“Stay close.” Darsal turned her horse onto a series of switchbacks cut from the cliff. The Shataiki watched them go. Several squawked fifty meters away, but their attention was on something they fought over, not on Darsal or Karas.

The air grew warmer and even more putrid as they descended. With each step the feeling that she had made a mistake in coming here grew, and Darsal had to work a little harder to persuade herself otherwise. But she was on a rescue mission, not unlike Johnis’s mission to save his mother and the girl who rode behind her.

“Darsal?”

“Quiet, Karas.”

“I’m frightened, Sister.”

So am I, Sister. “I’m not your sister. But stay close, and keep the water closer. You’re safe with me.”

The path leveled at the bottom and snaked into the towering forest. Angular branches covered with moss jutted every which way in a tangled mess, blotting out the morning sun. The rancid air turned cool and damp.

Shataiki bats screeched overhead, glaring with red eyes, following them from tree to tree.

“It’s dark,” Karas said.

And darker yet to come. “We’ll follow the eyes.”

“I’m really, really frightened, Darsal. Maybe we should go back.”

“We couldn’t even if we wanted to. Please, just try to be brave and keep quiet.”

“Can’t we talk? I think it would help.”

It wouldn’t hurt, Darsal decided. And the sound of Karas’s voice did cut the chatter of the Shataiki—perhaps they were trying to listen in.

“Okay, tell me about how Johnis rescued you.”

So Karas told her all the details as they continued into the darkening forest, step by step. The path began to descend again when they passed under a huge overhang. Their voices sounded hollow in the cavern. To think this hole had been here the whole time, harboring a more ominous threat than all of the Horde combined!

You do not belong here, Darsal.

It was Billos’s doing, and for a moment she hated him for his impulsive, selfish bullheadedness. She muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They’d traveled into the darkness nearly an hour, giving the horses their heads, when the sound reached Darsal. She pulled up.

“Water,” Karas said.

It was only a dripping sound, but now that Darsal could hear it, she could also smell the musky, dank smell of stale water.

A flame suddenly swooshed to life a hundred meters ahead, casting an orange glow in the cavern. Karas inhaled sharply.

They were at the very edge of an underground lake with a black surface. Across the water sat a wooden platform, all too familiar to Darsal. On the platform stood a solitary Shataiki, larger than the rest, and in his claw he held a large torch.

“Alucard,” Karas guessed.

“Alucard.”