“Who are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.
“I am Ashok,” he said patiently. “I’ve come to take you back to Ikemmu, but we have to move quickly or we’ll be trapped here. I know you don’t want to be touched, but I need to know if you can walk. Will you try?”
She considered him in wary silence, but then she put her hand against the ground and pushed herself to a sitting position. With her other hand she held the cloak around her like a shield.
The crows cawed again in warning, and the other door to the chamber opened.
With his heart in his throat, Ashok looked up to see a single guard enter the room. He shut the door behind him and didn’t immediately appear to notice Ashok. He was too busy watching the animals running free in the room.
“What’s this?” he shouted. “Godsdamnit, Fridl, I told you to check the cages!”
He came into the room, swatting aside the crows and ravens circling the air. Ashok moved to the cage door so he wouldn’t get himself trapped, and the guard noticed him at last. His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Ashok’s eyes took in the guard’s clothes, stained with blood that was obviously not his own, and the locks of red hair tied with leather cord hanging from his belt. He looked at Ilvani, at her uneven, blood-stained hair, and a snarl ripped from his throat.
Ilvani shrank back against the bars of the cage. A wail rose in her throat, like an animal trying to claw free. She raised her hands in front of her face and began beating her head against the cage bars. The blunt sounds shivered through Ashok’s body.
“Ilvani, stop!” he cried, but she kept on, until she slid down the bars, unconscious. A trickle of fresh blood filled her hairline and ran down her forehead.
The guard saw it all, but his gaze stayed riveted to Ashok’s face. Unmasked, Ashok saw the recognition in his eyes. The guard knew him, and Ashok recognized the man in turn.
Reltnar was his name. He had close-cropped black hair and a fresh scar across the bridge of his nose. Ashok remembered he and Reltnar had prowled the Shadowfell together in their youth, when both were still learning how to fight for their place in the enclave. Not brothers, not blood, but companions at least.
“Ashok,” Reltnar said. His voice gushed out in a relieved sigh. “I thought I’d seen a ghost, but … I thought you were dead. We all thought—”
“What’s going on here?” Ashok said, cutting Reltnar off. His gaze lingered on the blood and scraps of hair Reltnar wore. “Explain this.”
“That’s right, you weren’t here,” Reltnar said. “We took these after you left to hunt the hounds. They put up a fight, and we had to kill half their group outright. We brought the rest back here to question them, but they wouldn’t say where they were from or what they wanted.”
“Ikemmu,” Ashok said quietly.
“What?”
“They’re from the city of Ikemmu,” Ashok said. “It lies to the south. Did my father order this?” he asked.
Reltnar pursed his lips. “Your father was killed in the battle,” he said. “One of your brothers too, but the rest are still here.”
Ashok braced himself for the shock, but it didn’t come. He felt nothing at the revelations. “Who ordered this?” he said.
Reltnar looked confused. “No one ordered it,” he said. “After they wouldn’t talk, we were just going to kill them, then a few of us”—his forehead scrunched up as if he were trying to remember—“we decided … we were getting restless, and the fighting, it wasn’t helping anymore, so we came down here to fight the prisoners, only they were too weak. That’s how it started.”
Of a sudden, Ashok found himself remembering the wine he’d tasted that night in the Hevalor tavern.
It’s not like wielding a blade or taking pain from a dagger cut, but it’s similar enough …
“Listen, Ashok,” Reltnar said, sounding anxious. “I came down here because …” He nodded at Ilvani’s unconscious form.
Ashok’s brought his chain up diagonally across his chest. “No,” he said. “That’s all over now.”
“W—What?” Reltnar said, as if Ashok were jesting. “If you want a bit for yourself, I don’t mind sharing.”
He took a step forward, and Ashok sent one end of the chain flying. It clipped Reltnar on the ear and took off a chunk of flesh.
“Godsdamn you!” Reltnar said as he stumbled back and touched his bleeding ear. “What are you doing?”
“You want pleasure?” Ashok said. “Is that what this is to you? Did it make you feel alive, climbing into that cell with them weak and chained to the walls? You’re a coward, Reltnar. You didn’t stand on the edge between life and death, risking your own destruction at your enemy’s hands. Look at them, Reltnar. You took their souls, and now you’re feasting on the bones.”
Reltnar’s gaze hardened. “I don’t care,” he said, slapping his chest. “All the battles in the world won’t do any good! You see this?”—he flicked his maimed ear, spraying blood.—“I feel nothing.” He came forward again.
“By the gods, Reltnar, I swear I won’t give you another warning,” Ashok said. “You may not feel the pain, but you can bleed, and you can die.”
Reltnar’s face crumpled. He held up his hands in supplication. “Why are you doing this? I told you I’d share, but don’t take her away. I need this, Ashok. You don’t know what it’s been like. I stand guard in the caves and stare at dark walls. There’s no sound but the godsdamn wind, and I can feel everything seeping out of me, a little every day. The only time it doesn’t is when I’m with her.”
“Not anymore,” Ashok said. “We’re leaving, Reltnar. The enclave is finished.”
“Says you?” Reltnar said, barking an ugly laugh. “Did you think I was the only one using them? You already killed the other one. You’re a walking corpse if you try to take her out of here by yourself.”
“I didn’t come alone,” Ashok said.
The others were waiting for him. It was time to finish things.
No more hesitation. Not here.
“Stand aside!” Reltnar cried.
“No,” Ashok said.
He watched the rage take over Reltnar’s face. Ashok’s former companion came at him stumbling in his fury and desperate need. Ashok dodged to one side, leaving the shadar-kai a path to the cage door. Reltnar went for it as soon as he saw the opening, like an animal chasing a piece of meat into a trap.
As he passed by, Ashok calmly pivoted and slipped his chain over Reltnar’s head. The metal noose stopped Reltnar’s forward movement, and his momentum drove the spikes into his neck.
Warm lifeblood spilled down Reltnar’s chest, but he barely reacted, except to stiffen and raise his hands to grip the chain. A reflex, nothing more. Reltnar’s fading attention was fixed upon Ilvani’s unconscious form.
Ashok let Reltnar’s body slide to the floor and wiped the blood off his chain with the shadar-kai’s cloak. Listening, he heard faint shouts coming from the tunnels.
They’d discovered the dead guard, Ashok thought. Or worse, they’d found the others and were already cutting off their escape.
Ashok put his chain on his belt. He paused before the dead man at the back of the cage, but in the end he left his dagger protruding from the man’s chest. He’d chosen his death, and Ashok would not violate his flesh any further.
Wrapping his cloak tightly around Ilvani’s shoulders, Ashok picked up her unconscious body and made for the stairs.
The door opened before he got there, but Ashok saw it was Cree. He breathed a sigh of relief. The warrior’s left arm was covered in blood, but from no wound of his own.
“You found them?” Cree said. He sounded out of breath.
“Ilvani is the only one still alive,” Ashok said. “The others are …”
Cree put a hand on his shoulder. “Skagi told us,” he said grimly. “We met up with him in the tunnel.”
They ran as they talked, backtracking to the intersection where they’d all spl
it up. Vedoran, Skagi, and Chanoch were waiting for them. Chanoch had a small wound at the corner of his mouth, but otherwise they were unmarked. Shouts echoed from all directions, but the cries were disorganized, and Ashok heard the metal clash of weapons, and the screams of wounded.
“You found them?” Vedoran said.
“Only Ilvani,” Ashok said. “But Natan will be relieved.”
“If we make it out of here,” Vedoran said as he beckoned them all to keep moving up the passage.
Ashok, still holding Ilvani, ran up beside Vedoran. “What happened?” he said. “Did they raise the alarm?”
Vedoran shook his head. “We encountered a group in the tunnels, heavily armed,” he said. “We thought they were a patrol, but then they were set upon by another, larger force. They decimated each other, and when they saw us—”
“We joined the fray,” Chanoch said, his voice trembling with excitement. “We took them all.”
“They’re fighting each other,” Vedoran said. “As near as we can tell, instead of realizing they’d been invaded, they thought they were betrayed from within.”
Skagi hooted with laughter as they ran back through the tunnels the way they’d come. “Ikemmu!” he cried. “Tempus!”
A few more steps and they would be at the long tunnel and beyond that, freedom. They fell into close formation as the passage widened.
Ashok felt a stirring in his arms.
“Stop!” Ilvani cried. Suddenly awake and alert, she was struggling to free herself from his grip.
“It’s all right,” Ashok said. He set her down on her feet and grabbed her elbow when she swayed. “You’re safe now.”
She was smaller than Ashok had realized, just over five feet tall. And with her skeletal thinness, she was barely visible in the folds of his cloak.
“I need my satchel,” Ilvani declared. “He has it.”
“Who does?” Cree asked.
Ilvani didn’t reply. Her eyes went vacant. Ashok could imagine her going back to that slaughter chamber in her mind, to Reltnar, and the locks of her hair he’d kept. It wasn’t a thing anyone should have to remember. Ashok had a feeling he would be trying to banish it from his own mind for a long time.
“The guard who was watching the prisoners,” Ashok said. “He must have had it. I left his corpse back in the room.” He touched Ilvani’s shoulder, drawing her back from the dark places in her mind. “Is it important?” he asked.
“It holds the winds,” Ilvani told him soberly. “All the voices—they broke some of them, but not all …” Her voice failed. “Not all,” she whispered.
Ashok was torn. The voices—the real voices—in the tunnels were growing louder. Scattered as they were, it was only a matter of time before the enclave pulled itself together enough to realize what had happened. All it would take was one look at the dead guard and the open cage door.
Ashok looked at Vedoran. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” he said. “She’s been through too much; it’s hurt her mind.”
“No it hasn’t,” Cree said. “She sounds almost normal.”
“What?” Ashok said.
“She was like this before,” Skagi said. “Weren’t you, mad witch?”
But Ilvani wasn’t paying attention. She got down on her knees and pressed her ear against the cavern floor. “We can go now,” she said. “They won’t know.”
“We’re not going back,” Vedoran said. “With those intersections, we’ll be hemmed in from all sides. You’ll have to let it go, Ilvani.”
Ilvani stood up slowly. She turned to stare at Vedoran, her empty gaze uncomprehending. Ashok felt the look like a knife twist in his gut. Vedoran didn’t blink.
“Come on,” Chanoch said, weaving his bloodstained blade in the air. “We can take whatever they have. Let’s get the witch’s satchel.”
Vedoran caught Chanoch’s wrist, stopping the display of waving steel in midair. “You heard me,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “We’re leaving.”
“Damn you,” Chanoch said, wrenching his arm from Vedoran’s grip. “Go on, then, you Blite coward. I’ll do it myself.”
For a breath it stunned them all. Ashok recovered first and cried, “Chanoch, no!” He lunged for the young one’s arm, but his hand passed through empty air as Chanoch teleported down the tunnel. By the time he reappeared, he was half out of sight around a bend in the tunnel.
Skagi cursed. “Now it’s done, and we have to go,” he said. “Ready, brother?”
Cree saluted with his blade. “Always,” he replied.
Ashok noticed neither of them looked too disappointed. “Vedoran?” he said, looking to their leader, who stood frozen, his expression unreadable. “Vedoran?”
A muscle in Vedoran’s jaw worked. He looked at Ashok. “Yes, let’s go,” he said.
They ran down the tunnel, Ashok behind Ilvani, all of them plunging back into the heart of the chaotic enclave. Ashok felt a swell of dread in his stomach. He pulled his mask up around his face and took up his chain.
At the first intersection they collided with a pair of shadar-kai, man and woman, who’d been running just as hard from another direction. When they saw the group, they skidded to a stop and stared for just a breath. That breath cost them their lives.
Vedoran came at them both, and with one stroke took off the man’s arm at the elbow. The man shrieked as his mace and appendage hit the floor. Ashok saw him try to concentrate, to teleport to safety, but Vedoran came in hard, hacking at him relentlessly. Animal fury consumed his face, making Ashok shiver. He knew at whom that rage was directed.
Skagi and Cree dispatched the other guard before Vedoran was finished. Vedoran wiped blood from his eyes and mouth and motioned them on.
They hit the next intersection and heard running footsteps coming from the opposite direction. Cree trotted forward, setting his blades against the charge, but then Chanoch came into view in the dim torchlight. He was blood-spattered and vicious-looking with his blade leading the way. Wild glee shone in his eyes. He held up a dark green velvet bag tied with a black leather cord.
“Yours?” he said to Ilvani proudly.
The witch came forward and took the burden from his hands. She handled the bag as if she were cuddling a newborn, pressing the stained cloth against her cheek.
“I hear you,” she said. “All the little ones.” She looked up at Chanoch. “My thanks.”
“We have to move,” Ashok said.
“Go,” Vedoran said. “Ashok, stay by Ilvani; the brothers will back you up. Chanoch and I will lead the way.”
Chanoch moved to the front to join Vedoran. He didn’t look at his leader.
They ran back through the tunnels the way they’d come, but Ashok could tell immediately that something was different. The voices had quieted. There was no longer the sound of reckless shouts and the screams of dying shadar-kai.
“They’re mustering,” Ashok said. He pointed to where the passage widened into the long tunnel. “Once we get to the last stretch, they’ll have gathered. We’re too late.”
Vedoran kept on running, his gaze fixed on the distance ahead. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “Kill as you run.”
“Kill as you run,” Skagi agreed, and Cree and Chanoch’s wild shouts echoed in the tunnel.
Ashok looked down at Ilvani, who ran unsteadily beside him. Her long confinement had taken all her strength. Ashok gripped her elbow when she stumbled, but she pulled away as soon as she’d righted herself.
“Don’t,” she said. Short and sharp. Ashok nodded.
The group hit the tunnel at a dead run, and there they were. Warriors had gathered to cut them off from the entrance. Ashok didn’t see any of his brothers, but there were plenty of faces he knew.
“Keep going,” Vedoran ordered, but he needn’t have bothered. All of them knew what fate awaited them should they be captured.
Luck stayed with them, and they took the first group of shadar-kai by surprise. Vedoran and Chanoch cut through the lead two w
arriors with their blades and didn’t break stride. Plunging into the next group, the brothers fanned out beside Ashok and Ilvani, protecting their flanks. Together the group was a rolling gauntlet, but the wide space was a blessing in more than one way.
Ashok whipped his chain above their heads and let it fly at the warriors that managed to teleport into the midst of the group. Instead of scattering them, the warriors appeared to stinging strikes from Ashok’s chain. Over and over he sent out the spikes, and each time they returned to him bloody.
“Stay at my back!” Ashok cried to Ilvani. The witch moved behind him without looking at or acknowledging him. In fact she appeared oblivious to the battle, or to any fear of its failure. She clutched the green satchel against her chest and ran along with them, stumbling often, but always picking herself up.
They fought on. Ashok tried to gauge where they were in the long stretch, and when he realized they were not even halfway near the entrance his heart sank. No time to rest. The warriors who survived their initial pass were starting to fall in and attack from behind them, forcing Skagi and Cree to the back to protect Ilvani.
A shadow appeared in front of Ashok. He had just enough time to bring his chain up before the warrior solidified in front of him and attacked with a dagger in each hand. Ashok blocked the first dagger, but the second got through and found a slit in his armor. Still moving, Ashok didn’t immediately feel the pain.
He raked his chain down the warrior’s arm. The shadar-kai cried out and took a step back onto Chanoch’s waiting blade. The warrior dropped to the ground, and Ashok stumbled over the body. Forgetting her protests, Ashok hauled Ilvani forward over the obstruction, and Skagi and Cree bunched up against them both. Vedoran and Chanoch didn’t see this and kept running, creating a huge gap in their protective wall.
“Wait!” Cree yelled after them, but it was too late. Five shadar-kai teleported into the gap and split the group in two.
“Go left!” Skagi told his brother, and he angled right to cover the far ends of the tunnel. They each picked off a warrior and pressed forward, out of reach of Ashok’s chain.
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