by The Behrg
“You call this … healed?” Zephyr said. “Look at it!”
Kendall was slow in answering. “All I see’s a spoiled child. The man did you a favor.”
“A favor? This?”
“He’s not God.”
Zephyr’s bottom lip quivered and Kendall realized the man was close to tears. Zephyr. Crying. The thought was almost incongruous.
“Man up,” Kendall said, shoving the shoddy rifle toward Zephyr. “You’re alive. With a little help, we can remain that way.”
“You’re not going to kill me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Kendall nodded all the same. “Better odds with two of us than just one.”
“And the others?”
“They’re on the wrong side of a cave-in. The muku general rigged it.”
“So we’re leaving them?”
Kendall glanced back at the Shaman, but he remained next to the wall, breathing heavily. He wasn’t sure what game Zephyr was playing here with his question. Any answer seemed wrong. “You see any other options?” he finally asked.
Zephyr nodded toward the native.
Now Kendall really felt worried. If they went back and the Shaman was able to do something to get them out, what would stop Zephyr from telling Dugan that Kendall had been about to leave them? Why would Zephyr want to go back at all?
He calculated the time it would take to turn his own rifle toward the man, but saw Zephyr anticipating exactly that.
“Before you go and do something stupid, remember I’m fully healed. Besides this arm, I’m in the best shape of my life, and I guarantee my body will respond much quicker than your tired ass.”
Kendall nodded.
Zephyr rose from the ground, keeping at the perfect distance to ward off an attack, but staying close enough to move in before Kendall could pull off a shot. “Now, here’s what we do. We take the Shaman back, have him do his voodoo magic trick, and then when Dugan gets out, you vouch for me and I vouch for you.”
“How do you know he can get them out?”
Zephyr didn’t answer, and Kendall realized he didn’t need to.
“What if … I mean, they might not even be alive?”
“Then we lose nothing by trying.”
Zephyr came forward, bringing his amputated arm up and rubbing it against Kendall’s face. It took everything in Kendall to not jump back in response.
“We’re in this together,” Zephyr said. “All of us.”
“You know he’ll blame you.”
“Then I guess your explaining better be real good.”
The Shaman came along without incident, the three of them soon trotting back the way they had come when all Kendall wanted to do was move forward. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was as trapped as Dugan and the others.
Verse XXXVIII.
The roar of the water clouded Dugan’s head, the constant thrum drowning out rational thought. Each moment seemed an eternity, each movement captured in a slow motion montage he couldn’t break from. Fingers bloodied and raw, all he could do was continue to dig. Continue to breathe. Continue to pray.
That Faye would be alive.
Beside him, Oso strained, digging out a large stone and hurling it back into the water which was halfway to their chests already. Dugan would have thought the fallen earth soaking in the water would have been easier to remove, but instead it created a slick barrier with little purchase. They might as well have been attempting to dig their way out through one of the cavern walls.
Let her be alive!
“Rojo?” he called, but wasn’t sure if the man heard him above the crashing water.
Oso plunged the broken gear he had used to take out a soldier into the dirt near the top of the cave-in, using it as a makeshift shovel. But despite his strength, it never sunk in far. Too many rocks and pebbles, minerals mixed in with the dirt. Dugan clawed out another chunk of earth, then kicked at the mound hoping to shake more loose.
Was Kendall digging at the other end or had he fallen victim to the sudden collapse? If he was there, they might have a chance. Might.
A thick patch of dirt broke free, tumbling down from where Oso had driven in the gear. He sunk it back in, kicking at it to drive it deeper.
Someone grabbed at Dugan’s arm and he swung around, fist at the ready. Rojo held his hands out, warding him off. “Where is it?” Dugan shouted. They needed whatever he had built into a flamethrower to blast through this rock.
Rojo shook his head. “It won’t work. It’s too wet.”
“Make it work!”
“You don’t think I would if I could? You think I want to die in here?”
“Well that’s exactly what’ll happen if you fail right now!”
“We’re done,” Rojo said. Standing above them, Oso stopped, watching the encounter. “This wasn’t some amateur work, this explosion. We’re not getting out of this one.”
“We always find a way out.”
Rojo ran a hand through his beard, wringing out the moisture. “Yeah, well, not this time.”
Dugan stared up at the hole in the ceiling, water cascading down from every edge. “What if we hold off, wait until the room fills and then climb out above?”
“You think they haven’t thought of that? As soon as this room’s halfway full, they’ll just close off the valves. Let us swim or cling to rafters until we either starve or drown.”
Dugan looked back at Oso. The native plunged the chunk from the gear back into the sloping mound, though with less fervor than before. Was this really it? The end?
“There’s always a way out,” Dugan said under his breath. “Always.” He just had to think, had to come up with … something.
Rojo waded back through the water, grabbing hold of waterlogged beams, but no, he was swimming. Shorter in stature, the water had already risen high enough to keep Rojo from touching ground. He swam back, several of the beams wrapped in his arms.
“Here. Have Oso dig a hole, but lower. We can use these like a lever.”
Dugan stared at him skeptically.
“I didn’t say it was going to work,” Rojo said. “But you’re right. We’ve never given up before. Feels wrong to start now.”
Dugan reached out, grabbing Rojo by his forearm and pulling him up to the higher ground. “I was wrong not to send Oso. Not to jump in myself for you. Never again.”
Rojo blinked sharply, then nodded. He clapped Dugan on the arm. “In it till the end.”
“In it till the end,” Dugan repeated.
Oso suddenly shot back from where he had been standing, propelled by some unseen force. He flew in the air, hitting the water, the current created from the downpour turning his body over.
Dugan spun, readying himself for whatever the general was throwing at them next, but the site before him defied description. Rocks melted, running down the mound in tiny muddy streams, eating away at the earth beneath. The rivulets dripped into the larger pool of water with a hiss, steam rising.
“Acid?” Rojo asked.
“No, we’ve got it all wrong,” Dugan said. “We’re not rescuing the Shaman. He’s rescuing us.”
Verse XXXIX.
Zephyr stood in the center of the hall, watching the Shaman work. The native had acted without prompting, knowing what they were asking of him. But what Zephyr didn’t understand, was why.
Why help rescue the very man who had spent his entire life chasing you? Who had buried hundreds of your people? Who sought only to use, then destroy you?
It didn’t add up.
The Shaman had a motive he hadn’t yet shared with any of them. And once he did, it would probably be too late.
Kendall hovered over the body of Dugan’s daughter, dragged back to the bend in the mine. Her lower half had been crushed beneath the rock, limbs broken, flesh rippled in deep shades of black and blue. She didn’t have long, and what little she had wasn’t worth keeping.
For a moment, Zephyr had thought the Shaman was about to heal her. He had stood o
ver her with a look of concern he had never shown Zephyr, in the face of his own injury. But then the Shaman moved past, leaving them to dig her out.
The native stood now, a few steps up on the mound of earth which had formed with the tunnel’s collapse. Hands, pressed to the dirt. Lips moving silently. A breeze kicked up in the tunnel, whisking trails of dirt and loose pebbles back toward Kendall. A breeze that certainly didn’t belong.
The rock beneath the Shaman’s hands began to quiver, then drip to the ledge below. It melted beneath his touch, his hands pushing further, moving deeper. Streams of molten rock ran down the sides of the mound, carving out paths and taking more rock with it.
Despite everything they had seen — and they had seen a lot — Zephyr looked on in amazement. What other secrets did this man have locked away in that head of his? Did he have limitations? Or was his “healing” of Zephyr’s arm a calculated mistake?
Either way, Zephyr wasn’t done with him. Not yet.
Near the top of the rubble, melted rock suddenly jetted out like a leak springing in an underwater submarine. It shot past Zephyr, easily making it to the end of the tunnel. Zephyr cringed, having seen the steam rise from the dissolving earth, but the spray was cold, not hot. And then he realized why — it wasn’t rock. It was water.
The pinhole leak became a fist sized hole, rock continuing to wither, only helped with the onslaught of rushing water. And then it broke wide.
Zephyr shielded himself, but it was like bracing before a tidal wave. The water swept his legs right out from under him, clods of earth carried like torpedoes, striking him from all sides. He slammed into a wall, then another, catching breaths in the briefest of moments, when his face hit air.
A body struck him, knee to chest, arm to neck, then swept past. Probably the Shaman. The muku would be lucky to live through this miracle. Zephyr concentrated on centering himself, and soon he was riding the water rather than fighting it, avoiding stalagmites rather than slamming into them.
As the initial force of the flood passed, Zephyr was able to return to his feet, though water still flowed in a quick stream that reached to both sides of the tunnel walls. He took a moment to catch his breath, then took in his surroundings, trying to gage how far the water had driven him back. He heard the noise of someone sloshing toward him and turned just in time to see a fist flying.
Zephyr sprung, raising his arm to block the blow and driving his knee upward simultaneously. But his arm was much shorter now than he remembered it being.
He took the blow in the face, his neck whipping sideways, jaw cracking. But his assailant felt the crushing force of Zephyr’s knee hit just below the sternum, whisking away any hopes of taking a breath, at least for the next several moments. He threw his assailant over his shoulder, slamming him down to the floor, then pressed his bare foot to the man’s neck, keeping his face below the water.
But the man wasn’t one of the general’s; the man, Zephyr realized, was Rojo.
He waited a moment longer, then lifted his foot, driving it into Rojo’s side. Pain exploded up his foot and calf. He set the foot down, wincing. He had broken a toe.
Rojo rolled over onto his side and finally drew in a long breath.
“You broke my toe,” Zephyr said.
“Sorry it wasn’t your whole foot.”
“You really think I’m the enemy?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes everyone looks like the enemy.”
“Sometimes everyone can be. But this isn’t one of those times.”
Rojo got up onto his knees, water rushing around him. “You jeopardized all our lives! This could have been an easy smash and grab. No one would have been alerted.”
“You’re right, I screwed up. But I came back. None of you would have gotten out if I hadn’t dragged the Shaman back for your sorry asses. I’m still a part of this team, whether you want me or not. And five minutes ago I bet you would’ve wanted me to be. Pretty badly. That’s two times I’ve saved you all. Just today. The fact is, you need me.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince. But I think it’ll take some mighty convincing.”
“Here’s your convincing.” Zephyr glanced back to make sure no one else was around. “Kendall planned to leave you all behind. Just me, him, and the Shaman, though I’m sure at some point he would’ve tried to out me as well. I am the only reason any of you are alive.”
Rojo leaned against the side of the cavern wall, his legs spread out before him in the water. Ripples, like tiny whitewater rapids, formed in their wake. “You wouldn’t have made it without us.”
Zephyr limped back a step, finding the pain in his foot gone. He tested his weight on it, even wriggling his toes beneath the water. His smile was dark. “Oh, you’d be surprised what I can accomplish on my own.”
Verse XL.
Dugan picked himself up off the ground, another wave of water knocking him over. The corridor felt like the inner tubing of a water slide, the constant stream of flowing water sweeping out anything in its path. They hadn’t been ready for the implosion which occurred in a blinding and unforgiving instant.
Like a liquid bolt of lightning.
Further down the tunnel, Kendall lay sprawled around a stalagmite. In his arms, a limp body lay, head barely kept above water. Only the shaved side of her head showed, her hair lost beneath the current.
Dugan ran. No thought for his own safety, or concern for Oso or Rojo. He had to know that she was okay, that he hadn’t failed.
The soot had been washed from Kendall’s face, but his expression still seemed childlike with the lack of eyebrows or eyelashes. In it, Dugan read the answer he wasn’t sure he could face.
“Sorry, Dugan,” he said, in a volume better suited for a church. Or a funeral home.
Dugan bent down, letting his knees drop into the water. Rather than snatch his daughter from Kendall, he just hovered over her. Because touching her would only confirm the truth. A gash on her cheek no longer bled, and from the look of her she should have been alive. Vibrant, even.
“She was too close. When the roof collapsed.” Kendall raised her body up out of the water and Dugan had to look away. Her legs and torso were crushed, disjointed bones folding like a crooked staircase. “She was breathing until the water …”
“Was it the Shaman?”
“I don’t think he caused the cave-in.”
“No, breaking through the rock. Opening a door for this —” Dugan kicked at the water slipping past.
Kendall nodded.
“He knew,” Dugan said. “He knew that this was the one thing — the only thing — that I would do anything for. Anything. And so he took it from me.”
Oso slogged towards them from further down the tunnel, whipping his wet hair back from his face. He sheathed his lone dagger as he approached, the only one he had remaining. His silence, for once, was appropriate.
Water continued past, unconcerned with the individuals who stood cemented in its path. Unaware of the grief to which it was exempt.
“Do you want me to carry out the body?” Kendall asked.
The body. Flesh and broken bones, with no light in which to animate its existence. As dark as the new night which reigned.
As Dugan watched Faye’s arms trail listlessly in the water, he couldn’t stop the image of raising her in the air as a baby, that contagious smile spreading of joy and innocence. Such memories were like hidden gems, buried beneath so many layers of grime and filth that they were rarely given a moment to shine. Add to the fact that there were so few of them to choose from. Faye wasn’t the only one who had suffered from Dugan’s choice to create a better world. Memories that were the privilege of every father had been ripped away from him, stolen … or rather traded. Traded for the ultimate chance to keep making memories with her. Memories that wouldn’t include laying her in the cold earth long before it was his turn to return to dust.
And yet, in the end, none of it mattered.
He wondered what he wouldn’t trade now to
go back and play it all differently.
A splash made him turn. Back from where they had come, in the direction of the raging waterfall, a frail form attempted to rise, leaning heavily against the cavern wall.
Takushkansh’kan.
Dugan was moving toward him before he even realized it. “You knew!”
Behind him, Kendall shouted something. Dugan heard the movements of someone following him, water splashing in his peripheral, but he was already committed.
“You knew!”
He crashed into the Shaman, his thin frame like tackling a six year old. They went down hard, Dugan landing atop the native’s body. He gripped the man by the arms, pulling him up.
“You took her from me!”
The Shaman looked back at him, offering no resistance. It only infuriated Dugan more. He bent his arm back to drive it into the man’s face, when Oso fell upon him. Knocked off balance, Dugan lost his grasp on the Shaman, who fell back into the water.
“Don’t you dare protect him,” Dugan said, turning on Oso, unaware that the thicker native already had his blade drawn.
Dugan moved to dodge the man’s blow, but the strike never came. Oso moved past him, looking at the cavern wall, then he brought the edge of his blade up, carving lines in the hardened earth. Letters. Words. Without a notebook, he had found a way to communicate.
The gesture had a calming effect on Dugan; Oso’s words often did. Even if they were never spoken. He read as Oso continued writing.
he can save her
Calmness quickly gave way to another rush of adrenaline.
he needs you
Dugan turned back to the Shaman, missing the last part of Oso’s message.
you need him
“You can save her,” Dugan said, a statement more than a question. All but a bony shoulder and head was submerged beneath the flowing stream, but the native only stared back at Dugan as if he didn’t understand.
“This is what you wanted, right? Me … begging? With no options except to come to you? This is the exact moment you’ve been waiting for, so tell me! What is it you want. Why do you need me?” Dugan pointed toward the wall where Oso had inscribed his text. “What will it take to bring her back?”