Black Sun Rising (83 page)

“You’re afraid,” Damien said quietly.

The Hunter began to protest, then stopped himself. “Of course I’m afraid,” he muttered. “I’d be a fool if I weren’t. Does that satisfy you?” He kicked loose a thick clod of earth, clearing the passage ahead of them. “I suggest we get to the lady and Hesseth before our subterranean friends do—and worry about fear later. There’ll be time for it, I assure you.”

He gave the lamp to Damien—his own sight didn’t require it—and led the way eastward, through the ruins of their enemy’s escape passage. As the tunnel cut deeper into the earth the damage seemed to be lessened, but it was still a struggle to make good time through the ravaged warren.

Periodically Tarrant would turn and look back, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the weak underground currents. But if he saw anything specific that disturbed him, he kept it to himself. Once, at the mouth of a narrow tunnel that led down to the Dark Ones’ realm, he paused to listen—senses alert as a hunting animal’s, nerves trigger-taut in tension—but he said nothing. His expression grim, he nodded eastward, urging the priest away from the citadel.

And then they came across the body. It was half-buried in dirt, as though in its fall it had loosed some new, private avalanche. Tarrant turned it over, brushed the dirt from its face—and breathed in sharply as the charred hole of a Fire-laden bolt became visible, right where one eye should be.

He looked up, lips drawn tight, and muttered, “Come on.” And ran. In time they passed another body—this one’s chest had a gaping hole, with fresh smoke rising from its Fire-seared edges—but they didn’t stop to examine it. The smell of burning flesh was thick and sharp, doubly acrid in the tunnel’s claustrophobic confines. They passed a turn where the earth had fallen, kicked a hurried path through loose clods of dirt that barred their way—

And found them. Springbolts in their hands, determination in their eyes. There were bodies here, too, and the scent of their blood was fresh. Tarrant had been right: the Dark Ones were surfacing.

Damien went to where Ciani stood—her back braced firmly against the wall, her hands gripped tightly about the weapon—and put one bruised arm around her. She softened, slightly, just enough to lean against him, barely enough to accept the reassuring gesture. Then she put her free arm around him, too, and squeezed.

“Thank the gods you’re still alive,” she whispered.

He glanced back at the adept. “Thank Tarrant, in this case.”

“We’d better move,” the Hunter warned them. He grabbed up a supply pack that had been left by Hesseth’s feet, swung it to his back. “And fast.”

“How much ammunition is left?” Damien asked the women.

“Plenty,” Hesseth responded. “But only three with the Fire.” Her teeth were half-bared, as if in a dominance display. “You think there’ll be more of them?”

“I think there’s no doubt of it,” Tarrant assured her. “The only question is how fast they’ll come.”

“He hasn’t died yet,” Ciani whispered. “I would know that ... wouldn’t I?”

My God, will you know it. The memories will smash into you like a tidal wave
—
like the surge of fae that killed your enemy
.
The experience of an entire lifetime, reabsorbed in an instant.
He hated himself for dreading that moment. Hated himself for wondering, with steel-edged calculation, whether that moment might not be the most dangerous of all.

They ran. And they were not alone. Close behind them, back the way they had come, something else was moving through the tunnels. Something that chittered in half-human speech, as it followed the path they had cleared. One demon—or many? With a sudden start Damien realized that his sword was still buried near the citadel, the rest of his weapons inside it. All he had left was the flask of Fire—if that was still intact—and he couldn’t draw that out without burning Tarrant. Still, if Tarrant could survive it, and if it could drive back their enemies ... he fingered the flap of the pouch as he ran, made sure that it was free to open. Tarrant would understand. Strategy demanded it.
Survival
might demand it.

And then they came around a turn, and there were the Dark Ones. A good four of them at least, and perhaps more in the shadows beyond. They were bruised and bleeding, and more than a little disoriented—but their eyes blazed with hatred, and hunger, and their nostrils flared as they caught the scent of human fear. Of food.

“Don’t let them touch you,” Hesseth whispered. A tremor of fear was in her voice; was she remembering when she’d been drained, back at the earthfire? Damien stepped to Ciani’s side and took the springbolt from her. “Get back,” he whispered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarrant reach out to her—for a moment he was lost in Morgot again, as the tidal power Hesseth had conjured dissolved all their barriers, and set loose the Hunter’s evil—and then he nodded, and gestured for her to go to him, knowing that there was no place where she would be safer than by the adept’s side.

And then the creatures fell upon them. Mindless as animals gone rabid, and ten times as deadly. He brought one down with a shot to the gut, fired point-blank into the demonic flesh. And then cursed himself as he brought the second bolt into line, for failing to ask which one of the weapons had only one Worked bolt in it.

And then one was upon him, and his weapon was still uncocked—so he brought the brass butt up into its face, hard, cursing it as he did so. There was blood, and the sharp crack of bone splitting, but the blow did nothing to slow the creature down. One clawed hand grasped the barrel of the springbolt, another grabbed at Damien’s arm. He tried to throw the creature off, but a strange numbness had invaded his arm; he found it hard to move. Shadows began to fill his mind, and his thoughts were slow in coming. He needed to fight it. Didn’t he? He needed to drive it back from him, before it ... what? What would it do? He found himself shaking as the numbness claimed more of his flesh, found himself filled with a dread and a fear that was all the more terrible because he couldn’t remember its cause.

—And then the Dark One howled, and fell back. In its chest was a smoking hole, where the point of a Fire-laden bolt had pierced through the flesh. Hesseth was ready behind it, her blade poised as if to decapitate the creature, but the Fire made that unnecessary. With a last desperate cry, the Dark One fell—and memories flooded Damien’s brain like some wild dream, a thousand and one disjointed bits pouring into him with nightmare intensity. He staggered, trying to absorb the onslaught. Trying to brace himself for further battle, even as he reclaimed his humanity. But beside him the cold blue light of Tarrant’s sword filled the tunnel, and he could see by its glow that an icy path had been etched through the flesh of two of their assailants. Carmine crystals glittered where the great veins had been severed, and a frosty steam arose from the newly chilled flesh.

“Let’s go—” Damien began, but Tarrant ordered, “Wait.”

He walked several yards down the tunnel, back the way they had come. And studied the ceiling overhead as if searching for something. After a minute had passed he seemed to find it, and he raised up his sword so that the glowing tip brushed the packed earth overhead. And then thrust up, suddenly. Chunks of dirt burst outward from the point of contact in an explosion that echoed down the length of the tunnel. And when the dust cleared, they could see that passageway behind them was filled. There might be Dark Ones still ahead of them, but none would be coming from behind. Not without a digging crew.

The Hunter resheathed his sword. “Now we go,” he whispered. His posture was tense, in a way that Damien had never seen before. Had the enemy touched him, as well? Or was it just that the odds against them were growing, too swiftly for the adept’s liking?

If he’s afraid of them,
Damien thought grimly,
what does that mean for the rest of us?

They passed other openings that offered access to the lower regions. Half of them were already filled with rubble, rendering them useless to the Dark Ones. The other ones they left alone. There were simply too many, and each one that Tarrant chose to seal meant another delay, another chance that their enemies would get ahead of them ... Damien caught sight of the adept’s expression as they passed by a particularly large opening, and it was utterly colorless and grim. And he remembered the sunlight that awaited them all, if they ever did reach the end of this passage, and wondered what the man could do to save himself. Was it safe for him to stay down here until sunset? With so many Dark Ones coming to the surface, half-mad with rage and hunger?

I won’t let him do it alone,
Damien thought darkly. Remembering the hands that had pulled him from the earth, which might just as easily have left him there. Feeling a loyalty which might have shamed him, in another time and place, but which now felt as natural as breathing.

“They’re coming,” Tarrant whispered, and he turned to look behind them. There was nobody visible there, not yet, but Damien knew enough to trust the man’s senses. He was about to speak when Ciani cried out, sharply—and the look on her face was one of such abject terror, such utter despair, that Damien’s blood chilled as he recognized what the cause must be.

“He’s there,” the Hunter said. Giving voice to her fear. “He’s coming.”

“Is he aware of us?” Damien asked him.

The pale eyes narrowed as Tarrant studied the fae. “Not yet,” he whispered. “But he will be soon. He listened for a moment longer, then added, ”There are many of them together. Too many to fight.“

“Then we move,” Damien told him. “The entrance can’t be much farther. If we can make it out before they get to us—”

He stopped. Met the pale eyes squarely. “Then Ciani can be safe in the sunlight,” he concluded, “while you and I deal with her assailant.”

They had just started to move again when it seemed, for an instant, that the earth trembled beneath them. Damien felt his heart skip a beat, and he prayed wildly,
Not now. Please! Just a few minutes more.
As if his God might really interfere. As if the guiding force of the universe was concerned with a handful of human Wardings, or the lives that might depend on them.

They ran. The walls and ceiling of the earthbound passage began to rain down fresh dirt on their heads, but they shielded their eyes with their hands and continued onward. Knowing how close they must be to the tunnel’s eastern exit, knowing how close that exit was to the relative safety of the plains, they pressed on—through dirtfall, over rock-strewn drifts, across huge heaps of splintered wood and boulders—they scrambled over obstacles as quickly as they could, not daring to take the time to study their surroundings. Again the earth trembled, and this time a dull roar could be heard. “They’re going,” Tarrant muttered, and Damien whispered, “God help us all.” The tunnel seemed at least twice as long in this direction as it had been when Damien first entered it; where the hell was that exit?

And then the worst of it struck. Not nearly as violent as its predecessor—but such violence was no longer necessary. The supporting structure of the tunnel had already been weakened, and its walls were riddled with gaping holes. It didn’t take much to shake loose what was left, so that the remaining ceiling fell in huge chunks behind them, on top of them, directly in their path. Damien threw himself at Ciani just as a massive shard of stone hurtled down from the ceiling above her; he managed to roll them both out of its path, barely in time. Gravel pelted them, and earth that had been packed to a bricklike consistency. He sheltered Ciani with his body and prayed that the other two were all right. And that their enemies weren’t. Wouldn’t that be convenient, if the earth itself swallowed up Ciani’s assailant?

But when he finally raised himself up from where he lay, and looked at her, he knew that they’d had no such luck. Her face betrayed none of the joy—or the disorientation—that returning memories would have brought.

He felt sharp nails bite into his shoulder, heard Hesseth hiss softly. “I think you’d better look at this,” the rakh-woman told him. She nodded toward the east, down to where the tunnel turned. He paused for a second to make sure the tremors had ceased—they had—and then got to his feet and followed her. The space remaining was barely large enough to admit him, and his shoulder pressed against damp earth as he forced his way through. To where the passageway turned, just prior to its ascension....

It was filled. Completely. The weight of the earth had collapsed a whole segment of the tunnel, rendering it impassable. Damien felt despair bite into him, hard, as he regarded the solid mound before him. They might dig through it, given enough time and the right tools ... but they had neither, and there was no telling how far the blockage went. If the whole tunnel between here and the surface had caved in ahead of them, then there was simply no way to get through it. No way at all.

He made his way back to the others and prepared to tell them the bad news—and then saw that it wasn’t necessary. Tarrant had read the truth in the currents, and Ciani’s eyes were bright with despair. The single lantern which remained to them shed just enough light to show him that her hands were trembling.

“We’re stuck,” he muttered.

“Can we dig out?” Ciani’s voice was a whisper, hoarse and fragile. “Dig up, I mean.”

Damien glanced at the ceiling. And then at Tarrant.

“We’re near the surface,” he said quietly. “I can hear the solar fae as it strikes the earth. Can almost feel it....” He paused, and then Damien thought he saw him shiver. “If the earth above is soft enough to dig, but solid enough not to bury us when we begin to disturb it ... it would still take time,” he said. “A lot of time.” He looked back the way they had come. “I’m not sure we have that,” he said tensely.

Damien listened—and it seemed to him that he could hear a scrabbling in the distance, like rodents. “They survived.”

“Enough of them,” the Hunter said grimly. “More than we can handle, without using the earth-fae.”