Still, if I can’t risk flying, then I hope these little feet have it in them to walk.
I move forward, aware of the bounce of my body and the touch of cold stone beneath me. Is that what I’m surrounded by? Stone? Am I in a tunnel of some sort?
As my avian form continues its swaggering motion, I’m struck by a vague sense of déjà vu.
I’ve been in tunnels before. Tunnels in the Sunken Temple, tunnels in the caves of the Ofur. I conquered those things,wonthose trials, and Ican do so again, even if I’m not sure what success looks like here. Surviving, I suppose. Getting out of the tunnel alive.
With no real desire to return to the camp just yet, I lean into the vision. There must be a reason why I was brought here. So despite my apprehension, I continue on.
Just like during the last trial in the Retterheld, I’m frequently forced to make decisions about where to go. More than once I come to staircases, steps carved into the stone that lead up. Up towards freedom. Towards ground level and the ability to fly. Taking them would be the sensible choice, but … I don’t. Instead, I go down, guided by some other need or instinct.
Only when the staircases stop appearing do I realise that carrying on in this manner might have been a mistake. After all, perhaps I have been brought here because raven-me got stuck in the tunnels and needs guiding out. In which case, I should turn around and fly up those steps.
And yet, it feels like it is the raven’s needs guiding me, as much as my own, and both of us want to keep movinginwards.Into the bowels of the earth.
Only a moment later, I step into a large open space and, for the first time, find myself too stunned to carry on.
After all the dark, cramped tunnels, the cavernous space is overwhelming. It’s easily as big as the bottom of the Sunken Temple, but unlike the arena where our Retterheld vows were taken, this does not open up to the sky, and there are no layered seats for spectators. It is cut off from the outside world, and the stench is vile. But unlike the rest of the tunnels I’ve walked through, there are half a dozen lanterns fixed to the walls that cast a faint light over the shadowed shapes below. Pillars of some sort. Pillars over ten times my raven height and made of a material I don’t recognise.
I hop along the floor, moving towards one of the closest columns, my eyes still locked on it when all the heat drains from my body.
Yes, the pillars are mammoth to me, but that is only because I’m so diminished in size.
The air quivers in my lungs.
If I were still in my human body, I would have seen it sooner.
I am not looking at pillars … but people.
Not ordinary people, I realise in terror as I look at the one closest to me. The skin of its face and limbs is mottled green.
Rottings.
An absolute fuck tonne of Rottings.
Instinctively, I feel for my dagger, but there’s nothing at my side other than a mass of feathers. Of course I don’t have my weapon – I’m a Godsdamnbirdright now.
Panic swells through me, and for the first time since I slipped here, I am desperate to be back with the others.
Wake up. Wake up,I shout in my mind, trying to command myself, even though I know this isn’t a dream.
Come on, Fen, I urge.Call me back!My heart is hammering against my hollow ribs hard enough to crack them. But it makes no difference. Nothing happens.
I don’t know how long I stand there, waiting for my dire wolf to yank me back to my body or for the Rottings to awaken and tear me feathered limb from limb.
But nothing happens. Fen does not call me back, and the Rottings remain utterly stationary, exactly as when I entered. Motionless. Pillars of rotting human flesh.
With my pulse still rattling, I debate what to do. I should head back into the tunnels. Find the staircases and not stop until I see daylight. That’s what I should do, and yet I can’t seem to draw myself away from the cavern. Whatever the Gods want from me, I haven’t achieved it yet.
And so I move forward, walking between the pillars. It is easier to think of them as that.
I weave a path through the figures, and not a single Rotting moves. Not so much as a tilt of their head in my direction or anyone else’s.
If I couldn’t hear the gentle wheezes of their breath, I would think them dead. But they do breathe, do live … though to call it that makes the bar indescribably low.
With no direction set in my mind, I quickly find myself lost in the labyrinth of effigies, but as I turn around to decide which way to go, something makes me stop and, for a reason I can’t fathom, I lift my head upward.
I look up … and gaze upon a familiar face.
