The Iriduan’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Thirty-Four

Uthagol seemed nervous. Molly hadn’t thought there was anything that could truly disturb the female. Yet she paced uncharacteristically in front of Molly and Briana as they hung within new cocoons, this time in her “showroom.”

“Ma’Nah was leveled by an explosion in the dreg,” she said in a voice that contained no hint of the nerves that were evident in her tense body language.

Molly kept her surprise out of her expression even as Briana gasped aloud.

“Sha Zaska takes his revenge on all who dare to strike at him,” Molly said, her mind racing as she sought to turn this shocking information to her advantage.

Briana glanced at her, and Molly met her eyes as Uthagol huffed in a sound of annoyance that did contain a hint of worry now.

Briana slightly nodded her head, a smile growing on her dyed face. “Our master will come for us—his most favored mouthpieces. He might spare you if you return us to him alive.”

Uthagol hissed, turning on them with an enraged scowl. “I do not fear Sha Zaska!” She eyed Briana and Molly with all six of her hideous orbs. “It is he who should fear Uthagol!” All four of her upper hands tapped her narrow chest.

Then she grabbed Molly’s chin in one hard upper hand and snatched up Briana’s in the other, squeezing them painfully as both women gasped.

“I could turn the two of you over to Sha Zaska’s minions—if he dared to send them into my web—in little, bite-sized pieces.”

“But you won’t,” Molly said with difficulty, her eyes never wavering as she met Uthagol’s. “Because if you do, and you discover that you were wrong not to fear our master, he will visit a nightmare upon you that will have you begging for death.”

Uthagol released them both with a hard jerk, sending their heads rocking to the sides. Again, Molly met Briana’s eyes with a speaking glance.

“Our master destroyed Ma’Nah,” Briana ventured, testing her cocoon with a slight wriggle. “He wiped out the Iriduan interlopers on their own turf. Do you really think he would dare to take on the dreg, but fear your web? You have not a tenth of the power of an Iriduan corporation.”

Uthagol slapped Briana hard across the face and Molly winced at the sound, but Briana only laughed mockingly. She licked the blood from her split lip as if she relished it. “You know we speak the truth, queen of the web. Sha Zaska will come for you, and he will tear you limb from limb if you do not return his mouthpieces to him in one piece.”

“He will make an example of your death,” Molly said, picking up the narrative as Briana paused to take a breath. “Just as he made an example of Ma’Nah.”

She wondered what had really happened to the company, since obviously Sha Zaska had nothing to do with its destruction. Had some of his minions escaped the Iriduan invasion of the under-tier and gotten some of their own revenge back?

She couldn’t think of any of their minions who might have had the power or resources to undertake such a daring challenge. It was more likely that one of Ma’Nah’s enemies—or even allies—had decided the company went too far in invading the under-tier and claiming Sha Zaska’s assets. No doubt Ma’Nah’s competitors didn’t want the company gaining an advantage. They might have taken advantage of unrelated chaos in the dreg to strike at Ma’Nah, perhaps even planning to place the blame on Sha Zaska or his associates.

Or they caused the chaos in the dreg, which spoke to a much higher degree of organization than the typical gang boss.

Perhaps it was a more corporate move.

She prayed to whatever deity might exist somewhere in the darkest reaches of space that Mogorl and Grundon had nothing to do with the attacks in the dreg. She also prayed they wouldn’t attempt to take on Uthagol and her minions here within her own web. They were strong and clever, but without Sha Zaska’s resources, they didn’t have a chance against Uthagol on her turf.

“Ha!” Uthagol laughed harshly, snapping Molly’s attention fully back on her. “You both are so transparent. You really think I believe that Sha Zaska would come for two paltry humans, even if he did survive the Iriduan’s invasion?” She grabbed a fistful of Molly’s hair, jerking her head back as she towered over Molly, forcing her to look up into Uthagol’s terrifying face. “You mean noth—”

The sound of some of her males rushing into the showroom, chittering wildly cut off her words as she released Molly and spun around to face them.

Her body twitched, her lowest set of arms moving reflexively as she chittered back at the males.

Then Molly heard gunfire nearby. Far closer than she would expect this deep within Uthagol’s web—which consisted of multiple buildings inside a compound sealed off from the rest of her tier with an actual web.

“How did he get his minions inside my sanctum?” she shouted as she spun to face Molly and Briana. “Tell me how he did this!”

She grabbed Molly’s hair again, shaking her head as Molly cut off her instinctive yelp of pain. Another of Uthagol’s hands caught Molly by the throat, slowly strangling her as she shrieked in rage.

Then two shots rang out from behind Uthagol. The evil female gasped and turned to face an armored figure who was clearly an Iriduan, given the green wings extending from his back.

Molly also gasped, because her heart lifted at the sight of those beautiful wings, though she knew better than to hope for the impossible. There was no way this could be Shulgi. She’d seen him die with her own eyes.

She would never stop seeing it.

The Iriduan strode into the showroom to stand over the fallen corpses of Uthagol’s males. “Sha Zaska has his ways,” he said in a strong, deep voice that carried, amplified by the speaker in his helmet.

Molly cried out in shock, struggling inside her cocoon. This stranger sounded exactly like Shulgi though he didn’t even glance in her direction. At least not that she could see through the helmet.

“Sha Zaska is dead,” Uthagol snarled. “And you will be soon.”

She gestured with one hand and automated turrets extended from the walls and ceiling to open fire on the figure in the center of the show room.

He dived to the side, ducking behind a stone pedestal that the rounds from the turret pitted as they struck. Molly screamed, tears running down her face as she watched the turrets tracking the rapidly moving figure. Though he managed to make it to new cover every time they destroyed his previous cover, she knew he would eventually run out of places to hide before he made it to Uthagol.

She rocked in her cocoon, wriggling back and forth as hard as she could as Uthagol watched her turrets chasing the Iriduan with cackling laughter rolling from her narrow chest.

“Sha Zaska will tear you to shreds and display your head for all to see,” the Iriduan yelled before he rolled behind another pedestal.

Uthagol continued to laugh mockingly until one of the turrets suddenly snapped off its base, crashing to the floor in a shower of sparks. She gasped and turned to face that side of the room even as the other turrets continued to fire at the Iriduan.

“No!” She staggered several steps backwards until she stood right in front of Molly, just a short distance away. She remained unaware of Molly desperately struggling in her cocoon. “It can’t be!”

Another turret snapped off its base, and the remaining three turrets tried to target the wall behind that broken one, but they seemed unable to lock onto whatever was causing the damage.

Uthagol had apparently spotted it though. “No! Sha Zaska, you cannot defeat me!”

Molly’s focus remained entirely on the Iriduan, watching him use Uthagol’s distraction to move closer to the dais where she stood with Molly and Briana. Uthagol suddenly realized that he was on the move and ordered her turrets to target him again.

On the other side of the room, another turret tore from its base, this time flying across the room as if someone had tossed it aside with ease.

As focused as she was on the Iriduan that her foolish heart dared to hope was Shulgi, she couldn’t help glancing over at the other wall to see what was destroying the turrets.

She screamed as she spotted the ripple of tentacles moving in a brief flash before they blended back into the wall. The camouflage of the creature was nearly flawless. It only became visible when it moved and only then because of a slight rippling and distortion of the wall.

But what she had seen in that brief flash had been terrifying. Based on the size and length of those tentacles, the creature tearing apart the turrets was exceptionally large, and extremely strong.

She wondered whimsically if they’d accidentally conjured up a real Sha Zaska. What else could the creature be?

Uthagol certainly feared that was who it was. She turned on Molly and Briana, her expression desperate as she debated what to do.

By now Molly had her cocoon swinging and Uthagol noticed her momentum. Her mouth twisted with an angry snarl just before Molly slammed bodily into her, sending her flying off the dais.

She hit the ground in a heap but quickly recovered to skitter across the floor on all eight limbs, heading towards an escape hatch. Molly shouted out her location, but the strange tentacle creature had already apparently spotted her. It became completely visible as it moved rapidly across the wall to intercept her path.

She moved faster but could not outrun the creature’s reach. It snatched her up in a huge tentacle while two more lifted to rip the last two turrets off the ceiling.

“Don’t kill her yet… Sha Zaska.” The Iriduan rose to his feet from behind his cover now that he was no longer under fire. “We still must make an example out of her.”

“Molly,” Briana whispered as they both stared in horror at the tentacle monster now wrapping more of its massive bulk around the screaming and struggling Uthagol, “did… uh… did we summon something?”

Molly slowly shook her head, her mouth gaping as her swinging cocoon finally slowed to a mere sway on its thread. “I don’t even know if that’s a thida naf,” she whispered just loud enough for Briana to hear.

“What remains of your minions gather beyond these doors,” the Iriduan said as he strode towards the creature and Uthagol, struggling wildly in its tentacles. “They will not be able to break through until nothing remains of you but the echo of your screams.”

“What do you want, Sha Zaska?” Uthagol said with desperation in her voice. “I’ll give you anything! Everything! My brothels, my other businesses. All of my slaves! Just let me go!”

The Iriduan glanced over at Molly and Briana, and Molly dared to hope, again, that it might be Shulgi behind the helmet. She knew it was folly to allow that hope to lift her heart. If she was wrong, this time, its fall could destroy her heart completely.

Still, who else could it be? What other Iriduan cared enough about her to come to her rescue?

Of course, the Iriduan could be anyone. Someone she’d never met.

Just like she’d never met “Sha Zaska,” much to her relief because the creature was terrifying. All she could see of it from this angle was a mass of writhing tentacles, but she spotted a ripple of an amorphous mantle at the other end of those killer tentacles.

“Let us ask Sha Zaska’s mouthpieces whether you should be spared,” the Iriduan said, his voice sounding so much like Shulgi’s that it made Molly’s heart pound as he approached their suspended cocoons.

He shouldered his rifle, then lifted both hands to remove his helmet as he stepped onto the dais. Briana whistled softly as Molly gasped, her heart soaring. Her eyes filled with tears, but they were joyous ones for once.

“Shulgi!” she cried, wriggling in her cocoon with the desire to wrap her arms around him. “You’re alive!”

He tossed his helmet aside and it fell unheeded to the ground as he lifted his hands to cup her face. “I failed to rescue you before, Molly, but I wouldn’t allow death to claim me until I found you again.”

“I hope you didn’t come here just to rescue me,” she whispered as he lowered his head. “I love you, Shulgi. I’m so sorry I kept the secret of Sha Zaska from you. I should have told you sooner. I should have trusted you.”

His kiss cut off any more words from her and Molly reveled in the feeling of his lips caressing hers.

“Uh, as sweet and heartwarming as this all is,” Briana said, “this cocoon isn’t as comfortable as it looks, so maybe we can postpone the reunion?”

Shulgi lifted his head, his expression sheepish even as his eyes gleamed when they took in Molly’s bright smile and swollen lips. She licked her bottom lip as he took a step back, withdrawing a dagger that was sheathed within the forearm of his armor.

“I did not kill your mouthpieces,” Uthagol said, still desperately struggling in the unforgiving hold of the tentacle creature. “Zaska! They yet live! They are all yours, along with everything else I own. Spare me, and I will become your most loyal servant!”

Shulgi ignored Uthagol’s pleading as he cut first Molly down, then Briana. They both groaned as he gently laid their cocoons down on the dais, then went to work on cutting the strong silk of the cocoons so they could finally break free.

Molly cried out in pain as her limbs finally burst through the sides of the cocoon once Shulgi’s knife slit through it. Needles stabbed into her hands and feet as the blood rushed back into them.

Briana expelled a heavy breath of relief, followed by another moan as Shulgi cut her cocoon loose and she managed to break through it.

“So,” Shulgi rose to his feet, “what fate does Sha Zaska’s mouthpieces wish for Uthagol?”

Molly struggled to rise to her feet and Shulgi quickly bent to help her up, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her when her feet proved too numb to take her weight.

“I wouldn’t mind the help of a hot guy,” Briana complained as she also struggled to rise from the dais.

Then she yelped as a tentacle from “Sha Zaska” snaked towards her, wrapped around her, and pulled her up until her feet barely touched the dais. The tentacle creature slowly set her down on her own two feet as Briana’s face turned pale beneath the dyes, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth agape.

“Sha Zaska would never harm his mouthpieces,” Shulgi said in a reassuring tone, then turned his attention to Uthagol. “As for those who dared to touch them….”

He glanced down at Molly with a questioning look in his beautiful green eyes.

“We should make an example out of anyone who offends Sha Zaska,” she said, straightening in his embrace, her chin lifting as she met Uthagol’s six terrified eyes. “Let her minions witness the terror that awaits anyone who dares to defy the might of Sha Zaska!”

Uthagol screamed as Shulgi glanced over at the tentacle creature. It responded by tightening its writhing tentacles around Uthagol. Then it moved towards the door with her still held in its unrelenting grip. The tentacle wrapped around Briana’s waist retreated, and Briana sucked in a deep, shaky breath, like it was the first one she’d taken since the creature had grabbed her.

Molly watched “Sha Zaska” carry Uthagol to the door, beyond which waited her minions, her heart unmoved by the female’s terrified screams. She shuddered when she spotted the full horror of the creature’s amorphous mantle. It rose above the mass of tentacles once it reached the door, and a huge opening appeared in the mass of it, exposing rows of sharklike teeth.

It seemed that Sha Zaska had somehow come to life in all his horrific glory. Molly shifted her gaze from the monster to Shulgi. As he met her eyes, she smiled.

The universe had created Sha Zaska out of a myth and brought her beloved back from the dead. Perhaps someone out there really was listening to her prayers.