by Tom Lloyd
A few voices were all for killing Kalozhin on general principle – Deern and Varain first among them – but Lynx could see that overall there was little appetite for it. The battle had been won and the deepgod was dead. Nothing was coming back from no face and a huge hole in its chest. It lay half submerged in the water, limp and broken.
Insar was effectively dead too. What few fragments of the god of night remained would contain no more than an echo. The other gods had also been diminished – perhaps not so drastically, but the Knights-Charnel had possessed more fragments than any other Order. Lynx, Atieno and Toil left the others discussing what to do. They went in search of the golantha killed by the Sons of the Wind, but after half an hour they gave up.
From one pillar that afforded a good view of the area they had been unable to spot anything. The two other huge corpses were also missing. They had to presume all had been washed away. Despite Toil’s suggestion that maspids might be able to swim, the trio saw nothing else moving in the cavern. Any surviving creatures of the deepest black had fled, most likely for higher ground. Lynx wondered if that point had been made as the Cards tried to decide. When they returned, the discussion appeared over.
Sitain was standing over Kalozhin, looking down at the man. The Sons officer was bound hand and foot. Clearly he’d recovered from being knocked out but Lynx knew what that was like. You could be awake and moving, but it would be a while before your head stopped ringing. When struggling against your bonds was pointless, you’d gladly put it off for ten minutes.
‘How’s the patient?’ Toil called as they neared.
Sitain glanced up. ‘Fine. He’ll manage.’
‘It’s a long climb back up,’ Toil said, looking up at the pillar the Sons had made their way down. ‘Take your time or you’ll pass out and fall.’
‘I will wait,’ Kalozhin replied in a quiet, pained voice. ‘I will not leave my comrades behind.’
‘Very admirable. We can’t see anything moving nearby, with luck you won’t need your magic before they wake. How’s about us, Sitain? Are we doing this?’
‘No one’s come up with a better option.’
‘Story of the Cards, eh?’ Toil said with a nod. ‘Come on then, let’s shift.’
With one last word to the night mage at her feet, Sitain joined them at the main group of Cards. Kalozhin didn’t move, just watched them pass. There was nothing more to say and tied up as he was, any attempt to use his magic would likely see him knifed by Sitain.
The tunnels at the far end of the cavern were not much further. The floodwaters had surged towards them, dragging the deepgod a hundred yards or more before it had caught itself or snagged on that outcrop. With paths above the remaining water, they had a reasonably direct route to the far tunnels and Lynx noticed the water level had continued to drop.
At the largest of the tunnels, the Cards stopped for one final look back at the cavern where several of their comrades had died. There were hands put on shoulders, wordless sympathy offered to Safir in particular, but even the Knight of Snow had nothing to say. His curses for the gods had died with Layir it seemed. Whatever feeling had been behind the prayers, the Cards had all enjoyed the litany and no one felt like hearing it now.
They turned away and headed down a broad slope into the unknown with mage-guns ready. It soon opened out into a grand series of chambers which looked like galleried town squares, overlooked by an upper level and all intricately worked stone.
At the near edge was a wide bridge that spanned a chasm, most likely intended to ensure any escaping waters didn’t flood the squares. With the vast deluge from the lake, the water had reached the very top of the tunnel and Lynx could see glistening stone twelve feet above where they were walking. If there had been any creatures lurking in these parts, somehow ignoring the lure of vast magics, they hadn’t escaped the water.
Everywhere was wet. Water pooled in every corner and rose to knee height in parts. The odd broken corpse had lodged in places, maspid and human both, but most had been swept elsewhere by the flood. With two remaining mage-spheres casting white light over it all, the glitter of reflection was a marked contrast to the halls of Shadows Deep, but Lynx still felt looming darkness stalk the fringes of sight. The threat of maspids and other horrors remained prevalent in his mind, but as they walked through silent halls and down empty corridors, the darkness edged closer.
After an hour of travel the signs of water faded, but the grandeur of the city-ruin hadn’t. They walked along a great avenue where the walls of dwellings rose up on either side. Three tiers of city, each with narrow roads, overlooked their path, bridges crossing from one side to the other every two hundred paces. For the Cards, so recently come from Caldaire, that remarkable city seemed a mere echo of this place, lesser in scale, artistry and engineering. They came to a crossroads and found another avenue running across theirs, smaller but still vanishing into the distance rather than ending.
When the road they were on finally did end, it was at a dome-like cavern where a curious building occupied the centre. In a human city it would have been a temple, but here even Toil could hardly guess. Stone-built and square at the base, it rose to become a vast tree trunk with an obelisk rising from the top amid the bare branches. Every one of the Marked Cards was drawn to it. Sections of visible wall were inscribed with a frieze of hanging willow branches, but there seemed no apparent way in.
With more reluctance than Lynx had ever seen on her face, Toil dragged them away. It was clear she wanted to explore it, but her relic hunter’s experience reminded her they didn’t have the supplies for any such efforts. There was a little food left, a handful of waterskins plus a few more filled with muddy lake-water if things grew desperate. Getting to the surface would be far from simple. As a concession, the Cards rested there for half an hour. Toil copied down what writing she could on a spare scrap of paper, using her own blood for ink, and then they were moving again.
The rare opportunity to search these parts unhindered didn’t trump the fact they needed to survive. Most of the subterranean creatures in the region would have been drawn to the mountain. Vaults always attracted some but, since Jarrazir, things would have intensified. Lynx could understand why the Charnelers might have brought in their pet relic hunter to lead this bolstered defence.
With luck that meant the majority had been killed in recent weeks and months, the rest dying in the cavern. No doubt the flood would have driven any on the fringes away, but there would only be a short window of time before they returned. The dozens of God Fragments dusted by Atieno had released vast amounts of magic and some would sense that. It meant there were no complaints when Payl, acting as company commander by general understanding that someone needed to give the orders, called time on their rest.
Miles of travel on straight and clear avenues gave them a good distance clear and eventually Toil found a great stairway that led up towards the surface. Duegar glyphs were pored over with Aben, much of that time spent frowning and wishing for bookish Paranil, but eventually they rejected it and continued on. There had been several other routes up of course, but there was little sign of tracks on the stairs – no debris that might have been carried down from the surface. Toil didn’t think they had travelled far enough. An hour after that, beyond great halls of puzzle-like interconnected dwellings and light gardens that had grown too wild to suggest Wisps lived anywhere nearby, Toil announced the ground was sloping away.
It took the Cards a while to believe her, so gradual was the incline, but eventually they saw it too and felt both despondency and cheer. Further underground was exactly what they didn’t want, but with luck it would be a sign that they were nearing the end of the valley. More worrying for Lynx were the signs of anxiety from Toil, a woman he was beginning to be able to read as well as Aben could. The parts of city-ruin they were in now were less dramatic, far more like a normal one and lacking any clear path up, and she was worried.
Ancient thickets of tanglethorn blocked their path now, the
bones of unknown creatures littering their fringes. Atieno cut a path through them with his magic – reducing one such obstacle to a sticky, stinking goo that started eating away at their boots until it was scraped clean. The indications of creatures were more obvious in these parts, abandoned stonecarver beetle nests and damage that had likely been caused by golantha passing.
Another rest was forced upon them, a swallow of water and biscuit apportioned to each. Lynx started to worry about the Cards turning on Toil if she couldn’t find a way out, but when they started up again there was little sign of it. Only a weariness that led to silence. Llaith ran out of tobacco, Varain of whatever rotgut he’d filled his hip flask with at the valley defences. Not even Kas could find the strength to brighten their mood and Reft was struggling badly.
After many hours and several rest stops more, they came to a crossroads of sorts. It led in six different directions and two of those went upwards. The larger suggested something had travelled it more than once so, with guns at the ready, they worked their way up. After a hundred yards they realised their mistake as a dozen shapes skittered towards them, some climbing the side walls of the tunnel and others dashing madly forward. Lynx barely had time to recognise them as maspids – juveniles presumably, the size of small dogs – before the guns were roaring.
Toil went a little further forward after that, trying to see where the maspids had come from, only to utter a curse that even Deern looked surprised by. Whatever she saw up there, it merited an earther afterwards too, but by the time the others had gone to join her Toil was hurrying away, a queasy look on her face.
‘A queen,’ was all she would say as she retraced her steps to the crossroad and they took the other path.
That route brought them to a natural cavern and the smell of fresh air for the first time in too long. Duegar ruins were largely safe, ancient magical mechanisms filtering the dangerous gases out according to Toil, but they had a dead taste to the air still. The scent of grass and rain was incredibly sweet after perhaps days underground. They pressed eagerly on before finding themselves at the rear of a cave no higher than a man’s waist. It was strange after walking miles underground that they would have to crawl out, but few complained.
Reft’s enormous strength failed him at that point. As he tried to get on his hands and knees the big man fainted clean away and they had to rig up a makeshift drag-sled to get him out. Once outside there were a few smiles and congratulations for Toil, but those died down swiftly. It appeared they were beyond the western slope of the valley wall, in the lee of a tree-covered hump of ground that rose above the rest of the plain. It was night, but the Cards could see a village not far away – dark and abandoned so far as was possible to make out. They decided to avoid it, pressing on south through a desultory drizzle for another hour to ensure they were clear of the cave mouth.
When the first glimmers of dawn started to light the horizon, Toil suggested they sleep for a few hours in a small copse. The Cards huddled down in the relative shelter of some ancient yew trees. Hungry and footsore, hardly anyone even bothered to complain as they shuffled close to each other – lying in one mass like a wolfpack and smelling little better. Aside from those assigned the watch, they slept like the dead.
Chapter 50
The sun was high by the time Lynx woke and he opened his eyes to slashes of light coming down through the branches. He twitched and shifted, prompting Toil to murmur in her sleep and dig her nails into his wrist, keeping him in place. Lynx gently unpicked her from his flesh and looked around. Half of the Cards were still asleep, but a group had moved to the other end of the copse and lit a fire.
His nose twitched. There was food cooking on the fire. He lay a little longer, trying to get his brain working again, but soon the need to piss and eat became insistent. He eased himself up, whereupon Toil jerked awake, and ran a hand down the side of her face. She gave him a sleepy smile before remembering where they were – then her hand went to her gun.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lynx soothed, ‘it’s just breakfast.’
Toil frowned. ‘Breakfast? What breakfast?’
‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’
He went to the edge of the trees and looked out over a long pasture where once cattle had grazed, judging from the ground, before pissing on a nearby hump of grass. His business done, Lynx wandered back into the trees to where the fire crackled.
‘Thought that’d wake you,’ Deern said with a smirk. ‘Some things don’t change.’
Lynx blinked at an iron pan propped above the fire. Unless he was actually dead and in some sort of paradise, there seemed to be fat slices of blood sausage frying in it.
‘Where did it come from?’
‘I woke with the sunrise,’ Kas said, ‘and the smell of Varain shitting his guts out. Rural idyll, eh?’
‘So?’
‘Went to explore.’ She pointed away behind her. ‘There’s a farm out that way. Empty, but reckon they died in some sort of maspid raid. Most of the food’s spoiled, but there was a whole loop of this hung from a rafter. We grabbed that, a pan and an end of tobacco – no booze but a better morning than anyone was expecting.’
Behind him Lynx heard Toil move through the trees after him. ‘Who do I need to fuck to get a slice of that?’ she declared loudly.
‘There’s enough for all,’ Kas laughed, ‘but I’m sure Varain wouldn’t say no if you offered.’
The veteran, sat back against a tree, offered Toil a crooked smile. He hacked another two slices off a loop of blood sausage thicker than his forearm and handed them over. Those in the pan were already crisp and blackened at the edges. Payl used a knife to scrape them free and hand them over to the Cards already waiting, then Lynx dropped his chunks in.
As they fried, Lynx spotted a figure sitting alone on the edge of the wood. Safir. The former nobleman was staring out into the distance, a slice of blood sausage barely started in his fingers. Lynx nodded to Toil then headed over to drop down beside the grieving man.
‘Here for the leftovers?’ Safir asked drily, waving the slice in Lynx’s direction.
‘No – you need to eat too,’ he replied, despite his stomach growling in protest. ‘I’ve got some coming.’
Safir did as he was told, biting a small piece off and slowly chewing. ‘You ever hear the story of how I found him?’ he asked once he’d finished.
Lynx shook his head. ‘Didn’t think you’d told anyone.’
‘A few.’ Safir inclined his head. ‘Didn’t want it to become company legend though, have Deern telling some bastardised version after he’d had a few pints.’
‘Not a happy memory?’
Lynx knew Safir had been a man of wealth in Olostir, almost two decades previously, and he’d fled in disgrace. Apparently in Caldaire, as the Cards reconnoitred the Siym compound, he’d claimed it had started with an insult and spiralled, Safir stealing something of value as he fled. Nowhere had a child been mentioned.
‘Not really. It was just one of those things. I was running for my life – I’d made a fool of myself and killed someone in the process. You believe in love at first sight?’
Lynx blinked in surprise. ‘Huh? I … No, not really.’
‘Me neither, but imagine the silly stories some people tell. The clouds part, the sun falls on a particular girl and the hero’s heart is captured – you understand?’
‘Not really …’
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing weird. As I was fleeing – I’d stolen a horse and needed to be gone quietly – this little boy ran into my path. The dawn light made his hair glow as he stood in front of me. Despite everything, I found myself stopping. He was crying, had been for some time. Ugly little kid he was, made worse by the snot and dirt smeared down his face. Dressed in rags, clearly just some street rat, but the spirits of my people had placed him in my path when I was most ashamed of myself. Most disgusted with who I had become.’
‘You took him as penance?’
‘In a way. This child was
terrified, miserable and alone. I thought that perhaps I owed the spirits something. A moment in which perhaps I would be caught, but perhaps some good might come. Do you understand?’
Lynx nodded.
‘I stopped. It was madness but I stopped to talk to him. Layir thought I was going to beat him. A man of my station would never normally deign to address an urchin. He would count himself lucky if I did not run him down for being in my way. I had to command him to stay. When I asked him what was wrong he was too frightened to speak, but eventually he told me that his mother was dead. He had no one now and was frightened of being stolen by slavers. It was not a foolish concern, though he was perhaps only five years old.’
‘So you took him?’
‘I offered my hand. I told him that I was in danger, that I’d done something stupid and would be hunted for it. But I was no slaver – they would not dare dress like me – so if he wished, he could join me and share my fate. That I’d keep him safe as long as I …’
Safir broke off, head bowed as the tears flowed. Lynx could do nothing but sit with him, a hand on the man’s shoulder, and let the grief come. It took a long while, during which Toil brought Lynx a slice of blood sausage. Eventually, the easterner muttered a curse at himself and wiped his tears away.
‘I didn’t keep him safe as long as I lived,’ Safir said in a choked voice, ‘but life is cruel and your gods are bastards.’
‘They are,’ Lynx agreed. ‘But they’re less than they were, thanks to us.’
‘It is so.’
‘What will you do now?’ Lynx asked.
‘I will walk the Riven Kingdom and see what the spirits place next in my path. I gave Layir a life and loved him like the son I never had. That was a good thing. Though it may break me, I’d like that to not be the only one I managed. When I do, perhaps I will hear my son’s laughter on the wind.’
Lynx popped the last of his food in his mouth and nodded. ‘Want to hear about a man called Vagrim?’