Harold grumbled and turned his back on his brother.
George stuck out a hand and spun him around. “What did you say?”
Harold’s face was calm, emotionless. But his eyes swirled with green and brown. “You’re a fool.”
The muscles in George’s neck drew taut as a bowstring. “Am I?”
Ariana's muscles, he noticed, began to ease.
Harold blinked. His face didn’t change. “She’s not your daughter.”
George’s head jerked sideways as if his brother had punched him after all. He closed his eyes and his jaw flexed.
What was that old growler talking about? Of course she wasn’t his daughter.
Harold bristled. “Let’s go.” He stalked toward his horse, mounting it in one swift, fluid motion. “We’ll get our answers soon enough.”
George cast a wary eye to the tumultuous skies. Then he retuned to her side. “Drink as much as you want of this. More, if you can,” he said, offering her the jug of juice and the metal cup.
She took them both without a word.
“Is there anything you want to tell us before we go?” he asked.
Even if a small part of her wanted to trust him, she couldn’t afford to. Not yet. Not until she figured out who they were, what that boy—that…she searched her mind for an accurate word. Bintaro. Like the poison—wanted from them and, because Harold had piqued her curiosity, what they thought she was after. “No.”
Whatever they were hiding, their paranoia was spurred by the drawings they’d seen, which must have been on the documents. And those weren’t hers. They were Hunter’s. Was Hunter after what they were hiding? Was the other boy after it, too? If so, there was a good chance the boys were working together. Somehow.
Gorse. She needed to figure out where the Strattons had put her satchel. The minute she got out of this cart, she'd be locked in chains, and her chances of getting hold of it plummeted. If they put her in a cell, those chances drowned in the negative.
The Strattons mounted and urged their horses forward.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
But neither man replied.
For hours, Ariana sat in silence, watching the storm gather with a sense of foreboding.
The more the storm grew, the faster the Strattons traveled. Ariana gripped the cart, her knuckles white, praying it wouldn’t overturn and plant her into the dry earth. But somehow, eventually, she got used to the speed and slept. And slowly, she healed.
When she woke, the Strattons were driving their horses toward the storm as if death grasped at their ankles.
Spiderwebs of light fanned across the black clouds hovering menacingly over a massive expanse of stones that rose from the empty desert like the teeth of a giant beast.
A forked electric tongue licked the terrain—unsettling, unnatural without rain or thunder.
George swore.
The Strattons brought the horses to an abrupt halt, throwing Ariana forward with the rest of the cart’s contents.
The brothers dismounted, started changing gear on the hitch before Ariana regained her sense of upright. "That stop cost us," she heard one of them say as she bent her knees carefully, afraid to tear open the thin layer of scabs covering her thighs, and crossed her legs in a pretzel. She hated to admit it, but after the initial shock of it hitting her wounds, whatever Harold had dropped on her skin had healed her fast, especially combined with the strange juice. Even the pain in her head was dissipating.
She watched the Strattons for a moment. They seemed calm, but there was an undercurrent of anxiety to their actions. “What are you doing?”
George's hands worked the knot of a leather strap. “Preparing to cross the Plains.”
Ariana eyed the expanse around her. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
George shook his head. “The Plains of the Dancing Phoenix.”
“And that’s different… how?”
Harold lifted his head, glared at her.
“The Plains—” George paused to untie the strap from a pole “—aren’t really plains at all.” He pointed the pole toward the endless field of glittering rocks. Some were massive, others no bigger than her fist.
An electric tendril rooted itself to a boulder in the center of the field of stones and ricocheted to a smaller, flatter rock nearby. At the same moment, a second bolt of lightning struck a boulder to the left, it too shooting toward another rock. The two bolts bounced and arched off five or six rocks, crossing paths twice before hitting each other and exploding in sparks.
Her breath snagged in her throat. “We’re crossing that? Now?”
George’s lips thinned in a poor attempt at a smile. He nodded.
With a twinge of bitter humor she asked herself what her mother would think of all this. Anything is less dangerous than a book in your hands, Ariana. “Shows what you know, mother,” she grumbled.
“What?” George asked.
“I—Am I riding in this?” she gestured to the cart, deflecting his inquiry.
George ran a hand through his dark-grey hair as he eyed the cart. A few tresses loosed themselves from his ponytail. “Yes. Unless you’re strong enough to ride with one of us.”
Ariana’s throat tightened and she squeaked out noises that were meant to be words. The cart was low to the ground. Possibly safer from the lightning than being mounted on a horse. But it could still turn over while they wove through the rocks, slamming her body into them. She shuddered at the thought. She glanced at Harold’s horse, considering the strong, able beast.
Harold shook his head and mounted, making it clear that his vote was to leave her here to die. She could say with confidence she would have voted the same about him.
George cocked his head. “What’ll it be?”
Without hesitation, she clambered out of the cart and stood tall. Her legs wobbled. Sturdy as seaweed. She steeled herself. “I’m riding with you.”
George’s rusty green eyes warmed. With a slight nod and two swift movements, he'd stepped toward her and lifted her off her feet, his strong hands vice-like around her hips.
Ariana yipped in surprise.
George carried her to his horse. The thing was a brute. Nearly double the size of any horse she'd ever seen. It was a fine example of the legendary beast. A Heledian Horse, through and through.
“Swing your leg over,” George instructed.
She did her best with her busted leg and managed to pull herself on.
George hoisted himself up with agility she hadn’t expected and settled into the saddle in front of her. He grabbed the reins. “Hang on tight.”
Ariana scooted off the horse’s rump, pressing herself against George’s back. The hind edge of the saddle dug into her tailbone. George’s pants—what were they, wool?—irritated her tender thighs. But she wrapped her arms around his chest and clung to him.
“Ready,” George called to his brother, his deep voice vibrating in his chest.
Ariana interlocked her fingers and drew in a deep breath.
“Kataa!” George hollered, his heels thudding into the horse’s sides.
They lurched forward and sped into the Plains.
Lightning crackled through the sky, the horse’s hooves a rhythmic clapping of thunder, the squeal of the cart’s wheels the same sound Ariana would’ve made if she’d opened her mouth.
Over George’s shoulder, she could see two large boulders flanking the path before them. George drove the horse to split the gap.
Bright heat erupted to their left and the horse skittered sideways as the bolt seared a path through the air. Ariana cried out, burying her face in the folds of George’s shirt, braced for the shock of the strike.
It missed them by a breath.
George yanked on the reins and the horse powered back on course.
They wove between the rocks in wide angles, turns difficult with the cart behind them. Ariana watched, blinking back tears, as the bolts struck the ground like rain, shooting back and forth aroun
d them in beautiful chaos.
A streak of white crashed down and charged toward them. George shifted, started to pull back, then dragged the reins to his left and veered sideways. Ariana held him tighter.
The bolt whirred past, sparks erupting before her eyes. Sand and ash hung in the sulfur-saturated air.
George cried out, “Kataa!” and pushed the horse forward again.
Lightning stumbled through the sky but didn’t fall. Ariana stole a breath. Horse and man grunted with exertion, necks stretched forward, veins rippling beneath sweat-beaded skin. The cart groaned in protest, its innards rattling with unrest.
Harold darted at the edges of her vision, winding his way through a path on the right.
Three towers of black rock dislodged themselves from the clouds on the horizon, their distance indeterminate. Why didn’t the lightning strike those? Was that where the Strattons were headed? If so, she prayed they would get there before lightning dove out of the clouds again.
As if in answer, the storm began to tantrum.
Bolts pummeled the rocks all around them, skidding in every direction. Horse, cart, George, and Ariana hurtled through the maze of heat and glinting stone. Lightning slapped the ground beside them.
The horse reared. Ariana squeezed George tighter. The lightning struck the horse's hoof and bounced harmlessly away.
Ariana gaped. How...?
The towers grew—looming black shadows in the deranged flicker of light—and the path opened. George snapped the reins, kicked the horse forward.
A bolt ricocheted toward them. Time slowed. They couldn't get lucky a second time.
George threw his weight into the reins. They arched in a slow curving wave as the bolt tore across the clay. The horse pushed off from the ground and Ariana caught the fabric of George’s sleeve in her fist.
It was too late. The ricochet careened into them. The cart burst into flames. Time surged into fast forward.
George’s shirt slipped from her fingers, and she was upside down, hanging off the side of the saddle, something sharp digging into her leg, hooked and holding on to some part of the saddle. She squeezed her injured thighs to the horse as tightly as she could. Her lower back bent awkwardly. Her arms flailed. She tried to grab hold of something.
George shot out a hand and caught her wrist. Pain sizzled beneath the gauze in his iron grip. She clasped his wrist and hung on. Behind them, flames ate away at the cart. The heat of it slapped Ariana in the face and bit at her eyelashes. Her heart sputtered. Her satchel had jostled into view. It sat in the center of the cart, surrounded by the hungry fire.
George, distracted by the panicked horse, jerked Ariana up, but not far enough to right her. He let go of her to grab the reins, struggling to get the horse back under control. Ariana dug in her heel and used her leg to hold her weight while she fumbled for a handhold. Finally, she caught something—some part of the saddle—and pulled.
Her weak arms quaked with the effort. The muscles in her stomach threatening to buckle, eyes stinging from the rush of the wind, she gained leverage, but not fast enough. Her leg slipped, knocked loose by the flanks of the galloping horse. Her lungs compressed, on the verge of collapse.
Those books will be the death of you, Ariana, her mother’s voice taunted.
Better that than the hooves of a horse and the wheels of a flaming cart, she thought.
With one desperate burst of effort, and a horrible tearing of skin along her thigh, she hauled herself upright and clung to George. She choked back the bile that rose in her throat, unable to breathe. The world blurred in her watery eyes as they were swallowed by shadow, then warm, earthy light.
“Hup! Hup! Hup!” George wrenched the horse to a stop.
Shouts of surprise and the clattering of hooves filled the cave. Her own agony made her want to scream, but she bit it back, and blinked away her tears. Bracing for the pain, she dropped to the ground, landing on unsteady legs. She stabbed a hand toward the horse and caught her balance with the saddle. Then she dove into the burning cart.
The bite of the flames was nothing to the pain in her legs. Within seconds she’d scrambled to the middle of the cart. As she looped the strap of her satchel around her wrist a stinging cold wetness smacked into her back and slithered down her arms.
Strong hands gripped her ankles. An arm snaked around her waist. As water splashed on the flames around her, people throwing buckets of it from every side, someone heaved her from the cart and sent her tumbling in a backward summersault, the ground snuffing out the flames that caught and stuck to her clothes. “What’re you thinking?” a distant voice chastised as she rolled to a sit.
Ignoring the man, Ariana righted herself, legs splayed and weeping blood, and yanked the flap of her satchel open. Water drained off her hair and face and arms, pattering onto the thirsty ground. She dumped the contents onto the wet-slicked clay. Intact. She closed her eyes and exhaled.
“Get up.”
Her eyes snapped open. She twisted to see Harold, anger trapped beneath a stone visage.
“Up,” he snarled.
Ariana let loose her foulest swear and stuffed the books and documents back in the satchel. She started to stand, and wobbled.
Harold jerked the bag out of her hands.
“Give it back!” she forgot her weak legs and leapt, snatching at a strap.
He dangled it out of her reach. “Answers first.”
Every fiber of her body urged her to kick him in the knee. “Are you joking?”
He didn’t even blink.
She matched his stare then lunged for the strap again. He let out a wicked chuckle, holding it easily out of reach.
Ariana shook. She hated him. Hated. No. More than that. She wished him a thousand deaths, every one worse than the last. She would watch with pleasure. “Give. It. Back.”
“Cooperate,” he said.
“Why should I?” she snapped.
A memory slammed into her, knocking her back on her heels. She’d been standing in Rockwood Pass, demanding Hunter hand over his bag or give her answers.
“Lawks,” she muttered. “I’m no better than you are.”
She stepped back, feeling nauseous. Am I? Am I just like Harold Stratton? She looked at his weathered face. He stared back at her with annoyance. “No,” she whispered. I’m nothing like him. I’m not playing the victim the way Hunter was that day. “You and Hunter and that… awful boy. You’re all the same,” she spat. “Not me.”
“Hunter?” Harold drawled with evident interest.
Ariana opened her mouth, but it closed with a flutter of panic in her chest. Should she play it off? Come up with a lie? Instead, she just stared.
The weight of the last few days sank into her bones. She felt exactly like the tired, battered, sopping wet fifteen-year-old girl that she was. Her shoulders slumped. Her head swam.
“What are you doing?” George barked. Ariana jumped. He appeared beside her. “She’s bleeding, Harold.”
“Not my problem.” He glowered at them both, then stalked away.
“Spurge,” Ariana called to Harold’s back, feeling he deserved a particularly foul insult. He didn’t acknowledge her.
George studied her, then shook his head and sighed. “I’d have to agree with you,” he grumbled.
Surprised, Ariana swiveled to look at him, everything blurring at the edges as she did.
“Quite the mouth you’ve got there,” he added with a wink, dropping to his knees.
Ariana grinned despite herself, felt her spirits pick up a blink. She shook her head. The blur disappeared.
“Stick out your leg,” he instructed, waving a roll of gauze at her.
He secured the stretchy material tight against her thigh. After two wraparounds, the snowy white bandage blushed pink.
George grimaced. “I can’t say I’m sorry you re-opened that wound.”
Ariana frowned.
He secured the gauze. “What with the fire in the cart, I mean. Riding the horse hurt you,
but it saved you, too.”
Ah. “Yes,” she agreed. “This is the lesser of two evils.”
He gave her leg a gentle pat and stood. “You’re raving, though."
Ariana could feel herself slipping into something like comfort with George, and she didn’t like it. He was as much her captor as Harold, no matter how nice he seemed in comparison. And no matter how tired or beaten she felt, she had to remember that. “My bag was in there,” she said as he headed toward the back of this small, low-ceilinged area they had ridden into. “The one you and Harold stole,” she added.
George tsked and kept walking.
Ariana stayed put. She was supposed to be their prisoner, but both of them had walked off and left her. She could escape.
As she looked around, though, she realized she was in a cave with only two ways out. One led to certain imprisonment. The other to a rocky plain of death, and then… what? Right back to the desert; only this time, no book. It wasn't really a choice. She was their prisoner, with or without a cell, as long as they had that Heledian portal book.
She groaned, then limped after him, catching up as they drew level with two broad statues in red armor that flanked the torch-lit opening of the tunnel at the back of the cave. She wondered where it led. As she peered into the murky black behind the torches, the statues broke from the wall and stepped into their path.
Ariana startled.
“Who is she?” boomed the one on the left.
The light of the torches danced across their stony faces. Ariana recaptured her breath. They weren’t statues at all. They were guards.
“A prisoner, Titus,” George said, holding up his hands.
“Prisoner, you say?” Titus narrowed his eyes.
George nodded. “For now.”
That sounded ominous.
Titus bent low, his wide nose almost touching Ariana’s. She expected to be accosted by a metallic, sweaty smell, but instead he exuded the scent of grass. It caught her off guard and kept her from stepping back, though he was very much in her personal space. He had kind, emerald eyes that urged her to hold his gaze.
He regarded her with intensity. But why? Prisoner or not, she wasn’t dangerous and she certainly didn’t look it.
Titus straightened, nodded to George, then stepped back. His partner followed suit, letting the two of them pass into the dark tunnel. Harold was nowhere in sight. Wherever they were going, he hadn't decided to join them.
The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) Page 13
