Chapter Nine #2
Tor smiled at Pel, face tired but shining with triumph.
And then he said, “I think I’m going to fall over.”
He promptly did so, and Pel managed to lessen his collapse but not prevent it, winding up on the ground with him. Pel’s heart jumped into his throat.
“Hey,” he said, leaning in to press a kiss to the other man’s cheek. “That was the most amazing thing that I’ve ever seen. You are so amazing.”
Tor smiled at him… and then Pel watched as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.
Pel fumbled desperately to check Tor’s pulse and sagged with relief when it was still there, though it was slower than Pel liked.
Beluna and Cavun were kneeling beside them a moment later. They got Tor arranged more comfortably, and Beluna quickly checked him over for injuries, just in case. Thankfully, there were none. Magical exhaustion was the most likely culprit.
Pel still didn’t understand what had happened, but Tor had clearly used more magic than any person should have.
“We need to get off the mountain,” Pel told them.
They weren’t going to be able to get Tor any help up here.
Cavun scooped Tor into his arms, and they began to pick their way carefully down the mountain.
They didn’t have Tor’s magic grips to assist them now.
The fact that the rain had lessened definitely helped; the fact that hundreds of people had tromped through here?
Not so much. It was still slick and muddy and dangerous.
Pel’s heart was in his throat any time any of them slipped a little, especially Cavun, but he was remarkably sure-footed overall. Pel had to still the silly urge to insist that he be the one to hold Tor. Cavun was doing the best job, and there was no way that Pel could carry Tor down a mountain.
Pel couldn’t remember where they’d left Denil and the horses, but they finally passed through the area of the original landslide. If more rocks had fallen thanks to the most recent landslide, they’d thankfully been cleared again by the passing guards.
Beluna led the way, Cavun carried Tor in the middle, awkwardly sideways, and Pel made a very anxious rear guard as they inched their way through the narrow space.
Denil was apparently on the lookout for them, because they hadn’t been traveling for very much longer before they heard a call.
“Hsst.”
They found him by an overhang of rock that looked like it led to a cave of some sort. He looked agitated… and horseless. His expression only grew more worried when he saw Tor.
“Is he all right?”
“Magical exhaustion, probably,” Pel said, surprised that his voice came out mostly steady. Please, let it just be that. “But we need a horse to get him down the mountain.”
“I’m sorry!” Denil said, blanching. “I lost Cavun’s horse when the lightning struck and the landslide started. He bolted.”
Pel couldn’t really blame him.
Denil indicated Beluna and Pel. “Ours were commandeered when the guards came through.”
Pel was so going to have words with whoever had taken Extraordinary, but someone borrowing his horse without permission wasn’t his main problem at the moment.
“Where’s Melody?” Pel demanded.
Denil pointed back into the cave. “He did not take kindly to the suggestion that he be commandeered. I can’t get him to come out. I don’t even know how deep the caves are, but I worry they might connect with the mines.”
Pel breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a problem that he was pretty sure he could handle.
“Sing along if you know it.” Pel cleared his throat. “Or hum.”
And then, to their clear astonishment, Pel began to sing the first song he could think of, which was a tavern drinking song.
What? It was catchy.
He glared at them. Denil had a lovely tenor. Beluna couldn’t sing to save her life, but she clearly did her best. Cavun was very enthusiastic.
They made it through one verse and then a second one, and Pel was starting to lose hope, but he just kept singing, hoping against hope that—
There was a neigh, and then out of the darkness of the cave, a horse trotted, kicking up his legs almost as though he was dancing.
Pel cut off abruptly, relief swamping him, and the guards stopped singing, too.
Sounding totally bemused, Beluna said, “Is the horse—?”
“He likes to dance,” Pel agreed. “Tor showed me the trick once.”
Melody trotted right up to them, coming in to nuzzle at Pel. He huffed and then moved to nudge at Tor in Cavun’s arms.
“Your master isn’t doing so well at the moment,” Pel told him, swallowing thickly. “Do you think you can carry him back down the mountain? I promise that when we get back to the castle, I’ll give you so much sugar that your stomach will probably explode.”
Melody whinnied, probably just because he recognized the word for the promised treat, but Pel was willing to take this as a binding agreement.
In the end, Pel climbed onto Melody’s back, and then they managed to get Tor arranged in front of Pel, leaning back against him. It was awkward, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances.
“We’re just going to walk down,” Pel told Melody, giving him a gentle nudge with his knees. “Nice and easy with our guard friends here.”
Thankfully, the horse seemed to be in agreement with Pel about slow and steady. Pel needed an arm to hold onto Tor and keep him in place, so he held the reins in one hand and hoped for the best.
Pel was so grateful that it wasn’t pouring anymore, but he still felt uncomfortably damp.
Beluna, Cavun, and Denil were all trooping along at their sides.
They didn’t have their hands on their swords, but they were constantly scanning around them.
Pel wasn’t sure what they were looking for—but then, nothing that had happened recently had been expected, so Pel appreciated their care.
Tor’s whole body was lax, a dead weight leaning against Pel—or trying to pitch forward over the front of Melody as they went downhill, which meant that Pel had to hold onto him tightly.
Magical exhaustion made plenty of sense given everything that had happened, but it was completely outside of Pel’s area of expertise, and that made his stomach roil and his heart ache.
What if it wasn’t magical exhaustion? What if something else was wrong? But there was nothing Pel could do about that up the mountain, so this was the only logical step.
Pel knew that, and yet he was still terrified that he was doing something wrong.
He was used to Tor being bigger than life and in charge.
Also, he was pretty sure that they’d gotten about three hours of sleep last night, then come up a treacherous mountain, plunged into a battle, and, finally, nearly been crushed by the mountain. A lot had happened, so maybe feeling a bit uncertain right now was allowed.
King Forex wasn’t going to be pleased with what had occurred. Pel shivered and pulled Tor even closer. He’d never been prouder of the man, and he’d tell him so—as soon as he was conscious.
Pel would get him back to the castle as quickly as he could, because that’s where the healer was, and in the meantime, Tor would get as much rest as he could while unconscious and traveling across the realm.
“Thank you, by the way,” it finally occurred to Pel to say at one point in their slow descent. “I really appreciate that you all stuck with us.”
“Of course,” Beluna said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. “It’s quite clear that we’re where we’re meant to be. High Prince Torex cares about people. We like that.”
Cavun and Denil both nodded agreement, and Pel was as sure as he could be that they’d just made a declaration of allegiance. Given that he currently had his hands literally full of Tor right now, he would take all the help he could get from people he’d been given a reason to trust.
Pel lost all track of time, but eventually they got low enough that the rain stopped completely, and finally, they emerged onto flat land. If Pel hadn’t been holding up an unconscious Tor, he would have been tempted to climb off Melody and kiss the ground.
Instead, they made their way back to the farm they’d camped at and found that the guards were in the process of packing up. Pel assumed that messengers had already been dispatched to the castle and King Forex.
Pel would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he concentrated on securing transportation for Tor. They couldn’t keep riding tandem like this while Tor was unconscious, and Pel didn’t know how long that state was going to last.
Without compunction, Pel pulled rank and insisted on a private conveyance for Tor.
There were other injured guards, and he sympathized, but given it was distinctly possible that some of these people thought Tor had done exactly the wrong thing up the mountain, Pel wasn’t taking any chances.
There was no way he’d leave an unconscious Tor surrounded by relative strangers who might hold a grudge.
Pel was reunited with Extraordinary, and he decided there was no point in yelling at anyone just yet, since she was unharmed.
Mostly, his annoyance and concern stemmed from the fact that the guards had known full well that Pel and Tor were bringing up the rear.
It wasn’t like they weren’t going to want the horses they’d used to get up the mountain to get back down it.
Gremuna claimed that the horses had been used to carry injured guards. Pel was going to choose to believe her for now. (She’d been at the back of the retreat. He suspected the horses were gone long before she got there, but he could be wrong.)
Beluna, Cavun, and Denil continued to stick with them, and Pel was beyond grateful, especially since it meant he could decline any aid from Gremuna and the other guards. He did not trust them right now.