“Let’s go.” He stood and brushed dust from his breeches. “But don’t drink the water.”
It was a trick of the blue light that made the cavern seem so large. After an hour walking in silence as the picked their way around stalagmites and over debris, they reached the far wall. The blue light ended suddenly at the opening of a tunnel in the middle of the rough stone wall like it dared not cross the threshold.
They stood at the edge of the tunnel’s mouth, peering into the darkness they’d hoped had been left behind when they entered the cavern. Khirro dreaded the idea of leaving the soft blue light behind. As threatening as it seemed after his hallucination, the black was worse. A minute passed, no one moving; Khirro’s growling stomach reminded him how much time had passed since he last ate.
“There’s nothing to do but go in,” Ghaul said, finally breaking the hour long silence, but he didn’t move. No one did. Time crawled.
What are they thinking?
Khirro longed for the comforting warmth of the king’s blood against his chest. Was it the darkness before them that made him dread pressing on, or the emptiness he felt from the missing vial? He needed to have it back and moving on was the only way to get it.
Khirro pulled the Mourning Sword from its sheath and held it in both hands before him. Unbidden, his lips whispered a foreign word and the blade sprang to life. Bright white light burned up the steel, the red runes and black blade disappearing behind its radiance. The others stared at Khirro, expressions of surprise and disbelief on their faces. He looked back at them knowing his face showed the same.
“How did you…?” Elyea whispered, voice trailing off.
“I don’t know.”
“Dragon fire,” Athryn said. Blue iridescence and harsh white light flickered and fought across the surface of his silvered mask like beasts competing over their territory. “There is magic in you now, Khirro.”
“No.” Khirro shook his head. “Not me. It’s this place.”
Once, as a child listening to his mother’s fables, he might have imagined himself a wizard, but those days passed with his youth. Power and responsibility were things he didn’t crave. The Shaman gave him the responsibility for the blood of the king and twice he lost it. Being a farmer, being entrusted with another’s love, these were all the responsibility he wanted, but his life would never be like that again. He looked at the others staring at him and the glowing sword in his hand. Some things couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much you didn’t desire them.
He strode into the tunnel and his companions followed.
Darkness fled before the light of the Mourning Sword like a hare before a fox. The harsh white glow lit yards ahead bringing Khirro comfort, as did the feel of the hilt in his hands. What would happen to the light if he used the Mourning Sword as weapon rather than torch? And could he make it stop, or would the sword glow for the rest of eternity? He considered asking Athryn but decided against it until they were safe.
If we’re ever safe again.
The tunnel differed from the one they’d followed into the glowing blue cavern, angling upward slightly as water trickled down its walls here and there. The rivulets reminded Khirro of the thirst raking his throat but, though they didn’t glow blue, he dared not touch the water to his lips. He wouldn’t trust anything as long as they remained in this cursed place, not even himself.
As they moved down the passage, patches of moss appeared on the walls, sparse at first but growing thicker and more frequent the farther they went. The air changed, too, becoming fresher, less cloying. Khirro occasionally thought he felt it shift. Somewhere ahead, there must be an air shaft or an opening to the outside.
Outside.
The word sounded good. It would be a relief if they didn’t have to retrace their steps through the cavern, past the dragon, to regain their freedom.
Will it be day or night when we reach the surface again? Summer or winter? He sighed as he walked. If we reach the surface.
Time had lost meaning since they descended the twisting wooden staircase…how long ago? Lakesh made its own rules.
Khirro walked on, parting the darkness as he went, finally feeling like they drew closer to their goal. But it also felt like they no longer traveled alone. His companions trudged along behind him.
Do they feel it, too?
On the tunnel floor at the edge of the sword’s light, a glint caught Khirro’s eye. He halted and his companions stopped beside him.
“There’s something ahead,” he whispered, pointing with the tip of the Mourning Sword. Ghaul stepped forward, but Athryn stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“We go together,” the magician said.
Khirro stared ahead as they crept forward shoulder to shoulder, but he knew the others held weapons in hand. He’d heard the gentle stretching of Ghaul’s bowstring and the scrape of steel against leather as Athryn and Elyea drew sword and dagger. Khirro breathed slowly through his nose, felt no sense of foreboding, no fear, only emptiness.
Step by step they advanced, the light of the Mourning Sword reflecting on what Khirro quickly recognized as the blade of a sword. He resisted the urge to stop, inspect it and draw conclusions from afar. A few more steps and the circle of light cast before them fell on a booted foot. He stopped. The others did, too.
“Is it a man?” Elyea whispered.
No one answered. Ghaul stepped forward, motioning for them to follow. They moved again, taking small, cautious steps, the edge of the light crawling farther ahead with each footstep.
The leather boot led to a leg clothed in rough spun breeches. An empty scabbard hung on one side of a wide belt encircling the person’s waist, a dagger at the other. The glow passed the waist, casting light on a dirty red tunic and reflecting on glimpses of mail hidden beneath. Nothing indicated it to be anything other than a man prone on the tunnel floor before them. The sense of emptiness grew in Khirro, becoming a feeling of loss. The clothes looked familiar, the armor recognizable. He knew what the sword-light would reveal and dreaded taking the last few steps before the glow fell across the man’s face.
“Shyn,” Elyea cried putting words to what Khirro already realized, perhaps known from the moment the light reflected on the sword.
They hurried forward, forgetting caution as they rushed to their fallen comrade’s side. Elyea kneeled beside him, searching for signs of life, but Shyn’s eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, the Mourning Sword’s light gleaming dully on their glassy surface. Gray feathers poked in places from his head and neck, showed under the collar and sleeves of his tunic. A shiver ran up Khirro’s spine as he gazed upon Shyn’s face looking dead and half-transformed as it had in his vision.
What does it mean?
“How did he get here?” Athryn asked. He turned to Ghaul. “You were not gone long enough to have traveled so far.”
Ghaul mumbled something Khirro didn’t hear as he concentrated on remembering his vision, but it was no use. Instead, he found grief. He’d liked Shyn, would have befriended him under any circumstances. He examined the border guard’s face, his expression frozen in a skyward stare, lips pulled into a half-smile. Only a few feathers had pushed completely through his skin; most were trapped halfway so it looked as though he’d been skewered to death by a flock of birds. Khirro’s eyes trailed down his chest to the wound in his belly. Dried blood caked in the rings of his mail and stained his tunic dark brown but none pooled on the ground beneath him.
“He didn’t die here,” Khirro said interrupting something Ghaul said.
“That’s what I said,” Ghaul said, annoyed.
Khirro ignored him, his gaze falling on feathers poking through the sleeve of Shyn’s tunic in a testament to the violence of his transformation. No wonder he normally removed his clothes before changing. Khirro shook his head.