Chapter 16
“Stop,” Abass whispered, grabbing Hash’s shoulder. The lantern swung in Hash’s hand, sending light flashing across the walls of the narrow tunnel.
“What?” Hash asked.
“Did you hear that?”
“Tair take me,” Hash said. “That’s the third time. No one is following us.”
“I swear I heard footsteps.”
“Give me the knife, then,” Hash said drily. “You’ll be about as much good in a fight as my old nan.”
Abass fingered the dagger, considering it. He could hear nothing over his own harsh breathing, the pounding of his heart. The other man seemed unperturbed, as though taking a stroll through the Ladies’ Walk. As though they were not surrounded by miles and miles of stone, with only one way to go—and guards waiting, Abass feared, at either end.
“Let’s go,” he said. “But keep listening.”
Hash shook his head and moved forward, the light steady now. The tunnel was narrow—even if Abass’s ribs had not hurt him, he could not have stretched his arms out in the cramped space. The high ceiling was the only mercy; it kept Abass from feeling suffocated by the darkness. They had been walking for a long time—an hour, several hours, Abass could not tell—and his feet ached from the rough stone. Tair bless me, he thought, the first thing I’m doing when I get out of here is go to Naja’s and Segi’s and find a bath and decent food. Then shoes.
Abruptly the tunnel widened out into a spacious chamber, its edges disappearing beyond the shallow pool of light from the lantern. Large, irregular pieces of stone, many two or three times as tall as Abass, were scattered throughout.
“Stick close,” Hash said. “You get lost, I’m not coming back to find you.”
“Keep your voice down,” Abass said, but he increased his pace. “Anything could be hiding in here.”
Ahead, the loose skitter of rock made both men jump. Hash turned back, his face white.
“The knife,” he whispered.
Abass slapped the hilt into the other man’s palm.
“Put out the lantern,” he said.
“Are you mad? And light it again with what? Hurry.”
Abass hurried as best he could, but Hash was uninjured, and he moved quickly—darting between the jagged boulders, the light bobbing, shadows scurrying to close behind him. More than once Abass stubbed a bare toe, but the pain was nothing compared to stab of agony that hit him with each breath.
“Hash, wait,” he said, pitching his voice as loud as he dared.
Either the blond man did not hear, or did not care, because he disappeared around another of the massive, fallen stones. Darkness raced behind him, wrapping around Abass. Abass sprinted forward, whimpering at the pain in his side. When Abass cleared the boulder, his heart fell.
Two tunnels stood before him, and Hash was gone. Abass crept closer. Distant light illuminated both. Both. The thought struck him like an arrow. Hash had gone down one. Who’s coming up the other?
Heart pounding as much from fear as from exertion, Abass hesitated. Sweat rolled down his face in waves. One meant a chance at survival—if, that was, he could find Hash and they had chosen the right passage. The other meant death—the eses, whether looking for him or not, would not let him live.
In a panic, Abass turned and scrambled up the nearest boulder. The surface was rough, with plenty of handholds, but his side burned, and his hands were slippery with sweat. Abass dragged himself onto the top, wincing as the stone scraped his chest and stomach. A moment later, looking down, he cursed himself for a dozen types of fool.
The light in one tunnel was noticeably stronger now. Tair bless me, that’s not Hash. If I’d only waited a few more heartbeats— He stared longingly at the other tunnel. He was close; he could jump, scurry into it before the guards arrived. He leaned over the edge of the boulder and eyed the fall. At least ten feet. Father take me, he thought. He was too banged up to risk it. Too tired. Despair washed over him. I might as well be as high as the moon.
The sound of footsteps reached him, and Abass pulled himself back to the center of the boulder, shifting as the rock dug uncomfortably into his knees. A heartbeat later someone appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, nothing more than an outline behind a shuttered lantern.
Abass tried to inch closer, curious. He had not seen guards use shuttered lanterns; it reminded him of his time on the streets, of the thieves’ lanterns that allowed only a beam of light to escape. This lantern was not quite so subtle, but it came close.
The man moved into the room quietly, lantern held low. The lantern. If he could get the lantern, there was still hope—a chance of getting out of this tomb. The man paused at the base of Abass’s boulder and lifted his head. Then he lifted the lantern.
Abass’s heart froze. He clamped his lips shut and, as quietly as he could, slid toward the edge of the boulder. Ten feet was a good fall. If he landed on the man, he could kill him, or at least stun him. Take the lantern. Abass tried not to think about his wounded side, about his other injuries. Desperation pushed aside the fear that had kept him from jumping moments earlier.
The man looked away just as Abass pushed off the boulder. The air whistled past him, and Abass twisted, trying to land on his good side, but everything seemed to happen too quickly.
He hit the man hard. The impact drove the breath from Abass’s lungs, and his shoulder and side felt like a mass of fire for a single, long instant, and then they hit the ground. Abass heard the crack of bone and a wet thump as the man cushioned his landing.
Pain roared through Abass. He tasted blood in his mouth, and he feared for a moment that he had bit his tongue in half. Ignoring the blaze of agony that filled him everywhere else, he checked his tongue. In spite of a nasty cut, it was whole. It seemed that was the only part of him that was.
With a groan, he rolled onto his stomach and spat out a mouthful of blood. Tair bless me, he thought. I’m alive. The stone drank up the blood thirstily, and Abass scrambled back from the dry spot; he had no wish to become a stone-wight.
The man Abass had landed on gave a groan. Abass watched, wide-eyed, as the man pushed himself up from the ground and shook his head.
“Tair around me,” the man said. “That hurt.”
Air brushed Abass’s cheek and made the lantern flame shiver even through the shutter. Abass stared at the man who should have been dead, or at least seriously wounded. Blood matted the man’s short-cropped dark hair, and one arm bent at a strange angle, but the man seemed oblivious to his injuries. But he was talking. Stone-wights didn’t talk.
A seir. Worse than a wight. The stories said they had claws for hands, though, and this seir had human hands. Still, what else could have survived that kind of blow?
Abass panicked. He kicked the seir as hard as he could, barely hearing the grunt of pain through his own fear, and grabbed the shuttered lantern. He turned, headed toward the tunnel Hash had taken, and ran straight into a boulder.
He hit the ground hard, vision folding around him.
Someone laughed. A woman.
“Tair fend,” she said. “What did he do to you?”
“Fell on me,” the man said.
Abass’s vision cleared. He had not run into a boulder, but a woman. She looked smaller than Isola, if that were possible, but she hadn’t budged when he had struck her. Fine, straight dark hair to her shoulders. Her mouth a pretty line below brown eyes. Hard eyes. Eyes that looked like they would see Abass either in bed, or dead, and it would not make much of a difference to her.
“Well,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Tair bless me if I know anymore,” Abass said. At the woman’s look, he instantly regretted it.
The man, however, let out a chuckle. “In his defense, I’d say the same if you asked me, Fadhra.”
Seiri. He was a dead man. But he could still go out fighting; he wasn’t going to let them eat him alive, or whatever seiri did to their victims. With one hand, Abass grabbed a handful of loose ston
es and dirt, praying to the tair that the seiri did not notice. Abass picked up the lantern again and regained his feet. Casual. Take them by surprise; that was half the battle. He had seen worse odds on the street and survived. Never against monsters, though, he thought. Never against seiri.
“Your name,” the woman said.
“Sure,” Abass said, giving her the smile he gave important people. Scribe said it wasn’t convincing, but then, what did Scribe know? A good smile put people at ease. And if seiri don’t even know what a smile is? It didn’t matter. The woman didn’t smile back.
He judged the distance between them. She was close enough.
Abass flung the dirt at the man’s face and swung the lantern up to strike her jaw. Hard and fast.
Her hand was a blur. She caught his wrist and twisted. Abass let the lantern fall with a cry as pain shot through his arm. Through the pain, Abass noticed that the man hadn’t moved. He seemed unfazed, although Abass had thrown the dirt and gravel true. And the woman had moved faster than anyone Abass had ever met. None of it made sense.
“Your name,” the dark-haired woman said.
“Abass,” he said, spitting blood from his cut tongue on the ground. It vanished into the parched stone. Abass tried to move away, but the woman did not budge, and he found himself trapped. He cried out as she twisted his arm again. “Ay, Father take you, go easy. I’m not trying to get away, I just don’t have any fancy for being a stone-wight.”
The man let out another chuckle. “Let him go, Fadhra,” he said. “Look at him, he looks half-starved. He can barely stand up—broken ribs, I’d guess. Not much of a threat.”
“He managed to take care of you rather easily,” the woman called Fadhra said. “It will take days for that arm to heal properly. Days we don’t have. Not to mention ruining tonight. Why did you have to bring that gloried lantern?”
“We came here to get people out, and they’re going to need some way to see the path, even if you and I don’t. This poor bastard looks like exactly the kind of person we were sent to find. If he escaped and took me by surprise all by himself, think of what he could do with the dew. Let’s take him and go.”
“Take him yourself, Eyl,” she said. “You’re no use to me as you are. I’ll go on alone.”
“Do you want to explain that to Maq?”
Fadhra smiled, a smile as hard as everything else about her. “Maq doesn’t scare me. Take him and go. And clean him up; if he’s worth looking at, I might want to get to know him better. Later.”
Shaking his head, the motion visible even in the darkness, Eyl stooped and grabbed the lantern. “Aye, that sounds about right. Be safe.”
The woman’s smile deepened, the hardness in her eyes sharp with teasing appraisal. Abass felt a hot prickle run through him. It had been too long since he’d been with a woman. Far too long. And then she vanished, and a breeze stirred Abass’s hair. His bottom stung; she had slapped him in parting. A seir who fancied his bottom. Well, that was new. Abass turned, staring at the seir who remained. What did this one want?