by J B Cantwell
"Where to?" I asked.
Duna stood up and held up her thick, chair-leg wand to light our way.
We were deep within the mountains, and the air felt cool against my skin. I was eager to go and ready to fight. Duna took the lead, and we were on our way. Tosia fell into step behind us, but I noticed Trina was nowhere nearby.
"Where did your sister go?" I asked.
"She's out with the scouts. She can see things they can't."
"Yep," Duna said. "Pretty hard to deny us magical beings now isn't it? Mighty useful we're becoming."
"There might be more of us than we thought," Tosia said.
As the path began to widen, she looked around, and I could tell she was searching for more like us.
"I've seen things,” Duna said. “Over the years, when we still had children in the village, some of them could do things that others couldn't. I wonder where they are now and why they haven't come out from the shadows."
"Why don't you have children any longer?" I asked. I remembered the children back in Eagleview. In most cases, they were kind. Even the boy Kenneth who had tried to kiss me that day had been a good kid. A young man, actually. He was the sort to get picked first on a team; he would’ve been great to quest with.
Now, I felt certain I would never see him again.
"There haven't been children for a hundred years," Duna said. "Not since these two sisters here were born. A lot of the villagers left."
"Why? Why would they leave their homes like that?"
Duna shrugged. "Probably got sick of Arte. Maybe they wanted to see the light like the rest of us. Only they were braver than we were. Us giants may be big, but we’re easily frightened. Look how long all of us lived under Arte's will. Nobody ever questioned it, not out loud. And yet, there must’ve been many who desired to leave the mountains. In the end, it was the young ones who went, and they didn't come back."
I'd spent a few nights in the village, but I'd never noticed the obvious, that there were no children there. I'd been too wrapped up in my own story to care.
"Why didn't you go?" I asked Duna.
"She was scared like the rest of us," Tosia said.
Duna quickly turned, and I thought for a moment she would strike her. But Tosia got by with just a glare.
"How’s your mother?" Duna asked pointedly.
Tosia seemed to crumble at the question, and she didn't answer her.
"That's what I thought," Duna said, turning to continue walking down the path.
"That's not fair," I said.
"Don't you get into the middle of it," Tosia said. "It's not worth it."
Duna shook her head, but she didn't speak again.
In this way, we journeyed to the center of the mountain. I worried about the Creepers and the Howlers, worried that they were hunting us right then. But these were creatures who were new to me, creatures I didn't know about or understand. They lived in the dark just like everybody did, and while I might've guessed that they would hide within the mountain just as we were trying to do, we found the great caverns empty.
I grabbed for my knives and found that they were missing from my belt.
"Here," Tosia said, pulling them out from a pocket on the side of her traveling pack. "I was keeping them for you. When you were still asleep, you reached for them and tried to blast the ceiling above us."
This alarmed me, and for a moment, I hesitated to take the knives back. What if I fell ill and tried to do the same thing again, endangering our entire traveling party?
There was nothing for it, though, and I reached out to take them.
"Good," Duna said, looking back at me. "It won't do to have the most powerful among us without her weapons. Can we trust you?"
I didn't have a good answer to this question.
Could they?
"While I'm awake, yes, certainly."
I had left that blood Light behind after all.
Chapter 22
It only took another hour to reach the center of the mountain. I was feeling better, more confident, and I was glad for the energy the Light had bestowed upon me. I wasn't looking forward to another long slumber, not if it involved Torin.
Had he really been there? Were we really having that conversation? Or had it been nothing but a nightmare?
I didn't know, and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. The threat had been clear; Torin had wanted me on his side, he'd wanted me to fight, and the idea that his soldiers were working on their own was terrifying. It was easy to think that his armies were nothing but slaves, but in the dream, he'd told me that they had all come willingly, that they were all happy to help him in any way they could.
That couldn't be true. Could it?
If Torin had chosen bad over good, I had to wonder if his followers had done the same. Maybe their hearts were as black as his, and they followed him because they didn't have enough of their own magic to make their world as dark as they wanted.
Tosia had gone up to the front of the crowd looking for her sister. She had started to worry about her, and I had, too. It was taking her too long to come back to us. There had to be a reason for her continued absence.
Despite the full feeling drinking the Light had given me, I craved real food after a while, and Duna had seemed to be the source of the gyvu before.
"Do you have any more gyvu?" I asked her.
She smirked, then pulled out a chunk of the fruit from her pack and handed it to me.
"Eat sparingly," she said. "There aren't as many of us as before, but still, we have to preserve our resources."
This brought back the thought of Connell, and I found I had nothing more to say. I took a bite of the sweet fruit, and despite the misery that Connell's death had brought upon me, I could feel my spirit lifting just the tiniest bit. Maybe Connell had survived. Anything was possible.
But that was a lie.
I lied to myself so that I was able to keep going, so that I was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
"When do you think we'll see Trina again?" Duna asked Tosia, who was walking back toward us now. "She's been out for a while."
Tosia didn't answer. The other scouts had come back, but nobody had seen her. There weren't many options as far as answers to this question. Maybe she’d gone farther. Maybe she’d found a way out. Or maybe she’d been attacked, killed, even.
The giants walked in silence now. I found I wasn't hungry anymore, but I kept the remainder of the fruit in my right hand and a knife out in my left.
Without Connell in our party, our way through the mountain was dimmer than I would've liked. Carden and Lesley both had wands now, and they were the ones lighting our path. Lesley's power was stronger than Carden's, but only because she could create fire from thin air. Her abilities were better suited to lighting the way, but I suspected she didn't want to be out in front all alone.
After about an hour, the cavern opened up before us, and we saw the great ceiling within the mountain. Several paths joined in one center plate of stone-like spokes on a wagon wheel. All of us stopped, staring around in awe. Duna lit her wand, and it combined with Lesley's and my knife to light up the entire interior of the mountain. From far above, long shards of rock decorated the top, and though it was beautiful, it made me nervous about being below what looked like a thousand angry knives pointed right at my heart.
This was where Kaelin's experiences would become so valuable. He seemed to automatically know which direction to take, though they all looked the same to me. I imagined where the paths were leading us. To death? To hope?
Perhaps only he knew the answer to that, and that was enough for me. I trusted Kaelin inherently, and though it may have been naïve to do so, he didn't seem to have an ounce of foul spirit anywhere within him.
He didn't hesitate, and we didn't hesitate to follow him. It was only when we were nearly out of the cavern that Trina returned. She looked alarmed as if she were being pursued right then.
"You can't go this way!" she cried, hov
ering in the air before us. "There are Howlers! A queen with a hundred eggs! We have to get out!"
A hundred? But how was that possible?
I tossed the fruit and lit both my knives then, ready for battle.
"Put those away," Duna said, her eyes alarmed. "You'll draw them to us."
We didn't speak, just ran. Others passed us, but nobody stopped. This made my heart fall into my stomach. I’d hoped that my story might've been enough to sway them to my side. But I supposed the loss of their leader had been too much for them to bear. They weren't willing to lose anyone else.
Soon, and with great relief, I saw Lesley and Kaelin waiting for us up ahead. They were both approaching at a full run, their faces a combination of strength and terror.
"You come with me!" he yelled in my direction.
I reached his side and waited, staring around the enormous cavern, searching for danger.
But Kaelin did something unusual, at least as far as the giants went. He waited for Duna, letting her go before us.
"Get that wand out!" I yelled to her as she passed us by.
She was fumbling a little bit, and it made me nervous. Did the others know about her? That she was old and, though powerful, that she might need help just as they did?
And yet, Kaelin stood waiting for her to go ahead.
He was a good man, and it was a relief to have someone like him on our side.
Duna was slow, but her wand held out in front of her was powerful. After a while, people stopped running, and it was obvious that not everyone realized how dangerous our situation was. Still, at the head of the pack, Tosia and Trina ran. It was them whom I trusted, so I yelled into Kaelin's ear.
"We have to get to them!"
"What? Why?"
"Duna!"
Duna was having trouble, and though I sensed that her magic was great and powerful, she was having a hard time wielding it during this time of crisis.
"If we don't stop now, we'll lose her!"
I turned around to run back to her, and he yelled in protest. But I knew what I had to do.
I had to give her everything. Again.
I ran up behind her and took her hands in mine.
"Kaelin, take her wand!"
Confused, he did as I asked. And as soon as he did, I let all my power flow through my hands into hers.
She seemed stunned by the power I was giving to her. Of course, giants drank Light all the time. But I ventured to guess that Duna had never been healed, at least not before I'd come along. I’d helped her with her arm earlier, but this time I sought to heal her whole body. I knew what would happen to me in the end, but it needed to happen if all of us were to survive.
She bent slightly, staring at me the whole time, her eyes surprised. I knew what I was doing felt good, healed any interior complaints, any pains. And, when I was done, she was as sprightly as a hundred-year-old girl, and I fell to the floor.
I was only vaguely aware from that point on, and it was only the mountain breeze that awakened me in the end. The flight was over, had happened without me while I'd been in a dreamless sleep. It was Duna who was carrying me now.
I looked around, but I only saw a few of us. Tosia and Trina were sitting on the side of the mountain, cutting apart a gyvu to share with the rest of us.
"Where is everybody?" I asked.
"Kaelin went back for them," Duna said. "Can you stand?"
"I think so."
She gently put me down onto the rock, holding my hands to keep me upright. In her face, there was something new, a calmness I hadn't seen before. Under different circumstances, I might've even called it joy. She held up her wand, lighting the space between us, and I saw the change in her, felt it, even.
My healing had taken away many long years that had produced the deep wrinkles in her forehead. Her skin was clear, and I knew that now she was more powerful than ever before.
"You must drink," she said. She unstoppered a vial of Light and handed it to me.
I took it from her eagerly.
"The others are still inside the caves," Tosia said. "They'll be safe. They were very behind, and nobody wanted to leave. They complained they were tired."
So much for my group of warriors.
I thought about Torin, wondered which person or beast under his employ would be the one to come after me.
But no. I was forgetting. He wanted me to join him, and I ventured to guess that the offer still stood. Maybe he wouldn’t come after me at all.
I drained the vial. Then I took out my knives, ready to fight. Torin could send his Creepers, his Howlers, his Wicks; I was ready.
But as I stood there with the others, waiting, nobody came.
We looked around, all of us ready for battle. But there was nobody to battle with. No enemy manifested.
Was it a trick? It must've been, for why would Torin threaten us with such devastating consequences and then ignore us when we practically gave ourselves up to him?
He wasn't frightened, was he?
No. No way. He wouldn't be frightened of a ragtag group of sorcerers who barely knew how to hold a wand.
So what then?
I looked back at the dark cave entrance, and suddenly I knew.
"They're inside!" I yelled in horror. "We have to go get them!"
The Light was touching every single fiber of my body, of my mind, of my magic. I didn't know if someone terrible waited for me inside the mountain, but I didn't care. My friends were in there, somewhere.
I raised my knives and ran headlong back inside.
The others didn't follow me, but that was okay. I was running as fast as I could, and I suspected that none of them would be able to keep up, with the possible exception of Trina.
She didn't come, though. None of them did. They had saved me multiple times, and undoubtedly my behavior was confusing to them. Perhaps they were plotting right now, trying to figure out how to get me back unhurt. But none of them came. I didn't take it as cowardice. They’d all been through a lot these past days, and I was guessing they were simply overwhelmed.
I was on my own, and that was exactly as I wanted it to be.
I set my sights now on Kaelin and the others. I was willing to bet that when I found them, Kaelin would have someone else thrown across his back, doing everything he could to save as many as possible.
Someone was running after me, I realized, but I didn't have a moment to look back. Soon I found I didn't need to. He was coming, whoever he was, and I could tell by his echoing footsteps that he was gaining on me.
Then, suddenly, I saw the last thing in the world I would have expected to see.
Connell.
Connell in one piece, running after me and overtaking me.
"Don't give up on me now, Bree!" he yelled as he passed.
Connell, back with us once more, and he was making fun of me. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or scold him.
I smirked and sped up to catch him, which was easier than I'd thought it might be. I was full of Light and full of speed.
And he was full of himself, apparently.
There was no time to talk because the farther we went, the louder the noises were that were echoing off the inside of the mountain. Screams, snarls, cries of pain.
The smile that had been on my face quickly vanished. The two of us were running flat out, but it was hard to tell how far we needed to go. As we ran, I noticed Connell no longer had his staff.
"How did you get out?"
"Now isn't the time for stories!"
He was entirely unexpected, and what he did next was beyond that. He opened his mouth, put his hands out to his sides, and all at once, he shot fire, red-hot fire, from both his hands and mouth. It was as if he were a dragon.
Whatever had happened to him, he had learned a few tricks in the two short days we'd been apart.
The faster we ran, the louder the cries of the crowd became. Up ahead, I could see the remaining giants huddled together in a circle beneath that great ceiling, try
ing to protect themselves from a swarm of Creepers.
Together, Connell and I burst through the opening to the cavern and ran toward the giants. But what I didn't see was perhaps the most important thing of all. Torin had unleashed not only the Creepers on the giants but a giant Howler upon me. The ground began to shake beneath my feet, and I knew she’d be upon me in moments.
"Connell! Go help them!" And I turned to face the beast.
To call this one a Howler seemed inadequate. Her roar unlocked several boulders from the inside of the mountain, and they came crashing to the ground.
This was the queen, I felt sure. She was absolutely huge by comparison to the ones we'd fought back in the village. Those had been far larger than even the giants, but they had nothing on the one I was facing off now.
She roared again, and I had to put my hands over my ears for fear that my eardrums would burst. As her howl faded away, I tried to shoot a ray of power into her face. But that was no use; her tough outer skin was impenetrable. The other night I'd discovered a trick by letting the Howler devour me and ripping it apart from the inside out. But I felt certain if I did the same thing again, I would reach my end.
She stomped upon the trail, knowing that she didn't need to rush. I had nowhere to go, and even if I’d run, it wouldn't have taken her very much effort to catch up.
No, she intended to enjoy my death.
Beneath her head and along her belly was a growth of transparent eggs, each supporting a new Howler. They looked like a bunch of grapes tied to her underside, and though they were yet unborn, they were made anxious by their queen's actions, swimming around angrily inside their sacs.
I considered. One giant beast or a hundred tiny ones?
I moved my knives down and sent out a bolt that cut several sacs from her belly. They fell to the ground, and she roared with anger, trying to gather up as many as she could. She looked up at me, and I saw in her something I didn't expect: fear. I raised my arms again and pointed right at one of her many eyes, exploding it with a single pulse of power. She cried out, but she couldn't be distracted from the job of saving her offspring. They fell over the side of the cliffs like marbles rolling down a cobblestone hill.