Redden was so cold inside that it seemed the temperature in the cavern must have fallen below freezing. He could not imagine what they were going to do. They were deep underground with the way out blocked and their pursuers coming for them. They lacked any reasonable chance of escaping or even of defending themselves. The wishsong remained an uncertain protection, although Redden would use it as best he could. Oriantha was quick and strong in her animal form, but she alone would not be enough. Tesla Dart had no discernible defenses at all.
“Is there another way out?” he asked the Ulk Bog.
She shook her head. “No way. Only how we come in. We must fight our way free.”
“Can we hide?” Oriantha asked. “Another tunnel? Another cavern where they won’t find us? Can we slip past them somehow?”
Tesla Dart’s wizened face knotted. “One way down, one way up.” She hesitated. “Maybe I can say you are prisoners of me. Maybe say I found you here.”
Oriantha shook her head. “We’re not letting them take us. I promised Redden, and I meant it. We break free or we die.”
Redden nodded, not caring for the odds, but knowing he could never go back into a cage. Another imprisonment and he would lose what was left of his already damaged mind. He could feel what it would be like already, just thinking of it. Nothing would save him if they got hold of him again.
He was still clutching the box with the Elfstones as he turned around and looked back across the cavern at the niche with the collected implements of magic brought over from Faerie. “Do you think there might be something there?” he asked the shape-shifter.
Oriantha sprinted back across the chamber and began searching. Tesla Dart had not reset any of the traps or released the serpents anew, so there was no danger of anything harming her while she did so. The Ulk Bog followed, looking decidedly forlorn.
Redden watched them for a long moments, standing close to the mouth of the passage, desperately trying to keep himself together. His emotional stability was already dangerously thin, his sense of self reduced to a small hard kernel of doubt. Being trapped like this was the worst fate he could imagine, the one thing he hadn’t wanted to happen. Oriantha had recognized the danger when she had urged him not to go looking for the missing Elfstones.
He should have listened.
But he had been determined to come here, to search out the Elfstones, to find them and bring them back. Diverting from their original plan posed a terrible risk, and in hindsight he knew he should not have insisted on it. This would not end well for either of his companions. Oriantha would almost certainly fight until she was killed. She would never be taken alive. Tesla Dart might choose death, as well.
It gave him pause. Was he strong enough to follow them? Was his determination enough to keep him from being imprisoned anew?
Still watching his companions as they rooted through the ancient treasures in the niche across the cavern, he opened the box containing the Elfstones and glanced down at them.
Was there a way to make use of them? Even without knowing what they did, even without knowing what it would mean to summon their magic, should he try anyway? Should he risk releasing their power, whatever form it might take, against the creatures coming for them? Even knowing the magic was dangerous to use since his Elven blood was so thin?
Or should he rely on the magic of the wishsong—a magic he knew and had employed once already against his pursuers. Would it be powerful enough? Could he even manage to summon it again?
There were no answers to be found. The risk was clear, whichever way he went. But he had to do something. Neither of the others had the power he possessed, regardless of which path he chose. Their lives were in his hands.
He stared across the blackness of the cavern at the bobbing torchlight of his companions, conflicted. If he guessed wrong, if he made a mistake in his choice of magic, they were finished. In all probability, he would only get one chance. He watched Lada skitter past him, disappearing into the black hole of the tunnel behind him. He had only a short time to wait before the little creature was back again, chittering wildly.
He knew at once that their hunters were close.
Barely conscious of what he was doing—almost as if his fingers were acting on their own—he reached inside the metal box and extracted a single set of the three Elfstones. He knew instinctively which ones he wanted and where within the velvet cushioning they lay. Then he closed the lid, tucked the box under his arm, and moved back across the room to join his friends.
The search had yielded little. There were weapons available, but they were ancient and clearly meant to be used as talismans. And there was nothing to reveal what sort of magic any of them possessed and no way of knowing how to summon that magic.
“When they come,” Tesla Dart announced suddenly, “I will throw the box with the serpents at them.”
Oriantha said nothing. She moved away from them and began to shape-shift into her animal self, stretching out and turning sleek and powerful, abandoning her human form in favor of something faster and stronger and more dangerous. She had made her choice in this matter, as Redden had known she would. She would make no concessions to her hunters.
Tesla Dart started scurrying about, finding additional torches at the entrance to the niche that she lit with fire from the torch she carried. Then she began placing them about the cavern at regular intervals, trying to make it easier for them to see what was coming, hoping to give them some small advantage.
She took the last two brands, dashed all the way across the chamber, and jammed them into the rocks on either side of the tunnel opening before rushing back again.
Sounds from within the tunnel’s blackness grew audible. Their time was almost up. Redden summoned the magic of the wishsong, emitting a soft hum to begin the process, bringing the heat of it out of his core to be balanced invisibly within his chest, ready for use when it was needed.
Oriantha was completely changed by now. On all fours, she slunk into the shadows and disappeared. She would choose her own place to make her final stand. She would face what was coming on her own terms.
Across the chamber, shadows emerged from the tunnel and started toward them. They were just a handful at first, then a dozen, and then many more. At least thirty or forty by Redden’s quick count, too many for them to withstand. Too many for them to escape. They crossed the chamber and hovered in the shadows just beyond the light, vague forms that emitted a strange hissing; that grunted and growled; that gave high, keening moans. Eyes glittered from out of the dark here and there, but never for more than a moment, always shifting away again.
Tarwick appeared suddenly before them, his scarecrow form materializing out of the gloom. His lean feral features were bladed and planed by the deep shadows, and his eyes glittered as they fixed on his prey. All around him, his hunters pressed forward eagerly—Goblins with demon-wolves on leashes, Furies with their terrifying cat faces, and creatures that had no name Redden could determine.
There were so many, he thought in despair.
Tarwick began speaking, and the language he used was unknown to the boy. But Tesla Dart understood. “Says we put down weapons. Says we are his prisoners.”
Now the Furies were mewling and hissing, and the demon-wolves were snapping at the air. If they all came at once, Redden knew it was the end—even with the power of the wishsong to aid them.
“What does Tesla say to Tarwick?” the Ulk Bog whispered back at him.
She was deferring to him, which he found oddly ridiculous. As if he knew what to do. As if he were leader of their little group. He did not answer, but instead concentrated on bringing the magic of the wishsong closer. He took deep breaths and centered himself inside, where the fear and doubt fought to claim him. Words whispered in his head, repeating themselves over and over.
We will fight them. We will stand until we fall. We will never go back into the cages.