“’Pears Rufus done got here before us, and don’t seem to mind our knowing it.”
Chapter Thirty
26 May 1767 Antediluvian Ruins Westridge Mountains, Mystria
Owen took a quick look inside the Temple, then ducked back. “No doubt we’re being taunted.”
Nathaniel took a couple steps back and down. “I don’t know that I think that is true. Seems fair certain that the intention of getting the tablets took was to create havoc. Onliest reason to leave that one there would be to do more of the same. Rufus couldn’t be certain we’d come back this way. Heck, we’d not be but Prince Vlad said he’d backtrack us on this trail iffen we was not home quick enough.”
Kamiskwa let his pack slip from his shoulders. “You think the tablet is there so someone else will find it and fall prey to it as did Rufus?”
“Like as not. Could figure that we have one, the other would find it, and get us.” Nathaniel smiled. “Last Rufus knowed I couldn’t read. He prolly thinks this here trap could snare the Prince, which he wouldn’t mind at all.”
Owen nodded. “That being the case, to leave the tablet here would be more dangerous than getting trapped in there.”
Makepeace sighted down his rifle barrel, then thumbed a spec of dust off by the muzzle. “All your thinking don’t mean this ain’t a trap. More of them demons could spring up out the ground and you’re done.”
Nathaniel shucked off his pack and dug around, bringing out the urn full of demon broth. “Well, I gots me a plan. Being as how I is faster than any of the rest of you, I’ll just run in there, smash this over that slab goes into the ground, and be back with the tablet in no time.”
“If it doesn’t work, ‘I gots me a plan’ will make for one hell of an epitaph.”
“You have that wrong, Captain.” Kamiskwa came up with his urn. “If it doesn’t work, there won’t be enough to bury.”
“What are you proposing, brother?”
“I may not be faster than you, but I feel magick better. I make the run. You three stay here, ready to shoot anything that bothers me.”
“Cain’t argue as much as I’d like with your logic.” Nathaniel levered his rifle’s breech opened and pulled out the bullet. Using his knife, he cut a cross on the nose, then extended it toward the Steward. “I know you ain’t much on shooting and all, but I reckon a blessing might be of some comfort here.”
Ezekiel Fire laid his hand over Nathaniel’s. “Let Thy will be done.”
Owen similarly opened his rifle and got his bullet blessed, as did Makepeace. Owen saw no reddish glow, felt nothing, but also didn’t feel wholly hypocritical about asking for the blessing. What he had seen in Happy Valley and Piety had opened whole new windows in his world. He’d always known magick existed, and knew he could wield it at a strong level, but his abilities were nothing compared to what he’d seen Deacon Stone do, much less Rufus. In the face of that which he didn’t understand, asking for divine help didn’t seem to be a vice.
He loaded the bullet back into his rifle, then lay down on the stairs and steadied the rifle on the top step. Nathaniel crouched on the top of the stairs, and Makepeace sank down beside Owen. The large man mumbled a short prayer.
Kamiskwa carried a steel tomahawk in his right hand and the urn in his left. He stepped to the doors, then slipped through. He walked casually for a few paces down the middle, glancing back to see if the doors were closing, then put his head down and sprinted toward the stone altar. His body eclipsed the golden tablet.
Owen kept his rifle trained on the spot to the right of the altar where the slab had lain. At the first hint of motion he was going to shoot. He prepared himself for a cloud of demons exploding up, or Rufus rising like a ghost from the grave. He rubbed his thumb over the firestone. Come on, come on.
Kamiskwa reached the tabernacle. He smashed the urn onto the floor slab, then grabbed the tablet. Something began to grind behind him, sounding like the low rumbling of an avalanche to those who waited outside. The Tabernacle began to slide backward slowly.
A shaggy grey creature clambered up from the depths, all elbows, shoulders, and a broad head with curled ram’s horns. At least, that’s what it appeared to be to Owen, in the brief glimpse he had of it. Then Nathaniel fired. Smoke billowed, choking the entrance. Something yelped from within, but without seeing a target, and knowing Kamiskwa was running straight toward them, Owen couldn’t shoot.
Then Kamiskwa dove out though the smoke, the tablet clutched firmly in his left hand. His body drew the smoke away, revealing a hazy glimpse of a creature at least ten feet tall. Then the Temple doors began to close, and Owen and Makepeace shot in unison. They couldn’t see if they’d hit the creature, but it would have been hard to miss. Yet before the smoke could clear, the doors clanged shut.
Fire grabbed Kamiskwa’s pack, and the others retreated, reloading as they went. They moved through the ruins cautiously, then headed down into Little Elephant Valley. They’d have been happy to get further from the ruins, but daylight faded and exhaustion replaced excitement. They found an easily defended spot and set up camp, knowing full well that if the creature from the Temple or any of the demons wanted to attack during the night, they were powerless to stop them. Still, they splashed a little of the demon broth around and set up a rotation of shifts for nightwatch.
Kamiskwa woke Owen in the middle of the night. “Your watch, Owen.”
“Thanks.” Owen pulled his moccasins on. “Mind if I ask you something?”
The Altashee nodded.
“You clearly do not like whatever exists up there in the ruins.”
Kamiskwa laughed. “You are too much a civilized man to say they scare me. They do. I have heard stories since I was a child. An adult may try to pretend those stories no longer have power, but they do. And they do terrify me.”
“Then why be the one to make the run?”
“Owen, you have learned much in your time here. You have learned things of my people, but there are some lessons you do not understand.” The warrior smiled. “Norillians and Ryngians all treat fear as if it is a shameful thing. It is not. Succumbing to it might be. But fear is just telling you that you face great danger. It tells you that you must take extreme caution. Those who ignore such warnings are foolhardy and die. Those who cannot see past them are cowards. But I am a warrior. If I do not honor fear, if I fail to face it with intelligence and courage, I am nothing.”
He looked back toward the high mountain peak. “Did I run from that thing as swiftly as I could? Yes, but I did not give in to terror. I showed it I was indeed the most fleet of us. If I was wrong, if it caught me, all I would have lost is a race. I would not have lost what it is to be a man.”
“Then it was the creature that yelped.”
“No, that was me.” The Altashee laughed. “If you have Nathaniel Magehawk pointing a rifle at you and shooting, you will yelp, too.”
“I would at that.” Owen patted him on the shoulder. “Sleep well.”
The night passed without any oddness. In the morning they scouted around for signs of anything that might be following them, but found nothing. Though they did not relax their guard as they moved further from the ruins, they saw no sign of pursuit. Were they not carrying the golden tablets and demon broth-not to mention claw marks and bites-they’d have had no evidence that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.
And then, at the end of the first week of June, they returned to Plentiful. As they’d gotten close they saw ample signs of the flood that had raced down the Snake River. Riverbanks had been undermined and trees had fallen. Large rocks stood in the channel hundreds of yards from where they had been previously, or had been left high and dry on the flood plain thirty and forty yards from the river itself. Yet even these displays of the river’s titanic power did not prepare them for what they found at the settlement.
The flood had poured through the valley deep and fast. Owen imagined that Arise Faith and his people, if they had any warning at all, assumed they had angered God in some incredible way. They would have seen it as the Scriptural Deluge come again.
A tumble of trees and splintered logs lay strewn over the valley floor. Green fields had been washed away,
