and fell writhing in agony. Captain Peles let out a howl and hacked about her in a blind raging fury.
Then the earth moved. It kicked everyone from their feet, bucking and heaving. A great shriek of pained rock tore through the chamber. Rubble fell over them. A stone struck Suth, felling him. Dust and pulverized stone filled the chamber, swirling through broad beams of daylight. Then the reverberations and tremors eased into stillness and all was silent but for settling rock and the distant crash of surf.
The last tumbling stones clattered into the distance and Suth came to. He shook the dust from his face and helmet. The lancing pain in his shoulder was nothing compared to the crushing weight of the block of stone trapping his sandalled foot. Pushing with both hands, he managed to yank it free of the slim gap that stopped the great block from utterly flattening it. Around him, through the swirling dust, men and women groaned, rousing themselves. Daylight streamed through the dust and Suth blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw.
It seemed that the massive tremor had caused a landslide, or fault, and the far wall of the chamber had been shorn away with a portion of the rock it was cut from. Wind gusted through the chamber, lashing the dust away, and Suth had a bird’s view of the broad Fist Sea and its curved mountainous borders. Standing on this new cliff edge was one remaining priest, blood glistening through his torn robes down one side, one hand tight upon the girl, who still gripped the chest to herself, her eyes huge. Four remaining Stormguard stood before them, swords out.
Advancing upon them came Kyle, helmet gone, his black hair a tangled mess of dust and wet blood. Suth found his sword among the broken rock and pushed himself erect to follow. Also staggering up from the rubble came Fist Rillish and Captain Peles.
Before Kyle could engage a waiting Stormguard, the priest gestured and a lance of the green-blue fire shot out to strike him in the chest. He reeled backwards, grunting his pain, but he did not fall.
‘Who protects you?’ the priest bellowed again, enraged, foam at his mouth. ‘It is of the earth! I sense it! Who dares!’
Kyle’s arms fell as he stared, shocked. ‘The earth…?’ he echoed, wonder in his voice.
At that moment the Stormguard charged. Suth met one in a desperate delaying strategy, giving way, yielding, hoping beyond hope that one of his companions would finish their own opponent and come to aid him. Beside him, Fist Rillish fought with his two swords, exhausted, parrying only, hardly able to raise the tips of those slim weapons. Captain Peles fought doggedly, the only one of them to have retained a shield, which she hunched behind, refusing to give ground.
Kyle, recovering, hacked down the Stormguard and advanced upon the priest. Seeing death coming to him the priest howled his fury and thrust both hands out in a blast that threw up a cloud of dust, blinding everyone and bringing down further rocks, shaking the uncertain perch of the very cave. Suth, blinking, wiped an arm across his eyes, coughing. The Stormguard lashed out with a cut, judging his distance expertly from that mere cough, slicing Suth across his chest. The Korelri raised his sword for the killing stroke but lurched aside instead, falling. It was the priest, Ipshank. The man gripped the Stormguard’s helmed head between his broad wrestler’s hands and twisted, snapping sideways. The crunch of cartilage and vertebrae cracking made Suth flinch. He helped Ipshank to his feet.
Behind the Stormguard, the lashing wind tore the dust away to reveal the Adjunct down and the priest of the Lady exulting, laughing, the child yet at his side, frozen in horror, frozen in terror. That triumphant smile fell away, however, as a new figure bounded in from the side, rolling, closing with the priest — Faro. Before the priest could even react the Claw stitched him with countless knife-thrusts. Gaping his disbelief the man stared, unmoving, until Faro kicked him over the edge. Then the Claw turned to look down at the girl and raised his gleaming wet blades.
‘No!’ Fist Rillish yelled, charging past the Stormguard. The Korelri slashed his back as he passed. The Fist yanked the girl from Faro’s side.
Suth engaged the Stormguard, Ipshank limping just behind. ‘Do not touch the chest!’ the priest yelled.
Shrugging, Faro lazily advanced on the Stormguard Suth faced and the Korelri turned to keep the two of them before him. All this time Captain Peles exchanged ringing blows with the only other Korelri standing. They seemed to have made a pact to see who could outlast the other.
Shifting, panting, his foot numb and almost useless, Suth tried to bring the Stormguard’s back to Faro. Ipshank yelled then, next to him, ‘Rillish!’
Suth snapped a quick glance to the cliff edge. The Fist, his hands on the shoulders of the girl before him, was slowly leaning as if drunk. His eyes rolled up white and he tottered backwards, his hands slipping from the girl’s shoulders. He disappeared over the edge.
‘No!’ Peles howled and she smashed the Korelri facing her in a blurred storm of blows, literally crushing him to the ground before charging to the edge. Ipshank ran as well.
‘Yield,’ Suth gasped breathlessly to the last standing Stormguard.
The Chosen snorted from within his helm. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘You’re the fool,’ Suth answered, and nodded to Faro.
The Korelri snapped a quick glance to Faro, and as he did so the Claw flicked a hand. The Chosen flinched, his arms jumping like a puppet’s, then he sank to his knees and fell on his side. The handle of a throwing blade protruded from the narrow vision slit of his helm.
Suth limped for the cliff edge. Here he found Captain Peles, her helm thrown aside, white hair a matted sweaty mess, panting, gulping in great breaths. Out over the yawning gulf, straight-armed, she held the child by her shirt. The chest lay to one side.
‘Don’t do it,’ Ipshank was saying in a low calm voice. ‘Don’t give in to it. Don’t. You’ll never forgive yourself.’
Tears ran down the woman’s grimed, sweaty face. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a savage frozen snarl.
No one dared move. Far below the waves pounded, white-capped, insistent. Rocks tumbled and clattered down the freshly exposed cliff.
‘Don’t yield to it,’ Ipshank said, not begging nor commanding, simply matter-of-fact.
The woman drew three great shuddering breaths, seemed on the verge of weeping, then threw the child to Ipshank and stalked away, her hands over her face.
The priest held the girl to him. ‘Get everyone up,’ he told Suth.
A dash of water from a goatskin woke Kyle, who groaned, stirring. Whatever was supposed to have been protecting him appeared to have insulated him from the blast, as his only wound was the gash that split his scalp. Manask had escaped death yet again by virtue of his extraordinary armour, which even in its shredded state had protected him from an immense knife-edged stone that pinned him down. Suth and Kyle levered the stone aside and pulled him up. Pulverized rock rained from the fellow like flour. Goss they woke, then Kyle set to binding his wound. Wess they found buried under great blocks but alive. Corbin lay aside, motionless, covered in rock dust. Suth found Keri unconscious from loss of blood. He went to work binding up her leg.
Faro merely cleaned his blades. Captain Peles sat aside, head sunk in her hands. Ipshank called from the cliff edge where he sat, the girl in his arms, asleep or unconscious. ‘Look at the sea…’
Finished with Keri’s wound, Suth came to the edge. Some disturbance ran like a line across the surface of the inland body of water for as far as he could see. And it was approaching the base of their cliffs with unnatural speed.
‘Manask,’ Ipshank called. He gestured to the chest with a foot. ‘I want this as far out to sea as possible… but don’t touch it!’
Manask bounced his fingertips together as if deep in thought. ‘You know… we could get a fortune-’
‘Manask!’
He raised his hands in surrender. ‘Just a thought!’
Ipshank pointed. ‘The sea.’
‘Yes, yes. If we must. Simplicity itself!’ the giant answered — though far less a giant now as he was missing his great thick mane of hair, revealing his bald head. And he had lost or kicked aside his tall boots. His layered armour hung from him in loose, torn folds.
The big man selected one of the Korelri spears. He pushed the butt end through a grip of the chest then carefully extended it behind him, sideways. Everyone moved aside.
With a savage flick he snapped the spear forward like a kind of throwing stick, flinging the chest far out from the cliff. Suth followed its fall. So small was the chest, and so great the distances involved, he could not see it
