“I need more light,” Tal said to Bradok and Corin. “Get one of the lanterns from the cave without alarming the others.”
“I’ll fetch it,” Corin said. “Xurces won’t ask any questions.”
“You’ll have to hold her,” Tal said to Bradok. “It’ll be a shock, no matter how tough she is, and she must keep still while I work.”
Bradok nodded. He hated to admit it, but the idea of putting his arms around Rose, of holding her closely while she underwent her ordeal, was the only good thing about the whole mess.
“Sit there,” Tal said, indicating a smooth part of the cave wall.
Bradok did as he was told, sitting on the ground with his legs apart. Rose sat right in front of him and leaned back against his chest, her right arm extended, resting on Tal’s bag.
“Put your arm around her,” Tal said. “Hold her tight.”
Bradok put his right arm over Rose’s shoulder, draping it down so she could grip it with her left hand. His left arm he slipped around her waist. Her hair still smelled vaguely of sweet soap, and Bradok felt acutely aware of the bottoms of her breasts brushing against his arm as it encircled her waist.
A light came bobbing along the passage as, a moment later, Corin returned with a lantern.
“Here,” he said, holding out a stick wrapped in leather to Rose. “It’s to bite on. Might help you a little.”
Rose nodded then opened her mouth and accepted the stick.
“You’ll have to hold the light over here so I can see,” Tal told Corin. “I hope the sight of blood doesn’t bother you.”
“Only when it’s mine,” Corin said with a hint of a smile.
“All right,” Tal said as he pulled out a disconcerting number of knives and tools and laid them down in an organized row. “I’m going to do this as fast as I can. If it gets to be too much, Rose, just spit out the stick and that’ll be my cue. I’ll stop.”
“Yust oo id,” she said around the stick in her mouth.
As Tal picked up a sharp, thin-bladed knife, Bradok felt Rose’s hand clamp down on his forearm. He tightened his grip on her arm and her waist as Tal began to saw away at the strange blotch.
The first cuts were shallow, allowing Tal to scoop out some of the gray skin. He quickly cleared the area, leaving only a few spots where his knife had plunged deep enough to draw blood. The next cut, however, caused Rose to grunt with effort, and Bradok felt her nails digging hard into his arm.
Tal chopped away a chunk of bloody flesh, throwing it down on the sand. Corin looked away, edging back, but Tal waved him forward again because of the light. Tal used a towel to dab the blood away before cutting again. Rose bucked hard, straining against Bradok, and chomped down on the stick, which muffled her cries of pain. But her arm stayed in place. Bradok could see the muscles in her arm tightening and jerking as she forced herself to hold her arm steady under her brother’s cutting, probing knife.
“All right,” Tal said after what seemed to Bradok like an hour of butchery, though it was only ten or twenty minutes. “I think I got it all. One root went very deep, but I got that out.”
He laid aside his tools and began packing the wound with cheesecloth, finishing by wrapping it tightly several times.
Rose had long since stopped straining and jerking. She was panting and drenched with sweat. She spat out the stick but couldn’t talk at first. She gazed up into Bradok’s eyes. He thought he detected something in the look she gave him then. More than simple gratitude for help well rendered, he imagined her look said that she’d have risked such pain only if he were the one to hold her. In another moment, though, she had fallen asleep, slumping down to the cave floor in exhaustion.
“What should we do with this?” Corin said, indicating the bloody pile of flesh with disgust.
“Bury it,” Tal said, “or it will stink and attract predators. Needless to say, have as little contact with it as possible.”
Tal shook Rose gently. “Can you stand?” he asked.
Dazed and wobbly, Rose stood up. Tal helped her steady herself.
“You two clean this up,” Tal said to Bradok and Corin, wiping off his knives and putting them away. “I’ll take Rose back to the cavern and give her a medicine to help her sleep comfortably.”
With that, Tal shouldered his bag, took Rose by the hand, and slowly led her away.
Corin went to get the privy shovel while Bradok got to his feet and dusted himself off. His shirtfront was soaked with Rose’s sweat, and her scent was all over his body.
It didn’t take long to dispose of the bloody flesh once Corin returned with the shovel. They didn’t talk much as they worked, for both were anxious to get past the unpleasant job.
“I’ve been wondering something,” Bradok said as they finished up, piling sand on top of the hole they’d made.
“What’s that?”
“If your people kept all the Rhizos in a sealed cave, then where did our four playmates come from?” Bradok asked.
“What playmates?” Corin asked.
“The four Rhizomorphs we fought,” Bradok said. “Where did they come from?”
Corin stopped, his shovel frozen in mid action.
“By the Abyss,” he said finally, swearing in a low voice. “The caves,” he stammered. “The Zhome colony must have been broken open by the earthquake, just like the prison.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Bradok said grimly. “It means that, if those four Rhizomorphs were down here, running around looking for hapless victims, so are all the rest of ‘em.”
Corin gasped. “There’s no way of knowing how many of them survived the earthquake,” he said, “nor any way to stop them from tracking us. We’re in Reorx’s hands, for sure, this time.”
“Reorx!” Bradok muttered angrily, adding quickly, more respectfully, just in case the god was listening. “Reorx.”
CHAPTER 16
The slap of boot leather on stone echoed through the stone passage. It had been six days since the cave fisher attack and one since Rose’s disease had been operated on by her brother, and the survivors of Ironroot made little other noise as they marched. No one spoke much; no children were laughing anymore. Everyone kept their loved ones in sight and their hands on their weapons. To Bradok it seemed as though a gloomy fog had descended on them all.
The glowlamps that had so brightly lit their way had slowly dwindled to feeble points of light. Bradok, holding his compass open in the palm of his hand, walked in front of the group, using its small but clear light as a beacon, but that only seemed to emphasize the desperate nature of their situation. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought its light, too, was beginning to fade.
In the evenings people spoke only in whispers, and no one had gotten a good night’s sleep for several days. Without any light for protection, they avoided the caves at night. But sleeping in the tunnels was cramped and difficult, making everyone cranky.
That day the light in the tunnel was not so bad, and that gave Bradok an opportunity to step to the rear. Three other dwarves walked wearily along with him, their hands never far from their weapons: Corin, Much, and Rose. He had asked for those three stalwarts to join him. Bradok was tired of so many of the others, who whined and complained at every juncture.
“We have to do something about this infernal darkness,” Much said as they shuffled along, their darkvision adequate enough to show them a grainy, black-and-white view of the path ahead.
“True, the darkness is depressing. But what do you suggest?” Rose asked, a hopeless note in her voice. “We’ve wracked our brains.”
“Everyone is on edge. People need a break,” Corin said.
“They need to rest,” Bradok agreed. “Everyone’s been sleeping with one eye open, and it’s wearing them down. If this keeps up, we won’t be able to make a full day’s march soon.”
“We need to find a place that’s secure,” Rose said. “If everyone felt safer, they might be able to sleep better.”