Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (14 page)

Another sin on Rhuddlan’s head, for now
Bedwyr was dead and the company overcome. He reached for his
dreamstone blade, but stopped with his hand just above the hilt.
Foolishness would not save her or the others. A flash of light to
guide them might also get them killed. So near to the falls he
could not hear any movement, but Llynya at least could not be
far.

He turned to the south, stepping into the
stream. Smooth, water-worn rocks made poor footing, but he waded in
up to his knees, into water like liquid ice, and soon discovered
why he’d lost her scent. A wall of rock or a huge boulder—he could
not tell which—curved along the streambed on the other side, the
top of it just within reach of his hand. If she’d gone beyond the
great outcrop, ’twould be enough to block the fragrance of the
lavender she chewed.

Taking care where he placed his feet, he
followed the rock downstream to where it turned back in upon itself
and began rising out of the water to higher ground. ’Twas not a
boulder but a wall three handspans thick, a gradually spiraling
wall. He took up the faint trail left on the stone, and when he
turned the last curve was suddenly upon her. The rich scent of
lavender washed over him in the same instant that her blade flashed
blue and slashed open the skin on his face with a bite of steel,
cutting him high on the cheekbone.

’Twas instinct alone that enabled him to
block her next blow. On the strike that followed, he captured her
knife hand and lunged for the rest of her, grabbing her and pulling
her hard against his chest. She struggled as if ‘twas death she
fought, but he held tight and forced her to drop the dagger. The
clatter of steel and crystal on stone was a raucous backdrop for
her breathless cursing.

“Not a child... s-sand eater. Let go of me.
Bedwyr. Sticks! Filthy leaf-rotter... not a child—”

“
Llynya.
” He spoke her name harshly,
tightening his hold and pressing his thumb against the inside of
her wrist in warning.
There is danger in the dark,
he
signaled, and despite the noise and light of her attack and what it
might bring down on them, he swore most of the danger was in his
arms. She’d nicked him on the wrist when he’d blocked her, and warm
blood ran down his face. Curse him as a fool for forgetting she was
Liosalfar and not a helpless chit lost in the dark. “Llynya,” he
repeated, and again pressed his thumb to her wrist.

She jerked her head up at his second warning
touch, and the eyes staring at him in the fading glow of the fallen
dreamstone blade were wild with fear. Her heart beat in a
frighteningly rapid pattern against his chest. Her breathing was
uneven. The icy mist settling in his wound was so cold, the bone
beneath the cut ached, but ’twas no colder than the Quicken-tree
girl. She was shivering uncontrollably, her clothes soaked
through.

Are you hurt?
He signed in her palm,
but got no response before the last flicker of blue light died off
her blade and plunged them once again into darkness. He was left
with a vision of her stricken gaze and her fair face, of the dark
mass of her hair falling down on her shoulders, twisted and braided
and stuck through with leaves and twigs.

Llynya,
he signed, and when she still
did not respond, his own heart began beating too fast. Mayhaps he
was too late. Mayhaps she’d already been alone too long and had
begun her decline. She was not as strong as the others, not yet as
hardened to the march and the weight of the darkness.

He swore to himself, at a loss. Shay would
have seen the flash of dreamstone light and would come, but they
could not stay where they were.

As if to prove him right, the crunch and
scrape of some new thing in the dark sounded behind them, off to
the east. Mychael whirled, keeping Llynya at his side.

The smell that came after the sound was
enough to decide him. He swiped his hand up the side of her
arm—
come
—and took off, determined nor to be caught in the
trap of the curved wall with God knew what readying itself for
attack. He knelt for her blade and sheathed it with his own, never
once letting go of her. She had no choice but to come with him, but
whether she did it willingly or unwillingly, he couldn’t tell. The
strength of his grip overrode any effort she might make.

He wasn’t going to lose her.

~ ~ ~

Swivin’ dirt and light-sucking rock
.
’Twas always the same. Dirt and rock. Dirt and rock. And a bit of
worm flesh now and then. Christ save him, how long had he been
scrabbling through the dark searching, ever searching? He’d once
been strong and bold and feared. Now he was—what?

A swivin’ dirt scraper. A leg dragger.

A leg dragger whose fortunes would soon be on
the rise.

A groan strangled in his throat as he grabbed
the next handful of dirt and rock and pulled himself up and forward
in the tunnel. Some of the passages he traveled grew so narrow he
had to crawl out of them. Such was this one, but this one was worth
the trouble. He smelled lavender at the end of it. He’d been
smelling it for days, here and there, and he was finally getting
close, very close, to the source.

’Twas a woman. The underlying scent was
unmistakable, and she was just ahead in the dark, in a cavern he’d
left a few days past because of the strangers who had come, the
newcomers. Swivin’ odd they were, shrouded figures with bandaged
faces come to dig in the caves for pieces of rock.

Fools, all fools. The treasure of the dark
wasn’t in the rocks. ’Twas in the holes, if a man had the strength
to endure them.

He’d endured, so help him God. Caradoc, the
Boar of Balor, had endured. And because he’d endured, the other
ones, the dark soldiers, had found him and made their twisted
promises to him. Skraelings they called themselves, and if he’d had
them by his side during the battle for Balor, the land above would
still be his. The smell of them alone would have been enough to
send his enemies running. “Quicken-tree,” the skraelings called the
bastards who had slaughtered his garrison and left him to die in
the bowels of the earth.

The sounds of the fighting had drawn the
skraelpack south to where they’d found him half-dead on the shores
of the black sea. A dirty bit of business they’d done there with
the washed-up remains of his men, before they’d taken him back to
their tunnels in the north. Foul, stinking places. He’d never known
such stench, but they’d patched him together of a sorts. He felt a
smidge stretched, a bit askew, not quite right, but he was alive
and growing stronger and was no man’s prisoner. When he’d had all
he could take of the north and demanded they bring him south
again—
south to the wormhole!
—by God they’d done it
posthaste.

A grimace twisted his mouth as he took hold
of his left knee and dragged his leg up closer to his body,
readying himself for the next pull forward.

The newcomers were another lot altogether,
wasting their strength hacking away at dirt and rock, working by
the light of their yellow lamps for hours to gain even a small
amount of stone.

He’d tried stealing a piece of their hard-won
ore, thinking it precious, but he’d not gotten far before a thin,
stinging rope had been thrown around his wrist, pulling him up
short and forcing him to relinquish his prize. They’d be paying for
that soon enough. The rope had disappeared nearly as quickly as it
had come, but he’d been burned and had a scar to show for it.
Bastards. They looked more to be fighting men than miners, so ’twas
a fight he would give them. Skraelings would run ten leagues in a
single night for the promise of blood, and he had sent word with
the last pack of dark soldiers that had come south that blood was
to be had.

Not many who came up against a skraelpack
survived in one piece, literally. The night they found him, the
stinking creatures had been chewing on his arm when he’d come to,
and he’d sent three of them flying before they could get a good
piece out of him. He had the scars from that bit of mischief too,
teeth marks the size of tally sticks. The newcomers’ swords were
long and sharp, but not as sharp as skraeling teeth.

The green-smelling Quicken-tree had sharp
swords as well, but their days were numbered—mark his words—had
been numbered since the day Balor had fallen to the swivin’ green
horde. And then they had added torture to his torment by sealing
the tunnels leading to the hole. He’d howled his misery then. Now
he and the skraelings would kill them all—all but one. One he would
keep alive, for the Quicken-tree knew much that he needed to know,
much that he would know, if he could just catch one and ask it a
few questions with his knife.

He hadn’t as yet. Damn fast they were and
tricky in the tunnels, impossible to track with any consistency,
and the skraelings had been strangely reluctant to go after them.
Wait, he’d been told. Wait and watch, and he would have all their
skins as his reward. So he’d waited, and he’d watched, and he’d
sent tidings of the newcomers. But his waiting was over. The
Quicken-tree had made a mistake. They’d brought one who smelled of
lavender, the scent so rich and sweet, ’twas impossible to lose her
trail. He’d have her quick enough even without the skraelings.

A pox on all women. ’Twas Ceridwen ab Arawn,
his own feckless betrothed who had cost him the life he’d known.
Well enough that another of that fair rotten sex should return him
to glory of a different sort. He would squeeze the secrets of the
deep out of her, drop by perfumed drop, and bargain with her
carcass if needs be for more. They knew. The blue-bladed bastards
knew about the friggin’ great hole, and they would know how he
could get back in without being burned alive.

Wicked curse!
He gritted his teeth and
dug his hand into the floor of the tunnel. Then he pulled himself
forward and up, shoving with his good leg.

’Twas always there in the back of his mind,
those shifting shades of heliotrope and green flowing through the
abyss, a swivin’ siren’s call. But every time he’d gone near, the
heat of it singed and scorched, eager to consume him if given a
chance.

Retreat was no less painful. When he’d first
fallen into the hole, he’d despaired of ever getting out. Now he
despaired of ever getting back in.

Redemption would be his. The cleansing
waters, the blood of the Lamb, ’twas all there in the worm’s mighty
hole, and more, endlessly more, on and on into the promise of the
Lord—the salvation of immortality. He’d had a taste, and he would
have another.

There was a way back in, there had to be, and
the Quicken-tree knew it. ’Twas why they’d killed everyone else, to
keep them from knowing what power lay within the abyss.

He knew. He’d been there and been marked.
’Twas the bright copper stripe in his hair that had truly set the
skraelings off him. Even the largest of them had grown wary upon
seeing it. Wary, and then excited. Aye, ’twas the stripe that had
saved him from their jutting, misshapen jaws.

He stretched his arm out again and touched
cold, wet rock, not dirt. His pulse quickened. ’Twas the opening of
the tunnel into the cavern. The smell of lavender was strong, so
strong he knew that if he reached out with his hand, she would be
there. His.

And so she was, for an instant. His fingers,
stretched to their fullest, touched soft cloth, but ’twas the
merest flick of it, a brush against him as she ran by.

No!
He lunged for a better grasp,
scrabbling out of the tunnel to prevent her escape, and was caught,
his wrist bound by the quick burn and twist of a stinging rope
before his shoulders had cleared the opening. The bastards! They
had no right! He tried again, even knowing she was gone, and once
more felt the lash of the intruders.

Swallowing his howl of rage, he jerked his
hand free and sank back into his cold and lifeless hole. They would
die. They would all die. Next time, he swore, there would be none
to save her.

M
ychael ran with
Llynya through the dark, skirting dripshanks and pools, making his
way toward Shay. Something had been back there, something bigger
than a tua, and it had been after them, suddenly scraping and
scrambling, the stench of it bursting upon them in a rush. If he’d
hesitated a moment longer, it would have caught Llynya. He was sure
of it. They’d lost the beast, if beast it be, in their wild dash
through the stream, but they were now both dripping wet, which he
feared would do the girl no good. He needed to get her to a place
where they could use their dreamstone blades. The heat coming off a
single crystal hilt more than doubled when two were bound together.
’Twould be enough to warm her, and mayhaps seeing the light would
ease her fear.

The trail split ahead of them, with the path
he’d taken earlier heading across the cavern floor and another
winding higher in a course of stairs up the wall. He chose the
stairs, keeping her close behind him. If trouble came, he would as
soon have the high ground and a wall at his back—and the elf-maid
at his side, fierce chit. He hurt like hell and was still bleeding.
Half-frozen and scared witless, she’d cut him with a speed and a
finesse he would be hard-pressed to better, ready in an instant to
fight and, if needs be, to kill.

She knew what was in the dark, knew enough to
be terrified. Sand eater, she’d called him, leaf-rotter, and cried
Bedwyr’s name. Only by the light of her blade and his touch had she
recognized that he was of her company, a telling lack.

Sticks, indeed, he swore to himself. She
couldn’t smell friend from foe, let alone the hundreds of other
things she needed to discern to keep herself safe in the deep dark.
Like the old ones whose senses were no longer keen, she should not
be allowed beyond Lanbarrdein. She belonged in the forests, not in
the caves where the ability to blind scout meant the difference
between life and death.