Chapter 42
Graysen
Darkness streamed by in a haze of black.
Mela and I hurtled through the tunnel, the rocky floor jittering beneath our feet. Brittle bones cracked underfoot, shards skittering into the gloom.
A horrifying noise filled the passageway, drowning everything out. A thunderous, gravelly noise—an earthquake rumbling through a vast mountain range.
“Faster, Mela. Faster!” I bellowed to my friend running ahead.
Mela was flagging. It felt like we’d been running forever.
I inched forward, about to scoop her up over my shoulder and streak faster through the rabbit warren of tunnels.
As if Mela sensed what I was about to do, pride had her barking at me in between puffing gasps.
“Don’t you dare! I swear to Brangwene, Gray…
I’ll never speak to you again…if you carry me out of here! ”
“Then move faster. It’s coming for us!” I roared. Glistening rock trembled all around us as something utterly terrifying chased us down.
Mela and I hadn’t been following the old tracks for long before a creature that should never have been disturbed…was. And not by us.
The Uzrek had set it upon us.
A gigantic beast that chewed through rock like soft butter now hunted us through the uncharted catacombs. All we could do was run and keep running, hoping to lose the beast or find a place wide enough to fight it.
Ahead of me, Mela’s flashlight wove erratically through the darkness, but I could see further with my night vision. We were fast approaching a fork in the tunnel. Left or right?
“Left,” said the Uzrek, speaking into my mind with its hollow, ancient voice. “Turn onto the left fork.”
“Go left, Mela!” I shouted as we reached the fork.
She veered sideways, and I followed right behind.
Both of us charged down the passageway. As for why the Uzrek was helping us now, I had no fucking idea. It very well might lead us purposely to a dead end.
“Such little faith,” murmured the Uzrek, amusement dancing in his tone.
The godsdamned monster could read my thoughts as easily as leafing through my memories. “You can’t blame me,” I mentally snapped back. “You’re the one who disturbed the serpent and sent it after us.”
A rough chuckle. “Perhaps, spinner of deceit, the beast’s hunt serves a purpose.”
My stomach plummeted when I realized we were running down a long, straight tunnel. It seemed endless, a single length of passageway with no way out, and if…
If we were running toward a dead end, we were fucked.
A gigantic quake rocked the tunnel.
The stone floor undulated and tossed us about.
Mela pitched sideways, about to slam into the pitted wall. I lunged and caught her arm before she hit.
“Holy shit,” she gasped. Both of us wobbled, teetering this way and that. A horrifying grinding noise had our gazes whipping upward. The craggy ceiling convulsed overhead, threatening to cave in. Twisting around, I almost regretted looking back the moment my gaze landed on where we’d come.
The tunnel’s end wall exploded like a quarry blast.
An ear-shattering detonation BOOMED.
Fat chunks of rock scattered outward.
And a cloud of dust billowed through the narrow space, the filthy plume engulfing us completely.
We threw up our arms as a shield, spinning away. Grime clogged my airway, and I hacked for breath, wheezing as the dust faded. I half-turned to look over my shoulder.
Terror lodged itself in my throat, barbed and vicious.
A Stone Eater erupted into the tunnel.
The great serpent slithered toward us fast.
Its razoring approach stabbed at my eardrums. Stone scraping stone. Rock cracking rock. The ground bucked beneath me. I flung my arms wide, fighting to stay upright.
“Move, Mela, move!” I roared, shoving at her.
The stone eater’s scales flared outward, resembling the edge of a saw, and segments of its skin rotated like metal teeth to bore through rock.
It filled the entire width of the tunnel, its basalt-gray hide pitted and ancient as the earth itself.
Enormous slanted eyes fixed on us, a forked tongue flicking out.
Mela took off, and I was right behind her.
We tore down the never-ending tunnel, the ground trembling under the beast’s harrowing approach.
Faster, faster, faster.
But the stone eater was swifter.
Fine stone and dust coated my armor, clinging to my sweaty face, gritting my teeth. “It’s gaining on us!” I was one heartbeat away from snatching up Mela and throwing her over my shoulder when the Uzrek roared, “Kill it!”
“Kill it?!” I replied, aghast.
“Yes. Now. In this tunnel!” he urged.
“How the hells am I supposed to kill it?!” This time I hadn’t replied mentally, I’d unintentionally spoken out loud.
“You’re right. We do!” Mela shouted back. “We need a cavern. Somewhere we can fight it!”
The tunnels were too narrow to use our swords. My fingertips itched to snatch up a cursed grenade, but we couldn’t use explosives. Anything incendiary would tip off Yezekael we were down here hunting it and possibly cave the whole tunnel in.
There…there…
Fucking finally…
Ahead of us was a crossing of tunnels.
“There’s a junction dead ahead, about 70 yards,” I yelled to Mela.
“Which way?” I asked the Uzrek as I raced through the gloom.
A second later Mela tossed over her shoulder, “We use it!”
“What?!”
“We split up and take either side of the junction!” She reached behind her neck to grip the hilt of her adamere sword.
The dark blade whistled through the air as she drew the weapon, and a violent crack of sparks showered as the honed edge struck the tunnel’s ceiling.
I threw up an arm, ducking my head as I ran through stinging heat scattering wide. “How’s that wyrmblade of yours?!”
A slender flame of hope warmed my blood when I understood her plan. “Okay, okay…”
Shit, yes, that could work.
On we ran, desperate to reach the crossing of tunnels.
The ferocious buzzing noise of shredding stone grew louder.
The beast’s hot, reeking breath washed out in a cloud of noxious fumes and shoved a burning path down my throat.
A massive quake erupted.
And the din of splitting rock cleaved the filthy air apart.
A ghastly fissure cracked its way through the tunnel wall, streaking right past us.
Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!
Mela’s wide-eyed gaze tracked the crevice gouging through the rock. “Hellsgate.”
The fissure splintered off to carve up, up, up.
And the ceiling erupted with a violent blast.
Stone rained down in a hail of horrific thuds.
I covered my head with my hands as the downpour of rockfall clattered all around me.
A heavy rock struck my shoulder, pitching me sideways. Another struck my back, sending me sprawling.
I went down hard.
My armor barely softened their blows as I was half-buried under the rubble.
“Gray?!” I heard Mela shriek.
I groaned, dizziness murking my mind. I shook my head, scattering dust and small shards of stone free from my hair before lifting my gaze. Mela stood in front of me, terror shining brightly in her dark eyes. “Gray?”
She wasn’t looking at me—she was staring behind me.
“Holy hells,” she choked out, her body swaying with the trembling approach of the stone eater. She leaned down, reaching for me. “Get up. Get up, Gray!”
“Go!” I yelled while shoving at the chunks of shifting, jostling rock that buried me. “Get to the junction fast!”
Her mouth quivered in her hesitation to leave me behind. She parted her lips as if to say no, but I cut her off, bellowing, “Now!”
Her soft nostrils flared with frustration. “Use that godsdamned Crowther speed of yours!” she urged, before spinning around and surging forward.
The buzzing, sawing sound of grinding stone grew close.
Too close.
The fucking thing was almost on top of me.
I shoved off the rockfall and staggered to my shuddering feet, as an unearthly roar reverberated over me, triumphant and ear-piercing.
Ahead of me, Mela careened around the corner of the junction.
I pushed forward, my mother’s unnatural healing coursing through my body, dulling the ache and sting of grazed skin. I threw myself faster down the long stretch of a straight tunnel.
Stealing a harried glance over my shoulder, there was nothing but wildness in the serpent’s thinned eyes. Inhuman. Without mercy. It yawned its mouth wide, and I was staring into the deadly innards, with rows of rotating teeth.
A fat, long tongue snapped out, and I barely evaded the wet organ that speared overhead, the movement scattering my sweat-damp hair like a gust of wind.
But I was gone, dashing forward, racing for the crossing of tunnels.
A violent storm of footfall.
A blazing tempest of speed.
I leaped, hitting the rough edge of the junction wall with a foot.
Used it as a springboard to twist around mid-air.
My wyrmblade sang a deadly note through the cold, dark air as I drew it free. I landed with a jarring jolt on the uneven ground and skidded, bracing my back foot against the slide, leaning forward to stop the backward momentum.
I swept my cursed blade low, just above my hip. Both hands locked around the knotted hilt.
My muscles were taut, ready to spring forward.
Mela mirrored me across the junction passage. Determination carved her features grimly. A flash of a feral grin in the gloom.
The beast was moving too fast for it to check its momentum. Too swift for it to writhe and twist around. So quick that when it hurtled past in a straight line, I only glimpsed its head, a glint of quicksilver eyes.
Fine stone hewn from the tunnel walls billowed out in a whirl of dust to obscure my vision. And I sent a quick prayer to Zrenyth that I’d strike its flank, right between the grinding plates of rotating skin.
“Now!” Mela roared.
I shoved forward. A violent derecho. A squalling line of fury.
A war cry wrenched from my throat.
I rammed the wyrmblade into the stone eater, using every scrap of strength that hummed in my body.
It felt like I’d hit solid rock.
A savage shudder rattled through my wrists, up the bones of my arms, and I almost lost hold of the sword.