Chapter 13 – Behemoth #6
Far above them toward the summit, it looked as if the mountain had broken open, a cavern yawning at the sky.
Even the deep snow couldn’t conceal the…
spray of rocks, which began at the cavern mouth and gouged down the mountainside, leaving a trail of massive boulders and whole trees flung down like jackstraws.
“It looks like something…came out of there,” said Breccey, glancing back at Remin. “Doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It does.” That was a deeply unsettling idea, especially alongside the appearance of a large devil that purred, but Remin forced himself to stop and look at their discovery, without any preconceptions.
What kind of creature could claw its way out of a mountain?
He had heard of natural explosions in mines before, from dangerous vapors deep underground, and there was hardly going to be a sign saying Den of the Devils in any case.
Remin sat down and loosened the straps around his injured arm, squinting up the mountainside.
“Galliard, make a sketch,” he ordered. “Tilet, mark it on the map and send up some smoke. They might be far enough behind the storm to see it back in camp.”
There was no way up there. Craning his neck, Remin searched and searched again, mentally backtracking down the trails they had seen on the way up, wondering if there was another route that would carry them to the summit.
The problem was the snow; the blizzard had left a hard and glittering crust that obscured the terrain, and stumbling up the side of the mountain was suicide.
Was there some way they could get up among these boulders?
Picking a path among the outflung boulders and broken trees, Remin’s jaw tightened.
No.
They could not reach it now. They were all of half a mile away, but that cave might as well be on the other side of the Empire.
“What do you think, Rem?” Auber asked, coming to stand beside him.
“We’d lose half our number if we even tried,” Remin replied, rubbing weary fingers over his eyes.
It had been so long since he’d had a decent sleep, he could feel the hollows beneath them, the dull ache behind them, the strain of just looking at snow, day after day.
And yet he found himself willing something to move within that shadowy mouth.
Just a glimpse of green fire would be enough.
Did he dare wait until nightfall to confirm it?
“We can’t defend from here,” said Auber, quieter, echoing Remin’s own thoughts.
“No, we can’t.” Remin rose and grabbed Breccey, shoving him toward the trail. “Come on, lads. Let’s get the fuck off this mountain.”
They had found something. It was better than any something he had hoped to find, and now they had to live to bring word of it home.
Remin pushed them as fast as he dared, setting off signal smoke whenever the weather cleared, hastening down to Tounot’s camp, where one of the injured men had died.
It only made him more determined to bring the rest of them home.
Back into the foothills, where his reserve camp had passed increasingly exciting nights as the devils fled the forest for the mountains, though there had been no sign of the purring devil.
Lancer had proved better than any guard dog, for he had caught—and trampled—no less than seven stranglers that had slipped into the camp, and his armor was flaking dried black blood.
Now they were racing back to the forest, for it was safer in the trees than on the rocky promontories that had sheltered them two weeks ago.
It was a cruel march, for rations were tight, game was scarce, and everyone looked like scarecrows after weeks in the mountains.
Remin himself had lost fifteen pounds of muscle in the heights, and by the time he and Jinmin dragged their entire camp into the trees, he collapsed into his bedroll and lay like a dead thing until morning.
But there was one more surprise waiting for them, near the crossroads that led to Nandre.
The first climbers were just scrambling into the trees to make their evening camp when it happened, a small commotion at the edge of the clearing. Remin squeezed between the wagons just in time to see a small figure stumbling out of the underbrush, exhausted and almost incoherent with terror.
“Are you Duke Andelin’s men?” she asked, reeling forward and stumbling to one knee. There was a second, even smaller child clinging to her back. “You are, aren’t you? He said we should wait here, and you would come, he said to look for crossed swords—”
“I am Duke Andelin,” Remin replied, without moving. Auber was already going to look the girl over; they had been deceived before, child assassins sent by both Valleth and the Emperor. “Stay where you are, girl, let Auber have a look at you. You’re safe here. Where are you from?”
She was shaking so badly, he could see it even from thirty paces. How old was she? Ten? Eleven? He wasn’t good with children’s ages.
“Nandre. We’re from Nandre.” She clung to the little boy, who was sucking a filthy thumb and looking at them with huge, frightened eyes.
“Sir Rollon came, and he said they would take us to Tresingale, and we left, and we’re all that left.
There’s a devil, it will come for us, it kills everyone, everyone! ”