Chapter Eighteen
The ride is a blur of exhaustion, fear, and grim determination to escape before the Zhagarn can catch us. Strange and unexpected sensory perceptions flash through my mind like summer lightning:
The sound of Cloud panting.
The musty smell of sweat from my unwashed shirt.
The grim cast to Andras’s face when we catch up to him.
The ominous sight of the Barrows looming before us in the moonlight.
Kaelen, riding beside me, watching me. Always watching me.
It takes all my new-learned skill to stay on a fast-moving horse, no matter how gentle she is and how smooth her gait. Riding, like so much else on this journey, is deceptively difficult. At least at speeds like this.
Behind us, the wagon rumbles along, with Chitai and Neville on either side to guard Elianna and our provisions.
It fleetingly occurs to me to wonder how we’re going to get a wagon through the lumpy hills of the Barrows.
Perhaps there are paths and roads I haven’t read about?
It’s not like the library is filled with current knowledge of geography and topography.
Most of the charts I’ve studied during secret hours in the forbidden map room are decades, if not centuries, o ld.
I once spent an hour with a fragile parchment scroll that predated the establishment of the kingdoms and territories.
Some long-ago cartographer scrolled the words Altrarran Empire in delicate calligraphy across the top.
Only the names of the four seas were the same as on current maps.
When Cloud leaps over a raised tuft of ground I didn’t even see, I almost tumble off her back.
I stay on, but it’s a near thing. I need to focus on what’s before me, not lose my concentration to thoughts of the past. Or even thoughts of the prince riding next to me, though my skin still tingles with remembered sensation from his touch.
If I ever write the story of this journey in a book of my own, I wonder if anyone would believe it. All those years daydreaming of the travel I’d never have a chance to do …
There’s an old Valourian proverb: Be careful what you wish for.
I never quite understood the meaning. Why not wish as big and bold as possible?
Where else can dreams come true but in wishes, especially for someone like me?
Someone whose flaws are literally branded on my skin?
The GM mark burns my arm with phantom pain, as it has on so many occasions over the years since they marked me.
When King Prasan exiled the High Inquisitor, he should have abolished the office altogether. Instead, though it lacks the power it once did, the Inquisitors’ office still attracts the worst people—those who find joy or self-righteous satisfaction in hurting others.
Hurting children.
Hurt is such a small word, though, for a red-hot branding iron pressed into a child’s arm. I didn’t lie when I said burns were the worst. The pain was so bad I begged to die during those feverish days after they tortured me like that.
But I lived.
I lived.
And now I’m free, at least for long enough to confront the draugrs in their den and find the key that’s the first step on the path to saving Altarra.
No matter what the draugrs do to me, it doesn’t seem possible it could be worse than what official representatives of my own kingdom did in the sanctimonious name of duty.
Bern, Andras, and Trick slow to a walk, and I realize with a jolt that we’ve reached the base of the Barrows.
“Find a way to pretend your courage is greater than your fear, and soon it will rise to meet the danger and become so,” I mutter.
Bern’s eyes widen. “Soli! Isn’t that Captain Wynona Wavedancer? The one with the Krakens? I love those books!” He quickly looks around and flushes. “I mean, I did when I was a kid.”
“It is. I count on her when I’m scared, and I’ve been scared a lot lately,” I admit in a near whisper, suddenly wondering if I should be ashamed of relying so much on a fictional character in a series of books meant for children.
“If you’re going to count on somebody, she’s a good one to pick,” he says, flashing me a grin that reminds me how very young he is. Then his face falls. “I wish Lil …”
I reach over and touch his arm before riding on. “I know. Me, too.”
“What are they?” Trick asks, nodding to the Barrows. “They don’t look like natural hills. Not that I’m any expert on hills, but these just seem wrong.”
“Sylvan myths say that a race of giants borne of the gods founded Altarra, and when they died to make way for humans, the Barrows were built to hold their graves,” Andras says.
My stomach clenches. I’ve never read anything about that. “Giants?”
“The gods?” Trick says, raising an eyebrow. “More than just our two goddesses?”
Ah. This I know. “Legends say that a family of gods and goddesses founded Altarra and, actually, all of Terra. I never read about giants, but the Altarran people are believed to be the descendants of these gods, from when they fell in love with magical beings.”
“We don’t have time for a history lesson,” Kaelen says, rising in his stirrups to look behind us. “We need to get moving.”
“Good timing,” Trick says. “Here comes our own magical being.”
Elianna, drooping with exhaustion, pulls the wagon to a stop next to us. “What’s the plan?”
Everybody looks at me.
“Okay. Listen. Since we have to do this, here’s what little I know: the draugrs roam at night.
Restless, remember? It’s better if you pretend not to see them.
Once you let on that you notice them, they somehow become more real.
” I try to remember any and every scrap of knowledge, legend, or even rumor about draugrs.
“The more time we have to search for the key before they try to kill us, the better.”
“That’s it?” Chitai is visibly impatient and just as visibly unimpressed. “We have to go. Now. The Zhagarn are getting closer every minute.”
“It’s not much, but a famous bard wrote a song about them. The snippet I read was: Beware the Barrows, unless your heart is pure. Beware the draugrs, unless your song is true.”
“What does that mean?” Trick asks.
“I have no idea,” I admit. “But in the old songs, a ‘true heart’ often refers to someone who is genuine. Authentic. Honest. Maybe if we sing a song that’s true to our own hearts? One that has meaning, like the song Bern’s nan sang?”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” Chitai chants. “Now.”
With that, she smacks a wagon horse’s flank to get it started up the hill and threads her horse along the side of the path to take the lead. “Now or never.”
“I’m with you,” Andras says and follows them.
Sergeant Neville speaks up. “Bern and I will take the rear.”
Trick rides up next to me. “Soli—”
“I’ll protect Soli,” Kaelen cuts in, his voice as hard as the look on his face.
“The more the merrier,” Trick says. “Now, Soli. Move!”
As I urge Cloud to climb the path, Trick adds, “Too bad your buddies the wolves didn’t come along with us. I bet the draugrs would be surprised to see them.”
But I don’t answer. I can’t force any words out of my dry mouth. Instead, I glance down at the amulet, glinting green through the open scrollwork of the locket.
Maybe now would be a good time to start with the glowing thing, I think at it fiercely. Help us find the key. Protect us from the draugrs.
Sadly, I haven’t suddenly developed psychic powers of command over the goddess’s token. It doesn’t respond.
“Here we go. Be careful, keep alert, and yell if you see anything that concerns you,” Sergeant Neville says. “Remember the plan: we get in, we’re careful, we get the key, and we get out.”
That old expression, “Mortals plan, and goddesses laugh,” snaps into my mind, and I grit my teeth. The roar of our pursuers grows louder, and it takes everything in me to keep from looking back. I’m afraid terror will freeze me in my tracks if I see how overwhelmed we really are.
“Okay, Cloud. Good horse.” I pat her neck, but the closer we travel to the Barrows, the more skittish she becomes. “Even horses can sense this isn’t a good place,” I whisper.
Kaelen nods. “Horses are smarter than a lot of people,” he says grimly, his body a straight line of tension in the saddle.
His hand rests on the hilt of his sword, but I don’t ask him what use he thinks steel will be against spirits.
He keeps turning his head to look behind us, and I’m watching him, so I see the exact moment when he breathes out a sigh of relief.
“They stopped about a thousand yards from the bottom of the path. It looks like the Fell are refusing to come any farther.”
“Thank Artemisen,” I breathe, but then I have to focus carefully on the path in front of us.
At least the moon is full, so we can see, because the dirt path twists and turns, and we have to pick our way over fallen stone as we climb.
When the path turns and leads us through a narrow opening between two encroaching walls of rock and dirt, I feel trapped.
Slowly, carefully, constantly scanning our surroundings for danger, we travel silently up into the heart of the Barrows.
The atmosphere grows almost unbearably oppressive, to where I believe my mind is playing tricks on me, but then I see that everyone else is also hunched over beneath the weight of the heavy, fear-laden miasma pressing down on us.
“Is it intentional, do you think?”
Kaelen immediately knows what I’m asking. When he answers me, his voice is as subdued as mine was. “I can’t tell if there’s some malevolent presence here that’s attacking us or warning us to get out, or if this is just the energy that surrounds the graves of those maybe-not-mythical giants.”
“Elianna? Are you feeling this?”
“I feel it, Soli, but I have no idea what it is. Nothing good,” she calls back.
The path narrows even more as we ride along. After a sharp turn, it ends at the mouth of a cave.
Because of course it does.
Andras and Chitai, in the lead, stop their horses, and Elianna reins in the wagon.
“I guess we’re going in there,” Andras says with a complete lack of emotion.
“Sure,” I gasp, wondering how to make a horse back up. “Why wouldn’t they hide the key in the scary dark cave where the spirits of the restless dead are probably having a party?”
“A party?” Andras grins at me, and I want desperately to punch him in his aristocratic face.
Trick and Bern ride up behind us.
“The Fell are still fighting the Zhagarn about coming any farther,” Trick reports. “Good news for us.”
I point to the cave, and my gaze meets my friend’s in a moment of perfect understanding. Another dark, close space.
His eyes go flat, but he shrugs and forces a grin. “You win some, you lose some.”
“We have no choice. Into the cave. We can only hope it’s a tunnel, so we can retrieve the key and escape through the other side,” Kaelen says.
“Now might be a good time to sing,” I call out, feeling foolish but also determined to give us any chance.
Andras nods and draws his sword but says nothing. He simply turns his horse and disappears into the darkness. Chitai follows closely behind, but when Elianna picks up her reins, Kaelen shakes his head.
“We’ll go next. You follow with Trick, Bern, and Neville.” Then, more quietly, “Ready, Soli?” He reaches out and clasps his hand around mine. “I’ll be right next to you.”
Trying to keep my breathing under control, I urge Cloud forward into the tunnel, fighting the unhinged urge to dub it the Cave Mouth of Despair. I hold Kaelen’s hand so tightly, my fingers ache. We stop just inside the entrance, because we can truly see nothing at all.
A slight noise sounds just before a small flame appears, illuminating Andras holding a makeshift torch—a branch with cloth wrapped around one end, burning steadily.
The light from the torch doesn’t reach far, but it’s enough for us to see in the flickering shadows that the cave we’ve entered has a sharply downward-sloping floor, a high ceiling, and rounded walls.
Elianna, Trick, and Bern stop just behind us. Elianna immediately waves a hand in the air, and a trio of glowing balls of white light appears in the cave over our heads, lighting up the space more fully.
From what we can see, the cave gradually becomes a tunnel. Or at least there’s a darker space, maybe another cave, in the back wall.
“It makes sense it goes down, since we’ve been climbing steadily since we entered the Barrows,” Kaelen says. “It may be a way through. A way out, once we retrieve the key.”
“Or it may be the path to the place where the draugrs eat unwary travelers,” I mutter. “And I don’t see anywhere a key might be hidden.”
“We have to go forward, because the Zhagarn may force the Fell to obey them at any moment,” Kaelen says. “I’ll lead the way. Andras, stay with Soli.”
“I’ll follow with the wagon to protect the sorcerer,” Chitai says.
“Maybe I’ll protect you,” Elianna snaps back, but she looks relieved.
“We’ll stay out here to guard your backs until one of you comes to get us,” Neville says, gesturing at himself and Bern.
“If you don’t see or hear from us in ten minutes, follow. We’ll either be dead or need rescuing,” Kaelen says.
“This gets worse and worse,” Trick mutters, shaking his head.
He’s not wrong.
Kaelen, Andras, Trick, and I all dismount and lead our horses down into the tunnel, with Chitai and Elianna behind us.
Elianna’s balls of light dance through the air above us, illuminating the way.
We walk along in total silence for what feels like a very long time but is probably only half an hour of steady descent.
Then the tunnel widens and opens up into a giant cavern, eerily lit with sparkling luminescence from a profusion of gems studded in the walls, ceiling, and even the floor.
“How will we ever find a single key in all of that?” I can hear the hopelessness in my voice even as I ask the question.
“Oh, dear goddess,” Trick whispers, and I know the Guild thief in him must be overwhelmed.
I’m not even a thief, and I’m overwhelmed. “Is this … are those really precious gems?”
Trick bends down to touch a huge red stone before I can shout at him to stop. He lifts it up and waves it at us. “Do you know how much this must be worth? It’s a nearly flawless ruby, from what I can see in this light! We’re rich, Soli. We’re rich!”
“Quiet,” Kaelen snaps, but in a low voice. “We don’t know who’s listening.”
“You shouldn’t touch that, Trick,” I whisper. “It’s such a basic rule. Don’t touch the gems you find in random caves, especially when dangerous creatures may claim them.”
He laughs. “Never heard that rule. But do you know what these are worth? We can just take a few.”
“I hope they’re worth our lives,” Andras snarls, holding his sword high. “Because you just woke the draugrs.”
Here we go again.