Etchings of Power (Aegis of the Gods) (40 page)

“What’s that?” Concern filled Kachien’s voice.

“Th-They opened the dam,” Ancel sputtered. “These tunnels will flood in minutes. We’ll die here if we don’t make the river in time. Run. Run for your lives.”

They ran.

CHAPTER 31

Darkness engulfed them as they plunged deeper into the sewers. Cold seeped through Ancel’s soaked boots, and already, the water in the central channel had risen to overflowing, causing filthy liquid to lap at the sides of the tunnel. Although only ankle deep at the moment, the sewage was still rising. With only the entrance behind providing dim light, Ancel followed his friends’ silhouettes and footsteps splashing ahead, the stench of weeks old waste near impossible to breathe in. Making the mistake of sucking in too much air brought on coughing fits. Behind them, the crush of rodents fleeing for safety wailed a squealing chorus like an out of tune takuatin. The oncoming flood played the accompaniment in a muffled roar.

“This tunnel will lead us to the river,” Kachien yelled a few feet from Ancel.

“What do we do when we get there?” Ancel shouted. Rodents swam or scurried by him, oblivious to his presence, intent on their escape.

“I have a small boat hidden near the river bank. We use it to cross the Kelvore River. On the other side, I have dartans ready for us.”

The level of Kachien’s preparation left him taken aback. “Why not stay on this side of the river? There’s a few farmers I know who don’t live far from Randane. I could get us mounts there.”

“No. The King has men already searching the Randane Road.”

“How do you know this?”

“A guard told me.”

Ancel could only imagine what she did to obtain the information. “Well, we could skip across the Randane Road when it’s clear of soldiers and head into the Patchwork Forest. From there we can make the Greenleaf and the Eldan Road in a few days. It’s a quick run home after that. Still a lot faster than crossing the Kelvore.”

“No.”

Ancel opened his mouth to protest.

“Think about what you said and what has happened so far,” Kachien said.

In the deepening dark, Ancel gave his plan some thought. If they somehow managed to sneak across the Randane Road, past the King’s regiments, they would still need mounts. Chances are soldiers were watching the farms in the area. Worse yet was whether the creatures he and Mirza saw were wraithwolves. Even with Charra and Kachien’s protection, taking to the Patchwork and the Greenleaf Forests no longer seemed a good idea. Unfamiliar mounts in unfamiliar territory chased by shadelings. Ancel cringed.

“You’re right,” Ancel admitted. “Crossing the Kelvore is the best way.” In the dark, he could see the white glint of Kachien’s teeth.

“I know,” she said.

The water had now swirled up to their shins. Ahead, Mirza and Danvir labored. Wet, cold, clothes clinging to his body, Ancel found himself breathing harder and struggling to find purchase for his feet. Next to him, both Charra and Kachien sounded as if they had little trouble. The tunnel’s entrance behind was a mere pinprick. Darkness swathed everything else.

Not inclined to more conversation, Ancel focused on moving forward. He tried to ignore the overpowering squeaks and the sound from the oncoming flood behind. But he couldn’t. A lump formed in the pit of his stomach and continued to tighten and grow as the waters rose and the noises increased. When he dared a glance over his shoulder, blackness greeted him. Shivers wracked his body in a blend of chill and dread that he couldn’t separate. Either didn’t matter. He wanted out.

Is this all that’s left for me? Am I to die swarmed over by ten thousand rats and drowned in shit and filth? Never to see Irmina again? Never getting to learn more of Kachien? Will I ever get to see my parents again? My home? The Soltide Festival? Taste kinai, practice the sword, finish my Mater training? Am I doomed to die without becoming a Dagodin or an Ashishin?
He squeezed the likeness of his mother that hung from the chain around his neck.

His thoughts did nothing for his clenched gut. In the stories, the Dagodin Knights were always gallant, saving some village from raiders or slavers. Never did the stories tell of them or Ashishin in situations such as this. Ancel’s lips twitched. That he would find himself in such a crisis felt too comical to be true. Cold water rising to his groin quickly diffused the humor.

Squeals from the rats and the water’s roaring counter dominated the air. No longer able to hear the splashes of his friends or their breathing, Ancel forced himself forward, now having to wade as the water reached his stomach. His sword constantly snagged on debris, threatening to drag him under or forward with the current. Left with no other option, he unbuckled the swordbelt and let the water sweep it away.

Freed up of the burden, travel became a little easier. Batting at several huge rodents as they swarmed by served to infuriate them. Charra’s growls did little to help. More than once, Ancel felt sharp teeth and nails. His breathing grew labored, his heartbeat sped and thumped, and blood rushed to his ears.

“Ancel,” Kachien shouted. “We will not make it if I do not do something. Go. Swim now, it is faster. Do not wait for me. You must reach the point where the tunnels slope down. I will catch up.”

Ancel squeezed his eyes tight against the words. Mustering all the will he could, he prevented himself from going to Kachien. She knew what she needed to do. In this situation and in his current state, he was of little help. He locked his jaws against the need to gag up the foul water and swam away.

When he’d gone some two hundred feet or more, there came a rumble like a great waterfall. The tunnel trembled. The noise reverberated through Ancel. He looked back and gasped.

Behind him, daylight bathed Kachien as she stood with her hands outstretched to the sides, a gaping hole above her. The mossy walls and the black-covered water crawled with rodents. Sandstone bricks crumbled all around as the tunnel collapsed on itself and around her.

A moment later, she was gone from view as the tunnel inclined, and Ancel dropped below eye level. He was thrown into complete dark again. Even if he wanted to go back to her, he couldn’t now. Not against the current’s pull. Allowing the water to take him as it pleased, Ancel squeezed his eyes tight. The tell tale warmth of tears washed across his face. He prayed to the gods he hadn’t lost another woman he cared for.

Ryne woke to the pull of the essences around him and the baking sun.

Close-by, Sakari sat on a large stone; a cookpot, branches empty of kinai and fleshberries, and the remnants of a fire at his feet. Not far from him, stood Thumper, chewing on whatever tidbit Sakari had given him. “How do you feel?”

Ryne sat up among short, lush grass, drawing a breath at the sweet scents of fruit and roasted meat. “Like a new man.”

This Entosis was much bigger than the one where he met Halvor, but it was smaller than the one he’d woken inside seventy years ago in Granadia. The lily pond he remembered from the previous night, its clear water now reflecting the sunlight, was several hundred feet below him in a small glen. Deer, slainen, and grazing animals he didn’t recognize, drank from the pool or frolicked among fields, fruit plants and trees that thrived in the area. The plant life grew until they touched the granite and feldspar cliffs rife with mineral deposits. At a glance, he identified gold, silver, and the sparkle from precious gems.

Ryne stood and did a few stretches. All the while, the essences thrummed, tugging this way and that, or caressing his Scripts. Not once did his bloodlust surge to their pull. Although his power offered subtle whispers within him, he didn’t feel the compulsion to answer its call. Not even when he pictured the faces of Carnas’ slain. He soon found himself deep within his sword arts, flowing through various Stances and Styles. When he finished, he was more refreshed than when he began.

“Sakari. It’s time we left,” Ryne said as he headed toward Thumper. “We have work to do. A city to warn. A war to prepare for. And someone to find who can show me who I am and help guide me to my power’s full potential.” When he reached the dartan, Ryne rubbed its nose and flanks before reaching up to his bags and removing two water skins. “Gather some kinai from below.” He pointed among the fruit trees. “Make sure Thumper eats his fill. When we leave, link with him. Have him use his power so we can reach Castere by noon tomorrow. We can’t afford four more days’ travel.”

“As you wish.”

On his way to the pond, Ryne reveled in the feel of the primal essences around him. He didn’t need his Matersense for them. They swirled, and spun, tickled and tugged, dipped and rose in an exotic dance around his body. He wondered if the time would ever come when he could sense and see them all joined together in their full elemental states. He relished the thought.

The animals drinking from the pond acted as if he was one of them, hardly batting an eye at his presence. Ryne filled the water skins with the cool water and took a long drink. When he finished, he poured what was left over his head before refilling the container. With a cursory bow to the gathered wild life, he strode back up the hill.

Ryne took a seat near the dead cooking fire and picked up the pot. Inside was a stew made with wild potatoes, seeds, and brown meat. The spicy food set Ryne’s taste buds tingling, and he recognized the stringy composition and succulent taste of slainen flesh. By the time, he finished the meal and washed it down with water, Sakari returned with Thumper.

As they mounted to leave, curiosity nagged at Ryne. He opened his Matersense. Essences flooded him immediately. His Scripts responded with more than their usual eager ferocity and life-like writhing. Somewhere deep inside him, his bloodlust resonated. The craving to kill rose, but with ease, he gathered the essences he could and thrust them into his center. Despite the violence of all the individual essences and the elements they formed, Ryne’s core became as calm as the pond down in the glen. He smiled. “I’m ready.”

Sakari was silent for a moment. Then, as if whipped by a fierce storm gale or shot from a massive bow, Thumper bounded through the Entosis’ entrance. Outside, the hills, the fields, trees, grass, the ground, and the sky stretched into one multicolored mass with the speed Thumper ran.

CHAPTER 32

Coughing and sputtering, Ancel crawled away from the riverbank. The wind gusted, flapping his shirttail and trouser legs and pressing the wet material against him. He shivered as rain peppered him with cold, pebble-sized drops. Beside him, Charra followed with slow steps to match his own. The daggerpaw’s head shifted from Ancel and out toward the marshy land along the city’s bulwarks.

Lightning lashed the shrouded sky, its afterimage burning into his eyes before fading in a blink. Just ahead of him, Danvir helped Mirza to his feet. To their left, and several dozen feet behind, water rushed from the large sewer drain set into Randane’s towering wall, spilling filth and rats into the dirty, foamy swirls of the Kelvore River. Ancel thanked the gods for the winds and the rushing water that swept away the stench.

He still remembered the drop into the murky depths. For too long to measure in the dark, he’d allowed the current to take him when a pinprick of light grew into the sewer’s exit. The speed of his descent increased until he was tossed every which way the sewage wished. He spun, darkness became light, the cramped tunnel became open air, and he flailed as he fell. A splash, a roaring in his ears, and he found himself battling for breath, his lungs burning as he swam for the surface.