This Broken World, page 25
“That should be safe, but there’s no way to be sure. I’m not so worried about the sow or warriors from the tribe; Raun will hear them long before they could hear us through that waterfall and all the echoes of the overflow plunging into the crevice. But some creatures of the Underblack can be very, very silent. So if one of them happens to come up this high, they could get close enough to hear us before Raun hears them.”
S’ythreni sighed, looked around. “How did you endure the boredom of this existence?”
“Oh,” Ahearn smiled broadly as he gathered strips and bits of hide from the urzhen gear they’d all accumulated in recent days, “our time down here wasn’t the least bit boring. It’s rather invigorating, living in constant fear of one’s life.”
Her answering smile was small and perhaps abashed. But only slightly.
As the rest of the group arranged their packs and sleeping rolls out of the line of sight of the narrow entry and as far away from it as possible, Elweyr was using Raun to flush out the rats at the back of the cavern. One by one, he extended a hand in the direction of the large-eyed rodents and, in a moment, their movement stilled and they sat. Raun was apparently familiar with this routine. The instant a rat became quiescent, he turned his aggressive attention to another.
When four had been gathered, Elweyr called for each person’s sanitary rags. All but Zhuklu’a was moderately revolted; she seemed intrigued. “I have none to share, but what do you intend to do with them?”
Elweyr answered by way of demonstration. He wiped the first rat with each rag, and then proceeded to do the same with the others, leaving only one unwiped. He ignored the group’s mutters of complaint and disgust and gently scooped the other rats into a satchel and nodded to Ahearn who whispered, “Wait here,” and followed the thaumantic through the sheet of water.
“Well, that’s revolting,” S’ythreni hissed.
“I do not like it, but I think I see their intent,” Umkhira replied.
“So do I—creating a false scent trail—but I’ll be unboled before I’ll ever use that rag again.”
“‘Unboled’?” Zhuklu’a asked before Druadaen could. But Umkhira made a gesture for the young Lightstrider to desist when S’ythreni affected not to have heard her curious echo of the unfamiliar expression.
Druadaen used what little aeosti he had. “I know that word not.”
“You’re not supposed to, Dunarran,” she snapped in Commerce.
“Veth…your pardon, please,” he murmured, not sure which language she would prefer.
She nodded tightly but did not look at him.
Shortly afterward, Ahearn and Elweyr returned, the latter looking drawn. In response to the questioning glances, Ahearn just shook his head. “Long day for him. More concentrating than even a wizard should try, I suppose.”
He hung the satchel up and pulled out the sanitary rags. They had been washed, wrung dry, and smelled of sulfur. Which was, frankly, a considerable improvement. “Sorry to impose that way,” Ahearn murmured, “but if you want to leave a trail, well…”
The urzhen shrugged. Druadaen waved off the apology as unneeded. S’ythreni just took the rag and stretched it out to dry further.
“So,” whispered Druadaen, “I assume you took them to the intersection.”
Ahearn nodded.
“And does Elweyr have to remain awake in order to, er, keep influencing them?”
Elweyr’s voice was ragged. “Not how I did it. I let the thaumate—an affinity construct—lapse. Too hard to keep up that many, impossible at a distance.”
Umkhira’s head tilted quizzically. “Then how can you be assured they shall go where you wish?”
“Because the moment I let the affinity lapse, I created a sense memory in all of them. They now believe they must continue to flee downward, because something from the higher tunnels is chasing them.”
“So,” asked Umkhira, “will this mislead the sow?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible,” Elweyr sighed. “But I wouldn’t bet my life on it.”
“It seems to me that you just bet all our lives on it.” Although it was Zhuklu’a’s voice conveying the statement, Kaakhag’s irritated gestures largely spoke for themselves.
Druadaen looked away from the exhausted mantic and before he realized it was glaring at the urzh. “And what would you have done instead?”
Kaakhag’s face cycled through surprise, suppressed rage, then surly disdain.
Druadaen stood. “Elweyr has done the best he could, and I have yet to hear your plan. I suspect that is because there is not one to be found. It is as Ahearn said when we finally located the tunnel that brought us to this refuge: there are no perfect answers in the Under.”
Kaakhag started to rise, but his brother tugged him back down. Their brief exchange of signs made Zhuklu’a lift a hand to rub her nose. And so, stifle a laugh.
“What did he say?” S’ythreni asked.
“That sometimes, thinskins are right and urzhen are wrong…and this was one of those times.”
Druadaen was careful not to react or even look in their direction. Instead, rather than sitting, he picked up his rucksack and rummaged through it as he walked toward Kaakhag. The urzhen and his brother looked up, uncertain but still defiant.
Druadaen removed his hand and pushed it toward Kaakhag, unfolding it to reveal what he’d fished out of his rucksack.
Kaakhag looked, then sniffed, at the dried meat, his brow rising in surprise.
Druadaen pushed it closer. “Here,” he said. Then, struggling to pronounce the urzhen word correctly, he said, “H’adzok?”
Umkhira smiled. “You remember.”
Druadaen smiled back. “‘Truce’ is an important word to learn in any language.”
Kaakhag just gaped at him. Then, reminded to act by the elbow his brother jammed into his ribs, he stood and nodded. “H’adzok,” he agreed, and waved away the proffered food.
Druadaen shook his head, held the jerky out again. “K’teff.”
Umkhira blinked. “Where did you learn the word for ‘honor’?”
Druadaen grinned back at her. “Books are useful, you know.”
Kaakhag was frowning at the dried meat. The token was not merely a means of putting aside any hard feelings but was the formal exchange—the act of honor—upon which h’adzok was contingent. The Rot nodded again, very seriously, and accepted the meat. “K’teff, sut.”
Honor, yes/accepted. Druadaen returned the nod, returned to his seat, and noticed Ahearn watching. And, then ever so quickly, flash a pleased wink at him.
* * *
In the near-dark and the silence that followed, time once again became fluid, defied attempt at measurement. Minutes rolled together into an hour, maybe another, or maybe many; Druadaen could no longer tell.
He might have dozed or become caught up wholly in his drifting thoughts and memories. But regardless, he jerked upright when Raun rose, legs stiff, moving toward the narrow opening. Ahearn reached out, drew him back. He covered the one exposed patch of lichen and began rebuckling the straps on his armor. The others began to do the same. Druadaen resisted the urge to catch up; silence was more important than any protection or weapon, at this point.
In the utter dark, S’ythreni’s eyes could not see through to the outer chamber, and the temperature of the sulfur-laced water had a similar effect on the urzhen’s heat-seeing eyes: “a thick veil” was how Umkhira had described it shortly after arriving. And only Raun’s ears might have been able to discriminate the sounds of an approach through the constant spill and churn of water.
Until something audibly thumped on the stone floor of the outer cavern. Voices arose, were hushed by others, some far deeper than the first ones: almost certainly the kosh cadre that had survived the attack on the shaman’s chambers.
A minute passed, then—probably—another. Voices began murmuring again. They passed the waterfall, paused for a moment, then reversed and grew more distant, receding back toward the tunnel. A jabber of hushed voices followed them, diminished, and were gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Druadaen looked up when Umkhira came back through the waterfall. “We were becoming concerned.”
She shrugged. “It is wise we waited so long before sending out a scout. They remained near the intersection for quite some time.”
Ahearn nodded. “Aye, once they realized we’d tricked them with the scent, they waited there in case we backtracked, tried to make good our escape by getting behind them. Now come over here and help us puzzle out some of these tribal trinkets we found among the coins.”
Druadaen turned away from where the others were sorting the spoils of the battle into shares…and discovered Zhuklu’a staring at him. She did not avert her eyes. “Yes?” he asked.
“I understand why the others are here. But not you. You show no interest in the profits of your victory. You have no loved one to rescue. You have no honor to restore, nor vengeance to satisfy. Why are you here?”
Druadaen told her in as few words as he could.
She frowned throughout, but at the end, she nodded. “So you are like a hunter, learning as much as they may about their prey.”
Druadaen shook his head. “Others might use what I learn that way, but it is not why I am doing it. I am trying to understand how urzhen—er, the Rot and the Red—repopulate so quickly that they go a-hordeing every nine or ten years.”
Her frown returned as she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “The urzhen of the under all have many young. All the time.”
He smiled. “Yes, I understand that part. What I do not understand is how they get enough food to feed so many mouths.”
She thought, then nodded. “That is a wise question. I had not thought to ask it, but as I hear your words, I come to wonder the same thing.”
Druadaen felt his spine straighten slightly. The only reason she would now wonder the same thing is if she has noticed the imbalances that almost certainly hold the clues for solving this mystery. “Were there any groups or tribes that seemed to be consuming more food than they were gathering?”
She shrugged. “That is hard to answer. I did not live so long among the shaman’s tribe. And even as I arrived, he was getting much food as tribute and in trade.”
“I understand the tribute. But what of the food which he got through trade? Who had it and what did he trade for it?”
She frowned again. “He traded mostly with other Rot. Sometimes Red. It was often spoils from battles. But then there were other times…” Frustrated, she shook her head. “I do not know how to say these things.”
Umkhira leaned toward them. “What is it you do not know how to say, eshzha?” It was an affectionate ur zhog term for a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Zhuklu’a’s voluble reply caused the older Lightstrider to frown also, but in the end, she nodded and said to Druadaen, “She believes that the shaman traded his skills—in language, in knowledge of the upper tunnels and surface—for food.”
“And with whom did he do this trading?”
Zhuklu’a nodded her understanding of the question. “Red, usually. Tribes from the Black.”
Druadaen frowned. “But how is that possible? Doesn’t the Underblack have less access to food than the Undergloom? And so the Rot usually have more than the Red?”
“That is correct,” she replied, Umkhira nodding over her shoulder.
“Then how can the Red trade away that which they need even more than the Rot?”
They shrugged in unison. “You should ask Kaakhag,” added Zhuklu’a.
Druadaen smiled. “I did that the first night of our journey north.”
“And what did he say?”
“He shrugged. Just the way you two did.”
Zhuklu’a frowned. “Maybe the food comes from the Root.”
Druadaen frowned at the unfamiliar term. “What is the Root?”
“It is…eh…eh…” Frustrated, she released another stream of the far more complex Lightstrider dialect at Umkhira.
Who explained: “She says that whenever the Rot or the Red cannot explain something, they believe it is the doing of the Root. It is all just legend.”
Druadaen nodded. “Still, I would hear about this ‘Root.’”
Zhuklu’a sighed, shrugged. “It is the Root of the World. It is where the Bent were born into existence, along with the rest of the underkin. And it is the rock-womb which continues to spawn Deepkin unto this very day.”
Druadaen tried not to sound too incredulous. “And it is right here, in the Gur Grehar?”
Umkhira smiled. “Wherever there is an Under, there are many underkin who are certain that the Root of the World lies directly beneath them.”
“I told you. It is all just legend.” Zhuklu’a’s tone was slightly abashed but also slightly petulant.
Druadaen reflected that one of the many constants he had noticed among all races was that, during their adolescent phase, most of them became prickly. “Yes. It is easy to see how such a legend would arise, since every eight or nine years so many Red and underkin pour out of the Underblack to give rise to yet another Horde.”
“That is what the Unnamed believed,” she agreed.
“The Unnamed?”
Zhuklu’a flapped an annoyed hand at herself. “The shaman. He refused to share his name. He believed that if spirits learned it, they would have power over him. So he called himself the Unnamed.”
“And he believed that when the underkin of the Black go a-hordeing, many come into being at the Root of the World?”
She nodded. “Soon after I became a slave from whom the Unnamed hoped to learn languages, I heard him talking to a kosh war chief. They did not agree on much, except that, starting three or four years after each Hordeing, urzhen and other underkin begin wandering up from the deepest tunnels. These are the places where even the Red dare not go: the lairs of the greatest Deepkin and the monsters that live among them.”
“When you say ‘wandering up,’ do you mean that they are alone, or that they do not know where they are?”
She shrugged. “Both. The kosh chief said that many who come from the deepest Black only know a few, simple words of urzhen. That they were like children, but fully grown. And they are almost all males.”
Druadaen felt a chill run slowly down his spine. “And the Unnamed believed they came from the Root of the World, that they had been sent by…by the gods?”
Zhuklu’a shook her head. “I do not know. The Unnamed always said that the gods had made the Root of the World holy by anointing it with their own blood, but he never said that they created it.” Seeing Druadaen’s questioning look, she clarified. “He said it many times in his rituals. I did not misunderstand it, and he was not misspeaking.”
“I did not think either of those things. Tell me, how did the tribes of the Underblack feed these new arrivals?”
“I do not know.”
“Did they trade with the Undergloom for food from the surface?”
“I was not present in those days, but I do not think so.”
“Then how did the Underblack feed those new warriors?
“I cannot say, because I had no reason to ask. And he had no reason to tell me, a mere captive and slave.”
Druadaen nodded. “Zhuklu’a, what you shared has been very useful. I wonder if you would continue to help me with your knowledge.”
She started, checked with Umkhira to make sure she had understood the Commerce correctly. “My knowledge?”
Druadaen nodded and waited.
She shrugged. “You were one of those who saved me from an end worse than death. If I know a thing, I shall share it.”
Druadaen pushed aside a sudden sense of irony. Chance, rather than strategy, had given him exactly the witness he needed to answer so many of his questions. “That is a great help to me. So, in addition to telling me everything you remember about the shaman and his dealings with the Underblack, I would also like you to tell me everything you remember about the food.”
“Food? You mean when I was a prisoner?”
“Yes. But not just what they gave you to eat. Tell me what other foods you saw, how often, how much was eaten, and by whom. Both those in that tribe and any others you saw or heard of.”
Zhuklu’a frowned. “That is a long, long saying. Are you sure you want me to tell everything?”
Druadaen smiled. “Yes. Everything.”
* * *
Shortly after they woke into the dark of what Kaakhag assured them was a new “day,” Ahearn stood and uncovered the noticeably dimmer lichen. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” S’ythreni asked suspiciously.
“First we make our way to the Grotto of Stone Bones. That’s our shortcut to the back door.”
“The back door?”
“The way out of this gods-forsaken place. So let’s be on our way…unless some of you want to remain?”
Within two minutes, they were in the tunnels, heading toward the Grotto of Stone Bones.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The journey took the better part of that morning, mostly because they learned they were not alone in that area of the tunnels. They found the remains of two of the shaman’s tribe, as well as an absurdly large rat that had been squashed by a single blow to the body: almost certainly the work of the blugner sow.
But the blood was barely sticky anymore. It had been in the air long enough to darken into a maroon-brown color and harden around the paw prints of some predator that had discovered the corpses while they were still fresh. The larger muscles had all been consumed and the urzhen bodies had been gutted for the choice organs.
Umkhira surveyed the walls as if a monster might jump out at them. “We are in some creature’s hunting ground.”
Ahearn nodded as he stepped over and around the bodies. “No doubt. Whatever found the kills wasn’t shy. Stayed around to gorge itself quite thoroughly. So either this creature is on its own ground or is so big that it doesn’t care. Let’s go; we’ve another hour ahead of us before it’s safe to stop.” He reflected on that statement. “Well, saf-er.” He gave the sign for Kaakhag and Umkhira to resume the march.
