Solineus

by L. James Rice

  “Horse-masters remain here, and if we don’t come back in five days or so, you head home and let the Ironwing know where we died and why.” Morik turned his gaze on him. “It’s Dark Waters and their crossbows I’m worried about. By all means, the favored of Hîmr should go first.”

  Seblêsu predicted their moves like an experienced hunter, from the Temple of Arumbor to the Red Whistle Tavern. To hope they were a step ahead now felt optimistic, but there was no godsdamned way she knew about this walking well. Was there?

  A Helmveliner handed him a lit torch with a grin.

  The Twins dropped to his waist and he listened to the Sister’s quiet murmur before taking the torch and putting foot to the stairs into the world’s mouth. He counted fifty-three steps before touching bottom, but heard the gentle, gurgling flow of water by the time he was half-way down. But once there, he still couldn’t see the stream with the meager torch light. His heart thundered; he was a target with a bulls-eye beacon in his hand.

  He breathed deep. The mountain air above was dry, down here it was heavy, dank, and cool. He held his torch out; blackness in every direction except for the cavern’s wall he’d descended.

  “Well, you aren’t dead yet.” Morik followed him, his fire casting a light further than Solineus’.

  The bastard held a lantern with a mirror throwing a beam of light so far that the stream was visible. “You son of a bitch.” Helmveliners laughed, half of the bastards carrying similar lanterns. He dropped his torch and stomped on it; thought better of leaving it lay and stuffed it in his pack. “You could have gotten me killed.”

  Morik grinned with those big teeth. “The hole didn’t smell of animal shit nor rot… you were plenty safe.”

  “Says you.” Solineus strode to the stream, narrow enough to jump over and shallow enough his ankles would stay dry if he took a stroll. “Not much of a river.”

  “Truth. If it don’t get bigger downstream we’re way off our mark.”

  Solineus appreciated following this stream through the winding dark, figuring his brain would need addled to get lost, plus, water wouldn’t circle around itself. But along the way something else clicked. “If there’s a thunderstorm with heavy rains above, what happens down here?”

  Morik grunted. “Our trip would get a whole lot faster and wetter. But don’t worry none, this time of year there won’t be heavy rains in these stretches of the Foundations. Forests to the southeast’ll be getting the floods.”

  Solineus traipsed on, putting faith in the Kingdomer’s words to relax. All the while as they walked the stream swelled, fed by small flows slipping from cracks or small tunnels, and in a few locations, they found standing water, fed by springs he guessed. The caves here were bland not beautiful, if not for the water and the bats, it’d be as boring as the tundra, albeit a hells of a lot more comfortable. The rock formations were dull, damned near void of sparkling mineral or character. Boring brown and gritty rock.

  Time and distance lost meaning in this hole, so he did his best to annoy the hells out of Morik. “How long and how far?”

  “Half a horizon and a few wicks from a full candle since last you asked.”

  “What direction we facing?”

  “South by southeast.”

  Time for a new challenge. “How deep are we?”

  “Ten poles, give or take.”

  Solineus chuckled, knowing damned well the man wanted to turn and punch him. “Are you making that up? How do you know that?”

  Morik snorted. “How don’t you know it? I ain’t sure how you and your people survive, so blind to where you are in the world.”

  Their stream grew until it was a pole across, but it never swelled into what he’d title a river. However, it did flow into one. The stream’s tunnel entered a cavern so wide they couldn’t see the far wall, but its ceiling was low enough at points he feared knocking his head.

  A quarter horizon later the cavern ballooned to heights he couldn’t see, and a hundred strides after, a pillar of stone struck from floor to ceiling, the water shifting their direction to flow around its jagged head; set in the opposite bank, a dried stream bed where once the waters would’ve split. Maybe still did split, with heavy rains washing from the mountains.

  Solineus’ eyes plied the darkness, following the streaks of light the lanterns threw. “Think this is it?”

  Morik strolled ahead, shining his lantern at the river’s flow. Fifty strides wide and gods knew how deep, the river’s dark waters flowed until the ceiling was only a couple of feet from the current. Solineus hoped to the Seven Heavens Morik didn’t expect him to crawl or swim into that hole.

  “This’s what the crazy bastards look for… entries into the darkest depths of the world, where Hîmr fled to die.” He stepped to the rivers sharp edge and reached to shine his light. Several dark shadows hugged the ground. “Shits. Their boats. We’re on the wrong side of the river.”

  “Godsdamn… At least we know they haven’t gone nowhere. Backtrack the river?” He’d crossed too many rivers and didn’t look forward to fording one that could sweep him into an unknown abyss.

  “We don’t know shit from pudding. Better off we sit and wait, with our arbalests we might be able to drop the woman.”

  Solineus paced. “I don’t like it, too much to chance.”

  Morik grunted. “Then you swim your ass across and kill them! There might be a hundred men marching down that river. Even if she left an ambush behind, she’s a cautious woman and she knows how many we are. Most likely she’ll keep axes enough by her side to slaughter us, and no doubt enough to fend us off. We won’t survive her head on.”

  “If you miss her, she’s gone.”

  “We miss her from this side, at least we live.” He stomped to Solineus’ face. “We’ll be in pitch black and they’ll be carrying lanterns. The range is good.”

  “Say you kill her, what keeps another from picking it up?”

  “Nothing. In truth, I doubt we stop them. But. Say you’re right, Hîmr is alive, and it’s a nasty thing stirring up gods... Every one of the bastards we kill is one less soul with a chance of finding him.”

  “I still don’t like it.” He turned a circle. “If by some chance they get over to this side, we’re trapped.”

  Morik turned his lantern to the wall of stone, then flipped the beam higher. “There’s a ledge there. We can climb and hide if needs be.”

  Solineus sighed. “I’m still going to see if there’s a route across the river.”

  Morik grunted and held out his lantern. “Waste your time how you like, just don’t go getting yourself killed.”

  The best Solineus found upriver was a narrow stretch of rapids he might be able to jump across, but the Kingdomers with their short legs were having nothing to do with his idea. They climbed to the ledge and found a hidden alcove with a circle of stones, where miners or explorers or who the hells knew who once built a fire, as they found a circle of rocks and charred sticks. They tied off ropes from the top to hasten their climb if things went sour.

  After that, they sat around in the pitch black, lighting a lantern only to eat, drink, or relieve themselves by the wall. The dark was absolute and unnerving after a time, although the Kingdomers didn’t gripe like he did. Maybe their sense of where they were in the world kept them sane in a universe that looked the same whether your eyes were closed or open.

  It was a relief when the voices came, and as lanterns lit the opposite side of the river, he wanted to thank them for bringing light, a point of reference for his eyes in this oblivion. He heard men shuffle next to him, and knew they shouldered their arbalests.

  Seblêsu’s voice rang clear through the cavern. “We should stop here and pray to Sanzumôk the Riven Flow, and praise Hîmr for bringing us this far.” Forty or more men kneeled in the lantern light and their voices rose in a deep chant reminiscent of the Mountain Song, only with hollow, contained echoes, rather than the reflections of open valleys.

  Shittin’ me? Outdoors they’d
be in range, but in this dark and a ceiling overhead, he didn’t know if they’d get enough loft to their bolts. They’d need wait for them to move further down river. Damnable coincidence, or… His hands strayed to the Twins and they roared in his ears. He whispered, “Something’s wrong.” He stood, slipping the blades from their sheaths.

  Blinding Light.

  The Twins screamed, and by the time his eyes adjusted black cloaks with axes swept into them.

  Helmveliners fell in the onslaught, cut down without more of a chance to defend themselves than to raise their crossbows before their faces. The Twins, on the other hand, sang for blood.

  The Sister sheered an ax-head before taking the man’s head, and the Brother struck through another’s breastplate until the bastard’s chest rammed the hilt. Solineus braced his feet and slid with the impact, then kicked the dying man away. Morik put a bolt through one man and hooked his arbalest to pull his ax, but several others lay dead or dying.

  Morik bellowed, “The ledge!”

  Helmveliners backed toward the wall with shields and swords and axes fighting off the enemy in a clamor of steel; Solineus found himself lonely and decided to make new acquaintances. He cut the first Dark Water he reached in half as the man pounded a Helmveliner shield with his hammer, and the second lost his head. But it was damned hard getting close to them… One ran and he chased him down, splitting him from the back of his neck to hip, but in the time it took, two more Helmveliners fell. He screamed and went after another, then another as that one fled. Men died all around him, but no one dared face him.

  Either they were frightened, or they didn’t want the Favored of Hîmr dead.

  The Sister reached a Dark Water spine and the man dropped; he turned to face a dozen men in black robes, swords outstretched. Behind him, Morik and three Helmveliners stood their ground with him. “Climb!”

  He glanced side to side; to a man they watched him, but not a one made a move to rush him. Sheer numbers would win the battle, but no one wanted to die in victory.

  “We’re at the top.”

  Solineus stood straight, blades dancing a slow figure eight before he reached back, grabbing a rope and twining it several times around his forearm before gripping it along with the Sister. “Pull me up!”

  His feet lifted from the ground in a split flicker; awkward as rising from the Twelve Hells as he tried his damnedest to walk up the cliff instead of bounce from its face. A man charged and he ran his feet up the wall, damned near flipping upside down, but he gained control to deflect the attack.

  He scrambled and clunked the wall, out of reach unless… Several more men arrived, and these carried crossbows. “Faster!” Bruised and sore, maybe bleeding, strong hands grabbed his arm and pulled his beleaguered body over the upper edge as quarrels clinked the stone behind them.

  He lay panting until he caught his breath, then pushed backwards out of view of the crossbowmen below. With a turn of his head he still had a view of across the river. Black robes sauntered to the boats in the lantern light, infuriating him even as he sheathed the Twins. “I hope the Dark Waters burn your lungs as you drown in them!”

  A shadow stood straight, and he imagined Seblêsu smiled. She was victorious. She deserved it. “I hope you live long with the favor of the Foundations.”

  Morik snorted. “That woman would apologize for the goat being undercooked even as she poisoned it.”

  “You realize I knew where you were all the time, the stone works both ways.”

  Solineus slumped, then chuckled, wishing the Huntress were still alive so he could yell at her. “No, we were told the opposite.”

  “So I gathered from your ambush.”

  He watched as men drug boats to the water and her shadow climbed aboard. “One favor.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Think on what I said. If you find Hîmr… Whatever it is you plan, don’t.”

  “To honor your bringing me the stone, I will think on it, but my faith is pure. Hîmr will reward me and my people, and someday the Storm-Eye will rise again.” Her boat pushed off into the current. “Goodbye, barbarian. Perhaps we will meet again in another lifetime.”

  She disappeared into the black carried by dark waters, and more boats with more men followed, and soon their fires disappeared.

  Not so the men below. The Light faded but stood replaced by lanterns. These bastards weren’t going to float down the dark waters until Solineus and the Helmveliners were dead, or they were shoved dead into them.

  They were five men against gods knew how many and treed like raccoons, except their tree was ancient stone. Solineus named their hiding hole Castle Ledge, seeing as they were under siege. Seblêsu and her boat floated away two days before, and somehow this little truth angered him more than the fact he’d be dead soon if they didn’t cobble their way out of this mess.

  The climb to reach them was a good thirty feet, and if more than two men at a time could reach them, it’d still be suicide. Flip that coin, and the roles reversed; might as well jump headfirst to their deaths than climb down to their waiting arms. Solineus rubbed his temples, popped the bung on his canteen and sipped. In time they’d thirst to death with a river no more than twenty strides away. He decided then that he never did like irony.

  He crawled to Morik’s side and spoke in Silone. “You got our escape reckoned?”

  “I throw you and them swords over that there cliff and you kill them all. Don’t get much easier than that.”

  Two of the other Helmveliners slept, the third sat with his chin against his chest, ignoring them. They all needed rest, food, and water. And oil. For the time being their enemy shined a light their way, but if the time came they needed their own fire, they’d run out of light sooner than he liked. “We give them Hîmr’s Coin, they might just go away.”

  “Or, figuring we’d give chase, they’d wait us out and kill us anyhow.”

  Solineus grunted. “A fist of stonebreakers would be handy.”

  Morik chortled. “Aye. I’d take my chances with ‘em about now.”

  Solineus stood and walked the ledge and alcove, the light from the priests’ mirrored lantern faint. Hard to imagine a better defensible position without maybe building a little wall. Except of course if he’d designed it, he would’ve put in a back door, and maybe left more good-sized rocks to bash some heads. He wandered over to a stack of blackened stones used as a fire pit in the past; they weren’t the first people to use this spot, and his mind often wandered to who the hells bothered to climb to this spot before and why. He clutched a stone and hefted it into the air, then walked back to Morik to sit.

  “How far away you think that river is?”

  “Further than you can jump. Why?”

  “Think you can put a quarrel in that lantern they got shining up at us?”

  He chuckled. “Aye, if they don’t put one in me first.”

  “Let’s have some fun, wake your boys.”

  The plan was cold blooded, but there was a reason snakes survived in the dark holes of the world.

  With five arbalests and scores of bolts, the enemy kept their distance in the dark, away from the lantern shining light toward their high hiding hole. Morik and the other Helmveliners crept to the dark edges of the ledge where the light didn’t shine, crossbows loaded. Morik took two arbalests, while Solineus slunk into the alcove’s edge, as close to the river as he could get.

  Two deep breaths and he knocked his stone on the wall twice; a twang and a crash; the lantern spun and clattered, and the world went black. Solineus took one step, couching the stone near his shoulder and prepared to throw. He yelled in the Kingdomer tongue: “Go! Go! Go!” A flicker later he chucked the stone and dropped to the floor to make certain he didn’t fall from the edge.

  A splash as the rock hit the water.

  Hollers and shouts as lanterns flared to life and men ran to the river’s edge, swaying lights casting an array of dizzying shadows; ten men, maybe a dozen. Sucker fish easy to the bait.

&
nbsp; The arbalests sang as soon as the sway of lanterns slowed, and in a flicker men screamed, lanterns clattered to the ground, and one poor bastard’s cloak flared into flames with a lantern’s oil.

  Solineus crawled to Morik’s position as arbalests cranked to reload and found one emptied where he’d expected. He fell backward, jammed a toe into the thing’s loop and cranked with both hands. But by the time he’d set the damned thing’s string, the bastards had carried their wounded from the light. He slipped a bolt into the crossbow’s track. They couldn’t see the Dark Waters, as the only light were two lanterns and their patches of oil burning on the ground, but they could hear the grunts, groans, and moans.

  “Loose.”

  Bolts flew, three clatters and one satisfying scream.

  A man dashed into the light to grab a lantern, and Solineus shoved his crossbow to Morik; a hurried shot, but from the way he fell, Solineus guessed a strike to the leg.

  They cranked the arbalests and set bolts, then listened. No way in the hells they’d be stupid enough to get caught in the open again. Pitch dark, but cries and groans echoed. One man figured for sure he was dying, gut shot, and others rushed to tourniquet another’s leg. Hells of a challenge tending the wounded in this kind of dark.

  Morik breathed next to him. “Think we hit four or five, but don’t think we killed a one.”

  “Perfect.” Cold blooded and effective: A wounded man needed tending; a dead man was plain dead. “They’ve got choices, let their friends die slow, or drag them someplace safe and lit to mend them.”

  “Or cut their throats.”

  Solineus grunted. “In that case, they’re colder than we are.”

  They sat silent and listened; within a wick all they could hear was their own breathing and the river’s waters. He whispered in Silone: “Thoughts?”

  “Your godsdamned plan, but I’d wager they’re gone. But not for long. Or might be they wait for us outside.”

  “I hope they do, doubt they’ve an idea where we’re coming out.” He slithered across the floor until his hands found the curl of rope they’d tied off, and he lowered its end over the edge. He gazed toward the river, where a single lantern lay tipped and burning; if he made it there alive, he figured the odds of living to see the sun again were good.