Of Truth and Beasts (Noble of Dead Saga Series 2 Book 3)

by Barb; J. C. Hendee

  He glanced toward the orb and saw something more in the tapered head of its spike.

  There were grooves about the right size for the circlet’s knobs. Was this key, this handle, how an orb was truly used? Even so, what good was it to him? This orb was not the one he desired.

  I need no key to a place I do not wish to go, he projected. Nor a handle for something I do not want.

  This time, no answer came—and Sau’ilahk heard the footfalls echoing down the tunnel.

  There was more than one pair, and both were too heavy to be Wynn. If one of them was Chane, Sau’ilahk was too weak to deal with that irksome undead.

  Frustration made him hesitate, and then he snatched up the circlet. He had no way to carry it without remaining corporeal, so he turned to the cave’s rear wall.

  The last of his energies fueled one final conjuration as a maw opened in the stone.

  Sau’ilahk shoved the circlet in, to be retrieved later.

  As the maw closed, leaving only raw stone, dormancy took him completely, and he vanished. For now, he was done with this place . . . this tragically disappointing place.

  Wynn was lost in loathing inside the memories of Deep-Root. She was shaken back to awareness when the elder stonewalker’s furious cries were suddenly cut off. The blackness of stone enveloped her again, and all she heard were the gale of whispers inside Deep-Root.

  . . . they are coming . . . not one but many . . . soon they will find you . . .

  A dim glow rose all around as the leaf-wing pushed the whispers down once more.

  Ignore them, and hear only me.

  Wynn—Deep-Root—stood in the dim phosphorescence of the caves holding the honored dead, but he didn’t move an inch. He kept twisting his head rapidly, looking about, and the glimmering walls and shadows whipped too quickly in Wynn’s sight.

  She didn’t understand what had happened in the hall of the Eternals. How had this mass murderer escaped the insane older stonewalker?

  Deep-Root took a slow step, placing one foot carefully, and then another. He was trying to be silent. Then he crouched amid the calcified dead, placed his hand on the cave floor, and grew still.

  Wynn felt—heard—distant sounds, as if his hand could pass them directly to her ears or her thoughts. She—he—was listening through stone, as Ore-Locks had in the tram tunnel.

  Running boots pounded, and Deep-Root twisted to his right.

  Wynn saw only a crushed wall beyond columns made of joining stalactites and stalagmites. More footfalls sounded, more running feet, and Deep-Root twisted farther around.

  The sound suddenly cut off as he looked to the wall he’d come through.

  “Honored Ones,” he whispered. “Give me sanctuary!”

  Wynn wanted to scream at him for such a plea, but she had no voice. The leaf-wing came instead.

  They cannot. Cling to me against the madness. . . . Come to me.

  “Silence!” he snarled. “You are nothing but more of this plague upon my people.”

  I am only with you since my coming. I hold this piece of calm, of silence, anchored within you.

  “Get out!” he shouted, forgetting all caution.

  I am what gives you this respite, free of what eats at all others. You already cling to me for this.

  “You are the worst of what has come! Leave me alone!”

  The leaf-wing seemed to fade, but not completely. It was still there, somewhere, holding off the gale. But the moment of near silence left Wynn lost as to what any of this meant.

  Then kill me . . . if you can.

  That one crackling utterance smothered Wynn’s despair and stoked fear in its place. What was that voice trying to do in goading Deep-Root? Then she heard a loud, wet smack.

  Deep-Root whirled about as a thrum rose through him from the cave floor. Wynn felt it as she spotted the shadowed form of another stonewalker in the next cave opening. He had just slapped his hand against the stone.

  She’d seen that before in the underworld of Dhredze Seatt, but she’d never known how the Stonewalkers’ signal for alarm truly worked. It was like a rapid quake running through her, and she could actually follow its sound through stone to its origin.

  Heavy boots struck the cave floor, and Deep-Root turned again.

  Yet another Stonewalker rushed at him from out of a cave wall.

  I wait beyond the farthest place to fall. Can you live long enough to reach it?

  Deep-Root bolted, and Wynn heard the shouts of his pursuers echoing through the caves of the Honored Dead. He ran straight through calcified columns and walls of wet stone, swerving each time he reappeared to leap into another wall. And then one time, the blackness of stone didn’t pass in a wink—it went on and on.

  Wynn felt her lungs might rupture before she—he—took another breath.

  What was the “farthest place to fall”? Or was it truly a place one could go?

  Besides Deep-Root, there was one thing lower than this worst of traitors; that was the enemy—Beloved, il’Samar, the Night Voice. Was it speaking to him, toying with him through a false protection from the madness that ate through this seatt amid a siege? Where were those other whispers coming from?

  Blackness broke, and Deep-Root exhaled, though not with the exhaustion Wynn suffered in the stone. It didn’t affect him at all. Perhaps it didn’t affect any Stonewalker. He turned in the near dark, feeling along the wall.

  His hand settled on something made of crisp angles and smooth surfaces, and he stroked it once. Amber light rose all around.

  Wynn looked upon the Chamber of the Fallen.

  Deep-Root’s eyes locked on something that was wrong in this place—or was wrong to him. A great gash showed in the hall’s far end—exactly like the one Wynn had found. But he hesitated, stiffening, as if he had never seen it before.

  “I am coming for you!” he threatened, walking slowly, watchfully, toward the gash. “I will tear you out of my head.”

  And I have been waiting . . . since I came for you.

  Wynn didn’t want him to go anywhere near that gash. Something inside there was trying to use this murderous traitor for its own purpose. One malevolent force was manipulating another in this place, and she could do nothing to change it.

  Deep-Root leaned through the gash, looking up and down the tunnel beyond it.

  A heavy footfall echoed through the chamber, and he began to turn.

  “Hiding among the Fallen?” someone shouted. “Running to your own . . . you traitor!”

  The pound of their boots echoed like war drums. Three stonewalkers charged down the hall between the great basalt coffins.

  Deep-Root fled into the gash, at first turning left. But something there glowed in the dark, like coals heating up under a harsh breath. He whirled and ran the other way down the raw tunnel—the direction that Wynn had gone herself.

  She heard the footfalls and shouts of the others now in the tunnel. Deep-Root halted, listening to them coming nearer. He took a step toward the rough sidewall.

  A soft, red glow rose in the tunnel’s distance behind him.

  Wynn heard a crack like breaking stone echo down the tunnel. Again and again it came, faster and faster, as it drowned out the pounding echoes of heavy boots. Three silhouettes of stonewalkers up the tunnel halted and looked back.

  A hissing roar hammered Wynn’s—Deep-Root’s—ears and made the stone vibrate. Deep-Root sucked a breath as flame erupted up the tunnel.

  It engulfed those three silhouettes before he could shield his eyes against the glare. Screams rose and were quickly smothered by crackling fire, and then the roar faded. Wynn saw one broad form aflame throw itself at the wall. It didn’t pass through but toppled back, crumpling like the other two. She watched them come apart like cinders under a hot blaze.

  The blast died away, and the only light left came from burning bodies and the scant flickering flames clinging to the floor, walls, and ceiling, as if they’d been splashed with oil. Beyond the dwindling flames, something came s
triding forward. The tunnel shuddered under its heavy, rhythmic steps.

  Its head appeared, its jaws widening slightly.

  Deep-Root looked up into the black orb eyes of a gí’uyllæ, an all-eater.

  This was the all-but-forgotten word of his people for these winged reptiles. Wynn had other names for it, equally little known among other races, like . . .

  Wêurm . . . thuvan . . . ta’nên . . . dragon.

  This one was so much larger than the one Wynn had faced. Its back scraped the ceiling, grinding off bits of rock. Deep-Root reached for the tunnel wall as he lunged.

  No, not this time.

  His hand rammed painfully into stone and did not pass through. He didn’t look back, but ran down the tunnel, away from the burning remains and deeper into the dark.

  Wynn hadn’t expected this place to be so similar to what she’d found, no matter that this beast was even more futile to fight. A part of her wanted it to catch her—to catch him—even if this was only a memory. Whatever happened, it would change nothing.

  But if it did catch him, it wouldn’t know of her. If he died would she die with him while locked in this memory?

  Deep-Root slammed hard against stone in the dark. Wynn lost all feeling from his body for an instant. When awareness returned, he groaned upon the tunnel floor, reaching for his face. Touching his head only brought more pain.

  Frail red light slowly lit the tunnel’s dead end.

  Deep-Root rolled over, scrambling up as he drew both daggers. Wynn didn’t need to feel anything from him to know how much fear filled him now.

  There was the dragon, filling the whole tunnel as its spittle dripped flames upon the stone floor. It just stood there, watching her—watching Deep-Root—as the chaos of the gale whispers grew to a storm.

  Listen!

  That leaf-wing crackle barely lessened the gale. At first, Wynn heard nothing, and Deep-Root wouldn’t turn his back on the creature. Even if he were foolish enough to attack, his blades could do nothing to it.

  They come. Listen . . . hear them and know . . . all here are lost.

  The voice took away the gale’s edge, making its cacophony of whispers grow distant, as if pushed back beyond the rough walls. Wynn felt a vibration beneath her feet.

  Deep-Root hesitantly crouched, keeping his eyes on the dragon. He laid down one blade and flattened his hand on the stone. That vibration grew stronger, echoing through him. To Wynn, it was like listening to stone crack under some tool; it kept cracking and breaking and tearing without pause.

  Something was coming up through the earth below the seatt.

  She had seen the madness spreading here, but if enemy forces outside had blocked all entrances, why dig underneath, and why so fast? Surely they could hold this place until everyone within perished.

  Yes, all will be lost. This is written in stone. But in death, what might come if you can kill me?

  Deep-Root stared into the dragon’s eyes, glistening with fire flickers like polished obsidian orbs. His blades were but slivers against an enemy of such size. The beast let out a rumble that made Wynn want to cover her ears. Deep-Root rose and backed against the dead end.

  The dragon began retreating up the tunnel, its bulk too wide to turn about.

  Stay here in the dark, listening and unseen at your end . . . or follow me. Either way, you will die, as written in the stone of your bones. But what purpose will death be remembered for, one day to come? Choose.

  Its spittle no longer flickered with small flames, and the tunnel grew dark. Only the sound of the creature’s steady retreat marked that it was still there, until it backed over the charred remains of stonewalkers. Blackened bones crackled under its clawed feet.

  Wynn didn’t know what she would’ve done in Deep-Root’s place.

  He took one hesitant step and then another as he followed. Once the dragon backed up to the breach into the Chamber of the Fallen, it turned about, heading up the dark tunnel’s other way.

  There were too many turns in the dark where unseen side ways could be felt in the walls. Wynn had long past lost track of where she was. But each time the way branched, Deep-Root followed the scrape of the beast’s movement against the tunnel’s stone, until he stopped at the sight of flame flickering in its maw.

  It turned into a wide passage that sloped steeply downward. Again he followed. A long way down, it emptied into a vast cave, and the air of the place choked him. Wynn felt suffocated, as well, for the stench rose from a large, long pool of viscous fluids that filled most of the cave’s bottom.

  Soft light flickered red-orange. To one side of the cave, on a slope of rock, the dragon dripped ignited spittle that burned there well away from the large pool.

  Sheath your weapons. Do not create even one spark in this place, or we perish to no purpose.

  “What is this place?” Deep-Root choked out. “What is in that pool?”

  I have eaten and disgorged all of this, weakening myself without true sustenance since my arrival. I am now prepared to die, if you can kill me. First, listen . . . and hear them.

  The dragon lifted its head, looking to the cave’s distant rear wall.

  Deep-Root hesitated, but the beast merely stood waiting. He sheathed his blades and crept around the pool, never taking his eyes off the dragon. It watched him in turn. When he reached the cave’s wall, he placed a hand on its stone.

  At first he barely heard anything.

  Higher.

  At that command, he tried to find purchase in the wall for his foot. He reached upward, and the farther he went, the more he felt—heard—the same sound of endlessly breaking stone as in the dead end.

  Deep-Root stretched as high as he could, until his thick fingertips touched where the wall curved into the cave’s ceiling. The whisper gale rose to a roar in his head, as if he’d stepped into the storm’s heart.

  Wynn lost all awareness in that torrent.

  When it finally faded, she was looking toward the pool, but it was sideways and low, as if Deep-Root lay on the cave’s floor. She was sick with dizziness. Deep-Root moaned and pushed himself up as the leaf-wing voice came again.

  They call themselves the in’Sâ’yminfiäl, the masters of frenzy. To the few who have ever escaped them and yet never have seen them, they are known as the Eaters of Silence. They have driven the peace from your people’s thoughts—and driven them mad. Nothing can stop this now.

  Wynn knew of whom the dragon spoke. She’d learn of these sorcerers, once in service to the Ancient Enemy in the forgotten war. If she’d had her own voice, she could’ve asked so many questions. But she was only an observer, reliving all this through Deep-Root’s eyes and ears.

  Your blades are worthless. Something greater is needed to breach my bowels, once I ignite what is left within me. And then . . .

  The dragon looked to the pool, and Wynn went numb.

  She didn’t understand why it needed to be impaled, but it intended to somehow ignite all of the fluid it had disgorged. This place would collapse in an explosion, pulling down those who were right above, digging their way into the seatt. And she knew it would shatter this whole realm.

  There is little time, for I cannot prepare all this again. Even now I fade in starvation. That is why I have made certain that what is done here is enough to reach them, no matter the cost.

  Every question Wynn wanted to ask vanished as Deep-Root’s breath caught.

  The way out through the range will become their way, if they take this place—and they will. It is what they seek to gain as quickly as possible, at any price.

  Wynn envisioned the map she’d sketched in her journal, looking for what lay just to the north of here.

  But the price to stop them is even higher. To halt those who would breach this place, all here must die by our choice . . . though they would be lost just the same.

  Wynn began to see the choice the dragon offered; it was no choice at all. Sacrifice an entire people to slow or cripple the enemy’s advance, but with no cert
ainty that it would bring ultimate victory. Or wait and hope that more of the dwarves here might yet escape this place of madness, but at the cost of the enemy achieving an unstoppable advantage.

  She knew the path the siege forces would secure, for she had traveled it, and then nothing could stop more of them from following. The Slip-Tooth Pass would take them into the north, unseen until too late. The very tram tunnel that she had used would lead them right to it.

  Unlike the horde of undead buried by time in the plain beyond the Lhoin’na forests, nothing would stop an invasion of the living from swarming over it, even into First Glade. Perhaps that was what they were after most of all, that one place the undead couldn’t go. And then what would become of the Numan nations? Without First Glade, there would not even be a fragile sanctuary for the few who could reach it.

  There is no more time. Either believe or not. If so, go and find what is needed. But if you die before it is your time, all is lost.

  Wynn shrank in self-recrimination for all that she’d thought of Deep-Root in the passing season.

  He turned and fled into stone.

  Wynn choked for air, still immersed inside the memory.

  Over and over Chuillyon prayed until the rise of Chârmun’s presence within him grew into a pure silence, as if he were alone and all that was left alive in this world—as least for one more moment.

  And that moment lingered on and on . . . too long.

  Chuillyon clung to Chârmun’s presence as he barely cracked open his eyes.

  He stood there . . . alone . . . staring toward the dark breach where il’Sänke had madly thrown himself to his death. Even the flickers of fire on the stone had died, leaving only trails of smoke filling the air.

  Where had the creature gone? Why would it leave him alive? For an instant, he wondered if his prayer to Chârmun had affected it, but that was a foolish thought.

  From the moment Hannâschi had fallen, he had barely had the wits to think or feel anything. His gaze drifted to her, lying on the floor, and then continued onward, stopping at the charred pile that had been Shâodh.