Cursed: Traitor's Trail

Chapter 7 Part 1

It took Aya time to realize that they couldn't see her, backed into the shadows with darkness falling around her. Fear had pitched her mind past the point of reason.

“Then we go that way,” the leader said. “Theron requires her and our priorities are clear.”

Well, that didn't sound friendly. And it didn't seem wise to wait around and find out if it was or not. Instead, she pushed deeper into the rubble pile. A system of tunnels twisted within, broken stone and things she couldn't name surrounded her. Her fingers brushed something smooth and cold, dust came off with her fingers and dim light shone visibly in their trail, a reflection of the evening sky. Survival pressed her, or she might stop to examine it. The path was wound to the left and she ducked and twisted around narrow corners until, at last, she came upon a great slide of debris, which opened into a massive cavern. Here, the little light that filtered through the tunnels disappeared and the world became an unknown vat of blackness, flowing downward. She bit her lip. She didn't want to go down into the dark. Behind her in the tunnel, clicking armor approached.

She tapped her fingers against her leg, she didn't want to be caught even more than she didn't want to go into the blackness. So, she scrambled downward with little thought other than getting to a place where the tracker could not follow. She struggled with the descent, her bound hands tangled and pulled at inconvenient moments. Such as when teetering at the edge of a precipice. She ended up crawling and trying to shuffle lower without gaining too much momentum. It worked—sort of—she moved, faster than one might choose, given the unknown below her, but she didn't fall. Another strange material brushed her hand; hard and smooth like stone, but not cold, and so light that it moved easily when she hit it with her scrambling legs. She reached for it, hoping to get a chance to study it thoroughly but slid past before her fingers could grasp a hold.

As she edged lower, light faded into a darkness that would inspire paralyzing fear if not for her worry of being followed. Eventually, solid blackness forced her to make her way by touch alone.

The climb went on forever, in her mind a deep, endless pit lurked below where a misplaced foothold would send her tumbling for eternity. Surely not. Logic told her the cavern must end somewhere. These ruins made no sense, why build atop a hole? An enormous hole.

She slid lower and forced her attention to the shifting stone and rubble beneath her feet. So much of the ruin existed below the surface, and all without the clan's knowledge. The mystery perked her curiosity, some deeper secret lay within these rough stone walls.

Carefully and slowly, she descended until, at last, she reached level ground, or, rather, stone flooring that lined the bottom of the cavern. At the top, through the weak light from the tunnels, the silhouettes of three men stood, debating how best to navigate the slide. Her lips twitched downward. Would they never give up?

From the bottom, the cavern was not as dark as she first thought. Rough holes poked through the clogged layers of soil caught between tangles of other materials, allowing small beams of light to filter down. When her eyes adjusted, she found a maze of litter on the cavern floor with spaces and nooks throughout, conducive to getting lost. Or losing someone.

She made her way quickly, while still maintaining caution, toward a tunnel propped up by a great piece of...wood? She stopped and stared. It was the largest piece of the material she had ever seen; large enough to come from the trees of the Forest Kingdom. It brought to mind the tree from her dream at the wall, great and tall and straight. Except, not...great and tall and straight, but leaning precariously against a tall pile of crumbled stone and debris, its tip leaning heavily on a single mouse-sized stone, which, in turn, supported the entire tunnel. In no way did it look structurally safe. She hesitated to go anywhere to close to it. But then, she reasoned, the king's men may hesitate, too. Careful not to jostle anything, she slipped beneath the beam and worked her way through more broken bits of wood and light flat stones, marveling as she went. Who were these ancients?

When she managed to get a fair distance up the tunnel, far enough that the collapse of the beam shouldn't squash her, she stopped and wiggled her way into a little nook. Then she waited. How long would the men search before they gave up?

She sat for a long while, listening and hearing nothing. She hardly dared to move, the king's men could be anywhere, and visions of them stalking nearby, just waiting for some signal to pounce, floated through her head. Quite possibly, they lurked close enough to be alerted by any sounds that she made; at least one of them had tracked her trail above with skill and knowledge, and, as such, would be good at sneaking up on things without them seeing. Even now, he might be creeping closer and she would never know.

She began to feel closed in, her nerves jangling like those of cornered prey. The more she thought about it, the more she became certain they had found her, hope floundered in her heart. What chance did she have at escape, really?

Tension filled her limbs. Should she run? Or just give herself over? What if they decided to kill her on the spot? She had given them a fair amount of trouble.

With those thoughts in her mind, it was little wonder why, when the scream echoed through the dark, she jumped like a frightened mouseling, sending pebbles showering to the floor around her.

To be fair, the scream echoed wildly through the hollow space, a bellow of terror and pain and it came from one of the men, not nearly as far off as she would have liked. Before that moment, she had been scared. Now she was terrified. What demon crazed hell caused that sound to come out of a grown man? The scream cut off abruptly, followed by the shouts of the other men.

Someone just met their death.