CHAPTER 11

“The cave doesn’t end where people think it does,” says Katha. “It’s not a cave at all. It’s a tunnel.”

We’re standing in front of Raven’s Beak, one of the hill doors closer to Reach. This is the one the kids dare each other to go inside since times immemorial. The years of darting, touch-and-go exploration have accumulated, to the point where the cave has been thoroughly mapped.

It still makes my stomach twist, standing so close to it. It’s because I know what’s going to happen, what Katha is proposing.

“You shouldn’t go inside,” I say, though I know I’m going to lose this one. “They’re not safe.”

“Malco, every child of eight in Reach has been inside this cave and touched the back wall. I just wanted to see what it was like inside.”

“Sure, but they were dared to do it. Did anyone dare you?” I ask.

“I dared myself,” Katha says, raising her chin.

I sigh. I can’t understand Katha’s fascination with the hill doors, with everything wild. If there’s a chance death lies at the end of a specific path, then it’s certain Katha will be running along it to try and see what all the fuss is about.

“And what did you find?”

“That it’s not a cave at all,” Katha repeats, singsong. “It’s a tunnel.”

“A lot of them are tunnels. Where does it lead?”

“Come and I’ll show you,” she says with a mischievous smile.

I went, too, after a feeble show of resistance. Katha showed me the hard to spot passage that turned the cavern into a mystery of unsounded depths. All the while I was looking over my shoulder for ghosts, ghouls, shades and other deadly apparitions, trying to keep close to the light we’d brought along with us.

The tunnel bifurcated at a point. That way, Katha had said, pointing, it goes down. And this way… She led the way back into the light. The tunnel ended at another hill door. As soon as I blinked away the spots in my eyes, I knew why she had wanted me to come. In front of the door, there was a small lake, murky with greenery but cool and inviting in the summer heat.

“Worth the trip in the dark?” Katha asked much later, when the sun was going down and were lying on the rocks, nearly dry.

I smiled at her.

*

Light breaks through my reverie, dispersing the memory. I groan. The sun raises too early on this side of the hills. When it’s still cold and misty in Reach, it’s already full day in Red Harbor.

Black Sword City. I crack my eyes a little and look around. Rev is already gone. Our attic is quiet, but the rest of the house bustles with activity. I can hear our hostess, Palona, clanking pans in the kitchen. Her younger children run up and down the stairs, while the older must already be away.

My instincts tell me to get up and go help, shaming me for my laziness. But something else holds me in place. It’s the look I know I’ll find in their eyes. The children’s awe when they gawp at my bandages, and their mother’s kinder and more painful pity. It all makes the solitude of the attic a much more attractive alternative.

So instead of going down, I lift my hand up. The bandage is a thick roll around my wrist and palm, from where the fingers poke out like fat sausages. I try to wiggle them, and manage a weak flutter, along with a shooting pain that makes me grit my teeth.

I know I’m lucky for not losing the hand entirely. That we came out from the tunnel without any serious rot setting in is a blessing in itself. We were much closer to Red Harbor than we dared hope, and collecting the herbs I needed was the work of an industrious morning. I’m lucky that the hand is healing, and it is healing. Steadily.

I sigh. It’s not healing quick enough.

As soon as we arrived in Black Sword City, we found it packed to the brim for the Funnel. Merchants of all sorts, beggars, travelers, Challengers-to-be and their entourage when any had come. The mass of people pressed us on all sides like walls, the hawkers and gamblers, the priests and the guards, the thieves and the Godtouched. My first day in the city was nothing but confusion, made worse by a hint of fever. We walked past one of the Challenge recruitment booths, empty and ominous, but Rev forced me to keep walking.

In the next few days, the city coalesced around me. Before it abated, the fever rose. I tossed and turned, and dreamt strange dreams about Katha and tunnels in the dark where The Digger’s two voices echoed and mixed, where memory and fantasy balled together and rolled around in my mind.

Rev said I was like that for three days. She found us a place to stay, paid for by the last of her meager funds. During that time, she alternated watching over me and searching the city for hints of Katha. She found none.

Stolen novel; please report.

There is a pounding in the stairs. The wood creaks as the steps approach, and the doors swishes open. There is a swirl of movement and sound from the house below, and then silence. Relatively.

Rev is standing in the doorway, carrying a little bag.

“So?” I ask. “Anything?”

She shakes her head and places the sack on the table. An apple tumbles out.

“Like Palona said, the Challengers are housed inside the keep until the big day,” she says slowly. “I went there. The place is crawling with Godtouched.”

“We can get work there as servants,” I say, sitting up. Lying down in a mattress for days on end gave me a lot of time to think.

Rev shrugs. She doesn’t look convinced.

“Or we disguise ourselves as merchants. A place that big must have a need for supplies, right? So we bring a cart around…”

Rev sighs and I stop. Yeah, that one didn’t convince me, either.

“All right,” I say. “It might be riskier, but I think we can sneak in if we can disguise ourselves as Godtouched—”

“Mal,” she interrupts.

Rev has her back to me. She’s looking outside the single tiny window, and for a moment I think she’s found the answer. In the next, she turns, and I see the expression on her face. It’s not one of epiphany, but resolve.

“Mal, I know how we’re getting her out. I’ve volunteered for the Challenge. I’ll find her.”

There is a thumping of heavy boots on the stairs. Heavier than any of the children could muster. A gruff and muted voice carries up the stairs, interspersed with Palona’s softer one. Idly, I wonder what Palona’s husband is doing home so early.

“All right,” I manage. “So I’ll just get dressed and go volunteer as well. Two of us will have a better shot…”

“No, Mal,” Rev says, her voice hard. “You’re not coming. They won’t take you in like that. They… they want a show, and with your hand…” She shakes her head. “I promise I’ll bring her back, all right? I promise.”

I stare at Rev long enough to know she’s serious. There isn’t a hint of her usual good humor, any chance of her giving in. The steps outside, slow and heavy, are like a familiar hammer clanging against my skull. I stand up, throwing my blanket away, and immediately my head swims and bright spots dance in my vision.

“I’m going,” I say, pushing through. “I don’t care what you say, I won’t just sit here…”

The door swings open again and we both turn. I immediately grow quiet. I must be having another nightmare. Has to be.

Medrein is standing in the doorway, blocking it in its entirety.

We are all silent for a moment. Our father looks like he’s been travelling. Road dust still clings to his clothes.

“I’m sorry, Mal,” Rev says from behind me in a low voice.

“What is he doing here?” I demand.

“Your sister isn’t guilty of that,” Medrein says. “I was the one who found her.”

He looks at me, and then his eyes take in my hand, the pitiful way I have to cradle it so blood doesn’t accumulate.

“Are you all right, son?” he asks. “Reva told me what happened. “We’ll find a healer before we leave, and—”

“I’m not going,” I say, my voice catching in my throat. Why can I never stand up to him? Why must I always play the blubbering kid? I have to change the subject. I can’t confront him like this. “What are you doing here? How did you know?”

Medrein sighs. I can’t decide if it’s a good sign. Usually, he’d be yelling.

“I set out immediately after you left, hoping I’d be able to catch up before you got into trouble. Sadly, I chose the Wide Road. I didn’t think my own children would be daft enough to try to go up the hills unescorted. Little did I know,” he adds with a meaningful look at Rev.

“We didn’t go up them,” I say with a surge of bravado. I still feel a hint of fever in my arms and legs, slowing me down. “We went through.”

“So Rev told me,” Medrein says. “It’s a very impressive story, if true.” Both Rev and I protest, but he barrels on through, drowning us out. “What’s more impressive still is that neither of you died. That a mangled hand was your only punishment for disturbing the hill doors and facing Godtouched,” he finishes. The grave tone, typical in his lectures, can’t completely hide the hint of something else in his voice. Amusement? Pride?

“That only shows that we’re capable,” Rev says. “That we can—”

“Can what?” Medrein says with a sudden edge. “Can get yourselves killed? What if you had died? Do you know what that would do to me? To your mother?” he throws the last sentence at me. I look down, hating myself for doing so.

But Rev isn’t so easily deterred.

“I know what I’m doing!” she says, raising her voice. “I’ve given this thought, I’ll band together with—"

“I’m going,” I say. I don’t care I’m interrupting. “I’m doing it, whether you let me or not.”

“You’ll do what you’re told, Malco,” Medrein barks before turning to Rev. “And you don’t know what you’re doing. Band together? You think no one has tried that—”

“I’m! Going!” I yell.

There’s silence. Medrein is looking at me with a frown. Annoyed, not impressed. I look at Rev for support, but she only shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Father is right, Malco,” she says. “You can’t. Not like that. You’ll die.”

“You’ll die too, foolish child,” Medrein snaps, throwing my sister a venomous look and walking into the light of the window. His full but usually neat beard is wild and uncombed. His eyes are sunken and red, like he hasn’t slept in days. They close, and Medrein breathes in. When he opens them again, I am both surprised and ashamed to find tears swimming there. He takes a step towards us.

“Rev, it’s not too late,” he says. “You can come with me, leave this place of death behind. You have no idea…”

“I gave them my name and place of birth, father,” Rev says. Her arms wrap around her body like a cocoon, but her face is set and hard. “Reva, daughter of Medrein, from the village of Reach. The Godtouched won’t take kindly to my leaving. They’ll find us.”

“I’ll deal with the Godtouched,” says Medrein. “You can’t know—”

“Father,” Rev says. “Please let me do this. It’s my decision. You don’t think I’m capable?”

Medrein looks at her a long moment, mouth agape, and Rev holds his gaze. He’s the first to relent, looking around himself, seemingly lost, and finally sinking in the only chair with his face in his hands. I’ve never seen him like this. The tears, the exhaustion. I see the wall of his stone personality crumbling.

“I know no one more capable,” he says. “If the Challenge was a fair match of strength, of wits, of courage, there would be no one your equal.” A useless yet familiar feeling creeps over me. Of being ignored. Of being a second thought. “But the Challenge is not that. Not anymore. The Godtouched have turned it into a perversion. Carnage.”

In the silence, I feel the start of my own epiphany. It walks into the front of my mind, shameless, clear to see for any who have eyes. It’s there for the looking, though I don’t want to look at it. It’s too strange and unsettling.

“Father,” Rev says, approaching. “You’re paying mind to stories. Third-hand tales told by merchants or straight up lies. It’s not—”

“No,” I say. “You know it, don’t you?” It all makes sense somehow, even though it doesn’t. Medrein’s power. His warrior’s body, out of place in a farming village. His old sword, dented yet sharp. “You’ve been there. You’re a Challenger.”

He looks at me then with sharp, bright, and suddenly attentive eyes.