The Scourge (A.G. Henley) - By A.G. Henley Page 0,36
way.”
“Um, that’s the way we came,” he says.
“Well, I told you not to ask me!”
“Just kidding . . . that way looks good.”
“Bird-waste-for-brains,” I mutter, smiling.
He takes my still-wrapped hand and puts it on his arm, then leads me in the direction I pointed. I try to spread more crampberries around the entrance of the passage, but he pulls me back and takes the pouch out of my hand.
“My turn today,” he says.
“I don’t mind doing it."
“You’d cheat me out of my chance to smell them up close?” His voice droops with mock sadness.
I laugh, and hand him the bag. “Have it your way, then.”
He smears the berries, grousing the whole time, then he wraps my hand back around his arm.
“I can manage on my own. The salve you put on my fingers helped a lot,” I tell him.
“But I’m scared,” he says in an exaggerated whisper. “I don’t want to get separated.”
I shake my head. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
Our laughter doesn’t last. The passage is particularly lengthy, and it leads us to another cavern, larger than any we’ve been through yet. It takes almost an hour to traverse, even with the torch lighting the way. Gaping cavities in the floor make me very glad one of us can see where we’re going. We get to the far side without finding another passage to take.
“It’s a dead end.” Peree kicks at the ground. Small rocks skitter away from his foot.
“It can’t be,” I say.
“There’s no other exit. What would you call it?”
“There’s got to be another way out.”
“Except there isn’t.”
I sigh. “Let’s go back toward the passage we came in, but around the outside this time. Maybe we missed it.”
“Fine, let’s go then, before we freeze to death.”
He leads me along the edge of the cavern, and our moods blacken as another hour passes and there’s still no passage. When I start to smell the crampberries again, I want to scream.
“We’re back to where we started!” I say, jamming my fingers into my hair.
He takes a few steps away, then says, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
Minutes pass, or maybe it’s only seconds, it’s hard to tell. He doesn’t return. A shiver wriggles down my spine, and not from the cold.
“Peree?” My voice rings out across the cavern. No answer. “Peree!” I shout. Suddenly I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life, even more alone than when I took my first steps among the Scourge. “Peree, where are you?”
The echo dies away. I want to run after him, but I wouldn’t know where to go. Frozen like one of the formations, terror steals through me.
Suddenly crampberries fill my nose again. I’m not helpless, I think, as I inhale the horrible smell. I can follow the crampberries. I take a few wobbly steps—and something grabs me.
I shriek.
“Fenn, it’s me!” Peree says. “Come on, I think I found another way out.”
He drags me forward, but I jerk him to a stop. “Don’t leave me like that! I kept calling, but you didn’t hear, and I . . . sort of panicked.” My voice trembles.
He pulls me into his chest. I’m rigid with fear, but I quickly melt into the warmth of his body. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would bother you to be left alone for a minute.”
“Well, it did. From now on we stay together, okay?”
“Okay.” He squeezes me gently, then puts my hand on his arm. “There’s another passageway, right next to the one we took to get here. It goes back in the direction we came.” I groan. “Don’t worry, it curves off. I followed it for a while, that’s why I didn’t hear you call.”
The passage does bend, seeming to lead us in a different direction from the one we used to enter the cavern. We walk for an age, before coming to a fork.
“Which way? Your choice this time,” I say. He picks one, smearing berries before we enter. “How many do we have left?”
“Don’t ask,” he says darkly.
I frown as we walk. He’s only using one or two to mark the entrances as it is. If we run out of crampberries we’ll be forced to go back. We’ve made so many turns by now there’s no way we could keep track without the smell to follow. We’d have to start leaving other supplies to mark our trail, and we can’t afford to give up what little we have.
“There’s another problem, too,” he says. “The torch is getting low.”