Like stars, he thought, dazed. Nebulas in the night sky. He spun end over end, bouncing along the tightening walls, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew he’d soon be stuck. The passage would grow too tight and he would lodge in somewhere, entombed forever, grown over by luminous moss and feasted on by beetles and ghekantulas…
There was nothing he could do but let go. The luminous moss formed into faces, flashing before his eyes. He saw Aleron in his armour, throat opened like a red smile, and his father sitting on that chair in his bedchamber, the Sword of Varinar across his lap, stroking. He saw Elyon in the alley, pleading for him to kill him as well, the rain falling down in sheets of tears. He saw his mother, his mother lying on the slab, white as snow and innocent for the first time in her life. He saw Gerrin’s shifting mask; from Shadowmaster to spy to saviour, Gerrin who was the only father he’d ever known. He saw Emeric, with his neat beard and hair and keen golden eyes, sitting in the tavern in Greywater where they’d met, and he saw Turner with his flaxen beard and tan coat, standing on the prow of Invincible Iris with a great beaming grin on his face.
Jack. He saw Jack. Jack his friend, his brother by choice, lying on the beach at Lizard’s Laze a lifetime ago, his pale skin reddening in the fierce southern sun and denying it all the while. Devin, brown eyes big as saucers as the serving girl Sapphire told him about the Day of Dawning, when all the girls would frolic naked in the sea. Brax with his smile, a nightmare so full of warmth, and Sid so simple and strong. Even Grim Pete passed his eyes, up there in his nest, pointing and squawking like the raven he resembled.
And the rest, all of them. Borrus and Mooton and Torvyn and the Blackshaws, Sir Lenard and the Silent Suncoat, Big Mo and Kazil and Cabel and Sir Corbray and Harden, loyal Harden, who wanted so much more for him, and would see that desire cruelly dashed. He thought of the boys, the boys he’d let die, and the others that he’d saved, and he wondered where they were. Henrik and Hopper, Nils and Zacarias and Trent, and the rest they’d led to freedom. Were they safe now? Were they dead? Had they found some place to live and be free? Had they fallen to revolt among themselves, and broken up like some shattered plate?
There were other faces too, passing one and then another and then another. The other prisoners they’d saved from the pits, the faces of the dead staff at Emeric’s estate. He remembered Brewilla, whom Emeric had loved so fiercely, her dark face peaceful and beautiful in death. He remembered the hook-handed Patriot called Karlesh, the man who had led the men who killed her. He and his friends had not died peacefully. He had butchered them all, as he’d butchered the Whisperer Ghalto and his men that night at Russet Ridge.
Today, I am death, he had thought, as he slew them one and all. How much death had he brought now, how many men had he killed? All bad, he liked to think, but was that true? Weren’t they all just slaves, like me?
The faces did not stop, would not stop. They passed him by, tormenting him, reminding him of his follies and failures. He thought of the girl Sapphire again, how pretty she was, how she’d looked at him with those eyes, how his own eyes had shied away. He had never had a woman, never felt a loving touch. He might have stayed on the Golden Isles for a night or two and tasted that pleasure. Maybe even that girl Leshie might have shown him. She was pretty too, and had that willing look when she wasn’t mocking him and teasing him and calling him Shadowboy.
But she had that right, didn’t she? He was a boy, not a man. A chaste boy and a fool and a failure…that most of all. I have failed him, he thought, as the faces finished with Ilith. He saw him clear as if he was standing before him now, Ilith in the body of the heir, radiant in his divinity, but fading, already fading in his strength. There was no time, no matter what Gerrin said. I swore him my oath, I swore I’d find the blades, and I’ve failed him. My lord, I am sorry. Forgive me, great Ilith. Forgive me…
Then the faces were gone, and the light snuffed out, and he drifted into the beyond…
He woke to the sound of splashing water, echoing loudly, lying broken on a bank of wet stone.
His heart gave a powerful beat, as though reviving him, and he heaved and sat up, retching water from his stomach and lungs. A soft glow shone from his armour, silvery blue, the light of the moss soaked into his plate. He had not done that by conscious thought. In the deep darkness of the cave, it was the only light. Ilith’s armour, he thought. Ilith’s gift.
I’m alive.
He staggered to his feet, trying to get his bearings. High above him, he could see the faint outline of the river, pouring raucously from the tunnel in a chaotic spout. It must have spat me out, he thought, dimly. I must have been spat out into this cavern. He was too exhausted to smile, too lost, too alone. Weakly, he called out, “Gerrin…Owen…” but even as he said the names he knew they would not hear. They were too far from here, a world away now. He was all alone in the dark of the depths, but alive. I’m alive, he thought again, still struggling to believe it. But where? Where? How far did I go?
He looked around. He could not see the ceiling, he could not see the walls. He seemed to have reached the very bottom of the world. The glow of his armour would not last, he knew….without more light to restore it and soak into it, it would begin to weaken and fade, and he had no other light to see, no torch, no way to start a fire.
I have to move, he thought. If he rested, and slept, he might wake in total darkness. It was all he wanted in the world, to lie down and close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He needed to keep on going. One step, and then another, he told himself. And then another after that.
He stumbled away from the spray of the water, moving into the darkness. His armour permitted only a faint glow; enough to light the earth before him a few paces but no more. Over his gauntlets he still wore his gloves, and over his sabatons he wore boots. They were stifling the light of the plate, so he removed them, tossing them away, and that won him a little more luminance, but not much. Quickly, he thought. You must move quickly.
Step by step, he lurched exhaustedly along, the steel of his sabatons scraping against the rock where before the leather boots had muffled his tread. His legs felt weak as wet parchment, and his body ached all over from the battering he’d taken in the river. Blood leaked from a dozen cuts and grazes, and there was a pounding in his head such as he’d never known. He reached up and his fingers came back slick with blood, and the flesh of his left shoulder had been badly torn.
That almost made him smile. Like my father, he thought, wryly. Jonik had cut him right down to the bone using the Nightblade, back when he did not know who Amron Daecar truly was. Not to me, anyway. He knew who he was to everyone else. A hero, a greatlord, a titan among men.
His death will save the world, Gerrin had told him, words he’d been commanded to say. Still, all this time later, Jonik couldn’t figure out how.
He staggered on. The floor rose before him, some hill within the cavern, or maybe just a large rock, he couldn’t say. The roar of the water grew thinner the further he went, and in its place he could hear the sounds of chittering and scuttling, the noise a thousand little legs made as they skittered along the ground.
The sound made his spine tingle. He reached to draw out Mother’s Mercy, and a mercy it was to find it still at his hip. In the chaos it might have slid from its scabbard, but it had held fast, and he had his dagger too. The feel of the godsteel helped to fortify him against his fears, the bastard sword sliding from its sodden sheath with a scrape of steel on leather. He swung it about, mists swaying and rising. Beyond the pool of light, he could sense the creatures closing in, but what they were he could not say. More of those beetles? An army of geckantulas? Was he to live through the river only to die by the bug?
Where the light bled to dark, he saw something move, skittering past him, thin and long like a snake with legs, a segmented body winding and weaving. He swung about to follow it, but it was gone, vanishing over the lip of a rock. He heard movement behind, and turned, swinging his blade, and another of the creatures scuttled away into the dark. “Damn you…if you want a taste, I’m here.” He tried to shout the words, but they came out feebly. He had barely the strength to raise his voice. How was he going to fight?
He sped his pace such as he could, stumbling and staggering up the slope, pain darting through him with every step. His left shoulder throbbed violently, and blood was running freely from the wound. Is that what they’re after? Blood? Blood or flesh or bones, what did it matter? He had seen the size of the things, he could hear them out there, gathering in their hundreds. When they came for him, what chance did he have? Run, he told himself. They’ll chase you, but you have to run…
But he couldn’t. He had barely enough strength in him to walk and hold up his blade. He was spent. Hopelessly spent. The ground was steepening ahead, and it was all he could do to keep going. The light seemed to be keeping the creatures at bay for now, but he could already feel it draining out of him, bleeding from his armour like the blood from his veins.
Light. He needed light. Was that not why Ilith made this armour for him, imbuing it with the Nightblade’s power? Did the demigod not know he might face a trial like this? No, he told himself. How could he have known? But he wanted to believe it anyway. Fate, he thought. I make my own fate, and Ilith…he is part of that. He had made this armour to help him. And but for it he would already be dead, battered to death in the river…or devoured by these thousand-legged snakes. There is fate in that, he thought. He made himself believe it. I’m not going to die down here.
The pool of light around him was growing smaller, thinning and receding. He could hear the creatures behind him, hear them to his left and right, clicking and communicating, but he couldn’t see them. They sounded excited, sharing the news of the feast to come. More were coming, pouring over the hill in a tide of scuttling feet. Jonik paused to look back, but saw only blackness behind him now. How deep am I? Have I entered another world?
Maybe he’d died in the river after all…died and been spat out into some hell. Perhaps these creatures had been sent to punish him for the things he’d done? They would devour him slowly, feasting on skin and flesh, nibbling as he screamed out in terror and agony. And when he finally died, he would only awaken again, spat out from the river, and the creatures would be closing in…
He shuddered, suddenly cold. No. I am deeper, that is all. There will be a tunnel ahead, atop this hilly or beyond it, and on the other side I’ll find moss and glowing vines and a whole sky full of fireflies.
He kept that thought in his mind, driving him up the slope, reaching now with his spare hand to climb and clamber. Once or twice his feet gave way beneath him, and he slipped, and he could hear the wave of excitement through the swarm of creatures, as though their time had come, but no…he stood and kept on going, moving as quickly as his body would allow. The creatures shrank back, biding their time. The shield of light was fading…fading…
There was a faint line ahead, rugged and uneven, that marked the top of the hill. Faintly, so faintly, he sensed a shimmer back there in the distance beyond the hill. Moss, he thought. Mushrooms, vines. It made no matter. If it was light his armour could drink it, and he could keep these devils at bay…
He surged on. The army behind followed, all but nipping at his heels. He could sense them, right there behind him, and turned to slash out randomly with his blade, grunting from the effort. Several of them squeaked and fled, but he caught one before it could retreat, slicing right through it. A spray of blood went swishing from the bastard sword’s edge, and two long portions of body spun away into the dark. Ten thousand legs rattled and scampered in pursuit, fighting to devour the corpse. Ten thousand more continued after him, shadows a stride behind.
Jonik, said a voice.
He started. Who was that? Had he dreamed it? Had he been dreaming all along? He turned a full circle, his head throbbing. The shadows kept a pace away, but he could see them there, swarming, gathering, climbing all over one another, hundreds of them, thousands…
Here, the whisper said. Here…here…here…
Jonik whirled about. The whisper was coming from ahead, over the hill. He sped onward at once, suddenly running, climbing, scrabbling. The creatures erupted into motion behind him. He felt one dart in and bite at his leg, teeth scraping against armour. Another tried, and another. Then suddenly ten were about his feet, squirming and snapping and coiling, and the light was almost gone. The creatures screamed in frenzy. He stamped down, crushing several with his boots, whipping to cut at them with his sword. But they kept coming, clambering up his legs and stabbing with their claws, and suddenly…suddenly the light was gone, fading like a dying star, like a torch guttering out in a darkened chamber, and there was only that glow ahead, marking the top of the hill…that blue glow beyond it calling him on.
The creatures were all over him. He shook them off, swinging Mother’s Mercy, grabbing at them with his gauntlets, kicking out with his feet. His chest and back were protected by his breastplate, but his shoulders and upper arms were exposed. He felt one bite down upon the bloody gash in his left shoulder, ripping and licking with a darting tongue. He shuddered and screamed, twisting to shake the thing away. Another was climbing his neck. He could feel its legs pricking at his scalp as it crawled for the cut on his head…
Jonik roared out, throwing his limbs about, dislodging a score, but twoscore replaced them. They were biting, stabbing, licking, drinking, washing over him like a tide. He could feel their weight pressing him down, and he stumbled to a knee. No…not like this. He could not die like this.
He laboured back to his feet, dragging himself on. The lip of the hill was close. The cavern echoed to his grunts and gasps for breath, to the wild cheeping of the chasing horde.
Ten more paces, he thought. Just ten. His legs lunged onward, counting them down, nine, eight, seven…A fresh wave of creatures bulged up about him, rising like an ocean swell. He kicked, swinging through them with arm and blade. Six, five, four…The light was blooming ahead, glimpsed through the writhing swarm. A mist rose from somewhere lower, blue and brilliant. Three, two…He reached the top, pulling himself up with a grasping hand, lugging his legs behind him. One…
The world fell away sharply beneath him, plunging in a steep descent. The sudden drop made him dizzy. He lurched back, trying to find a footing among the mass of squirming bodies, but there were too many of them, too many, and he slipped, stumbled forward, and went tumbling over the edge, crashing and rolling down the face of the crag. He felt sharp snags tear at him, heard the smash of armour ring out on rock. He hit a ledge, the air punched out of his lungs, rolled over the side and kept on going.
