We near the hallway leading to the blacksmith. “If it isn’t too much to ask,” I try, limping a little more now, “I would love to know anything else. Anything I’m saying wrong, greetings I should or shouldn’t be using—”
“You’re faring well.”
“But not just that,” I insist as we turn down the hallway. The heat increases to a pleasant, summery temperature. I step behind Azmar to show deference to a troll—trollis—coming the opposite way, then hobble after Azmar. “All of it. How your society works. The city. Engineering. The canyon, the food and where it comes from. The farms. I want to learn everything.”
He pauses halfway between the blacksmith and a sizable lift. Looks down at me. He’s a full foot and a half taller than I am, yet his looming isn’t intimidating in the slightest. Not as it had been with Sleet or Grodd.
“You don’t plan to request leave, then?”
“I can do that?”
“I’m not sure.” Azmar rolls the papers in his hands. If he discards any of them, I’ll snatch them up so I can make copies of Wiln’s almanacs in the unused spaces. “Most humans who come here do so in desperation. But given recent events . . .” He glances at the bruised side of my face.
I shake my head. “In truth, there’s nowhere else I’d want to go.”
He nods, finding the weak explanation perfectly acceptable. “I’ll see what I can do.”
And like that, hope reignites, just as the blacksmith’s bellows light their coals.
We start for the lift. “Where does this lead?”
“Down.” The large lift appears less used and has a grating in front of it that Azmar pulls aside. “This will take us near the south dock. I want to survey the area again. I don’t trust these measurements.”
He steps onto the lift. I follow and lean against its far wall. The lift’s ropes are thicker than others I’ve seen. When Azmar begins pulling them, the lift moves slowly. His arms bulge with the weight of it, and tension settles into his jaw. How heavy is the lift?
“Do you want help?”
He shakes his head. “Almost there.”
The lift touches down a moment later. Azmar shakes out his arms before stepping out. We walk a short way before I recognize where we are. We’re just under the south dock. I usually pass overhead to go to my shift.
A wisp of fresh, mildew-scented air tousles my hair. The light of the distant, setting sun reflects off stone. I breathe deeply and waver as nostalgia strikes me, yearning for an open sky and all its stars, the chirp of hidden crickets, the smell of dry earth.
Azmar walks nearly to the edge of the floor, where a ladder descends even lower. I carefully follow down after him, testing the strength in each of my legs. When I reach the bottom floor, I’m technically below Cagmar, standing on a ledge of the canyon wall itself. It’s about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. Not too dissimilar from a viewing point.
As Azmar pulls out a coil of measuring tape from his belt, the platform quakes. Softly, like it’s snoring, but Azmar freezes, his entire body tense.
Another shake, this one a little harder. Somewhere above us, the voices of trollis burst like blisters, interrupted by the distant sound of a horn. A hard word escapes Azmar’s lips, and though I’ve never heard it before, it has the sharpness of a curse.
My gut sinks. Fear tickles the base of my spine, the arches of my feet. I know what it is, what is has to be, but still I ask, “What?”
Azmar shoves the measuring tape into his belt. “We need to leave. Now.”
He’s right. He doesn’t need to answer.
The cliff shakes again.
Monster.
Chapter 7
Azmar hurries for the ladder, but he waits for me at the base of it. I move quickly, my injuries forgotten, and start climbing. “The center of the city is safest,” he says behind me. “Centra take shelter in food storage. Hurry.”
“You’re Centra,” I say, but I keep climbing, hand over hand, until I reach the stony lip of the next floor. It shakes again, and again, evenly. Like footsteps. I pull myself up, gasping when stone presses a bruise on my thigh. I start for the lift.
“No lifts during an attack. They’re not safe.” Azmar’s focus darts around, and he gestures west. “Stairs.”
I start to run in the direction he pointed, but the ground shakes and trips me. I fall hard on one knee and grimace. The little bit of sunlight we had vanishes. I look toward the open canyon and see something blocking the cliffside. Something dark and slithering.
Azmar grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, retreating until we hit a wall. His grip doesn’t relent. He watches the moving body, jaw set. We’re close enough that I can hear his heartbeat. For all his demeanor of calm, it’s racing.
One finger touches his mouth, urging me to be quiet.
I watch the slick body pass. It reminds me of a snake, but its movements jerk, delineating legs. It must be enormous. Only a juvenile, Troff said.
My fingers tremble of their own accord. Forming my hands into fists, I focus on the monster and push my fear across the platform and into its black skin.
The monster and I jerk at the same time. My body instinctively pushes back into the rock as terror seizes it, and the monster’s movements come to a complete halt. I hiss through my teeth. It’s only fear. It isn’t real. It’s only fear. It will pass.
Fight or flee.
I can’t tell which the monster chooses, but it bolts away, clamoring over the city’s west wall, making it shake with the effort. I have a cold feeling that beasts such as this do not scare easily.
I pull from Azmar’s grip. “I need to go to the dock.” I limp for the stairs.
Azmar’s long strides catch me quickly. “Leave it to the Montra.” His hand on my back hurries me up the stairs. The shaking of the monster’s climb reverberates through them.
“I need to go.” Fear has burrowed itself into familiar places in my chest and the base of my skull. I crest the stairwell and spy another set of stairs ahead. The south docks are immediately to my right.
“Lark.” He grabs my shoulder, pulling me to the stairs. To safety. “You don’t need to prove yourself here.”
I dig in my heels. “I can help.”
So often I have not been able to.
Azmar studies me, his eyes shifting between each of mine. He’s probably looking at my bruises and doubting me. I would doubt me. If I couldn’t fight back my own kind, how can I fight off a monster?
Seeing him waver, I press, “The council assigned me to Unach for a reason.”
His head turns toward the stairs.
“She’s out there.” Unach’s on shift right now. I touch the hand still gripping my shoulder. “Let me help her. Please, trust me.”
Azmar presses his lips together, emphasizing the short tusks on either end of them. The city shakes beneath our feet. He says nothing, only steers me toward the south dock. Elation and fear swirl together in my middle, so tightly I’m dizzy with them.