A wave ripple across the pool and in it, Khirro’s mind saw a vision of Callan’s face flickering in the worm-torch light. He rose and stepped away from the body, allowing the leech that slithered up the man’s leg to finish the job begun by the first.
“Now, Athryn.”
Each blow the magician struck defending himself punctuated syllables of the incantation he spoke. A rumble filled the cavern. Khirro turned from the blood-sucker and grabbed the closest underground-dwellers, pulling them away from the centipede as rocks tumbled from above. Khirro wondered if Athryn’s magic created the stones or simply loosened them.
Small stones rattled off the insect's tough shell, ineffective. It writhed and snapped its mandibles catching the smooth-faced youth’s arm and severing it at the elbow before a rock the size of a pony crashed onto its mid-section. He screamed and stumbled away, blood pumping from his wound. Thick black ooze seeped out of the centipede’s split side. It struggled to reach its attackers, legs thrashing, but the heavy stone held it in place. Athryn grabbed the young man by the shoulders, directing him away from the thing and toward the pool.
“Not the water,” Khirro said; that much blood in the water would attract every leech-thing in the cave.
“Which way, then?”
Khirro scanned the area, stretching to see over the heads of the three underground-dwellers pressed close to him for protection. The tunnel behind them was blocked by the writhing centipede’s death throes while the cavern’s distant darkness was only reached by entering the dangerous pool stretching out before them.
“I don’t know.”
Something brushed his foot beneath the water’s surface. He stepped back and looked down at a long and ribbon-like shape sliding by under the water before disappearing deeper into the pool.
What other creatures does this place hold?
The smooth-faced fellow whimpered and patted Athryn on the arm, then pointed toward the thin light spilling from above. Somewhere overhead, an opening allowed light into the cave.
“Do you see any way up?” Khirro asked and took a step away from the edge of the pool, pushing his charges as close to the thrashing centipede as he dared. They pressed closer against him.
Their savior. Their God.
The thought made him feel disgusted with himself.
“No,” Athryn replied scanning the smooth rock walls. “I could get us there, but you know what that would require.”
Khirro regarded the man lying motionless in the pool, the gorged leech pulsing on his thigh. He felt the three warm bodies pressed close to him and quickly chastised himself for allowing his mind to wander to such a place.
Then an idea occurred to him.
“What about the centipede? Would that work?”
Athryn shook his head. “I do not know. We can only try.”
Khirro separated himself from the three underground-dwellers, shedding them like removing a tunic, and stood in front of the creature, carefully out of range of its gnashing mandibles and struggling legs. He prodded it with the tip of his sword, looking for a reaction to show he’d found a weak spot in the insect’s hard shell. Steel clicked on hard shell once, twice, three times before finding a soft spot where it sunk in an inch. The monster jerked, threatening to wrench the blade from Khirro’s aching hand.
“Found a spot.”
Khirro looked at Athryn; the magician was bare-chested, having removed what remained of his shirt and wrapped it around the young man’s stump. The tattoos scrawled across his chest were visible against his pale flesh; the pulsing dim light of the torch gave the illusion that they crawled along his skin like tiny snakes. With one hand on the injured youth to comfort him, Athryn searched across the scrollwork words, looking for the right spell.
“I am ready.”
Khirro breathed deep and waited for the insect’s thrashing to calm. He coiled his arms back, muscles tight, then launched the Mourning Sword forward. It sunk into what must have been the thing’s eye, the runes on the blade glowing deep red. Two feet of blade sank into the thing before it jerked away, pulling the sword out of Khirro’s hands.
Athryn chanted as the creature thrashed, black goo spattering out of the wound. Its struggle slowed until it lay on the ground spasming occasionally. When it was mostly still, Khirro put his foot on its head and pulled the Mourning Sword free, coaxing with it a flood of the thick black fluid.
He braced himself. Seconds passed. A minute. He looked around and up. The light was no closer, his feet remained planted firmly on the cave floor.
“Athryn?”
The magician shook his head.
“It seems I need the blood of a human.”
The death of a human, he means.
Khirro heard sadness in his voice; Athryn didn’t want to kill any more than Khirro did.
He held his sword out toward the water using its bloodthirsty glow to get a glimpse into the darkness before the runes faded. The red light reflected on dark water as far as he could see. In the distance, a creature broke the surface, shiny gray skin showing above the water before it disappeared beneath again.
“I guess we have no choice.”
The smooth-faced youth, on one knee beside Athryn, pulled himself up. He tapped Khirro on the shoulder to get his attention then spoke in the his people's guttural tongue.
“I don’t understand.”
He began speaking again, then stopped, frustrated and aware he wouldn’t be understood. After a few seconds, he began to gesture. He pointed at Athryn, then at the sliver of light hanging above them, and finally drew his thumb across his own throat.
He knows. I can’t understand anything he says, yet he knows what we need to escape.
Khirro and Athryn looked at each other a second, an unspoken conversation passing between them, then the magician put his hand on the young man’s shoulders.
“No.” He shook his head so the youth would understand. “We will not do that.”
The smooth-faced fellow looked as though he’d been slapped, his expression stunned at first, but it quickly became sadness. He pointed to Athryn, then the light, then gestured across his throat again, his movements more firm and insistent this time. Athryn dissented again. The man’s lips moved, his throat worked to make sounds it was unfamiliar with making.
“You… go…for…Sol.” He pointed at Khirro’s hands.
Khirro looked at the blood soaked strips of cloth covering his hands and chewed his bottom lip. He must still consider the fate of the kingdom. Lives had already been lost to ensure King Braymon, his soul now living inside Khirro, would return to lead Erechania to victory over the Kanosee.
Does one more life matter?
Khirro thought of Maes, and Shyn, and Elyea.
It does.
“No. We won’t kill you to save ourselves.” He spoke firmly, knowing he wouldn’t be understood, but hoping the man would grasp the meaning from his tone. “You’ve done much to help us, but we’ll take our chances.” He pointed across the murky pool.
The young man’s face went stony but Khirro turned away, ready to take his first step into the dangerous water. The youth yelled and Khirro felt a hand at his belt. He reached to stop it, but the bloody bandages made him clumsy, gave him no chance to stop the woman from grabbing the knife from its sheath and plunging it into the smooth-faced youth’s chest.
He staggered back a step; Athryn caught him, lowered him to the cave floor. Khirro pushed past the other men and knelt by the magician’s side. The smooth-faced man blinked, a rapturous expression removing the tension from his face. Khirro pulled the blade free and slapped his hand over the wound. He felt blood pulse against his hand, seep between his fingers.
“Why?” Khirro asked. “Why sacrifice yourself for us?”
The youth’s eyes flickered to Khirro’s hands, then back to meet his gaze.