Chapter 5 – Days later #2
I formed the air into a spike, so thin and condensed it might as well have been a true spear, and hurled the weapon at the door. The ear-splitting sound of splintering wood filled the quiet of the mountains.
Neve sucked in a breath, taking in the hole I’d made before lifting her eyes upward. “Was that loud enough for an avalanche?”
“Yes.” My gaze swept up the mountainsides as the wood continued to splinter. Pieces fell to the ground, and still I looked up at the peaks.
Watching. Waiting.
Only after many long seconds had passed and I still hadn’t spotted movement of the snow from above, did I release my breath. “We’re safe. I’ll peer inside. Make sure no one is lying in wait.”
Striding closer to the door, Caelo and Neve fell into step with me. My hand tingled, ready to draw Skelda, my sword, at a moment’s notice. Neve drew her own sword—the one she’d taken from King Harald’s room when we escaped Frostveil Castle.
Not for the first time, I glanced askew at the blade. Pride made me think I should know its name, but I did not.
Neve’s father, King Harald, had wielded several swords, often in concurrence with the various phases of his life: The first as a young warrior, the second as a rake who also fought for Winter’s Realm, and the third he claimed after he wed his wife and mate, Queen Revna Skau.
The one Neve held could be any of those blades.
The closer we got, the harder I listened, trying to detect sounds of life beyond, but there was nothing but the wind. And when we reached the hole, and I peered in, only darkness stared back.
“Nothing that I can see,” I stated, wishing for a consensus. “Nor do I scent anyone or anything.”
Caelo sniffed at the hole and stared inside. Only once we’d both checked and deemed it safe did I allow Neve to do so.
“Smells deserted, like we hoped,” she confirmed, her violet eyes sparking with hope. “Let’s go inside.”
Using two of the miners’ pickaxes, Caelo and I attacked the wood. Our breach seemed to have broken whatever protections were in place for we felt no magic around the area. The wood chipped away easily enough and soon the horses could walk through the center of the semi-demolished double doors.
“Careful inside,” Caelo whispered to each horse. “This place has been abandoned for many centuries and the ground will be uneven.”
I nodded, glad he was around to communicate with the animals. Not only would we need them when we left, but I’d always had a soft spot for horses, especially Carpus, my beloved destrier back home. I hated the idea of having to end a horse’s life over a broken leg.
“Everyone ready?” Neve asked.
Lanterns, also brought from Gersemi Mine, had been lit to guide the way. I took one from Lei who clung to Ronaldo, just as she’d done since the n?kken attack. Would that we had fae lights, but none of us possessed that power, so fire would have to do.
With Caelo at my side, one hand holding the lantern, another gripping Skelda, we ventured forth into the mountain. Inside, a sense of relief swept through me. I’d grown used to the winds and with the lack of them, some feeling returned to my cheeks.
“Watch that dip.” Caelo cautioned from a few paces ahead. Horses neighed, hinting that he’d communicated the issue to them too, as Neve, who walked directly behind us, passed the word back.
The passage was large enough for three large fae to walk side-by-side.
We moved carefully, clearing fallen rocks as we progressed.
Without the sun, I had no way to tell the passage of time, but I felt like we walked for at least two hours.
We came across torches, the wooden handles cracked and disintegrating from age.
We tried to light each one and three worked, providing more light for those in the middle and the back of the column.
More sinisterly, we passed two skeletons. Dwarven by the looks of them. Had they denied leaving their kingdom and died together beneath the mountain with only memories of their kinds’ glory days behind them?
“There’s a curve ahead,” I spoke clearly but not loudly. “And a sound coming from there too. I can’t tell what it is yet.”
“Weapons in hand,” Neve added for the sake of those behind her. I doubted that any one of them had let go of a weapon if they were among those lucky enough to have one.
We approached the curve, took it, and the sound I’d been hearing intensified.
“Is that water?” I looked to Caelo for his thoughts.
“A waterfall, I’d wager,” my friend agreed. “I heard the dwarves rerouted creeks to flow into their kingdoms. The entrances never froze, nor the water.”
“Clever.”
“You’d have to be to live down here.”
No argument there. While I respected dwarfkind, I could not understand why someone would live beneath a mountain. It was too constraining. Too dark. Too suffocating.
The only thing worse would be living underwater. I shuddered at the thought.
The sound of water grew closer, and the tunnel widened bit by bit. Neve shuffled up to walk with Caelo and me, her eyes squinting ahead.
“I think it’s a cavern.”
Another twenty paces proved her right. We stopped at the edge of a cavern, the light from our lanterns illuminating enough for us to see water falling from the ceiling into a pool at the bottom.
“That’s a good sign.” Neve took a step forward, holding her lantern aloft and dropping her sword as she took in the area. “They won’t have to go outside to gather snow to melt.”
“Could sleep in here,” Caelo said.
It would not be comfortable. The cavern was nothing like the living quarters at Gersemi Mine, where some of the humans had lived for many turns.
Roar had been a monster to them in many ways, but even he had taken care of the basics.
The humans working his mine had been housed and fed.
Of course, the humans caged to be sold as blood slaves hadn’t been so lucky.
In any case, Caelo was right. This place appeared safe and until the humans had explored more, it might be a good base.
“Break for water,” I said. “Fill our skins and let the horses drink.”
I stepped into the cavern, ready to do as much, when fae lights dropped from the ceiling, blinding me. The sounds of heels hitting stone and metal being drawn told me that we weren’t alone.