Must Love Hellhounds

without another word, they all stepped over the bodies and hurried down the tunnel. With a glance at the map, Crick indicated a dark opening to the side, again to the left, and they ducked into it, none too soon. Howling, another gray quadrupedal creature loped across the spot they’d just vacated.
    Batanya wondered if the gray creatures had some kind of mind-link. Perhaps the dead one had sent some kind of signal when he was wounded.
    After a long moment, they heard an eerie wailing. The second soldier had found his dead buddy. This was going to draw all kinds of attention to the area, and the faster they relocated, the better.
    Batanya made the punching gesture with her fist that meant “move out,” and they hurried away from the wailing. This time they were going west, following Crick’s gestures. This tunnel was particularly slick, and they had to pick their way very carefully to avoid landing on their asses. The unpitted glassiness of the slugs’ hardened secretions argued that this passage was not much traveled by the minions of Lucifer; that was the good part. It also argued that the slugs used it a lot. That, of course, was the bad part. Batanya had a momentary image of being beneath one of the slugs as it moved with its slow, sure, rippling motion. She could feel the goo clogging her nose and mouth until she couldn’t breathe. She would harden to the floor after the slug had passed.
    Then she shook herself vigorously. Letting one’s imagination take over was an indulgence that sapped the energy of a warrior. She glanced over her shoulder at Crick, who was shuddering. Maybe he’d had the same mental image.
    From behind him, Clovache hissed, “Hurry up!”
    Their luck held for ten frantic minutes. Then they heard the dragging sound of an approaching slug, and there was no handy escape hatch. In fact, there was not an intersecting tunnel opening as far as the eye could see. If there was one around the next bend, they simply couldn’t count on reaching it before they met the oncoming slug.
    “Back,” Batanya ordered. Abruptly, they were hurrying as fast retracing their steps as they had been going forward. The first tunnel mouth they spotted also contained an approaching slug; it was so close to issuing forth into their main tunnel that its antennae were waving in their direction. They kept on going, hearing the relentless progress of the larger creature behind them, until they spotted another opening, a much smaller one.
    It was like a baby tunnel, but it represented safety at that moment, and they dove into it with all haste. They had to crawl in on their knees. At least it was extensive enough to hold all three of them.
    “The slugs don’t seem to be sentient,” Batanya said, keeping her voice low. “That is, I don’t think they’re smart enough to be working for the King of Hell. I think the slugs made the tunnels.”
    Crick said, “Lucifer adapted the idea from the slugs. When the surface planet was growing uninhabitable, he began exploring down here; or at least, he sent his creatures and hirelings down here. Many of them died because they underestimated the sheer power of the slugs. The nasty things don’t think much, but they’ve got very strong instincts, and they can attack with surprising speed when they’re angry.”
    This was a flood of information. “What makes them angry?” Clovache asked.
    “Anything blocking their way,” Crick said.
    “What do they eat?”
    “Anything blocking their way.” Crick looked apologetic. “They seem to take nutrients from the soil. But when they run over someone, they generally pause on top of them, and suck up everything they can.”
    That was much worse than Batanya’s mental image, and she felt quite sick for just a moment. “Then we’d better not get under them,” she said, in the toughest voice she could manage. “Why don’t Lucifer’s warriors clear them out of the tunnels? Surely they’re the ones in the greatest danger?”
    “Lucifer needs the slugs too much,” Crick explained. “They do most of the digging for him. Of course, he can’t really direct where the slug tunnels go, but they add to his palace for free. At the same time, the slugs stabilize the tunnels with their secretions. He only has to shore up the occasional roof. Plus, the slugs are good at patrolling the existing passageways. If he loses the odd fighter, he doesn’t really care.”
    “You know a lot about this.” In the dim light, Batanya couldn’t