Chương 40: Rhel-Fosse

Lena's scream cut through the mine like a blade drawn too fast. Not long. Not repeated. A single burst, broken by stone, warped by the tunnels, yet clear enough that no one could pretend not to recognize it. Zayn turned before he even thought. Then he thought. And that, once again, was what betrayed him inwardly. Not to the others. To himself. Because his first thought was not only: Lena is in danger. It was: If she dies here, everything changes. The group. Elias. Mira. The way they would all look at him.

The only person who still sometimes spoke to him as if some salvageable version might exist somewhere beneath the filth. And, worse still, the value she represented around him. Not her soul strength. Her usefulness. Her scream had not even finished echoing before Zayn was already ashamed of the order in which things appeared in his head. Selka saw it. Of course.

"Move," she said. She did not ask if he wanted to go. She did not ask what he had heard. She was already running. Zayn followed. Behind them, the two Marches soldiers were cutting the scouts' bodies down as fast as they could. Selka threw over her shoulder, without turning:"Take the dead back up. Seal the secondary shaft. If it starts moving behind us, burn the access." The young soldier went pale.

"Commander—""Simple order. Simple execution. Don't make it sentimental." They obeyed. The central gallery of Rhel-Fosse sloped unevenly downward into older levels. The rusted rails vanished at times beneath the dirt, then reemerged between black pools. Support beams bent under a weight they should never have still been carrying. Every step woke creaks overhead. And ahead, the values were moving. Everywhere. 3 5 4 8 Small presences, fast, scattered. Farther off: 47 Still there. Not fleeing. Attentive.

As if it were waiting to see which route they would choose. A second sound broke out on their right. Not a scream this time. A crash. Then Jonah's voice, muffled by stone:"—I'm telling you this tunnel is an architectural scam!" Selka changed direction without hesitation.

"Right." Zayn followed, but his mind remained hooked on the 47 lower down. The thing was not coming toward them. It was not fleeing either. It remained at the center of the network, still in its density, while the smaller presences stirred around it. A commander. Or bait. They broke into a transverse corridor just as Jonah and Voss were backing up through a rain of rubble.

Three contaminated beasts were harrying them, longer than the ones from the basin, almost blind, but with limbs too thin that clung to the walls. They moved from floor to ceiling in jerky, snapping motions, like spiders that had learned to imitate dogs. 7 9 6 Jonah held a line in the middle of the tunnel, teeth clenched.

"No. No. And absolutely not." Each refusal made the space in front of him vibrate. The beasts slowed, slipped, tried to go around. Voss skewered one in passing, but the thing did not die at once. It twisted at the end of his blade, claws beating the air. Zayn saw the opening. 6. Wounded. Available. He went in. Not to help Jonah. Not first. The beast was already pinned. He only had to strike in the right place. His dagger passed under the jaw, climbing toward the skull. The body went rigid.

[Soul strength absorbed: +0] Nothing. Again. Zayn pulled his blade back with irritation. Jonah saw it. Not the message. But the expression.

"Delighted my survival disappoints you this much."

"You're still talking, so the job's incomplete."

"Fair. Unfortunately for everyone." Selka cut the second beast down with a brutal blow across the spine, then Voss forced the third to fall back into Jonah's line. This time Elias burst into the corridor from the other side. He was not alone. Mira followed, a cut on her forehead, and Lena behind her, supported by a Marches soldier wounded in the arm. Her face was pale, but she was standing. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Alive.

Zayn felt something inside him loosen. Then, almost at once, a lower thought came to stain the relief: So the scream hasn't broken everything yet. He looked away before Lena could see too clearly what crossed his face. Elias finished the last beast by driving it into the wall while Mira struck the neck joint. The thing dropped. No gain. Not for Zayn. The gallery fell almost silent again. Almost. Because below, something was still scratching through the mine. Voss looked at Lena.

"Wounded?" She shook her head.

"No. I screamed because the floor gave way under Mira." Mira, curtly:"It didn't open. It gave." Jonah raised a hand.

"Fundamental distinction, obviously. The floor is innocent. It merely lacked structural commitment." Lena inhaled, still trembling.

"There were bodies under it. A lot." The silence settled back down, heavier. Selka turned her head toward Mira.

"Show me." They moved again through the gallery Elias's group had come from. A few dozen steps later, the main tunnel widened into an old extraction shaft collapse. Part of the floor had caved in, revealing a lower cavity. Not a simple natural pit. A charnel pit. Zayn saw it before he fully caught the smell. Human bodies. Not only recent. Some nearly fresh. Others old, dried out, tangled with animal remains, pieces of armor, broken bones. Miners' clothing. Fragments of Marches patrol uniforms.

Above some bodies, nothing. Dead. Drained. On two shapes at the bottom, however, very weak values still trembled. 2 1 Not really alive. Not yet dead. Lena put a hand over her mouth. Elias stiffened. Jonah stopped talking. Even him. Zayn looked at the two values that remained. The first reflex was tactical: possible survivors, possible information. The second, filthier: almost no value to take. Only the third was: they are still suffering. He did not like the order. Yet he was beginning to know it by heart.

Lena was already moving toward the edge.

"We have to pull them out." Selka caught her by the shoulder.

"No."

"They're alive."

"Barely. And that's probably why they're still there." Mira crouched, studying the walls of the pit.

"The bodies are arranged." Not fallen. Not thrown in at random. Arranged. Black marks linked several corpses together, traced with a dry substance that was neither ink nor charcoal. A dirty, crude geometry, but intentional. Maelor would probably have found the exact word. Selka found the useful one.

"Lair." Voss swore under his breath.

"Rhel-Fosse isn't infested. It's occupied." As if in answer, a sound rose from the cavity. Not a scream. A wet scraping. Then a voice. Weak. Broken.

"Help…" Lena moved immediately. Elias too. Zayn, on the other hand, stayed still. Because the voice came from the body at 1. Too weak. Too perfectly placed. Bait. He felt it not as some noble intuition, but as almost professional disgust. Even he, with all his mediocrity, found that staging insulting. Using a dying person as a trigger. Crude. Effective. Selka looked at Zayn.

"You feel it too." He did not answer at once. The voice came again.

"Please…" Lena clenched her fists.

"We can't just—""Yes," Selka said. The word was hard. Lena turned toward her, eyes bright with anger.

"That's your method?" Selka held her gaze.

"My method is not sending six living people into a pit designed to punish anyone who confuses pain with obligation." Elias did not take his eyes off the bottom.

"We can secure the approach." Mira shook her head.

"Not fast enough. The marks climb the walls. If someone goes down, the geometry changes." Zayn looked at the two values. 2 1 Then the smaller presences around them. They had stopped moving. They were waiting too. Like teeth behind a closed mouth. The 47, deeper in the network, finally moved. Slowly. Toward them. Zayn felt his throat tighten.

"It's coming." Every head turned toward him. Too late to take it back. Selka did not seem surprised.

"What?" Zayn chose fast.

"Something. Lower down."

"Strength?" Bad question. Very bad in front of everyone. He could have lied. But it was approaching, and this time the information mattered more than the partial secret.

"Stronger than the others. Not huge. But intelligent." Mira did not flinch. She had just gotten another piece. Lena, however, was still staring at the pit. The body at 1 whispered again:"Don't leave…" Zayn saw how the phrase sank into her. Like a hook. He could have been moved. Instead, he analyzed. Lena had a magnificent flaw: she could not bear abandoning someone once suffering had a voice. Magnificent. Terribly exploitable. He barely hated himself for thinking it. The mine trembled.

A cold draft ran through the gallery. Then something spoke from the lower tunnel. Not in their language. Not quite. A string of rough sounds, broken by hard consonants, echoing against the bones of the pit. The small beasts froze. The survivors at the bottom stopped whispering. The 47 stepped into the light. It looked less like a warrior demon than a standing mistake. Human-sized, but too thin. Gray skin stretched over long bones. Two flat horns, broken at the ends.

A face almost smooth, without a true nose, with a narrow mouth that opened a little too far to the sides when it smiled. Its fingers bore bits of metal, rings, little mining hooks fastened to them like tools or trophies. Its eyes settled first on Elias. Then on Selka. Then on Zayn. And there, its smile changed. Not much. Enough. It said something. Zayn did not understand the words. But he understood the intent. Recognition. Not respect. Not submission.

Recognition, the way an animal recognizes a near smell on another animal. Lena murmured:"What is that?" Voss answered:"Not a pit burrower." Selka raised her axe.

"A weaver." Jonah forced out a laugh.

"I assume the name doesn't come from a love of carpets."

"It uses bodies, tunnels, cries, and small beasts to control a field."

"Of course. Carpets would have been too restful." The weaver lifted one hand. All the small values began moving. At once. Not toward them. Toward the walls. 3 4 5 6 8 They climbed, slipped into cracks, vanished behind beams. Mira understood.

"It's going to bring the ceiling down on us." Selka shouted:"Controlled withdrawal!" Too late. The first beam gave way. Not above them. Behind them. The tunnel they had come through collapsed in a massive crash, cutting off the way back to the secondary shaft. A second later, another shock rang out farther off. Probably the main entrance. Then a third. Jonah and Voss's side. Rhel-Fosse was closing. Not at random. By sections. The weaver backed into the lower tunnel. Still smiling. Elias lunged. Selka shouted:"No!"

Elias stopped just before the black line traced across the ground. Good. Very good. Even he sometimes knew not to offer his throat to the first trap that appeared. The weaver disappeared deeper below. And the value 47 retreated slowly. Not in flight. In invitation. For a few seconds, no one spoke. Dust drifted down around them. The pit of bodies remained open, the two barely-living survivors at the bottom, the black lines on the walls, the small presences running through the stone. They were cut off.

Not completely, perhaps. Maelor was still above. But the mine had just placed between them and him several layers of stone, twisted seals, and traps designed precisely to slow anyone who wanted to act quickly. Selka looked at the remaining tunnels.

"Inventory." Voss answered at once:"Main exit probably collapsed. Secondary shaft cut. West exit unknown." Mira added:"The weaver wants us to go down." Jonah wiped dust off his face.

"And naturally our best option will be to do exactly what the corpse-collecting demon wants us to do." Selka did not contradict him. Bad sign. Lena was still staring at the pit.

"And them?" The two values at the bottom trembled. 2 1 Selka stayed silent. Elias closed his eyes for one second. Then he said:"We can't carry them into a descent against that kind of thing." The sentence cost him. You could hear it. Zayn, meanwhile, felt something very particular. Not respect. Not exactly. A cruel interest. So this was what Elias looked like when he had to accept that they would not save someone. Not broken. Not yet. But cracked in exactly the right place. Zayn should have looked away. He did not.

The body at 1 whispered again. Lena trembled. Then Zayn moved down. Not into the pit. Just to the edge. He picked up a broken stone and threw it at a black mark halfway up the left wall. The stone struck. The reaction was immediate. Three bone spikes shot out of the wall, piercing through the space where a descending body would have put its torso. Silence. Lena stared at the spikes. Her face lost a little more color. Zayn straightened.

"There. Now we know." Cruel. Useful. Both at once. Lena looked at him as if she did not know whether to thank him or hate him. He held her gaze. Not long. Long enough for her to understand that he had not done it to spare her pain. He had done it to kill the option. That was not the same thing. Selka gave the slightest nod.

"Good." Elias looked at Zayn. This time, something harder passed between them. Because Elias knew the gesture had helped. And because he could feel the way Zayn had done it. Without gentleness. Without regret. Like someone closing a door knowing there was still someone behind it. The mine rumbled again, deeper down. The weaver was moving away toward the heart of Rhel-Fosse. The value 47 was descending. And around it, other figures were beginning to appear. More numerous. Lower. The lair was not a chamber.

It was the whole network. Selka lifted her axe.

"We go down. Tight formation. We follow no voices. We touch no bodies. We answer no pleas without a terrain read." Her gaze passed over Lena. Then over Zayn.

"And nobody goes off alone." Zayn almost felt the irony settle beneath his skin. Nobody goes off alone. In a place built to separate people. Very well. They went deeper into Rhel-Fosse, leaving behind the pit, the condemned survivors, and the first true proof that the demon had not merely dug out a nest. It had prepared a story. One in which every human weakness became a door.