Walter stopped and dust curled into the air. “Would you like to lead then?” Walter gestured down the path.
“No, but—”
“Fine! Then stop telling me what to do,” Walter snapped, his hand balling into a fist.
“Fine, get out of my way,” Grimbald spat, shouldered past him and stalked off down the path.
Shadows filled in around him, nothing to be heard but the scraping of his boots. Walter felt a sudden jolt of panic at being left alone and raced after him. “Hang on,” he hissed. “How can you even see?”
“Have good night vision,” Grimbald said from the shadows ahead. His armor gleamed from the light of Walter’s ball of fire as he came into view. Walter felt a bit of the tension ease from his chest at seeing him. The passage continued to slope farther down, growing ever colder. Walter let his fingers trace over the jagged walls.
Even with the ball of fire sputtering between them, the darkness seemed to somehow grow deeper and heavier. Grimbald’s armor became a fiery apparition; the back of his bald head like a faceless creature. Walter’s boot slipped on a stone and something twanged in his knee. He stopped to give it a feel, finding everything still intact.
He looked up and Grimbald was gone. The darkness fought to bury him and leave him forever alone. “Grim, wait!” he breathed.
Walter darted down the path, stumbled on sinking stones, closed his eye, and struck something hard. He felt a hand shove him in the chest, sending him onto his ass.
“Watch where you’re going,” Grimbald muttered.
“Shit, hate this fucking place,” he said and heard his voice infused with panic. He was making a fool of himself in front of someone that once looked to him for guidance. He felt like a scared child, seeking his mother’s leg to latch onto for comfort. His heart pounded in his head and his stomach heaved. What if they found Asebor down here? Was he ready for him?
Grimbald snorted. “Here, take it.” He offered his hand. Walter grabbed it and felt Grim’s big hand close around his, further emphasizing his feeling like a child. His strength was reassuring, though.
They plodded deeper down the path. Grimbald dragged him behind like an impatient parent. If only Nyset and Juzo could’ve seen him now. Walter Glade, one of the most powerful men in the realm with the Dragon, clinging tight to Grimbald’s hand. He might have considered laughing at the thought, if not for the fear of what lay in the cave might hear.
Walter’s small hand felt hot and sticky, wriggling with fear. It was an unpleasant sensation, but Grimbald knew that Walter needed him, knew that Walt would’ve done the same for him if the position were reversed. He wanted to let go but forced himself to hang on. This was what friends did for friends. It’s what he would do.
Walt’s breathing was shallow and quick in the tightening space. His footsteps were clumsy and he stumbled from behind. His fireball was sufficient to light the path ahead. Grimbald knew that if anything came, it’d come for him first. That was okay, though. Walter would take care of him if it came to that. He trusted him as much as he’d trust his Pa.
It felt like only yesterday when he’d first met Walter in the Hissing Gooseberry. He had come in dressed head to toe in armor and tried to hide it under his cloak. Grimbald thought he might have ended up being a troublemaker he’d have to throw out, but never thought then he’d one day find himself in the middle of the earth with him.
He knew when he first arm-wrestled with him that he was dangerous. No man half his size should’ve had so much strength. Grimbald had always had a hard time trusting people. Maybe that explained why he never had friends for long, he thought. He’d decided the day when he met Walter and his friends that would have to change. He’d put his faith in them then and it was one of the best decisions of his life.
He still didn’t trust many people, but he trusted Walter. Walter killed for him. He’d murdered his best friend to save his life. Was there a form of trust with deeper roots than that? Grim didn’t think so. He still felt conflicted about that day. Would he have done the same if he were put in the same position? He thought he would, but one never knew until they were tested with the pressure of a decision to be made in seconds. Juzo had made some bad decisions and the sad truth about life was that some decisions couldn’t be undone.
Grimbald owed him his life. He turned to look over his shoulder and saw Walter’s ashen face glaring in the dark, eye wide and darting around the cavern. He watched Walter’s stump trail along the walls for support. Grimbald thought he should’ve thanked Walt for saving him, but couldn’t bring himself to admit that sometimes in life he needed help. He continued dragging him onward, pulling him a little too hard and sending him stumbling.
“Lighten up,” Walter snapped at him.
“Sorry, don’t know my own strength sometimes,” Grimbald said over his shoulder.
The ground started to level out and his skin prickled with cool air. A splinter of light crept in from around a bend. “You alright now?”
“Yeah,” Walter nodded and looked to be gnawing on his cheeks.
Grimbald released his hand. “You can let go anytime now,” Grimbald snickered and looked from his hand to Walter.
Walter sheepishly withdrew his hand and wiped it on his pants. He adjusted his gray-black cloak. “Let’s get that fucker,” Walter said, the hardness of his voice returning.
Every man had some fear that was nigh impossible to overcome. For some it was water, others insects. For him, it was loneliness. He had managed to damage most of the friendships in his life by not trusting people. He had always managed to sabotage himself with the cuts of his own distrust.
Grimbald placed a finger on the side of his nose and forcefully exhaled, blowing dust filled snot onto a wall. He pushed the harnesses holding his axes in place back over his shoulders. Walter slinked towards the light and Grimbald followed behind, content with not being at the front anymore.
The light trailing out from the bend grew brighter, spreading into the passageway ahead. Grimbald hunched his shoulders to avoid dislodging tenuously held stones from a low archway. His heart was thudding in his chest, feeling like whatever they were searching for would turn up in short time. Walter bladed his body, pressed his back against a wall and put a finger to his lips for quiet.
Grimbald nodded at him. His hand went to Corpsemaker and gave its ironwood haft a squeeze. The wood was polished smooth with shallow divots worn down where he put his fingers. Walter inched his way around the bend and beckoned for him to follow.
A vast cavern opened below them, its walls were enormous carved blocks of limestone. Along the bottom parts of the ceiling the stones stabbed out in strange formations, seeming to have been melted then chiseled back. The ceiling stretched up forever, swallowed in shadows. A spear of light came down from somewhere above, casting a halo of light on the ground.
Walter’s jaw bulged with incredible tension.
“No. Dragons, no,” Grimbald whispered.
Piled in towers as tall as three or four men were thousands of porcelain bones. Some reached high into the swallowing shadows. Others looked fresh, tall as a man, with bits of flesh and cloth still attached in spots. There was a sliver of stone floor running down the center of all those bones.
“So many,” Walter whispered back. “Let’s try to keep quiet, might be a lot of them in here.”
Grimbald peered over the bones. “Don’t see anything. You?”
“No,” Walter shook his head. “Can smell them, though. Shit,” Walter breathed. “Noah, my old Sid-Ho master, told me about this place, said it had been cleaned out ages ago. Guess the Death Spawn re-discovered it.”
“Maybe how they traveled across the realm without being noticed,” Grimbald said.
“Might be,” Walter nodded. “Noah never mentioned anything about that, was cryptic about the Death Spawn too. Called them cursed beasts.”
“Human bones,” Grimbald muttered, staring at a ribcage atop a pile.
“They eat the dead,” Walter said
.
Grimbald nodded. “And bones don’t rot.”
Thousands of corpses lay there unburied, their bodies defiled and never given rest. Stuck in this cold excuse for a grave for all eternity. “Death Spawn,” Grimbald growled. “Does it ever end?”
Walter shook his head. “No.” He started to rise up and Grimbald caught a distinctive unnatural shimmer of light. He reached out and dragged Walter back down. “What?” Walter settled into a deep squat, scanning the bones.
“Look,” Grimbald pointed. Up against the wall at the other end of the cavern sat the Skin Flayer, a mirage with a ragged wound poking out of the middle, the end of its arm, no doubt.
“I see it,” Walter whispered.
“What do we do?”
“I got it.” Walter’s eye became fire, burning with that bizarre glow. Seeing a man’s eye on fire and him not screaming was something Grimbald still couldn’t get his mind around.
“You sure?” Grimbald put a hand on Walter’s shoulder, wondering if he might not be up for it given his state on the way down here.
“Give me some room.” He nudged Grimbald with his elbow.
“Just making sure.” Grimbald carefully shuffled back a step and watched the Skin Flayer. He thought he could hear it taking labored breaths, or maybe that was him.
A thin band of orange light flitted from Walter’s body. He hissed like a snake and a lance of fire cut across the expanse of bones. It struck the Skin Flayer square in the middle of its body. It let out a piercing squawk before slumping onto the ground. Flames danced along its cloak.
“Nice aim,” Grimbald said.
“Thanks. Let’s go.” Walter rose up and jumped down into the pile of bones, cracking like glass under his boots.
“Wait, this’ll make it easier to get out of here… if we’re in a tight spot.” Grimbald worked the moldy rope off his shoulders and tied one end to a stalagmite and let the other drape down into the cavern. It was a good ten-foot drop from the passageway into the den of bones.
Grimbald squatted down and used the rope to lower himself to the bones below. Nothing moved. The Skin Flayer lay still against the wall and blood burped out from the wound in its chest. “Rope held me,” Grimbald said to himself and grinned proudly.
Walter’s legs sank into a towering pile, crunching through and bones clattering all around. He wobbled down the mound and onto the path running down the middle. “Damn it!” he barked. Walter turned back, looked from the rope to Grimbald and gave him a surprised nod.
Grimbald followed, sinking down to his hips and wading through the great pile. Bones scraped his arms and jabbed at his shining armor.
“Ugh,” he growled. “This is an abomination.”
“They’re bastards,” Walter agreed.
Grimbald made it down onto the cavern floor and bent down to pick a bone sticking out of a seam in his thigh armor. He stayed there for a minute and listened to the bones settling down. He stared around and grunted with disgust. His eyes found the passage on the other side and he reached for his axes, expecting, at any second, a horde of Death Spawn to come pouring through with all the noise they’d just made.
Nothing came but a sighing breeze from the light above.
Walter’s back had gone rigid, his hands coated in fire. He was looking towards the passage, sharing in his worry. “Quiet,” Walter said.
“Hear something?” Grimbald felt his skin prickle with gooseflesh.
“No, I mean it’s quiet.”
“Oh. Yeah, more than welcome, I’d say.”
Walter crunched through the bones along the narrow path, now small pebbles from all the boots that must’ve passed through. He went to the Skin Flayer’s body and nudged it over with his boot. Its robes fell away from its body and exposed its flat face. The golden glow of its eyes had faded to a sheer white. The beast’s nose was flat, as though cut from its face. Where its mouth should have been was nothing but a slab of skin. The robes shimmered and blended into the texture and colors of the bones.
Grimbald frowned down at it. “Such strange creatures. These are demons from the Shadow Realm, you said?”
The tendons in Walter’s neck went taut. “That’s what she said to me—”
“She?”
“The Shadow god,” Walter muttered. “Think their robes and the Cerumal armor are both cursed the same. They form a connection between the demons there. Lets them take the hearts and minds of men… changes their bodies like the Cerumal armor almost did to me. Remember that?”
“How could I forget?” Grimbald snickered. “You were an asshole.”
Walter looked at him with a half-smile, then gazed back down at the Skin Flayer.
“What makes the demons? How do they… exist?” Grimbald asked.
“I’m not sure. She… the Shadow god said they’re rapists and murderers. Not sure how they get that way. But what I can tell you,” Walter turned to him, his eye narrowed to a deadly slit. “There’s no shortage of them in the Shadow Realm.”
Grimbald grunted and regretted he’d asked. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, he realized. He liked not knowing what lay beyond death. He’d done a good job of blocking out what Walter had first told them, but it all came rushing back now. The Shadow Realm was a place of misery and pain, he’d said.
“Wish I could tell you more, Grim. Wish I understood it all better myself. Nyset seems to think killing them might kill the demons on the other side. We can only hope she’s right.”
He shrugged and his stomach rumbled with hunger. Even the sight of a slaughtered Death Spawn wouldn’t mute his insatiable belly. “Doesn’t matter I guess. As long as they die.”
“Mm. No issue there. Trouble is, do they stay dead forever? If someone comes along and picks up this robe like I did the armor, will the poor fellow become one of ‘em?”
Grimbald stared at the robe and scratched his head. “Not if you burned it, maybe?”
Walter reached out and a cone of fire bathed the robes in its deadly flicker. “Good idea,” he beamed. They sat there for a long minute, watching the robes and the rest of the Skin Flayer burn, dark smoke reaching for the shaft of light.
“Let’s move on.” Walter leaped up and grabbed onto the edge of the passage above. He groaned as he scrambled over the edge. He turned around and offered his hand for Grimbald.
“You sure you can hold me?” Grimbald doubted it, but Walt was a strong bastard.
“I’m sure.”
“Alright.” He leaped up, grabbed Walter’s arm and fully expected to drag him back into the pit of bones with him. Walt’s body slid a few inches then snapped and held as strong as an anvil. Walter grunted and Grimbald brought his hand up onto the jagged edge, dislodging a cluster of stones. Grimbald gritted his teeth as he felt his skin yawn apart across his palm.
“C’mon, you big bastard,” Walter grunted.
Grimbald returned his grunt and bungled his girth over the edge. He rolled over into the passage, sucked in a breath, and frowned down at the wound on his palm. “Can you?”
“Sure,” Walter nodded. “Let me have it.” The familiar glow of the Phoenix pulsed from his hand as Walter cupped Grimbald’s hand in his own.
Grimbald shivered at the feeling of ice crawling up his arm, stitching his palm back together. “Thanks, Walt. Think I’d be dead ten times now without you, or maybe I’d have lost an arm from infection or something.” He chuckled. He felt the warmth of true gratitude blooming in his chest while the icy tendrils of the Phoenix’s healing faded.
Walter released his hold on his arm and stared at him flatly.
“What?” Grimbald asked, his eyebrows squished together.
“Maybe lost an arm from infection? Really?” Walter waved with his stump.
“Heh, sorry.”
Walter burst into laughter that echoed from the walls, maybe with a bit more humor than he’d expected. “Ready?” He jabbed him in the shoulder with his stump. He rose up and started off down the passage.
“Ready.” Was his iron shell cracking a bit? Everyone had a breaking point, a hardship that would ruin him. Grimbald had seen it time and time again in the Hissing Gooseberry, where men and women went to cleanse their plighted hearts. Grimbald chewed his lip to stop the question, but it forced its way out his lips. “You alright, Walt?”
“Huh?” He stopped and turned. “Alright enough for someone who’d just murdered his friend, I think.” He swallowed and forced an ugly smile. “And wading in an ocean of the fucking dead too.” He gestured back towards the cavern.
Grimbald nodded, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t imagine how it must feel. If he’d murdered Walt — he squashed the idea down under his boot, unable to even put himself in that state. He’d lost his Pa, sure, but killing your friend was something else. He couldn’t think of it. It felt like a screw was driving through the center of his chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Want to lead for a bit?” Walter sagged against the wall, as if all the strength just slipped out of him.
“I can do that.” Grimbald paused next to him and planted his hands on his hips. “Sure you’re alright?”
“I’m good.”
Grimbald looked down and scratched his neck. “Let’s get on with it then.” He walked into the shadows.
Walter was sick.
He felt strange, hungry, and the world wobbled. His vision blurred at the edges. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. His heart hammered through his skull. His back tingled under his dusty shirt. Shouldn’t he have been wearing armor like Grim? No, didn’t really need it, he remembered. He couldn’t look weak in front of Grimbald. He needed to be strong for him, for everyone clinging to life in this dying world.
“Smells stronger,” Grimbald said over his shoulder.
The musty scent of Death Spawn was overpowering, filling his lungs with their choking stink. Walter babbled something in return. The passageway seemed to be flowing under his feet. The stones underfoot twinkled with iridescent crystals. He stifled a wince and the urge to hunch over. A bead of sweat glimmered from the end of his nose and crashed into the ground, sounding like a thunderclap in his ears.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 12