Don't dally! Whatever set Johan running must be bigger than any threat of vampire or soldiers!'
Racing into a dark tunnel, far ahead they heard a hollow boom.
Panting, Wilemina asked, 'Whatever can that be?'
'At a guess,' gasped Adira Strongheart, 'it's the entire mountain crashing down on our heads! Run!'
Chapter 19
The race up twisting tunnels was an unending nightmare.
Jasmine Boreal's groundquake had splintered stone in a thousand places. Gaps as wide as three feet threatened to engulf the heroes every dozen yards. Thrice they had to skirt or scramble over fallen rocks that blocked the passageway. Murdoch and Magfire had rescued some torches, but dust boiled thick. Jedit's cat eyes led the way, but everyone's eyes and noses streamed. Coughing tore at throats.
Booms and crashes sounded hither and yon, some percussions so hard they shook the ground. That the mountain might collapse and entomb them spurred the adventurers on.
After what seemed hours, Jedit called that roots snaked underfoot. Coughing, wheezing, half-blind from smoke and dust, holding each others' shirt tails, the heroes blundered past fallen rock — and miraculously found themselves outside in an overcast noon.
Finally clear of the cursed castle and caverns, people lagged, sobbing for air. Adira let no one rest. Slapping, cursing, batting, she bullied them like balky sheep away from the ruins, into the forest, and up the valley's gentle slope until their feet slipped on pine needles. Exhausted, some dropped weapons or tackle, but Adira urged them on.
'Must we… run… clear to Buzzard's Bay?' rasped Murdoch. His breath frosted in crisp autumn air.
'We're… free of the haunts!' gasped Wilemina. 'May we… Oh, my!'
A keening whistle rose to a harsh scream that drowned out words. Everyone cast their eyes to the sky. A black jot marred the overcast like a hole punched in cloud cover. But in seconds the jot loomed big as a moon, then bigger.
When the meteor struck the ground, the roaring impact flicked the onlookers off their feet. As they stiffly clambered upright, they spotted a new hole in the valley floor. Fifty feet across, the crater showed black loam and yellow sand pitched out in windrows like wheat. Heath pointed to other fresh holes scattered about, a half dozen or more.
'Those booms we heard!'
'More stones fall!' Kyenou pointed straight up.
Another meteor sizzled from the sky, growing larger in fractions of seconds. This time no one gawked. They ran uphill, astonished they'd ever felt winded.
Twice more the heroes were tossed off the ground like ants flipped off a stalk of grass. Each time they surged onward, up the shallow valley dominated by Shauku's castle. Holding hands, urging each other on, dodging loose boulders and broken trees, they trotted doggedly with aching legs and lungs.
Came a whistle so fierce their ears rang and heads felt swollen to bursting. Adira screamed to dive for cover. No one heard, but pirates and pinefolk flung themselves flat on the forest floor.
The howling ended with a noise like the end of the world. A crash and smash resounded so vast their minds couldn't encompass it but shut down and left them deafened and stunned. The world shook like a bog, so hard that pebbles and sticks pinged upon them where they clutched hands over ears and heads.
A long, long time the heroes lay, stunned, half-blind, and as numb as if struck with sledgehammers. Gradually, as the sun pierced the cloud cover and warmed their chilled and filthy heads, one, then two, could rise to their feet. Gently they helped others up.
The ruined castle and hill were gone.
'Let them go.'
'Magfire!' Adira Strongheart snorted. 'The world has truly turned topsy-turvy if you let enemies escape unharried!'
'They quit the field. We hold it,' said Magfire. 'To fight for revenge is foolish.'
Magfire and Adira stood atop a tree toppled like a bridge. As the sun set, the two chiefs watched a line of yellow and black trickle out of the valley. Some thirty-odd Akron Legionnaires had survived the onslaught of the shooting star. Tired soldiers and cadets shouldered pack baskets and blanket rolls and trudged east of north, presumably bound for Buzzard's Bay and a voyage home. Magfire spat after them.
'I hope Shauku's truly dead.' Adira stared at the vast crater where the castle had stood. 'At the least she's buried beneath a mountain's worth of stone. Along with that poor cosmic horror, and Simone, and Whistledove.'
A laugh welled up to pierce Adira's gloomy thoughts. Below their wooden span, and despite the autumnal chill, pirates and pine folk splashed beside a stream that meandered through the forest in a rocky mossy bed. Filthy as outhouse rats, looking the sorriest of ragpickers, men and women stripped to sop off grime and blood, and modesty be damned. They guzzled water until their bellies sloshed. Safe, with good water and some rest, they were happy. Adira envied them.
Adira Strongheart hopped from the tree trunk and padded silently over pine needles. She breathed deeply, only now appreciating the wonder and glory of just being alive. Kicking off her seaboots and shucking her ratty sweater and shirt, she sluiced frigid water over her chestnut curls and ample breasts.
'I don't ken it all.' Murdoch sat back and admired his chief's form, blatantly staring. 'Did that sky-monster pull down a shooting star to commit suicide? Why didn't it do that sooner?'
'We'll never know.' Shivering, Adira donned her sweater and finger combed her hair. 'You'll have to ask Johan. He gleaned its thoughts.'
'There's no trace of him?' Wilemina hissed as, one-handed, she bathed a sword cut on her hip. 'Surely he can't get clean away? Where's the justice?'
'Justice weighs differently on tyrants.' Adira let the argument drop. She was weary to her bones from weeks of warfare and worry. Frankly, she didn't care what the cosmic horror or Johan had done. No amount of talking would change the past. 'But don't fret. A blight like Johan will surely pop up again.'
'A weed that needs uprooting.' Jedit Ojanen padded up silently. 'I circled the vale twice but failed to sniff any trace. Nothing even of his entourage. Perhaps my nose is still stuffed full of dirt. Ach! Caves are for bears, not tigers!'
Without warning, the tiger leaped in the air like a swan taking flight, then splashed in a great gout of flying water. The humans on the banks chirped and yelled, but all in fun, for all were glad to be alive. Grinning with wicked fangs, impervious to cold, Jedit sloshed on his back and blew a waterspout.
Sitting the stream bank, Adira sopped her shirt on rocks and rung it out. Washing done, she counted noses and found a dismally low number.
Sergeant Murdoch, his naked torso sporting a dozen old scars and several new lacerations. Sister Wilemina, skinny as a skinned rabbit with arms and shoulders taut as bowstrings.
Jasmine Boreal, soaking a cloud of strawberry hair. Heath, gazing into the distance, dreaming wide awake. And Jedit, who stained the stream pink from an uncountable number of cuts and scrapes.
Adira's throat tightened fit to choke her. In her wake bobbed corpses as from a slave ship. Virgil, Simone, Peregrine, Whistledove. Why had she embarked on a life of adventure that brought so few rewards and so much destruction to so many?
She murmured aloud, 'Because I know no other life. Shall I sit in a comer and spin my days away?'
'Beg pardon?' Magfire had doffed her silver fox mantle and loom-woven shirt. Revealed was a woman broad as a door across shoulders and hips with more scars than even Murdoch could boast. She bit her lips as she bathed a dozen nicks and dings.
'Nothing.' Adira Strongheart used a handful of sopping grass to scrub her seaboots. 'I wish we'd been friends.'
