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Sazahk suddenly felt surprisingly alone. He tangled his fingers together as he circled the boulder Garin had anchored himself to. He didn’t dare touch the knots, but a visual inspection indicated they’d hold. What they might have to hold against, Sazahk didn’t want to think about. His stomach clenched at the unbidden image of Garin slipping over a ledge and plunging into darkness.
Even if he did, he’d be fine. Sazahk returned to the cave entrance and sat beside it. That was what the rope was for. The slack would run out and the rope would snap taut, but it would hold. Then Sazahk would haul Garin to safety. Or, at least, he would try. The qeshian equivalent of adrenaline had nothing on the human version. The feats a single human could accomplish in a moment of crisis were astounding. It was exactly that sort of nonsense—and a propensity for procreating—that had allowed the Humans to rise to a level of power similar to the Qesh and the Klah’Eel in such a short time, relatively speaking.
Sazahk watched the rope slide past him. So maybe he wouldn’t be able to haul Garin to safety, but he’d certainly try. If he had to. Which he wouldn’t. Probably.
After interminable minutes, the rope stopped. Sazahk stared at it. The minutes stretched on. Had Garin gotten stuck? Had he run into a hostile life form after all? He hadn’t screamed. Surely Sazahk would have heard him?—
The rope started moving again, and Sazahk breathed a sigh of relief.
More minutes passed.
The rope stopped again. It still had several feet of slack left. Garin didn’t need to turn around yet.
It didn’t resume.
Time passed that could have been nothing or could have been ages. Sazahk couldn’t tell, and he hadn’t bothered to start a timer.
Just when he was considering yelling into the hole and demanding to know why the rope wasn’t moving, he heard grunts and scuffling.
In moments, Garin belly-crawled back out into the sun, his face smeared with dirt but his green eyes alert and calm. “Good news, bad news.”
“I have no preference on the order of your disclosure.” Sazahk backed up to give Garin room to climb to his feet and stretch his arms up to the sky.
“I figured as much.” Garin cracked his neck. “Good news is, I think we’re on the right track. This passage opens up a good eighty yards in. I’m pretty sure it’s part of the main cave system.”
“And did you see anything?” Sazahk’s excitement surged. “Moss? Fungi? Fauna, even?”
“No.” Garin shook his head and untied his rope from around the boulder. “Just a lot of rocks. That’s not the bad news, though.”
Sazahk had a feeling he knew what the bad news was. He braced himself.
“Bad news is that to get any farther than I went, we have to drop down a pretty narrow shaft.”
Sazahk’s fingertips went cold. “You said it opened up at the end. Not narrowed.”
“I’m pretty sure it opens up at the bottom.” Garin paused his preparations, rested his elbows on his thighs, and looked up at Sazahk. “I dropped a rock down it and judging by how long it took to fall and the sound it made when it hit the ground, we’re looking at a drop of about thirty feet and a pretty large cavern there, possibly with something other than rock in it.”
Sazahk perked up at that, even as his belly churned. “Something other than rock?”
Garin nodded. “The sound was sort of muffled, not as echo-y as I would have expected.”
Finding out what that something was motivated Sazahk far more than the threat of falling to his death deterred him. “Let’s not waste any time then.”
“Fair enough.” Garin clapped his hands on his knees. “We’re wasting daylight.”
“There won’t be any daylight down there, so that hardly matters.” Sazahk walked to the opening in the ground and peered in. Definitely no daylight. Luckily, Sazahk had never minded the dark. It was the drop he was worried about.
Garin chuckled and nudged Sazahk out of his way. “Let me go first. I’m the one that knows the way. We’re gonna have to push our packs out in front of us. Can you handle that?”
Sazahk scowled. “Emotionally, mentally, or physically?”
Garin raised his hands in surrender. “I meant physically, but I’ll take that as yes. You got a headlamp?”
Sazahk hadn’t even considered packing a headlamp. He didn’t think he even had one, though he assumed Patrick could have lent him one. “No.”
“I have an extra.” Garin pulled one from his bag’s outside pocket and reached for Sazahk. Sazahk recoiled, and it was Garin’s turn to scowl. “It’s got a finicky strap. Can I help you, please?”
Sazahk pressed his lips together and held himself still.
