David Farland - The Lair of Bones

They wouldn’t be able to see the shape of the lake below. They would only smell it and the scent of the rock walls. Would the smell of the rock be powerful enough to let them guess the size of the lake? Would they dare jump in?

Averan didn’t know. Reavers could be very brave. Their skin was so hard that it almost acted like armor, and reavers were terribly strong. This gave them a sense of invulnerability.

Some of them will come after us, Averan felt sure. She didn’t know why she felt that way, until she searched through her thoughts.

Cunning Eater. She’d gorged on his brain a couple of days ago. He had been a reaver warrior, and she remembered the way he felt about humans. It was a sinister mix of fear and loathing over the past victories men had made against reavers combined with an appetite so insatiable that she knew it would drive him to hunt.

From across the water, Gaborn called, “Don’t worry about the packs! I already got them. Hurry!”

So the packs floated, Averan thought.

But the reaver darts are gone.

Averan paddled, helping Binnesman reach shore. In moments they emerged from the black water. Light from the opals reflected from the waves, sending beams to dance against walls that dripped of white crystal.

No sooner had they reached the bank than a huge reaver hurtled down from the shaft, sending waves to lap against the shore.

“Hurry! This way!” Gaborn shouted, nodding toward a dark arch where the ancient river channel had worn through stone.

“Wait!” Averan argued. “We have to kill the reaver that came into the water. If the ones up in the shaft don’t smell its death, they’ll follow.”

“No! Run!” Gaborn urged. “Now!”

“Come, child,” Binnesman said. He pulled her from the water, set her on shore. “Grab your pack.” Their packs lay in a pile where Gaborn had set them.

Averan slung her pack over her back. Binnesman tossed a pack to the wylde, reached for his own. He looked worn. He had as many endowments of metabolism as Averan did, but even with them, he moved with the deliberateness that comes with age.

A cavern opened like a black maw. Gaborn stood in the mouth of it. “Binnesman,” he shouted, just as Binnesman shrugged on his pack, “flee!”

Binnesman dropped his bag and whirled just as something monstrous surged from the water.

Nothing can move that fast, Averan thought.

Even with all her endowments, the reaver burst from the lake in a blur. Water streamed from its spade-shaped head, and splattered on the rocks before it.

Binnesman whirled to meet it, his face a mask of panic, raising his staff protectively with both hands.

Before she even realized that the reaver was armed, Averan saw the dark blur of its blade—a huge hunk of steel some twenty feet long—slice through the air.

One instant, Averan saw the blow coming, and the next there was a whack of metal shattering wood, the snap of bones. Binnesman hurtled forty feet through the air.

“Help!” Averan screamed.

She raised her staff protectively. The reaver loomed above her, its massive jaws wide enough to swallow a wagon. Runes glowed with a faint blue light along its forearms. Never had she seen a blade-bearer so glorious and deadly. She smelled him, and with her endowments of scent, his name suddenly seemed to seep into the corners of her mind like a shadow. This one had been known to every reaver she had eaten. His name was spoken in fear: Consort of Shadows.

Among all of the servants of the One True Master, he was the most cunning and subtle. Averan’s mind blanked in terror.

For a tenth of a heartbeat, he seemed to halt, watching her. Then his blade whirled to sweep through Averan.

She was conscious of little. Binnesman was gone. She felt numb.

“Dodge!” Gaborn shouted.

Averan threw herself aside as the reaver’s blade hit. Metal cleaved through the rock where she had been. Something streaked overhead to meet the reaver, a shrieking blur that howled like a wolf in pain.

“Blood!” the wylde screamed.

She lunged with her staff, as if to bash the Consort of Shadows.

But as suddenly as he had attacked, the reaver bounded aside, landed on a wall, and scuttled up its side like a spider. He began sending a stream of information in the form of scents. Averan smelled the scent of the wylde, followed by a scent that meant I am confused, followed by a scent of Warning, this one brings death.

The Consort of Shadows backed up the wall, its philia waving. The green woman raced up to the cavern wall, screamed in frustration. She threw down her staff, leapt up to a little ridge, began climbing after the monster, seeking toeholds in the stone. The walls of the cave were covered in calcite, and tickle fern grew on it like moss. Some of the stone was as white and frothy as cream, while other parts were as mellow gold as honeycomb. Over the ages, deposits had built up on the wall, little knobs, like half-formed stalagmites. The green woman climbed swiftly, and the Consort of Shadows moved back up the cave, until he was clinging to the roof like a vast, obese spider.

The wylde mewled pitifully, “Blood, blood!” She reached the roof and floundered about, seeking to follow her prey.

The Consort of Shadows lunged. He leapt sixty feet in a blinding flash and clung to the ceiling with his feet. He grabbed the wylde in one paw, reared back, and smashed her against the rock. Averan thought that she heard bones snap, and the wylde screamed in rage.

Then the reaver flung her back into the pool. For a moment, there was no sound at all but that of water lapping against rock.

Warily, the Consort of Shadows studied them, clinging to the cavern roof, his philia waving in a frenzy.

Suddenly the wylde surfaced, splashing about, screaming in rage.

The Consort of Shadows backed away and retreated up the shaft.

He’s gone, Averan thought in relief. But she knew that it was only for the moment. He was studying them.

“Averan, Binnesman,” Gaborn called.

Binnesman can’t be dead, Averan thought. He’s supposed to be my teacher.

But Averan knew what a reaver’s blade could do. The huge hunk of steel weighed hundreds of pounds. It wasn’t honed as sharp as a sword, but if a blow didn’t slice a man in two, it would still shatter every bone in his body.

She’d seen men killed by reavers—corpses hacked into gruesome pieces—a head here, and a hand there, blood spattered about as if by the bucketful, innards draped over tree limbs like sausages hanging from the rafters of an inn.

The wylde was going mad. The green woman keened like an animal in pain, splashed to shore. Averan wondered that it had survived at all.

Averan shakily struggled to her feet. She didn’t want to look at Binnesman, for she knew what she’d find. She imagined his blank eyes staring into space, the guts knocked out of him.

“Binnesman?” Gaborn called as he rushed toward them.

Averan had to look. There was still a possibility that he might be alive.

Binnesman lay on the cave floor, sprawled on his back. His face was pale, drained of blood, and his hands quivered as if in death throes. Flecks of blood issued from his nose and mouth. Miraculously, he was all in one piece, though the reaver’s blow had struck him in the chest.

“You’re alive?” Averan asked.

“Glad to hear it,” Binnesman said, but the labor he had to put into speaking the jest belied the tone, and his eyes were full of fear.

He’s not alive, Averan decided. But not dead yet either. He’s dying. She knelt, took his hand, and squeezed hard. Binnesman gasped, struggling for breath. He didn’t squeeze in return. He had no comfort to give her.

Gaborn rushed up to Averan’s back.

She glanced up to see his face, pale with shock. Iome came slower.