The Shadowhand Covenant (18 page)

Along the far wall, perfectly spaced, stood twelve stone sarcophagi, each twice as tall as Maloch. They were painted with skeletal images—skull-like faces contorted in fear. Or pain. The only visible door was the one we'd just come through. Clearly, the stone caskets hid the entrance to the Dagger.

“It's a hardglamour,” Maloch said. “A solid illusion. None of it's real. If we were Shadowhands, the illusion would disappear. But we're not, so we have to figure out which one has the door that leads to the next chamber.” He studied the writing on the stone table. “I wonder if there's a clue here.”

“Nope,” I said, having read the fable quickly. “More bloodshed, more severed limbs, more dead children.”

“What?”
Reena and Holm asked together.

“Nothing,” Maloch and I replied.

Reena coughed and made a retching sound. “We can't stay in here much longer. We stink. The room is filling with that smell. We have to keep moving.” She walked up to a sarcophagus on the left.

“Reena,” I said, “be careful. You don't know what—”

Ignoring me, she wrapped her fingers around the sarcophagus lid, gave it a yank, and jumped back, thinking she'd outsmart any trap. But the trap outsmarted her. As her feet touched down on the stones behind her, a small hole in the floor fired a column of thick, greenish gas straight up, surrounding her. Reena collapsed to the floor.

Maloch and Holm ran to her. When they got close to the gas, they stopped and wobbled back and forth. Holding my breath, I ran over and pulled them away.

“Give the gas a minute to dissipate,” I said. I turned to Holm, whose eyes were filled with fear, and said more gently, “I'm sure she's fine. If the gas was lethal, we'd all be dead.”

Once we could no longer smell the gas, we knelt near Reena. She was alive but unconscious.

“What do we do now?” Maloch asked. “If we try more of the caskets, we could trigger more gas.”

I studied Reena's sleeping form. Something stirred in my
memory. Something I'd read about poisonous gases . . .

“Check her eyes,” I said, tugging back her eyelids. Even in the soft light, I could see that the whites of her eyes had gone dark yellow. “Tarsa gas. It's produced by decomposing tarsa plants. Now, where was I reading about some kind of counteragent . . .”

“Shhh!” Holm held his finger to his lips. We all fell quiet. “While we crouch near Reena, boys, I hear something like a noise.”

Maloch shook his head. “Seriously? You can't just say, ‘Hey, I hear something'? Do we have to listen to your terrible poetry every time—”

“Maloch, shut up,” I said, because I'd heard something too. Not the clockwork whirring from earlier. This was louder. Closer.

We all sat quietly, with only the sound of Reena's labored breathing.

—
tickittatickitta
—

There it was again. A fast, rhythmic tapping, like metal on stone.

—
tickittatickittatickitta
—

It echoed softly off the circular walls, making it seem as
if it was coming from everywhere.

—
tickittatickittatickitta
—

When I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could tell that it was coming from behind us. Whirling around, I held the torch at arm's length.

—
tickittatickittatickitta
—

The tapping was louder and constant now. I peered down at the uneven stone floor, and for just a second, it looked like the floor was moving. Like it was crawling toward us.

—
TICKITTATICKITTATICKITTA
—

The taps erupted into a loud chattering that filled the small chamber. I held the torch closer to the moving floor. But it wasn't the floor that was moving. It was the army of bugs marching at us.

“Scythebeetles!” I said. “Bangers!”

The bugs had perfectly round shells as big as the palm of my hand. A dozen armored legs stuck out from all sides, making the
tickittatickittatickitta
sound as they scuttled forward. A pair of long, curved pincers that gave the bugs their name protruded from their faces. Those pincers could cut an iron blade in half.

When I looked up, it seemed as if the wall behind us was
moving too. Until I realized it was thousands and thousands more scythebeetles pouring from the cracks into the room. The clockwork we'd heard had clearly been a mechanism in the walls that released the bugs.

I got down on one knee. “You usually only see scythebeetles in the southwest. The Dowager and I were planning a trip to find some next summer. She wants to study their saliva. It's supposed to help plants grow.”

—
TICKITTATICKITTATICKITTA
—

“Uh, Jaxter,” Maloch said slowly, eyes darting everywhere. Scythebeetles were now crawling along the ceiling.

“Relax,” I said, “they're harmless. They only eat carrion.” I leaned forward to get a closer look at the ones approaching my feet. Behind me, I heard fast shuffling. I turned to find that Holm and Maloch had dragged Reena onto the top of the table with them.

“What?” I asked.

“In case you've forgotten,” Maloch said, gripping a handful of his wet, reeking tunic, “we smell like carrion.”

Oh. Right.

I leaped back as the closest scythebeetle took a swipe at my boot, cutting open the side. Scrambling, I joined the
others atop the table, just steps ahead of the advancing insect horde.

I groped for my water flagon. “Water!” I said. “Scythebeetles hate water. Get the table legs wet.”

The three of us knelt on the tabletop, dousing the stone legs to keep the scythebeetles from climbing up. When they came in contact with the water, the bugs would hiss and scurry back. But they'd keep trying to reach us, and soon the legs would be dry. And given that we didn't have much water, that wouldn't be long.

“Can we wash the smell away?” Maloch asked, holding his flagon above his head.

“Don't waste the water,” I said. “It's our only weapon.”

“Then I'm open to ideas,” he said, sending another trickle down the stone legs to keep the scythebeetles at bay.

I closed my eyes and blocked out the sound of the scythebeetle feet tapping furiously all around. I had to think. They were blocking the doorway we'd come through, so leaving that way wasn't an option. We could only escape through one of the sarcophagi . . . but we still didn't know which was the right one. Opening more might fill the room with tarsa gas, and then we'd be—

Suddenly, the memory slammed into the front of my brain. Kolo had been writing about tarsa gas in his new manuscript. I pulled Kolo's pages from Tree Bag and scanned each piece of parchment until I found what I needed:

“Give me one of your shirts!” I said to Maloch, as I rifled through my pouches for the right ingredients. Without a second thought, he pulled off the shirt he was wearing and tossed it to me. I glowered. “You just did that to impress Reena when she wakes up.”

“Just do what you're going to do!” he howled.

“Fine!” I ripped the shirt in half. When his jaw dropped, I said, “I told you to give me
one
of your shirts. You didn't have to give me the one you were wearing.”

“But you ripped it!”

“Which is why I asked for one of
yours
!” I continued ripping the shirt until I had four long strips. I dumped the ingredients into my water flagon, gave it a vigorous shake,
then poured it over the shirt strips. I tied one around my mouth and nose like a mask. The sweet smell of the amberberry pollen mixed with the nauseating stench of the cadaverweed water from Maloch's shirt. I could only hope that Kolo knew what he was talking about.

But then, when didn't he?

“Put these on,” I told Maloch and Holm. Holm tied the fourth strip around his sister's face. “It will protect us from the gas.”

I looked to the far wall where the sarcophagi stood. The scythebeetles had gathered on the floor behind me. The floor between the table and the caskets, however, was practically bare. I noticed a thin ledge on the wall just above the sarcophagi that ran around the entire room. This was not going to be easy.

“Keep the legs wet,” I said to Maloch, “and get ready to run when I tell you.”

“What are you going to—?”

Before he could finish, I jumped off the table and hit the ground running toward the sarcophagi. A second later, the scythebeetles picked up my scent, and half of them followed me. With the scythebeetles snapping at my heels, I pounced
up and forward, wrapping my arms and legs as tightly as I could around the nearest casket. Digging in, I shimmied up the sarcophagus to the ledge just above.

A legion of scythebeetles crawled up the bottom of the sarcophagus. I reached down and yanked the lid open. A jet of tarsa gas spat from within the casket, blasting the bugs to the floor. Apparently immune to the gas, the scythebeetles waited near the edge of the casket for my natural clumsiness to kick in and send me falling into their waiting pincers.

I crawled quickly along the ledge to the next sarcophagus and threw the lid open. Columns of gas shot up from holes in the floor. The vapors hung like a greenish cloak in the air. They weren't disappearing as quickly as the dose that had knocked Reena out. Soon, the chamber would be full, and I doubted the masks could protect us from that much gas.

I moved to the next sarcophagus and flung open the lid. No gas this time. But thousands more scythebeetles spilled out.

“Good news, guys. I found more bugs!” I said cheerfully. Maloch bared his teeth at me. Holm made a rude gesture that I was pretty sure he was too young to know.

I continued along the ledge, opening casket lids and
filling the room with alternating gas and scythebeetles. The gas in the air had grown so thick that it was hard to see Maloch and Holm through the haze. And even with Kolo's infusion, I was growing dizzy. If I released more gas, it would probably knock us out. I had to get it right this time. But how?

Only two sarcophagi remained . . . on opposite sides of the room. I looked down at the caskets. The one to the left was covered in dust. The one to the right looked just as dirty, with cobwebs that stretched from its base down the length of the long shadow it cast.

The shadow . . .

None of the hardglamour caskets cast shadows. So the one with the shadow had to be real!

Maloch, whose flagon was now empty, had taken to batting scythebeetles away from the table legs with the torch. “Jaxter, do something!”

I crawled to the real sarcophagus and bent over to pull at the lid, when the thin ledge beneath me gave way. I fell headfirst, barely able to catch myself. I hit the floor at the feet of the sarcophagus and cried out as my wrists bent backward.

In a blink, the scythebeetles charged, pincers snapping. I
grasped at the sarcophagus, trying to pull myself to my feet, but my injured wrists didn't have the strength.

“Aaaaahhh!”

I jumped at hearing Holm shout from the center of the room. He stood with one hand on his hip, the other holding his sister's full wineskin above his head.

“To this fate I won't be bound! Now these bugs are
going down!
” He shot a stream of water from the wineskin. It hit the floor, creating a wet path between the table and me. Scythebeetles hissed and clattered away from the water.

Holm jumped and ran down the clearing he'd created, shooting more bursts of water to keep the bugs away. He helped me to my feet, and together we threw open the sarcophagus lid.

No gas. No bugs. Just a corridor.

Holm turned and knelt, spraying more water to keep the path clear for Maloch. The wineskin wheezed, nearly empty.

“Last one in is beetle bait!” I said to Maloch before disappearing into the hall beyond.

Maloch tossed the torch into the scythebeetles, sending them hissing away. Mumbling, he picked Reena up in his arms. “Wait up! She's heavier than she looks.” He jumped
from the table and ran. The scythebeetles charged as we disappeared into the sarcophagus and shut the lid behind us.

We collapsed in the corridor, the sounds of the advancing scythebeetles now muffled behind the door. The only light came from the other end of the hall. Here, we were mere outlines in the dark.

Maloch's breathing was the heaviest of all. “You know . . . ,” he said, his shoulders rising and falling with his chest, “. . . bound . . . doesn't rhyme . . . with down.”

Holm leaned back against the wall, holding his stomach. “Oh . . . shut up . . .”

As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I spotted a fist swing through the air and connect with Maloch's face, sending him backward.

Reena sat up, flexing her fist, and pulled the infusion mask from her face. “Who's heavier than she looks?”

Maloch leaned back, rubbing his jaw with a smirk. Reena rolled her eyes. “Oh, put a shirt on,” she said, then got to her feet and led us to the other end of the corridor.