He twisted, and for a moment she thought his weight would pull them over, or pull her hair out, but then he got a secure foothold. The change in balance was enough for her to reach up and grab his arm, and then with a mighty tug, pull him over the brink and onto the ledge.
Talen finally let go of her hair and pulled himself to sit with his back against the wall. He held his shoulder and grimaced.
Sugar felt her stinging scalp. “You couldn’t have grabbed my outstretched hand? Lords, I don’t know who’s going to kill me first-you or the monster.”
“I’m doing my best.”
The way he said it made it sound as if he were doing his best to kill her. She looked over at him and laughed. It was unexpected. Probably nothing but nerves. Yet it felt good.
Talen finally understood what he’d said and laughed with her.
“I guess we could look on the bright side,” she said. “If it wasn’t already aware, your yelling has certainly alerted the monster to our presence. So that will save us some walking.”
“There you go,” he said. “Now give me the torch. If I’m going to meet my death, it’s going to be with thawed toes.”
That was a good idea. They both turned and sat cross-legged facing each other with her holding the torch between their bare feet. Talen’s back faced the main corridor beyond.
The warmth was wonderful.
“That’s going to be a bugger climbing back down,” he said.
“No. Next time, seeing how poor a climber you are, we’ll just be sure to use the rope. I think I’ll tie it around your neck.”
He smiled.
Something sounded in the corridor behind Talen’s back.
Talen slowly reached for the torch and took it from her hand.
Sugar opened the case and withdrew the hag’s tooth. There was not enough room to stand up, and she doubted whether the monster could fit on this ledge, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t climb up just as they had.
They waited until the torch had burned through the rope and now was little more than a fire stick.
“I don’t think anything’s there,” said Talen.
“If something were,” she said, “then at least we could get this over with.”
“Well, we won’t get over anything squatting here,” he said.
She looked at him. He was not some strapping armsman. Not a formidable warrior. But she was happy he was with her.
“What?” he said.
“We’re going to have to light another torch.”
Talen nodded. He took one from the bundle tied with rope and lit it.
“Let me go first,” she said. “The last thing I want is for the monster to snatch you and leave me trying to strike it in the dark.”
“What are you going to do? Crawl over me?”
“Exactly,” she said.
When he saw she was serious, he lay on his belly. She crawled over him, careful to not to touch his ribs or shoulder, and then moved along the ledge until it joined the main passage and they could stand up.
Talen held the torch up and scanned the ground. “There,” he said and pointed to a spot on the tunnel floor. “And there.”
Sugar looked at the ground. There were a brief series of regular markings on the floor. They were partial footprints. Not a human’s. But something two-legged that was large and twisted its right foot slightly as it walked. “We’re in the right place,” she said. “That’s a comfort.”
Talen held the torch higher, illuminating the path beyond the stalactites.
The cavern walls here were much different from the ones below. They rose up to the ceiling in smooth lines with patterns carved into them.
“This is stone-wight work,” Talen said.
“Do you think this monster is one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
At her feet, covered in thick dust, were different-colored stones set in a geometric pattern. She wondered where the bat dung was. A cave such as this should be heaped high, beetles crawling about in it. But there was no dung. No bats. No cave vermin.
“You keep your ears perked,” said Sugar. Then they proceeded down the corridor, always just a stride or two from the swallowing dark.
They passed many carvings. One was of a great tree with all manner of beasts in it. Another of a bear carved with such fine detail she could see individual locks of its fur. Yet another contained a panel of ancient writing carved from top to bottom.
At one point she thought she’d heard something again. They froze, her waiting for the creature to come running out of the shadows, Talen stepping forward and to the side so the torch would illuminate more of the corridor.
She decided the sound was some trick of the cave, and proceeded forward, still tracking the creature by the occasional marks the creature made as it walked. She held the hag’s tooth ready in one hand, the case in the other. The silver glimmered in the torchlight. The tooth was long and felt well-balanced for throwing. But she couldn’t risk a long throw. After seeing the battle with the Skir Master, she knew she’d only have one chance.
With every step she became more certain that their names were going to be added to the list of those fools who had been swallowed by the ancient stone-wight ruins. Soon the second torch burned low. Talen lit the third. They now had only three left. Not long after that they arrived at a fork. Talen held the torch at a low angle to create better shadows that might reveal footprints. They walked down to the right a few paces and found nothing. A few paces down the left passage Sugar found another half print.
Talen froze and sniffed.
Sugar sniffed as well. Sulfur.
“The monster’s up there,” she said. “In that stink.”
“Aye,” said Talen.
Sugar gripped the tooth in her gauntlet, the gold studs gleaming in the torchlight, and took a step forward.
45
Argoth could not stop shaking. The tremors came in waves, starting deep within and building until his whole body spasmed. When each wave began, the monster carrying him would hold him tighter to keep him from shaking loose. He thought at first the tremors were signs of his terror at this beast. But the fear of the creature had quickly subsided, and he realized he had begun shaking as soon as it killed the Skir Master.
It was an effect of the breaking of the bond, he was sure of it. What it meant for his survival, he did not know. It might build until, like a case of lockjaw, he died in a horrible contraction. Or it might eventually pass.
Between tremors he examined the creature, the dark pits of its eyes, the rough edges of its hideous mouth protruding like the spines of a cod, the exposed skeleton of stone. A smattering of tiny, pale, white flowers grew across its neck and shoulder. He wondered why they had not wilted and supposed the earth from which they grew was living, part of its skin. At one point in the journey, when the monster stopped to kick a tumbled tree out of its way, a fat bumblebee droned about the monster’s head and landed on its shoulder. It had time to probe one of the pale flowers before the monster began running again and the bouncing shook it off.
Argoth could not understand why the creature had taken Legs. Perhaps he would deliver Argoth to the master and then reward itself with Legs as a meal. Whatever the reason, in between spasms, Argoth talked to Purity’s blind boy, soothing him, thinking all the while of Nettle, and the sacrifice he’d made-the sacrifice that had been wasted on his cursed, foolhardy scheme.
The creature kept, for the most part, to the woods. Argoth knew there was no use calling for help. He’d tried, and the monster had clamped a rough hand over his mouth. Besides, this was not a weave of flesh and blood. How it lived, he could not guess. What he did know was that it could only be undone by special lore. Lore of which he had no knowledge. He could only hope that the Creek Widow had mustered the strength of the Grove. He was spent, but there still was a chance the Grove could defeat this thing.