Plummet to his death? Vincent had already fallen into the storm, away from whatever the hell that thing was. He had landed in the maw of one of those terrors, ensnaring himself in a coffin of flesh. Menik had to repeat himself several times before he got the message and snapped back to the moment. He immediately recognized the shryken's claustrophobic method of imprisonment. The metallic carapace that had frozen him in place resonated with his hyperventilation. He couldn’t see anything except darkness, but he thought he heard Menik’s voice echo off a chasm.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and winced. His chest throbbed, feeling like it had been struck several times with a sledgehammer. Several more pains jabbed at his neck and shoulders. He realized his head was turned sideways, but he ignored the discomfort and focused on modifying the shryken's biddings.

“Do nothing rash. You are several steps away from a drop that will kill you,” Menik warned, “the slope you are on is steep, but I fixed your grip around a handhold to keep you from falling.”

Now that Menik pointed it out, Vincent could feel his right arm stretched upward. His fingers gripped some sort of divot in the stone. He also noticed a sharp pain in his shoulder blades. His body had been frozen in a strange, contorted pose and his muscles were protesting against the prolonged posture. What in the hell had happened while he was asleep? Why couldn't he hear any of the other soldiers or any of the stormspawn? Those questions could wait. He withdrew just enough of the shryken's substance from his mouth so he could speak.

“Tell me what to do,” he said. He was glad to hear Menik’s voice, to hear that he was still alive.

“Just stay where you are,” Menik said, “my spark died shortly after the fall, so I can’t provide any light for you to climb. I will come to you, but for now, just wait.”

“What happened?”

It was painful to speak, but the agony in Vincent’s arm and neck would only get worse the longer he stayed frozen in this contortion. He didn't think he could bear it. “Last thing I remember, Akhil was saying something about a bridge. Then we got attacked...and...” The shandan started dying.

“There is a formation around here known as Shella's Island. It is a small plateau surrounded by–” Menik winced in pain. Was he injured? “–Surrounded by open chasms. They are part of a cave system whose roofs collapsed ages ago. The plan was to cross the bridge to Shella's Island and fend them off from there. But before we could get there, we were ambushed by a large number of them.”

He dropped several expletives before continuing. “Some of us,” he groaned, “were forced to flee in the opposite direction from the rest. What happened next is only my guess: we were chased over a weak section of roof and it collapsed, dropping us both into this cavern. It was a tree root that saved us. Its roots slowed the collapse, giving me enough time to grab you, leap off and grab one. It swung us into the side of the cavern before breaking loose. To make a long story short, I didn't have enough grip to haul both of us up, so I fixed your hand to the slope with the shryken you carried.”

Good God, Vincent thought, how in the hell did Menik do all of that?

“When are you going to come down here and get me?” he asked. “I must have done a number on my chest. I don't think I broke anything, but it's–” Knives stabbed at his torso as he coughed. “It hurts like hell.”

“'Done a number?” Menik repeated.

“I'm injured. I think I can loosen the shryken around my chest while keeping my arm solid so I won't fall.”

“Do not,” Menik commanded, “I will make my way to you in a moment. I am closing a wound.”

“You can...do that in the darkness?”

“As a part of our training, The House of Siekh sends each of us to go live in man-made caves so we can learn how to survive without light. If your eyes are blinded, then your other senses become your new sight.” Vincent heard Menik tearing fabric. “So yes, I can dress my wounds in the dark.” Silence followed, pierced only by the sound of knitting. “There...that will hold,” Menik muttered. “Now...I will come to you.”

Vincent heard the shuffling of wings and claws against stone. Several dislodged rocks tumbled by, several of which pinged off his metallic carapace before falling into the chasm. Menik tapped around the rock until he found Vincent, then he lowered himself beside him.

“Before I remove the dagger,” he said, “know that it is not a difficult climb, but be prepared to maintain your grip. The shryken is supporting your weight for now, but you will need to pull yourself up. Spread your wings and hug the surface.”

“Spread them, hug the surface?” Vincent repeated, unsure of what he meant.

“Remember, you have four arms, the wings are the arms that begin at your keel, your chest. Spread their hands wide against the stone, use the webbing to grip.”

“Yeah...I think I got it. I'll count to three and when I say 'three', go ahead pull it out.”

Vincent took a deep breath and did a slow count. When he reached three, he felt the shryken’s metal being slurped off his body. Gravity yanked on him with an unprecedented amount of force. He reached his free hand up to the hand hold and held on for his dear life with both arms. Bones popped and muscles protested. His feet scrambled to find purchase in the smooth stone surface. Eventually his left foot found its way into a small fissure. It wasn't much, but it gave him some stability. With some concentration, he managed to spread his wings out. Since the limbs were anchored to his chest, their movement agitated the wound. Menik caught his right wing while the left lay flat against the stone.

“Use your wings to feel around for handholds, then reach out with your arms.”

“Ok...got one.”

On three, he pushed upward and Menik pulled. Once they crossed the threshold onto a shallower slope, climbing was much easier. But Vincent still needed Menik to guide him forward. The wings added a surprising amount of friction and stability, acting almost like rubber mats. He didn’t want to test it, but he was almost certain if he had let go with his hands at this point, the wings and their webbing would stop him from sliding back down. The slope decreased until he was able to crawl. Then he was led into a natural alcove.

Vincent groaned as he felt around for a place to sit. His hands found a bowl-shaped depression next to a row of stalagmites. He splashed as much water out of it as he could, then backed himself into it tail-first, something no human would ever have to do. He reached up to the buckles on the back of his helmet and fumbled with them for a bit before unfastening their buttons. Then he removed it and set it aside, allowing the cool cave air to bathe his soaked scalp.

He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and realized how much he was trembling. He had spent most of the day riding galloping landriders, then confronting the stuff of nightmares. He hadn't eaten since early noon and now he was crashing. It was a miracle that he didn’t just simply keel over and pass out. Menik dropped a canteen onto his lap. After quenching his parched throat, Vincent thanked him and passed it back.

“Hey...I could use a little light in here,” he said, “that 'spark'...it's an artificial conduit right? Can you break it open and hand me some liacyte?”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“For what purpose?” Menik asked.

“I glow when I touch the stuff,” Vincent rasped.

He heard Menik pick the spark up and clap it against the ground until its casing cracked open. Then he had Vincent hold out his hand and placed a disk with a sandy texture into his palm. Celestials immediately bloomed from the point of contact, racing into his armor before reappearing on his neck and shooting up his wings. The light illuminated the entire alcove, revealing Menik, who sat just a few feet away, Vincent's transformation reflected in his orbs.

“Do you feel it?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

“Those...markings.”

“No. But I don't think I can fall asleep like this. It lights up the eyelids,” Vincent said, “can you help me take off this top piece?”

Menik had him bend down so he could reach behind his back and undo the clasps that held the chest-piece to his torso. It dropped to the floor and Vincent felt immediate relief. It still hurt like hell, but at least it didn’t feel like something was standing on his lungs. He set it down next to the chest piece. Both pieces were stained with spatterings of blue. At first, he didn’t know what it was, but then he remembered the soldier that had been torn in half. His blood now stained Vincent’s armor. Menik, ignoring the stains, picked the chest piece up and examined it, turning it over.

“The plates are dented,” he said, “I don’t know what you hit during your fall, but this saved your life.”

Vincent, feeling sick in the gut, held the liacyte disk in his lips so he wouldn't lose the light, then he went to work removing his shirt and jacket. He made sure the vial of Triasat was still intact, then he wrapped it back up and tucked it into its pocket. He would not waste it on this. The cave grew significantly brighter as he exposed his torso. He found a puddle of water and soaked his shirt in it, then wrapped it up and pressed it against the welt on his chest.

“So...what now?” he asked after removing the liacyte from his mouth.

“Use this.” Menik pushed over a familiar-looking block of wax with his tail while he worked a thread and needle into a cut on his forearm. It was the same salve Slade had used to treat his bruised ankle while they fled the kelta. “As for what we do? We wait.”

“We just...wait?” Vincent repeated.

“The opening we fell through is too far up to climb,” Menik said, “even if we made it up there, I lost my landrider to the drop, so we would be left facing any of those beasts we encounter on foot. I don’t like those chances. So, we stay here, where we are safe for the moment, and wait until we are found by either a zerok's sight or somebody's trace. That is the most we can do besides hope Akhil's and Oris's plans worked.”

Vincent said nothing more. He picked up the bar and applied it to his chest, grimacing. His mind drifted off to think about the imagery that had invaded the replay of his past. What had been under that cloth, a severed head? An organ? A fetus? It was something straight out of a horror movie, only it didn't frighten him as much as disgust him. He simply wondered if there was some sort of meaning to the bouncing object, some sort of message.

But he was more disturbed by the soldiers' deaths than he had been by that thing. He had been living in this world long enough, traveling with these creatures enough to feel an impact at their suffering. He knew almost from the beginning that Falius, whatever it was, whether it was a dream or delusion, would start killing people off when it sent him on this quest. That is how fantasies played out. He had mentally prepared himself for this...or at least he thought he did. He looked at his armor, at the soldier’s blood that stained it. He could still hear the creatures screaming as they were devoured. He could feel the warm splash of blood on his snout.

Then there were the afflicted tantalons themselves, with their deformed faces and their synchronous breathing. The deformations were disturbing enough, but their respirations were worse. Both man-like and beast-like, their agonized panting was unnatural, almost mechanical even, in the way they breathed in sync to the same beat. Their matching cadence was not unlike the chuffing of a locomotive as it pulled from its station.

Menik, who appeared to have tended most of his injuries, reached down to a leather tool roll he had unraveled across the ground at his feet. From it, he withdrew a bone needle and a ball of thread. Then he laid one of his wings across his legs, stretching a section of torn membrane across his knee. A painful-looking ribbon of flesh hung from the tear, its edges outlined in blue. He then pulled a leather-wrapped stick from the roll and put it into his mouth. After taking a deep breath, he got to work, hissing slightly as he threaded the needle.

He started at the base of the tear and quickly passed the needle back and forth, cross-stitching the seam as he pulled it back together. He followed one side of the ribbon to its tip, then he started back down the other. He was thorough in his work, leaving no gaps or openings. By the time he was finished, beads of sweat were running down the sides of his snout.

“That doesn't look very fun,” Vincent winced as Menik let the bite-stick fall from his mouth.

“More painful if left untreated.” Menik flexed his wing to test the stitching. “A tear like that will cause the skin to shrink to the digits. If that happens, the only option then is to restretch it or let it atrophy. You should carry a kit on you always. Keep it inside your armor.”

After covering the entire welt with the wax resin, Vincent handed the medicinal bar back to Menik. Then they both sat in silence, listening to the wind blow across the opening above. Vincent didn’t hear any sounds of conflict or combat, but he could not tell whether that was a good or bad thing. The lack of audible combat could mean that either the stormspawn were defeated or the warriors were killed. Or it simply meant they were too far away to hear. Menik’s jaws were clenched and there was pain in his eyes.

“I'm sorry.” Vincent said, breaking the silence. The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. Though his voice didn’t crack, there was a very slight quiver in them. He felt a clutching at his chest that had nothing to do with the wound.

Menik considered him briefly from the side of his eyes before turning attention to his broken lance, which Vincent now just noticed was lying next to him in two pieces.

“You broke the storm,” he said, “because of this, they will know you lived and will be looking for you. As for the losses, we were unprepared and suffered the consequences for it.”

Vincent watched a drop gather at the tip of a stalactite. It was as still as glass. It grew, deformed, then it fell. A few seconds went by before another began to swell and take its place. Droplets hung like tears from all of the stalactites, glinting with the reflected light cast by Vincent’s illuminations.

“I've never seen somebody get killed before.” Vincent said, only half aware he had spoken aloud. When he realized he had, the words sounded childish.

“You never get used to it,” Menik said, “but we won’t be caught unprepared again.”

It wasn’t a statement filled with a passionate desire for retribution. Instead, it was spoken as if it were a fact. The shandan sighed.

“You are not a soldier,” he said, his voice becoming terse, “but when I give you an order, you will obey it. When I tell you to lower your head, you will keep it lowered. If I tell you to throw yourself to the ground, do it.”

Vincent stared at the droplet on the stalactite, watched it fall.

“Life and death!” Menik said, “we are not safe out here.”

Vincent sat back and fiddled with the piece of liacyte in his glowing hands. He opened his mouth to say something but forgot what he was going to say. Instead, he continued to watch the stalactite drip. It was silent and slow. The water had probably been trapped in the stone for centuries. Finally, he nodded his head and said “yeah...yeah...” repeatedly. He didn’t know what else to say.

Tap...tap...tap...

Something distracted him, interrupting his train of thought as he felt a sudden fixation draw him to the wall in the cave. It lasted for a few moments, but it was long enough for him to recognize the sensation.

“You said they would use a...'trace' to find us?” Vincent asked, “I think I just felt one.”

“'Felt' one?” Menik repeated, “how can you 'feel' a trace?”

“I don't know. It's another one of my talents, I guess, but yeah.”

Menik stared at him, perhaps trying to decide if he was bullshitting or not. Then he grabbed Vincent’s chest-piece, opened it up, and began to bang the dented part on a rounded stalagmite in an effort to hammer the indentation out. Vincent placed the piece of liacyte in his mouth so they would not lose the light and put his shirt and jacket back on. He regretted soaking the former in water. It was cold enough to make him shiver.

“Put this on,” Menik said, holding his chest piece, “we want to be prepared to leave when they arrive.”

“I’m going to need help with that.”

Though the resin did seem to be working, easing away some of the inflammation with a tingling sensation, he still winced when the armor went back on. He had to have Menik leave it loose so he could still breathe. Then they both waited. Vincent shifted in his place as he struggled to find a comfortable position, and laid against the wall, letting his head sag. The weight of the headpiece held him there. He was trembling and he thought he could smell the subtly sweet scent of the soldier’s blood on the helmet. The headpiece gently caressed his snout with its pressure. He skirted the edge of sleep, until finally, he drifted off. Menik woke him up a while later.

“Wha–” Menik clasped a hand over his snout and told him to be quiet. Vincent must have dropped the liacyte because the cave was bathed in darkness.

“We are not alone,” Menik whispered, “do not speak and do not pick up the liacyte. It will be better if it does not know we are here.”