{"id":1240,"date":"2018-04-12T17:07:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T22:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2018-04-12T17:07:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T22:07:40","slug":"darkwalker-3-the-deep-city-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/?p=1240","title":{"rendered":"DarkWalker 3: The Deep City excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from DarkWalker 3: The Deep City: <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Scavenger sees in the dark. She sees the light first, the smallest shred of it managing to make its way down the shaft. It\u2019s a low, weak light. It shines on nothing. But it signals a fall. There\u2019s always someone or something ready to be thrown to the pits.<\/p>\n

She scurries closer to the edge of the water and watches not one but two creatures dropping \u2013 one of the dogs, so whatever they threw must\u2019ve been strong enough to not go alone. She trills. It\u2019s a small pleasure, but there\u2019s little enough to be had.<\/p>\n

She pushes her canoe out. It wasn\u2019t always her canoe. Whoever made it is long dead, or they\u2019d be able to repair the holes, stop the leaks. One day, she\u2019ll set
\noff onto the water and she\u2019ll sink, and what then? No death is easy, especially not the death under the lake. She pushes out and rows to where the dog and
\nthe \u2013 man? \u2013 crash into the lake.<\/p>\n

Usually, the surface is still, like a mirror, though there\u2019s nothing to reflect. Little animals drift along the surface sometimes, insects and the like, but nothing goes deep. Around its edges, the scavenger\u2019s not the only one who saw the falling prize.<\/p>\n

Often, they survive the fall. They don\u2019t always survive the water.<\/p>\n

The scavenger rows out toward the center, where both newcomers struggle with the water and against each other. Blood on the water. She\u2019ll have to be quick. There won\u2019t be time to take both. That\u2019s disappointing. The human might be interesting, might have knowledge, might have skills. But the dog will have silver. Any blade is better than none, and there are few of those around here. She keeps her claws sharp, but she\u2019s getting older and she\u2019s slowing down. Death awaits. A blade extends her reach and might extend her nights. She\u2019ll take it. She\u2019ll take it, and row back to shore, and she\u2019ll probably watch the human succumb to the terrors of the depths.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t know how deep the lake goes. It\u2019s bottomless, essentially, because of the tentacles at the bottom, the tendrils, the teeth.<\/p>\n

Someone else on the surface, another canoe, another racing toward the prize, but she\u2019s strong and swift and she\u2019ll tear its eyes out. Even in the dark, even in total darkness, even when the pitch is thick and layered, you need eyes to survive.<\/p>\n

Maybe not under the lake. She doesn\u2019t know if there are eyes beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

She gets to them first. The struggle has stopped. The dog is dead. The human has the blade. She\u2019s surprised, but she doesn\u2019t let it slow her down. \u201cCareful,\u201d she says, helping him climb onto the canoe. It rocks. He\u2019s not a water creature. He\u2019s not used to floating. He\u2019ll tip the canoe if he\u2019s stupid, and they\u2019ll both die. \u201cCareful!\u201d she snaps. She takes the blade and puts it behind her in the canoe. She holds the human by the back. The glares at the other canoe, the other scavenger glaring back. She bares her teeth and hisses. But the other scavenger isn\u2019t an idiot. He knows there\u2019s two things that fell, and two of them. They can take one each and rob the depths of their prize.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no fight. She rows away, back toward her shore, leaves the dead dog for her competition. She\u2019s happy with its blade. She\u2019s happy with the human. It hurt to touch him, it burned, so he\u2019s not just a human. He\u2019s a real prize. She resists an urge to cast him back to the waters, leave him to the tentacles. He breathes loud. He\u2019s gasping, of course, that\u2019s to be expected. But he\u2019s loud and noisy, he\u2019s not accustomed to the waters, he doesn\u2019t know what waits beneath the surface. She\u2019ll have to tie him, if she means to profit any. She\u2019s already got the silver, but she didn\u2019t just take the blade. The human is weak and winded and can\u2019t know what\u2019s happened. He\u2019s been tossed into the pit, discarded, sacrificed, devoured by darkness. He\u2019ll have a story to tell, at the very least, and scavengers like a good story now and then. To pass the night. To keep warm in the darkness.<\/p>\n

You can find all three books here<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from DarkWalker 3: The Deep City: The Scavenger sees in the dark. She sees the light first, the smallest shred of it managing to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[34,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1242,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}