Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 55
55
Dorin left the knife where it was. Without a handle, he couldn't pull it out even if he wanted to. It was slick with blood and he didn't want to add to the sounds that were still going on down there, the sounds of the biters slowly closing shut on Wardo's dead body, crushing him inches at a time.
He had to get out.
He grabbed hold of the chains, but when he tried to pull himself back up, an excruciating amount of pain flared up inside his wrist. Shaking badly, he squinted into the dark. Without all the bandages, he now had a clear view of the holes Hezzi's teeth had left in his flesh, and all of them were gaping wide open, spilling blood down his forearm.
He craned his neck and looked to the ash-grey sky, reduced to a tiny circle so far away. Snow drifted down as tiny flecks of white to strike his upturned face. It was the exact opposite of the hell at his back, a never-ending torture of blood and suffering. Compared to that, what were a few puncture marks in his arm?
I have to get out. I have to...
Dorin pulled himself up, one agonisingly slow arm-length at a time, but his wrist wasn't the only injury he had. With every breath, something seemed to stab him from inside his chest, and the more tired he became, the harder he breathed, and the deeper the pain reached. Sometimes the circle of light at the top seemed to shrink away. Sometimes it jumped forward. Sometimes there were more than one, slowly orbiting each other inside the darkness. Sometimes it simply swayed from side to side, and he had no way of knowing if his eyes were playing tricks on him, or if he was about to fall. Either way, it was getting harder and harder to tell how far he had come and how far he still had left to go.
Oh, my head... Oh, my aching head...
Dorin was wondering how bad that blow to the back of his head really was when a large chunk of frozen dirt suddenly crumbled beneath his feet and, before he knew what was happening, he was falling.
He closed his fists around the chains on pure reflex, but it wasn't enough. They were smooth and slippery from all the blood, and they simply slid through his grasping fingers, burning his palms as he fell faster and faster.
From below, he heard a chunk of rock strike the bottom and the resounding clang of a biter snapping shut.
He slammed both feet against the crumbling wall as hard as he could, digging into the dirt with his claws. Several of them cracked and broke, adding a whole new flash of pain to his world, but he didn't care. He was slowing down. He opened his mouth and bit down on the chain, feeling a deep rumble inside his skull as the links scraped against his teeth until he finally came to a stop.
He was still alive. But...
Dorin looked up at that circle of light once again, so tiny, so far away, and he knew he didn't have enough strength left to climb all the way back up. He simply couldn't do it. It was taking all his strength just to hold on.
Am I going to die here?
Dorin had asked himself that question so many times over the past few weeks that it barely held any power over him anymore. It was as natural as breathing to him now. What really bothered him, though, was everything else, everything that would be left behind after he was gone. Did he make any kind of difference at all with his life? Did any of it matter? All the pain he had inflicted and suffered, would any of it echo past his dying breath? And his people...
What would become of them?
Dorin didn't know. Maybe he didn't want to know. He had fought and bled for Wolves who didn't want his brand of 'help', Wolves who spat on him, cursed him, and ultimately turned their backs on him, so what was the point in trying any further? If there was nothing he could do, then...
What was the point of holding on?
A small clump of snow fell on his head and broke apart, followed by another.
Dorin looked up at the circle of light and saw a face staring down at him, but it was too bright to see who it was until she opened her mouth.
"Doriiiin!!" Aisa shrieked. "Hold on, you stupid bastard! Just hold on!"
She hunkered down, grabbed hold of the chain and started to pull, leaning back with all her weight, the strain clearly showing on her swollen face.
"It's no use, Aisa!" he shouted back. His voice had an odd, echoey quality down here. "The biters are too heavy!"
"Just shut the hell up and hold on!"
Dorin gritted his teeth against the pain. The chains shook in his hands, rattling out a shrill series of notes like demonic laughter.
"Sai!" Ivio's hectic face suddenly popped up over the lip. His ears twitched up and down and his eyes bugged right of their sockets. "You're not dead?"
"No, he's not dead!" Aisa snapped. "And if you want him to stay not dead, grab this damn chain and help me!"
Dorin was still squinting into the spot of light when he was suddenly jerked about a foot straight up into the air. It was so sudden and violent he nearly lost his grip right there. Was Ivio the one doing that? Had that crazy bastard always been this strong? Surely not?
"Sai!" Denko suddenly wormed his way in next to Ivio. He was breathing heavily, and Dorin could barely comprehend how painful it must have been for him to have limped all the way over here without a cane, especially after what they had done to his knee. "Sai, you saved my life when you dragged me out of the line of fire," he wheezed, "and it's about time I returned the favour!"
The chain rose higher, scraping along the edge of the circle in steady lurches, each one accompanied by a jarring rattle and grunts of effort. Small chunks of snow tumbled down and pattered against Dorin's face.
This could work. With all three of them pulling together, he could make it back. Back to...
Back to what?
Even the pain racking his body wasn't enough to block out those thoughts. What were they pulling him back into? A world where blood and hunger were the most important things? A world inhabited by animals who would bow down to a half-faced murderer, risen from the dead? Oh, and bow down they would. They would bow down until their noses touched the ground. He was sure of it.
He didn't want to live in a world like that, but neither could he think of a way to change it.
For every passing hour, Dorin thought he was beginning to know how Ander must have felt, living in this place the way he was, but there was still one thing he couldn't understand.
How... _How_did he not lose hope years and years ago? What was it that had kept him going?
The pain was getting worse. His fingers were cold and numb and they kept slipping free, and it was getting harder and harder to find his grip again.
He wasn't merely fighting the pain and fatigue, nor was he fighting the Pit. He was fighting against himself. He was fighting against the part that just wanted to give up, that just wanted to let go and end it all, the part that was hungry and tired and sick and weak, that only wanted to curl up and rest with an illusion of his mother, an afterimage of a twisted memory.
And he was losing.
Dorin bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. His arms were screaming. He couldn't hold on. He just couldn't...
"Sai?"
"Sai!"
"Saaaaii!"
He was slipping. The links were sliding through his fingers, one by one. It was too hard to keep going. It was just too hard!
Dorin looked to the sky. He wanted to tell them to look away, to just close their eyes and cover their ears, but most of all, he wanted to tell them how sorry he was. Sorry for dragging them all into this mess. But then he blinked, and what he saw made the words dry up in his throat.
Even more faces had joined in, faces he knew. They were all working together, pulling on the chain, huffing and wheezing, yelling at him.
"Don't let go, Sai!" Seffer, pulling as hard as he could with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.
"We got you!" Yanek, with his foot planted right on the edge, leaning back, steam pluming from his nostrils.
"Almost there!" Vekka, grunting like a bear, pulling on the chain in big, overhanded jerks.
Somewhere below, deep in the shadows, Dorin heard the heavy thud of a biter knocking against the side of the pit and then slowly scraping along the dirt wall.
They were doing it. They were his men, they were his comrades, they were his friends, and they still needed him.
What kind of a leader would he be if he gave up now?
Dorin took a deep breath, found his footing again, and started to climb up, fighting against the pain in his arms and side, fighting against the dizziness in his head, fighting against the doubt in his mind, if not for himself, then for Aisa and all the others who had put their faith in him. Above all else, he did not want them to see what he had seen. He did not want them to see him torn apart, piece by piece. He did not want to leave them to face this crazy world by themselves, this world of pain and hunger, this world of blood and death.
The light was coming closer. He could see their smiling faces. They were reaching out to him, reaching...
He almost made it, too.
He did not give up, but his fingers simply couldn't take it anymore. The pain, the weight, the cold, all of it was simply too much, and they opened of their own accord. As he felt the weight of his own body pull him back, a lot of things went through Dorin's mind, but the one thing that stood out the clearest was the look on Aisa's face.
He saw her smile disappear. He saw her eyes go wide. He saw her screaming, reaching out to him with a hand that was just a little bit too far away. He felt like he should say something to her, but there simply wasn't enough time. It was over.
He was falling.
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