Blood and Tempest

by Jon Skovron

  “That doesn’t sound very scary,” said Uter.

  “They probably wouldn’t be, except that the biomancers decided to make them bigger. So instead of being only a few inches long and weighing only an ounce, they’re about seven feet long and weigh over two hundred pounds. Supposedly, their jaws are strong enough to bite off a person’s hand in one snap.”

  “We’d get you another metal one,” he said reassuringly.

  “I think I’d like to keep the regular one.”

  “Why?” He looked confused. “I love your metal hand!”

  “But then you’d have to do all the sailing for me,” she told him. “And the cooking. And cleaning.”

  He made a face. “You can keep your regular hand, then.”

  “Thanks,” she said dryly. “Let’s try to stay quiet now and give the tunnels a wide berth. Supposedly, mole rats don’t come aboveground very often, especially during the day. With any luck, we can find Alash and be on our way without seeing one.”

  “That doesn’t sound very lucky to me,” grumbled Uter.

  They made their way carefully across the crumbling landscape toward the center of the island. After they’d been walking for a while, Hope spotted a wooden-frame tower in the distance about twenty feet high. There was a platform at the top that was sheltered by a perforated canvas roof. She could see movement on the platform, but it was too far away to make out any details.

  “I want to get a closer look at that tower,” she said quietly.

  She was surprised to find that even the potential of seeing Alash had quickened her pulse. She’d missed him more than she realized. She wished she could walk faster, but the ground grew increasingly more broken and treacherous the closer they got to the tower.

  As they drew near, she could tell that the movement was coming from a person, most likely male, but the canvas roof made it difficult to see more detail, so she still couldn’t be certain it was him.

  “Do you know that person?” Uter said loudly, forgetting that he was supposed to talk quietly.

  The person’s head turned toward the sound of Uter’s voice, then moved to the closest edge of the platform and looked out across the broken ground below.

  “Captain? Is that you?” came Alash’s clear, ringing voice.

  “Alash!” Now that she knew it was her friend, she hurried toward him across the broken terrain, with Uter eagerly keeping apace.

  “Wait!” he yelled. “You must—”

  The rest of the sentence was lost in a thunderous crack as the ground gave way beneath her. The dirt slid under her feet as if someone had unstoppered a drain. Hope had just enough time to pull Uter close before they were both sucked under.

  For a single terrifying moment they were completely covered in dirt. No light. No air. But they continued to slide downward with the streaming dirt, and it abruptly opened up beneath them. They dropped into an unlit tunnel or small cavern of some kind, and landed hard on a pile of dirt. More dirt continued to pour down on them, hard enough that it would bury them in seconds. Still holding Uter to her chest, Hope rolled to the side. It got them out from under the waterfall of dirt, but in the absolute darkness, she hadn’t realized that the tunnel continued from there at a sharp drop. They rolled down so fast, it was almost free fall until the tunnel abruptly leveled off and they landed on hard-packed soil.

  They lay there in complete blackness, Uter clinging to her robes as he sobbed.

  “We’re okay,” she said, trying to sound more convinced than she felt.

  “I d-don’t … want t-to … get … b-buried!” he choked between sobs as he squeezed his little hands hard on her upper arm.

  Hope had never known him to be frightened like this. She wondered if being buried alive had been some part of the wighting ritual. She wished she had the time to ask him more, but it would have to wait. Right now, she needed to make certain they were safe.

  “Uter, I promise we’ll get out of here. But since we can’t see anything, I need to use my ears to figure out where we are. And to do that, I need you to be as quiet as you can. Keen?”

  “I-I’ll … t-try …” It took him a few moments, but he was finally able to quiet his sobs. “Sorry,” he said in a shaky voice.

  She touched his dirt-caked hair. “You’re doing great. Now, let’s figure out where we are and how to get out of here.”

  She closed her eyes. There really wasn’t any point in doing that since there was no light, but she didn’t like the feeling of staring glassy-eyed into the darkness. At first, all she could hear was the sound of falling dirt farther back up the tunnel from where they’d fallen through. But finally that stopped. The receding echoes suggested that the portion of the tunnel they were in now continued quite a while at this level. The entire area had to be riddled with tunnels, if the surface was that unstable.

  Perhaps the falling dirt had piled up high enough where they’d fallen through that they could climb it back up to the surface. If so, all they needed to do was get back up there.

  “Okay, Uter. Let’s get on our feet. Slowly, though. I’m pretty sure the space we’re in is high enough for us to stand up, but just to be safe, keep your hand out to protect your head.”

  They were able to stand up without banging their heads. Hope felt around for the drop in the tunnel they’d fallen down, and soon she found it. But it was so steep that it was nearly vertical, and the dirt was so loose, it would be slippery going without some kind of anchor. They wouldn’t be able to simply crawl on their hands and knees up the side to where they’d fallen through.

  “What do we do now?” asked Uter, his voice still shaky.

  “Quiet.” She could hear something farther down the tunnel. A scratching sound. The sort of sound a mole rat might make while digging.

  “What is it?” asked Uter, his voice getting louder.

  Then the scratching suddenly stopped, and Hope heard the faint sound of clawed feet scurrying away. Perhaps Uter’s voice had scared it off. Or sent it to gather reinforcements. That would of course be the worst-case scenario. There was no need to tell the boy about it yet.

  “Uter,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Do you have anything sharp in your pocket?”

  “You said I’m not supposed to keep stealing—”

  “I know what I said. And it’s true, you shouldn’t keep stealing sharp objects. But if you had stolen one at some point and had it with you now, just this once, I wouldn’t be mad.”

  “Well, Hope. You see, there’s that knife you use to clean the fish we catch?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “And it just looked so pretty, with the little ridges and everything, so—”

  “You have it with you right now?”

  “Yeah …”

  He sounded so guilty, and that was good. He really needed to stop stealing sharp objects. But right at that moment, Hope had to stop herself from crying out with relief.

  “Give it to me,” she said instead.

  “What for?”

  “I’m going to use it to carve some hand- and footholds up the side of this tunnel so we can climb out of here.”

  The small serrated knife was not an ideal tool for digging handholds in soil. That, and working solely by touch, made for slow progress. The progress slowed even further once they had gone beyond what either of them could reach while standing on level ground. After some fumbling in the darkness, they managed to get Uter on Hope’s shoulders, which gave them a few more feet. But then they reached the point where the only way they could progress was to dig while climbing.

  “Let’s take a short break before we start climbing,” said Hope as she helped Uter off her shoulders.

  “Sure,” said Uter, sounding as tired as she felt.

  The two of them dropped to the dirt and rested. Hope’s eyes still couldn’t pick up anything. There weren’t even trace amounts of light this far down. That meant she had to rely even more on her other senses. Her sense of smell was dominated by the close reek of sweat and surroun
ded by the heavy scent of earth. Touch only found the thin, quivering boy next to her and the endless grainy dirt. Sound was only her and Uter’s breath. Until …

  “Do you hear something?” Uter’s voice sounded even higher than usual.

  The last time she’d heard the scrabble of clawed feet farther down the tunnel, it had clearly been only one animal. But now she could hear several sets, and they were getting closer.

  Hope stood up, pulling Uter with her. She carefully placed the knife in his hand. “Get on my shoulders, then climb onto the highest handholds we’ve made.”

  “O-okay.”

  “Once you get there, you need to continue carving out hand- and footholds just like we’ve been doing, except you need to keep climbing up on your own as you do it.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Uter.

  “Try not to get my other hand bitten off,” she said grimly.

  Once she’d gotten Uter digging and climbing, she stood in the darkness and waited. Behind her, she could hear the boy working at the soil with the knife as he made his way slowly up the tunnel. In front of her, she heard mole rats scrambling toward her with surprising speed.

  Vinchen trained in blindfolded combat, of course. But they did so with the idea of killing their assailants as quickly as possible, and that was not something she wished to do. She wasn’t certain that her vow not to kill extended to animals in every circumstance, but in this particular instance, she knew that, intentionally or not, she was the offending party here. They were merely defending their territory. Hopefully she could buy Uter enough time to finish their escape route without resorting to killing these creatures.

  As she heard them draw near, she tried to tease out the sounds so that she could differentiate them from each other. But they were coming in such a mad rush, and the sounds were so unfamiliar to her, she couldn’t even be certain how many there were. Three? Perhaps four? Or even more?

  “Hope! Something is coming down!” shouted Uter above her.

  Dread shot into the pit of her stomach. Was another group of mole rats coming from the upper end of the tunnel to trap them?

  “Can you see anything?” she shouted to Uter.

  “No!” His voice was ragged with the panic that had been just below the surface since they’d been underground. “I just hear digging!”

  If it was more mole rats, he should move away from the digging. But to where? Certainly not down with her, because the mole rats were nearly upon her.

  “Just … stay where you are!” she told him.

  Then the mole rats launched themselves at her so fast, she felt the wind of their approach. She instinctively held up her clamp to block, and heard the screech of breaking metal.

  Sparks flared up to show a pale rodent face with wrinkled skin and beady little black eyes. Its teeth, roughly a foot long each, were in the process of biting off the metal clamp of her prosthesis.

  This was her window. In this compressed second of time while the spark was still live, she could see everything around her. Five mole rats were clambering over one another to get to her. The two on the bottom were reaching for her ankles. The two on the sides were trying to circle around her, using their long claws to climb the sides of the tunnel. The one directly in front of her currently had its teeth halfway through her clamp.

  It was still difficult to move in this space of compressed time, but the months of training had made it feel less like moving through mud, and more like moving through water. There was still resistance, but significantly less.

  The teeth on her clamp had already bitten halfway through. There was no way to salvage it. Instead, she moved her free arm so that her fist was aimed toward its lower jaw.

  She pivoted her trapped arm slightly to change its trajectory when it came free of the mole rat’s bite.

  Sweat beaded on her brow. She was already feeling the strain of compressing time. Her muscles throbbed with effort at even the simplest movement.

  She bent her knees, lifted both feet, and aimed her heels at an angle down and forward. With the air resisting like water, she wouldn’t be able to stay up long, but it would be enough.

  Every muscle in her body shook with effort as she angled the top of her head so that it tilted to the left.

  That was as long as she could hold it. Time snapped back into place.

  Her fist connected with the front mole rat’s jaw, forcing it to close its mouth on the shrapnel of her prosthesis. As her other arm ripped free, the jagged, ruined remainder of the prosthesis slashed across the face of the mole rat to her right. Her heels slammed down hard on the heads of the mole rats on the bottom, launching her so that her head rammed into the windpipe of the mole rat on her left.

  Then the spark of light was gone and there was total darkness again.

  Hope could hear the mole rats squealing with pain and surprise, but it didn’t take long for them to recover. She heard them shift and move as they grouped back together and prepared for a second assault. She steeled herself for another time compression, knowing that this one would be in the dark, and that there would be more luck than skill in it.

  “Something’s breaking through up here!” Uter screamed above her.

  The ceiling split apart and a shaft of sunlight spilled down into the tunnel. Hope had to shield her eyes against the brightness, but the effect on the mole rats was even more intense. They let out piercing squeals and shifted backward as a group until they were out of direct light.

  “I say, fronzies! Look out below!” Alash called down. Then a rope ladder dropped down into the hole.

  “Uter, climb up that ladder now!” Hope yelled.

  “But who—”

  “Do it!”

  Uter scampered up the ladder and Hope followed behind. It was awkward trying to climb the rope ladder with one hand, especially when the end of her prosthesis was a mess of ragged steel potentially capable of severing one of the ropes. It became even more difficult as she neared the blinding sunlight above her. By the time she reached the top, she had to close her eyes entirely.

  A strong hand grabbed her arm and hauled her up onto some sort of flat wooden plank.

  “Are you injured, Miss Hope?” asked Alash.

  She sat there for a moment, catching her breath. Then she slowly opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the bright afternoon sun until she could examine her surroundings. She sat on a wooden platform with a large square hole in the center. The platform lay on the ground with the square over the opening Alash had dug down to rescue them.

  Alash knelt next to her, looking at her with concern. Oddly, the first thought that entered her mind was how good he looked. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and beneath the beginnings of a beard, his skin was dark from the sun. Instead of his habitual lacy jacket and cravat, he wore a simple linen shirt open at the throat. He also had a lot more muscle tone than she remembered. But he still had that same sweet, earnest look on his face.

  “Miss Hope?”

  She smiled tiredly. “I’m fine. Well, except for this.” She showed him the mangled remains of her clamp.

  He frowned as he examined it. “Drown it all, but they do have impressive jaw strength, don’t they?” Then he returned her smile. “Still, nothing we can’t fix, right?”

  “That’s why we’re here, actually,” said Hope.

  “Oh?”

  “We’ll talk about it more later. Uter, are you okay?”

  The boy sat crouched on the edge of the platform, looking uncharacteristically meek and wary. Their brief time in the mole rat tunnels had really rattled him.

  She inched over to him. “It’s okay now. This is my friend Alash. He’s your friend, too.”

  “A friend?” he asked cautiously, looking up at Alash. “Are you sure?”

  After such exuberant attempts to make friends in the past, she was surprised to see him so reluctant now.

  “Of course I’m sure,” she said gently, brushing some of the dirt from his white mop of hair. “He
just saved our lives, didn’t he?”

  His expression softened a little. “That’s true …”

  “I tell you what,” said Alash. “Uter, is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t we head back to shelter, where it’s much safer. And after a little while, you can let me know if you want to be friends or not. Sound good?”

  “Okay,” said Uter.

  “Wonderful.” Alash turned to Hope. “I’m afraid I only have one pair of shoes, so the two of you will have to ride on the platform.”

  “What do you mean, shoes?” asked Hope.

  “Oh, these.” Alash sat down on the edge of the wooden platform. He held up two much smaller, thinner pieces of wood with thick hemp ropes on them. “You see, the largest mole rat colony on the island is directly beneath us, and it’s so riddled with tunnels that the surface is extremely fragile.” He began to tie the thin wood planks to the bottoms of his feet. “In order to reduce the risk of cave-ins like the one you and Uter just experienced, I use these to distribute my weight across the widest area possible.”

  “That’s what this platform is for as well?” Hope patted the wood beneath her.

  “Exactly. This is how I’ve been able to study the mole rats so closely without getting dismembered or buried alive.”

  “How do you move it around?” she asked. “I know this wasn’t here earlier.”

  “Oh, moving it is actually quite simple.” He stepped onto the bare ground with his wide wooden shoes. Then he bent over and picked two thick loops of rope that were attached to the platform and slipped his arms through them. Once they were positioned on his shoulders, he turned back to her. “My apologies. I’m afraid it won’t be a particularly smooth ride.”

  Then he began to haul the platform across the broken ground with Uter and Hope still on it.

  “Wow, he’s strong,” Uter said as he moved closer to Hope.

  “Yes,” said Hope. “Alash, when did you get so … strapping?”

  Alash gave a nervous laugh. “Well, I’ve been out here on my own for quite a while, hauling this thing around. It’s often loaded down with gear, so I suppose it just happened gradually.”