When we exit again, there’s commotion in the main chamber. One of the men is hunched on the ground, two arrows embedded in his bicep.
“They came from the walls,” his partner says.
“The arrows?” I ask. The bolts are heavy, but they look ancient, the wood splintered. It’s a wonder the mechanism still worked.
“Dozens of them,” the injured man grunts.
Rune kneels to check the arrow in his arm. “Someone go up top,” he says, throwing his chin at another group standing nearby. “Have them make a lift to get him up.”
“I’m fine,” the man objects. “The wounds aren’t deep. Just got stuck in the meat is all.”
Rune ignores him, instead looking up at his first mate. “Elio, I want you to go back up too.”
“Captain—”
“I’m not taking arguments, Elio. You’re already injured. This is as far as you go. Leave the arrow spitting walls to those spry enough to get out of dodge.”
I’m certain the words are meant to come out as playful, but Rune’s face is too tight, and a muscle in Elio’s jaw feathers before he opens his mouth to protest again. Old, familiar anticipation floods through me as the tension rises, preparing for violence. But Rune’s voice just comes out quieter, as steadfast as I imagine mountains might be. “That’s an order.” He turns back to the men on the ground. “Which tunnel was it?”
“It—” The man hesitates, his eyes scouring the mess of identical tunnels before his shoulders fall. “I don’t know.”
Rune curses and stands, raking his hands through his hair as he moves away. I follow with the torch, and he doesn’t turn to see if it’s me before he tips his head back and speaks to the nothingness above us.
“I can’t keep losing people, Odi.”
I step in, trying and failing to keep my voice low enough the words won’t catch on the stone and come back to me. “He’s going to be fine—”
Rune finally turns, and the vulnerability in his eyes has two urges warring inside me: to step back, or to step into him, to be the tether that holds him above the raging of his thoughts. We’re frozen, for a blink, the wound on my thigh throbbing with the memory of his careful hands. For a moment, I wonder if he’ll call all of it off, go back on his word, ship me to Stonegallows for the trouble I’ve brought. Instead, he sighs heavily, resting his hands on his hips as he takes in the shadows of the tunnels.
“Captain,” another pair calls from the fourth section. “Wefound something!”
It’s a . . . frog creature. Like the ones we’d fought.
The faded etching lies just inside the tunnel, invisible from the outside.
Rune’s eyebrows are pinched as he studies it, his arms glistening with the strange humidity that suffocates everything else in here. “I can’t decide if it’s a good sign or a bad sign.”
“Is this the only one?” I ask a man I recognize as one of the night crew, Jortan.
Rune directs the others on a targeted search, and an hour later we’ve found only four tunnels have small carvings—an amphibious monster, a curling centipede, a vine of pinwheeled flowers—and a coral-studded sea dragon.
“So we start with them,” I say, trying to hide my growing claustrophobia.
Rune nods. “It’s the only difference we can tell so far, besides the dead ends, arrows, and the one that’s caved in and leaking water.”
“You don’t think it hints at what we’ll have to face, do you?” I could do without ever encountering a giant knife-legged bug again.
“Here,” he asks, “or as we find the keys?”
“Either?”
He doesn’t answer, his jaw feathering as he mulls over the question. My eyes rest on the final icon. Sea dragons are more myth than anything. Aren’t they?
We’re interrupted by those looking for orders, and he directs most to stay, selecting three other pairs for the marked tunnels, reminding them if they come across traps or get wounded to trace their steps back. I follow him towards atunnel slightly left of centre, palming the hilt of the bone dagger that’s still sheathed at my waist.
He stops and brandishes an arm, inviting me forwards in an absurdly prince-like fashion. “Since this island had the frogs, we’ll start with this one.”
I pass him, the wariness balanced by relief to finally be making headway. I’m not afraid of the dark, but the narrow space sets me on edge. “Last one there’s a rotten sea slug,” I sigh as he follows, bearing the torch high. For a hundred paces, the walls are straight and unchanging, but the ground slants down as the walls start to curve, and the air shifts. Stales.
