Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Fire Emblem Tellius Saga: Book 3 ❯ CHAPTER 76: THE KAUKU CAVES ( Chapter 10 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The retreating laguz cut through southern Telgam and easily crossed Cain River (Miscale’s other tributary). They were entering the smaller western holds now. But they were already south of Mugill, latitudinally speaking, and their current trajectory had them entering the Serenes Forest.

“Are laguz truly too stupid to read a map?” Soren goaded Ranulf one day, finding him adjusting one such map with the most recent scouting reports. “We’re going too far south.”

He glared back. “We’re going the right way.”

“Where are you leading us, Ranulf?” he growled, refusing to accept another deflection or excuse like he, Kyza, and Skirmir had been making all week.

Fortunately Ranulf seemed to realize this and gave in. “It is a secret passage,” he whispered, “alright?”

“Into Gallia?” Soren mulled his surprise. “You know another way through the mountains… Why has no one mentioned this before?”

“It’s a secret,” Ranulf hissed back. “We can’t afford Begnion ever finding out about it.”

Soren narrowed his eyes. “Begnion will certainly find out about it, if we lead them straight there.”

Ranulf growled under his breath. “Don’t you think I know that? We need to put more distance between us and the Central Army before we arrive.”

Soren considered this and nodded. “If we can pull ahead, yours is a sound plan. We cannot be certain Mugill has not already returned to Begnion’s grasp. Crossing there could be dangerous.”

“Exactly.” Ranulf returned his attention to the map. “Hence the secret passage.”

Soren knelt opposite him. “Show me where it is. I can help chart a course.”

Ranulf glanced up, and his mismatched eyes seemed to contemplate Soren for a second. “Alright,” he finally gave in, “but you can’t tell anyone else about this!”

“I will tell Ike and no one else,” Soren replied honestly.

“Fine,” Ranulf groaned, apparently finding this acceptable.

The pair spent the next hour or so planning tomorrow’s route. Soren hadn’t been able to write reports since the injury to his hand at the Ribahn, and he still had difficulty holding a stylus. But as long as Ranulf was doing the writing, he could be useful.

 

The Gallian and Phoenician armies pushed through the northern section of the Serenes Forest. The barrier range was fast approaching, but pulling away from Zelgius was proving even harder than predicted. Each day, no matter how they pushed themselves or how little they slept at night, the hawk scouts always returned saying the Central Army was right behind them.

With less than a week left, the days ticked by, and Soren tried to think of ways they could escape without using Ranulf’s secret passage. He asked Reyson about any fortifications or hiding places in the Serenes, but he said there were none. (Soren believed him, because if there were, surely more herons would have survived the massacre twenty-seven years ago.) In the end, it seemed his only hope was a network of caves with an entrance nearby, and he held onto that hope.

 

Eventually, the day came when they would either turn toward Ranulf’s secret passage, or they would not. Everyone waited tensely for Janaff and Ulki to return from their scouting mission. “How are we doing for time, Janaff?” Tibarn asked, when the bird-men finally reappeared.

“They’re gaining on us,” Janaff admitted. “Their lead force is about…let’s say…one day off?” he winced at his own words, knowing what they meant.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Ranulf growled, throwing his hands in the air. “How did they cover so much ground since yesterday?”

“They’re definitely moving faster than we expected,” Ike agreed, not quite as hopeless as Ranulf. “At this rate, they’ll catch us. Any ideas?” He turned to Soren, who wondered for a moment if the only reason he wasn’t as distraught as the others was because he trusted Soren would have a solution

“With the enemy closing in so quickly, it would be unwise to use the secret passage,” he began, meeting Ranulf’s gaze. “If Begnion found it, it would give them an open invitation to surge across Gallia. Your people would not be pleased.”

Ranulf looked oddly grateful for his sympathy. “We can’t expose our country to that danger. We have to think of something else,” he pleaded.

“Well, we can’t start a fight in the Serenes Forest,” Ike said firmly, glancing at Reyson. “Not only is the terrain disadvantageous, but the forest isn’t even fully healed. We can’t risk burning it down again. Soren, any ideas?”

“Our options are profoundly limited, Ike,” Soren said seriously, but he did have a potential solution, so he gave it: “It appears our only other choice is the caves up ahead.” Withdrawing one of Ranulf’s maps, Soren knelt and pressed it against the ground.

“Caves?” Ranulf repeated in confusion. But when he saw Soren pointing to them, his expression changed to one of recognition and rejection: “Yeah, those are the Kauku Caves. We do not want to go there. It’s a complex maze, full of lava and ash. Not exactly a place you’d want to rest.”

“But the legends, Ranulf,” Skrimir countered in a surprisingly soft voice.

“Legends?” Soren repeated.

Ranulf frowned up at the leafy canopy as if he did not want to tell the story. “The legends say that, through the caves, there’s one exit that leads to Goldoa and another exit that leads to Gallia,” he admitted. But then he dropped his gaze to meet Soren’s eye. “But no matter what the legends say, the fact is that it’s suicide to go in there! We don’t even have a map!”

“If there is a tunnel that leads to Gallia we must find it and take it,” Soren declared, wishing he’d known about the legend from the start. “It is the obvious choice.”

“The more you hens carry on,” Ulki suddenly cut in, “the closer the enemy advances. For every minute we spend here, they become less than a day away.”

This rare outburst from the usually reticent hawk left everyone looking chastised. Soren seized the moment to conclude his argument: “If the enemy catches up to us in this forest, we will certainly die. The caves are known to be dangerous, so Begnion may not pursue. Even the most formidable natural hazard isn’t as deadly as an intelligent, living enemy. We must go to the caves. Now.”

“Alright, Soren,” Ike said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you.” Then he turned to everyone else, declaring, “I say we move out for the caves!”

“I will go,” Skrimir agreed. “I trust we will find our way home.”

“My kind don’t like going underground, but it beats dying,” Tibarn conceded, “We’ll come too.”

“Fine,” Ranulf gave in with a tiny, stressed sigh. “We can go into the suicide caves.”

 

They proceeded into the cave’s gaping mouth with enough food, water, and torches to last three days if rationed, and Soren hoped that would be enough. If a large number of the injured laguz succumbed to infection or died in some sort of accident, then the food and water would last longer. But Soren was fairly certain he didn’t want that to happen.

The caves led deep underground, and before long, the army was marching through what appeared to be lava tubes.  They walked in constant dimness, with only a couple torches lit, and relied on the beast laguz’s keen eyesight to guide them away from danger. When the tunnel split or an offshoot was discovered, leading either up or down, they stopped and sent scouts ahead to help decide which way to go. However, if neither tunnel was blocked, they chose at random.

At one point their tunnel came to an abrupt end, despite scouting, and they had choice but to backtrack for hours. At another time, the tunnel narrowed such that the merchants’ horses couldn’t get through, and Soren and Ranulf decided to backtrack again. They’d already abandoned the wagons, and the horses carried most of the food and water.

By the end of the day, the air grew hot and acrid, and the tunnel they were following opened onto a river of slow-moving lava. The air was difficult to breathe and stung Soren’s eyes. Everywhere people started coughing. “This way!” Ranulf called, shielding his face from the heat. He led them along a path beside the river.

Soren plodded along, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. He squinted through the hazy air, and it was then that he noticed the stairs. A tunnel was leading upward, but unlike the lava tubes or natural crevasses they’d walked through so far, this had clearly been cut by human hands. Walking toward it as if in a trance, Soren examined the perfectly carved steps. Others gathered around too, and some whispered amongst themselves, wondering who could have built such a thing so deep in the mountain. However, the stairs were blocked by a cave-in after only thirty steps. Soren came back down and shook his head at Ranulf’s questioning gaze.

“We’ll keep going this way,” he said in response, and the army trudged on in the heat.

An hour later, a laguz who had lost a foot and was walking with the help of a crutch wandered too close to the lava and fell in. He died relatively quickly, but his screaming had a grim effect on the rest of the troops. “Stay away from the edge,” Ranulf ordered, but otherwise, they were silent.

When they came to a cavern with slightly clearer air and no immediate lava, they could finally rest for the night. Although there was no way to see the sky or accurately judge time, Soren’s internal clock and the number of torches they’d already exhausted were evidence enough that it must be late at night, if not almost dawn.

Everyone was exhausted, and many fell asleep on the rocky ground. Mist and Rhys had no usable Heal or Mend staves anymore, but they still tended the injured soldiers, changing bandages and bringing them their rations of water. They gave dry herbal poultices to those who needed them most, and for others they merely knelt at their side to comfort them.

Ike watched his sister work in the gloom, and as Soren watched him in turn, he found himself praying they would make it out of these caves alive. He didn’t usually think about Ashera, and he was not sure he believed there were divine forces in this world beyond anyone’s control, let alone that they could be swayed by the unspoken begging of mortals. But his mind asked for it anyway: Please, don’t let us die here.

His silent prayers were interrupted by Ranulf, Tibarn, and Ulki approaching. Ike turned his attention to them. “Bad news,” Tibarn said, “Ulki has heard voices behind us. Begnion followed us inside after all.”

“Well, I’ll be damned if they aren’t persistent,” Ranulf spat.

“What should we do?” Ike asked, and his gaze naturally moved to Soren.

“There is nothing we can do except keep moving forward,” he replied. “Perhaps they will become lost and die, or perhaps they will turn back. If they catch up to us, we will be forced to fight, but I imagine it is only a small, token force that the Central Army has sent after us. They are pursuing us to make a point, that is all.”

“That makes sense,” Ranulf agreed, sounding relieved.

“I will continue to monitor their progress,” Ulki said simply.

With that, everyone went their separate ways to rest. Soren saw Ulki and Janaff take their positions sleeping near Tibarn, who settled down with a rock for a pillow. Many of his other hawk soldiers slept in a circle around him, and Reyson took his customary place behind Tibarn, using his wings as a blanket while he cupped the king’s back. Tibarn, in turn had Reyson’s arm draped over his side, and it appeared the only blanket he needed. (Not for the first time, Soren wondered about the nature of their relationship.)

In another part of the room, Skrimir was already snoring with his friends curled up around him. Ranulf found an empty spot near his feet. Lethe and Lyre were sleeping nearby, and Kyza slept flat on his back with his hands clasped across his chest. However, when Ranulf settled down, he turned his head and whispered something that sounded uncharacteristically gentle—some word of comfort or consolation that Soren couldn’t quite make out. Ranulf sighed and replied in kind.

Near the horses, the mercenaries and merchants were settling down together. Jorge and Daniel were leaning shoulder-to-shoulder with their backs against an exhausted mare. Oscar and Rolf were lying nearby. Haar and Jill were nestled in a cradle made by their wyvern’s forelegs, with the creatures’ heads snoozing in their laps. Ilyana and Aimee were lying back-to-back, and at their feet Heather was sleeping, using Nephenee’s stomach as a pillow. The farmer absently brushed the thief’s hair with her fingers, while staring at the ceiling. Boyd appeared in the gloom behind them, carrying Mist’s unconscious body away from where the injured laguz were huddled. He stroked her arm—all the way from the top of her shoulder to the middle knuckle on the back of her hand—while passing her to Ike, who carried her away and gently laid her down with one of the few remaining blankets. He slept beside her, while Boyd joined his brothers.

Soren cast his eyes over everyone a second time before finding his own corner of ash-dusted stone to lie down on. He didn’t want to be the death of these people, and this thought made it hard to sleep. But, pulling his cloak tighter around him, he eventually slipped into unconsciousness.

 

On the second day, the army marched through more lava tubes and caverns. They even encountered a large lava lake whose heat and toxic fumes were overwhelming. The remnants of a crumbling stone bridge protruded above the magma, and Soren spotted an archway in the distant wall. But there was no way to get over there, and even if they did, there was no reason to believe that doorway would lead anywhere useful.

The vestiges of architecture did confirm one thing, however: people—either laguz or beorc—had once travelled here. To some of the soldiers and mercenaries, this was a comforting thought. To them, this indicated that the tunnels had to lead somewhere, and they hoped they would find a way out. But Soren came to a different conclusion. If people had once come here but no longer did, it was probably due to subterranean eruptions destroying the original passages. It was quite possible the legendary outlet to Gallia that Skrimir and Ranulf spoke of was just a remnant of a bygone era. Soren wondered if he’d been a fool to make them come this way.

As the hours passed, their torchlight revealed beautifully carved stone pillars rising out of sight in tall caverns or poking out of cooled lava flows, in which they were now embedded. Ornately engraved arches and doorways led to stone blockages or impassable piles of rocks. Sometimes they were themselves half-eaten by a round, black whorl of rock that had once been hot magma. Toward the end of the day, when looking for a place to camp, the scouts found caves full of poisonous gas. A couple hawks suffocated to death, and a few other laguz passed out before their comrades could drag them to safety.

When they finally found a relatively safe place to sleep, it was in a long rectangular room. The light of their torches bounced off a crystalline ceiling covered in pink and blue stalactites. However, Soren considered this a room, not a cave, because it had clearly been molded into a livable space by human hands. The strongest indication of this was the grand fresco painted on the left wall, surrounded by a lengthy inscription.

Although it was hard to tell in the darkness (and with centuries of volcanic ash covering the images), the fresco seemed to depict laguz. But these laguz were stylized in a unique way. Although they walked on two legs, the beasts wore fur on most of their bodies, not just their ears and tails. The bird-men were similarly covered in feathers, and a third people were covered with scales and had lizard-like tails. The laguz in the painting seemed to be dancing, playing, and juggling as they gathered around some sort of white-and-gold, humanoid being at the center. Soren assumed this was Ashera.

He stared at the mural for a while, and he wasn’t the only one. Since Reyson stood beside him, Soren asked if he could read the words, but the prince shook his head.

“Very little,” he answered, “It is a lost dialect. Back in Serenes, some of our scholars once studied ancient texts written thusly… But anyone with the ability to understand it is dead now.”

Soren turned back to the mural and strange writing. Most of the letters looked familiar, like the ancient script and runes he knew so well, but he couldn’t understand any of it. He found himself feeling oddly disappointed that the wall might remain a mystery forever.

 

On the third day, their supply of water was running low, and Soren’s throat was always parched. His tongue and lips were dry, and he found himself too distracted by his thirst to appreciate the sporadically awe-inspiring architecture lost among lava and rock. As the day wore on, the ground steadily moved upward. Soren’s legs ached, but he dared to hope this meant they were finally close to getting out. By now they were totally lost. There was no turning back, even if they had enough food or water to reach Begnion.

As the hours passed, they left the lava and heat behind in exchange for relatively cool crystal caverns. The ground was covered in stalagmites, juts of sharp stone, and crystal formations. Anyone who tripped ended up with deep scratches on their arms, hands, and knees. The beorc who owned armor donned it now, and the hawks who could still fly tried to stay in the air. The rest of the army moved carefully, as if walking through a river of shattered glass.

But move they did, because some of the laguz reported hearing running water in the distance. Eventually they made it to a place where ice-cold water cascaded through a hole in the ceiling, and everyone rejoiced. Continuing further, they came to a stream, and this led to a massive underwater lake. Although Soren wondered if the mineral water would be poisonous, a few laguz tasted it and reported it safe. After that, no one held back, and everyone laughed and drank their fill.

Some of the hawks spotted small, translucent fish in the lake and caught what they could. Because they didn’t have enough fuel for a fire, they were forced to eat them raw. But even so, those without a fish glared jealously at those whose teeth sunk into the gooey strips of white flesh. Soren was content with his tiny ration of hardtack for now, but he knew no one would survive much longer without finding more food.

Once they’d refilled their canteens and water bladders, the army moved on, following the shore of the placid lake. In the next cavern, everyone became filled with excitement again, because they smelled fresh air and saw daylight. They surged ahead, but when they arrived, morale plummeted. The sunlight and cold air were merely coming from a hole far in the roof of the cavern. Tibarn and a couple hawks flew all the way to the top, but when they returned, they said there was nothing but snow, ice, and mountain cliffs beyond. There was no indication they were nearing Gallia, and there was nothing edible they could bring back with them.

“We’ll just have to keep moving then,” Ranulf said. “A couple more hours!” he called to the troops, “Then we can rest!” The tired, hungry laguz grumbled but obeyed. Everyone was subdued and obedient in their hopelessness.

 

On the fourth day, they ran out of food. “We must be nearly there!” Ranulf consoled his soldiers, and Skirmir, Tibarn, and Ike did their best to convey the same calming message: they hadn’t seen any lava in a day so they must be nearing an exit. Soren wished he could bring himself to believe it.

The air freshened again, but this time the troops didn’t get their hopes up, aware that it could be another crack letting in sunlight but too far out of reach to offer any chance of freedom. What they found was a huge cavern lit by bioluminescent mosses and fungi and crawling with dark, wet plant matter. They replenished their water here, but no one trusted the unfamiliar plants and fungi enough to eat them.

An hour later, the ground dipped down again, and they passed through a dark cavern full of glowing silkworms. The army tried to disturb as few of the bright blue threads as possible as they walked single-file to the other side.

Here they came to another place full of human-carved architecture. Following a squarish tunnel, they arrived in a wide room with enormous furnaces, long gone cold. This foundry had many branching tubes leading from it, and scouts explored them, returning to report that they were mining tunnels rich with ore. Since it was unlikely that a mine would have an outlet to Gallia, the army left the forge behind and tried to find another route.

The discovery of these rooms and halls revealed that an entire city had once been built into the interior of the Ertz Mountains—not just a set of passages ancient people had used to get from one nation to the other. Soren had suspected this after seeing the fresco the other day, but it was still incredible to see that civilization had once flourished in so desolate a place.

He wondered what had happened to the people who’d lived here. The first explanation that came to mind was that their demise matched the rest of the world beyond Tellius. When the dark god had raised the oceans and flooded the world, earthquakes and volcanic activity would have followed. That could explain many of the cave-ins and dried lava flows, but Soren had a feeling the city had been vacated long before that. This had to be a truly ancient place if even the laguz, with their long historical record, regarded the mountain passage a legend.

  

That evening, the freshness of cool night air drew the army higher and higher, until they reached what appeared to be a series of ancient greenhouses sticking out of the mountainside. Moonlight filtered through massive sheets of mica glass, while in other places it was shattered, revealing the stars. The greenhouses were so full of wild, tangled plants that it was difficult to reach the other side. While the beast laguz fanned out and searched for anything edible, the hawks disappeared through the broken mica and scouted the mountainside.

When they returned, they brought a few marmots, owls, and vultures they’d managed to catch. But they also brought disappointing news that they were still deep in the mountains, with Gallia nowhere in sight.

While the beasts shared the fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms they’d foraged, the hawks shared the bit of meat they’d managed to catch. Then Oscar brewed a soup from the blood and bones. Even when he added some herbs from the greenhouses, it still smelled foul. The blood broth was served to the injured soldiers, who hardly had the energy to raise their heads after forcing themselves to march every day, and they didn’t reject the disgusting liquid being spooned into their mouths.

“Well, at least we won’t starve yet,” Ranulf sighed optimistically as he watched everyone eat. He reached a hand to touch one grape-vine-encrusted wall. “This was a good find.”

He then announced to the troops that they would camp here for the rest of the night. Ulki reported yet again that he still heard troops in the lower tunnels. Soren suspected the Begnion soldiers couldn’t turn back now even if they wanted. They were just as trapped as the laguz, and probably just as desperate for escape.

 

The next day, they followed a tunnel that led outdoors. Here they found narrow, terraced fields built into the mountainside. White peaks surrounded them, but these terraces were relatively protected from ice and snow. Everyone was glad to be outside again, even if only for a moment, and the sunlight warmed the heartsore soldiers. The altitude was high and the air thin, but as long as everyone moved slowly to not overexert themselves, they were able to wander the ancient fields looking for anything growing wild after centuries of neglect.

However, they couldn’t linger here forever or the Begnion soldiers would catch up, and no one would be able to fight when struggling to breathe. Furthermore, there was no route to Gallia here, so the army inevitably moved back into the mountain, taking a new set of tunnels that descended into the musty dark.

 

On the sixth day, they continued to wander the cave city, where they found more of the ancient peoples’ art and writing. By now, Soren had noticed a single word that kept cropping up, and although he didn’t know what it meant, it struck him as familiar.

With nothing to do except walk, think, and appreciate the torchlight flickering over the dusty artifacts, the answer eventually came to him: he had seen that word in Zunanma. In fact, according to Tormod, that word was Zunanma. Like this city, the desert ruins had contained engravings in a lost dialect. Beorc scholars had discerned this single word and claimed it must be the name of the city. But to see it appearing here, Soren wondered if the linguists had made a mistake.

Soon the army entered a vast, almost impossibly long cavern whose walls on the left and right were cut with little alcoves containing jar after jar molded in the same size and shape. It didn’t take long to realize they’d wandered into a tomb. These urns were the only dead they’d yet found in underground city, and their sheer quantity showed that people must have lived and died here for hundreds of years before their civilization had collapsed. The army was appropriately respectful and quiet as they passed through, and they didn’t make camp until the necropolis was far behind them.

 

On the seventh day, they left the last of the city’s districts behind, and Soren found they were once again descending into hot, lava-swamped, and rubble-filled tunnels. Some of the soldiers lost heart and mumbled about wanting to go back, but those who still had hope encouraged the others by saying that, if they’d had to pass through lava to get this deep into the Kauku Caves, then they probably had to pass through lava again to get out. Soren didn’t believe that was necessary true, but he did believe going back wasn’t option. Ulki reported that the Begnion troops were gaining on them. As the air got hotter and harder to breathe, Soren hoped they would escape before the enemy reached them—he didn’t want to try to fight in a place like this. 

 

On the eighth day, they were once again running out of food and water. They came to an island of stone surrounded by a moat of lava. At the center of the island was a twisted rock formation reaching all the way to the ceiling. Five bridge-like structures of varying soundness jutted over the lava, and along the periphery over a dozen tubes led in various directions.

As they often did when faced with a branching path, the injured soldiers stayed behind while the able-bodied laguz scouted ahead. Ike and the Greil Mercenaries, along with Ranulf and his chosen group of guards, all stayed on the island to watch over the injured. But Skirmir and Tibarn joined the scouting missions.

Janaff, Reyson, and a handful of hawks also remained with Ike and Ranulf’s guard, and they perched on the central rock formation, watching the main tunnel for Begnion troops.

Before he’d left with Tibarn, Ulki had warned that the troops were not far now and that if they found a shortcut, they could certainly arrive before the scouting parties returned. Everyone was tense as they milled around their barren island, staring at the heat waves rising off the wrinkly-looking, black-crusted, white-hot lava. They coughed as they struggled to breathe, but hardly anyone spoke.

Therefore, everyone easily heard when the stamp of boots and clank of armor suddenly became audible. Soren jogged to Ike’s side even though the activity made his lungs feel like they were burning from the inside out. He arrived at the same moment Janaff landed beside him.

“Hey Ike! We have company,” he reported.

“Seems that way,” Ike agreed dismally. “What kind of numbers are we looking at? I can’t see through all of this smoke and heat.”

Janaff shrugged apologetically. “Maybe fifty? It’s hard for me to see too.”

“It’s just as Soren said—” Ranulf nodded as he approached “—a token force.”

“As far as I can tell, Zelgius isn’t leading them,” Janaff offered optimistically. “That helps things.”

“We have to keep the enemy away from the injured while Skrimir and the others look for an exit,” Ike declared firmly. “Let’s proceed as planned. We have enough people here to deal with these clowns!” At his words, everyone cheered with hoarse voices—which immediately led to a fit of coughing. “Everyone ready?” Ike called, and his voice was strained too.

“We’re set,” Ranulf agreed. “Let’s finish this and get out of here.” With that, he, Janaff, Ike, and Soren ran to the edge of the island. When they arrived, the Begnion soldiers were already crossing the bridge with pikes out and shields up.

Soren slowed and began whispering his first Elwind spell. His lungs never felt like they could get enough air, even when he wasn’t running around chanting spells. But he just had to endure it now. He grew dizzy as his body rejected the strain, but he willed himself to stay conscious.

His fellow mercenaries weren’t faring any better. They swayed; their strikes missed. When they fell, it took them longer than usual to get up. They wheezed, gasped, panted, and coughed. Mia’s swordsmanship was uncharacterizable sloppy; Shinon’s aim was no longer perfect. Ike’s unique endurance was flagging, and the swings of his sword seemed to connect with only half their usual strength.

Soren was no exception. The gusts he conjured were weaker and duller. It felt as if the wind spirits themselves were suffocated, so he switched to fire magic instead. To his surprise, even simple spells became explosive. The spirits of fire felt strong, pressurized, combustible— and Soren nearly laughed at the obviousness of the realization. When he saw Ilyana struggling with thunder magic just as he had with wind, he fought to her side and shared what he’d discovered.

“You can feel that?” she asked, panting. “That’s incredible.” Her panting turned to coughing. “I’ve felt the presence of thunder spirits a few times—” she coughed again “—but, it’s hard.” Soren had rarely spoken to Ilyana about magic theory before, despite the fact that they were both skilled sages. Neither of them had been academically trained, so it seemed like a pointless subject to broach.

Instead of replying, he continued to whisper Fire and Elfire spells, knocking back and igniting any Begnion soldiers who got too close. One man’s beard caught fire, and he was so terrified as he tried to put it out that he accidentally tripped and fell back into the lava moat.

Ilyana stopped chanting to cough and (apparently) try to start a conversation. “There’s something I have been meaning to ask you,” she said before coughing again.

While she uttered another Fire spell, Soren fell for the bait: “What?”

“You’re a Spirit Charmer, aren’t you?” Ilyana asked, wiping blood from her cracked lips with the back of her hand. “That is why magic comes easily to you?” She uttered another Fire spell when a Daein swordsman ran at her.

The man rolled forward to avoid the attack and kept running. Soren directed his next spell at him, this time accounting for his dodge. When the man tried the same technique, he ended up running right into the fireball. He was thrown backward, and he didn’t rise again.

“No,” Soren finally answered honestly. “I am not.” His lungs were seizing now in their desire to expel the smoke, and he fell into a fit of coughing that almost sent him to the ground. His head was swimming when he finally recovered and looked back at Ilyana.

Sweat ran in rivulets down her ash-blackened skin. “Oh, I’m sorry to presume.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Soren croaked, wondering why he was wasting his voice on this conversation. Turning his attention to the ongoing battle, he was satisfied to see that it was wrapping up nicely (albeit sloppily).

Ilyana didn’t press further, and they both moved forward to where the fighting continued in a haze of heat and gas. Soren uttered a few more Fire spells to help his comrades, but he didn’t feel he had the strength left to cast even an Elfire spell. When an arrow shot out of the smoke and pegged him in the arm, he fell to the ground and decided he was done.

Dragging himself to his feet, he trudged away from the fight back to where the injured laguz were anxiously listening to the battle and coughing weakly among themselves. Bracing himself against the rock formation, Soren broke off the end of the arrow and pulled it out the other side. This was annoyingly painful, but he knew it would cause less damage than pulling it back out the way it went in. A tiger laguz who was missing an arm came over with a relatively clean bandage clenched in his remaining hand. “Here,” he said.

Soren was honestly surprised. The laguz troops never approached him of their own will. They had been ignoring him since the beginning of the campaign, and he’d gotten used to that. Not even Skrimir’s acceptance had changed their behavior. He wondered if this laguz was just stupid and couldn’t tell he was Branded. But then a cat laguz who had two hands but no left leg hobbled over on a crutch. “I can help with that,” she said, balancing with the crutch under her armpit so both hands were free.

Soren said nothing, but he held out his arm while she wrapped and tied the bandage. The bone wasn’t broken and the brachial artery hadn’t been hit, so Soren was lucky. Without staves or vulneraries around, he would probably have to wait for this to heal naturally.

When the cat was done, she said, “Wait, I’ll find you a sling,” and disappeared among the other injured. When she came back, it was at the same time everyone else returned from the battle. The sound of fighting had died out a minute ago, and as Soren counted the people materializing through the smoke, he was glad to see no one had died. Many people were clearly injured, but if they could get out of these caves soon, Soren hoped they wouldn’t succumb to blood loss or infection.

  

A half hour later, Skrimir came bounding happily down one of the stone bridges. “Ike, Ranulf!” he called, skidding to a halt when he reached them. “This way! I found a way out!” His tail was upright and flicking proudly, and his fanged mouth was positively grinning.

“Excellent!” Ranulf cried, and the sentiment was repeated by everyone within earshot. “Let’s get out of here!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Ike agreed.

Soren released a sigh of relief, which only led to a fit of coughing. He couldn’t believe they’d finally struck lucky.

Despite Skrimir’s anxiousness to depart, they needed to wait for Tibarn and the rest of the scouts. As a compromise, Skirmir led the injured out first, in groups of twenty. By the time he came back for the third group, all of the scouts had returned and the whole army could finally leave their lava island.

The air grew increasingly clearer, and as Soren’s lungs filled with oxygen again, his head grew clearer too. The lava tunnels let to a small cave with a narrow crevasse leading to one of the ancient city’s carved tunnels. There was fresh air and sunlight here, and the gap was just wide enough that the horses could squeeze through as long as their saddlebags were removed.

When Soren finally reached the end of the tunnel, and a wide-open land appeared before him, he found himself turning around to look back at the elegantly carved archway. Although he was relieved to be alive and to not have gotten the entire army killed, he found himself thinking that the Kauku Caves hadn’t been so terrible after all. A part of him even entertained the idea of going back someday. It seemed a shame for the secrets of that underground city to remain forgotten in the dark forever.

But then Soren shook his head, telling himself the toxic gasses must be addling his brain. He was a mercenary not an archeologist, a mage not a scholar, a tactician not a historian. It was nothing but whimsy to imagine there was anything in the Kauku Caves for him.

Turning back the fresh air and sunlight, he joined Ike as he walked over to Skrimir and Ranulf. “Yes! We did it! We made it through the caves!” Skrimir was saying, pounding his chest as if that would help remove the ash built up inside.

“We finally lost the Begnion army too,” Ike agreed with a sigh. “We can finally rest a bit.”

Skrimir closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. “I thought we were finished… I thought my rashness had killed us,” he admitted. “But we’ve lived to see our land again!”

Just then, Tibarn stomped up and seized the back of Skimir’s head. “Hey, Skrimir!” he said, and although his voice was not particularly angry, it was filled with urgency. “Has all the heat gone to that shaggy head of yours? Look around. Is this Gallia?”

“…What?” Skrimir’s face fell, and Tibarn let go. “No! We can’t be in-”

Soren realized the truth in the same moment. The weather was too warm and arid for this to be Gallia in spring, and the land was too flat and open. This was Goldoa.