“Let me take the shot.”
“I have a plan.” If only the pursuers would give him a few moments peace to enact it. “A little ways ahead there’s a door, behind it a set of stairs cuts into the heart of the mountain itself. That tunnel leads up to the plateau where the temple resides. That stairway is ancient, and still intact, but barely. If we can summon enough magic to destabilize the tunnel, we might be able to cause a small cave in and block the only quick way to reach the temple. It will take the Acolytes some time to clear away the mess and follow us.”
Sorsha put her arrow back in the quiver. “Any plan that keeps them off our backs for a little while longer is a good one.”
By mutual consent, they made their way up the trail in a mad gallop, only stopping once they stood before the great maw of the mountain stairway. Sorsha glanced within, and then made a little gesture with her arm. “Lead on.”
He shook his head. “You first.”
“You’re trying to protect me, again. We’re equals. Even the Oracle said as much. If we die, we die together.”
“Get moving. We need to be deeper inside the tunnel before I start weaving the spell of destruction.” Seeing her dark look, he summoned a mage globe and sent it ahead of them to illuminate the darkness. “Follow that. Argue later.”
“You bet. Words later.” She leaned into him so fast he only had a moment to register the feel of warm lips pressed against his before her heat was pulling away. “Just make sure your big hairy ass is right behind me before the ceiling starts to come down. I don’t want to find out later you were caught in your own trap. When I get to the afterlife, I’ll never let you hear the end of it. I promise.”
“I know, and a Stonemantle never breaks a promise.” He chuckled, surprised he could still find humor, even now. “Now go. Hurry. This tunnel, it’s long, but eventually leads up to the plateau. You’ll be able to see the temple from there. Soon as I set the spell, I’ll be right behind you.”
With a sharp nod, she trotted up the tunnel. He split his attention between watching her as she vanished into the gloom and summoning power for the spell. Once he judged Sorsha was a safe distance away from where he planned to bring down a portion of the ceiling, he focused on the immediate terrain, looking for weaknesses in the stone above him. While the tunnel had been cut directly into the mountain, and been spelled to prevent collapse, the magic was very old.
His senses stretched outward from his body, expanding to encompass the surrounding stone. After a moment’s probing he found a fault in the rock above his head. His Larnkin stirred within, its thoughts touched his. Even as Shadowdancer wanted to protect Sorsha, his Larnkin was determined to protect her as well, the other half of his soul.
He backed up the passageway in the same direction Sorsha had gone, putting distance between himself and the section of ceiling he wanted to bring down.
Drawing in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and surrendered. Power surged out from his body, a wellspring of potent magic flowing out of him into the surrounding stone. At his Larnkin’s wordless command, magic sank into a fault in the rock. To Shadowdancer’s inner eye, it looked like water flowing into a crevice. Deeper the magic searched, following the fissures higher into the mountain. There it pooled with a growing intensity. Heat bloomed. Rock turned molten. Under his hooves the ground shifted. Shadowdancer’s Larnkin prodded him into motion. He spun around, taking the same path Sorsha had, but at a mad gallop, scrambling over the heaving ground.
Behind him a large chunk of the ceiling sheered off. Intense thunderous sound assaulted his ears. Shadowdancer stretched his stride even as a cloud of dust raced past, enveloping him in its smothering grit.
“Shadowdancer!”
Dust, thick and choking billowed up from below to roll past her hooves. It was such a small amount to herald such doom. Strong winds of the plateau were quick to blow it away.
Hot tears poured down her cheeks. She stood motionless, and called his name again, quieter this time.
Jaws locked against an overwhelming need to scream, she forced herself closer to the dark entrance in the ground from which Shadowdancer still hadn’t emerged. Her hands shook. She fisted them so hard her knuckles whitened. Why did I leave him?
The brave fool sacrificed himself.
The drumming of hooves reached her ears first, followed by a deep heaving cough.
“Shadowdancer?”
A familiar shape emerged up out of the dark stairway, one hind leg dragging on each stride as he staggered up onto level ground. Sorsha gave a cry of joy and launched herself at him.
His arms circled around her shoulders, his face buried in her hair. Warm, damp breaths puffed against the curve of her neck—it reassured her. He lived. It didn’t matter he’d scared the Stonemantle stubbornness right out of her, or if tears poured down her cheeks.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You’re alive. You scared me to death, you great idiot!” Sorsha’s mumbled words of love soothed him even as her arms tightened around his ribs so fiercely she nearly wrung a pained grunt from him. Long moments later her steely embrace loosened and she caressed his back, his sides, and down past where his human torso ended and his Santhyrian body began.
Mumbling his own words of love, he placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, and then he let his hands explore her body, checking for injury, much as she did him.
Finally, she broke away, stepping back a pace so she could continue scanning him for injuries. He let her, waiting patiently while she ran her hands down his legs, hissing in sympathy at all the minor wounds. A curse dropped from her lips when she examined his right hind leg.
It was hot, probably swelling. A sticky dampness continued to seep down his hock. He could feel heat and a deep throbbing pulse in that hoof.
“Stay put. I’ll get bandages.” Sorsha rushed over to the pack and tore at the buckles as she returned to his side. Shifting his weight off his injured leg, he closed his eyes and allowed Sorsha to work. Explicit curses alternated with soothing words of love as she worked upon him. They were in such contrast he smiled even under the circumstances.
Once Sorsha patched him up as best she could, she straightened and stood shoulder to shoulder, but didn’t further berate him for endangering his life. She allowed him his moment’s peace while he gazed upon the temple in silence. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Sorsha recounting their meager supply of fire arrows.
“Collapsing the tunnel bought us some time, a candlemark or two at most, but it won’t stop the Acolytes for long. With all those nets they have down there, they’ll have plenty to convert to rope for climbing. I bet they’re debating the fastest route to scale the cliff.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Shadowdancer said tiredly. What else could he say? It was the truth.
“Now what do we do?”
Using it as an excuse to avoid Sorsha’s question—for he didn’t have an answer—he lowered himself closer to the ground and began repacking the supplies she’d dumped in her hurry to find the bandages. Sorsha bent and started to help; all the while he could feel her staring at his down-turned face. At last, after everything was repacked to his satisfaction, he glanced up. Her eyes were bright with a sharp intensity, her expression composed. Though, the small wrinkles in her brow told of her inner battle and the cost of keeping her expression so calm.
Shadowdancer fixed her with a steady look. “I see no escape from this.”
“Well, we’re in agreement on that front.”
A wave of bitterness pounded through his blood. He had failed Sorsha, his herd, his parents, the council, and every other living creature that shared this land. “I was so close. Deep under the temple there is a circle of Ward Stones protecting what must be the Staff’s resting place. I was standing less than ten strides from it, but when I tried to cross the Wards they judged me incomplete.”
“Incomplete?”
“Because you weren’t with me, and perhaps because I don’t wear the Mark of the Twelve.”
Shadowdancer cut her off with a snort of amusement. “While listening to you insult the Ward Stone circle is certainly diverting, it isn’t going to help us with our predicament.”
“Sorry,” Sorsha mumbled without looking up. “You may have noticed I get surly when I’m scared.”
“It may have come to my attention a time or two.”
“It doesn’t help that I don’t have a plan, either. I’m almost out of arrows and we’re in no condition to fight anything stronger than a gentle breeze.” She trotted a large circle around him. An attempt to stave off stiffness creeping into fatigued muscles? Or to burn off nervousness? “Since we’re out of good plans, do you have any bad ones?”
“No,” he grunted in way of answer, his earlier doubts and sense of helplessness returning swift and vicious.
Back at his side, Sorsha placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Though I sometimes pretend otherwise, I’m not naive. I know we’re going to die.”
“No.” He wanted to comfort her, but words failed him.
“You’re a terrible liar. If we’re going to die in the next candlemark, I’d love to hear something more than ‘no’ from you before we do.”
“I love you.” He cradled her chin in his hand and tilted it up, then dropped a playful kiss upon the tip of her nose. “Better than a ‘no’?”
“Yes, actually.” Sorsha’s smile bloomed into real humor, brightening her eyes, and softening her features. It lasted a few moments before fading into a thoughtful look as she stared off into some inner, far distant place. Wondering about her thoughts, he drew breath to ask when she suddenly blinked her eyes back into focus and said, “We both agree we’re probably not going to survive this, and besides the obvious reasons, that’s not a good outcome. Even if the Oracle takes back the power it gifted to us, Trensler’s master will still grow stronger from our deaths, and then he’ll feed on the Falcon Staff.”
Shadowdancer raised a brow in question, wondering where she was going with this. They already knew what Trensler was capable of.
“But what if we died before Trensler’s men can reach us?”
He frowned. “You mean throw ourselves off the side of a mountain?”
“Not exactly.”
Inside the temple, the darkness was complete now that the sun had set. Shadowdancer spared enough power to summon one mage globe, but he relied more on memory than sight as he ran his hand along the wall, counting turns and forks in the passageway as he went. Finally, he found the opening he sought. Yes, there was the first stone step, slippery with damp and slime, and another below it, almost as bad as the first.
“Careful. We’ve come to the stairway.” Though Shadowdancer doubted he needed to warn Sorsha. She followed so close on his hooves every time he slowed or paused she’d gently bump into him. The first three times she’d knocked into him, he’d thought it was fear that kept her so close on his heels, but when he glanced back, Sorsha’s upper body was half twisted to study the darkness behind them, a fire arrow at the ready. Under normal circumstances, he’d kick out instinctively at anything that came too near and threatened to tangle or trip him up, but he actually liked having her close. He found her scent soothing in this ancient, tomb-like place.
“Do you think my plan has any hope of success?” Sorsha’s voice floated to him from out of the silence.
“Blunt honesty?”
“Always.”
“Even if we can rework the spells on the Ward Stones and siphon power from them, we’ll burn ourselves out long before we destroy the remaining pieces of the Falcon Staff. If the legends are true, even Dakdamon, the great enemy of the Twelve, couldn’t destroy the Staff, only shatter her. The Staff’s destruction is beyond us, but with luck, we might entomb her when the mountain vaporizes beneath us. Either way, your plan still has merit. And we’ll escape Trensler’s feeding.”
They continued in silence. The trip seemed to take longer this time. More likely he was at the end of his endurance. Slowly the darkness gave way to a pale bluish light. The ghostly outlines of the walls and ceiling sharpened.
“Merciful gods, I was starting to think there was no end to this tunnel.” Sorsha’s relief buoyed his own. He picked up his pace. Sorsha crowded closer, coming alongside him, obviously as eager as he to get to the end of this journey.
The dark-walled corridor widened into a vast underground chamber dominated by the twelve massive crystal pillars. Next to him, Sorsha halted with a soft gasp. He glanced back over his shoulder. Her lips parted, but no words came out, her jaw hung unmoving for a heartbeat until she gathered herself and snapped it closed.
“It’s somewhat similar to a bonding chamber, like the one below the Oracle’s Tower back at Grey Spires.”
“This seems like a rather remote location for a bonding chamber—there being no Elementals within a few days ride and all.”
“Similar—not identical. Where a bonding chamber is designed with twelve great crystal pillars to absorb and contain the immense magic given off during bonding, this chamber was created for another purpose. This one doesn’t trap or contain magic, it repels all outside magic. The first time I touched it, when the magic Ward on the pillars examined me and found me wanting, it promptly knocked me off my feet and into the nearest wall.”
“That doesn’t sound hopeful. How can we sabotage the Wards if it’s designed to repel all other magic? We don’t even know if it will let us near.”
“This Ward Stone circle was created by the Twelve, and I believe it was designed to only allow bonded pairs to pass, since traditionally the Twelve were made up of six bonded pairs.”
“You mean bondmates, like Sorntar and my sister? But we’re not a bonded pair.”
“Do you remember those nights back in River’s Divide when I was first teaching you to use your magic?”
Tilting her head at him, she dipped her chin once in ascent.
“When I first asked you to trust me, to lower your mental shields so I could guide you the first few times, there was more to my agenda than simply teaching you magic. I was sensitizing you to my power, hoping through familiarity that your Larnkin would come to favor mine—and, oh, how well it worked. I was thrilled at how compatible our Larnkin’s were. It never occurred that we might actually be more than Herd Mistress and Mage. Bondmates are rarer among the Santhyrians than the other Elemental races. I think it has something to do with the natural magic of my people. The Lupwyn and Santhyrian races are Earth and Spirit wielders. Unlike us, Phoenixes, Dragons, and Gryphons wield fire; Larnkins that command that Element are of a more powerful kind. The stronger the Larnkin, the greater the chance it will again form the bond outside the Spirit Realm.
“But the Members of the Twelve are a force outside of nature’s normal limitations and restrictions. Now that I know who and what we are, I know we would have been bondmates had our fate been different. Even though we are not bondmates, I think the Wards will recognize what we could have been. Together, it might let us pass.”
“Do I detect an ‘or’ coming?”
Sucking in a deep breath he let it out on a laugh.
“It will let us pass, or it will kill us. Me certainly, as it let me off with a warning last time. I doubt it will be so forgiving a second time.” Shadowdancer raised his hand to hover before the burning shield of power as he had once before. With a motion that mirrored his, Sorsha raised her hand into the same position.
“Oh, well, if that’s all.” Sorsha wrapped her free arm around his human waist, pressed a kiss against the slope of his shoulder, and then together they pressed their ou
tstretched hands into the pulsing energy of the Ward. On a surprised gasp, Sorsha whispered, “I couldn’t ask for a better companion at the end.”
The gesture warmed a chilled portion of his soul. Not for the first time, he wanted to curse whatever fate had denied them even a little more time together.
As if the Wards read his last thought, and begrudged him even a few more moments with Sorsha, the crystal pillars flared. A faint blue spark of magic arched up from floor to ceiling on each of the surrounding pillars. Soon other eddies of wild, turbulent magic danced between the pillars, disturbing the once smooth surface of the Ward Stone’s dome. Heat washed across his skin, rising beads of sweat as the air became sweltering.
“Brace yourself.” His shout was swallowed up by a greater power.
A storm rushed upon them, a tide of heat and magic. His hair, lifted by an impossible breeze, whipped around his shoulders, his tail snapped against his flanks. Next to him, Sorsha braced her legs, one arm raised to protect her face. Instinct screamed for him to do the same, but he blinked against the bright lights and studied the pattern of the flickering shield. The rhythm of cascading light was slowing, calming as if whatever had driven it was exhausted. No, he realized, that wasn’t right either. The magic wasn’t weakening, it was shifting. The patch directly in front of them thinned as layers of power were pulled back into the pillars at either side.
He grabbed Sorsha’s arm. “Now,” he yelled over the crackle of magic filling the chamber. When he lunged, Sorsha didn’t pause and bolted forward, matching him stride for stride. They hit the diminishing wall of magic at the same instant.
The shield might have been less, but it still burned his skin and raised the hair on his body to attention. To his right, Sorsha grunted but stayed with him. After what was probably mere moments, but felt much, much longer, they emerged from the fire.
Within the chamber, fresh cool air washed against his overheated body. Shadowdancer dragged in a deep breath, thankful he still possessed the need. After all, a soul sundered from its body wouldn’t need to breathe. A hand touched his withers, the caress light, but to his sensitized skin, it felt like the warm sting of magic across his skin. He shivered, then took her hand in his, entwining their fingers.
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