“And they smell,” said Begonia. She noticed Abe’s wide eyes, finally, and followed them to the man in the doorway. “Well, you do,” she said.
The man didn’t even look up as he trundled into the room and set the tray down on the bedside table.
“Smell, I mean,” Begonia said as the man started to turn away. “And he’s probably addicted to Spirit.” She pointed after him as he walked out of the room, shaking his head in shock. “And look at how dirty he is!”
4.
Begonia was smiling broadly as she limped away from Glowworm Station. Merry trailed after her and Abe turned to look at the crowded platform. They had been allowed into the tunnels beyond the platform, but he had been so worried about getting Begonia cared for when they arrived that he’d scarcely looked around. And of course there’d been no time to ask questions after Begonia woke up. It took constant vigilance on the part of Abe and Merry just to apologize for their charge.
She was scarcely able to walk, but she was eager to be gone and they were even more eager to see her go.
Abe sighed and trotted after the girls. He fell into step just as Merry said, “... I don’t care, it was exceptionally rude.”
Begonia didn’t say a word, just smiled.
Chapter Nine: Merry part
1.
“... don't even know why you're limping.”
“Oh, gettin' shot doesn't allow for limpin'?” Begonia limped along as she spoke, and the limp was actually pretty phony-looking.
“You got shot in the stomach,” said Abe, “and Merry healed you and the Lowmen healed you...”
“So I should be joggin' along?”
“I mean, if you got shot in the leg, I could see a limp, but...”
Before Begonia could respond, Merry dropped back a step between them. She had been walking in front, though apparently not very far. Having left the train behind them some time ago, it was almost completely dark in the tunnels. In fact, Abe was taunting Begonia about her limp based, not on seeing it, but on hearing her drag her foot every other step.
“Are we going the right way?” Merry asked.
“There's only one way to go,” said Begonia. “It's a tunnel.”
“Could go backwards,” said Abe. No one paid that comment much attention.
“That's the thing, though. We don't know if it's just a tunnel because we can't see anything.”
It was impossible to see Begonia shaking her head, but it was easy to imagine. “You're welcome to take a hard left whenever you like, Mer. Right into the wall.”
“I've been following the wall,” said Merry, “but how do we know there haven't been branches?”
“Walk to the right, you'll hit the rail soon enough.”
“Fine.”
Abe listened intently in the deep dark for the sound of boot hitting rail or, but all he heard was tentative footsteps. The only novelty to this new sound was that the steps were slower and there was no stagey drag on every second step.
Finally, “no tracks,” said Merry. Her voice was a little further away and sounded panicky. “No tracks, Begonia, we're going the wrong way!”
“No we're not. You prob'ly got turned around... walked left.”
“I did not!”
“There aren't any branches,” said Begonia. “It's a train tunnel straight through. It's part of the treaty.”
“I know the treaty, Begonia, but–”
“Ladies,” said Abe. “Ladies, I know I'm no expert, but mightn't we solve this situation easily enough with a light?”
“Oh, of course,” said a very sarcastic Begonia. “Let's all just use our matches to light our lanterns, so full of oil as to be practically overflowing.”
Merry was using her hand to stifle a snicker.
“Or,” said Abe, trying to sound just as caustic, “we could close our eyes and concentrate and use our magical powers to make our hands glow enough to see the train tracks.” On account of saying something so ridiculous, the sarcasm didn't quite take.
After a lengthy pause, Merry said, “You know, we can do that...?”
“Of course I know,” said Abe. “That was the whole point of the...”
“It's probably not a good idea,” said Begonia seriously. “Don't want to give ourselves away.”
“Oh,” said Abe, “heaven forbid we do anything to give ourselves away, like standing about in the dark shouting about which direction to walk and making fun of each other.”
“Much better,” said Merry.
“Woodsman's eyes are a lot better than his ears,” said Begonia.
“You mean the guy who shot you?” Clearly it was Merry's turn to try her hand at deadpan sarcasm. “The one who we left a smoldering heap of bubbling corpse hours ago? Yeah, he seemed to have really nice eyes. A deep, soulful on-fire-y color.” A second later her hand started to glow. It was faint at first, but soon it was providing enough light to reveal that she was standing against the wall to the left, and there was very definitely a set of train tracks to the right. “Whoops,” said Merry.
2.
Abe heard it first. It was a lot like how it sounded just before the attack; the heavy footfalls were again too close together to be believed, like a piston-powered sprinter, but this time stamping into gravel rather than steel.
“Turn off the light,” he said.
Merry had been lighting their way faintly for just a bit over half an hour, and there had been no sign of any branching paths during that time. There seemed to be a slight increase in the brightness of the tunnel over that period as well, which indicated that they were getting closer to the exit. Merry nevertheless kept her little light going, still embarrassed that she'd been facing the wrong way and unwilling to risk a repeat performance.
“What?” She stopped short but did not put out the light. Abe lunged forward and caught her wrist.
“Out!” The light snuffed and the dark was almost complete. Abe could still hear the pelting steps, getting faster and faster.
“What is it?” Merry asked. Abe shh-ed her and looked back over his shoulder even though it was far too dark to see anything. Or at least it was far too dark to see anything that wasn't glowing.
Far down the line, there was a shape that was distressingly easy to picture. It was outlined by embers, stoked to glowing by the speed of the figure's approach. It was clearly man-shaped, and it was approaching so fast that it occasionally flared up into actual fire. The figure was obviously much too far away for Abe to see his face, but he had no trouble imagining it – the charred wooden face completely emotionless, despite the muscles shifting in a way that would have generated a scowl of total hatred on any normal man.
“Too late,” said Begonia, very quietly.
“Run!” Abe and Merry both yelled, more or less in unison. And then they did.
3.
The Woodsman is incredibly fast. Abe, Merry, and Begonia would never have been a match for him, not on their best days. The three of them would have been quick to concede that any day which involved being chased through a train tunnel by the Woodsman was not anyone's best day.
They had a head start, though. And they were closer to the end of the tunnel than they knew. Why any of them thought that the end of the tunnel promised safety, however, is unclear. Abe had never encountered anything like the Woodsman before, so he had no idea if it was a cave creature that might shy away from the weak light of Underton proper or not. He did notice that Begonia and Merry were running just as hard for the patch of light that meant the end of the tunnel, though, and hoped they knew something he didn't.
It's possible that all they need to do is reach the end, he thought, and this monster will be stuck inside, gnashing his teeth and snarling like a vampire, unable to give chase. It was probably a futile hope, but it didn't matter anyway.
Abe had longer legs, so he was ahead. It was a dreadfully unchivalrous place to be. The stomping had gotten louder and closer, and then it had stopped. Just like before. Abe remembered last time, and he reme
mbered that the abrupt halt to the steps had been the precursor to...
He turned, panicked, and shouted, “Merry!” and he saw the Woodsman in mid-air. He was flying like a cannonball, hurtling impossibly through the air almost horizontally, nearly skimming the ceiling of the tunnel. Abe would later swear that the Woodsman reached up and grabbed the smooth rock of the ceiling of the tunnel and that the collapse began at that moment. It would prove to be a hair-splitting matter, because a moment later the Woodsman landed between Merry and Begonia and everything exploded.
Abe was thrown backwards as if being pulled on a rope, dirt and rocks digging into his face and hands as he tumbled through the air. He landed painfully on the track, crying out as he hit the rail hard on his side. He lay for a moment gasping for air, the pain from his side making tears flow freely down his cheek. He congratulated himself silently for failing to panic, noting rather calmly that his friend who had broken his ribs at school and called it 'horrible pain' had undersold it.
When he managed to roll over onto his side, it was impossible to see anything. The dim light of Underton proper was nearly blinding compared to the darkness of the tunnel, but the explosion and collapse had filled the air with fine rock particles. Some of them were from the rock surface of Underton, and so they glowed faintly as they wafted. The light from these tiny particles of rock reflected off the cave dust and other debris and created a sort of glowing fog that roiled out from what had been the mouth of the tunnel. It was impenetrable to Abe's eyes and it was beautiful.
Like a lot of beautiful things Abe had encountered in his life, it was not doing him much good besides aesthetics. In point of fact, the only beautiful thing that he'd ever come across (at least that came to mind right now) that had ever done him any real good was currently hidden from view by a glowing dust—fog as well as untold tons of rubble. Merry had saved his life shortly after she met him, almost as soon as they were introduced, and even after it had been his gun that wounded Begonia she'd seemed to like him all right.
He'd been prepared for another bright, unpleasant girl who was frittering away her parents money and patience for no real purpose, and perhaps it was because of his low expectations that he found her so charming. Resourceful, sharp, kind, willing to put up with a great lost idiot who hadn't even been down in Underton long enough to do a bit of magic. Abe felt tremendously guilty for not having thanked her and for having run ahead of them. If he'd just kept pace he might have been able to save her. And Begonia.
But maybe it wasn't too late. The dust was settling and through the glowing miasma Abe could see the tunnel, or where the tunnel opening used to be, and the cave-in appeared to be incomplete. He drew in a deep breath and instantly regretted it as his injured ribs protested. Nothing to do but ignore it, though, if he wanted to live with himself. He pushed himself to his knees and took a moment to recover from the truly shocking amount of pain in his shoulder and chest. It seemed completely intolerable, and yet he made himself climb to his feet. A week from now he knew that his ribs and whatnot would be well on their way to mending, but if he didn't try to help, even if it was futile, it would take a great deal longer than a week to get over the shame of it.
“Girls don't generally enjoy calls from gentlemen who left them to die in collapsed magical tunnels,” he actually said out loud. It hurt to speak.
As soon as Abe stepped onto the rubble around the cave entrance, there was a shudder and an audible shift of rock. He stepped off the rocks immediately, but the shudder continued. If anything, it got worse. Abe backed away a step, watching the rubble warily as it began to visibly shake. He decided another step might be wise, given the probability that the movement was someone he rather hoped it wasn't. True, two out of three seem to be good odds, but considering that Begonia is a little girl and Merry a slightly-less-little girl, Abe had to admit that probability suggested the likelihood that the apparently-unkillable wooden monster was the thing pushing up from the rubble.
The hand that emerged from the rocks a moment later was definitely feminine, though. Abe rushed forward and began casting rocks aside, and within moments he could see that it was Begonia, coughing and dusty, trying to get free. There must have been some sort of opening underneath, because it only took a few rocks and one minor avalanche before she was able to climb up on top of the rubble, with more than a little assistance from Abe.
“You look all right,” said Abe. She didn't, which is why he said it. Begonia was covered in dirt from head to toe, here and there glittering as specks of the glowing rock clung to her amidst the normal dust and debris. Her skin was completely obscured, and the only places where Abe could see anything other than grime was her eyes and the spots where blood had seeped through the dirt. Still, she managed a weak smile as he hauled her to her feet.
“Shut up,” she said, but there wasn't any fire to it. Abe found himself in the odd position of wishing he were being told to shut up more angrily. She tried to maintain her smile, but lost it in a fit of coughing that doubled her over. She kept coughing, hands on her knees, distinctly reddish spit flying from her mouth, and Abe put a hand on her shoulder to ease her to her knees.
She seemed to have no plans to stop coughing any time soon, but eventually Abe had to ask, “did you see Merry?”
Maybe it was just because she was still coughing that Begonia took that extra second to look toward Abe before she responded. In that second she must have recognized something in his face because she said, “Oh, Abe, I'm sorry,” with more tenderness than Abe had ever seen from her.
Abe could get away with tears because his eyes were already watering from the pain. Still, he was surprised at how much it hurt. “She...?”
“Crushed by a boulder,” said Begonia.
Chapter Ten: Farewell Underton
1.
The rubble beneath them gave way abruptly, but either Abe's instincts were dulled by shock or he was, in light of recent events, unwilling to save himself at the expense of a friend. Either way, he held on to Begonia's hand as she started to fall, and kept his grip when she lost her footing.
“Ahh!” She cried out, and it seemed late to Abe until he saw the hand that had grabbed her from within the dark of the rocks. It was blackened and smoldering.
“Begonia!” Abe reached his other hand down to take her wrist, leaning back to try and haul her up and away from the Woodsman. He ignored the pain in his side and pulled, feeling as if he was getting nowhere.
Suddenly, the resistance vanished and Abe nearly stumbled back, keeping a hold of Begonia’s arm and lifting her with relative ease. Too much ease, actually. Begonia was springing up from the rubble as if she was being… she was being pushed, the Woodsman was jumping up and pushing Begonia ahead of him.
Abe fell onto his back and slid down the pile of rubble, losing his grip as Begonia was carried over him, screaming. Abe scrambled around to find the Woodsman and saw him standing on the tracks, holding Begonia up by her ankle, dangling helplessly. The Woodsman was blackened all over, his suit more or less totally burned away above his waist to reveal a torso that was unmistakably pale wood, probably poplar or sugar pine. It was scorched badly in places, but mostly he had been protected by the suit that had burned away, the worst of the damage having been done to his face and hands. These were coal black and, like dying embers, had a grey coating of ash in places and the occasional flash of orange and blue heat. There was an acrid smoke rising from Begonia’s ankle where her flesh met that smoldering hand.
The Woodsman looked impassively at Abe for a long moment and then, without breaking eye contact, raised his free hand and spread his blackened fingers. Between them was a sort of webbing that Abe realized was the molten remains of his gun, stretching and dripping hotly down his arm. The Woodsman seemed completely undeterred by the pain of the molten metal running down his arm, and Abe wondered how he could have mistaken this monster for a person for even a second.
The Woodsman forced his lips apart in a rictus impression of a smile then, and
he looked right at Abe as he raised his dripping hand. Begonia squirmed weakly in his grasp, and the tips of her hair were brushing the ground. She tried to say, “put me down,” but managed something closer to “…me dow…” Then the Woodsman pushed his fingers together to form a sort-of point. He blew on them as if to cool them and then turned Begonia slowly to face Abe and shoved his jagged metal-coated hand through her savagely.
“No!” Screamed Abe and Begonia in unison, though Begonia’s voice cut off in an awful gurgle. The Woodsman released her ankle and raised his other arm and Begonia slid down, moving less and less as she did. He kept his yellow-brown, piney eyes glued to Abe the whole time, a sort of cold menace in his glare by association more than anything. Begonia hung limp, her face pale beneath the dirt and her limbs hanging down lifelessly. The arm rammed through her torso in a way that it was difficult to imagine wasn’t fatal.
Abe should probably have run, but he was actually glaring right back at the Woodsman. Tears had stopped flowing from his eyes for a bit, but they were back full force, and he reached down to his pocket only to recall that his revolver had been lost some time ago, was, in fact, mostly melted over the Woodsman hand underneath the gore of his friend.
There was a much smaller lump, and he found that this was his pen knife, or rather the knife he thought of as his pen knife. It was a pocket knife with a variety of fold-out tools, each basically useless. Abe had managed to cut string as well as trim his nails a time or two with the blade, though, and it was better than nothing. He stared daggers at the Woodsman as he flipped out the exactly-as-threatening-as-metaphorical-daggers dagger from the pocket knife. He couldn’t walk very fast, not even with all the rage he felt pushing him through the pain, but he didn’t think he was likely to have to chase the Woodsman.
To confirm this suspicion, the Woodsman beckoned Abe with his only remaining hand. As he did he raised his other arm high above his head and Begonia’s body slid down, squelching horribly as it did. The end of the spike his fingers had formed jutted out of her body, black from char and red from blood and slick with fluids that Abe did not want to think about. A look of mild disgust crossed the Woodsman’s face and he flung his arm out, throwing the body a dozen yards away where it landed in a lifeless heap. The Woodsman shook his arm as if he didn’t want to have touched the corpse, and he splashed blood and ash across Abe as he closed the distance between them.
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