David Farland - The Lair of Bones

Shaking, Averan went to the nearest hole, sniffed at it. Nothing. It smelled only of the local stone and feather fern. No crevasse crawlers had been in it for ages.

At the third hole, she detected the musk odor of crawler eggs, and immediately backed away. At the twelfth hole, she finally found what she was looking for, the vague scent of different air blowing up through a passage. Either the hole led to a reaver tunnel or it would give her access to another cave.

Averan hesitated. She studied the burrow. She could crawl through it, but could Gaborn and the others?

Yes, she decided, with some work.

She climbed on her tiptoes and peered in. The burrow was just broad enough so that she could crawl upright without difficulty.

Which means that the crevasse crawler that dug this tunnel is big enough to swallow me whole, Averan realized. I shouldn’t do this. Gaborn would be mad.

But Gaborn was waiting for his fish to cook. What if the reavers came after him? He’d be looking for an escape route fast. He was counting on her to lead the way.

Yes, I should do this, Averan told herself. By scouting the path, I could save the party valuable time.

“Averan?” Gaborn called from back up the tunnel. “Wait!” She stopped, heart pounding.

She turned and watched back up the tunnel. Soon, lights reflected from the walls, announcing Gaborn’s arrival.

He came running round the bend, and saw her.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Just exploring,” Averan said. “There’s a cave-in here. I was looking for a way past.”

“It’s dangerous,” he said, the concern clearly etched in the lines of his face.

“It’s our only way out,” Averan argued.

Gaborn peered back along the trail they had come. The distant sound of reavers charging through the Underworld came as a low rumble. He licked his lips, and shook his head.

“I agree,” Gaborn said. “But I sense danger ahead. Not...death. But I fear that if we take this course...”

“What?” Averan asked.

“I don’t know.” Gaborn said. “Perhaps I should lead the way.” He studied the hole, then stepped back. “No. The Earth warns that I can’t go down there, and neither can Iome.”

“Then I have to go,” Averan offered. “It can’t be that bad. I smell fresh air. This hole should take me to the other side of the tunnel.”

Gaborn peered at the burrow, as if seeking some hidden danger there, and nodded slightly. “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s the one.”

“Let me go first, then,” Averan said.

“Wait,” Gaborn said, stopping her with a touch. “The fish should nearly be cooked. We’ll eat, and come back later.”

Averan could tell that he was stalling. Gaborn had a cornered look in his eye.

After a quick dinner, during which Gaborn kept peering into the distance, lost in thought, Averan felt ready to face the burrow. With Gaborn and Iome behind her, Averan scooted into the narrow tunnel. Dried black goo littered the floor, drippings from the crevasse crawler. It was an oil that the monster secreted to lubricate its cave. Reavers liked the taste of it.

“There’s nothing in here to be worried about,” Averan told Gaborn.

“Perhaps,” Gaborn said, “but take nothing for granted. I sense danger here. It may be something small. Just remember that you’re not a reaver. A bug that is insignificant to a reaver may be devastating to you.”

“I’ll be careful,” Averan promised. She forged ahead. Gaborn needed her help.

She scooted through the tunnel quickly, listening for the rattling that accompanied crawlers as they slithered through the rocks.

She reached the exit after only a few hundred yards, and poked her head out.

The exit opened into a large cavern. She was back to the riverbed, but things had changed. The stone here was red, and must have been soft, for the river had fanned out. Over the ages the roof had collapsed again and again, carving a vast chamber. The ceiling soared two hundred feet above her, and stalagmites rose up from the floor like some petrified forest, while stalactites hung down like giant teeth.

On either side of the path, tanglers grew—plants with roots that criss-crossed the cavern floor. Giant bulbs lay lazily in the center of this network, like huge seed pods. But Averan knew that as soon as her foot touched one of the roots, the pods would wriggle around on their necks of creeper and try to swallow her.

She carefully lowered herself to the ground and sniffed the air. She walked forward a pace or two.

A whisper of reaver scent hung in the air. She smelled the word, “Wait.” It might have been a shouted command given a hundred years ago, or it might have been something whispered much more recently. There was no way to tell.

“Gaborn,” Averan called. “I’m past the cave-in. Come ahead.”

She dared go no farther without Gaborn at her back.

But if reavers have been here, Averan reasoned, then this cave must lead to a major tunnel. And if I can find the tunnel, find some scent markers, I can figure out how to reach the Lair of Bones.

Cautiously, Averan peered down at the tangler, watching to make sure that her feet weren’t near any thin gray roots, lest they snake around her ankle.

Ahead, stalagmite columns pierced the air on either side of her, and a natural stone bridge arched over a deep chasm. Far below, by the sound of it, water churned through a gorge.

Suddenly a single pebble dropped from above, plunking at Averan’s side. She peered upward and yelped as something huge dropped like a vast spider. She tried to leap away as an enormous paw swatted down on her, cupping over her.

“Reaver!” she cried.

She wriggled between its talons, lunged toward the safety of the crawler’s tunnel. A tangler vine, wakened by the presence of the reaver, whipped out and snagged her feet. She sprawled to the ground. The tangler’s podlike head swiveled toward her; the pod opened, splitting into four pieces, revealing a strange, toothless mouth full of fibrous hairs. It lunged at her, but never reached her.

The reaver pulled hard at the roots, ripping the vine that held Averan’s ankle, and the tangler vine went limp. She tried to lunge to her feet, but too late. The reaver’s paw swept her up, crushing her in its grip.

Averan wriggled, tried to draw a breath. Even with all her endowments, her strength could not match that of a reaver. It held her in a fist of iron, and spun about. It leapt over the tanglers and bounded across the stone bridge.

“Gaborn,” Averan cried. “Help!”

She craned her neck to peer backward.

Averan beat on the monster’s fist, and it responded by shaking her so hard that she feared her head would snap off.

Averan caught the monster’s scent. She knew this reaver. How did he find me? she wondered. How did he get here so fast?

In a daze Averan gasped for a breath as the Consort of Shadows whisked her off into darkness.

Raj Ahten’s army was heading north of Maygassa through the Great Salt Sea, the sun splashing down upon the shallows for as far as the eye could see. In his retinue were three flameweavers, a dozen force elephants, and another three thousand Runelords of various strength. Most of these were nobles who wore armor of thick silk in shades of white or gold, and turbans of blood red adorned with rubies the size of pigeon eggs. Though they were few in number, they were a powerful force, for these were no hireling soldiers; these were princes and kings and sheiks of the old Kingdoms of Indhopal, as rich in endowments as they were in gold. Furthermore, they were men bred to cunning and ruthlessness, for they had been born to wealth and war, and had long ago learned to keep that which they laid claim to.