Fablehaven: The Complete Series (109 page)

With no saddle or bridle, there was not much to cling to, and Kendra found herself bouncing further out of position with each stride the horse took. The giant man with a face like a mask obstructed their escape, heavy club poised to strike. The stallion slowed and reared, thrashing the large man with flailing front hooves. The massive figure toppled, but Kendra failed to maintain her grip and fell to the ground also, landing in a muddy puddle.

The stallion curveted around the area, bucking and plunging, trampling the fallen enemy and scattering others. Kendra looked around, and saw Gavin do a handspring to retrieve Tammy’s fallen tomahawk. Twirling his spear adroitly, he now held off four opponents. A pair of motionless bodies lay crumpled near him.

His gaze met hers, and after a final wide sweep of his spear, he sprinted toward her. The creatures gave chase. Kendra rose to her feet. As Gavin neared her, he hauled back one arm and flung the tomahawk in her direction. The weapon missed her by inches, the black stone bit embedding in the shoulder of a broad, lumpy man with a towering forehead and a deformed face. Kendra had not sensed him coming up behind her. The disfigured man fell with a throaty bellow, and then Gavin had her hand, and they were racing together through the rain.

Kendra heard hooves pounding off to one side. Handing Kendra the spear, Gavin seized her waist and heaved her up onto the chestnut stallion with astonishing strength. An instant later he had vaulted up behind her. He reclaimed the spear, using his free hand to steady her. “Go, Neil!” he cried.

Neil increased his speed to a furious gallop, tearing across the blustery mesa at a speed Kendra would not have thought possible. Blinded by the heavy rain, she was grateful to have Gavin stabilizing her. He appeared to have no trouble remaining astride the charging stallion, clutching the spear in his free hand as if he were jousting.

Blinking rapidly to try to peer ahead through the downpour, Kendra recognized the ruins coming into view. The horse leapt over a low fence, sending tingles through Kendra’s stomach, and then they were swerving around rubble and broken walls. With a clatter of hooves on stone, the horse came to a stop outside the empty doorway of the most intact building among the ruins.

The horse melted away beneath Kendra and Gavin, leaving them standing beside Neil in the rain. His former clothes were gone. All he wore now were animal pelts. “Stay in here until I return,” he ordered, jerking a thumb at the yawning doorway. He rubbed his side as if in pain.

“Are you all right?” Gavin asked.

“Holding my other form is hard,” Neil said, nudging Kendra toward the building.

Lightning dazzled across the sky, throwing strange highlights and shadows across the ruins. Explosive thunder followed immediately, and Neil was a horse again, galloping off into the storm.

Gavin took Kendra’s hand, and she led him into the shelter of the building. Part of the roof had collapsed, but the walls were whole, keeping the wind out except when it gusted through the doorway. “I lost my flashlight,” Gavin told her.

Kendra had hers dangling from her climbing harness. It was not as big as some of the others, but when she switched it on, the beam was bright. The water pouring through the open portion of the roof was running across the mud-streaked floor and trickling down through an open hatch into an underground chamber.

“Look at you,” he admired, “holding on to your gear even when savage rain dancers are trying to toss you off of cliffs.”

“It was fastened to my harness,” she said. “Thanks for saving me. You were great back there.”

“It’s wh-wh-wh, wh-wh-wh. It’s wh-why they brought me along. Everybody has their thing. This is where I shine, whacking monsters with primitive spears.”

Kendra felt embarrassed. Her behavior when they were attacked had made it apparent that she had no idea how to handle herself in a fight. She braced herself, realizing she had better ’fess up before he could point out her deficiencies. “You were right, Gavin, I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I expected. You had to watch out for me instead of helping the others.”

“Wh-what do you mean? Because of you, I had an excuse to ride out of danger on Neil. You did much better than I expected.”

Kendra tried to smile. He was kind not to rub it in, but she knew she had been a liability. “I can’t believe Tammy is gone,” she said.

“I hope you don’t blame yourself for that,” he said. “It happened too quickly for anyone to have saved her. We didn’t really know what they had in mind until the hawk guy sent her soaring.” He shook his head. “They definitely wanted us off of their mesa. We crashed the wrong party.”

To make the loss less painful, Kendra found herself hoping that Tammy had been secretly working for the Society of the Evening Star. They waited without speaking, listening to the wind outside keening stridently among the ruins. The storm raged more forcefully than ever, as if exerting a final effort to sweep them off the plateau.

Somebody strode through the doorway. Kendra swung the flashlight over, expecting Neil. Instead the coyote man stood on the threshold, an angry gash visible beneath the wet, matted fur of his chest. She gasped and nearly dropped the flashlight. The intruder shook his staff. Even with the wind howling, Kendra could hear the rattles. The coyote spoke in a human voice, chanting in a strange, warbling language.

“C-c-catch any of that?” Gavin asked softly.

“Nope.”

The coyote man sidled into the room, snarling. Gavin stepped in front of Kendra, and then advanced with his spear. As the coyote and Gavin drew close to each other, Kendra wanted to look away. Instead, squeezing the flashlight like a lifeline, she shifted the beam so it shone right in the coyote man’s eyes. He wove his head to avoid the glare, but she kept the beam on him, and Gavin poked at him with the spear.

Slowly Gavin prodded the intruder back. With a sudden grab, the coyote man seized the spear just below the head and yanked Gavin toward him. Instead of resisting, Gavin sprang forward and nimbly kicked the coyote man right where his chest was injured. Staggering back and whining in pain, the coyote man relinquished the spear and dropped his staff. Gavin charged, the stone spearhead biting into his enemy until the coyote man fled the room nursing new wounds.

Panting, Gavin backed away from the doorway. “If he returns, I’m going to make you a souvenir—coyote-on-a-stick.”

“He already left behind a souvenir,” Kendra said.

“Does that mean you’re claiming it?” Gavin asked, stooping to pick up the staff with the rattles attached. He shook it gently. “It’s certainly magical.” He tossed it to Kendra.

“Will he hunt me down to retrieve it?” Kendra asked apprehensively.

“If he ever tracks you down, give it back. I wouldn’t worry. Since the preserve surrounds this mesa, I imagine the coyote guy is stuck here.”

“What if he comes to retrieve it tonight?”

Gavin smirked. “Coyote-on-a-stick, remember?”

Kendra shook the stick hard, listening to the crackle of the rattles. Outside, the wind rose, lightning flashed, and thunder erupted, drowning out the rattling. She kept shaking it briskly, trying to hear the rattles over the wailing gusts outside. The wind shrieked even louder. Hail began drumming against the roof and pelting through the broken portion. Ice pellets skittered across the floor.

“I’d be careful how you shake that,” Gavin said.

She stopped, holding the rattle still. Within a few seconds, the hail stopped, and the wind wasn’t gusting as hard. “This is controlling the storm?” Kendra exclaimed.

“Influencing it, at least,” Gavin said.

Kendra studied the staff with amazement. She held it out to Gavin. “You earned it, you should keep it.”

“N-n-nope,” Gavin said. “It’s your souvenir.”

Kendra held the staff carefully, keeping it still. Over the next minute the storm went into a lull. The wind no longer blew as hard. The rain diminished to a sprinkle.

“Do you think the others are okay?” Kendra wondered.

“I hope so. Dougan has the key. If they don’t show, we may have to fight our way back to the stairs.” Leaning on the spear, Gavin glanced over at Kendra. “The way things played out, I know it seems like I made a good call about the danger, but this is much worse than I’d guessed, or I would have been more forceful with everyone about you not coming. Are you hanging in there?”

“I’m okay,” she lied.

“That was smart, shining the light in the coyote’s eyes. Thanks.”

The wind and rain picked up again, but still didn’t lash the mesa as furiously as earlier. Sheet lightning started flickering regularly, accompanied by growls of thunder. On the fifth flash, three men staggered through the doorway. Warren, Dougan, and Neil crossed the room to Kendra and Gavin. Dougan no longer had his axe. Warren held the top half of his broken spear. Neil limped between them, supported by the other men.

“Ugly business out there,” Dougan said. “Have you had any visitors?”

“C-c-coyote man dropped by,” Gavin said.

“He came inside the room?” Neil asked, his face haggard.

Gavin nodded. “I had to repel him with the spear.”

“Then Kendra and I won’t be safe here after all,” Neil said. “In times past, the creatures who haunt the mesa would not have dared set foot here in the weather room. Then again, I know little about the rite we interrupted. We must have rendered all protections ineffectual.”

“He definitely came inside,” Kendra said. “He left this behind.” She held up the staff. Neil frowned at it.

“It’s her souvenir,” Gavin insisted.

“We need to get inside the vault,” Neil said. “Anywhere will be safer than this mesa tonight.” Dougan and Warren helped him toward the hatch in the floor.

“Sorry I wasn’t much of a bodyguard,” Warren apologized to Kendra. “They struck so suddenly, and I saw Gavin taking much better care of you than I could have. Gavin, I’ve never met a man who could top your dad in a brawl, but you would have given him a run for his money.”

“Only thanks to all he taught me,” Gavin said with a proud grin.

Below them gaped the hatch. A long, upright log with pegs in it functioned as a ladder. Shining flashlights into the void, they saw the floor about twelve feet below. Gavin descended the ladder first, holding Kendra’s flashlight. Then came Dougan, then Kendra, then Neil lowering himself with his arms and one leg. After Neil reached the ground, Warren did not follow, and they heard the sounds of a scuffle. Spear in hand, Gavin raced up the ladder with incredible speed.

After a few tense moments, Warren and Gavin descended the ladder.

“What happened?” Kendra exclaimed. “Are you two all right?”

“No coyote-on-a-stick,” Gavin said regretfully. “He didn’t show up.”

“But others did,” Warren said. “The hawkman and a freakish oaf. I’m with Neil. We can’t leave anyone above ground. There are too many enemies abroad.”

“Will a dragon be any safer?” Kendra questioned.

Warren shrugged. “Neither option is inviting, but at least the vaults are designed to be potentially survivable.”

Kendra hoped Warren was right. She could not help remembering that only one and a half of the three people who had entered this vault last time had emerged.

Dougan removed the key from his bag. It was a thick silver disk the size of a dinner plate. The underground room had a spacious circular depression in the center. Water flowed into the depression but, instead of pooling there, continued to drain deeper. With Warren helping Neil, they all stepped down into the circular recess.

“This room was a kiva,” Neil explained. “A site for sacred ceremonies.”

Dougan pressed a small protuberance on the disk, and several oddly shaped metal teeth clicked out of the sides like blades from a pocket knife. When he released the button, the jagged teeth retracted. Kneeling in the center of the circular depression, he set the disk into a round indentation where it fit snugly. Then he pressed the center of the disk and twisted it.

With a jolting clack and a subterranean rumbling, the floor of the circular depression began to rotate. Dougan had taken his hand off of the key, but still the floor turned, and as it turned, it sank, as if they stood on the head of a gigantic screw. Ever rotating, they gradually descended into a vast chamber, where the irregular walls had the appearance of a natural cavern. Looking up, Kendra watched the round hole in the ceiling grow distant. The sounds of the storm faded. Announced by a final echoing thud, the turning floor came to a halt.

Chapter 12