"Die, most likely," Six said.
"We face one problem at a time," Tom told her. "Take a look at Draig’s shoulder."
“I’m more concerned by this wound.” She tied her thread and snipped off the excess. But Tom’s neck still felt wrong somehow, and Mennvinn’s expression told him this was more serious than a simple cut or gash.
"Can you heal it?"
She was silent for a long moment. ”No.” She said it like an apology.
So now it was a race against time. ”Then face a problem you can solve." And when she stared at him with pity in her eyes, he waved her away. He didn’t need pity. He needed Draig fit and able to hold a sword. He needed Jarnstenn to find a new way through this maze. He needed to find Orlannu, and get back to Faerie.
“You’re right,” Mennvinn told him, feeling Draig’s shoulder while the elf winced. “Dislocated.” While Emyr wrapped his arms around Draig, she planted a foot against the elf’s flank and pulled his arm until he cried out and it visibly popped back into place. Draig covered his face with his other arm and whimpered.
Mennvinn lowered his arm like it was made of glass. “Well done,” she told him. “Rest. We’ll put your arm in a sling. Try not to move it for a time. Definitely no fighting." She said that last to Tom.
“That depends on Rimestenn,” Tom replied.
“Can I fight,” Draig assured them all. “Have I still one good arm.” He lifted it over his head as proof.
Mennvinn shook her head, though she seemed resigned to the risk of violence. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
Now Tom had to think of a way to escape this place without a map. He looked at the walls, the skittering silver-grey veins on the surface drawing his gaze up towards the glow above that illuminated the entire cave. The wall had to be the height of twenty men. But if they could climb it? "Jarnstenn, could you make a new map from up there?"
Jarnstenn looked at Tom, up at the wall, back at Tom. "You’re joking."
"I’m not."
The dwarf scratched the top of his head and let out a big breath. "Maybe." The dwarf looked up again. "If I don’t fall and break my neck."
"There’s no way up there," Six said.
"Not yet." Tom agreed. “But what if we could make handholds?”
"Only Caledyr can cut monolith stone," Six said. "And we don’t have it." He didn’t try to hide the blame in his voice.
But Tom ignored it. "Rimestenn’s hammer cracked the stone. We could take it from him."
Six shook his head, a humourless grin on his face. And Draig said, "Did that thing almost kill us."
“But we hurt him. And we outnumber him."
"We?" Mennvinn asked.
Tom tried to sound reassuring. Confident. To push away her fear. "We stand a better chance if we stand together.”
“Not all of us can stand.” Six pointed at Gravinn, who was entranced by the fire. But most gazes fell on his missing leg.
And Jarnstenn added, “He’s right.” He waved a small axe and said, “I ain’t a fighter. And you can’t kill what’s already dead.”
Tom thought of the legions of immortal fay that were stood against them, and for a brief moment he could have laid down and never risen again.
No, he told himself. Face a problem you can solve. “Rimestenn isn’t dead,” he told the others. “But he stands between us and Orlannu. So we’re going to take his hammer.”
“Ain’t possible.” Jarnstenn seemed afraid to even speak.
“I didn’t ask for your permission,” Tom told him. “You asked me what we’re going to do, and I’m telling you.” He looked at each of them, and each of them looked aside, unwilling or unable to argue. The sullen silence returned. But he didn’t care. If they were going to ask him what to do, they were going to listen to the answer. “So,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do."
They walked. Draig pulled Six’s sled with his one good arm. The others ranged ahead and down other corridors, calling back and forth to each other, making enough noise to wake Eirwen sleeping. No-one liked the idea of being attacked again, but Rimestenn had been in this place for a thousand years; he had a better chance of finding them than they did of finding him.
So they engaged in loud, reluctant conversation, the subject matter ranging from the meals they wished they could eat to the things they missed from home, stories from their youths, and plenty of complaints. Sore feet. Empty bellies. Waiting for a murderous undead dwarf to attack them. And Tom’s neck grew hot, the warmth spreading to the rest of him as they walked, and he tried not to think of what would happen to Katharine and Rose if he died here.
But, as much noise as they made, they remained alone. When they grew too tired to walk, they stopped and sat. Sipped their water, nibbled at their rations, and then they slept.
Rimestenn found them in the night.
It was Mennvinn that called out, and Tom was up in a heartbeat, a memory of Caledyr in his mind.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
He drew his iron sword, stumbled over sleeping bodies and placed himself between Mennvinn and the oncoming creature.
Rimestenn stopped. Lifted his handless wrist. Lifted his missing chin. Glared at Tom with his one intact eye socket.
"I can’t imagine what you’ve suffered," Tom said. "I don’t want to add to it. But I won’t let you hurt my friends."
Rimestenn screamed and lifted his hammer.
Tom stepped aside as the blow came down onto the stone where he’d been standing.
Emyr stepped in with a sword of his own, the blade ringing off the hammer.
Tom tried to sever Rimestenn’s remaining hand, but the splintered stump came at him again, trying to blind him, he ducked away but his swing missed. He leapt back from a blow that would have crushed his knees, staggered, fell. Draig stepped into the gap, roaring something in elfish and slicing a constant figure-of-eight arc through the air, driving Rimestenn back.
The corridor was too narrow; Tom had to wait for Draig and Emyr to drive Rimestenn into an intersection before there was room to rejoin the fight. The dwarf screamed and jabbed as Tom stepped forward, cracking the hammer against his chest, forcing the air from his lungs, knocking him to the ground.
Mennvinn stepped forward with a knife in her hand.
Rimestenn swept a mighty blow through the air, forcing Draig and Emyr back, and cracked his stump against Mennvinn’s head, knocking her to the ground.
Jarnstenn bellowed something in dwarfish, charged with iron in both hands, and Rimestenn’s hammer swatted him away like a bug.
Six let loose an arrow that buried itself, unnoticed, in Rimestenn’s armour, and Dank dropped his knife and froze.
Draig dashed forward, seeking to slice Rimestenn’s head from his neck, but the creature blocked the elf’s blow and knocked him down. And when Emyr stepped forward, the old king hesitated, and Rimestenn delivered a crushing blow to his chest.
Tom charged without thought, swung his sword with all the strength he could muster.
The remains of Rimestenn’s left arm clattered to the ground. A crushing swing forced Tom back, and then Rimestenn was gone.
They were too hurt and tired to carry on. No-one started a fire. They just sat, nursing their injuries alone and in silence. Even Mennvinn was quiet as she examined each of them, and Tom was happy to leave everyone to her care. There was a chill in the air that had crept under his flesh and settled beside the ache in his muscles. He huddled against both and tipped back his head to rest against the cool stone.
A caravan of merchants and travellers made its way across the Eastern Angles, and the gargantuan, worm-like fay Ahlatrab burrowed its way through the sands behind them, ready to leap from the dunes and devour them whole.
Tom lifted his head and wiped sweat from his brow. He couldn’t even rest here.
Mennvinn was knelt beside him, and her touch on his neck was like fire. “That hurts,” he told her.
“You opened the wound again,” she murmured. “And I think it’s co
rrupted.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it could kill you.”
Tom smiled. Of all the ways he’d imagined dying on this journey, a ghoulish dwarf’s bite had never been amongst them. “And the others?”
Mennvinn made her dissatisfied sound. “Emyr has broken ribs. Jarnstenn has a few bruises. And Draig’s shoulder could become a problem if he doesn’t rest. He needs to learn to look after himself.” She gave Tom a meaningful look. “A lesson you all need to learn.”
She was probably right. But he didn’t have time to worry about his well-being. Not while Melwas and Mab had their fingers wrapped around his daughter. “Let’s get out of this place first.”
Mennvinn’s expression betrayed her fear: she didn’t expect to see the outside world again. “We barely survived,” she told him. “You said we outnumbered that thing. But we couldn’t stop it.”
“We hurt it.”
“And it hurt us.”
She was right. They had each stood against Rimestenn and come away broken or wounded. Except for Dank. The other man’s head was bowed and shame rode plain on his face. He caught Tom staring and winced. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“Don’t be.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.” Tom shivered, and Mennvinn touched his forehead.
“You have a fever,” she told him.
“No.” He shook his head and hugged himself tighter, which tugged the wound in his neck and made him wince. “I’m cold.”
“You’re sick.”
Again, she was right. His body was telling him that something was wrong, he should rest, recover. But this wasn’t a thing that rest could cure; time would only bring him closer to the Isles of the Dead. So he pushed himself to his feet with aching muscles. “We need to move,” he told them all, and they stared at him like he was mad.
“We need to rest,” Jarnstenn replied.
“We’re low on food and water,” Tom reminded him. “They won’t last if we delay.” And nor would he.
“What if we run into that thing?”
“We fight.”
“We’ll lose.”
“He’s right, Tom.” Emyr was the only other one standing, probably because sitting with broken ribs was too painful. “Rimestenn is too quick.” He nodded to the others, scared and hurt. “We can’t put them in harm’s way.”
The words sounded odd coming from Emyr, the man who had led armies into battle. Who had sent countless men and women to their deaths. “We move,” Tom said, “or we sit here and wait to die.”
“They’re not fighters, Tom,” Emyr snapped.
No. They weren’t. And they could get hurt. Or worse. But what was the alternative? Iron nails, he wanted to lie down. A Knight of Tir should stand tall and shrug off any injury. But he was only Thomas Rymour, so he sagged against the wall of the maze, easing the struggle of standing, only to struggle against the tugging of his thoughts. “Please,” he said, and for a moment he didn’t know if he was talking to the stone or to Emyr. He looked at the others. “I want to keep everyone safe. But I need your help.”
They stared at him, some in disbelief, some with anger, some with fear. But, one by one, they got to their feet, and they followed him.
There was neither day nor night in Rimestenn’s iron-cursed labyrinth, just the constant, taunting glow from the goal that they could not find. So there was no telling how much time passed. They slept at one point. But if that meant one day had passed or two, Tom couldn’t tell. He knew his wound was getting worse; he was shivering and his head had begin to pound. It angered him, that his body was failing him. Now, when Katharine and Rose needed him most, his body was willing to give up, surrender after all the pain and suffering and misery. No. He wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t.
So when they turned a corner and found Rimestenn waiting for them, Tom didn’t wait for the attack. He lifted his sword with a cry made hoarse and weak by exhaustion. To his surprise, Rimestenn turned and fled. But Tom refused to let him escape. So he gave chase. And, had he not been so tired, perhaps he might have caught him. He followed the creature through turn after turn after turn, only dimly aware of the cries at his back. He had to finish it. He would be terrorised by this dead thing no longer.
But after a few turns, he could no longer see it disappearing around corners. Soon he could not hear its footsteps, could not hear the drag of its hammer against the ground.
"Damn it," he panted. And then the anger and the hate and the despair boiled over and he screamed, "Damn it!" as he swung his sword against the wall, rewarded only with a ringing peal and a duller edge. He let himself drop to his knees and stopped, trying to catch his breath even as the ugly bruise on his chest made it hard to breathe.
Caledyr would tell him to fight. But he’d lost Caledyr.
And he’d lost Katharine. And Rose. And Ambrose and Kunnustenn and Siomi and soon he’d lose Emyr and Six and Dank and the others, because he was failing. They would die in here. Or, rather, they wouldn’t die. They’d go on and on. Perhaps they’d join Rimestenn in terrorising visitors too. Or perhaps they would all chop pieces off each other until only their heads remained to glare at each other for the rest of time.
A voice cried out. Called for him. The others looking for him, because he’d been foolish enough to run off. What kind of leader was he? What Knight of Tir would abandon his friends?
The voice kept calling. With fear. Panic. And it was accompanied by the peal of metal on metal.
Emyr’s black bones. They weren’t looking for him. Rimestenn had fooled him.
He started running. "Where are you?" Had he come this way? Rimestenn tricked him. Circled back. Now he was killing the few friends he had left. He’d abandoned them. He’d failed them. "Where are you?"
This looked wrong. He’d taken a wrong turn. He ran back, took another. "Emyr! Six! Mennvinn!"
There was a shout, and Rimestenn’s scream echoed through the maze. Eirwen’s grace, bring me back to them, forgive my mistake, please. Please. “Where are you?” he called.
There! He recognised this junction, didn’t he? And he could hear them, he could hear voices and fighting, he dashed down a corridor, turned a corner, another, he was getting closer. And then he dashed through a junction and saw Jarnstenn brandishing a sword, Mennvinn standing over Six with a blade of her own, and Emyr crying, "Get back!” before Rimestenn swept the old king’s feet out from under him and raised the hammer to crush Six.
Tom ran. Blade first, bellowing, demanding Rimestenn’s attention, ignoring how the hammer began to swing towards him, how his muscles tightened against the imminent blow, focusing only on driving his sword into the thing’s chest and knocking it off its feet.
Tom drove Rimestenn to the ground but the sword was torn from his grip. So he used his only remaining weapon. Rimestenn’s skull was hard against his fists, and sharp where Tom had crushed it in a previous attack. The bone cut his flesh as his blows landed. He didn’t feel it. All he felt was his fear and frustration and impotent rage. He watched Rimestenn’s skull shrink under his fists. Saw its leathery flesh tear. Saw pieces of old bone fall away.
Not enough. He picked up the hammer. Short, in his hands. He could feel monolith stone somewhere in the head, too. But all that mattered was that it was heavy. He pulled back and swung, crushed Rimestenn’s leg into dust. The creature screamed and Tom readied himself for another blow.
“Don't!" Emyr cried and Tom turned to see the old king wracked with pain and guilt.
"What’s wrong?" he asked. But before Emyr could reply, Rimestenn had dragged himself around a corner and back into the labyrinth.
Tom knew he should pursue. Finish this. But he was tired. And he had the hammer. So he sank to the ground. Made the mistake of leaning against the wall and letting his head rest against it.
The fay called Hobbledy’s Lantern leapt from ship to ship, cinders and sparks falling from his burning skin and setting alight sails and decks and men alike. Je
nny Greenteeth waited below, beak snapping in anticipation of those who would jump overboard.
Duke Regent sat in his seat beside Emyr’s throne in the halls of Cairnagan, Sir Wrothsley stood at his side. "We have few allies left," Regent said. He looked older, his beard grown longer and greyer and more unkempt. While Wrothsley looked younger, stronger. Whatever was happening agreed with one and not the other.
Storrstenn waited for the Western guards to pass his cell, before sliding a stone from the wall and continuing work on his tunnel.
Something shook Tom and his head drooped, freed from the draw of the labyrinth wall. He closed his eyes. "I hate this place."
"I’m not too fond of it either, son."
"Why did you stop me?"
"He was my friend."
"I don’t think he’s anyone’s friend anymore."
"Perhaps not." Emyr sighed. "But I’m not ready to kill the last friend I have left."
Tom was surprised at how much that hurt. He lifted his head, opened his eyes, met Emyr’s. Blinked. Waited.
"You know what I mean," the other man said.
And suddenly he was too tired to be hurt. "I do." He hefted the hammer, used its weight to help him push himself off the ground.
"Rest," Emyr told him. "Just for a moment."
But he couldn’t rest. Not while Katharine and Rose were at Melwas’ fickle mercies. Not while death festered in the wound at his neck. Never enough time. "Make sure the others aren’t hurt," he told Emyr. And he began to swing.
The hammer was heavy. The stone was hard. Each impact shook its way up his arms, rattled his teeth, left tremors in his muscles. But the wall cracked. And splintered. And pieces began to fall away. Handholds and footholds. Soon Tom was forced to stand in them, awkwardly swinging the hammer in one hand while holding on with the other. It was dangerous and precarious and he expected to fall with each swing. When he grew tired, he dropped the hammer and climbed back down.
The Realm Rift Saga Box Set Page 107
