Tim Lebbon - Dusk

He knew that was a lie. And he thought his mother did too as she nodded, stepped past him and peered out into the cave. There were more screams out there from farther away, closer to the dark holes that plummeted to the underground river. There was also the occasional twang of a crossbow being fired, and here and there Trey saw the glint of steel as disc-swords were unsheathed. He turned quickly and ran to the rear of the cave, grabbing his own disc-sword from beneath his bed. If he came close enough to a Nax to use it he would probably be dead already, but there were other things out there. If they made it into the tunnels there may be stingers in the old fledge seam, hiding away from the miners. Past them, if Chartise and his mules were still alive, perhaps there was topside, the world of sunlight and moonlight and starlight, the world of no darkness. And there probably dwelled countless dangers of which he had never dreamed.

Trey was a miner no longer.

If he lived past the next few hours, he would be a survivor.

THEY WORKED THEIRway down the series of steps and balconies carved into the walls of the cavern. They hid behind huge pots on the landings, breathing in the meaty fumes of moss and trying to figure, from the ghastly psychic twinges they felt in sight or sound or taste, just where the Nax were unleashing their slaughter. Trey touched the ball of moss before him and squeezed, reveling as ever in the feel of this cold growing thing, pleased that his own sensation was covering those exuded by the murderous Nax.

He sensed a held breath, a diversion of frenzied attention away from one place to another, and he remembered that he still had fresh fledge in his system. He cursed himself silently and removed his hand, thinking Fuck you as he grasped his mother’s hand and led her down another uneven flight of steps. He’d tried to sling the disc-sword across his shoulders, but he was unused to carrying the weapon and the knot kept slipping. Unsheathing it gave him an unreasonable sense of power as the metal sang against the old dried leather.

“What is it?” his mother whispered. Trey turned and placed his finger across his mouth. Shhh.

When they reached the cavern floor they met a group of people milling around the mayors’ militia cave. The militiamen were nowhere to be seen-Trey suspected that the crossbow shots he’d heard earlier marked their fate-but still these people seemed to think that safety existed here.

“We have to get out!” Trey said. He recognized a couple of fellow miners from his shift and smiled at them in the poor light. He touched them as he spoke, pleaded, cajoled, his touch a familiar form of communication that made up for facial expression whenever the miners talked in the pitch black. “This place is finished, we can never beat the Nax, we have to leave and go topside until it’s safe again.”

“Why topside?” one of the miners, Grant, asked. He did not use touch as he spoke, a sign that he was angry or terrified, or perhaps both. “Why can’t we go into the tunnels and hide this out?” A few of the others mumbled in confused agreement.

“The militiamen are dead by now,” Trey said. “The Nax may not have fed for centuries. And they know this underground even better than us.” He looked around nervously, expecting at any second to feel the surge of displaced air tickle the hairs on his neck as a Nax swept in through the cave air.

“I doubt that.” Grant turned his back on Trey and his mother and spoke to the others. “We can go into the current working and wait in there. I know it like the touch of my own hand; there are tunnels and crevasses where we can hide. These fledge demons will be sated soon enough. As Trey said, the militiamen will be dead by now. The Nax can feed on them.”

“They’ll continue their slaughter,” Trey said. “It’s not only food they woke for, it’s something else as well. Something that’s driven them to fury.”

“What makes you an expert on the fledge demons?” a woman asked.

Trey looked at the group for a few seconds, wondering whether they would apportion blame. He realized that he barely cared. Wanting to remain down here was foolish, and if they blamed him for what was happening that made them even more so.

“I sensed them waking,” Trey said. “I was on a fledge trip. I went farther than I should have, found a Nax and withdrew quickly, but I knew that it wasn’t the only one waking. They never hunt in groups. They exist alone. That’s why I know there’s something wrong. I think there’s something going on topside that has enraged them and-”

“And you want to go there?” Grant said, spinning around.

“Trey…” his mother whispered, afraid.

There was a series of screams from across the cavern, accompanied by several loud thuds. They did not last for long.

“I’m saving my mother,” Trey said. “Anyone who wants to come with us, you’re welcome.”

Trey and his mother left on their own.

“They’re just afraid, Trey,” she said as they hurried past deserted caves and skirted the Church. “This is all they’re used to. It isn’t Grant’s way to be like that, he didn’t mean it.”

“He’s going to get them all killed.”

They continued in silence, passing by one of the mayors’ pillars, glancing up but seeing no sign of life on the balconies overhead. Each time they met someone Trey said, To the caves. Sometimes the miners would follow for a while before doubt took them and they slowed, trailing off, perhaps waiting for someone in authority to tell them what to do and where to go, not this lad wielding a disc-sword like a boy playing at war.

Trey tried to close off his mind to those sensations thrown off the Nax like sweat flicking from a fighting man’s skin. But at the same time he listened for the sense of pursuit, a hint of the chase as a Nax zeroed on them. It never came. Whatever had noticed him as he squeezed the moss had obviously found something else to warrant its attentions.

As they reached the opposite side of the cavern-the place where the entrance to the current working sat like an open throat a few steps up the cavern wall-there was very little light by which to see. Trey moved from memory, holding his mother’s hand and guiding her along. His ears were perfectly attuned to echo, distance and proximity, so each footfall told him just where he was. He grumbled in his throat here and there to launch a low, deep sound to echo back, and when he found a space in that echo he knew that the cave entrance was before them.

He leaned back and brushed his hand across his mother’s cheek, stroking his fingertips across her lips in a sightless smile. “We’re here,” he whispered.

They were alone. A dull red glow lit the center of the cavern, throwing two of the huge pillars into silhouette. Trey could hear another volley of crossbow bolts being fired, then another. It seemed that the militia were alive after all, and putting up a sustained fight. Again he wondered about Sonda and looked across toward her cave, but there lay only impenetrable blackness. He closed his eyes and went into a crouch, trying to cast himself across this disturbed space, but the mixed input from the Nax-which he had quickly been able to filter and block so that he received only a hint of the terrible sensations they were reveling in-prevented him from casting himself at all. Besides, the fresh fledge was wearing off. Perhaps when they were farther into the mines they would pause, Trey could take some fledge from his shoulder bag and try to discern Sonda’s whereabouts.

A brief flush of guilt burned his cheeks in the cool darkness. There were two thousand others down here.

“Come on,” he said to his mother, leaning close and pressing his cheek to hers. “I’ll look after you.” He hefted the disc-sword, turned and entered the mouth of the mine.