Unbroken Chain

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ashok and Skagi started down the tunnel, and after a distance encountered another intersection, then another beyond.

Skagi cursed. “Now what? We report back?” he said, sounding disappointed.

Ashok came to a silent decision. It was a risk, but if he didn’t act now, either dissension in the ranks or his enclave would kill them all.

“Follow me,” he said and took the tunnel to the right off the second intersection. He moved fast. Skagi had to trot to keep up with him.

“Where’re we going?” Skagi said.

Ashok raised a hand for him to be silent. He listened for signs of anyone coming from the intersection behind them, but he heard nothing.

“Keep moving,” he said, and continued on down a straight, narrow passage that would take them past the food preparation area. The animal pens were just beyond that.

“Godsdamnit, Ashok, you’re going to get us lost with your guessing,” Skagi whispered.

Ashok hesitated at the next intersection. Skagi was not a subtle warrior, by any means, but he wasn’t stupid either. Sooner or later he would start to suspect that Ashok knew exactly where they were going.

Then, the answer came. It was carried on the wind.

“Do you smell that?” Ashok said.

Skagi sniffed the air. “Blood,” he said.

“Someone’s been fighting here recently,” Ashok said. “Maybe the captives are striking back?”

Skagi grinned and drew his falchion. “Maybe they’d like some aid?” he said.

“We should expect guards,” Ashok said, and Skagi nodded eagerly.

They moved ahead, and the smell of blood and rotting meat grew more intense as they passed the food preparation rooms. Ashok stopped at an intersection and risked a quick glance around the corner.

The door to the slaughter chamber was barred, as it never had been when they kept animals in there. Ashok’s heart pounded. There was hope after all that the captives were still alive.

Two guards stood at the door. They carried a mace and an axe, and there were bloodstains on their armor. Ashok knew he wouldn’t get away with simply knocking those guards out. He’d made his choice, and he had to live with it.

“Quick and silent,” he whispered to Skagi.

Skagi nodded, and together they charged around the corner.

The guards saw them and were so shocked they froze with their weapons against their chests. Ashok whipped his chain around the neck of the one with the mace. He pulled it tight, choking off the guard’s breath and severing the throat vein in one motion. The shadar-kai gargled on his own blood and slid down the wall.

Skagi hit the other guard in the flank with his blade, but the weapon passed through empty air. The guard teleported a few feet away and reappeared at the mouth of the passage where Skagi and Ashok had entered. She ran down the tunnel, her insubstantial form wavering in and out of the torchlight.

“I’ll get her,” Skagi said. “You get the captives out.”

“Wait!” Ashok cried, but Skagi took off before Ashok could stop him.

Ashok went to the door and yanked up the bar sealing it shut. He listened for a breath and then opened it.

Inside the slaughter chamber, the stench was overpowering. Had his mask not blunted the smell, Ashok would have retched. Blood, waste, and an underlying air of decay filled the room.

From the doorway there was a short stair leading down into a roughly circular chamber. A second door on the opposite side of the room led to more guard areas as well as an underground river. Along the left-hand wall were dozens of thick-barred iron cages of various sizes, some stacked on top of each other. Within the smaller ones, coneys, foxes, and spindle-legged deer crouched, watching Ashok with large eyes. Ravens and crows let out deep-throated caws from the higher cages, and feathers fell in a black rain.

To Ashok’s right, two iron bars were suspended lengthwise by chains from the ceiling. From those dangled blood-stained leather straps cinched tight enough to hold an animal’s front and hindquarters. Beneath the bars someone had placed a long trough to catch the blood and organs as they were removed.

Two of the leather straps were not in use. They dangled free and were half-shredded as if from the claws of a struggling animal. The others were cinched tight around the wrists of a naked shadar-kai man.

There were no guards in the room. Ashok secured the door behind him and went cautiously down the stairs. He approached the captive but could already see the man was dead, and thanked the gods for that small mercy.

Ashok raised his hand to press the mask more fully against his face. The man’s body dangled limply from the straps, his bare feet brushing the inside of the trough. His toes had been removed and lay in a pile of blood and urine at the bottom. His genitals had been cut off as well.

The man’s flesh had been split from his navel to his breastbone. The shredded halves had been peeled back, exposing his insides to the air. Ashok did not spend time examining the crawling movement he could see from the open cavity.

The captive’s face was shockingly peaceful, his head bent forward, his chin against his chest, his eyes closed. His shaved head bore several open wounds where it looked as if his captors had carved out the tattoos from his flesh. There was the rough imprint of a sword just above his left ear.

“Tempus take your servant. Give him rest.” Ashok murmured the prayer without considering what he said. “He’s suffered enough.”

He heard a sound then from one of the cages. Ashok spun, his dagger ready in his hand, but there was no movement and no other sound, only the animals watching him from behind the bars.

He moved along the row of cages, releasing the catches to let the animals run free in the room. Ashok wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it-the sounds the animals made could alert someone outside the room. But something in their eyes compelled him, or maybe it was just the sight of the dead shadar-kai. There was a flurry of wings and clumsy shuffling as the beasts, too long confined, tried to learn to walk again.

At the end of the row, in the largest cage, Ashok found the remaining Ikemmu captives.

He released the latch-the cage wasn’t even locked-and stepped inside. The low top forced him to stoop, but he could still stand on his feet. Ashok clutched his dagger reflexively against his chest.

There were five of them left, counting the man outside. The naked corpse of a woman near the cage door had been mutilated in much the same way as the man had been. Her fingernails were split and broken, or worn down to the bloody quick where she’d fought the straps.

At the back of the cage, the bodies of a man and woman had been propped up in a half-sitting position, their arms and necks tied with chains looped around the cage bars. They sat with legs splayed and wore sweat-stained tunics but no breeches.

Ashok crouched to examine them. There were no visible signs of mutilation, until he saw the dried bloodstains between their legs.

Overcome at last, he staggered away on his knees until his back hit the cage wall. The force knocked the breath from his lungs. Ashok put his head between his knees and breathed through his mouth. The smell clung to his clothes, his hair. He would never be rid of this vileness.

When he’d gotten his breathing under control, Ashok thought he heard another sound. He looked up and stifled a cry.

The man had his eyes open and was looking at Ashok.

Ashok couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d assumed they were all dead. How could any of them be alive in such a charnel house? They were so still that even the man, staring at him, looked like a corpse with a faint light in its eyes.

Another woman lay a few feet away on her side, her back to Ashok. He couldn’t tell if she breathed. She’d wrapped her arms around the cage bars and pulled herself as close to the wall as possible.

Swallowing, Ashok went over to the man and began working the chains at his neck. The man’s eyes tracked what Ashok was doing, but otherwise he remained completely motionless, with no expression on his face.

Ashok got the chain loose enough to slip over the man’s head. Without the tension to support it, the man’s head lolled forward. Ashok caught it, and gently pushed the man back to rest against the bars. Then he went to work on his hands.

When Ashok had finished, he went to free the woman. As he worked the chain at her neck, he listened for a heartbeat, for breath. He heard nothing. She was gone.

Ashok laid his dagger aside and supported her weight as the chains fell free. He laid her body down on one side like the other woman. He wanted to give her some semblance of dignity. As he did that he spoke to the man.

“Can you walk?” he asked. “We don’t have much time.”

Ashok reached back for his dagger, but it wasn’t where he’d left it. He looked up and saw the man holding the weapon in both hands. He was so weak he could barely raise the blade above chest level to brandish it. His hands trembled, but his expression remained detached. He might as well have been holding an apple for all he knew what to do with the weapon.

Ashok raised his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I’m from Ikemmu.”

Nothing. Not a flicker of recognition.

“We were sent by Uwan-by Tempus-to rescue you,” Ashok said. “Do you remember Uwan?”

“U-wan.” The man’s lips came together clumsily to form the word. His voice was a shredded whisper. Ashok could see faint bruises on his throat where he’d been choked.

“That’s right,” Ashok said. “Uwan wouldn’t stop until he found you. I’ve come to bring you home.”

“Home,” said the man. He sighed and let the dagger rest in his lap, running his fingers over the hilt. “Tempus be praised.”

“We don’t have much time,” Ashok said. “If you can walk, I need you to check your companion,” he pointed to the other woman, “to see if she lives. I’ll be right outside.”

He was going to take the other body down and conceal it behind the trough so his companion wouldn’t have to see it. He headed for the door of the cage, but stopped when he heard a strangled gurgle.

Ashok spun around. Horror washed through him.

The man fell back against the cage bars, his body twitching. He’d stabbed himself in the chest with Ashok’s dagger. The hilt was held between his two hands, and an expression of utter peace suffused his features. His aim had been true. The life went out of the man’s eyes as the blade penetrated and stopped his heart.

At that moment, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and Skagi entered the room. Ashok barely registered the warrior’s presence. He was trapped in the cage, unable to look away from the dead man’s peaceful countenance.

“Tempus be merciful!” Skagi said. He saw Ashok in the cage and ran over to him. “What happened here?” he demanded in a raw voice.

Ashok couldn’t find the words. He just shook his head. He was looking to the other woman, but all the strength had gone out of his body. He didn’t want to look, was terrified to see any more of the brutal work of his enclave.

“Ashok? Ashok!” Skagi said, shaking his arm.

Ashok slowly came back to himself. “Where are the others?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Skagi said. “I killed the guard and came straight back. She had time to yell up and down the caves before I took her, so we can expect company soon.”

“Go find the others,” Ashok said. “Tell them … what you saw.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Ashok said. “We’ll have to clear a path out of here.”

Skagi nodded and backed out of the cage. Ashok could see the relief on his face when he left the torture chamber.

Steeling himself, Ashok went to the other woman. He reached out to touch her shoulder, and several things happened at once.

The crows flying around the room cawed loudly, and the woman rolled onto her back in one violent motion. Her hands clawed at Ashok’s face. She caught his cheek and raked with her blunt, ruined nails. Ashok felt the fire lines across his face and wet blood drip down his neck.

He hurled himself back, his hands up in defense, but the woman did not pursue him. Ashok retreated against the opposite wall of the cage and stayed there.

Facing him on her side, the woman brought her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. The bones of her skeleton shone clearly through her taut flesh. Ashok couldn’t imagine when she’d last been fed. Blood-matted hair fell in uneven chunks across her face. She put her head down, as if trying to make her body as small as possible.

Ashok tried to get a look at her eyes, but he couldn’t see through the curtain of her hair. Staying crouched he came toward her a step and stopped to gauge her reaction. She didn’t move, only curled tighter into her protective ball.

“Ilvani?” Ashok said, with a knowledge he didn’t at first comprehend. Then he saw it, in the shape of her face, an echo of Natan’s countenance. Ilvani had survived, despite all the horrors she’d experienced.

She had survived. And if it killed him, Ashok would see her returned to Ikemmu.

Ashok pulled the mask down so Ilvani could see his face. He reached up and fumbled with the catch of his cloak. He pulled the garment off and took another crouching step forward. He spread the cloak out on the ground between them like a buffer, then he backed away until he was against the opposite bars again.

He waited, his hands between his knees, to see what she would do.

He could feel time slipping away, precious breaths they needed to get out of the caves before the enclave realized what was happening and sealed off all the escape routes, before they ran them all down and hung them from the straps over the slaughter trough.

His breath tight in his chest, Ashok forced himself to wait, patiently, to make no reaction when she stretched out one hand, scraping it across the floor until she could grasp a corner of the cloak with her fingers.

She pulled the garment toward herself, threading it through her hands as if through the eye of a needle. She covered her body and curled into herself, pulling the cloak over her head. Ashok’s heart wrenched in his chest.

“Ilvani,” he said brokenly, “can you hear me?”

He waited, not really expecting an answer. More breaths ticked by, and finally, no more than a whisper among the bird cries and animal stirrings, she answered.

“I hear.”

“My name is-”

“Ashok,” Ilvani said, cutting him off. Her voice was quiet, but strong. “I hear your name on the wind.”

“You knew I was coming?” Ashok said.

Beneath his cloak, Ilvani moved, but she did not uncover herself. “The wind whispered your name,” she said. “I tried to keep it, but they took all my boxes away.” She sounded sad, her voice growing fainter as she spoke.

“That’s all right,” Ashok said. “I’m here now. I’ve come to take you out of here. Back to Ikemmu. Back to Natan.”

Ilvani sighed. Ashok could see the cloak moving with her breath. “I remember him,” she said. “I walked with him in dreams. So many beautiful, twisted faces. I told him not to be unhappy.”

“You’ll see him again,” Ashok said. “But first, will you look at my face?”

Silence, and a tremor through the cloak. But a breath later, her hand emerged, long, delicate fingers curled into claws still stained with his blood. She pulled the cloak down so he could see her face.

“Who are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

“I am Ashok,” he said patiently. “I’ve come to take you back to Ikemmu, but we have to move quickly or we’ll be trapped here. I know you don’t want to be touched, but I need to know if you can walk. Will you try?”

She considered him in wary silence, but then she put her hand against the ground and pushed herself to a sitting position. With her other hand she held the cloak around her like a shield.

The crows cawed again in warning, and the other door to the chamber opened.

With his heart in his throat, Ashok looked up to see a single guard enter the room. He shut the door behind him and didn’t immediately appear to notice Ashok. He was too busy watching the animals running free in the room.

“What’s this?” he shouted. “Godsdamnit, Fridl, I told you to check the cages!”

He came into the room, swatting aside the crows and ravens circling the air. Ashok moved to the cage door so he wouldn’t get himself trapped, and the guard noticed him at last. His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Ashok’s eyes took in the guard’s clothes, stained with blood that was obviously not his own, and the locks of red hair tied with leather cord hanging from his belt. He looked at Ilvani, at her uneven, blood-stained hair, and a snarl ripped from his throat.

Ilvani shrank back against the bars of the cage. A wail rose in her throat, like an animal trying to claw free. She raised her hands in front of her face and began beating her head against the cage bars. The blunt sounds shivered through Ashok’s body.

“Ilvani, stop!” he cried, but she kept on, until she slid down the bars, unconscious. A trickle of fresh blood filled her hairline and ran down her forehead.

The guard saw it all, but his gaze stayed riveted to Ashok’s face. Unmasked, Ashok saw the recognition in his eyes. The guard knew him, and Ashok recognized the man in turn.

Reltnar was his name. He had close-cropped black hair and a fresh scar across the bridge of his nose. Ashok remembered he and Reltnar had prowled the Shadowfell together in their youth, when both were still learning how to fight for their place in the enclave. Not brothers, not blood, but companions at least.

“Ashok,” Reltnar said. His voice gushed out in a relieved sigh. “I thought I’d seen a ghost, but … I thought you were dead. We all thought-”

“What’s going on here?” Ashok said, cutting Reltnar off. His gaze lingered on the blood and scraps of hair Reltnar wore. “Explain this.”

“That’s right, you weren’t here,” Reltnar said. “We took these after you left to hunt the hounds. They put up a fight, and we had to kill half their group outright. We brought the rest back here to question them, but they wouldn’t say where they were from or what they wanted.”

“Ikemmu,” Ashok said quietly.

“What?”

“They’re from the city of Ikemmu,” Ashok said. “It lies to the south. Did my father order this?” he asked.

Reltnar pursed his lips. “Your father was killed in the battle,” he said. “One of your brothers too, but the rest are still here.”

Ashok braced himself for the shock, but it didn’t come. He felt nothing at the revelations. “Who ordered this?” he said.

Reltnar looked confused. “No one ordered it,” he said. “After they wouldn’t talk, we were just going to kill them, then a few of us”-his forehead scrunched up as if he were trying to remember-“we decided … we were getting restless, and the fighting, it wasn’t helping anymore, so we came down here to fight the prisoners, only they were too weak. That’s how it started.”

Of a sudden, Ashok found himself remembering the wine he’d tasted that night in the Hevalor tavern.

It’s not like wielding a blade or taking pain from a dagger cut, but it’s similar enough …

“Listen, Ashok,” Reltnar said, sounding anxious. “I came down here because …” He nodded at Ilvani’s unconscious form.

Ashok’s brought his chain up diagonally across his chest. “No,” he said. “That’s all over now.”

“W-What?” Reltnar said, as if Ashok were jesting. “If you want a bit for yourself, I don’t mind sharing.”

He took a step forward, and Ashok sent one end of the chain flying. It clipped Reltnar on the ear and took off a chunk of flesh.

“Godsdamn you!” Reltnar said as he stumbled back and touched his bleeding ear. “What are you doing?”

“You want pleasure?” Ashok said. “Is that what this is to you? Did it make you feel alive, climbing into that cell with them weak and chained to the walls? You’re a coward, Reltnar. You didn’t stand on the edge between life and death, risking your own destruction at your enemy’s hands. Look at them, Reltnar. You took their souls, and now you’re feasting on the bones.”

Reltnar’s gaze hardened. “I don’t care,” he said, slapping his chest. “All the battles in the world won’t do any good! You see this?”-he flicked his maimed ear, spraying blood.-“I feel nothing.” He came forward again.

“By the gods, Reltnar, I swear I won’t give you another warning,” Ashok said. “You may not feel the pain, but you can bleed, and you can die.”

Reltnar’s face crumpled. He held up his hands in supplication. “Why are you doing this? I told you I’d share, but don’t take her away. I need this, Ashok. You don’t know what it’s been like. I stand guard in the caves and stare at dark walls. There’s no sound but the godsdamn wind, and I can feel everything seeping out of me, a little every day. The only time it doesn’t is when I’m with her.”

“Not anymore,” Ashok said. “We’re leaving, Reltnar. The enclave is finished.”

“Says you?” Reltnar said, barking an ugly laugh. “Did you think I was the only one using them? You already killed the other one. You’re a walking corpse if you try to take her out of here by yourself.”

“I didn’t come alone,” Ashok said.

The others were waiting for him. It was time to finish things.

No more hesitation. Not here.

“Stand aside!” Reltnar cried.

“No,” Ashok said.

He watched the rage take over Reltnar’s face. Ashok’s former companion came at him stumbling in his fury and desperate need. Ashok dodged to one side, leaving the shadar-kai a path to the cage door. Reltnar went for it as soon as he saw the opening, like an animal chasing a piece of meat into a trap.

As he passed by, Ashok calmly pivoted and slipped his chain over Reltnar’s head. The metal noose stopped Reltnar’s forward movement, and his momentum drove the spikes into his neck.

Warm lifeblood spilled down Reltnar’s chest, but he barely reacted, except to stiffen and raise his hands to grip the chain. A reflex, nothing more. Reltnar’s fading attention was fixed upon Ilvani’s unconscious form.

Ashok let Reltnar’s body slide to the floor and wiped the blood off his chain with the shadar-kai’s cloak. Listening, he heard faint shouts coming from the tunnels.

They’d discovered the dead guard, Ashok thought. Or worse, they’d found the others and were already cutting off their escape.

Ashok put his chain on his belt. He paused before the dead man at the back of the cage, but in the end he left his dagger protruding from the man’s chest. He’d chosen his death, and Ashok would not violate his flesh any further.

Wrapping his cloak tightly around Ilvani’s shoulders, Ashok picked up her unconscious body and made for the stairs.

The door opened before he got there, but Ashok saw it was Cree. He breathed a sigh of relief. The warrior’s left arm was covered in blood, but from no wound of his own.

“You found them?” Cree said. He sounded out of breath.

“Ilvani is the only one still alive,” Ashok said. “The others are …”

Cree put a hand on his shoulder. “Skagi told us,” he said grimly. “We met up with him in the tunnel.”

They ran as they talked, backtracking to the intersection where they’d all split up. Vedoran, Skagi, and Chanoch were waiting for them. Chanoch had a small wound at the corner of his mouth, but otherwise they were unmarked. Shouts echoed from all directions, but the cries were disorganized, and Ashok heard the metal clash of weapons, and the screams of wounded.

“You found them?” Vedoran said.

“Only Ilvani,” Ashok said. “But Natan will be relieved.”

“If we make it out of here,” Vedoran said as he beckoned them all to keep moving up the passage.

Ashok, still holding Ilvani, ran up beside Vedoran. “What happened?” he said. “Did they raise the alarm?”

Vedoran shook his head. “We encountered a group in the tunnels, heavily armed,” he said. “We thought they were a patrol, but then they were set upon by another, larger force. They decimated each other, and when they saw us-”

“We joined the fray,” Chanoch said, his voice trembling with excitement. “We took them all.”

“They’re fighting each other,” Vedoran said. “As near as we can tell, instead of realizing they’d been invaded, they thought they were betrayed from within.”

Skagi hooted with laughter as they ran back through the tunnels the way they’d come. “Ikemmu!” he cried. “Tempus!”

A few more steps and they would be at the long tunnel and beyond that, freedom. They fell into close formation as the passage widened.

Ashok felt a stirring in his arms.

“Stop!” Ilvani cried. Suddenly awake and alert, she was struggling to free herself from his grip.

“It’s all right,” Ashok said. He set her down on her feet and grabbed her elbow when she swayed. “You’re safe now.”

She was smaller than Ashok had realized, just over five feet tall. And with her skeletal thinness, she was barely visible in the folds of his cloak.

“I need my satchel,” Ilvani declared. “He has it.”

“Who does?” Cree asked.

Ilvani didn’t reply. Her eyes went vacant. Ashok could imagine her going back to that slaughter chamber in her mind, to Reltnar, and the locks of her hair he’d kept. It wasn’t a thing anyone should have to remember. Ashok had a feeling he would be trying to banish it from his own mind for a long time.

“The guard who was watching the prisoners,” Ashok said. “He must have had it. I left his corpse back in the room.” He touched Ilvani’s shoulder, drawing her back from the dark places in her mind. “Is it important?” he asked.

“It holds the winds,” Ilvani told him soberly. “All the voices-they broke some of them, but not all …” Her voice failed. “Not all,” she whispered.

Ashok was torn. The voices-the real voices-in the tunnels were growing louder. Scattered as they were, it was only a matter of time before the enclave pulled itself together enough to realize what had happened. All it would take was one look at the dead guard and the open cage door.

Ashok looked at Vedoran. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” he said. “She’s been through too much; it’s hurt her mind.”

“No it hasn’t,” Cree said. “She sounds almost normal.”

“What?” Ashok said.

“She was like this before,” Skagi said. “Weren’t you, mad witch?”

But Ilvani wasn’t paying attention. She got down on her knees and pressed her ear against the cavern floor. “We can go now,” she said. “They won’t know.”

“We’re not going back,” Vedoran said. “With those intersections, we’ll be hemmed in from all sides. You’ll have to let it go, Ilvani.”

Ilvani stood up slowly. She turned to stare at Vedoran, her empty gaze uncomprehending. Ashok felt the look like a knife twist in his gut. Vedoran didn’t blink.

“Come on,” Chanoch said, weaving his bloodstained blade in the air. “We can take whatever they have. Let’s get the witch’s satchel.”

Vedoran caught Chanoch’s wrist, stopping the display of waving steel in midair. “You heard me,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “We’re leaving.”

“Damn you,” Chanoch said, wrenching his arm from Vedoran’s grip. “Go on, then, you Blite coward. I’ll do it myself.”

For a breath it stunned them all. Ashok recovered first and cried, “Chanoch, no!” He lunged for the young one’s arm, but his hand passed through empty air as Chanoch teleported down the tunnel. By the time he reappeared, he was half out of sight around a bend in the tunnel.

Skagi cursed. “Now it’s done, and we have to go,” he said. “Ready, brother?”

Cree saluted with his blade. “Always,” he replied.

Ashok noticed neither of them looked too disappointed. “Vedoran?” he said, looking to their leader, who stood frozen, his expression unreadable. “Vedoran?”

A muscle in Vedoran’s jaw worked. He looked at Ashok. “Yes, let’s go,” he said.

They ran down the tunnel, Ashok behind Ilvani, all of them plunging back into the heart of the chaotic enclave. Ashok felt a swell of dread in his stomach. He pulled his mask up around his face and took up his chain.

At the first intersection they collided with a pair of shadar-kai, man and woman, who’d been running just as hard from another direction. When they saw the group, they skidded to a stop and stared for just a breath. That breath cost them their lives.

Vedoran came at them both, and with one stroke took off the man’s arm at the elbow. The man shrieked as his mace and appendage hit the floor. Ashok saw him try to concentrate, to teleport to safety, but Vedoran came in hard, hacking at him relentlessly. Animal fury consumed his face, making Ashok shiver. He knew at whom that rage was directed.

Skagi and Cree dispatched the other guard before Vedoran was finished. Vedoran wiped blood from his eyes and mouth and motioned them on.

They hit the next intersection and heard running footsteps coming from the opposite direction. Cree trotted forward, setting his blades against the charge, but then Chanoch came into view in the dim torchlight. He was blood-spattered and vicious-looking with his blade leading the way. Wild glee shone in his eyes. He held up a dark green velvet bag tied with a black leather cord.

“Yours?” he said to Ilvani proudly.

The witch came forward and took the burden from his hands. She handled the bag as if she were cuddling a newborn, pressing the stained cloth against her cheek.

“I hear you,” she said. “All the little ones.” She looked up at Chanoch. “My thanks.”

“We have to move,” Ashok said.

“Go,” Vedoran said. “Ashok, stay by Ilvani; the brothers will back you up. Chanoch and I will lead the way.”

Chanoch moved to the front to join Vedoran. He didn’t look at his leader.

They ran back through the tunnels the way they’d come, but Ashok could tell immediately that something was different. The voices had quieted. There was no longer the sound of reckless shouts and the screams of dying shadar-kai.

“They’re mustering,” Ashok said. He pointed to where the passage widened into the long tunnel. “Once we get to the last stretch, they’ll have gathered. We’re too late.”

Vedoran kept on running, his gaze fixed on the distance ahead. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “Kill as you run.”

“Kill as you run,” Skagi agreed, and Cree and Chanoch’s wild shouts echoed in the tunnel.

Ashok looked down at Ilvani, who ran unsteadily beside him. Her long confinement had taken all her strength. Ashok gripped her elbow when she stumbled, but she pulled away as soon as she’d righted herself.

“Don’t,” she said. Short and sharp. Ashok nodded.

The group hit the tunnel at a dead run, and there they were. Warriors had gathered to cut them off from the entrance. Ashok didn’t see any of his brothers, but there were plenty of faces he knew.

“Keep going,” Vedoran ordered, but he needn’t have bothered. All of them knew what fate awaited them should they be captured.

Luck stayed with them, and they took the first group of shadar-kai by surprise. Vedoran and Chanoch cut through the lead two warriors with their blades and didn’t break stride. Plunging into the next group, the brothers fanned out beside Ashok and Ilvani, protecting their flanks. Together the group was a rolling gauntlet, but the wide space was a blessing in more than one way.

Ashok whipped his chain above their heads and let it fly at the warriors that managed to teleport into the midst of the group. Instead of scattering them, the warriors appeared to stinging strikes from Ashok’s chain. Over and over he sent out the spikes, and each time they returned to him bloody.

“Stay at my back!” Ashok cried to Ilvani. The witch moved behind him without looking at or acknowledging him. In fact she appeared oblivious to the battle, or to any fear of its failure. She clutched the green satchel against her chest and ran along with them, stumbling often, but always picking herself up.

They fought on. Ashok tried to gauge where they were in the long stretch, and when he realized they were not even halfway near the entrance his heart sank. No time to rest. The warriors who survived their initial pass were starting to fall in and attack from behind them, forcing Skagi and Cree to the back to protect Ilvani.

A shadow appeared in front of Ashok. He had just enough time to bring his chain up before the warrior solidified in front of him and attacked with a dagger in each hand. Ashok blocked the first dagger, but the second got through and found a slit in his armor. Still moving, Ashok didn’t immediately feel the pain.

He raked his chain down the warrior’s arm. The shadar-kai cried out and took a step back onto Chanoch’s waiting blade. The warrior dropped to the ground, and Ashok stumbled over the body. Forgetting her protests, Ashok hauled Ilvani forward over the obstruction, and Skagi and Cree bunched up against them both. Vedoran and Chanoch didn’t see this and kept running, creating a huge gap in their protective wall.

“Wait!” Cree yelled after them, but it was too late. Five shadar-kai teleported into the gap and split the group in two.

“Go left!” Skagi told his brother, and he angled right to cover the far ends of the tunnel. They each picked off a warrior and pressed forward, out of reach of Ashok’s chain.

Ashok had no time to marvel at the brothers’ skill or strategy. He took advantage of the open space to swing his chain in an arc, striking the ground in front of him to slow the charge of the three other oncoming warriors. Two men and a woman, they tried to dart in to form a circle around Ashok and Ilvani, but Ashok snarled behind his mask and snapped the chain at their legs, catching the woman in the thigh. A bright spot of blood welled up through her breeches.

“Get down,” Ashok said, and Ilvani crouched and moved a safe distance away. Ashok calculated he only had a few breaths before more warriors closed in from behind them. By that time he hoped Skagi and Cree would be free to cover them again.

“Not hounds, but you’ll stand in just as well,” Ashok muttered under his breath. He remembered that day on the plain, crouching in the kindling tree. So long before, but the desperation that coursed in his blood was the same. He drew it in with each breath, fed on it, reminded himself over and over that he was alive.

He thought of the nightmare, of riding the beast through the paddock, blazing bright fire licking off his hooves and mane. The images were so clear in Ashok’s mind-he held onto them all, grasped the end of his chain, and bore down on the three shadar-kai.

His body became a blur before his own eyes and those of his targets. The chain coiled around Ashok’s body and then flew out like an extension of it. He barely guided the motion with his arm. A black, writhing aura snaked up the chain, settling among the spikes like lengths of silk. The chain ripped a long gash in the woman’s side. Ashok yanked the weapon free and carried on to the next enemy. He moved too fast to assess what he left in his wake.

He caught one of the men in the neck. A hard leather collar only partially absorbed the blow. The spikes dug into the shadar-kai’s ear and ripped it off, along with a sizable portion of the his cheek. The man screamed and clutched his face, losing his weapon in the process, but even that Ashok did not celebrate. His third target, the other man, was close enough for him to smell, but he had one stroke left in him, and he used it to rip open the man’s thigh.

The black aura surged once, as if feeding, then it peeled away from the chain, and absorbed back into Ashok’s own body.

Ashok turned to check on Ilvani and saw the witch crouched several feet away, watching him intently. She stood when he beckoned to her and followed him back to where Skagi and Cree were finishing off their opponents.

Ahead of them, things were much worse.

Vedoran and Chanoch were surrounded and bleeding liberally from multiple wounds. Vedoran’s cheek had been sliced open. The flaps of skin and the shadar-kai’s burning, unfocused gaze as he hacked at the line of enemies were ghastly to behold. Chanoch’s hysterical cries to Tempus filled the tunnel.

Ashok shot a glance at the brothers and saw the fatigue in their faces. Their guards wavered; he knew they wouldn’t be able to hold their weapons up much longer, let alone fight the lines of shadar-kai still before them.

He gazed up the tunnel. They’d passed more distance with the last surge than he’d thought. They were over halfway out.

So close. Ashok looked down at Ilvani to see if she realized how desperate the situation was. But she merely stared blankly ahead of them. The mob of shadar-kai could have been a swarm of insects for all she knew.

“You’re a witch,” Ashok said. “Do you have any magic that might aid us?”

Ilvani blinked and tucked her satchel close to her neck. She glared at Ashok. “Do you want to talk to them?” she said. “You think they have a care for what you say?”

Defeated, Ashok could only shake his head. Skagi and Cree had waded in to try to relieve Chanoch and Vedoran, but there was a long distance between them. It would be where they would make the last stand, Ashok thought. He had no dagger to give Ilvani to do away with herself, when the time came. Perhaps, if he wasn’t cut down, he could do the deed himself.

Ashok put his body in front of the witch and prepared to wade into the fray. Up the tunnel, in the distance, a cry rang out. Not the warrior screams of the shadar-kai, or the death cries, but something much more horrifying, magnified a hundred times by the cave.

The sound caused the line of shadar-kai in front of them to fold. They went to their knees and clutched their ears against the sound, their faces twisted in agony. Never had they heard a sound such as that, a scream that would invade their deepest nightmares long after the cry had faded away.

Ashok had heard the sound before; he knew it intimately. And in its wake only he, Ilvani, and the rest of his group stood on their feet, too bewildered with exhaustion and pain to believe what had come to their aid.

The nightmare thundered up the tunnel, his large body filling the tall space. He burned everything in his path, and the warriors who did not recover themselves to jump out of the way were trampled under his flaming hooves.

The beast stopped several feet away from Ashok and tossed his head imperiously. He had tasted blood, Ashok thought, and gloried in it. As he watched, the nightmare turned and started a charge back up the tunnel.

“Go,” Ashok cried, pulling Ilvani along, shoving Skagi and Chanoch and Vedoran until their trance was broken and they were all surging forward.

The warriors scrambled to get out of their way. Ashok cut down the few who tried to reach for them as they ran past. Breaths before, they’d been trapped behind a wall of death, and yet they were flying, following the rolling fire, until Ashok saw the brittle daylight of the open Shadowfell.

The nightmare dropped back as the enclave gathered itself to mount a pursuit. Ashok pushed his group toward the entrance. “Get out,” he ordered, and fell back to join the nightmare.

“Where are you going?” Skagi cried.

“We’ll cover your escape,” Ashok said. “Don’t stop until you get back up the valley.”

The nightmare slowed enough for Ashok to leap on his back. Fire surged greedily along the beast’s spine, but as before it did not reach Ashok’s flesh. Together they rode up the tunnel, and Ashok let his chain swing free at any enemies who got in their way.

The warriors saw him coming and fell back, but Ashok ran them down, shouting, urging the beast forward. The only thought in Ashok’s head was to let the nightmare taste blood, to let the fire burn a path through the enclave and burn all the images of the slaughter chamber from his mind. He let the nightmare run and let the beast within himself free, hacking a path until the tunnel became too narrow for them to continue.

The nightmare whickered and pawed the ground, as if he wanted to tear the walls apart. Ashok urged him back and around, and with the way clear of living things, they charged down the tunnel, the wind whipping the flames around Ashok’s face. His eyes stung, but the tears were not caused by the flames. He sobbed and screamed as he rode, and the nightmare screamed with him, warning all enemies and friends away.