“Shit,” he muttered.
“Hardly encouraging,” the Hunter agreed.
He urged his horse a few steps closer—the animals didn’t seem to like it any more than they did—and took a good look at the walls of the crevasse. And cursed again, softly. No doubt Tarrant was examining it for flaws, tracing the lines of earth-fae as they ran through the channels in the rock, seeing where it might give, seeing where it might be solid. To Damien it just looked bad.
“Should we—” he began, but as he turned back toward Tarrant and Hesseth, the Neocount’s expression silenced him.
“Don’t Work!” the Hunter warned, in a tone that was becoming all too familiar.
He pulled his horse sharply around and got away from the crevasse, fast. Even as he rejoined his party the earth began to tremble. He saw Tarrant assessing the terrain with a practiced eye, checking for immediate dangers, and he did the same. Hesseth, who had grown up on the plains, didn’t share their instinctive reaction, but she was sharp enough to move with them when they forced their mounts—now skittish and hard to control—a few yards back to the north, where the ground looked more solid.
To the east of them the mountains rumbled, the earthquake’s roar magnified in the hollow chambers that riddled the ancient rock like sound in a musical instrument. The horses stepped about anxiously, trying to keep their balance as the ground bucked and twisted beneath them. A granite slab overhead came loose with a crack and hurtled down into the river just ahead of them. Then another. Spray plumed up in white sheets and fell over them like rain. The animals were frightened enough that they might have bolted, but even they seemed to know that there was nowhere to go, and the party managed to keep control of them. Barely. It was, as Damien had feared, a Bad One. Not their first on this trip by any means, but that didn’t make it any less frightening.
At last the rumbling faded, and the ground about them settled down. There was a gash in the earth just south of them which hadn’t been there before, and they had to jump the horses across it to get back to the mouth of the pass. The broken walls looked twice as imposing as before, Damien thought. As if Nature herself had seen fit to give them a reminder of what havoc she could wreak, once they were committed to that narrow space.
The Neocount pulled up alongside Damien. His horse was still jumpy, and for once he was unable to calm it with a touch; the earth-fae was still running molten from the earthquake’s outpouring, and not even an adept dared make contact with it.
“Well,” the Hunter began, “I see no real alternative—”
Shots rang out in the crisp night air, three distinct explosions that split the night with a crack. One of them hit the rock beside Tarrant, so that chips of granite flew at him. One scored the ground by the feet of Hesseth’s mount. And the third—
Damien’s horse squealed in pain and terror and bucked. It happened so fast the priest barely had time to react. His hand closed about the pommel of his saddle with spastic force as he pressed his knees into the horse’s flanks, desperately trying to keep his seat. He was aware of Hesseth’s horse wheeling to the north of him—also wounded?—and of Tarrant crying out orders which he had no way of hearing. Shots rang out again, but he had no way of knowing if any of them had hit their mark; his entire world had shrunk to the limit of a horse’s reach, and every fiber of his being was focused on its motion, its terror, and his own mounting danger.
It went down on one leg then, and he knew with a fighter’s certain instinct that it was going down for good. As the massive weight of the animal fell to the ground he pushed himself free of it, hitting the ground with a force that drove the breath from his lungs, rolling to his right, away from the animal, away from the gunfire, sharp pain in his left arm where he struck a rock—but keep rolling, keep moving—he heard the thud of his animal hitting the earth, the terrified squeal of its dying, and he suddenly understood that they hadn’t missed him like he thought. They had been shooting for the horses, they understood that once the great beasts were out of the picture it was man against man, a party of three against an army.... Dazed, he lay still for an instant, trying to get his bearings. Hesseth was by the mouth of the crevasse, her weapon raised to her shoulder, ready to return fire as soon as the enemy was visible. Tarrant—where was Tarrant? He looked up and found the black horse not a yard from his face. The Hunter’s face was a mask of fury as he kept the animal moving, gesturing for Damien to get to his feet even as his other hand braced a stolen pistol for firing.
Another shot rang out from the woods, and this time Tarrant answered with gunfire. The sharp report rang in Damien’s ear as he staggered to his feet. In the distance he heard someone cry out in pain and surprise, and a crashing that might be the fall of a body. Hesseth’s bolt whizzed past them as Tarrant reached out a hand for him. Damien grasped him tightly about the wrist, felt Tarrant’s ice-cold fingers close like a vise about his own wrist as the Hunter’s booted foot kicked out of its stirrup, freeing the metal ring for Damien’s use. Pain shot up his damaged arm like fire as he caught it with his toe and vaulted up onto the black horse’s back. The back edge of the saddle rammed into his crotch, but he stayed there, stayed there despite the blinding pain, afraid to slide back for fear he would fall off, unable to slide forward. Praying like he had never prayed before.
The black horse followed Hesseth’s past the mouth of the crevasse and into the darkness beyond. In the distance Damien could hear his own horse squealing, and he hoped that in its dying madness it would at least provide an obstacle for the armed men who were sure to follow. The walls of the crevasse scraped against them as the horses struggled along its jagged bottom. Damien had gotten a firm enough knee-grip on the horse’s flanks that his crotch was no longer slamming down onto the saddle with every step—thank God for that—and he watched the chasm walls pass by all too slowly, as the horses picked their way in near-darkness over boulders and crevices and water-filled potholes. Damien was painfully aware of how precariously those tons of rocks overhead seemed to be balanced, of how very close the looming walls were pressed against them. If there were an aftershock now ... but no, he mustn’t think of that. Just keep riding. Just hang on. They were committed now, for better or for worse, and there was nothing they could do one way or the other to save themselves if an earthquake did come. Not without being able to Work.
If it shakes, it shakes. If we die, we die. Better come to terms with that now.
It seemed they rode for eternity like that, but in fact it could have been no more than mere minutes. Damien’s chest and arms were chilled from contact with the unearthly cold of the Hunter’s body, but he managed to hang on to the man. Behind him the priest could hear cries of pursuit; they were not nearly as far behind them as he would like. We’re not going to make it, he thought. Fear churned coldly in his gut. The horses just can’t do it. Then, to his immense relief, the chasm floor evened out somewhat. Hesseth’s mount bolted forward, and Tarrant’s horse followed suit. But though they were able to pull ahead of their pursuers for a time, so that their cries no longer echoed behind them, Damien knew that the change was only temporary. And when the horses pulled up short before a veritable obstacle course of fallen boulders, he knew with dread certainty that they weren’t going to make it through fast enough. They were going to have to take a stand and fight.
But Tarrant had other plans. As his horse nervously pawed the rocky earth, he scanned the walls of the crevasse above them with meticulous attention, and Damien could just imagine what he was seeing. Molten power pouring from the clefts like lava, cascading down the walls in sheets of fire to boil about their feet. Too hot to handle. Too hot to use. It would cool off soon, now that the quake was over, but not soon enough. Not for them.
Then the Hunter swung one leg forward over his horse’s neck and dismounted. As Damien slid forward, he put the end of the reins in his hand and instructed them, “Go on, the two of you. Go as far as you can, as fast as you can. Get out of this trap if that’s possible, and then make camp.
I’ll see that there’s no pursuit.” Despite the moonlight which illuminated his face, his expression was unreadable. “Go!”
He struck the black horse sharply on the rear and it bounded forward, clearing the nearest obstacle by inches. Damien just had time to see Tarrant take hold of the rock wall as if he meant to climb it, and then a protrusion cut off his sight-line. For a few seconds he could do no more than cling to the horse as it made its way along the rock-strewn ground; then he reined it in and motioned for Hesseth to pull ahead of him.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m going back to him.” He swung his leg back over the horse and dismounted; fire shot through his groin as he landed. “I think he’s going to do something very stupid. I want to make sure he doesn’t do it alone.” He noticed that there was blood on her arm, a crimson smear from elbow to wrist. But since she had chosen to use that arm to guide the horse, he assumed it wasn’t a serious wound. “Take this.” He unclipped the lead line from his saddle and threw it over to her. Tarrant’s horse snorted impatiently as she pulled it into line with her own.
He met her eyes for a moment. Amber, alien, and so very worried. “I’ll be all right,” he promised her. “Go as far as you can. I can Locate you later, when the fae cools down.”
“Be careful,” she whispered. Then, with a fearful glance back over her shoulder—but their pursuers hadn’t caught up with them, not yet—she urged her own horse forward. The black horse snorted once in indignation, but when the lead grew taut it followed, and soon the two of them were out of sight, swallowed by the harsh shadows of the crevasse.
Damien turned back the way they had come and retraced the last few yards quickly. It hurt to walk, it would hurt even more to climb, but he had seen what Tarrant might not have noticed: a perfect half-moon directly overhead, harbinger of the dawn. Maybe the skies hadn’t started growing lighter yet, maybe Tarrant’s special senses hadn’t yet reacted to the threat of the coming sunlight, but Damien had traveled with him long enough to know how acute the danger was. Especially if he couldn’t Work. Especially—and this most of all—if the Hunter was doing something as foolhardy and dangerous as Damien suspected he was.
He ran back to the place where Tarrant had left them and studied the southern wall. When he found sufficient handholds to support his weight, he hoisted himself up. Pain shot up his damaged arm as he shifted his weight onto it, but if it wasn’t broken outright it was just going to have to work for a living. He moaned softly but kept climbing. The wall of the crevasse was rife with fault lines, but they all angled downward; he had no trouble finding a place to dig in with his fingers or feet, but it took all his rock-climbing skill to keep from sliding out as he shifted his weight, ever so carefully (but not too slowly, there were enemies soon to follow), jamming his fingers and sometimes his fists into the cracks so hard that they were forced to support him. Briefly he considered how much danger he was in if Tarrant got to the top before him. Damned unlikely, he thought. The Hunter might be unequaled in sorcery, but it was unlikely he had much experience in rock climbing. If he managed not to fall at all, it would be damned slow going.
Twenty feet above the chasm floor. High enough that their attackers might not notice him if they passed beneath. Thirty. He found a horizontal ridge large enough for his feet to fit into and eased his way west along it, back toward where he figured Tarrant must be. Relatively easy going ... and then a chunk of granite broke loose from beneath his foot and plummeted down to the floor so far below. Its impact was like an explosion in the moonlit silence, the sound of which echoed for long minutes afterward. He hugged the cold rock, his heart pounding. His arm throbbed with such pain that he could hardly move it, but move it he did: one foot to the right where a deep chink beckoned, and a hand to follow. Move after move, his practiced eye struggling to make out forms in the darkness. On the floor of the chasm the moonlight had been helpful, but here it merely taunted him, shining its light upon smooth, useless surfaces and casting the areas he needed most into deep black shadow. He made his way more by feel than by sight, hoping that Tarrant’s superior vision wouldn’t give him too much of an advantage—
And then he saw him. Dark silk whipping out from the rock, pale skin against cold granite, the glitter of gold threads on his scabbard. He had found a ledge some two feet in depth and nearly ten feet across, and he was standing on it with his back to the chasm wall, studying the terrain beneath him. He looked over in surprise as Damien’s fingers caught at the ledge, and stern disapproval flashed in his eyes as the priest levered himself up on to it, and eased his way over to him.
“You shouldn’t have come,” the Hunter whispered.
“Yeah. That makes two of us.” He looked down at the rocky wall beneath them, but all he could make out were jagged shadows. Too damned many jagged shadows. In the distance he could hear voices, now, and the sound of men running. “I thought you might do something stupid like trying to bring the wall down.”
The pale eyes glittered. “I might.”
“What about the fae? Is it workable yet?”
“Almost,” he said softly, his voice no louder than the wind. “Not quite.”
“Then what—”
In answer he pulled out his sword. It wasn’t nearly as bright as it had been back in the west, but clearly he had been reWorking it. Its cold light spilled across the rock with viscous luminescence.
“You can’t do that,” Damien whispered. The voices from below were closer now; any moment they might see their pursuers. “Even if you use that for power instead of the earth-fae, you’ll still be making contact with the currents—”
“You see an alternative?” the Hunter demanded.
An instant of silence, night-chilled, eloquent. He looked into those eyes—so cold, so inhuman—and saw in them the truth of what he already knew: that the Hunter feared death more than any living man he knew. So much so that he was once willing to sacrifice his humanity in the name of continued existence. So much so that now, with all the denizens of Hell licking their lips at the thought of his imminent demise, he could commit himself to a mission like this as coldly and dispassionately as if there were no risk at all. Because there was, as he said, no real alternative. If the pass stayed open, their enemies would catch them; it was only a question of time. And he could neither flee to safety nor Work the earth-fae to save them while that power still surged.
This way ... it was a slim chance, but it was all he had. And therefore it was the only path the Neocount of Merentha could possibly choose.
Tarrant turned toward the spot he had chosen, and slid his sword into one of the cracks in the rock. He angled it carefully. Blue sparks played around the lips of the crack as he moved it, and once Tarrant cried out sharply in pain, as if something had burned him. Could he Work the sword’s power on the earth itself without opening himself up to the raging force of the earth-fae? Damien reached out to him——and then the channel between them came alive and he saw as the Hunter saw, saw the hot power cascading down over the rocks, saw it surging into the chasm where it boiled, it fumed, its steam came up and licked the chasm walls, burning, boiling ... he could feel it through his arm as if his own hand grasped the coldfire sword, a power so terrible that his flesh was seared where it touched him, a power that transformed his cells more quickly than they could ever hope to heal themselves, a power that killed, a power that burned, a power that swallowed the whole of the world in blinding white light....
And there. In the center. The point of a sword. The chill of expanding ice. He heard the rock explode, felt the shock drive him back against the granite wall as the chosen fault line gave way and a whole section of wall came loose. It ripped free with a roar like a cannonade and thundered down into the chasm. Striking the far wall with deafening force, shattering into a brittle tonnage of raw granite that bounced and split and fell again, filling the narrow cavity beneath. Each boulder enough to crush a man, each one followed by a thousand more, a veritable sea of rockfall, a
tidal wave of granite. Damien felt the ledge shiver beneath his feet, and for a moment he was afraid that it, too, would give way. He moved toward Tarrant defensively, just in time to see him fall. Just in time to reach out with all his strength and slam the man back against the rock, hard enough to keep him there. He could feel the pain raging through him, the fire, the glittering spears of heat. “Gerald!” he yelled. Trying to get his attention. Trying to break the contact. But the Hunter was lost in his own Working, was drowning in the raw power of what he had conjured. Was losing his battle.
Only an idiot Works the fae right after an earthquake, Ciani had once said. Or was it Senzei? Damien leaned over as far as he could and tried to get hold of the Hunter’s other hand, the one clasped about the blazing sword. Its light was blinding now, a cold blue unsun that seared his vision to icy blackness if he looked at it directly. Have to break the link, somehow. Have to get him loose. The narrow ledge was trembling beneath his feet and he knew that it was now or never, that if he waited for an aftershock to hit they would both be dead. And then what would happen to Hesseth? “Come on,” he muttered, and he reached across Tarrant to get hold of his far arm. For a moment he lost his balance and began to fall backward, then—with an effort that caused him to cry out in pain—recovered his stability. Only one more foot to go. His arm could hang in there. It wasn’t broken. Was it? Now several inches. Now one....
His hand closed about the Hunter’s wrist and he pulled back on it, hard. He had hoped that the sudden movement would break the link, but clearly it would take more than that. “Come on, damn you! Come out of it!” He could feel the cold power surging through his hand, chilling his flesh to immobility. And beyond it—behind it—the power of the earth itself, waiting to surge through him as it had clearly surged through Tarrant.
He tried to focus on the sword. His arm was numb now, and the coldness was spreading. He tried to remember how hungry that steel was for death, how eager it was to consume any human soul that touched it. “Come on,” he whispered to it. “Come and get me.” Gravel trickled from somewhere above, raining down into the chasm. The world was filled with dust. “You want my life? Come get it.” He was trying to focus the sword on him, not the earth, in the hope that would break the link between the two. The cold power licked at him, and spears of ice shot through his veins. “That’s it,” he whispered. “Come to me.”