Part 55 (1/2)

The echoes of the screams faded. First a little, then more and more until the last warped and broken fragment rebounded from the wall and struck him like an accusing arrow.

After a long time, Finn realized that he was weeping, but even his tears were dry and cold against his cheeks.The sobs hurt his chest.

”I'm sorry,” he whispered, and this time the words were dragged past the stricture in his throat.”Oh . . . G.o.d . . . I'm so sorry . . .”

There was a time of absolute silence, and then the echoes of the screams blasted him in the face. Finn could feel their breath as if each of his men crouched over him. He could feel the heat of their breath and the wet wrongness as their screams s.p.a.ckled him with spit.

Or blood.

The screams were of pain so big, so hideous, that words could not express them.These screams were shrieked in a language known only to the dead and dying, to the tortured and the d.a.m.ned.

But Finn, s.h.i.+vering in the dark cave, knew that language.

He could understand every accusation. Each derisive shout. Each curse.

”I'm sorry,” was all he could say.

Then there was another sound.

Distant, small, rhythmic.

The screams faded for a moment.

No, that was wrong.They paused.The echoes of the screams paused as if they were listening to the new sound.

Into the silence, Finn said,”I'm sorry.”

In his despair he thought he saw a figure in the cave, even though there was no light to see anything.A slender figure in loose clothes.A boy, or maybe a small woman. Moving without sound, turning first to look at him and then away as if realizing that he could see her and not wanting to be seen.Then he blinked and there was nothing there. Nothing to see. No way to see anything even if it was there.

I'm losing it, he thought. Christ, I'm going to go out of my mind in the dark . . .

The sound in the distance was growing stronger, becoming distinctly what it was. A sound that seemed to be as old as these mountains even though it belonged only to the last century.

Whup-whup-whup.