by Tara Janzen
A shouted order from up ahead announced the pack’s arrival in a cavern. When a call came for ropes, she knew exactly which cavern they’d reached and lost another measure of hope. The cave was small and emptied out onto the Wall by way of a treacherously steep chimney of rock. Other tunnels led out of it, though she knew not to where. She and Shay had once made the chimney descent without ropes, a feat beyond the ability of any skraeling. Halfway down, she’d feared it was beyond her’s and Shay’s ability as well, but if continuing down had seemed overwhelmingly difficult, going back up had been impossible. They’d made it to the bottom of the abyss, but just barely. Even with ropes, Lacknose was bound to lose a few of his less agile soldiers. With her slung over the Dark-elf’s shoulder, her chances were little better than the clumsiest skraeling’s.
By the time she and Frey reached the cave’s entrance, over half of the skraelings had descended the chimney—some too quickly and to no good end. The deaths had created confusion in the cavern. The Troll King’s soldiers milled about the ropes, looking into the abyss and grumbling. Lacknose was already down. She could see the faint light of her dreamstone reflecting up the chimney and keenly felt its loss.
Ratskin had loosed a whip from his belt and was using it to herd the remainder of the skraelings over the edge. Each crack of the braided leather ended in a grunt or a squeal, and above the stench of the pack, Llynya could smell the scent of fear taking over the cavern. Frey, too, must have sensed the growing resistance, for he lifted his yellow dreamstone and shouted above the din, “Grazch! Kle, drak, dhon, vange!”
A few of the skraelings responded to the order to form up, until Ratskin snapped his whip at them as well. With the abyss threatening on one side and Ratskin on the other, anarchy found a foothold in the middle.
Frey tried again to hold the line against chaos. “Grazch!” he shouted, spreading more dreamstone light over the cavern by climbing a boulder. Shafts of golden luminescence cut through the flickering torchlight and clouds of smoke, and a more motley troop Llynya had ne’er seen—rough, and smelly, and undisciplined.
From their new vantage point, she and Frey were among the first to hear the terrible cry that rang out from the tunnel behind them. ’Twas fearful and sudden, and cut unnaturally short. The Dark-elf turned toward the sound, and Llynya had to peek under his arm to see what was happening. She feared some dread cavern beast or a troll was coming upon them.
Of the skraelings still in the tunnel, half turned back with their weapons drawn. ’Twas a beast then, she surmised, thinking they would not draw on a troll. She tried to wiggle free and was squeezed all the harder by Frey. Sticks! She was going to die if she couldn’t escape.
The other skraelings in the tunnel joined the melee forming on the cavern floor.
“Grazch!” Frey shouted to no avail, trying to organize the newcomers. Without Lacknose to rule it, the skraelpack was degenerating into an unruly mob.
Llynya struggled and kicked and tried to work the rag out of her mouth. If Frey dropped her, could she squirm her way into one of the other tunnels to hide? There would be some sharp rock somewhere for her to cut through her bonds.
At the clashing of swords and another skraeling voice cut off in midcry, she ceased her struggles.
Swords? Her ears pricked up. No cavern beast carried a sword. Mayhaps Trig had come for her after all.
The influx of new soldiers quickly overfilled the cavern with pushing and shoving skraelings and harsh words backed by sharp blades. Three more were sent over the edge without the benefit of a rope, and a groundswell of panic blossomed inside the cave.
Frey muttered a foul curse under his breath and called for Ratskin to come take his burden.
Llynya cursed too, though none could hear it, and she struggled anew when the transfer was made. The echoing clangs of steel striking steel grew louder behind her, her only hope. Then even that was taken from her. Ratskin hauled her over his shoulder and headed for another tunnel as Frey descended into the melee, shouting his orders for the ranks to form up. Ratskin gestured for two skraelings to follow him through the dark portal he’d chosen, and with a dread beyond terror, Llynya knew she would be denied the clean death of a hero.
After the chaos of the cavern, the tunnel seemed unnaturally quiet. She could plainly hear the skraelings’ grunts and snuffles and Ratskin’s labored breathing. They sped along the corridor, as if the Dark-elf knew he had not much time for his wicked deed.
The walls of the tunnel were not purely solid, but riven with a strange tracery of cracks, some large, some small. Piles of dirt and stones from the making of those cracks littered the floor of the passageway along with trails of tua droppings. An odd, musty smell filled the tunnel, but with a pungent edge she’d not noted in tua droppings before. The lizards themselves skittered here and there and all over. She’d not seen so many in one place, but she remembered from her and Shay’s expedition that the little-used passages beyond Dripshank were their homeground. The onslaught of the skraelings must have chased them all into this one section.
At a fork in the trail, Ratskin called a halt and dropped her to the ground. She lay in the curve of stone where the tunnel wall met the floor, watching, but not fighting—not yet, though her heart was racing. Her legs were tied at her thighs, calves, and ankles, with the rope around her ankles also tethering her feet to her bound wrists. Her arms had been securely tied to her sides, leaving her little maneuvering room. Ratskin was going to have to cut more than one set of her bindings to get the satisfaction he sought. Skraeling guards or nay, each rope he cut would bring her closer to freedom.
He barked an order for the two skraelings to hold her. The soldiers grabbed her and held her back against the rock wall. Their bulky bodies blocked all but flickers of Ratskin’s yellow dreamstone light. She heard the Dockalfar whispering under his breath, his excitement growing, and a cold knot formed in her belly. She’d see him dead. She swore it by the gods and the trees.
The sound of running feet came to her from back in the tunnel, but she had no hope that it was other than more skraelings. Their hue and cry was getting louder in the cavern, and cowards that they all were, she expected that some would attempt to desert rather than dare the chimney, especially since two of their kind had already come this way.
Ratskin was tearing at his clothes, muttering about the disgusting things he’d soon do to her. If the swords she’d heard in the other tunnel had come for her, she feared they would be too late.
She drew her feet in close as if that could save her from the Dark-elf’s vile intent, and a tua ran over her toes, then another and another. A new light, rushing noise entered the passage, softly, like a wind from the west. Five more of the lizards streaked over her feet, their tiny steps all together making the breezy sound. She stayed perfectly still, even when a half-dozen skittered up her legs and perched on her knees, and three others did the same on her shoulder. Five more raced up her hip and darted across her lap.
She had naught against tua, and they were not wont to bite, but she’d ne’er been in a swarm of them. Three more skimmed up her right arm and ran down her left. Their closeness didn’t worry her, but the sudden increase in numbers did. Something was terribly wrong to put them all on the run.
She looked to the far tunnel wall, peering between the two brutes holding her, and a different edge of panic seeped into her veins. Hundreds of the small beasts were pouring out of the cracks, falling down the walls and over each other in their haste to get away.
Away from something behind them in the rock.
Another dozen streaked over her, heading for the southside fork in the trail—none for the north.
“Beli... Beli... Beli,” she murmured, her eyes widening as the next wave of tua gushed out of the walls. The signal to flee had been sent, a primitive pulse that every lizard sensed. Couldn’t the skraelings see what was happening around them?
Ratskin’s daggers clattered to the tunnel floor when he dropped his belt, and Llynya calculated f
rom the sound where each one had fallen. The closest was next to her left hip.
But even if she had them all, it wouldn’t be enough to save her from whatever was coming.
Without warning, one of the skraelings slumped against her and near crushed the breath from her lungs. The other skraeling lunged to his feet, but was taken by an arrow through the throat and fell back against the wall.
Ratskin swore and reached for her, but he had no sooner moved than his right hand was caught by an iron star and pinned to the wall next to her head. He screamed, and Llynya ducked, her heart pounding. On either side of her, the skraelings were groaning in their death throes. Above her, the iron star hummed from the throw that had impaled the Dark-elf.
Shadana, she thought. No Quicken-tree she knew could pierce rock with an iron star. She wiggled partway from underneath the miserable, dying skraelings, trying to see around Ratskin, and noted with an odd curling sensation in her stomach that the tua were gone, all of them.
Not so the daggers. She grabbed the closest and sliced through the rope binding her wrists to her ankles, then set about freeing her legs. That done, she started to push herself up, hand raised to slice Ratskin’s middle with the pearl-handled blade, but she stopped in midstrike, alerted by a subtle change in the air.
She cast a wary glance toward the main passage, peering beyond the skraelings and Ratskin. With the stealth of a falcon in full swoop, another iron star whistled out of the darkness, then another, and another, all of them skimming by her to catch Ratskin and impale him against the wall. Each impact resounded with the Dark-elf’s disbelieving scream and the solid thud of iron sinking into rock.
Llynya scrambled for the other daggers.
Ratskin’s screams transformed into vicious curses. Agony contorted his face. He tried to free himself, but every jerk and tug did naught but increase his pain. His dreamstone dagger lay to the south, its light glinting off the rivulets of blood running down his body and throwing macabre yellow-tinged shadows up on the wall.
The guttural cry of “Aetheling! Find the aetheling!” echoed from the cavern, and Llynya knew Frey had discovered her disappearance. The clatter of half a horde of skraelings coming after her filled the tunnel.
Flee, was her only thought, but before she could push herself free of the two dead skraelings, she was caught. A hand reached down through the tumble of bodies and hauled her to her feet.
She knew. In an instant she knew, even before she smelled him or saw the fall of golden hair, ’twas Mychael pulling her to his side.
With a quick, upward stroke, he slit Ratskin’s throat, silencing the Dark-elf’s screams. His next strike cut the last of her bonds. Then he released her and sheathed his knife to nock an arrow into his bow.
“What’s the best way out of here?” he asked, his breathing ragged, his attention on the small pouch he was ripping from his belt. He skewered the pouch with the arrow and a burst of lavender and roses suffused the air.
“To the south,” she said, recognizing the simple she’d given him.
He nodded once, then drew his bow and sent the bag of flowers flying into the north tunnel. Petals fluttered from the rent in the cloth, laying a false trail for the rapidly approaching skraelings.
He grabbed her and made to run, but was too late. The pack was nearly upon them. The south tunnel ran straight for a quarterlan; they would be spotted before they could make the first bend in the trail. He turned instead to a large crack on the northside wall and pushed her toward it. The only thing worse Llynya could think of was to be recaptured by the skraelings.
Swearing silently to herself, she dashed to retrieve Ratskin’s dreamstone and her sword, then in she went, pushing deep to make room for Mychael. The wisdom of the course was proved when a skraeling passed the opening at almost the same moment that Mychael climbed in behind her. She shoved Ratskin’s dagger inside her tunic, praying that the wavering light of the skraeling’s torch had hidden the crystal’s fading glow.
They would know soon enough.
For a crack, their hiding place was generous, but still no more than a tear in the rock. She and Mychael were jammed together at the farthest end they could reach, both of them breathing heavily, the smell of blood and fear swirling around them.
Outside, the skraeling disappeared without so much as a glance in their direction, assurance that he’d not seen the light. Relief flooded through Llynya, sweet, weakening relief. Her knees buckled, and Mychael caught her to him, his arm encircling her waist and pulling her close. ’Twas not a good time for tears, but they came, hot and wet, sliding down her cheeks as she clung to him—so like a maid, so unlike a warrior.
Ratskin was dead.
Mychael had saved her.
She’d thought never to see him again, never to be with him again. She’d avoided him after their tryst in the forest, not trusting herself to be strong enough to walk away a second time. His kisses had touched her too deeply. His desire had aroused her own too quickly, and the sense of completion she’d found in his arms had been too profound. ’Twas the one thing she had no room for in her life, for she knew ’twas the one thing that could sway her from her course—the blossoming of desire into love.
Yet he was here with her now, and she would not let him go again.
More of the enemy piled up in the passage with Frey in their midst, shouting and swearing. It wasn’t the loss of Ratskin he bewailed, but the loss of her. The aetheling. Slott’s supper. She trembled anew each time the Dark-elf called her such, and each time, Mychael pulled her closer. Closer ’til she felt his every breath in the rise and fall of his chest. Closer ’til her senses were filled with him, the scent and wonder of him—and the heat.
Too much heat.
She looked up, wiping at her tears. He was still watching the tunnel, his face drawn in dark, beautiful lines, the flashes of passing torchlight casting him in harsh shadows that deepened the angles of his cheekbones and turned the stripe in his hair to molten copper.
With her other hand, she touched his left side, where he was scarred, and she knew immediately what ferocity had impaled Ratskin to solid stone—dragonfire. Mychael’s body was alive with it, his muscles hardened in the flames of it. He flinched under even her gentle touch, but she did nor remove her hand. Rather, she slipped it beneath his tunic and pressed harder, trying to absorb some of the heat into herself.
“Sticks,” she muttered. ’Twas a hopeless tactic, a skill beyond her training, and he’d destroyed the simple she’d given him.
Outside in the forked passageway, Frey took the bait of the northern tunnel and ordered the pack to march. Torches moved across the face of the crack, filling the opening with alternate bands of light and darkness, and Llynya dared to hope. If whatever had terrified the tua did not attack them from behind before the skraelpack was gone, they might yet escape.
When the last torch passed, Mychael turned from watching the passage and locked his gaze onto her. ’Twas fierce and unnaturally bright. Instinct compelled her to retreat, despite the rock wall at her back, but his arm tightened around her.
He was wild, aright, wilder than even Rhuddlan knew. The truth of it burned like a living flame in his eyes.
With a deliberateness she didn’t at first understand, he brought his hand to her brow and drew one finger down the middle of her face to the tip of her nose. Still holding her gaze, he traced the curve of one eyebrow, arcing the line across her temple and down her cheek to the center of her chin—and with that sinuous caress, his meaning became clear. Warmth suffused her. Her pulse raced, though not with fear. Lastly, he smoothed his thumb across her lips, gently, from one side of her mouth to the other.
’Twas the silent language of a Liosalfar warrior, and his words were simple—you... are... mine.
“Aye,” she whispered, knowing the truth of it down to the core of her being. She was his.
He touched her mouth once more, then bent his head to kiss her, to take the prize he’d won. She welcomed him with parted lips,
rising against him and melting into his embrace. The Druid boy was her love, and she would have him.
He smelled of blood and the fight, and of time and the forest, and she accepted it all, let all that was Mychael flow through her senses. He smelled of desire, the path of mystery into enchantment. She would take him there again, into the enchantment they had made, and show him wonders no mortal man had yet imagined.
Aye, when his mouth moved over hers, she longed for the chance to make him hers forever. She would bind him with spells, and potions, and soft words of love, and in the binding, herself be bound to his dragon’s heart.
Chapter 21
Mychael and Llynya stopped at the end of the southern tunnel, both of them breathing hard from their long run. Thousands of tua had stopped with them and clung to the walls all around, their delicate, pale throats pumping, their smoothly eyeless heads bobbing. Like the cavern far behind them, the tunnel emptied out onto the Magia Wall via a sheer, vertical drop through a hole in the floor. Four times on their run, she and Mychael had fought their way through a dense infestation of the cave lizards, only to have the little buggers overtake them in a panicked wave and alight a quarterlan ahead of them. Now there was no place left to run.
They’d lost Frey and his skraelpack, and for that Llynya was grateful, but they were far from safe. She had only to look to the tua to know that. Tension skittered like chain lightning between the small reptiles, and Lacknose was somewhere on the Wall with skraelings of his own.
“What drives them?” Mychael begged to know. He fell back against the wall with a pained gasp, one hand wrapped around his middle. Tua scattered in all directions.
Sweat beaded his brow. Exhaustion lined his face, and Llynya wished they dared stop long enough for him to rest.