The mountain moaned, a long, eerie sound, full of weight and resistance. The Staff, perhaps distracted by her other work, loosened her hold on Shadowdancer. Free to move at last, he lunged over the uneven ground and gathered Sorsha in his arms. She held him just as fiercely. The ground gave another violent shiver, then was still and silent.
Dust floated through the air. Each lungful tasted of gritty stone. He coughed.
“Are we still alive?” Sorsha asked as she looked around somewhat hesitantly. “Why doesn’t fate just kill us and get it over with? I’m sick of being terrified all the time.” Starting at her shoulders, she quivered in the throes of a full-bodied shake. It coursed down her human torso, the length of her santhyrian spine, then all the way to the tip of her tail, raising a fine cloud of dust all along her body.
“Maybe the gods don’t want us.”
“That’s a cheerful thought.”
“Hurry. Little time left.”
Not wanting to give the Staff another excuse to take control again, he draped his arm around Sorsha’s shoulders, and guided her toward where the new ‘door’ had been eaten into the stone.
Tilting her head, Sorsha studied their escape tunnel. She touched the smooth walls that lay just beyond the threshold. “It’s like the rock was melted. It’s so smooth—glass-like. Where do you think it leads?”
“Out. Beyond that I don’t care, as long as it gets us free of this tomb and away from the acolytes. They’re so close, I can smell them.”
Sorsha cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, then swiftly trotted back to retrieve her bow from where she’d dropped it. “Good point. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Smooth walls stretched as far as Sorsha could see in the dim light. Once again she brushed her fingers against the glass-like surface, in awe of such power. Even broken, the Falcon Staff still commanded immense power. Yet the Staff had no choice but to flee from Trensler.
How much greater was Trensler’s master if two Members of the Twelve and one of the Talismans fled before it? Was it even possible to defeat such an adversary?
A shiver fingered its way along her spine. Her tail stiffened in fear and she crowded closer to Shadowdancer’s heels.
Foam dotted his coat and his limp became more pronounced with each stride. Worse, from this angle, she could see where he’d started to bleed profusely again. The bandage was dark with blood, and more ran down his leg. With growing concern, she realized he was leaving a bloody hoof-print with every stride.
“That bandage on your leg isn’t holding. And by the way you’re bleeding, I think one of the lacerations must have been deep enough to have nicked an artery.”
“If we stop now, we’ll die and doom a great many others with our failure.”
“When you bleed to death, you’ll be just as dead.”
He only grunted, though he continued at a slower pace. Sorsha had no choice but to follow at his heels—she couldn’t stop him.
Long moments crawled by, each one feeling more hopeless than the last until Sorsha doubted Shadowdancer’s ability to walk farther.
“Great Mother of the Plains, thank you.”
Shadowdancer’s voice jarred Sorsha out of her worries. In the distance, the corridor brightened, the world of grey took on color, vague shapes sharpened into Shadowdancer’s tail and flanks. He hobbled faster.
The heady sensation of freedom almost brought Sorsha to her knees; as it was, her legs trembled as if she was again new to her santhyrian body. Ahead, Shadowdancer stumbled to a halt. Sorsha came up alongside and angled her body so he could rest some of his weight against her side. When he regained his balance, she took another couple steps until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Without hesitation she reached for him, placing a strong arm around his shoulders. “Don’t quit on me yet.”
“Sorry,” Shadowdancer mumbled into her hair. His arms came around her shoulders and he bowed his head over hers. Together they paused for a few moments. If she wasn’t mistaken, Shadowdancer took as much comfort from her as she did him.
“I’ve been a complete ass at times, but please know it was out of fear. Each time I tried to push you away, it was fear for you that drove me to it.”
His words washed over her, leaving a soul-chilling dread in their wake. Surprised and fearful, she pulled away enough to look up at his face. His words sounded too much like an end-of-life confession. The warm weight of his fingers brushed against her lips, trapping her protests.
“If I don’t survive this—and there is a good chance I may not—I want you to know how much you mean to me.”
Sorsha ran her hands up and down his arms. “Shhh. We live or die together. Remember?”
“Yes, I know.” He cleared his throat and looked over her head. “But if Trensler’s men catch us, I don’t want to go to the next world without you knowing that I would have loved you all the years of my life, until our Larnkins tired of this world. I would have walked with you until the plains end and the stars fell. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were forever trapped in these bodies—it wouldn’t have lessened my love.”
She threaded her arms around his neck and leaned into him. Darting in, she nipped at his lips. When she was satisfied he couldn’t mistake her feelings for him, she pulled back. “I think I’ve mentioned this a time or two before, but I love you. If you need to hear it a hundred more times to believe it, I’m happy to oblige.” Under her hand, Shadowdancer’s body trembled ever so slightly.
“I might hold you to your promise, but for now we need to see where that light leads.” He gestured on down the corridor. Sorsha nodded in agreement, but was less than energetic in following his lead. Exhaustion burned deep in the muscles of her legs.
Arrayed before her was the wide-open, dawn-tinted sky. A few steel-grey clouds reflected the pinks and mauves of dawn. Morning was coming again, the long night almost over. She looked down to find a steep slope swooping down and away from the tunnel’s exit. Wisps of fog-like magic twirled away between their hooves before tumbling away over the edge and on down the rocky slope. There looked to be a thick layer of loose shale partway down, and no way around it. The descent would be difficult, but hopefully not impossible.
“What do you think of the slope? Passable?” Sorsha gestured to the area in question that caused her the greatest worry. “That one patch doesn’t look promising.”
Shadowdancer joined her at the edge. “We don’t have a choice. We’ll have to make our way down.” He leaned out over the ledge and craned his neck. “You’re correct. That part looks treacherous. We’ll have to take it slow, be careful not to knock loose too much of the shale or we risk bringing the whole tricky slope down with us.”
Sorsha shivered, not liking the idea of getting entombed by loose gravel. It would be like being caught in an avalanche, only worse.
Making a slight, disgruntled sound deep in his throat, Shadowdancer grimaced. “And it’s too exposed. Those spindly shrubs are useless as cover.”
He studied the slope for a few moments more, and then suddenly his gaze jerked up to watch something on the opposite mountain slope. Alarmed, she followed the direction of his gaze. Pre-dawn gloom blanketed the area in shadow. Sorsha squinted, but couldn’t see what held his interest.
A single eerie call sliced through the crisp air, rising and falling in a complex pattern, a hauntingly beautiful sound. It was like a wolf’s lonely howl, but resonated longer and louder than that mortal forest dweller.
Before the eerie song had even faded into silence, a grin of pure relief brightened her companion’s face.
“Shadowdancer?”
“If I’m not mistaken, that sounds very much like Marsolwyn, Queen of the Lupwyns.”
A surge of hope spiraled out from the pit of her stomach. “She’s here?” But even as she said the words, her hope dwindled. “You saw what Trensler’s men are capable of. Even an Elder as powerful as the Lupwyn Queen won’t be able to stand against them.”
“Queen Mar
solwyn will have brought friends.”
Before Shadowdancer’s words had faded, the lupwyn raised her voice in song again. Others joined in. First two, then four. Then many more voices joined in chorus. Bright spots of light burst to life all along the opposite slope until hundreds of mage globes floated upon the air, their light chasing away night’s shadows. Sorsha shielded her eyes with one hand. Even though she couldn’t see, her ears told her hundreds of lupwyns now raised their voices to the fading night. Chills raced down her back and the hair on her arms rose to attention.
So many, her ears rang with the loud racket. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision from the spots of all those mage globes, she turned her head down to the foot of the slope. Movement deeper in the valley drew her attention. “Look. Down there.” She pointed even as she tried to focus her blurry eyes. “I can see lupwyns running in the valley below.”
“And never has a herbivore been so happy to see a pack of predators. Let’s join our friends,” Shadowdancer started forward in his awkward, limping stride, “for I am heartily tired of this journey, and we need to get the Staff to the Elders. They’ll know what to do with her.” He paused and whispered half under his breath, “I hope.”
But she heard his doubt, and briefly wondered what they’d do if the Elders had no wise counsel.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re almost home.”
Relieved, Sorsha grinned and, equally slowly, picked her way down the slope in his wake.
* * * *
Shadowdancer was correct. The descent made her feel entirely too nervous. A twitch had taken up residence square between her shoulder blades, and her stomach tied itself in knots imagining the disaster a simple misplaced hoof could cause. The absence of cover on the exposed slope had her glancing back every few strides. They were so close to the end of their journey, and they couldn’t get caught now—not with the Falcon Staff in their possession. Sorsha didn’t know exactly how near an acolyte had to be to harvest magic, but she thought she was feeling a slight drain even now.
On the slope below them, the first lupwyns to arrive—probably advance scouts—were making their way up. And having as much difficulty as she and Shadowdancer were with the footing.
One of the wolf-like lupwyn had almost made it to their location when he suddenly stumbled. He yelped and lost his balance, his feet going out from under him. He tumbled back down the slope, dislodging bits of shale and a cloud of dust as he skidded. Twenty strides down the slope, a scraggly bush stopped his descent.
He lay there, unmoving. Sorsha stared in stunned silence until she made out the grey metal of a crossbow bolt jutting from between his ribs. Her mind snapped into survival mode. She faced up slope, her bow grasped firmly in one hand as she pulled one of the few remaining fire arrows from her quiver.
In one smooth motion, she fit her arrow to bowstring. Before she could find a target, something with the force of a mule’s kick slammed into her shoulder with a grisly sound. The impact rocked her back on her hind legs. Looking down, she saw a crossbow’s bolt had suddenly blossomed out of her shoulder.
Sorsha sucked in a breath to shout warning to Shadowdancer, but a second pain exploded in her chest, and a third lower in her belly. Two more metal bolts bristled from her torso. She stared at them, one part of her mind refusing to comprehend what she was seeing. She couldn’t seem to draw in enough air to fill her lungs. Blood welled from the wounds, startlingly hot against her skin. Shadowdancer was shouting, and then his arms were suddenly around her waist. He dragged her down the slope in a vain attempt to save her from further harm. His lips moved, his eyes were frantic. She felt the pounding of his heart in his chest, saw the anguish in his face, but his words were fuzzy, distorted by something beyond her understanding.
An overwhelming need to comfort him overrode the pain in her chest. Her mind snapped into sharp focus; her ears sharpening to an unnatural quality. Over the pounding of her heart, she could hear the wind whistling through the mountains, hear the baying of the two other wolf-like lupwyns as they bolted past her and dashed farther up the slope. Snarls filled the air, and then she heard the wails of men. Ah, the lupwyns were attacking the acolytes. That was good, wasn’t it?
But there was something else. What was this cold, cold power seeping across her body? It reminded her of the Wild Path’s magic, strangely comforting in its familiarity. However, where the refreshing magic of the Path gave her strength, this new power seduced her into a frosty trance, beckoning her to rest her eyes, to sleep.
Her mind flailed for a few moments, still not understanding why she couldn’t move, or why all her senses were dulling until all that remained was her sense of hearing.
Then, understanding came.
She was dying. It wasn’t fair. Not after all they’d gone through to get the Talisman. Shadowdancer would be alone, with no one to understand and share his grief at being trapped in his new form.
She wanted to tell him everything would be all right, that if there was an afterlife, she’d wait for him—that dying wasn’t so bad. Her body shut down protecting itself from the intense pain of the wounds. And dying really wouldn’t be so bad if she could just draw air into her lungs and tell Shadowdancer all the things she wanted.
Her vision blurred around the edges, and Shadowdancer’s features became indistinct. She thought he touched her face. His tears were warm against her skin.
Not such a bad sensation to take with her into the afterlife.
* * * *
No. Not after everything they had endured. The gods couldn’t be so unjust. Not Sorsha. Not his Herd Mistress, his little mane ornament. She couldn’t die. “Sorsha…” His voice broke as an agony unlike anything he’d ever dreamed washed across his heart, mind, and soul.
She didn’t respond. With a growing sense of horror, he realized she was limp in his arms, her chest no longer rising and falling with life. A scream burrowed up out of his chest, long and full of anguish. In his desperation, he called out to his sire and dam, to Neveyah the Herd Mistress, to any healer close enough to hear and feel his anguish. But even as he screamed for help, another rational part of his mind said that death could not be healed.
As his legs folded under him, he allowed Sorsha’s weight to pull him to the ground until he slumped next to her body. He held her, rocking back and forth with great gentleness. Her skin was cold under his hands.
How could she be so cold already?
His benumbed mind was trying to understand when nearby shadows spat out a smallish figure, his tattered, blood-spattered robes swirling around him. The acolyte looked upon Shadowdancer unblinkingly. They stared at each other, neither making a sound, but he felt the soft tug deep inside as the acolyte started to feed.
Slowly, Shadowdancer lowered Sorsha’s head and shoulders to rest upon the ground, her hair arrayed around her like a dark shadow. He staggered to regain his footing, swaying under the combination of physical and emotional weakness. With slow, jerking motions, the acolyte wordlessly raised his crossbow.
Screaming a challenge, Shadowdancer charged, uncaring if he died—as long as the acolyte died with him.
Pain ripped through his arm as blood sprayed in an arch behind him, wetting one flank with a hot, damp heat. The wound didn’t slow him though, and he plowed onward, into the surprised acolyte. This one was young, not much more than a boy. He slammed into the human, pinning him to a tree, and then closed his fingers around the human’s fragile neck. Muscles flexed, veins corded with the strength of his rage. He’d failed Sorsha. Killing this acolyte wouldn’t bring her back, but mindless rage engulfed him and demanded retribution.
At first he didn’t feel it—then he noticed the chill where his hands wrapped around the acolyte’s neck.
Even as Shadowdancer strangled the life out of the poor creature, the slave still tried to feed his master magic. With a savage motion full of disgust and revulsion, Shadowdancer tossed the small body on the ground.
The boy looked back with a bl
ank look, still siphoning Shadowdancer’s power. With a snort of absolute rage, Shadowdancer reared up and brought his hooves down upon that unblinking stare. Again and again, Shadowdancer battered the body until gore and blood slicked the ground. Copper scent coiled in his nose and throat, nausea swirled through his belly.
“Shadowdancer?”
A vaguely familiar female voice encroached upon his private moment of madness.
The muscles in his haunches tensed. He pawed the ground. Sorsha was gone—dead by this acolyte’s hand. His eyes flicked over the body, now so much bloody meat. He raised a hoof and struck out again.
“Shadowdancer, stop.”
But he couldn’t. The pain was too great; no one and nothing else mattered.
“Come away. Sorsha would not want to see you like this.” Queen Marsolwyn edged up beside him, her calm expression taking in his new form with minimal shock. “Let one of the healers see to your wounds.”
“No.” He barely recognized his own voice, broken as it was from his screams. He hobbled over to Sorsha, and stood with his hooves planted on either side of her broken body. Instinct demanded it. His befogged mind didn’t understand why, but he would stand over her until he bled out from his wounds if he had to.
Marsolwyn edged closer. “We’ve routed the rest of the acolytes. No one can hurt Sorsha now. Let my people take care of her body.”
“No.” He shook his head in denial. His entire body quaked, and he locked his legs to keep himself upright. No one would touch Sorsha. He had to protect her. Keep her safe so she… so she…
When a commotion came up behind him, Shadowdancer whirled to face the new threat. A jet-black santhyrian galloped up the slope, halting in shock at the scene before him.
“My son?” Darkmoon took a hesitant stride forward.
Shadowdancer lashed his tail in warning, and Darkmoon skidded to a halt again.
“She’s beyond our help now, my son. The gods have her. Come away and let us take care of her body.”
In Deception's Shadow Box Set: Book 1-3 Page 53