Chapter 63: The Demon of Death
The last thing Danny remembered was falling.
Rock gave way under his feet and the sky flipped, like being thrown by Mirebeast again. He saw the cliff, the cave mouth already gone under dust, Mirebeast’s wing, the grey-haired man’s sword spinning, ash cloud. Then something hit his head, not hard, but enough to turn the world sideways, like a slap from the mountain itself.
Then everything went black.
No dreams. Just heavy, deep black that did not feel like sleep. It felt like being under rock, under snow, under blood. It felt like being buried while still breathing, like the mountain had finally decided to keep him.
When he finally regained consciousness, pain was the first thing he felt, before light, before sound, before cold.
He opened his eyes and found himself trapped beneath a pile of rocks. Not huge boulders, smaller rubble that had slid down in the collapse, pinning him. Dust filled the air, making it difficult to breathe, thick, chalky, in his nose, in his throat. He coughed and the dust went deeper, cutting.
Cold rock pressed on his left leg and on his lower back, heavy, not crushing but holding. It was the kind of weight that told you not to move, that told you if you moved wrong, it would get worse.
He tried to move, but sharp pain shot through his body, from his side where the sword had gone, from his shoulder where the sword had cut, from his leg where the rock sat. Everything hurt at once, and for a second he could not tell which pain was new and which pain was old. They had all become one pain.
"Damn it..." His voice was small, it did not echo. The collapse had packed the space tight, like a grave half dug. There was no room for sound to travel. There was no room for him to be loud.
Danny clenched his teeth and pushed against the rocks with trembling hands, fingers bloody, cold and rough, slipping on dust. He tried again, shoulder under a flat slab, pushing, pain flaring white behind his eyes, like Echo trying to come back but only pain coming. His arms shook. His back screamed. His breath came short.
It took several painful attempts, pushing, breathing, resting, pushing again, but he eventually managed to free himself, leg scraping, back burning. He crawled out from beneath the debris and collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air, air still full of dust, but air that moved, not trapped.
His entire body ached, every muscle, every cut. He lay on his side and stared at nothing while his lungs worked, counting breaths the way the grey-haired man had told him to on the ridge, to calm his heart. One. Two. Three. Four. Wind stopped again. Five. Wind started.
Bleeding had slowed, dust had stuck to the blood on his shoulder and made a crust, a natural bandage, dirty but stopping. It itched. It pulled when he moved. But it was better than bleeding out on the rocks.
For a moment, he simply lay there, trying to gather enough strength to move again, to think again. He was alive, somehow, after a fall that should have killed, after a sword that should have killed, after Mirebeast. He should have been dead three times over. He was not. He did not know if that was luck or if something was keeping him alive for a worse reason.
Then he noticed something in the corner, past the pile that had been the cave entrance, past his own drag marks in the dust.
Mirebeast.
The creature lay motionless, huge, even bigger when still, body impaled on a jagged spike of black rock that had been hidden under ash, under slab, an old stalagmite sharp as a spear. It must have landed on it during the collapse, after eating the old man, weight driving it down, leaving it barely alive. Its huge body was twisted, one limb folded wrong, wing, no wing, but limb folded wrong, bark cracked, sap black bleeding, mixing with dust.
Its three red eyes were dim, but not dark, pulsing weakly, like fire almost out.
Danny stared at the beast, throat dry. He should have felt afraid, should have run, but he was too tired to be afraid properly, too empty. Fear needed energy. He had none left. All he had was pain and dust and a body that would not listen.
"So, you’re still alive?" His voice came out as a croak, a dust voice.
He struggled to his feet and staggered toward it, leg almost gave out, he caught himself on a rock and kept going, dragging. Nearby, he spotted the grey-haired man’s sword lying among the rubble, dirty but whole, blade bent but not broken more. The man was not near it. Nothing left of the man to find, eaten, gone like the prisoner, like a debt paid. Danny did not look for him. He knew there was nothing to find.
He picked it up and approached the wounded Mirebeast, sword heavy, heavier than Last Rest, heavier than the rock he used to kill the Awakened. His injured shoulder screamed at the weight, his side screaming. Each step sent a jolt up his leg, up his back, into his teeth.
The creature barely moved, breath slow and rattled, each breath made blood bubble around the spike, steam mixing with dust, hissing. It was a sound like a kettle left too long on fire, like something inside it was still boiling even while it died.
Danny tightened his grip on the sword, hands shaking, not from fear, from cold and blood loss and effort, from being a child holding a man’s sword. The handle was too big for his hands. The blade was too long. It felt wrong, but it was all he had.
"Sorry, but I can’t afford to take any chances." He said it out loud because the silence felt worse, because the cave was gone, because the old man was gone, because he needed to hear a human voice even if it was his own. Mirebeast’s eye twitched toward him, dim red looking at him, recognizing him, or just reflex.
He raised the blade and plunged it into Mirebeast, killing it, putting weight behind it, both hands, falling forward, using his body not his arms. He felt it go through skin like thick leather, bark armor, then hit something harder, bone, then go deeper, into soft that was behind hard, into heat.
Mirebeast shuddered once, a huge shudder that shook the rocks around, then its eyes went out one by one, red to black, first left, then right, then middle, like lights turning off in a house at night. Then it went still, truly still, steam stopping.
Afterward, he let the sword fall from his hand and collapsed onto his back, it clanged against rock, he didn’t care where it landed, arm empty.
Exhausted, more than he had ever been, even breathing felt like work he had to think about, inhale, exhale, not automatic.
His shoulder was bleeding again from the effort, his side throbbing with pain, Echo remained dormant, he tried to feel for it again out of habit, nothing, like calling into an empty house where nobody ever lived.
He had no idea how he was supposed to survive in this condition, cave gone, path gone, only man who knew where Fort Haven was had been eaten in front of him, then Mirebeast dead, and he alone.
"Just what the hell am I supposed to do now?" He said it to the sky, but the sky was blocked by leaning cliff, by dust, no stars.
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine, not from cold, a different kind of cold, the kind that starts at the back of the neck and goes down, not up, like water poured inside the spine.