TWENTY-TWO
Racing down the dark corridor, heat begins to build in my fingertips as I veer off the main tunnel and head into a rarely traveled area, following the sounds of the pounding. It echoes all around me, deafening with its growing intensity. My best guess is that I only have a couple minutes before they breech the outer wall. After that, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long it will take for the aliens to start pouring through the hole.
Even with the numerous dead end offshoots that the Caldonians will encounter once they are inside the tunnels, the thought of any of them finding their way to the Temple keeps me driving through the pain in my legs. I have to give Bastien time to get the children out.
Once they get out through the escape tunnel, I have no idea where they will go. Maybe they will head deeper into the woods. I wish we’d had more time to plan. Now that Drakon knows we’re here, though, I’m guessing he will burn down the entire forest to find us. If Kyan knows my friends and I are the fulfillment of the prophecy, surely Drakon has put two and two together as well.
The walls around me reverberate loud enough to shatter glass. The ground is a constant tremble that makes my stomach lurch with growing nausea.
I skid around sharp bends, weaving deeper into the earth. One side of my mind, the part that contains the logical half, screams at me to flee, but the heat building in my chest presses me forward.
My fingers grip the curve of the final bend in the tunnel just as the ground rocks underfoot and I’m thrown hard into the stone wall. My shoulder throbs with pain, but I ignore it as the floor ahead of me begins to crack open. The opening branches out, eating up the base of the walls and rising to the ceiling. I back away, shielding my eyes from the bright light that pierces through the cracks.
“Well, I guess I found the machine,” I mutter. “Now what?”
“Illyria?”
The call is faint, barely audible over the pounding drill that spirals up through the stone. It sends me sprawling, my tailbone smacking hard into the unforgiving floor. A hand wraps around my arm and yanks me back as the drill makes contact with the tunnel roof, making a cave-in imminent.
“Are you insane?” Eamon roars, lifting me to my feet. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”
“I had to do something to slow them down!”
“Always the hero,” he grunts, snatching my hands and racing back down the tunnel. I can see our distorted shadows dancing on the walls as the light spills over my shoulder. The drill grinds through the stone and then the deafening sound lessens as the machine powers down.
“We have to stop them!” I scream as I hear metal cranking from within the burrow. It sounds like a door opening.
“They’re coming in from all directions. The Sky Ships landed a couple minutes ago.”
My heart rises into my throat. “Did everyone get out?”
“Almost.”
Fear strangles my voice as I follow his lead, confident in his ability to know the twists and turns. I stumble after him, weak and numb from the day. I can’t bear to ask who didn’t make it. I fear if I know I might never make it out of this cave alive.
Eamon yanks me around a corner and we stop just short of hitting the main tunnel wall. Already I can hear the pounding of boots but it’s impossible to tell which way the sounds travel from through this maze.
My heart thumps wildly in my chest. I gasp in small breaths, sure that at any moment I will begin to lose it. I can’t die down here.
“Follow me!”
I have little choice as Eamon darts back toward the blackberry bush entrance, nearly yanking my shoulder out of its socket in the process. All I can focus on is keeping one foot in front of the next. If I let myself think of how many aliens are racing toward us I might really lose it.
I can see flickering light against the damp walls in the distance. We’re going to meet up with those lights in less than a minute. “Eamon?”
“Turn, now!”
I dive on instinct, following him toward a narrow crevice in the wall. We explored this section of the cave when we were children and could easily fit through the slim passage. Now I have to shimmy sideways to pass through the first twenty feet of solid rock that presses tightly against my chest and back. I suck in my stomach and slip through to the space on the other side.
Eamon doubles over as soon as he squeezes through, letting his diaphragm expand to suck in a full breath. I struggled to get through the gap, so I know Eamon must have.
“They won’t find us here,” he wheezes, pounding on his chest.
I press back against the wall, well out of the light that filters down from the small natural vent that opens about a foot over Eamon’s head. Shouting rises and falls as the aliens rush past, unaware of our hiding place. I release a sigh as silence falls over the cave once more.
“What happened?” I ask, working to slow my breath.
“Bastien arrived only a few minutes before the Caldonians landed. They must have known they were getting close and sent word to Drakon. By the looks of it, he sent a whole battalion of aliens down on top of us.”
“Aminah and Zahra gathered the children and headed for the southern tunnels but a cave-in forced them to retreat back to the Temple. Toren and Bastien collected the weapons and prepared to make their stand, but Kyan arrived just ahead of the Caldonians.”
“Kyan?”
“Yeah. He said his people have a camp nearby, somewhere we can hide the children. The girls went with Kyan.”
“What about Toren and Bastien?” My throat constricts at the thought of just the two of them against the Caldonian army.
“Toren set off our last two blast charges. Took out the main entrance, hoping it would slow them down. When you didn’t show, Bastien tried to come after you but Toren convinced him I’d find you faster. Should’ve known you’d be pulling some harebrained hero crap again!”
I scowl at him. “Did they get out?”
Eamon shrugs. “I don’t know. They were supposed to follow the girls, but I didn’t stick around to see what happened.”
I lean my head back and stare up into the light high above. It is faint on the sunniest of days but, with night beginning to fall, it won’t be long before we return to pitch darkness in this small tomb-like room.
“We need to climb,” I say as an idea forms in my mind.
“Climb that? Are you insane? It’s at least a hundred feet straight up. We’d never make it,” Eamon protests. He cranes his head back to take a closer look.
“And the alternative is to wait here to die while our friends are fighting for their lives?” I snap. I take a steadying breath and remind myself that Eamon would never risk our friends’ lives if he could help it. “Can you see what happens?”
“No,” he says, scrunching up his brow. “I can’t clear my mind.”
“Ok,” I say, pushing off the wall to my feet. Exhaustion weighs me down, but I force myself to shake it off. “You go up first. I’ll follow.”
I watch as Eamon sizes up the small space. Although wider than the crack we just pushed through, it’s not going to give us a ton of breathing room. “Fine, but you’d better be right behind me.”
“I will be.”
Eamon places his hands on the entrance to the hole, cupping his finger into the small notches in the stone. His muscles ripple as he strains to lift himself. A vein pops out on his forehead and his face slickens with sweat. “Give me a lift, will you?”
I kneel down beside him, locking my knee as he hesitantly steps down onto my thigh. His touch is light, much too gentle for a good push. “You’re not going to break me.”
“If you say so.” With a mighty push, he stomps down on my leg and leaps into the narrow shaft. I bite my lip to still my cry as tears sting my eyes. “Do you need a hand up?”
“I’m fine.” I squat down low and leap into the shaft. My hands and legs spread out to grasp the stone. I falter, sliding several fe
et before I get a firm grip.
“You ok down there?” Eamon’s blond curls are illuminated as he dips his head to see me around his torso.
“Yep. Just keep going.” It’s hard to hide the pain from my voice as I peel my back off the wall. A small trickle of warmth down my spine confirms my suspicion that I just scraped a couple layers of skin off during my downslide.
Our climbing is as treacherous as it is tedious. It feels like we gain only a few inches before we have to stop and reposition. As we rise to the halfway mark, my arms begin to quiver violently. My toes are numb from attempting to curl around notches in the stone through my boots. My fingers are bloody and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost some of my fingernails.
“You’re doing good. Keep going,” Eamon coaches from nearly twenty feet above me. His progress is steady, sure. Mine is pathetically slow and stunted.
The higher we rise the easier it is to hear the thrumming of the Sky Ships’ engines. Distant booms echo down the shaft but I can’t tell from which direction they come. From time to time, I hear boots pounding past the crevice below, no doubt in frantic search of me. Drakon won’t take kindly to losing his prized possession.
The thought of wiping that smug grin from his face keeps me moving. I gain speed on Eamon and manage to get to within ten feet of him when he reaches the last few feet of the tunnel.
“Stay where you are. I’ll go up and take a look around to make sure the coast is cl─”
“Eamon!” I scream as hands reach down through the opening and drag him out. He kicks wildly, shouting as his legs disappear over the ledge. I can hear sounds of a scuffle overhead and a grunt of pain.
No!
The sudden intrusion of Kyan’s voice in my mind nearly makes me lose my grip. Kyan? What’s happening?
Stay where you are. They’ve got Eamon.
I know. I’m right below him.
Crap! Ok, stay put. I’ll see if I can free him.
A tremor works its way from my head to my feet as I wait. The sound of laser fire overhead makes my blood run cold.
I close my eyes and focus all of my energy on the fighting overhead. At first, all I see is the back of my eyelids, but as the heat begins to simmer in my chest, an image forms. I can see Kyan fighting hand-to-hand with a broad chested ogre of an alien. Kyan takes a low jab to his ribs and crumples at the alien’s feet.
I can hear Eamon shouting, his cries rising to a guttural scream as a stout alien with pumpkin orange eyes stomps on his arm and twists it around so far I’m sure it will snap. I grasp my stomach, sure that I’m about to be sick when I see a blur of color. Within the image, I see Bastien leap onto the stout alien’s back, punching his ear repeatedly until he releases Eamon.
The sound of a laser charging just behind me makes me twirl around. I stare into the unblinking, dead eyes of Commander Drakon. A triumphant leer contorts his gaunt face as he flips from green to red.
“No!” I scream as the laser lances straight through my mental self and slams into the middle of Bastien’s back. Smoke rises from his shirt and he collapses to the ground, his open eyes staring lifelessly up into the sky.
I wrench back from the vision, trembling so violently I wonder if it’s me or an earthquake rippling through the sediment. Rage blackens my vision as I press against the stone, shrieking as it begins to shift away from me.
Illyria? What are you doing?
Bastien is gone! I scream back.
No, he…
A tremendous crack forms in the walls around me. My arms tremble and legs quake but I push with all my supernatural might. The walls shudder as the ground begins to break up. Rocks fall from above, pelting me.
As the shaft begins to cave in around me, I don’t have to see my eyes to know they are black. I can feel the venomous Shadow coiling around my mind, hissing in my ear. For once, I’m grateful for the whispers that cheer me on.