“We need to find a cave,” Sarah called out. “Or somewhere underground we can hide.”
“Goblins live in the earth,” Barius said. “We’d be worse off than we are here.”
“I can seal the entrance against them,” Sarah said. “If nothing else, it will buy us more time.”
“Very well,” Barius said grudgingly.
“There were foothills to our right,” said Darren. “They’re in Elven territory, but once we escape we can leave their lands before they even know we’re there.”
“I doubt that,” said Barius. “But it seems we have no other choice.”
“All right, let’s do it,” said Sarah. “Raven and Barius, you lead the way—you’ve got the light.”
“Got it,” I said. I tugged the reins hard to the right, and my horse dove off into the woods. The path disappeared from view immediately as we tore through the trees, trunks and branches passing us by inches on either side.
Maybe we’ll lose the goblins in the trees, I thought. But I had a feeling that was just wishful thinking. They were probably following us by scent or something, rather than sight. Or maybe those giant bunny ears could hear our hoofbeats. Whatever it was, the chittering voices and pattering feet behind us didn’t disappear. If anything, they grew louder the deeper we got into the forest.
“They’re getting closer!” said Tess, her voice anxious. As if on cue, I began to see flashes of goblins through the trees behind us, their tiny, spotted bodies looking strange in the blue glow of my lightning.
“We can’t go fast enough in these trees,” I said. “Can you two block them?”
In response, Sarah gestured. A wall of Earth erupted behind us, hiding the goblins from view once more. I knew it would only be a few seconds before they scaled it, but right now every second counted. Tess’ walls of Mind would be less useful—she couldn’t maintain them at a distance.
“There!” shouted Barius.
My attention swung forward again, and I saw the dark mouth of a cave opening up into the earth. I felt relief wash through me.
The sound of our hoofbeats suddenly grew louder as the horse’s shoes clattered down on rock instead of turf. As we entered, Sarah didn’t even wait for her horse to stop before she jumped from the saddle and held out her hands to the cave opening, closing her eyes to concentrate. Her hands rose, and with them a solid wall of rock erupted from the ground. It flew toward the top of the cave, connecting with the rock at the roof to seal us inside completely. Seconds later, there was the sound of many small bodies crashing against the rock, accompanied by a screeching, chittering noise that was barely muted by the stone wall. Sarah reached out once more, and another wall sprang up, melding with and strengthening the first. The sounds of the goblins grew harder to hear.
I sighed with relief and heard the others do the same. Even Barius sagged in his saddle, a mountain of tension seeming to rush out of him all at once.
Tess giggled. “That was a close one,” she said softly.
I couldn’t help it—I laughed, too. One thing I’d learned since becoming a Realm Keeper was that rushes of adrenaline always seemed to be followed by a bout of insane glee.
That’s when I looked over and noticed Darren. His head was hanging and his face was solemn, bearing no trace of the same relief I was feeling.
Of course. Calvin. The others. They were still out there.
Were they okay? They had to be.
Sarah, too, was staring at the wall of stone she’d erected at the cave entrance, unsmiling. Cara was also out there. And with a shock I realized that I was just as worried about her, Samuel and Melaine as I was about Calvin, Blade and Miles. The Runegard were far from mere servants or bodyguards any more.
But the best thing we could do wasn’t to worry. It was to find a way out.
“Okay, how do we get out of here?” I asked Sarah.
Disturbed from her thoughts, she turned to look at me. Half of her face was bathed in the blue glow of my electric ball. The other half was hidden in pitch-black shadow.
But before she could answer me, Barius spoke up instead. “There’s a rear exit to the cave. All we need to do is find it.”
My eyebrows raised. “How do you know that?” I asked.
Sarah’s brow furrowed, and she raised a hand. “I can’t feel anything,” she said. “But I usually can’t beyond a few dozen yards. How can you tell, Barius?”
He smirked at me. “There is a breeze, my Lady.”
I felt it brush my hair and blushed, feeling like an idiot.
“Magic is all well and good, but sometimes simple wisdom is even more useful,” said Barius pompously.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I grumbled.
Sarah chuckled, seeming to be quite pleased at being outsmarted. More so than I was, at least. “Good trick, Barius. I’ll have to remember that one.”
“Happy to oblige, my Lady,” he said.
We dismounted and set off into the cave. I was thankful that it stayed plenty wide and high, with more than enough space for three of us to walk side-by-side while we led our horses. If it had been a tiny, narrow passage, I doubt I would have been thrilled about going on. I’m not exactly claustrophobic, but there was something about being trapped in an underground cave that felt way too much like being in a tomb.
No one spoke as we pressed forward. Nora, usually so quick with a story or a song, was silent. The only sound was our footsteps and the clink of our horses’ shoes on the rock. It began to wear on me, increasing my discomfort at being underground.
“How long before we have to get back to True Earth?” I asked, just to break the silence.
“We’ve got about an hour and a half,” said Sarah.
“Hopefully we find the exit by then,” Barius growled. “I’d sooner not spend the night within—”
My foot struck something that clattered across the floor. I stumbled and nearly fell. The noise and sudden motion made my heart skip a beat, and the electric light died in the air.
“What was that?” came Tess’ panicked voice.
“Nothing,” I said, grimacing. “Just stubbed my toe. One second.”
I concentrated and pushed Lightning into the air again. Another ball of blue light materialized above us, crackling and smelling of ozone.
“What happened?” asked Sarah.
“I just tripped on something. A stone, maybe.”
“It wasn’t a stone,” said Barius. He knelt and picked an object up off the ground. It was misshapen and couldn’t possibly be human, but it was unmistakable—a skull.
I looked nervously into the darkness on either side of our light. It suddenly seemed like such a tiny bubble.
“It must be a goblin skull,” Nora said. In unison, she and the other Runegard drew their swords.
“But what killed it?” said Darren. Without Calvin there, he seemed to feel out of place. He stepped sideways to place himself next to Sarah, scanning the darkness.
“If we’re lucky, it wasn’t another goblin,” said Barius. “That would mean there are more of them here.”
“Good, so…what then?” I asked. “A bear?”
“That would be my guess,” he nodded. “They prefer caves to the outdoors.”
“Okay, keep your eyes peeled,” Sarah said. “We’ll keep going, and hopefully we can make it to the other side without even finding the thing. I can feel passages all around us. It could be in any one of them. With luck, we’ll pass it by.”
“Right, because today’s been nothing but one big string of luck,” I said.
Sarah ignored me and stepped forward. “Come on.”
We found more signs the farther we went. Some were single bones, but one was a whole skeleton. Its tendons and ligaments had long since rotted away, leaving only the bones.
“At least it only seems to eat goblins,” said Tess, sounding hopeful.
I spotted something at the edge of the light. “You jinxed it,” I said. I went to the object and picked it up—it was a decidedly hum
an skull.
“Gross,” said Sarah, the corners of her mouth turning.
“I kind of want to keep it,” I said, staring at the skull curiously.
“What?” said Tess in shock. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you think it would look cool sitting on a desk? Or on a fireplace?” I wiggled the skull at her, grinning evilly. “Oogie boogie.”
Tess looked like she might be sick.
I looked back down at the body on the floor. There was a rib cage, an arm and some old, rusted armor, including a shield. The sword looked very plain, the sort of thing I saw wielded by town guards and peasants. The armor wasn’t much better, and all of it was so rusted it was nearly useless. The damp air in the cave must have done it. There was probably an underground stream somewhere not far away.
“It’s quite normal to take trophies and souvenirs from travels abroad,” Barius said carefully. “But it’s considered quite bad manners to take a souvenir from someone’s body if you didn’t kill them yourself.”
I dropped the skull and made a face. “Ew. Gross. I was just kidding about keeping it, dude.”
Barius chuckled. “I had a feeling you might be. I’m not joking about the souvenirs, though.”
“Double gross,” I replied.
I took one more step into the darkness when I heard a harsh hiss, followed by a deep, throaty growl.
I yelped and stumbled backward, barely managing to keep the ball of light from going out. My heel struck the skeleton’s rib cage and I fell over backward, tumbling into the rusted armor.
The growl I’d heard turned into a roar. On instinct, I seized the old, rotted wooden shield and held it up. Something struck the other side like a hammer blow, and I heard the wood crack. But my arm was whole.
Barius and the other Runegard leapt forward with cries of alarm, brandishing their swords. Somehow I’d kept the light up, and I pumped more energy into it, lengthening its blue glow. I tossed the shield aside and leapt to my feet to see what we were fighting.
It was something I had never seen on True Earth, but I knew exactly what it was. A huge, cat-like creature with thick fur and canine teeth that stuck out like daggers from its upper jaw. It was a saber-toothed tiger, and it was way, way bigger than it had any right to be. Its shoulders were at least as tall as mine, and each paw was practically as big as the shield I’d used to ward off its attack.
It was backing away now, teeth bared in a long, low growl. Barius, Darren and Nora were pushing it further and further back, driving it off with warding swings from their long blades that glinted in the electric blue light from my ball. The tiger wasn’t willing to try its luck against the swords, but it wasn’t turning and fleeing, either. I could see a predatory gleam in its eyes as its haunches tensed and released, looking for the right moment to pounce.
“Guys, stop!” called Sarah, her voice shockingly loud in the reverberating cavern. She waved her hands, and with a brief yelp the tiger seemed to…deflate somehow. I took another look and realized it had just shrunk a couple of feet—Sarah had opened up the stone around its legs and then sealed them back in, effectively immobilizing the creature.
Darren leapt forward, sword held high, but Sarah cried out again. “I said stop!”
Another wall of stone sprang up, and Darren hit it hard. He fell back to land on his butt on the cold stone floor. The tiger growled in response as the stone wall slid back into the ground, vanishing from sight.
“Ow,” muttered Darren, rubbing his tailbone.
“Sorry,” said Sarah, going to help him up. “But there’s no reason to kill it. It’s no threat to us. We’re the ones who invaded its home. It’s not an agent of Chaos.”
Darren reluctantly took her hand and got to his feet. “Of course, my Lady. I apologize.”
My attention went back to the tiger. It couldn’t do much more than flick its tail back and forth and growl at us. It yanked on its paws, but they were too firmly embedded in the stone.
“What are we going to do about it, then?” I asked. “We can’t just leave it there. It’ll starve to death.”
“Of course we’re not going to leave it there,” said Sarah, glaring at me. “I’ll let it go once we’re far enough away. Then I’ll put up a wall behind us to make sure it can’t follow.”
“A good plan,” said Barius. “And the fact that the tiger is here is a good omen. It means we’re not likely to find anything else. It wouldn’t share the cave space.”
“Unless we find its cubs,” said Darren uneasily.
“Do you think it has some?” Tess asked shyly, looking back and forth at us with an eager spark in her eye. “Maybe we could take one with us!”
Sarah stared at her. “Tess, we’re not taking a cub.”
Tess’ mouth turned into a pout. “Raven gets a bird. Why couldn’t I ride on the back of a tiger?”
I felt a pang of regret in my chest as I thought of Ella waiting for me back in Morrowdust. We’d decided I couldn’t take her. Our mission was too secretive, and Ella was simply too big. There was no way for me to travel inconspicuously with her and remain with the others.
“She’s not just a bird, she’s a hawk,” I said. “And besides, she’s been trained for me to ride her. We can’t train a cub while we travel.”
“Besides, this one doesn’t have any cubs,” Barius said, pointing at the tiger. “It’s a tom.”
“A what?” I asked.
“A tom,” he repeated. “A male.”
I stared at him. “How do you always know these things?”
Barius threw up his hands. “How can you children of True Earth not? It’s got…it’s a tom!”
I shook my head. “Okay. Whatever.”
“Lady Tess,” said Nora brightly. “I’ve an idea. Could you read the creature’s mind and find the other way out for us?”
Tess looked at the tiger. Sarah glanced at it as well, then at Tess.
“What do you think, Tess?” asked Sarah. “It could be helpful.”
Tess peered out from behind her hair, nervous. “Greystone said I wasn’t supposed to try to read minds.”
Sarah sighed. “You don’t have to do it if you’re uncomfortable, Tess. But Greystone was worried about people who knew what you were doing trying to harm you. Or figuring it out and giving you false information. I don’t think the tiger’s going to play mind games with you.”
“You can do it, my Lady,” said Nora eagerly. “I know you can.”
Tess shrugged. “Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”
She sat cross-legged on the stone ground and gave a deep sigh. She closed her eyes, and when they opened again, they were pure white.
Instantly the tiger stopped growling. The tension was leeched from its muscles as it stared back at Tess, its green, vertical pupils locking with her round eyes.
“I think I’m in,” said Tess.
“It sure looks like it,” I mumbled. Sarah shushed me.
“Okay, there it is,” Tess said. “It’s about a mile further on. There are two forks, but we just have to take the left path each time.”
“Good,” said Sarah, sounding relieved. “We couldn’t have gone much farther than a mile anyway.”
“One more thing,” Tess said, sounding uneasy. “It looks like there might be more goblins on the other side. There’s lots of memories here of the tiger hunting them on that side.”
“Fantastic,” I said sarcastically.
“Wait, why didn’t the goblins attack the tiger?” said Sarah.
“If you kill them, they can’t alert the others if they’re too far away from the hive,” said Barius. “The tiger probably hunted lone goblins, far away from the nest, and killed them immediately.”
“Okay, so it’s a toss-up whether or not we’ll find any on the other side?” I asked.
Barius cocked his head. “A toss-up?”
I sighed. The magic that allowed us to understand and be understood by our Runegard wasn’t always perfect. “A chance. We might or might no
t find them.”
“That’s probably the case, yes.”
Tess blinked, and her eyes were normal again. The tiger tensed once more, the growl coming back even louder.
“Hush, kitty,” I said, nervously walking around it at the very edge of the cave, well away from its jaws. “We’re leaving you alone now.”
Darren and Nora had taken it upon themselves to gather up the horses, who had spooked at the smell of the tiger and backed away. They were calm now, hardly resisting as we led them past. They’d been trained not to flee in the middle of a battlefield with people fighting and dying all around them. They were nervous, but in control. I grabbed the reins of my mount, a mare I’d taken to calling Snowy, and brushed her mane soothingly.
“Hey, girl,” I murmured. “We’re almost out the other side. Just hang on.” Snowy nickered, and I pulled an old bit of dried apple from a pouch at my belt for her.
Once we’d moved a good distance down the cave, at the edge of her power, Sarah reached back through the earth and freed the tiger. Then she put up a wall across our path, blocking the tiger from following us through the mountain.
“I hope the others aren’t having any more trouble than we are,” said Darren heavily.
“I’m sure Calvin’s fine,” said Sarah, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Cara’s probably with him. She’ll make sure he stays safe.”
Darren looked at her with a grateful little smile. “They’ll keep each other safe. Lord Calvin’s surprisingly resilient, you know.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “I know it. And he’s going to be so annoying now that he can fly. She’ll probably be begging to give him back to you when we meet up on the other side.”
He laughed. “She probably will.”
I rolled my eyes. “If we’re done reminiscing, maybe we should be moving to the other side of the mountain and actually, you know, saving their lives?”
Sarah glanced away hastily while Darren cleared his throat. “Right,” said Sarah. “Let’s get moving again.”
We did, leaving behind the stone wall with the tiger on the other side. The cave began to twist and turn, weaving left and right as it crawled through the mountain, but we followed it unerringly. We came to the two forks Tess had seen in the tiger’s mind, turning left at each. After the second one, the breeze from ahead strengthened considerably, and soon I began to smell the sweet scent of the open night air.
Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2) Page 18