Shine: The Knowing Ones (43 page)

Ashbel reached for the blade as Trin hit him with a sweep to the legs, taking his feet out from under him. Ashbel hit the floor as Trin rolled, grabbing once more for the blade, but Ashbel sprang to his feet, grabbing Trin by the leg, Trin in return planting a shattering kick to Ashbel’s sternum. The walls trembled and the stone floor cracked as the two men battled for possession of the dagger, blow after blow, kick after kick. Sam and the Veduny men had been waiting for about fifteen minutes when Llamar manifested in front of them. “Ashbel is in the alcove with Trin.”

Sam went pale. Anvil grabbed her hand. “He’ll be all right Samantha. Trinton can handle himself.” But uncertainty fringed his voice.

Sam turned to him. “We have to help him,” she said. “There has to be a way inside.”

The other warriors glanced at Anvil. Sam was right. Ashbel was in league with the demon. A disturbance rippled the water below. All eyes turned as Trin broke through the surface.

Sam dropped to the stone ledge. “Trin!”

He pushed through the water, reaching for the side as the warriors crowded the edge to help him out of the water. Trin pushed himself up over the side with the aid of the others, evidence of a brawl all over his muscular body. He sat back on the ledge catching his breath. “He has the kindjal,” he breathed in exhaustion.

Sam took his face in her hands, then threw her arms around his shivering body. “You’re hurt,” she said.

“I’m okay, Sam.” Wrapping an arm around her waist, Trin glanced up at Anvil
. He has the kindjal but he doesn’t have Sam...and he hasn’t come for her. Something is wrong
...

Anvil didn’t respond.

Trin paused, light eyes squinting, waiting for an answer. Anvil remained silent. Trin stood, taking a blanket from one of the men and locked eyes with his mentor. “Anvil?”

“We must get to the guardians.” Anvil lowered his cloaking, allowing Trin to read what he knew. Trin lifted his chin, eyes wide as the information came through. He took a step forward, his masculine jaw clenched. “How could you keep this from me?”

“Ashbel didn’t know,” Anvil replied.

“He knows now.”

Trin grabbed the blanket and began drying himself in a rush as Anvil handed him his clothes.

“What’s happening?” Sam asked. “What does he know?”

Just as Trin finished buttoning his jacket the bright glow of the moonlight diminished, growing dark. Deep red spread over the stone walls of the cave entrance like a moving shadow, drenching the foliage and painting the surface of the water.

Trin cast his eyes to the sky, Anvil following suit. All seven Veduny men and Sam watched as the glowing sphere undulated like a rippling pond. The white globe no longer existed. Deep crimson passed over the moon’s surface, casting a menacing scarlet over the land. The ground beneath them began to tremble.

Anvil snapped around to his men. “Get to higher ground!”

Trin grabbed Sam by the hand and pulled as the group ran for their horses. Stepping into the stirrups they mounted, taking off at full speed up the embankment.

As they crested the top of the hill a thunderous detonation nearly knocked them from their horses. The side of the mountain blasted outward like a volcanic eruption—massive shards of rock flying forward. Just inside its wake an enormous funnel of light blinded everything in its path—the golden blue light of the Veduny tribe. Huge chunks of stone and earth pelted into the lake all at once. A wall of water rose from the impact, swelling forward, growing in enormity by the second, traveling with shocking speed toward the lowlands, the Veduny village and the surrounding villages that lay beneath it.

“Trinton!”
Anvil screamed out to him as their horses flew up the mountainside. Trin snapped his head around in time to see the swell of water reaching its crest at nearly one hundred feet, just seconds from crushing the side of the mountain and everything in its path.

Trin turned his horse, crushing Sam into his body. His eyes gleamed white hot. Sam watched in awe as the towering body of water began to slow, receding from its initial direction and withdrawing altogether from the mountain’s edge. The misplaced body of water crashed backward into the glacial cavity, settling into its natural space. Trin snapped his horse back around, jetting off toward the others.

The ground rocked as fractured pieces of mountain smashed into the ground all around them. Trin and the other warriors fell in step behind Anvil as light from the toxic portal invaded the landscape. The
trees thinned and the sacred site came into view. The stallions bucked, Shock silencing the men as they gaped upon the guardian monoliths now radiant in crimson light, the misshapen stone exteriors gone—replaced by smooth alexandrite walls.

“Продвигайтесь!”
Keep going!
Anvil shouted through the deafening cacophony, coaching them to stay focused. The horses barreled forward, their thundering hooves muted in the chaos as they climbed the back side of the plateau.

They reached the top. Garnet light splintered off into the night sky, making it nearly impossible for the warriors to see which direction to pursue. Their horses reared, their wild manes flying as they writhed beneath the weight of the men, frightened, disoriented.

Sam squeezed Trin’s arm. “Can you hear that?”

Trin looked down at her, trying to control his horse. “Hear what?”

Sam strained through the earsplitting chaos. A barely perceptible voice sounded within it, too faint to decipher. Squinting through the glare, she scanned the area and was drawn to the furthest tower on the plateau. It stood alone.

A blinding flash and everything stopped. No sound—the chaos ceased. Sam stood alone on the plateau, moonlight bathing the guardians in white. A million stars littered the night sky, the air warm and sweet, the scent of fragrant vegetation filling her nostrils. She detected movement in the shadows up ahead. She gazed out, dropping her head to one side. Lifting the hem of her dress from the rugged ground, she moved toward the far pillar with careful steps. As the gap between Sam and the lone guardian closed, a tall individual in a hooded cloak came into view. He approached the tower, stopping in front of it. Sam slowed, stopping just behind the pillar closest to it, remaining out of sight.

The individual gazed upon the stone guardian, removing the hood. Fluent Russian fell from his lips. Sam understood every word. She also recognized the voice. Her heart pounding, Sam peered around the tower.

“She was supposed to choose me!” Whipping tendrils of jet black hair danced in an erratic pattern about his masculine face with the wind, his stern jaw tight, luminescent jade eyes filled with betrayal. His formidable frame stood against the sharpening breeze, voicing his objection. Sam stared as an inexplicable sense of endearment sprang up inside of her.

His tormented gaze fell to the base of the monolith. He squinted downward—straining to see. Sickly red liquid seeped from beneath its edges, rolling outward through sprigs of thick grass. It crawled through dirt and weeds, accumulating in a crimson mass at his feet.

Ashbel’s thick cloak billowed forward as he stumbled back, alarmed and confused. The liquid slowed to a thick puddle and stopped. Ashbel’s emerald eyes widened as the congealed mass began to lift, rising up and taking form. It heaved and pitched, stretching, morphing into the form of a very large man. Collective black vapor gathered in the winds above it, weaving into a smoky tapestry, then dropped from the air as a wet blanket, shrouding the blood form—fusing into a solid figure.

Ashbel drew back, stunned, confused, decoding the identity of the unexpected visitor. A pall of staggering disbelief dawned in his eyes as the information he sought settled in the pit of his stomach.

Sam stared, riveted to the scene from behind the monolith. Her heart pounded, terror and dismay flooding her soul in tandem with Ashbel’s. She felt everything he felt.

The demon gazed upon Ashbel as a hawk to its prey. “Did you forget about me?”

Sam sought support, gripping the side of the stone tower, hearing Ashbel’s thoughts, feeling his desperation.

A thin smile of pity slid across the black God’s face. “Who did you expect to find behind your instruction?”

Ashbel fought bitterly to maintain.

Sam clasped the stone, all of Ashbel’s betrayal and guilt flushing her core as if she were he. Ashbel formulated a telepathic message to the tribe but was disrupted by a sudden blow from hell itself. Doubled over in agony, he fell to his knees.

He hit the ground.

So did Sam.

Ashbel’s desperate fingers gripped at the sprigs of grass beneath him. “I’ll not take her life,” he gasped, a fractured declaration hampered by anguish.

The demon offered a thin smile. “You
will
,” he said. He tilted his head to one side.
“You cannot run,”
he said.
“I have your soul. It is all I need.”

Sam trembled, grasping at the earth and grass. Chernobog hadn’t been talking to her that day in the dressing room. He had been talking to Ashbel.

A guttural scream rushed Ashbel’s throat, shocking the environment in unspeakable sorrow as the giant black spirit morphed from human form to a black concentrated ball of swirling darkness spearing into Ashbel’s heart, dropping him to the earth.

Sam doubled over—pain, misery, despair, and jealous rage invading every cell. Ashbel lay unconscious. The monster’s unendurable essence was too foreign for his divine Veduny construct to endure. He lay silent as the dead, the wind whipping soft black strands across his beautiful lifeless features, his muscular body a listless heap against the night covered ground. For a moment—nothing.

His left arm twitched, his shoulder pitching once, then twice. With a steady pull he dragged his hand from underneath his body, placing a flat palm against the plateau.

His right hand followed, pushing his body from the ground, his muscular back hunched as he rose to his feet in sinister elegance. His head lifted to the sky, still facing away from her. He glanced from one hand to the other, his massive chest filling with air, his hands balling into fists as an inhuman braying rose from deep inside him, escaping into the night, finding Sam’s spine, electrifying her with horror.

The God reveled in his temporary shell, bellowing as a soul of the damned. His head fell forward, large shoulders rising and falling drinking in the exhilaration of life sustaining breath. His head then rotated slowly to one side. The elegant jade was gone from his crystal eyes as they peered at Sam over one shoulder. A gaze of black polished stone now took their place—hard, cool and void of a soul. His mammoth body turned, his gaze training in on Sam as he launched forward in her direction. Frozen in place—unable to speak or cry out she stared, eyes full of fear—no air, as he came at her with the fury of hell. Almost upon her, her body stiffened, bracing for impact when his image froze—brilliant jade returned to his eyes, shining in remorse and words she would never forget fell from his lips...
“Tell Trinton.”

Sam recoiled, seized by a vision—Ashbel’s rebellious play; bare skin in a passionate, entangled embrace with the young woman who had rescued her. A lone pregnancy, an escape from Russia, across Europe, children, marriages, an exodus to America, more children...a tunnel of light fast forwarded to a young father with dark hair. His back turned, he cradled an infant in his arms. He turned...Sam’s father...youthful, eyes full of love staring into the face of Sam as a newborn...

Grandfather
.

“Sam!” Trin gripped her shoulders desperate for a response. She was back in the chaos, Trin shaking her, calling her name. Tears stung her eyes. “The far tower. Go!” she shrieked.

“Sam, what are you—”

Before he could finish, Sam had taken the reins and fused her will into the animal, bolting forward into the gleaming chaos. Trin yanked at the reins but the stallion kept on, heading across the great plateau. No matter how Trin tried, the animal would not respond. He bent completely to Sam’s will. Racing past the stone giants they came upon the last guardian. She pulled the horse to an abrupt halt. “We have to hurry,” she said. “He’s holding him off!” Sam broke free from Trin’s grasp, stumbling from the horse.

“Sam!” Trin sprang from the stallion in a dead panic. The others had dismounted as well, gazing in horror toward the lone towering monolith. The young woman hung high, arms outstretched, crucified to the front of the tower. The smooth gemstone walls gleamed beneath and around her form in unholy radiance, distorting her features. Blood flowed from generous wounds to both wrists as Ashbel watched her life blood feeding the base of the pillar.

Sam moved toward them, undaunted, unafraid and calm—her movements deliberate.

“Sam, stop!” Trin reached for her but his outstretched hand was flung back by an invisible force. Glancing down at his powerful arm, he gaped at Sam. Ashbel hadn’t stopped him, Sam had. He stared at Anvil in shock, who gazed in anxious wonder at Sam, too stunned to speak.

Sam continued toward the grisly scene, the astonished men following close behind. The light within the pillar blazed as Veduny blood from the unborn child bathed the alexandrite, soaking into the ground, and fueling the portal in the earth beneath it. She was dying. So was her baby.

Sam’s eyes glowed.
Ashbel...

The estranged warrior turned his gaze toward Sam in amusement.

Grandfather, fight him.

A sinister flash lit his eyes, throwing her forward. Sam doubled over in pain, dropping to her knees.

With a savage roar Trin flew at the monster, Anvil and his men right behind him. They were thrown backward, falling to the frozen ground, Trin landing close by Sam’s side.

Once again it was Sam who had stopped them. Helpless, Trin watched as her trembling hand reached out, grasping his. An energetic lurch yanked him forward as Sam pulled power from him, combining with hers. The combination churned and grew, generating power he had never felt; the power of two.

Ashbel, we are more than he is. Fight him.

Trin could feel Sam’s anguish—experiencing her suffering, but unable to stop it. At the moment he felt he could bear no more, the scene before him slowed, crawling to a halt, and time stopped. Trin and the others rose to their feet, astonished at the frozen scene before them and their ability to move within it.