Nadine grabbed the leg of a fallen blood-seeker and helped one of her countrymen drag the beast to the pile near the wall of the cave. A nearby gas vent filled her nose with a pungent sting. She nodded at her men as they worked. They had done well. She had chosen the finest for this mission, and her choice was paying off. They had yet to lose a single man, even three days into their descent. Most of them hadn’t been in Lapour when the city was attacked by the veligiri that had taken the Mushar. Still, they’d managed to learn their new enemies quickly. It was a testament to their excellence.
The biggest challenge in their mission was still to come. Not being seen was one thing. Azolirum kept them on tight paths that left little room for distant scouting. Even so, they’d been caught a time or two, always by accident. Nadine had used the Eye to halt the escape of the first retreating pack of spies. The second had been too far for the Eye’s power to reach. Samar and Rushil had run down that scout, a manlike creature with snow-white skin that Azolirum had called a Nozgovot.
Nothing could be allowed to escape and alert the Soul Thieves of their presence. They’d eventually be discovered, no doubt. Once reinforcements arrived, if they stayed, they’d be overrun, Eye or no. They had to make it to the heart of the Earth before then. Then Azolirum would lead them through the secret passages of his stronghold where the Soul Thieves had barricaded themselves so Nadine and her men could devise and execute the assassination. Until then, they couldn’t leave a trail of bodies in their wake. No matter how quiet a path Azolirum and the others led them down.
Nadine wiped her face with the back of her arm, suddenly annoyed that she had blood spatter there. With a sniff, she turned and indulged the urge that had been itching at her since the fight had begun. Where was he?
She found Magnus in the first place she looked. There he was, baiting the troll to lumber forward to one of the nearby alcoves where a steaming gas vent let out into a rocky pit. He was being careful to avoid the creature’s enormous feet, which might as well have belonged to an elephant. Even so, those helping Magnus were more eager to direct the creature by poking it with lancets from behind. The savage was willing to take the front, despite the risk of being stepped on, in order to speed up the process.
When they had made it to the alcove, the other men stepped back while Magnus took over, running around behind it and pushing the beast all the way into the vent itself. Even from here, Nadine could hear its sputtering coughs as it choked on the noxious gas spitting from the pit. Those fumes would fully disintegrate the troll’s body over time, hiding the evidence of their party’s passage. Being exposed to them, even for so short a time, had to be painful for Magnus. The corners of Nadine’s mouth turned down.
Ever since his fight with the Nozverak king, she’d begun noticing things about the barbarian. Things that perhaps she’d have noticed before, had she been looking for them. Or perhaps she’d been interpreting them differently up until now. She’d thought his tendency to always be at the front of every endeavor was due to his arrogance, his constant need to be at the center of attention. But now? Did that need for attention extend to situations all but guaranteed to give him pain, or put him in mortal danger?
And then there were other things. Since coming underground, they’d had to be creative about supplementing their diets in case the mission should extend longer than anticipated. Crann, Azolirum’s second, would occasionally indicate a plant or an insect he thought edible for humans. Suspicion of malice aside, there was the plain question of whether or not the Nozverak had any idea what he was talking about. The uncertainty never lasted for long, however, because Magnus would always push his way through the crowd and immediately plop whatever plant was in question into his mouth and swallow it for all to see. He was also the first to drink whatever water they came upon. The list went on.
“You think he’s sucking a high off those fumes?” Samar snickered, sidling up to Nadine.
Nadine’s grip on her lancet tightened, and she flicked an irritable gaze in her second’s direction. She’d not spoken a word to the man that wasn’t an order since the day of the match. She spat on the ground before returning her gaze firmly to Magnus.
Samar crossed his arms and tried again in a light tone. “Or maybe I’m giving him too little credit? Maybe he knows something we don’t, and they’re soothing those pretty bruises?”
Nadine spoke over the laugh that was rising in his throat. “They are pretty. He sustained them in service of your captain’s honor. They should be on you.”
Samar guffawed. “Really? You think I should have challenged that”—his eyes searched for Azolirum who, for some insane reason, was busy smearing the front of his torso in the murky gray of a blood-seeker’s decimated corpse—“thing?”
Nadine huffed and forced herself to look at her childhood friend. Despite his light voice, his expression was searching with a hint of desperation. She had no sympathy for it. “What was your plan otherwise?”
“I already told you.”
Nadine’s lips thinned into a fake smile. “Yes, I remember. To give up the Eye. But let’s say for argument’s sake that I wouldn’t have given up my inheritance. What would you have done then?”
It took him a long time to answer. “I would’ve fought beside you. Like I always have.”
Liar.
The ugly thought taunted Nadine. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—accept it. In her mind, she opened her lancet and ran the doubter through, laid open his insides before kicking him into a hole and covering him with sand. Samar was her friend, had always been her friend. Would always be her friend.
“Well—” When her voice cracked, she turned away from him, swallowed over the lump forming in her throat. “In that case, we would have won. The Nozverak would be dead, and this mission would have ended before it even started. So I guess that makes the barbarian a hero to us both, doesn’t it?”
No response.
She looked back at Samar. His expression was hard, but then, so was hers. They stared at each other. Samar’s fists were tightly clenched at his sides and his nostrils flared.
If you have anything to say, Lanta, now’s the time.
His jaw worked and he managed a downward sweep of his eyes, the closest he would come to a salute before turning to walk away. When he took that first step, something began to crack in Nadine’s heart.
“Samar?”
He halted and half turned. There was anger on his face, hurt, but something else, too. A spark of hope, perhaps? Nadine swallowed to keep her voice from shaking as she searched for the right words. Then, all at once, she realized the truth. She had no words for him. What she’d wanted, what she’d needed, were words from him. But he had none for her.
“Just go,” she said.
She turned and joined the work. There she was, surrounded by her own people on the mission of her career, her family’s greatest heritage hanging on a golden chain around her neck.
So why did she feel so damned uncertain about everything?
18
White Knuckles
Magnus watched as Azolirum and his men knelt to shove the massive coils of rope over the side of the gaping hole. All four ropes fell into the blackened crevice like stones sinking to the bottom of a lake. Down and down they sped, the weight pulling at what remained of the shrinking piles above. They’d already been tied off. As deep as they had to go, it would be some time yet before the lengths went taut.