Hanhau motioned to his countrymen. “Let them through.”
Blix led Dam’s group through the parting of the warriors, nudging against shoulders, taking it sidewise, until they came to the place where Hanhau was standing. Hanhau looked at Dam gravely. He stepped away from a shallow notch in the ravine wall. He and Ichika summoned a white glow into their hands and reflected it against the wall.
A body, pale blue with death, lay curled on the floor. Dam trapped his mouth with his hand and glanced away a moment. Then he looked back at the corpse again. One leg was charred black with an angry gash where the skin had shriveled. The body had wasted and set like plaster into a cringing, skeletal pose—spine bowed, knees drawn into the belly, elbows bent, and a rigid, bony hand covering its face. Dam recognized the shaggy hair crowning the head, though it had dulled and yellowed like a dried jasmine flower. He recognized the high cheekbones and the snub nose that the hand had been too weak to shield.
It was Leo.
“A miracle he made it so far,” Rad said. He looked to Hanhau. “You’ve got to figure they carried him as far as they could. There’s no way that leg could have withstood any weight.”
“He’s not long dead,” Ichika said. “His body hasn’t loosened from the grip of death. Even here in the mountains, scavengers like crone midges find their way to rotting flesh in short time.”
Dam had seen crone midges before. They had spectral wings, as big as the palm of his hand, and a needle-like proboscis for penetrating any sort of rubbish. Mostly, they buzzed outside the sculleries before the rubbish bins had been sealed up.
Rad meanwhile carried on a conversation with Hanhau speculating on how long ago Leo’s injury had occurred and how it had progressed to his morbid state. Though Ichika clearly was as knowledgeable as Hanhau, Rad acted like she wasn’t there.
Blix spoke out. “We should push on. The rest of his party should be a short stretch from here.”
Dam stared at Leo’s body. It was justice, but seeing the boy so profaned clutched at a tender spot in Dam’s heart. Maybe the gods were truly paying attention to what was happening in the underworld. They had served Leo a fatal dose of the misery he had caused.
“He should have his rites before we move on,” Dam said.
Chain mail skirting clinked as the warriors shifted their weight around him, sighing in exasperation.
“His own traitorous friends couldn’t see fit to honor his death,” Blix said. “Why should we waste our time with it? Every moment we delay gives them a lead on us.”
Dam locked eyes with Rad. The older boy nodded. “Traitor or not, every soldier deserves his send-off.”
The warriors bristled.
“He’s a thief, not a soldier.”
“He’s earned his fate. He ought to be left to the scavengers.”
A swell of courage rose up in Dam. He faced the warriors. “He’s our countryman. He needs to be sent off to the afterworld in honor of the gods, not in honor of the person that he was. If you can’t abide by that, consider this. We can overtake the others, but there’s no route back except coming through here. By that time, there could be a horde of scavengers to deal with.”
A pulse of light throbbed from Hanhau’s face, and like a general, he passed a look over his warriors to show that he would brook no argument about dealing properly with the body.
*
Dam and Rad carried Leo’s body to a broader spot where they could build a pyre of coals, place stone markers around his body, and let the sacred flames carry his soul to the afterworld. The boy was disturbingly bony and light. Of all the unbelievable things Dam had done on the expedition, this deed counted as the most surreal.
How had he been fated to lead the funeral of a boy who had hurt him more than anyone in his life? Yet the fragile corpse in his arms was no longer that person. Dam could think about him as a stranger who deserved the respect of any man. When he had been a novice priest, he had attended the last rites of many dozens of people who had lived their lives far removed from his.
He could think about a time, it seemed so long ago, when Leo had made him feel like he was part of an elite clique much too clever to be impressed by contests and ceremonies that supposedly made boys men. He could think about things in a philosophical way. Getting mixed up with Leo had been part of a chain of events that led Dam to discover the underground world and, with Aerander and Lys, to save people from the flood. It was a journey that had led him to Hanhau. That felt better, reckoning what he was doing for Leo on those terms.
They came to a juncture where the warrior’s fuzzy globes of light were aligned straight in front of him, and the gravity of the ravine seemed to fall away as though they had ventured out in the open. It was a chasm in the trail. Dam couldn’t tell how extensive it was. He and Rad halted. It had to be a good place for Leo’s funeral pyre. Rad called out ahead that they were setting Leo down on the floor. No one answered back. The globes of light dispersed slowly and carefully outward to the perimeter of their surroundings.
“Oil lamps. Weapons at the ready,” Hanhau cried out.
Jumpily, Dam gripped the handle of his xiphos on his shoulder. Rad retrieved a lamp from the provision pack on Blix’s back. Attalos, Callios, and Heron gathered close behind Dam. Rad scratched at a flint and lit the lamp. That light faintly illuminated a few yards of the gorge. The floor was flat and scattered with what appeared to be minor debris from above.
Warriors passed back lamps and flints for each of the boys. Dam struck a spark to light his lamp. His hands were cold and quivering. He didn’t like what he was hearing. The warriors had spread out all over the place, calling out in their language, “Look here” or “Look there.” Dam couldn’t see what they were discovering, but he recognized the foul scent from the infirmary.
More lamps flamed on, laying bare a greater portion of the gorge. Dam spotted a body tossed to one side of the ravine. The black coals of a fire had been flung around as though a typhoon had passed through and camp provisions were scattered far and wide.
Blix guided the boys to place their lamps at positions to improve their view of the gorge. When it was done, they stood together in the center. Dam pivoted around in a stupor. Calyiches’ party had made camp in the place for sure. Abandoned weapons, cloaks, drinking vessels, and fish rations were dispersed helter-skelter. Streaks of blood stained the floor. In shadowy places along the sides of the gorge, Dam spotted the worst of it. Bodies, blistered and bloated, languished in their own vomit and feces. Callios retched behind Dam.
“What could do this?” Rad said.
Dam knew. They had fangs more poisonous than any creature above the ground. They had scales that withstood a battery of iron blades. They were perversions of men with shriveled arms and legs hanging from their more powerful serpentine bodies. But their queen was dead, and they had been slaughtered. No more than a few dozen could have slunk away when the Old Ones reclaimed their city. Without the Oomphalos to protect them, they were supposed to have shriveled and died.
Ichika answered Rad. “The New Ones.” She looked around to the warriors who were sorting through the debris. One by one, they shook their heads. Ichika sighed bitterly. “Calyiches brought the Oomphalos right to them.”
*
They spread out to gather the bodies, silent from the horror of the task, never mind its implications for their mission. Everyone was jittery and stumbling a bit, even the hardened warriors. They all knew it had to be done, and the quicker the better.
Ichika and one of the archers laid out the coals for a giant pyre. Dam and the others dragged the putrid bodies to a spot in the center of the gorge. Dam tried not to mind their faces, which were blue and distorted from the serpents’ deadly strikes. They accounted for ten of Calyiches’ party. Leo made it eleven. That was every one of the traitors. With that work done, Hanhau stepped to the middle of the group to speak.
“Our journey ends here. We gained on the traitors in a fraction of the time that they fled the city, but we were
too late.”
The warriors bowed their heads. Dam and the other boys did the same.
“Our objective now is to return to the city in due haste. With the Oomphalos in their possession, the New Ones have a powerful advantage. We will reinforce our fortifications. We will prepare for battle. We fought this scourge before, we will do it again.”
“How many of our enemy are there?” Rad asked. Hanhau did not answer. It was impertinent for Rad to question Hanhau, especially in front of his countrymen. “I mean no disrespect, sir,” Rad said. “But these…things that ambushed Calyiches can’t have made off far. If we go back to the city, we’ll lose our chance to track them. We could catch them with the Oomphalos before they gather more of their kind to launch an attack.”
Dam shot a look at Rad to quiet him. He was trying to be helpful, but he had never seen what they were up against.
Ichika answered Rad fiercely. “We’re not tracking beetles. It could take all sixteen of us to bring down one of the New Ones.”
“I asked how many?” Rad said. “We ought to take account of what we’re up against.” He scanned the warriors. “You’ve scarred your arms to commemorate your conquests of the beasts. It can be done, can’t it?”
A grudge had been brewing between Rad and Ichika since Rad only addressed Hanhau and the male warriors.
Hanhau stepped in. “We cannot risk losing a single warrior. The city guard is already compromised from its losses when the tower was demolished. They’re unprepared for an attack.” He gazed sternly at Rad. “We return at once.”
Rad backed off. Some of the warriors helped set up the pyre coals. Dam had a slender opportunity to catch Hanhau unoccupied. “How did the New Ones do this?” Dam said. “They were defeated.”
Hanhau grimaced. “So we thought. We drove them from the mori-mori mines by the city, but there are other lodes in the backcountry. They must have found one and renewed their strength.”
Seeing Hanhau wrought with so much worry hurt Dam.
“Their desire for the Oomphalos is unyielding,” Hanhau said. “There was a report from one of the watchtowers. Someone or something lurking in the canyon beyond the city bridge. It was never confirmed, and Ysalane never thought much of it.”
Dam shivered, remembering that story. He also remembered his uncanny feeling about being watched while traveling home from the bathing lake where Calyiches and his friends had stripped out of their niter-smudged clothes to wash up.
“Could they have helped Calyiches with his plan to steal the Oomphalos?”
“It’s possible. They could have promised Calyiches safe passage to the surface if he brought them the stone.”
It suddenly made perfect sense. They had never truly reckoned how Calyiches—a soldier, not an engineer—had figured out how to use explosives to demolish the tower. Further, the New Ones had corrupted Zazamoukh in a similar fashion many centuries ago when he brought them the stone from the surface. They had promised him immortality, but it had come at the cost of being their slave trader.
Hanhau gripped Dam’s shoulder firmly. “We cannot linger here. The New Ones planned the exchange here in this passage. They very well could have anticipated our mission to stop the thieves. This could be a trap for us too.”
Dam nodded. He was antsier than ever to move out of the confining ravine. Glancing back at the progress with the pyre, he could see that it was laid and people were searching the grounds for a flint.
“I left a flint by my lamp. I’ll go get it.” He put his hand over Hanhau’s, gave him a tight smile, and ran off to retrieve the flint.
Dam had set his lamp down by the neck of the gorge. He jogged around the pyre and came up on the spot. Squatting, he searched the ground. He had been in a jumpy haze since they had entered the gorge. Once he had placed his lamp, he had set down his flint without any thought about needing to find it again. It was nowhere to be seen. He reached his hand around the blind side of the lamp, and he felt the flat, grainy bar of stone.
Dam called back to the others. “I found it.”
The floor trembled. The walls of the ravine wobbled like giant loose teeth. Dam’s lamp spun and tipped over, extinguishing itself. Shouts broke out. More of the lamps jostled, and they went out in quick succession, plunging the space into darkness. The seizure rumbled on.
Dam ducked against the side of the ravine and gripped the flint as though it was his only safety. He stole a glimpse of the far side of the gorge where Hanhau had been standing, where everyone else had been. There was a blur of warrior light. Then the horrifying thunder of an avalanche rained down, blotting out everything in a suffocating cloud of dust.
Dam cried out for some confirmation that people still lived. It had seemed liked the group was farther down the gorge than where the curtain of rocks had fallen. Now Dam was entirely cut off from the others.
An arm’s reach away, a boulder pounded into the floor with a force that rattled Dam’s bones. Ichika said to stay in place if a seizure came, but panic pulled Dam up to his feet. He had to get out, or he would be buried beneath tons of falling rock.
He staggered out from the side of the gorge and toward the trail where they’d found Leo. The seizure threw him hard against the ravine wall, jamming his arm. The floor cratered, and he fell into it on all fours as he cried out.
The surface shifted beneath him, shattering apart like the thin ice of a mountain lake. He made a shallow leap to get out of the crater. The floor of the gorge zigzagged open with an angry crack.
Dam held on to the lip of the crater. The ground crumbled away from his feet. He hung by his arms while he listened to the seizure rip apart a gash in the floor of the ravine. Dam scrabbled to pull himself up and out with every ounce of his strength, but the seizure was too much. One of his hands slipped, then the other, and he plunged feet first into the cleft of the ravine.
PART THREE
Chapter One
A short depth into the cleft in the ravine, a ledge of rock broke Dam’s fall. His legs were temporarily palsied from the impact. Everything was a sightless void, but shaking. Dam felt like the world had broken free from the very stanchions that kept it in place.
Foul, warm air rose up from beneath him. He could sense that the tremor had opened up a deeper pit, from which he had been spared. Then his ledge foundered. Dam grasped for a spur of rock to cling to, but his muscles were rattled and unreliable. He slipped into a free fall again.
His arms swung wildly as though to climb the thin air. He tried to remember prayers for divine protection to almighty Atlas, to the Mother of Mercy Pleione, to the Great Poseidon, who might take pity on His acolyte, as lapsed as he was. He was certain that an excruciating death awaited him when he met the bottom of the pit.
Dam plummeted into a warm and brackish pool.
His first thought was of the merciful gods who had spared him from being crippled. Rapidly, a new danger became apparent. He had plunged into an untold depth of water. It was thick and scalding hot in places, thwarting his effort to push to the surface for air. Dam freed himself from his chain mail apron. He considered relinquishing his blade and scabbard, but he quickly decided that he couldn’t let go of his only weapon, and he tucked it in its holster beneath his arm. He kicked out stubbornly with his legs and grasped to crest the water. He came up to the surface gasping for precious air. Hot bubbles gurgled and spat out a poisonous steam. A putrid grease clung to his arms and his face. He had landed in a tar pit.
Dam treaded the water and shifted around, searching for a direction. It was so dark, he couldn’t tell if the pit was a vast ocean or a minor pond. He crawled through the water to one side. It was as good a direction as any other. Along the way, thick pockets of bubbling tar bit at his skin.
One of his hands touched a stone wall. That was good. He could grasp around the perimeter of the pool to find a foothold where he could climb out.
Dam foraged along the wall, shrinking from the pool’s boiling currents and dragging himself through patches of tar
. It was cooler but denser at the water’s edges. He discovered a shelf. Dam beached his sword on it and grasped the shelf to beach himself.
When he pulled his legs out of the mire and onto solid ground, Dam lay down on his belly, retching salt water steeped in poisonous tar. His lungs clenched for fresh air. In defiance of his panic to get back to the others, an eddy of dizziness swallowed him into dark slumber.
*
Dam awoke thirsting for buckets of water. He sensed vaguely he had washed ashore from some briny body of water. His skin had dried tacky and tight. Raising a hand to touch his face, Dam discovered he was smeared with a greasy substance. What had happened? He was lying flat on his belly on the hard ground as though it was his bed, and his surroundings were pitch black.
A noxious smell and a faint bubbling sound brought back dismal memories. He was trapped in a tar pit cavern. The mountain pass had been demolished. Dam balled his fists and wept hot tears. Only a miracle could have spared Hanhau and Attalos and the rest of their party.
Even if they, or some of them, had survived, the pass had crushed in right in front of Dam. No one would be able to decipher what had happened to him. They wouldn’t even be able to search the way he had come. They would have to travel around the other side of the mountains to rescue him, and Hanhau had said that was an incredibly long distance.
Dam sat up and bit down on the side of his hand to control the panic threatening to overwhelm him. He had to orient himself. He had to think of some plan. Water was a concern. Food would soon be another. To the heavens, he wished he had kept hold of his flint and oil lamp. How was he going to find his way to a water source when he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face? He could as easily fumble his way into a den of carrion beetles as a fresh water spring.
He sat dazed by his predicament for a spell. Then he shuddered. Something had fluttered against his skin. He captured it in the fabric of his tunic with his fist, and he clenched hard to squash whatever deadly creature had crawled inside his wet clothes. It was hard-shelled, uncrushable, and its sharp edges smarted against his skin. Dam remembered he was wearing Aerander’s necklace. It was the bone amulet that he had captured like an oversized tick. That realization made his situation slide back and forth in his head from less to more terrifying. What could make a fork carved from bone quiver like a dragonfly’s wings? He brought the amulet out from the collar of his shirt.
Banished Sons Of Poseidon Page 17