Chapter 42 #2
But the wyrmblade carved inward, almost to the crossguard.
An ear-shattering, otherworldly scream filled the air.
I lunged in, heaving my full weight and might against the hilt, using my body as leverage and the serpent’s momentum to my advantage.
The stone eater careened forward, and my sword slashed through its innards, carving a fissure right through its length.
Black blood sprayed out in hot waves.
An unearthly bellow of rage shook the tunnel walls.
I held my ground, my blood-slippery fingers locked tight. Fire raged in my throat and flames burned my thighs as I pushed to keep leverage, to keep the blade slicing true, the sensation much like fighting off a quaking wall of strength.
The serpent crashed to a halt, flailing and roaring, almost wrenching the sword from my hands. Its entire body thrashed in its death throes, cracking against the tunnel walls, sounding as if a detonation had brought down the great sheets of rock.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The beast shuddered.
One last heaving wriggle and a wheezing gust of breath leaked from its enormous mouth before its limp body crashed upon the ground with an almighty thump, nearly knocking me off my feet.
Silence, but for the odd thunk of rockfall and my heaving breath. Fat droplets of sweat ran down my forehead, carving a path through the beast’s black blood splattered all over my body like tar. My boots looked like I’d trampled through sludge, and pools of sticky blood seeped down the tunnel.
I watched in astonishment as the skin on the beast turned to a whitish-flaky texture. I tentatively tested my sword, still jammed inside its body. Its innards felt like marble.
I tugged and twisted and finally felt it give. The blade drew cleanly from the serpent, the sensation much like a pen stabbing a piece of paper. Flimsy and insubstantial. As soon as I pulled the wyrmblade free, the beast shattered into a million pieces of rubble and clouds of dust.
I swiveled away, swiftly covering my face with my arm, trying not to breathe it in. When the dust finally settled, a thick layer of grime covered me.
Nothing remained of the beast, only chunks that might make sense if you knew what it had once been.
Sheathing my sword, I clambered over the rock pile. Mela had collapsed to her knees, hands braced on her hips, with her head tipped back as she gasped for breath. She looked only a little better than I did.
Offering her my hand, I hauled her to her feet as she puffed out, “Hells, Gray, I thought we were done for.”
I huffed a rusty laugh. “Me too.” Raking my hands through my sweaty hair, I ruffled it to remove loose grit. Mela did the same. The gore that painted our armor would have to wait until later.
Mela glanced around, her flashlight slinking over the rock-pile remains of the stone eater, and down either end of the long, straight tunnel we’d run down. “Where are we?”
I had no idea.
It should be easy enough to trace our trail back.
A voice slithered into my head. “You’re close, son of the wyrm. The nest you seek is not far away.”
“Yezekael’s nest?”
“Search down the tunnel.”
I trampled over the rubble that resembled the pit of a quarry, heading back where we’d come from.
In its death throes, the stone eater had smashed either side of the tunnel’s thick walls and, curiously, as I approached I realized it had smashed right through to a burrow that was positioned parallel to this tunnel.
I ducked inside and found myself in a large chamber, its dank walls rounded with smooth grooves as if a great serpent had gouged its insides by twisting around.
Mela followed me inside, both our noses pinching at the musty smell.
She poked her sword at the strangely coiled object in the cavern, dirty white and marble-like. “What the hells is that?”
In the middle of the lair was what appeared to be an enormous snakeskin. I strode over and tentatively toed it with a boot. It crumbled to dust.
“Keep looking,” the Uzrek urged.
“What the hells for?” I asked, carefully striding around the bare cavern. But just as I’d mentally spoken, I spotted it.
There was a breach on one side of the burrow.
Stalking over, I crouched down and peered into the dark hole. It was a tunnel, shallow and narrow, with enough room for me to crawl my way through as long as the size held. It looked unnatural, as if an adolescent stone eater chewing through the rock had made it.
“I’m going to take a look,” I said to Mela.
I shrugged off my daypack and unstrapped my adamere sword, leaving it propped up against the wall by the wyrmblade.
Mela sheathed her weapon before digging out a flask of water from her pack and offering it to me first. I chugged down mouthfuls of refreshing water before handing it back.
“Hells, so good,” she sighed, drinking fully and wiping her wet mouth with the back of her hand, flicking droplets off her dirty fingers. “You be careful,” she huffed out as I squatted down and clambered inside the hole.
I had to get down so low I was on my belly, crawling through the narrow passageway, using my feet to shove myself forward.
An uncomfortable, claustrophobic feeling squeezed all around me as I inched along, wriggling.
The roughened stone dug into my gut, protected by the armor, but my fingers stung as I grazed them on the pitted surface, hauling my body forward.
The tiny tunnel stretched onward in a straight line.
On and on I crawled.
Endlessly moving forward.
“Why are you helping me?” I mentally asked.
“Who says I’m helping? Maybe I’m simply curious,” replied the Uzrek.
“Curious about what?”
The ancient beast made a murmuring sound of reflection, and there was a long pause of silence before it answered. “Why Sirro wants this Yezekael and if it has anything to do with your mother.”
Shock rushed into my lungs.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
A laugh rumbled through my mind before I felt the Uzrek leafing through my memories, the sensation much like the fluttering of pages.
“The Horned God’s there in the periphery of your memories.
At gatherings, you and your family attended with the other Houses.
I’m curious about the way he looked at your mother when he thought no one was observing him. ”
“What do you mean?” How did the Horned God look at Mom? And why hadn’t I noticed?
The Uzrek answered my unspoken thoughts. “You were young at the time and oblivious to what you’d witnessed.”
“How did he look at my mother?”
“With a strange mix of emotions,” the wizened creature replied. “Admiration, longing, and regret…perhaps even a touch of pride.”
What the hells?
It was an onslaught of information overload.
Sirro and my mother? What kind of connection did the two of them have?
Maybe she hadn’t even been aware of his attention.
Maybe it was due to her saving the life of a Horned God all those years ago.
Sirro’s life, perhaps? Maybe his affection for her simply had to do with her rising to a position a servant never had before.
But regret and longing?
That sure as fuck didn’t sit well with me.
I was even more determined to find this Yezekael.
There!
A shift in the darkness where the gloom was more filmy than flat.
An opening.
“Finally,” the Uzrek sighed in a way that sounded bored. As if the fucking thing had been dealing with a distracted child and had to lead me here like an infant.
“I can hear all your thoughts,” he hissed.
“It comes with snooping in people’s heads.”
I could smell it before I could see it.
Yezekael’s stale, spicy scent wafted in, and I dragged it through my nostrils.
I crawled closer, carefully peering through the crack in the rock, and there it was. Yezekael’s new nest.
It was much like the abandoned nest Mela and I had found over a week ago. The space inside was larger, though, and against the uneven wall was the beginning of a new collection of strange bits and pieces.
This time I couldn’t enter. I could only see a partial view of the nest formed from bent branches and bones that were more whitish than mottled, and that was telling about how long the creature had been here.
The nest wasn’t quite as big as the other either, as if it were still being made.
Torn pieces of fabric, a few feathers, and pieces of jewelry poked through the woven structure.
Relief and determination swelled in my chest.
Now, finally, we had a lock on Yezekael.
“Indeed, you do, son of the wyrm,” the Uzrek chuckled in my mind.
Now to find a way to trap it.
Across the burrow, I spied an entrance.
“There’s a way into its nest. The passage it uses to come and go. How do we get to it?”
“You don’t. It will know if you’re about. This way, you have a chance to capture it unaware.”
The air knotted thickly in my throat, and my lips pressed together hard as if determined to stop the words that needed to be said. Yet, we wouldn’t have found Yezekael’s nest without the Uzrek’s help. I swallowed back distaste and pushed it out. “Thank you.”
But there was nothing but silence on the other end of the mental line until a delighted chuckle bounced inside my mind. “See, it wasn’t so hard to say after all, death-dealer.”
I crawled slowly backward along the serpent’s tunnel. I smelled like a mix of the catacombs and stone eater, rank and foul, and as I wiggled and shunted backward, I tried to work through everything we’d need to trap Yezekael, but Nelle…
A spike of dread punched through my chest.
Nelle’s riotous emotions skittered beneath my skin. Terror had ensnared her, and she was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.
Calm, calm, calm—kept rolling around in my head like a mantra because that strange, feral part of me was hissing at me to turn around and run back to the Keep and—Save her, save her, save her…
I was torn in two.
I needed to work with Mela to trap Yezekael, but Nelle needed me more.
Yet, there was nothing I could do for her.
Apart from this.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated hard, willing those moonlit strands of dark magic that connected us as one to infuse Nelle with my strength. To lend her courage. To fill her with warmth and blinding sunshine.