From Iron and Ruin

Darkness so familiar.

Chapter 28: Darkness so familiar.

It took a moment for my head to settle and my ears to stop ringing.

When they did, I was moving.

"Kohen!" My hands fell against the thick, dark stone. It was jagged under my hands, but I knocked against it even as it cut into my leathers. "Kohen!"

Faintly, I heard my name being called in response. A sob choked my throat. Why did everything always have to explode around me?

"Aviana!" Another voice. Greydon. His voice was faint. "Is that Aviana?"

"It is," Another voice – smooth and confident. "I hear their heartbeats."

In any other situation, I would have laughed. Kohen, Matthaeus and I had the strongest senses of all the people here and we were all trapped away from each other.

"We need to get out of here," Kohen said through stone, his voice heavy and panicked. "There is a sickness in the mine and it goes deep into the root of the earth."

"We'll find another path," A damned trap. I should not have joked about it. "Be safe."

"Is that Shiny!" Gwen was the easiest to hear as she bellowed. "I can hear you Shiny!"

Ah. Of course she could hear me. Trolls were cave dwelling creatures. It comforted me that they were with her and I had Mahon with me. No mine and no enemy would stop him from getting out. With promises that we would find our respective ways out and one very vicious command by Gwen that I 'find my way out or else...' I turned to the unconscious lord laying sprawled across the ground.

His face was sullied by dark dust and blood ebbed from a wound on his hairline. Silver magic twined around my hands as I knelt beside him. I checked his breath and his pulse. Alive. As I began to heal him, my attention moved frequently to the doorway where the dropped torch still burned.

Dust tickled my nose and my throat and I spluttered a cough, grimacing as my healing cast went awry as it clotted that wound on the lord's head. "You will have a scar, I'm afraid." I told him, steadying my hand.

He didn't reply. I didn't really expect him to. I spoke to him as I healed him, trying to imagine myself as one of the Magin healers in Adotlan and Haaling who had always been so soft but efficient. "At least I don't have to explain to Norab that his friend and lord has died. Well – we could still die, but..."

I let loose an uneasy laugh. "Let's not talk about dying."

Shut up.

"Mahon," I rose to my weary feet, moving around so I could hook my hands under Ainthoch's arms. "I will need your help with him."

He gave me no reply.

"He will wake soon. Hopefully," I reassured the Captain. As I began to pull on Ainthoch, he groaned in pain.

A heavy man. Gritting my teeth, I moved him so that I could examine the open wound on his leg better. "Mahon I would appreciate your help," My tone was sharper now. "I am strong, but I don't figure Ainthoch's chances of survival if I have to help him walk and fight whatever comes from the darkness."

I positioned Ainthoch against a more secure piece of wall – I wasn't sure if anything was secure, but it didn't look like it was just about to fall over, so it was much better than his last position. I looked down at his leg and the gash, so dark and deep, that had been cut into it. Even with a healing cast, he wouldn't be walking out of this mine without help.