Chapter Eighteen
Kaakhag had been correct about the smaller side tunnel that plunged downward. With the exception of tribal hashes on the wall—often foully defiled—they encountered no Bent or signs of their presence before reaching it.
The movement downward brought increased dampness for a time, but that passed quickly. It did not come from the rocks, Kaakhag explained. It began as the humidity drifting in from the entrance, which cooled as it descended. Eventually, its effect upon the lower rock and air became so diffuse that it was unnoticeable.
The side tunnel led to a surprisingly dry chamber. Or at least that’s what the two urzhen told the others. Druadaen expected S’ythreni to offer some sardonic counterpoint—she rarely missed such opportunities—but the aeosti was silent. He couldn’t make out her features in the almost undetectable light coming from Elweyr’s hooded lantern, but even her gait seemed pensive.
He leaned toward her. “Do you have misgivings about this chamber?”
She muttered something that sounded simultaneously annoyed and noncommittal.
Elweyr leaned over Druadaen’s shoulder. “She can’t see very well down here. No wet rocks nearby.”
Druadaen did not see any logical connection between the two statements. “What?”
Ahearn hissed the answer back over his shoulder. “Bent see…well, they see heat, is the only way to describe it. Aeosti see better than we do in the dark because their eyes see more light. So without the lantern reflecting off anything nearby—”
“I’m nearly blind,” S’ythreni finished bitterly. “I certainly can’t see well enough to shoot. Any other pressing questions, Dunarran?”
“Just one. About your shooting.”
She sighed. He could imagine her eyes rolling. “Yes?”
He glanced at the vague shape of the crossbow still in her hands. “Iavarain visit Dunarra, so we do hear their stories and how their customs are different than ours.”
“And this concerns my shooting—how?”
“Well, I have seen evidence that some of the human truisms about your race are not without some basis in fact. For instance, it is held that almost all Uulamanthi—both Iavan and L’fahn—are renowned for their natural talent for the longbow.” He glanced at the crossbow again. “So I cannot but wonder why your weapon of choice is—”
“Shut up.”
Druadaen pushed down annoyance. “I did not know that question would offend you. I retract it and offer my apologies in its place.”
“Yes, well…it is a personal matter.” She muttered more loudly at Ahearn’s back, “So are we going into the chamber or just going to stand here?”
“I’ll tell you when the urzhen return; they’re scouting ahead.”
Umkhira’s voice reached out of the darkness toward them. “We have finished.” Druadaen heard the larger Rot’s heavy tread halt just beyond the faint circle of light. “Kaakhag believes he has been in this chamber before.”
“He believes?” repeated Ahearn in exasperation.
“It was only once, and years ago. He and others were returning from a raid upon another tribe. Because this route is rarely used, few know about this chamber. Therefore, he suggests we rest here and then press on.”
Elweyr’s voice suggested a frown. “This day isn’t even half over.”
“True, but since we do not know what lies ahead, we may not find another place to sleep for more than a full day from now. If Kaakhag is right about our location, we are barely a mile from where the tunnels become more frequent, wider, and patrolled. We may have to move quickly and without much warning to avoid becoming known to the tribes that clash and hunt in those areas as we search for a passage down toward the Underblack.” A pause. Druadaen heard arms moving, hands smacking. “He wants to know if either of you, Ahearn and Elweyr, recognize this place.”
“No,” they chorused. Ahearn’s voice continued: “The only time we dared to come this far up from the Black was when we finally had strength enough to fight all the way out to the surface. So we won’t be of any help until we’ve gone a good bit deeper. Can we risk a light?”
“It is not prudent.”
“But…” started Druadaen.
“Yes?”
“How do we find a seemly place to…That is, is there a best spot for us to…eh…?”
“Godsblocks,” hissed Ahearn. “Come; I’ll show yeh.”
S’ythreni snickered. “I told you someone would have to change his diapers.”
* * *
As it turned out, Kaakhag’s memory was accurate; he had slept in that chamber once before, which, aside from the scurrying of rat’s feet following along a far wall to avoid them, was without noise or visitors.
The tunnels that started a mile beyond it were smoother underfoot and showed other signs of frequent use: rock blackened with the soot of old torches; scraps of leather and sheared bronze rivets; faint pongs of waste and sodden cloth; and, of course, the occasional rat skeleton or larger bones that had been cracked open for the marrow.
Twice they paused as Kaakhag and Umkhira went forward alone and later returned with a report on the Bent ahead and how to avoid them. But the third time they were gone longer and came back more carefully.
“We have come to a place where several tribes have been warring,” Umkhira explained, pausing as Kaakhag signed a long explanation. “It is a crossroads—no: an intersection—with five branches. Well, six, counting the one that connects to it from here. Three are tunnels into the more populous warrens in this part of the Under. Another leads to a lake with a high ceiling. He knows that place by reputation. It is Bebga Oog: the Puddle of Drowning.”
“We heard of it,” Elweyr commented. “A lot of tunnels lead there. A mile or more across, but when you approach it, you don’t hear any water sounds, don’t see a drop or a waterside shelf or scree shore. The edge comes right into the tunnels, the surface smooth and almost level with the ground. Like a puddle.”
“And the fifth passage?”
“That one will lead us down to the very edge of the Black.”
“And that’s the one being guarded?”
“It is.”
“Well, let’s see about relieving the guards…”
* * *
Keeping his head turned toward the intersection that was somewhere ahead in the darkness, Druadaen took the lantern from Elweyr. The thaumantic inhaled deeply and focused himself in the same direction, ready to react when the corner of the right-hand tunnel became briefly visible. He started murmuring repetitive syllables to himself. Or maybe to the universe.
Druadaen spoke to the pitch-black space just ahead of him. “Umkhira, as soon as you—”
“Hsst. Quiet. Soon now. Wait, wait…now!”
Druadaen lifted the lantern hood slightly. The light washed forward, picked out the corners of the intersection.
Elweyr’s muttering concluded on a single syllable and a faint gesture at the back of an urzh, just barely visible at the mouth of the tunnel to the right. Its spine stiffened slightly. But otherwise, it did not move. At all.
Another one emerged from that same tunnel, started poking its friend in the same instant it noticed the light.
S’ythreni fired her crossbow.
The quarrel leaped across the twenty feet in a blink. The urzh—almost as big as his friend—staggered back, the fins of the bolt protruding from the center of his chest, a dark stain spreading rapidly outward from it.
“Light out!” Ahearn hissed. “Everyone: hand on the shoulder in front of you. Kaakhag, you lead us. Elweyr, you keep holding the first urzh. He’s an easy target, Umkhira. Make sure you—”
“I know my job,” she muttered bitterly. “Executioner.” She moved forward, axe already in motion.
* * *
After getting through the intersection, they kept moving for hours. How many, Druadaen could not guess. At one point, he thought he heard shouting behind them. Later on, a faint winding of horns. But they did not stop until the twisting, narrow passage leveled off and opened into a long, wide chamber. There were so many opposed stalactites and stalagmites that peering through the entry was like staring down the length of some immense creature’s tooth-lined gullet. “Hold,” panted Umkhira, “Kaakhag says we are safe here.”
“Are they still behind us?” Druadaen asked. That earned him several puzzled expressions. “I heard shouting, horns,” he explained.
“Oh, that?” Ahearn chuckled. “That wasn’t them coming after us. That was them going at each other.”
Umkhira nodded. “When we slew those guards, the rival tribes must have heard it and gathered for an attack. It is likely that they have been engaged with each other since. Even if they found our trail, I doubt they had the time or warriors, let alone need, to follow and discover who killed the guards.”
“And quite the job you made of that,” Elweyr commented with a rueful look at Umkhira’s blood-spattered leather armor.
Kaakhag signaled abruptly, looked at the mantic with contempt. “Killing should be quick, not pretty,” Umkhira translated with a nod.
“Not what Elweyr was getting at,” Ahearn said testily. “He’s worried about all that blood on you and the trail it leaves.”
Kaakhag’s shrug was dismissive.
Umkhira’s wasn’t. “It could not be avoided. It was the price to be paid to achieve what Druadaen rightly defined as our most important objective: to get into the lowest levels of the Undergloom undetected. It was to achieve that end that we also took so much of their gear. Including things we do not need.”
Elweyr frowned. “Such as?”
She held up a necklace of large fangs and even larger claws. “Trophies. Another sign that will make other urzhen think it was Bent who killed the guards. Among many of our tribes, when you slay a foe, it is believed that by taking their trophies, the fame and deathpower of those triumphs transfer to you. None but urzhen—and none but those of Under—would care for such things.
“Although the two guards did not have much food or water, we took what little they had. Also, their weapons are still serviceable, and they had some useful ointments and dyes. So we took all those as well.” She translated an addition from Kaakhag. “Underkin will see the missing gear and believe the guards were ambushed by a few tribeless marauders.” She shook her head, ending the conversation. “We have had our rest. We should continue. Now.”
“So you think they might be following us, after all?” S’ythreni asked.
“I think that the urzhen of the Under are always restless. If the clashes over the intersection do not distract or damage all sides sufficiently, some of them may eventually wonder at the killing that preceded their battle. If they are bored or restless enough, they might decide to follow us. So we must reach the darkstream quickly, that we may cleanse ourselves and stop leaving a trail.”
* * *
Shortly after reaching the stream, Kaakhag led them into a long untraveled stretch of tunnel, honeycombed with side passages of all sizes. Before they’d gone more than a hundred feet into the tangle, he gestured toward the lantern and made a few hasty hand signs.
S’ythreni frowned, glanced an Umkhira. “What does he want?”
“He says that this is a good place to use the light. Unhooded.”
“Why?”
Ahearn nodded. “Because this is not where the Bent live. No matter the breed, all of them need big caverns to house their numbers. But those caverns must also have only a small number of tunnels that lead to them: that way, a tribe has fewer points of entry to watch and defend. For these reasons, the Bent do not live in areas like this, cut through with more passages than an ant-hill. So there are none close enough to see our light, which will enable us to move more quickly.”
Druadaen frowned. “But won’t it attract the creatures that live here?”
Kaakhag grumbled and made more signs.
Umkhira nodded. “Yes, but it should also keep them from approaching too close, once they see how large our party is.”
“Should keep them from approaching?” S’ythreni repeated.
Umkhira did not even need to translate. She shrugged. “If a creature is large, or desperate enough, nothing will deter it. That is no different than it is on the surface.”
The group pushed onward, the lantern revealing a twisting grotto that seemed like stony latticework. Fungi was more plentiful, several kinds of which glowed dull green or dull yellow. Spiders the size of pot lids popped out, rows of black-bead eyes aimed at the passing light before they disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. Rats scurried at its dim edges, never in great numbers but almost always present. And there were other, slightly larger creatures that were barely seen—furtive serpentine flashes of movement—but of which they found remains: a long, flexible skeleton that seemed a perverse cross between a weasel and a salamander, topped by a toothy skull with four eye sockets.
S’ythreni shivered. “What are those?”
Umkhira had to study Kaakhag’s hand gestures carefully. “Individually, they are not deadly to us. In greater numbers, they can be, but they do not seek us out. We are not food for them.”
“What is? The rats?”
“No, they cannot eat the rats either, and the rats cannot eat them. Nor do they and the rats eat the same things. And yet they fight each other. Fiercely. Eagerly. To the death.”
“So nothing to worry about?”
“Not much. But Kaakhag says that we should continue to move. Quickly.”
They did.
* * *
After emerging from what Druadaen thought of as the filigree tunnels, they found another safe place to sleep. On its walls, Kaakhag discovered the first hash of the tribe from which he had been providentially separated, and so, escaped. But the sign had been subtly altered, and he was not sure what that portended.
The next day’s travel, while swift, was frequently interrupted. Three times, they came to corners or tunnel branches where there was no way to avoid the Bent that were guarding or watching them. All three combats were short, brutal, and had many of the same features as their attack to enter the tunnels, the ambush at the intersection, or a liberal mix of the two.
As they went deeper, Ahearn and Elweyr demonstrated increasing knowledge and familiarity with their surroundings. They knew which tunnels to avoid and which to travel, simply by glancing at them. Narrow, rough, and twisting? Likely to be safe. Broad, smooth, and straight? Too likely to run into large numbers of Bent. Kaakhag had many of the same insights, but he lacked their skill for reading changes in the rock itself as predictors of how the tunnels might change ahead, or for locating and harvesting the glowing lichens. If kept moist, the matlike growths continued to give off a very faint green glow. And while it was barely enough for humans to work by, it improved S’ythreni’s vision to a level that she likened to human sight at dusk.
The lichens had become a major factor in all the day’s ambushes but were now the linchpin for what they hoped would be the last attack before finally reaching the subterranean no-man’s-land between the Gloom and the Black. As they finished positioning themselves for what Elweyr had aptly called “yet another roll of the dice,” Druadaen could smell as well as hear exhaustion. A single fight made even the most stalwart warrior tense. Four in one day left their nerves as raw as their muscles were weary.
Hearing Kaakhag approach, Druadaen held the covered lamp higher so he would not hit it while moving to his position up front with Umkhira. In the dim light, he saw the Rot make an unfamiliar hand sign. Before Druadaen could ask, Elweyr muttered, “Means the guards will be changing soon. Thirty minutes or so.”
“So is he telling us that we should hurry up or wait?”
“Neither. Urzh are even worse guards than we are. They lose focus easily, become impatient, then bored, then drowsy.”
“So he is saying they are probably less attentive now?”
He smiled. “Some urzhen can go to sleep standing, like horses. Don’t know how they do it. And those who could explain aren’t about to admit they sleep while on watch.” He shrugged at Druadaen’s stare. “Just another of the things you learn if you live down here long enough.” Elweyr exhaled and turned his eyes into the leading darkness, allowed them to become heavy-lidded. The group hadn’t required any mancery during the last two engagements, but he remained ready to intervene.
“They’re ready at the corner,” S’ythreni said from her kneeling position. Ahead of them, Umkhira was flat against the left-hand wall, a battered pewter cup in her hand, luminous lichen wrapped around it and tied off through its handle. S’ythreni had a small clump attached to the rear of her belt.
Ahearn muttered something to the two urzhen at the corner; they readied their axes. Maintaining a crouch, S’ythreni moved forward, Druadaen and Elweyr following close behind.
Ahearn’s fist raised, silhouetted against the dim glow of Umkhira’s lichen. Two fingers extended, then folded away. Then one finger extended, very straight. It disappeared, then reappeared waving slowly from side to side.
So: two Bent. One was alert. The other was drowsy. “Stand ready,” Ahearn hissed back. Beside him, Raun rumbled impatiently. “Now!”
The rush of action was tense yet familiar. The lichen marker on Umkhira’s back disappeared around the left-hand corner, accompanied by the sound of heavy footfalls: she and Kaakhag were charging the guards. In close file behind S’ythreni, Druadaen and Elweyr moved rapidly past Ahearn and Raun.
The aeosti slipped to a knee at the corner and leaned around. Druadaen emerged behind her, ready to uncover the light, spotted the lichen-wrapped cup that Umkhira had hurled ahead for S’ythreni’s benefit. The sharp slap of her crossbow was answered by a startled howl and then the clash of weapons, some of which clattered against shields. The green glow didn’t outline the figures in the desperate struggle but flickered as rapidly moving legs passed in front of it.
Something heavy hit the ground; “One,” called Umkhira, announcing the first enemy casualty as weapons kept cracking into each other. Ahearn muttered and in the next instant, a breath of air and rapid patter of canine pads went past Druadaen: the wolfhound was racing for the one that was down. He nudged Elweyr, who took the lantern from him and half-raised the hood.
Druadaen ran toward the melee, drawing his dagger and muttering his name as he closed. Umkhira and Kaakhag shifted to either side of the remaining guard.
Druadaen charged into that space, launching into a lunge…that he arrested abruptly.
But the Rot guard, having to shift to defend against a third adversary, couldn’t take the chance or time to watch for a feint. He turned toward the new attacker to parry…
The moment he did, Umkhira launched a genuine attack. The guard responded in the only way he could: re-angling to face the two of them.
Which was what Kaakhag had been waiting for: a rear-flank opening. His axe, waiting poised on his shoulder, now swung sharply forward, cutting the air with a faint moan.
The sound of the impact was ghastly: a shearing of leather and muscle; a splintering of bones. Druadaen felt a shower of hot liquid along his arm, saw it spattered by what looked like a spray of ink: lantern-lit blood. The final Bent guard fell with a cry, sucked in more air as he gasped, seemed about to scream—
But Raun was there, jaws snapping fast on the guard’s throat, crushing the Bent’s voice box as Elweyr covered the light again. The only sound that escaped into the dark tunnels was a pathetic gurgling wheeze.
Umkhira had apparently forgotten the two guards they had just slain: she was scrutinizing something on the wall behind them.
“Can you tell what they were guarding?” S’ythreni asked when the final grisly sounds of the dying guard subsided.
If Umkhira heard her, she gave no sign of it.
The silhouette of Ahearn’s lower legs stepped into the dim circle of light being shed by the lichen-covered cup just a few feet beyond the bodies. After a moment’s pause, he said, “They were set to guard the tunnel we’ve been looking for.” He gestured into the farther darkness. “Which is five steps in that direction. Follow me; I know the way by touch, from here.”