Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
A myriad of emotions tumbled through me, and I found myself blinking back the stupid sting of tears. He wasn’t dead, as we’d all presumed.
I’m not alone....
But I would be if he—and all the other prisoners—remained in those damn cages for too much longer, given the mages were using them to fuel their fires.
How in Vahree’s name were we going to get them out of here, though? Even if we scribed Esan for help, by the time her forces arrived, a good portion of the men in those cages would have already become fuel for the mages’ fires.
“Oh,” Kele said, her whispered tones filled with horror. “In Vahree’s name, don’t tell me they’re going to use that poor man as a sacrifice.”
“Blood fuels their magic, remember.” I didn’t look at what was happening. I didn’t need to, because I’d seen the gutted remnants of the sacrifice they’d used on Jakarra. The only difference here was the fact that both the victims and their entrails were thrown into the kilns.
A short sharp scream rose but was quickly silenced by magic and death. I swore but kept the viewer locked on the area around the wagons, trying to find a way of getting close to them without being seen.
There was no cover of any type—no buildings, trees, or shrubs. Just open ground. The minute we got within a few dozen yards of those wagons, we’d be attacked.
“Can we kill them all?” Kele growled. “Burn the mages’ asses to Vahree’s realm and take the fucking Mareritt with them?”
Sounds plan came Kaia’s comment.
Not when my cousin is a captive down there, Kaia.
What cousin?
Kin. He’s also the legitimate king of Esan now that my father is dead.
Males should not lead. Queen’s job.
A smile tugged at my lips. In the drakkon world, yes. Not in mine.
Your world strange.
Yeah, sometimes it is.
“Given your attention remains on the far end of the valley, I take it you’ve spotted something?” Kele added.
Obviously, Kaia had not passed on the news about the captives to Yara. “Yeah,” I said, then handed her the viewer.
She fiddled with the focus ring for several seconds, then drew in a sharp breath. “Arleeon captives? Where the hell did they get them from?”
“Jakarra and her islands, I suspect.”
She was silent for a couple of seconds. “One of them looks familiar.”
“Because it’s Garran.”
She yanked the longer viewer away from her eye and stared at me. “As in, your cousin Garran? Heir to Esan’s throne?”
“The very same.”
“Well, Túxn obviously holds him in high regard.” She returned the viewer. “How are we going to get them all out of here?”
“Good question.” I retrieved the viewer and studied the cages again.
They didn’t appear to be tied on the carts themselves—I dared say their weight, even without all the men inside, would have kept them in place.
What I could see of the frames appeared to be metal, which meant they were probably strong enough to withstand the drakkons carrying them out of here.
It would definitely make flight and any sort of speed more difficult, but they were nowhere near the size or weight of the boat Kaia had hauled into Hopetown, so she and Yara should have no trouble lifting them.
Can , Kaia said. But not leave you.
And there lay the crux of the whole situation. For the drakkons to get in, we had to find and destroy at least one of the barrier’s anchoring stones, but in doing so we might well find ourselves stranded in the middle of our enemies without any hope of reaching the cages or our drakkons.
I swept the long viewer slowly along the bottom parts of the barrier on the far side of the valley.
After several seconds, I noticed the base wasn’t truly straight, but more a series of long, shallow arcs that briefly met the ground at regular intervals.
That had to be where the pins anchoring the magic were.
Those arcs hadn’t been present in the barrier that had blocked the blue vein tunnel.
It was possible they’d been present in the one they’d used at Hopetown, but I’d never had the chance to examine them because the gilded birds had risen and attacked us.
Maybe it was a result of the sheer distance being covered here.
I swung the viewer to my left and examined the fog behind us, but it was impossible to see the pattern from this angle.
“We need to retreat,” I said.
Kele nodded and, when we were sure no one was either approaching or looking our way, we scrambled back up the hill and snaked under the barrier. Once we were several yards clear, she said, “I take it you have a plan?”
I nodded. “We need to find the anchoring points for the magic and destroy them.”
She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything, following me as I turned and headed right. The barrier continued to rise gently from the other side of our tree, skimming around several more trunks before slowly arching back to the ground again.
“Stay here and keep watch,” I said, and continued on until the gentle arch was once again high enough for me to wriggle under.
I dropped to the ground, checked there was no immediate sign of a guard on the other side, then cautiously scrambled under the barrier again.
.. and saw, not five feet to my left, the back of a Mareritten warrior.
I froze, my breath caught in my throat as I waited for what seemed like forever for the distance between me and him to grow large enough that he wouldn’t hear my movements.
Then I wriggled a bit farther in and looked at the point where the barrier met the ground.
And swore softly.
They were using a human skull as the anchoring point.
Bastards. They were all fucking bastards.
The urge to immediately cinder the thing rose, but I resisted.
Not only did I not have any clue as to whether fire could cinder the skull when it was bound by so much mage magic—the faint greenish glow that swirled around the skull told me it was rider rather than Mareritten magic—it would have alerted the Mareritt to my presence.
I wriggled back, pushed to my feet, then made my way back.
What we do? came Kaia’s comment.
You and Yara get ready to land on the hill so we can mount once the anchors are destroyed. We’ll fly in from the east, firebomb what we can, then pick up those cages and fly them out.
Like this plan .
I’m not surprised.
They kill Ebrus. I kill them.
I stopped a yard from Kele and motioned to the fog.
“There’s an anchor that holds the magic creating this muck on the other side of the barrier, at the point where it meets the ground.
” I drew my sword and handed it to her. “Sweeping this through the fog should destroy said anchor. I’ll run down to the next one and use my knife on it.
Destroying two points should be enough to bring down at least a good part of the barrier, if not the whole thing. ”
At least I hoped it was. It wasn’t as if Damon was here to check the magic and confirm my suspicions.
I did my best to ignore the twist in my heart; truth was, even if he had been in Esan, the drakkons would never have carried him here.
They still wholly blamed Arleeon’s men for taking them to the brink of extinction, even though there had been plenty of women involved in the hunts over the centuries, and while they were now willing to work with the men in my life, none of them would ever allow a male control over them in any form—even when it came to something as simple as riding on their backs.
“Why can’t I use my own sword?” Kele asked.
“Because steel won’t work on magic. Only Ithican glass does.”
“Ah.” She hunkered down on one knee. “Ready when you are.”
I drew my knife. “Two minutes from now.”
She nodded. I spun and started the mental countdown as I raced along the barrier.
I found the next anchor with ten seconds to spare, dropped to my knees, and drew my knife.
The minute my inner countdown hit zero, I stabbed the blade through the magic, felt the slightest edge of resistance as the point hit the skull and the magic swirling around it, then the blade slid through it.
I swept it left and right to sever the top part of the skull from the bottom, then flicked the tip upward in an effort to flip it away.
Again, there was the slightest bit of resistance, followed by an odd sort of splintering sound.
Threads of magic holding the fog to the ground began snapping free, revealing the base of the skull as they rolled upwards.
A barely audible whine accompanied the movement, the sound grating, unpleasant, and very definitely forbidding.
I thrust upright and ran, as hard as I could, for the hill and our waiting drakkons.
I was halfway up when the barrier behind me exploded, sending a thick wave of power through the air.
It hit my back and sent me tumbling, then rolled over me, feeling like an army of tiny stinging critters against exposed skin.
I twisted around to check what was happening behind me; heavy fragments of fog were falling into the encampment, shrouding the various buildings and briefly dimming the fires.
But its outer edges were already beginning to dissipate, meaning we had minutes, if that, to mount up and use the confusion to our advantage.
I scrambled upright and ran on, following the wave of foggy power toward the hill.
I half expected it to slide on up, but it didn’t.
Instead, it hit the hill’s base and just sort of sat there, slowly imploding.
I sucked in a breath as I neared the remnants and didn’t release it until I was on the other side of it.
It still felt foul, even through my clothes.
I met Kele near the top. She tossed me my sword, and I sheathed it as I ducked under Kaia’s wings and scrambled up her leg.
I was barely seated when she rose, the force of her wing sweeps sending a cloud of dirt racing down the hill but not affecting the position of the fog still withering at its base.