Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 22

 Nikias threw himself through the open door, and saw Endormax had already passed through the large, clean entrance hall, and was rushing down a narrow passage, screaming with all his strength. Nikias didn't stop to look around. He took in a few flashes of marble walls, high slit windows that let in golden shafts of light, ornamental wooden pillars, and the tiles of a colourful mosaic under his feet, but his focus was all on the fleeing librarian. He pushed on after him, though he bought the effort with pain that shot up from his ankles, through his knees and hips.

He rushed into a short hall, and heard dull thuds resound with his steps; the floor here was tiled with wood. Little light trickled in, and his vision was reduced to shadows; he caught glimpses of pictures on the walls; they looked like portraits, but he didn't have time to stop and take them in. All he got were fragments; a dark eye here, a black hood there. Those faces leered at him out of darkness, like demons peering in through windows to the halls of Tartarus. Then he was out of the hall, and into a large chamber, even darker than before. No light entered this room.

He skidded to a halt, and threw his eyes left and right, but though he squinted and strained, he could see nothing. He heard harsh breathing from deeper into the chamber, without a doubt his quarry, weak from exertion, gasping for breath, but he couldn't tell where the librarian had gone. He knew he was in a much bigger room than the narrow hall by the quality of the air, and the way his first few steps had sounded. The air smelled sweet, and he recognised an odd fragrance, the same one that had hung around the men of Black Salt from the first time he'd met them.

He heard a thud and a clunk at his back. He whirled, but no menace assailed him. Even so, he knew the door he'd come through was shut; someone had closed and barred it. He couldn't get out that way.

Silence fell. Endormax had stopped shouting once he'd got into the dark chamber. Now it seemed that he had even stopped breathing. Nikias knew there had to be at least one other man in there with them, and more likely many more. The skin on his back tickled and crawled, and his heart, beating fast already, now shook with cold fear.

He drew his sword. As if on cue, he heard a creaking noise, from in front and behind, and all around. It sounded like the noise a sapling makes when you bend it. He knew that sound all too well; it was the noise of drawn bows. His heart jumped, and chilling sweat rolled down his face and body. His only hope lay in the darkness; it concealed him. Endormax had led him into a ring of archers. If they saw him, even for a broken second, it would be enough to pierce his body from all directions, and kill him a dozen times.

Taking care not to make a whisper, he started to back up, hoping to find the wall, and perhaps a way out of the trap, before it could claim his life.

Someone spoke, a single word, both familiar, and terrible. "Now!"

He felt he should recognise that voice, but his mind was taken up with the noise that followed. He heard the sound of two pieces of wood, scraping together, and then a creaking groan. Nikias hunched, his feet so tense that his toes felt they would tear through the soles of his sandals, and make deep gouges in the floor.

Apollo cut the sun from his chariot, and let it fall from the heavens, down into this room, to fill every finger's width with burning, searing light.

Nikias flinched, and shielded his eyes with his arms. He clung to his sword, but it did him no good; all he could see was a blaze of gold that dimmed to an aching field of unspotted redness. He heard men gasp and swear, and, worse by far, he heard a sound he knew from his soldiering days, as men drew yet more bows. At any moment they could fill him with arrows. Time slowed down, and every breath took an age. He expected to feel their shafts run through his body, and hurl him down to darkness and death.