Bones of the Empire (5 page)

Sleep did not come until Feanne returned to lay beside him, putting one arm over him and nuzzling the back of his shoulder to let him know the argument was over.

*

A few hours after they had all gotten up—Estin wanted to call it midafternoon, but time had little meaning in the mine—the group walked on, following the bobbing green light Dalania had summoned. She had insisted on taking the lead to give others a rest. Since they had begun marching, the dull light of the orb drifted lazily beside her, casting long shadows.

Sleep or walking seemed hardly different to Estin, with the unchanging scenery. The few times the passage did curve or dip, he, Yoska, and Dalania had stumbled and had to blink to keep from running into the walls. It was disorienting and mind-numbing, making Estin wonder how Raeln and Feanne managed to be immune to it. Turess kept one hand on the wall at all times, seemingly using the touch to maintain his focus.

When Turess spoke, Estin jumped, as no one had talked in hours. Even Feanne and Raeln flinched at the sudden noise.

“Uh…he…um,” Yoska murmured, staring intently at Turess as he continued in his staccato language. “He say we come to fork soon. We will take right-hand passage to see daylight again. Will be only for a short time, but he thinks it will improve spirits so vixen does not disembowel anyone…oh…he adds that this part was not meant to be translated and calls me idiot. I do not like this man, even more than I did not like him the last time he called me that.”

Chuckling at Yoska’s ongoing muttering, Estin followed Feanne to the front of the group, using her own magical light as she moved away from Dalania. They hurried ahead, neither of them needing to say they were eager to see daylight again. It had been too long and would be even longer until the next time, if there would be more tunnels in the coming days.

Getting about twenty feet ahead of the others, Estin and Feanne slowed as they reached a split in the tunnel. The left-hand passage continued on into darkness, its uneven walls narrowing shortly after the fork. From what Estin could see, the passage was far older than the one they had entered through, with fallen stones every few feet.

He was thankful they were taking the other path, even just for a little while. Any more of the tight confines would have escalated tempers even further. As if agreeing with him without knowing he had been thinking about it, Feanne took his hand in hers and squeezed as they continued up the passage toward a faint light, keeping ahead of the rest of the group, giving them a small semblance of privacy.

“I will push for a day’s break when we reach the surface,” she whispered, keeping their pace fast so the others stayed out of earshot. “I owe you an apology, and so long as we’re down here, I will be too on edge to give it properly.”

“We all could use the break,” he admitted, tightening his grip on her hand.

Smiling warmly, Feanne added, “Yoska says we have another week of underground travel, with only two or three more places we can stop. We must make the most of the few places we can get out of this awful place.”

The passage curved around as the daylight grew brighter. Soon Feanne let her other hand drop, dismissing the ball of magical light she had been using. They rounded another large curve and then stopped abruptly as they faced a black-robed woman standing in the entrance to the passage.

“Hello again, rodents. Having a lovely day together, traipsing through the mines, hand in hand?” came the woman’s soft voice, which Estin recognized immediately as Liris, the Turessian who had hunted them halfway across Eldvar.

From what she had told Estin when she had been bragging in the moments before trying to kill him the first time, Dorralt had assigned Liris one specific task: to hunt down anyone related to the prophecy, with a particular preference for wildlings. If she found them, she was given free rein to kill them however she saw fit, and that was something she seemed to enjoy immensely. Each time the group had eluded her, she had grown more relentless.

“Liris,” Estin hissed, eliciting a giggle from her as she folded her hands, leaning against the edge of the arched exit from the mine. “I thought you’d be gone longer. Your master done scolding you for letting us raise Turess?”

Liris lowered her hood, letting her long brown hair fall over her shoulders. The series of tattoos around her eyes somehow stood out, even with the light behind her casting her face in shadows. The human woman’s soft face belied the brutality she had inflicted on their group more than once in the past few months.

“Dorralt insisted, I’m afraid,” she replied, motioning to something outside the mine that Estin could not see. “He thought his dear brother might come this way. Very predictable. I find it interesting that the six of you made it into our lands and then walked right into the most basic of traps. You make me think I have been trying too hard in the past. Should I have simply left out a bowl of milk or cheese or something? What do your kind eat, anyway?”

Estin glanced over his shoulder as Feanne let go of his hand and braced herself to fight. Behind them, the others had just come into sight, and at the rear of the group, Raeln was facing the dark behind them, pushing the group toward Estin and Feanne. A second later, Estin saw two more Turessians come into the light of Dalania’s spell, cutting off any easy escape.

At his side, Feanne bared her fangs and shifted to block Estin from rushing at Liris.

“Here is how this is going to work,” Liris went on, smiling pleasantly at them. The other Turessians quickly forced the group together. “Turess goes with us and home to his brother, who misses him something fierce. The wolf is mine, for a messy butchering at a time of my choosing. The rest of you can attempt to run while I dissect the dog. I will let you run until his body ceases to amuse me. You have declined my offers in the past and it has ended poorly for all of you.”

Placing a hand on Estin’s shoulder as she came up behind him, Dalania whispered, “I can help all of you run faster and slow them at the same time. You may be able to slip past her. Run as a group. On three.”

Behind him, Estin heard Dalania faintly tap the wall once, twice…

On the third tap, Feanne charged, running hard for Liris. Estin raced after her, hearing the others right behind him. The Turessian was ready for them, but Feanne was faster than she was, slapping aside the woman’s hand as she tried to ready a spell and then tearing off part of her face with claws far sharper than they looked. With a kick that Estin recognized from Raeln’s training sessions, she knocked Liris over backward, clearing the tunnel as the rest of them caught up.

Breaking out into the light, Estin finally saw who Liris had motioned to. A dozen rotting corpses stood in an arc around the entrance to the mines, all holding crossbows aimed at the tunnel. They were trapped between the zombies and the Turessians. The moment those Turessians gave the order to fire, the undead would kill them all.

Estin checked behind himself and saw they had everyone outside the tunnel except Raeln, who had turned and rushed at the two Turessians following them. Before Estin could react, Raeln slammed into one of the men, taking him off his feet. Rolling off the man, Raeln kicked Liris in the face as she tried to stand.

Ducking and turning, Raeln narrowly avoided a blast of flame cast by one of the other Turessians. He lunged at the man, punching him hard enough that the man’s head snapped back. Any mortal would have died from that punch, but the Turessian’s neck twisted back to its normal position with a sickening pop.

The idiot was trying to slow three Turessians by himself so the rest of them could run. It was precisely what Estin had expected and the last thing he wanted to be right about. The moment Raeln had told him to run in case of trouble, he had imagined something just like this.

“Cover us!” Estin shouted as Turess, Yoska, and Dalania ran past him. He drew his swords and ran for Raeln, feeling rather that seeing Feanne beside him as he went.

The Turessians only had eyes for Raeln as he dodged among them, his sword and fist darting from one of them to another before they could recover. He was fast, but they were immortals, barely even feeling the wounds he inflicted on them. He stood no chance without help.

Snarling, Estin slashed at Liris with one sword, opening the side of her face as she was trying to cast a spell at Raeln. He spun, driving his other sword into her chest and twisting it. Yanking it free, he tried to come around for another strike, but she had already recovered.

Liris slapped aside Estin’s swords with enough force that his hands went numb and the weapons fell from his grip. With a grin, she slammed her palms into his chest, hurling him backward. The impact felt as though he had run into a stone pillar, and the landing was little better. He tumbled, trying to minimize his injuries as he slid across the uneven rock-strewn ground, sweeping his tail around himself to absorb much of the impact.

Coming up onto a knee and trying not to fall over again, Estin saw Feanne was struggling. The Turessian she was fighting had cast something that had burned Feanne’s leg, and she limped as she tried to keep ahead of his attacks. Beyond her, Raeln was fighting the third Turessian, both hands locked around the robed man’s neck and shoulders. From the look of Raeln, he was using every ounce of his strength to hold that grip. Despite towering over the human, Raeln’s thick arms were shaking.

Liris backed away from Estin, looking to the undead with the crossbows. Grinning wickedly, she called out, “Now!”

“Run!” Estin shouted, raising a hand toward the closest undead. He summoned his magic in the hopes that he had enough strength to deflect their bolts. Once he would have been able to stop a volley in such a small area, shattering the bolts before they could hit anyone. A dozen loud snaps went off at almost the same time, and Estin collapsed as pain flared through his shoulder, his spell unraveling as quickly as it had formed. Thankfully the pain masked the nausea that threatened to make him fall. What he could see was that many of the crossbow bolts had gone wide thanks to his magic, but he had been close enough that they had hit him anyway. His companions appeared uninjured—a small blessing.

Scrambling to his feet, Estin could barely see through his pain as he stumbled toward the others. The first people he managed to make out were Yoska and Dalania, with Yoska dancing through the undead with his knives, keeping them from attacking Dalania, who moved swiftly with him, trying to keep herself out of the melee and also keep from holding Yoska back.

Past Yoska, Feanne dodged a swing from Liris, though her attention was largely on Estin as she ran. Feanne practically ran into him, hooking his arm and dragging him toward the undead archers. With a bestial snarl, Feanne tore through the only zombie that tried to stop them, severing tendons in its arm to cripple it as they kept going.

They raced down the slope of the hill, both trying not to fall in spite of their injuries. Occasional flashes of magic going off behind them gave Estin some idea of how close the Turessians were. Each time Estin tried to turn and look for the others, Feanne pushed him even harder, making it difficult to keep his paws under him.

They ran until they broke line of sight of the mine, coming down the snow-covered hill toward another abandoned village, Feanne still supporting much of Estin’s weight. The bruises on his ribs from Liris made it difficult to breathe, and his whole right arm felt as though it were soaked with warm water, right up to the throbbing point at his shoulder where he was willing to bet a crossbow bolt still protruded. With the old ache of his hip from when he had broken it years prior, he was not sure how much farther he could go, but he clenched his jaw and pushed on.

Feanne slowed as they neared a group of horses tied off on a copse of trees outside the village. The whole area stunk of death, but Estin saw nothing left behind to guard the Turessians’ mounts. At their approach, the three animals looked up from munching on some brush that stuck out of the snow. Feanne turned Estin and headed for the animals, still almost dragging him.

“We need to find the others,” Estin gasped, but Feanne nearly yanked him off his feet. “Feanne!”

Stumbling to a stop, Feanne turned to look at him, and he realized she was barely hearing what he was saying. Blood covered much of her torso from two crossbow bolts, one in her side, between her ribs, and the other just below her collarbone. The burns across her thigh were blistered, and most of her fur there was blackened, making him wonder how she was walking at all. Swelling around her jaw hinted at other wounds her fur hid, as well.