Chapter 5 The Hollow Tree #2
“Well done,” said the Druid in a feeble mutter. “P-prize is in the post.”
“Quick—we’ve got to help him,” said Fairhrim, wriggling out of Osric’s arms.
“His lot are responsible for the Pox,” said Osric.
“I don’t believe it,” said Fairhrim.
“I’m s-sorry to tell you that we are,” said the Druid.
Fairhrim, stricken, asked, “But—why?”
“The Dreor have taken over the Faerwundor,” said the Druid. “They’ve forced us to produce the Pox by the bucketful. I sabotaged every batch I could. I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”
Fairhrim pressed her tācn to his whiskery cheek. “I don’t even know how you’re still alive. What’s your name?”
“Gron.”
“Is anyone else alive?”
Gron’s breathing was laboured. “Don’t think so. Rumour is—the Haelan developed a vaccine. Dreor don’t need us anymore. The Pox is useless now.”
“I can’t believe it,” breathed Fairhrim. “The Dreor forcing Druids into producing the Pox? And the Druids having the facilities to do so? I thought you lot only grew medicinal plants—I thought Swanstone synthesized the drugs for you—”
“We must let those with tācn have their little superiorities,” said Gron. “It’s better that no one knows the extent of our enterprise.” He coughed and added, “Tell nobody. No taxes this way.”
“I can’t believe the Dreor had the brains to organise this,” said Osric.
“They don’t,” said Gron.
“Who was it?”
With effort, Gron said, “Don’t…know. Chief Seer met them. They offered him a fortune to produce the Pox. He refused. Was murdered in cold blood. Next thing we knew, Dreor were swarming the Tor.”
Things became a bit awkward for Osric then, given that the murderer of the chief Seer was…him.
He held up his hands as Fairhrim glared at him. “It was just a job.”
“Who ordered it?” asked Fairhrim.
“I don’t know. I got a slip of paper with instructions and a price. That’s all.”
At the top of the spiral stair, muffled by the pouring waterfall, came the stamp and rattle of steel sabatons.
“We need to go,” said Osric.
“We can’t leave him here,” said Fairhrim, clutching at Gron’s shoulders.
Gron peered up at them through blood-crusted eyes. “Let my body feed the oak.”
He moved no more.
The lights sputtered off. The Dreor were clattering down from the atrium above.
Osric did not like this. Fyren dealt death; they did not do well with those who were already dead.
“We’ve got to go,” said Osric.
“I thought you were the most dangerous thing here,” said Fairhrim.
“Circumstances have changed.”
He snatched Fairhrim against himself, preparing to shadow-walk back where they had come from. But there was clanking coming from that direction. He raised his tācn and read the shadows across the foyer, where another door led out. There was movement in that corridor, too.
In the darkness, over the thundering waterfall, the scrape of sabatons surrounded them.
“Shit,” said Osric. “We’re trapped. I can’t take on this many Dreor—”
Fairhrim’s tācn glowed white as she held it up. “The waterfall.”
“What about the waterfall?”
“It’s pouring into an underground river. It’s all darkness under there.”
“And?”
“Shadow-walk us through it,” said Fairhrim.
“Are you mad? We don’t know where it ends. It could go on for miles underground.”
“But we know how this ends,” said Fairhrim, with reference to the horde advancing towards them.
“We might drown before I can pull us out.”
“I trust you,” said Fairhrim.
She snatched his arm, heaved herself forward, and plunged them both into the river.
Osric’s last sight was a Dreor’s scythe whipping through the air where his neck had been, and then the water closed over his head, and the Faerwundor was gone.
He convulsed in the frigid water. Fairhrim, clutching his arm, did the same. The current rushed them into a culvert, and they flew along into water-filled blackness.
Osric held out his tācn. He reached for the farthest shadow he could perceive and pulled Fairhrim and himself along, ten times faster than the current carried them, through the underground river.
Twenty times, thirty times, he pulled them forward into new shadow.
His seith flowed strong and sure in the dark.
He read the bends in the underground river, avoided slamming into walls, whipped himself and Fairhrim around sharp rocks.
Still there was no light. His lungs burned.
Fairhrim’s grip on his arm faltered. He locked forearms with her. How far did this underground river go?
His seith wouldn’t last forever. He would need to breathe soon. Fairhrim would need to breathe soon.
His right eye grew blurry. His Cost was upon him, that physical manifestation of seith overuse.
He reached his tācn ahead and pulled, and pulled, and pulled towards the farthest shadows.
He lost sight in his right eye entirely; his left began to fade.
Fairhrim’s palm pressed at his chest in the rushing water and her seith came into him, not to heal but rather, incredibly, to replenish.
His Cost receded as her seith filled his reserves. Since when could one share seith?
Among the rush of water in his ears, he heard a sudden gush of bubbles as Fairhrim’s breath gave way.
His own followed. His diaphragm spasmed.
His body screamed at him to take a breath.
His right eye went blind again. They were going to die.
His lungs were empty, and still, still, this unending darkness, through which he shadow-pulled a path—was that light ahead, or was it only the swimming of his vision, as darker black crept at the edges of the world?
The last of the air in his lungs was gone. He wouldn’t let go of Fairhrim’s arm.
Dark gave way to light.
Osric and Fairhrim did not swim out on their own power; it was the river that spat them out like drowned rats.
They crawled up a bank, coughing and spitting, just enough to get their bodies out of the water, and collapsed.
For long minutes they lay there and revelled in the simple glory of breathing.
“Are y-you all right?” asked Osric in a choked whisper.
“Bit damp,” said Fairhrim.
She turned away and vomited out half the river. Osric hacked out one or two lungs in response. He was devoid of seith, half-blind, mostly dead.
“I h-hope that was Incident enough for you,” said Fairhrim.
Osric laughed. They lay next to each other with wet reeds for pillows and river muck for a mattress as the rising sun turned the sky gold.
Fairhrim raised a trembling palm into the air.
“What is it?” asked Osric.
“Xanthe’s deofol wants to come through,” said Fairhrim.
Xanthe’s axolotl materialised above the two of them and studied them with her beady black eyes. “Frīa. I was just coming to check how the healing session went. You two look like you’ve crossed the Styx.”
“Tell Xanthe to send Wardens to the Faerwundor immediately,” said Fairhrim.