Chapter 8: 8

The creature fell upon Barrin, scratching toward his eyes, but Barrin had anticipated the attack. In one movement, Barrin drove the broken sword up into the creature’s skull and the light left those foul, pale eyes. With a shrug, Barrin cast the body aside and began to move. The creature hadn’t made a sound as it attacked, but no doubt if one had started to stir, others would too. He had to move, to pass further along the passage to a point wide enough to defend himself.

Maeal reached out for him, but he had already passed beyond her touch. He had told her he wouldn’t save her and he had not lied. She chose to follow him, even after he had told her to make her own way. Now, she had to live, or die, by that choice. He could suffer the recriminations for his lack of help later. If she, or, indeed, he, lived.

The more he moved, the more he could see the heaving mass above begin to shift. After a few dozen yards, he found himself able to turn and run headlong, rather than sideways, and began to pump his powerful legs. Maeal managed to keep pace, but not for long and she soon began to fall back, her head spinning, trying to keep her eyes on both directions and above. Barrin cursed the thought that he may have to stop for her after all.

As much as he hated admitting it, he did care. After a certain fashion. Kahri had brought that out in him. Before meeting that wonderful man, Barrin would not have even looked back for the woman. Kahri had shown Barrin what it meant to think of others, a position Father would have opposed and tried to beat out of Barrin. Father had no time for compassion, for empathy. To Father, the only reason to save another was to ensure you still had an ally to fight alongside. And as a sacrificial goat, should the need arise.

He now had the space available to put up a defence and, against every instinct, he stopped running, turning to wave the torch, giving Maeal something to run toward. Behind her, several objects fell from the roof, landing upon the dirt-covered floor and began to move. To twitch. To rise to their feet. Short, stocky. Almost human, though Barrin knew of no human that could cling to a surface as they had. The creatures took no time at all to start chasing after Maeal, even as more of the creatures began to slough from the roof.

Maeal barrelled past Barrin and he turned to follow, only to feel something rake down his back, like poison-filled claws, sharp, intense pain bursting into his mind. Without looking, Barrin swept the torch around, catching the attacking creature in the face and it screeched, falling away, long, claw-fingered hands clasping its head. That sound, a cry of pain, a cry for help, reverberated around the confines of the passage and it seemed as though the entire roof began to surge and writhe in sympathy.

He didn’t waste any more time. Already he had put the life of another before his own safety and had no intention of making a stand here. Maeal, for her part, had not run onward without him. The fool! He had put himself in danger to give her a greater chance to survive and she had squandered it by waiting for him! Now, unless he chose to truly leave her behind, he would have to run at her pace and her legs were simply not long enough, her stamina not lasting. She would tire too easy, run too slow, burden him.

“Run, you fool!” He barged his shoulder against her, holding the sword shard and the torch at the ready. “Do you wish me to leave you behind?”

“I cannot! Look!” She pointed her own torch ahead. “I can go no further.”

A gap. Some six feet wide, possibly less, possibly more. In the gloom, Barrin could not measure it well enough. The under-city continued to place obstacles in their way. Not only obstacles, but also answers to what had happened to this place. From here, he could see the faint signs of a structure, listing, clinging to the surface of the chasm. And, above, more signs of buildings. As though parts of the city had fallen into cracks in the surface of the world, leaving only the pitiful remnants above to show the settlement had ever existed.

“Jump.” With a sweep of his arm, he sent his torch pinwheeling across the gap, where it landed on a crumbling ledge. He grabbed her arm, pulling her several feet back. “Run and jump. I will follow.”

Maeal looked up, the three strands of black beneath her lips looking sinister in the flaring light of her torch. He expected her to protest, to deny her ability to cross the gap. Instead, she gave a short, determined nod and turned. As Barrin had done, Maeal tossed her torch across the gap, set herself and began to run. A hissing nose almost made Barrin turn away, but a curiosity held his gaze. The woman neared the edge and launched herself, arms and legs flailing, and landed, her legs folding beneath her and sending her tumbling to a stop.

Something pinched Barrin’s arm and he turned, wide-eyed, to find one of the creatures attached to his forearm, teeth, or fangs, penetrating the skin and causing strips of blood to trail from the injury. He swatted the creature away with the back of his now-free hand, sending it spinning away, tearing it from the flesh of his arm.

He had left it too late, hadn’t paid enough attention to the enemy and now a flood of the creatures bore down upon him, scratching and clawing at him, biting and striking. The broken sword slashed one way and the other, carving flesh from bone, tearing at skin. With his other hand, he struck outward, fighting blind and with a fury he had held deep within. These were not the enemies he wished to pour that rage upon, but they were the ones before him.

The sword fell from his hand, becoming lost in the swarm of bodies, but Barrin had no need of it. The lust for blood had taken him and he roared his defiance as he tore at the creatures like a wild beast. He could taste their foul, tainted blood upon his lips, could feel it coating his bare flesh, but still the creatures did little more than hiss.

The blood rage threatened to take him, but he could not fall foul of that here. He could fight and die in this place and would consider it a good death, felling a great many enemies, feeling the torn flesh beneath his fingernails, but he had another to think of. Not the woman, though it seemed he had chosen to protect her after all, but Kahri. If Barrin died here, Kahri would have no-one to save him. With a bellow, Barrin put all his strength into one, great push, forcing the creatures back, and, with a small gap, he turned and ran.

As his foot reached the edge, he launched himself forward, only to feel something land upon him, mid-air. More than one of them. The added weight shifted his balance, pulled him down instead of across and Barrin faced the prospect of falling into the pits of the Underworld. The wall came up to greet him, several feet below the ledge where Maeal awaited him, and he expected to smash against the surface and then fall an unknown depth to his death.

Except he did not. He felt the impact against the chasm wall, and then continued onward, through the surface and on. How, he could not understand, but he felt the breath burst from him as he struck against something beyond that wall. His head bounced from another object and he felt the black of unconsciousness threaten to take him, but he refused. As he tumbled to a halt, fighting for breath, he forced his eyes open, only to see one of the creatures rearing up above him.

Another creature had caught his arm, mouth widening as it prepared to bite, and Barrin’s other hand scrambled to find the broken sword, only for Barrin to remember, in his addled state, that he had already lost it. Why, then, did his fingers curl around something that felt very much like the grip of a sword? It didn’t matter. Whether weapon or some other object, if he could wield it, he could kill with it. He swept his arm up, from the floor, in an arc and aimed for the creature atop him, and a shower of blood sprayed out upon Barrin.

The creature fell to one side, headless, and Barrin, coughing, spluttering, spitting, continued the arc, bringing whatever he held to bear upon the creature attempting to feast upon his arm. The object thudded into the creature, and passed through, cutting the thing through its torso and scraping against the floor beneath it.

Barrin rolled backward only to see more of the creatures flying through the gap in the wall, while others battered themselves against the outside, bouncing off the surface and falling down into the depths of the chasm. In this darkness, Barrin could not see enough to know what he now held, but it felt like a weapon. It struck like a weapon and it cut like a weapon and he had need of only that. Should it become revealed, later, as a child’s toy, or a farm implement, Barrin did not care. Right now, he had something that killed.

Again he roared, launching himself back toward the hole in the wall, where several of the creatures had managed to jump through, lifting themselves to their feet and readying to attack, but Barrin gave them no time. He caught the first with an upward slash, the weapon slicing through bone as easy as through flesh. He continued, carving his way through those creatures lucky enough to survive the jump. Unlucky to ever face him.

By the time he realised he had no more enemies to face, Barrin could feel the blood dripping from his face and chest. It pooled upon the floor before him and he drew in great breaths as he stepped toward the gap. His chest heaved as he looked out, back up to the point where he had jumped from and saw a mass of shadows gathered there. He raised both arms to the side and roared again.

“Come, then! Let us all fall into the frigid embrace of Death herself!” With the hand holding the weapon, he pointed toward the creatures. “But know many, many more of you will die before I fall.”

It was not bravado. Not a boast. He had a weapon, now, not a broken fraction of one. A weapon that, if he were to judge, had an edge keener than any sword he had ever held. So keen that, if it did indeed turn out a utensil of some kind, he would consider wearing at his hip in place of a sword anyway. His breathing began to slow as no other creatures flung themselves across the gap. No more shadows cast themselves across the chasm.

Instead, the shadows above began to dwindle. The edge where he had leapt started to show gaps in the darkness as one, then another and another of the creatures sloped away, returning to whatever putrid places they called home. Barrin had triumphed, but he had almost not. All because he had shown concern for the woman. A sound of scuffing caught his ears and he turned, expecting an attack from behind.

It was as though she had heard his thoughts. How she had found her way here, he could not say, but she stumbled into the space, bearing both torches in her hands, squinting through the flickering light toward him.

“By Aa!” Her awestruck whisper caused Barrin to frown.

He had no time to ask what had caused her exhortation. Stepping forward, away from the gap in the wall and closer to Maeal, he realised unconsciousness had only allowed him a little more time. Now it reared up before him, gathering him into arms cloaked in darkness. He felt his legs disappear from beneath him and other arms attempting to catch him. He knew he would awaken, but he would do so armed. Even as he fell into the black, he tightened his grip upon the hilt.

Weapon or toy, or implement, or utensil, that object had saved his life. He would never let it go.