《The Wedding of Eithne》Chapter Eight, Scene Twenty
Advertisement
“Stop that!” She slapped at the boot.
The boot tapped more gently on her head. “Bolin. Go on. Please.”
“Damn it, stop that!” She felt like a fool arguing in the dark with only two ways to go, and reached with her foot for the next rung.
She shook her head as she descended. I swear, the world beyond Dolgallu is beyond my grasp. She’d thought she understood a thing or three about the world. She’d always felt superior and impatient with people, especially her mother and all the other ignorant, conniving, destructive women like her. Father had always encouraged her, made her feel competent.
But since she’d left her home, she felt crippled: traveling in disguise, or in a narrow, closed carriage. Insulted and looked down on. Defended by others, kept from one fight after another for fear she’d shatter like some fragile porcelain doll.
She felt around in the tight darkness for the next stile. I don’t have Father’s ear now, do I? And what did he ever really give me anyway? A false sense of importance, that’s what. Lot of good that’s done me.
Longing rushed over her, for recognition, for satisfaction. For even a damned moment’s rest.
She thought then of Eowain, of all the grief and trouble she’d been to him. Of all the taunts and threats and angry words she’d had for him.
I don’t really know how to care for anyone, do I? She wasn’t sure she’d ever had the chance to learn. When Eowain offered his protection, all I did was insult him.
She kicked at the next iron rail and stepped down. The air seemed to change and her questing boot found a floor, closer than she expected. She reached into the darkness. Some sort of opening in the shaft? Then her hand recoiled from slimy, wet, rough-hewn natural rock.
A boot came down on her head.
“Gods damn it all, stop that!” She put her hand to the slimy wall, stepped from the shaft, and stopped.
Advertisement
Something gripped her arm.
She jumped.
“It’s me, mum.”
Tommalt, in the dark. Damn it. She put her hand on his. “Sorry. Where’s—?”
“It’s dark down here!”
And there’s Talwyn. At least she hadn’t run off into the dark. “Talwyn, you need to stay with me, you understand?”
“I ain’t scared. I’m a Cockam, I am! An’ I ain’t gonna hold yer hand, neefer.”
The bodies of the little men moved around her in the dark. There was a click, then a clack, then a spark in the darkness. The first little man’s face, with his tawny hair and beard, came into sight as he coaxed a flame to life. He lifted the fledgling flame with a thin stick and she marveled at the sight of a small box that seemed to be framed with iron but walled with red-tinted glass.
He set the oil-soaked wick inside the box a-flicker, and the fire caught, grew, and steadied. The little man closed the glass box, lifted it by an iron ring at the top, and shook away the flame that still clung like a stubborn worm to the stick.
Around her, a rocky chamber came into view, its walls slick with draperies of white flow-stone. She had room enough to stand upright, but it was neither so tall nor so wide as to relieve the oppressive sense of such a tight space.
The second little man glanced up the shaft behind them with his pale blue eyes, then hefted the mighty crossbow in his hands and pointed it, cocked with a fresh bolt, into the blackness ahead.
Eithne drew her short sword and pulled the dagger from her belt with her other hand. Tommalt beside her did the same, and even little Talwyn produced a wicked-looking knife from under her hooded cloak.
Dwo took a steel headed hammer—blunt at one end, spiked at the other—into his hand, then raised the lantern,gestured with the hammer at the darkness and tapped the head of the hammer against his chest. “Thrógimaim? You understand?” He pointed up the shaft again. “That way’s no good.” He shook his head. Then he pointed into the blackness—“This way?”—and tapped his chest again. “This way is good.”
Advertisement
Kilim shook his head. “Eithne thrógimaim bolgimbímalk.”
Dwo scowled at him. “Bofedéboldal thrógimaim Avac ovar morlode babolain… bukilar… daim… baleovatek.” He enunciated slow and clear, exaggerated the care he took with his words.
Kilim grunted with what might have been a laugh.
“We’re standing right here, you know.”
Dwo pointed with the hammer into the blackness once more. “This way. Come on.” Then he shrugged and tapped Kilim on the back with the hammer head.
Kilim turned and, crossbow aimed from the shoulder, set off into the dark.
He shrugged, lifted the lantern, and went off after Kilim. The red light went with him.
“Ooo, I wanna go!” Talwyn skipped down the tunnel after them.
Tommalt seemed dubious. “Mum?”
The dark closed in around Eithne. Her skin crawled as the tight space and the absolute blackness overwhelmed her. With a last look up the dark shaft—“Damn it all”—she followed the light of Dwo’s lantern. Tommalt came along behind her.
The red light bobbed left and Eithne found that the way jogged there and opened into a larger chamber. The glow receded down a passage from the chamber. As she followed, the shadow of short little Dwo and Talwyn disappeared around a corner to the left.
Eithne quickened her pace and went around the corner with sword and dagger at the ready.
Dwo’s silhouette was still ahead with the lantern. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her and shrugged. Talwyn was wide-eyed, her fingers trailing over the rock walls.
With their longer legs, Eithne and Tommalt soon caught them, but Kilim and his crossbow were nowhere to be seen in the pool of red lantern light.
Dwo tapped at the wall on their right gently. “Careful. It’s unstable here.”
Ahead on that side, a tumble of rock not yet coated with slime and flow-stone blocked the way.
Dwo led her left.
She ducked at the last moment under a round shield of stone that dripped with stony spikes.
“Oh.” Dwo put the hammer to the side of his head. “Mind the ceiling.”
Eithne scowled at him. “Thoughtful of you, thanks.”
Dwo shrugged. He led her around to the backside of the obstruction. The way, rough and twisted, widened and narrowed at random, and—Ow! Damn it!—the ceiling height continued to vary.
Tommalt’s voice quavered with unease. “Mum. Who are they?”
Eithne’d been wondering that herself. “Old stories come to mind. Stories about an ancient race that lived here long before Men—or even Shynn—came across the seas. Short, stunted little people called, ‘Avacs,’ who lived beneath stony-headed hills and built the ancient stone monuments.” She pointed up toward the hill that loomed over them. “Like the circle of menhirs on the hill.”
Tommalt’s eyes darted toward the little man with the red lantern. “You really think they’re Avacs, mum?”
She couldn’t think of a better explanation.
Dwo led them into a cross-way. Kilim came back into the lantern light from the straight path before them and shook his head. “Boforthorim.” He shivered and held one of his hands about a foot apart from his crossbow, then wriggled his fingers like many little legs. “Belim bofónalin boforthorim.” He nodded to another passage—“Thorin gilaim”—put his bow back to his shoulder, and led them into the dark.
Dwo shrugged—“Kilim doesn’t like centipedes.”—then went on after his mate.
Something in the darkness chittered and clicked. “I’m sure,” said Eithne, entirely unsure that she was. She kept a cautious distance, and her sword and dagger ready.
Advertisement
- In Serial8 Chapters
LESS 9999K HEALTH POINTS
Something impossible happened, a second bug of the millennium and this would not be a problem if a while later the world had not started to have aspects of games. First items started to appear, then people started to gain strange abilities and finally the places changed, where there had been huge buildings and towers, forests appeared with trees and fruits impossible to grow. The world kept changing and then the Mobs emerged, they would create an era of destruction if it weren't for the players. The story tells how Jun Saie, one of the strongest players, lost everything he had and now needs to get everything back.
8 205 - In Serial28 Chapters
Murderous Loves
"Look into my eyes"I whispered he adjusted his eyes to look into mine. "1 month ago, my mother was murdered. I came home to see her dead body lying dead on the floor. The man who killed her hasn't escaped yet. Imagine the rage I felt when I saw the man with the same 34 magnum that killed my mama in the waistband of his pants" I pressed his head harder against the table. "You tell me what I could do when I was filled with rage." Zeke a 16 year old boy comes home to find his mom murdered, after killing the man who murdered his mother hes sent to jail, how will his new life be when he is released and how will his city feel about the new murder running around town.
8 414 - In Serial41 Chapters
Girls Need Love
Born into a world only to be left alone. Micah has constantly been on the fight for love, protection, and family. She's done everything to find herself. Now that's she's found something is still missing... will Travis be that something?Complete 04.06.19
8 212 - In Serial8 Chapters
Azure Lineas: The Blue Line
Who watches the watchmen? Azure Lineas, The Blue Line, does. A technologically powered vigilante, Azure uses drones to protect the public from a police force who routinely uses deadly force against innocent citizens. The drone technology is quickly traced to a company run by Pierce Hawkins, a man made quadrapeligic years before by a stray police bullet in a shootout that killed an unarmed child. As the police and Azure escalate against each other, the public find themselves taking sides, and everyone asks, Who is Azure Lineas? And what line will The Blue Line not cross?The story is told in alternating first person from Azure Lineas' perspective, but in a way that does not give their identity away, and in third person, following a variety of people who's lives are impacted when the Line draws across their paths.
8 115 - In Serial34 Chapters
Hamilton ships
I'm rating Hamilton ships. This is going to be fun
8 195 - In Serial16 Chapters
Zombies
This is one of three stories that I am offering as a test run. If you like it, then I'll choose to continue working on it. I have a whole plot line ready to explore! What can I say, I'm a sucker for rebirth, regression, and transmigration stories. This one is a regression story. The main character get's yeeted back in the past, to where the end began. Read on tortured souls as I do my best to break the weak, and sooth those who don't have a soul to break. I spent some time trying to make a story that explores all the gritty situations a resident of the apocalypse would encounter. Unfortunately, I do struggle with pace. I get just as impatient as you when I can't get to the next bloody encounter. But I despise OP characters, and I really wanna stop and explore the fascinating death of civilization. I write this in hopes of making a main character who get's to be the bad-ass I can't be, without, you know, skipping the good stuff.
8 171