“Afraid?” The shadow’s laughter took on a cruel tone. “You’ve always been afraid, Bethany. You’re weak. Pathetic.”
Bethany took another step forward. “Shut up!”
The shadow’s smile widened. “It’s why you always ran, Bethany. It’s why no one loves you. You don’t deserve it.”
“Be quiet!”
“It’s why he follows you—you’ve always known it was true. Everything around you dies, Bethany, because you’re cursed.”
“You’re lying.” Bethany fixed the shadow with an angry glare. “I don’t believe you.”
“Oh no?” The shadow’s lips were wide with a ghoulish grin.
Bethany returned the creature’s smile, showing the fiend her teeth. “Shadows don’t say anything worth hearing. Everybody knows that.”
Before the shadow could respond, Bethany raised her fist and punched it right in its laughing mouth.
She put all the power behind her fist she could, turning her hips just like her uncle had showed her. Her knuckles cracked into the shadow’s stunned face, sending a jolt of pain up Bethany’s arm. She’d forgotten to straighten her wrist, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The shadow stumbled away from her, cold arms flailing at the air. Bethany chased her across the squishy, liquid ground, tangling her left hand in the shadow’s wet hair. She hit the thing over and over, slapping its hands aside so she could land her punches. The shadow hissed something through its teeth, but Bethany had the creature on its toes, and she pressed her advantage.
The shadow grabbed Bethany’s shirt, trying to keep her at bay with its grip on the fabric. It tried to step forward and bowl Bethany to the ground, but she was ready for that, too. Bethany tangled her other hand into the shadow’s hair and lashed out with her knee, sinking it into the creature’s gut. The shadow hissed in pain, its advance faltering. Bethany yanked its head back by the hair and slammed the crown of her head into its nose.
No one ever expects the head-butt—she could almost hear Uncle Allen saying it.
The shadow stumbled on unsteady feet. Bethany moved forward, hands still tangled in its hair, and tripped the thing to the ground. It went down, hands still clutched to Bethany’s shirt, but Bethany ripped its hand free and shoved her knees into the shadow’s armpits. With quiet, determined grunts of effort, she punched the shadow over and over again.
“I’m not worthless!”
The shadow kicked its feet, trying to rise from the ground. Bethany rode the ghoul down and continued her rain of punches, slapping the creature’s flailing hands aside.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Bethany snarled the words through her teeth. “I’m not pathetic!”
The shadow managed to snake its arm up and grab Bethany’s face. A piercing cold sensation went through Bethany’s body, filling her with icy confusion. Pain exploded in her head, and another torturous parade of images flashed across her vision.
“You know what you are,” the shadow hissed. “Fight, scream, and cry all you want, but you cannot kill me. I will always be here, waiting for you in the dark.”
Tears poured down Bethany’s cheeks, but she couldn’t blink her eyes. She screamed and thrashed in her mind, tried to summon her will and throw it against the shadow’s frigid grasp. Her muscles were petrified.
A light bloomed from somewhere in the darkness. It reflected from the shiny liquid ground, sending waves of amber and crimson wafting like fairy fire over its surface. A metallic, alien noise whispered through the shadows.
“Surrender!” The shadow’s grip was tight, fingers cold.
“I wont!”
“You must.” The cold in the shadow’s fingers burned through Bethany’s skull. “Embrace what you are, Bethany, what we are.”
“No!” The word toppled from her mouth like a heavy weight.
“You will!” The pressure from its fingers increased, the cold intensifying with the creature’s grip. Bethany’s head clouded with pain. She squeezed her eyes tight against the sensation.
In the darkness, the alien song grew louder. The source of light came nearer, pushing back the darkness with warmth and noise. The song loosened the shadow’s grip on Bethany’s face like ice thawing in the sun. Bethany pulled the ghoulish hand free. Blinking her eyes against the light, she looked up.
A woman stood over Bethany, looking down at the bedraggled form of the shadow. She was tall and beautiful. Her hair floated around her as if she was standing underwater. Her eyes, instead of being green or blue, were the color of polished silver. Her gaze went to Bethany, and a smile lit the woman’s face.
The smile filled Bethany with a warm, contented feeling. Her presence was comforting, as if she carried a campfire in her skin. The alien song filled the silent darkness.
The shadow hissed in anger and struggled, its limbs flailing with unnatural fervor. Bethany made to move off the creature, but it dissolved into a cloud of darkness and skittered away before she could move. She watched it go, feeling winded from the fight.
Bethany looked back to the woman, who still smiled at her. The air was vibrating with the voice of the Nar’doroc, including the new addition to its melody. The lady reached out a hand as if to help Bethany from the ground. Her fingers were delicate, but the nails were pointed, and colored the same polished silver as her eyes.
With a deep breath, Bethany reached out and took the woman’s hand.
***
The Garthorin came screaming into the tunnel.
Dormael lashed out with a wave of force, sending the first pack of beasts tumbling back down the corridor. Pained howls erupted from the creatures as they were tossed backward like sacks of grain. A few Garthorin bounced from the smooth tunnel walls, bones cracking from the violence of Dormael’s spell.
“We can’t hold them here!” Allen shook his head. “We’ll be overrun once they get their act together!”
Shawna pulled her swords and stared down the tunnel. “He’s right. We could take one or two of them. A pack of those things will wash over us like a flood.”
“There’s nowhere else we can go!” Dormael seized one of the Garthorin—a huge brute who loped into the tunnel—and smashed its body against the wall. “This tunnel goes on forever, and there aren’t any turns!”
“You need to do something, big brother.” Allen glanced to the walls of the tunnel. “I don’t know how we’re going to face these things without a spear-line and a wall full of ramparts.”
Ramparts?
Dormael tossed Allen his spear and rolled up his sleeves. Allen caught it and gave him a nod, hefting the black-bladed weapon. Dormael took a deep breath and shared a nervous glance with Shawna.
“I might be able to do something, but it will be difficult. I’ll need you two to hold them back while I work.”
Shawna gave him a piercing look. “What do you mean, difficult?”
“I mean I’m close to flagging already.” Dormael set his jaw. “It will probably take all the power I have left.”
“What happens then?” Shawna’s face was a stony mask. “No more magic? The Death Sleep?”
Dormael nodded. “Definitely the one, maybe the other.”
“Whatever you’re going to do, better get started.” Allen tossed the arming belt holding his saber to the floor and loosening his shoulders. “The next wave is coming.”
Shawna took a deep breath and gave Allen a nod. “We do this together?”
“I’ll pin them down.” Allen smiled. “Try to keep up.”
“Sometimes I really hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
A Garthorin appeared at the end of the tunnel, its snarls echoing from the stone.
“Stay back from the tunnel mouth!” Dormael backed away several steps. “Hold them here!”
“Just hurry!” Shawna crouched and moved to Allen’s left side. “We move together!”
The Garthorin’s claws scratched over the stone as it barreled in Allen’s direction. Allen moved forward and thrust the s
pear at the Garthorin’s belly, catching the creature in the ribs. Shawna slipped to the Garthorin’s other side as it made a grab for the spear and took its head in a single slash. Her sword hummed a musical tone at the blow, the magic in the steel making it sing.
Allen yanked the spear free and backed up the tunnel. Shawna moved with him. Howls sounded from the chamber below, peppered with the noise of clawed feet thundering toward the stairs.
Dormael closed his eyes and crouched to the stone.
His senses went down into the rock of the tunnel, feeling the substance of the stone itself. Rock was dense, which made it harder to penetrate with magical senses. Dormael expected the stone to resist his attention, but what he found when he reached into the tunnel was a web-work of bright filaments. They sang with energy, as if the tunnel was surrounded by tiny veins of lava.
The silver filaments! D’Jenn was right—they carry magic through the city!
The veins were crackling with unspent magic. Dormael could feel the energy building through the web like heat reaching the point of ignition. Could he tap into that energy? Would it yield to him or destroy him for his efforts?
Dormael touched the floor with his fingertips and reached into the stone with his Kai. The rock bubbled and moved away from his fingertips in waves of soft clay. His hand sank into the stone, fingers reaching through the muck. The rock softened and flowed away from his fingers with aching slowness.
“Dormael! Hurry!”
Shawna jerked her blade free from a Garthorin throat and kicked it from the tip of Allen’s spear. Another appeared behind her, and Allen managed to catch it on the spear-blade just in time. He drove the Garthorin to the wall with a scream, slamming it into the stone. Shawna spun and rushed to his side, shoving one of her blades through the Garthorin’s skull. Allen yanked the spear free and the two of them moved back to the center of the tunnel.
Dormael redoubled his efforts, pouring more power into his spell. The rock bubbled faster and bulged away from the hole. Dormael’s hand sank wrist-deep into the floor, his fingers reaching for the web.
Something hot touched the tip of his finger and power flooded into his body.
Heat suffused Dormael’s muscles, smoothing the hurts of the day. The cuts on his arms no longer stung. His mind was stunned by the sudden clarity of his senses. The light in the tunnel—dim just moments before—now flooded into Dormael’s eyes. He could taste dust in the air and smell the coppery tang of blood.
Events played themselves to his eyes in a sluggish dance.
Allen menaced a Garthorin with the spear, forcing it to scuttle to the side. Shawna moved in from the other direction and took its arm in a quicksilver swipe. Blood sprayed from the limb and the creature spun to respond, but Shawna’s second blade shot forward in a long thrust, taking it in the throat.
Allen was already turning away, thrusting with the backside of the spear. The butt-spike caught an advancing Garthorin in the throat, causing it to fall to the side, clawed hands trying to stem the flow of blood. Shawna baited a third creature into charging and quick-stepped aside, arm licking out in a vicious cut. The Garthorin tried to spin and reverse its momentum, but its leg crumpled when it turned. Shawna slashed one of its arms out of the way and opened its throat with another attack.
More Garthorin poured into the tunnel from the main chamber, the corridor echoing with their howls. Allen pulled an axe from his belt and sent it tumbling into the pack, felling one of the beasts. The rest trampled without slowing.
Dormael kept his right hand in the floor and raised his left. “Heads up!”
Allen and Shawna dove to either side, clearing Dormael’s line of sight. He had a moment to see the horde of Garthorin tearing up the tunnel, a tide of claws, teeth, and timeless rage. Pulling magic through the web in the stone, Dormael lashed out with his Kai.
Lightning arced from his hand and filled the corridor. It lanced straight through the lead Garthorin and sent the group behind it flying into the walls. The smell of burnt hair filled the tunnel as Dormael kept the power flowing, killing the creatures in waves. He let the lightning fade and pushed another wave of force down the tunnel, bowling the lead Garthorin from their feet.
With space to work, Dormael turned his attention to the stone. He reached his senses into the rock and permeated the tunnel with his power. Magic roared into him through the metallic veins in the stone. Dormael reveled in the feeling.
Forming a picture in his mind, Dormael solidified his will and released his spell into the structure of the tunnel. Stone rumbled as the shape of the tunnel was changed. Fingers of jagged rock grew from the floor between Dormael and the Garthorin, sprinkling the approach with needle-sharp protrusions. The shape of the tunnel distended as Dormael moved the stone, creating a palisade of natural rock through which Allen and Shawna could fight.
I could close it off for good and seal those creatures behind us.
D’Jenn would be sealed off with them. Perhaps his cousin had been taken by the horde—if they were here and he wasn’t, his attempt to slow them must have failed—but Dormael couldn’t bring himself to part with the possibility D’Jenn was still alive. Finishing the spell, he shaped the tunnel to leave enough space for a man to squeeze through.
Allen rushed to the opening as the stone ceased moving, spear leveled at the hole. A snarling, brutish face appeared in the crack, but Allen killed the creature with a thrust to the chest. Shawna moved in as another beast clawed to get over the first and through the opening. She cut off its arm as it swiped a claw through the portal. It disappeared the way it had come, howling in pain.
Dormael sent a lance of fire through the crack as Shawna cleared out of the way. It lit the hole with bright flames and filled the tunnel with the pained screams of Garthorin. The hole was silent for a moment as Dormael stoked the flames.
Shawna turned to smile at him. “I thought you said you were close to flagging.”
“I found some spare magic lying around.”
Shawna laughed and made to say something else, but Allen cut her off.
“You two are so bloody disgusting. Can’t you wait until we find an inn somewhere before you start making eyes at each other?”
Dormael snorted. “We weren’t—”
A surge of magical energy flashed through the web, hitting Dormael’s Kai with a painful shock. There was a bright spike of pain, a floating sensation, and Dormael slammed into something hard. Disembodied screams came to his ears through a cloying haze in his mind. He rolled to his back, feeling a sense of vertigo at the movement, and tried to push his body upright.
His stomach rebelled against him, heaving as his head sent another wave of dizziness through his body. His Kai was drained, the magic reinforcing his power gone like a whisper. His pain and fatigue were back with a vengeance.
Shawna and Allen struggled at the opening Dormael had created, stabbing and cutting with their weapons. The stone had split near the top of the hole, metallic veins spreading from the damage like the exposed roots of an alien plant. Allen stabbed upward with Dormael’s spear, catching a Garthorin before it could crawl over the corpse of its pack-mate and through the damaged section. Shawna severed limbs, thrust into eyes, and killed Garthorin as Allen caught them on the spear. Furry, struggling bodies filled the opening.
Dormael tried to stand and move back to the spot where he’d touched the silvery veins, but his legs gave out as he stood. He fell and clawed his way toward the wound in the floor, reaching for the web beneath the surface. His fingers touched the metallic roots, but there was no power to be had. The web, for whatever reason, had gone quiet.
“The magic is gone!” Dormael tried to pull more power from the metal, but nothing came through. “I’ve got nothing!”
His friends had no time to reply.
A Garthorin tore through damaged hole and fell into the tunnel. Shawna was there in an instant, shoving her blade deep into the creature’s torso. Allen called a warning and she turned back to the hole as another
Garthorin appeared. Allen thrust his spear at the creature’s face and it disappeared back into the mass of struggling bodies. Another came right on its heels.
The two of them worked in a frenzy. Limbs flew in spurts of blood as Shawna sliced through them. Allen thrust the spear into the hole again and again, pinning the Garthorin so Shawna could kill them. The Garthorin came on in a frenzy, heedless of the corpses of their pack-mates.
Clawed hands scraped at the damaged rock. Pieces broke from the damaged stone and were ripped away, widening the hole. The Garthorin howled on the other side of the defenses, as if the pack could sense the kill drawing nigh.
Bethany.
Dormael had to close the rift in the defenses. His magic was spent, but he could force his Kai to open and draw in more power. Judging by the way his body felt, the process would likely kill him, but so be it. Shawna and Allen couldn’t stop the tide of angry beasts, and D’Jenn was probably gone.
I’m the only one left who can do this.
Dormael reached deep into his being and focused on his Kai. It hummed with a muffled, injured tone, but Dormael ignored the pain and forced it open. A headache came as the magic filled him, and shooting pains traveled from his chest down his arms and legs.
The hole—have to close the damned hole.
Rumbling started somewhere in the mountain as Dormael once again sank his magic into the rock. He pushed his power into the stone, having to scream through the pain in his head. The rumblings increased as he poured magic into the tunnel.
Shawna’s voice rang out over the din. “Dormael!”
A mote of blinding light shot down the tunnel, uttering a high-pitched squeal as it burned a path through the air. It flew into the breach above Allen’s head and blossomed into a conflagration. The light coming through the breaks in the stone showed a mass of thrashing bodies burning as they screamed.
The alien song of the Nar’doroc filled the ether.
A shifting source of crimson light floated down the tunnel in their direction. Bethany hovered in midair at its center, the toes of her shoes pointed as she moved through the air. On either shoulder shone fist-sized gems—one glowing with the familiar angry crimson of Shawna's armlet, the other misting a steady golden light. Silver tendrils wrapped around her like an otherworldly piece of armor. Bethany’s eyes glowed with a fierce orange hue, leaking energy like the gems on her shoulders.
The City Under the Mountain (The Seven Signs Book 4) Page 40
