Rod of the Heart

by Cebelius

  "I will bet you a quarter the door we are supposed to find at the end of this tunnel is already open," Yuri said with a grin as he looked over at Terry.

  "No bet. Even if I wanted to take you up I'm broke. I got a couple tokens to my name and that's it."

  He went back and picked up his knife, wiped it off on a relatively-clean spot of fur on one of the bodies, frowned as it did a poor job, then thrust it through the knot of Prada's sash.

  'Hey!'

  Pulling the knife out, he confirmed it was clean and sheathed it as he thought, You LIKE blood, right? Well, here's a lot of it, help yourself.

  'You mean it? I can? Really? I thought you'd be squeamish.'

  It's not MY blood, and they aren't using it. Fight's over and it's not like I want you to go hungry when it doesn't cost me anything to feed you. I'm not THAT cheap.

  '... I'll say it again, I'm not quite sure I'll ever understand you.'

  Bet you can if you try. Hurry up though, we won't be here long.

  'Does that mean I have permission to take all the blood spilled in combat in future?'

  That brought him up short, and after a moment's consideration he thought, No. Ask first. Mila might want the blood in theirs for something, but these three are our kills, so you can have what's in these.

  'Very well, Master. I suppose that's reasonable ... generous even. Thank you.'

  You're welcome.

  Prada slipped off his waist and slithered through the pile of bodies as Terry turned and walked away. Just because he was willing to let her have the blood didn't mean he wanted to watch her take it. He also had an ulterior motive for letting her do her thing.

  Prada? Are you still there?

  The sanguine devil made no response, inside his mind or out. He couldn't sense her presence in his thoughts at all. After another moment of feeling around inside his own head, he allowed himself a smirk.

  Perfect. Good to know.

  He shuddered at the sounds coming from behind him as he glanced around. Yuri was doing the same, and they spoke virtually at the same time.

  ""Everybody okay?""

  The Kolenkos both grinned at him, showing their fangs as Marcus closed his eyes and chuckled heavily.

  "That was fun, Master!"

  Euryale sounded positively giddy as she skipped over to the bodies and began shifting them around to retrieve those arrows she could. "I haven't killed people with arrows in a long time. I forgot how exhilarating it is to fire at moving targets!"

  Shy looked much the worse for wear as she said, "I'm fine. Winded, that's all."

  Terry looked closely at her and saw that the bark on her body looked old, and flaked off as she moved; her lips were drawn in a grimace. She met his eye, then turned her head down and away and said, "I'll be okay in a moment or two."

  "Using that staff takes a lot out of you doesn't it?" Terry asked.

  Mila stepped over and reached under Shy's chin, tipping her head up to look into her eyes. The dryad permitted this for a moment, then looked away and simply repeated, "I'm fine."

  "The staff hates you, does it not?" Mila asked, her voice soft, concerned. "How long have you had it?"

  "A little over a week," Shy admitted. "I took it off a Locutor."

  Mila hissed, and backed away as Shy's staff sparked at her. In response Shy took a quick side-step and slammed the ball of it into the stone. It fizzled and sparked, then went dark.

  "Do not do that!" Mila hissed. "Do you want it to kill you?"

  "It's mine," Shy said, clearly irritated. "It'll do what I tell it to."

  "Yes. Right up until it will not, and at that point you are screwed," Mila said. "When we camp, you and I need to talk. Non-negotiable."

  Shy's head whipped around and her eyes were glowing so brightly that Terry stepped between them before she could get a word out. She blinked, looking at him with her mouth open and whatever she had to stay stuck in her throat. Without breaking eye contact he said, "She'll be there, Mila. Thanks for being willing to help out."

  "No problem, Boss. The last thing I want is to be standing next to a mage when she blows herself up."

  Shy didn't break eye contact, and her lips pressed into a thin line as she stared at him. He blinked deliberately to break the tension and said, "You need help? Take it. We're all in this together. There is no them and us, Shy. Just us. I need you at your best. Mila will help you. Fucked if I know how, but that's clearly her intention and I believe she can do it. Do you?"

  The dryad sucked her teeth and nodded, clearly unhappy as she said, "To be honest, I wanted to ask for her help earlier. This just ... wasn't the way I wanted to get it."

  "Well, this wasn't the afterlife I had in mind," Terry said as he glanced around at the carnage. "Take what you can get as it comes."

  He thumped her on the side of the arm playfully and then dusted the bark off his hands as he said, "I like the armor. Makes you look bad ass."

  She blinked at him, then smiled, though the expression had a vaguely ill look to it and he got the impression she didn't like him seeing her like that.

  Too bad. Not like I've always been at my best around her; turnabout's fair play.

  Something struck him in the middle back and he grunted and turned, but there was nothing there.

  'I'm back. Zone beasts are spicy.'

  As though to emphasize her satisfaction with the meal, Prada actually belched ... which raised all sorts of questions for Terry, which in turn earned him a sultry chuckle inside his head.

  "Gross!" Laina exclaimed, whirling to look at him and clearly thinking he'd done it.

  Euryale on the other hand started cackling as she skipped back to him and reached up, pulling his head down for a kiss.

  As their lips parted, she whispered, "I want to fuck you soooo bad right now, master. Killing things for you makes me wet."

  He quirked his brow at her and said, "Time and opportunity, love. We have neither at the moment."

  To take any sting out of the words he ran his hands over her sides and cupped her tight little ass, squeezing gently as he kissed her again, then let her go.

  Her bright-blue eyes were hooded with unmistakable lust as several of her snakes struck him playfully, their noses bouncing off his cheeks and throat.

  Then she settled back and glanced to her left and up, offering a smile to Laina as she said, "You're impressive with that thing."

  Terry turned in time to see Laina smile slightly, though clearly discomfited by the compliment. "Thanks. I wish I knew what the hell I was doing with it."

  "Yeah," Terry said with a grin as he turned and side-hugged the minotress so as not to get lost in her cleavage. "I feel the same way with this thing."

  He spun the ax haft in the palm of his free hand, causing the head to spin. It was still bloody from the earlier encounter and he asked, "Prada, would you clean this for me? And any other spatter you find on me or my clothes?"

  'Certainly, Master.'

  For a split second, he saw red as Prada literally engulfed his head, but whatever she was doing she did so quickly that he didn't even have time to shout in surprise before she'd already moved on to his shoulders. She glided up the haft of his ax, hesitated there a moment, then cleaned the head and moved on. As she worked over his legs she heard his voice in his head.

  'Be warned, master. That ax is gathering power. You are investing it with energy. It refused to give me the blood soaked into the haft, and I did not have the strength to force it out.'

  He blinked, then took a closer look at the ax. The only light came from Mila's staff, so all he really saw was a play of shadows, but what he could see looked normal enough to him. It was just a big, double-bladed lumbering ax with chips out of both edges and a blood-soaked handle.

  'That blood is as much yours as not, master. Your essence has soaked into the grain of the weapon.'

  Okay ... but what does that actually MEAN?

  '... I'm not sure. The creation of magical items is outside my knowledge.'

/>   "Just one more thing on the list of shit I don't understand," he muttered.

  "Mm?" Laina glanced down at him as the rest got ready to move again. Apparently Mila had been interested in components out of the bodies, and had taken an extra few moments to gather them. Now, though, they were forming up.

  "Prada's talking to me in my head," he said. "Half the shit she tells me makes no sense. I'll ask about it later when we have more time."

  He glanced around and then asked Shy, "You ready to move?"

  She nodded, clearly exhausted but game. "Lead on, Tee."

  Laughing, he waved a hand as he set out and said, "Not me. You follow my dumb ass you'll never get out of here alive. Follow them."

  Laina gave him a shove, causing him to stagger forward as she said, "I think she meant she's supposed to walk behind you, Boss. She can't go before you do, so get movin'. I want out of this place."

  Still chuckling, Terry shouldered his ax and followed the bobbing green glow of Mila's staff deeper into the crypts.

  17

  Sub-Cel

  Laina's eyes were drooping by the time the group made it to the ante-chamber that led from the crypts into Sub-Cel. She'd been awake all day, and a lot had happened. She wasn't accustomed to losing sleep, and her body was telling her it was time to lay down.

  Yeah right. Like I'm gonna get to sleep any time soon.

  She scrubbed her forearm across her face and blinked hard, rolling her eyes in her sockets as she looked around.

  Mila and Yuri were looking up at a small flame that seemed to hang in the air, burning on nothing as it sat under a brightly glowing crystal that jutted from the ceiling of the otherwise bare stone room.

  "Well, that answers that question," Yuri said. "There was a traitor in the city, someone who opened the door for the zone beasts."

  "It was Volai."

  The Kolenkos turned toward Boss, who shrugged and glanced away as he said, "I threatened her with Cecaelia. Her response was to do a deal with the Twilight Zone. Protection from the powers in exchange for the city, and me."

  His expression was pained, and Laina wanted to reach out to him, but before she could Marcus gave a heavy shrug and said, "Doesn't matter now. Move."

  Mila waved her staff at the tiny flame hovering under the crystal, and it winked out. The crystal's inner light began to fade, and the group walked out the hole in the wall and into Sub-Cel.

  The place they found themselves in was cavernous; so much so that the light from Mila's staff illuminated neither the ceiling, nor the walls to either side for more than twenty feet. Every step Laina took echoed loudly in the vast space, and she glanced around sheepishly as she noticed that everyone else had either boots or sandals.

  Figures I would be the one to give us away. At least I'm not shod.

  She'd been shod at a few points in her life, but rarely had she traveled often enough or on hard enough roads to make it worthwhile. It had been on her list of things to do, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet. Now she wasn't sure when she'd be able to, what with Florence burning and the riots. If what the others had told her about it not being safe for her to go out on her own was true, she'd just have to hope that Ross could bring a smith into the keep to do the job.

  "Ookay ... slight change here in the order of march," Yuri was saying. "Marcus will stay up front, but at this point I want Laina to take your usual position on his right side, Boss. I will stay on the left. Euryale stays in the rear, and we will keep you, Shy and Mila in the middle. Everyone got it?"

  "You want me up front?" Laina asked, brow furrowing as she moved to stand next to Marcus, glancing around uneasily.

  "You cannot exactly swing that ax of yours from the middle," Yuri said with a grin. "If anything comes from that side you can shift to cover. The idea is to make sure that the people in the middle cannot be gotten to without going through one of us."

  "I think I should keep my usual spot next to Marcus," Boss said with a frown. "With Prada, I've got better defense than Laina does."

  "In theory," Mila agreed with a rather feral smile that showed — to Laina's mind anyway — entirely too many teeth. "In practice, I have not seen Prada do anything but eat and belch. On a side note: I agree with Laina. That was gross. She did not even say 'excuse me.' You stay in the middle with me."

  "Hmph!"

  Euryale's expressionless mask did nothing to disguise her dissatisfaction as she said, "You mean with Shy."

  Shy put her hand to her mouth in a poor effort to hide a chuckle, then said, "Do what Yuri tells you, Tee."

  Laina glanced around to see Boss looking up at her with a bemused expression as he said, "You've got this, hon. I didn't know what the hell I was doing either, going into Monsoon. We couldn't be in better hands. Trust Marcus. That shield of his is no joke. Just concentrate on what's in front of you."

  She nodded, and they set out. Marcus seemed to know where they were going, and Laina found herself wondering again how he'd managed to memorize that map with little more than a glance.

  Euryale seemed to think I could do the same thing. Why?

  She tried to remember the map, but it was just a jumble of open spaces and tunnels in her mind's eye. She didn't even know what direction they were moving in, and they'd just left the crypt.

  No, wait. West. We're going west, following the same line as the road leaving town.

  Glancing behind her, she saw that they'd already left the door to the crypt behind, and were walking across a bare stone floor with nothing ... absolutely nothing, in every direction. Just smooth stone, and the sound of her own hooves embarrassingly loud in the relative stillness.

  They carried on that way for about twenty minutes, and by the time a wall finally appeared in front of them, Laina wasn't tired anymore. She was terrified. The place was just so deathly still, like they were walking through a barren world that was created as the light reached it and destroyed again once it faded.

  I HATE this place!

  The wall reassured her somewhat, and Marcus turned to his right without pausing, seeming to know exactly where he was going. Laina found it unbelievable that he should have such a precise sense of direction, but at this point the last thing she wanted to do was introduce doubt by asking questions.

  Just let him be right. Just let him lead us out of this horrible place.

  A hideous screech came from the darkness behind them, but before Laina could even respond Yuri said in a low, soothing voice, "Harmless. Keep going. It is too far away to have any realistic chance of finding us."

  "What was that?" Boss asked, taking the question right out of Laina's mouth.

  "Darkhawk. If you hear a sort of 'floomph' sound, drop to the floor and it will miss. You got to be quick though. Once they wrap you up they are hard to get off."

  Mila added, "If they can be bludgeoned to death, they make amazing cloaks. A fully grown darkhawk corpse will sell for a gold quarter to a tanner."

  "You guys sure you've only been doing this for two years?" Boss asked. "You guys seem to know everything about everything."

  "Ha!" Euryale made the sound an insult all its own, and a moment later Boss said, "Yeah, point taken. Almost everything about everything."

  "It is that little gap between almost and everything that will kill you," Yuri muttered. "Two kinds of monster hunters in this world: those that learn what they are getting into first, and the dead ones. My family has always had at least a few people in every generation that chose this life. I learned from the very best."

  "So what made you want to be chief?" Boss asked.

  For a long few seconds there was silence, and Laina glanced over to see Yuri looking straight ahead, yet clearly seeing something else. Eventually he said, "Let us just say that sometimes in life you do what you have to, rather than what you want to."

  "I hear you, Chief. Really I do."

  Laina glanced back and saw much the same expression on Boss's face that she'd seen on Yuri's. She was forcefully reminded that she really didn't kno
w much about her man other than that he'd had a family, and that family hadn't been any good to him.

  The realization made her want to ask, but she bit her tongue and turned around, glancing warily out at the darkness as they moved along the wall. There was a time and a place for personal questions like that, and she knew instinctively that Boss wouldn't appreciate her asking.

  Not now anyway.

  She thought about the way he'd looked when they'd talked about her helpless resentment of her own sister: Little Miss Perfect. Now that she had a bit more context, that expression made more sense.

  Maybe never.

  She wanted to know what made him the way he was. There was so much about him that she desperately wanted to know. She wanted to help him, hold him up, let him be the man he was meant to be. At the same time she wanted to have him for herself, and though she knew that wouldn't ever happen, she couldn't help how she felt. She loved a man she had to share, and she felt cheated.

  Focus. Now isn't the time.

  Marcus grunted and said, "Stop."

  The group came to a halt and Laina saw what had caught the minotaur's attention. Ahead of them there was a web stretched between the wall they were following and the floor. It's outer strands were as thick around as her wrist, and the inner weave was a cross-hatch pattern rather than the circular one she usually associated with spiders.

  Craning her neck up, she saw more webbing attached to the stone of the wall past the one blocking their way, stretching away beyond the reach of the light.

  "Shit. How far to the tunnel, Marcus?" Yuri asked.

  "Not more than another hundred feet," Marcus rumbled. "Crevasse is about thirty feet out."

  He gestured to his right, then pulled his war mace from its sling at his belt and rolled his heavy head on his shoulders, popping his neck.

  "Crevasse?" Shy asked. "Is that why we didn't go straight to the tunnel entrance?"

  Marcus nodded.

  Laina twisted her hands around the Ax of the Great Plains and wished she weren't so afraid. All her life she'd been afraid of something, but usually it was hurting other people. Now she was afraid for herself, and it didn't take much pondering to know which kind of fear she preferred.