I will avenge her, too. When I slay the Changeling, I will make her death worth something, turn it into Piraku for the whole world.
But that rang hollow, too. He had a vivid vision of the Stream Goddess, fury in her eyes—or weeping—knowing the things he was doing in her name.
The reed torch seemed to last longer than the heart pine, but it constantly threatened to go out, guttering to almost an ember at times. Perkar had to nurse it as they went along, and that slowed them further. When he lit the third torch, it was with a growing sense of despair. He did not know how far they had to go, but he knew it was much farther than their torches would light the way for them. After that it would be fumbling at the walls, the darkness surrounding them, the Lemeyi standing an arm's breadth away, laughing, fully able to see them but invisible to the Humans.
The blood beneath his armor was beginning to dry, to stiffen, and the gambeson began to rub his skin raw. It stank, too, a thick, sweet scent that the smoke from the torch could not cover. To that unpleasantness was added another; behind them, to their sides, the Humans began to hear noises. Slithering and scraping, faint chittering, a clicking like a hundred hard rods rapping against stone. In the larger spaces, the ones that the torch did not fully illumine, they caught glimpses of things just at the edge of the torchlight. Eyes, mostly, blinking green, yellow, or red. Once Perkar saw something large, irregular, shaped nothing like a man, retreating from the light on many spidery black legs. Perkar remembered that the Lemeyi had warned them that light in the tunnels would be noticed. Perkar could only hope that the unaccustomed glare would also deter whatever lurked about them— followed them.
Soon, though, it was the last torch that was nearly scorching his hand. He wondered wildly if there was anything else to burn; the noises—especially those behind them—were growing in volume; they could not be dismissed as imagination, and fear took hold in their minds. Perkar wondered how long they would last, fighting in the dark.
"My father will never know what happened to me," Apad groaned—the first coherent words he had uttered since their flight began.
"Our spirits will wander here without gifts, without even woti. I have killed us all."
"There's plenty of blame to go around," Perkar said. "If it hadn't been for me, we wouldn't have even come in here. Without Eruka, that thrice-damned Lemeyi would not have been our guide and we would have neither found the weapons nor been tricked into slaying their keeper. We've all been fools, but we can't make up for that dead."
"It was like cutting butter," Apad said, his voice rising hysterically. "These swords are terrible things. It just slid through. I thought it would be like fighting the Wild God, hacking and hacking almost without cutting at all. I thought we had to attack first, before she could change… Her blood was red!"
"Shut up. Shut up, Apad!" Perkar shrieked, and from behind them there was not a single laugh, but a chorus of them, and one clear voice, high and joyful.
"Her blood was red!"
The torch was singeing Perkar's hand now, and if he thought his fingers might burst into flame and light their way for another few moments, he would have held it still. Instead he set it down. In the few flickers of light that remained for them, he motioned his companions against the wall.
"Apad," he said, "you get in the center, against the wall. Feel our way for us. Eruka, you go in front of him, I'll be rearguard. If anything touches you, anything at all, strike it. But don't panic, Eruka. Keep one hand on Apad. We have to stay together!"
The two arranged themselves as he said. The tunnel was narrow here, and it was easy enough to do. Perkar drew the godsword as the torch went out. They stood for a moment, waiting, and for an instant there was total, calm silence. Then the noises began again, the sounds of a summer evening made harsh and strange, a susurrus of little sounds, each menacing but together utterly terrifying.
"Go. Apad, Eruka, go!" Perkar commanded. And slowly they commenced moving up the tunnel, blind.
Something scuttled up to Perkar, a sound like many legs with small, naked feet of bone. He thrust grimly with his sword and was rewarded by the shock of contact with something that wriggled away. He brought the sword back, rapidly sliced at the same spot—the sword scraped the cave floor and struck sparks. Eruka, ahead of him, suddenly shrieked, and there was a similar clang.
"Keep your head," Perkar yelled. Something feathery brushed his face. A jolt of surprise and disgust raced from his heart to his arm, and he cut out flat with a weapon, a stroke horizontal to the ground and about waist high. He hit something thin, like a piece of cane, and it seemed to sever easily. Something else hissed, and then a paralyzing pain stabbed him in the shoulder—a long thin weapon—like a needle—piercing him.
As with the Wild God, his fear was suddenly gone. Furious, he leapt at the darkness, hacking out a downstroke that would have cut into a man's neck and cleaved groinward. He hit something, hit it again, felt fluid spurt onto him.
"Come on!" he shrieked. "Come all of you, stinking demons! Fight the blind man, if you have the courage!" He swung twice more, encountered nothing but the cave wall. He panted into the silence that followed—but of course, the chittering began again.
"You wish to see?" someone asked. Perkar's rage mounted higher. It was the Lemeyi taunting him.
"Come here, you stinking beast," Perkar shouted. "I don't need to see to kill you!"
"If you wish to see, you may," the voice calmly responded. Perkar suddenly did not believe it to be the Lemeyi at all. The voice seemed to be just inside of his ear—it did not echo through the cave like his own, or the Lemeyi's laughter.
"Yes, yes, of course I wish to see," he muttered.
And then he could, see well enough to hack the mottled, leprous arm from a skeletonlike ghoul, bring the weapon around to threaten something that was part spider and part worm. See well enough to make out the Lemeyi, capering, back at the last turning, with several other creatures that resembled him. It was much like the magical vision the Lemeyi had granted him, but it was something more. He could see danger—his eyes were drawn to it, without his will. The black, scorpionlike thing that was menacing Eruka was behind him, yet his head seemed to turn of its own volition and make him see it. Snarling, he took two quick steps and sent the point of the blade plunging into what he guessed to be its head. He then suddenly realized that Eruka, still blind, unaware of the thing, was swinging wildly at him, and so he ducked away.
"Apad, Eruka," Perkar said, keeping his voice steady. "I can see. I think there is some god in my sword. It asked if I wanted to see, and now I can."
Apad and Eruka promptly began petitioning their own weapons, but their eyes remained terrified, sightless.
"We'll go slowly," Perkar said. "The monsters have retreated a bit; I hurt some of them. I think they are cowards, like the Lemeyi. I think I can keep them back and lead us out of here at the same time."
"I hope so," Eruka whispered. "I don't like this."
"Sing us a song," Perkar said. "Sing us a song, to show them we have no fear."
"I… I don't think I can sing."
"Do it," Apad groaned. "Please, Eruka. I can't stand the sound of them. Drown them out."
"Perkar," Eruka asked plaintively. "Can you really see?"
"Yes," Perkar told him, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. "I can see. Now sing us something."
"What?"
"I don't know. Something about light and green valleys."
"Ah." Eruka sighed. Perkar took his hand and placed it in Apad's. Then he took Eruka's other hand in his own, moved to the front.
"Come on."
The monsters were still behind them. They seemed to know how far his vision extended and were staying just at the edge of it. That was fine with Perkar. He led his companions up the tunnel. Eruka began to sing, a childhood song, a song about hunting crawfish and tadpoles with bows of willow. Perkar did not smile, but it made him feel a bit better.
Not much later, they saw light up ahead. Eruka broke off his singing to cheer hoarsely. Perkar joined him; the darkdwellers seemed to be gathering courage, bracing themselves for an overwhelming attack that Perkar—even with a godsword—did not think himself able to repel, despite his encouraging words to Apad and Eruka. Even as they quickened their pace, Perkar glanced back as much as he glanced forward.
The nearer they came to the light, the more his own unnatural vision faded. That was probably a good sign, as well. It might mean that the demons following him were losing their vision also, though the Lemeyi, of course, would be undeterred. Perkar was just wondering if it was the strange transition in vision that made the outside light seem orange when Eruka gasped something.
"What?" Perkar asked. "What did you say?"
"It looks like sunset out there."
For a moment that didn't sink in, but then Perkar caught Eruka's meaning. If it was growing dark outside, the demons might not be deterred at all, might follow them from the caves.
"At least we'll be outside," Apad remarked. "At least we won't die in here."
"We aren't going to die," Perkar snapped. Then he halted, almost stumbling as the source of the light came clearly into view and his dark vision was entirely dispelled. It was not sunlight at all, but a torch.
VIII
The Huntress