Empire of Ashes

Chapter XLVI - Broken Within

I turned around to go back my own level, still dazed, and as I passed the entrance to a tiny crevice of a side tunnel, something heavy smashed into my left side. I was knocked into the rock wall, my leg gashed open against the dram tracks.

Instinct had me squirming to face my attacker, but they were wedged on top of me, pinning my chest to the ground. I couldn't turn — I could hardly even raise my head and move my ribs to take a breath. Hands clawed at the back of my neck and lifted my head to dash it against to ground. Once, twice, and I could feel my consciousness slipping towards an abyss even darker than the mine.

My body began to panic. I knew I would die if I didn't do something, so I tried to do everything. My arms moved at an unnatural angle to catch the hands at the back of my neck, and I dug my fingernails into the bare skin until I felt hot blood welling. My legs twisted sideways to find leverage against the wall and kicked out, over and over. I could feel the weight on top of me swaying, but they weren't dislodged.

And then I managed to flip my hips, and the rest of my body was forced to flip with them. I got the barest glimpse of my attacker — it was a girl of my age with dark, matted hair and feral eyes. And I moved my fingernails towards those eyes and started gouging. Within three heartbeats, she had scrambled backwards, off me, and I was free to punch and kick. We rolled over a few times, back and forth, before I managed to pin one hand beneath my knee, break the other, and get my hand around a grubby, slim throat.

"Stop it," I managed to say. "Stop it or I'll dash your brains out."

It wasn't an empty threat, because the dram rail was inches from her scalp. I took a fistful of her hair and dragged her head backwards until it rested on the sharp metal, just to show her I meant it. One of my shoulders screamed a complaint, but adrenaline-fueled as I was, I hardly noticed it.

She stopped struggling. Instead, she hawked and spat at my face, knowing full well I didn't have a free hand to wipe it away. So I spat back, and she hissed at me.

I stared down the tunnel. The occupants of level eight were watching us warily. Not one of them had moved. I wasn't annoyed or angry, although perhaps I should have been. I was just a little disappointed in my fellow Cambrians.

"That's Alisa," the first miner told me. "She's not right in the head."

The tunnels would do that to a person. I could feel it, and I had only been down here a day. But the stifling air, the absence of light, the cold ... it could break anyone, given long enough. I found my mood tending towards forgiveness, because I was bleeding and I needed to get back to Tem before nightfall.

"And you would have watched her kill me?" I asked tonelessly.

"Sorry," he muttered and shrugged his massive shoulders. "We have to live with her, and she remembers this shit."

Slowly, I wiped a smear of blood from the corner of my mouth. "So do I."

He averted his eyes. I took that to mean that blood-soaked and mangled as I was, the threat had been taken seriously. Maybe, the next time an intrepid adventurer ventured down this tunnel, they might bother to speak a word of warning. Satisfied, I let go of the girl's hair, released her throat and eased off her.

She rolled onto her hand and knees and scuttled back the way she had come, moving at a devilish speed. I waited to see her disappear into the gloom before I began crawling back towards the shaft. My right shoulder couldn't take my weight, so I had to limp on three limbs.

It didn't matter that it was excruciating. It didn't matter that every part of my body hurt in some way. It didn't even matter that I hadn't found Tommas. Because Emri might be alive and well and so, so close.