Skayre

Chapter Thirty-Three

They all stood still for a long time, Moya had notched another arrow waiting silently in case there were anymore lopes. None came around the corner. She sighed and slowly released the bow. “thank you Moya, it’s a good thing this tiny footbridge was here” said Abernacky, he learnt over the edge to have a look into the ever expanding blackness. He whistled and casually kicked a pebble downwards. It could be heard echoing off the sides of the chasm as it fell, the echo got louder and louder until it was ringing all through the cave until suddenly it stopped.

Abernacky turned around a sheepish grin upon his face. Moya immediately ran over and slapped him around the head. “you absolute bloody completely moronic idiot” she looked as though she wanted to him over and over, but she clenched her fists and walked away. Abernacky looked embarrassed to the extreme, Moya had turned around and opened her mouth to talk but whatever she was about to say was cut short.

A low rumble came from deep below, it vibrated the walls of caves itself, the world itself seem to be angry at what Abernacky had done. “RUN!” shouted Moya there was a beating noise coming from down below, the beating of wings,. The echo was amplifying the sound but they could tell it was getting closer.

They all turned on the spot and ran off down the passageway, Abernacky turned at the last moment before it turned a corner, he could see a giant winged shadow appear and fill the entire chasm with its body, the footbridge had been destroyed as it burst through it. He stood there mouth slightly agape, Still stood rooted to the spot, the creature slowly turned around and fixed Abernacky with a cold stare through its bright yellow eyes. Without any sense of warning there was a smoke and light billowing from its nostrils, Abernacky quickly leapt further down the passage, luckily enough for him because there was a massive stream of flames bursting from its mouth directly towards where Abernacky was just standing moments ago.

He ran as fast as his legs could take him, there was roaring behind him. Then suddenly a scraping noise so loud it hurt his ears, whatever it was, was scratching at the cave walls, trying to dig it’s way through and get to it’s prey. There was another roar, this time it sounded angry. Abernacky kept on running, however he wasn’t catching up to his friends at all, they all seemed to of left him behind. He was huffing and puffing and slowing down as he was getting tired.

Abernacky’s face had gone a slightly red shade from the exertion, he stopped for a moment and leant against the cave wall and slumped down to the floor, he was sucking in as much air as he could manage. “I put my foot in it this time” he puffed between each word. He very slowly pushed himself back up the wall and stood still for a moment, then set off again. At a much slower pace this time. The best he could manage was a fast walk, not the usual spring in his step or a skip to be seen.

He was beginning to worry as to whether he was even going the right way, perhaps he had somehow taken a wrong turn while fleeing from that monster, perhaps maybe his friends had all died somehow and it was only him left. These thoughts plagued Abernacky so much as he walked that he was losing focus, on multiple occasions he passed by branching paths without even noticing them.

On and on he walked, there seemed to be a slight slope going downwards, not that he realised, he purely thought he had managed to pick up the pace, not that his bag was pushing him downhill, there was a long tunnel in the ceiling of the cave, it was only small yet it ran for a long way, Abernacky stopped and stared. His eyes weren’t deceiving him at all “ah hah, I knew it was the sky, why does it look strange though, it’s all dark and . . . Oh, my!” he had finally noticed, they were stars twinkling off in the distance. They had been down here for so long that it was now night time.
He stood there for a long time just staring, the he heard voices off in the distance and the sound of boots treading on stone floor.

Whatever they were saying he couldn’t understand it, some strange language he had never heard before. It sounded harsh to the ear with short sharp guttural noises. Abernacky was rooted to the spot, the sounds were definitely coming closer. He looked around to find somewhere to hide. But there was nowhere, just some old looking pillar carved into the wall which wasn’t big enough at all.
It was either try and hide and run. There was a deep laugh followed by a low hissing noise. Abernacky made his mind up straight away, he dragged his bag off and laid it on the ground next to him as he tried his best to squish himself up against the pillar. There was a tiny gap between it and the wall, Abernacky could see down the passageway and noticed that there were multiple different paths, he had been blindly walking around not noticing anything, there was a torch on the wall to help light the tunnels that he hadn’t noticed either.

He had a quick gasp of air, as two disgusting green looking muscly things walked around a corner and headed straight in his direction. They had overly large heads, yellow eyes and pointed ears. They were smaller then average height and every small part of green skin that Abernacky saw the rest was covered in heavy plating. One of them had a metallic looking backpack on, the pair of them clinked and clanked as they walked. The one with the backpack was carrying a sword covered in what looked like metal teeth and some string that ran from it to the backpack.

Abernacky stared absolutely flabbergasted at what he was seeing, he was breathing heavily from his hiding place and hoping to all the gods possible that they wouldn’t find him. They kept getting closer and closer, slowly treading down the passage as they went, neither of them seemed to be in any rush at all.

They had reached the point where the pillar was, unfortunately Abernacky couldn’t see them anymore, they were in line with his hiding place and had stopped walking all together. He could hear them scuffling their feet where they stood. They started to talk, in their harsh language to each other. Abernacky was breathing heavier and heavier, he clapped his hand over his mouth audibly, the two green creatures stopped their conversation, they started to sniff at the air, deep whistling sniffs, they were specifically trying to find a smell, one that shouldn’t belong. After a long pause where Abernacky held his breath and made no noise at all, there came laughter, it was more of a hissing sort of cackle then anything but still it was laughter.

The footsteps continued and Abernacky could see the two green things walking off into the distance, they were moving slightly faster now. Abernacky leant back against the wall and sighed “dear gods, hah, are they goblins then?” he asked himself having no idea, having only ever heard stories of a mechanical race of green creatures that lived deep underground. No one had ever seen them and anyone who said they had was never listened to seriously, anyone who did see them up close never came back to tell the tales.

“They must definitely be goblins!, I can’t be safe here, I must find the others and get out as soon as possible!” Said Abernacky to himself in the hope it would give him more confidence.