“Shhh,” I tell him.
“I thought he couldn’t hear,” he says, looking at Aifin.
“I can,” I say, irritable. “And I’d like to try.”
Aifin tugs at my sleeve, then points down at the deck. He crouches, putting his hand flat against the metal, and I do the same.
Then I feel it. A vibration, the deck shaking against my palm. It makes my teeth buzz in sympathy.
“It’s here,” I say. “We’re close.”
Berun swears, quietly. Aifin stands up, catches my eye, and points to the direction where the vibration felt strongest. I nod agreement.
We walk down the corridor, through the narrow clear space between the encrustations of mushrooms. A little bit farther on, it ends in a T-junction. The mushroom puffballs on the wall are swaying visibly with the grinding vibration.
“Stay here,” I tell Meroe. “I’ll take this side, Aifin will take the other, and we’ll see if we can spot it.” I gesture to Aifin, who quickly gets the idea.
Berun clutches his shield a little closer. “What if it turns up here?”
“Try to slow it down, then run for it. We won’t be far.”
“We’ll be fine, Berun.” Meroe catches my eye and nods. I pad around the corner, moving quietly, listening to the hum from the walls.
Berun’s devotion to Meroe would be touching, if he weren’t so craven otherwise. I shouldn’t blame him, but I can’t help a prickle of irritation, especially when Meroe takes his hand.
She doesn’t feel like that, though. Not about Berun.
And what if she did? I taunt myself, twisting the knife. You didn’t tell her anything. She hasn’t made any promises to you, any more than you did to her, before you went off and slept with Zarun.
Focus, Isoka. This is—
There’s something moving in the wall. A thick stream of gray motes, what the Scholar called Eddica energy. In the Deeps it was everywhere, but here in the Stern it’s less common. I hesitate for a moment, then put my hand up against it.
I assure myself it’s not personal. If Hagan is real—if he’s really Hagan—he might be able to help us. My eyes search the darkness as I whisper, “Hagan, can you hear me?”
“Isoka.” His voice is stronger than last time, with less of the strange distortion. “… hear you.”
“Blessed’s balls,” I swear. Because what am I supposed to say to him? “Is that really you?”
“… think so…” And there’s just a twist of irony in his voice that’s so like the old Hagan it makes me wince.
“Are you…” I swallow hard. “Are you dead?”
“… not sure.”
I freeze, because what I want to ask next is, Do you remember me stabbing you? And are you angry about it? Instead, I’m silent for a moment.
“The anomaly,” he says. “… coming soon. No one … survive.”
“The Rot. Do you mean the Rot?”
“Rot? Maybe … it says anomaly … sense out of it…”
“What says?”
“No time. The rogue … you’re … danger.”
Rot. The flow in the wall is weakening, fading away as I watch, and his voice fades with it.
“Hagan, why is the Captain taking us into the Rot? Can you speak to him?”
“Don’t…” His voice fades, then returns, thick with effort. “Find the Garden. Forward. The Bow. Safe there.”
“The Bow? We don’t know the way.”
“… help you. Like before. Find a strong enough…” His voices rises. “Rogue. Go, Isoka!”
There’s a scream from behind me, and the vibration redoubles. A moment later, Meroe comes running around the corner, with Berun trailing her, hand in hand.
“It’s coming!” Berun shouts.
Okay. Some mysteries will have to wait.
“Through the deck,” Meroe pants. “Spikes. It’s below us.”
“Rot.” I look down the narrow corridor. The floor is shaking violently, and bits of mushroom cascade from the walls. “We need more space. Come on.”
We run. The corridor lets out into a larger room, which is more to my liking. Even better, I spot Aifin on the other side, hurrying toward the vibration. He pauses when he sees me, and I gesture for him to stay put.
Something punches up through the floor, near where we came in. It’s a long black spike, needle thin, parting the metal of the deck as easily as cheese. It retreats just as rapidly, and another one comes up a few feet farther on, closing in on us. Berun and Meroe back away.
I raise my blades. “Berun, the next time it does that, try to hold it in place.”
He swallows hard and nods. A moment later, a spike slams upward, only a foot in front of my face. It’s close enough that I can see the serrated edges, gleaming with a dangerous sheen. Blue light materializes around it, Tartak bonds gripping the thing as tight as Berun can manage. It tries to retreat, tugging against the magic, but it can’t move, at least for the moment. I swing both my blades inward, closing them like a scissor, biting into the base of the spike. It’s tougher than I expected, and heat flares on my arms as my power struggles. With a blast of green light, the blades cut through, and the spike clatters to the deck.
The sheared-off surface is smooth and featureless. No blood, no internal structure, just tough, metallic carapace.
Underneath me, the deck shudders. I hear a wild scree, the slashing of talons against metal. I barely have time to leap aside before the deck plates buckle upward, opening outward like a flower in a shower of sparks. More black spikes tear at them, forcing the hole wider, and inch by inch the dredwurm pulls itself up.
It’s roughly cylindrical, maybe twenty feet long, thickest at the head and tapering to a thin, whipping tail. The black spikes are set on multi-jointed limbs, which protrude from its segmented body in rings, a dozen at a time. It doesn’t seem to have a sense of up and down—the spikes hold it off the floor and anchor it to the ceiling, both at once, scraping against the metal with hideous screeches.
At the front of it, there are three triangular mouths, ringed by rows of inward-pointing teeth. Each mouth is surrounded by another ring of limbs, smaller than the big leg-spikes but just as sharp. A final barbed spine tips the thing’s tail. It’s a dull black all over, carapace scraped and scratched from its passage through the metal. The only hint of color is in the center of its head, between the three mouths, where a faceted crystal pulses with a bloody red light.
It looks … familiar.
I am now firmly convinced this was a bad idea.
I glance at Aifin, give him the “okay” sign we agreed on. Back at home, we’d settled on a tentative plan. Aifin would work to draw the creature’s attention, while Berun tried to slow it down, and I would see about actually hurting it. Simple enough, when you’re not faced with tons of black armored monster.
Aifin, to his credit, doesn’t hesitate. Golden light blooms around him, drawn from his Rhema Well, and his shape blurs. He skates forward, sliding across the deck so fast he leaves trails of sparks in his wake. The writhing spiked legs of the monster make it difficult to approach from the side, but he threads his way between them like they were standing still, and he puts all his weight and speed behind one of his swords, aimed right at the seam between two segments of the dredwurm’s body. It sinks in, halfway to the hilt, and sticks there.
The screech comes not from the monster, but from the metal of the floor and ceiling as it grips hard, turning toward the source of the pain. Aifin darts backward, trailing golden sparks, as spiked limbs slash in his wake. He’s good, but I wonder how long he can keep it up. I’d rather not have to find out.
“Berun!” I shout. “Try to clear me a path!”
He wipes sweat from his eyes and raises his hands, the blue glow of Tartak. The closest half-dozen legs to me are wrapped in blue light, locking their joints. I can tell it won’t hold, the things are already trembling, but it gives me a second or two to sprint forward without having to dodge. I get to the thing’s side and grab a leg, hoisting myself off the ground.
Aifin has retreated through a doorway. The dredwurm plunges after him, its limbs ripping the walls apart to make a space wide enough for it to pass. Mushrooms explode into fragments as it barrels down the corridors, legs digging into ceiling, walls, and floor, pulling it forward faster than a charging horse. I can see Aifin’s golden light, only barely staying ahead of the monster. I keep my head down, bits of mushroom and scraps of metal glancing off my armor.