Page 26 of The Iron Vow

“Oh, the over dwellers.” It was odd to hear such a cultured voice coming from a giant insect; I saw Puck staring at it with thinly veiled alarm. “Are you on your way back to the city?”

Other Nyx gave a respectful nod. “Yes. We have visitors who need to speak to Gilleas,” she told it. “Are the Crossroads clear?”

“No Nightmares wander the Crossroads at this time,” was the reply. “At least, not in the places I have been. I have felt no vibrations through the soil except yours.” The pill bug faery’s antennae twitched in our direction. “They smell strange,” it stated, its voice still calm, almost dreamy. “They are like us, and they are not like us. How can that be?”

“They are not from the city,” Other Nyx said. “They come from...a place that is very far from here.”

The pill bug blinked at us slowly. “The over world is strange,” it said. “I do not know how your kind does not fear falling into the sky.” It twitched its antennae, then began to pull back into the hole. “I return to my den, to forget thoughts of open space. Farewell, over dwellers. Burrow safely.”

It vanished back into the tunnel, its long antennae the last things we saw, and disappeared.

Puck gave an exaggerated shudder. “Yay, giant bugs,” he said. “I love feeling like I’m two centimeters tall. I’m not even going to guess how many creepy crawlies live in a place like this.”

“Thousands,” Varyn said immediately. “But don’t worry,” he added with a faint smile. “You won’t ever see most of them. Just remember—they’re always close, in the walls, under your feet, in the dirt over your head.”

“You know, someone once told me you had a good sense of humor,” Puck said, frowning at the Evenfey assassin. “Clearly they needed to get out more.”

Keirran looked at Other Nyx. “I hope we are not invading anyone’s territory,” he said.

“That was one of the tunnelfolk,” Other Nyx told him. “They are perfectly harmless and cause no trouble for anyone. Even if you attack them, the most they will do is curl up into a ball and hope you go away. There are...more aggressive folk, but they inhabit the wilder, deeper sections of Hollownest. It is likely we will not run into them.”

“Oh, good.” Puck rubbed his arms. “Aggressive bugs, that’s what I wanted to hear. Just let me know if we’re ever in fire ant or giant spider territory.”

We continued through the narrow passages. After a long time, the claustrophobic tunnel we were in opened up into an enormous cavern. Far overhead, I could see bulbous white spheres that glowed like tiny moons. The pathways turned into narrow stone bridges that dropped away to either side. Peering cautiously over the edge, I was surprised to be able to see the bottom, a forest of enormous, glowing blue mushrooms and luminescent moss. Creatures moved between the mushroom stalks, but they were too far away to see clearly.

“We’re coming up to the Fungal Paths now,” Other Nyx told us. “Fair warning, it is one of the larger territories of Hollownest. Fortunately, this is a very well traversed road, and everyone here knows who we are. We shouldn’t run into any trouble, but you never know in the tunnels.”

“This is beautiful,” I mused, gazing at the multitude of softly glowing plants everywhere around us. Tiny motes drifted through the air, mingling with fireflies. I had seen glowing forests before—the wyldwood and the Deep Wyld both had their share of luminescent vegetation—but nothing like this. “It’s hard to believe this is underground.”

“Hard to believe this is still Evenfall,” Puck added. “’Cause this looks like somebody’s bad mushroom dream—whoa!”

At the edge of the trail, a cluster of purple ferns rippled, fronds parting as something rose from the bushes. A massive, caterpillar-type creature with a bulbous yellow body and neon-blue spines bristling from its back, holding a spear in one of its six arms. A shockingly human face turned to stare at Puck, brows rising as ifhewere the oddity.

“Oh, hey there,” Puck greeted it, raising a hand as he took several large steps back. The point of the spear followed him, though the creature didn’t lunge or attack. “Friend? Um, shouldn’t you be in a certain book with a Cheshire cat and an angry queen?”

The caterpillar creature frowned at Puck, then turned to gaze at Other Nyx and Varyn. The look on its strangely human face was a question.

Other Nyx raised her hand in a calming gesture. “It’s all right,” the assassin told it. “Stand down. They’re with us.”

The caterpillar’s spines bristled, but it lowered its spear. Slowly, the bright blue spikes covering its body retracted, seeming to melt into its flesh, until they were completely gone. Its skin changed from yellow to the bright purple of the fern it was hiding in, and after a last glare at Puck, the creature sank back beneath the fronds, blending in with the plant until it was virtually invisible.

Puck let out a nervous chuckle. “Just when I think I’m getting used to the place,” he muttered. “I was actually thinking, ‘Oh, this spot is nice and not terribly creepy.’ And then something pops up that’s just a giantnopefor me.”

Ash looked at Varyn and Other Nyx. “Sentries, I take it?” he asked.

“Road guards,” Varyn replied with a shrug. “They know not to engage or attack the Nightmares, but they do take note of anything strange or out of place that travels the Fungal Paths and pass on the intel to us. You’re lucky—if they think something could be a threat to the city, they usually don’t ask questions. And they’re excellent ambush fighters.” He glanced at Puck, the tiniest of smirks crossing his face. “Quick word of advice—don’t get pricked. Even if you survive, you’ll suffer from vivid hallucinations for the rest of your life.”

“Uh-huh,” Puck said, crossing his arms with a faint smirk of his own. “And you would know all about pricks, wouldn’t you?”

Thankfully, Varyn and the other assassins didn’t seem to get what Puck was talking about, though Varyn’s eyes did narrow in confused suspicion. I shot Puck a warning glare, and he shrugged.

Other Nyx gazed between Varyn and Puck, her expression unreadable, before she turned away. “Let’s keep moving,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

I didn’t know what I expected the city of Hollownest to be. Perhaps a series of interconnected tunnels, like the world’s biggest anthill. Perhaps an enormous insect mound or beehive, the walls swarming with many-legged creatures. I did not expect it to be a sprawling mass of roads and structures in a cavern so large you could not see the ceiling. The buildings of the city were strange: cylindrical earthen pillars rising into the darkness, with thousands of windows and doors lining the smooth edges. Bridges and walkways spanned nearly every level, and wooden platforms circled the spires. Below the looming spires were hundreds of smaller domed buildings with bulging round windows and oval doors.

Despite the vastness of the city and the towering structures above us, Hollownest was eerily silent and empty. It had the same terrible silence as a postapocalyptic zombie city, with barren streets that had once been filled with bustling crowds and traffic. A few lone creatures wandered the sidewalks, and I suspected even more lurked in places I could not see. But this was a dead city. I wondered what it had been like when Evenfall was alive.

“O-kay,” Puck breathed. He inhaled and then exhaled slowly before turning to us and dropping his voice. “I’m gonna be honest here. I am not enjoying this. I do not like the look of this place. I do not like that there are millions of dark little holes, everywhere, that could hide millions of insects.And I really don’t like the fact that that centipede scorpion thing over there is staring at me.”

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