Page 50 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Underground

I lurched atop an overgrown staircase, grabbing Asher’s arm so as not to tumble down mossy steps tangled with weeds.

Behind me where the wall should be, I saw an arch, the meadow still visible beyond.

At the bottom of the stairs stood a matching stone archway, Faruhar standing wide eyed at the cool darkness beyond it.

She clutched her elbows to her body as the horse hooves thundered closer.

Was that fear? Apart from her fitful sleep, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her afraid.

I peered down into the inky blackness. “So … we just walked into a wall.”

Faruhar frowned. “We’re behind an a’s’aan khel . They’ll be able to hear us. They can’t see us unless we go past the arch. We’re safe enough as long as we don’t go into the tunnels.”

“That’s an entrance to the Underground.” Asher stood frozen, cool air trickling out of the void beyond.

Faruhar nodded.

“We’ll be no safer if we run into Asri rebels.” He gestured to our bloodstained military uniforms, then Faruhar’s Chaeten-sa face.

I faced the darkness, shivering at the scent of damp earth and fungus.

Dad’s bedtime stories were full of Asri magic that lured Chaeten children to the Underground.

Sometimes it was rebels, sometimes the glowing mycelium would make sounds of music, or laughter, and the curious Chaeten children would follow the song to their death.

The pounding hooves grew louder, reverberating through my boots. They stopped nearby—the men shouting. Faruhar’s golden-green eyes sent a jolt through me.

“What happens if they find the khel?” I asked, voice hushed.

“If Mahakal knew of this entrance, he’d have already bombed it. Scanners aren’t much use out in the wild. Oria is everywhere.” Asher nodded to Faruhar. “They won’t find us.”

Faruhar clenched her jaw, her knuckles pale on her sword. “They’re tracking better than expected. We’re missing something. Bria?”

The men were now gathering beside the barn. I could see red uniforms in the field above the stairs, searching the field.

I risked another whisper. “Ash, how can we survive inside?”

He exhaled, raising his hands in a shrug.

Faruhar spoke low, her face close to ours.

“Inside the tunnels, Oria can kill anyone. It will take no risks: poison, hallucinations, tearing a rock tunnel down on our heads if it has to. Anyone with a scrap of ill will toward it or the Attiq-ka who built it dies, as does anyone whose conscience is not clear before the ancestors.” She took a deep breath.

“No empire soldier survives Oria. If we go in, Mahakal won’t follow, but—”

Faruhar’s eyes were lethal as she looked to Asher, drawing a dagger from her belt.

“Far?” Asher said.

“Show me your shoulder, Asher.” She didn’t wait, pulling down the neck of his Chaeten leather shirt tight enough to choke him as she studied his shoulder blade.

“Far?” he wheezed.

Then she cut him, tracing a delicate circle from his skin and flicking it out. She peeled something shiny and metallic from the tip, showing us both.

Ash bit on his pain, inhaling. “Fuck, a tracker?”

“Tracker.” She laid it on the stone, scraping her knife over it to destroy it. “Bria heard them talking about it. But it’s too late. They know we’re here.”

Asher rubbed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Faruhar. I didn’t know.”

Mahakal’s voice drifted on the wind. We shared the silence, exchanging panicked glances.

Asher stepped forward, shaking his head to clear it. Then he gestured to Istaran at my hip. Blinking, I handed the hilt to Ash with a click, who grasped my arm in thanks as he took it.

The glowing blue light welcomed him, the reflection bright in his eyes. He smiled and gestured to the dark, then handed it back to me. The mazed engraving glowed in my hands as expected.

Then I understood what he was doing. The glow signified Istaran’s trust. As long as it was glowing, Oria should trust us too.

Faruhar’s gaze snapped to Istaran as I passed her the grip. My breath hitched with expectation. She’d saved our lives, risking it again and again. She’s saved the life of everyone those demons would hunt.

Our fingers brushed as she took it with a tight grip, her knuckles white as she stared at the intricate green and gold scabbard, a prayer on her face. Silence stretched between us as she drew the blade out. Nothing: cold steel.

A soldier’s voice growled from above the stairs. “We lost signal in the barn.”

“I can smell the traitors,” came Mahakal’s reply, far too close.

Faruhar’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a shaky breath as she handed back Istaran’s hilt.

She pointed to Asher and me, then gestured her head at the darkness.

My heart plummeted. I shook my head, clenching my fists.

I would not run like a coward. If she couldn’t go on, I would stand with her, taking down as many as I could.

There was so much that flew past her eyes as she read my defiance.

“Hey!” A shout at the top of the stairs. Were we seen?

Yep. I stared up the stairs to the soldier, panicking.

Faruhar lunged for us, her grip on our arms inviolable, pulling us through the arch into the dark. I had no chance to run back. With a rumble, the mouth of the tunnel closed from the top, a stone door rolling down to trap us into the darkness of the tunnel.

“No,” I whispered in the dark, drawing Istaran so I could see the fear in Faruhar’s face. Then she was on the move. When Ash delayed, I pulled his arm as the walls sprouted mycelial light around us, following her with bold strides.

The world around me gradually took on depth and detail in grayscale and pulsing cyan mazes.

It wasn’t just one tunnel here. Carved with precision, the passageways formed a labyrinth of tunnels within rock and earth.

Faruhar pulled us down a set of stairs, breathing fast as the glowing mycelium reached its lacy fingers into the walls toward us, questioning.

This wasn’t the wispy Orian tendrils I knew from the forest. The etchings in the stone gave a path for the mycelium to shine, interacting with complex bionetwork circuitry, with grips and divots in that stone in circuits I couldn’t begin to understand.

Oria snaked around the tech with sentience, vibrance flowing like a river along the walls and floor. The air shifted.

Even I could feel the malice in the air, the silence just before a death blow. I wasn’t sure I believed that any of us were safe.

“How long until it tries to kill us?” I asked Faruhar.

“It’s already trying.” She nodded her head toward a door. “Hurry up.”

I jogged on behind her. Here and there, I saw signs of recent habitation: a discarded cloak, a half-eaten meal abandoned on a ledge. I looked to Ash. “A rebel left that, right?”

“I can’t see as much as you,” Asher said, squinting. “But assume yes. They’re the only ones down here.”

The entire population of the Nara lived down here twice, before the Chaeten, when nearby stars went nova and thinned the atmosphere on the small planet.

And with a fungal power source that could collect energy from both the sun and the heat of the planet core, there were no power failures in the Underground.

“Just move,” Faruhar rasped, pulling us along.

The blue veins of mycelium reached into stone grooves around a heavy door.

A high-pitched sound rang in my ears, like the whine of the server room I saw on a childhood field trip to the mine.

A panel of hypnotic blue light pulsed at the center of a wide door.

Faruhar shoved me toward it, her breath ragged.

“Put your hand on that door, Jesse,” she said. “Or try touching it with your sword.”

I reached out, hesitant, feeling a shiver of sensation across my skin as I touched the shining blue network. Nothing; same for holding my blade against the circuitry. Just the static of a faint electric current.

“You next.” Faruhar’s hand trembled as she gestured to Ash.

He stepped forward, placing his hand on the panel beside mine. A wave of light pulsed outwards. For a breathless moment, nothing happened.

“Ancestors.” Asher closed his eyes in concentration. “I’m Galen’s son.”

The ancient door groaned open, sending a tremor through the floor as it disappeared into the wall. Beyond it, a narrow passage.

A wave of bioluminescent light spilled out, washing over us in ethereal cyan and sunny yellow.

Orian mushrooms grew beyond, the first I’ve ever seen in person, flat shelves of creamy blooms no larger than a child’s hand.

The air inside was heavier with the strange, fungal odor, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

In fact, a strange sense of calm washed over me, a feeling of sanctuary.

But before I could voice that hope, Faruhar stumbled. Asher reacted in an instant, grabbing her arm before she could fall. Her eyes grew wide, mouth parted.

“Faruhar!” I rushed to her side, holding her up. Her grip on my arm felt weak, her breathing shallow.

“The spores,” she gasped. “Killing me.”

Asher’s brow furrowed. He covered his mouth with his sleeve.

“You’ll be fine, Asri-ka ,” Faruhar said, her voice muffled as she tried to cover her face with the fabric of her own shirt. She coughed, a wet, hacking sound that tore at my heart. “Keep going. Ash, use your dahn on the walls. Find the nearest exit.”

Panic clawed at my throat when she collapsed to her knees.

As if sensing my thoughts, Asher glanced toward the open doorway. “Grab her shoulder,” he said, with military command. “We’ll drag her.”

I looked down the glowing passage, shaking my head in denial. But I slipped one arm around her waist, helping to support her weight across my shoulder. Asher took her bag, then gripped her other side. Together, we guided her through the doorway.