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HELHEIM SCANS
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Chapter 67: Three Figures in the Darkness (1)
“Let’s stop here for a moment.”
Damion halted and spoke.
“We need to keep going. The Snake’s Den is still close,”
Jedrick urged impatiently.
“But Ram is guarding it. They won’t break through so easily.”
“I’m not worried about people breaking through.”
“Then smoke? Didn’t you say the wind blows outward here, making it hard for them to send anything inside?”
Damion reached toward the ceiling.
A faint current of air flowed from the front to the back.
“They’ll find a way—smoke, or something else.”
Jedrick urged him again, but Damion finally set Charlon down.
“Charlon is exhausted. She needs to rest, even for a little while.”
Damion brought the torch closer to Charlon’s side.
Her thin clothes were soaked with blood.
Jedrick couldn’t say a word.
“I’m afraid we’ve gone too deep. If we go any further, even the knights sent to rescue us might not find us,”
Damion said, staring at the darkness closing in from all sides.
The tunnel they walked through alternated between narrowing and widening.
Just as the incline grew steep enough to be worrisome, it would level out.
Then, as if to mock their relief, it would drop sharply again, making them fear a sheer cliff ahead, only to rise once more.
The uneven and unpredictable tunnel constantly put Damion on edge.
Particularly in the narrower sections, it felt like an invisible hand was gripping his throat, making it hard to breathe.
At those moments, he had to force air into his lungs as if he were learning to breathe for the first time in his life.
How had they passed through an even narrower Snake’s Den before?
Back then, the fear of thinking, “If I stop, everyone behind me will stop too. Then, starting from the back, we’ll all be caught and killed horribly,” outweighed his fear of the dark.
Even now, while supporting Charlon, he suppressed his terror by telling himself, ‘If I’m scared, Charlon will be even more scared.’
But the moment he felt momentarily relieved of her weight, the darkness descended like a suffocating black blanket, bringing his fear back in full force.
The darkness of the cave was different from the darkness of night or the kind found in a storage room with thick curtains.
The very thought of their location—the heart of a rocky mountain—felt as though the entire mountain’s weight was pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe.
He had to force air into his chest and abdomen just to keep going.
Could he keep walking forward?
Damion was losing confidence.
He was too scared to continue, but stopping felt just as terrifying.
“Do you really believe the knights will come to rescue us?”
Jedrick asked grimly.
Damion almost answered, ‘No.’
“They will come. They swore loyalty to my father and the House of Vormont. They won’t abandon us.”
“Is that kind of oath worth risking their lives for? The enemy outside has over a hundred men. Fewer than ten knights wouldn’t dare to charge in.”
“Oaths to God and the Crown transcend death. If they flee and tarnish their house’s honor, their lives—and their descendants’—will be marked with shame. They’ll sacrifice themselves to save us.”
He needed to believe that.
He needed to say it.
Seeing Charlon forcing a calm expression despite her pain, he couldn’t utter the harsh reality that “such oaths are often broken.”
Jedrick nodded reluctantly, still doubtful, and glanced at Charlon.
“Her breathing’s getting rougher.”
Holding her side tightly, Charlon replied,
“I’m not sure. It feels like I can breathe fine, but maybe it’s just my imagination. Do you know how to treat wounds, Jed?”
“Don’t suddenly get so familiar with me,”
Jedrick replied, sounding annoyed but not truly upset.
“We just shared a profound moment earlier, didn’t we? What’s a little familiarity after that?”
“Then talk to your prince that way.”
“I could never do that.”
Charlon glanced at Damion and smiled.
He smiled back, but his chest ached for some reason.
Why did it bother him that she acted casually around Jedrick but remained formal with him?
“I know how to stop the bleeding, but I’ll need to lift her clothes. Is that okay?”
Jedrick asked, not Charlon, but Damion.
“Ask her, not me.”
Charlon answered immediately,
“If you can, I’ll trust you to do it.”
Damion felt helpless at the honesty of his situation.
“If you’re able, I’ll leave it to you, Jedrick.”
Jedrick knelt beside Charlon with a heavy expression.
“The torch.”
Damion held it closer as instructed, careful to keep the heat from touching them but close enough to push back the darkness.
Jedrick gently examined the tear in her side caused by a jagged rock.
“I’m sorry. If I hadn’t pulled you back then—”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up if you’re going to apologize? It couldn’t be helped. It’s in the past. We’ve talked about this already.”
“I still want to apologize.”
“Then wait until this is all over, we’ve all made it out alive, and you can apologize once a year for the rest of your life—up to a hundred times.”
“Then I’d better live a long life.”
All three of them chuckled.
Jedrick asked,
“Why weren’t you wearing armor? Even leather armor could’ve prevented this.”
“I was going to, but my nanny stopped me.”
“Why?”
“She said I should always look pretty when accompanying the prince.”
Jedrick turned to Damion, accusingly.
“Then you should’ve insisted she wear it. She would’ve reluctantly agreed.”
Damion couldn’t say, “Why blame me?” He’d been too overwhelmed at the time, completely at the mercy of those around him.
Honestly, he hadn’t even noticed what Charlon was wearing.
“It’s not his fault,”
Charlon scolded, defending Damion.
“I know.”
Jedrick carefully examined Charlon’s side.
Damion couldn’t make out the extent of the wound through the blood, but the way Charlon hissed and whimpered when Jedrick touched it didn’t make it seem minor.
“It’s not in a critical spot, but it’s not good either. If we don’t sew it up quickly, the bleeding will worsen, or it might get infected.”
Jedrick hesitated, then reached for Charlon’s skirt.
“My clothes are filthy. I’ll tear this. Is that okay?”
“Do it,”
Charlon said.
“Why?”
Damion and Charlon said simultaneously.
Jedrick explained to Damion,
“I need to stop the bleeding. I should’ve done this back at the Snake’s Den entrance, but my clothes are too dirty, and yours are too tough to tear. Her skirt is too long anyway—it’ll only get in the way in this tunnel. Might as well make use of it.”
“Hurry up,”
Charlon urged.
Damion couldn’t object.
Jedrick grabbed the hem of her skirt and tore it along the seam in one swift motion.
When it ripped up to her knees, Damion instinctively pulled the torch slightly farther away.
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Jedrick didn’t care and folded the fabric into a wad, pressing it against her side.
“Hold this yourself.”
Charlon grimaced but held the fabric firmly.
Jedrick picked up the torch he’d placed on the ground and commanded,
“Get up. We’re going further.”
Damion frowned.
"You need to rest."
"No. I told you, they’ll find a way to get the smoke in. If not smoke, then something else."
"You said that earlier too, but what exactly is this 'something else'?"
"I don’t know. But they’ll figure it out,"
Jedrick replied firmly.
"How? With what? Overestimating your enemy and thinking they’re capable of anything is something even military strategy warns against—"
"There’s a Hak over there."
Damion fell silent for a moment.
Three days ago, if Jedrick had said that, he would have shot back, "So what? What’s the big deal?" But not now.
"If the royal knights come to rescue us, it won’t matter how far we’ve gone in. It’s a single path anyway, right? Once the outside is cleared, we just retrace our steps. But if the ones coming into the tunnel aren’t royal knights, it’ll be too late to run once they’re here."
"But Charlon..."
"I’m worried about Charlon, but I’m also worried about you."
"Me? Why me?"
"You’re not in normal shape either. Your steps are slowing down."
Jedrick gestured toward Charlon and tested him.
"Think you can support her?"
"Of course!"
Damion insisted stubbornly, but Charlon shook her head.
"I can walk on my own."
Charlon placed one hand on her side and used the other to brace against the wall as she struggled to her feet.
She wavered briefly but managed to grab her torch.
"For now, yes. If I can’t go any further, I’ll ask for your help right away. Let’s go!"
‘There’s no way she can walk on her own with wounds like that. She’s holding up now, but the more she walks, the worse it’ll get. She’s just pretending to be fine because she’s afraid I might collapse first.’
Damion felt embarrassed, like he was the only one who’d grown weak.
"If the passage gets too narrow later, we’ll rest then. But for now, we keep walking,"
Jedrick said.
Damion had no choice but to agree.
"Fine."
Jedrick took the lead, followed by Charlon, with Damion bringing up the rear.
Looking back, Ram showed no sign of following, and darkness filled the space behind them.
As they moved with the torches, the darkness followed, giving the illusion that the darkness itself was chasing them.
Up ahead, Charlon’s steps were visibly slowing, but she still refused to say she was struggling.
Damion wanted to support her but couldn’t.
Jedrick was right—he could barely manage himself.
He felt as though he might collapse even before Charlon, who was still bleeding.
‘This won’t do.’
Resolving himself, Damion called out.
"Jedrick."
Jedrick stopped walking and turned.
"What?"
"You take Charlon. I’ll lead the way."
Jedrick glanced between the two of them, quickly assessing their conditions before asking without hesitation,
"Are you sure?"
The question wasn’t about his physical state.
Damion nodded.
"As long as Charlon is okay with it."
Charlon, as if giving her permission, apologized first.
"I’m just a burden. I’m sorry."
Damion couldn’t bring himself to mimic the playful way the other two usually told each other to shut up in response to an apology.
"Please don’t say that. If anything, I should apologize for not being able to support you. Of course, I want to. But if I stubbornly try and collapse too, Jedrick will have to carry both of us. Let’s work together instead. That’s what trust between the three of us is, isn’t it?"
Damion forced himself to sound confident.
"Understood. I won’t be stubborn,"
Charlon said, extending her hand to Jedrick.
"Help me, Jed."
"Got it,"
Jedrick replied reluctantly.
He took Charlon’s hand, placed it over his right shoulder, and wrapped his left arm around her waist, nearly carrying her as they walked.
The torch Charlon had been holding was passed to Damion.
"I didn’t mean for you to carry her so close,"
Damion joked, but Jedrick replied dryly,
"This is more comfortable for both of us. Carrying her outright would hurt her injuries."
Despite being smaller than others of his race, Jedrick was still a Geronian of the North, with formidable strength.
Charlon walked more steadily with his support, while Damion led the way.
Piercing through the pitch-black darkness, where nothing could be seen or heard, was no easy task.
It was especially harrowing to hear the exhausted breaths of the two behind him in the oppressive silence.
Damion couldn’t bring himself to look back.
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