The Deepest Prison (6)
Fog had settled into the dark, and the forest lay silent as a grave.
In the stillness pressing in from every side, the only sound was the pursuers' ragged breath and the suck of their boots in the mud.
Then—
Shhk.
A wet, hideous shearing of flesh split the damp air and swallowed the quiet of the woods whole.
Basker, lagging at the rear, felt the instinctive spike of danger and threw himself toward the sound. What met him was not a living comrade.
"......!"
Basker's pupils trembled. Only seconds ago Lenz had been out front, reading the trail. Now he was driven into the cold earth. A single cut. A perfect assassination, without so much as a mark of resistance.
Basker ground his teeth and muttered, low and rough.
"Stupid bastard. How many times did I tell you not to drop your guard?"
Lenz had been a veteran mercenary who had roamed the imperial frontier at Basker's side. That a man like him had gone down without even getting a hand on his weapon meant something worse than either of them was hiding in this dark.
Basker drew a signal flare from his coat without a moment's hesitation.
Fwoooosh—bang!
A red burst tore the night and stitched the silhouette of the primeval forest in fire.
"Pulls one clever trick and thinks he's a real hunter."
Basker poured killing intent into the shadows around him. Lenz was gone, but two of them were left, counting himself—and hundreds more pursuers would come running at that signal. The prey had shown its claws for a moment. In the end it was still a rat caught in the net.
"Kurt! You hear me? He's close!"
As if in answer, another shadow burst from beyond the brush. His fellow mercenary, Kurt.
The two men set off after the tail of the quarry that had slipped back into the pitch-black dark. To men who had cut their teeth on hunts and tracking out of Rasgrid, this forest was as good as their own yard. They covered each other's blind spots and slowly drew a net of pressure around an enemy they could not see.
"......"
Basker bent every ounce of his focus on the brush, reading every shiver of a branch. So long as he had a comrade he could trust with his back, the cold silence filling the woods was no threat.
"Hey, why's it so damn quiet? Kurt, you picking up anyth— huh?"
Kurt turned his head, eyes blown wide. Kurt, the mercenary tempered by a hundred battles. He was dead, blood jetting from his throat.
Kurt too?
In that instant the hand still locked around Kurt's sword began to tremble. It felt as if his own heart had frozen solid.
Kurt had outranked even Lenz, dead only moments before. He had once operated with the Red Moon Guild, and he was an exceptional assassin in his own right. And yet he had died without a scream—without even the sound of a presence—his life cut short for nothing.
"D-damn it......"
Basker's mouth went bone-dry. At the ominous silence closing in from every side, he found himself backing away before he knew it. Like an insect caught in an unseen web, every step let the shadow of death climb his ankles.
Rustle.
A faint noise, behind him.
"......!"
Shocked white, Basker swung on reflex—a blow thrown in pure terror, closer to a death throe than a strike. But his opponent had already read him. With the lightest of movements the man slipped the blade and stepped inside Basker's guard, as if the darkness itself had taken shape and come down on him.
A... demon...
A dreadful mask filled his vision, and through its gaps poured a red gleam. That was the last thing he saw.
Shhk.
A crawling sensation traced the nape of his neck.
The big man, thrashing to the last, crumpled to the ground. Three lives, and already the air stank of blood.
I shook the blood from Baltstein and turned at once toward the northwest, the way the target had gone.
Didn't buy as much time as I thought.
After the signal flare went up, I could feel presences all through the forest. Muffled footfalls and the clink of armor rolled in from every direction like a tide. Hundreds, at a rough count. Not a scattered search party—an organized force, moving as one.
A pain in the ass.
If it came to fighting them, it wasn't that I couldn't. A jungle this thick was the stage I trusted most. Use the dark, break them apart one by one, and I had a real chance. But this was a moment to count efficiency. Better to get out than let a pointless grind catch me by the ankles.
I kicked off the ground and ran hard for the northwest.
"There! That's him!"
"Loose! Don't let him go!"
A knot of soldiers burst through the brush behind me. The moment they spotted me, they started loosing arrows.
Shwip!
Arrows cutting through the dark are a threat. Not to someone who reads their paths as Red Trajectory Lines. I slipped between the shafts and opened the distance.
He'd better be at the river.
Far off, the rough voice of the Thebe began to reach me. The edge of the dense forest came into view, and beyond it, among the wreckage of a broken ferry landing, a familiar silhouette.
"O-over here!"
The one who spotted me broke into a bright grin and waved. A ridiculous figure, clutching a couple of wooden casks each as big as his own torso. Probably the ones they'd used for hauling supplies—and his judgment had been right. Catching my look, he gave an awkward laugh and added,
"J-just in case we needed them......"
Quick on the uptake. A lot like him.
But that was enough sentiment. The captain of the pursuit that had broken the tree line jabbed a finger at us and roared.
"Ignore the masked one! Hit the man beside him!"
At once several arrows ripped the air and stormed toward him. There was no time to hesitate. I snatched one of the casks, wrapped an arm around the target's waist, and threw us both into the river. He shouted after me in a panic—"I can't swim!"—but we had already jumped.
Splash!
Winter hadn't come yet, and still the water was brutally cold. I held the target and lifted my head. On the bank the pursuit captain was flushing red and pale by turns, screaming for them to shoot.
"Dive!"
I shoved his head under and went down with him.
A minute, maybe. When I broke the surface again, the imperial soldiers were already shrinking with distance. I caught his shoulder and pushed a cask at him.
"You hurt?"
"Pwah! I-I'm all right."
"Hold this. It's balsa. About half the weight of ordinary wood, which is why they use it for boats and rafts."
"Glub— th-thank you."
He gasped the answer out through the spray. His hands on the wood were shaking hard; tension had him locked up from head to toe.
"Relax. Breathe deep, and let the strength out of your body. If you don't, you'll burn out fast."
He nodded and drew a slow breath. His arms still trembled, but he wasn't rigid the way he'd been a moment ago.
"We're going to drift for a while. The second we come out of the water, we move. So right now you save everything you've got."
I rode the current downstream and scanned our surroundings.
What?
A wrongness hit me. The scenery was sliding past far too fast. A nasty chill ran up my spine. I had expected a quick current. Not this. This was well beyond anything I'd planned for.
This is dangerous.
I clenched my teeth. Reefs aren't only in the sea. A river hides them too. The problem was that at this speed, even if I saw one coming, I couldn't dodge it.
Crack!
"Hhk......!"
I was still weighing whether to get out and find another route when our bodies suddenly lifted clear of the water. The impact felt like it was wringing my organs inside out. When my head cleared, the cask we'd been holding had shattered and was scattering around us.
"K-kagh...... s-save— pwah!"
Damn it. No sooner had I thought of a reef than we found one. Clinging to the wood as we were swept along, I hadn't been able to see ahead. The cask had spared us a direct hit, but from here on we were drifting on nothing but our bodies.
"Hold on! I'll get you in a second!"
Meanwhile he thrashed, bobbing under and over. Panic had him clenched tight, and every kick sent his head under again. I swam for him fast.
"Stay still!"
The current was so fast that even a short gap took forever to close. I had just gotten a hold of him when, without thinking, he grabbed my shoulder and shoved me down. Fear of the water had shut his mind off. I wanted his face above the surface, but I couldn't get any leverage. At this rate we could both die.
Come on!
I chopped the back of his neck with the edge of my hand. The man who had been flailing like a fish hauled out of the water went limp. I got behind him at once, locked an arm around him, and pulled his head clear. A hand to his nose—no breath. Water in the lungs.
Damn it.
Even as we were swept along, I set a fist against his solar plexus and wrapped my other hand over it, then drove a sharp, hard compression into his gut. Putting force into a blow in fast water was not easy.
"Hurk."
Only after a long stretch of the Heimlich did a mouthful of water pour from his lips. He still hadn't come to, but when I set a hand to his nose there was a faint stir of breath. Only then could I let out a sigh of relief.
First, get out of the water.
Too many variables I hadn't planned for. Staying in the river was too much risk. Holding him, I worked arms and legs hard to break out of the Thebe. The current was too fast, and reaching the bank was not easy. Alone, maybe. With another man in my arms, every movement was constrained.
Then—
"......!"
Far ahead, the water was splitting. A reef. My mind went white.
P-please!
I prayed we would slip past it. Against that hope, the rock was closing fast. The dread was turning real. The huge reef came at us. I shut my eyes tight and twisted. If we had to hit, it had to be somewhere that would do the least damage. Take it on the back and my skull could split, or I'd be crippled. That left the shoulder, the arm, the side.
Crack!
"Ghk!"
The impact slammed through my whole body. My ears rang, a high keen. My insides felt pulped, and my shoulder and elbow burned as if they'd been scalded. Pain past enduring. I had lived through plenty, and I would have sworn to it—but I had never felt anything like this.
When I forced my eyes open through that enormous pain, the first thing in my vision was an arm bent at a grotesque angle. I was long past flinching at pain, and still a groan escaped me.
"Ghk! Damn it!"
I screamed, fury mixed into it. The pain was dizzying enough that I had to make some sound. It felt as if half my body had been sheared away.
"Ugh......"
The target, who had been unconscious, came around. The impact with the reef had jolted him awake. Of all times.
"Don't move! Unless you want both of us dead, do not move!"
"......!"
I snarled it like a man spitting curses. He had been about to thrash on instinct; instead he flinched, startled. Thank God—he didn't panic. He found his calm almost at once. At that, I dragged in a rough breath. With one arm ruined, if he had started thrashing too, there would have been nothing left to do. Both of us, fish food.
"Y-your arm......? Are you all right?"
"Hit a reef. I'm getting us out of the river, so do not move!"
With one arm gone, I had to swim on my legs alone, desperately. I kept my eyes locked forward in case another rock showed itself. None did. Little by little, the bank drew closer. Five more meters and we would be out of this river.
And then a tremendous roar began to fill my ears.
"W-what is that sound?"
He asked it in a shaking voice. My own chest went cold at a roar I couldn't place.
KRAAAAAAA!
The noise swelled the farther the current carried us. A moment later I saw where the water simply ended. The hair on my nape stood up. That grotesque sight, and that roar—put them together and only one thing came to mind.
"You've got to be kidding me......!"
The tremendous roar was a waterfall.