by Jenna Rhodes
“Then we must stop them.” Lara gathered her reins. “You mentioned a small chance to get there first. Tell me what it is.”
Garner pointed down the tiny, winding stream to the foot of the mountain. “Through the caves.”
“Mounted or on foot?”
The two men traded a look. “Mounted,” ventured Bregan. “Although led, in some places, where we’ve been. The main tunnel is vast, but I can’t say about the other tunnels, and we must see if there’s a way to pace them without being seen.”
“Fair enough.”
Garner kicked his fire apart, picking up his pack and Bregan’s and tearing the spitted coney in two. He tossed one section to Bregan. “We’ll eat on the run,” he said. Tranta leaned down to give him a hand up.
Bregan stood with one hand full of greasy dinner and the other still on the horse’s neck. Lara’s horse sidled away from him at the smell of the meat as Bistane kneed his mount over. Bistane smiled ruefully before kicking a foot out of his stirrup and offering his hand as well. Bregan swung up, saying, “I need to be in front. There are tiles, placed tiles, and I need to read them as we move.”
“By your leave, Highness,” Bistane said, and he gravely moved his horse to the fore of the group.
Just inside the lip of the cave, the group halted. Lara opened herself to the many threads that had created the mountain, winding in and about it, and let the pathways flood her. “Old,” she said, “older than the Mageborn, almost older than the mountain itself. The Mageborn took what they found and used it. It is not a Way such as we would weave with the elements, but a backward thing forced on the elements. The tunnels are entwined with magic that is near extinguished, a prideful and spiteful magic, but useful. An evil and ravenous worm ate away the stone, and the Mageborn followed in its path to do their own workings. We need to be careful not to get lost here, either in the flesh or in the soul.” Lara twisted about in her saddle. “Any who do not wish to ride with me are excused. The Raymy are a formidable foe.” Her gaze swept across the assembled horsemen and women. Not one reined out of line. Her face relaxed into a very slight smile. “Then,” she said, “pray our tashya are both swift and courageous. And we half as stubborn as any Dweller.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
"MAY ALL YOUR TEETH FALL OUT but one, so it can rot and you still have toothaches!” Nutmeg shouted, her raspy voice echoing down the tunnel. Tiforan and Lyat, long gone, could not possibly have heard her, but she loosed the still potent curse after them anyway.
Sevryn stirred with a moan. She could feel him shifting at her feet. “Damn Galdarkans,” he muttered. “They know how to tie a knot. I can’t reach any of my blades.”
“They took Grace,” Meg told him miserably. She shifted and squirmed, but none of her bonds relaxed at all. She would lie bundled up like a stuffed sausage on a drying rack until something interested in untying her—or eating her—found them. She let out a sullen sigh.
Sevryn squirmed about again before sneezing as dust rose and filled his nostrils. At the noise, Rufus growled. “Noisy, both of you. Bring hunters.”
“Have you a knife?”
The Bolger snorted. “No need. Have teeth.”
Nutmeg felt his heavy form heaving against hers and then a rough tugging and gnawing at her ropes. Strands frayed about her ankles and she gave a little kick, parting them! She rolled. “Get my hands.”
“Rope taste bad.” Rufus let out a low, rumbling chuckle.
“I’ll have them coated with honey next time.” Nutmeg bit her lips and fell silent as the rough edge of his tusk tore at the tender inside of her wrist.
His mouth and flat nose snuffled at her fingers. “Honey taste good.”
Bolgers had a sweet tooth. Who knew? But she would remember, if they ever won free. “Muffins and honey cakes whenever you ask,” she promised him. Her wrists flew apart even as his tusk slipped with a burning rasp, slicing her. She sat up, shedding the rest of her bonds as quickly as she could, parts of her body numb and other parts throbbing in bruised aches. Then she slid her hand over Sevryn and found one of his concealed daggers. She had to put a boot to his ribs for leverage to tug it free. She sawed clumsily with her tingling hands and he shoved off his ropes as soon as he could, grabbing the dagger from her. Rufus had almost chewed himself clear when Sevryn moved to him and knifed away the last of his bonds.
They sat, bruised and bloody, passing around Sevryn’s water flask. Nutmeg wiped her mouth with the back of her hand in gusto. “Beaten but not beat,” she declared triumphantly.
“Farbranch family motto?”
“Aye! And if it isn’t, it should be.” She swept her amber hair back and tied it in a knot at her neck, lustrous and abundant for all that dirt caked it and even a stray splinter of quartz and obsidian decorated it. “Now to get Grace.”
Sevryn took back his flask and corked it. “That won’t be the hard part. We know which way they took her.”
Nutmeg’s eyes widened in question.
“To Diort, in the middle of Lariel’s war. The hard part will be figuring out why Daravan wanted her there and getting her out.”
Rufus clambered to his feet. He jabbed a finger at them. “Blood. Draw hunters.”
“Last thing we want!” Sevryn sprang up and then handed Nutmeg to her feet. “Can you run a bit more?”
“That’s like asking me iffen I can pick apples.”
“Good, then. Running in the dark might be a bit harder. Stay close if you can. We’ll hear you if you trip or fall, but we’ll need quiet.” Sevryn cocked his head to one side. The thrumming, drumming of many footfalls had grown closer to them. “Quendius brings an army of his own. Smugglers, bootleggers, and thieves of the worst kind, I wager. We’ll do well to stay ahead of them.” Sevryn moved to the lead, but Rufus cuffed him aside gently.
“Galdarkan magic caves. Confuse and lose trespassers. But these caves mine first. Not lose me.”
Sevryn thumped him on the shoulder. “I have your back, then.”
Rufus let out a rumbling laugh and took them down the dark, twisting pathways of long-dead Mageborn and even longer dead worms who could eat stone.
“He is regrouping, m’lord Vantane.”
“Good. They need rest, then. Do not let him. Hit him now and hit him hard.”
“We . . . we need rest, too, my lord.”
Bistel swung about on his commander, Farlen Drebukar, who had the looks of his father Osten Drebukar in his bulk but not the heavily scarred face. “Hit him! The world has not seen the Vaelinar go to war in a century or more, and they have forgotten what we can do. Remind them, Drebukar, and make them pay dearly for that memory! Now go!”
Farlen put his fist to his forehead and wheeled his horse around, shouting hoarsely as he did so. He watched the lancers fall in behind them, raising their spears and shields.
Bistel lifted his chin so he could see over the bloodied plain. He knew what Diort planned now, as clearly as the splashes of crimson on the trodden grass and dirt. He wanted to end the skirmish quickly and decidedly so that the war would be over. No pull back to strike again another day, elsewhere. No posting of troops along the border. No, Abayan Diort wanted a clear and decisive and sound victory so that he could negotiate from a position of absolute strength. Lariel had drawn him into this confrontation, and he would not back down without winning. She had her reasons, he supposed, for being so adamant in putting down the Galdarkan warlord, reasons that had little to do with the altruistic worry that he was forcibly cobbling together a kingdom of his own by conquering town by town with no means to resist his rule. No one had sent for her help. No entreaties had been laid at the feet of the Vaelinars to stop a tyrant. No properties had been wrongly assimilated or borders crossed. Diort warred on Lariel’s turf now only because she drawn him there and entrapped him into doing so.
Yet he had come willingly, wanting a resolution that only a battle could bring. Win or lose.
Bistel picked up his helm and settled it over his snow-white
hair. Not that either of them intended to lose. His men were tired, uncertain now of why it was they had been brought to fight. It was time for him to join the fray. He signaled his cavalry with a whistle and even the hounds answered, rattling their armored collars, barking sharply as they wove in and about the dancing legs of the tashya horses. He wondered for the last time where Lariel Anderieon might be.
He raised his aryn staff, cried his war cry, “Scresendan narata,” and charged down the slope of the small hill at the enemy.
“By the Gods,” breathed Bistane. He took his hand from the tile even as he’d read it for Lariel when they’d heard the march.
Garner looked into the massive cavern hall. His bowels would have turned to water, if he’d anything in his stomach, but he’d thrown up the half-cooked coney a while back and nothing stirred in him but bile. Still, he stared. Ravers and Raymy marched steadily into the cavern from their tunnel, filling its vast size, and it was like watching ants boil out of an ant-hill, their single target a drop of honey. Light filtered over them fitfully as if their very presence offended whatever illuminated the hall, swallowing up brightness where it touched. He knew that must be impossible, even as the sparkling quartz lamps that shone overhead were. The amulet inside his shirt burned against his skin as if it, too, held a light within it. He took it out and looked at the odd thing and saw nothing remarkable although it lay warm in his palm. Torn off a Raver, did it sense that its true owners neared him? He stuffed it back out of sight.
“There is no way,” Lariel murmured, “that we can pass without being seen. Once we ride into the cavern, we’re in full sight.”
The feeder tunnel they shared broke through the stone halfway down the cavern. “But we’re still ahead of them.”
For how long? That question hung in the air, unasked and unknowable. The abominations moved on foot. On two legs and all fours, bounding now and then, their progress ragged. They had been marching for days, and that might be the only advantage Garner and the others held over them. Four or five horses straggled to the front, trotting and loping about with their reins dangling, their saddles askew, riderless. He saw only one being mounted and Bistane pointed the man out as all eyes turned to him.
“Quendius.”
“Have they archers?”
“Not that I can see, but they are oddly shaped. I can’t stake my life on it.”
“Then I won’t ask you to,” Lara answered softly. “I need two volunteers, if your horses still have bottom to them.”
Why did she ask for horses with stamina? Garner’s head twisted about as two riders shuffled forward. One woman smiled thinly. “My horse is part mountain pony. He can run all day.”
“And mine can run with hers, although she is purebred.” The two Vaelinars traded looks.
“Naymer. Cayleen. I do not intend for you to be left behind. Succeed if you can, rejoin us at all cost. Clear?”
They nodded at Lariel.
“Drop back. Hamstring the stray horses.”
Garner gargled. Her gaze snapped to him. “They will tear the meat to shreds, will they not? From what you’ve told us?”
"Aye, but ...”
Her expression softened a little. She returned her attention to her volunteers. “Kill the beasts if you can. But whatever you do, bring them down quickly. That will slow the troops a little. Perhaps enough.”
“Quendius?”
“He is an adept archer. Stay clear and out of range. Go in swiftly, do what you must, and get out! Stopping him, I fear, will not stop the Raymy. Now, go!” And she sent them off in a spray of dust and broken tile as they charged from their passage into the main hall.
Lara spurred her horse into the open as well, heading the way Bregan had brokered for them, Bistane’s mount shoulder to shoulder with hers. The horses eagerly stretched their legs out after long confinement in the closed tunnels, but she gathered her mount back. He fought her hold with an angry shake of his head that rattled his bridle before settling into the controlled lope she demanded of him. Garner held tightly to Tranta’s waist. Over the thunder of hooves, he could hear a hiss rise in sharpness and volume, a thousand throats and more issuing it in gargling, keening measure. It sent chills down his spine and made the gorge rise in his throat. Tranta Istlanthir’s body tensed under his hold. Then, without warning, his horse veered out of the pack, arrowing straight down on the only ridered horse leading the dreaded army.
Quendius, the murderer of Kever Istlanthir, Tranta’s brother. Garner bit his lip till the taste of copper blood filled his mouth as he held on dearly. He could hear shouts behind them, of dismay and command, but Tranta never wavered. Garner thought of beating on his back with his fist to turn him even as he knew that nothing on this earth could move Tranta. Would he turn back if he knew Quendius had taken the lives of any of his family? By tree’s blood, he would not! He put his mouth by Tranta’s shoulder. “I have your back,” he said. He pulled his sword.
Tranta’s only answer was to draw a dagger, a wickedly sharp blade, with a sea-green jewel of incomparable worth in its hilt as he bore down on Quendius. Foam flew from the bridle of his mount as it pinned its ears back in urging to its rider. They charged across the expanse of the cavern hall which was big enough to have swallowed the city of Hawthorne on its island and all its seven bridges connecting it to the shore. The depth of it took his breath away as they bore down on Quendius and yet never seemed to grow nearer although the horse stretched its long legs out in immense strides, rising and falling, racing headlong into a terrible maw. Hoofbeats sounded on tile and polished stone in a staccato that grew louder and louder. It dimmed as they crossed dirt once again and Garner glanced back at a tile road that transected the hall.
Naymer reached the straggling horses first and took the leader down with a cut to the jugular. The horse somersaulted and stayed down. The resulting noise from the Ravers and Raymy behind it shivered through Garner as he heard it, a rising and falling exultation over the scenting of fresh blood and hot meat. He swallowed down the bitter tang at the back of his throat and turned his head away. That would slow some but not the bulk of the army. They were disciplined; they had to be, or they would have torn each other apart over the last few days. No, they had their objective in mind. He looked back even though he had sworn to himself he would not and what he saw burned its way into his mind.
Each Raver and Raymy, as they passed the still and in some cases still quivering carcasses of the horses, slowed only long enough to rip off a hunk of bloody flesh to fill their clawed hands as they marched inexorably on. Cayleen and Naymer swung about, whipping reins against their horses.
Garner tore his eyes away from the sight as Tranta moved in the saddle. They charged at the man in the fore, his white-wool longcoat swinging aside from his charcoal-tinged bared chest. Quendius stood in his stirrups as they lunged at one another, and Garner recognized the telltale movement of an archer unslinging his bow from his shoulder.
“Bow!” he cried in warning.
Tranta seemed not to hear him. He twisted slightly on his horse’s back, and the horse curved his pathway in answer. They turned, almost broadside now to Quendius.
Quendius filled his hand with an arrow whose arrowhead gleamed ruby red as if carved from a jewel. He knew those arrows. Garner’s mouth went dry, and his throat failed him when he tried to yell a second warning.
Two things happened almost at once, so quickly he could scarcely comprehend them. First, Quendius nocked the arrow and fired at them. Second, Tranta’s horse slipped on the edge of the old tile road, its legs splaying in every direction. The arrow whizzed by them, so close he could hear its whine, as Tranta fought to bring the horse upright, to keep from losing control entirely, and going down. The horse scrambled and made it up. They whirled about and Garner could see Quendius so close by that his eyes of black jet burned like coals into them.
Tranta cocked his hand and threw his dagger. “Haviga aliora!” he spat as it sang out of his hand. It whipped through the air,
silent and straight even as Quendius dipped a shoulder and tried to retreat. It dove deeply into flesh with a solid thunk. Quendius reeled in his saddle before reaching out and pulling the dagger free as he skinned his lips back in pain.
A deep blow. A hurting blow. But not a killing one.
“Sorry, Brother,” Tranta murmured. “Next time.” He straightened his horse out and whipped it after Lariel and the others, now so far ahead of them they could barely be seen. Garner held on and fought to breathe.
Behind them, the Raymy loosed their voices in squeals of fury. Tranta hissed back and concentrated on riding. Garner could feel the determination running through his body as he held on tightly. “What was that you said?”
“Haviga aliora. Seek the soul. It should have gone to the heart, if Quendius had one.” Bitterness dripped from Tranta’s answer, and he said no more except to whisper encouragement to his mount who labored under the weight of two riders.
They gained slowly, inexorably, on Lara and the others as the horses scented fresh air and the yawning opening of the cavern’s end; a gray light flooded inward. The horses lifted their heads, ears pricked forward, and bugled their triumphant race as the sun silhouetted and then swallowed them up one by one with its presence as they raced into its rays.
Behind, only a length or two, Tranta leaned over his tashya’s neck and whistled gently, and stroked his lathered mount. A hiss sounded behind Garner, barely heard over the pounding hooves. He crooked his head to look back under his arm. He saw the thing leap. He braced his short sword, bringing it about as it fell upon the horse’s haunches, a thousand sharp teeth and talons sinking into the animal and into Garner even as they, too, gained the sun.
Chapter Fifty-Four
NUTMEG SQUEALED AS RUFUS GRABBED HER and pushed her out of the tunnel like a bottle expelling a cork. They emerged somewhere between the heavens and what must be hell.