by K. Panikian
The balachko was hurt, its left arm hung limp at its side, but the heads roared and it shot fire in one direction at Astrid and ice at Julian. They danced back and the blasts fell short. The blue bolts kept slamming into its chest. Rurik, avoiding another fiery blast, darted forward and chopped at its legs with two quick slashes. He hit true and blood gushed.
It fell to its knees and Astrid fired her bow, getting an arrow high in its chest. It bellowed in pain and shot a stream of ice directly at her. She held up her hands, like she was making a shield, and Julian tackled her backwards into the snow. The ice flew over top of them instead. From across the snowfield, I could hear her shouting at him.
The balachko turned one of its heads, aiming a stream of fire at Rurik as he approached it from behind. Instead, a blue bolt struck it directly in its bearded face, and it fell backward in the snow, unmoving.
Owen took a step toward them, and disappeared into a hole that opened beneath his feet with a sudden cracking noise.
“Owen!” I screamed. I dropped down to my stomach and peered into the crevasse where he’d vanished. He lay still, on a shelf about ten feet down. Just beyond him, a psoglav crouched.
It blinked its lone canine eye up at me, appearing confused, and then sniffed at Owen. It didn’t move any closer to him though, and I could see that one of its equine legs was bent and broken.
Theo and Cato dropped on either side of me, looking down into the hole. A cascade of snow fell from where they dislodged it at the lip. “Be still!” I hissed.
Theo asked, “How do we get him out?”
“He can’t jump out, even if he wakes. It’s too far and he might fall through another level,” Cato said.
“Cato, go switch teams with Astrid. Tell her to hurry,” I answered. He got back to his feet and ran to the other group.
I kept my eyes on the psoglav. It hadn’t moved toward Owen, but it was growling low in its throat. Its human torso looked blue with cold and purple with bruises.
Owen opened his eyes and started to sit up.
“Don’t move!” I called down to him. “You’re on an ice shelf. It might crack if you move.”
He slowly turned his head and looked around. His face went white when he saw the psoglav crouched just a few feet away.
“It’s hurt. I don’t know if it can move. But we’re watching it,” I assured him.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll just wait here then.”
Astrid dropped down next to me, panting from her run, and I asked her, “Can you lift him out of there?”
She nodded and opened her hand in front of her. She called down to him, “Be perfectly still.” Then she made a motion like she was scooping and Owen rose slowly into the air. She kept her movements small; the walls of the crevasse were narrow.
Then, she had him out. She dropped him gently in the snow beside us and I scrambled over.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. My throat closed and I swallowed convulsively. Tears threatened. I couldn’t take a full breath.
“I don’t think so,” he answered. He sat up slowly and then stood, shaking out his arms and legs. “A little sore, like I have whiplash, but that’s it.”
I felt a wave of relief and put my head in my hands, trying to control myself. When he’d vanished, my heart had stopped. It felt painful for it to start beating again. My lungs were starving.
He crouched next to me. “Very,” he said urgently, “are you hurt?”
I couldn’t control myself anymore. I sucked in a breath and started to sob. He picked me up and put me in his lap. Astrid and Theo backed up a few feet to give me space. I tried to calm down. We didn’t have time for this. But all I could hear was the ice cracking and all I could see was him vanishing.
Owen made shushing sounds and stroked my hair. I burrowed into his coat, scraping my cheek on his zipper. I could hear his heartbeat and I pressed my face there, listening to it beating, for a long minute.
Finally, I felt like I could stop my tears. I was hit by a wave of mortification; I knew my face was red. “Sorry,” I muttered into his wet coat.
“Very,” Owen said gently, “I love you too.”
I looked up at him and he kissed me, urgently and carefully at the same time. “I know. Bad timing. But I’ll be more careful. I promise.”
I stared into his eyes, knowing he saw what I felt too, and then nodded. “Do that.”
He helped me to my feet and as I stood, I smiled at Astrid, “Thank you.”
“Sure,” she said back, looking pink, and then she gestured down at the psoglav. “What’s the plan for this one?”
“I could try and whistle the crevasse back closed,” I said doubtfully, “but this whole field is unstable ice and snow. If I start messing with it, the entire surface could collapse.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Astrid said. She pulled her bow from her shoulder and notched an arrow. She fired down into the hole and struck the psoglav straight in its canine eye. It didn’t even have a chance to flinch.
“Nice shot,” I told her and she shrugged. “Thanks.”
We rejoined the other group, walking gingerly and testing the snow for more weak spots.
“There are at least two more besy alive in there,” Rurik said, gesturing to the avalanche field. “But I don’t know if we have the time to wait for them.”
“I agree,” I said. “We’re at least two days’ walk back to the portal. I think we need to leave, now.”
I continued, “After we close the gate, we can come back and track down any survivors. We have to come back anyway to deal with the bodies.”
Everyone agreed and we hurried back up the trail to our camp, where we packed up the tents. We were on the trail home less than an hour later.
Chapter 31
A few hours into our hike back south, I called another rest break and changed into my last pair of dry socks. Theo passed out some granola bars. It was mid-afternoon and I wanted to get much farther up the trail before we stopped for the night.
“Before we get going again, I want to run a couple of ideas past you for closing the portal. These are just preliminary, so think about them and then tonight, let’s discuss pros and cons.”
I ticked off my finger. “First, most of us stay at the portal site, guarding it, while Theo and Julian get back to the house and create another batch of Greek fire. Then, the four of you,” I gestured to the Varangians, “open the gate and go through. Once you’re through, while the gate is still open, we explode it with the Greek fire.”
This got some nods and some skeptical faces too.
“Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Will we have time to actually make the Greek fire? I don’t know. This plan needs 24 hours after we get back to the crater. We may not have that time. Plus, I have no idea if the portal could actually be damaged by an explosion.”
I paused and then ticked off my next finger. “My second idea is to whistle an earthquake and bury the gate under several tons of dirt.” That got silence all around.
“Yes, I think I can do it. When I was whistling the avalanche, I felt the potential. The spark was there and willing. But I have no idea how to control something like that. An earthquake involves tremendous forces. I could easily lose control and then we’d be buried right along with the gate.”
I continued, “Plus, if the gate is open at the time, which I think it has to be, I risk the earthquake spreading to your world as well,” I told Rurik.
“So those are my best ideas. Let’s discuss them more tonight, or if you have any ideas, please plan on sharing them too.”
We shouldered our packs and started back along the trail.
“Bury it, huh?” Owen asked. “Like in Stargate?”
I laughed up at him. “Exactly. It worked for those Egyptians for thousands of years, right?”
THAT night, as we sat around the fire and I steamed several pairs of socks dry, I listened to everyone’s opinions.
The consensus seemed to be a vote for the Greek fire bomb. It was less
risky, despite the fact that we weren’t sure if it would work.
“If it doesn’t work,” Julian noted, “we can fall back on the earthquake idea.”
I agreed that made sense, but when I met Rurik’s eyes, I knew that he felt what I felt. We weren’t going to have time. Still, we could try it.
I borrowed one of Bard’s pouches to melt some snow for water. Bard shared his stew and I got the Varangians to try my MRE spaghetti.
“We need marshmallows,” Theo said and pointed his fork at Julian. “Next time. Note it.”
Julian grinned at him. I watched Astrid catch that grin and then look away. I couldn’t figure her out. Did she like us or not?
Theo and Cato volunteered to be first watch and the rest of us crashed. I packed my now dry, though still dirty, socks in my pack and zipped up my and Owen’s tent.
“I know you’re still team earthquake,” Owen told me quietly, once we were snuggled under the blanket.
“It’s not that I don’t like the Greek fire plan,” I said. “My intuition is telling me we won’t have the time to do it. It’s also telling me that the force of the explosion won’t be enough. The bomb that we set at the cave blew up the rocks, sure, but this portal was created when a meteor hit. We’re talking about more force than a nuclear bomb.”
“How confident are you that you can control an earthquake?”
I thought carefully before I answered. “I’m confident that I can trigger it and direct the epicenter. I’m not confident that I can keep it localized. And I’m not confident that I can stop it within the timeframe of Astrid holding her air shield.” I hesitated.
“And, if Astrid’s holding the shield, that means she’s not through the portal before we shut it. How can I ask her to stay behind?” I stopped again.
“And her family, if they’re already through the portal, I don’t know if they’ll escape the tremor zone either. If the meteor blast traveled between the worlds, I think an earthquake will too.”
“So, what, we send them through, keep their daughter and their sister to protect us, and hope they make it?” Owen asked.
I responded, “Or do we ask them all to stay here instead and hope the shield holds?”
We were both silent, thinking.
Owen started to answer when Theo’s shout cut through the night.
I pulled on my boots in a split-second and jumped out of the tent, right behind Owen. There, clearly visible in the center of our camp, stood the bes commander and a bauk. A crumpled form lay beside the fire, Cato, and Theo staggered to his feet by the tree line.
The bes sneered at us, its tall horns gleaming in the firelight. He barked something and the bauk let out a coughing yowl. It started toward Owen and I, its long arms swaying close to the ground. It carried a club in its right hand and its curling horns were capped with iron. I kept my eyes on its approach while also watching the bes, which was inching toward the tent on the far side of the fire where Rurik and Astrid were sleeping.
I shouted, “Varangians! Enemy in the camp!” though I was sure they were awake at this point.
Owen held his wolf pommel and transformed. He howled at the bauk and snapped his teeth, stepping in front of me.
I trusted him to handle the bauk and I focused on the bes. I whistled to him, a soft, coaxing tune. “Peace, sleep, peace, sleep,” I whistled.
The bes closed its eyes and swayed on its feet, then its eyes snapped open and it leered at me. “No whistle,” it said, its voice garbled by the long, sharp teeth in its mouth.
I smirked back at it. It definitely felt my power. I tried again, “Tired, weary, rest, sleep,” I whistled. I made my tone assertive, but recurrent and soothing.
The bes swayed again. Its knees buckled and its red eyes started to drift closed. It took a half-step forward and then Rurik appeared behind it and with a quick slashing motion, beheaded it.
I looked at Owen and saw him finishing off the bauk. He withdrew his sword from its heart and stepped toward me, his eyes hazy and glowing.
“Owen,” I called sharply. He focused on me and his eyes cleared.
“I’m here,” he answered.
I walked forward and stroked his chest; he grabbed my hand with his and reaffirmed, “I’m here.”
“Don’t let go yet. We don’t know if they were alone.”
He nodded at me and I ran to Cato. Astrid was already there and she helped him sit up. His nose was bleeding and he looked sheepish.
“We were playing with the smoke,” he said, thickly. “I was making images of, ah, some women, and then the bauk crashed through the fire and backhanded me.”
I shook my head at him and turned to Theo. “What’s your excuse?” I asked.
He had the grace to look embarrassed but just shrugged. He was holding his shoulder tight to his chest, so I motioned him closer.
“Your ribs?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered.
I pulled a wrap from the first aid kit and had him strip off his shirt in front of the built-up fire. I bound his ribs, which were already looking purple, and told him, “You better stop getting hit here. Zasha won’t want a boyfriend with a caved-in chest.”
He smiled at me, grimaced, and stood.
“Okay, Theo and Cato, you’re off duty. Owen, please toss the bodies out of our campsite. We’ll have to burn them on our return trip to the valley. Once you’re in our tent and tucked in, let go of the sword.”
I paused while Owen walked past, muttering, “Tucked in.”
“Julian, Astrid, and Rurik, please stay up. I want to talk to you.”
I laid out everything Owen and I discussed just a little bit ago.
Astrid, to my surprise, was the first to speak. “I’m staying,” she said, with a defiant look at her dad. “The most important thing is to shut the gate. More important than me returning to the citadel.
“And I want to stay. For a thousand years we’ve lived in fear and darkness, hunted by monsters in the night. I want a chance to live in this world.”
Rurik looked at his daughter for along moment and then turned to me. “If it’s possible, I would like a chance to return to my world. I accept the consequences of the earthquake following me through the gate. I must try and tell the elders what happened here. It is my responsibility alone. I will let my children chose.”
He added, “I accept that we may not have control over these choices.”
I nodded at him. “If they stay, and if we survive, I swear I will help them adjust to this world. They will be happy here.”
He smiled at me and got up, walking back to his tent with slow steps. Astrid watched him go, turned and said to me fiercely, “Do not forget. I am staying,” and then she ran after her father and put her arms around his waist. He bowed his head to rest on hers.
I raised inquiring eyes to Julian’s. “No,” he shook his head at me. “I’m the counselor, not you. I’ve known from the first that she wanted to stay. I think it has been the root of most of her bad attitude.”
I told him, “I think Cato will want to stay too. He’s so young and he’s really bonded with Theo. This is all too exciting for him. Bard, though, I have no idea.”
Julian agreed. “It’s good to have a choice.”
When I climbed back into our tent, I found Owen still awake and in berserker form.
“I just wanted to make sure you were all set before I crashed,” he said. His hulking body was so large, his ears brushed the tent wall.
I settled next to him on the blanket and moved my legs away from his frozen toes. “We never fixed your footwear situation,” I said.
Owen reached over and placed his sheathed sword along the tent wall, letting go. He slowly settled back onto the blanket and pulled me across his body.
“Next time,” he murmured, echoing Theo from earlier as he fell asleep.
Chapter 32
A day and a half later, we finally approached the familiar crater, so close to our house and all its creature comforts. I caught myself daydr
eaming more than once about a shower, and a warm meal. I heard Julian at one point describing a grocery store to Astrid and her eyes looked ready to pop with excitement. Wait until she tried pizza, or ice cream. Okay, now I was drooling.
I never heard the outcome of their fight on the avalanche field, when Julian pulled her out of the way, but they seemed to have reached a truce for now.
Rurik took each of his children aside over the long hike and told them that they had a choice to stay or to go. As Julian and I predicted, Cato wanted to stay. Bard was keeping his choice a secret so far. He’d walked for a little while beside Owen and they’d talked seriously.
We were loosely grouped, trudging along, when suddenly there was an azhdaya on our path. Its scaled body was small and brownish-green and its eyes, all four of them, glowed orange.
It had chain collars around both of its necks, held tightly by a psoglav.
The psoglav barked in surprise when it saw us, and yanked hard on the dragon’s chains. The azhdaya hissed at it but backed away from us.
“Rurik,” I said urgently, “is the gate open?”
“Yes,” he answered, his voice distant. “Abaddon is sending his scouts through.”
“New plan!” I shouted to my group. “Astrid, you stay by my side. Owen, you take point. We book it to the gate and anything that tries to stop us, you kill. Cato, you and Julian are the rear guard. Bard, Theo, and Rurik, can you handle these two?” I gestured at the azhdaya and the psoglav.
“Yes,” Bard answered firmly.
“Catch up as fast as you can,” I told them. “I’ll hold off the earthquake until you get there.”
“Now we run,” I told the others and started into the trees, skirting the two besy on the trail. I saw Rurik pull both of his swords and Theo raise his crossbow; then Bard started launching blue bolts as we slipped past. At least one connected because I heard a howl.
It was hard to run through the deep snow off the trail, but I wanted to avoid any other scouts if we could. I knew the crater was just south of us on the trail, which meant we needed to curve back around to find it from the east.
