Page 73 of The Delver
CHAPTER 18
“A fork in the road,”Callie said as they stood in front of two branching tunnels. “Which way does the wind lead you, big guy?”
Urkot grunted, extending his forelegs to the sides. He’d followed the air current thus far, knowing it would take them to some sort of opening to the surface eventually, but he felt it from both branches here.
The tunnel on the left was narrower, with a lower ceiling, and the airflow… The difference was slight, but it was weaker.
“This way,” he said, stepping into the right tunnel. Callie walked beside him.
As they proceeded, the passage widened, and a strange, unsettling sense of familiarity teased at Urkot’s mind. He paused when they reached an opening on the tunnel wall. Only a moment’s examination told him it wasn’t a natural occurrence, but a deliberately shaped entryway.
Urkot moved to the doorway and peered inside, holding his crystal up to shed light into the chamber.
“What is it?” Callie whispered.
The chamber’s shape, its size, the little alcoves and shelves carved into the stone, it was all familiar to him. Tattered, dirty,threadbare silk cloth dangled from the wall and lay crumpled on the dusty floor in the corner. He doubted even Rekosh would’ve been able to guess the age of that fabric.
“This was a den,” Urkot said.
“Spiritstriders?”
He heard the fear in her voice, and reached out to her, settling a hand upon her lower back. “I do not think so. This is the same as the dens in Takarahl.”
“The statues, these dens… Did shadowstalkers live here?”
They backed away from the chamber, and as they continued along the tunnel, Urkot replied, “Perhaps. A big time ago. The first queen, Takari, led our kind to Takarahl from our old home, but the stories do not say where that was.”
More dens stood along the tunnel’s walls. A few had scraps of silk hanging at the entryways, though the fabric looked like it would crumble to dust if touched.
“I wonder if the thornskulls know this place exists,” Callie said. “It’s so close to Kaldarak. If there were shadowstalkers here, there must be some history of them. There must be some stories.”
“We will ask when we return.”
Striding along that tunnel remained odd for him. In some ways, it felt like being back in Takarahl—a Takarahl that had been abandoned and lost to time. It filled him with a sorrow he could not quite explain, balanced only by his deep curiosity.
Had Zurvashi retained power, would this have been Takarahl’s fate? Would she have bled the shadowstalkers dry until nothing remained in the city’s dark tunnels, not even their spirits?
Faint light spilled into the tunnel from a few of the dens where crystals grew in veins on the walls. Urkot peered into one to find a wall and part of the ceiling collapsed. Glowing crystalswere scattered in the rubble, bathing part of the chamber in soft blue light while leaving the rest shrouded in shadow.
That blue seemed cold and harsh here, where it only served to emphasize the chamber’s emptiness. All it could truly call attention to was absence—of joy, of life.
Was this what it felt like to be a ghost? Trudging through empty darkness and finding no warmth or solace in the rare patches of light, only more nothingness?
With those heavy, uneasy thoughts churning in his mind as he and Callie neared a bend in the tunnel, Urkot almost didn’t notice the light scraping of steps from ahead.
Callie stopped half an instant before him, bringing him to an abrupt halt.
Something growled from around the bend. It was followed by guttural voices and scuffling, scrabbling sounds that echoed along the tunnel, drawing nearer.
Urkot met Callie’s gaze. Her eyes were rounded with fear, and he knew her thoughts had leapt to the same place as his—the spiritstrider that had set upon them in the dark.
Hearts pounding, he stuffed his crystal into his pouch, snatched Callie off her feet, and clutched her to his chest as he retreated. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him without question. He gritted his teeth as he moved, his leg muscles straining as he struggled not to make a sound. The spiritstriders, speaking to one another in those harsh voices, continued to get closer.
Urkot entered the first chamber he came upon without hesitation, finding himself in the den with the rockfall.
He hurried deeper inside. Callie curled up in his arms as he sank low in the space between the rubble and the wall, making himself as small as possible and hiding her body in the shadow of his own. His claspers instinctually hooked around her hip todraw her more securely against him. His markings glowed in response to the crystals.
The sounds from the tunnel drew nearer. Two distinct voices, arguing in words he could not understand; clicking echoing along the tunnel and within the chamber; limbs stomping and scraping stone.
