fluid some two metres down in the gloom, moonlight gleaming along ridges of current and off semi-submerged hunks of ice. Seemed as though the lake had frozen and the water had drained away beneath it. Inevitably, the sheet of ice must have collapsed in the middle, leaving this gaping maw to make my mission harder.

One thing was certain: I wasn't going to be drawing any water here. Everything else, particularly the cause of this unnatural mess, was well into the realms of the vague and vacillating.

Smacking the flat of the cooking pot against the heel of my hand, I scowled into the blackness, thinking. There was no way we could stay in that tree with that fire and no water. Potential human roast aside, I had no interest in leaving a burning beacon for any of the topside scourge to come across. Neither could we travel far without something to drink. No, I was going to have to find a place where the water was high enough to reach, and following the current seemed the most logical way to start my search. Presumably all this was pooling up somewhere.

The frozen mud crackled beneath my boots as I followed the bank around, watching the way the water became increasingly turbulent with every step. The gurgle of the current loud enough to elicit the slightest twinge from my bladder, I quickened my pace until I came across what must have been the catalyst behind all of this: a collapsed tunnel, saturated mouth stretched greedily open as the water frothed its way down inside. In the dark, it was little more than a gushing triangle of white, extending a good four metres from the shore before presumably dipping underground.

Wary of the crumbling edge, I knelt as close as I dared. I locked both hands around the handle of the kitchen pot, dipping one edge under the surface and feeling the immediate tug of the current.

It was by pure chance that I looked up and saw the Nerubian staring back at me.

Only an idiot would lie and say they didn't jump, because only an idiot would fail to see the evil in that creature's despicable eyes and comprehend what a threat it was. I jumped. I jolted backwards, falling onto my arse and dowsing myself with freezing water. The cold cut straight through me but I ignored it; it was nothing compared to that creature. Light alone knows exactly how many eyeballs Nerubians have, but this one was regarding me with at least four. They glowed a low orange, a darker circle within tracking my movements beneath heavy lids. Barbed mandibles stretched towards me from beneath the jagged split of its mouth, which in turn released two raspy notes: one high and one providing low, ugly harmony. I scrambled to my feet.

It didn't lunge. It didn't even make a swipe in my direction. Holding the cooking pot out in front of me with both hands, ready to deflect anything the monster might spit at me, I peered past the curved lip of metal at a broken arachnid body pressed against the shore by the sheer force of the current. Its thin, two-fingered Nerubian arms clutched at the earth on either side of it; even in the darkness I could make out deep furrows in the ground where it must have clawed with futile hope for purchase. As my gaze shifted to its torso, the flesh swollen and straining around the armoured plates that gripped its narrow thorax, I became slowly aware of its breathing: a gurgling, strained sound, barely audible over the growling rush of water.

I lowered the cooking pot and circled around the creature, my initial fear dulling to little more than instinctual trepidation at the enemy's proximity. It was clear now. The Nerubian was as good as dead. Its back was likely bent at an agonizing angle, its bulging abdomen pressed against the roof of the tunnel it had foolishly aimed straight into the lake bed, its four barbed legs tugged, twisted and broken, in the ruthless current. Unfortunately for it, however, it looked fit to survive for a few hours yet, and in a few hours one of its fellows could very well chance upon it and hear of the human medic out on her own in the forest. I couldn't have that. Wrathwrought and I were dependant on the Nerubians' ignorance of our presence here. If they started actively looking for us, we were as good as done for.

This left me with one sensible choice. Stepping up behind the mangled monster, I raised my pot.