“Thunder,” I yelled. “Shadow!”
Behind me, Tor sent his horse clattering up the narrow pass, dragging the reluctant mule behind him. I dared a swift glance away from the lion to see him safely away with the precious pack, though sagging dangerously, still clinging to the mule’s saddle. Safe, all of them, and clear of the lion and its menace. The mule’s rear quarters vanished into the blizzard and left me alone with a starving lion.
Cheated of its prize, the lion snarled again, its round ears flat against its head. It coiled itself into launch position, clearing thinking I made a very satisfying substitute for haunch of mule. For I, smaller than it was, appeared helpless and vulnerable; separated from the herd. No doubt, it had no idea my sword held any danger to its life. I hoped I’d be proving the beast quite wrong.
It tensed. I braced myself, reading its intent to spring, down and out, its fangs reaching for my throat as its claws ripped open my guts. Come on, I breathed, my own body crouched and ready. Let’s dance.
The lion leaped, just as I expected it would. Just as I planned, my sword slid deep between its ribs and into its beating heart. I may have killed it, but it still thought it held the upper paw. I swung my head sharply sideways. Its fangs missed my throat and buried themselves deep into my jacket over my right shoulder. Front claws raked my coat into ribbons while its hind claws ripped into my legs.
Helpless, I fell backward with the lion’s heavy weight on top of me. It still hadn’t realized it was dead. Growls filled my ears as the lion tore into my thick hide jacket. My sword, still buried deep, kept most of the beast’s blood still inside it’s body. Once I pulled it out, the heart’s purple blood would gush in torrents. But its weight pinned my arm across my chest, leaving me unable to yank my sword from it and complete the kill. It bled to death, internally, its heart speared though. Its brain still thought it lived, and it struggled to kill and survive. As a result, my jacket and pants received a new onslaught from four sets of wicked claws. I felt my bones creak under the pressure of those deadly fangs.
“Ly’Tana!” Bar screamed. “I’m coming.”
Don’t, I tried to reply. The storm will kill you.
But my words didn’t form with any cohesive thought. Nor were they conveyed to their target. A deep rumbling resounded throughout the canyon. Above the howling blizzard, I heard a noise resembling the roar Rygel used while in his dragon form. Under my back, the granite pass vibrated, breaking the ice covering the rocks into slivers. What the–
Behind the lion’s huge shoulders, I watched as the canyon shook in the same fashion when a cat breaks the rat’s neck. At first I thought it an earthquake, the same that nearly killed me at the river. But its similarities ended there. A wall of snow cascaded down from the high peak above and born down upon me with a hundred times the power of the river.
Avalanche.
I had time for one brief thought–I’m dead–before it hit.
As helpless as a cork on the tide, I tumbled ass over crown, the lion’s jaws still locked onto my shoulder. The full force of the ice and snow snapped the lion’s back and finished what I’d started. My thoughts as out of control as our bodies, I’d no ability to appreciate that the lion took the brunt of the avalanche and saved my life. Tons of snow speeding downhill faster than Shardon’s best gallop took me with it, my body now atop the dead lion’s. Skidding along, I rode it as a child might a sled, bumping over rocks; both live and dead trees were smashed into kindling under the white assault.
The lion hit the group of tallish rocks first. With the unrivaled force of the avalanche behind it, it flipped up and over, casting me with it, over the tops. I hit the snow hard, on my back, my breath gone. The lion’s corpse, broken and smashed, fell atop me, my sword still caught within its chest. Still rumbling with a guttural roar, the tide of snow, ice, busted trees and stones washed over and around the rock pile, burying me and the dead cat under it. Pinned, crushed under the weight of a hillside, I gasped for breath, snow filling my eyes, ears, nose and mouth.
The mountain vibrated under me, the avalanche cascading down into the river far below. It no longer took me with it, carrying me along to drop me into the rocky gorge. I felt more and more snow and debris piled high over my sheltering rocks, entombing me further from the light and the air. Crushed, imprisoned in my icy grave, I struggled to find some breath, any breath at all, to fill my lungs. Desperate, I freed my left arm from beneath the lion and brushed snow and ice from my face. My right still lay trapped with my hand caught between the hilt and the dead cat.
Long moments, an eternity for me, passed before the vibration and the distant rumbling died away. Coughing, snorting, my mitten cleared some ice from my face and I drew in a ragged breath. Ah, much better. Though I saw nothing, I knew my chin lay against the lion’s tawny shoulder and its big head sheltered my face from the tons of snow from above. A precious air pocket, I gathered, breathing in slowly, shallowly. I don’t want to use it all within minutes. For minutes might be all I had.
Oddly enough, I felt–warm. I stifled a giggle when I realized why. The corpse, broken open in the avalanche’s grip, spilled warm blood all over my torso and upper legs. Damn, but didn’t that lion come in handy. Just because its dead didn’t mean it wasn’t useful. Bugger saved my life not once but twice.
“Ly’Tana!” screamed Bar.
“I’m here,” I replied. “But I don’t know where here is.”
“I’m flying over the slide but I can’t find you.”
“Don’t. You’ll kill yourself. In that wind.”
“I don’t care. Yell. Make some noise.”
I didn’t have the breath. I dared not waste what little air I had in yelling. “I can’t. Where are the others? Kel’Ratan? Rygel?”
“Coming, but they’re floundering in all that loose snow. Can’t you hear them?”
“No, I can’t. Where’s Thunder? Digger?”
Bar paused, perhaps looking around, scoping through the blizzard for my wolf friends. “I think–yes, I see them! All of them, they’re able to get across the slide better than the humans.”
“Tell them–“
Bar couldn’t tell them anything. He didn’t speak wolf and they didn’t speak griffin. How then could I communicate on how to find me? For if they didn’t dig me out within a few minutes, I’d suffocate. Already my air pocket grew smaller, the air staler. My head spun slightly, informing me that the air I breathed turned noxious. I breathed in my own exhales, which would kill me very quickly. How then–
Silverruff.
He screamed my name when Rygel attacked me in the desert. I heard him. In that moment, we shared a mind link. However brief it lasted, it was there and real. Perhaps it’s threads hadn’t vanished entirely. If I heard him, then maybe if I screamed loud enough, he might hear me.
“Search for the scent of blood,” I called with every fiber of my mental strength, Silverruff’s image captured within my mind’s eye. “Seek blood. Find me.”
Exhausted, dizzy and nauseous, I rested my head against an ice clod and shut my eyes. Although not exactly in pain, my body felt bent and sprung in a hundred places. The lion’s blood cooled more quickly than I liked and shivers racked me as though sending tiny bolts of lightning though my skin. If Silverruff hadn’t heard me, I’d die within a few minutes. I’d never know when I died. I’ll simply go to sleep and not wake up.
Sleep taunted me, beckoning with dark hands. How could I refused such an invitation? I really am very tired. I’ll sleep for just a minute or two. No real harm in that, I reasoned. I need the strength a short nap will bring me. I drifted on a tide of poisoned air and false warmth.
“Stay awake, dammit!” Bar snapped inside my head. “Don’t you dare go to sleep.”
I jolted awake, and rubbed my frozen left mitten over my face. Bar was right. If I slept, I’d die.
“Did Silverruff hear me?”
“I don’t know,” Bar answered, his tone slow. “I see them, they’re still nosing around the
avalanche slide. They’re searching, but the deep snow is hampering them.”
“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what’s happening. It’ll help me stay awake.”
“They’ve scattered in a wide area,” Bar replied. “I can’t circle, the wind is too strong, but I fly back and forth.”
“Where are my boys?”
“I can see only Kel’Ratan, Rygel and Alun. They’re waist deep, moving too slowly. But they can go downhill easier than uphill, and they’re poking with long sticks. The others might also be searching, but I can’t see them.”
“They hope to hit me.”
“Right. Can’t you tell me how far you slid?”
I thought for a moment. “No. It happened too fast. But I hit some big rocks. Maybe they stick up higher than the snow.”
For a long moment, I heard only silence. Then Bar’s dubious voice resounded in my head. “I’m seeing nothing. But–“
“But?”
“The wolves. They’re running in a group. Like they caught a scent–“
“The scent of blood.”
“Yes! They’re digging. And so am I.”
Bar’s voice dropped from within my head. Though all I heard was the tiny creaks and hissing of the snow and ice that buried me alive, I relaxed. They found me. I’m saved. Drifting once more, I sought the deadly embrace of sleep.
“No!” Bar screeched, his mental voice jarring me awake. “Even if we found the right place, it’ll take too long to dig you out. Stay with me, girl. Don’t you dare sleep.”
“I’m so tired,” I replied, feeling drained and utterly spent. “Can’t I rest, for a minute?”
“I’m not losing you to some egotistical, lunatic god out for his own entertainments. You die, I die. Want my death on your conscience?”
I roused instantly. “God?”
“This is Usa’a’mah’s devising, I’ll warrant. Put me in a closed room with him. Please. An hour is all I need.”
I stifled a chuckle. “I’d pay good gold to see that.”
“Then stay awake and stay alive.”
“What would you do?”
“With that fat, dumb and happy bastard?”
“Uh, huh.”
“Get medieval on his divine ass. Wrap his entrails on a spindle and crank. Turn his face inside out so he can see his guts spinning and then for good measure crush every bone in his body and watch him piece them together again like a super jigsaw puzzle.”
“You’re so cute when you’re vindictive.”
“Cute my furry butt. Can you hear us?”
I couldn’t cock my head, but I did listen intently. Was that scratching I heard, from high above? Or was it merely the snow settling? “I–I’m not sure.”
“These wolves got frantic all of a sudden, digging like crazy. I can smell blood, but it’s not yours.”
“From the lion.”
“Lion? What–we’ve dug a crater the size of a barn, but these smashed trees keep getting in the way.”
“Are Kel’Ratan and Rygel–what are they doing?”
“Digging also. All of us except Arianne, Yuri, Yuras and Tor. I expect they’re minding the horses.”
“I still can’t hear anything.”
My mind grew muzzy, and I drifted despite Bar’s voice in my head demanding I remain awake. Raine wandered into my vision, carrying his head in his hands. His weird eyes winked at me as he smiled and said, “Hullo, luv.” I bolted awake, jarring my face against the lion’s open mouth, my heart beating thickly in my chest. “Bar?”
“Hang on, girl. We’ve dug down almost eight feet, and I can smell you now. Stay with me just a few more minutes.”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“I know, baby, don’t give up on me. I haven’t worked all these years to keep you alive to lose you to that monster.”
Despite his encouragement, unconsciousness hovered in the wings. Though I tried to fight it off, it crept in, on stealthy paws, to carry me down into its cold embrace. Raine, his belly gaping wide in a red grin, poked at the bushes with his sword. “I lost my guts,” he said, his tone conversational. “Can you help me find them?”
Raine, I tried to say.
He glanced up. “Oh, I’m dead, my love. Didn’t you know? Sorry and all that, but I did my best.”
You can’t be dead. I have to find you.
“Oh, there they are.”
Raine lifted a bloody mass of entrails from the ground and casually stuffed them into his belly, dirt and twigs added. “No worries, got them back. Carry on, I’ll see you soon.”
Where? I cried as he turned to walk away, sword in hand and trailing filthy intestine. He turned back, frowning slightly. “In hell, of course. I’m dead and you’re rather tardy, luv, though I meant no criticism.”
I don’t want to die.
Raine sighed, clearly put upon. A scar on his cheek grew in size and strength, ripping his face from his eye to his chin in a gaping rent. No blood oozed from the terrible wound, though the small scar over his eye bled profusely. “Much too late for that, dear. You’re as dead as I.”
My soul, racked with the sobs I couldn’t voice, broke apart, in agony. Raine is dead. I want to die. I need to be with him.
Sudden light pierced the fog within my brain. Shadowy figures moved amid its white rays–ethereal phantoms shrouded in brightness. What were they? Who were they? Ghosts in truth? Perhaps the spirits of my ancestors arrived to escort me to the other side? Of course. I’m dead, and Raine is dead. They came to take me to him. Joy filled my aching heart, banishing all fears and earthly worries. The dead had no further need of those petty concerns the living struggled with–pain, fear, hatred, revenge, happiness or quite simply all the successes or failures life had to offer. All that faded into unimportance. Death–the ultimate freedom.
“I see her!”
“Where’d that effing lion come from?”
“Bar, grab that tree trunk. No, that one, dammit, can’t you see its pinning her down?”
“Ly’Tana!”
Voices spoke as though from a long distance away. I almost recognized them as they seemed familiar, but I tuned them out. On the black tide, I walked into the light. Raine was in the light. I knew it, I felt it. With Raine, I’d no reason to fear. Great love, true love, transcended all human frailties or strengths. Within the light, all that remained of our earthly bodies was joy. Deep inside its warmth, all would be made well and whole again. I reached my hand toward that light– desperate, craving it, needing it.
“Rygel, do something. We’re losing her.”
“She’s too white, too pale. Her lips are blue.”
“I know, dammit, she’s been without air too long. Little Bull, Silverruff, drag that bloody corpse off her, I don’t care how, just get it out.”
Hands, warm hands, touched me. They lifted me, carrying me, hurrying me toward the light. I’m ready. Take me to my love.
“Oh, you aren’t getting off that easy,” a deep voice in my ear growled.
Though I knew that voice, the name attached to it escaped me. I dismissed it, and continued my journey toward the light. Raine waved from within its bright folds, welcoming me. I’m home.
“Not on my watch, you don’t,” the obstinate voice snapped. “You don’t die until I say you die.”
White-hot fire suddenly coursed through me. I arched my back as spasm after spasm ripped through my body. Sheet lightning lanced through the blackness surrounding my mind, sparking lights colored greens, golds, yellows and reds behind my eyes. I groaned. The light I reached for receded rapidly, taking Raine with it.
No!
Like a star, it gleamed with a tiny pinprick of light and as distant before it vanished. I tried to scream, to run, to find it, to find Raine. Raine was behind the light, he was dead, I can’t live without him, we’re both dead and we’ll live forever, together. Without the light, blackness descended. I stumbled on, calling, hopeless, searching for Raine, lost within a deep, dark wilderness. Alone. Forsaken.
A voice whispered in the darkness. As light and soft as a summer breeze soughing across the heather, it breathed my name. I hesitated, turning around, searching for the source of the voice. I heard the softest rustle, as though a tiny bird, a dove perhaps, winged by just out of earshot. From the corner of my eye, I saw something flutter. When I turned to see it fully, it wasn’t there. I knew I wasn’t alone, yet, oddly, I felt no fear. Whatever the presence was, I knew it meant me no harm.
The faintest of touches caressed my cheek. When I spun around, I saw nothing. Again, I felt a finger, a hand, alight upon my hair. Again, I turned, searching for the source and found nobody. Come out, I tried to say. Please. The dark flutter brushed past the corner of my eye. When I turned, it was gone. Seeking, walking forward where I remembered the light had glowed, I held my arms out. Half-hoping, half-fearing I’d stumble into something, I wandered on.
Something moved in the darkness at the furthest edge of my vision. When I walked toward it, the feather-touch stroked my brow. I spun again, searching, peering into the absolute darkness.
“It’s not your time, Beloved,” the voice murmured from the depths. “Go home, child.”
“But–I’m home now,” I tried to reply, but no words fell past my lips.
“It’s not your time.”
“No–”
“Your work is not yet finished.”
The fire surged through my body again, yanking me back from the brink. I gasped, feeling both bone-chilled cold and hotter than the flames of hell. Voices babbled, incoherent, as bright light pierced my closed eyes. One voice drowned them all, as a shadow loomed over me, dimming the light.
“It’s not your time,” it said.
Let me go, I tried to say, struggling against the grip that held me down, held me to the life I no longer wanted. Raine was dead. Please, let me go.
“Wake up, Ly’Tana,” the voice said. “It’s not your time.”
Strong arms lifted me, holding me tight, the babble of voices slowing, quieting. I blinked rapidly against the harsh light, against the snow that blew into them. My starved lungs drew in ragged gasps. The fire abruptly departed, leaving me ice cold and shivering. Rygel, sweat trickling down his cheek despite the harsh wind and chill of the howling blizzard, quirked his upper lip in a smile. His face, framed by his hood and the wild mane of hair that escaped it, gradually lost the pale nimbus I associated with his healing.
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