“Ach, I scent him now,” he said thoughtfully. “Not far from here. That is… odd.”
Geva’s stomach leapt again, her eyes widening, but Timo quickly shook his head, and gave another apologetic smile. “Not Rathgarr,” he said. “But Sune’s heart-father is near here, also.”
Sune’s…heart-father. Geva’s brief flare of hopefulness had horribly plunged, her eyes frantically glancing between Timo and Sune. “Killik?” she demanded, because please, please, maybe he’d gone scouting down here, or hunting, or…
“No, Killik is his blade-father,” Timo absently replied, and he was already sniffing again, wandering a little way down the corridor. “It is Ulfarr, here.”
Ulfarr.Ulfarrwas near here. Near here, with Rathgarr. And Geva’s heart was racing now, screeching and shrieking through her chest, because — Rathgarr wanted vengeance on Ulfarr. Rathgarr probably wanted to kill Ulfarr. Sune’s…heart-father?! Who’d told Geva just today, what felt like ages ago, that Rathgarr should… forget the past. Look forward. For his own benefit.
And gods curse it, Geva needed to run, to scream, to kick something, to do something — when oh, thank the gods, Trygve jogged back down the corridor, with a tall, spiky-haired Thrain at his heels. And Geva would never have dreamt she’d be so happy to see him, and she bobbed anxiously on her feet as he curtly nodded toward her, and then began sniffing at the wall, trailing his sharp claws against it.
“Och, I follow why you’re baffled, brothers,” he said. “This is a mess. Almost as if they were both on this side, but also… inside the wall.”
They.Insidethe wall. Geva’s heart kicked again, her throat swallowing hard. “They?” she asked, her voice faint. “Who?”
Thrain had leaned back to look at the wall, frowning, his hands on his hips. “Rathgarr, and Kesst,” he said. “And do I smellUlfarr, too?”
Damn it. Rathgarr, and Ulfarr, andKesst. Kesst, who’d rushed off like that… to comehere?! And Geva could not move, could only stand here and stare at Thrain’s thoughtful face, his slowly shaking head. “We need a Ka-esh,” he said. “John isn’t far from here, if you would fetch him, Trygve?”
Trygve nodded, spinning off down the corridor again, while Thrain beckoned Timo after him back into the nearest room. Where they again began tracing their hands against the wall, now talking back and forth with incomprehensible terms like age decay, and scent-tails, and kin-threads.
Geva’s surging agitation was now nearing panic, and she nearly yelped at the sound of more approaching footsteps. Trygve again, this time accompanied by Rosa’s handsome, stern-faced mate John, his sharp brows raised in silent inquiry.
“John,” Thrain said, waving him forward. “We’re seeking a way behind this wall. The scents beyond it are fresh in this room, but then they also fade off” — he pointed his claw downwards — “toward the east, as if following a passage. There are no recent Ka-esh scents on the passage, not even your usual surveyors, so we ken it’s been blocked, and forgotten.”
John was already nodding, his mouth pursed, his eyes casting over the wall, and then the floor. “The grain and weight of the stone here should not allow for a cut,” he said flatly. “It would need to be…”
His eyes were travelling upwards, and then downwards, narrowing as they fixed on the cracked, mottled stone floor beneath the musty old bed. On where — Geva’s throat caught — there was a slightly raised stone. And when John stomped on the stone, grinding down with his heel, there was a very faint, distant scraping sound — and then, from up above, a very short, rusty chain lowered down, dangling from one of the cracks in the ceiling above.
Thrain was looking too, and in a swift movement he jumped up onto the bed, reaching up, yanking on the chain. And with another strange, scraping creak, the cracked ceiling somehow… opened. Part of it shifting aside, revealing a jagged black hole, perhaps big enough for a person to fit through.
“There we go,” Thrain said, grinning with supreme satisfaction up toward it, as though it wasn’t a horrifying hidden tunnel, leading to gods knew where. “Though how do we get up? Damned difficult to use it like this, so —”
“Reach up inside,” John said curtly, eyeing the tunnel with marked dislike. “And this is mayhap not safe, so you go first.”
If Thrain was offended by this, he didn’t let on, and instead grunted as he awkwardly hung from the chain by one hand, while attempting to grope around up inside with the other. Until beside Geva, Sune gave an impatient-sounding huff, and then leapt up too, shoving Thrain out of the way — and with a hard swing off the chain, he was hanging off the edge of the hole itself, and dragging down something from inside.
It was another chain, but this time it was shaped like… a ladder. One that Sune was already scrambling up, his lean body disappearing into the hole above.
“Sune!” Geva gasped, but damn it, Timo and Trygve were already shoving past Thrain to climb up, too. And then Thrain was shrugging, and doing the same, leaving Geva standing there staring in alarm at John, who waved her up with a sharp flick of his hand.
“If it did not fall on Thrain, it ought to be safe,” he said flatly, as he reached to pluck the lamp out of her hand. “My forebears did not bear shoddy work, ach?”
It wasn’t much comfort, but Geva’s panic was truly screeching now, and she awkwardly nodded and shuffled up the ladder, while John held it taut beneath her. And when she neared the top, Thrain’s strong hand yanked her up into the darkness, her feet skittering against a surprisingly solid-feeling floor.
“What is this?” she croaked, but John was already climbing up behind her, with the lamp hanging off his arm. And in its light, she could make out yet another damp, twisty tunnel, even narrower than the one below.
“Just what we were seeking,” Thrain said, inhaling deep. “Come. They went this way.”
Geva nodded, and followed after Thrain, Sune, Trygve, and Timo through the passage, with John behind. His lamp casting large, shuddering shadows on the rough-cut walls, as Geva’s heartbeat wailed even louder, her hands cold and clammy, her eyes furiously blinking. Rathgarr had come this way. And Kesst. AndUlfarr.
And gods, the awful little corridor felt like it went on forever, twisting, turning, twisting again. Now breaking into occasional forks, the paths dark and sinister in the lamplight. And Geva had to drag for air, hauling it in shaky and deep, fighting to stay upright, to keep her feet moving. Rathgarr was in here. Kesst. Ulfarr.
Until finally, ahead of them, Thrain and Timo both startled at once, and rushed toward a wall. A wall that looked like any other wall here, damp and rough and stained with age — but John was striding forward, and pushing at a sharp-looking piece of stone on the wall.
And with another rough, grating, painfully loud creak, the wall slowly tilted open. Revealing something else behind it, something that glinted bright and yellow in the flickering lamplight.
The gold.
