Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

the tree line, broad sheets of rock with thick plants growing erratically between them. I would be dashed against those rocks any moment now, yet somehow any fate seemed better than this terror.

But no! The taloned feet clutched my waist, and the massive wings thrashed against the chill wind. I hung sideways, barely clearing the rocks, and a hideous chant of croaks and groans over a muffled thudding floated through the frigid air.

The giant hawk carried me over the sharp rock ledge of the mountaintop where I saw a swarm of shapeless nonhuman things bouncing up and down in aimless fashion. Terrible to hear and even more terrible to see, the creatures were as formless as jellyfish, their long tentaclelike arms striking the lava rock of the mountaintop with every bounce. Each thing bobbed to its own time so that the thudding never paused or stopped.

The huge claws of the bird released my waist, its beak opened, and I fell into the center of the ghastly mass. Lying still on the jagged lava, a freezing wind swept over me. I shook with the chill, but the trembling that seized me when I opened my eyes and saw the formless faces clustered above me was worse. Lidless eyes under hairy brows peered at me, and pale straggly beards trailed from the nonhuman blobs. Smacking colorless lips, the creatures made greedy sucking sounds that congealed my blood.

Two bearded things picked me up with stringy tentacles. I felt the sticky mucus on their boneless arms. They lifted me high and threw me to be caught by other gummy arms, and I was tossed on and on like a senseless plaything. Faster and faster they hurled me until I couldn’t catch my breath—couldn’t scream or struggle. Only pain let me know I was alive.

Each toss brought forth an outburst of the demonic laughter Jinell and I had heard as we came out of the forest. These, then, were the wukna, the mountain spirits. They were once real people, Jinell had told me, but had been ruled by evil forces. Doomed to be ghouls, they wailed for the living to be brought to them so they could suck the blood and drain the human body dry. And they wouldn’t stop until it was a shapeless nothing like themselves.

At last the bearded ones tired of their catch-and-toss game. They dropped me on the lava floor, and women things—more terrifying than the bearded men—bent over me. Their mouths opened to show translucent tongues all ridged and beaded like overgrown leeches. They must be the bloodsuckers.

Gasping for breath, I tried to lift myself to my feet. If I could escape the slimy tentacles and run to the ledge of the mountaintop, I would throw myself over. Instant death would be preferable to being sucked dry of life. But the thin mountain air took away my strength, and the freezing blasts of wind numbed me. My arms were like useless rags, my legs without feeling. The hideous women things cackled with delight as I strained to sit up.

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