mountain.
Tunnels flashed past. Some lit with mineral deposits. Some were huge, caverns dissecting the tunnel through which Kell fell and he thought, where is all the water? And he realised, a flood, a flood of magick, drowning Silva Valley, drowning the vachine civilisation… and then he hit another curve, which slowed him, and he was sent tumbling through air and darkness and plunged into water so cold he gasped, ice-needles driving through his eyeballs and brain and numbing him. He was deep under, and he clung to Ilanna. I will not let you go, I will not lose you, my love. With a sudden spurt of anger Kell punched upwards, powerful legs kicking, and he broke the surface with a splutter and desperate intake of air. He went under again, but fought upwards and as he gasped and breathed, he saw the nearby glow and kicked out for it, his strokes urgent, cold battering through his old bones.
It was a beach, of sorts. Kell kicked and struggled, then flopped uselessly onto his back, great chest heaving. Kell had never been one for swimming, and he hated the water with a vengeance.
Pain and fear ran rampant through his blood, and Kell pushed himself to an upright position and cleared his nostrils with snorts, head spinning. He heard something then, a crying, a thrashing in the underground lake. Nienna!
Dropping his axe, Kell surged back towards the freezing lake. 'Nienna!' he boomed, and his voice reverberated back a hundred times more powerful, a cackling of demons.
'Grandfather!' shrieked the young woman, 'I've got Saark, help, he's dragging me under!'
Kell kicked off his boots, muttering darkly, and with the surreal and ghostly glow behind, leapt back in to the freezing waters, powering over to Nienna and taking the dead-weight of Saark's body from struggling hands. Kell struck back for the shore, Nienna following, and they lay there on the black sand panting, exhausted, shivering with core-biting cold, and Kell rolled Saark to one side and growled and said, 'You should have let him sink. What sense, Nienna, in rescuing a corpse?'
'He's not dead,' panted Nienna.
'I watched them carve out his heart!' snapped Kell, weary now, and crawled and stood, and rubbed his hands together. 'Of course he's dead! Now we need a fire, girl, or we'll also die in but a few short hours.'
'But…'
'Nienna! Stand up! Get moving. Keep moving.'
She stood, and they looked around. The shore of the vast underground lake seemed to stretch off for eternity. The cavern was vast, endless, and the glow came from eerie stalactites and stalagmites which sat cloaked in some kind of fungus. Kell moved to one, and peeled back a little. He sniffed it. He touched it to his tongue. 'I hope it burns. Because,' he gazed around, long grey hair plastered to his shivering scalp, 'if it doesn't, we're going to die down here.'
The beach was littered with stones and rocks, of a million different descriptions, all washed up over millennia. Kell set Nienna to gathering the glowing fungi, and he found several rocks, striking them together until he found a combination that gave a spark. Back from the water, near a cluster of flowstone and stalagmites, Nienna piled the scraped fungus and Kell knelt, feeling foolish, shivering violently. He struck sparks in the fungus, and on the fourth attempt it glowed, and flames flickered. An odd-smelling smoke rose and heat blossomed from glowing flame- petals. Kell glanced up. 'Get more,' he said.
'Bring Saark to the fire,' said Nienna.
Kell ground his teeth in annoyance, but gave a nod. He moved back down to the lapping shore. He bent, and lifted the dandy, and retrieved his axe. He carried both back to this odd subterranean campsite and threw down the axe. He laid Saark out. Saark's eyes opened.
'Thanks, old man,' he said, voice a hoarse whisper. 'Thought you were going to leave me out there to die.'
'Saark! Gods, man! You tough little cockroach!' Kell moved Saark closer to the flames, and stared in awe at the savage chest wound. He could see Saark's heart beating within, pulsating with very, very slow thumps. Kell shivered. Saark was a hair's-breadth from death.
Nienna returned, and they piled more fungus on the fire. Flames roared and within minutes steam was rising from their sodden clothes. Saark's eyes had closed, and Kell gestured to Nienna. They stepped away from the fire.
'There is nothing I can do for him,' he said, sadness buried in his eyes, in his voice. 'I wish there was, Nienna, truly I do. It is a miracle he has lasted this long. He must have lost a lot of blood.'
'Can you not stitch him? I've seen you sew wounds before!'
'No, Little One. It is too wide. It's straight through the bone. We must… sit with him. But when it is time to move on, well…' Kell gripped his axe tight, trying to convey understanding through gesture.
Nienna understood clearly, and she punched Kell on the arm. 'No!' she hissed. 'You're not going to kill him! I won't let you.'
'We cannot take him with us, girl. Look around you! I doubt very much we will survive. How foolish, to try and drag a guaranteed corpse.'
'He may be a guaranteed corpse to you,' said Nienna, eyes cold, voice in the tombworld, 'but he's a fine friend to me, and I will not leave him. You go if you wish, grandfather. But I will find a way to get Saark back to the sunshine.'
Kell sighed, and watched Nienna return to Saark. He ground his teeth, and rubbed at his temples, and moved back to the fire as the chill of the underground cavern bit him with tiny fangs. She has the stubbornness of her mother in her, he thought bitterly, but that only led to further painful memories, of ancient days, and Sara, and Kell closed that door with a violent shove.
Saark moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. 'Where am I?' he murmured.
'You should be dead,' growled Kell.
'Nice to see you, too, you old bastard.'
'I'm simply being honest,' prickled the aged axeman.
Saark coughed, and Kell rubbed at his beard. 'I reckon we'll need to be moving soon. Don't want those Vampire Warlords ramming claws up my arse.'
'How long have we been stranded?'
'A day, maybe.'
'If they wanted us, they would have found us,' said Saark, voice a croak, eyes watering. 'Is there anything to eat?'
'No.'
'Anything to drink?'
'Just brackish, oily water. At least the lake will sustain us.'
Saark laughed, then grimaced in pain. 'You bring me to the finest places, Kell.'
'Yeah, well, we ain't married yet, are we?'
'At least you acknowledge there might still be time. Ha!'
'Not whilst I'm breathing, lad.'
'Where's Nienna?'
'Gathering more fungus. It burns well, but with a strange smell.'
'I recognise that smell, Kell. It's drugsmoke. You're keeping us all high. Well done, that man. I thought my pain had receded; it's because I've been inhaling a natural narcotic for the last few hours. Don't you feel the buzz?'
Kell bared his teeth, face eerie by the light of the fire and the glowing, fungus-covered stalagmites. 'Yes. But what you're feeling – that may be the smoke, I agree, or it could just be the vachine blood which now runs through your veins in a torrent.'
There was an awkward silence.
'Listen,' said Saark, finally, eyes shifting uneasily.
Kell placed his hand on Saark's, and patted him. 'Don't you worry, lad. I know you think I'm an insane vachine killer… well, I am an insane vachine killer, but you're one of us. You're a friend. I promise to you, here and now, on my honour, on my blood, on my axe, that I will not kill you – vachine, or no vachine. That settle you?'
Saark coughed. Blood rimed his lips. 'Thank you. But you do not know what you promise. You do not know how it feels.'
