Page 60 of A Land So Wide

T he smell was so much worse than Greer could have ever imagined.

The Gathered apparently dragged their kills into their roost to feast upon, letting the bloodless corpses remain wherever they fell.

The shaft was littered with bones and body parts in a wild range of decomposition.

The air did not stir here, not even with the smallest draft, and every smell was left to sit and fester.

Greer covered her nose with the back of her hand, breathing through her mouth, but that only left a dank film across her tongue that no amount of saliva could fix.

How could they live this way?

She tried picturing Finn here, tucked in a dark niche, teeth deep in the neck of a nearly lifeless buck, but couldn’t do it.

He seemed part of the forest, belonging to the tree line and the airstreams. She wasn’t forgetting the creature beneath his human shell, but he didn’t seem like this kind of monster.

“What do you mean, you lost her?”

Elowen’s voice ripped from the darkness, echoing off the walls and sounding closer than Greer had guessed. It was raspy and strained. Though Ellis’s attack hadn’t killed her, she was still gravely hurt. Her note of pain gave Greer hope.

Farther down the tunnel, she had to skirt around a hulking lump that looked too much like Hessel. His wrists were ragged with puncture marks and Greer looked away before she could catch sight of anything else. There would be time to mourn him later.

If she had a later.

The corridor was so steeply sloped that Greer had to run one hand along the chiseled wall for balance. The stone had been softened by dripping rainwater and snowmelt, and she wondered uneasily at the thousands of tons of it above her.

At the next junction, she stopped, smelling at the air to determine which split to take. Though carcasses littered both sides of the tunnels, the ones on the right seemed older, more bone than body. The left, then.

But before she could venture down it, Greer startled, pulling her hand back as if something had bitten her. She clutched the wounded palm to her chest, tears stinging at her eyes. She expected to feel blood, certain she’d torn open skin, but when she flexed her hand, there was nothing.

Studying the wall, she could find no obvious barb to have nicked her, no sharp jut of granite or toothy shale. But when she ran an experimental fingertip lightly over the stone, she jerked away, hissing as her skin burned.

Greer narrowed her eyes. A thin vein cut through the stone, running up the wall. It was a rich umber, far darker than the rest of the tunnel. Curiously, she pressed her finger directly onto the vein, then instantly withdrew it, bewildered at what could cause such pain.

When the answer came to her, Greer wanted to laugh.

It was a line of iron.

Sandry had been a mine for iron ore. Most of it must have been cleared out long before Ailie arrived and—exhausted from her travels and ill-prepared for the harsh winters of the new world—she’d settled her small court there, never realizing they were roosting on a spot so dangerous to them.

Greer wondered that they hadn’t sensed it, but she hadn’t, either, not until her skin brushed directly over the deposit. She followed the vein, watching it trail up and across the tunnel, wondering how much ore might still be left in the mountain. In the back of her mind, a plan began to form.

She took off, exploring the tunnel with a discerning eye, her focus fixed on spotting more of the iron veins. Greer was so intent on finding a larger cache that she didn’t hear the skittering of claws on stone until it was too late.

“Starling,” Elowen said, coming out of the darkness like a demon.

Torn strips of cotton were tied around her neck, the bandages stained with drying blood.

Though the cut had already begun to heal, Greer noted that the surrounding skin was a violent shade of red, irritated from the knife. “You’ve finally come home.”

It was the first time she’d stood this close to Elowen.

She was so much bigger than Greer would have guessed, even with her wings tucked away.

She filled the narrow space, her head nearly brushing along the ceiling.

The muscles in Greer’s legs flexed; she wanted to turn and run, unable to imagine a world in which this confrontation went in her favor. But she swallowed and stayed put.

“This isn’t my home.”

“Of course not,” Elowen said, taking a step forward. “You think I’d allow Ailie’s daughter to join the Gathered, to become one of us?” Her laughter felt forced in its gaiety.

“No one wants that, least of all me.”

“So you say.”

Greer peered around Elowen’s shoulder, squinting to see if she’d brought others with her. For the moment, it seemed they were alone. “So—we what? Fight to the death now? All because you think I want to take your place?”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not. I came for Ellis. You can have…whatever this is.” She gestured at the tunnels. “It’s all yours.”

A shiver of anticipation ran through the Bright-Eyed’s limbs; she was hungering for battle. “It wouldn’t be much of a fight anyway.”

Elowen shifted, almost carelessly, into a smaller, human form. She looked so much like Greer they could have passed for sisters. Same height, same slight frame. She’d even taken on her shade of hair, letting the dark waves hang long and loose down her back. But her eyes…

Greer squinted, unable to tell exactly what was wrong with them.

The irises were two-toned and misshapen, pinched into strange whorls.

Her left eye didn’t seem to have a pupil at all.

She noticed that Elowen also wore a replica of the plaid dress Greer had donned only nights ago, for the Andersans’ barn warming.

She really has been watching me, she realized with an uncomfortable start.

“Since it’s just the two of us, why don’t we speak candidly?

” Elowen began, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with such studious care that the gesture looked wrong.

She’d once been human, but was only playing at the role now.

“I don’t want you anywhere near my court, and you don’t relish the thought of wasting your life between those tiresome stones. ”

Greer only blinked, waiting for her to continue.

Elowen sighed, as if the coming offer pained her. “I will let you and your intended leave these lands. Alive,” she added, smiling too brightly. “But, in return, I want the mantle. Give it to me and you and the boy can go.”

“Do you think me so foolish?”

“If you truly have no desire to rule, then what use is it to you?”

Greer shrugged nonchalantly. “I always thought it terribly pretty. Perhaps I’ll wear it on my wedding day. To Ellis. After we stop you.”

Elowen dared a step toward Greer, now within striking distance. “Give me the cloak and you and your human can forget you were ever here, ever a part of this.”

Greer pressed her lips together, unable to stop the curve of a small smile. “No.”

Elowen lashed out, smashing her fist into the side of the tunnel, releasing a shower of shale and rock. “Tell me where you hid it!”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Greer asked, then smiled widely, showing off every one of her too many teeth.

Elowen sucked in a quick breath, unable to hide her surprise. “You…you claimed it for yourself?”

“I took what my mother left for me.”

Without warning, Elowen burst into a flock of starlings, hundreds of birds strong. They zipped throughout the small space in fantastically sculpted murmurations, appearing as a lynx, a serpent, a fox. Each shape flew at Greer to peck and claw, screeching out cries of rage.

Greer fumbled for the knife, but there were too many of them, their bodies too small and agile to hit.

They twisted and turned, evading her strikes with impressive aerial feats.

They went after her hands and face, seeking blood.

They swarmed at her neck, swiping and screaming so shrilly that her head rang with the echoes.

She couldn’t see around them, couldn’t hear above their calls.

They were everywhere, thousands strong, and she felt as if she’d go mad, unable to escape their slashes, their insistent screeches, their relentless and persistent—

A sudden mass charged through the murmuration and struck Greer squarely on her chest. It hit like a battering ram, crushing the air from her lungs and squeezing out any chance to scream.

She crashed backward, cracking her head against the stony ground with a meaty thud that made her stomach heave.

Reflexively, she curled up, trying to protect her soft middle, and felt a searing spike of pain along her back as the beast bit into her.

Its wide jaws clamped down hard and tore away a chunk of skin as it thrashed its head, snorting with fury.

It was a bear, massive and white, with monstrous paws. It pounced upon her, mauling and mashing, and Greer didn’t know what to do. It was so much larger than she was, filling the width of the tunnel, a vast and immovable force.

Over the grunts and growls of the monster, Greer heard laughter and caught sight of Elowen farther down the tunnel. The starlings were gone, and she’d returned to her batlike form, all tendons and wings and malice. She watched the battle with rapt interest, her eyes shining in the darkness.

One of the bear’s front paws slammed into Greer’s face and began to press down, scraping her cheek roughly into chiseled stone. A terrible burst of crackling white noise filled her head, and her vision began to dim.

It’s going to crush my skull, she thought, panicked.

She squirmed and flexed, using every bit of her strength to wriggle from the bear’s hold. But it was too big. It weighed too much. This wasn’t an even fight.

It isn’t a fight at all.