Skein of Shadows (25 page)

He was on her before she could scramble to her feet, his hands around her throat and his face in hers as he
pretended to squeeze.

“Could when you touched him,” he breathed before she smashed the ledger she’d grabbed into the side of his head and he rolled off her with a yelp.

She was on him in a heartbeat, knee in his spine as she grasped a handful of hair and yanked his head back.

“Hatred and hunger, Marshal,” he murmured. “Watch yourself.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she muttered under her breath, disgusted with the changeling. And with herself—she’d almost believed him. She slammed his head into the floor. “
There’s
your ‘usage fee,’ Caldamus.”

When he groaned and struggled weakly, not yet unconscious, she did it again. Harder.

“And that’s for Goren,” she added as the changeling slumped and lay still beneath her. His hair began to grow longer and lankier in her hand as he morphed back into his natural form. She released her fistful and clambered to her feet.

“Feel free to keep the change.”

She collected Xujil from the mayor’s sitting room and left Brannan to explain to the next person in line that the mayor was suddenly indisposed. She and the drow guide met up with the others in front of the smithy. She was pleased to see that Zi was sporting a new set of dark gray robes which instantly made him seem both more competent and more dangerous. It was a tactic House Deneith often used in conflicts, both on the battlefield and off. Well-kept
uniforms weren’t just a utilitarian requirement or a means of increasing morale or solidarity. Much as the fine dress and displayed wealth of a diplomat reminded those he negotiated with of his nation’s resources, the sight of even one soldier in livery was a similar reminder that there was a greater might behind him that could be brought to bear against his enemies. It was both a warning, and a threat.

And the color would make Zi harder to see in the shadows of Tarath Marad, and consequently harder to target. Always a plus, especially for a wizard.

Greddark handed her a heavy pack, which he’d already rigged to go over one shoulder, so as not to interfere with her shard axe’s harness. He and the others wore helmets with inset everbright lanterns, and goggles hung about their necks. Greddark passed a pair over to her, followed by a helmet.

“Got everything?”

The dwarf nodded.

“Food, water, climbing gear, weapons. Light for when we don’t mind being seen; low-light lenses for when we do. And you? You get us registered, and our fee paid?” he asked as she placed the goggles about her own neck and strapped on the miner’s helmet, buckling it firmly under her chin.

Sabira snorted.

“More or less.”

At his quirked brow, she shook her head. “Later. For now we should get started. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

At her gesture, Xujil took the lead, and the group fell in behind him. Sabira and Greddark came first, followed by Laven and Zi, then Glynn and Jester, and finally Skraad and Rahm, taking up the rear.

The drow led them over the stone bridge and toward the back of the cavern where there were no buildings and no everbright lanterns to light their path. A forest of thick white and yellow stalagmites sprouted up from the cavern floor here, some of them reaching up to join thinner stalactites that dripped from the ceiling. The twisting formations obscured the back wall of the cave from view until they came to a gaping hole in the stalagmite thicket. Shattered rock littered the ground here, and it was obvious that the opening had been created by an explosion of some sort. The debris had been moved aside by the explorers who came after, so it was impossible to tell the directionality of the blast from their pattern or the scorch marks that remained in the surrounding stone pillars.

“Tell us again how Brannan came to find you, Xujil,” Greddark said as they walked. “For the benefit of the newcomers.”

The drow paused and turned toward them. With the blackness of the entrance to the depths behind him, and framed as he was by the jagged remains of both stalagmites and stalactites, it looked for a moment as if the earth itself had opened up to swallow the guide. The illusion was fleeting, but powerful, and Sabira shivered. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.

“My brethren and I had been sent out to find magic to aid us in our fight against the Spinner of Shadows; we believed we could do so here, above. We knew we were nearing the surface, but we could not find an egress from the caverns. The area had been plagued with quakes and tremors and we were about to retreat back below to search for a safer exit elsewhere when Brannan’s people happened
upon us. One of the quakes had opened up this hole—” he gestured to the wall behind him “—and Brannan blasted his way through the stalagmites to find out where it went. He found us.” The guide cast an inscrutable glance behind Sabira. “I believe it is likely the ‘newcomers’ know the tale from there.”

Laven grunted at that, and Sabira could almost feel him reaching for the hilt of his sword. She’d have to make sure she issued a “no killing the drow” order when they stopped to camp.

“Shall we proceed, Marshal?”

Sabira nodded at the drow.

“Lead on.”

Xujil turned and led the way through the yawning mouth of the quake-spawned cavern. As Sabira stepped from the cave that housed the bulk of Trent’s Well into the narrower, cooler passage, the drow’s voice echoed eerily back to her through the darkness, disembodied and alien.

“Welcome to Tarath Marad.”

T
he everbright lanterns on their helmets lit up the passageway with a soft blue glow, revealing walls that sparkled with ore.

“Lava tube,” Greddark remarked, reaching out to touch the silvery vein nearest him. “Nickel. Some copper. Explains why there aren’t more dwarves here. Not worth mining.”

“Lava?” Sabira asked, reminded of her nightmares: Ned falling into the pool of magma, Orin losing his legs in the mud pot beneath Frostmantle. Both of them morphing into Elix in the agonizing moments before they died.

Greddark heard the sudden anxiety in her voice, and knew its cause. Or thought he did—Sabira hadn’t told anyone about the dreams she’d been having ever since she returned to Xen’drik. The only one who even suspected was Jester. Since he didn’t need to sleep, he knew how little of it she actually got.

“They’re old, dormant. This area hasn’t seen volcanic activity in centuries. Nothing to worry about.”

“The dwarf speaks truly,” Xujil said, his voice floating
back to them as if from a great distance. Even though he was only a few feet in front of them, they could hardly make out his form; the light from the helmets didn’t penetrate far in the blackness of Tarath Marad. “The molten rivers have not flowed here below since before giants fell. The depths are a place of cold, and have always been so.”

Somehow, Sabira didn’t find that particularly comforting.

The passageway branched several times, and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the route the drow took. Sometimes the tunnels angled downward, and sometimes they climbed sharply upward. Sometimes Xujil went right and sometimes he went left. Once after he’d taken three sharp lefts in a row, Sabira was convinced they’d just gone in a circle.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered to Greddark, who shrugged.

“Near as I can figure, we’re directly below Trent’s Well, but we’re heading out under the desert.”

Sabira actually stopped to stare at him.

“How can you possibly know that?”

He gave her a mocking grin.

“It’s a dwarf thing.”

She winced. She supposed she’d probably had that coming.

“Problem, Marshal?” Laven asked from behind them.

“Nothing a swift kick won’t take care of,” she muttered as she waved him off and hurried to catch up to the drow.

After a time, even Sabira could tell they were heading downward. The air was cooler, and the veins of ore had given way to patches of nacreous fungus that glowed without
the benefit of the magewrought lanterns. The tunnels were bigger and less well-defined here as well, occasionally widening out into small caverns with a multitude of exits. She knew now why no one from Trent’s Well had exacted revenge on the Umbragen guides—they were the only ones who could navigate down here. Without Xujil or Greddark, she already knew she’d never find her way back to the surface. She was hopelessly lost.

She was just about to call for a break when she heard a soft hiss from behind her. She stopped and whirled, reaching for her urgrosh. Greddark’s blade was already out, though it did not yet dance with flames.

Laven moved up to her side.

“Skraad thinks we’re being followed,” he said in a low voice, his own hand on his hilt. “A group of men; he’s not sure how many. Maybe more than us. What do you want to do?”

Xujil had come back to see what the holdup was.

“There is a side tunnel ahead that leads to a vacant cavern,” the drow offered. “It is a dead end, but it will afford us room to battle.”

Sabira pursed her lips. A corner was usually a good place for an ambush—unless the guy between you and the door had more men and more weapons at his disposal. Then it was usually a good place to die.

On the other hand, if their pursuers were in fact just another group of explorers who happened to be traveling the same direction they were, then getting out of the main tunnel would allow them to pass Sabira’s group by without being any the wiser.

“Show us,” she said to Xujil, deciding. She pulled her
goggles on and switched off the lantern on her helmet, gesturing for the others to do the same. Soon the passageway was dark, lit only by the intermittent glow of fungi.

The drow was a shadow, black on black, and Sabira wouldn’t know where he was if she hadn’t been looking straight at him when she doused her light. As it was, she had trouble tracking him as he moved and followed him more by sound than by sight, a task made even harder by the noise from her fellow spelunkers.

Xujil seemed to realize her difficulty and crept back to guide her and the others into the side passage. It was a good thing too. Sabira’s eyes were playing tricks on her in the darkness; she thought she’d seen him in the main tunnel up ahead of them. If he hadn’t returned, she would have followed that imagined movement and missed the offshoot completely.

Though it was hard to determine distance in the dim green glow, the cavern Xujil led them to was larger than Sabira had expected, and filled with pudgy stalagmites. Water dripped somewhere at the cave’s unseen edges and all she could see of the ceiling were the tips of the longest stalactites.

As the others entered the cave after her, she unharnessed her shard axe and silently signaled for her companions to take up positions on either side of the entrance. She put Rahm, Greddark, Glynn, and Laven on the right, while she situated herself on the left side closest to the entrance, with Skraad, Zi, and Jester fanned out beside her. She told Xujil to take cover and stay out of the way.

And then they hunkered down and waited.

Skraad heard them first, tensing in his spot. He had
his hand crossbow up and trained on the entrance. She motioned for him to hold off on any attack until they had the measure of the group following them. When hunting, it was always better to make sure the cage was full before slamming the door closed. Skraad passed the order down the line and Rahm did the same on his side of the cavern.

A moment later, Sabira could hear them too. They were disciplined and trying to be stealthy, but they were no more native to the depths than her own group was, and every so often a dislodged pebble would clatter across the stone floor or there’d be a grunt as someone slipped in a patch of moss. She had to assume there were two more for every one she heard, which meant a contingent of at least a dozen.

Not just another group of explorers, then—unless they were planning on robbing Sabira and her group of their supplies. Which wasn’t as farfetched as it might seem, considering the cutthroat nature of these expeditions, especially the “academic” ones. She’d heard it said that the only thing more deadly than a House Thuranni assassin was a scholar from Morgrave looking to publish. Considering that the person who told her that was laid up in a House Jorasco enclave after getting in that scholar’s way when he said it, she didn’t think he was being facetious.

Still, theirs wasn’t the most well-equipped group Sabira had seen getting ready to head into the depths, and there’d been better candidates logged in Caldamus’s ledger just a day or two ahead of them. While it was possible they were just some explorers looking to neutralize potential rivals, it wasn’t a hand Sabira would bet on.

Who, then? Caldamus? It was unlikely the changeling would have enough people working for him here to be able
to drum up such a large party on such short notice, even masquerading as the mayor.

Brannan? Caldamus had claimed to sense hatred emanating from the Wayfinder. But even if the changeling had been telling the truth—and if he
had
been, it was only because he saw some personal benefit in doing so, and not because he wanted to help her—it didn’t make any sense. Brannan was all about the bottom line, and he’d make far more off of Sabira and her group if they were actually successful than if they died en route.