Stolen Songbird(95)

My heart skipped a beat and I splashed backwards, eyes on the stone above me, which seemed deceptively solid. My way was blocked and I would need to find another. Wading back, I climbed onto the boulder and weighed up my options.

There were two: turn back or go upwards and to the right. I refused to consider the first – I had come too far for that. But next to the markers pointing to the right were ominous curved lines – sluag.

Even though the water was icy, I felt hot. I kept imagining the white bulk of the sluag rearing up in front of me, its poisonous stinger shooting out like a whip. My beam of light trembled as I pointed it into the passageway. I closed my eyes and listened.

Silence. And fear, both Tristan’s and mine. His had grown considerably and that could only mean my absence had been noted and his father’s wrath was at hand. The trolls would be after me now if they weren’t already. I had to hurry.

The passage to the right soon opened up into a wider space. It was easier for me to pass through, but it also meant more room for even the largest of sluag. I could smell them. I stepped softly and tried to keep the rasping of my breath to a minimum. They hunted by sound. It was the sound of our shouting that had lured the sluag to Luc and me before. If I kept silent, I might pass unnoticed. From the stench, it seemed likely that at least one of them had fed recently and maybe it wouldn’t be hungry enough to seek me out.

I pressed my hand against the damp wall to steady myself against the slippery drop ahead. Gripping the handle of my light, I navigated the sharp rocks, clinging to them with my free hand as I eased my way down.

I took a step forward and my heel slipped, sending me crashing down hard on my bottom. “Don’t scream, don’t scream!” My voice was a harsh whisper as I fought to stop my slide forward, but the surface was sheer and my clutching fingers found no purchase on the slick stone. I smashed up against a rock and bounced sideways, a sob escaping my throat before I managed to suppress it. All I could do was protect my light. It was possible I might survive a broken limb and battered ribs, but if I lost my light, it would be the end of me.

I slid faster and faster. The light shining between my feet showed only slick rock and never ending blackness, and then suddenly, there was nothing beneath me. I was flying out over nothingness. I screamed, my hands flailing to break my fall. The light-stick flew out of my grip and with dull horror, I heard it smash just before I splashed into a shallow pool of water and slime.

A vile stench filled my nostrils as I gasped for breath in the utter blackness. I was coated in foulness that even my panicked mind recognized as sluag shit, and I groaned when my fumbling hands brushed against the skeleton floating in the pool. My aimlessly searching fingers latched hold of something cold and smooth and I pulled it out of the slime. The heavy metal shape felt familiar in my hands and my fingers roamed over it. A duck. A golden duck.

This was Luc’s corpse.

I shoved my filthy sleeve into my mouth to muffle the sobs that I could not suppress. There was no way out. A shower of pebbles rained down onto the pool, and my howls cut off abruptly as I held my breath to listen. But nothing else stirred. I huddled in terror in the cold wetness of water and offal next to Luc’s bones. I had no sense of direction; not even of up or down or the size of the space around me. The darkness was unforgiving and my frozen body refused to reach out to discover the limits of my circumstances. I was terrified. It was not like the terror of running from a wolf, always knowing you can turn and fight. It was not like the sense of drowning, where there is a chance to flee to the surface. From this darkness and this place, there was no escape. I could neither run nor hide, and no one can fight the dark. All there was left for me to do was die.

But the very idea of ending it here, interned in a pool of offal with an idiot like Luc, struck fury in my heart. I wasn’t injured or starving. There was hope yet. I began to move, feeling around in the pool in search of Luc’s pack. The trolls must have given him a lantern to replace the one I’d lost, and I was certain his pack would contain a flint for lighting it.

My fingers brushed against rough fabric, and I hauled it upwards, knowing from the weight that it was the sack containing the rest of his gold. I felt around inside, pulling out smooth coins one after another until I determined there was nothing of use inside. I started sorting through the gold on the floor, but found nothing but metal and rock belonging to the mountain. No flint.

“Where did you put it?” I muttered, forcing myself to concentrate and remember the moment I had seen Luc first light the lantern. I remembered the desperation I’d felt at being deprived of sight, the splatter of water against my face as he’d climbed out of the pool, and the sound of steel striking against flint. And sight. In my mind’s eye, I saw the glow of light, and the movement of him tucking the small rock into his coat pocket.