But Triq was strong: he knew her bravery and was glad to have her at his back.
The fading rocklight still showed char marks, faint dustings of scattered soot that lured them onwards. Hanging roots were scorched and shrivelled, smaller stones cracked clean through, or fallen in pieces to the floor. At points, there were old carvings in the walls, softened by time, their meanings long-lost.
The axeman had the peculiar certainty they were going in a circle.
Too many damned tavern-sagas.
Ecko’s eyes flashed as he turned. Instantly, the axeman was alert.
Ahead of them came the beat of heavy footsteps, swift and regular – distant, but quickly becoming louder. There was an almost-flicker of light.
Redlock whistled softly. The passageway was a long, narrow curve, silent stones walled them in.
Tarvi answered him, “Seems we’ve got a patrol.”
“Then we stop them,” he said. “We need to find a side turning. Whatever they are, they’re not catching us with our breeches down.”
“They’ll come at us single file,” Tarvi murmured. “If you can hold...”
“And if I can ambush the damned things, I won’t have to.” He gave her a brief grin, glad she was able to focus. “I don’t know what they taught you in Roviarath, but never be afraid to fight dirty.”
She chuckled wickedly, seemed to like his audacity.
He spared her an additional glance – she was cute, but the same age as his daughter – then noted Triqueta’s expression and set his face to grim certainty.
“Let’s go – we’ll have to move quick.”
With Ecko before them like a dark harbinger, they ran.
* * *
“You don’t need to do this, please...”
In the flicker of the brazier’s flame, she’d seen the image of the trade-road, the bustle of the little township. Dirty streets and wooden walls, traders and grifters, beggars and families – it was a swell of population on the water’s edge, as though the unrolling ribbon-town had been dammed by the shoreline. Carts moved, making ruts in the mud, chearl plodded, tails flicking, children ran underfoot, chasing and wide mouthed.
But their laughter was silent – she heard only the soft crackle of the fire.
Maugrim was behind her, his heat at her neck, his hand forcing her to watch.
And before her was a hollow, a broken basin – a twisted, jagged stump of stalactite like a cracked-off tooth. If he craned her head back, she could see its sibling, high above, also broken, as though a shattering hammer force had split the pillar asunder. Yet it yearned still – water and long returns of mouldering soil had renewed its growth, as if it writhed imperceptibly downwards, needing to be rejoined.
Now, flame-light teased it closer.
Maugrim’s voice, soft as a growl in her ear.
“You showed me the key, little priestess – how to unlock the secret. I would’ve given you everything I had, anything you asked for. I can change the world, thanks to you... and you repay me by bloody cowardice? By trying to run away – like some rebellious street kid?”
“Whatever you’ve awoken –”
“You’ve awoken.” She felt him grin, his breath warm. “We’ve awoken.” He stretched his hand past her and the firelights flashed on his white-metal rings. “Never forget, sweetheart, you started this with me.”
In the fire, wavering in the image, a tiny flame-angel with eyes white-hot. A Sical, he called it, an elemental, a creature of the Soul of Fire. It watched them, unblinking, the image of the township shimmering through its form as though through high-summer heat.
Hard against her back, Maugrim stretched his hand into the flame.
She expected his flesh to crisp and blacken, but he was unhurt, his rings glowing red and fierce blue heat playing at their edges. The Sical nuzzled him like a pet.
She heard it in her head. Feed, I. Hun-ger.
“Do you see it?’ he asked her. “Watch.”
The creature grew, hot against her face. It seemed to draw strength from his touch – somehow it was both in the fire and in the air over the trading post. It was a miniature sun, blazing with eagerness and fury.
She said, “No, Goddess, no...”
You did this with me.
As though the creature phased between one place and another, it drew the flame about itself.
Feed, I. Hun-ger.
She saw in the fire. She saw it through the fire, as though through an elemental window. She saw it rain death upon the town.
In silence, she watched the detonation, the ripple of heat and impact, tumbling buildings like charred parchment, wood exploding into fierce life and the blaze within reaching the sky. She saw the pouring forth of black smoke, the panic and the running and the dying and the terror.
She saw the Sical kill, lazily and perfectly, just because it could.
She covered her face with her hands.
“If you resist me again,” Maugrim said to her softly, drawing his hand from the flame. “It’ll dance on your burned remains.” He placed his hand on her arm and the heat of his rings made her scream.
* * *
Never be afraid to fight dirty.
Ahead of them, the flicker was rising to a red glow – a sullen gleam that swelled against the stone. An edge of pressure came before it, making sweat stand out on skin. The relentless pound of heavy stone feet grew louder, closer – soil trickled from the roof, from between the slabs in the wall.
Ecko pushed himself faster, his telescopics spinning to pick up the telltale light difference that would mean –
There!
A sliver of darkness, a straight flicker of highlight – a turning. He gave the others a flash of his LEDs and he ran, low and fast, his soft shoes light over sand-dry soil.
He heard them come after him. Approaching, Redlock gestured for him to get out of the way.
“Not this time.” Ecko grinned, black as a promise of death. In his hand was a small pottery container – a secret prize, something he’d liberated from Maugrim’s lock-up. He was bouncing it in his palm – and well aware he was way too eager to see what it did. “You wanna fight dirty? I say we fight fire –” in his other hand was Lugan’s lighter, now refilled “– with fire.”
“What the rhez is that?”
“Progress.”
Tarvi said, “Oh...” Her reaction brought warmth that had nothing to do with the incoming nasties.
Shut up! he told himself. The pottery impacted repeatedly against his fingers. In his other hand was the metal bite of home. He found them comforting, somehow bridging the gap between one reality and the other.
This is the Bike Lodge, mate...
The thumping stone feet came closer. A line of soil shivered down the wall.
“By the Gods...” Triqueta breathed softly, tailing into silence as the pounding was in their ears, in the rock about them. Past the square stones that limned the entranceway...
The creature was rock, a cloak and cowl of ancient, worn stone covering twisted, eroded grey muscle. It had hooves – solid like a horse’s and impacting hard on the floor. Its gait was heavy enough to judder the walls.
More soil trickled. Ecko bounced the ceramic globe in his hand.
But its face...
Blunted, empty features, worn down like a graveyard statue. Its expression was hollow despite the flame in its eyes – its cheeks were sunken in stone-shadow.
Behind it came another, a second, a third – each one twisted, damaged, wrong.