The Demon's Den

:Left?: He tried to remember, but the cold had seeped into his brain and thoughts moved sluggishly through it.

'I — I guess so.'

'Okay.' Ari tied one end of the rope around her waist as she spoke. 'Ask him if the quake happened within, say, twenty feet of that corner.'

I don't know. I don't remember. Gevris, I'm tired. Just stay with me while I rest.:

:No! Mean-brother, do not go to steep. Think, please, were you close to the comer?:

He remembered seeing the blood. Then stopping and looking into the hole in the side of the tunnel. :Yes. I think no more than twenty feet.:

'Good. We're in luck, there's only one place on this level where the cave system butts up against the mine. I know approximately where he is. He's close.' She reached forward and sifted a handful of rubble. 'I just have to get to him.'

A hundred feet of rope would reach the place where the quake threw him out of the mine, but, after that, she could only hope he hadn't slid too deep into the catacombs.

Turning to where she could feel the bulk of the Companion, Ari's memory showed her a graceful white stallion, outlined against the night. 'Once I get the rope around him, you'll have to pull him free.'

He whickered once and nudged her and she surrendered to the urge to bury face and fingers in his mane. When she finally let go, she had to bite her lip to keep from crying. 'Thanks. I'm okay now.'

Using both arms at once, then swinging her body forward between them, Ari made her way into the mine, breathing in the wet, oily scent of the rock, the lingering odors of the lanterns Dyril and the others had used, and the stink of fear, old and new. At the first rockfall she paused, traced the broken pieces, and found the passage the earlier rescue party had dug.

Her shoulder brushed a timber support and she hurried past the memories.

A biting gust of wind whistled through a crack up ahead, flinging grit up into her face. 'Nice try,' she muttered. 'But you threw me into darkness five summers ago and I've learned my way around.' Then she raised her voice. 'Shining One, can you still hear me?' The Companion's whicker echoed eerily. 'You don't need to worry about him running out of air, this place is like a sieve, so remind your Herald to keep moving. Tell him to keep flexing his muscles if that's all he can do. He's got to keep the blood going out to the extremities.'

:What extremities?: Jors heard himself giggle and wondered what there was to laugh about.

:Chosen, listen to me. You know what the cold can do. You have to move.:

:I know that.: Everyone knew that. It wasn't like he hadn't been paying attention when they'd been teaching winter survival skills, it was just, well, it was just so much effort.

:Wiggle your toes!:

Gevris somehow managed to sound exactly like the Weaponsmaster, and Jors found himself responding instinctively. To his surprise, his toes still wiggled. And it still hurt. The pain burned some of the frost out of his brain and left him gasping for breath, but he was thinking more clearly than he had been in some time. With his Companion's encouragement, he began to systematically work each muscle that still responded.

The biggest problem with digging out the Demon's Den had always been that the rock shattered into pieces so small it was like burrowing through beads in a box. The slightest jar would sent the whole crashing to the ground.

Her eyes in her fingertips, Ari inched toward the buried Herald, not digging but building a passageway, each