Sword of the Scarred

by Jeffrey Hall

  They might as well have jumped and saved themselves the extra agony.

  The passage behind them was narrowing, squeezing them out little by little. She could feel the handless man pushing against them, trying to outpace the narrowing walls.

  In that instant of panic, she wondered what would happen when the solid rock reformed around them. Would they be crushed and somehow added to the essence of the monstrous earth known as Bothane Rock or squeezed out like water in a flattening tube?

  “What are we waiting for?” screamed the handless man.

  “I—there’s no way out,” Dash stammered. She had spent the last of her black lens. She had already sacrificed. She was supposed to be saved, not presented with another way to die.

  “Move,” said Requiem, and he pulled Dash away from the edge.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What little I can,” said Requiem. He raised his sword.

  “You don’t have anything left,” pleaded the handless man.

  “Got enough.” And Requiem swung his blade, almost hanging out of the hole itself so he could do it properly. He made a low Y pattern by his feet, and when he came to the bottom, he jabbed the end of his blade into the stone. Dash felt a rush of warm energy leave him. And suddenly the stone below their feet convulsed and fractured. A ragged crack formed below them, creating a rough, steep stairwell for them to descend close to the nearest spoke.

  Dash could barely believe it, but her surprise was short lived as Requiem collapsed beside her.

  He flopped onto his back, grabbing his belly. And as he did she saw a nasty red gash creep out from beneath the cuff of his armor, climbing all the way up through his neck and onto his jaw. His eyes fluttered and his teeth slammed shut as it if to deal with the terrible pain the stone put on him.

  But even as he succumbed to his new wound he muttered, “The girl.”

  And behind them the passage looked so small it was barely a pockmark on the side of the rock.

  “We’re supposed to climb down that?” shouted the handless man as he scurried over Requiem to look at what awaited them.

  “We’ve no choice!”

  “You could always jump and get it over with,” said the shadows. “I am sure you will find your father there.”

  She ignored the voice as best she could, though not far below, the gaseous wonder of the Abyss ebbed and flowed, looking cottony and soft like a mattress where she could finally rest her head. Not like the hard, scabrous rock beneath her.

  “Oh no,” said the handless man. “I ain’t good with heights.”

  And the way he looked at her so helplessly with eyes swollen with fear she couldn’t help but be pulled from her momentary fantasy.

  “You’ve no choice,” she snapped. She took Requiem’s sword and jammed it back into his belt to secure it. “Now grab ahold of his legs and follow me!”

  “Is he even alive?”

  She saw the slight flicker of his eyes. Maybe she should just let him drop and be done with their deal. But she realized he was too valuable a weapon to not have on her side. And with so many enemies made over the last few days, she would need as many weapons as she could to handle them. “He’s alive. Now grab his legs!”

  The man swore, but did as told. She grabbed Requiem by his shoulders and lifted. Her back lurched and her knees popped, but the man was off the ground. With her back towards the open air she slipped one foot over the edge and felt out for the nearest ridge.

  “I’ll give myself to you when I’m ready,” she told the Abyss as she slipped over and the passage continued to push them out. “And it ain’t now.”

  As soon as she put both feet over the edge, an aggressive wind swept up from below, making her hair and clothes snap and flare like they were wings ready to fly. She leaned against the stone with her lower half, slowly shifting Requiem’s body from the passage with the help of the one-handed man.

  “Please, no. Please, no. Please,” said the man, over and over again like it was some spell meant to keep him from falling over the edge.

  “I’m going to take another step now,” said Dash.

  “Alright,” whimpered the man.

  And she did, feeling out with her left foot, using the support of the rock and what little strength remained in her body to hold onto Requiem. She dared to put down her other foot, and the brunt of the Scarred’s weight came over the edge.

  She lost her hold on him. Her foot slipped. She grabbed hold of the stone as her body slammed once more into Bothane Rock.

  He’s gone! she shouted in her head, sure that Requiem went over. But instead he dangled right beside her still, his arms flailing over the edge as the one-handed man grabbed onto his legs, half of his own body taken out of the passage thanks to the momentum.

  “We’re going down!” he shouted, but she regained her footing and took Requiem’s arms into her own. He was so heavy, and her balance so fragile.

  How am I going to do this? she thought as she looked down and saw the long row of crude stairs staring back up at her.

  “You won’t do this,” said the shadows. “Let him go.”

  And for what felt like the hundredth time that day, she thought it was right. She felt panic spread through her body. Her heartbeat, a thing that was already racing, turned into a sprint. She could feel it in her throat. She was going to fall. She was going to end up in the Abyss.

  “You got him!” The man’s voice saved her from her own thoughts again.

  “Y-yes!” she managed.

  “Alright ’cause the passage is about to close for good!”

  “Just put one foot over the edge and we’ll get down one at a time,” she found herself saying, as much to herself as to the man.

  He slid over, tucking Requiem’s legs into the cradle of his arm just as the purple passage above closed shut and returned to the solid grey rock it was before.

  “Oh damn! Oh shit!” he shouted, but still he held onto the stone.

  “Nice and easy,” she said. “You a miner?”

  The man nodded.

  “This isn’t any different than lugging a load of clink up and down a shaft. Just need to pick it up and get moving. Right? Thinking about it only makes it worse.”

  “Just a bag of clink,” he said. “Just a bag of clink.”

  “I’ll call out the steps and we take them at the same time, ready?”

  “Ready.” When he spoke, his voice cracked so that it sounded like the tweet of a small bird.

  “One.” She felt Requiem shift and it nearly made her lose her purchase. “Stop!”

  “What? I thought that was the sign!”

  “Why would one be the sign!” she snapped.

  And this seemed to amuse the shadows even more.

  She gritted her teeth. “On the count of three!”

  “You think we can hold him for three seconds on every step!”

  “Fine. When I say, ‘step!’”

  “Alright.”

  She inhaled and then said, “Step.” And in a single motion they lowered Requiem down the side of the stone. Once she felt they were level she said it again. “Step!”

  And all the while the one-handed man was cursing and the shadows were whispering in her ears.

  “You’ll drop him. You’ll fall too if you don’t let him go.”

  But the man on the other side of Requiem’s body kept interrupting her own doubtful thoughts. And slowly they worked their way down. Aching. Sweating. Her legs and arms shaking from the terrible weight and stress she put her body through.

  “We almost there?” shouted the one-handed man.

  She looked beneath her to see the spoke but a dozen feet away. “Almost there.”

  A small crowd of onlookers had gathered below and watched their coming like some strange attraction, but thankfully none of them were soldiers or Carry’s men. At least not yet.

  And when they finally reached solid ground Dash and the others flopped down to it like it was a god they were ready to give their live
s to.

  “Oh, thank the Abyss!” shouted the one-handed man next to her.

  “You all okay?” said one of the onlookers, a young girl with pigtails. “Thought you were belly-grups by the way you were coming down the side of the wall.”

  Dash sat up, huffing, and saw that the girl was pulling a small carriage full of beets or some other type of root vegetable.

  “That carriage. We need it!”

  “But so do I.”

  “We’ll trade you.” She looked around and found the one-handed man’s sword lying beside him as he gathered his breath. “A blade for your cart.”

  “A... a blade?” said the girl.

  Dash didn’t wait for an answer. She thrust the sword into the girl’s hands, and she backpedaled from the weight of it.

  “Hey!” shouted the one-handed man.

  “What were you going to do with it? Pick your teeth?” said Dash as she took the cart by the handles and dumped out its contents.

  “But I don’t want this,” said the girl, watching it all unfold in horror.

  “You’ll get more at the market for a hunk of metal like that than you will beets.” Dash pointed at Requiem. “Help me get him in.”

  Together they slid Requiem into the cart just as a larger crowd gathered, trying to make sense of the commotion they were causing.

  “Let’s go!” The strength it took to lift the cart was tremendous but it paled in comparison to what they had just done. But once the wheels started rolling, their momentum kept them going.

  “Where are we going?” shouted the man, who was scrambling to keep up with her.

  “To try and hold up my end of the deal.”

  She stood in front of her own door feeling something she had never felt before standing in front of it.

  Utter fear.

  Usually, when she was returning, that feeling was at her back, as she ran from some failed deal she had made or ruined, and her small hole in the rock would be her sanctuary.

  But now, it felt like a grave.

  Surely there were soldiers inside already. Surely Carry and his people were waiting for her… But there also maybe still was a girl inside. One important to the man she’d wheeled like a sack of logs around the streets of the Purple.

  “What are we waiting for?” said the one-handed man behind her. “My uncle was captured back there!”

  “I know he was, but nothing we can do about that now,” she said.

  The one-handed man paced beside the cart that contained Requiem. “We need to do something.”

  “We are,” she whispered and moved closer to the door.

  “You think this is smart?” said the shadows.

  “Shut up!” she said.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said the man.

  “Not you,” she whispered.

  She put her hand to the door and found it to be locked. That was good at least. She touched her sweaty hand to the bailalite doorknob, and the door opened with a click.

  She braced herself, ready to run in and grab a stone in defense to face whatever intruder was inside, but there was no one. The same hodgepodge of stones and belongings still littered the floor, and in the corner, on the bed, was the girl, the drip stone still watering her open mouth like she was some strange plant.

  She looked thinner, yes, soiled and pungent too, but she was still very much alive.

  “Ugh, it smells something foul in here,” said the one-handed man as he walked inside. “You store a dead body in here?”

  “Almost.” She pointed to the girl.

  The man walked clumsily across the floor, kicking stones and nearly tripping to end up at the girl’s side. “So this is where he’s been keeping her.”

  “You know her?”

  He shook his head. “Just some girl this fool came walking in with back in Drip.”

  “So you know him?”

  “Know nothing about him other than he owes me a hand.”

  “He did that to you?” said Dash, looking back at Requiem. The Scarred lay there in the cart, his arms and legs over the edges like a pile of sticks.

  “He ruined my life.”

  “Because you lost a hand?” said Dash.

  “That’s right.”

  Dash smiled, refraining from laughing. She had seen enough to know that losing a hand was certainly not enough to ruin a life. Try losing a father, she wanted to say, but kept her mouth shut. They didn’t have time to debate who had had it rougher.

  “What’s so funny?” said the one-handed man.

  “Nothing,” she said, surveying the cluttered floor beneath her.

  “Must be something with a smile like that. Not like you should be poking fun, anyways,” he said, looking at the same disaster of a house as she.

  “Didn’t always live like this,” said Dash as she grabbed one of the empty sacks littering the ground. “Used to have a proper shop in upper Bothane.”

  “What happened?” said the man.

  “It was taken from me.”

  “Taken from you? How?”

  “Same as all the other things in my life,” she whispered, thinking of the black lens and all her obsession had stolen from her. Yet even as she thought that, she imagined how nice it would be to slip away into its escapes even then.

  She threw more stone into the bag, trying to imagine what she would need should they come into a difficult situation.

  “What are you doing?” said the man.

  “Packing,” she answered, scanning her floor for other, more valuable stone. Damn my laziness, she thought. Why couldn’t I be more organized?

  “Packing for what?”

  “Where we’re going.”

  “And where is that?”

  She stopped and looked at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Garpland Whitesworth. Most people call me Garp.”

  “You ask a lot of questions, Garp. And right now, I don’t have time to answer them. You need to trust me and know that I am trying to get us away from here.” She went back to picking up various types of stones.

  “Why?” said Garp.

  She sighed, annoyed. “Did you not just climb down the side of Bothane Rock with me? There are soldiers after us. Soldiers, and others. They’ll be here soon—”

  “I know that. I ain’t as dumb as I look. I mean why should I trust you? You’re just some girl this man pulled from a prison. And this man I trust about as much as I trust the Abyss. I ain’t in the business of following criminals blindly.”

  “I’m no criminal,” said Dash. “I am just trying to survive. And if you want to do the same you’ll let me pack my stuff so we can be on our way. Once we’re out of here, you can start deciding on if you want to trust me or not. For now, I’d say you don’t have much of a choice, being swordless and all.”

  The man frowned. “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Dash.”

  “Dash?”

  “Tell him what you really are. Tell him your name. Addict. Failure,” said the Abyss.

  “Shut up!” she yelled.

  “I just wanted to know your name…”

  “Not you.” She put her hands to her head.

  “Are you alright?” said Garp, bending to have a better look at her.

  “I’m fine,” said Dash. She took her hand away. “You want to be useful, then put the girl in the cart.”

  “Where? Just throw her on top of him?”

  “You have a better place to put her?”

  Garp did as asked, sliding the girl onto the cart. “She’s lighter than a bird,” he said.

  “She’s dwindling away. Can’t imagine when was the last time she had any food.”

  “She’ll need to be woken soon,” said Garp.

  “I’m working on it!”

  At last, when Dash could fill up her bag no more, she took one last look around her store and said goodbye. She doubted she would be coming back to it. The Elder. Proth’s Prodigy. It was theirs now. They would be watching it. They would be watching fo
r her. The only way they would stop now is if they had her head.

  It was a good home, for a few manic years, she thought.

  She hurried to the door. “Grab the cart,” she said.

  “Where are we going?” said Garp again.

  “Someplace safer.”

  The Alley of Fangs wound before them like the back of a sleeping serpent. Dark. Scaly from the stone used to make its floor. Ragged and unkempt from the huge shards of palladum that reached out from the walls and ceiling, a useless, cream-colored stone commonly found far down in Bothane Rock, one that was often passed over by miners because of its little value. Decisions that gave the alley its name.

  Lung moss grew from the outcrop of palladum, dangling down like a breathing beard, twitching and throbbing as it took in motes of the Abyss that found their way that deep in the stone.

  Small chunks of glimmer stone had been lodged into the many crevices that marred the place’s ceiling, lights put up there some time ago by the transient population that called the place home as they tried to land back on their feet from whatever pit life pushed them into, though some never left.

  A few hundred people were dispersed throughout the long, meandering alley. Many of them found refuge within the shadows created by the palladum. Others set down right in the middle of the street and built small fires that looked like the wick of candles from where Dash and Garp looked down at the place.

  “What is this?” said Garp.

  “The bottom rung of the ladder,” said Dash as she hefted her bag of stones over her shoulders.

  They ventured down a slight incline from the street they had taken from her own home to the center of Bothane Rock, the home of the Alley of Fangs. Garp grunted and struggled to keep the cart from rolling away from him.

  “Home again, Dashinora,” grumbled the shadows, and it took all her might not to scream. The voice hadn’t stopped, nor would it until she had black lens. And it was putting her on the verge of a mental breakdown. The constant reminder of her failures and fears. The constant stream of insults and taunts. The laughter. The orders like it was trying to lead her to her doom. It was too much to bear, and as they strode down into the alley she blocked her ears as if to keep the words from penetrating her head.