Chapter 124: Gascoigne

After a full day in the shelter, Mara could stand without using the wall. She kept her hand near it anyway, waiting for the familiar pull beneath her knee before trusting her weight to that leg.

The wounds had closed enough to stop bleeding. Walking still hurt. Her bandages rubbed against tender skin, and the cuts along her forearm tightened whenever she closed her hand around anything.

Across the room, Rook packed the coffin.

He folded the remaining linen, returned the powder pouch to its place and checked the weapons one at a time. There were more empty spaces than before the bridge. He rearranged several items to stop them knocking together, then closed the lid and fastened it.

Mara bent her knee again.

Rook looked at her boots. “Well?”

“I can walk.”

He watched her take two steps toward the table before lifting the coffin onto his back. The movement pulled at his shoulder. He stopped halfway through tightening the straps, waited, then finished without mentioning it.

Mara picked up the lantern.

Outside the narrow window, the bridge remained hidden beyond the first few stretches of concrete. They had spent much of their rest listening to things move across it. Sometimes there had been wings. Sometimes scraping. Once, something heavy had struck the road hard enough for them to feel it through the watchtower floor.

It had been quiet for a while now.

Rook stood beside the door and listened before drawing back the bolt. He opened it only far enough to look out, then stepped onto the path.

The darkness lay against the rocks exactly as they had left it.

Mara followed him, leaving the bed, the table and the closed walls behind. The little room had barely been comfortable enough to sleep in. She already missed it.

They took the rising ground toward the mountains.

Rook kept his pace slower than usual, though Mara could not tell how much of that was for her. His left arm stayed close to his side. Whenever the coffin shifted, he adjusted its strap with his right hand and waited for the weight to settle before continuing.

The ground grew steeper. Loose stones rolled beneath their boots, forcing them to test their footing before committing to the next step. In places, the rock narrowed around them until Mara could have touched both sides by spreading her arms. She kept the lantern low and watched the spaces beneath the larger stones.

At the entrance to one such channel, Rook stopped.

He guided her behind an outcrop and crouched, lowering himself carefully onto his better leg. Mara followed his gaze.

Something was coming down between the rocks.

Its front legs bent sharply outward, forcing it to scrape its shoulders against either wall. Each step produced a dry grinding sound. A long strip of flesh dragged behind it, catching on the rough ground.

The end snagged beneath a stone.

The creature stopped and pulled. When that failed, it backed up several steps, lowering its head out of sight.

Mara felt Rook’s hand settle against her wrist. She had not realized she was raising the lantern.

They waited while the creature worked the strip free. A wet tearing sound came from the channel, followed by the scraping of its shoulders as it resumed its descent.

Rook remained still until they could no longer hear it.

Then he led her around the channel.

The detour took them across a sloping bed of loose stones. Mara planted each boot sideways to keep from sliding. By the time they reached firmer ground, sweat had gathered beneath her collar despite the cold.

Farther up, she caught Rook’s sleeve.

Several small bodies lay among the rocks ahead. Their pale backs were almost the same color as the surrounding stone. She might have walked straight past them if one had not shifted.

It lifted its head, revealing teeth beneath what she had mistaken for the back of its skull.

Mara pointed at it and Rook followed her finger. He studied the slope to their left and changed direction. She went after him without asking how much farther the detour would take them.

Neither spoke until they reached a ledge broad enough to stand upright on.

Mara rested one hand against the rock and looked up.

“There… Something’s there.”

A faint blue light showed above the next stretch of broken ground.

For a moment, she hoped it belonged to a Beacon. Then they climbed higher, and the light resolved into a small, steady glow near a cave mouth.

Rook stopped a few steps from it.

He drew a slow breath through his nose, then another.

Mara looked at him. “What?”

“Tobacco.”

She noticed the smell a moment later. Faint smoke drifted out between the rocks, warmer and sharper than the damp air around them.

“You can come in,” a voice called. “Mind the loose stone by the entrance.”

They froze for a second, there was someone here.

Rook stayed where he was and took the lantern from Mara.

Its light reached the back wall. The cave was shallow, with no visible passages leading deeper into the mountain. A man sat inside beside a rolled blanket and a small bag. His own lantern rested on a flat rock near his boot.

There was enough room for several people to sit, provided they did not mind their knees touching.

The man looked about fifty. White had worked unevenly through his beard, gathering more thickly along his jaw than beneath his mouth. Deep lines crossed his weathered face. A broad-brimmed hunter’s hat shaded his eyes, and a heavy dark coat lay open around his boots.

Beside his knee stood a weapon with a long shaft and a broad iron head. Mara thought it was a shovel until she noticed the sharpened curve along one side.

The man took the cigar from his mouth.

“There’s room,” he said. “And you both look as though you could use it.”

His gaze passed over the marking visible at Rook’s cuff, then settled briefly on Mara’s wrist.

Rook examined the cave once more before stepping inside. He chose a place near the entrance, lowered the coffin against the wall and laid his scythe within reach.

Mara sat beside the coffin. Taking the weight off her legs hurt almost as much as standing had, and she had to stretch one foot out slowly before the pulling beneath her bandage eased.

The man moved his bag aside to give her more room.

Then he caught Rook looking at the cigar.

“You smoke?”

“Now, I do.”

He opened a small tin and offered it across the space between them.

Rook took one. For a few seconds, he simply turned it between his fingers, examining the wrapper. Then he put it to his mouth.

The man struck a match and held it out.

Rook leaned forward without another word.

The smell thickened inside the cave. Mara watched the end of the cigar brighten, then dim as he drew back against the wall. Smoke escaped slowly through his nose.

His shoulders lowered. For the first time since leaving the old man at the Skyraisers, his hands were still.

Nobody spoke for a little while. Their host returned the tin to his bag, leaving it near the top, and Mara adjusted the lantern so its bent frame stopped rattling against the stone.

“Gascoigne,” the man said.

Rook opened his eyes. “Rook.”

“Mara.”

Gascoigne nodded to her. “Where have you come from?”

“beyond the bridge.”

His cigar stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Was that you using thunder charges on the bridge yesterday?”

“We needed room,” Rook said.

Gascoigne looked over their bandages. His gaze lingered on the dried blood around Mara’s boot.

“Didn’t get much of it, by the look of you. I heard those charges from here.”

Mara glanced toward the entrance. They had walked for hours since leaving the watchtower, and the bridge was farther away still.

“That far?”

“Sound travels up these cuts. Bounces between the slopes.” He pointed outside with his cigar. “Things started moving soon afterward. Some of them haven’t settled.”

Mara thought of the creature dragging flesh between the rocks. She had been relieved to leave the bridge behind. It was less comforting to realize the noise they had made there might still be bringing things toward them.

Rook exhaled toward the entrance.

“We thought we’d climb higher. Look for a Beacon.”

“You’ll want the western ridge. Keep climbing this face and all you’ll see is another mountain.”

“Nearest Bastion?”

“Thirteen Hundred and Nine.”

Rook lowered the cigar slightly. “Thirteen hundred?”

“And nine.”

Mara looked between them. Rook’s expression made the number seem more significant than anything Gascoigne had said about the mountains.

“First time across?” Gascoigne asked.

Rook nodded.

“That explains it.” Gascoigne leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You’ll see the Beacon from the ridge, assuming the mist stays low. Farther north there’s another, but the roads…”

He stopped and looked from one of them to the other.

“I’m getting ahead of myself. You haven’t even finished sitting down.”

He settled back with a faint smile. After a moment, he opened his mouth as though to ask something else, then took a draw from his cigar instead.

Mara began loosening the cloth around her knee. It had tightened during the climb, and the knot pressed against a sore patch beneath it.

Gascoigne turned toward her.

“Did you meet the things with hands on their feet?”

Her fingers stopped.

She remembered those hands closing around the bridge wall. The strength in them. Rook hanging beneath the parapet with the weight of his coffin pulling him toward the dark.

“Yes.”

“Filth.”

Gascoigne pressed the ash from his cigar against the stone beside him. The easy interest had left his face.

“They watch the wounded. Wait until someone falls behind, then take them over the edge.”

“They weren’t particularly patient with us.”

“Were there many?”

“Enough.”

He studied the torn shoulder of her coat.

“They should be cleared off that crossing.”

Rook looked toward the cave mouth. “You’ll need more than an afternoon.”

“Then it takes longer.”

Gascoigne said it without raising his voice. He brushed ash from his fingers and returned the cigar to his mouth.

Rook shifted his arm. The edge of his bandage caught beneath his sleeve, and he stopped with a quiet breath between his teeth.

He set the cigar on a flat stone and began working the cloth free.

“There’s clean linen in the bag,” Gascoigne said. “Help yourself.”

“This will do.”

For once, Rook seemed to dislike a newly acquainted with person quite less than he would normally. He gave them room, spoke little and only what mattered, and was helpful. He even shared his cigars. Such acquaintances were rare.

Especially in the Underworld.