Rowan plummeted through the darkness, her body palsied with terror. Any moment, the ground would catch her, shred her bones! If there was a bottom, and she wasn't just falling to hek...to land at Hekki's feet.
But the bottom never came. She was hurtling through ropes of sticky white silk, tumbling and thrashing in it. Until she wasn't falling anymore, but dangling, swaddled in web. Upside down and helpless.
Gasping, she twisted and fought, but the icky stuff was like adamantine silk—impossible to break. It took her a moment to realize that she was only making it worse by panicking. Every time she thrashed about, the swinging earned her more sticky threads. She stilled, trying to calm herself as she scanned the darkness. Air sawed in and out of her lungs in great gulps and her blood thundered in her skull. Her fear tasted acrid in the back of her throat. She wanted to vomit.
She bit down hard on her bottom lip, forcing her mind to calm down. She was alive. There was hope yet! Thank the gods for warg vision, or she'd have been nothing but a hanging joint of meat. Though there was little natural light down here, there was some luminescence coating the cavern walls, delineating the rocks in an eerie blue glow. It was nothing the human eye could see, though, she was sure. Poor Meera would be blind down here. Unless Thresh had given her the night gift.
"Meera!" she called, searching the ropes of white goop strung haphazardly across the neck of the hole they'd fallen through. But there were no other bodies hanging. No other goopy cocoons struggling in the dark. She was alone in her horror.
"Calm down, Rowan!" she seethed, needing to hear her own voice. But it was garbled in the flood. The water was a violent cataract, gushing down over her, into her eyes and mouth. From what she could see, it emptied into a frothing underground river below that disappeared beneath a rock ledge. Farther up on the higher ground, there were fresh drag marks in the mud disappearing into a tunnel. Meera and the other two! They were alive! The jagged drag marks implied kicking and struggling. That was a good sign.
She scoured the underworld for other signs—anything that would aid her escape. The rock seemed roughly carved around her, and that tunnel below was a giant burrow of some sort. It didn't look like a natural cave chamber, with no stalagmites or stalactites. But what manner of beast could carve rock like this? The vishwa, of course.
She gave a shiver and tried again to free herself. Directly below, the mirok dagger was gleaming in the mud and water. Little good it did her down there. Her wolf amulet, nixrath chain and all, lay out of reach, too, having slid off her neck in the fall.
The dagger wasn't the only weapon down there, either. Swords and axes and all manner of broken blades were strewn about the floor. Some were old and rusted, and it looked like the rock was slowly subsuming the iron. Beside her dagger lay Merritt's thick chain of nixrath silver. Beside it, the soldier's vambraces had been ripped off and discarded, too.
She wished those items were all that lay within view. But the cavern floor was bestrewn with bones and old skin. Human bones, too! Matted hair draped over yellowed skulls, jaws askew and teeth missing. There were other beasts she couldn't name. Desiccated femurs jutting out of the mud, old clothes, and rotted leather boots. Wherever she was, it smelled putrid, even with the water streaming in. Again, her stomach heaved with hot vomit.
It seemed she was swinging over an open grave that was guarded on one side by violent water. She squinted towards the tunnel with the drag marks. Only one way out...if she didn't count that growling river below.
There was no sign of fresh blood that she could sense. No smell of recent death. Whatever had happened to Meera and the other two, they weren't dead. Not yet.
She took a deep breath and let it rush out of her lungs, expelling some of her panic. With minute movements, she managed to get her hands free of the sticky silk. The iron clamped to her wrists seemed slightly resistant to the web, and she carefully used that to her advantage. Getting her legs free, however, was proving impossible. All the while, the water roared in around her to join that infernal river below.
Even with the noise, she still heard it. An insidious clicking sound. It was coming from the tunnel, getting louder. She froze. All except her gaze which skittered to the tunnel. She held her breath to keep it rasping out.
She saw its eyes well before she saw the hulking silhouette in the tunnel, her vision waterlogged. Unblinking, glinting black eyes. Horror spewed like hot venom in her gut. The thing scuttled closer. Then it halted abruptly and raised its empty gaze up to where she was hanging like a piece of meat.
She wanted to scream, but her lungs were seized. She'd never seen a vishwa before—she didn't count that brief glance she'd caught the night she'd escaped. This thing was terrifying.
It stood straighter, the better to see her, its head jerking curiously to the side. It was taller than a warg, far taller even than Thrax. But whereas the wargs were all brute brawn and towering sinew, this thing was insect-thin. Hairless. The eyes were large, gleaming obsidian orbs. Emotionless. Like a skull with spiders creeping in the sockets. It made her skin crawl.
Its thorax was long and narrow with slits along the ribs almost like gills. Its white, scaly skin seemed hard as bone. The lower half of its body was...grotesque. Human, and undeniably male, except that from the waist down the body seemed back to front! The two fat nodes at its groin looked more like buttocks, and the cock dangling from its backend was a hideous, ball-less thing. Her eyes bulged to see a piece of stringy white goop dribbling from the slit.
Though the body was largely alien, the creature's white face looked almost human. Except for its mouth. The jowls were strangely furrowed with folds of excess skin. But it wasn't the furrows that disturbed her. It was the awful pincer-like fangs protruding from the corners of its mouth, clicking together. A fiendish click-click-clicking, like it was smacking its lips as it watched her.
She screamed as it rushed forward suddenly, climbing spider-fast up the wall with sharp fingers. With one quick swipe of its razor claws, the silk was sliced free. Still screaming, she hurtled to the ground, her legs glued in web.
Stars exploded in her vision as she hit the ground, and it took precious seconds to gather her wits. Before she knew it, the vishwa snatched up the severed silk rope and began dragging her along, feet first, as though she was nothing but a snared rabbit.
Though she kicked and screamed, it made no difference. Her fingers snagged a root and she held on with all her warg strength, but it was futile. Her fingernails ripped as she was yanked away. The vishwa was stronger. Much too strong.
If she wasn't terrified before, she was now. That terror slipped its clammy black claws around her guts and twisted them tight. Through the clamor of terror and thundering water, she watched her drag marks sweep over those of the other three that'd come before.
Her throat was so raw, her screams were becoming dry coughs. It took her a few seconds to realize the vishwa had stilled. The next instant, the sound of a roar blared through the chamber. Not the roaring of water but a warg!
She snapped her head around. The vishwa dropped the tether and spun around to face the newcomer.
Thresh was kneeling in the whirling water, having landed on his feet. But it was a Thresh she'd never seen before! He was crouching on two feet, muscles rippling for attack. His face seemed frozen in half-shift. Neither wolf, neither man.
He snatched up one of the forsaken broadswords at his feet, the metal ringing against the rock. It earned a vicious clicking from the vishwa. As he approached them, leading with his pitted sword, he bared his long fangs, his pointy ears flat against his skull. The mane of grey fur around his head and neck was bristling, his arms bulging, claws black and lethal on the hilt. He'd never looked so threatening. Now he was as terrifying as the vishwa. She hadn't known that wargs could half-shift like this.
The two beasts faced off, taking the measure of each other. The vishwa attacked first, lunging, its long fingers like sharp prongs. Thresh brought his sword up in a vicious arc, but the Vishwa was fast. It leaped up at the wall, scurrying out of reach. Every time the warg advanced, the vishwa dodged out of the way on nibble legs. As this macabre dance unfolded—advance, dodge, attack, sidestep—Rowan worm crawled towards her mirok dagger. There were other more intimidating weapons closer to hand, but she didn't trust a weapon she'd never used.
At one point, the vishwa swerved out of the way of Thresh's sword, its toes impaling the mud close to her reaching fingers. She gasped and snatched her hand back as the vishwa darted away again. Her heart pummeled her eardrums as she lay gaping at where the vishwa had nearly severed her fingers.
"Stop arsing about and cut your bonds!" Thresh snapped at her, eyes locked on the vishwa.
"I'm trying!" she snapped, half terrified, half frustrated. She was about to tell him to stop dancing with it, but he charged at the vishwa again, his roar splitting her ears. She gritted her teeth, watching him hacking away at nothing but falling water and dank air.
The vishwa was too fast. At least Thresh was just as good at evading the vishwa's lethal swipes, though. They appeared equally matched. For now. The few times Thresh got a blow in, the sword managed naught but shallow cuts. It looked good and sharp, but it never penetrated the vishwa's hide. The thing was just playing with Thresh, fleering at him with harsh clicking. But for how much longer could this go on?
"Don't touch the web!" Thresh shouted over his shoulder, panting hard.
Again, she snatched her hand back with a hiss. "Is it poisonous?!" Her heart flopped into her gut. She was covered in the stuff.
"That's how they find you in the hive!"
Rowan blew out a breath, slumping. Not poisonous, then. She dragged herself the last few feet to her dagger, avoiding the little silk threads rooted in the mud, waiting to catch unsuspecting prey. They wound around in the mud like fat arteries. Were her eyes deceiving her or did they seem alive, pulsing sinisterly all around. If so, where was the heart of the hive? She hoped she wouldn't have to find out.
With her mirok dagger, she began gouging at the sticky bonds around her boots. Adrenaline rushed like tiny shards through her veins, prickling along her flesh. When she accidentally nicked her ankle, she hardly felt the pain. All the while, her gaze tracked Thresh.
She watched as he feigned another attack. This time, as the vishwa swerved out of the way, Thresh's sword was already swinging up to meet the tricky bastard. The blade caught the vishwa in his eye, spilling pus-like ooze and milky blood.
Until that moment, the thing had done nothing but click maniacally at Thresh. But the moment its eye was struck, its pincer mouth ripped open in a terrible shriek.
She felt the ground beneath her tremble with the sound. It was calling for help. And the hive was listening. The white, icky veins trembled around her and she felt her throat close up as if the veins were coiling around her throat, choking her.
With another shriek, it lashed out its razor fingers and gouged a deep gash in Thresh's chest. Thank Maeda, he deflected the second blow, and blocked the one after, too. But his chest was seeping dark red blood, and soon his movements would grow slower and weaken.
With a final stab of her rondel, Rowan was free. Ignoring the pain of blood rushing back into her legs, she crept closer to the combatants. She knew she was no match for the vishwa. If Thresh couldn't beat it, what chance did she have? Still, she couldn't just stand around being useless.
It had its back to her, its one good eye beetled at Thresh, pincers gnashing in rage. She was no threat to it. She was nothing. Why else would it turn its back on the enemy? Her whole life she was underestimated. Always useless. Even the vishwa seemed to know that about her.
Not anymore.
A sudden calm descended as she took a running vault into the air. Her arm was raised, dagger at the ready—like an arrow arcing through the dark. There was only a brief moment when Thresh's eyes bulge in disbelief. But it all happened so fast. One moment she was flying, the next her dagger was lodged deep in the vishwa's skull.
She took a gash to the arm for her effort, the vishwa claws spilling blood. The moment the dagger was in, she used its hard back as a springboard and leaped out of the way.
But her movements weren't all graceful. She hit the ground and rolled, twisting her ankle and skinning her chin. She scrambled onto her feet, watching the vishwa jerk in its death throes, the spindly body turning in a macabre death dance. With a final shriek, it dropped at Thresh's feet.
His breathing was belabored and his killing gaze still bent over the vishwa. His sword hovered at the ready, but there were jagged chinks in the blade. Whatever the vishwa scales were made of, it was harder than steel. But not harder than a mirok fang.
Wide-eyed, she stared at the dagger in her grip. Her rondel was soaked in milky pus. Not a single bit of damage to the blade.
"You could've done that sooner," Thresh panted, dropping the dented sword.
"You're welcome," she said, picking up her wolf stone and securing the chain around her neck. Then she limped over to where he stood, her heart still in her throat.
They both froze as the sound of a clicking echoed down the tunnel. Not one set of pincers but many! Gods above, they wouldn't survive even one more vishwa attack, never mind a horde of them. Thresh was injured and she'd only gotten that lucky stab in because the thing had been focused on gutting Thresh.
"We can't take them all on," she whispered, her body wracked with tremors.
"We aren't going to." Thresh swiped up Merritt's nixrath chain and hurriedly dropped it over her head. "I am."
All that weight of nixrath felt like a guillotine around her neck. "Are you mad!" She eyed his bleeding gash. He'd barely defeated one of those things!
He dropped his hands to her shoulders. "I'm going to buy you time, Har Kani. Don't waste it!" Then he pointed down at the sharp rocks in the bubbling river. "Get below and hide. The nixrath will confuse your scent and keep them back."
She stood shellshocked as he kicked the dead vishwa into the whirling river. "Thresh, I...I..."
"You're wasting time!" he barked, "Get in the water and stay invisible until I've lead them off your scent. I need to find Meera." He lifted her up before she could raise another objection and then he lowered her into the turbulent water. It was frigid, biting into her skin like a thousand pins. Ignoring her gasp, he said, "Hold onto those rocks and keep your head out of sight." Then he released her.
"I c-can't s-swim!" she cried, clutching to the rocks.
His grin was like steel. "Then don't you dare let go."
She glared up at him, her teeth chattering too violently to answer. In Hekki's cauldron she'd always kept to the shallow, always glimpsed the bottom of the crystal waters. But here...the water was black and bottomless beneath the seething froth. This was, without question, Hafsalir, the River of Souls. And it wanted to drag her straight to Hekki.
"I have a better chance of saving Meera," Thresh said, "if I don't have to worry about you, too." He started to jog away but halted suddenly. His back was to her and she couldn't see his face. "Thrax is coming, just hold on. And remember not to touch the web—don't let them know you're here."
She stretched her neck up to look over the ledge. "Be c-careful, Thresh!"
"The queen won't kill me..." The word "yet" filled the darkness, unsaid but no less deafening.
How could he possibly know that? She wanted to shout for him to come back, but her teeth were clenched and the cold was seizing her bones. He was already vanishing into the tunnel towards the terrible clicking, and she dared not utter a sound, lest they hear her.
She waited in the icky water for what seemed like forever. At one point, she heard something scuttling around in the cavern, the sound of its clicking pincers drawing near. She squeezed her eyes tight and sank lower into the darkness, thankful for the roaring water and the nixrath around her neck. After a moment, the clicking sound moved off. Her breathing was shallow and so rapid, and there were black dots swimming in her eyes. She felt sure the vishwa would hear her, but the thunder of water filled the darkness.
Her fingers were white and her bones frozen like claws. She probably couldn't pry her hands off the rock even if she wanted to. How in Maeda's name was she going to get out of this river? Did she even want to? After all, wasn't it better to drown than to feed a vishwa?
Damn, Thresh for leaving her here! She was useless once again, hiding here in the cold darkness asking herself morbid questions. A large part of her was ashamedly relieved he'd forced her to stay. They were all going to die down here in this Hekki-cursed place anyway. But there was one last question niggling her conscience. Would she rather drown, or die fighting? It sounded so noble in theory, but she was terrified.
Her arms were so sore already. If she stayed in the water much longer, she was afraid her muscles would atrophy. If she was going to move, the time was now. No matter how useless and stupid anyone thought her, one thing was certain—she wasn't one to roll over and die. She'd never given up before, nor accepted a cruel fate, and she wasn't about to start now.
She took a few hearty breaths, steeling herself for the climb out. One last breath, she promised herself. She sucked the air deep into her lungs. But it burst out in a scream as a shadow materialized above her.
"Shhh!" A hand shot down over her mouth to stifle the sound. "Brek's teeth, woman!" A low, familiar growl penetrated her fright. "It's me!"
Her relief was so powerful, she began to sob. His scent chased away the darkness in an instant. Her muscles turned to wet ribbons as his hands grasped her wrists.
He'd come for her! Thrax was here!