Antrax (22 page)

They ate a quick meal, strapped on their weapons, and set out. Obat led their Rindge escort, two dozen strong. Most of the Rindge carried six-foot blowguns along with knives and javelins, but a substantial number bore short, stout, powerful spears with razor-sharp star heads that could penetrate even the metal of creepers. They used them like pry bars, Obat explained when Panax questioned him about it. They jammed the heads into joints and gaps of the creepers’ metal armor and twisted until something gave. Numbers usually gave the Rindge the advantage in such encounters. The creepers, he advised solemnly, were not invincible.

It was educational to watch the Rindge at work. They were a
tribal people, but their fighting men appeared to be well trained and disciplined. They fought in units, their numbers broken down by weaponry. The front ranks used the heavy spears, the rear the blowguns and javelins. Even during travel, they kept their fighting order intact, dividing the men into smaller groups, scouts patrolling front and rear, and spear bearers warding the edges of the march. The outlanders, untested in battle, were placed in the middle, screened by their would-be protectors.

Quentin noted the way the Rindge rotated in and out of their loose formation as they traveled, shifting here and there in response to orders from Obat, burnished bodies gleaming with oil and sweat. No one in the little company thought to question their tactics. The Rindge had been living in that land and dealing with the minions of Antrax for hundreds of years; they knew what they were doing.

After a time, Panax dropped back to walk with Quentin, letting the Elves walk ahead of them a few paces. He did so quite deliberately, and the Highlander let him choose his own pace.

“The Rindge believe that Antrax controls the weather,” the Dwarf told him quietly, keeping both his head and voice lowered.

Quentin looked at him in surprise. “That isn’t possible. No one can control the weather.”

“They say Antrax can. They say that’s why the weather in their region of Parkasia never changes like it does everywhere else. He says he knows of the glaciers and ice fields on the coast. He says it snows inland, farther north and west, on the other side of the mountains. There are seasons there, but not here.”

Quentin shifted the weight of the Sword of Leah on his back. “Walker said something to Bek about the weather being odd. I thought it must be a combination of wind currents and geography, an anomaly.” He shook his head. “Maybe Antrax is a god after all.”

The Dwarf grunted. “A cruel god, according to the Rindge. It preys on them for no discernible reason. It uses them for fodder
and then throws them away, minus a few parts. I keep asking myself what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“I keep wondering how much of all this Walker knew and kept to himself,” Quentin replied softly.

Panax nodded. “Truls would tell you Walker knew everything because Druids make it a point to find things out and then keep them concealed. I’m not so sure. We walked right into that trap three days back, and the Druid seemed as surprised as any of us.”

They walked on in silence, passing into the midday calm and heat, winding along a well-used trail that took them through ancient hardwoods whose boughs canopied and interlocked overhead in such thickness that the light could penetrate only in slender threads and narrow bands. Birds flew overhead, singing cheerfully, and there were squirrels and voles in evidence. The sun traveled slowly west across a cloudless sky, and the air smelled of green leaves and dry earth.

Then Tamis dropped back to walk with them. “I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly. “Something is wrong about this.”

They both stared at her. “What do you mean?” Panax asked, looking around as if he might find the answer hidden in the forest green.

Tamis glanced from one to the other. “Ask yourself this. Why are the Rindge being so helpful? Out of the kindness of their hearts? Out of a sense of obligation to help strangers from other lands? Out of compassion for our obvious misery at losing our friends and finding ourselves stranded?”

“It’s not unheard of,” Quentin replied, an edge to his voice.

She glared at him. “Don’t be stupid. By helping us, the Rindge are risking their lives and possible retaliation by Antrax, whatever it is. They wouldn’t do that unless there was something to be gained from doing so, something that would benefit them.”

Panax scowled, no happier than Quentin upon hearing this accusation. “What would that something be, Tamis?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she advised, keeping her voice low, her eyes on the Rindge. “You told them we came here seeking a treasure, and they know we went into the ruins very deliberately to find it. They must assume we knew something about what we were getting ourselves into before we tried that—however misguided that assumption might be. At the very least, that suggests to them that we have a means of dealing with Antrax. Now think about this. They haven’t said so, but what if they were watching us the first time we went in and know about Quentin’s sword and Walker’s Druidic powers? They’ve been looking for a way to rid themselves of Antrax for hundreds of years, and now, finally, they may have found one. Us. What if they’re using us as a weapon?”

“To destroy Antrax,” Quentin finished. “So they’re taking us right to it and turning us loose, hoping for the best. They won’t stand and fight with us, if it comes to that. They’ll run.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what they’ll do. I just think we’d better watch our backs. They have to wonder about us—where did we come from and what do we intend to do when this is over? Perhaps they’re thinking that the best thing that could happen would be for Antrax and us to destroy each other and leave the Rindge in peace. They have to have considered that. They don’t want to swap one form of tyranny for another. They know that’s a possibility, and nothing we say is going to convince them otherwise.”

“Obat doesn’t seem like that,” Quentin ventured after a moment.

Tamis sneered softly. “You haven’t been out in the world as long as I have, Quentin Leah. You haven’t seen as much. What do you think, Panax?”

The Dwarf glanced at Quentin, his gruff features set. “She’s right. We’d better be ready for anything.”

“Kian and Wye already know my thinking,” she said, starting ahead again. She glanced back at Quentin. “I hope I’m wrong, Highlander. I really do.”

They marched on in silence for the remainder of their journey,
Quentin mired in gloom at the prospect of being betrayed yet again. He knew Tamis was right about the Rindge, but he could barely bring himself to consider what that might mean. He wished Bek were there to give his opinion. Bek would see things more clearly. He would be quicker to ferret out the truth. The Rindge didn’t seem antagonistic, but they had been at war with Antrax for the whole of their existence, so they knew something about staying alive. They hadn’t tried to harm their visitors, but Tamis might have been right about them watching the company fight its way clear of the maze. It was possible they were simply waiting to see what would happen when Antrax and the outlanders came face-to-face.

The more Quentin thought about it, the more uneasy he grew. The only real weapon they had was his sword. It might be enough to see them through, but he could not be certain. If Walker had been overcome by Antrax, what chance did he have? He wondered if Bek had come up against Antrax, as well, and having discovered his own form of magic, brought it to bear. If so, what success had he enjoyed? If his magic was powerful enough to shred creepers, as Tamis had reported, could it bring Antrax down? He did not like thinking of Bek facing Antrax alone. He did not like even considering the possibility. It shouldn’t happen that way, Bek alone. Or himself, for that matter. It should be the two of them, standing together the way they had planned it, watching out for each other.

He wondered if there was any chance that it could still happen like that and if it could happen in time to make a difference.

It was still early afternoon when they reached the edges of Castledown and paused long enough for the Rindge to scout ahead for creepers. While they waited, Quentin sat with Panax and stared out into the midday heat as it rose in visible waves off the metal of the devastated city. In the flat, raw wasteland, nothing
moved. There was no sign of the maze, farther in from where they sat, and nothing to show that anyone had ever passed that way. Panax drank from a water skin and offered it to Quentin.

“Worried about Bek?” he asked, wiping his mouth.

Quentin nodded. “I can’t stop worrying about him. I don’t like the thought of him out there alone.”

The Dwarf nodded and looked off into the distance. “Might be better if he is, though.”

The Rindge scouts returned. There were no creepers in evidence along the city’s perimeter. Obat motioned everyone ahead, and they moved through the trees, staying just inside the forestline as they followed the edge of the ruins east and south. No one talked as they scanned the city, moving with slow, careful steps. The buildings stared back at them, the gaping holes of windows and doors like vacant eyes and mouths. Castledown was a tomb for dead men and machines, a graveyard for the unwary. Quentin carried the Sword of Leah unsheathed, bearing it before him, feeling just the slightest tingle of imprisoned magic awaiting its summoning. His pulse throbbed in his temples, and he heard the sound of his breathing in his throat.

Obat brought them to a grated entry cut into the side of a building that sprawled several hundred yards in both directions. Stationing Rindge at either end and carefully back from where he stood, he worked with a handful of others to free the grate from its clasps and swing it back on its rusted hinges. The effort produced a series of squeals barely muted by old grease and the weight of the metal.

Obat pointed into the black opening and spoke to Panax in hushed tones.

“Obat says that this leads to where Antrax lives,” the Dwarf translated. “He says this is how it breathes underground.”

“A ventilation shaft,” Quentin said.

“Ask him how he knows Antrax is down there,” Tamis demanded.

Panax did so, listened to Obat’s reply, and shook his head. “He says he knows because this is where he’s seen the creepers come out to hunt.”

Tamis looked at Quentin. “What do you think, Highlander? You’re the one with the sword.”

Quentin stared into the blackness of the shaft and thought that it was the last place he would like to go. He could just make out lights farther in, dim glimmers in the blackness, so they would not be blind. But he didn’t care for being trapped underground beneath all that stone and metal with no map to guide them and no way of knowing where to look.

“This might be a waste of time,” Panax offered quietly.

Quentin nodded. “On the other hand, what else do we have to do? Where else do we look for the others if not here?” His grip tightened on the sword. “We’ve come this far. We should at least take a peek.”

Tamis stepped forward to peer more closely into the darkness. “A peek should be more than enough. Are the Rindge coming with us?”

Panax shook his head. “They’ve already told me they won’t go into the ruins, above or belowground. They’re terrified of Antrax. They’ll wait for us here.”

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t need them anyway.” She looked over her shoulder at Quentin. “Ready, Highlander?”

Quentin nodded. “Ready.”

They went in bunched close together, Tamis leading, picking her way carefully. Their eyes adjusted quickly to the blackness. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the air shaft were smooth and unobstructed. They walked for several hundred yards without changing direction, locked in silence and the faintly metallic smell of the corridor,
the opening through which they had entered shrinking behind them to a pinprick of light. The shaft began to descend then, dropping away at a slant, then splitting in two. The little company paused, then turned into the larger of the passageways, descending farther, moving past countless smaller ducts that burrowed through the walls and ceiling like snake holes. Ahead, still so distant at first that it was barely discernible, they could hear the sound of machinery, a soft purring, a gentle hum, a reminder of life ancient and enduring.

Lights burned at regular intervals, flameless lamps set into the walls, yellowish light steady and unwavering. Strange fish-eyes peered down at Quentin from the ceiling, set farther apart than the lights, tiny red dots blinking steadily at their centers. They seemed to be looking at him. It was ridiculous to think this, yet he could not shake the feeling that it was so. He glanced at Panax and Tamis to see if they were looking, too, but their eyes were directed ahead into the corridor they followed.

Quentin found himself staring around in amazement. He had never seen anything like this. So many metal sheets layered together, yards and yards of them, bolted and sealed against weather and animals and plants, a man-made warren carved into the earth. How had it been done? He tried to picture the culture and machines and skill that must have been required but he failed. The Old World had been a very different place, he knew, but that had never been more dramatically apparent to him than it was in the ventilation shaft.

Held in place by stanchions, metal pipes began to appear in connected lines along the walls of the passageway. Quentin could not discern their purpose. Everything felt strange and foreign to him, all the metal surfaces, all that space and emptiness. If Antrax lived down there, he had room to move about—that much was clear. But what sort of creature would choose to live in such
a place? Only another machine, another creeper made of metal, Quentin thought. Perhaps Antrax was a machine, similar, yet more powerful than the creepers it commanded.

Suddenly, Tamis froze. Her hand came up in warning. The four men stopped instantly. Everyone listened. Ahead, the corridor ended in a hub from which a series of similar corridors fanned out like spokes in a wheel. Within one of those corridors, footsteps were audible. The footsteps were heavy and slow and deliberate, as if what made them bore a great weight.

Quentin had never heard footsteps like those. What made them walked on two legs, but it did not sound like something he had encountered before. He glanced at the others. Tamis was crouched like a cat. Panax stood upright, his expression unreadable. There was a sheen of sweat on the faces of the Elven Hunters, Kian and Wye. Quentin felt as if he couldn’t breathe. No one seemed able to move.