Demon Hunt

Chapter 8

The following morning, Kado woke Auren early. He wanted to leave before the sun was full in the sky so her eyes would remain adjusted to the darkness. Before waking, he went and collected more of the grubs. They would need to be stored with the mushrooms. They ate the mushrooms to stay alive, and they ate constantly. In a couple of days they would change and would no longer be edible. So he only collected as many as they would need for two days.

Auren was difficult to wake as usual, and he didn't have cold water to threaten her with. Fortunately, the threat wasn't necessary. Once she remembered that they were after the demon, she sat up and was ready to go. To her dismay, Kado wouldn't let her go anywhere until she ate a few of the grubs. Then he let her have a handful of the nuts and berries. He'd have to continue forcing her to eat the grubs before she'd be allowed to have anything else or she'd refuse them more emphatically. She was much more amenable when she was hungry, so he'd save meal times for when he knew she would have worked up an appetite.

Tracking the demon wouldn't be so hard as long as it stuck to the caves and tunnels in the mountain. They gave off a very powerful odor when they were in the physical world. Almost like decomposing flesh. If the tunnel branched off at any point, he would just have to follow the smell. As soon as they entered the first tunnel, he still caught a faint whiff of its scent. If it touched anything, the scent it left could last for days and as narrow as the tunnel was, it would have been touching both walls.

Kado felt a tug on his belt loop when Auren tripped on something. She was insistent on having constant contact with him while they traveled through the darkness. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just weird walking when you can't see anything. My feet keep wanting to trip over each other."

He chuckled, and she huffed. Suddenly there seemed to be more space in the tunnel than there should have been.

He came to a halt. "Stop," he said, but it didn't prevent Auren from bumping into him.

The sides of the tunnel hadn't widened. Carefully, Kado inched forward running his leading foot across the rocky surface instead of lifting it. After a few slow steps, the floor seemed to disappear.

"What is it?" Auren asked.

"It seems there is a gap in the tunnel."

"How will we cross?"

"Give me a moment." Kado grabbed a loose rock and dropped it down the gap. It made a clacking sound as it bounces off the wall, then nothing for several seconds before hearing a faint splash. He picked up a few more rocks, systematically tossing them at different intervals each time. Finally he heard clacking as it bounced across the surface on the other side. "It's about a meter across. We can jump."

"We can't jump in the dark."

"Sure we can." Kado loosened her grip on his pants and leapt across.

Auren gasped.

He found the edge on the other side. "I'm okay," he told her. "It was an easy jump. You can make it. It's not that far."

"It was easy for you. You're much taller than me."

He heard the rasp of her rapid breathing echoing off the walls. She would panic soon if he didn't so something. "Auren, you can hear my voice not far from you. Just jump toward my voice. I will catch you."

"It's really just a meter?"

"Maybe a little more, but I've seen you jump further. You can make this." Kado took a couple steps back to make room for her, but stayed close enough to the edge so he could catch her if necessary.

He heard Auren's deep inhale and exhale and took it as a sign she was about to jump. Connecting with her mind, he kept an eye on her thoughts, while urging her forward. There was a thud, then a scraping as she landed right on the edge of the gap. She misjudged the jump by a couple of centimeters and one of her feet slid off the side. Kado grabbed her flailing arm and pulled her to him.

"You did it."

"Barely," she said when she managed to speak.

Kado gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Let's go."

Things remained uneventful for a time after that. He hoped they would come to an appropriate place to stop for the night soon. Although Auren wasn't saying anything, he knew she was tired. While being forced to eat the grubs kept her energy levels up, it didn't seem to do much for her mood. She hadn't said more than a few words to him since they made it passed the gap in the tunnel floor.

Up ahead, Kado thought he saw a light. Maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him. The glow was getting brighter though. It wasn't bright enough to be sunlight however. It became clearer when the tunnel opened into a cavern filled with twinkling lights. They looked like little stars that cast a dim light throughout the cave.

"What are they?" Auren let go of his belt loop and stepped ahead of him for a better look.

"If I'm not mistaken, it's a mineral within the rock called, Etherium."

"It's beautiful."

Kado watched as his ward walked, mesmerized, deeper into the cavern. He let her explore while he scouted out a good spot to camp for the night, checking his watch absent-mindedly to be sure it actually was night. It was hard to tell the time of day while traveling through the caves and tunnels in the mountains. There was a relatively flat area near the center of the cavern. He had just set his backpack down when Auren joined him.

"I wish this mineral was all through the tunnels as well. At least we might be able to see where we're going and move faster than we have been."

"It might be in some areas."

"I hope so. It looks like there are several tunnels going off from this cavern. How will we know which way to go? I think I'm getting used to its horrid stink because I can't smell it anymore."

"Its scent will be diluted in the cavern so by the time we've had some rest, we should be able to tell which way it went."

It didn't take the beast's odor to lead them in the right direction at all. Kado woke to the sound of a loud roar coming from one of the far tunnels. It was close.

"Auren, get up," he said, pulling her to an upright position before she was even fully awake. He didn't have time to wake her slowly. After taking a quick glance of his watch, he saw they had only slept a few hours. She would probably be groggy and slow moving for a while. He considered telling her to wait there for him.

Kado didn't have to worry about her giving him trouble with getting up though. Another roar had her scrambling to her feet. They quickly headed toward the tunnel where they heard the noise. Auren grabbed a hold of Kado's shirt so she wouldn't lose him in the dark tunnels. While the mineral appeared in certain areas, it was still dark throughout most of the system of tunnels. They hadn't heard the demon in a while, but the odor told him they were on track.

"I smell fresh air," Auren said.

"I think we're coming to an exit to the tunnel."

It was dark outside, making it difficult to tell when the tunnel ended. If it weren't for one of the moons coming over the mountains, offering a little light through the trees, and the slight breeze, they would have never known.

"Now where do we go?"

From what Kado could tell, they came out into a small glen. Unless the demon climbed again, there was only one way it could have gone. Still, he didn't want to chance going the wrong way. "We'll stop here until sunrise."

Oruntil they heard the demon's roar again.