countenance had fronted the storm.
It made no sense.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Rogger said, tugging on his arm. “We must let Kathryn know what we face.”
And who.
“There can be no doubt now,” Rogger mumbled.
Tylar turned to the thief. “What do you mean?”
Rogger stared toward where Eylan had vanished, toward the storm that circled Tashijan.
“We are under siege.”
AN INOPPORTUNE SURPRISE
“Not a sound,” Lorr breathed out.
In the dark, Dart perched atop her step, with Pupp beside her. Brant crouched on the stair above. Below, the two trackers huddled over their dimmed lamps, their glow further shadowed by their cloaks. In the darkness, Dart noted that the light far below was growing fainter. The furtive voices faded with it.
Whoever was down there was retreating deeper. Surely they were just masters, going about their usual secretive pursuits, buried away under Tashijan. But from the sounds of them, these skulkers were sunk quite deep.
A spider thread tickled Dart’s cheek. She brushed it away.
The air slowly stirred in the passage, flowing up, then down again, as if some great beast slumbered below, breathing in and out.
The tickle returned-then she felt something scurry down her cheek to her neck. Skags! She swatted at it, shifting in disgust.
The sudden movement almost dislodged her, but Brant caught her before she slipped from her stair and bumped into Kytt. Unfortunately the turn of her heel ground heavily upon an old lip of stone, and it broke away under her. A fist-sized chunk of rock bounced off the lower step and rolled down the ladder-steep staircase.
Crash…Crash…Crash…Crash
The echo faded into silence.
No one breathed.
Maybe the ones below hadn’t heard…
But the quiet was too deep. The bits of whispers had fallen silent. And Dart could still discern the glow below, steady now, no longer fading.
Keep moving away, Dart willed the light.
Lorr made a motion, waving them off, back up the stairs, but before any of them could move, a new sound flowed to them: a hushed noise. No voices, no words. Just a fluttering raspiness, like a flock of bats taking wing at sunset. Sweeping toward them.
The glow below suddenly vanished or was blocked by what rose toward them now, sinking all into an inky cavernous darkness.
Dart’s heart rose to her throat, choking back a rising scream. She reached blindly for the wall to make sure she was still in this world.
Even Pupp was a dull ember, as if fearful of revealing himself.
Down two steps, Lorr hissed as the noise grew, plainly sweeping up toward them. He stood and tossed back his cloak to reveal the amber glow of his lamp.
“Go!” the tracker urged with quiet command. “Kytt, take them back up. Keep your lamp shuttered.”
Defying his own words, Lorr opened the doors on his lamp, flooding the stairs with light. He took a step downward.
“What are you-?” Dart began.
“There is a side passage four steps down. I will set a false trail.”
As Lorr began to turn away, two small shapes soundlessly rounded the lower stairs and dashed into and through the group.
Pupp flared brighter in molten warning, bristling and snarling.
Dart squeaked in fright, flattening against the wall.
But Brant knelt and caught one in his cloak, bundling it up. Lorr snatched the other by the nape of its neck. Dart noted the dark fur, the white-tipped ears.
The lost whelpings.
The one in Lorr’s grip mewled in abject terror, pissing a hot stream of yellow bile. The tracker bent to sniff its fur. His nose crinkled.
“Black blood,” he mumbled just loud enough for Dart to hear. She heard a note of recognition in his voice-and deep concern.
Lorr heaved the wolf cubbie toward Brant, who scooped it under his cloak, alongside the first. Bundled together, the whelpings quickly settled. Perhaps they knew Brant’s scent. Perhaps they simply knew it was best to hide.
Lorr lifted his lamp. “Kytt, get ’em up there. Take Barrin with you. Get these two to Castellan Vail.”
Dart hesitated, not wanting to leave the tracker’s side.
Lorr’s yellow-gold gaze fell upon her. “Tell Castellan Vail that something foul has taken root deep in Tashijan. And now it stirs.”
“But what-?”
“That’s what I mean to find out.” Lorr swung away and swept down the steps, heading toward the heart of the darkness. As the tracker’s light vanished around the turn of the stair, Brant touched Dart’s arm.
“Hurry,” Kytt urged needlessly.
They set off back up the stairs, the young tracker in the lead, guiding with his shuttered lamp. Dart followed, while Brant stumbled after them, one arm supporting the whelpings, the other running along the wall, supporting himself.
Around and around, they ran.
Dart kept glancing behind her. She realized that they had outrun whatever had made that strange noise. Lorr must have succeeded in drawing it off. Still, the tiny hairs all over her body stood on end.
Behind her, Brant stumbled, brushing the wall with his cloak. The whispering rasp of cloth over old dusty brick struck her ear. She frowned, slowing a step.
Brant misinterpreted her hesitation. “I’m fine. Keep going.”
Dart hurried on after the weak glow of Kytt’s lamp, but her thoughts remained behind her. The brush of Brant’s cloak. It sounded the same as what had swept up toward them out of the bowels of the land. Only not one cloak but a host, a legion, rising swiftly, too swiftly, unnatural.
Or maybe not.
While training, Dart had witnessed many times the speed born of shadows, when a knight drew upon the Grace of his shadowcloak.
Her frown deepened by the time they reached the dislodged stone.
Kytt kept guard with his lamp and waved them to crawl through to the far room, back into the Master levels, into Tashijan proper.
Dart went first at Brant’s urging, herding Pupp ahead of her. On the far side, she waited, her arms hugged around herself, fearful for herself and for her friend she had left behind. In her ears, she could still hear the rustling rush. She remembered Lorr’s cryptic mumble to himself.
Black blood…
Dart knew she had to reach Kathryn as soon as possible. The urgency kept her heart pounding in her ears. Brant struggled through with the pair of cubbies. Kytt followed on his heels.
Dart waited until they all stood. “What about Lorr?”
Kytt spoke stolidly. “A wyld tracker knows how to hide a trail.”
