Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  The worm was nearly on top of him by then—a seething wall of white flesh and red blood and pink tongue. It looked mad with pain, smashed its head mindlessly into the walls and the ceiling, screamed so loud she thought her ears would burst. Len slipped. He caught the fall on his hands and pushed himself up again immediately, but the worm was right behind him, right above him—

  His eyes met hers. He shouted something she couldn’t hear over the worm’s screaming, and then its white, bloody head came down on top of him. Twice. A third time.

  The worm stopped and reared up again, and she heard a loud crack as its head smashed into the ceiling. A rock the size of a melon hurtled free and just missed Len’s prostrate body. The worm bashed its head against the wall, the roof. More rock fell, and Dil stared at the body of Len Heramsun. Another flash shot over her shoulder. The worm recoiled and smashed the ground just to the right of Len, then just to the left of him.

  He was still breathing. She could see it.

  “Dil!” she thought she heard over the screaming. A hand grabbed her shoulder, but her decision was made. She sprinted forward. A chunk of falling rock just missed her. The worm thrashed left, right, up, down, and she saw the trail of blood and slime it had left on the floor of the tunnel, watched the horrifying mass of its muscles bunch and release as it tossed its head around like a blind man swinging a mace.

  She reached Len, and she stood in the shadow of the worm and grabbed the Aleani by the wrist and heaved.

  He only slid a foot or so.

  The worm continued to thrash above her, and she set her feet and shouted and pulled again. Len’s body jerked forward like a rag doll, but it was too heavy—she couldn’t keep it moving but she had to—

  Another flash of light shot over her head. A second pair of hands gripped Len’s and pulled, and she saw Litnig’s face gray and serious next to hers, half-covered in a stream of blood that started somewhere beyond his hairline. When he pulled, so did she, and Len all but flew across the floor, away from the worm, toward safety.

  Or so she hoped.

  Debris covered the tunnel floor as far as she could see. More was still falling. Dil put her head down and pulled.

  The lights in the tunnel dimmed, flared brightly, and then disappeared completely.

  Dil stifled a shriek and looked back up. The world had been plunged into darkness and sound. The only light in the tunnel was that of the dull green treesoul, quivering in Ryse’s white robes.

  Ryse herself was lying on the ground. A fist-sized chunk of rock was near her head.

  In the light of the treesoul, Dil watched Quay grab Ryse by the shoulders, saw the soulweaver’s head bob from side to side listlessly as the prince shouted at her. Ryse moved without purpose at the sound of his voice, her hand grasping for some hold that wasn’t there, her feet scrabbling for purchase on stone they couldn’t find. Quay’s eyes met Dil’s, and she saw raw fear there, hidden beneath a thin sheen of courage. He grabbed Ryse’s arms and began to pull her backward. Litnig shouted something, and then Cole was taking Len’s other arm and helping Dil pull the Aleani back while Litnig fumbled in the darkness for something, found it, and turned to face the worm.

  One of Len’s axes.

  She saw it gleam green and strike worm flesh. The worm’s scream changed in pitch. Litnig bellowed and let fly madly with the axe again and again.

  The worm cringed, began to inch backward, turned its head so that the blade struck its side instead of its torn and bleeding mouth.

  Dil and Cole dragged Len until they were even with Quay and Ryse and then stopped. The worm whipped its head in the direction that Litnig’s last strike had come from, but he anticipated it, shot nimbly out of the way and slashed again, low to high, tearing a massive chunk out of the worm’s upper lip. He dodged again as the head swung back the other way. He brought an overhead strike down on the lower lip.

  He’s winning, Dil had time to think, and then Ryse moaned.

  It wasn’t the kind of moan that a person made when she was coming back to consciousness with a raging headache. It started low and soft and grew into a terrified shout. Ryse’s eyes snapped open. She tore herself from Quay’s arms and pulled desperately at his legs, as if she was trying to drag him to the floor. Her eyes were wide, her face pale and panicked.

  “Down!” she shrieked.

  Litnig looked back. Dil saw his mouth move in what might have been a curse, and he dropped to the floor and covered his head as the worm thrashed mindlessly behind him. Quay did the same. Dil heard the boiling roar of an oncoming flash flood.

  A river of flames rushed over her.

  She gasped and dropped Len, threw herself on the ground, covered her head. She didn’t scream, but a small noise escaped her that might have been a whimper or a squeak, and she wondered if it was going to be the last sound she made before she died.

  The flames didn’t touch her.

  Slowly, she uncovered her head.

  The flames moved around her and Len and Cole and the others as if targeted. She barely felt their heat. Ryse was slumped unconscious next to her in Quay’s arms. Cole’s eyes were wide and uncomprehending. Litnig was still huddled on the tunnel floor, and the flames knit together again just beyond him.

  Dil’s pulse pounded. Her limbs coursed with all the energy her body had to offer.

  But there was nothing to do.

  It was beautiful, in a way. Like watching a campfire from the inside. The worm’s screaming was replaced by the gentle rush of air and flame. Light, orange and yellow and white and blue, soared around her in arcs and waves and loops and tongues. She felt blessed, lucky.

  The flames died. In the sudden darkness they left behind, Dil couldn’t even see the dim glow of the treesoul. Heavy breathing echoed through the tunnel. The boys panted in front of her, to her sides, and toward Du Hardt—

  There was breathing there too, where none of her friends had been. Harsh white light burst into life from the direction of the breathing, and as she squinted against its glare, she saw the silhouette of a robed man stumbling toward her against the wall.

  Who—

  The ground shook so violently she was thrown to her hands and knees. The piercing shriek of the worm filled the darkness again, louder than before, and there was a crack worse than any of the others. She threw her hands over her head.

  The roof! she thought. The roof’s coming down!

  The stranger fell to the ground, and she lost him in the shadows of his own light. Huge chunks of the ceiling fell with increasing frequency. The blackened and twisted head of the worm smashed singled-mindedly into the tunnel wall to its left.

  Dil struggled to her feet. Quay picked Ryse up with a quick jerk. The treesoul fell from the soulweaver’s pocket, and Dil stared dumbly at it until Cole knelt and bent Len’s body over his shoulder. He stood up, touched her arm and shouted something she couldn’t understand.

  Behind him, she saw that the worm had ripped a hole through the side of the tunnel into a second passage.

  Quay dashed through the jagged portal into the darkness. Litnig stood in its center waving furiously.

  Dil grabbed her bow and a pack from the floor and ran.

  Within moments, the light was gone, and she was sprinting full speed in the black, fighting hard not to panic. She couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of the worm and the mountain. A rock caught her in the shoulder. Tears formed in her eyes. She wanted out. Out of the tunnels. Out of the mountains. Out of her thrice-damned adventure and into the life she’d once thought so meaningless.

  Her foot hit nothing but air.

  Dil pitched forward and braced herself to hit the floor, but it didn’t come. She fell for a full second, more, longer than was safe. She dropped her bow and covered her head, rolled over so her pack would break the fall. She didn’t even feel surprised.

  A moment later, the pack compressed and the air rushed out of her lungs, and then her head snapped back and there was nothing.

  TWENTY-ONE
r />   “Lit?”

  The voice slipped through a veil of darkness into Litnig’s consciousness. His dream appeared and faded and appeared again, quick as a hummingbird’s wings or quivering shadows before a flickering source of light. The pillars were there and then gone. The worried face of the Aleani walker manifested and blinked away.

  “Lit?”

  The voice was louder this time, and closer.

  The rapid play of the dream slowed and then stopped. Litnig stared into darkness so thick he felt that he could walk into it and be swallowed whole.

  “Lit? Quay? Dil? Ryse? Len?”

  The voice was Cole’s.

  Something warm shifted beneath Litnig. Something with dreadlocks.

  Len.

  Cole had handed the Aleani off to him so that they could run faster. He remembered struggling to balance the weight on his shoulders, remembered falling—

  “Anybody?”

  Litnig rolled off of Len onto sharp rocks. He had to put his left arm down for support.

  Fiery pain scudded up the arm and exploded behind his eyes. His forearm bent and cracked underneath him. He hissed sharply and rolled onto his other side.

  Broken, he thought immediately. A cart had once crushed his big toe. The digit had swelled until it was the size of a cucumber, and he hadn’t been able to put weight on it for weeks.

  The pain in his arm was much, much worse.

  “Lit?” asked Cole again.

  Litnig took in a deep breath to respond, and his lungs filled with dust. He coughed explosively. His ribs barked with pain.

  “Yeah,” he croaked when the fit had passed.

  Cole gave a relieved-sounding sigh. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said.

  Litnig heard rustling from Cole’s direction. There was a sharp clack, and a few sparks split the darkness. Cole coughed again and cursed fluently.

  “Are you all right?” Litnig grunted.

  Clack. “All right enough. I landed on a little slope over—” Cole sighed. “Over there.” Clack. “Nine-tailed, effing torch!”

  More coughing parted the gloom. A moment later, Quay’s voice asked, “Is everyone all right?”

  Litnig tried to get his feet under him without moving his injured arm.

  “No,” he mumbled. “At least not Len and me. And Ryse and Dil are still missing.”

  Len’s breath hissed in and out slowly next to him. It sounded crackly, and dangerously shallow.

  Cole’s torch finally sputtered to life to Litnig’s left. It took a second to catch fully, but eventually a warm orange glow spread over the rocks, and Litnig could see his brother.

  The sight made him suck down another lungful of dust.

  Cole’s face was covered in blood. His hair and eyebrows were matted in it. More was trickling down his forehead.

  Another coughing fit racked Litnig’s body.

  “Cole, your face—” he wheezed when he could.

  Cole frowned and pressed his free hand against his head. “I know,” he said. “I’ll worry about it later.”

  Litnig noticed a nick in the top of Cole’s ear as well, as though a chunk had been torn off. “Did you get hit by a rock or something?” he asked.

  Cole cocked an eyebrow at him as if to say, Ryse and Dil are missing, and that’s what you ask me?

  Litnig shut his mouth and felt his cheeks burn.

  Cole held the torch higher, and Litnig pushed himself up with his good arm to get a look around. Broken rocks and man-sized boulders surrounded him. A jagged black cliff stretched into the darkness above. The torchlight didn’t even reach the top of it.

  Litnig stared upward.

  We fell off that?

  Quay was sitting stone-faced on the rocks between Litnig and Cole, methodically pressing the different parts of his body with his hands. Litnig couldn’t see Dil or Ryse, but the boulders around him were large enough that their bodies could’ve been hidden by them.

  The light from the torch didn’t show him much of Len either, but Litnig looked down and thought he saw blood on the stones.

  When he looked up again, Quay was standing over something in the rocks and mumbling softly. Cole was crouched over something else. Litnig sat and cradled his arm and let their voices wrap around him.

  “—all right?”

  “I think so, thank you—”

  “—Dil?”

  “I—”

  Whimper. Sob.

  Len showed no signs of recovery. Litnig scooted around on the rocks to face him. The movement put the torchlight at his back.

  “Cole, can you bring the torch over here?” he asked.

  “Dil needs it,” Cole said. Litnig heard rustling near his brother again. “Give me a second to light another one.”

  Litnig grit his teeth and slid closer to Len. He found the Aleani’s thigh, then his shoulder, then his head. When he touched the back of Len’s skull, his hand came away wet and warm.

  The light behind him brightened and moved closer, and Litnig got his first good look at Len’s body.

  The Aleani lay facedown on the rocks. His dreadlocks and neck were wet with blood. A long laceration on his skull formed the epicenter of a shining purple bruise. His arms were trembling slightly.

  Quay stepped around Litnig and knelt at Len’s side, a torch in his hand.

  “We’ll need Ryse,” Litnig said.

  “When she’s done with herself and the others,” the prince replied.

  Quay looked calm and sober. He ran his hands over Len the same way he’d run them over himself.

  Litnig’s stomach twisted. First Cole, then Quay—and Len— “Dammit, look at him!”

  “Look at yourself.” Quay’s hands came away from Len’s left side with blood on them, and the prince wiped them on the Aleani’s trousers before continuing his examination.

  Litnig looked at his injured arm. His skin was a nasty shade of red and yellow, and he thought he could see a bump partway down his forearm. He touched the side of his face, and his hand came away with partially congealed blood on it.

  He swallowed his reply.

  “Len goes last,” Quay said. He continued to run his hands over the Aleani. “Now help me. It will save us time if we can show Ryse where he’s hurt.”

  Cole murmured to Dil by the other torch. Ryse worked her way unsteadily toward them over the rocks. Quay continued to prod at Len.

  And Litnig squatted and did as he was told.

  By the time they were finished, Litnig had helped Quay bandage a deep gash in Len’s side and put a wickedly twisted ankle into a better position. His hands were sweaty. His broken arm was killing him. And Quay was moving calmly and emotionlessly, not even breathing hard.

  If it was me— Litnig thought. He stared at Len’s prone body. He’d leave me for last too, in a heartbeat.

  Ryse joined him at Len’s side. Her eyes glowed with soulweaving. Her robe was torn near the shoulder. She looked a little wobbly.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of rocks tumbling.

  “How are the others?” Quay asked. The prince was squatting near Len’s head and watching the Aleani breathe.

  Ryse frowned and bent over Len. “They’ll be all right,” she said. “Dil’s more scared than hurt. And Cole’s head has stopped bleeding.”

  Quay nodded. “Take a look at Litnig, please.”

  Litnig stared at the blood oozing from the back of Len’s head. “It’s just a broken arm,” he said. “It can wait.”

  Ryse reached for his left arm.

  He twisted away from her. The movement sent pain sliding on whispers of grinding bone into his shoulder and neck.

  Ryse gave him a white, glowing glare.

  But she turned to Len nonetheless.

  She shuffled around the Aleani, murmuring to herself and pressing her hands on his body. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her arms. At one point, she had to stop to catch her breath.

  But small areas of Len’s body glowed white and then faded to normal, an
d he seemed to improve. He stopped trembling. The laceration on his head closed and healed.

  After about ten minutes, Ryse sat down and sighed.

  “That’s all I can do with him for now,” she said. The Aleani was still unconscious, and his skin burned to Litnig’s touch. “If I pull any more of his strength, it’ll exhaust him, and I’ve got nothing left to give.”

  Quay stood. The prince had watched the proceedings silently.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now Litnig.”

  Litnig held his arm gingerly while Ryse crawled over to him. He’d snuck another look at it while she’d worked on Len—the lump on his forearm was growing. The bone had broken badly.

  Ryse laid her hands on his arm. She turned the limb over gently in the torchlight, prodded the bump lightly, frowned when her touch made him recoil.

  Litnig focused on breathing. He tried not to think about the pain, or the blood on his trousers, or the way his brother’s face had looked when the torch had caught fire.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Gently, Ryse took hold of his wrist with one hand and his upper arm with the other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is going to hurt.”

  Shadows shimmied in the torchlight. The distant thunder of shifting rocks echoed down the tunnel from above. The broken ends of Litnig’s bones ground against each other as she put pressure on them.

  “Are you ready?”

  He took a deep breath and nodded.

  Ryse straightened out his arm. His forearm crackled with a thousand tongues of fire. His bones grated over one another and slid into place. A sound that was somewhere between a whimper, a grunt, and a scream came out of his mouth without his permission.

  But the pain lessened significantly after that.

  When he trusted himself to speak again, he panted, “Can you heal it?”

  Ryse looked at his arm again. Her eyes still reflected the River of Souls.

  She let go of him and shook her head.

  “Your draw in the River is too weak to help me, Lit,” she said. She sat back on the stones and ran a hand across her forehead. “And I’m too damn tired to heal you on my own.” She shook her head and muttered, “Useless.”