Breath short, he stood and placed the heel of his boot against the man’s temple.
A face appeared at the bars, weird shadow thrown across their captor's bare cheek by the torch’s glow. It was the young man who held the rope when they brought Khirro.
Out of sight beside the door, Athryn raised his hand; Khirro increased the pressure on Callan’s head, sweat forming on his brow. It took an effort to keep his leg from shaking. The man at the door spoke, a torrent of whispered, unintelligible words spilling from his lips. Khirro looked at him, then at Athryn’s face hidden in the gloom beside the latticework bars.
The magician’s expression changed. He looked at Khirro, shook his head and lowered his hand. With a relieved sigh, Khirro took his boot off Callan’s head. The thought of what he might have done reminded him too much of the undead creature that stood over him months ago, threatening his life with a rusty axe until the Shaman saved him.
But not following through doesn’t relieve Callan’s suffering.
Athryn stepped out of the shadows and the man at the doorway jumped back, startled. More words came, louder this time, more insistent. The magician listened, staring at their captor's face, trying to interpret his expression and body language. As the smooth-faced ground-dweller spoke, he gestured toward Khirro and a chill ran through him.
Have they come for me?
Khirro glanced down at Callan’s head, dreading the idea of putting his foot on it again, but Athryn did nothing to indicate he should. The beardless one spoke again, gestured. Even without understanding the language, Khirro knew he was repeating himself in an effort to make them comprehend his words. After the third repetition, Athryn nodded and held his hand up to the young man, stopping him mid-sentence. Khirro went to his companion’s side.
“Do you understand what he’s saying?”
The magician shook his head. “Not entirely. The one word that comes up over and over is ‘Sol’.”
Khirro raised an eyebrow. “‘Sol’? What’s that?”
“Sol is the name given to the sun God in the far south.” He faced the doorway and held his hands in front of his chest, palms pressed together as though in prayer. “Sol? Do you worship Sol?”
The man nodded.
“Why would people who live underground where they can’t see the sun worship it?”
Athryn rubbed the place on his cheek where his scar used to be. “Many civilizations worship Gods they believe gave them life though they cannot see them. The sun would be such to a race living beneath the ground.” He took a tentative step toward the door and Khirro stayed close. “Sol? What about Sol?”
The man smiled, pleased at making himself understood to some little degree. He pressed himself against the wooden bars and thrust his free arm through, pointing at Khirro’s bandaged hands.
“Sol!”
Khirro’s eyes widened. He looked down at the dirty cloth covering his wounds, staring at them for a moment before holding his hands up. The underground-dweller gestured at them again.
“Sol.”
He pulled his arm back, the door rattling as others Khirro hadn’t noticed standing in the tunnel pulled the logs propped against it away. Khirro and Athryn stepped back as they entered the cell. All of them had the pale skin and dark hair typical of their kind, but Khirro didn’t recognize any but the smooth-faced man. There were six of them; four men and two women who wore the same rough spun pants and bare chests as the men. They all stared at Khirro’s hands.
“They’re letting us go,” Khirro whispered as the youth with the torch signaled for them to come out.
“It could be a trap. They might think you will bring the wrath of Sol on them again if they try to take us by force.”
The man at the door waited through their whispered conversation, the rapturous smile on his lips unfaltering.
“What choice do we have? Wait here for our fate to find us? Die in a pool of those glowing things?” His gaze flickered to Callan and he shuddered.
Athryn nodded. “You are right. I would rather perish doing something than languish in the dark or be eaten by worms.”
He took a step toward the door but Khirro put a hand on his arm, stopping him. The people waiting for them outside the door gasped as his bandage brushed Athryn’s sleeve.
“Callan,” he said nodding toward the unconscious man.
The torch holder grunted as he and Athryn crossed the cell, but they ignored him and crouched beside Callan. The gentle ripples rolling along his stomach had become cresting waves, the flesh lit from within by a dull glow. Beneath each one, Khirro plainly saw the shapes of grubs wiggling and writhing.
“It is too late,” Athryn said. “It will be a short time before the grubs take him. There is nothing we can do.”
Khirro sighed through his nose. He did not know this man but felt connected by their circumstances.
If only I could help.
As though hearing his thoughts, Athryn put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Khirro nodded his thanks.
The underground-dweller holding the torch spoke and a note of desperation underlying his unintelligible words brought Khirro and Athryn to their feet. He stepped forward with the two women, their bare feet silent on the stone floor. One woman held Khirro and Athryn’s sword belts and daggers, the other their packs and Khirro’s shield. When they didn’t immediately step forward to take them, the women bowed their heads and held the items out like an offering. The man with the torch gestured, insisting they reclaim their possessions; the companions obliged.
With his pack and shield slung on his back, weapons stored, and the sword belt around his waist, Khirro felt renewed. He grasped the Mourning Sword’s familiar hilt and pulled an inch of steel from the scabbard. The runes glowed dull red, their energy sending relief up Khirro’s arm and into his chest through the pain of the gash on his palm. The man with the torch gestured for them to follow and stepped across the threshold. Khirro and Athryn moved toward the door, the two women falling in behind them, but then Khirro stopped him, his hand on Athryn’s arm.
“Wait,” he said and turned back into the cell.
The two women looked at him wide-eyed and stepped out if his way as he crossed the floor, both of them bowing their heads and averting their eyes as he passed. The smooth-faced man gibbered something from the doorway.
“Just a moment,” Athryn said.
Khirro stood beside Callan’s prone form, looking down at his bare stomach; the grubs within him shone through his flesh as though he had swallowed a lit torch. Khirro drew a deep breath through his mouth, tasted the dank air of the cell, and freed his blade. He grasped it in both hands and held it over Callan’s unconscious form, his arms quivering slightly both from the pain in his wounds and a desire not to have to do this. The runes brightened until they became a ferocious glow. The underground-dwellers gasped.
“I’m sorry, Callan,” Khirro said raising the sword above his head.
Behind him, he heard Athryn whispering words too quiet for Khirro to hear. Foreign words, he guessed, archaic, understood by fewer people than the words spoken by the underground-dwellers. Words of power.
The Mourning Sword arced down, cutting through Callan’s neck in one stroke, its tip scarring the floor and sending sparks into the air. Blood spurted from the wound, black in the wan light compared to the brilliant, blood-thirsty glow of Khirro’s blade. Grubs squeezed and wriggled their way through the severed flesh but, as Athryn’s incantation ended, they disappeared in the blinding light that filled the cell at the magician’s final word.
Khirro squinted and covered his eyes with his forearm; he heard their rescuers utter confused, fearful sounds. Feet shuffled and voices cried out in surprise. Hope filled Khirro’s soul like the light filled his vision.