by Morgan Rice
“If I don’t go,” Aidan countered, “my father will die. What choice do I have?”
Without another word, Aidan turned and, heart pounding, began to squeeze himself into the tight, stone passageway.
It was airless in here, the stone pressing in from all directions, and Aidan had never felt more scared. He was barely able to move, and the farther in he crawled, the harder it was to breathe. He was soon forced to crawl on his stomach, on his elbows, and he felt huge, sticky spiders crawling on his face. He was breathing rapidly, yet he was unable to free his hands to swat them away.
Aidan crawled farther and farther, his elbows and forearms scraped up, feeling as if this would never end.
And then, suddenly, to his horror, he was trapped. Stuck.
Wiggling as he did, Aidan could not break fee.
He broke out in a sweat as panic set in.
Aidan had a flash that this was the pivotal moment of his short life. He finally understood what it meant to be a warrior, to be a man. It meant to be alone. To be utterly alone. And to rely on no one but yourself for your survival.
Aidan knew he had to find the courage, the strength, to do this. For himself. For his father. For his people. He thought of how much his father had struggled, what he had overcome, and he knew that he, too, could find the strength somewhere within himself. He knew he could summon some part of himself that was stronger than he thought. He had to.
He did not want to die in here.
Come on, Aidan willed himself.
Aidan dug in with his elbows ever harder, bleeding, ignoring the pain, and shoved his face in the dirt, using his toes. He groaned and groaned, feeling as if he were being crushed in a vise, until finally, in one great burst, he managed to move again. At first he moved an inch, then more, then a foot. He squeezed and pushed, farther and farther.
Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, a bark. He glanced back and was elated to see White racing into the cave. He rushed in, all the way, able to fit, until he finally reached Aidan. From behind, he lowered his head into Aidan’s body and nudged him with all his might. Aidan was shocked at the wild dog’s strength and determination to save him.
Moments later, Aidan finally burst through to a clearing, to his own shock and joy coming out on the other side. He emerged into sunlight, so relieved, and hugged White as the dog licked him back.
Coughing up dust, Aidan managed to stand upright, finding himself in a small chamber within the cave. The roar of the water was deafening in here. He was covered in spray, but the icy waters felt good, washing all the dust off his face and hair. It felt good to be alive.
Aidan wiped water from his eyes, caught his breath, and took stock. He looked around, examining the place, until finally he spotted it.
The stone lever.
This one was much smaller than the other, and he ran over to it, jumped up on it, grabbed with both hands, and yanked down.
Yet, to his dismay, nothing happened.
He tried again, planting his feet against the wall and pulling.
Yet still nothing.
Refusing to give up, Aidan jumped atop the lever and pulled again and again, groaning and crying, his hands cut from the stone. He yanked and yanked with all that he had, all that he was.
Come on, he willed, sweat stinging his eyes.
And then finally, to his own shock, it happened. To his delight, he felt the lever move beneath his hand, heard the sound of stone scraping stone. It moved slowly, his arms shaking, lower and lower—until finally, in one great motion, it hit the bottom.
There came a great cheer on the other side of the tunnel, and as Aidan got back down in the passage and squeezed his way back, easier this time as he was slick with water, he emerged on the far side just in time to see all the men, with one great cheer, pushing the great lever all the way down. He had unlocked it after all.
Aidan followed as the other men ran excitedly to the outer ledge of the cave. There came a great rumble from somewhere high above, slowly building, and as they all stood there and watched, looking out over the desert landscape far below, suddenly Aidan saw a sight he would never forget.
A river of water came gushing down the side of the cliff in what sounded like a massive explosion. It was as if an entire ocean were falling down before them.
Aidan watched as the falls actually changed course, as mountains of water gushed down the other side, rushed across the desert, and ambled their way somewhere for the horizon—and somewhere, he prayed, for the canyon.
Somewhere, for his father.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Duncan scrambled his way up the canyon wall, the ascent so steep he was nearly vertical, clawing his way up the canyon face. Dry rock and dirt gave way and Duncan slipped again and again before regaining his footing, as did his men around him, hundreds of men in their armor clanging their way up to freedom.
It was a desperate scramble. Duncan tried to control his panic as he looked back over his shoulder and saw the tens of thousands of Pandesians closing in, pursuing them across the canyon floor and now beginning to ascend the canyon face behind them. Worse, many of them stopped, lined up, and began to fire arrows.
Duncan braced himself as there came the ping all around him of metal arrowheads hitting stone, chipping away at small pieces of rock. Cries and shrieks rang out and he looked over and was pained to see too many of his men with arrows piercing their backs. As he watched, they lost their grip and fell backwards to their deaths.
Duncan reached out and grabbed for his friend, one of his oldest, most trusted soldiers, just feet away from him, who had an arrow plunged into his back. His eyes opened wide as he began to fall, and as Duncan swiped for him, he felt an awful pit in his stomach as he just missed him, unable to reach him in time.
“No!” Duncan shrieked.
Watching him die enraged Duncan. It made him want to turn around and charge the Pandesians below.
Yet he knew that would be shortsighted. He knew the key to victory lay just twenty feet above, at the very top of the canyon ridge. He knew what his men needed most was not to stand and fight, but to get out of there before the great flood came. If it ever came.
“CLIMB!” Duncan boomed to his men, trying to encourage them.
As he climbed, arrows and spears hitting the wall all around him, Duncan flinched, realizing how close they were coming. He realized what a vulnerable position he had put his men in, how reckless and desperate this whole strategy was. If for some reason Leifall did not come through, was unable to divert the waters of Everfall, the Pandesians would catch up to them as soon as they surfaced and slaughter him and all his men for good. Yet if the waters did come before Duncan’s men could ascend and get out of their way, then he and his men would be drowned, washed away by the tidal wave, killed together with all the Pandesians below.
The chances of this mission succeeding were dire; yet the alternative, facing a much greater army in the open field, was not great, either.
Duncan’s heart slammed as he looked up and saw the edge of the canyon looming. He groaned as he took his last step on a ledge and threw himself to the desert floor.
He lay there, gasping, and immediately spun around, reached down and grabbed as many of his men’s hands as he could, yanking them up out of the canyon, dodging arrows as they sailed by. Every muscle in his body ached and burned, yet he would not stop until his men were all safe.
As the last of his men reached the desert floor, Duncan immediately stood and checked the horizon, hopeful.
Yet his heart fell. There came no river, no flood. And that could only mean one thing: Leptus had failed.
Yet Duncan knew that he could not give up hope, and that if the surging waters did come, there would be no time to lose. He turned to his men.
“PART WAYS!” he commanded.
He sprinted, and his men ran, too, forking, dividing their forces, half led by him and half by one of his commanders. Parting ways would also make it harder for the Pandesians to hunt them
down.
Duncan sprinted, even though no water was in sight, hoping and praying. With every step, he also at least distanced himself from the Pandesians. Although, looking out ahead to the wasteland, Duncan knew there was nowhere left to run.
Duncan checked back over his shoulder, and his heart dropped to see the first Pandesian surface from the canyon. Behind him followed another.
Then another.
Hundreds of them followed, crawling over the edge like ants, out of the canyon, soon on their feet and rushing his way.
Duncan knew, in that moment, that all was lost. His plan had failed.
And then it came.
It began as a rumble, sounding like distant thunder. Duncan looked up before him, and he was breathless.
It appeared an entire ocean was gushing right for him, rumbling, its waves rolling, huge and white across the dry, dusty plains. It moved faster than anything he had ever seen, more powerful, more violent.
The Pandesians behind him were clearly shocked, too. They stopped in their tracks, gaping, as the waters raced right for them. Duncan and his men had parted ways, had made room for the river. But the Pandesians, having just emerged, still stood right in its path.
All the Pandesians scrambled to turn back around, to get out of the way of the water, stampeding each other. It was chaos as a logjam ensued, all of them trapped, all staring death in the face.
Duncan stood there and watched as the roaring waters gushed by him and then, a moment later, crashed down, smashing all the Pandesians like ants.
The waters continued, raging down into the canyon, landing at its bottom with a tremendous crash and spray, and filling it foot by foot. Duncan heard, just for a moment, the horrible shrieks from tens of thousands of soldiers still in the canyon, all crushed by the waters.
Soon, though, the shrieking stopped. The water stopped. The canyon was filled. Pandesian corpses floated over its edge, onto the dirt.
And finally, all was still.
Duncan stood there, and he and all his men slowly turned to each other and looked at each other in shock. And then, as one, they let out a great shout of victory.
Finally, they had won.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Ra walked slowly through the barren wasteland, alone, far from his army. In the distance, he could hear their shouts and cries, and he watched with indignation as the great waterfalls of Everfall poured down in a river, flooded the canyon. Down below, deep in the canyon, tens of thousands of his men were dying, drowning. Duncan had outsmarted him once again.
Ra burned with fury. Ra, of course, had other armies elsewhere in Escalon, but these were the vanguard of his men, the elite, and watching them all die in that trap of a canyon burned him to no end. Not because he cared about them—he did not—but because it would hamper his own cause, his own mission to wipe out Escalon for good. Hearing them die, Ra was all the more grateful he had not joined them this time. Instead, he had let his generals lead the battle and had furtively separated himself, marching through the desert alone, embarking on his backup plan. Duncan had won the battle—but Ra would win the war. Duncan was smart—but Ra was smarter.
Now, as Ra marched, with each and every step he mulled over his plan. Walking alone through the desert, he aimed for the far side of the canyon, where he could already see Duncan’s men emerging, all of them alive, cheering, triumphant at their victory. They thought they had won, that they had vanquished the Holy and Supreme Ra. And in one sense they had.
Yet they were about to learn why Holy and Supreme Ra had never been vanquished. As he walked toward Duncan now, Duncan would give him a very different reception. Duncan would not meet him with a sword and shield, but an embrace, a hug.
For his appearance as he walked this desert was not that of a soldier, not that of the Holy and Supreme Ra —but rather, that of a girl. To the outside world, to even the most trained eye—even her father—he would appear not as the Great Ra.
But as Kyra.
He bore her features, her face, her body, her dress. Khtha had done his work well.
Ra would get close, so close that, in a father’s embrace, he would finally have his chance to kill Duncan once for all.
He did not need his army. Just himself. And a bit of sorcery. Deception, after all, always triumphed over might.
Ra grinned wide.
Wait for me, Father, he thought. Your daughter is coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Kyra walked slowly between the soaring pillars, the blackened stone rising to the heavens, and stopped at the threshold of this dead and ancient city of Marda. As she walked, she passed dozens of heads of trolls, of humans, impaled on pikes, to welcome her. It was clearly a sign to beware—yet this city hardly needed any more signs. It was the most ominous place she had ever laid eyes upon. Its buildings looked as if they had been forged from the stones of hell, black as night. A cold, damp draft blew through the empty, rubble-strewn streets, giving her a chill. Somewhere a creature wailed, and she could not tell if it were up ahead, or in the wind. She felt as if she’d entered a city of the dead.
Kyra trod slowly down the broad, main boulevard, feeling this place was abandoned. The dead silence was punctuated only by the occasional calling of a crow, perched high up somewhere, staring down as if mocking her, as if goading her on to her death. Black stone, black doors, windowless buildings lined streets paved in black granite, all of it framed by towering mountains of black. She looked down and saw that, carved into the stone, were five-pointed stars etched in scarlet red. Were they carved of blood? What did they symbolize?
Kyra felt the true presence of evil here, and the deeper she went, the more it clung to her. She had felt safer even in the thicket of thorns, confronting that monster, than she did here in this wide-open city of hell, with all these vacant buildings, all the heads everywhere, dripping blood as if just killed. She felt at every turn as if something were watching her, waiting to pounce. She gripped her staff tight, her knuckles white. What she wouldn’t give to have Andor and Leo by her side now. Not to mention Theon.
Yet Kyra forced herself to be brave, to continue on. She could sense the Staff of Truth lay somewhere up ahead, sense that she had, at last, reached her final destination. She felt it burning in her veins, a sixth sense telling her how close she was, and with every step, it grew stronger. It was like her destiny calling.
Kyra walked cautiously, her staff clicking in the rubble, turning down narrow streets, beneath small stone archways, until finally the city opened in a wide, square plaza. In the center sat a statue of a massive stone gargoyle, scowling down, its mouth a fountain, vomiting lava into a pool as if it were blood. Kyra walked past it and was horrified to see it was real blood, splashing everywhere.
Kyra continued on through the streets, until finally the mountains beyond it loomed larger and she realized she was reaching the end of the city. She saw in the distance a massive stone wall ringing the city, its stones plastered with blood. At the city’s end she spotted a huge arch, an exit gate, leaving the city. A portcullis hovered at its top, its sharpened spikes pointed down, as if waiting to sever the head of whoever passed beneath them, all dripping with blood.
Kyra felt a drop on her shoulder, then another. She held out a palm and examined it. It was red.
She looked up to the sky as more drops fell, and she was shocked to see that it was raining blood.
Kyra walked to the gate, stopped, and examined it. Its opening, she was horrified to see, was stretched with the biggest spider web she had ever seen, fifty feet high and just as wide. It was so massive and thick, at first she thought it was a rope. She stared, horrified, and did not want to ponder what sort of spider had spun it.
Kyra looked past the web, and as she did, her heart stopped. There, on the far side of it, stood a black, granite pedestal rising from the earth. And atop it sat a shining, black staff. Kyra was breathless. The Staff of Truth. She could sense it even from here.
It shone, a beacon in the gloom,
lighting up the twilight, sticking straight up to the sky, as if inviting someone to grab it.
Kyra stepped toward the web, tentatively, sensing a trap. She sensed this was her final test—and perhaps her most intense one of all.
Kyra inched closer to the web, breathing hard, and raised her staff. She held it out before her, heart pounding in her throat as she reached out and touched the tip of it to the web. The web was thicker and stickier than she thought, and her staff stuck to it. She pulled back with all her might, and the entire web shook. To her shock, it was so sticky, she could not extract her staff.
Suddenly, without warning, the web recoiled, and Kyra felt herself being pulled, like a spring. A second later she was flying up in the air, and into the web.
Kyra was stunned as she felt herself weightless, and found herself stuck to the web, her back up against it, her arms spread out at her sides like a trapped insect. She writhed, panicked, yet was unable to move. She tried with all her might, yet she could not break free. Her staff lay in the web, too, stuck, several feet away from her, just out of reach.
Panic welled up inside her. She could not fathom how it had all happened so quickly. And the more she struggled, the more entangled she became.
Kyra slowly turned, her hair standing on end, as she heard an awful crawling noise. She looked up, and out of the corner of her eye, she was filled with dread to spot a creature that made her heart stop. There, crawling for her, sharing the same web, was the biggest spider she had ever seen—ten feet wide, with enormous, fuzzy black claws, massive red fangs, and beady red eyes.
Kyra’s eyes widened in terror as it inched toward her, one grotesque claw at a time. She looked around, desperate, and suddenly saw all the bones in the web. She realized hundreds of sojourners had died here, people, like her, who had thought they could retrieve the Staff.
The spider crawled faster, bearing down on her, and Kyra, trapped, knew with a sudden horror that she would die here, in this awful place, by the fangs of this creature, on the edge of hell, where no one would even hear her scream.