floor. In the center of the room was a raised dais, and something that looked like a circular table or altar in the middle of it. Everything was made of obsidian, and everything was covered with the same sickening runes they had seen earlier in the corridor.
Nali moved down onto one of the carved steps that ringed the chamber. She swung her rifle around as she searched the room.
There was no sound save for the echoing drip of water and the scraping footsteps of the Gars.
Leela stepped forward and pushed back the hood of her cloak. “Check the room,” she commanded. “Look for other passageways. Nali, with me.” She stepped down the stairs and moved towards the altar at the chamber’s center.
Nali followed the Gar’Mel, her eyes searching the dark recesses of the room as she walked.
“What’s that?” Leela asked. She gestured to something in the middle of the altar.
There was something there. An object lay serenely in a shallow depression on the altar’s surface. It was about the size of a dala fruit and pitch black, even darker than the obsidian it rested on.
Nali reached out a hand to touch it, but felt a sudden shock of icy cold emanating from it. With a startled gasp she pulled her hand back.
“Your ‘dark heart,’ Wayfinder?” Leela tossed her pack down by the foot of the altar.
Zolne stepped out from behind a pillar on the other side of the room. She glanced over at Ereta and Sayla. “There’s nothing here, Gar’Mel. The room’s clear.”
Sayla nudged a nearby broken block with the tip of her rifle, a troubled look on her face. “Too clear. There are no signs of any animals here. No spoor, no nests. A place like this should be a burrow or den for deathstalkers or karani by now.”
Leela looked over at Nali. “No Fallen, Wayfinder. I’m not sure if—”
Nali drew her throwing knife and swung the blade down at the object on the altar. A sharp clang filled the chamber as the weapon sparked and bounced off the dark heart’s surface.
Leela was stunned into silence for a moment, then opened her mouth to say something.
A shrill and unearthly scream came from somewhere outside and echoed down the long corridor into the chamber. Each woman shuddered at the sound, feeling an unreasonable terror fill their hearts.
Zolne pointed her weapon at the chamber’s entrance. “Bright Star! What was that?”
Nali took a step back. “What do you think?”
There was the sharp report of a shard rifle blast from outside, then another. A second or two passed, then there was a short horn blast.
“Moraana help us!” Ereta gasped. She stumbled back up one of the steps, fumbling with her rifle.
Another horn blast sounded.
“It’s coming.” Leela said. Her voice boomed through the dark room. “Make your shots count. Don’t let it get out of here alive!”
Nali ducked back behind the altar and braced her rifle against its edge. Her arms were shaking. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the others duck behind pillars and bring their rifles up to bear.
Leela stood in front of the altar, her rifle at her shoulder. She aimed the weapon squarely at the chamber’s entrance.
The horn blast cut out abruptly.
There was a long, agonizing moment of silence, broken only by the sound of raindrops plinking down onto the obsidian floor of the ruin.
“Come on,” Leela’s voice whispered into the cold darkness of the chamber. “Burnside take you, you eel-choked spawn of Qurna, come on—”
There was movement at the entrance to the chamber, a flash of pale white.
For a moment Nali thought she saw red, like two glowing coals.
Two shard rifle shots rang out almost simultaneously. Their whistling shrieks filled the chamber.
The Fallen moved, faster than Nali could blink, faster even than she could think.
The two red pulses of shard energy punched into the chamber’s entryway, tearing out chunks of obsidian in dual explosions of dirt and dust.
Nali raised herself up, moving her rifle along as she tried to track the creature’s movement.
It was too fast. She could barely see it, much less get a bead on it.
Leela’s rifle sang out. The shot missed, striking one of the chamber’s pillars. The Gar’Mel swore aloud and reached towards her belt for another shard cartridge.
A hiss filled the chamber. It was a deep and almost primordial sound, utterly inhuman.
Nali felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up.
The Fallen emerged from behind a pillar.
It was exactly as Quilla had described it, a woman with blazing red eyes, white and naked. Scraps of tattered cloth clung to its body like the remains of old robes. It was gaunt and hideous, the skin stretched over its bony form.
It came over the stone steps in a flash and moved straight for Leela and Nali.
There was a screech of shard fire from Sayla’s weapon, but the red energy bolt flew harmlessly over the creature’s head.
Leela continued to calmly load the rifle she held, her movements swift but deliberate.
Nali stood, leveled her own gun, and pulled the trigger. The rifle howled and kicked back into her shoulder.
The Fallen screamed. The sound was so loud that it split through the skulls of the women like a white-hot dagger. The creature lurched back and crashed into one of the pillars.
Nali lowered her smoking rifle. She had hit the Fallen squarely in the chest. No one unarmored or unshielded could survive a hit like that.
The Fallen snarled, more animal than human, then leapt back to its feet.
Nali stared, horrified into inaction for a long moment, then ejected the spent shard cartridge from the rifle. Her fingers snatched for another in the crossbelt she wore.
The Fallen turned its head and looked straight at her.
“Star of Moraana!” Ereta shouted as she dashed forward. She swung her sword at the Fallen in a two-handed attack.
The creature hissed. With supernatural speed it dodged to one side and lashed out a clawed hand at the approaching Gar.
The blow knocked Ereta back almost twenty feet. She crashed into the steps of the chamber with a sickening crunch of broken bones. Her sword clanged as it bounced across the obsidian floor, and Ereta herself lurched down the stone steps in a turbulent roll, then lay still.
Without thinking, Nali started to run towards the fallen woman.
“Hold your ground!” Leela yelled after her. She slammed the charging bolt forward on her rifle.
Nali stopped and turned back.
The Fallen turned. It crouched low, preparing to leap, and spread its arms wide.
Zolne came out from behind a pillar, her sword in hand. She stepped between the Fallen and the chamber’s exit.
Leela finished loading her rifle and whipped it up to her shoulder.
The Fallen looked at Zolne, then snapped its head back towards Leela.
With trembling fingers Nali plucked out another shard cartridge and jammed it into the breech of her rifle. She forced herself to focus on each step as she primed the weapon, then flicked the charging bolt. A well-trained Tal’Noomren could reload a shard rifle in just under twenty seconds. Nali averaged about twenty-five to thirty under pressure.
Somehow, Nali didn’t think she had that long.
“Gar’Mel?” Zolne paused on the steps and glanced uneasily over at her commander.
Nali quickly looked up from her rifle.
Leela had not fired. The loaded shard rifle she held drooped in her hands. Her body swayed drunkenly and her eyes stared blankly ahead. She looked as if she would collapse at any moment.
“Leela!” Nali shouted. Her rifle was momentarily forgotten.
The Fallen continued to stare at the Gar’Mel, the claws on its hands flexing.
Leela’s shard rifle dropped to the floor with a low thud. Her head fell forward onto her chest and her arms dropped limply to her sides.
Sayla stepped out from where she had been
hiding behind a pillar and aimed her reloaded rifle at the Fallen.
With a growl the Fallen jerked its head in the direction of the new threat, its eyes glowing red with rage. It crouched, as if preparing to spring.
Leela pitched forward. She collapsed onto the altar and then rolled off it onto the chamber floor.
“Kill it!” Nali screamed over her shoulder. She dashed towards Leela’s fallen form.
The Fallen leapt, covering more than thirty feet of space in a single terrifying bound.
Sayla fired.
The blast struck the Fallen in the arm as it flew through the air. It screamed again, its piercing cry shaking the blocks of the chamber and causing the women to wince in pain. The creature hit the ground and rolled forward, shrieking and spitting.
Sayla stepped back. She dropped her rifle and reached for a dagger at her belt.
Nali ran up to Leela. She rolled the Gar’Mel over onto her back.
Her eyes were closed, her body unmoving. Nali couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.
The Fallen moved towards Sayla, lashing its clawed hands out with a roar of pain and hatred.
Nali looked up just in time to see the hunter fly backwards from the Fallen’s blow and slam into a nearby pillar with a gut-wrenching crack of shattered bones.
“Wayfinder!” Zolne called out from the other side of the room. “The rifle!”
Nali tore her gaze away from Sayla’s prostrate form. She reached for Leela’s loaded rifle and snatched it up off the ground, then looked back over her shoulder.
The Fallen was in mid-air, hurtling across the room directly at her.
Nali felt her heart stop. She twisted and swung the rifle up, then fired blindly from the hip.
The shot plowed into the Fallen’s side. The creature spun and crashed into the ground,