Soulwoven (19 page)

Dil began to feel the trembling in the tunnel through her whole body, saw pebbles start to hum and skip around her feet, noticed a throbbing in the rock around her.

Her mind whimpered,
No, no, not now.

“Strike at its mouth or its tongue,” Len continued. “They are not used to anything resisting them. It will turn back.”

He spoke with enough conviction that the others seemed to believe him. Quay drew his short swords. Litnig pulled his long club from his belt. Cole let go of her hand and reached for his daggers.

But she could smell Len’s fear, and she could see it in the wrinkles around his eyes.

Dil wiped her sweating hands on her thighs. She could feel the thing
coming,
feel the bulk of it resonating in the rock. She set her pack down. Even as she bent and strung her bow, she wondered if it would do any good against something so large.

And her thoughts ran wild, terrified, and feverish into a place she’d long forbidden them from treading.

There was more that she could do. More that only she could do. But the price—the others—a memory of fire and fear stirred in her heart, and her mind raced desperately for a solution.

There was a second river of souls that flowed around Guedin. Few people knew about it. Fewer still could use it.

Dil was one of them.

She could feel the Second River pulsing around her, waiting for her to call it. Waiting to help—

No!
her
mind screamed,
‘Do not let them learn—’
but the feeling was relentless.

The wind grew shrill in her ears. Her feet felt like wooden blocks. Her chest filled with a need to do
something,
anything. The glints from Quay’s swords and Len’s axes moved deeper into the tunnel. Their cloaks streamed behind them in the wind. The torches at their feet sputtered wildly.

Dil’s eyes started to water. Her heart climbed into her throat.

The torches went out.

Dil hitched in a breath to scream and grasped the Second River in panic. A flood of golden spheres of light burst to life before her. Cole’s hand landed on her back and pulled her toward him. She swallowed her scream. She dropped her grip on the River. She heard Cole shouting her name over the growing wind, and her mind whispered,
What have I done, Yenor’s eye, what have I done—

A ball of white light appeared in the center of the tunnel. Another winked into existence beyond it, then another and another, farther and farther down, lighting the rocky tube far better than the torches ever had. Ryse’s left hand was stretching out toward the lights. Her eyes glowed pearly white.

Dil shrank against Cole.

She was right next to me. Did she see, did she feel
—

A stench like that of a dead man’s mouth filled the air. Cole cursed. Dil took her eyes from Ryse.

At the edge of the light, about a quarter mile down, a tapered white mound of flesh was surging forward.

The worm filled most of the tunnel. It had no eyes, and its skin was mottled with patches ranging from cream to buff to porcelain. Its movements matched the earth’s vibration:
Slide, thrum, slide,
thrum
.
Bits of rock crumbled from the ceiling and the walls.

Dil watched the worm come on and realized that if it was that big, it was likely to be simple, and hungry.

A line of blackness opened up along the bottom of its head. Ryse’s lights disappeared into it one by one, and Dil saw sharp black teeth, dark-red flesh,
the
lighter pink of a tongue.

Len’s words came back to her. She pulled away from Cole, set her feet, let her body move automatically while the worm came on at speed, like it didn’t know or care that they were there ahead of it.

It’s just like a boar it’s just like a boar it’s just like a boar it’s just like a boar—

It was nothing like shooting a charging boar, but she would admit that to herself later.

She drew an arrow, aimed, held, released.

The first shot went too high, but she knew it the moment it left her bow and had another arrow nocked and fired before it even struck the ceiling. The second shot felt good, the bow springing and recoiling in her hand, the string humming with energy. She drew and shot a third time anyway, and she was reaching for a fourth arrow when a bolt of light speared over her shoulder and split the air like a thunder strike.

She whirled back and saw Ryse’s eyes glowing white and otherworldly. The soulweaver’s bolt struck the worm at the same time Dil’s third arrow did. The light shot straight into the roof of its mouth and illuminated it in a yellow burst.

The worm stopped its surging, rhythmic advance, slid for a short time, and ground to a halt thirty or forty yards away. The wind stopped. Dil stood silent, afraid to straighten, to draw an arrow, to move. She could hear the rustle of the others’ clothes, their heavy breathing,
the
crackle of their feet on the loose bits of rock covering the tunnel floor. The worm’s mouth opened and closed as if it was confused, as if it
was tasting
something.

Then it screamed.

Its mouth opened wide, and an ear-piercing shriek filled the tunnel. Dil dropped her bow, shoved her hands over her ears.

The pain—

The worm shot into motion, its mouth still open wide. Len turned, and the boys turned with him, and she didn’t need to hear the Aleani’s shouts to know to run. Another flash of light shot over her, then a third. Ryse stood her ground in the center of the tunnel, and Dil hesitated as she ran past her, stopped and looked back and saw the worm’s tongue hanging in bloody pieces, its head thrashing from side to side as it advanced. Len shouted something she couldn’t understand, then grabbed Ryse by the robes and hurled her back.

The worm was nearly on top of him by then—a seething wall of white flesh and red blood and pink tongue. It looked mad with pain, smashed its head mindlessly into the walls and the ceiling, screamed so loud she thought her ears would burst. Len slipped. He caught the fall on his hands and pushed himself up again immediately, but the worm was right behind him, right above him—

His eyes met hers. He shouted something she couldn’t hear over the worm’s screaming, and then its white, bloody head came down on top of him.
Twice.
A third time.

The worm stopped and reared up again, and she heard a loud
crack
as its head smashed into the ceiling. A rock the size of a melon hurtled free and just missed Len’s prostrate body. The worm bashed its head against the wall, the roof. More rock fell, and Dil stared at the body of Len Heramsun. Another flash shot over her shoulder. The worm recoiled and smashed the ground just to the right of Len, then just to the left of him.

He was still breathing. She could see it.

“Dil!” she thought she heard over the screaming. A hand grabbed her shoulder, but her decision was made. She sprinted forward. A chunk of falling rock just missed her. The worm thrashed left, right, up, down, and she saw the trail of blood and slime it had left on the floor of the tunnel, watched the horrifying mass of its muscles bunch and release as it tossed its head around like a blind man swinging a mace.

She reached Len, and she stood in the shadow of the worm and grabbed the Aleani by the wrist and heaved.

He only slid a foot or so.

The worm continued to thrash above her, and she set her feet and shouted and pulled again. Len’s body jerked forward like a rag doll, but it was too heavy—she couldn’t keep it moving but she had to—

Another flash of light shot over her head.
A second pair of hands gripped Len’s and pulled, and she saw Litnig’s face gray and serious next to hers, half-covered in a stream of blood that started somewhere beyond his hairline. When he pulled, so did
she,
and Len all but flew across the floor, away from the worm, toward safety.

Or so she hoped.

Debris covered the tunnel floor as far as she could see. More was still falling. Dil put her head down and pulled.

The lights in the tunnel dimmed, flared brightly, and then disappeared completely.

Dil stifled a shriek and looked back up. The world had been plunged into darkness and sound. The only light in the tunnel was that of the dull green treesoul, quivering in Ryse’s white robes.

Ryse herself was lying on the ground. A fist-sized chunk of rock was near her head.

In the light of the treesoul, Dil watched Quay grab Ryse by the shoulders, saw the soulweaver’s head bob from side to side listlessly as the prince shouted at her. Ryse moved without purpose at the sound of his voice, her hand grasping for some hold that wasn’t there, her feet scrabbling for purchase on stone they couldn’t find. Quay’s eyes met Dil’s, and she saw raw fear there, hidden beneath a thin sheen of courage. He grabbed Ryse’s arms and began to pull her backward. Litnig shouted something, and then Cole was taking Len’s other arm and helping Dil pull the Aleani back while Litnig fumbled in the darkness for something, found it, and turned to face the worm.

One of Len’s axes.

She saw it gleam green and strike worm flesh. The worm’s scream changed in pitch. Litnig bellowed and let fly madly with the axe again and again.

The worm cringed, began to inch backward,
turned
its head so that the blade struck its side instead of its torn and bleeding mouth.

Dil and Cole dragged Len until they were even with Quay and Ryse and then stopped. The worm whipped its head in the direction that Litnig’s last strike had come from, but he anticipated it, shot nimbly out of the way and slashed again, low to high, tearing a massive chunk out of the worm’s upper lip. He dodged again as the head swung back the other way. He brought an overhead strike down on the lower lip.

He’s winning,
Dil had time to think, and then Ryse moaned.

It wasn’t the kind of moan that a person made when she was coming back to consciousness with a raging headache. It started low and soft and grew into a terrified shout. Ryse’s eyes snapped open. She tore herself from Quay’s arms and pulled desperately at his legs, as if she was trying to drag him to the floor. Her eyes were wide, her face pale and panicked.

“Down!” she shrieked.

Litnig looked back. Dil saw his mouth move in what might have been a curse, and he dropped to the floor and covered his head as the worm thrashed mindlessly behind him. Quay did the same. Dil heard the boiling roar of an oncoming flash flood.

A river of flames rushed over her.

She gasped and dropped Len, threw herself on the ground, covered her head. She didn’t scream, but a small noise escaped her that might have been a whimper or a squeak, and she wondered if it was going to be the last sound she made before she died.

The flames didn’t touch her.

Slowly, she uncovered her head.

The flames moved around her and Len and Cole and the others as if targeted. She barely felt their heat. Ryse was slumped unconscious next to her in Quay’s arms. Cole’s eyes were wide and uncomprehending. Litnig was still huddled on the tunnel floor, and the flames knit together again just beyond him.

Dil’s pulse pounded. Her limbs coursed with all the energy her body had to offer.

But there was nothing to do.

It was beautiful, in a way.
Like watching a campfire from the inside.
The worm’s screaming was replaced by the gentle rush of air and flame. Light, orange and yellow and white and blue, soared around her in arcs and waves and loops and tongues. She felt blessed, lucky.

The flames died. In the sudden darkness they left behind, Dil couldn’t even see the dim glow of the treesoul. Heavy breathing echoed through the tunnel. The boys panted in front of her, to her sides, and toward Du Hardt—

There was breathing there too, where none of her friends had been. Harsh white light burst into life from the direction of the breathing, and as she squinted against its glare, she saw the silhouette of a robed man stumbling toward her against the wall.

Who—

The ground shook so violently she was thrown to her hands and knees. The piercing shriek of the worm filled the darkness again, louder than before, and there was a
crack
worse than any of the others. She threw her hands over her head.

The roof!
she
thought.
The roof’s coming down!

The stranger fell to the ground, and she lost him in the shadows of his own light. Huge chunks of the ceiling fell with increasing frequency. The blackened and twisted head of the worm smashed singled-mindedly into the tunnel wall to its left.

Dil struggled to her feet. Quay picked Ryse up with a quick jerk. The treesoul fell from the soulweaver’s pocket, and Dil stared dumbly at it until Cole knelt and bent Len’s body over his shoulder. He stood up, touched her arm and shouted something she couldn’t understand.

Behind him, she saw that the worm had ripped a hole through the side of the tunnel into a second passage.

Quay dashed through the jagged portal into the darkness. Litnig stood in its center waving furiously.

Dil grabbed her bow and a pack from the floor and ran.

Within moments, the light was gone, and she was sprinting full speed in the black, fighting hard not to panic. She couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of the worm and the mountain. A rock caught her in the shoulder. Tears formed in her eyes. She wanted out.
Out of the tunnels.
Out of the mountains.
Out of her thrice-damned adventure and into the life she’d once thought so meaningless.

Her foot hit nothing but air.

Dil pitched forward and braced herself to hit the floor, but it didn’t come. She fell for a full second, more, longer than was safe. She dropped her bow and covered her head, rolled over so her pack would break the fall. She didn’t even feel surprised.

A moment later, the pack compressed and the air rushed out of her lungs, and then her head snapped back and there was nothing.

TWENTY-ONE

“Lit?”

The voice slipped through a veil of darkness into Litnig’s consciousness. His dream appeared and faded and appeared again, quick as a hummingbird’s wings or quivering shadows before a flickering source of light. The pillars were there and then gone. The worried face of the Aleani walker manifested and blinked away.