In that instant of fevered rush it was over — though to Suth it seemed to have happened in a half-lit sort of slow-motion. Dust drifted now in the dead air and he stood still, panting. He, Manask, Faro and Corbin alone stood. Of the Korelri attackers who had seemed everywhere, Suth counted a mere five. Five! Gods below! Still, they were lucky to be alive at all.
Peering around, he saw Squeaky slouched up against a wall. She’d been gut-stabbed. He knelt at her side; she lived still, but had lost a lot of blood. Her breaths came shallow and quick, like a child’s. ‘He took it,’ she told him.
‘Quiet.’
‘No. He took it. That prick, Pyke.’
‘What?’ He straightened, cast a quick glance around the cave: no Pyke, alive or dead. ‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’ Faro asked.
‘Pyke, the bastard. Who was he on watch with?’
‘Was with me,’ Fish said from the floor, breathing through clenched teeth.
Suth knelt next to Corbin, who was staunching the wound in the man’s side. ‘What happened?’
The man gave a weak shrug. ‘He took one side. I took th’ other. Later, I looked over an’ he was gone. Run off. Them Korelri charged in.’
Suth sat back stunned. Deserted! Takes the munitions and runs off. Leaves them unguarded. A blinding white fury made him dizzy. Why didn’t I kill him? All those chances. And now this! He went to his bedrolclass="underline" he’d been sleeping in his hauberk and now he pulled on the rest of his gear.
‘What’s the plan?’ Corbin asked.
‘I’m gonna find and kill the fucker.’
Corbin spat aside, nodding. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘Not the mission,’ Faro warned from where he squatted cleaning his knives.
‘To Hood with the mission! This is personal!’
The scout — Hood take it, a Claw — stood. He brushed dust from a sleeve. ‘Can’t let it get personal. Doesn’t do. I can’t go that way.’
‘Fine. Manask?’
The giant picked up a spear. ‘He can’t have gotten far.’
‘Corbin?’
The trooper squeezed Fish’s shoulder. ‘Let me kit up.’
‘Good.’ He went to Squeaky. ‘Take it easy now. We’ll be back. Just
…’ The woman was staring, head sunk. Suth brushed a hand down her eyes to close them. He stood. ‘Let’s go.’
In the hall, Suth nodded farewell to Faro, who answered the nod — very slightly — then padded off silently to disappear into the gloom. Suth watched him go, thinking that of all of them, that bastard would win through.
There wasn’t much of a spoor to follow. It was night-dark. Corbin carried their lamp. The Korelri had tramped all through the tunnel, but Suth walked ahead to do the tracking — somehow he’d lost faith in the giant’s skills. It seemed to him they’d been doing nothing more than wandering randomly yesterday. Some tunnels bore a distinct slope and he calculated that Pyke would follow the slope downward, hoping to reach a way out. So it was they retraced some of their way, keeping to the tunnels, always downward.
Distantly, the reports of renewed fighting reached them as reverberations and muted roaring echoed down the tunnels and they would freeze, listening. But it was very far off now. Ahead, down a side tunnel, a bright golden glow spilled out of an opening. Suth edged up to take a quick look. He recoiled immediately. What he’d glimpsed inside made his shoulders slump.
‘Come!’ a voice called, inviting. ‘You are looking for someone, yes?’
Suth leaned his head back against the curved tunnel wall, took a fortifying breath, and stepped in. Corbin and Manask followed. It was the largest of the chambers they’d yet seen. Some sort of rough temple complete with pillars of living stone. Candles and lamps lit the room. Across its centre, in two rows, waited ten Korelri Stormguard. The one at centre front was holding Pyke by the scruff of his neck.
‘This is yours perhaps?’
‘He’s not one of ours any more,’ Suth ground out.
‘Oh? Then you would not mind if I did this?’ The man raised a knife to Pyke’s throat. Pyke struggled furiously, but he was gagged and bound.
Suth frowned a negative. ‘Go ahead. Save us the trouble.’
The Stormguard nodded. ‘Yes. I do not blame you. Do you know that when we caught him he offered to sell you out?’
Suth studied the wriggling fellow. So much for your stupid lone wolf chances, fool. Didn’t come to much, did they? Peering beyond, though, Suth glimpsed the clean white light of day shining in from a side opening. Damn! Pyke did come across an exit, but the Korelri had it covered. Haven’t missed one trick yet, these bastards.
Manask, Suth noted, was edging back to the opening. Good idea. ‘Do as you like,’ he told the Korelri.
The man dragged the curved blade across Pyke’s throat, bringing forth a great gush of blood that splashed down his front into the dirt before him. His legs spasmed and the Korelri let him fall like a slaughtered animal carcass.
‘Run, my friends,’ Manask told them, and Suth and Corbin darted from the chamber, the giant following. Suth’s last sight was the Korelri waving forward his fellows.
They ran pell-mell through the dim tunnels. Suth’s poor vision caused him to run headlong into some corners. Picking himself up, he saw that Manask was far behind — the giant could hardly run squatting down as he must.
Bloody Hood! He waved Corbin back, pointed to a narrow cave opening, the cell of an ascetic. ‘Have to do.’ They waited for the giant then backed in. Manask’s great bulk utterly choked the portal.
Suth could not help but laugh, staring as he was at the man’s gigantic padded backside. ‘Manask, this must be your worst nightmare!’
‘Gentlemen,’ he rumbled, ‘I shall be the obstruction which cannot be dislodged!’
‘I’m all choked up,’ Corbin said, laughing.
But Suth lost his smile when he heard the big man grunting and his thick layered armour wrenched from impacts. Brithan Troop take it! There was nothing they could do but wait for the man to die then be hacked to pieces!
‘Manask! Back in!’
‘No, my friends,’ he gasped, struggling. ‘It would appear that I am truly stuck!’
If not back, then forward! Suth gestured to the man’s broad padded back. In the near-absolute gloom Corbin’s gleaming sweaty face showed understanding. The two pressed themselves against the tiny chamber’s far end. ‘One, two-’
An eruption punched the air from his chest and something enormous fell upon him, pinning him to the ground. Cave-in! Buried alive! Dust swirled, blinding him and filling his lungs. Groaning sounded from someone else trapped with him — Corbin perhaps.
The dust slowly thinned, and, blinking, Suth saw that the considerable bulk of Manask was lying on him. He struggled to move his arms to edge himself free. Then someone else was there, a skinny form, coughing in the dust as she heaved on the huge fellow. With her help Suth eventually managed to slide free and he stood, brushing dust from himself. The woman was Keri, her bag of munitions across her chest. ‘What are you guys doing?’ she demanded, glaring at him as if he’d been off on a drunken binge.
‘Sightseeing,’ Suth growled. He peered down at Manask: the man’s unique armour was ruined, shredded, revealing an unnaturally skinny chest. He knelt to press a hand to the throat — alive, at least. Just stunned. And Corbin? He pulled him out by a leg, slapped his face. The man came to, coughing and hacking. Suth helped him up.
‘What do we do with him?’ Corbin asked.
‘Leave him,’ Keri said. ‘No one’s around. C’mon. The Korelri are regrouping.’ She waved them into the tunnel. ‘Come on!’
Suth reluctantly agreed. He picked up a spear, secured his shield on his back, and cuffed Corbin’s shoulder. They followed Keri up the tunnel.
Corlo lay on the straw-covered ledge that was his bed in his cell deep within Ice Tower. The bars facing the walk rattled as someone set down a wooden platter — dinner.
‘Corlo,’ that someone whispered.