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Chapter 7: Into The Dark

Chapter 7: Into The Dark

Mara’s next step slowed.

Rook continued as if discussing an unpleasant change in the weather. "They stalk people. Separate groups. Imitate familiar voices. Injure one traveller and leave them alive so the others waste time trying to help. Some carry pieces of memories they’ve stolen and use them to lure their owners closer."

"Dave came back from seeing one?"

"He came back after hearing one. You don’t survive seeing a third rank unless you’re a reaper."

"And just that made him look like a zombie?"

"He must have known the person..."

Mara looked toward the eastern pass. Nothing moved among the low hills, but the emptiness no longer felt reassuring.

"What about the higher ranks?"

"You shouldn’t worry about those here."

"Why? Are they rare?"

"No. They’re plentiful."

She looked at him. "That was not the answer I wanted."

"The thing is, if one of them chases us, you’ll finally start feeling grateful for the Blessing of Yama I gave you."

Mara swallowed hard.

Rook noticed. "So, still thinking about going?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You’re trying to scare me."

"I’m explaining the local wildlife."

"You deliberately made it sound worse."

"I haven’t reached the parts that sound worse."

"Because they don’t exist."

Rook stared at her for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose. "Fine, then. Let’s go."

He continued east.

Mara followed, pleased that she had refused to let him intimidate her. The satisfaction lasted until she realised he had stopped trying.

The road carried them away from the walls and deeper into the wasteland. The cold blue glow surrounding the city began to weaken behind them. Buildings blurred together, watchtowers became narrow silhouettes, and the pale Beacon twisting above the rooftops slowly vanished behind distant hills.

Without its light, the sky seemed to darken.

Mara looked upward. No stars appeared. No moon waited behind the clouds. There was only an immense black emptiness pressing down upon the land.

"Is that night?" she asked. "I didn’t even see the sun go up."

"There is no day or night here," Rook replied. "It’s always dark."

He reached beneath his coat and pulled out a narrow iron lantern. Its glass had been stained almost black, and several symbols had been carved around the base. He fastened it to a hook beside his hip.

Blue light stirred inside without flame.

Mara watched it brighten. "Then why did it look lighter inside the city?"

"The city illuminates its own perimeter. The Beacon, the walls and a few million dead souls pressed together make the darkness less noticeable." Rook tilted the lantern toward the path ahead. "The road to Yama has none of that."

The blue light spread across the ground, revealing a small circle of black grass and fractured stone around them. Everything beyond it disappeared.

Mara moved closer.

Rook noticed but kindly chose to express his awareness in the most irritating way possible.

"Scared?"

"No."

"You’re nearly standing on my foot."

"The path is narrow."

"The path is twelve feet wide."

"It becomes narrower near you."

He gave her a sideways look and continued walking.

She studied the lantern. Its glow touched the grass without reflecting from it. Even Rook’s shadow appeared faint, as though the light had been designed to reveal the ground while carefully avoiding everything that might be hiding upon it.

"Isn’t using light bad?" she asked. "Won’t the Abominations see us?"

"They can’t see this light."

"Why?"

"It isn’t meant for them."

A distant howl rolled across the wasteland.

Mara immediately stopped talking.

Another answered somewhere to their left, lower and closer. Then came a series of growls from among the ruins on their right. The sounds overlapped without rhythm, surrounding the narrow patch of blue light.

She moved nearer to Rook until her shoulder almost touched his arm.

"Are you sure this is the way?" she whispered.

"I am."

A wet clicking sound emerged from the darkness behind them. Mara glanced back, but the lantern’s glow did not reach far enough to show what had made it.

She lowered her voice further. "Because it sounds like everything out here knows where we are."

"Abominations can’t see the lantern, but they can hear us," Rook said. "So unless you want to become food, stop being a chatterbox and follow."

"You could have mentioned that before answering all my questions."

"I assumed the growling would help you reach the conclusion naturally."

Another howl rose close enough to make the grass tremble.

Mara pressed her lips together and followed.

They left the road several minutes later.

Rook guided her through a field of jagged stones, moving with far greater care than before. He tested the ground ahead using the end of a spear pulled from his coffin, avoiding patches of grass that looked identical to every other patch Mara had seen.

The landscape gradually rose beneath them.

Mara did not realise they were climbing until the city’s glow reappeared behind her, now little more than a dim blue stain on the horizon. The howls continued below, joined by the occasional scrape of claws and something that sounded disturbingly like laughter.

Rook stopped.

Mara’s hand seized the back of his coat before she could stop herself.

"What are you doing?"

"Preventing you from walking off a cliff."

One of his hands found her wrist in the darkness, guiding her several steps forward before forcing her down into a crouch.

The ground ended directly ahead of them.

Mara could not see the drop at first. Then Rook held the lantern forward, allowing the blue light to shine.

It spilled over the edge.

They stood atop a low cliff overlooking an enormous depression in the land. A black field stretched beneath them, so broad that its farther boundary vanished into the darkness. The grass moved in long, uneven waves, although there was no wind.

Then Mara realized the grass was not moving.

The things standing upon it were.

Hundreds of Abominations occupied the field below.

No...thousands.

Some crawled on too many limbs, their bodies dragging trenches through the earth. Others stood upright with narrow torsos and swollen heads, their mouths opening and closing in silent repetition. Enormous shapes lumbered among crowds of smaller creatures. One resembled a tower of fused bodies walking upon hands. Another pulled a cage of ribs behind it, something still moving between the bones.

There were twisted animals, crawling masses of skin and teeth, and figures that looked almost human until they turned and revealed faces split open from brow to throat.

Blue light touched only the nearest edge of the field. Beyond it, silhouettes continued moving in numbers Mara could no longer count.

Her grip tightened around Rook’s coat.

He watched the field with none of her disbelief. His gaze moved across it slowly, calculating distances, patterns and the narrow spaces separating one cluster from the next.

Mara leaned closer to him and whispered, "Tell me we’re going around."

"We’re not."

Her eyes moved across the horde again. "Then tell me there’s a hidden path."

"There is."

Relief entered her lungs before she remembered they did not need air.

"Where?"

Rook pointed toward the black field.

The relief left.

Mara stared at him. "That isn’t a path. That’s several thousand reasons to choose another path."

"The eastern pass is on the other side. That’s the way to Yama."

"You said there was a roaming Third Rank."

"There is."

"Down there?"

"Probably."

"Among all of those?"

"If we’re lucky."

She turned to him very slowly. "What would count as unlucky?"

Below them, thousands of heads turned toward a sound somewhere far across the field. The movement travelled through the horde in a wave.

Even from the cliff, Mara felt the earth tremble.

Rook rose and adjusted the chains holding the coffin against his back. Then he checked the grave-lime, repelling powder and explosives as calmly as someone preparing for an afternoon walk.

"I hope you’re ready for this."

Mara looked from him to the field.

"You bought Abomination-repelling powder."

"Yes."

"The shopkeeper said it worked on anything below Third Rank."

"He said it should."

"That isn’t what I..." Mara stopped herself and drew a slow, useless breath. "What exactly is the plan?"

Rook looked down at the thousands of Abominations between them and the eastern pass.

"Be quiet."

"That’s the entire plan?"

"No." He reached into one of the cases strapped to the coffin and removed a thunder charge. "The rest of the plan is for when you fail."

Rook started down the cliff.

After a moment, the chain around her wrist tightened and forced her to follow.

From somewhere in the field below, something began laughing.