“What is that?” someone shouted, and Oliver tried to duck away from the sound. It was a sharp crack, a rip like a ship sail tearing.
More shouting.
The frightening calls of horses, and a shuffle and scrape of iron shoes over the stone floor.
“Oliver. Come.”
The world tilted. Erik bellowed something.
Then there was pain. Pressure. He couldn’t breathe.
And then he gave in, finally, and fell into the gray.
And all was blessedly quiet.
~*~
Erik had begun riding as a toddler perched on the front of his father’s saddle. He’d ridden to victory in the pony games at the Festival each year, the most agile of the lads, able to scramble up onto a running pony, and then lean down and snatch a flag from the ground, hanging upside down. He’d ridden for sport, as a means to quiet his troubled thoughts, and he’d ridden to war,wielding shield and sword from horseback. He could sit any rear, or shy, or buck.
But when his hair stood on end, and his skin prickled as though a lightning storm loomed within the confines of the under-mountain tunnels, and the horses all started to toss their heads and jig in place, his main concern was for Oliver, who went limp, and slumped forward onto his mount’s neck.
“Oliver? Ollie!” Oliver had been weaving and half-limp since they first passed through the gates, but he went suddenly boneless. Lifeless.
Erik switched his reins to his left hand, and hooked his right arm around Oliver’s waist to keep him from sliding head-first to the ground.
Just ahead of him, he heard a horse squeal with fright; heard its shoes clatter across the tunnel floor.
“Your Majesty!”
“Erik!”
“Watch out!”
A frigid gust of wind that had no place miles beneath a mountain peak rushed against Erik’s right side. It seemed to come from below. He had a fast glimpse of a yawning blackness; a voice in the tunnel floor.
A hole.
A portal.
And then his horse reared and shied away from it in one impressive leap, and Erik’s sole worry was for Oliver. For his vulnerability.
One moment he was astride his horse, then next he was free-falling through the air, clutching desperately at Oliver’s limp form. The tunnel revolved around him, churning horseflesh and dancing torches, a cacophony of shouts. Then he hit the hard stone floor shoulder-first.
The impact shuddered through him. His whole right arm went numb on contact, and the force of the landing tossed Oliver out of his arms…
And straight into the open portal.
“No! OLIVER! NO!”
Headfirst, as graceless as a sack of grain, Oliver tumbled into that awful, oily void, and was gone, the scuffed soles of his boots the last thing Erik saw before the portal snapped out of existence with a quiet pop like a pulled cork.
~*~
Alfie wasn’t thrilled about toting a second passenger. She tolerated Rune, because Tessa loved him, and had stroked her face and assured her that he would be a gentleman. She even liked him, ordinarily, her affection a genuine ripple of pleasure through the bond when Rune scratched behind her frill or offered her a scrap of meat from his dinner. But the distribution of weight on her back was different. She didn’t struggle, per se—Tessa would have put her foot down about taking Rune along if the test flight had proved unsuccessful—but there was an adjustment period, when they first started climbing into the sky.
Now, morning officially underway, the sun a washed-out lemon wedge along the horizon, they’d reached altitude and Alfie didn’t have to flap her wings so hard. She conveyed her comfort to Tessa, and Tessa, sitting forward in the saddle, hair streaming back from her face beneath her helmet, finally began to relax.
The view was breathtaking.
