“I’ll walk!” she cried, backing away. “Let me walk, please! Can it hear me?” Gamarron paused mid-crouch, and she danced back a few more steps, talking rapidly. “The old man has to carry the chaos wielder. I’ll come along, no trouble. I promise. I want to be able… to see what’s coming. Please.”
The black-robed savage straightened and came close to her. She tensed, wondering if she should back up further but not wanting to get any closer to the demons. The old man’s fist connected with her cheekbone before she even saw him move, and she cried out, feeling something in her face crack as she fell once more to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Gamarron said.
She wanted to clutch at the pain, but her hands were still bound. She heard the monk move over to Guyrin. “It appears that he will let you walk if you do not resist.” She opened her eyes and watched him hoist the little man over his shoulder again, who moaned softly. “I can feel him, a little,” Gamarron whispered, looking straight ahead. “He doesn’t care about your fear. He doesn’t care how much I hate being his hands. He just wants.” He began walking up the steep black path.
“Time to go,” she muttered. She hauled herself to her feet and trudged after him, the eerie honor guard of demons lining the path as far as she could see. “I wish I didn’t believe you,” she said. “I wish you were just a crazy old man who’d finally lost it and started killing people. It would be better.”
“It would,” he agreed. “But I’m glad that you do believe me, regardless.”
“Shut up,” she said. They walked into the black mountains in the afternoon sun, and she tried to ready herself for death. She couldn’t quite grasp it. Even after watching Fi die, even seeing how easy it is for us little bags of meat to break, still I can’t imagine not… being. She wracked her brain for some shred of a chance to escape, but she was surrounded and powerless. The irony of having the world’s greatest weapon in her pocket and not being able to use it simply because her hands were tied made her chuckle bitterly. There’s not even any loose shale I could snatch up to try to cut my bonds. Can’t feel my fingers anyway.
“Was he with you all the time?” she asked later, more to break the silence than anything else. “Did he control all your actions?”
“No,” Gamarron replied. “He had me convinced that my quest was a just one; there was no need to ride me like a zephyr. I spent my own efforts to achieve his ends without him having to spare a thought for me, most of the time.” He paused, seeming hesitant. “I truly treasured the time I had with all of you. Even Renna. I have never had many friends that truly knew me.”
“Me neither,” Nira whispered, her heart overflowing with bitterness, anger, and hurt. “And look what being friends got us.”
They crested a narrow pass where the lines of waiting demons were barely far enough apart for them to pass, and Nira got her first waking glimpse of the Great Scar. Their path descended into a valley hidden in the foothills, and at the lowest point, the black stone opened in an enormous mouth that led down into the earth. The hole was as big across as ten men lined up head to heels. The stone around the gaping maw drooped in runnels and puddles as if it had melted and then formed again, and the misshapen stones glinted blood-red against the monochrome granite in the afternoon light. Tiny points of red rock lining the upper opening of the Scar looked like a multitude of teeth, and wisps of smoke wafted up from the depths. More of the stone-still demons stood in lines leading all the way up to the entrance of the great tunnel. “There are hundreds,” Nira said.
“I have never seen a demon hold back from attacking a human. His hold on them must be very strong.” Gamarron kept walking toward the entrance.
“Not like you, huh?” Nira muttered.
She felt a smothering dread as soon as she entered the great cavern. It hammered at her mind, deadening her resistance, smothering her will to live. At the same moment, the host of demons lining the path to the Great Scar began a rhythmic grunting, a guttural drumbeat that echoed their footsteps and followed them within. The floor of the great cavern was littered with bones and scraps of rotting meat. Burnt piles of dung smoldered at irregular intervals, and torches made of pale, woody stalks gave a flickering light to the hellish scene. Human bones were everywhere, but some of the corpses were too large, with shreds of purple skin betraying their origin. They eat their own. Dried blood flecked the walls. There was an overwhelming smell of smoke, blood, and shit. Nira wanted nothing more than to turn and run. Even knowing that a demon would certainly eat her or else Gamarron would break her legs, she still nearly tried it. Wait. Find your chance. It’s not now. She wasn’t sure if she was being wise or cowardly. The oppressive fear that radiated around her whispered that everything was futile.
“It grows,” Gamarron choked out as walked past the cavernous entry hall toward smaller tunnels. “I don’t think…” His words ground to a halt as he fought some terrible battle within himself. Whatever it was, he lost. When his mouth opened again, he growled in a tongue that made the demons’ guttural language sound like a choir of children. The oily syllables invaded Nira’s brain, resonating painfully in the hollow spaces within her, tugging at her sanity. She shrugged her ears against her shoulders one at a time, half-convinced they’d come away bloody. She wished she could run to Gamarron and bury her face in his robes like a child. He’s gone. Quit hoping. She
