Meek

Chapter 22: The Collapse

Mossy vines draped the fungal trees. A cedar-scented breeze wafted across streets that glowed a faint pink. Fireflies whirled and hovered in clouds of light ... joined, unknowing, by two sparks.

Eli sprawled on a stone bench, his eyes closed, his mind lost in the firefly dance. Following them, chasing them--occasionally touching one and feeling through his sparks the buzz of gossamer wings, the bulge of a glowing abdomen, the--

Oh.

A new sight rose in the upperways. Eli called the sparks closer to himself and watched from behind as Yellow put her paw on his shoulder.

Lichen paused a pace away and--oh, no!

Fleck tackled him into a hug. "There you are! We were so worried. Even Yellow was worried, don't believe her if she says she wasn't, but I was the most worried-est of all even though I don't really understand what happened--Lichen understands, I think, he's ninety-two kinds of knowing even though he's dumb in most ways but I'm just glad you're okay, how come you're making that noise?"

"He can't breath, you clister," Yellow said.

Fleck loosened her hug. "Ooopsie."

"You're bigger," Eli said, when he breath returned. "You're all like a foot taller than when I left."

"You're not," Fleck told him. "You're exactly the same except even hairier. I've never seen anything so hairy! You're like a ... a very hairy thing."

Yellow pulled her off Eli and rumbled, "Shut your chasm, Fleck."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lichen asked Eli.

"No. Never. No."

"There's no better way honor the dead," Yellow told him. "Humans leave them in holes like poop in a latrine. We keep them with us forever! We draw on their strength and--"

"He said no!" Fleck snapped at her.

"Yeah, but--"

"Fleck's right," Lichen said. "And we have more important things to talk about."

Yellow bowed her head and Eli felt a shiver of apprehension. If Yellow wasn't going to fight about being silenced, something had happened. "What 'important things?"

"The humans are attacking."

"Like they do every green moon?"

"This is different. They're in the ravine, inside the ravine, facing the cave and they're not just killing anyone who stands against them. They're slaughtering everyone. Every pair who wants to mate, everyone who tries to climb ..."

Eli's stomach soured, and a sudden sickening question rose in his mind. Had Clay-Watches and Rivulet-Abides tried to climb this month? He was afraid to ask, so he just said, "Now?"

"Yes. And you're the only one who can understand them, so--will you come? Tell us what they're planning?"

Eli stood from the bench. "Lead the way."

"I told you he'd come," Fleck said to Yellow.

"I agreed with you," Yellow said

"Only after you thought about it."

"That's not a problem for you."

"Yeah! You know it!"

"Because you don't think."

"Yeah!" Fleck repeated. "Wait, what?"

Eli wanted to smile but the urgency in Lichen's face, and the tension in Yellow's shoulders, kept him focused on the ... the what? The attack? The invasion?

The ... truth that he'd discovered in the pantry had rocked him. Shattered him, a little. He'd spent days recovering though, and now he genuinely didn't want to talk about--or think about it--ever again. Even letting his mind drift in that direction ... no.

Better to focus on this invasion. On moving forward, on taking action. On following his siblings toward the entry caves, which he'd never seen before. He heard the sounds long before he reached the wider tunnels: bellows of pain, howls of grief.

Trolls thundered past him. Some he recognized--Armored-in-Frost--and many he didn't.

"They're trying to keep them from getting inside," Lichen told Eli. "If a mage gets in here..."

"They'll stop them at the tunnels," Fleck said, though her voice shook. "They'll collapse a roof."

"Make way!" Yellow roared, despite being smaller than the adult trolls. "Make way for Cloaked-in-Meekness!"

And the trolls did. They stepped aside and let Eli and his siblings push toward the front, where the crash of combat was louder and more brutal. The meaty thunk of fists into flesh, the twang of crossbows, the roars of trolls and the screams of humans.

Yellow pulled Eli within sight of five big trolls beating on a row of stalagmites. "There."

"Once those fall," Lichen explained, "the tunnel collapses."

"How long will that take?" Eli asked, sending his sparks to scout ahead.

"Too long," one of the big trolls told him. "We weren't ready, we didn't think they'd come inside, not like this, not before--"

"Wait." Eli lifted his hand to quiet the big troll when his spark heard humans barking commands. "They're talking about smoke. Poison smoke?"

"Poison?" Lichen asked, and trolls howled in pain from closer to the cave mouth.

"Yeah. Some new weapon. Get Mists-Beneath."

"We need to stay--"

"Now!" Eli snapped. "The smoke hurts trolls. Go, all of you!"

"I'm not leavin--" Yellow started.

Fleck shoved her away, while telling Eli, "Stay safe!"

"Whatever happens, brother, we will--" Lichen began, his voice solemn.

"And stay hairy!" Fleck yelled, from deeper in the tunnel.

Lichen touched Eli's arm then turned to follow his sisters. Eli focused on his sparks, listening for more human commands--and the trolls trying to collapse the tunnel suddenly gasped.

The big one clutched her third eye. "Burns! It burns!"

A trickle of smoke billowed into sight and the trolls started growling and staggering. Instead of collapsing the tunnel. The trolls couldn't break the stalagmites with that smoke pouring at them.

Eli raced forward, past the agonized trolls, toward the invaders, shouting, "Bring this tunnel down! If you fail, they'll slaughter every stonechild here."

Between the darkness and the stinging smoke, Eli couldn't see with his eyes, so he followed the sparks along an expanse of tunnel--and three trolls reeled past him, retreating into the mountain, bellowing in pain.

He found the humans around the next turn, dozens of soldiers and mages barely visible beyond a roiling bank of greasy smoke. Surrounded by decapitated trolls, and about to kill another one ...

Armored-in-Frost.

The big troll lay motionless at the feet of the noble, one of the Marquis's children--until with the practiced sweep of a shockingly-keen polearm, the noble beheaded Armored-in-Frost.

Eli didn't even like Armored-in-Frost, but he still braced himself for an eruption of rage. He didn't feel any. Instead, he felt an icy calm. Maybe that was the big troll's dying gift: his own frost armor. Or maybe Eli had simply survived too many shocks already--and too much rage.

Using the sparks to guide him, he crept toward the humans. Across a battlefield, strewn with troll blood, chips of rock, shattered crossbow bolts.

"The smoke hurts them," a human said, "that's a gift from the Angel. We need to press our advantage."

"Not if they close that tunnel."

Eli slunk through the smoke toward a tunnel branch that opened a few yards to the side of the invaders. The humans were alert for huge bellowing enemies, but didn't notice a small, silent, human. At least, the sparks didn't notice them noticing him--but even if they had, they would've taken Eli for one of them.

"Sounds like it's just a few yards."

"Noise travels odd undergro--"

When Eli reached the nearest branch tunnel, he yelled: "This way! Bring the smoke!"

Except he accidentally yelled in Trollish. The humans spun, and a crossbow bolt whizzed past his ear as the invaders called, "There, to the left!" and "How the halo did it get--"

"Over here!" Eli yelled, that time in Iolian. "This way! Through here!"

With frightening speed, theinvaders' formation swiveled toward him. The nobles and the mages and elite guard surrounded Eli, followed by the pole-soldiers then crossbowers and people with awkward pipes on three-wheeled contraptions like a portable aquaduct.

"I saw one there." Eli pointed at a tunnel branch that the sparks told him dead-ended in a cave-in. "I saw one, Dreamer help me, right there."

One of the mages raised a shimmering shield and the others propelled metal balls deeper into the branch. The impact cracked stones and an officer demanded more smoke and the invaders pushed forward and there was a tremendous crash.

The sound of a tunnel collapsing.

The noise echoed through the caves. Coming from the other tunnel, Eli knew, but sound did travel strangely underground, and clouds of dust merged with the clouds of smoke and confused the senses.

And the mage in charge ordered the humans to hold fast, not to try to clear the rubble of the old cave-in front of them.

Eli almost laughed and almost wept. The trolls were safe. He'd done it, they were safe. At least for now.

As the humans collected their dead and injured, Eli started to slink away. One of the mages slumped against the tunnel wall in front of him, exhausted by the sustained use of magic. Eli stepped around her--and an crossbower blocked his way. Not just any crossbower ...

"Who the halo are you?" she demanded.

Eli's mind blanked completely. He just stood there, looking at her.

"Speak, man," she demanded.

"L-lady Pym."

"I know who I am."

He looked at her some more. She'd trotted past him when he'd been in the prison wagon, not even bothering to spare a glance. He was going to kill her father and burn down her world. Still, he didn't mind looking at her.Clear eyes, clear skin, strong mouth. An inch of smooth neck visible at the collar. She would've been pretty but her hawk nose was so surprising that it made her beautiful.

"You're wearing a Rockbridge gambeson," she told him, "And a soldier's underthings. Yet you haven't shaved in months, you're a disgrace."

"Yes."

"I'm pleased you agree."

"I wager he's a lost soldier," her brother said, looking up from cleaning his blade. "One of the trolls must've tossed him into the ravine--last month? the month before?--but this hero survived." He peered at Eli. "Am I right?"

"Yes," he said.

"So we're even!" Lord Ty told his sister. "You won one wager, I won another."

"We are no such thing," she said, then raised her voice. "Lieutenant! See that this man is fed and cleaned and--and this time, let's not leave him behind."

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