“Get back,” she yelled. “Other side of the room. Go, go!”
Vann landed a final blow on the wolf in front of him, and its legs slid out from under it. Lilah was already moving, diving behind the pedestal. Vann risked staying long enough to take a cut at the remaining wolf. He wouldn’t have resorted to grenades and doubted it had been needed, but it was too late to put the pin back in now. After chopping into the creature’s leg, hoping that would keep it from running, he leaped onto the pedestal and then rolled to the other side.
The grenade clanked as it fell from the wolf’s mouth—had Kaika truly thought she could get it lodged in the creature’s gullet?—and blew as Vann came down on the ground. Kaika and Lilah were already there, covering their heads. He put his arms around them and tried to further protect them as the explosion ripped through the air, hammering the walls of the chamber like mallets on a drum.
More rocks crashed to the ground, one giant boulder landing on the wolf. Its cry was just audible over the noise of stone tumbling down. Vann resisted the urge to look up, lest a rock fall on his face.
Kaika wriggled out of his grasp. “Got it, sir.” She gripped the pedestal and peered over the top. “That was the last one. Oh, yes. Flattened him.”
“You almost flattened us, Captain.” Vann winced, his leg throbbing. Saliva stuck to the tears in his trouser leg, and he could feel blood dripping down to his sock.
“Nah, it was just a little grenade. I’m surprised any rocks came down at all. This area must be unstable.”
“Unstable, in a mountain that people have been blowing up for centuries. Imagine.” Vann touched Lilah’s back as she lifted her head. She still gripped his rifle and appeared ready to shoot more wolves if the rest of the pack found a way around.
“The minor, well-placed explosion didn’t even bother the pedestal.” Kaika flicked her hand toward a ceramic sphere resting on the flat surface.
Vann frowned at it. “Is that an old—”
Rock shifted in the mouth of the tunnel that Kaika had collapsed, and he paused. A plaintive howl came from the other side of the rubble pile, muffled but audible. It reminded Vann of the howls he had heard in the woods, and he wondered if the strange wolves had been patrolling out there the night before. Were there other ways into and out of the tunnel system? It wouldn’t be surprising.
He gripped his sword and stood, eyeing the blocked tunnel. How many wolves remained alive in it? Was there another way for them to get to the chamber? He considered the three-dimensional map hovering in the air above the pedestal. It would take time to decipher it.
“Captain Kaika?” came a distant yell. Captain Bosmont. “Colonel Therrik?”
“Back here,” Kaika returned the call. After another glance at the wolf, which had indeed been flattened by rubble, she headed for the passage leading back to the camp. “He might not know which tunnel we went down. I’ll get him.” She jogged for the exit.
Vann did not know if having more people back here would be a good idea if the tunnels were unstable. Also, if explosives and his sword were the only weapons that could hurt the creatures, having more men back here armed only with rifles wouldn’t add anything useful.
“Any chance you’ve explored enough and that we can go for now?” Vann asked Lilah, leaning on the pedestal with one hand to support his leg and lowering his other to help her up.
A clack and an angry hiss came from within the pedestal itself. It spat like a cat, and he stumbled back. More snaps and cracks sounded, along with a hum that seemed to fill the air with electricity. The hairs on his arms stood up, and he forgot the pain in his leg.
His gaze locked onto the sphere sitting on top of the pedestal, a centuries-old bomb. Smoke wreathed it as sparks flew up around it. Vann thought about grabbing it, lest it be ignited by whatever electrical or magical short that had clutched the pedestal, but no, better to get away from it.
Lilah bumped into him. She was already moving away from the pedestal. The map disappeared in a brilliant flash of white light that hammered Vann’s eyes with the intensity of the sun. He grabbed Lilah, not wanting to lose her. He couldn’t see a thing, though he sensed the light fading. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, even as he continued backing away. His shoulders bumped against a wall, and he could go no farther.
“The tunnel,” Lilah said. “We might want to—”
The pedestal sputtered angrily, then seemed to explode. It didn’t boom, not like one of Kaika’s grenades, but the wave of power it unleashed slammed into Vann like a shockwave. The back of his head cracked against the wall. He took a step in the direction of the exit tunnel, but a massive upheaval threw him off his feet. The floor bucked and writhed like a horse trying to throw its rider. And then a second explosion came, this one far more familiar, the igniting of a bomb.
Flames surged from the center of the chamber, and the floor heaved again. Vann lost his hold on Lilah as he was hurled to the ground.
“Vann,” she protested, falling away from him.
Rocks snapped and cracked. He wanted to lunge for the exit, but not without Lilah. Hells, he was so disoriented now that he wasn’t even sure where the exit was.
“Lilah? Over here. Where are you?” The sound of breaking rock drowned out his words. A crash sounded, and he had the sense of the pedestal falling through the floor, but he couldn’t tell for certain. He couldn’t see anything.
“Colonel Therrik?” Kaika called from somewhere in the distance.
Then the rest of the floor vanished.
Chapter 11
Lilah tumbled for what seemed like ages but was probably seconds, then landed hard on her butt. Rocks slammed down all around her. Fighting back whimpers of fear, she rolled into a ball and tried to protect her head and neck. Something hard was to her left. A wall? No, a boulder. She curled against it, hoping it would deflect some of the rockfall away from her.
Rubble hammered the ground all around her. Something that sounded like it was the size of a wagon crashed down a few feet away. That pedestal? Shards of metal or rock, she wasn’t sure what, struck her side. She stayed in her ball and tried to focus on controlling her growing panic.
Eventually, the rockfall dwindled, but she did not feel safe. Not at all. Though she could not see anything, she had the sense of the walls looming close, trapping her. She peered upward, knowing she had fallen, but not sure if she had tumbled straight down. She had bumped against walls a couple of times, almost like laundry sliding down an angled chute.
The darkness was absolute, and she could see nothing, not even her hand in front of her face. The rock walls weren’t pressing in on her, forcing her to keep her head to the ground, as they had in that tunnel she had crawled through, but she had no idea where she was, how she would get out, or what was waiting down here with her. She could hear her own rapid breaths, as if she stood somewhere outside of her body. Though she repeatedly told herself to calm down, she couldn’t manage to slow her breathing. When she tried to inhale more slowly and more deeply, she got too much air and started to feel lightheaded. She was panicking, and she couldn’t stop it, damn it.
Something stirred in the darkness nearby. What if it was one of those wolves? She patted the ground around her. Somewhere in the fall, she had lost the rifle. Not that it did any good against those creatures.
Lilah climbed to her feet, having a notion that one shouldn’t face danger from one’s knees. Her body ached from the fall, fresh scrapes and bruises stinging.
“Lilah?” Vann said from several feet away.
Not a wolf. Good. But she still couldn’t calm her nerves.
“Lilah,” he said again, closer this time. His hand bumped her back. He patted his way up to her shoulder and gripped it. “We’re fine.”
“Uh huh,” was all she could get out. Logically, she knew nothing was happening, at least not right now, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the ceiling collapsing or their air running out.
“Lilah,” Vann said again, stepping close, bru
shing her back with his chest. “What would help?”
“Daylight,” she croaked.
She closed her eyes, trying to get ahold of herself. Being this afraid of some dark cave was stupid, and she knew it. Further, having a witness to her panic embarrassed her. She blamed the fear she’d felt during the wolf fight for starting this. Her heart was still pounding. One of those cursed beasts had almost gotten Vann. It had gotten his leg. He must be in pain right now, and here she was, worrying about herself.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to say. “I’m fine. How bad is your leg? Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” He slid an arm around her from behind, bending his neck so he could rest his chin on her shoulder. A soft clank came from beside him—he must still have that sword in his other hand. “I can walk on it, though,” he said. “It’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. I can distract you if you like.”
She leaned back against him, relieved that he didn’t seem too badly injured and also relieved that she wasn’t down here alone. Perhaps it was silly—she was a grown woman and shouldn’t need to be cuddled by a man to find her equanimity—but her breathing slowed and some of the tension seeped out of her muscles as she leaned against him. Minutes passed without any more rocks falling, and she began to believe that they would not be crushed, that Vann would lead her out of this mess.
“I would guess we fell the equivalent of three or four stories,” he said. “I can’t imagine why there was hollow space underneath that chamber, but the walls here are rough, not smooth like the witch tunnels. Maybe there was a cavern system or at least some pockets of air that existed before they built here.”
“That bomb went off, didn’t it?” Lilah asked.
“Yes.”
“Kaika found it attached to the ceiling. We assumed it was placed there by the invaders, that it was supposed to go off three hundred years ago.”
“It likely was.” He stopped speaking, his chin turning on her shoulder, and she had the sense that he was tilting his head to listen above them. “The ceiling gave way as well as the floor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the tunnel Kaika ran down collapsed too. It may be some time before they can dig their way into what remains of the chamber and lower a rope to us.”
He didn’t say that Kaika herself might have been crushed if the tunnel collapsed, but Lilah had no trouble envisioning the scenario. She shuddered. “So, we’re trapped.”
What if they ran out of air? What if there was nobody left up there to look for them? Or what if more of the ceiling gave way, and rocks buried them forever?
“Perhaps not. We haven’t explored. We will.” Vann held her loosely, his short hair brushing her temple, his relaxed body exuding calmness.
She wished she hadn’t snapped at him earlier. Even if she had been disappointed in him, that wasn’t a reason to behave poorly. Especially to someone who was going out of his way to comfort her now. She leaned her head back against his shoulder, appreciating his warmth and his closeness.
“What kind of distraction?” Lilah whispered.
“Hm?” Vann stirred, his jaw brushing her ear, and she shivered at the roughness of his stubble, unshaven since the previous morning. It prompted delightful sensations within her. So did the hardness of his chest against her back, the heat of his forearm across her stomach, the tickle of his breath on her neck.
“You offered to distract me.”
“Did I?” He seemed to consider this for a moment, then kissed her on the neck, his lips warm and pleasant. “Unfortunately, it’s not a good time for both of us to be distracted.”
No, and she reminded herself that she still didn’t know how he felt about his ancestor, about the idea of killing an entire society of people. It wouldn’t be wise for her to settle back further into his embrace and ask for more kisses.
“Talk to me, then,” she whispered. “Please. For a few minutes. Then I’ll help you search for a way out.” After she grew convinced that more of the ceiling wouldn’t fall and crush them. “I know it’s silly, but I can’t help thinking about... I feel powerless in situations like this.”
He sighed softly, his breath tickling her skin. “I get feeling powerless. It’s vile.”
“But it’s not something you deal with often, I’m sure,” Lilah said, then reconsidered the comment. Maybe he referred to being an officer who always had superiors to deal with, men giving orders that he had no choice but to follow.
“Often enough to hate the feeling. It’s why I loathe magic.”
“Oh?”
Perhaps his comment had nothing to do with his rank and the military, after all. Lilah waited, hoping he would continue, that he would give her something to focus on rather than the blackness around them and the weight of the mountain atop them.
He rested his face against the back of her head for a moment, then lowered his arm. “I better hunt down a lantern and see if there’s a way back up to the others.”
“Wait.” She clasped his arm to keep it close—to keep him close. “Tell me? Please.”
He didn’t ask to what she referred. “Because you still need to be distracted? Or because you’re nosy?”
“Both of those things, and because I’m trying to decide if you’re someone...” Lilah stopped herself before saying, I can be friends with. It seemed a silly thing to say when she was leaning against him, and he was letting her use him for support. Anything else that came to mind, such as that she wanted him to be a good man, would come out sounding condescending. Maybe it was best to drop it, at least for now. “I forgot to thank you. For coming to help Kaika and me. Your rescue was quite timely. You must have been nearby?”
“I was following you,” he admitted. “I should have gotten there quicker, but I was reading that journal.”
“Ah.” She didn’t know if she should encourage him to discuss what he had read or not.
“I haven’t heard of that Therrik, so maybe he got killed down here, forgotten before much could be recorded about him in the family history.”
Maybe he wanted to discuss it? “Do you think he was the one to shoot Captain Molisak?”
“It seems likely that he or someone on his team did. Someone following his orders, maybe.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Feel?” he asked, as if she had used some strange, foreign word.
“Yes, feel. A feeling is defined as an emotional state or a reaction.”
He grunted. “Thanks.”
Lilah waited, hoping he would answer her question, but again, not wanting to push him to discuss it. They could talk more when they had escaped the mountain and there were fewer threats around.
“I wondered if I would have done the same thing,” Vann said quietly, “if presented with the opportunity to lead a team to assassinate the witch leader. From what I gathered from the entries, that was the original assignment until Major Therrik decided to take the opportunity he was given, free access to this compound, to rid the world of all of these people.”
Was that what had happened? He must have read more of the journal and pieced more together. Lilah hoped the book had survived their tumble down here and that she would have the chance to read the rest.
“Do you... approve of what he did?” she asked, careful to keep the judgment out of her tone. She thought about turning to face him, but this seemed less confrontational, less direct.
“Of giving himself his own mission and then shooting an officer who objected? No.”
“What if the mission had been sanctioned? Would it have then been acceptable to...” She stopped, knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep the judgment out of her voice. Why ask? She was fairly certain how he felt. She would only be disappointed in his answer. In him. She laid her head back against his shoulder. She didn’t want to be disappointed in him. She wanted him to be someone whom she could trust to be honorable.
“I don’t know, Lilah. I hate magic, and I hate those who...” He sighed and rested his face against her hair in silence for a moment. “
I told you about how I ended up in the army, first two years as a soldier, then four years in the academy, and finally another two years of training for the elite forces. Those eight years, which were quite intense, shaped me, turned me from a street thug to a soldier. That’s what the army is designed to do, after all. It’s not usually necessary for boys from noble families, but I was more like a wild animal at that point in my life. I needed it.”
Lilah made a murmur of encouragement, not sure where this story would lead, but wanting to hear it.
“By the time I graduated from the academy and had passed a few of the early tests in my career training, I’d started to believe I was going to be able to serve my king and country like someone... heroic. I met a woman about this time, and we started spending time together.” He spoke slowly. Editing his words before they came out of his mouth? It wasn’t as if she would judge him for past relationships. “She seemed to think I was heroic too. She didn’t know about my past, or if she did, she didn’t care. She loved me, and I guess I felt the same, though I’m not sure I ever managed to say it.”
She was tempted to ask him if this had been Nia, the woman who had become Angulus’s wife and the queen. If so, it was a foregone conclusion that the story wouldn’t have a happy ending. That seemed to be a theme for Vann, stories without happy endings. Had he ever known enduring contentment in his life?
“She took me to meet her parents. The family had a big estate overlooking the sea down south. They were of noble blood, which I hadn’t realized, since she never spoke of it, but I was, too, technically, so I didn’t think much of it. I thought we were a good fit. Her parents were reserved but polite enough. Nothing much came of that dinner until months later, they called me back to their house. Alone. I’d proposed to her, so I expected a man-to-man conversation with the father, a promise to treat her well, that sort of thing. As it turned out, he’d been doing some research into me, and he’d dug up everything, that I’d lived on the streets, defended my life by taking other lives. A wild animal, not a nobleman and an officer, or not always one.”