“No, run!” Still disoriented, Gaelin grunted as Holram rammed against the barriers in his mind. No! he thought to the warder. Your enemy almost killed you!
Avalar jumped from one slab to the next. She scrambled from the rocks, then broke into a run down the stairs and into the tunnel, racing past Silva’s shrouded body, the walls splintering as she went. The air hissed with the rush of indrawn breath as Erebos’s dragon flung itself in pursuit, its claws outstretched, the strikes of its great wings reducing the shaft behind them to rubble.
“Faster!” Gaelin panted, flopping over the crook of the giant’s elbow. Through the fracturing tunnel she sprinted, her breathing ragged in her throat. Light burst from his staff, brightening the passage so she could see. Erebos’s dragon heaved its bulk from side to side at their backs, crushing the shaft around it, crumbling the stone at Avalar’s feet.
She bounded forward when the floor collapsed, her muscles flexing, her magic lending speed and strength as she dodged the Destroyer’s darting head, the heat from its wide-open jaws.
A reptilian foot shot in front of them and curled, its talons flaring as it swiped at her legs. Howling, Avalar snatched out her sword and hacked at the claw—and with a sharp crack, her weapon shattered. Dropping its hilt, she leapt over the foot as it flailed again, and holding tight to Gaelin, somersaulted out of the tunnel’s mouth and onto its ledge. As she bounced to her feet, Gaelin spotted a rocky protrusion on the wall facing them, and beyond it what looked like another passage—a glimmer of hope. The mountain’s throat lay before them, the roar of the river reverberating from below. They would have to jump.
“No!” Gaelin cried. As the floor disintegrated beneath them, Avalar launched herself at a flat run, hurtling across the cavern’s expanse, straining for the distant ledge. Her fingertips brushed the stone; she missed her mark and fell.
“No, no!” cried Gaelin.
“Avaunt, storm!” Avalar shouted.
There was an explosion from above as they plummeted, the thunderbolt that was Erebos slamming into the wall in a hail of debris. A second detonation shook the cave, splitting the mountain’s core from top to bottom. Gaelin yelped when something hard cut his cheek. He caught a glimpse of Chesna’s wounded granite yawning open, the Destroyer overhead folding his wings to dive.
A deafening torrent covered the banks below, the Shukaia flooding the base of the cavern. The turbulent current surged up to meet them, punching out chunks of loosened rock.
Avalar plunged into the river and sank deep in a blur of tiny bubbles, a silvery cloud of sediment rising and roiling as her feet hit the bottom. In flashes of gyrating foam, her strong legs thrust, kicking them toward the surface.
Blackness struck the water like the fall of a mountain, the force of it driving them back down, rolling them battered and bruised along the river’s floor. There was a jerk as their pursuer’s teeth closed on Avalar’s pack. As she wriggled from its straps and Gaelin grabbed at her shoulder, a glimmer of crimson slipped past them. The bloodstone shard shed its leather covering to spin free in the water, its razor-sharp edges glittering red. Avalar scissored her legs and pounced, seizing the crystal blade by the notches at its base.
She pulled at Gaelin as her feet gained purchase on a rock, helping him to climb as well, her waterlogged boots finding another higher step followed by a ledge. Avalar raised him onto the bank under the wingbeats of their attacker and then hastened up behind. Her nose already bloody as the bloodstone she clenched leached her strength, she lifted the blade high—to impale the dragon crashing down.
Erebos reared back, straining for escape. Yet the bloodstone held him as Avalar gripped it with all her might, the shard pulsing in her hands, gorging on the warder’s great power.
Screaming, abandoning his dragon shape, Erebos threw himself back and forth, shifting from wolf to bear to slash at Avalar with his jaws. The changing forms melted into greasy tar, the warder’s weight yanking the weapon from Avalar’s grasp and flinging it across the stones.
Still the Destroyer fought, blackness rippling along his length as he struggled, his shapeless mass shrieking, his inky shadow sticking to the wall.
Then Gaelin saw it, how the bloodstones within Chesna’s ruptured granite sucked the warder in, the countless orbs latching onto his hoarded energy and devouring it.
Rock shattered, the rift crumbling inside, dragging Erebos deeper. The warder screamed as the orbs clung to him and drank, the clusters of gems draining his strength, feasting on his frantic blasts of power.
Swaying on their tapered ends, more stones extended to ensnare their prey as Erebos thrashed against the mountain. With a shriek, the Destroyer pummeled the cavern’s interior with black flame, with formless fists of desperate rage.
Stalactites dropped to pierce the water, embedding themselves forever in the river’s floor. The vaulted ceiling parted down the middle, its rock splitting, radiance from above spilling in.
Gaelin trembled as Avalar clasped him protectively, his gaze raised to the blinding glimpse of sky. “Avalar, he’s punching through! If he reaches outside the mountain, he—”
She gasped. “I know not what to do!”
“Throw me!” yelled Gaelin. He braced himself in her arms, gripping Mornius as she sprang to her feet, his attention fixed on the crimson gem throbbing at Erebos’s core. “He can’t focus without the Blazenstone! Avalar, I can get it! Throw me!”
She raised him over her shoulders and, with a shout, flung him at the warder. He tumbled through the air, his arms wrapped tight around his knees, screaming as the cavern went pitch-black, as a sudden burning acid tore at his skin, melting it, and flaying him alive.
His elbow hit something small and solid within the fire. He grabbed for it, striking hard with his staff, swatting it—
Mornius splintered in his hand from end to end, falling to nothingness.
Gaelin struck the river, the water closing over his head. The Skystone, released from its iron claws, capered and danced along with the current, the Blazenstone skittering and leaping beside it. He saw the red quartz flash a final echo of Erebos’s spite, then vanish among the rocks.
Fingers circled his wrists, coaxing him upward. With tender care, Avalar placed him atop the rocky ledge and clambered up next to him.
He glimpsed a shadow on the wall above, a transparent tapestry of blackness fading to gray. Erebos snarled feebly at the bloodstones, the little spheres doubling in size as they fed.
Killing him.
Gaelin lay stunned next to the river, raising the lumps that had been his hands. He was shaking and could not stop, curling into a ball.
Gray flakes dotted the filtered light of the cavern, floating upward as Erebos’s husk slowly dissolved.
Avalar nudged the Skystone against the charred stump where his thumb had been. “Gaelin!” She sobbed his name, afraid to touch him and hurt him more. “Heal yourself!”
He longed to blink his lidless eyes. He had no lips to form words, no tongue to taste the air wafting down. The flesh was sloughing from his bones. All he knew was the pain in his mouth, the numbness of his body as he begged with his thoughts to die.
“No,” said Holram’s voice deep within him. “No, you will stay.”
Chapter 66
GAELIN SQUINTED AT the daylight flooding into the mountain’s crater. There was only death for him now, and the pain it would cost to get there. All his life he had suffered in silence, for anything else meant drawing attention to himself. Yet here under the sun’s eye, he was screaming frantically, thumping the stumps of his hands. Tongueless as he was, his guttural sounds did not carry. Even the river’s gurgle was louder than he was.
Avalar cried for him as he lay twitching beside her. He longed for death, and though he tried to gesture toward the knife at her belt, his attempts only intensified her grief.
She’ll remember me like this, Gaelin thought bitterly. Avalar and all her people, too, for as long as there are giants.
“Ponu!” Aval
ar’s voice cracked as she shouted. “Help us!”
Her hand hovered in front of him, full of the mushrooms that contained the poisoned spores, the ones he had seen in the burrow that had led them into the mountain. The giant squeezed her hand, and a brownish liquid ran down.
“Drink this,” she begged. “Please.”
He swallowed, gratitude swelling in his breast that his friend was helping him to die. He tasted nothing, and still the pain in his mouth sawed on. Then Avalar touched Mornius’s gem to what remained of his right palm.
He wept that his stubborn heart kept beating, the Skystone’s fire pulsing in vain. Mornius existed far away now in another place. All he knew was numbness in his hands and the awareness of how helpless he was.
Through the filtered light, Avalar surged erect and stepped back. Then a pair of worn boots took her place, followed by knees dropping to the granite and a white swirl of feathered wings.
Fingers splayed in front of him. Ponu’s face, frowning and out of focus, wavered in his sight. “You did well, Gaelin,” the elf-mage said. Gaelin shivered at a vibration against his flesh he barely felt, a current from Ponu’s palms. “But you are not alone. Others are also hurt and require healing. They need Holram to help them—through you.”
“I gave him this,” Avalar said, uncurling her fingers to reveal the crushed fungi. “It is something I remembered. I know not why.”
“Very good, Giant,” said Ponu. “Your mother, Alaysha, was a skilled healer. Perhaps her memories guided you. For sleep you would need more—twice that much. But you eased his hurt. You are a caring friend. Now I need you to remove what is left of his clothing. He cannot heal like this.”
“Clothing?” Avalar echoed. “Where?”
“Look closely. Fabric contains thread, while flesh does not.” Ponu made his way to the river’s receding edge. With his legs braced above the flowing current, he stretched his bare arm out, his palm turned to the water. The elf shut his eyes and pointed at Gaelin, who opened his charred and blistered mouth as cooling rain sluiced down. “Hurry, Giant,” he urged.
Gently Avalar tugged at Gaelin, her probing touch detecting the ends of long tatters of bloody fabric and lifting them carefully away.
“You needn’t worry about hurting him,” said Ponu softly. “I assure you, he cannot feel it.”
“I believe I have removed it all,” she whispered at last, her features stark white.
“Avalar!”
The ringing call came from high above. The giant peered up from the base of the massive cliff, relief flooding her face. “Leader Terrek!”
Ponu grinned. “I was hoping he still lived. We can use him.”
Don’t go! Gaelin wanted to say, but his mouth was empty, his lips and tongue gone. He raised his lump of a hand in protest.
“Only for a moment,” Ponu said, and Gaelin lost himself in the mage’s calming gaze. “To save time, I must carry your companions down here, Gaelin. I would help you to sleep to spare you this torment, but you are so badly injured you might never wake up.”
Gaelin stared at the sky. All his life he had known hurt and endured it. Yet, as Ponu drew away, the anguish was too much and he writhed, hating the pitiful noises that issued from his throat.
Ponu rose in a rush of wings, a single white feather spiraling free in the sunlight.
“It is enough, Gaelin,” said Holram from within him. “You, my faithful friend, do not deserve this.”
Make it stop! Gaelin cried mentally. Please. I’ll do anything!
Abruptly other hurts replaced his own. The granite suffered beneath him. Mount Chesna was shrinking and near death. Glad for the distraction, Gaelin thrust his focus into the volcano’s crippled heart.
His awareness found the Blazenstone in a rocky crevice, its carmine ire seeping poison into Chesna’s husk. Holram, reaching through him, purified the Earth gem, washing all traces of Erebos from its depths.
“It is solid,” the warder whispered among his thoughts. “Malleable minerals. A rock cannot resist me the way you do. There can be no victory here, no healing for you until you forgive yourself. You cannot thrive if you despair.”
Gaelin moaned as the warder uncovered his deepest hurts, the torment he carried inside that dwarfed his physical pain.
“Let it go,” Holram said in his mind. “Stop denying who you are. You have Jaegar Othelion’s blood in your veins!”
Gaelin bumped at the Skystone with his wrist, his burnt flesh drawing a smear of wet crimson across the floor. With his fingerless palm covering the stone, he listened to the water, the gurgling rush of life between the rocks. He imagined sweeping along in that current, washing free and unfettered through the broken layers of the mountain.
A colorful pulse soothed the stinging of his eyes, sending surges of coolness over his flesh.
Time lost meaning. Somewhere along the way, he came to acknowledge that Holram was right. He could be all the things that he wished for, as courageous and true as he had always yearned to be.
What was it Terrek said about his never failing? Yet he had failed many times, and he knew it. Perhaps Terrek had not noticed, but he had.
Yet there was Hawk, whom he had healed, Vyergin and Terrek, too, and Roth. He had braved greater illness to succor Felrina Vlyn, had stood at the brink of death and taunted her father.
Seth Lavahl was dead, yet not buried. His stepfather’s abuse circled endlessly through his thoughts. The poisonous words had become a part of him, disguised as an old friend.
“Hear me,” Holram said. “They are not your friends. Let them go.”
Gaelin nodded. He ached to embrace the freedom of the sky overhead. Beyond the mountain’s shattered dome, high above the clouds, he felt Holram spreading his arms and yearning for home.
Through the warder’s senses, he discovered the scattered black-robes, the fleeing followers of Erebos lying dead where Ponu had left them. He found scores of dachs emaciated and abandoned, dying in their pens.
With a single flex of power, Gaelin brought the warped victims of Erebos to wholeness, freed at last from the merciless clutches of the Destroyer’s cult.
Caven Roth, sprawled dead beside the shattered pool, rose restored, his shoulders shaking as he snatched his first breaths.
Gaelin saw the massive boulder lift from Brant Vyergin, who staggered to his feet, slapping dust from his tunic and cloak.
Felrina Vlyn’s cut brow—healed. As Ponu lowered Terrek onto the riverbank, Holram, with a flick of a thought, knitted Terrek’s cracked skull and kneecap.
Gaelin surrendered to the warder’s persistent pressure, the gentle flame of his touch. Tingles spread throughout his body, surge after surge of itchy coolness. Something firm pushed against his teeth and he tasted blood, then caught the lingering smell of sulfur.
With difficulty, he blinked, his new eyelids sliding over eyes as dry as gritpaper. Terrek crouched by his side, covering him with something—a blanket.
Tendrils of coolness stroked his firming scalp. With power-heightened nerves, Gaelin felt hair growing on his head, heard the rustle of his new mane sliding down his cheek.
“Terrek!” Camron called excitedly. “It’s Caven and Captain Vyergin! They’re alive!”
Gaelin drew a shaky breath. “We’re here with you,” Terrek told him, smiling.
Gaelin stiffened as cramps seized his calves. Under his muscles, his bones creaked as they lengthened. “Just a nudge and not too much,” Holram reassured him. “You shall now be what you would have been, had you been properly cared for.”
Gaelin closed his eyes, sighing in relief that he finally could. A dream, it has to be! he thought. I can wield a sword and ride a horse? I can be a warrior and walk among men?
“It was never your size restricting you,” Holram interjected. “You always had it in you to be anything you wanted.”
With a shudder, Gaelin fought to sit up. Hands pressed him flat, preventing him from throwing off his blanket.
“Wait,” Terrek urged
with a laugh, “there are ladies present!”
As Gaelin relaxed against the stone, Terrek continued, “Wren and Roth are fetching our gear. You still have extra clothing, I hope?”
“Yes.” Gaelin grinned at the sound of his voice, at the feel of his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He raised his arms, marveling at the firmness of new muscle below the smooth skin. In vain, he searched his belly for the bumps of scar tissue Nithra’s knife had left.
“Everything healed?” asked Terrek. “Erebos is gone, Gaelin. I don’t know how you did it. Was it all Holram, or did Avalar help?”
Ponu descended with a flutter of wings, carrying Caven Roth. The youth’s face was pale, sadness still glimmering behind his brown eyes.
“Camron didn’t want to burden Ponu with his size,” Felrina said. “He’s going to make the descent through the tunnels, bringing the packs.”
“In his mind, he’s still a human, trying to be a giant,” Ponu mused. “You, Leader Florne, should observe him well. And you also, Avalar. We have no way to know how changed he is.”
“He is Camron Florne and nothing else!” Avalar scanned the boulders at her feet. Then, her mien triumphant, she descended into the river, flashing them a grin as she lifted the dripping shard of bloodstone she had used as a sword. “It does not drain me now,” she told them. “Mayhap it has gorged enough for one day. I know this is not Govorian’s weapon, yet I will keep it with me and cherish it, for it has shown me its greatness. It, too, deserves a place at Freedom Hall.”
Gaelin was careful to tuck the blanket around him as he levered himself to a sitting position. He glanced at Ponu, feeling Holram’s control once more take his throat.
“It would appear,” said Holram, “that I am still trapped: the last of my kind on this world.”
“That is a problem,” Ponu agreed. “No offense, but I believe we all hoped that whatever force would rid us of Erebos would take you away as well.”
Holram hesitated, and Gaelin winced at the rapid acceleration of the warder’s thoughts within him. “You bear an object that will help me break free,” Holram said to Ponu. “Though I perceive from your reaction this is not your intent. Come, Sephrym’s Chosen, bring it forth and show me.”
Song Of Mornius Page 45
