Fen flew through the sudden dark, caught in an instant of perfect terror. She hit the timbers shoulder-first, missing her catch, and bounced off with a scream; but a hand clamped onto her wrist, and before she could fall she was jerked back up, hard enough that her arm almost came out of its socket. Aren held her, dangling, his other arm anchored around the timbers.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said through gritted teeth.
She seized the edge of a plank, pulled herself to the wall and got a foothold. When she was safe, he released her wrist and she pressed against the wood, feeling its roughness on her cheek, breathing in the dank scent of it.
‘Fen? Aren?’ Orica’s worried voice floated up the shaft.
‘We’re alright!’ Aren called. He looked down at Fen, his eyes shining in the faint light from above and below. ‘We’re alright?’ he asked her softly.
‘We’re alright,’ she agreed.
Then, to her surprise, she smiled at him. It was a smile of relief and gratitude and something more than that, some strange and foreign feeling which she didn’t recognise and wouldn’t admit. Her own reaction perturbed her, so she looked away and began to climb down.
For some reason, the drop didn’t seem quite so terrible now.
106
The base of the shaft was a mess of bent metal and rope, the remains of the crane arm and the crushed lift. Harod had climbed the heap and was waiting there to guide them through the tangle to safe ground.
They climbed down into a small square chamber, damp and cold with long, empty centuries, half of it buried under debris from the shaft. The others were gathered near a stone doorway, anxious faces softening in relief as they saw that Aren and Fen were unhurt. Something about the sight of them clustered in the lanternlight gave Aren a pang. All the people that knew him, all those who cared, were right here. After losing Cade and almost losing Fen, they felt unutterably precious. Here was the sum total of his world now. Without them, he had nothing.
‘Aren, Fen,’ said Vika, beckoning. ‘You should see this.’
They followed her through the doorway and the others trailed in after. Vika held up a lantern and the light swelled, but still it didn’t fill the great hall they found themselves in; only just enough to illuminate the face of the monster.
The sight of it emerging suddenly from the gloom made Aren step back. An enormous statue towered over them, a seated figure on a throne of bone and tusk, its leering face horrifying to behold. A fat tongue lolled greedily over blade-like teeth and its three eyes were bulbous and crazed, the largest in the centre of its forehead. It wore a necklace of ears and its clawed hands rested on two draccen skulls. The whole of it exuded a primal, carnal savagery, a lewd animal lust for meat and slaughter.
‘Ganakh-ja-varr,’ said Mara, her voice echoing in the hollow hall. ‘Chieftain of the urdish pantheon. For many long centuries, he has waited here in the dark.’
As they stood there, unsettled by the presence of an abandoned god, Aren felt a new understanding come over him. Once, the people who’d built this statue had been masters of Embria, makers of wonders. Their gods had ruled and their ways were the ways of the land. They told their own stories, in their language, and humans were savage, uneducated slaves only fit for servitude.
All his life he’d been taught that the urds were mindless primitives, vermin to be exterminated in the Purges; yet this wasn’t the work of the mindless. How had the urds felt when plague had taken so many of them? Did they grieve as humans did? Did they weep when their children were slain by the ignorant masses that rose up behind Jessa Wolf’s-Heart? He knew that story as a triumph, but an urd would speak of tragedy, betrayal and an upturning of the natural order.
What would his own tale be if a Krodan told it, then? One of theft, regicide and indiscriminate slaughter. An underhand plot to destroy the decency and order the Krodans had built in this backward land. The ungrateful act of malcontents who held to blasphemous gods and didn’t know their place.
Right and wrong were just a matter of perspective. Stories and histories changed depending on the teller. Justice was an illusion. All that mattered was what you believed.
His hand went to the Ember Blade at his hip. I believe in this, he thought to himself. It was a solemn dedication, made with every fibre of his being. He believed in the Ember Blade, and his friends, and the rebellion he hoped would come. He believed with angry passion, and he knew now why Garric’s quest had consumed him. Like Aren, Garric had needed one absolute to cling to, a cause to make all the loss mean something. Otherwise all their suffering was just chance and chaos, the random thrashings of an uncaring, godless existence. And he couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t.
From somewhere above, they heard Sorrow howl.
‘Let us make haste,’ said Aren. ‘We have no maps now. We’ll have to find our own way out.’
‘Lake is that way,’ said Grub, pointing. ‘Maybe we get back into caves we came in by. Maybe find some other way out.’
Mara made a noise of agreement. Grub had an uncanny sense of direction underground and his logic was sound. ‘Water makes its own openings, even through rock. We are much more likely to find an exit near a lake than by heading further into the mountain.’
‘Water makes openings. That what Grub meant,’ said Grub, though it was evident he didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘Have a care, though,’ Mara said to them all. ‘When the urds were driven east, they left many traps and tricks behind for their enemies. Even now, the Delvers fear what lies in wait in the ruins. The urds were the greatest engineers of their day, and their craft has stood the test of time.’
‘Ha! Grub not afraid of stupid urds. He will go first, because he is the bravest. Follow Grub!’
He took up a lantern and lumbered off across the hall, the others following in his wake.
They made their way through the cold, silent hollows of the underkeep, a world built by people whose thoughts moved by different tides. Every edge looked jagged or sharp. Horrible faces, violently angular, lunged from the darkness. Strange creatures sprawled across lintels and down square pillars. Everything the urds fashioned was a display of power and intimidation, and to Ossian eyes it was unbearably harsh. Yet to an urd, there must have been comfort here, just as Krodans took comfort in their piously austere houses and the rigid order of their society.
But that is not my world, Aren thought. No more than this is.
The underkeep was a maze of tunnels and halls, interconnected chambers linked by stairways and passages. They found complex junctions set over many levels, with multiple exits hidden among a knot of steps. There were rooms of all shapes and sizes, some with obvious purpose and some entirely mysterious. Empty of life, it was a sarcophagus for a vanished empire.
They passed through circular rooms with deep pits in the centre, and later crossed a square arena surrounded by stone tiers that might once have been benches. Aren wondered whether battles had been fought here, or if it was in fact a theatre, or a forum. Then the walls closed in again and they were hurrying through narrow corridors once more, glancing over their shoulders as they went. The dark ahead and behind was oppressive, and though they hadn’t heard Sorrow for some time now, they couldn’t shake the sense that they were being hunted.
It was there, in the tight confines of the corridors, that they sprung the trap.
Aren, following just behind Grub, was the one who triggered it. A slab shifted beneath his foot, dropping an inch with a loud click and causing him to stumble. Grub went rigid at the sound, then suddenly darted forward. With a thunderous screech, two metal barriers sprang from recesses in the walls, slamming across the corridor in front and behind them. The rest were taken completely by surprise, but Grub, quick as a cat, slipped through the gap a moment before the barrier cut them off.
Seven of them were left on one side, Grub on the other. The barriers were solid slabs of metal, carved with leering faces and symbols of death in the ugly alphabet of the urds. Ruck b
arked angrily at the faces as the shock wore off, and they took stock.
The barrier in front of them wasn’t quite closed. It had shunted a piece of rubble before it, and was now held a hand’s width from the wall by a trembling chunk of stone.
‘Grub?’ Aren called.
Grub’s eye appeared in the gap, a lantern held up above it. The barrier was still straining to close, driven by some great force from behind. The rock quivered and shifted, threatening to crack at any moment.
‘Can you find a lever?’ he asked Grub. ‘Something to jam this open?’
Grub looked him over, and there was something calculating in his gaze which Aren didn’t like. He grunted and disappeared, and Aren heard him moving around in the corridor. The rest of them watched one another, packed close in the small space between the barriers, each hoping that someone else had a solution.
‘If that barrier closes—’ Orica began.
‘We’ll be trapped here, yes,’ Mara said tersely. ‘And our lanterns will go out and we’ll starve in the dark. We’re all quite aware of that.’
‘Vika, your staff?’ Aren suggested. ‘You can fit it in the gap.’
‘It would shatter,’ Vika said.
‘Do you have a potion? Can you do anything?’
‘If I could, I would be doing it.’
‘Nothing out here!’ Grub called from the other side.
‘Is there any kind of mechanism?’ Mara said. ‘These barriers did not move by sorcery. There must be some way to retract them.’
‘Grub will look.’
There was a click behind the wall where the barriers had sprung from and a rough grinding noise began, frighteningly loud in the silence.
‘Grub?’ Aren said. ‘Did you—’
‘Grub didn’t touch anything!’ came the irritated reply.
‘Well, something happened!’
‘The wall is moving!’ Harod said.
And so it was. Narrowing the corridor inch by inch. Moving to crush them.
‘Grub!’ Fen cried as she put her shoulder to the wall in a futile attempt to slow its progress. Harod joined her, and Orica, too, while Ruck ran in tight circles, barking in distress.
‘Wait! Something here!’ said Grub.
‘We don’t have time to wait!’ Aren yelled through the gap.
There was a crash of breaking stone on the other side of the barrier. ‘Grub found it!’
‘Found what?’ Aren cried in frustration. The wall was pushing them together now, gathering them up before it. Aren couldn’t help imagining the steady, relentless squeeze before the end, the cracking of ribs and bones, the pressure on his trapped skull building and building until—
‘Grub!’ he yelled again. ‘What is it?’
‘Grub doesn’t know!’ Grub shouted back in exasperation. ‘Behind slab in wall, moving things, spinning things! No lever! No switch!’
‘Do something!’ Fen shouted, her heels skidding on the stone floor as she was forced backwards. ‘Do it now, or we’re going to die!’
Grub’s eye appeared in the gap again. ‘Ember Blade,’ he said to Aren. ‘Give Ember Blade to Grub.’
‘Don’t!’ said Vika. ‘He desires it – I hear it in his voice. Long have I suspected, but when I saw him with it, I knew. He means to take it. He has meant to take it all along.’
Grub’s eye darkened in anger. ‘No time for this, Painted Lady. Give!’
‘Save us first!’ Vika demanded. ‘Or the Ember Blade will be lost to you for ever!’
Grub ignored her, his gaze fixed on Aren. The rock holding the gap open cracked under pressure from the barrier and a chunk of it skittered away. What remained would only hold for a few instants more.
‘Mudslug,’ said Grub, his voice hard. ‘Give Ember Blade. Last chance.’
Aren pulled it from his belt, scabbard and all, and thrust it through the gap. Grub snatched it and yanked it the rest of the way out. A moment later, the rock exploded in a shower of powder and the barrier slammed shut, cutting them off entirely. Aren had a horrible feeling that he might have just made a terrible mistake; but it was done now, and couldn’t be undone.
The wall had closed off half the corridor and there was hardly space to move as they were jammed up against one another. He smelled sweat and sewer-water and heard the frightened breath of his friends. Wild, wide eyes darted desperately, searching for salvation. The wall kept coming, oblivious to prayers or wishes.
They began to whimper and gasp as the space between them closed. The crush would worsen, tighter and tighter. Unimaginable pain was coming and they were helpless to prevent it. Aren fought to keep the scream inside him, but he wasn’t sure how long he could.
‘Grub! Help us!’ Orica cried.
‘He has his prize,’ Vika said bitterly. ‘He has already fled. Skarls have no conscience when it comes to foreigners.’
‘No,’ said Aren, through gritted teeth. ‘He’s out there. He’s trying. I know him.’
But the wall came grinding onwards, and now they were so tightly packed they could no longer move. Fen was pressed up against him, Vika on the other side, Ruck whining somewhere near his feet. Still the pressure increased. Aren shut his eyes and braced himself as best he could for the agony to come, but the mere thought of it turned his bowels to water.
No, no, please! Meshuk, Joha, Primus, anybody, no!
There was a shriek of metal from behind the wall and a clunk-clunk-clunk from some thwarted mechanism. The grinding fell quiet.
They waited, squeezed together, their faces inches from each other’s, underlit ghoulishly by the lantern resting on the floor. None of them dared to breathe.
‘The wall has stopped,’ Orica whispered. She let out a little chuckle that was halfway to a sob. ‘It stopped!’
Metal squealed and the barrier between them and Grub drew back a fraction. Fingers appeared in the gap and it was hauled open further, until it was wide enough to squeeze through. The Skarl’s tattooed face appeared on the other side.
‘Not squashed?’ he asked in faint surprise.
They crowded past him, spilling out into the corridor beyond, gasping and panting in relief.
‘Yes, thank you, Grub!’ Grub griped sarcastically as they caught their breath. ‘Thank you for saving our—’
He was cut short as Aren hugged him, and then Fen, too, and he was showered with pats on the back and exclamations of gratitude. Even Ruck barked and slobbered on his hand. By the end of it, Grub was equal parts pleased and embarrassed.
‘Well, then,’ he said, blushing. ‘That a bit better.’
‘How did you stop the wall?’ Orica asked.
Grub pointed, and Aren blanched as he saw what the Skarl had done. There was a square hole in the wall of the corridor and a broken slab of stone on the floor where it had been pulled away. Beyond were toothed cogs, metal bars and counterweights like the workings of some ancient and enormous clock. The Ember Blade’s elegant scabbard lay on the floor, while the sword itself had been jammed between the teeth of two large cogs.
Aren gaped. ‘That’s … That’s the Ember Blade?’ he managed.
‘Mudslug rather be paste?’ Grub asked. ‘Dumbface said it was indestructible.’
‘It’s supposed to be …’
‘Shouldn’t say things if they’re not true.’ Grub sniffed. ‘Let’s see.’
He walked over, took hold of the hilt and yanked the Ember Blade free. Unblocked, the cogs came to life again, and there was a heavy boom as one wall met the other. Aren cringed.
Grub held up the Ember Blade and inspected it. ‘Not a scratch,’ he said, and sheathed it in its scabbard. ‘Dumbface was right.’ Then he held out the sword to Aren and snorted back a nostril full of snot. ‘Here,’ he said, with a pointed gaze at Vika. ‘This not for Grub.’
Aren took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said earnestly. ‘For more than just this.’
Vika stepped up beside him, shamefaced behind her smeared mask. ‘I apologise, Grub. I wronged you,’ she said.
‘Er … You mean you were going to steal it?’ Aren asked.
Grub nodded. ‘Grub made a choice tonight,’ he said. ‘Grub could have taken Ember Blade, gone home, made himself legend. Maybe Sombre Men judge him good then, maybe skin-scribes take away this.’ He motioned to the black swipe across his eyes, the sign of the exile. ‘Grub khannaqut no more. Bone God welcome him then.’
‘But you chose otherwise,’ Harod said. They were all listening now.
‘Yes. Because being thief not enough. Leaving friends to die, not enough. Ember Blade? Not enough.’ He poked a finger at Aren’s chest. ‘You start something here. Something bigger than stealing some stupid sword. Your people going to throw off Krodans. Going to fight an impossible fight and win. Know why? Because you have Grub with you. And when skalds tell of Grub a thousand years from now, when people read what the stonesingers write a hundred feet high, they not read about a thief who stole a sword. They read about a hero, like Jessa Wolf’s-Heart! First Skarl they ever built a statue of in Ossia! Grub don’t just want to be famous in Skara Thun. He want to be famous everywhere!’ He thought for a moment. ‘Except maybe Kroda,’ he added. ‘His chances there, not good.’ He shook his head, dismissing the thought. ‘Anyway, you got Ember Blade now. Do something with it.’
Aren was half awed and half intimidated by the responsibility. ‘That’s a heavy weight to put on my shoulders,’ he said.
‘You trusted Grub. Grub trusts you. Don’t let Grub down.’
‘I won’t,’ said Aren. Then, more firmly: ‘I won’t.’
Grub harrumphed and fidgeted, suddenly awkward. ‘Grub sorry about Dumbface,’ he said. ‘Going to miss him.’
The unexpected sympathy brought tears to Aren’s eyes. ‘Me, too,’ he said quietly.
Grub took up the lantern and looked around at the others. ‘You lot alright as well,’ he told them. ‘For foreigners, anyway. Just watch your step next time. Grub likes you better when you not crushed to bloody ooze.’
The Ember Blade Page 84