Briar, Song, and Root looked down the other set of stairs, trying to angle their lights to see more. Thinking of the size of the escarpment, Moon said, “I wonder if the city really fills the whole mountain. It’s a long walk up to the top, and we saw buildings through the glass up there.”
“We can’t get the boat up stairs. Come on,” Jade said, not patiently.
The others stepped away reluctantly. Moon had to admit, it was intriguing. He wanted to see the top of the city, wanted a better look at the shadow-shapes sealed under the glass. With a long look at the stairs, as if he was reluctant to leave them as well, Stone said, “We’re coming.”
Root added, “It’s not like anyone wants to find the monster.”
Stone gave Root a nudge to the head, then shifted back to his winged form.
They moved through the darkness with their lights throwing shadows on the walls and the graceful lines of the off-center carvings. Some distance along, Rorra stopped to drink from her water flask, and made Delin take a drink as well. Moon and Chime stopped with them, just in case something terrible chose that moment to leap out of the shadows. Ahead, Jade noticed and slowed the group’s pace so she could keep them in sight. Rorra stoppered the flask and put it back in her pack, saying, “You really think it’s too dangerous to split up? It seems so empty.”
Moon twitched his spines uneasily. “It’s too dangerous.”
Chime told her, “The creature in the forerunner city made us and the Fell see things that weren’t there.”
As they started walking again, she said, “But we don’t think one is here now, do we? This is so different from the city you described.”
“The creepiness is the same,” Chime said.
Some time later, Moon saw Root catch up with Jade. He asked her something in a plaintive tone. She stopped, and pulled affectionately on one of his frills. She turned back and said, “We’ll stop for a moment. Root’s hungry.”
Stone set Bramble down, and shifted to groundling while she dug in her pack for the food she had brought along. They had some bread and some of the dried sea-weed that the Kishan swore was almost as good as eating meat.
Moon turned to ask Rorra and Delin if they wanted any when Rorra swayed and caught Delin’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, and put a hand to her head. “I feel ill.”
Moon stepped over to take her arm to steady her, and caught the scent of blood. “Are you bleeding?”
She frowned at him. “No.”
He looked down and saw a dark spot just below her left knee, above the top of her boot. “Yes.”
“What?” She stared at it, uncomprehending.
“Sit down, here,” Delin urged her, and he and Moon helped ease her down.
Sitting on the floor, Rorra let out a breath and admitted, “That feels better.” Moon helped her unbuckle the boot and ease it away from the cloth of her pants. Where the fabric and leather had rubbed against her skin, there was a bleeding sore. Rorra swore in Kedaic, and said, “This happens sometimes when I have to walk all day. But I didn’t feel it until just now.” She touched it carefully and winced. “And we haven’t been walking that long.”
It must have been there a while. Now that it was in the open, Moon could catch a scent of infection off it. Except that he was sure it hadn’t been there when Rorra had removed her clothes and boots to swim in the sea only yesterday.
Chime and Bramble shouldered Moon aside at that point, both proffering medical advice and bandages and simples. Moon left Rorra to accept their help or fend them off, and went over to Jade. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“She has a wound, she must have gotten cut during the battle,” Moon said. That was the only explanation he could think of. Except he didn’t know how Rorra could have been hurt without it tearing the tough material of her clothes. And it had looked like a chafing sore. “Is Root all right?”
“Just hungry,” Jade said, frowning absently.
Still chewing a seaweed cake, Root had gone over to help Bramble hold her pack open. She and Chime were putting together a quick simple for Rorra. Bramble had been carrying extra supplies for Merit and it was coming in handy. It wouldn’t have the same effect as a simple made with mentor’s magic, but the combinations of herbs and distilled oils still helped healing.
“I’m hungry too,” Briar said, keeping watch on the darkness ahead. “And thirsty.”
“So am I.” Moon rubbed his eyes. He felt grit at the edges of the membranes under his eyelids, but that was probably because of the sand in the air outside. Now that everyone was talking about it, he realized his stomach felt empty and his throat was dry.
Briar said, “We ate before we left. It’s only been an hour or so.” She flicked her spines, suddenly uneasy. “Hasn’t it? My wings feel heavy, like I’ve been walking forever.”
With relief, Song said, “I thought it was just me.”
Moon stared at them, then met Jade’s gaze. He knew they were sharing a near identical expression of disbelief. Moon tried to sense where the sun was outside the rock of the escarpment, and felt nothing. Uh oh, he thought.
Slowly, as if dreading the answer, Jade said, “Stone, how long have we been in this corridor?”
Stone, who had been staring absently down the dark cavern of the hall, turned and ambled back to them. “About an hour.” He saw their expressions. “What?”
Moon said, “We’re all hungry and tired like we’ve been walking for more than a day, and Rorra has a chafing sore on her leg that wasn’t there earlier, and it’s already infected.”
Stone took that in. Then he groaned, “Shit.”
Delin stepped up beside Moon and said quietly, “I fear you are right.” He rubbed his neck below his beard. “I shaved while we were preparing to leave, not knowing when I would have the chance again. I am not a young man, to bristle with hair after barely an hour’s time.”
“So when did it happen?” Jade said. Her voice was even but she was holding her spines neutral with effort. “After we picked this corridor?”
Briar’s spines twitched in agitation, and she turned to Song. “Do you remember how many stairwells we’ve seen? I was going to count them, just to make sure we could find our way back if there was another branch in the hall. Bone is always going on about the warriors not paying enough attention to tracking, so I was . . . But somehow I didn’t count them.”
Song shook her head. “I didn’t think of that.”
Stone said, “Bramble, get over here.”
He hadn’t raised his voice, but something in his tone made Bramble cross the distance in a single bound. Chime, helping Rorra fasten the bandage, turned to stare, startled. Stone asked Bramble, “How many stairwells?”
“Uh.” She blinked. “I thought I was counting them, but I can’t remember . . .” She looked around, spines lifting in suspicion. “How long since we’ve seen one? Or one of those insets in the floor?”
Song said, “I know I was checking those, and so was Root, to make sure we were still above the canal.” She tasted the air. “I can smell the saltwater, so it’s still below us—”
“Enough.” Jade held up her hands, claws spread. “We know what’s happened—we know what we think happened—how do we fix it?”
“I just don’t think we should move anymore,” Chime said, wearily. “We don’t know where we are.”
Moon nodded grim agreement. They had shifted to groundling to conserve their strength when they had started back down the hall. But after walking for some time, they hadn’t even reached the last stairwell again. That was assuming the stairwells were real, and not part of this trap.