Asher crawled through the icy water slowly, blind and shivering. His fingers had already gone numb and it was growing harder to keep hold of his cane and his sword. Every part of his brain was screaming, not just in the blind panic of being back in the Underlands, but how much he desperately wanted to stand up and scream for Penn until his throat was raw. Until his vocal cords snapped. Until the only sound left in the universe was his companion’s name. His throat hurt more at the struggle to keep the noise down.
He would not lose anyone else to this place. He would fight this and he would win, and he wasn’t leaving alone this time.
A rocky wall stopped his progress, and Asher cursed as he felt along the solid, craggy rocks in front of his face, his fingers slipping into groves and cracks as he tried to find an opening. The flash of white flame came first; veins in the stone igniting in a soft light at his touch, embers licking between his fingers. Asher pushed, and the wall crumbled at his touch, caving in and creating a deep hollow. Shaking loose the remaining dust on his other hand, he braced both hands and pushed harder.
The gold band on the back of his wrist glinted at the same moment the wall fell apart completely and he fell forward, crashing back down into the icy water. The cold was sharp enough to shake off any shock, and Asher pulled himself up easily, inspecting the metal fused into his skin. Penn had said it would tell him where Asher was, and vice versa, but how did it work?
He tapped on it with his finger, and the bone of his wrist clicked, twisted forward as though someone had grabbed him. Asher struggled to his feet and tapped it again. The same strange twist pulled him forward. Hopefully, this was enough to lead the way.
The hole had opened up over a wide field, grass trimmed and shimmering stretching as far as the eye could see. The sky above was grey, not cloudy but devoid of any memory of colour. Wind whistled out across the empty space, and Asher fixed the grip on his rapier instinctively. There was a trap to this; there had to be.
Taking a deep breath, he lifted his foot and lowered it onto the grass, then recoiled as a sharp pain shot through the bottom of his foot. When he pulled away, he noticed multiple, tiny holes had been punched deep into the sole of his boot. Cursing, Asher ripped an already torn part of his shirt away, then tossed it into the field. As soon as it touched the grass it shredded into nothing, ripped apart by thousands of tiny knives. Literal blades of grass; now this place was mocking him.
Asher scanned the scene around him, though when he turned around, he saw nothing but more field stretching over the horizon, any sign of the cave or the water he had crawled through now a simple puddle at his feet. Wracking his brain, he brushed the last of the dust from his hands, and white sparks burst out as it fell over the tips. The grass wavered, rippling out like a pond, when a mound appeared in front of him, a large stone forming out of the earth and raising up above the blades. It was perfectly round, but Asher was willing to risk it.
He leapt up onto the surface of the rock, balancing less than gracefully on its smooth texture, as he noted a dozen others had emerged from the ground around him. His first time in this place was still a haze buried too deep to focus on, so he couldn’t tell if it had always been so empty. Had the last time been this abandoned, or had all the occupants of this place gone to terrorise his world? Perhaps it was an ambush in wait.
Movement was slow. Asher kept his balance as best as he could, and tested his strength before he leapt from rock to rock, flopping against them with the grace of a drunk sloth. Both his cane and his sword had been hooked into his belt, but anxiety at the thought of them falling out made him reach for them with each landing, which only disturbed his balance. A few times a jump wouldn’t land right and his leg or his hand would slip too close to the ground, leaving nasty scratches along his hands and legs.
A caw ringing out almost made him fall completely, a warning sound as a crow landed on his next target, shaking loose feathers and fixing him with a red eye.
‘Hadley?’ Asher asked.
The bird, being a bird, didn’t respond.
‘There’s no chance you can hold my weight, is there?’ Asher asked. As much as he hated the feathery attack that had pulled him out of here before, he would accept that fate over the endless field of death in front of him. ‘Or show me a way out?’
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The crow trilled, then took off into the air and dove down hard onto the same rock, racking claws against the surface before its beak worked furiously at the same spot, pecking the rock over and over again. Asher glanced down at the rock underneath him, at the same moment two eyes cracked open next to his hands, black and wide and fixing on him.
Asher screamed, and so did the rock, a jagged mouth spreading wide beneath him. He grabbed his sword and only managed to jerk it sideways as he fell, ramming it between the Fienta’s jaws. A deep, gurgling noise rose from the black below him, and Asher scrambled to stay above the creature’s teeth, the sword the only thing stopping him from being snapped clean in half. The monster writhed and thrashed, but Asher held on, all of his effort keeping the sword in place.
The Fienta lurched, throwing its whole body around to the ground, and Asher only saw the grass rushing up to meet him when the remaining heat pulsing out ripped through his entire body, not just from his hands, but his chest, his arms, his legs, shredding him more completely than the blades ever could.
The sword snapped in his hands, breaking clean in two as the energy rippled out, and Asher threw his hands over his head, bracing for the moment when the jaws would snap closed, but it never came. Instead, the creature around him disintegrated, leaving only a pile of ash in the grass as it gave one more gargled scream. Asher curled further in, praying silently that he would hit the ash and not the killer grass around it. He did, then he fell through it.
Another field of grass – normal, uncut grass – rushed up to meet him, and Asher slammed into it, rolling, tumbling over and over down the rise, until he skidded to a halt at the bottom of the hill. Pain enveloped his arm at a point where the sharper greenery had made contact, an ugly slash that was bleeding freely along his forearm. Whatever spirit he’d still held had long gone now, and he felt hollow, cold and empty. Every cut, scrape and bruise, every ache in his leg had forced itself to the surface, making movement a struggle. Asher still had no idea how it worked, but he was sure there was nothing left now. His sword was gone too, nowhere around him in the field. He’d have to apologise to Norrah later.
Asher struggled to his feet, then yelled out in surprise when he came face to face with a noose.
It was empty, swinging back and forth in a non-existent wind, waiting for him. The gnarled tree that held it had been stripped of everything except the single, long branch holding it up, the rest of the tree ending at its curve. Two others hung next to it, both occupied by gaunt and rotting bodies. Nothing gave away who they had been or how long they’d been there. They weren’t hanging at a height that allowed their bodies to swing, instead their legs had been swallowed by the ground, disappearing deep into the earth up to the knee. Asher pulled his cane free and poked at the ground around them, but it was solid, no sinkhole or illusion anywhere around them.
The only movement came from the empty noose, swinging back and forth as though beckoning him.
Asher swallowed down the bile taste in his throat and eased around the tree, only to come face to face with another and another. As he stood on the other side of the tree, he saw hundreds, maybe thousands, all perfectly cut off at the single branch, and lined up in neat rows as far as he could see. Every single one had three bodies hanging neatly side by side, each one in various states of decay with their legs sinking into the ground. Only the children hung over empty air.
Asher clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle another scream, then ducked behind the first tree as something clicked and chittered ahead of him. So many people, so many bodies… had he just found the missing thousands from Valenda? Or was this the fate of any human that wandered this far in to Le Torkani? He shook the thoughts away. He had to focus on Penn. He had to focus on the people he could still save.
Something creaked above him, and Asher fought the urge to throw up. Clutching his cane tight, he tapped on the band again, and this time felt a tug to his left. He checked for signs of any creatures, then eased down the hall of hanging bodies.
It didn’t take long for him to pass a body that had a recognisable trait – a Royal Guard coat. It was faded, the material eaten away by rot and torn, but the crest and the lining was still there. Nothing about the corpse’s face revealed who it had been, and Asher could only hope he wasn’t staring at Navarre, but the more he stared at it the more he couldn’t deny this was a uniform of the Royal Family.
The body next to the guard was no different, wearing a gold trimmed finery and a white powdered wig on a hollowed-out face – an advisor or lord of some kind. The same people who had been in Valenda when it disappeared.
Asher forced his feet forward, ignoring the chittering thing echoing out and the chill it sent along the back of his neck. Each time he tapped the band, it moved him forward still, and part of him wondered if this was a job done, if he had found the fate of Valenda and now it was time to go home, back to Ralkauda, to normalcy at his normal position. He wondered if he was starting to go mad.
He crossed another body that made him pause, and this one came with a painful knot in his stomach. This one hadn’t completely decayed away, though it was gaunt and thin, bones poking through cheeks and from underneath the long coat. Still, Asher recognised him. He’d never met the man, but he’d seen portraits painted at all angles from a variety of ages, and he could see the same high forehead and thick, peppered beard, the tailed coat with gold embroidery along the edges. It was a man who’s face had become more familiar since Asher had arrived at Dalvany Manor.
He gave a small bow of respect, then pushed onward, past the long dead body of his uncle, Henri Tremboui.