Resurrection (Book Three of the Soul Forge series)

Sypher could feel himself dying.

The necromantic plague swept through him, unyielding and uncaring. First, his fingers were numb. Then his hand. By the time they cleared the caves and reached the labyrinth, his arm had lost all feeling up to the elbow.

And the headache. It pounded behind his eyes, blurring the edges of his vision until it was almost impossible to concentrate on anything else.

Whenever he felt Elda’s eyes on him, he lifted his wings and forced his spine to straighten, but he knew there were times she saw him flagging, even in the low light. And there was nothing he could do to hide the white leeching the colour out of his eyes.

The labyrinth seemed endless, and it was teeming with demons and traps. Brady had already almost fallen into a pit filled with sharpened spikes and they were only a few turns in.

The constant scratching and skittering of creatures nobody could see had the group on edge. Sypher didn't miss the wary glances Clover kept tossing his way either - like he expected him to turn and eat them at any minute.

Even so, the Soul Forge kept moving. They came to another corner and he held up a hand stop the group, testing the ground with the toe of his boot in case it vanished underfoot. When it held, he looked for evidence of wards or rune spells carved into the rock.

There were none, but there were noises coming from round that corner. A low, crackling groan and the clicking of insectile feet. Sypher turned back and put a finger to his lips, beckoning Elda forwards.

She peered into the gloom until her eyes adjusted, then pressed her palm to the stone. Ice spread out around her fingers, creeping towards the long, ugly black demon walking on its many legs in their direction.

It looked like a worm, but its body was clad in a black exoskeleton and moved along on legs that undulated like waves. At each end was a yawning mouth filled with serrated teeth. The ice encased the creature before it could squeal, and Elda let out a breath that misted in front of her.

“The creature was blind,” Sypher whispered. “Get a good look at it as you pass so you’ll recognise any more of them. But do not assume all the creatures down here are blind.”

They nodded and followed him past the frozen demon, peering through its thick ice tomb and committing its features to memory.

Navigating the labyrinth without his magic left Sypher feeling blind, relying instead on his ears and instincts while his sight was hindered by the headache and the lack of light. He narrowly avoided being decapitated by a hissing creature with gnashing mandibles, missing its silent approach. Several dead-ends and wrong turns later, he sported a multitude of ugly cuts and bruises.

Clover pulled his short sword from the skull of yet another slimy demon with two mouths, and Elda kicked a different corpse aside in disgust, turning to face her husband.

“We have to try this a different way,” she stated. “Walking through this place practically blind is going to kill us.”

Brady tipped her head back, a contemplative frown on her face. “We could try climbing the wall.”

“The last person might struggle to get up there,” Edward noted, peering up at ten feet of stone.

“Not if it’s me or Gira,” Brady replied, letting her claws slip free and wiggling them at him. “It’s got to be better than tramping through this bug-filled nightmare.”

“Can you fly up?” Elda asked Sypher quietly.

He considered the aching weight of his wings and shook his head. “Not worth the pain, but I can climb.”

Gira stepped forwards and gestured at the bear Shifter. “We’ll help everyone up and then we’ll follow.”

“Alright. I’ll go first.” Gira crouched and interlocked his fingers, taking the weight of Sypher’s boot with ease and hoisting him up. He caught the top of the wall with his left hand first, noticing when he used his other arm to get up the rest of the way that he was numb almost to the shoulder.

He pushed the knowledge away before it could register on his face, looking out towards where he expected the monolith to be and finding himself facing the opposite direction. From above, it was much easier to choose the next path, but there was still a big distance to cover.

He motioned for the others to follow, keeping his eyes on the occasional movement as demons prowled further into the labyrinth. When the rest of the group was perched on the wall, he started towards the faint glow at the far side of the vast cavern.

The top of the wall was uneven and dangerous, loose rocks chipping away underfoot, but there were no pitfalls or dangerous runes to contend with. They made it half way across the cavern before Sypher’s right foot went numb.

It wasn’t gradual like his hand. Between one footfall and the next, the feeling was replaced by a dull awareness that his foot still existed. His boot landed awkwardly, a loose rock slipping down onto the floor. He managed to keep upright, but Elda’s gasp told him she knew what had happened.

And then something with spiked tentacles dragged her off the wall, alerted by the sound. Sypher leapt before he could think, sword held in his left hand, and landed on the tentacled beast. His ankle rolled, but the heavier impact worked in his favour. The demon hissed and released Elda, turning its sights on him.

Something sharp slashed across his face, ripping through his cheek dangerously close to his eye. Blood flowed from the wound, but Sypher rolled and stabbed, his blade sticking deep into the fleshy skull of the creature. It quivered, then went still.

He turned to find six more of them slithering towards him, serrated teeth gnashing in the dark. Gira and Brady jumped down to flank him, letting their claws slip free. Elda took up the space on his left, stepping around his side to stand in front of him.

“Go back to the top of the wall,” she said softly.

“I’m perfectly capable of fighting them,” he replied.

“You will not die down here. Promise me.” There were tears shining in her eyes.

He blinked, something sticking in his throat and forcing him to swallow hard. “I will not die down here,” he echoed hoarsely.

Elda nodded once, the promise seeming to unleash something in her. She moved flawlessly, drawing her dagger and slipping between writhing tentacles in near-silence. The blind demons noticed her passing, but couldn’t pinpoint her. Sypher took the opportunity to dispatch one of them while they were distracted, Brady and Gira doing the same.

Brackish blood made the ground slick, dismembered tentacles falling with a thud when Elda danced by and cut through them in smooth, fluid strokes. Claw, dagger and sword ripped the demons to shreds, until the alley of stone fell silent again.

They returned to the wall, moving more cautiously this time. The shadows put Sypher on edge, thick enough to hide any number of creatures. One wrong move, one loud step, would be all it took for somebody else to be yanked away from them. And he was navigating it with no feeling in one foot.

I will not die down here. The sentence was more than just a promise - because of the oath he’d sworn after Shade, it was a truth. He refused to die until he knew Ember was safe.

So he kept going, ignoring the numbness spreading up his leg and across his shoulder, focusing through the beating migraine to look out for any for creatures wandering too close. Thankfully, his ankle was too numb to feel the pain of whatever damage had been caused by his earlier jump.

Three quarters of the way across, all of them had picked up bruises and scrapes from attacking demons, thick blood splattering their clothing and dripping from their weapons. Sypher’s left foot was finally dead, his steps harder to place now both his feet felt like lumps of wood.

A yelp from behind made him turn, only to find himself and the rest of the group pitched from the top of the wall when the relatively flat surface tapered suddenly to a pointed edge, the very stone morphing beneath their boots. The labyrinth itself was trying to stop them, its twists and turns changing under the power of ancient magic.

“Well, there goes plan B,” Clover groaned, sitting up and looking around. “Now what?”

“We keep going,” Sypher replied, standing slowly. Each of his bruises throbbed in a separate rhythm that made it hard to breathe.

“I think I can get us there,” Elda murmured, her delicate brows pulling together. “It’s like Bratus and Shade. I can feel the monolith pulling me along.”

“I guess that gives us plan C,” Brady chirped, patting her on the shoulder. “Lead the way.”

The group switched positions - Elda moved to the front while Edward took Sypher’s arm and made him hang back.

“How bad is it really?” the orc asked, keeping his voice low.

The Soul Forge sighed. “Bad. The fever isn’t far away.”

“Can you continue?”

“I have to. It’s the only way to save Ember’s life.”

“And if you turn down here?”

“Then you kill me.” Sypher bent and slipped a dagger from his boot, holding it out. “Through the skull right at the temple. Once I’m down, cut off my head to be sure.” He forced himself to look the orc in the eye. “If you can’t kill me, leave me here. Seal me in.”

Edward’s green eyes widened, but he took the weapon. “You mean trap you down here with these things?”

“Yes. We should follow before the others notice I’m starting to struggle.” Sypher turned to catch up with the group, taking Edward’s wrist to pull him along before they could be separated.

“I don’t want to seal you in here.”

“You may not have a choice...” Sypher froze when they rounded the corner the group had just walked by and found an empty alley.

Edward bumped into his back, then gasped when he realised why they were stopping. "Where did they go?"

“Vakti,” Sypher cursed. “They can’t be far.” He took hold of Edward’s wrist again and moved faster, but the group didn’t appear round the next corner, or the next. “We’re separated.”

“We were just with them!”

“Do you hear them?”

Edward cocked his head, listening for the sounds of footsteps. “No.”

“Of all the rotten fucking tricks,” Sypher muttered, running a hand through his white hair. “The labyrinth itself is working against us. We have to keep moving.”

"How do we know which way is the right one without Elda?"

"We don't."

Edward's brow furrowed. "And if you turn while I'm alone with you?"

"New plan. If the fever sets in before we reach the monolith, you'll have to kill me. If I turn, I'll already be responsible for Ember's death. I won't kill you too."

"You want me to end you while you're still you?" Edward choked, backing away.

"It's your safest option."

"It's murder." The orc shook his head so hard his dark curls fell into his eyes. "I won't kill you until I'm certain you're taking your last breath. We're finding that monolith, we're saving your dragon, and if you have to die, you're doing it under the sky, not in this void-cursed cave!"

Everything hurt, every step was an effort, but Sypher looked down at Edward and smiled.