Page 37 of Vow of the Shadow King

“Woggha,”Hael says. She strides swiftly forward to inspect it and pulls a spear out from the base of its skull. Some brave soul had brought it down. Someone who died soon after, I suspect. No one escaped this tunnel, no one reached the safety of Mythanar.

“One cave devil couldn’t have done all of this,” Wrag says, turning his head this way and that, his light flashing across the corpses. He’s right.Wogghaare solitary creatures. It’s rare to come upon more than one at a time. But this level of carnage could only be the work of many devils.

Where have they all gone? We find four morewogghacorpses among the other dead. Not enough to account for the scope of this slaughter. I lift my gaze to the high walls surrounding us, all the various nooks and crevices.Wogghaare like cave crickets, able to slip in anywhere at any time. They can find ways through what looks to the rest of us like solid rock. “Stay on alert.” I say. “Weapons out. Be prepared to meet these fiends head-on.”

We proceed cautiously, passing more dead bodies as we go. Too many to count with certainty, and only a few of them fighters. Most, from what I can discern in the dim light, were ordinary people. All of whom seemed to be fleeing in one direction: away from Hoknath.

Dread tightens in my gut.

At last, we come to the end of the channel. It opens onto a vast cave, bigger than the cavern of Mythanar. Lake Hoknath, still, dark, and deep, lies some fifty feet below us. Giant glowworms build webs along the cavern ceiling. They gleam an eerie blue-green, lighting up the space, a very different light source from the crystal light of our home cavern, but beautiful. The glow illuminates the city itself—numerous gigantic stalactites which hang suspended above the lake. The city dwellings are carved directly into the stone with bridges suspended between them. I’ve journeyed here many times in my life. This city is familiar to me. But it’s always been a bustling metropolis of activity and commerce.

Now, all is deathly still.

The water level has risen significantly since the last time I was here. The nearest of the giant stalactites is partway submerged, the lowermost streets and dwellings flooded. Large chunks have broken off one of the other massive formations and fallen into the lake, jutting out like the broken body of a dead giant. Overhead, patches of the glowworm webbing have gone dark and dead. I see no sign of the great worms themselves.

“There.” Hael points. I look down to the water below us where dozens of small boats have been pulled onto the shore and abandoned. “They must have tried to evacuate,” she says. I know she’s referring to the dead in the tunnel.

With a grim nod, I scan the cavern wall, the places where riverways emerge, cascading down the rock to fill the lake below. One of those is the channel Sul traveled. I hope when the cave-in happened, the rushing water washed him out on this end, and he managed to keep himself from drowning.

“We’ll take the boats,” I say. “Search the shoreline. Then we’ll venture into the city and see what we can find.”

My people fall in line down the narrow stair. We split into three of the smaller crafts. Hael and I take one boat and set off at once for the nearest riverway cascade. Hael’s shoulders are tense as she sits in the prow, using a paddle to navigate around large boulders. My eyes are peeled for any sign of my brother, but I can’t help casting glances back over my shoulder at the ruinous city. It’s so dead. So still. So like Dugorim was when we returned through the Between Gate. But Dugorim was a small mining town on the edge of my kingdom; Hoknath is a mighty center of the Under Realm, an ancient and densely populated city.

“My King.”

Startled, I pull my gaze away from the city to meet Hael’s wide, pale eyes. “Look down,” she says.

Frowning, I cast a quick glance to the water below us. Then I look again, peer under the rippling dark surface. There are lights down there.Lorststones, flickering with the last of their energy, like dying stars. Their glow illuminates a world under water—a world of the dead. So many dead. Men, women. Children. Too many children, clutched in the arms of their parents. White bodies turned gray in death.

I cannot see far. The light is not strong enough. But I can see enough. “They jumped,” I whisper and look up at the hanging city. All the vitality seems to seep from my body. “Like Dugorim. They jumped to their deaths.”

We should go. At once. If the poison is still in the air, our masks will not protect us much longer. We too will go mad, one by one, killing each other before we kill ourselves. We should go, get away from this place. Seal all the riverway entrances to Hoknath and never speak of the city again. We should . . . we must . . .

“Aruk, hirak!”

Captain Toz’s growling voice yanks me back to the present. I turn to the boat he shares with Lur. Both of them gesticulate wildly to a point in front of my own craft. Frowning, I lean to one side, peer around Hael. A large chunk of broken rock juts from the water off to our left. I look again. There’s a figure pulled up on top of that stone, lying there like a broken doll, one arm twisted oddly. It’s Sul.

Hael gives an inarticulate cry. Without waiting for word from me, she angles our craft toward that rock and paddles with all her strength. We shoot across the dark water. “Sul!” I cry. My voice echoes hollowly in the dead stillness of the cavern. The figure on the rock does not stir.

Hael is wild in her efforts. She nearly steers our craft into the rock. At the last moment, she sticks out her paddle and pushes away so that our prow does not crash and splinter. “We need to look for a place to—” I start to say. Too late.

Hael leaps from the boat. Catching the side of the boulder, she hauls herself up and clambers to Sul’s body. She slips, one foot hitting the water, but adjusts her grip and pulls into a more secure position. Reaching out, she presses her fingers to my brother’s neck. “He’s alive!” she calls, twisting to look back at me.

“Yes,” a thin but silky voice responds, “but not for long if you keep shouting like that. You’ll bring the rest of the cavern crashing down on our heads.”

“Morar-juk,”I breathe, more like a prayer than a curse. That was unmistakably Sul. Alive, and well enough to muster his habitual sarcasm. I angle the boat around, craning for a better look.

Sul rolls his head. White hair trails over his sickly gray face. He blinks up at Hael. “My gods!” he says, the words thick on his tongue. “I never realized just how beautiful you are, Captain. You’re such a formidable specimen, it’s easy to overlook. But really, you’re like a warrior angel come up from the deep heavens to avenge us poor souls above.”

Hael shoots me a look over her shoulder. “He’s delirious.”

Sul grunts. “Very likely. I was just dreaming I was being kissed by an angel. Would you care to kiss me? Purely as a matter of study, of course. I’d like to see if it’s the same.”

“Shut up, Sul.” My captain’s trembling hands move over his body, searching for injuries. She looks at me again. “His arm is broken.”

“Happened in the cave-in.” Sul grimaces. “I thought for sure I was going to be pulverized to dust and then drowned for good measure. But the river shot me out into the lake and washed me up onto this stone. I suppose the Deeper Dark still has some purpose for me. Or maybe the other gods didn’t want me hanging about heaven, seducing the angels. Either way—”

A hand bursts out of the water. Before I have time to bark a warning, it latches onto Hael’s ankle. She gasps a vicious,“Juk!”

---