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Andru left me when he saw me use it on an enemy. How much worse must it be to be the recipient of my horror?
The horn blows. Not the low bellow for monsters, but the higher note for war.
Four days after the open battle, the human army has returned.
Cagmar is an efficient machine, trollis marching even through the winding hallways of the city, but they don’t leave the strength of its walls. They wait, ready to rebuff the humans’ strike.
I must defer to every single one, so it takes me a long time to reach Deccor housing and slip out the window, retracing the path that earlier led me to so much despair. But I want to see. Ihaveto see.
My sore arms shake by the time I lift myself over the canyon lip. I’m sure trollis guards spot me, but I’m well known, and none confronts me. To the west, the human army is marching in. How does it not look any smaller than before? Surely my father didn’t find reinforcements so quickly. There aren’t enough humans in all of Mavaea to supplement his battalion.
I crawl back down the canyon, pausing at a bump in the rock to catch my breath. An all-out siege, then. Are my kind so desperate? What tactics will they use? Will they fight their way into the city, or try to chop it down?
Letting out a shaky breath, I lean my head back against the stone. They won’t succeed. Cagmar is too strong. Even uprooting the Empyrean Bridge wouldn’t see it crumble—it’s too strongly embedded into the canyon walls. Yet how many people in the armies do I know? How many are just like me, or Ritha, or Wiln? Why must we kill one another?
If only I could scare them away, back to their townships. Back to the way life was.But there are too many, too many reasonable minds, too much scattered awareness. If I tried, they might respond by attacking each other, and I have no desire to dwindle the already floundering population of my own kind.
Opening my eyes, I peer down into the canyon, the endless depths below, and an idea creeps into my mind, so slowly I barely recognize it.It plants itself, a ready seed, and digs in roots. They spread through my entire body, down the sides of Cagmar, and into the pit of the canyon.
Icannot scare an entire army.
But I know the things that can.
I’ve only been in the waterworks once, when I was running from Grodd. The place is just as dark and empty now as it was then. It takes me a beat to find the pulley system the trollis use to lower themselves down to the bottom of the canyon. I find a closet, identical to the one on the south dock, loaded with swords, harnesses, and ropes. I strap on all three, choosing the lightest blade and strapping it to my back.
I have to do this before the trollis leave the city, or before the humans enter it. I will not harm the citizens of Cagmar. And I hope this will do less harm to my own people than the wrath of the trollis would.
I step onto a plank held by a large hoist arm with massive pulleys and thick rope, all attached to the base of the city. I know it’s made to support multiple trollis, but the way it sways with my weight makes my lungs seize. Steeling myself, I sit down for better balance, then slowly work the rope. It’s similar to how the lifts operate, but the pulleys must be oiled or more complex, because it takes less strength to operate them. Makes sense. I have a long way to go.
I expected the darkness and have a lamp with me. I expected the exertion, which doubles because I work quickly. But I hadn’t considered the temperature. The more I descend, the cooler the air becomes, until shivers of trepidation and cold merge into one, racking my body harder and harder as I drop. I hear the distant clicking of a tharker, a nonaggressive reptilian creature roughly the size of a man. Still I descend. A cool wind raises the skin across my shoulders and neck. I hear a croon of another beast, but I don’t search for it. I don’t try to scare it. I need it to find me. I need all of them to find me. After all, I’m the bait.
My sense of time fails me. I’ve been on this plank for both ten minutes and ten days. I hear the river long before I see its rapids in my lamp. When I touch the ground, I have to remind myself how to walk. I hear a rushing that swallows my thoughts, and it takes me several seconds to realize it’s the river; I’ve never seen a real river. Corpse-cold sprays of water tickle my legs. My own sour sweat sticks to my shirt. Chills twist my sinews and bend me like an old woman.
I turn the dial that feeds fuel to my lamp, until the light borders on blinding, creating a beacon. Its halo touches on a giant rib cage close to the canyon wall, half-crushed. Turning away, I shield my eyes from the light in an attempt to preserve my dark vision.
My spine aches. My stomach turns itself inside out. And I haven’t even used my fear yet.
I hear clicks, croaks, breaths.Come to me,I think. I need to draw them in. I need to tell them I’m here.
So I sing. I sing an old song, part of the old bard’s story that first told me of Cagmar and the oath that would see me in safely, a song of courage and promise. When I sing, my voice splits into a hundred echoes between the canyon walls, as though an entire chorus sings with me.
My love is true, my heart is yours
You deserve much more than I am
Four hundred suns, and I will come
A wealthy and affluent man
A canyon so deep, a canyon so wide
Monsters who feast upon flesh lurk inside
On his way to the glory of man
Crossing the bridge built by ten thousand hands
I feel the monsters coming. Their presence resonates under my skin, like worms in my food and breath on my neck. I sing the song again, taunting them, casting shadows by the light of my beacon.
