At the same time, the boards covering the opposite end gave way. Mavarin fought his way through, Raythen shoving him from behind. Astarra went out after them, ducking under the remaining boards and raising her staff, snarling one of the words of power that awoke the Viridis.
That was before she was fully aware of what was waiting for them all on the other side. A trio of Dunwarr – a man, a woman, and a little, plump baby – were sitting around a table in a small but well-furnished room, eating what was presumably their breakfast. Mavarin had just led the charge into their home, bursting through a boarded-up section of wall. Confronted by the dusty, wild-looking four, the family simply sat and stared, cutlery poised, eyes wide. The baby let out a giggle.
“Sorry, Mister and Misses Gundaf,” Mavarin said before hurrying across the living space and throwing the bolt on the far door. Raythen followed without so much as glancing at the family, but Astarra couldn’t help but give a little, apologetic shrug as she crossed by after them. She made eye contact with Mister Gundaf as she passed, and saw shock giving way to anger.
“Mavarin!” the Dunwarr roared, rising to his feet. The inventor was too busy unlocking the Gundaf family front door to respond. Shiver hesitated, seemingly torn between walling up the breach with more ice, apologizing to the family they’d just burst in on, and following Mavarin. Astarra grabbed him by the collar of his robes and dragged him towards the now-open door.
Mavarin and Raythen lead the way out into the street. She noticed the latter had drawn his hand bow again. For her own part, Astarra’s heart was racing. She could feel the energies of the Viridis stone responding, sharpening her thoughts, her strength, her speed. The ancient life-giver knew they were all in peril.
The street outside was almost full. The slight curve of the great stalagmite the Dunwarr houses had been tunneled into hid Mavarin’s own front door, and whatever was happening there, but it seemed the king’s twin advisers had been wise enough to leave a Warrior Guild reserve overlooking the street. There were half a dozen armored Dunwarr barely a dozen paces to their left.
They spotted the four. A shout went up, and Astarra began to speak, drawing forth the power of the runestone. She was interrupted by Raythen, who bundled her in the opposite direction from the group of warriors, shattering her concentration.
“Now’s not the time for heroics,” he said. “Just run!”
Chapter Thirteen
Mavarin had already set off along the street. Astarra followed, doing her best to ignore the unpleasant, draining sensation caused by the power she’d been drawing dissipating, unused, into the staff once more. She looked to one side to check Shiver was still with them and, almost amusingly, found the deep elf hiking up the tattered skirts of his robes so he could keep up.
There were shouts from behind them, followed by the clatter of armor and the pounding of boots. Astarra quickly gained on Mavarin and Raythen.
“Where are we going?” she shouted as they ran.
“Away from here,” was all Mavarin said.
The roadway took them right, between two of the inhabited stalagmites. A single, elderly Dunwarr almost collided with them as they surged past, the sounds of their footfalls ringing back from the tiered buildings cut into the rock faces all around them.
They turned left, then right again. Mavarin came to an abrupt halt, panting, one hand resting against the door of a shut-up alehouse.
“Why have we stopped?” Raythen demanded as the rest of them stumbled to a standstill. Astarra leant against her staff, trying to ease her breathing, her heart battering at the inside of her chest. It had been a while since she’d had to run before any pursuers – Sudanya, in fact. She was more used to standing and fighting.
“Bolt hole,” Mavarin said, fumbling under his leather apron and drawing out a set of keys. He bent over the lock to the inn, cursing under his breath.
“Too late,” Raythen growled, looking back. The pounding of iron-shod boots announced the Dunwarr patrol, rounding the corner.
“Kagak,” Mavarin swore, and gave up. They started to run again.
Their path was taking them back towards what Astarra took to be the western wall of the vast city-cavern. The rocky mounts and outcrops that dominated the heart of Thelgrim were becoming smaller but more numerous, creating a rugged network of roads and pathways that wove between them. What few structures had been built into the jutting stone were smaller and poorer-looking.
“Are you really going to take us into the Cragwarren?” Raythen demanded of Mavarin as they went.
“No better place to lose an unwanted tail,” Mavarin panted back.
“Or pick another one up,” Raythen said.
They slowed to a trot. Astarra could still hear the sounds of pursuit, but the shouted voices of the Dunwarr were distant now, echoing strangely through the rock formations around them. Relief washed over her, bringing into sharp focus the heaviness of her breathing and the abrupt ache in her legs. She took in her new surroundings cautiously, half expecting a fresh pack of Dunwarr warriors to come charging at them from every corner.
She no longer felt as though she was in a city. The pillars and pedestals of stone around them were untouched, but for the odd, telltale sign of a small window or doorway, hacked roughly into the rock. Even the glimmer of the orbs and gems high above seemed weaker this far from the shining heart of the cavern.
“The Cragwarren runs around the edge of Thelgrim,” Raythen said, apparently noticing her wary gaze. “The quality of the rock is poorer here. Only the desperate or the destitute tend to live this far out.”
“Sounds like the sort of place we belong right now,” Astarra said, with a hint of bitterness. Even when she’d been laying her plans on the road from Frostgate, she hadn’t envisaged being hunted through Thelgrim’s outskirts.
“Do either of you know where we’re meant to be going?” she demanded, coming to a halt. Shiver almost collided with her back, manacles clanking as he side-stepped.
“She has a point,” Raythen said, stopping too and looking at Mavarin. The beardless inventor was flushed and slick with sweat.
“The Plummets,” he said, wheezing. “I have another bolt hole there, among the old mine shafts. One last refuge, in case of an emergency.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that’s what this is,” Raythen said. He nodded at Astarra. “Coming?”
She was almost tempted to say no. She barely trusted Raythen, let alone Mavarin. Allowing him to lead them into the tunnels surrounding Thelgrim simply sounded like switching one danger for another. But it was that or strike out alone. She knew nothing of the city. It was unlikely she could last half a day with the Warriors’ Guild hunting her through the streets. Reluctantly, she gestured for the Dunwarr to lead on.
The western cavern wall was looming ahead now, curving up and over them like some great rock wave, frozen for eternity before it could come crashing down on the cavern floor. Astarra was no longer awed by the sheer scale of it. Her mind was bent wholly towards escape and survival, thoughts and possibilities racing through her mind as she ran, aided by the quickening magics of the Viridis.
“There’s an old miners’ entrance at the top of the next alley,” Mavarin panted as they rounded another outcrop, boots scuffing on stone. “That’ll take us down to the Plummets.”
He’d barely finished speaking the words before he crashed headlong into a Dunwarr who’d been coming round the stalagmite in the opposite direction. They went down together with the clatter of armor.
“Oh Fortuna,” Raythen exclaimed loudly, skidding to a halt. Astarra did likewise, snatching Shiver before he tripped on the hem of his robes.
Mavarin had run into a guild warrior. As they both tried to right themselves, a separate patrol of five more armored Dunwarr trooped round the rock and froze, staring.
Shiver and Astarra reacted at the same time. Each snapped a single, arc
ane word, Astarra’s staff raised and Shiver’s gaunt hands extended. A surge of wind and ice crystals pummeled the Dunwarr patrol, knocking them back and sending them sprawling, their armor rimed with frost.
Astarra looked at Shiver in surprise, and found the elf staring at her in turn. Raythen had snatched Mavarin and hauled him back to his feet.
“Looks like we’re not going to the Plummets,” Raythen grunted, shoving the inventor in the opposite direction.
“I don’t have anywhere else,” he complained desperately, as he was forced past Astarra. She lowered her staff, blocking both Mavarin and Raythen before they could pass.
“We can’t go back,” she said. She’d already picked up the sound of heavy boots beating at the cavern’s bedrock. The patrol from before were closing in behind them, likely alerted by the ruckus ahead.
“Looks like we’re fighting our way out after all,” Raythen said darkly, throwing his cloak back to free his hand bow.
“We can break through,” Astarra said. She felt confident, powerful, the vital energies of the Viridis lending her their potency. She advanced on the Dunwarr who had blocked her path as they righted themselves, calling upon the Turning, feeling the magical forces that surrounded them responding to her summons.
More winds surged from the ether, buffeting the dwarfs. They were better prepared this time though. At a barked command they locked together, shields overlapping in front and raised above their heads to form a protective wedge. Astarra grimaced, fighting to keep control of the gale that shrieked and whistled its fury as it knifed between the surrounding rock formations. The Dunwarr stood firm, as immovable now as the stones of the cavern floor.
“We need to split their formation,” Shiver said, having to shout to be heard. He stepped up to Astarra’s side once more, dark robes billowing, and raised his hands above his head, his manacled wrists crossed.
Grip white on her staff, Astarra let the winds bleed out, her mind still full of the keening screech of the arcane gust. Shiver had started to chant, the words alien to her. Had he been another rune practitioner the Verto Magica would have been churned into a maelstrom around them as they both tapped into its power together. His energies came from elsewhere though, from the Empyrean, the natural inheritance of his elven lineage. Astarra still felt its power, the vast potential of it, like fathomless oceanic depths compared to the swift-running river that was the magic of her runes.
The elf had called up the frigid void his soul seemed to be bound to. Ice crept across the cavern floor from where he was standing, running rapidly to the feet of the Dunwarr formation. It spread across their armor and over their shields, their breath clouding as the temperature plummeted.
“They weaken,” the elf hissed through clenched teeth.
Astarra already knew what to do. She delved once more into the power running though her staff. The Viridis stone was the magic of the wilds of Mennara, from every root and branch and leaf, from every rushing stream, twittering birdsong and hatching egg. The stone of the mountain around them was cold and hard and dense, but it was not wholly without life of its own. Astarra sought it out, calling up the essence of the deeps and focusing it.
A boulder teetering on the edge of one of the outcrops around them responded first. It came clattering down between Astarra and the Dunwarr, trailing dirt and grit. She felt the weight of its shadow in the magical plane, the unyielding force of it. With a roar of effort, she drew on the energies of the Viridis, an invisible surge of force – the flowing streams and rushing forest winds of the Aymhelin – and used it to redirect the fall of the stone into the midst of the cluster of Dunwarr.
The formation attempted to break, but Shiver’s ice had fixed their feet to the cavern floor. There was a splintering crash as the boulder pounded through the center of the wedge. Shields, turned brittle by the magical chill, shattered into pieces, and helmets, weapons and bodies were hurled through the air as the rock forced its passage.
Astarra felt the energies she’d summoned peter out, the boulder coming to rest against another rock stack with a thump. She inhaled with a gasp, her body shaking. She felt as though she had picked up and flung the rock with her own bare hands.
“Go,” she panted, looking at Shiver. The elf looked similarly drawn as he lowered his arms, though she noticed his hands and the manacles around his wrists were crusted with ice.
“We can’t,” the elf responded tersely. A bellow and the ringing clang of metal striking metal answered Astarra’s question before she could ask it.
While the two of them had been breaking through the barrier, the other Dunwarr formation had caught up with them. Astarra turned in time to see Raythen’s axe rebounding from the steel-shod shield of a guild warrior. Another two were grappling with Mavarin, who was wrestling with them in a desperate effort to break free.
Briefly, her mind baulked at the thought of tapping once again into the power of the runestone at her disposal, afraid of the draining exhaustion that came with their excessive use. She overcame it with a grimace, closing her eyes and centering herself at the heart of the Turning energies in her grasp.
She reminded herself that she wasn’t some Greyhaven novice or dusty old scholar intimidated by the power of the runebound shards. She was a runewitch, raw and primal, and her limits were far off yet.
•••
The Dunwarr beat aside Raythen’s axe with the rim of his shield, coming in with his own short sword and driving at the thief’s stomach. Raythen gave ground, cursing his opponent and loudly questioning the legitimacy of the warrior’s birth.
If he got a reaction, it was impossible to tell from the Dunwarr’s expression – it was hidden behind a visor carved to resemble a dour, bearded face, an ancestor mask that would guard its descendants in a very literal sense. Raythen let the sword slide past and tangle in the fold of his cloak before coming back in swinging. The mask took a wicked dent, and blood from a crushed nose welled up brightly through the nose guard. The wounded Dunwarr stumbled back, clutching his helmet.
Raythen had a second before the other two who’d been trying to flank him rushed in. Mavarin was further to his left, and had been wrestled to the floor, his arms tied behind his back by one particularly burly Dunwarr with a fierce crimson beard. Right now, Raythen didn’t care one bit what happened to the inventor. He turned, dropping his guard in order to snatch a glance back at Astarra and Shiver.
The runewitch was looking towards him, green energies ensorceling her raised staff. Behind her something had broken and scattered the Dunwarr they had run into, but more were emerging from the narrow canyons around them, drawn by the melee.
Raythen had a few rapid heartbeats to make a decision. Not long enough to think, but long enough to go with the gut instinct he had trusted all his life. He locked eyes with Astarra.
“Find the Shard!” he shouted.
Something hit him with the force of an avalanche. He was slammed into the cavern floor, his right arm instantly numb from the impact, axe tumbling from his grip and clattering across the worn stone. He managed to roll onto his back, trying to sit. The studded sole of a boot met him on the way up, planted in his gut, driving him back down and forcing the air from his lungs.
He recognized Bradha standing over him, blocking out the light of the starglobes far above, just before the rim of her shield crashed down into his face.
Chapter Fourteen
Shiver shook. The power of the Empyrean was coursing through him, the manacles that had once bound his magical essence before the draining runestones embedded in them were shattered now, pulsing with power. Thin sheets of ice split and cracked across his robes as he moved, and pale blue energies played around his eyes and coiled across his quivering hands.
He was only half aware of what was happening around him, but Astarra brought him back.
“They’ve got Raythen, and the inventor,” she said, her face close to his, f
orcing him to focus. “We have to go.”
He dragged his mind back from the freezing precipice it had been teetering on. Dunwarr warriors were everywhere, spilling from the surrounding canyon-alleys. He could no longer see Raythen or Mavarin.
Two crossbow bolts slashed at them from one of the advancing knots. Fast as thought, Shiver reached out through the Empyrean and clenched an invisible, frigid fist around them. They were instantly encased in wedges of ice, the sudden weight causing them to plummet out of the air short of their targets and skitter across the ground, coming to rest at their feet.
“I don’t think they’re trying to take the two of us prisoner,” Astarra said, moving so she was behind Shiver, standing back-to-back with him as the Dunwarr closed in. “Any suggestions?”
“The rock pillars,” Shiver said.
“Already tried that. A boulder’s one thing, a whole stack is something else.”
“I wasn’t talking about collapsing them,” Shiver said. “Call upon the winds of your runestone one more time, and stay close behind me.”
He was glad the runewitch seemed to have stopped questioning his every suggestion. As the ring of Dunwarr tightened like a glittering noose of shields, blades and grim helmet masks, Shiver clasped his shuddering hands together and drove them forward. The Empyrean responded, channeled in his mind’s eye. More ice rushed up from the ether, forming at the base of the closest outcrop of the rugged, natural stone pillars that crowded around the edge of Thelgrim’s cavern.
“Do it,” he managed to say to Astarra.
The runewitch realized his intention. Shiver sensed her weary soul draw upon the well of energy that lay within her staff, calling once more upon the quickening energies that bent the power of the rune shard. He felt the ethereal wind return, and briefly imagined he heard the rustling of leaves and the creaking of ancient boughs.
The Gates of Thelgrim Page 14
