The Fifth Dawn (22 page)

“Honestly? You might be right. I wouldn’t put anything past Yert these days,” Geth’s face took on an uncharacteristically thoughtful cast. “But you know, that’s what I would have done. You’re a fool if you
don’t
expect that.”

“Right,” Glissa muttered. “Great. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Geth said. “Duck.”

It took Geth’s warning a half-second to sink in, and if she’d waited any longer her own skull would have joined his on the floor. A nim claw slammed the rusted tunnel wall with a clang and a shower of blue sparks. Glissa dropped Geth’s head and let it roll into the corner, then spun in a crouch, drawing her sword and readying her weary muscles for another fight.

The nim loomed over her, blocking her from the hall and Ellasha, wherever the leonin was. Since she hadn’t warned her, she feared the worst for the skyhunter.

Glissa tried the same move that had worked before. With a yell, she jabbed upward with her sword, hoping to impale the nim through its relatively soft underbelly. The creature had taken her by surprise, however, and her strike was off. The hulking zombie caught the blade easily in one crustacean claw and wrenched it from her grip, then grabbed her roughly by the arm in another claw and jerked her to her feet. So much for her good shoulder.

The nim lumbered around slowly until it faced four more of its hulking, beetle-like kin. A pair of large, gray, ghoulish-looking humans that looked like mountains of necrotic muscle held Ellasha firmly between them, one holding a massive knotted hand over her muzzle. There was something about these humans that didn’t seem quite right to Glissa. She had seen animated corpses and things like the nim that were a result of the necrogen’s effect on those same zombies. She’d seen the towering monsters that Yert had once been tasked with controlling, the reapers. However, she’d never seen humans that looked both dead
and
alive. There was something familiar about the feral look in their eyes, but she couldn’t put her claw tip on it.

Whatever they were, Glissa was fed up.

“Well?” Glissa shouted. “Is this how you welcome invited
guests, Yert? Because I have to say, I like Geth’s approach better. At least he didn’t play games!”

“A game, is it?” a cold voice called down the corridor. “I assure you, Glissa, this is very much the real thing.”

At that, the two large gray humans holding Ellasha stepped aside and Glissa got her first look at Yert since leaving the young keeper to Geth’s not-so-tender mercies. The elf girl hardly recognized him.

The young human’s pale skin had become the same sickly gray as his henchmen. He appeared taller, as well, perhaps an optical illusion created by the majestic black robes that hung from his wiry frame like folded insect wings. As Yert raised his hands to pull back his hood, Glissa saw the tips of two black spikes, like dewclaws, on the underside of Yert’s wrists.

“Geth?” Glissa called back toward the alcove. “Let me guess. You fed Yert to your vampire, didn’t you?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Geth’s head called from the shadows. “I blame you, you know. If you hadn’t crippled—”

“That thing still speaks? I guess I should not be surprised,” Yert said. “Mercy will be your downfall, Glissa.”

Yert sent a fist across Glissa’s already battered jaw. “You overestimate your importance to me,” Yert said. “Memnarch may want you alive, but I would just as soon open you up and feast upon your innards. I’ve learned elves have a tangy taste you just don’t get in humans. I think it’s those special spices you grow in the Tangle.”

Glissa opened her mouth to retort, and as fast as lightning, Yert’s right palm was pressed against her cheek. She froze. The black spike tip was less than an inch from her jugular. “For now, just a taste,” he hissed.

She felt a pinch like a needlebug sting as Yert’s feeding spike pierced her neck. Within seconds the loss of blood began
to make her dizzy, and she already sensed red unconsciousness flooding her vision. If she didn’t do something to stop him, she would be drained and dead within a minute. Nonetheless, she didn’t dare try to wriggle free. Yert could tear her throat apart with the spike.

“Help,” Glissa gasped.

She’d never felt more pathetic, she thought, as she grew more and more delirious. The mightiest hunter in the Tangle has walked into a snare hidden in plain sight. She should have known that Yert’s sudden reappearance was too strange, and that there had to be something else to it. She should have remembered the vampire. And what vampires could do to the living, if they really wanted to.

Yert suddenly screamed and jerked the spike free. Glissa felt warm liquid running freely down the side of her neck. The blackness would take her in seconds. Already everything was growing hazy. She felt a hand press over the wound and heard a voice—Yert?—muttering a few words in some bizarre, guttural tongue big on glottal stops. The flow of blood stopped, and Glissa’s vision cleared almost instantly. She spun free of the vampire’s grip and stepped back cautiously.

Yert held one palm into his forehead, and straightened with great effort. “Yes,” he said to the air, “I won’t do it again. Please, make it stop.”

Something was hurting Yert badly, something that Glissa couldn’t see—but that mystery would have to wait. The other hand was still extended, covered in red blood.
Her
blood. And she took that sort of thing personally. Before she could think better of it, she slammed a fist into Yert’s face, sending him stumbling back into the wall.

“Seize her, but do not kill!” he cried, still clutching his head. “The Guardian commands it!”

That explained his sudden headache, Glissa guessed.

Ellasha took advantage of her captor’s distraction to bring her legs up and kick off the nearest wall, sending the gray brutes slamming into ironstone with a crunch of snapping ribs. As the pair hit the tunnel floor, Glissa noted twin sets of black spikes on the ends of their wrists. These two weren’t human, either. Yert had been busy. If this kept up, humans were going to become extinct.

“Run!” she shouted to Ellasha. “Still have to find Bruenna. I’ll catch up.” The leonin commando leader nodded and headed down the tunnel at top speed, narrowly evading the grasping claws of the looming nim.

Glissa feinted right, causing a nim to stumble against the pair of vampires before they could recover from Ellasha’s blow, then dashed back to the alcove. She scooped up Geth’s head, which shouted “Hey!” as she stuffed it into the pack, then set off after the leonin as fast as her legs would carry her. As she passed the last slow-moving nim, she snatched her sword from the zombie’s claws.

The tunnel behind her exploded with clanging footsteps as the nim gave chase. Glissa could make out Ellasha up ahead through the pervasive necrogen, and hoped she could keep pace with the fleet-footed feline. As if reading her mind, Ellasha looked back and paused, bouncing on impatient feet.

“Thanks for waiting,” Glissa said breathlessly as she joined the leonin. Together they set off at a dead run into the heart of the Mephidross. “You’re one … fast cat.”

“Not … a cat,” Ellasha said, “and you run … like a pixie.”

“Elf,” Glissa replied.

“Mush moh moo moh, mish mimsn’t my maulf,” Geth added.

“I actually believe it’s
not
your fault, Geth,” Glissa said.
“Now you’re going to prove it by getting us to Bruenna and out again.”

“My mate moo.”

“I hate you too,” Glissa said.

“The tunnel forks ahead,” Ellasha said, stopping short. “Ask it which way to go.”

“Might,” the head said from inside the pack.

“Right?” Ellasha asked.

“Right,” Glissa said.

They set off down the tunnel Geth had indicated, followed by an army of nim and three very angry vampires, one of which was beginning to wonder if an alliance with Memnarch was really such a good idea.

Glissa and Ellasha barreled along the tunnel, each one stumbling now and again as the strange, flickering necrogen light caused a weird vertigo that made it appear the floor was moving. But by staying alert, they were able to keep each other mostly upright. Geth’s head could not have been enjoying the ride.

The elf came to an abrupt halt when Ellasha’s open hand slapped her in the chest. The path ended abruptly a few feet ahead, where the tunnel opened into an enormous cavern. Glissa peeked over the edge and could not see the bottom, nor did she see a telltale pinprick of light indicating that this was an entrance to a lacuna.

This hole was just a hole. A very, very deep hole.

Dozens of footsteps tromped noisily down the path behind them, and Glissa was sure she heard Yert barking orders. She swung the pack under her shoulder without unslinging it and flipped the cover open.

“Geth!” Glissa hissed. “Small problem. Your route’s not exactly … there.” She yanked Geth’s head from the pack and dangled him over the edge by one leathery ear. The head yelped. “See?” Glissa added.

“Yes, yes, yes, putmedownputmedownputmedown,” Geth gasped.

The elf girl continued to dangle Geth’s head as the grisly thing squealed, looking over her shoulder down the tunnel. Beetle-like
shapes loomed in the green light. The nim would be here any second. Ellasha drew her longknives and stood squarely between Glissa and the oncoming nim troop. “Find us a way out of this,” the skyhunter snarled.

Glissa pulled Geth back from the edge and looked him squarely in his glassy, clouded eyes. “Talk. How do we get over this chasm?”

“Don’t know,” the head gasped. “This path used to be solid, I swear! Probably happened in that cave-in you caused.”

“You’re kidding,” Ellasha growled.

“It’s the truth,” the head said. “She collapsed half the Vault.”

“Flare!” Glissa snapped and stuffed the head back into the pack, which she swung back to her shoulder. Too bad Bruenna was on the other side of the chasm—a little of the mage’s flight magic would have solved everything. “Ellasha, I don’t suppose you brought along a pair of wings….”

The leonin turned to bark a reply then stopped, one ear cocked sideways in a manner that Glissa had learned displayed uncertainty or suspicion. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” the leonin growled.

Ellasha sheathed her knives in one fluid motion and met the first nim with a solid kick to the chest. “Open my pack,” the leonin shouted as the nim collided with the one behind it and both tumbled onto their backs. One of the vampires—not Yert—came at Ellasha from the side. The leonin met it with a fist then gripped the creature’s wrist and brought its forearm down hard across her knee. The bone snapped clean.

Glissa scrambled up behind the leonin and hacked wildly at another nim that was creeping in from Ellasha’s blind spot. She severed its arm and necrogen tube on her third strike, a lucky hit. The nim went down, but the rest still plodded inexorably onward. Yert’s apparent absence disturbed her. She was sure she’d heard
him only moments ago. She wondered idly if vampires could become invisible.

In the clear for a moment, she flipped the latch on Ellasha’s pack and looked inside.

“The wide pocket in the back,” she growled. “Hurry.”

Glissa spotted the pocket easily and reached inside. She pulled out what looked like a folded sheet of silver linen.

“What’s this?” Glissa asked, baffled, as the pair of them backed closer and closer to the deadly drop.

“Just put them on,” Ellasha said as she jabbed her longknives into two nim at once, pushing them back into the clacking mob, “They’re for emergencies, so they’ll only carry one person. Well, maybe one and a head. Cross the straps over your chest. Do it now!”

“Okay!” Glissa yelled, and slipped two thin cables over her shoulders. The silvery linen rested against her shoulder blades, above Geth’s head. Preoccupied, Glissa didn’t get her sword raised in time to block another set of nim claws, but the late parry caused her to strike the nim’s soft, exposed joints, which worked just as well. She moved shoulder to shoulder with the skyhunter, and risked a look back over her shoulder. More nim were milling about the opposite side of the deep pit as well. Several spread their black beetle-wings and launched themselves lazily across the chasm “Now what?” Glissa shouted as the noise of clacking nim feet and buzzing wings became almost unbearable.

“Your friend!” Ellasha shouted over the din between slashes of her longknives. “She’s important? She’ll help the Kha save our people and beat these monsters?”

“Of course!” Glissa replied. “But shouldn’t we be worried about—”

“Then make sure the loremasters hear of the leonin who died
today,” Ellasha said, and shoved Glissa out into open space. As she plummeted into the dark, she heard the leonin skyhunter roar, a sound that drowned out the nim above and was followed by a furious clanging of steel longknives on iron claws.

The elf girl fell at least twenty feet before the silver linen on her back unfolded of its own accord into a set of four thin wings. The wings began to buzz like those of the nim, and Glissa felt descent slow, cease, and slowly reverse. How would she stop?

Glissa stopped.

And to go up? With the thought, the wings responded to her urgent need, gaining speed quickly. It wasn’t unlike Bruenna’s flight magic.