“Headlessandtorso-less,” I corrected.
“—aren’t a common occurrence?”
“Headless is more common,” Dorian said. “But usually not still on the horse.”
We followed the trail the horses and soldier had left as they fled the valley. The closer we got, the more dead, headless and dismembered bodies littered the ground.
Saddled horses were grazing between the remains. The blood near each of them had soaked into the ground.
And for the first time since leaving the city of S’Kir, a gnawing worry that we wouldn’t find Gwen alive grew in my gut.
We grew quiet, picking our way down the trail. It changed to something more treacherous than just a few rocks and roots. There was loose scree as the trail pitched down, and the soldiers that were strewn about weren’t all injured—some had been victims of the loose, unsteady pebbles on the steep trail.
If it were raining, a misstep would have been death.
The dangerous trail led us down and down, and finally around a crag that had been blocking our view of the full valley. There were dozens of soldiers smashed against the rocky outcropping, thrown, or fallen from the horses.
We cleared the crag and pulled up short.
The valley was covered in bodies and horses that didn’t care their masters were dead. Every one of the soldiers in this valley was missing a head or had been cleaved in half. And while the bodies were sporadic where we stood, they shortly condensed more and more, forming a trail, clear and straight to the entrance of the cave on the rise of the next mountain.
“Sweet Savior,” Aiko whispered.
“Better they’re dead,” Belshazzar said. “Saves me the trouble.” He hoisted the small pack he was carrying and started quickly down the path.
The five of us followed directly behind him. He appeared calm and collected, the abject terror he was feeling for Gwen’s life hard to sense. It was in the pace he set as we made our way around the valley full of horses and dead men.
The cave wasn’t far up the hill, but the rocks were sharp and uneven. There wasn’t a real trail there, but it was obvious where the soldiers had been climbing up the incline to get to the entrance.
Halfway up, Belshazzar looked back at us and shook his head. “Fuck this,” he mumbled and crouched. He leapt at a precise angle and cleared the last eight strides of the rock face easily, landing in a crouch.
I didn’t often use my powers in such a personal, physical manner, but none of us knew what was up there. Rilen and Roran were the first to follow, and Aiko quickly after. Dorian grabbed my elbow, and we leapt up together.
The cave entrance was huge, and Belshazzar was already deep inside. Hurrying to catch up, we could see that the rock narrowed, fast, and we were left with a small, single file passage into the interior.
Bel tried to push through, but Dorian grabbed his arm. “Wait. Just wait. We don’t know what we’re going to find. Let someone with a level head in first. Let the twins go.”
Roran had his sword out and started forward, but Belshazzar grabbed his hand and slapped one of his guns into his hand and flipped a lever. “Can you use that?”
Roran looked down. “Point and pull the trigger.”
“Good enough.”
Leading with his sword, Roran walked through the small passage, a ball of light appearing inches above him as he walked. The light pressed forward, and we followed one at a time: Rilen directly behind, then the king, then Aiko, me and Dorian in the rear.
Dorian grabbed my wrist. “I’m walking backward to watch our backs.” He turned and pressed himself against me.
The passage seemed like it was going to be long, but the light suddenly jumped up, and the cave opened.
But not much. Roran was able to follow along the wall and allow all of us into the small, torch-lit room. It was damp and disagreeable. The floor was mossy, probably just as dangerous as the scree we’d walked down, and it smelleddead.
Or something smelled like death.
Roran lifted the light along the ceiling, and it slowly revealed the room. Not very large at all, there was another passage to the right, and eventually, the room was fully revealed, with merely a table at the other end.
A gaunt, trembling, unsteady figure was seated at one end, away from the passage.
She sat staring across the table at a head.
