Glass Throat - Chapter 8

Elia was certain blood was running from her ears.

They were hurtling towards the beast’s open jaws, straight through the loudest yell she’d ever heard. Suddenly, they were in the jaws. And the noise got even louder before it stopped abruptly.

Her ears still hurt, but she couldn’t hear a thing.

Somehow, they were still flying. Serida was managing to avoid hitting any of the walls, even with the beast moving. Within heartbeats they were back at the fork with the glass door, they could see the door starting to open.

When she’d thought this had been a castle, that side passage had just been a side passage. Now that she knew it was a beast, that door took on a completely different meaning.

It was an epiglottis.

“Hurry up Serida! That’s opening onto the stomach! We’ve got to pass before it closes on us.” Elia yelled, though she knew Serida couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t stomach the idea of her mission ending dissolved in digestive juices. She’d never been eaten alive before, and she didn’t want to break new ground today.

She whispered a prayer to Sigmar, willing Serida’s wings to beat faster.

As it was, Serida made it through just in time before dropping Elia and crashing into the far wall.

Elia managed to get her hands over her head and protect herself as she rolled. She looked behind them.

The glass epiglottis was nearly closed.

Cassivar tried to shoot through the rapidly disappearing gap, but it crashed shut on them, slamming into them and squishing Cassivar’s calves against Thaelon’s torso against the chamber wall.

Elia could see liquid churning up through the glass tunnel opposite them. Cassivar managed to kick and get his feet through, but Thaelon was still stuck fast. Cassivar tried to stand but immediately crumpled, his shins bent at unnatural angles.

Thaelon was straining against the epiglottis trying to open it enough to push himself through. The veins on his face bulged with effort.

When the liquid reached his feet, the armour started to smoke and melt.

Within moments, Thaelon was screaming. Elia couldn’t hear any of it, but the agony looked unbearable.

By the time the acid had reached his pelvis, he was thrashing in pain. Elia wasn’t sure she had seen a more painful death.

Acid was splashing through the opening in the epiglottis, but suddenly Thaelon dissolved into lightning and shot up through the beast. The epliglottis slammed shut.

Elia took out her broadsword and swung it as hard as she could against the wall.
It clanged and bounced out of her hand. Even the glass here was too hard. They only had one chance left. She left her sword on the ground, grabbed Serida’s hand and tore off down the passageway.

As soon as the acid was gone and the beast could open the epiglottis, it would sneeze them out. They had to act fast.

She raced to the junction that she now knew lead to the beast’s lungs.

And through the glass opposite, she saw the dark mass, now pulsing much faster than it had before.

The beast’s heart.

They had no weapons that could break the beast’s glass skin, nor was their lightning much use since the glass didn’t conduct electricity. But, the light from her lantern could pass through the glass.

Still holding Serida’s hand, she raised the lantern with the other, and willed it to shine as bright as it could. It shone brighter than it ever had, drawing on Serida’s strength as well as her own.

The heart spasmed.

The whole passage shook as the light hit the heart, the ground convulsing beneath her. Elia felt herself rapidly losing her strength with the light’s burn.

But she saw that the light wasn’t just focused on the heart, it was blasting everywhere. She let go of Serida’s hand to adjust the shutter and felt herself rapidly weaken. She snuffed the light immediately so she wouldn’t pass out.

“It’s amazing how much easier this is when I’m touching you,” Elia said. She couldn’t hear her own words, but speaking them steadied her hands as she adjusted the shutter, tightening it so that all the light would be focused forward as tightly as possible. Elia looked over her shoulder and saw Serida nod at her. They clasped hands.

Elia willed the lantern as bright as it would go. The heart spasmed and the floor started bucking beneath them. But it wasn’t enough. The dark heart was still beating, powering the beast with its shadow magic.

She tried to get the lantern to burn brighter, but felt that there was nowhere to pull the energy from. Already, she could feel herself start to burn out as the energy from Serida mixed with her own energy and coursed through her.

And then, she felt something on her calf. Looking down, Cassivar’s hand grasped her ankle.

Suddenly, she felt an extra source of energy that she could draw on.

So she did. The lantern got even brighter still.

The heart started to smoke.

She had to squint against the brightness of the light.

Elia felt her strength rapidly draining. And just then the air picked up. The epiglottis must be open, she thought. They would be sneezed out and the mission would be over, if she didn’t run out of energy first. This was it.

But … there was one last option. She could feel a last well of strength in each of them, the strength holding them together. The strength that made them who they were — Serida and Cassivar, Stormcast Eternals.

“Sorry my friends,” she whispered.

And with her will, she reached into Cassivar and Serida, drawing all of their life force into her, every drop that they had. Images flashed in her mind. Cassivar silent at a forge, pounding life into metal. Serida laughing with children in front of a blood-red lake.

She felt, rather than heard, them scream.

Then she fed all of their life into the lantern along with all of her own. Fuel for one last strike against the enemies of order.

The lantern blazed so brilliantly that her whole world became white.

The last thing she saw before she lost her vision was the dark pulsing heart disintegrate in the massive blast.

She felt rather than saw two lightning bolts next to her shoot up into the sky.

And then, her world shattered — into pain and fury.