can’t. I’m sick. I’m so sick.’
‘Vindeliar, you’d best recall that I and only I give you your orders. Alaria, be silent!’
‘So many of them were in there,’ Vindeliar groaned. ‘They were all pulling at me. I’m so sick.’
‘Be sick silently!’ Dwalia snapped.
Alaria was gasping in horror. She did not speak again but I heard the small weeping sounds she made, and the deep groan of the Chalcedean when he finally reached some sort of satisfaction. She tried to wriggle away from him, but I felt his arm muscles tighten and knew he held her there. It was as well for me. I did not want her to roll off him and onto me.
‘Feel about, as much as you can,’ Dwalia commanded. ‘Can anyone feel an opening in this tomb?’
It was a poor choice of words. ‘Tomb,’ Vindeliar repeated and gave a trailing moan of despair.
‘Silence!’ she wheezed at him. ‘Feel about over your head. Is there any opening?’
I heard them moving in the darkness, heard the scraping brush of fingers against stone, the scuff of boots scraping more stone. I remained still.
‘Anything?’ Dwalia demanded of the darkness.
‘No,’ Alaria responded sullenly. ‘Only stone, everywhere I touch. I can barely lift my head. Have you any room next to you?’ The Chalcedean’s muscles had gone slack and, by his stentorian breathing, I deduced he had fallen asleep. Madness was, perhaps, a mercy in some situations.
‘Would I allow Vindeliar to lie on top of me if I could be anywhere else?’ Dwalia demanded.
A silence. Then Alaria suggested, ‘Perhaps you should take us back to where we were?’
‘Unfortunately, as the Chalcedean emerged, he pushed me to one side and shoved Vindeliar on top of me. He now lies on top of the portal stone. I cannot reach it from where I am.’
‘We are packed like pickled fish in a cask,’ Vindeliar observed sadly. More softly he added, ‘I suppose we will all die here.’
‘What?’ Alaria demanded in a half-shriek. ‘Die here? Starving to death in the dark?’
‘Well, we can’t get out,’ Vindeliar responded morosely.
‘Be silent!’ Dwalia ordered them, but it was too late. Alaria broke. She began weeping in gasps and after a few moments, I heard Vindeliar’s muffled sobs.
Die here? Who would die first? A scream started to swell inside my chest.
That is not a useful thought, Wolf Father rebuked me. Breathe. Quietly.
I felt panic swell in me and then be quashed under his sternness.
Think how to escape. Do you think you could enter the stone alone? Could you reach under the Chalcedean and open the passageway to return us to the forest?
I’m not sure.
Try.
I’m afraid to try. What if I get stuck in the stone? What if I come out alone somewhere?
What if you stay here and starve? After, of course, the others go mad and attack one another? Now, try.
When I had slid off Kerf, I had landed on my back. I wriggled to one side. I had to roll onto my sore shoulder to do so. And it was that hand and arm that I had to try to wedge under Kerf and Alaria’s combined weight. I tried to do it slowly, sliding my hand under the small of his back where it did not press so hard against the stone. I made a small sound of pain and Alaria’s sniffling stopped. ‘What’s that?’ she cried, and reached down to me. ‘She’s moving. Bee’s alive and awake.’
‘And I bite!’ I reminded her, and she snatched her hand away.
Now that they knew I was awake, there was no point in being secretive. I shoved my hand as far under Kerf as it would go. He shifted slightly, pinching my arm under him, then belched and went back to snoring. My shoulder burned as I worked my hand deeper under Kerf, scraping it over gritty stone. I heard my own fearful panting and closed my mouth to breathe through my nose. It was quieter but I was still just as terrified. What if I touched the rune and was suddenly sucked in? Could it drag me in past Kerf? Would he and Alaria fall in with me, as if I had opened a door under us? The terror put pressure on my bladder. I blocked it. I blocked everything except the effort of pushing my hand across stone. The stone surface under my fingers suddenly became a small indentation. I cautiously explored it with my fingertips. It was the rune.
Do you feel anything? Can you make anything happen?
I tried. I didn’t want to, but I pushed my fingers into the rune and rubbed the tips against the graven lines of it. Nothing. Nothing happens, Wolf Father.
Very well. We should think of something else, then. His words were calm but beneath them I felt his simmering fear.
Dragging my arm out from under Kerf was more painful than pushing it beneath him had been. Once my arm was free, I knew a sudden surge of panic. Everything was touching me – Kerf’s warm body, the unyielding stone below me, the stone alongside my body. I desperately needed to stand up, to stretch, to breathe cool air. Don’t struggle, Wolf Father insisted. Struggling only makes a snare go tighter. Be still and think. Think.
I tried, but everything was touching me. Alaria was weeping again. Kerf was snoring. His ribs moved against me with every breath he took. My tunic had twisted around me, binding one of my arms. I was too warm. I was thirsty. I made a small noise in the back of my throat without intending to. Another sound rose in me, a scream that wanted to get out.
No. None of that. Close your eyes, cub. Be with me. We are in a forest. Remember the cool night smells of a forest? Lie very still. Be with me.
Wolf Father pulled me into his memories. I was in a forest. Dawn was coming and we were snug in a den. Time to sleep, he insisted. Sleep.
I must have slept. When I awoke, I held tight to the calm he had given me. I had nothing else to cling to. In the blackness, I measured the passage of time by the behaviour of my fellow prisoners. Kerf awoke when Alaria became hysterical. He put his arms around her and crooned to her, perhaps a Chalcedean lullaby. She stilled after a time. Later, Dwalia burst into shrieking impotent fury when Vindeliar pissed on her. ‘I held it as long as I could,’ he wailed, and the smell of urine made me want to piss as well.
Dwalia whispered something to him, her voice as soft and deadly as a snake’s hiss, and he began to sob.
Then his sounds stopped, and I decided he slept. Alaria was quiet. Kerf began to sing, not a lullaby but some sort of marching song. He stopped abruptly in mid-verse. ‘Little girl. Bee. Are you alive?’
‘I am.’ I answered because I was glad he had stopped singing.
‘I am very confused. When we walked through stone, I was certain we were dead. But if we are not dead, then this will not be a good way for you to die. I think I could reach your neck. Would you like me to strangle you? It will not be fast, but it is a faster death than starving.’
How thoughtful. ‘No, thank you. Not yet.’
‘You should not wait too long. I will become weak. And it will be unpleasant in here soon. Piss. Shit. People going mad.’
‘No.’ I heard something. ‘Hush!’
‘I know my words are sad to hear, but I only seek to warn you. I may be strong enough to snap your neck. That might be faster.’
‘No. Not yet.’ Not yet? What was I saying? Then, from far away, a sound. ‘Listen. Do you hear that?’
Alaria stirred at my words. ‘Hear what?’ she demanded.
‘Do you hear something?’ Dwalia snapped at me.