Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
ASPETH
4 Days Before the Conquest Moon
When I wake up from sleep, I’m sore but resolute. My neck aches from using my scrap-filled backpack as a pillow and I’m a little chilled from sleeping on bare rock. My clothes are damp and my stomach is empty, but I’m determined.
I’m not going to let Barnabus beat me. I’m going to join the guild. I’m going to figure out how to protect my father and his hold and everything will be fine.
Everything will be fine , I repeat to myself over and over as I rub my aching back.
Everything will be fine , I chant silently as Magpie groans and pukes on the floor nearby, clearly hungover.
Everything will be fine , I tell myself as I pick up my shield for the day and it feels as if it weighs a thousand pounds. If men like Rooster can do this, I can certainly do this. Strangely enough, thinking of Rooster helps. I picture that squat, odious little man besting me at anything guild-related and it lights a fire under my arse. I straighten and beam at the others, who look as if they’ve had a rough night. “Let’s get ready to head out, everyone. Time’s wasting.”
“What do we do about Magpie?” Lark asks, glancing over at her aunt.
“Same as we did yesterday,” I tell them briskly. “She can guard what’s left of our things. It won’t do us any good to drag her along.”
Kipp hands out more bits of hardtack—smaller bites than yesterday’s portion, but I’m still grateful to have them—and we rope ourselves together while Magpie pulls a shredded blanket over her head.
“Which way should we go?” Mereden asks, looking to Lark.
Lark shrugs. “As long as there’s no spiders, I don’t care. Anyone else have a preference?”
Gwenna looks to me. So does Kipp. It makes sense—I’m the expert, after all. I think for a moment. “One of the tunnels sloped downward for a bit. I think we’ll head there and see if there are any changes in the rock. The other sections of the cavern were littered with rubble from the city. If we can see a crosscut of the rock itself, maybe we’ll know how far down—or up—we have to go to hit the ruins.” I don’t know if what I’m saying is accurate, but it sounds pretty good to me.
Kipp gives his shell a firm, hard rap, as if agreeing. He hops to his feet and looks over at us, his hand on his sword belt.
I nod and follow after him.
It’s hard to track time in the tunnels. Lark’s using an oil lantern with a slow-burning wick, so it’s impossible for me to tell if hours pass as we travel deeper, or if it simply feels like it. We take our time today, looking over the rock walls carefully. If we go too deep, we could miss the levels of the ruins entirely, so we need to find the layer of rock and debris where the ruins are. It’s just that we keep finding nothing at all, no matter how many twists of tunnel we head down or how much we stare at the rocky walls of the cavern.
We take a break, and when Kipp pulls more hardtack out of his shell, I realize it must be lunchtime. I try not to think about the spider legs disappearing into his mouth and focus on being grateful for the food he kept stored away for us. So far the morning has been a bust.
“What about the dowsing rod?” Mereden asks, looking up at me as she licks her fingertip and uses it to pick up the crumbs on her cleavage, then eats them. “You think that would work?”
I shrug—I have no idea. “Don’t dowsing rods find water?”
“Aunt Magpie thinks that anyone with Prellian blood will be able to find artifacts,” Lark offers. “Magic calling to magic and all that.”
“I can safely say I do not have Old Prellian blood,” I point out. The ancestry of my father’s hold goes back three hundred years at the very same spot, and even before that, our ancestors were mountain folk. Old Prell was not anywhere near the mountains. Shame. I would love to have magical blood.
“We can take turns,” Lark says, pulling the stick out. “It can’t hurt, right?”
I want to point out that it sounds like a silly waste of time, but what if I’m wrong? They’ve been relying on my so-called expertise all morning and I’ve led them nowhere. “Can’t hurt,” I agree, and gesture at her. “You want to give it the first shot?”
She hands the staff with the lantern over to Mereden, and takes the dowsing rod in her hands. It’s a simple stick with a fork on one end—an uneven fork, I can’t help but notice—and she closes her eyes and concentrates. “Lead us to the riches of Old Prell.”
Lark holds it out and turns around slowly, making a full circle. After she does this twice, she squeezes one eye open and looks at us. “I’m supposed to feel something, right?”
I have no idea. I shrug. “I’ve never used a dowsing rod.”
No one else has, either. Kipp takes it next and closes his eyes, turning in a circle before shrugging and handing it back. Mereden looks equally uncertain when she takes her turn and says she doesn’t trust herself to tell if it’s tugging or if it’s her imagination.
“Oh, come on,” Gwenna protests as I take the rod. “Someone has to feel something, don’t they?”
“You would think.” I try closing my eyes and turning, but it just feels like I’m holding a stick and spinning in a circle in an underground cavern. Which…I am. I open my eyes and shrug. “Are we sure we’re supposed to feel it or do we just have to go on instinct?”
“Here, let me give it a try and then we’ll give up on this stupid thing,” Gwenna says, holding her hand out. I hand it over to her. She gives it a little flick as if shaking it into submission. “Now, show us something so we can move on with our lives—”
The stick jumps in her hands.
At least, it looks as if it does. We all gasp—even Kipp—and take a step back. Gwenna flings it away from herself, and the stick skids across the floor. At the edge of the light, I can see it slowly come to a stop, pointing down one particular tunnel.
I look over at my former maid. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she protests. She wrings her hands, frowning. “All I did was pick it up.”
Lark nudges her from behind. “Pick it up again.”
Gwenna looks reluctant. She eyes me, seeking advice. I shrug, because I have no idea. This wasn’t in any book I ever read. She takes the rod between two fingers, as if it’s filthy, and grimaces. “I don’t have magic in my blood.”
“Maybe you do,” Mereden breathes, her eyes wide. “Maybe you’re descended from a secret line of Prellian kings.”
“It’s more likely that I was descended from Prellian maids,” she retorts, but slowly, calmly grips the stick again and points it at the nearest cavern wall. “All right. If you can show us to the artifacts, please do.”
The stick twitches in her grip and we all jump.
As I watch, she turns slowly, and it’s as if the stick is pulling her forward. She surges ahead, the rope pulling taut as she takes the lead.
“Wait,” I cry. “Let’s turn around. Lark, get closer to her so you can light the way.”
We reshuffle ourselves while the stick twitches and jumps in Gwenna’s grasp, as if impatient. When Kipp and I are at the back, Gwenna takes the lead again, letting the stick point the way. We follow behind it as it takes us down one of the tunnels we’ve already walked a half dozen times, surging forward. The tunnel ends in a rock fall full of massive boulders, and it’s far too much for our measly pickaxes to handle, so we had turned around.
“I promise I’m not doing this,” Gwenna calls back to us as it leads us on deeper into the collapsed tunnel. “It’s like it’s alive when I touch it.”
“Just find us something to take back,” Lark tells her. “We won’t tell anyone that you’re a mancer.”
Gwenna jerks to a halt. “I’m not a mancer!”
“But someone in your family lineage might have been,” Mereden says helpfully.
Gwenna’s jaw clenches and she gives me a worried look. “I’m not a mancer,” she says again, and continues down the tunnel.
“No one’s accusing you of being a mancer,” I say soothingly. It’s a valid fear—personal magic has been outlawed since the Mancer Wars, and all mancers were put to death by the king. Poor Gwenna is going to be terrified if Mereden keeps bringing it up, and I make a mental note to talk to her about it later.
We follow along for a time as the tunnel narrows. Gwenna frowns to herself as she lets it drag her along, and then the stick seems to turn, leading us back the way we came and away from the rock fall. The stick stops her halfway down, pointing at the wall of the tunnel. “I wasn’t sure, but…right here. It keeps finding something right here.”
“It’s a wall,” Lark points out unhelpfully.
“Well, there’s something on the other side.”
“You’re sure?”
Gwenna sputters at Lark, furious. “Of course I’m not sure! We’re following a fucking stick!”
I put a hand up and step between the two. “All right. Let’s calm down. It’s the best lead we have, even if it’s a stick, so we might as well give things a try.” I glance over at the cavern wall. It, well, looks like solid rock. “We can try to break through and see what we find. Does everyone have their pickaxes?”
Mereden raises her hand. “What if we collapse the tunnel because we hammer too hard on the wall?”
I stare at her. By the gods, does she have to bring up something like that? “Then Hawk will come and rescue us,” I say promptly. “But if you’ve got a better idea of a place to dig, I’d like to hear it.” When no one speaks up, I gesture at the wall that the dowsing rod had singled out. “All right, then, let’s give it a try. And if you feel like the tunnel is about to collapse…say something.”
Kipp huffs at that, but he’s the first one to strike the wall.
I pick up my pickaxe and strike at the wall, too, though I don’t know how much good I’m doing. I can’t swing full strength because we’re all still roped together and standing close to one another. I’m also tired and hungry, and a little wary of hammering away at what looks like solid rock.
But we set to work anyhow, because a stick told us to.
It doesn’t take long before the solid-looking rock cracks under one of Mereden’s strikes. Then, like a fragile eggshell, it shatters in a dozen places as we poke at it. Soon we have a hole in the wall, and when Lark shoves the lantern toward it, we can see a chamber on the other side. “It’s hollow?”
I exchange a look with Gwenna. The dowsing rod wasn’t wrong. There really was something on the other side. “Should we go through?”
“Unless you just wanted to knock a hole through the wall and leave?” Lark retorts. “Come on. Get the rod again and let’s see what’s on the other side.”
“So brave now, are we?” Gwenna murmurs.
Kipp is the first one through, the slitherskin seemingly fearless despite this newest reveal. I step through after him, clutching my shield at the shadows around us. The tunnel behind us was smooth, but even with Lark’s bobbing light still on the other side, I can see there are a lot more shapes here. I squint at the shadows as something decidedly human looms in the darkness.
I step over someone’s pack, my heart pounding. Have we broken through the wall to the other team? Are we going to get into trouble now?
But then Lark’s light bobs its way onto our side, and with relief, I can see that the form isn’t human at all. It’s a statue of a man, the stern expression on his face and the headdress denoting it as Prellian. It stands nearly upright, a beautiful work of art amidst the rubble.
“Oh my gods,” Mereden cries.
“What?” Gwenna asks from the other side of the rock. “What is it?”
“It’s a body,” Lark replies, and her voice is hushed with horror.
I chuckle. “I thought the same thing, too, but it’s a statue. A lovely one.” I want to move forward to touch it, but the rope is taut between us, and no one seems to be stepping deeper into the new cavern except me. I can’t take my eyes off the thing, though. The face is expressive, the lines around the mouth conveying a stern disapproval even as the figure cradles a child with a circlet to his breast. A king and his heir, possibly? I’ve seen that in other Prellian art—
“Aspeth.” Lark moves to my side and grabs me by the arms. She points at the carving I’m so enamored with. “ That is a statue.” She forcibly turns me and points at the ground. “ That is a fucking body.”
I stare.
I thought I’d stepped over a backpack. That in our efforts to get through the new hole into the chamber, someone had discarded their pack and I’d simply moved over it, far more fascinated with the ruins in front of us.
But it is a body. Gwenna kneels next to it, peeling back an old, faded cloak that falls apart in her grasp. There’s nothing left of the body but a skeleton and some rusty bits of armor. At his side is a lump that might have once been a pack but is now just another rotted blob. Fuzzy greenish lichen grows over everything, and a worm crawls out of one of the empty eye sockets of the skull.
I scream.
Mereden screams.
Lark screams and bolts for the other side of the wall. We stumble after her, the rope tugging on us and adding to the sense of urgency. I’m dimly aware of Kipp racing at my side, of Mereden’s hand on my back as we run through the tunnel, following after Lark’s bobbing light.
“Where are you going?” Gwenna cries, her voice behind us.
“I don’t fucking know,” Lark cries back. “Away!”
Away sounds good.
I race with them, and the tunnels slope upward. No one points out that we’re heading toward Magpie and camp. No one needs to. Camp feels the safest right now. The tunnel walls seem to close in around us, the darkness and stale air oppressive, until I’m sobbing with fear, and I’m not the only one. I can hear Mereden’s thin whimpers filling the tunnels, along with Lark’s heaving breaths.
We don’t stop until a figure appears at the end of the tunnel. It’s Magpie, holding up a lantern. Lark collapses at her feet, gasping. “Oh, thank gods. You heard us.”
“Heard what?” Magpie asks. There’s a tight, unhappy look on her face.
I clutch at the stays of my corset, gasping for breath. I want to tell her what we found, that the dowsing rod worked…but then the shadows behind her move.
And I realize she’s not alone.
A very large—and very grim-faced—Taurian is right behind her.
Hawk.
Shit.