Chasing the Lantern(92)

She was desperate. Lina pulled the foliage aside, revealing the space a little more. It was small. A dog might fit, but just barely. Nothing for it then. Giving up a heartfelt prayer to the Goddess, Lina threw herself at it and crawled within. The rough stone caught her shoulders, brushed her hair. But barely, just barely, she fit. Before her the crack continued, a small crawlspace going deeper into the ruin. She wriggled, writhed, and scrabbled. Head, shoulders, then chest and waist, she pulled inside. Her floundering hand felt an edge ahead, where the passage opened into something wider. Lina pulled an arm through, felt a shelf or some other surface a few inches below the lip. Her head poked into the space, then she pulled her other arm through.

The Draykin caught her foot.

It howled triumphantly on the outside of the structure. Its voice was weirdly muffled, but the terror Lina felt was clear. She cried out, then kicked and scrabbled and fought. Her head, chest, arms and shoulders were all inside the temple, in an open space too dimly lit to make out the details. Her legs were trapped by the close confines, too small to even bend them all the way.

The creature yanked at her, and Lina slid back deeper into the crawlspace. Her chest brushed painfully against the stone of the lip. She cried out fearfully. The she grit her teeth, growled, and kicked her boots down against the stone. The Draykin outside yowled. She did it again, and again. The creature fought, though, yanking and pulling in turn.

Abruptly she was free. Her boot, the same she'd lost in the canopy, slipped off. Lina reacted instantly, pulling and heaving with her arms, kicking and pushing with her legs until she was out of the small passage and fully within the temple. Outside, the Draykin hunter roared in frustration.

Lina drew her knife and waited. Sunlight through the crawlspace was a white glow, impeded by the clutching arm of the Draykin. Thankfully, it could not reach her now. Lina's pursuer snarled and hissed and spit. It growled at her in its language. Lina kept her dagger ready, waiting to strike should it reach in far enough.

The Draykin pulled back. Sunlight illuminated the crawlspace. Then there was a rumble and the space went dark but for a few thin cracks of light. It blocked the space with a stone. I'm trapped. Lina turned around to stare at the interior of her prison.

The ruin was mostly hollow, she realized as her eyes adjusted. Its stair-step pyramid shape was visible from within, continuing another two dozen feet to a point above. The ceiling had fallen in there, and diffuse morning sunlight shone in through the vines and creepers that covered that opening. Lina lay on a wide ledge about halfway up the space, looking down onto a floor strewn with rubble and debris. Statues of strange, half-formed things adorned the ledge, like squat fat children carved of heavy stone. Sunlight shone onto the floor of the ruin from the near end, where the wall was carved open to form an entryway high enough for a man.

Lina let out a sigh of relief. Not trapped, then. Opposite from her, the vines in the ceiling had grown down to wreathe the statues, then continued a short way to the floor. She rose to hands and knees and crept that way, moving quickly.

The Draykin hunter appeared in the entryway. Lina froze. It crept within, long muzzle casting about, hunched and ready to spring. It did not carry its spear, but the long talons on its outstretched fingers were more than enough to rip her to pieces.

The creature peered up at the ledge she was on. Evidently it did not see her, yet. Lina shrank back until the stone of the ruin pressed against her shoulder blades.

"Hastracki," said the Draykin. "Muweilo guyvalla."

It crept forward into the open. Lina hefted the dagger in her hands and thought about throwing it. She thought better. There has to be something I can do. Then her eye caught on one of the nearby idols.

The Draykin crept about the floor again. It called out to her in its gibberish language, softly, menacingly. The words were opaque to her, but the intent was clear. Lina pulled off her other boot, positioned herself, and then dropped it to the floor of the ruin.

It landed with a thump, overloud, it seemed, in the roomy space. The Draykin twitched at the sound and leapt forward, running and landing on the rubble where her boot had fallen. It peered about, looking for somewhere nearby Lina could be hiding. Then it looked up.

Lina put her back to the idol and shoved with her legs. It was lighter than she thought it would be and fell free from the ledge with a loud scrape. Lina caught herself from going over the edge and rolled back. There was the crunch of an impact, and a wet thud.

She peered over the ledge. Her pursuer was crumbled in a heap on the rubble of the floor. Its head was a ruined mess. The idol lay nearby, bloodied.

Lina sighed in relief. She spent a few moments getting her breath back, then crawled over to the vines and made her way down. She threw a few rocks to make sure the bloodthirsty Draykin was dead, then retrieved her boot. Shielding her eyes from the light, she left the ruin through the ground entrance.