Alarms are beginning to sound now, a distant, baleful ringing that echoes through the stone. Shouts follow, faint but growing closer. We have to get out. We have to get outnow.
"This way!" My voice is a ragged gasp. "The wine cellar. There's an old delivery tunnel. It leads to the outer wall."
I lead him down a final flight of winding stairs, the air growing colder, thick with the smell of damp earth and soured wine. We emerge into the vast, cavernous wine cellar, the darkness broken by a single, high, grime-covered window. Racks of wine bottles, coated in a century of dust, line the walls like silent soldiers. At the far end is the archway I remember, the one the slaves use to bring in new casks from the vineyards. Freedom. It’s right there.
We race toward it, his heavy footfalls echoing in the cavernous space. But as we get closer, my stomach plummets.
The archway is gone. It has been bricked up, the stone new and solid, the mortar still pale. It’s a dead end. A solid wall of unyielding stone.
From the stairwell behind us, the sounds of our pursuers grow louder. The clatter of armored feet. The sharp, barking commands of a guard captain. The hateful baying of the Batlaz hounds.
They are closing in. We are trapped.
6
XYLON
Trapped.
The thought is a cage of iron slamming shut in my mind. Behind us, the sounds grow. The clatter of many armored feet on stone. The sharp, hateful barks of the hounds. The foul scent of the guards, a wave of malice rolling down the stairs. They are coming.
The beast inside me screams. It does not understand tactics. It does not understand retreat. It understands only the trap, and its answer is violence. A red tide of pure, primal rage surges, seeking to drown the flicker of the man. The beast wants to turn. It wants to meet them here. It wants to feel their bones break in its claws, to rip and tear until this stone-walled tomb is a charnel house.
A low growl builds in my chest, a rumble of thunder that is not my own. My claws extend, digging into the packed earth of the cellar floor. The curse burns hotter, feeding on the enclosed space, on the approaching threat. The urge to lash out, to destroy everything, is a physical sickness.
Then I hear her. A small, sharp intake of breath. A gasp of pure terror.
Her scent, which had been a steady flame of stubborn courage, now flares with fear. The smell of it cuts through the red haze of my rage. It is a clarion call, a command that silences the beast’s mindless screaming.
Protect her.
That is the purpose. Not to fight. Not to die here in a blaze of meaningless fury. The purpose is her survival. I force the growl down, my muscles quivering with the strain. I turn from the sounds of our pursuers and face the wall. The dead end. Her hope, extinguished.
I will not allow it.
My focus narrows. The sounds of the hunt fade to a distant roar. There is only the wall. I press my face against the new-laid stone, the rough texture scraping my hide. I breathe in. Deeper.
My Urog senses, a curse that has been my torment, now become my greatest weapon. Beneath the cellar’s scent of soured wine and dust, there are other stories. I smell the deep, damp earth on the other side. The wet, mineral tang of living stone. The bitter scent of crushed roots. And underneath it all, faint but undeniable, is the cool, clean promise of night air. Of freedom.
The wall is a lie. It is a patch, a scab on the skin of the world. It is not the living rock of the mountain.
A memory surfaces, a gift from the man I was.
…I am a boy, no older than ten seasons. My father and I are tracking a razorclaw high in the Ironfang Peaks. We are blocked by a rockslide. He places his hand on the wall of stone. “Everything has a weakness, Xylon,” his voice rumbles, a calm counterpoint to the howling wind. “The mountain looks strong, but the water finds a way. The frost finds the cracks. A warrior does not fight the mountain. He finds the path it gives him.” His thick finger traces a hairline fracture, a line of discoloration I had not seen…
I look at the bricked-up wall. I’m not just a brute. I am a warrior. I must find the path.
My eyes scan the surface. I see what my father taught me to see. The mortar is new, yes, but the archway it fills is old. The keystone above is ancient, part of the original foundation. The new bricks are a weak patch on an old wound. That is the weak point.
I turn to her. She is pressed against a wine rack, her face pale in the gloom, her eyes wide with a despair that I will not permit. I nudge her with my head, a single, deliberate push toward the side of the archway. Out of the path of destruction. She stumbles back, her expression shifting from terror to confusion.
There is no more time. The hounds are in the stairwell now, their baying a frantic, hungry chorus.
I back away from the wall, giving myself space. I lower my stance, my powerful legs coiling like springs. I pour all of my will, all of my rage, all of my singular, desperate purpose into my right shoulder.
For her.
I charge.
