Servant: The Dark God Book One (Volume 1) (47 page)

Sidestepping the stream worked for a while, but the dry earth soon ended, and they came to a spot that was black, icy water from wall to wall.

Talen held the torch out. There was no way around it.

So be it. Sugar stepped into it. At first it only came to her ankles, but then it deepened and she found herself wading in spots up to her thighs, hoping with each step that the ground didn’t completely drop out from under her. Her feet quickly began to ache from the cold. She had calluses built up from walking barefoot all summer, but they were not proof against the water and sharp points of the rocks.

She stumbled, caught herself, then stumbled again. She did not want to lose her grip on the tooth, and so let her knees take the brunt of the fall. This time she struck the sharp rocks below with her knees and cursed at the pain.

“Lords,” said Talen.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“No,” he said, “not that. Look.” He held the torch higher.

She pushed herself up and looked ahead. The pathway ended in a wall.

“Are you sure this is the right cave?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” she said. But then her courage faltered: maybe the thing climbed the walls. Furthermore, in many places the torchlight did not reveal this wall’s total height. Maybe the creature’s lair was up, not forward, and they’d already walked past it.

She took the torch from Talen and splashed forward. When she got to the wall, she held the torch up. The jagged wall stood perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high. Water dripped down from the ceiling. She could hear water splashing from above like a brook cascading over rocks. She reached out and felt the slippery rock of the wall. There was no way they could scale it.

“There,” said Talen and motioned to the right. “We can get up that way.”

On her right the rock face was broken and free of slime. From below it looked like a narrow ledge joined up with the area above the wall.

“How are you going to get up that?” she asked.

“You go first then pull me up with the rope.”

She looked at him. “I don’t know if your lame carcass is worth it.”

“Oh, it’s worth it,” said Talen.

She looked back up into the blackness. “It’s going to be up there waiting for me.”

“Maybe,” said Talen.

“And I can’t climb that with one hand.”

“No, you can’t. But I’ll hold the light for you.”

“You’re a big help.”

He shrugged.

“I’ll carry the torch in my teeth,” she said finally and put the hag’s tooth back into its case and slipped that into the bag at her side. She didn’t take off the gauntlets. If something was up there she wouldn’t have time to retrieve the case and put them on. When she finished tying the case to her, she put the stem of the torch between her teeth and began to climb.

If the creature caught them now, they were lost.

There were plenty of foot and hand holds, but they were not as dry as they seemed. And her dripping clothes only added to the problem, but even if it had been dry, her feet and legs were still stiff and hurting from the icy water. Nevertheless, she rose. It was slick and slow going and she expected the monster to appear at any moment.

But then she reached the ledge. It was perhaps two feet wide and more than enough for her to sit on. She clambered over the edge, and then took the torch from her mouth and held it to see farther down the passage.

The ceiling seeped. Long stalactites and stalagmites had formed, looking like huge caramel teeth. Further down, water poured out of a rent in the side of the corridor then tumbled over the wall. Beyond that was blackness.

This ledge did indeed join that passage.

She untied the case, placed it on the ledge beside her, then threw down one end of the rope.

Talen tied the remaining torches into a bundle, and she hauled them up. When the torches were resting next to her, she held the light out for Talen.

“I can do it without a rope,” he said.

“It’s slicker than it appears,” she said.

“I can feel that,” he said. “Especially where you dripped.”

Then he began to climb, gingerly at first, careful of his shoulder, then more quickly. Soon he was almost to the top

“Ha,” he said. “Lame indeed.” But at that moment his footing slipped and he lurched to the side, then backward. He tried to catch himself with his bad arm and winced. Sugar reached out for him, but instead of grabbing her hand, he reached out wildly and grabbed a thick handful of her hair.

His grasp caught her off guard and she was yanked toward him. They were both going to pitch over the ledge.

Talen shouted his dismay, his eyes wide.

Then Sugar caught a seam in the rock on the ledge with both hands and pushed back. It was like a man trying to tug a donkey, except in this instance Talen was the man, holding onto a fistful of her hair, and she was the donkey.

He swung left, and for a moment she thought his weight would pull them over, but then he got a secure foothold. The change in balance was enough for her to reach up and grab his arm, and then with a mighty tug, pull him over brink and onto the ledge.

Talen finally let go of her hair and pulled himself to sit with his back against the wall. He held his shoulder and grimaced.

Sugar felt her scalp. “You couldn’t have grabbed my outstretched hand?”

“I tried,” he said.

“Goh,” she said. “I don’t know who’s going to kill me first—you or the monster.”

“I’m doing my best.”

The way he said it made it sound like he was doing his best to kill
her
. She looked over at him, and a surge of hilarity welled up in her, and she began to laugh long and loud. It was surely her nerves, but she couldn’t contain it. Nor did she want to: it felt too good.

Talen looked at her like she’d gone mad.

“If you’re going to dispatch me, Hogan’s son, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.”

Talen finally got it and grinned.

“I guess we could look on the bright side,” she said. “If it wasn’t already aware, your yelling and my laughter have certainly alerted the monster to our presence. So that will save us some walking.”

“We’re brilliant, and we don’t even try,” he said. “Now give me the torch. If I’m going to meet my death, it’s going to be with thawed toes.”

That was a good idea, and they both turned and sat crossed-legged facing each other with her holding the torch between their bare feet, Talen’s back facing the main corridor beyond.

The warmth was wonderful.

“That’s going to be a bugger going back down,” he said.

“No. Next time, seeing how poor a climber you are, we’ll just be sure to use the rope. I think I’ll tie it around your neck.”

He grinned again.

Something sounded in the corridor behind Talen’s back, and they froze.

“The torch,” he said and motioned at her.

Sugar handed the torch over then fetched the Skir Master’s case and withdrew the hag’s tooth. There was not enough room to stand up, and she doubted whether the monster could fit on this ledge, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t climb along the face of the ledge.

Talen held the torch out to illuminate the passage. “I don’t think anything’s there,” he said.

“Goh,” she said. “I wish there were. Then we could at least get it over with.”

“Well, we won’t get over anything squatting here,” he said.

She looked at him. He was not some strapping armsman. Not a formidable warrior. But she was happy he was with her.

“What?” he said.

“I’m just glad I’m not doing this alone.”

“That was never an option,” he said. The torch spat and guttered. It was getting low. He said, “Looks like we’re going to have to light another.”

“Let me go first,” she said. “The last thing I want is for the monster to snatch you and leave me trying to strike it in the dark.”

“What are you going to do? Crawl over me?”

“Yes,” she said.

When he saw she was serious, he lay on his belly. She crawled over him, careful to not to touch his ribs or shoulder, then moved along the ledge until it joined the main passage and she could stand up.

Talen scrambled after her. When he joined her, he lit another torch and held it up. Gone were the stalactites. The walls here rose up to an arched ceiling in smooth lines carved with patterns that complimented the geometric pattern of different-colored stones at their feet.

“This is stone-wight work,” Talen said.

“Do you think this monster is one of them?”

“Who knows?” he said

“Where’s the bat dung?” she asked. Most caves like this were heaped high with beetle-infested guano, the stench of it assaulting the nostrils. But there was no dung. No bats. No cave vermin. Just dust.

Talen held the torch higher to get a good look at the floor. “Look,” he said and pointed to a spot on the tunnel floor. “And there.”

Sugar followed his finger and saw a brief series of regular markings on the floor. They were partial foot prints. Not a human’s. But something two-legged that was large and twisted its right foot slightly as it walked. “I’ve seen this before,” she said. “We’re in the right place. You keep your ears perked.”

Talen nodded, looking down into the darkness, and let Sugar take the lead. He made sure he kept to the side of her so the torch would illuminate a greater area. They preceded down the corridor this way, the inky dark only a few strides away.

They passed many carvings. One was of a great tree with all manner of beast in it. Another of a bear carved with such fine detail she could see individual locks of its fur. Yet another contained a panel of ancient writing carved from top to bottom.

They came to a large chamber and passed through a number of pillars carved out of the rocks. Other passageways branched from this chamber, but the tracks of the monster led straight ahead.

They entered the passage at the end and continued forward, and then she heard something. She froze, waiting for the creature to come running out of the shadows. Talen froze behind her. The silver hag’s tooth gleamed in the torchlight. The tooth was long and felt well-balanced for throwing, but she couldn’t risk a long throw. After seeing the battle with the Skir Master, she knew she’d only have one chance.

They waited for some time, then she decided the sound was some trick of the cave, and moved forward, following the tracks the creature had left behind. With every step she became more certain that their names were going to be added to the list of those fools who had been swallowed by the ancient Stone-wight ruins. Soon the second torch burned low. Talen lit the third. Not long after that they arrived at a fork, but there wasn’t a lot of dirt or dust here, and there were no tracks to tell them the way to go.

They walked down the right a few paces, found nothing, and turned back. A few paces down the left passage, Sugar found another half print.

Talen sniffed.

Sugar sniffed as well and realized she could smell it too: an odd mixture with sulfur, pine, and iron in it.

“I smelled that when it took Uncle Argoth,” Talen said.

“Aye,” she said. “That’s the scent. The monster’s up ahead.”

Talen swallowed.

Sugar gripped the tooth tighter, the gold studs of her gauntlets gleaming in the torch light, and took a step forward.

45

The Grove

ARGOTH COULD NOT stop shaking. The tremors came in waves, starting deep within and building until his whole body spasmed. When each wave began, the monster carrying him would hold him tighter to keep him from shaking loose. He thought at first the tremors were signs of his terror at this beast, but the fear of the creature had quickly subsided, and he realized the first wave had come just after the creature had killed the Skir Master.

He suspected the shaking was an effect of the breaking of the bond. What it meant for his survival, he did not know. It might build until, like a case of lockjaw, he died in a horrible contraction. Or it might eventually pass.

Between tremors he examined the creature, the dark pits of its eyes, the rough edges of its hideous mouth protruding like the spines of a cod, the exposed skeleton of stone. A smattering of tiny, pale, yellow flowers grew across its neck and shoulder. He wondered why they had not wilted and supposed the earth from which they grew was living in its own fashion. At one point in the journey, when the monster stopped to kick a tumbled tree out of its way, a fat bumblebee droned about the monster’s head and landed on its shoulder. It had time to probe one of the pale flowers before the monster began running again and the bouncing shook it off.

Argoth could not understand why the creature had taken Legs. Perhaps he would deliver Argoth to the master and then reward itself with Legs as a meal. Whatever the reason, in between spasms, Argoth talked to Purity’s blind boy, soothing him, thinking all the while of Nettle and the sacrifice he’d made—the sacrifice that had been wasted on his cursed, foolhardy scheme.

The creature kept, for the most part, to the woods. Argoth knew there was no use calling for help. He’d tried, and the monster had clamped a rough hand over his mouth. Besides, this was not a weave of flesh and blood. How it lived, he could not guess. What he did know was that it could only be undone by special lore. Lore of which he had no knowledge. He could only hope that the Creek Widow had mustered the strength of the Grove. He was spent, but there still was a chance the Grove could defeat this thing.

The tremors continued for the many miles, but then the time between them began to grow. Perhaps he would survive the breaking of his bond to the Skir Master after all.

The monster carried them along a ridge of hills. It came to a small bluff, covered in trees, and jumped down to the ground a few yards below. They landed with a thump, and when the creature turned, Argoth saw why they’d come here.

Before them a cave opened into the rock. The monster repositioned them in its arms and strode into the darkness. It splashed through water, icy spray wetting Argoth’s exposed feet and face.

“We’re in a cave,” Argoth said to Legs.

“I know, Zu,” said Legs. “Please, unless you see something, it is important that I listen and smell.”

Argoth startled at the mild rebuke, but thought perhaps this is how the blind dealt with the unknowns in their world.

The monster climbed hill and valley, taking them ever deeper into the bowels of the rock. His tremors lessened. After some time, Argoth saw a bluish light up ahead. He mentioned this to Legs who said, “I don’t know that I can keep the orientation points all in my head.”

Orientation points? Then he realized: the boy was keeping a map of sounds and smells in his mind. Argoth looked at him with new admiration.

As the monster jogged, the light grew stronger. Soon Argoth could make out the walls of the passage they were in. The monster took them past a chamber containing a large pool of black water, past pillars, past openings to other dark passageways. The light grew, they turned a corner, and Argoth found himself in the room that was the source of the light.

The light came from the dead body of a large, pallid beast with an eyeless head. There was no odor of rotten flesh, which meant it must have been recently killed. It lay on the far side of the chamber. It looked like a monstrous salamander, as long as a man, but with a stubby tail and the tusks of a boar. Two vertical cuts ran along its belly. The creature’s juices oozed out of the cuts, and when the separate juices ran together, the mixture shone with a white and bluish light. A bowl had been set on the floor beside the creature to capture the fluorescing liquid as it dripped from the creature’s side.

Argoth had seen creatures similar to this before. They were called night maws. But those were never longer than a man’s hand, and they were rare. That same light shone from two other bowls set in the room. It was not the blinding light of the sun, but an odd light that still left much of the room in shadow.

The monster set Argoth and Legs down.

“No,” someone said.

Argoth turned. Chained at even intervals along the wall to his right were Hogan, the Creek Widow, Ke, River, and Purity.

“Not you too,” the Creek Widow said again, her voice full of despair.

Argoth’s heart sank. He’d hoped, at the very least, that Ke had escaped to call in the last two members of the Grove. But that would not be. There would be no muster.

Purity looked like the walking dead. Hogan did not look much better.

“Legs!” Purity said.

Argoth stepped towards them, but the monster grabbed him by his injured arm and wrenched him to an open set of manacles. Pain shot up Argoth’s arm, and he took in a sharp breath.

Legs carefully walked to his mother, hands on front.

The monster stood Argoth a few paces from River and closed the manacled about his ankles, then his wrists. It passed a chain through both to a stout ring in the wall then bent two links of the iron with its bare hands to secure Argoth to the ring in the rock. It yanked on the chain to test its strength.

Then the creature gaped open its mouth and coughed. It coughed again and plucked something dark and wet off its tongue. The object writhed like a worm or serpent between the monster’s two rough fingers. The thing was as thick as a man’s thumb and maybe a foot long.

Argoth backed up against the rock wall.

The monster reached out, steadied Argoth’s head with its free hand, then held the wet serpent close to Argoth’s throat.

Argoth felt a cold touch at the hollow of his neck. Then the creature slithered up and around and circled his neck.

The monster stepped back.

Argoth braced himself, but nothing happened.

The monster ran a finger along the creature, and then turned and walked over to Legs. He plucked him up from his mother and exited out of an opening in the far side of the chamber by the pallid beast.

“Mother,” Legs called from the corridor.

“Be brave, son,” she called after him, her voice hoarse.

Argoth stood frozen, still expecting the creature about his neck to bite or burn. He reached up carefully and touched it. It was cold and smooth as silk.

“It’s a King’s Collar of sorts,” said the Creek Widow. “At least, none of us can work any power that it doesn’t immediately consume.”

Argoth looked at each of them in turn—all wore a similar creature.

The Creek Widow shook her head in the pale light. “You were our last hope. We are not going to be able to resist her for long.”

Her?

Argoth tested the chains. They were heavy and strong. The weight of them made his injuries throb. And he was cold. Another tremor built in him, the shaking increased. He braced himself, but it faded as quickly as it had come.

“Who is this new enemy?” he asked. “Is it Mokad? Or some rogue soul-eater?”

“Neither,” said Hogan. “She is nothing like you have ever seen.” Hogan sounded weak. He was covered with bruises and lacerations. The Fir-Noy had obviously tortured him.

“She is looking,” the Creek Widow cut in, “for a young male.”

“What? Who is this woman?”

“They see a woman,” said River. “I see a man.”

“She’s right,” said the Creek Widow. “It’s no woman. No human. We are dealing with something else entirely.”

“Something very old,” said Hogan.

And it was searching for a male. They were talking about Talen. They had to be. Except the creature had cast Talen aside and taken Legs. “But how could she know about him?”

Hogan coughed wetly. “Brother,” he said. “We were stewards of a great gift. Rose warned us he was special. We should have known that dark powers would seek to destroy him before he came into his powers and could threaten them. But we were fools.”

“Who could have suspected this?” asked the Creek Widow.

“At least he’s not here,” said River.

“No, but who will train him?” Hogan asked. “Who will hide him? Harnock refused to come. How will he do it alone? His awakening almost killed him.” Hogan pulled at the creature about his neck. “It will only be a matter of time before she cracks his identity out of us. And that’s if he escapes.”

And then Argoth realized what else Hogan had just said—the enemy was nothing like he’d ever seen. “You feel awe for this enemy?”

“She is glorious,” Hogan said.

Argoth search within himself and felt the awe he’d felt before. “No,” he said. “No! These aren’t just King’s Collars. They’re thralls!” He reached up and tore at the creature, but it only constricted tighter. He pulled again, but it was strong as iron. He shuddered, and his heart sank even lower. “Please,” he said in a prayer to his ancestors “We cannot end this way.”

River pointed toward the side of the chamber where the pallid beast lay. “It is not just us that will be broken.”

Something lay on the floor beyond the pallid beast. He’d missed it in the surprise of seeing the Grove. It was a body, crude-featured, and dark. It looked to be made of earth. He saw another figure beyond it, and then another, and another.

“Lords,” he said and counted them. There were nine. Nine more horrors like the one that had brought him and Legs to this chamber. They had slightly different shapes—one’s head twisted into a point like an onion, another had no discernible head at all, yet another seemed to be made more of withies than stone and grass, a fourth had exceedingly long arms. But they were all of the same make.

He’d seen what the monster could withstand. He’d seen what it could do to the mightiest of men. A chill ran through him. All this time they’d worried about Bone Faces and Divines while this was happening under their noses. He felt sick.

He looked at the earthen figures, at the rough magic that had been growing in their midst. Despair welled up in him. “The Grove,” he said, “is undone.”