Smoke and Shadow: The Fireweaver, Book 1

Chapter 8. DETOUR

CHAPTER 8. DETOUR

"You first." 

They stood at the mouth of the tunnel, Dimarrah's voice echoing into an endless darkness. A waft of humid air, tinged with mustiness and a distinct foulness, rolled over them. Rhoke pulled the gate open further, the metal scraping in protest against the cement. Even the door was trying to discourage them.

"I thought you said this way was safe."

"Never said safe," Rhoke stepped inside of the tunnel, "I said safer."

Actually, he wasn't even sure about that. Couldn't remember the last time he'd used it. At least a decade, maybe longer. The passing of years became harder and harder to distinguish. Years into decades. And the decades blurred.

The years of neglect might have caused ground or walls to collapse. This particular tunnel was ancient, with archways of hand-laid brick. Which of course, only he could see.

A rat squeaked close by, tiny claws skittering away. They'd be lucky if all they encountered were rats and snakes. He wondered how much he should tell the woman, who jumped at the slightest scrabble of sound. 

The shelter of the tunnels, over the centuries, had become a breeding ground for creatures you'd rather not know existed. 

One such creature scuttled a few feet off to the side of the tunnel. It looked like a blend of rat and fox, turning with beady eyes to inspect them, and deciding they weren't potential food or enemy, went along its way again. Those weren't the creatures you had to worry about.

He pushed those thoughts aside. At the moment they had a much bigger problem than genetically altered sewer rats.

He hadn't seen an Uruque assassin so far outside the cities, not for at least a century. In all his journeys across the cracked plains, he'd rarely run into one. The Rejkavs didn't waste their precious soldiers on catching Anomalies, smugglers or petty thieves in the outerlands. They'd be cutting off the hand that fed them. Rejkav fortunes came from traffickers and smugglers who sold in the city's black markets.

The Uruque that had attacked them had been dressed in travel-wear black, not the garnet red and gold pomp of a Rejkav uniform. But he'd definitely been sent for them. The Rejkavs should have had no reason to think the woman survived the prison explosion.

There were only a few who knew their plan. And only one who knew he used the bowling alley stop. It was time to face the fact that Dej had sent one after both of them. He could hardly believe the treachery, and then the pure rage he felt simmering. All those years of service. All those years to keep Kahlan in a shrouded silence. But there was little doubt about it. 

The Uruque had bided its time in the dark of the building, keeping far enough away to evade his senses. Dej was the only one who knew what he was. But he didn't know about the pulsebond, and so the Uruque didn't either.

He'd only felt it once before with another human. In just the few days with the wretched Anomaly woman, he'd felt it growing, something much stronger than mindspeak, which only worked over a short distance. The pulsebond was the only reason they'd been able to escape the Uruque.

He had known the precise moment of her attack. In a way, she had saved them both, for he had no way of sensing the Uruque's approach. Dimarrah's heart called out to him as surely as it was his own. He'd felt her unflinching humanness and her terror. And then, he'd felt her fear turning into courage.

She hadn't known what she was doing, but she had called out for him with her life force. Her call still roared through his senses. The terror she'd felt jolted through him as though it was his own. He hadn't felt that kind of terror in so long.

He didn't want it. He looked at the woman in the darkness, still with her chin held high. Wondered again who she was. Wondered what he was turning into with her.

He'd never told Dej about the tunnel entrance. With any luck, old archives of the tunnel system would be lost. Still. He felt that pinprick of doubt. Nothing stopped an Uruque.

What was it about this woman? Why had she been framed for murder?

He couldn't work any of it out. 

Couldn't work out what he felt, looking at her.

The way he could barely drag his eyes from hers. The way his senses roared alive around her. The way he now only wanted to protect her. The worst had already been done to her in prison. Here was a woman who had lost her family, lost everything. And yet, her courage, and her resilience burned like embers.

He felt a relief that at least she couldn't read his thoughts, or hear the slow, but steady beat of his own heart, in tandem with hers. Pulsebond. He breathed in the reassuring scent of her, steeled himself, broke off from her heart's pace. He couldn't allow it. Couldn't allow this human's life force to thread into his own. He'd vowed many years ago it couldn't happen again.

* * * * * *

They walked on through the tunnel. Every once in a while something crunched. Like sticks, the woman thought.

He decided not to correct her. Better she was blind down here.

"Should've grabbed that lantern," she said in a harsh whisper that still echoed.

No, he replied, swift and sharp in her head, no echo of the tunnel carrying it. And we speak this way now. There are things down here I'd rather not disturb.

You mean, beyond snakes and rats? 

She spoke to his mind without hesitation or struggle now. Even her sarcasm, mixed with fear came through, even more so when they were linked, and it pleased him. For the first time in a long time, he felt a relief he could communicate this way. It was unencumbered, so much easier.

And yet he kept a tight reign on his own thoughts, linked as they were. And he kept the pulsebond at bay. He wondered how much he should reveal to her about the tunnels. 

An Uruque was hunting them down and he had no way of sensing its approach. No human heart beating to announce its presence. Not a single thread of human DNA to be sensed. It was his one complete and total blind spot.

Another rat squeaked close by. Always more rats the closer you got to people and food. Rats and other crawling things. Rhoke started picking up the thrum of life. 

An Anomaly Community. Nom Com. He wondered what the settlement would look like now, if Dimarrah was ready to see a place full of Anomalies, barely scraping by, some with their sanity hanging on by just threads. It was a community made up mostly of the ones who'd escaped detection, the ones who had become desperate scavengers for survival outside city walls.

Had she ever seen what happened to an Anomaly when they gave over to their powers? How the humanity utterly left their eyes? Scraped out their souls. 

He was suddenly not sure why he felt a need to hide the truth from her, or to phrase things carefully.

I already know about them, she responded when he began to explain, not needing his cushioned words. I know about the Half Ones. 

But he could tell by the sharp tone and emotional detachment of her thoughts that she'd likely never seen one with her own eyes.

Their boots crunched on a sandy, slushy area. Most of the sewer was bone dry. Water, even fetid water would attract things to it. With any luck the darkness would hide the things better left unseen.