Lar locks them in

The screaming and squealing had not stopped: a lucky thing, for it meant not only that Lar and Imin had been able to follow the sound to the source, but also that there were still elves alive to scream.

Lar’s eyes were drawn immediately to the blood on the floor below – such quantities of spilled and unsplattered blood that the elf who lay in it was clearly dead.

The face was a red mess from this distance, but only thirteen elves remained to Lar, himself included, and he knew this one by the color of his hair. Twelve now.

Lar closed his eyes and felt his body sway. He grasped the crumbling ledge and held on. Perhaps the rest of this wall would collapse onto the floor below. He would go with it. It mattered less and less. Or perhaps more and more.

Only one moon ago, when he gathered all his men, every chair was occupied. Now they would need no more than a table and a half. They were losing.

“Sacred Mother!” Imin whispered at his shoulder.

Lar opened his eyes and saw why the ladies were still screaming.

Another elf stalked the floor, naked and bedraggled. The bones jostled awkwardly beneath the baggy, bloodless skin, stirring the jellied flesh within. Lar and Imin had handled enough corpses to know.

“Now we know what happened to Rras and Zodi,” Imin whispered.

Perhaps he expected Lar to add, “And Llosh and Teodru,” but Lar said nothing.

He was thinking that he had been right not to send any other elves after the four that had disappeared. But if Druze was in the dining hall, then it was too late for the rest of them. If they stayed below the earth they would be slaughtered by Druze. If they fled outside, they would be executed by the khírrón. They had lost.

Imin’s whisper had sufficed to attract the monster’s attention. “Where is – my son?” he panted.

“His son?” Imin squeaked.

It was well-​​known that Druze was mad. Any son he might have had was fifty or a hundred years dead.

Lar let go of the ledge and turned to grab Imin’s shoulder, squeezing until it must have hurt.

“Get out there and round everyone up,” he whispered. “Get them all up to the doors. If he comes up after you, get everyone out and into the caves if you can. Even if they find you, they may let the ladies live.”

Imin gaped at him. “What are you going to do?”

“Try to save those two! Dilla is pregnant anyway – maybe a son. Go on, Imin! It’s up to you!”

Imin did not move.

“What are you waiting for?” Lar growled. “You don’t need me anyway, remember?”

He shoved Imin towards the door and threw his leg over the ledge before Imin could return to protest. He let himself slide blindly down over the rough stones until his foot found the beams that supported the crumbling wall. He swung himself out like a spider – but without a thread to pull himself back to safety – and let himself drop.

“What did you say?” he roared.

“Where is – my son?”

So far Druze had not seemed to pay the ladies any attention, but now he grabbed Dilla by the hair and shook her head roughly.

“My son! Your daughter!” he wheezed.

Lar had hoped that he would not hurt the ladies, but now it seemed he would stop at nothing. Druze was more than a mere monster to their people: though he had always left the males to die, he had saved several of the ladies from Hel in the years before Dre had come to capture her.

Hel! Hel was the great enemy of Druze. Lar knew that he had not saved those ladies out of love for the kisór.

“He’s not here!” Lar shouted. “Hel has him!”

Druze stopped shaking Dilla and stood with a corpse’s own immobility, his head cocked like a wondering dog’s.

“Hel!” Lar repeated. “Hel! Only you can save him!”

“Where is – Hel?” Druze panted.

“Follow me!” Lar ran.

Lar knew all the predators of the forest, and he knew when one should run, when one should back slowly away, when one should stand still, and when one should play dead.

He did not know what was the best course of action with Druze, but nor did he think it mattered. He could not have done anything but run.

Nothing in his instincts prepared him for an encounter with a murderous corpse. While he might have choked back his blind terror while shouting at him or fighting with him, he surely could not have walked calmly down these corridors with Druze breathing down his neck.

Or not breathing at all, as seemed to be the case.

But unlocking a gate took time.

Druze peered into the darkened cell and wheezed, “Where is – my son?”

“He’s in there, he’s in there,” Lar babbled as he fumbled with the key. “He’s in there with her. Sleeping. You just have to open it up…”

He could not allow himself to think of what would happen if it went wrong – if Hel and Druze were both unleashed in these tunnels.

If one of them killed the other, he told himself, he would have had a certain revenge, either for his wife’s death or for the deaths of the five warriors he had just lost.

If they both died, so much the better.

As soon as the lock clicked, Druze grabbed the gate and yanked it open, knocking Lar back against the wall.

“Wait!” he cried. “As soon as you open – ”

But Druze was not waiting. The heavy ward slid off the lid and clanged onto the floor. Lar threw himself against the gate to slam it shut, locked it again, and ran in blind terror.