Sergeant Neville speaks up. “Bern and I will take the rear.”
Trick rides up next to me. “Soli—”
“I’ll protect Soli,” Kaelen cuts in, his voice as hard as the look on his face.
“The more the merrier,” Trick says. “Now, Soli. Move!”
As I urge Cloud to climb the path, Trick adds, “Too bad your buddies the wolves didn’t come along with us. I bet the draugrs would be surprised to see them.”
But I don’t answer. I can’t force any words out of my dry mouth. Instead, I glance down at the amulet, glinting green through the open scrollwork of the locket.
Maybe now would be a good time to start with the glowing thing, I think at it fiercely.Help us find the key. Protect us from the draugrs.
Sadly, I haven’t suddenly developed psychic powers of command over the goddess’s token. It doesn’t respond.
“Here we go. Be careful, keep alert, and yell if you seeanythingthat concerns you,” Sergeant Neville says. “Remember the plan: we get in, we’re careful, we get the key, and we get out.”
That old expression, “Mortals plan, and goddesses laugh,” snapsinto my mind, and I grit my teeth. The roar of our pursuers grows louder, and it takes everything in me to keep from looking back. I’m afraid terror will freeze me in my tracks if I see how overwhelmed we really are.
“Okay, Cloud. Good horse.” I pat her neck, but the closer we travel to the Barrows, the more skittish she becomes. “Even horses can sense this isn’t a good place,” I whisper.
Kaelen nods. “Horses are smarter than a lot of people,” he says grimly, his body a straight line of tension in the saddle. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword, but I don’t ask him what use he thinks steel will be against spirits. He keeps turning his head to look behind us, and I’m watching him, so I see the exact moment when he breathes out a sigh of relief. “They stopped about a thousand yards from the bottom of the path. It looks like the Fell are refusing to come any farther.”
“Thank Artemisen,” I breathe, but then I have to focus carefully on the path in front of us. At least the moon is full, so we can see, because the dirt path twists and turns, and we have to pick our way over fallen stone as we climb. When the path turns and leads us through a narrow opening between two encroaching walls of rock and dirt, I feel trapped.
Slowly, carefully, constantly scanning our surroundings for danger, we travel silently up into the heart of the Barrows. The atmosphere grows almost unbearably oppressive, to where I believe my mind is playing tricks on me, but then I see that everyone else is also hunched over beneath the weight of the heavy, fear-laden miasma pressing down on us.
“Is it intentional, do you think?”
Kaelen immediately knows what I’m asking. When he answers me, his voice is as subdued as mine was. “I can’t tell if there’s some malevolent presence here that’s attacking us or warning us to get out, or if this is just the energy that surrounds the graves of those maybe-not-mythical giants.”
“Elianna? Are you feeling this?”
“I feel it, Soli, but I have no idea what it is. Nothing good,” she calls back.
The path narrows even more as we ride along. After a sharp turn, it ends at the mouth of a cave.
Because of course it does.
Andras and Chitai, in the lead, stop their horses, and Elianna reins in the wagon.
“I guess we’re going in there,” Andras says with a complete lack of emotion.
“Sure,” I gasp, wondering how to make a horse back up. “Why wouldn’t they hide the key in the scary dark cave where the spirits of the restless dead are probably having a party?”
“A party?” Andras grins at me, and I want desperately to punch him in his aristocratic face.
Trick and Bern ride up behind us.
“The Fell are still fighting the Zhagarn about coming any farther,” Trick reports. “Good news for us.”
I point to the cave, and my gaze meets my friend’s in a moment of perfect understanding. Another dark, close space.
His eyes go flat, but he shrugs and forces a grin. “You win some, you lose some.”
“We have no choice. Into the cave. We can only hope it’s a tunnel, so we can retrieve the key and escape through the other side,” Kaelen says.
“Now might be a good time to sing,” I call out, feeling foolish but also determined to give us any chance.
