Without thinking, George darted out after Lestra. It was a rare moment of decisiveness for him, but when he had seen her face, her pale terror, he knew he had to follow her. When her pupils had frozen, lost in their whites, they were centered on him. They were a team. He couldn’t just let her go off on her own. He knew it, and he knew he had to be better. They were a team, of course, they were; that’s why she went off alone, why every time George wanted to say something right like Andrew could do so easily, he either failed miserably or kept silent. It was why she still kept secrets, why he still kept secrets. A team. What a joke.

“Lestra!” He called out as he ran blindly through the dark chasm. He couldn’t see anything other than the entrance- and even that was a mere ember.

Forsaking himself in the bad omens of the fallen, he trampled over their bloodstains. Then he saw another light. A reddish pulse that was hopelessly faint, so much so that he thought he imagined it at first. He could never have seen it in anything other than the pitch darkness.

The glow came from the breach- the tunnel the graldor had launched their attack from, and where they slinked back to. A poisonous light, it sung softly about danger.

The warm embers beckoned him out of the chasm, back to the roads of Ardel, where it was safe. But it wasn’t safety he was after and that was all that called him. They were safe with the others inside the structure- the Greler. Yet Lestra ran out of it. He spurned the beckoning embers and pursued the red glow.

Upon entering the graldor tunnel, he could make out Lestra’s silhouette. It marched steadily with the glow. “Lestra!” he called out again.

Her pace was quick but meteed. Unlike George’s reckless sprint, it was intended to maintain itself for however long it needed to go. But in the short distance between them, it meant George could catch up, in an ungraceful manner. He ran straight into her back, nearly knocking her down.

“S-sorry,” he said, panting as he held his knees.

She turned to face him. The more intense parts of the glow were centered between her face and chest. It was her necklace- the red crystal shaped like a claw. It must have been a light crystal.

“Why did you follow me?” Lestra hissed. From the glow, George could see the details of her face. The lines of her cheeks pushed up against her nose and her lips curled in a sneer. As she looked at him, she exhaled, and her expression loosened. “How did you even know where to go?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she turned away and marched on.

“Y-your necklace.” George took his hands off his knees and scrambled after her.

“Huh?” She lifted the pendant and scoffed.

“Why did you run off? Why did you go through here? The others- we were going to go here anyways. Let’s just wait for everyone.” George looked back to the entrance. By then, Lestra had forced far enough in that the faint glow couldn’t reach out. The walls and the breach coiled together in the darkness. But that meant there was no torchlight. The others hadn’t left the Greler, or if they had, worse, they never had the chance to see the red glow, and they fell for the embers. He and Lestra were alone in the tunnel.

Without acknowledging his questions, Lestra still marched forward. Her and her necklace. George had learned not to stop. Stopping meant he had to run to keep from being overtaken by the darkness, and he was tired of running. He soon lost track of the breach entirely from where he placed it in his mind as the tunnel sloped and curved downward, deeper. If fully lit, he knew all he would see behind him was wall. So, with Lestra, he looked forward.

Their procession carried on for hours before finally another light appeared. An orange flame shined deeper inside the cave. But rather than a saving grace, it was brutal. The fire light thronged wild and unhinged.

How did their Ardelian escort plan on taking them any further? The way they had been dug out, the walls of the tunnel were even, smooth as dirt and rock could be. There were no jagged columns to hide behind, only the curvature of the tunnel. If they continued on, there was nothing to keep them from putting themselves in clear sight of whatever lurked inside the cavity with the flame. Perhaps the flame was all they had intended for them to see. It would have been enough. George didn’t want to go any further.

“Wait.” George forcefully tugged at Lestra’s collar to keep her from stepping straight into the mouth of danger.

“What?”

He didn’t have anything to say. He only hoped that the momentary pause would help snap Lestra out of whatever trance drove her. It didn’t. She jerked forward, easily breaking George’s grip.

George thought then about staying put, keeping himself in hiding while she faced the graldor alone. The shame was too great. He couldn’t stand still watching that faint red glow get devoured by the flame. He chased after her again, with the intention of stopping her once more, maybe even dragging her back if he had to. But when he reached her, it was too late. They were both in clear shot of the entrance to the cavity. But when he looked in, he saw a surprising amount of darkness.

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The flame light came from a tall torch which stood at the entrance. Its light, which seemed so solid in the tunnel, dispersed, reaching neither wall nor ceiling of the cavity. No guards awaited them, only tents. Straps, tan as if knitted in mud, spread over wooden ribs.

Lestra pulled away and entered the cavity. George followed, still holding onto the hope that he could bring her back. She picked up the torch and wielded it like a spear as they walked through the graldor camp.

Old smoke filled the cavity with another smell beneath it. Meat. George tried to convince himself that it smelled like a summer barbecue, but the ash was too thick, and the rancid parts of the meat too strong. His stomach churned.

Occasionally, the light would fall over the remnants of a campfire, and there would be small bone shards strewn about. Over one of them, a body hung. A charred rodent, too large to be a rat. Its jaws and the large brown teeth arched apart from each other as far as they could, locked in a scream. The squeal haunted George’s mind. He didn’t inspect any more campfires after that.

The cavity was massive, comparable to the size of the Greler chasm, and rows of tents filled it. An army fit inside. But as they made their way through, they found it dormant. Their steps pounded like war drums. But only the might of it all responded- the knowledge of what once could have settled inside.

“No,” Lestra whispered as the emptiness of the camp sank in. “No.” Her voice shook. She looked back and forth, swinging her head with the torch, faster than her eyes could process. She stumbled back.

George caught her before she fell.

She hastily balanced herself out of his arms. "They’ve already gone. We have to go quicker.” She charged on, abandoning the meter which kept her pace sensible.

“Why!?” It didn’t make sense to George why she was so reckless to want to march headfirst into an army. Especially one that was still in retreat. If they were marching to Ardel, they would’ve already come across them. It seemed foolish. Just let them have the stone. It can’t be that valuable as to throw their lives away.

“Quiet.” She turned and stuck her nail to her lips. Once the sound of George’s echoes died down, she shuddered. Silence followed. No footsteps, no marching to catch the intruders. If George’s shout hadn’t alerted them, it meant the graldor were already far away. “This isn’t about Ardel. It never was. Do you remember what we were taking to Vaaliya on our first mission?”

George’s lips parted, and his brows sank. “I’m sorry- I didn’t…” He was an idiot. He had never seen the box be opened, so he hadn’t made the connection inside the Greler as Lestra had. But as soon as she asked, he remembered. A stone, that’s what she had said. It must have been similar to the stone stolen from Ardel.

Lestra sighed. “That was our Kine stone.” She looked down at the uneven rock of the floor. “This cavity looks natural. I doubt anyone knew about it before the graldor. The passages and caverns down here are numerous, winding, and tangled. Whatever isn’t constantly tread over becomes overrun by monsters. “Much of it has been lost, or never mapped at all- that’s the domain of the scavengers.”

George recalled the lephodon, the massive, winged creature that had taken refuge in the passage between Meriford and Vaaliya. How long had it been since those tunnels had been passed through? Surely Lestra must have taken them to get to Meriford in the first place. But maybe there was more. He thought about all the ways they didn’t take: the other entrances in the supertunnel, every hole and crevice they passed in the passages. So much left to the unknown, to the scavengers.

“What I am going to tell you,” Lestra continued. “I only know because I am the daughter of a nief. Somewhere- somewhere very deep, there is a great evil.”

“A great evil, you mean the prowlers?”

Lestra shook her head. “No, I don’t- the stories aren’t clear on what exactly it was, but I’ve only heard it talked about as if it were one being. One entity which nearly brought ruin to all that dwell underground. But it was stopped. The greatest human and elven mages came together, and three light crystals were carved and enhanced to seal it away. One in Alder, one in Nirel, and one in Vaaliya. The guild didn’t trust a niefdom to protect theirs, so ours was taken to Meriford and held their until we brought it back.”

“If this evil nearly brought ruin to everything underground, wouldn’t that include the graldor?” George asked. “Why are they trying to take the stones? What reason to they have to release something that could destroy them?”

“Because they’re monsters.” Lestra let out a small chuckle. “I’m tired of telling myself they terrorize us because it’s how they think they need to survive. They just want to slaughter. And now- they’re going to come to Vaaliya, maybe they’re already on their way. My home is under attack, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t, but… I’m not going to do nothing. I’m the sole princess. I have to be with my people, or at the very least fight for them.” Her brows slanted and her lips pouted. She gritted her teeth to maintain an ounce of composure.

“I’ll help you,” George said. “And we’ll think of something.”

“We fight through them,” Lestra spat. “We fight through them all if we have to, and we get past them, and we get to Vaaliya and we warn them.”

George gave half a nod. He knew his support wasn’t unwavering. If- when it came down to it, and the shadows of the army danced in their torch light, he would run. He trained, he could fight, but a heroic dash through hundreds of soldiers? He didn’t yet have that kind of stoicism, and maybe he never would. It was a terrible situation, and he was terrible in it.

Once they left the cavity, they spent hours more in the next tunnel, and there were no signs they made it even close to catching up with the graldor army. George felt his knees sulk. His shoulders hunched, and his eyes begged for mercy. Dragging her feet, Lestra wasn’t doing much better, and she had long since given up trying to hide.

“Lestra, we can’t- we have to rest.”

She continued to shamble forth.

“Lestra, are you telling me that a scavenger has more sense than you?” He knew he had to be harsh. “We can’t fight like this.”

Lestra tightened her fists and fell to her knees.

“I’ll take watch first,” George said softly. He knew that she might try to use watch as an excuse to leave him behind and continue on her own. Maybe it would have been good- save him from the guilt of running. But if he took watch first, he could at least make sure she got some sleep. She had to get sleep.