Thorn Fall (32 page)

I lifted my head out of Alek’s armpit—or whatever body part that was—and tried to peer past him and toward the chamber. What remained of the chamber. Huge piles of rubble arose from the floor, but they started a few feet away from the tunnel entrance, so we weren’t trapped inside. No coffin. Good. I couldn’t see the ceiling, but flashing lights entered the chamber from above, outlining someone’s shoulder and the silhouette of Alek’s face in front of mine.

“Got a poem for this?” I asked, my humor piqued by the situation, or the fact that we had survived it. Thus far anyway. I reminded myself that we still had to find a way to climb out, close that portal, and deal with… whatever repercussions awaited us. At least, judging by that drawn out curse that had filtered down from above,
someone
was alive up there.

Alek looked at me, and I thought that was all he was going to do. The silent stare
was
probably the most famous Spartan line. But perhaps to humor me, he said, “You must learn to love death’s ink-black shadow as much as you love the light of dawn.”

“That’ll do.”

He shifted away from me and crawled out into the chamber. Red dust clouded the air and soon swallowed him, like a rider in a desert sandstorm.

“You’re on my sword,” Temi said from beside me.

“You’re on
me
,” Simon said—he was farthest back, squashed against the rock fall.

“Picky, picky.” I crawled out after Alek, squinting at the bright flashes coming through the new skylight in the ceiling. It was at the top of the hole Temi had dug, an opening about five feet wide and about fifteen feet up. A few faces peered down at us, but the sounds of brawls drifted down too. It didn’t sound like anything had changed up there.

“How do we get out?” Temi asked. “Even on Alek’s shoulders, I couldn’t reach.”

“I think Alek has to go out first.” I waved my whip. “He can hold the whip while we climb up. He’s the only one with sufficient upper body strength.”

Simon glanced at Temi. “My upper body strength is sufficient for all
practical
tasks.”

“I’ve seen you try to do a pull-up,” I said.

“That’s not a practical task. That’s an exercise in masochism.”

“I’m waiting to hear the part of the plan where you explain how Alek gets up there in the first place,” Temi said.

Alek arched his eyebrows, perhaps waiting for that too.

“You go up on his shoulders again, jam the sword most of the way into the rock there, then switch positions. We’ll all help hoist Alek up high enough to grab the sword. Then he can pull himself up, stand on it, and jump up and catch the top.” I hoped Alek didn’t mind me volunteering him for the task, but there was no way Simon or I was going to manage that feat. I would like to pretend it was only my lesser height that was the problem, but I wasn’t delusional.

“The blade won’t snap, will it?” Temi asked.

“It just carved out two tons of rock. If it breaks supporting someone’s weight, then you better ask for your money back.”

She snorted. I explained the scenario again in Greek, but Alek already had the gist. He jogged over to the hole and held out his interlaced fingers for Temi to step onto.

A retching sound came from above. It seemed the portal was still putting out bad mojo. Being encased in the mountain seemed to have sheltered us somewhat, but I expected we would feel the effects again soon enough. Best to get up there and close the portal as quickly as possible.

Alek stepped aside to avoid the sick person’s leavings without so much as a lip curl. Maybe vomiting on the battlefield had been common back in his day.

Temi stepped into his hands, accepting the boost up to his shoulders again. She lifted her sword above her head, and darkness wrapped around Simon and me as its glow disappeared above the ceiling.

“Whoa,” someone moaned from above. “That is
so
cool.”

“Look out, bro. I’m going to puke again.”

Simon made a disgusted noise. “What kind of idiots see a hole blown open in the ground and assume it’s the appropriate repository for puke?”

“I don’t know, but you were doing some appalling things to those bushes on the way up.”

Temi steadied herself on the rock wall with one hand, drew the sword back, and plunged it into the side of the hole. Metal rasped, and pulverized stone dust trickled past Alek’s face. He didn’t so much as crinkle his nose.

“No, don’t!” someone cried in the distance.

I tensed, afraid someone was going to do something that could hurt us, but the following scream, not near our hole but over to the side up there, told me the story with dreadful certainty. Someone else had gone over the edge.

Gunshots sounded, their noise faint in our hole. They were coming from farther away. The parking lot, maybe? Had the madness-inspiring mist made its way down to the ground? What if the police had showed up to help, only to become part of the problem?

“We need to get out of here,” Simon muttered, serious now.

“That’s the goal.”

Temi dropped to the ground. “Alek’s turn.” The glow of the sword had dimmed further; it was embedded in the rock, parallel to the ground, a few inches of the blade sticking out, so Alek could theoretically stand on it. It would take a gymnast’s skills to climb onto it. Or… a wrestler’s? I hoped so.

Alek nodded, as if this presented no problem. Of course, the Spartans had probably made similar nods as they marched up to face the impossible odds at Thermopylae, so I wasn’t sure how comforting to find his assurance.

“Let’s do this,” I said, stepping past the puke spot and waving for the others to join me.

We clasped each other’s wrists, offering a platform for Alek to step on. He climbed up, choosing Temi’s shoulders for his footrests. Simon made a somewhat insulted face, but I probably would have picked her too. I did my best to support her, though she didn’t look like she was in danger of crumpling under Alek’s weight. She actually gave me a quick grin.

“You’re not going to start reciting Spartan poems about the joys of battle, are you?” I asked.

“No, I’m just excited that my knee can take this. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t do ten pounds on the leg extension machine at the gym.”

“Ah, right.”

And she had Jakatra and Eleriss to thank for that. That had to be part of the reason she wasn’t willing to entertain the idea of one of them betraying us. I had never gotten a warm fuzzy vibe from Jakatra, but she obviously saw something else in him. Something more than the handsomeness of his elven features, I assumed.

“I jump,” Alek said in English.

Temi bent her knees slightly, bracing herself. “Ready.”

Even with her restored knee, she stumbled when he pushed off her shoulders with all of his weight. Simon and I caught her, keeping her from pitching to the ground. We pulled her back, too, in case Alek fell, but he was dangling from the sword, both hands on the hilt. I worried it would slide out of the rock, but Temi had wedged it in there well, at a slightly upward angle I hadn’t noticed before. Gravity should help it stay in place. Whether Alek could pull himself atop it was the question.

“Bro,” someone whispered from above, drawing out the single syllable. “Look at that guy.” The small group of people watching us for entertainment seemed oblivious to the shouts from elsewhere atop the rock, not to mention the gunshots and sirens in the distance.

For a moment, Alek simply hung, adjusting himself and finding a grip he liked. Then he curled his legs up experimentally a couple of times, flexing his arms. Finally, he pulled himself upward, pumping his legs at the same time, somehow spinning himself up and around the blade to land atop it.

This time the, “
Bro
,” from above was even more drawn out. I had to admit I was equally amazed.

“I so could not do that,” I murmured.

“We need to get him a sword,” Simon said.

“One thing at a time.”

When Alek stood atop the blade, his head was almost level with the top of the hole. He jumped, caught the ledge, and pulled himself up. If that gash in his side was bothering him, he didn’t show it.

The onlookers up above scattered. Not surprising. Alek made a grim specter with all that blood caking his face and shirt.

He looked down and held out his hand. I tossed the whip up to him. He scanned his surroundings, probably making sure nobody could sneak up from behind him, then crouched and unraveled the eight-foot length of leather. It dangled down past the sword, but the popper barely dropped below the level of the chamber’s ceiling. We were going to have to practice some acrobatics too.

“I’m going to need a boost,” I said. “Temi, you jumped that high earlier. You mind going last? And boosting us up?”

“That’s fine,” she said.

Simon sniffed. “I can reach it without help.”

“Really,” I said. “Care to demonstrate?”

“After you.”

Temi offered her hands. I stepped into them, and she boosted me up at the same time as I lunged for the swaying end of my whip. I grasped it on the way up and managed to wrap it once around my hand before my momentum went the other way. Hanging by one arm jarred my shoulder, but having my weight on the end didn’t bother Alek. He pulled me up so fast, I barely had time to think about bringing my other hand up to grab the whip. Instead, I was grabbing the jagged rim of the hole.

Some of it crumbled away beneath my grip, and my heart tried to leap out of my throat as I slipped back downward, but Alek caught me under the armpit. He pulled me onto the rock before releasing me to lower the whip again.

For a second, I lay there, staring at the stars and sucking in deep breaths of air. But the air was tainted. There wasn’t a strange smell or taste to it, yet it seemed to coat my throat when I inhaled, and that queasiness and depression washed over me again.

A scuffling came from the side, and I rolled over, reminded that we weren’t alone up here and that these people had been breathing the foul air longer than we had. As I climbed to my feet, I forgot about the noise for a second, stunned by the sight in the parking area hundreds of feet below. A fire burned on one side, flames leaping into the night sky. I had no idea if someone had deliberately set it or if a tree had been an innocent bystander of someone flinging lighters. Police cars and ambulances ringed the parking lot and lined the street, and someone was standing atop one of the trucks with a megaphone, ordering everyone to calmly leave the area before citations were delivered. I heard something about a curfew before he turned away, and the breeze swallowed his words. The gunshots had stilled, and people were being arrested, but something about the milling crowd, more agitated than compliant, told me the situation wasn’t fully under control.

“We need to hurry up,” I muttered. “Get rid of this thing.” I waved to the amorphous blob still flexing and stretching atop the rock formation. If anything, it had grown larger and the dark misty tendrils floating out of it appeared denser.

“They’re coming for us,” someone cried, pointing in my direction.

The man sprinted toward me, a branch held overhead like a club.

Alek was in the middle of hauling Simon up and he looked at me, eyes stricken, at the same time as he pulled faster. He couldn’t simply let Simon go. I held out a hand toward him and bent my knees, ready to leap aside.

The club-wielder charged closer, swinging wildly before he ever reached me. I jumped to the side, dodging his attack. Before he could swing back toward me, I launched a side kick at his waist. My heel caught him fully, and he stumbled to the side. He might have tumbled into the hole, but Simon had been pulled up by then, and Alek caught the guy by the belt. He yanked the branch out of his hand and hurled it over the edge of the rocks. The man was probably older than Alek, but he stumbled back when Alek snarled at him.

“Mr. Sexypants has got quite a growl,” Simon muttered, rubbing his shoulder. He had probably smacked it against the rock.

“Thanks, Alek,” I said. “Let’s get Temi before—”

I froze, a new sound reaching my ears. It was barely audible over the cries of the sirens, and I hoped I was wrong, that it was my imagination. But the drone of something like a helicopter sounded in the distance, and my shoulders slumped. I knew it wasn’t a helicopter.

Alek’s head came up. He had heard it too.

“I kicked that bait thing through the portal,” I groaned—maybe it was a whine. I was tired and didn’t want to deal with the
jibtab
tonight. Couldn’t we get a break first? Time to set up a trap? Time to close that damned portal? All we should have to do was pull the sword out and get it off Bell Rock.

“They’re coming,” someone cried. “The aliens are coming!”

“If only you knew,” I muttered.

Someone shrieked and raced across the butte. I flinched, fearing it was another jumper. But instead of leaping over the ledge, this person—a boy in his teens—raced toward the portal. He leaped at the dark light-sucking blob, his body silhouetted by the flashing lights as he seemed to hang in the air for several seconds. Then he hit the blackness. Even though someone had jumped through the elven portal below, I expected the kid to simply pass through the dark wall and come out on the other side. He passed through… and disappeared. Swallowed by the darkness. Transported to another world. Or a hell.

“He was not the first,” Alek said, perhaps noting my stunned expression.

“Has anyone come out?” I asked numbly, though he had only been up here thirty seconds longer than I had.

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s the whip?” Temi called from below.

Alek lowered it, but I held out a hand. “Wait, don’t jump, Temi.”

“What? Why?”

“We have—” I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the drone, a drone that had grown louder in the few seconds we had been staring at the portal jumper, “—another problem.”

“The
jibtab
?” she guessed grimly.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to fight it up here?” I called down. “Or down there?”

“The cave will be better,” Alek said. “If we can ensure it comes down.”

I eyed the top of the butte. There was a group of teenagers, pointing at the portal, trying to goad each other into going, and there were others atop the rock as well, others who would be completely vulnerable to those stingers. Not to mention all those people out in the open down in the parking lot and on the road.