Page 127 of The Cradle of Ice
Cassta lifted a palm. Her skin shone with perspiration, and a gash in her brow wept blood into an eye, which she wiped away with the heel of her other hand. “Hold here. Let me assess something first.”
She set off for one of the tunnels. Kanthe followed, but she waved him off. “Prince Kanthe, you reek far too much to be close to me.”
Crestfallen, Kanthe retreated to the group, sniffing at his clothes.
Frell watched her cross a fair way down one tunnel—then she stopped and raised her lantern. Basked in its glow, she lifted her face. With her eyes closed, she turned four slow circles. Afterward, she returned and did the same pirouette down the other tunnel.
When she joined them again, her face was thoughtful, her head cocked to one side. She pointed to the left tunnel. “We should go that way.”
“Why?” Kanthe asked.
“I’ve noted a slight whiff in the air. Not of damp rock or wet silt. And certainly not the ubiquitous sulfur. It has a bitter quality to it, like burnt oil. Or maybe the taint of a strange alchymical.” She gave a small shake of her head. “No matter, it strikes me as unnatural to this place.”
Frell lifted his nose, inhaling deeply. The others did the same. They shared looks, but from their confused expressions, no one else sensed the same.
“Are you sure, lass?” Jester asked. “You might just be smelling my brother. His gaseous emissions are just as unnatural to this world.”
Mead jabbed an elbow into his brother’s ribs. “Like you cast roses out your arse.”
Frell nodded to Cassta. “With no way of evaluating otherwise, we might as well follow your lead.”
“Or her nose, to be more precise,” Kanthe muttered, sniffing again at his body.
As they set off, Frell realized why Cassta—with the sharper senses of a Rhysian—had asked Kanthe to keep away from her. “You do smell ripe,” Frell told the prince as he passed.
Rami agreed. “Like a dead boar that’s been rotting in the sun.”
Kanthe shook his head and followed. “Like you all smell any better.”
As they forged ahead, the path grew ever more treacherous. The walls squeezed closer. The roof dropped in jagged shards. One tunnel was so flooded that it required swimming through it, holding their lanterns high.
Along the way, more paths diverged, requiring Cassta’s keen senses to guide them onward. Still, after a time, even Frell could smell that bitterness in the air. He also noted that the tunnels had gotten progressively colder, as if they were leaving the volatile lands of Malgard behind and entering an older, more stable region.
Pratik shivered next to him. “We can’t continue forever. Not without proper provisions and gear.”
Frell could not disagree. They had been traveling for over two bells now—though the passage of time was difficult to judge down here.
And we still must climb back out, too.
Even if they turned around now, it would be near to morning when they reached the surface.
This worry weighed on his shoulders. He wondered if they should head back up and come down better prepared. Then a shout rose from where Cassta had taken the lead, flanked by Rami and Kanthe. The three had kept moving steadily, fueled by the bottomless well of strength that only the young possessed.
“Come up here!” Kanthe called back.
Frell and Pratik headed his way, trailed by the Guld’guhlian brothers. Kanthe and the others had stopped at the top of a steep rise in the tunnel. Frell climbed up, sometimes dropping to a hand to keep going. When he reached the top, he was wheezing hard. He straightened with a sharp twinge in his lower back.
Past the rise, the tunnel dropped into a large cavern. The bottom held a small lake, which reflected their light like a mirror. As they all stared down, those waters below began to tremble, then the ground underfoot. A low rumble spread, as if a great beast were warning them away—but it was no subterranean dragon.
“Quake,” Frell gasped out as the small tremblor subsided.
They all shared worried looks. Not just about the threat of moonfall. They were all buried far underground. If any of the tunnels should collapse, they’d be lost forever.
“We should not stay down here any longer than necessary,” Frell warned, and turned to Kanthe. “What had you so excited a moment ago?”
Kanthe frowned, searching below. “With everyone gathered now, there’s too much light. We need to shutter our lanterns.”
Curious, Frell pulled the dampers over his light. The others did the same, even Rami doused his torch. As darkness collapsed upon their group, Frell blinked several times, trying to get his eyes to adjust, but he remained blind.
