The thought of something twisting lifecasting, using it to drain both people and the land itself, gave him unpleasant shiver-bumps. And he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath again. He reached down to touch his thigh, where Hendrik had left three scratch marks beneath his leathers. It had only been there a day, but he was getting used to touching it to ground himself. He needed grounding now more than he ever had in his life.
They came to the junction of the mountain and wall after an hour or two of rough trail. A round hole with a metal grate over it let loose a trickle of foul-smelling water that dribbled into a mostly dry streambed. It used to meet up with the Blue Bird, no doubt, but now it was just as dead.
Maya and Piret took hold of the metal grate and popped it off the wall with surprising ease. Maya said, “I’ll lead; stay back from the torchlight, and if we see anyone keep to the shadows. Shouldn’t be a problem, though.”
Dagan glanced up to see Hendrik eying the tunnel, which was a good foot too short for him, with distrust. He’d caught it before when they’d gone into the cave. He wasn’t sure why Hendrik didn’t like dark or underground spaces, but he couldn’t blame him. He reached out and took Hen’s hand. Hen startled a little but then gave him a squeeze. He lifted Dagan’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“I’ve got you,” Dagan reminded him.
“I know.” Hen kissed his hand again and kept hold of it.
Focusing on Hendrik would get him through this, until he had time to process, Dagan was sure. All he had to do was keep an eye on Hen, make sure he wasn’t getting overwhelmed by the mission, the City, his past, his pain. Remind him what they had to live for.
*
The smell was the first thing Dagan noticed: unwashed bodies, piss, shit, rotten things. The piss and shit wasn’t new; they’d been walking in it since they’d entered the warren of tunnels that surrounded the mines. But that had been a trickle, and it moved. Dagan hadn’t considered the difference between the sanitation needs of a Heart Wood settlement versus those of the hulking, single City before, but it made sense now he saw it. The smell as they entered the occupied mine tunnels was different: stagnant, steady, malignant. Kajja covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief. Hendrik wrinkled his nose but tried to remain stony. Bartolo and Gareth, Dagan’s paragons for the moment, showed nothing. He tried to follow suit.
Time worked differently underground, apparently. It seemed to Dagan they’d been creeping all day, at least, but he had no idea if that was true. When anyone got hungry or thirsty, they chewed fruit leather from their packs or sipped water from their skins. Dagan’s body didn’t feel tired or achy, but his mind was exhausted from wondering at what waited around the next dark corner. Eventually, they began passing offshoot tunnels, some of which echoed with voices or showed distant firelight. The clanking of steel against stone came up from a few. And slowly, slowly, their little group edged upward in the dark, climbing but never steeply.
At some point, bootfalls echoed down the tunnel in their direction. Maya held the torch aloft and said, “Ho there!”
Before Dagan could react, Hendrik had an arm around his middle and was yanking him into a side-tunnel. Kajja and Piret pressed in behind them, and in the darkness Dagan just made out the forms of Bartolo and Gareth disappearing in the other direction toward another sub-tunnel or alcove—it was hard to tell in the dark.
Hen leaned with one hip into the tunnel wall, then pulled Dagan’s back against his front, holding him fast with an arm around his waist. He couldn’t quite rest his chin against the top of Dagan’s head. He tilted slightly, so Dagan almost faced the wall, Hendrik forming a protective shell around him. They fit neatly just beyond the lip of the tunnel entrance, with Kajja and Piret behind them.
“Maya, what are you doing down here?” It was the first normal-volume human voice Dagan had heard in what felt like ages, low-pitched and gruff. “Thought you’d escaped to the light for a moon or two.”
“No such luck. Still have to do patrols,” Maya replied easily.
“Suppose you do, being in charge and all. It’s your ass if anyone’s shirking down here.”
“The burdens of responsibility.” Maya gave a dry chuckle. “How’s the wife? Didn’t you just have a little one?”
“We did! Bouncy little thing, she is…” The mystery guard started chatting comfortably about his family.
Dagan took a deep breath, as if preparing to engage his lifecasting. His inhale melted into his exhale and the exhale to the inhale again. He let his muscles relax, leaning back into Hendrik, strong as the stone wall beside them and infinitely more welcoming. He focused on Hen’s breath against his hair, his heartbeat against Dagan’s back, even but quick. Hen reached behind them with his free arm, possibly to check that Kajja was safe and out of sight, knowing him.
Dagan placed both of his hands over Hen’s where it rested near his navel. A warm, almost glowing sensation rose beneath it, deep within Dagan. He’s got me, he thought with not-quite-surprise. Because of course Hen had him; that was why Dagan always felt safe around him. But the peril had never been physical before, not for Dagan, anyhow. It was a strange and beautiful reversal of their dynamic from that long trek through the Heart Wood, where Dagan had been the protector and Hendrik had been…well, far more lost and lonely than Dagan was now, but he saw the poetry in it.
And this was perhaps not the best time and place to revel in a very large, very capable lover having his literal back…but it was better than shaking in fear that they could be caught within moments.
Maya eventually allowed the guard to pass, and his torchlight skirted the toes of their boots as he passed their little offshoot. Long, silent moments passed before Maya said, “All clear.”
Kajja and Piret edged past them into the main tunnel. Hendrik leaned forward and kissed his ear, whispering, “I want to hold you like this all night, when we’re somewhere safe.”
Dagan turned and, quickly as he could, went up on his toes to kiss Hen. It was brief, barely time for a breath in, but hard and intentional. Never in a million years did I think words would make me fall for you. But there was no time for that conversation; there hadn’t been for days, so he tried to put it all into that smallest kiss and a brief touch at his shoulder, where Dagan’s bite mark was seared into his skin.
Hendrik’s return glance was almost pained as they pulled apart and followed Piret into the main tunnel, where the others already waited. Maya turned without another word, leading them further upward through the warren of the mines, and Hendrik’s hand slipped out of Dagan’s.
*
Out of the corner of his eye, Dagan occasionally caught a glimpse of hunched humans in the darkness. Sometimes they pushed or pulled great wagons of rock, sometimes they shuffled along with tools in hand, heads down, voiceless, faceless, occasionally coughing. How long since they’d seen the sun, if even their guard supervisors with families and lives above longed for it? The tunnels faded into an endless darkness in his mind, which lulled him into an unfamiliar and terrifying numbness of mind. Eventually, as they wound through the endless labyrinth to avoid patrols and work crews and the gods knew what else, they came to a door—the first of its kind, as most passages had been blocked by metal grates thus far.
“Wood.” Dagan reached out, let his hand rest on it, felt the worn grain, smooth with perhaps centuries of human touch. It still felt like an old friend, a spark that began to wake its mind from the long dark of the tunnels. “Oak, I think.”
Bartolo and Gareth reached for it too, pressing their palms into the grain. Bartolo muttered a prayer to the forest gods under his breath; it almost sounded like a sigh.
“We’ll come out in the Ag District,” Maya said quietly, her voice rough with disuse. How long had she been leading them around in the dark? “There’s a safe house nearby.”
“What’s the Ag District, again?” Dagan whispered, leaning toward Hen. His throat was tight with thirst, but he hadn’t noticed until that very moment.
“Agriculture. Fields, animals, that kind of thing. Doesn’t smell great, just as a warning.”
“Can’t be worse than down here,” Dagan said.
Hen snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“How do they grow crops inside the walls like that?”
Hen opened his mouth to answer, but stopped to cover his eyes as Maya swung the door open, letting light spill into the tunnel like warm honey. Dagan longed to run into it, but waited until everyone else had filed out. Finally, he emerged into a close, unevenly cobbled street, well-lit by a hot coal fire. Beside it crouched a hooded figure, who gracefully rose to their feet as Maya closed and locked the door behind Dagan.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite soldier boy,” they said in a low, almost sweet voice.
Hen’s eyes went wide with recognition. “Jak?”
The figure threw back its hood, revealing glossy dark hair and twinkling eyes, not to mention bone structure to die for. Jak said, “You look especially good for someone who’s meant to be dead.” He smiled, a charming thing, bright and full-lipped, and held out his hands.
