Duality (28 page)

The passageway opened to a room so vast the torch did not pierce the gloom to the other side. Dara hesitated at the edge. “‘Enter here, all ye who fear not death. Bow to thy queen and live’. If there’s a trap in those words, it’ll be here. I can feel it.”

“A queen bowsss to no one
.
”

“Whatever is in here, my best guess says it passes over our heads.”

Loren dropped to the floor. He handed his torch to Dara.

Dara started forward, Loren following in her wake. A sudden gust of wind blew from nowhere, and a furnace blast of heat as flames shot at them from all sides. They flared above Loren’s head.

“Bow to thy queen and live.” A disembodied feminine voice echoed throughout the cavern.

Dara stood tall, the flames swirling around her. “A queen bows to no one. I am
Dara
Kahn Androcles shena
Sheena
Kahn Androcles shena
Lena
Kahn Androcles shena
Ilya
Kahn Androcles shena
Rala
Kahn Androcles shena
Vana
Kahn Androcles shena
Mystria
Kahn Androcles and you
will
let me and my companion in.”

The stone in the blood torque shone with the brightness of a red sun. It caught the flames and fired them back into the darkness. The flames swept through a web-maze of torches, and the entire chamber became illuminated.

Dara handed the torch back to Loren as he rose to his feet. They stared at the ancient, charred bodies littering the cavern floor. Dara swallowed hard. This was the price of pride.

Loren touched her shoulder. “You can do this,” he assured her. “You were
meant
to do this.”

Her gaze followed the flame-bordered pathway. An enormous gold dragon with ruby eyes lay curled amongst a vast treasure horde. Odd how she was able to identify whose treasure was whose. Mystria’s gold and jewels, Vana’s weapons, Rala’s tools, Ilya’s musical instruments, Lena’s fabrics and furniture and Sheena’s books and scrolls. Dara wondered what her own contribution would be.

“Welcome home
,
”
the voices sang.

Dara strode forward. The voices chanted in the back of her mind. Beneath the idol’s sinuous neck stood a stone altar covered with a blood-red cloth. A slight tug and the silken cloth slid off a leather-bound book two hands thick. A circle of draconian runes wreathed in flames was stamped in pure gold into the cover. Dara caressed the runes. She could almost read them…

“‘The book of ssspellsss’.”

Dara stared at the curious five-holed lock.

“A clawed hand. One for each of the five elementsss
.”

Dara flexed her own clawless five fingers and held her right hand out over the lock. “Water,” she named the first, placing her little finger against a hole. “Air,” was her ring finger. “Metal,” for her middle finger. “Earth,” for her first finger. “And fire,” she finished, placing her thumb over the last hole.

The stone in the blood torque pulsed with the beating of her heart. For long moments naught happened. Then a flare of light beneath her hand revealed a shining gold pentacle. There was a clicking sound, and the leather strap fell away, leaving the book free to be opened by the last guardian queen.

Loren rested his free hand on her shoulder. “No more doubts,
guardian
. This is your destiny. You were never just a common peasant girl. Embrace who and what you are.”

Dara flipped open the cover. The smooth ivory pages did not feel like either papyrus or paper. Whatever they were made of, they were thick and heavy. The ink was a liquid that had dried rust-brown. She shuddered. “This was written in blood.”

“Dragon’sss blood. Each of usss wrote our own ssspellsss in our own blood. Blood magic. Power.”

Loren stood aside her. “We must return. We cannot linger.”

Dara noticed the amber-colored stone on a gold chain, coiled aside the book. She picked it up, and almost dropped it. The stone was body-warm. “What’s this?”

“A seeing stone, looks like. Granna has one. It can be used for reading ancient text. It works with the power of thy mind to translate the unknown into the known. Best take it and the book with us. We must leave this place.” He laid his hand against her cheek. “You show such strength, in all you accept. You constantly amaze me.”

She blushed at the praise. All her fears, insecurities, and he thought her strong? Dara slipped the gold chain around her neck and closed the book, locking it. She picked it up and clutched it close. “I’m ready.”

“I have no doubt.” Loren led the way out. At the tunnel they stopped. Dara turned around. “Sleep and watch. Let no one pass.” One by one the lights snuffed out, returning the cavern to suffocating blackness. She led the way out. One by one the tunnel’s torches darkened as she passed. Once outside, she placed her hand against the boulder. “Close and guard. Let no one pass, on pain of death.”

The doorway swung shut until it was just another part of the mountainside.

The sun was setting when the three of them climbed down the cliffside to the boat and rowed back to the opposite shore. Cianan and Lord Elio met them at the water’s edge.

“Prince Deane took the men hunting,” Cianan reported. “We must camp here tonight. It is suicide to attempt crossing the Shadowlands at night. We shall leave at first light.”

“Agreed.” Pari nodded. “I hope our return is as quiet as our coming.”

To Dara, the former king sounded doubtful and worried. Remembering the pictographs, she’d have to agree.

Chapter Twelve

The company broke camp first thing in the morning. Hours later they reached the edge of the Shadowlands again. Cianan now took point, followed by two other rangers, then Pari, Dara, Loren, two more rangers with the pack horses, Deane, Lord Elio, and the last two rangers as rear guard. Dara recognized she was in the relative safety of the middle. She gritted her teeth. Without her powers, still acclimating to the voices and bearing the book of spells, she realized they saw her as a liability. But the warrior within her still bridled at the implied, albeit unintentional, insult.

Loren nudged Hani`ena up to Gloreriell’s side. He reached out to touch her hand. “We mean no disrespect. You are our greatest hope. We but protect the treasure you are.”

He thought she was a treasure? Her heart flipped at the notion, and she frowned. How was she to keep her distance if he kept saying things like that? Pretty words and passion. She’d never find the strength to leave.

Heavy mists swirled through the forested valley, and Dara just discerned the curve of Eryl’s white tail ahead of her. The fallen needles in the mud muffled the horses’ hooves. Beneath her, Gloreriell shook his heavy mane and tossed his head.

The unnatural silence of the place grated on Dara’s nerves. Weapons and armor clanked despite the riders’ many attempts at quiet. Where were the birds? The animals? A sense of being watched prickled at the back of her neck as she strained to see, to hear. “Something is here,” she whispered to Loren. “It waits.”

“They, not it. Goblin raiders,” Loren whispered back. “We shall be ready.”

“Look out!” Cianan barely got the words out afore a shower of short green-fletched arrows descended through the mist-shrouded trees. He’d loosed three arrows of his own by the time the column stopped and wheeled to face the threat.

Loren raised his shield betwixt the goblin raiders and Dara. “Stay behind me.”

“We are under attack.” Deane moved Torgon to the relative safety of the rear of the column.

Gloreriell reared, nearly unseating Dara, who clung to his mane. One of the goblin arrows streaked under his neck where he’d stood but a moment ago.

Pari loosed an arrow of his own, right through the throat of a distant black form, which crumpled to the leaf-strewn ground. The old king was no slouch for all his years away from the battlefield. “Rangers to me.”

Loren drew Justice, a gleaming white beacon of Light, and moved Hani`ena betwixt Dara and the hill. “I mean it. Stay behind us.”

Dara burned to join in the fight. Rot it, she was a warrior, not some helpless lady he had to defend. His nobility choked her. She eyed Deane with contempt. Every other elven warrior and Pari fired arrows back at the goblins except the heir. He seemed to have forgotten he possessed a bow.
Some hero
. She looked up the hill at the descending horde and saw her first goblin. The pictographs in the cave had been vague. The creature plunging down the steep incline at her now was short, dark and lean, with a hunched back, short wispy hair on its round head, and black, empty eyes too close together. Its facial features were almost human, with a flattened nose, flared nostrils and a tiny slit for a mouth. It wore a loincloth, and there was no way to tell if it was male or female.

“Male.”
Hani`ena’s mind was focused on the enemy, hard and bright as Justice. “
They do not permit their females to fight.”

Dara bared her teeth, a throwing dagger in each hand.
“Then they are in for a shock
.
”
She eyed the distance to the goblin, not wanting to waste good blades by throwing short in a swirling crosswind. How Cianan and the other rangers compensated she had no idea.

The blood torque stirred to life.
“We can help
.
”

Dara clenched her jaw.
“Not now.”

“We can help.”

Loren held Justice aloft, the Lady’s Light a deterrent. He looked like the champion of a fable, noble and heroic. A sense of wonder made Dara’s breath catch in her throat. Her heart stuttered with fear, though, at what a target he made.
Please, Lady, keep him safe.
Cianan and Elio fired round after round of a never-ending supply of arrows back up the hill. Goblin arrows flew toward Loren and Hani`ena and were turned away at the last second by an unseen force.

Deane muscled Torgon betwixt Hani`ena and Gloreriell. The heir’s stallion ducked his head as Hani`ena snapped at him. “It is the right hand’s duty to protect the heir.”

“The right hand protects the
king
,” Dara corrected him. “You aren’t king yet,
Highness
.” Gloreriell whirled and lunged to where Kikeona and Milisena spun and reared to avoid goblin arrows.

“Dara!” Loren shouted. “Get back here!”

Dara eyed one bandy-legged goblin running down the hill toward her. She threw her left-hand dagger, buried it to the hilt in the goblin’s belly.

He didn’t even slow down.

Cianan shouldered his bow and drew his own toshi sword. Kikeona shrieked and charged straight at the should-have-been-direly-wounded attacker. Cianan swung his sword, and the hunched body fell over. The head rolled the rest of the way down the hill.

“Belly wounds shall not stop them,” Cianan called above the din of battle. “Eye. Throat. Beheading.”

“And trampling,”
Gloreriell added.

Dara swallowed.
“I’m not big enough to trample anything.”
The eye was a small target in a surrounding shield of facial bones.
“Are those skull bones as thick as they appear?”

“Aye
,
”
the stallion confirmed.

She didn’t have a blade long enough for beheading a creature that low to the ground, and had never been trained in swordplay anyway.
“The throat it is.”

A trumpeting bugle pierced the air, and Dara watched with horror as Eryl crashed head-over-knees with three green-fletched arrows buried in his chest. Pari was already rolling when he hit the ground and staggered up, blood running from a cut on his forehead.

“Nay!” Loren shouted.

“To the king,” she yelled.

Milisena wheeled, Lord Elio dismounting and drawing shield and sword. The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder as they prepared to protect their friend and former king on the ground. Eryl lay unmoving in the faded leaves.

“We can help,”
the voices insisted.
“They be not fireproof.”

“Fire?”
Dara sent to Hani`ena.

“Nay. You have no control.”
The mare was adamant.
“You would burn down the entire hillside.”

Dara gritted her teeth. The rangers and Cianan fired arrows up the hill. Lord Elio and Pari hacked with their swords any goblins that got through the wall of arrows. The war horses accounted for as many kills, kicking and stomping enemy raiders into the leaf-strewn mud. No longer a heroic symbol, Loren swung Justice with grim determination while his brother struggled to string his bow.

This was the warrior-prince she admired—a man of action and skill. Her heart beat faster as she watched him fight with courage and honor, defending his brother, who should have been able to defend himself.

Cianan cried out. Kikeona turned, and Dara saw a green-fletched arrow protruding from his shoulder. “
Go
,” she ordered Gloreriell, drawing her last knife and throwing it through the eye of the goblin who’d shot Loren’s best friend.

Gloreriell reared over another arrow. Dara lost her balance and fell to the ground. She lay there, stunned, trying to will her body to move. The voices screamed at her as a goblin stood over her with a triumphant sneer and a raised long-knife. The white stallion held off another, but Cianan was off Kikeona and betwixt Dara and the enemy. She rolled away as the goblin’s knife came down. It clashed against Cianan’s sword and slid aside, leaving the elf a split-second opening. He pushed the goblin into Kikeona’s path and she stomped it into the hillside. Gloreriell finished off his own opponent, as well.