The Light of All That Falls, page 22
Everyone had disappeared farther into the red-tinged city, and ever since, there had been utter silence below. Davian hadn’t been willing to risk venturing out again after Raeleth’s warnings.
He shifted carefully, then peeked over the edge of the building, trying to see what had caused the disturbance. The crunching and scraping of loose stone came again, the rhythm uneven—and something else. A constant grinding, dragging sound. Directly below him now, on the lower floor of the same building atop which he currently perched.
Davian tensed. There was nowhere to hide if someone came up here.
There was abruptly motion below, something emerging from the hollowed-out shell of the building and into his vision.
Davian recoiled, barely managing to clap his hand over his mouth to stifle a cry.
Crimson light glinted off skin that was almost completely transparent, glass-like, revealing a mess of muscle and organ and fluid shifting unsettlingly just beneath the surface. The creature was dragging itself along with arms that ended abruptly in curved spines that sprouted outward, scraping weakly against the stone.
The limbs to which those claws were attached were emaciated, far too thin for the bulky body that would have been at least ten feet tall had the creature been standing. It made a wrenching motion, claws digging into rock, and hauled itself forward a few more feet. Davian’s stomach lurched as its legs became visible. As thin as its arms, with glass-like skin that revealed shattered bone stabbing outward through torn muscle at multiple points.
The creature’s chest rose and fell quickly, and it twisted to face the sky, now staring directly up at him. A ruined maw revealed needle-like teeth grinding and slicing into its own flesh, many of the fangs broken off and dark blood dribbling down its chin.
Its eyes, though, were wide. Intelligent.
Human.
Davian froze, heart thundering in his chest, resisting the urge to flinch back and possibly draw attention with the movement. Had it seen him? He realized what it was now. Or what it would resemble, anyway, if its body were whole.
An al’goriat.
But its eyes were not covered over in flesh. Brown and scared, they flickered as the creature stared upward, and Davian knew it had spotted him. It opened its mouth wide as if to speak, or scream.
A spear took it through the left eye, slamming into hard stone beneath and quivering there for a long, shocking second.
Davian just lay there, frozen, as a slithering sound came from somewhere below. Then the sinuous form of a dar’gaithin was by the dead creature’s side, pulling out the spear with a short, sharp motion. The serpentine Bane contorted its body to lean in close to the deformed al’goriat’s face, studying it.
It pulled away after a while, its sharp gaze raking the area; Davian didn’t dare breathe, but the creature never looked upward. Seemingly satisfied, the dar’gaithin proceeded to lean down and haul the deformed al’goriat onto its shoulder, the immense strength of its arms meaning it had little problem with the dead creature’s weight.
Then it was slithering away, leaving only a dribble of black blood and the steadily dissipating sound of scales scraping against stone.
Finally, the camp was silent again.
Davian just stayed where he was, every muscle taut, trying to block out what he had just seen. Eventually he slid back and twisted into a seated position, steadying his shaky breathing.
He knew he wasn’t going to die here, but right now, that was barely a comfort.
He didn’t move again for a long time, peering over the edge only once the booming bell rang out again and he heard the sounds of people returning. The groups were once again moving together, everyone looking dusty and exhausted, clearly drained from whatever tasks they had been set.
It was another few hours before he heard the soft footfalls making their way up the stairs. He held his breath, then let it out again silently as a tired and grimy-looking Raeleth emerged onto the roof.
Raeleth gave Davian a weary smile, half of his face shadowed by the angle of the red moon. Then he walked over and thrust out a hand. It was filled with a dark, leafy plant of some kind, though Davian didn’t recognize it.
“Food,” he explained. “Not much, but—”
He cut off as Davian grabbed it, barely giving it a glance before biting in. Prisoner though he’d been for the last year, he had at least been properly fed, and it had been more than a day since he’d had anything to eat. His stomach had been gnawing at his insides for hours now.
He sputtered and almost spat out the vegetable—if that was what it was—before forcing himself to chew deliberately and swallow. Its tough outer surface had given way to a soft, soggy flesh that was extremely bitter.
“Sorry,” said Raeleth apologetically. “These things taste better cooked, but it would have raised too many questions if I’d been seen preparing but not eating it.”
Davian forced another bite, hunger trumping any misgivings he had about the flavor. “I’ll survive,” he assured Raeleth between chews. “Thank you.” He swallowed, the bitter tang of the meal—small though it had been—burning his throat. “I have a lot of questions,” he added.
Raeleth sat, gesturing for Davian to do the same, the motion barely visible in the darkness. “Then let’s start there for now. I’ll answer what I can.”
“Where are we?”
“The dar’gaithin call it Zvaelar, and that’s about the most any of us really know. Twenty miles, roughly, between the gray boundaries to the north and south—more than half of that is city. Perhaps ten miles between the east and west boundaries. No way over or around or under. Trust me, we’ve tried,” Raeleth added drily.
Davian nodded thoughtfully. “When are we?”
Raeleth looked taken aback.
“Impossible to tell,” he said. “Nobody I’ve met recognizes the city, and we seem to come from a range of eras. One member of my team was born almost a millennium after me, from what we can tell.” He squinted at Davian. “How did you know?”
“Well it’s not hard to see that time’s not passing normally here,” said Davian, gesturing to the stagnant red moon. “You said Theshesseth has been here for months, but he went through the portal only a few seconds before me. And you mentioned everyone else arriving at the same moment, too. It didn’t seem like that much of a stretch.” He tried to keep his tone casual. There were other reasons that he’d assumed time travel, of course—the raging gray void of the surrounding walls, for one thing—but he didn’t see the need to reveal that information to Raeleth just yet.
Raeleth scratched his head. “You… are taking to the concept better than the rest of us did,” he admitted, issuing a soft laugh and seeming to accept Davian’s explanation. “Praise El for that. It wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to.”
Davian smiled, though the expression quickly faded back to seriousness. “So there’s no way back, that you know of?”
Raeleth vacillated.
“Not that I know of,” he agreed slowly. “Though…”
Davian gave him an expectant look, and Raeleth made a face.
“Our teams scour the city for anything made of metal—mostly iron or steel—and in return for meeting quota, the snakes give us food,” Raeleth explained. “That food comes from somewhere; there’s too much of it for them to have some hidden store. And that metal is going somewhere, too. It has to be.” There was a note of barely restrained desperation to the last, an acknowledgment that he had only guesses.
Davian contemplated. Hardly proof, but it was better than nothing. “Any idea where they take the metal, once you give it to them?”
“North,” said Raeleth. “Across the Breach.” He nodded toward where the city-splitting, illuminated chasm lay.
“There are ways over it?” asked Davian in surprise. The gap was massive where he’d seen it, and judging from the refracted yellow light in the sky, the abyss stretched the entire distance between the eastern and western boundaries of this place.
“Just the one. Impossible for us to cross, though. It’s heavily guarded.” Raeleth shook his head. “It’s not an option worth exploring.”
Davian frowned; there was a hesitation to Raeleth’s voice that suggested there was something he wasn’t saying, but this was hardly the time to press. He tucked away the information to investigate later.
“So everyone here is slave labor,” he said. “That’s where they all go, when that bell rings?”
“Essentially,” admitted Raeleth.
Davian peered down at the mess of paths and buildings below, parts of which were now illuminated by firelight. Then he let his gaze wander further, to where the violent yellow of the Breach lit up nearby buildings, and beyond that to the darkened, empty-looking outline of the structures beyond.
If he wanted to find his way out of this place, it sounded like his path lay somewhere through there.
“So if I join your team,” he said eventually, picking up the previous thread. “We’d just be searching the city for metal while we’re awake?”
Raeleth chuckled humorlessly.
“If you want to put it like that,” he said. “Of course, we’ve all been doing this for nearly three months, so it’s getting harder and harder to find what we need. And you have to avoid stepping in pools of Dark. And getting trapped in collapsing buildings. And stray al’goriat, not to mention a dozen other things around here that could kill you.” He shrugged at Davian’s expression. “There’s no point in me making it sound easier than it is. You’re going to find this out soon enough anyway, and El as my witness, it’s not like the alternative is any better.”
Davian swallowed, the unpleasant aftertaste of the food Raeleth had given him still sharp against his tongue. “So what do we do now?”
“Right now? You sit there and you listen,” said Raeleth firmly. “The others won’t pay you much attention; the days are too long and too hard to bother with conversation, and all anyone wants to do once they get back is get enough sleep to be capable of doing it all again tomorrow. Plus, people die a lot around here. It’s easier not getting to know them.” He shrugged. “But they will notice if you’re ignorant about how things should work.”
Davian grimaced, but dipped his head in acquiescence.
He listened in silence for the next hour, gradually piecing together what life in Zvaelar was like for the prisoners. The cataclysm that had shattered this place and rent the city had, apparently, occurred just as everyone had arrived—whether as a consequence of their arrival or for some other reason, Raeleth didn’t know. The other man described stumbling into a nightmare of raging fire and shattering ground and a strange red energy flecked with yellow coating everything in sight; people and dar’gaithin alike had fled, unable to tell between where was safe and where the ground was likely to swallow them whole.
Many of the thousands who had been sent through hadn’t survived that first hour—but it was only after the earth had stopped shaking and the fires had died down that the real trials had begun.
Raeleth described scavenging in the city in a calm and concise manner, but it was impossible to mask the horror that leaked through as he did so. The terrors that lurked around every corner sounded like a nightmare made real, no matter how matter-of-fact he managed to be about it all.
Davian’s heart sank as he listened. Part of him wanted nothing to do with any of this, but another part knew that he could help: his ability to wield Essence would give him an edge that, according to Raeleth, no one else here had. Assuming, of course, that he could find a way to replenish his Reserve.
Not to mention that if he was going to figure out how to get back—and there had to be a way—then he needed more information.
Finally Raeleth fell silent, and though he didn’t look over at Davian, his anticipation was thick in the darkness.
“So?” he asked eventually. “Have I painted an enticing enough picture?”
“You make it sound delightful,” Davian assured him drolly.
“But?”
Davian hesitated. “Why are you going to so much effort to help me? Why risk so much?” It was blunt, but what Raeleth had described was… grim. A life where expending this amount of energy to aid someone—even someone who had just saved one’s life—brought plenty of risk and very little reward. He wanted to understand the other man’s motivations.
Raeleth said nothing for a long moment.
“I thought El was ready to take me home, last night. That’s why I was out there. The dar’gaithin take the corpses of anyone infected with Dark, and I… I didn’t want them to have mine,” he said, his voice soft. “I was sitting on the edge of the Breach and I could feel the stuff eating at me, and even in this place, even with all that pain…” His voice cracked a little. “I didn’t want to go. I closed my eyes. I begged El for more time.” He sucked in a breath. “And then you were there.”
Davian blinked. “You’re helping me because you think… El sent me?”
“I’m helping you because I was reminded that as unknowable as El’s plan might be, there always is one. Even when we don’t like where it takes us.” Raeleth sighed. “A truth that is most important to accept when it’s hardest, unfortunately. I was losing myself to this place, but you turning up made me remember that… well.” He gave Davian a lopsided smile. “Leaving you out here to die may just not be the right thing to do.”
Davian snorted soft amusement at the last part, but nodded. Coincidence or something else, it didn’t really matter: Raeleth was clearly confident in what he was saying.
He didn’t want to give himself up like this, but what choice did he have?
“Good enough,” he said heavily, getting to his feet and gesturing to the stairwell.
“Lead the way.”
Chapter 12
Wirr sprinted through the trees, dodging low-hanging branches and leaping over fallen logs even as he tried desperately to calculate where each of his squads should currently be.
A little ahead there was a flicker of movement as Erran appeared, the young man glancing back at Wirr and giving a cheerful salute before vanishing again. It had been to let him know that he was still there more than anything else; the Augur wasn’t allowed to help him here, much to Wirr’s chagrin. He would have given anything for the ability to move that quickly.
“Amadia,” he gasped as he skidded to a halt, ignoring the slight pulling pain from his scarred stomach, finally reaching the edge of the cliff overlooking the forest below. Enemy reds were visible at various points through the gaps in the trees, as were the whites of his own troops. Heavily outnumbered, as always. “Tell Siara that your squad needs to move a half mile to the south. Right now.” He spotted a trio of figures sliding through the trees, closer to his position. “Tell her Calder’s scouts are there, too, but that they will be past by the time you get there. You should have…” He calculated quickly. “Ten minutes to set up an ambush on the lower road. He won’t know you’re there until it’s too late.”
He put his hands on his knees, catching his breath as he examined the tableau, nodding to himself as the flashes of white to the north started toward him at a good pace. He gave more orders as he spotted the courses of other squads through the thick foliage, though most were only minor adjustments. His people were very close to where he had envisaged them.
“You’re winning.”
Wirr flinched, turning to see Erran to his left now, the young Augur peering with keen interest at the events unfolding below.
“We’re not losing.” Wirr’s gaze traveled to the slopes beyond Erran, and he spotted a couple of Calder’s men making their way up. “Make sure you’re not seen. If you get me caught, I’m going to look even worse than usual.” The scouts were searching specifically for him, he knew, albeit more as a precaution than from any real belief that he would actually be here. Calder was a proponent of generals staying well out of the range of battle, and that attitude pervaded his ranks. To them, Wirr’s being present so close to the conflict would be foolhardy.
“I’m being careful.” Erran reluctantly sank lower as he said the words, though, making sure plenty of foliage sat between him and the enemy soldiers. “Just thought you might want to take a break and let me know what happened in Prythe,” he added, sounding somewhat disgruntled.
Wirr glanced away from the scene, forcing a grin to hide his discomfort at the reminder of what he and Taeris had learned. “Working with the Council’s been boring these past few days, I take it?”
“You have no idea.” Erran grinned back, though.
Wirr looked again toward Calder’s scouts. They were still a distance away, but they clearly knew this area gave a good view of the battlefield. “I don’t suppose you want to make us invisible, seeing as you’re here?”
Erran snorted. “I said I wanted to talk, not help you cheat.” Shouts came from below, followed by the sounds of a clash—wooden weapons rather than steel, but still loud enough to cause a flock of birds to rise from their resting place. The scouts heard it, too, sprinting back in the direction from which they’d come. Erran peered down at the battle unfolding. “Not that you need it, apparently. You are getting better at this.” He sounded mildly surprised.
“Thanks,” said Wirr drily. He settled back against a thick trunk. He needed to stay vigilant, but it seemed that his gamble had paid off. He glanced across at Erran. “Do we have to do this right now? We could just use your ability to communicate privately later.” It was going to be a heavy conversation, one that he didn’t particularly want to have while distracted.
Erran grunted. “I saw Taeris this morning,” he admitted. “He didn’t say much—he was on his way to meet with the Council—but… I got the impression that things did not go entirely well.” He shrugged. “I’d prefer to hear the bad news now than have to wait for it.”
