But Lakeo stuck her hand in front of his chest to stop him. She took her bow off her shoulder and pulled out an arrow. “You can’t run forever.”
“You’re not going to shoot her. Do you know what a mage hunter is? How well they’re trained?”
He imagined a lithe figure in white leaping into the air and spinning a somersault to evade an arrow shot at her, then coming down in a fighting stance with a bevy of throwing stars ready to hurl.
“I’ve heard stories,” Lakeo whispered. “They’re human. Arrows kill humans.”
Yanko wanted to object to the idea of killing anyone, or at least of putting blood on Lakeo’s hands when this wasn’t her fight. The local police might want her, but what did she matter to the Nurians? But he dared not speak again, because he sensed the hunter’s presence on the other side of the cave entrance. He could not see her yet, but Lakeo was waiting, the arrow nocked and pulled back.
Seconds passed, and she didn’t show herself. Even if she didn’t have the senses of a mage, her instincts must be telling her that danger awaited her inside. Would she wait out there? Call for her comrades to come up? As of yet, Yanko hadn’t heard a sound from her, neither the clatter of a rock knocked free by her climb, nor a startled cry when his roots had entangled her.
He thought about probing her mind, trying some mental attack or even trying to communicate with her, as he had with the animals. But he doubted he could convince her to take off after a potential feast down below. He—
Yanko flattened his back against the nearest wall. “She’s inside,” he whispered.
“Can’t be,” Lakeo whispered back. “I didn’t see—”
“Look out.” Yanko grabbed her, even as something whistled through the air.
He was too late. Lakeo gasped with pain, dropping her bow.
Afraid the assassin would be on them before he sensed her, that they wouldn’t have a chance once she reached weapons range, Yanko clenched his eyes shut and reverted to the only one of the mental sciences that came easily to him: earth magic.
He flung a hand toward the ceiling at the mouth of the cave, as if his energy would flow out through his fingers. More power than he expected surged through him. It blasted into the porous rock of the ceiling, bringing down the surface layers at once, and pouring pressure into the tiny gaps in the stone higher up. Great slabs of stone tumbled down, smashing into the ground. Cracks and snaps sounded above them, and rock flew everywhere. Something wet spattered Yanko’s face, but he barely noticed it.
This time, Lakeo was the one to grab him, hauling him farther back into the cave. It took him a moment to get his feet working, to follow her—the force he had discharged had left him stunned, almost taking him to his knees. He scrambled over fallen boulders, some old, some new, patting his way along in the dark, even as the rock fall continued behind him. His pursuers would not have any doubt as to the direction he had gone now.
Small stones struck the ground around Yanko and Lakeo, but the rockfall remained centered near the entrance. He hoped they weren’t in danger of being crushed—and he hoped there was another away out.
“Ouch,” Lakeo said, smacking into something in the dark.
Not the dead end of the cave, he hoped. The falling rocks dwindled, leaving the air full of dust and that horrible guano stench.
“You with me, Yanko?” Lakeo asked.
A hand slapped his cheek. Maybe it had been meant as more of a inquiring pat, but he almost took a finger up the nostril.
“Yes. Just dazed.” He did not explain that he had hurled more power at the ceiling than he had expected. He fingered the hem of his robe, wondering if it or the amulet had affected him. Yes, it had been a move of desperation, and it was possible he had flailed and used too much force, but he had still meant to control the rockfall, so it would only bring down rock near the entrance, enough to block the assassin from reaching them.
But it might have crushed her. Yanko could not bring himself to check on her aura. Because the power drain had left him with a headache, he told himself. But he knew the truth. He was too cowardly and didn’t want to know. Why the idea of killing someone who was trying to kill him bothered him so much, he wasn’t sure. Yes, any kind of killing disturbed him, but he was logical enough to understand the need for self-defense, to understand that if he didn’t kill her, she would keep coming after him. Somehow that logic did not make it all right.
The soft orange light returned, hovering between Lakeo and Yanko this time. She had stopped clambering over the rough ground and faced him. Dust, grime, and sweat stamped her face, and blood dripped down her forehead and into an eyebrow. She grimaced and wiped at it with the back of her hand. One of those falling rocks must have struck her in the head. He should have shielded them. As soon as he had hurled that burst of power, he should have been prepared for the consequences, erecting a barrier above their heads for protection.
“Can you sense her back there?” Lakeo prodded at her shoulder, where her vest was torn. Blood dribbled from a fresh gash there too. That straight, clean slash must have been caused by a knife or throwing star, not a rock. “Did you get her?”
“I... don’t know.”
She frowned. “You don’t know or you won’t check?”
Yanko avoided her eyes. “I barely sensed her slipping through the entrance.” It wasn’t exactly an answer to the question. Sooner or later, he would have to check, even if he didn’t want to, because otherwise they risked an attack from behind. “Give me a second.”
Ignoring his growing headache, Yanko probed the rockfall, confirming that there was no way out—it had plugged up the entire mouth of the cave—and then searched the pile itself. He found a weak aura at the bottom and near the exit. She had almost made it out, but even a mage hunter could not beat gravity.
“She’s alive, but barely,” he said.
“Trapped under the rocks?”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to have to be good enough. We better hope this tube leads somewhere.” Lakeo wiped her brow again, then sent her small ball of light floating ahead. Rocks littered the floor, but the ceiling was high enough that they could travel without ducking, and the passage was wide enough for them to walk side by side. “By the way, this probably wasn’t the best time to put on an invaluable family heirloom.” She waved a hand at his robe before heading deeper into the volcano.
He looked down. The robe did not show any signs of permanent damage, but dust and bat guano battled each other for prominence. His new bird buddy had left a gift on his shoulder, as well.
“I’m sure I can wash it.” Yanko prodded at a sticky spot, some kind of pitch or sap. “That’s probably what they have you do anyway in Kyattese prisons.”
Lakeo had started walking, but she frowned back at him when he didn’t follow. “We escaped the mage hunter. We’ll escape the rest. Get a ride on a ship going... somewhere. Not here. Come on.”
It was good advice, but Yanko found himself gazing back toward the rockfall. Even if Lakeo’s meager light did not stretch back far enough to see it, he could still sense the woman trapped beneath all the rubble. He had bored a hole through rock before. He might be able to reach her, to get her out.
But to what end? Would she be appreciative if he saved her life when he had also been the one who had put it in jeopardy? No, she would thrust a dagger into his chest. That was her mission, her quest. Just as finding that lodestone was his.
“Yanko, get moving,” Lakeo called from ten meters ahead. “I can’t watch your back if it’s way behind me.”
With his senses still extended, Yanko barely heard her. More auras had entered within his range. He drew back, not wanting to encounter the warrior mage if he had climbed up there. He wasn’t ready to deal with that superior attitude right now. All that mattered was that the hunter’s party had come, and they should try to dig her out. If they were in time. Her aura had grown weaker. She seemed to be trapped in a small, empty pocket under a big slab of rock, so he didn
’t think she had been crushed. But maybe she wasn’t getting enough air. Though he didn’t know why he was doing it, he shifted aside a few of the rocks near her. Enough of them rolled away to create a tiny tunnel through which air could reach her.
“Yanko,” came another call from Lakeo, this one more distant.
He jogged after her, hoping he had not made a mistake he would regret.
Chapter 16
“We should have brought food. And more water.” Lakeo drank from her canteen. “But especially food. You bring any supplies?”
“Just water.” Yanko eyed the rounded ceiling of their lava tube, wondering if it would ever end. He had a vague sense that they had been heading downhill, but it was a subtle slope. Since he hadn’t thought to bring a pocket watch, he had little concept of how much time had passed, but he believed it had been an hour. Parts of the ceiling had dropped to the floor over the years, leaving boulders and occasionally huge rubble piles they had to scale. Anyone who knew where the tunnel came out could have driven there in a roundabout three times over by now. He had visions of walking straight into the hands of the ambassador and Sun Dragon with no chance of escaping into the city.
“Any chips left in your pocket? I wouldn’t be too proud to lick out crumbs.” Lakeo glanced at his bat-guano-smeared robe. “Well, maybe I would.”
“The chips were in my other clothes, but Kei got them all, anyway.”
“And hasn’t been back to visit since. I knew that parrot was rude as soon as we met him. You really shouldn’t make friends with birds that are clearly racist.” Odd, she actually sounded perky, like she was enjoying herself. Did she think they had won the night because they had trapped the mage hunter?
Yanko could not bring himself to be that optimistic.
You think you’re clever, boy? an irritated voice resonated in his head.
Yanko had been prepared for the warrior mage’s intrusion. In fact, he had expected it earlier, but maybe Sun Dragon had been helping unbury the hunter. Yanko did not respond to the question. He had already decided that he wouldn’t; on the chance that the man didn’t know where he was, Yanko did not want to risk giving away their location or thoughts of where they would come out. Not that he could do more than guess where they would come out. Only the gods knew if they had stumbled into the tunnel Akstyr had meant.
You should have studied more than rocks growing up. You can’t solve every problem by dropping caves on people’s heads.
Such venom came through the words that gooseflesh rose on Yanko’s arms. He doubted Sun Dragon could hurt him from this distance, but he kept that brick wall up around his thoughts, regardless, remembering the attack Senshoth had hurled at him in the prison.
As you shall soon see, boy. As you shall soon see.
“We’ve been threatened,” Yanko said.
“By your mage friend?”
“Friend isn’t quite the word I’d use.”
“I wonder why he doesn’t talk to me. Just because my talents are more meager than yours...” Lakeo waved to the orange globe floating ahead of them, the one that had gone out a couple of times during their trek because she had stubbed a toe or bumped a knee.
Yanko understood the struggle to master the ability to maintain enough concentration for basic tasks while other things were going on around a person. “Talent doesn’t have much to do with it. Just practice. You’ll get there, especially if you find someone to teach you. I could try sometime, but as you know, it’s frowned upon for people to become instructors unless they’ve graduated from an official mage school. And I...” He did not finish. She knew all about it. “Maybe if I give you the letter to hold, he’ll talk to you instead of me. If you’re truly eager to experience his wit.”
“I don’t think I want the responsibility of your quest. But I was thinking... you said pirate’s stash? That’s where your artifact is?”
“Yes.” Yanko did not see any point in holding back the truth anymore, not when half of Kyatt knew about his quest—and his dubious past—so he relayed the information he had learned from Mela and her newspaper.
They came to their first cross passage as he did so, a spot where another tunnel fed into theirs, and the direction changed slightly. Yanko did not know whether that was promising or not, but they kept following the downhill passage. Heading upward should only take them to the caldera. Even if the volcano was dormant, he didn’t want to end up there.
“So if we found this cache,” Lakeo said, “you could get your gold rock and complete your mission, and maybe there would be other valuable loot there, too, loot that could be sold to finance a person’s tuition to a certain expensive institution.”
“The loot came from the Kyattese Museum. I think we would be obligated to return it.”
“Please, we’re Nurian. What’s a museum in another nation to us? Besides, you’re not planning to return the lodestone.”
“I might after we’ve discovered the lost continent and claimed it for Nuria,” Yanko said.
“Oh, very generous.”
Up ahead, another tunnel emptied into theirs. Yanko increased his pace, hoping this meant they would reach an exit soon. He sniffed the air, hoping for a whiff of fishy ocean air, but he smelled an unfamiliar gas instead, something that made his nostrils pucker.
“It’s gotten hotter,” Lakeo said. “You’re sure we’re going away from the center of the volcano, right?”
Yanko wiped sweat from his brow. She was right. It was hotter. He had been thinking they had simply been working hard climbing over rocks, but since the first tunnel had joined theirs, the floor had grown relatively smooth. They were simply walking now, their pace brisk but not strenuous.
Their tunnel curved slightly, and a hint of orange stretched along the ground ahead. Yanko thought the glow of Lakeo’s orange light might be reflecting off something, but her weak globe had not reached far enough to illuminate anything up there yet. Whatever was on the floor seemed to glow of its own accord. As they drew closer, he realized what he was looking at and felt stupid for not grasping the situation sooner.
“But I thought this was a dormant volcano...” True, nobody had told him that. Yanko had assumed that an entire city would not have built up around a volcano that could erupt at any time. Wasn’t that dangerous? He had visions of buildings and entire civilizations being swallowed, such as had happened in the Legend of the Dragon God’s Punishment.
“Lava?” Lakeo pointed at the small stream oozing out of the tube joining theirs.
The sluggish flow was not going anywhere quickly, and that was the only thing that kept Yanko from feeling too uneasy as they continued forward, walking near the wall so they would not chance stepping in the lava. “I hope this means we’re getting close to... wherever the lava goes.”
“I was thinking that we would come out above town somewhere, but it’s hard to imagine a lava flow dumping out onto the president’s house.”
“I wouldn’t mind some dumping onto the ambassador’s compound.” Yanko lowered his voice and added, “Or on his head.” How could that man have automatically sided with an assassin? He could understand how seeing someone in the crimson robe of a warrior mage might sway a person—hadn’t he used his mother’s robe to sway the commissioner of that prison?—but mage hunters weren’t loved by the general populace. If anything, most people feared them. They had assassinated at least a half dozen great chiefs throughout history and been hunted nearly to extinction more than once. Maybe this assassin had never made an appearance.
“Does this lava seem like it’s getting thicker?” Lakeo pointed at the orange ribbon they were following.
“We passed that other tunnel that was dripping some into the channel.”
Lakeo continued walking, but she kept glancing down at the molten stream. It had grown wider. Yanko thought his explanation made sense, but the orange stuff made him uneasy too. Heat radiated from it, turning the entire tunnel into a steam yurt, and sweat ran down the sides of his face.
“I
’m sure it’s perfectly normal,” Yanko said, “but we may want to increase our pace, in case the authorities are waiting at the opposite end of our tunnel.”
“You’re the boss.” Lakeo broke into a jog, her bow and pack bouncing on her back.
“I am? Since when? And of what?” He matched her pace, telling himself it had nothing to do with the lava or the feeling of claustrophobia creeping over him.
“Well, you’ve effectively ordered that parrot around.”
“I’ve bribed him to do things by withholding chips. I don’t think that makes me his boss.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I was trying to make you feel better about yourself.”
“Really? I don’t recall you ever doing that.”
“You seem glum,” Lakeo said. “It’s no fun pushing you around when you don’t get that sulky expression on your face.”
“Thanks. I think.”
The air ahead of her had grown brighter. Yanko hoped that meant they were almost to the exit, but he couldn’t imagine what light outside they might be witnessing, not unless they had been down here longer than he thought, and dawn had come.
The tunnel curved, and Lakeo stopped abruptly, flailing her arms.
“Stoat’s teats,” she growled and caught herself on the wall.
Yanko couldn’t come up beside her, not without jumping over what had become a two-foot-wide river of lava, but he leaned out to look, and his mouth sagged open.
“Now what?” she asked, pressing her back against the wall, so he could see better.
He had already seen enough. Their stream of lava had met with the outflow of several other streams, and a huge steaming pool of molten rock stretched across the confluence zone ahead of them. Heat blasted his face, and the gas they had been breathing had grown stronger, a mix of unpleasant chemicals that stung his nostrils and made his eyes tear. The pool stretched from wall to wall, leaving no way around, not unless one had a boat that could withstand however many hundreds of degrees in temperature lava was. Maybe thousands. Yanko wiped his face. He had no idea, and he wasn’t about to stick his finger in to check.
Warrior Mage (Book 1) Page 28
