* * *

Ranjan quickly retreated to the wall, so that he could also cover the servant and child in case of emergency.

"My respects," said Cadfal, as if nothing had happened. "It's beautiful! It's like being back in the old days."

"Fellow Brether?" Ranjan asked curtly, breathing heavily and with his mouth like a man after a good run.

"No, I was going the other way. Grab it heavier, hammer harder."

"Ah, soldier. You're not much use," Ranjan threw the accusation, still ready to continue the fight with the Redeemers.

"I told you, we're with her," Cadfal reminded him. - Not with you. If she'd stood up for you, we'd have covered for her, and we'd have covered for you, too. But if she didn't, no offense."

"Ranjan pondered for a couple of moments on what he heard and suddenly lowered his sword with the words:"

"Fair."

He wiped his blade on the cloak of one of the slain, asking in passing:

"What's up ahead?"

"You can't go through there anymore," the redeemer reported laconically.

"Everyone's turned?" Brether didn't seem surprised or upset by the collective betrayal of the hired professionals.

"You made a mistake with the lamp," Cadfal said, peacefully looking at the club. "But I think they crack you before that."

Elena realized that she was pressed tightly against the crumbled wall, feeling the hardwood of the chest against her back. Her brother's words made no sense to her, but the Brether seemed to understand.

"For whom are they now?"

"For themselves. Kill you, resell the stuff."

Ranjan reprimanded, laconic and tired.

"They're the best of the best," he grumbled angrily.

"The harsh truth of life," Cadfal said. "The others were even worse. They could have all rushed in at once. It would have been harder."

Elena struggled to get away from the wall and thought it would be a good idea to calm the boy down.

"I see," Ranjan bowed his head, cocking his head sideways like a boar about to lunge. "Well, I'll find them all. The world is small.

The stingy promise, devoid of pretentiousness and loud words, smelled of the grave, but Brether's thoughts had already turned to something else.

"Does it make sense to break through? Did you thin them out enough?

"Not really. Two in the ground. The rest of them have a lot to think about and do. But the prison is being raided," said the redeemer in short phrases, still puffing heavily. "They are smashing it with a passion!"

"Who?"

"God knows. But they're well organized, acting according to plan and command. Apparently, someone wants to make sure no bandit gets out. There's no way through."

"Neither forward nor backward," Rapist said thoughtfully, running his fingertips along the blade of the spearhead.

"Are you with us?" Brether asked curtly, lowering his sword.

"We're with her," Cadfal's blood and brain-stained baton pointed at Elena.

The woman, meanwhile, squatted down, trying to comfort the boy. Elena had no idea how to comfort children who were frightened to death under such circumstances, but she did her best. It didn't work well, the child looked at the dead people with widened eyes and remained silent.

"Hel," Ranjan said softly. "Hel!" He repeated louder when he saw that the woman didn't hear, absorbed in her care for the child.

Elena turned to him in silence.

"There is no way out," the Brether said gloomily. "There are too few of us to fight way forward or back. There is only one way out..."

The thought of walking through the sticky mold, breathing air with spores of whitish nastiness, made her sick to her stomach. But the only alternative seemed to be another fight. And the companions seemed to be skeptical of the chances of success.

"Where does it lead?"

"I have no idea. Anyway, away from other people's swords. We'll find out."

"Give me your hand," Elena whispered to the boy. "Hold on tight and nothing will happen to you."

The boy obeyed quickly and clung to Elena's forearm like a lemur to a branch. Looking at the boy's palms, the woman thought in passing how much her hands had hardened over the past two years.....

Who are you, you scared little boy? Who'd want to drag you out of a city ready to bleed?

"Let's go," she said, heartily hoping she sounded confident.

"Light it," Ranjan ordered the servant curtly. He tossed the nearly burned-out torch aside again without a word and lit the magic lamp. It was the one that, according to Cadfal, had started it all. What was so special about it? It's unclear... The lamp seemed to be old, Elena noted with the experienced eye of a man from the Wasteland that it could only shine for a couple of hours, maybe a little more. Grimal removed and discarded the copper grate, so that nothing would diminish the dead, unnaturally even light.

Contrary to expectations, it was not difficult to walk along the side branch. For the first twenty meters, the debris of bricks interfered strongly, and then they gradually disappeared, giving way to stone slabs very precise fit to each other. It seemed as if the two tunnels had once been planned to be joined, but the work had been abandoned almost at the very end, then returned, completed, and then abandoned again.

The passage widened into something like a heavily elongated hall with a double row of columns. It looked like it had once been a warehouse. A slight draft suggested that somewhere ahead was a way out, or at least a large space. Grimal stepped carefully, holding the lamp. The bluish light picked out rusted torch hooks from the darkness, remnants of wooden poles rotted to sticky corpses. And everywhere was the familiar mold.

"Which way are we going?" Elena asked, not letting go of the boy's hand. He clung to it trustingly and stepped forward, trying to match the tall woman's wide strides. Elena couldn't figure out what she didn't like about this place. Well, besides the danger, the killing, the enemies, the pressurized dungeon, and so on.

"I have no idea," Brether snapped, but after a moment he added more politely. "Toward the mouth of the river, I think. If we're lucky..."

He either paused, having grasped some other thought, or simply did not finish the sentence, afraid to jinx it.

"This stuff doesn't even stick," Cadfal muttered. He picks up the sole and examines it. "It's like fluff!"

Elena didn't want to touch it because the substance did seem strange. It looked sticky, but it was shaggy, like the cocoon of a silkworm. As if...

"No rats," Grimal said quietly. It seemed to be the first words that had come out of the militant servant's mouth.

"Not really," Cadfal agreed. "But they don't seem to live. What do they have to eat here?"

"Rats are everywhere," Grimal disagreed.

She felt that somewhere and sometimes Elena had seen this moldy stuff before. The feeling was growing stronger and stronger, telling her that she had to think a little more and the realization would come.

"Halt!" shouted the Brether at the same time as the realization dawned.

It sounded so sharp and eerie that the little procession froze as one. Elena didn't need a command to freeze and hold the boy tightly. It was as if he had been waiting for it, hugged her around the waist, and pressed his face against her ribs as if hoping to escape the horrors of the underworld. And the woman thought it was clear where the prisoners from the lower tiers disappeared. And why, there are no rats.

Oh, we are in shit! ... we are in deep shit...

"Don't move," the Brether whispered in time with her thoughts. "In the name of God, not a sound, not a step!"

The falling drops sounded sharp and harsh in the silence. Moisture condensed on the high vaults and clattered against the stone floor. The drops were confusing, distorting the sound background, masking the other sounds, but Elena was ready to swear that somewhere very close by something rustled, fast and heavy, as if a heavy and large sack had been dragged with force.

"It's not mold," Cadfal dared to break the silence, but not loudly, very softly.

"It's a spider web," Ranjan whispered back, quashing Elena's desperate hope, what if she was wrong?

"There's a lot of spiders weaving it," Cadfal said, looking around and swinging his club.

Grimal raised the lamp higher and squeezed it tighter, trying to reach the farthest corners of the long hall corridor with magic light. The columns stood in the way of the magic light like sentinels, revealing wide swaths of shadows. And something lurked in those streaks. It remained invisible. Still, it revealed itself in the faintest rustle, the lightest knocking and scraping, as if the end of a rib bone had been driven through rough glass. And in the sense of mortal danger that spilled over the room like ink from a cuttlefish.

"And there aren't many," Ranjan raised his sword. "He's only one..."

"Gray Shadow," Elena exhaled simultaneously as the Brether.

And as if answering their voices, one of the shadows moved behind the columns, shifting wisps of darkness in place of feet, moving toward the men and sideways, circling its prey in an arc.

Elena hurriedly recalled what she'd heard about the Shadows. Some said the creatures were solitary predators, others that Satan's spawn lived in small prides. Some said that the multi-legged freaks appeared as a brood and began to devour each other over time until only one left, which could live for decades without stopping growing.

Unlike most of the Cataclysm's spawn, Shadows rarely found shelter in caves. As a rule, the predator occupied the hunting territory, covering the ground with a kind of signaling web, poorly visible in sunlight and completely invisible at night. The web did not stick, but it reliably indicated to the lurking creature that its prey was approaching.

Shadows could be killed or captured, even hunted by the most desperate and privileged tar brigades to sell to spider silk farms, but casualties were always guaranteed. Typically, a team would lose at the very least up to a quarter of its squad. There were only six of them now, and four if one counted only the combat-ready ones.

Where did the beast come from? It must have escaped from some silk farm, lurking in abandoned dungeons, cautiously crawling out to hunt. What a chance to run into each other.

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"Grimal, hold the light," Ranjan commanded quietly. "No matter what happens. Just the light."

The servant nodded. Yes, that was reasonable. With light, the chances were vanishingly small, but they were. And without light, no one would get out of the dungeon.

"Cadfal..." Ranjan hesitated, peering into the darkness at the edge of the illuminated patch. The range of the lamp seemed woefully short now. Maybe it was just getting weaker, having exhausted its magical charge. Or maybe the creature was jamming it...?

"I'm covering him," the redeemer realized and moved closer to Grimal.

Rapist without command or words intercepted the spear, preparing to defend Elena.

"Let's go."

Elena didn't understand who said it, but she obediently followed Ranjan. She wasn't just afraid. Fear was an understandable, understandable, familiar feeling. Dying was scary. Falling into the hands of bandits was scary. To meet a warrior-mage - scary. These are all understandable and obvious fears, tangible, obvious. But to end your life in the jaws of an overgrown arachnid in a forgotten dungeon where no one will even find your bones... By the way, are there any bones left after the Shadow...? It was all wrong, fantastic, and abnormal, like Italian fantasy movies from the long-ago era of videotapes. But the tattered figure, as if stitched together from shreds of darkness, moving just beyond the light boundary, seemed quite real.

"Close together," Ranjan said softly. "Or they'll tear us apart. Don't run and don't stop. If we go too fast, he'll think we're running away. Then he'll attack at once."

There were more and more cobwebs, the spider's lair must be near, and everything was covered with white-yellowish growths. The spider's lair must be close at hand, and the whole place was covered with growths of a whitish-yellowish color. Most likely they were the corpses of the unfortunate ones captured by the monster on hunting expeditions to the lower tiers of the prison. Strange, everyone said that the Shadows were the ones who devoured their prey, but these bodies seemed wrapped in cobwebs like those of ordinary fly-eaters.

Something squelched and rumbled in the shadows as if someone were trying to sip liquid through lips stretched out in a tube. Elena wanted to drop the medical chest as she walked, and already moved her shoulder to free the wide leather strap, but stopped at the last moment. Dropping it made sense when fleeing or in a fight, but under the circumstances, both seemed pointless. Maybe it would be possible to fight back, and the wounded would be on their hands....

The rescued child, clinging to the comforter's leg, was in the way. Elena cursed herself for not thinking to take a weapon from some dead man. She hadn't even thought about it, feeling like she was under the safe protection of the redeemers. Now all she had was a knife.

"Take him out," Brether said quietly, almost pleading. "Take him out. If I'm...

He didn't finish. At first, Elena thought the Brether had just caught his breath; after a moment she realized that Ranjan had simply heard it before she did, as the creature stirred again, scraping against the stone, moving parallel and across. Magical light illuminated the end of the hall into a new tunnel, narrow enough for a couple of people to fit through. If they could get through, they'd only have to defend one side, Ranjan's long sword and Rapist's spear keeping the creature at bay.

The next moment The Shadow protruded from the darkness, blocking the way.

Elena had expected to see something like Shelob from the Peter Jackson movie, but the half-magical creature looked nothing like anything the woman had ever seen or imagined. It was multi-legged, but clearly not related to arachnids. It was terrifying to think what could have been the basis for such a creature, what centuries ago the magical explosion of the Cataclysm had created... this.

The baggy body, as if sewn from several burlap bags, was covered with pinkish and lopsided skin, like a pig's. There were at least a dozen legs, but the long, slender limbs with angular joints were not spider-like but were wrapped in ropes of muscle. Each "leg" moved as if on its own, living with its own will, in constant motion, but all together they wove a relentless and sinister dance of quite purposeful movement

The jaws seemed spider-like, but only at first glance. The creature didn't have any stingers, but instead had a fringe of several thick and short tentacles, covered with some sphincters of immensely disgusting appearance. Above the "mouthbreathers" towered a head like a thick mushroom, and it was flanked by a series of unevenly planted and quite human-looking eyes that blinked without any order. Some reacted to light by constricting their pupils, others stared thoughtlessly, frozen in orbits. And the monster breathed, meaning it had real lungs. Its breath was wheezing, like an asthmatic's, coming from somewhere beneath its mouth tentacles, making the white films on the floor wobble.

"You're such a freak!" Cadfal whispered, raising his mace.

"Don't look," Elena covered the boy's face with trembling fingers and held him close. "Don't look, kid, it's just a bad dream."

Ranjan silently placed his sword forward and set his right leg aside like a hunter ready to take on a large beast with his spear.

"I am a sinner, and my deeds offend the gift of life that the Father has given me," Rrapist spoke very quietly and with sacred reverence. Judging by the tone and rhythm, he was reciting some kind of prayer, but Elena had never heard anything like it, though she had learned the basic recitatives of the Church of the Pantocrator by ear.

Cadfal straightened at the sound of his comrade's voice and squared his shoulders as if the words filled his soul with courage and washed away the scale of fear.

"He gave me freedom and will, he opened to me the way to goodness and paradise, but I chose sin, filth, and hell," Rapist said with fierce energy. "I have repented and taken the path of redemption, but my good deeds are as feeble and meager as the light of a candle in the endless darkness."

Ranjan grimaced in a silent grimace and said nothing. The Brether's pale face was almost expressionless, but the slightly bent, tense figure spoke for itself. Ranjan was preparing for both battle and death.

"When I die, the shadows of all those whom I have hurt and wronged will meet me. They will rebuke me and consider the bad things I have done, without omitting anything, for the dead remember everything. And then they will cast my soul into a stinking hell. But I will accept my fate in grateful humility, for only in contrition is the hope of forgiveness. And whoever wishes to balance the scales of good and evil puts stones against snowflakes. For only God knows the impartial measure."

"We are the Redeemers. We are ready to die," Cadfal's powerful bass joined with Rapist's high tenor, and the two voices sounded together under the vaults of the man-made cave.

"We see the Evil and we meet it without fear!" Cadfal and Rapist cried out in a voice that seemed to vibrate the raw stones that had not known human speech for centuries. "For his countenance is nothing compared to our sins! And the pain of death is nothing compared to the agony of our God-given conscience!"

"Come here, you bald bastard, I'm going to use this magic wand on you," Cadfal growled, craning his head and stretching his neck like an executioner before a decisive blow. He added at once, addressing Rapist. "Come in from the side, when he comes at me pirce with all your might. Lunna, when it starts, grabs the boy and runs with the lamplighter. In God's name, you'll have a chance!"

They stood shoulder to shoulder, Cadfal front and center as if inviting the creature to start with him. Rapist on the right, Ranjan on the left. And on they went, step by step, advancing. Elena pushed herself up and took the boy in her arms, feeling her spine crack under the weight of the chest and the child. The silent Grimal closed the march, holding the lamp above his head with his fingers outstretched to illuminate the battlefield as best he could.

"Clewia, at last," Rapist murmured with a desperate, feverish frenzy, addressing someone who was not in the dungeon and, Elena suspected, not in the world of the living. "My hour has come..."

The spearman moved a little farther to the side, bringing his weapon over his head, provoking a blow to his uncovered belly. Ranjan, in turn, stepped to the left, hunched over, almost holding the headband of the hilt to his chest, so that his opponent would have a chance to pounce even if his arms failed. Cadfal stomped forward like a destrier, deceptively heavy, ready to break into a swift dash.

And though the moment was surprisingly inopportune, Helena thought, what sins were the two unintentional companions atoning for? What horrible deeds burdened the consciences of Cadfal and Rapist, if they now considered it a glorious fate to be killed by a hellish creature?

The woman followed the small formation of three fighters into the horror of being separated from real alive people because it seemed even more terrifying to be separated from real alive people. Behind her, Grimal sniffled and paced noisily, seemingly tired of holding the lamp, but stoically enduring.

The shadow lifted on all its "legs" at once, their relentless movement making it seem as if the nightmarish creature were dancing impatiently. Its mouth tentacles straightened, greedily unfurling funnels of leathery openings looked like festering sores. And...

... stepped sideways, or rather moved. It's hard to talk about steps in the case of a creature carried by many jointed paws with unsynchronized movements. The Shadow moved to the side, trying to get around Rapist. It circled the column in a movement that was both heavy - understandably for a creature weighing several centimeters - and agile, showing the terrifying strength of its seemingly thin paws. The crab-like claws scraped across the stone with a shrill scrape like steel.

"Halt!" Ranjan ordered.

Elena pressed the boy tighter and stood behind Cadfal's back. As if in time with her movement, the Shadow took a couple more jerky steps, again in a semicircle. The creature's breathing quickened, its tentacles twitching as if drawn to the humans by an invisible thread. Droplets of viscous, bubbly mucus, like saliva, fell frequently to the whitish film-covered floor.

"Tighten the formation," Ranjan ordered. "And step."

The creature backed away, spitting unhappily. Now the group literally turned a hundred and eighty degrees. The monster was no longer blocking the road, but following on its heels. Elena and Grimal led the procession.

Elena couldn't feel her hands, only the stunned boy breathing hard and hot against her collarbone. In her head, she heard once, whether on National Geographic or somewhere else: a primitive creature like a crocodile always attacks, but hunters with highly organized brains - cats, dogs - are more cautious and discerning. Predators must take into account that, being wounded, they will no longer be able to hunt in full force and most likely die of starvation. Therefore, the natural prey are the weak and sick. Every hunt is a measurement of the victim's strength and will to fight. If the risk is great, it's better to retreat, to look for other meat. Yes, The Shadow could kill them all, but that hunt would have a price, and judging by the determination of the men with guns, it would be a heavy one.

The question is, is the pseudo-arachnid driven by pure spider instinct? Or the creature with muscles and lungs has an appropriate brain, is able to proportion the purpose and danger, make some conclusions...

And whether the ugly head even has a brain.

"Let's go steady," Ranjan said, his voice as steady as if the Brether were just preparing for another duel in a dark street under the all-seeing moon. "We walk steady. If we hurry, we die."

"Wait," Elena asked suddenly, and Cadfal lost his rhythm, almost tripping, slamming the sole of his old shoe loudly against a rock.

A spattering of spider mold spread like spittle, and a wave passed over the whitish film, rocking one of the "rolls". The shell burst, and from the gash grinned the face of a badly gnawed corpse with no lower jaw. The shadow swung forward, gurgling and hissing, Ranjan and Rapist silently, in unison, threw their weapons out in front of them, as if inviting the monster to pounce on the sharpened steel. The beast backed away, keeping its blinking eyes on the prey so close and desirable.

"Was it worth it?" The Brether asked, or rather hissed angrily, without turning around.

"Your hands are shaking. Put the lamp down," Elena ordered Grimal. "Take the boy, I'll get the light."

No one objected, no one said a word as the woman and the battle servant performed the exchange. Grimal exhaled sparingly in relief as he picked up the child, much heavier than the orb of enchantment but more comfortable to carry. Elena gripped the cold ball of pale blue glass tighter and raised it above her head, noting the light was indeed fading. Probably about half an hour and that would be it, then she'd have to burn something. Of course, the clothes wrapped around her sword would burn, but not for long, so she'd better find a way out.

"And... let's go," she said, turning her back on the men and Shadow and stepping forward, toward the black yawn of the new tunnel. Encouragingly, there seemed to be less spider mold there. The creature behind her gurgled and sniffed greedily, like an old man slapping his lopsided lips noisily over a bowl of liquid soup.

Elena didn't turn around, focused entirely on the footsteps and the lamp. Now she clutched the life of the whole company in her hands. The woman forbade herself to think about what was going on behind her back, tried to shut herself off, blocked out her hearing. She refused to hear the short exclamations of the warriors, the greedy squelching and clawing on the uneven stone.

Only steps, measured, careful, rhythmic. Had it not been for Draftsman's science, she would likely have fallen, but the technique of proper Steps kept her from disaster. Foot up, foot down, effortless, pulled by gravity. No unnecessary effort, let the force of the earth do the work. The toe is elevated, so you don't trip. The midpoint of the whole body floats, gliding like a light flower on water.

Step by step. Nice and steady.

Thank you, Figueredo. I hated you in my lifetime, I will not mourn your death. But your science has saved my life three times already.

A step, another step. Don't listen, don't think, don't be afraid. She wouldn't be of any help if the monster attacked anyway. The battle is the business of the Redeemers and the Brether, ready to fight to his last breath for his little "client". And her job is to give them light, to keep the lamp because darkness and death are the same thing now.

She fell into a meditative rhythm, measuring her steps, concentrating on carefully moving and holding the extinguished lamp. The universe seemed to move around her as if the woman with the lamp had become the center of the universe. The unified rhythm of footsteps, dungeons, Cities, Ecumene... Everything was connected by innumerable threads. Everything was one in the endless rhythm of eternal movement.

Go away, we are not yours tonight, Elena thought in a surprisingly sober and clear way. The thought shone in the sparkling, splendid solitude of a pure mind, free of fear and doubt. And then it continued, folding into a crystal-clear order-request:

Go away, poor and maimed child of suffering. Turn to those who will follow us.

"It's gone."

She shuddered, snapping out of her blissful rhythm. Her hands froze in a spasm, and Elena would have dropped the lamp if Brother Cadfal hadn't held it up. The blue orb was almost gone, now glowing in its last breath like an ultraviolet lamp.

"The creature is gone."

The pain in his exhausted body woke up and bit into his nerves, playing with small, sharp teeth. The chest behind her back increased in weight, bending her to the ground like the world's heaviest chain mail. The woman groaned and settled down in the strong arms of one of the companions. Apparently, the elixir that had sustained her mind and body after the massacre at Baala's house had worn off. Ranjan had said the liquid would last until morning, but was dawn near? How long had they been underground?

"There's a way out. We're saved, Hel."

Saved, that's good... how good it is to just lie in someone else's arms with no desires, thoughts, or fear.

Hel

So it is Ranjan who holds her in his arms. A Brether nicknamed Plague, the greatest fighter of his generation, one who can take on three assassins, and slay them faster than the shortest prayer lasts. It's amazing how the hands that have taken so many lives can be so...

So...

She didn't think about it, leaving it to dissolve into thoughtlessness like a honey drop in a cup of hot potion. Elena drifted into a dreamless sleep, hearing only an annoying, disturbing sound that kept her awake. The sound of many bells, distant, but at the same time piercingly clear, separated not by the thickness of the earth, but by a great distance.

The bell. An alarm bell, a herald of trouble.

Elena sighed again and finally lost her senses.

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