Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (14 page)

“If you were, you'd know steel doesn't bleed.” Rikus pointed his chin at the oozing seam
between the broken pieces of blade. “So heal it.”

“Mend steal?”

“Just try it,” Rikus interrupted. “What can it hurt?”

The dwarf shook his head, then reached for the seam.

Rikus put out a restraining hand. “Can't you do it without touching it?” he asked. “That
stuff stings.”

“Pain is nothing new to me,” the dwarf replied, dosing his fingers around the Scourge.

As his hand contacted the black liquid, Caelum drew sharp breaths between his teeth and
squeezed his eyes shut, but did not pull away. A soft sizzle echoed off the tunnel's stony
walls and sparks spewed from between the dwarf's fingers, filling the dark passage with
fleeting flashes of orange light. Sweat poured off Caelum's brow and his muscles trembled,
but still he did not pull away.

“Is that going to work?” Neeva asked, stepping to her husband's side.

“I hope so,” replied Caelum. “Without the Scourge, I don't know how Rkard is going to kill
Borys.”

The dwarf held his hand over the seam for several more moments. Finally, when no more
black fluid dripped from between his fingers onto the blob at his feet, Caelum took his
hand away from the Scourge.

The blade separated into two pieces, but the ends had ceased to drip. Disappointed, Rikus
slipped the broken tip into his scabbard for safekeeping. “At least you stopped the
bleeding.”

“Whatever that liquid is, it's not blood,” hissed Caelum, staring at his hand.

The dwarf's palm was covered with the black ooze, which now bubbled and spewed as though
on fire. More grotesquely, the bones beneath Caelum's flesh seemed to be writhing about
like worms.

“Get that off my husband!” Neeva screamed.

Rikus grabbed the dwarf's hand and used the back of the Scourge's broken blade to scrape
Caelum's hand clean. The black fluid hit the floor with a splat. It gathered itself into a
bead and joined the largest glob.

“By the sun!” gasped Caelum. “What's happening to me?”

The mul looked back to the dwarf's hand and saw the cause of Caelum's alarm. Thick,
pointed scales had sprouted along the outside edges of the palm. In the center gaped a
fang-lined maw; with bright red lips and a forked tongue that rose up from the abysslike
depths of its ebony throat.

“Release me.” Black wisps of shadow slipped from between the mouth's lips. “Come and free
me.”

Caelum closed his hand. He grew very pale and said nothing.

“What is it?” Neeva demanded. She pulled them all away from the blob on the floor.

Rikus studied his broken blade for a moment, then shuddered. “It must have something to do
with the Scourge's magic,” he said, slipping the broken blade into his scabbard with the
tip. “Sadira will know more- I hope.”

“Come out!” yelled Patch's voice.

Rikus looked toward the entrance. The giant was lying on his stomach and looking into the
tunnel with his one good eye. He peered into the darkness for a moment, then pulled away.

“Then you can stay in there, cowards!” he bellowed.

A moment later, a huge boulder came careening down the passage. It bounced off the walls a
few times and finally came to rest twenty or thirty paces inside the portal. The huge
stone filled the tunnel so completely that Rikus could not see even a sliver of pale
moonlight shining around its edges.

“I guess we won't be leaving that way,” Rikus said.

The mul turned around and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dearth of light. Within a
few moments, he was viewing the tunnel in a dozen radiant hues: the dwarves and Neeva in
luminous red, thick veils of broken spiderwebs in shining green or yellow, the cold stone
of the runnel walls in shimmering blue.

“So how are we going to leave?” asked Neeva, peering around blindly. As the only full
human in the group, she was the only person present who could not see in the dark.

“It won't take us long to find another exit,” Caelum said. With his good hand, the dwarf
grasped his wife's arm and began to lead her deeper into the inky depths. “That's true,
isn't it, Rikus?”

“There are hundreds of ways out,” the mul assured Caelum. “I suggest we divide the militia
into three groups. Two of the companies should find exits as quickly as possible, then
attack Patch or any other giant they see. We don't want them to go for a kill. Just let
them know we're still alive, then retreat and try it again from another portal.”

“What about the other company?” Neeva asked.

Rikus could see that she was gripping Caelum's arm tightly, and had squeezed her
ineffective eyes shut so that her mind would not automatically strain to see what it could
not and would be more open to her other senses. The technique was one that he had taught
her long ago, while they were training for
a
special match of blindfolded gladiators.

“We'll take the rest of your warriors and try to reach the mines opening into the mouth of
the gorge,” Rikus said.
“With a little luck, maybe we can find our way through in time to help Suit and his
Granite Company.” “That shouldn't be difficult,” said Caelum. He touched his fingers to
his sun tattoo. “I've just the magic to lead us through this warren.”

Rikus gnashed his teeth, trying to be patient and not succeeding very well. He stood at a
tangled intersection of mine tunnels, holding his hand out in front of him. A single
tongue of scarlet flame flickered in his palm, scorching his flesh and rising straight up
into the gloomy air. The tiny fire cast just enough heat to wash out his dwarven vision,
and its small sphere of scarlet light was barely large enough to illuminate the black maws
of a dozen passages gaping at him from all directions. Beyond that, he was as blind in
this murk as Neeva.

At last, Rikus looked to Caelum, who was standing at his side. “The flame's not pointing
anywhere,” he growled. “Your spell isn't doing anything except burning my hand.”

“I'm
sorry you find my fire-beacon uncomfortable,” said Caelum. He raised his own hand. “I
would have held it in my own palm, but...” He opened his fingers, revealing the scales and
red lips that had formed there when he tried to heal the Scourge.

Rikus looked away. “Good enough,” he said. “But which way now? The flame's not pointing
toward any tunnel.”

“Isn't it?” Caelum asked, looking up.

Rikus tipped his head back and saw a circle of blackness.

“Wonderful,” he grumbled, raising his hand over his head. The flame's light revealed a
man-sized cavity, roughly circular in shape, rising straight up. “How am I going to climb
that without smothering the fire-beacon?”

The mul said nothing about the sporadic dizziness he had been suffering earlier, for it
had all but disappeared during the long walk. Occasionally, he would feel lightheaded for
a moment or two, but the sensation no longer caused him to stumble or fall.

“You're not going to climb anything, Rikus,” Neeva said. She turned to the dwarves at
their back, “Brul Siderite, present yourself with a rope.”

A young man promptly came forward with a coil of rope. Compared to the boulderlike shape
of most dwarves, Brul was rather gaunt and lean, with gangling arms and bowed legs. Neeva
had him remove his armor and sling the rope over his shoulder, then boosted him into the
shaft. The warrior began to climb, his long arms and bowed legs flickering over the
rough-hewn walls in search of secure holds.

Rikus waited in the musty darkness with the others, the mine's humid air forming cool
beads of water on his bald head. Every time a groan or scrape sounded from above, he
cringed, fearing Brul was about to come crashing back down.

Though Rikus recognized Neeva's wisdom in sending the dwarf up first, that did not make
waiting any easier. Even with Caelum's fire-beacon guiding them through the maze of mine
tunnels, he feared that it was taking their group too long to work their way back to the
mouth of the valley. The Iron Company had not gotten lost once, but it had encountered
many obstacles that delayed its march. Several times, the dwarves had crawled through long
spans of partially collapsed tunnel on their bellies. Once, after the fire-beacon directed
them into a passage filled with foul-smelling air they could not breath, they had found it
necessary to backtrack and find a different route. Neeva had even been forced to ferry the
entire company of dwarves across a stretch of flooded cavern, wading back and forth
through fifty paces of muddy water as deep as her chin.

At last, Brul's panting voice echoed down from the top of the shaft. “Rope!”

As soon as the end of the line dropped into the tunnel, Neeva tied it around Rikus's
chest. “Haul away!” she said.

The coarse rope bit into the mul's chest, and he felt his feet leave the ground. Brul
hauled him up in a steady cadence of long pulls. The shaft was small enough that the
fire-beacon lit it completely, revealing rough-hewn walls cut from red rock. Once, Rikus
got stuck in a narrow section and could not free himself until he had taken off his
scabbard belt-no easy feat with one hand.

Near the top of the shaft, Rikus felt an arid breeze blowing across his skin, sapping the
dew that had collected on him in the lower, more humid depths of the mine. He resisted the
urge to cheer, knowing there were a hundred portals in the valley. Just because he felt an
outside breeze did not mean they had reached one of the exits overlooking the gorge where
the Granite Company was trapped. The mul glanced at the fire-beacon in his hand but did
not find the answer to his question there. The flame was flickering, but it still pointed
upward.

A moment later, Brul pulled Rikus into a small passage, so cramped that the mul's broad
shoulders barely fit between the walls. Rikus scrambled onto the ledge. He did not even
try to stand, for the ceiling was so low that it scraped his back even when he rested on
his hands and knees.

“Is this the way?” asked the dwarf, shielding his eyes from the fire-beacon. “I think
there's an exit here, but the shaft also continues up for at least another hundred feet.”

Rikus looked at his hand and saw the flame pointing straight down the side passage.

“This is it,” the mul reported. He pressed his palm to the wall and sighed in relief.

Once Rikus had smothered the fire-beacon, he saw a square of moonlit night at the other
end of the tunnel, about a hundred paces distant. He untied the rope around his waist and
squeezed past Brul, anxious to see what had become of Suit, the Granite Company, and the
giants.

There was no need to wait. Patch's muffled voice sounded from the other end of the tunnel.
“Nasty dwarves! I'll kill you like you killed Gait!”

Rikus heard a distant crash. A muted rumble rolled through passage, shaking dust and loose
stones from the ceiling.

“It sounds like the Granite Company killed one giant,” the mul said, turning to Brul.
“Have Neeva bring me an axe, and we'll see if we can't get another.”

While the dwarf lowered his rope back into the shaft and relayed Rikus's request, the mul
strapped on his scabbard belt. By the time he finished, Brul was heaving on the rope
again. With the fire-beacon gone, the mul's dwarven vision had returned, and he saw a halo
of rosy light appear as Neeva's head rose out of the shaft. She carried a pair of
battle-axes in her arms and an extra rope over her shoulder.

Rikus reached past Brul and grasped the weapons. “Over here.”

The mul pulled the axes past the dwarf, then took one and started up the passage. Neeva
followed close behind. As they crawled, Patch's voice continued to rumble down the
passage, punctuated by muffled crashes and distant booms. The noises did not seem to grow
much louder as they neared the exit, which made Rikus fear the battle had already moved
farther down the canyon.

Rikus finally reached the end of the tunnel. Directly ahead lay the moonlit crags of the
gorge's opposite wall He looked to one side. He and Neeva had come out as intended, where
the narrow canyon opened into the valley. In the other direction, the gorge ran for only a
short distance before kinking sharply. Had he not known better, the mul would have sworn
the chasm ended there. He saw no sign of Patch in either direction.

“Make room,” said Neeva, crawling alongside Rikus.

As her flank pressed against his, the mul could not help smiling at the warmth of her soft
flesh. It reminded him of times past, when they had lain pressed together all night, too
tense to sleep or talk, knowing the next morning they would leave the arena as they were
then, victorious or dead, but together still. Rikus had never thought he would miss
anything about being a gladiator, but now, with Neeva pressed against his side, he
realized he did miss one thing.

The crack of a shattering stone sounded from somewhere below, reminding Rikus that
dwelling on his past with Neeva would do him no more good than wishing the Scourge's blade
had not been snapped. The mul looked down and saw that they had come out much higher than
he had hoped, as he could tell by the sight of a tangled nest of giant braids far below.

Rikus squinted, trying to see what was happening more clearly. The moonlight reflecting
off the gorge's walls washed out his dwarven vision, so even after careful study he could
distinguish little more than a hulking pair of shoulders filling the canyon from wall to
wall. Nevertheless, it appeared that Suit and the Granite

Company were giving the giant a good fight. Patch's head was tilted forward to look at the
ground, and he seemed oblivious to anything but stomping and cursing the dwarves at his
feet.

“Rikus, didn't you see that?” Neeva asked, a note of urgency in her voice.

“What?” the mul asked. He scoured the gorge's shadows for something he had missed.

“Up there,” Neeva corrected.

She pointed into the sky, where a crimson sphere hung just above the opposite rim of the
gorge. The ball was flickering and sputtering, like a torch that had burned all its oil,
and was so faint it barely stood out from the night.