Chapter 20 #2
Our breath clouded in the cold air as we moved through the twisting tunnel. Mela heaved a sigh through her nose, chewing the corner of her mouth. A moment later she grimaced in apology, glancing at me. “I didn’t know about your mother.”
I shrugged, whispering back, “No one knew.”
Until, of course, someone did.
Byron Wychthorn.
We rounded a corner and climbed a series of steps. The passageway grew higher and wider. Yezekael turned his neck to shoot another curious glance over his shoulder. This time something else was swimming in his gaze, something I couldn’t quite place.
“What the fuck’s up with you?”
“Which House are you from?” he asked in that strangely sandy-metallic voice.
“Does it matter?”
“What harm could it bring to know?”
I flashed a menacing grin, full of teeth. “House Crowther.”
The grin faltered. Unease drifted like icy flakes through my chest, settling in the pit of my gut. My spine stiffened at the spark of recognition in his eyes. I jutted my chin out, fingers tightening on my wyrm dagger in silent threat. “What?”
He twisted forward, and a rusty laugh croaked from his throat.
The gray feathers cloaking his body shimmered as his shoulders and wings shook, his laughter growing louder, more hearty.
He was baiting me, taunting me, trying to put me in a position of diminished power.
But the longer he laughed, the more I realized it was soaked in near-hysteria.
The rusty sound died. “Of course he would ask you to find me,” he muttered.
Mela snarled and surged forward. Flipping the dagger she’d palmed, she rammed the rounded pommel into his back, right between his wings. Yezekael cried out and staggered, cursing and wincing.
“What the hells do you mean by that?” she snapped.
She shoved him hard. He stumbled out of the tunnel and into a cavern that rose around us like a hollowed-out giant, its sides drowning in darkness. Mela and I followed, our people spreading out like satellites slipping into orbit.
Yezekael stopped and turned to face us. Though his long, teardrop face was creased with agony, he still managed a sly look. “I can offer you more than Sirro is willing to trade.” He spread his palms upward in offering. “If you let me go, I can give you anything you wish for.”
“I’ve seen your nest. What’s fucking left of it,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. My boots scraped against the wet, gravelly floor as I widened my stance, scowling at him. There wasn’t anything he could offer that I wanted.
“I have many contacts. Many treasures. Not all of them are gems and special finds. How about information? I’ve bought many secrets, stored them for safekeeping, sold them when need be.” A feathered brow rose as his smile grew more cunning. “Let me go and I’ll tell you one about your moth—”
He stopped speaking.
Our attention speared downward.
To the stones shivering on the rocky floor.
Every muscle in my body locked tight.
Beneath my boots, the ground trembled. Then shook. Then kicked upward, a brutal shudder knifing up through my legs. The murmuring of our team died, swallowed by the deafening shiver of stone as we teetered and swayed.
A godsawful crack boomed through the cavern.
Another split the air overhead, and I ducked low.
A spray of dust hit my face as I twisted to track deep fissures cleaving open the ground, the ceiling too. A jagged crevice ripped across the cavern’s roof. I jerked backward, throwing up an arm as dust and chunks of rock fell in streams, striking the ground in off-rhythm drumming.
Through the dusty blackness, I could make out the entrance to the passageway we’d been heading toward.
Whatever was coming for us was barreling down that tunnel.
Mela and I shared a look of horror as another violent quake shook the cavern, bringing down more rockfall. The fear in her gaze matched mine. A stone eater was hurtling for us. Neither of us wanted to face one of those serpents again.
I burst into motion.
There was no fucking way I was letting Yezekael die before I delivered him to Sirro. The ground bounced beneath my feet as I slid in front to protect him.
My warband was already shifting into position, flanking me.
Petra and the V?duvas whipped their swords free from scabbards, fanning out to face the beast careening toward us. Petra’s orders punched through the cavern, punctuated by Mela’s, both their yelling nearly drowned out by the quaking stone.
I tried to steady my breathing, but my heartbeat only skittered faster when a sudden wind, stirred by immense power, blasted from the tunnel’s mouth.
It rushed through the blackness like a wall of smoke.
A storm erupting. A wicked tempest tearing through the catacombs.
It roared throughout the cavern and slammed into us.
I staggered back, bracing myself, leaning into the vicious gust.
Then the quaking stopped.
And the wind died.
My mouth fell open as the person who’d caused the wild gusts appeared.
Sirro strode from the passageway, stalking across the vast cavern toward us.
Silver strands whipped fiercely around him, and he wore loose linen clothes meant for desert heat rather than this ice-cold cavern.
His Familiar’s kaftan billowed in the wind.
Threads of might coiled around her, petals of power furling inward as if to shield a sacred bloom.
The V?duvas pulled aside to create a thoroughfare and lowered themselves to kneel before him, bowing their heads. Even Mela had fallen to one knee.
But not me. Not the Crowthers.
I knocked a fisted hand to my heart, thrice, as was the tradition of the old ways, inclining my head in a quick dip of acknowledgment and respect as Sirro moved through our ranks.
All the Crowthers did, hands clasped to our chests, fingers shaped into a horned fist. We didn’t bow like the V?duvas.
Bowing wasn’t smart on a battlefield. And down here, escorting a prisoner through the catacombs, it might as well have been one.
Mela glanced up at me, worry tightening her features, afraid I wasn’t giving Sirro the respect he commanded.
But the V?duvas were a new House, new in the way all Houses were new compared to the long unbroken line of my family, and they had no idea of the old ways, the ancient traditions not seen since the Final War.
Sirro’s amber eyes gleamed with old memories as he stalked closer, a smile curving his mouth. “I’ve not seen that for an age. Not since I was last on a battlefield, surrounded by your ancestors and their war generals, Hamon and Draxxon.”
Pride flowed through my veins, gifting me renewed energy.
Sirro’s gaze snapped to Yezekael. One heartbeat later, his nostrils flared as he whipped around, glaring into the darkness, his expression utterly livid. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”
The cavern shook with his roar. His might exploded outward, quaking the ground beneath my boots, shuddering through the catacombs, nearly knocking me off my feet.
I caught myself, every instinct urging me to step back. Instead, I bent into the storm of his wrath.
Holy fuck.
What the hells was going on?
He’s so prickly—the Uzrek chuckled in my head—and obstinate.
I blew out a pent-up breath. Let me guess, you tried to get inside his head. Part of me was disappointed Sirro had noticed. I would’ve liked to discover what he was up to with Yezekael through the Uzrek.
As I am too, death-dealer. It would have been a lot easier to pick through his memories than to ask him. He’d never answer me with the truth either. He enjoys being sly. The Uzrek made a snorting sound. He blocked my attempt extremely well.
How?—I thought the Uzrek could pierce any mental wall Sirro erected.
Sheer determination—the Uzrek chuckled again, delighted by the challenge of the Horned God.
The flailing tempest died, the cavern falling still as a becalmed sea.
Sirro swiveled slowly to face Yezekael, his face twisted with raw rage.
I’d never seen him ruffled like this, never seen that polished veneer of composure crack.
But here he was, prowling toward Yezekael, angered—more than angered—he was pissed the fuck off, and it was all directed at the lesser creature.
Yezekael stumbled back, awkwardly half-twisting around to shield his face. He cowered before the Horned God. “I yield, Sirro,” he gasped.
“I do not care!” Sirro bellowed.
A blur of movement.
A spearing of rage.
Threads of power shot out like a volley of arrows. They snapped around the creature’s body and throat, slamming into him hard and hurling him backward. He flew past the Crowthers and V?duvas, sending several stumbling aside, before crashing violently against the cavern wall.
His scream of pain tore through the chilly air.
“Who did you sell the information to?!” Sirro roared, the words spitting from his mouth with wrath. “Was it Lyressa or someone else?!”
Yezekael’s face screwed up in agony. He cried out again as Sirro’s power jerked him forward and smashed him against the wall.
A second time.
A third.
Threads of power wrapped around a wing.
Silvery strands threaded through scarlet feathers.
The crack of bone snapping, the high-pitched scream of agony, curdled my blood. I watched in wide-eyed horror as Sirro’s strands hummed and shivered, dragging the lesser creature by the wing like a broken bird.
The Horned God crouched, fisted a hand around the creature’s neck, and yanked him close. “Who came to you with her secret?” he hissed, his voice so low only I could hear it. “Who sold it to you? Who was the one to betray Tabitha Crowther?”
What…?
The world fell apart around me. My hand loosened its hold on my dagger, and it fell, clattering upon the stone floor. It felt as if I’d been standing on something as insubstantial as a cloud and now I free-fell.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything, even Yezekael’s denial as he shook his head.
Learning from the Purveyor of Rarities that Sirro had been trying to find out who had stolen my mother the moment she’d been abducted was astounding. But hearing it spill from the Horned God’s mouth was mind-altering.
Something is coming!—the Uzrek warned.
I didn’t hear him the first time. My mind was tripping over itself, trying to collate everything I’d known to be true and sort it into a brand-new order. I was stunned by what Sirro had said, by what he’d demanded the creature answer.
My gaze darted between the fury etched into the Horned God’s face and the terror carved into Yezekael as he shook and gasped for breath.
This creature knew of my mother.
That was why Sirro had been hunting him.
He had sold my mother’s deepest secret to someone else.
SOMETHING IS COMING!—the Uzrek’s voice exploded in my head, snapping me to the here and now.
I blinked—What do you mean?
Exactly like last time, death-dealer! They’re swifting in on a hunt!
Holy shit!
In the darkness of the cavern, pops of brilliant golden light erupted all around us as those things I’d defended Nelle against arrived with ghostly swifting wind stirring their robes of ivory.
Hellsgate!
The V?duvas stumbled to their feet, reactions delayed, caught completely off-guard that something terrifying was swifting in. But my warband had already drawn their weapons and shifted into a defensive position around me, ready for battle.
My wyrmblade sang a note of death as I unsheathed it from my spine, arcing it over my head. I roared a warning. “CHILDREN OF THE HARBINGER!”
No one but Sirro, I suspected, could see them in the darkness.
But I could. We were surrounded by those strange, tall warriors, their faces hidden behind papier-maché masks.
They outnumbered us and carried crossbows loaded with something more deadly than savage swords.
Bolts that crackled and fizzed. And worse still, the quivers at their hips held bolts carved from the Gestelt Tree.
Shit, shit, shit…
“GET DOWN!” I bellowed, throwing myself at Mela as a weapon unleashed, roaring through the air with screaming speed.
It struck the wall behind us—
And detonated.
A blazing fire lit up the darkness. A wave of searing heat scorched my face.
Clouds of shrapnel, of chipped stone and dust, exploded outward, the blast radiating with massive force.
The impact struck Sirro, sending him and his Familiar flying backward, hurling them into a gaping hole his storm arrival had torn into the ground. They vanished from sight.
Dust and stone rolled out like a heavy sandstorm, swallowing us in dirty air and darkness.
And then all hells broke loose.