11. The Catacombs
Chapter eleven
The Catacombs
They came in waves. Hundreds of them, covering every square inch of the floor, climbing over each other, headed directly toward us—a writhing mass of tangled brown hair, sharp teeth, and glowing red eyes.
Some were nearly two feet long. The stench of them hit me like a sledgehammer.
The chanting in my head was nearly unbearable.
Darion and I shared a glance, both knowing that getting back through the crack would take more time than we had.
“Run!” I shouted as we turned away from the swarm and raced in the other direction.
A few of the faster rats near the front of the pack were just steps away, snapping their teeth and chittering just behind us. One leapt toward my bloody arm.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
Darion drew his short sword, and after one quick strike, the rat hit the ground with a red gash across its body. I gave him a thankful nod, then took a vial from my belt and tossed it behind us.
“Watch out!” I yelled.
An inferno of orange-and-yellow flames erupted through the corridor, sending a blast of heat rippling over my skin. The chorus of squeals was both deafening and sickening.
“Whoa, that’s hot!” Darion yelled. “Nice job!”
“That won’t stop them for long.”
I’d been sure of the layout of the catacombs when we’d entered, but the army of bloodthirsty rodents on our tail jumbled my memory. Ahead of us, the corridor forked left and right. The wrong choice could lead us to a dead end, dead being the operative word.
Garrick’s voice echoed in my mind: Sometimes memory can falter under pressure. I could almost hear him gloating.
As the intersection approached, I went with my gut.
“Left!” I yelled. Without a moment’s hesitation, Darion followed me down the corridor. It wasn’t a dead end, so that was something.
With the immediate pressure off, I dug deep and retreated into my mind. I was finally able to block out the wretched noises and the screaming in my head. I had only a moment of clarity, but that was all I needed for the map to come into focus, and I charted the twists and turns to the queen’s tomb.
“Right!” I yelled at the next intersection.
“You really know your way around down here,” Darion panted.
“I studied a map,” I said.
“You memorized the whole thing?”
I shrugged. If he only knew how close I’d been to forgetting everything I’d learned, he might not have been quite so impressed.
We twisted and turned through the tunnels for what felt like an eternity.
An occasional rat appeared in front of us, and Darion skillfully slayed them all.
He was a wonder with a sword. Twice, the rats advanced on us from behind, close enough that we could smell their stench.
Each time, I threw a fireball vial at them.
“That’s my last one!” I yelled as the inferno blazed behind us. It would take only a few moments for them to overtake us again. This was not the way I’d imagined my end.
“How far can you jump?” Darion yelled over the squeals.
“Pretty far.”
“Left at the next intersection,” he said.
That was odd. Did he actually know where we were?
Apparently he knew these catacombs better than he had let on.
I had planned on turning right, the most direct path to the queen’s tomb.
I did some shuffling in my mind. We could still get there if we went left, but that path would take us well out of the way.
Darion said, “Trust me.”
Trust. I almost laughed. People who told me to trust them usually deserved the opposite.
I barely knew him, but somehow I had allowed my judgment to become clouded, and now my life was at risk.
Then again, what was the alternative? Let the rats overtake us and hope we could fight them off?
I had no choice but to put my faith in this near-stranger.
I nodded, and we raced to the left, my fate in his hands.
It wasn’t long before the narrow corridor opened up into a large room resembling a chapel with rows of seats hewn from huge slabs of rock, all facing a large dais.
On it was a massive stone tomb, its cracked top half open, with large chunks of stone surrounding it.
At the far end of the room, the corridor continued.
I desperately hoped Darion knew what he was doing by leading us here.
We raced down the center aisle, Darion first. The rats entered the chapel behind us, spreading out, their claws scraping against the stone. The sheer number of them was hard to fathom; they fought each other, crammed down the aisle, and climbed over the rows of benches, spreading like a virus.
Darion leapt over the tomb with the grace of an acrobat. Dust, he was beautiful to watch. As I followed him, I stole a glance into the stone casket. A shriveled corpse dressed in rusted chain mail stared at me with empty eye sockets.
“Get ready to sprint, then jump,” Darion yelled as we cleared the dais and approached the end of the room.
In an instant, I understood. A wide and jagged chasm had opened in the ground, taking a good section of the chapel with it. The exit was on the other side. This would require quite a leap.
My lungs burned, but I stepped up my pace to a near sprint.
Darion and I ran side by side until we reached the edge.
I kicked off and leapt, sailing through the air as the ground disappeared, my legs pinwheeling to take advantage of every bit of momentum.
The chasm extended into darkness below me, farther than the light from my vial could reach.
My feet hit solid ground.
No problem.
Easy, even.
Darion’s jump was not as successful. Only half of his front foot made it past the edge. His boot slipped on the rock, and his leg fell downward as his hands extended forward, grasping at thin air.
I reached out.
Our hands clasped.
I pulled with all my might. My feet slipped on the stone, and both of us headed toward the chasm. Just inches from the edge, my heel gained traction against the smallest bit of uneven rock. It was just enough to dig in and pull Darion back from certain death.
I landed hard on the stone, and Darion fell directly on top of me with a grunt, our bodies smashing together, legs a tangled mess. His face—his lips—were just inches from my own. I gulped.
“Thanks,” he whispered. His breath tickled my eyelashes, smelling of mint and cider.
“You’re welcome,” I said, the only thing my brain would let me say at that moment. His emerald eyes stared into mine with a ferocious intensity, but there was vulnerability there, too. I wanted nothing more than to lift my head a few inches and kiss those lips. The pull was overwhelming.
The scrape of dozens of claws on stone and loud shrieks came from the other side of the chasm. Darion rolled off me, the moment lost. It was for the best.
Side by side, we watched in horror as the rats on the opposite edge scraped and clawed to stop their momentum. A few attempted to jump the chasm, but all fell well short. And the whole time, I could still hear their chanting in my mind.
For years, everything before that horrible day at the farm had felt like a dream. There had always been a before and an after. But now those childhood memories of my father showing me the whisperhawks sharpened into focus.
Darion couldn’t hear the rats speaking, so either I was losing it or they were somehow projecting their thoughts into my mind. I wasn’t sure which option I liked better.
“That’s going to smell pretty bad in a few hours,” Darion said flatly, watching the carnage.
“Hard to imagine them smelling worse than they already do,” I replied. We shared a glance, then burst out laughing, mostly at the absurdity but also to release the tension of our narrow escape.
Darion sprang to his feet and put out a hand to help me up.
“Thank you again,” he said earnestly. “I wouldn’t have made that jump without your help. You didn’t even hesitate.”
“Thank you for leading me this way. You saved us both,” I said as he pulled me up. The only question lingering in my mind was how he knew to come this way.
“You should clean up that wound,” Darion said, pointing to the streaks of red running down my arm. “Otherwise we’ll just attract them again.”
“Good idea,” I said, reaching for a vial of antiseptic that I kept on my belt. As I tended to my arm, I asked, “How did you know about this room?”
“I memorized a lot of the routes down here when I was a kid. My crush was a powerful motivator,” Darion said with a laugh.
“Impressive memory,” I said. “Especially since it was so long ago.” I didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but it seemed odd.
“Hey, not that long ago,” Darion laughed. “Also, this is coming from the guy who memorized the whole map.”
I shrugged. “Just my own bit of magic, I guess. I remember everything I see.”
“That’s some pretty potent magic,” Darion said. “So, Mr. Memory, which way now?”
I paused for a moment to think.
“I don’t think we can go back the way we came,” I said, watching the rats continue to fall into the chasm, though the tide had slowed considerably. “We’ll just run into the rats again. We should give this area a wide berth and make our way back to the entrance.”
Since we’d come this far already, I picked a path that led us past the tomb of Queen Amara. I could complete my next Order of Emberlight trial with Darion none the wiser.
“Lead on,” Darion said, gesturing toward the corridor.
We walked in silence as the din of the rats died down, both externally and in my head. Soon it was deathly quiet, with only the sounds of our steady breathing and our boots on stone. The silence pressed in, thick, ancient, and heavy. The corridors ahead felt like a different world.
Darion’s face flickered in the light, his brow furrowed in concentration, which only made his chiseled features more handsome. A pang of guilt hit me.
“I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all this,” I said.
Darion waved me off. “I knew the risks. You have nothing to be sorry about. Besides, this is a lot more fun than sitting in a tavern, sulking.”
“Why were you sulking?” I asked.