Chương 92: Chapter 93: Descent and Pursuit

Eoin's cloud broke apart as soon as it neared the iron barrier. Driven by Eoin's own vast strength and buoyed by the kinetic power of Miriam's Raging Current, they had blown their way through the camp and down the darkened stairs. There was a small contingent of Séarlait staff still in the tunnel and they were all blown off their feet as the cloud thundered past.

The barrier had been wrenched open it seemed, sloppily and rough, like the tin cans some of the explorers who would trek through Willowcrest on their way to unmapped parts West would use to store perishables. As the cloud approached it Eoin's grasp on the technique faltered and they crashed to the ground, their momentum sending them careening towards the deadly edges of iron that remained.

Miriam was able to use her vines to slow herself enough to avoid the edge, and Cormac was fortunate enough to hit the edge of the leftover rubble in such a way that it left him a bruise, but arrested his advance towards the deadly metal. Eoin wasn't as successful and he ended up with hand planted directly on the iron, blistering his skin instantly.

"Damn," Eoin said, shaking his hand.

"I'm getting sloppy."

"We have to move!" Cormac said, watching the Séarlait employees begin to pick themselves up off the ground. Miriam hadn't felt this tapped-out since their very first encounter with Ultán in Arbrey. Her fórsa was gone and she felt barely awake. Not for the first time she wished Sol were here with a reassuring smile and a plethora of material fórsa she could absorb. She stumbled after Eoin as he gingerly stepped through the hole in the iron barrier.

She was careful not to touch it, but this close she could feel the oppressiveness of the cold radiating from it. Cormac took up the rear and they all threaded their way through.

"We have to collapse the tunnel somehow," Miriam said wearily.

"They'll follow us."

"It's pointless," Eoin said.

"Without the iron barrier any of the Earth Natures they have could clear the debris in an instant." Searching through her options Miriam suddenly had an incredible idea for a Blight technique, but it was nothing she had the fórsa for now. She stored it away for later and moved on to the challenge at hand.

"I can slow them down with some curse traps," Cormac offered.

"Again, pointless. It's nothing their Curse Adept couldn't undo - his speciality, and not yours." Eoin shook his head.

"I'm afraid all we can do is run. I'll leave some surprises behind us, but I expect we will be caught up to and that we'll have to fight."

"Fine," Cormac said. Miriam's heart sank and she realized she was the reason they would be caught. She could never keep up with a Fourth and a Fifth - they were hindered by her weakness. She was so used to using her overloaded fórsa to even out these differences that how very much lesser she was than her friends was a startling realization. Cormac could see how tired she was.

"Come on," he said.

"Jump on my back. We'll make good time this way."

"This isn't humiliating at all," she grumbled as she climbed on board the good ship Cormac. Shouts from the other side of the iron barrier spurred them on faster and they took off deeper into the mine. Eoin could see in the dark with the same technique he had imbued into a stone for Róise - Mistlight - but he couldn't give it to anyone else without a similar stone, so Cormac and Róise were effectively blind. Cormac had shrugged and said this was something he'd always wanted to try but never had the opportunity to.

He simply ran forward into the darkness, burning his fórsa to let his Luck guide him. Miriam could actually feel his skin heating up as he expended his power - she wondered if everyone's did that. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. At any rate, it seemed to work. They didn't run headlong into any walls or fall down. The downside was that Miriam was hurtling through a pitch-black cave at breakneck speed with nothing to do but hold on.

That also meant that they couldn't consult any maps and by the time they could they might have no idea where they were. All they could do was trust in Cormac's luck and Eoin's memory to reconcile. They had been running for an hour before they found a light in the tunnel ahead, creeping steadily towards them. The three of them skidded to a halt, Cormac lowering Miriam down. She was nowhere near fully recovered, but she had enough fórsa to fight someone on her level, if necessary.

As the light neared, Miriam could see that Cormac's face mirrored her own - he was almost tapped out as well.

"I've got this one," Eoin said smoothly. With that, he vanished into mist. ✧✧✧ Ceallagh hated the mines. Hated the Second Ring, hated the prattling scholars he was tasked with escorting. He especially hated the Iron Dead he had seen, even if the gem he carried warded them off. The only thing he didn't hate about this whole wretched mess was Caolán Séarlait. He'd actually gotten to meet the man in person! He'd shaken Ceallagh's hand and told him to keep his men safe, so that was what Ceallagh intended to do.

Being a soldier wasn't the end of Ceallagh's tale. Not by a long shot. He had ideas. Big ideas! Businesses that would impress even Caolán Séarlait. Businesses that maybe the pixie would even want to buy! If he returned triumphant with the Heart of Iron, acquiring seed capital from the Séarlait Consortium was all but assured. Which is why he hated, more than anything, that they were headed in the wrong direction.

"One simply cannot abide by conditions such as these!" the lead scholar moaned. Ceallagh hadn't even bothered to learn his name. He thought of him as the Whiner. It was too dark. The tunnels too disgusting. The pace too fast. The air too stale. Ceallagh was no stranger to murder. What true businessman was? It was only that sacred handshake from Mr. Séarlait and his sworn dedication to the task to be carried out in his name that kept the Whiner alive.

What rankled most was that the Whiner was ostensibly the leader of the expedition - Ceallagh had no say on where they did or didn't go. So he had no control over the fact that they were headed back to the surface when their instructions had been to go anywhere but.

"We will arrive in disgrace," he grumbled, not for the first time.

"Mr. Séarlait will understand!" the Whiner sniffed.

"He and I are close personal colleagues, you know! I work with him out of the home offices in Shirren! You bumpkins don't have the connection with him that I do."

"I don't have to share a bathroom with the man to know this is not what he told us to do!" Ceallagh roared. He closed in on the lead scholar, who didn't have the sense to be afraid.

"I've gutted men who abandoned their posts with far lower stakes than this. My supervisors always approved. If they approved, I assume their supervisors must have approved. If they approved then I damn well believe Mr. Séarlait must have approved. So tell me. Why wouldn't he approve of me doing it now?" The Whiner rolled his eyes.

"Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? If Mr. Séarlait trusted your judgement more than mine, he would have made you the leader of this patrol, not me. You lay a finger on me and it'll be your head." That was it. He'd had enough. The Whiner's eyes went wide and he made a gurgling, choking sound as he looked down to find Ceallagh's sword sticking through his gullet. Ceallagh paled. He had moved without thinking, he reasoned. Instinct, not rage.

"Ceallagh!" One of the other soldiers gasped.

"What did you do?"

"It wasn't me," he said breathlessly.

"It was one of those Iron Dead things. You saw that. You all saw that."

"Don't worry," a cheerful voice said from next to him.

"I won't tell anyone you did that." Suddenly a man was there, in fancy white and blue, surrounded by fog. The fog coalesced into dozens of tiny needles, each of which launched forward to perforate each member of the Séarlait patrol's vital organs. As the light faded from Ceallagh's eyes, the man leaned down to where he lay on the cave floor with a sympathetic grin.

"If it's any consolation, I would have killed that man far sooner." Strangely, as consciousness left him, that actually did make him feel better.