Dance of Shadows

Chapter One - WOLF

Chapter One

In the gloom pale torch light shone dimly, lighting up the series of musty corridors of the cavern. The floor felt like ice, even through her worn shoes, the shredded remnants of a carpet doing little to insulate any warmth. Kristi's  teeth chattered slightly in the cold. She was scared. From the darkness between each weak lantern, noises kept taunting her. Scuffling, clanking, creaking; low moans and paced murmuring echoed off the walls, it was making her more and more uneasy as time lost itself behind her hesitant footsteps.

A shadow jerked out in front of her. The form half twisted in the obscure light. She screamed as she fell away from the strange form, legs shaking.

“It’s me.” Petero’s voice came floating from the penumbra, “Don’t worry.”

She let out a shaky breath, “I thought it was…”

“I know you did.” He whispered, stepping into the light so she could see his face, “How's your ankle?”

A wave of guilt passed over her. His guilt. He blamed himself for her fall… She smiled softly, “Sore. But I’ll live.” She noted the gaunt shadows under his eyes, “We need to find somewhere safe Peter…”

“Back a way I saw a sort of staircase maybe that’ll take us back to the surface?” He glanced behind him, peering into the murkiness that lurked there, waiting to suck them in.

Kristi clutched one of his hands, desperate to keep strong…

Rooms within a mountain… Petero ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. How many could there be? What was this place? Why were these chambers so precisely carved into these rocks? Who and what could live here?  Letting the thoughts tumble through his mind, he tried to sort each question to a logical answer…

“This is the only way, isn’t it?” Kristi murmured softly from behind him.

“You know it is…” He tailed off.

***

Petero couldn't help reminisce as they wondered onwards through the dully lit caverns. Something about the place reminded him of a palace, probably the faded patterns painted on the edges of the tunnels, the ornately engraved panelling on the heavy wooden doors… It reminded him of a prison also. Despair seemed to have dissolved into the dank walls.

He remembered the night before they had crossed the mountains and lost sight of what had been their home for most of his life and the entirety of Kirsti's. He had stood, like he had earlier that day, on the edge of the mountain path through to this land. Watching the desert sunset as he had imagined the last lonely carts hauling their loads home, master's on their hunched shoulders with a whip. Slaves from the markets and shops, people like him and his sister, would have been pushed back into their crates or their cages for the night, worth less than the prison they were kept in. The froth of smog would have hung like a dead man's stench over the city at twilight, hiding the settling stars which would have otherwise urged them to sleep. The desert itself would have been burnt red in the sun's bloodshot eye as it fled from the sky. The wilderness of its barren landscape billowing up in sparkling chiffon, gold and yellow and red and orange as the small breezes from the mountains filtered their way through the land.

He had stood and tried to make out the city of rock and dust and dried dead earth. He had tried to imagine the parapets of umber stone that scraped the heat haze high up above them as they caught the last light before it was shuttered away. Trying to recall the contrast of the monotony in colour and expression to the bewildering buildings that broke out of possibility, it had seemed fruitless. The city had vanished; its magnitude and innate cruelty lost in the blur of sand that lost its tonality when the sun vanished.

They had lived there for so long. People like them had fought for their freedom and been told to settle for an eternity of blood and death. Or if they were unlucky their hair was shaven off, they were branded and taken off for sale as a slave. People like them… People from the country beyond the dustbowl and the peaks of the mountains, beyond this hidden ruin on the edge of the catacombs… People who had magic.

"We need to be as silent as possible" He murmured,  noticing the loud clatter of his bag against his side and her shoes on the stone-slabbed floor.
Nodding she prised her wrist free of his grip and bent low, “Like a creature of the night.” She said, so softly he barely heard her.

The High Degree (of Improper Peoples and Felonies Against the Sacred State of Niak) had been set into place not so long ago, just after Petero had arrived with his parents. At first it hadn't made a difference to anything. Then their father disappeared. The Beorgio had done it, they had written an amendment to the Degree, meaning all men of 'improper' racial birth were taken to trial. Back then he hadn't realised what was going on. His mother had told them that he had gone to visit a friend for a while. But then the Word of Intelligence was introduced which meant everyone under twenty one had to go to a school every second day to learn about the immorality of the people beyond the mountains and the people who came from the sea. They had to learn about how disgusting the race was, how vicious and uncultured they were.

Petero had felt the world about him fall into the stagnant waters of a once beautiful opportunity. The ratings of society were then used to turn each person into a prisoner which was destined to dive down and seek out the scum that were foreigners. The Decree and the Word had constructed a wall. Petero ground his teeth at the memory. That wall between people had cost many of his friends not only their freedom but their lives as well. Now he had managed to cross the one thing that he loathed more than anything, the wasteland of sand, and had arrived in the strange, dreamed of land only, it seemed, to be proven wrong. Had his mother been wrong? Had there never been the land he remembered in his dreams?
If they failed to find out… He would never be able to say that his friend's lives were meant something… They would have died with out a cause. To die a noble death, fighting for their freedom, had been their dream. Now he, the one who had inherited it, the one who had developed his power and honed his skill was beginning to doubt.

“It was a place of honour!” Kristi whispered angrily as she dropped to her hands and knees suddenly, in front of a door with carved images and painted murals. He saw tears glistening in her eyes. She could feel the places' history.

"Let's try in here." She murmured softly now, letting him help her to her blistered feet.

“But we’re not…” The tremble in her hands cut through him, silencing him mid sentence, "If you're sure about this…"

Something determined glinted in her eye, "I am."

Petero felt an unsettled groan grate through his body and let his vision blur once more. The world was much more beautiful and much uglier when he saw its soul but he knew he had to use it.  Kristi flinched, knowing what he was doing and knowing he was doing it for her…

Slowly she fumbled for the latch in the door, seeking it out mainly with her fingers because the lighting was so poor. Kristi could feel something behind it, sense a presence of emotion. She was sure that it had been what had led her here, the mixture of desperation, loss and turmoil. Creaking hinges gave way as Petero pressed his weight into the door. It swung open, a great snarl of wood grazing stone as it did so and stepping inside, the siblings looked into the yellow eyes of a wolf. No one moved.

The wolf was shackled to the walls with tiny, black linked chains, hundreds of them, coiling around his legs and body and throat, seeming to move over him as the seconds ticked by. Thin as thread, the chains still clinked and Kristi was sure she could see blood oozing out from underneath them.

"You've found me." The wolf's eyes met theirs and kept its gaze level as it spoke. Its mouth wasn't moving but the sound was distinct and Kristi stepped backwards into Petero. What was this? Demons? Talking wolves? "Thank you for coming."

Something about the way the wolf spoke made chills needle in between each vertebrate, it was as if it had been willing them to come here. Had he purposely lured them here? She could still feel the disquiet of before, sure that it came from the silver furred beast before them. But real animals did not talk and certainly they did not feel things like anguish, not in the same way.  Yet this creature did. She wanted to turn to Petero and ask him what he was seeing. His gift…    But he hadn't even hissed in disgust at whatever he was seeing… maybe this wolf was… She shook her head. The wolf's voice resonated out again.

"My name is Tornado in your tongue, and I have been a prisoner here for the last twelve years under the guard of the mountain demonae." His voice seemed so human, a warm deep tonality to it, "I don't expect you to understand right now but I need your help. I need to get free of this place, not only for my sake, and I need you to help me."

It sounded now as if he'd been planning his words in advance of their arrival, and she scowled. Could they trust him? "Why should we help you? We don't know why you're chained here. We don't know-"

Petero laid a hand on her shoulder and she glanced up at his impassive face as he shook his head slightly, "No, Kristi… It's ok…" There was no uncertainty in her brother but his face was crumpled in a frown, as if he too didn't understand exactly what was going on.

The wolf let out a sigh of relief as it turned its gaze from her to Petero and back carefully, "Thank you. I've been here so long… since the earliest days of the war. I need to be free so I can help fight for my country. You must understand this."

Petero nodded. Of course they understood. They had fought for their freedom too. This creature, with its eyes of sunshine gold, was looking at them as a kindred soul. Someone who understood.

"But Tero we're not here for this! We're here to find out where we belong. Why we're so despised." Kristi rounded on her brother with a hiss. She too could see why the animal that looked so forlorn in its confinements would want freedom but she couldn't understand why they would just believe this. Her brother could see souls, yes, but this was an animal. They weren't the same as humans. The silver lined pupils stared into her eyes and she flinched, knowing he could see all her emotions through her soul's state.

"It is the same. I don't know why. But he's the same."

The response to her unspoken desperation made her face redden like the dawn even in the grey prison. Petero stepped away from her, towards Tornado, "Tell me what to do."

The wolf blinked at them and sat on it's haunches as if pondering whether or not they were being serious, "It's dangerous… What I'm about to ask you will put you back in the line of threat from the demonae. Though the fact that you've got this far suggests that none of them are lingering too close by." He paused, twitching and Kristi saw the congealing gunge under the chains, flesh being slit open so red spilled out over its edges, "These chains are dark magic. The only way to break them is with a sword made with the strength of phoenix tears and there are only three of their kind still in existence. One of these is kept here in the old palace stores. It's hidden… I need you to get it for me…."

         *

Kristi cursed quietly to herself as they rounded the next corner to find simply more doors, more alcoves, more feebly flickering torches. She dragged her hand along the wall, leaving a faint white mark with the flint she had kept from their tinderbox. Loping ahead was Petero, his shoulders tensed and back bent forward in preparation for any danger. She was becoming used to seeing him like this… his instincts taking over his body whilst he let his mind reason.

"Kristi…" He hissed, turning round to catch her eye as he ducked into one of the indents in the wall, where they assumed statues must once have stood. She scurried in next to him, panting lightly in her haste, "Look." His finger was pointing down the next corridor row upon row of suits of armour still stood though each was dull with dust.

Find the passage lined with armour. It's cursed so it can't be moved without the consent of the owner or the owner's family.

She nodded and sighed, "He could be a murderer sent here to rot in the keep of these demons you know Pete…" She still found it hard to believe that the creature they had found had any sort of soul like they did. It was a beast. Petero had told her so many times that the animals in Niak didn't have the same senses, the same recognitions…

"He's not." He snapped, turning his cold eyes to her and glancing over her, "You surprise me Ki. I thought you knew better than to pass judgement on purely prejudice."

She blanched, "I thought you could trust your soul-sight but maybe you've been using it too much. Maybe you thought you saw something that isn't there."

His eyes burned, flashing silver then black then back to grey-blue as he lost control of his gift. He was tired. She could feel it even if he denied it. It was surely possible that even that gift could be deceived.

"Honestly Tero… it just can't be right. Animal's don’t have souls like you and me-"

"You're wrong." He glared and she noticed for the umpteenth time the haggard look that hung over his face like an old man's, the dark sides of half moons under his eyes and the drawn in hollows of his normally handsome face. The torches were striking long shadows across them, making his eyes glint ferociously. She stepped away finally realising that his change in emotion had created fury, "You should understand. I don't always like what I see but I know it's always the truth, a soul can't lie." There was weariness in his words, beneath the viciousness of the way he spat them out, "Things aren't the same here. It's about time you realised that."

*

Petero had never enjoyed telling people off, least of all his sister, but he knew she deserved it. He hadn't been ready to see the swirling mass of greens and yellows and beryl blue that had simmered through the core of the silver backed wolf but he had understood that it showed no evil. It wasn't like the demonae or whatever they were called… quite the opposite. Where Tornado's bloomed out in colours, the monster that had chased them had had a core of darkness, scattered with the remains of dull, scarlet, it was as if it was eating itself… a dark epicentre swallowing all the life and vibrancy around it. Maybe that was what turned them into demons...

Padding on the balls of his feet it felt almost safe in the half-darkness about them. Of course that was probably the leftover exuberance from making it through the mountains. They had hardly had time to celebrate overcoming what they had thought to be the most difficult part of their journey before they had been attacked by that beast and he was sure that even with magic they would have a hard time to fight off an enemy they didn't understand… Demons didn't exist in quite the same way as they seemed to here. Demons in Niak manifested themselves in men… He pondered on that thought for a moment as he peered around the next suit of armour. Maybe the demons here were manifested in something else… He had heard of sand demons. Could these not be rock demons or tree demons? Shaking his head of the abstract thoughts he flicked his eyes back to his sister.

She was acting petulant and stubborn which wasn't normally like her at all. She was usually much more trusting than he was and much more aware of human emotions like the wolf possessed. Yet it was she that was being judgemental in the same way as the people they had left behind. It made him shudder.

From the end of the passage of armour there should be two doors. Take the right.

Petero couldn't help but admire some of the handiwork on the plated metal. Shining beneath its dusty layers each seemed to map out perfectly the body that would go beneath it. He could almost imagine the beasts within them preparing for battle… Kristi, on the other hand, seemed afraid, probably because half of the suits were not made for men. Frowning he pressed on a little faster, wanting to find the door and the sword before they were found themselves.

*

Kristi was jumpy, her teeth were chattering, her skin was pale with a light sheen of sweat across her brow. She felt sick with fear, sick with unhappiness, sick with fever. Earlier she had been fine. Yet now wave upon wave of terror washed over her finely tuned senses, making every shadow a monster and every creak the sound of imminent doom. Warbling moans extended their senseless nuances to the macabre mind threatening to take over from her own, the titillating tendrils of terror tormenting and tearing through her sanity. This fear was unnatural. The harrowing emotions sifting through her head were not solely based on the predisposed caution she held to her heart through experience. Hatred and dispassionate distaste flooded through each passage as a pure, heady poison.

"Petero…Tero…" She croaked, noticing that her brother had disappeared from in front of her whilst she dragged her hand along the wall. Her body felt heavy with other people's emotions.

"Kristi?" His voice was off to one side but she couldn't see exactly where, "What's wrong with you?" He sounded angry but concern radiated from him, pushing away the blackened cloud casting itself across her.

"It's not my hate Tero… It's theirs." She stammered out, finally realising why she couldn't like the wolf despite her brother's reassurance and why she had so suddenly hated her sole relative for being so understanding. She was feeling the sentience of the demons themselves.

He was there again, right before her eyes, his hands pressed against her face, brow furrowing as if he were one of the patriarch "Ki, you're getting a fever. It's your Feeling, right?"

She nodded. She was an empath. She felt the many different emotions of people's consciousness and often confused them for her own when there were as many as this. Flinching from a noise in the background she found herself being led by her brother through a door. The complicated carvings around its frame depicted swords clashing in the midst of battle, centaurs and creatures of legend rearing up and striking others to the ground. Had they arrived at the chamber whilst she suffered in her spurious stupor? She felt his arms guiding her up a flight of stairs and through another door which grumbled, metal on stone across the floor. Then his arms were gone and she closed her eyes against the dizziness threatening to fling her to the floor.

"Tero?"

"It's alright. We're there. I'm just shutting the door."

*

She could hear him heaving in the background as the door scraped back into position. Cold flooded her. A shell of the emotion-crazed being she had been before, she felt cool air fill her lungs, fear dropping off her like sleep fell away in a chill morning breeze.  She looked at her hands, pulled in oxygen in gasps, feeling herself for the first time in a long while.

"Petero… It's stopped."

"What?" He sounded quizzical, stepping up beside her softly.

"Everything. It's all stopped."

"Your Feeling?"

"Nothing."

He stared hard at her for a second before turning to the door and looking at it carefully in a way she could only guess at. His long fingered hands touched the frame with its ornate decoration and ran the tips along the silvery stones set into its wood.

"It's because these are moonstone." He smiled and whispered his mesmerised response, "They can trap emotion and hold them at bay. They can even be used to capture souls and keep them safe if you're afraid of losing it too soon."

Kristi stared. How did he know these things? She shook her head, not wanting to bog herself down with the philosophy of her brother's innate knowledge, "Don't we need to find this sword."

"Yeah…" Petero sighed, drawing his hand away from the door and turning round with a wistful expression on his face, as if he had been cleansed, "He said to go to find the centaur chain mail and look behind it. Apparently there should be some kind of trap door or something."

"Right."

*

Petero had been fearful when he'd realised the full force of all the emotions running through the castle. He hadn't realised that his little sister was quite so tuned into all of the fluttering whims of so many creatures. An empath she had always been, a seer in her knowledge of the emotions soon to come… But he had never fully comprehended quite how powerful she must be… It surprised him. She had been slow to learn about her gifts… Yet… He looked around the room for the first time properly.

Scattered with rusting blades that no longer winked in the light, the flashes of bright silver and fire-stained gold were easy to spot as they evaded the dust and peered out of their holes. It seemed as if every valuable or decorative item in the entire place had been thrown into the cavernous mouth holding them all safe. Glittering jewels lifted grime faded eyes from their studded hilts and watched his slow appraisal of the room. Some things looked out of place. Like the blue velvet drape that was swathed across a dark wooden table complete with cutlery and candelabras.  The sheer amount of armaments, from maces to knives and swords or shields, they made his mouth drop open in awe. Shelves bore sheathed blades and weapons destined to destroy their wielder's enemy. There was something strange about it all. As if something of their owners had been left behind with their weaponry.  He stepped into the chaos of items, pushing aside a hammer that had slid into the narrow path between bits and pieces.          

Kristi seemed nervous still, eying the pointed ends as if one might try to bite her. Gently Petero knelt, lifting a sword from the debris and taking in the delicately carved lettering, the vivid imagery along its hilt. It was as if a fire danced along its edge, lacing up to embrace the bird that spread its wings over the wrought metal. Words were embedded into it.

"Tohmiki the Liberator of Slaves…" He murmured, lifting it so he could see it blink in the light, "Kristi! I think that Tom guy came here!"

"As in the Tom that led the six hundred slaves out of Niak?" She sounded sceptical, "I thought he went towards the Sarural Range rather than the Hadians?"

He frowned at her remembrance of the assumed route over the mountains. Maybe it wasn't the Tom of legend then… He sighed running his hand across its sharpened shank. Another word caught his eye, "Banisher."

The sword burst into blue flame, streams of white flowing energy twisting through the air about him and making him cry out in surprise. Pulsating in his hand, unable to let go, the sword seemed to throb in and out of focus before it scattered into dust. Petero snatched back his hand from the empty air, searching for the burns that had seared his skin moments earlier and found nothing. There was no sign of the blades existence. Not even the dust stain where it hadn't been lying.

Kristi, it seemed, had noticed nothing. Her small body was squeezed in between a giant suit of armour that was unmistakably the one that Tornado had mentioned. Had she found it? He called out to her across the room, picking his way carefully through items as he made his way towards her.

"Yep. I think I've found it. I can't open this door though…" She was tugging on the handle, twisting it, pushing it, pulling it… It wasn't moving.

"Let me try." Petero finally managed to squeeze himself into the cramped space beside her. The smell of dust tickled his nose and made it burn in its desperation to sneeze. Wriggling it slightly to try and dispel the sneeze, he knelt down resting his hands on the door to try and seek out any energy within it before he pulled it open, "You forgot to check to see if it was locked with magic." There in the coil of the keyhole was a strand of knotted spell-work, stopping it from opening. Petero frowned, concentrating now on channelling his own gift through to the mesh of enchantment and began to unravel the interwoven threads. Deftly he detangled the lattice and let the door swing open. Dust spilled out in a cloud of foggy brown particles. Spluttering he felt the burn in his nose become a dull pain before he sneezed, loudly.

The sound bounced off the walls in strident echoes. He cringed and murmured a soft apology to his sister who was now looking at him in a vague mixture of humour and shock. She wiped something off her collarbone and then bent back into the task.

"You won't fit down here."

Her statement was matter-of-fact. No beating around the bush this time.  He nodded, frowning at the fact that Tornado had failed to mention this… Then again, being a wolf, it probably hadn't affected him.

"You'll have to go down there."

"I got that."

"I'll keep watch."
         
But she was already gone. Twisting her petite frame through the hole in the wall, pushing through the passage, collecting cobwebs in her hair as she went on, she was gone. Where the light was coming from ahead she wasn't sure but even in the grey dust-beams she edged her way forward. A bend and there seemed to be a wider space ahead, panelled in darkness, dimmer than the rest. Kristi puzzled her way towards it, knowing that she had to hurry because the longer they lingered the less likely their chances of escape.

The gloom morphed into a secreted cavern, strewn with boxes aligned on every wall. It was like a family tomb, with the many coffins of each dead ancestor slid into place alongside the last. But the one she was after was in the centre, golden casing bright despite the age old filth. She tiptoed forward, wary again for no reason, stepping forward to place her hands on the lid. Its cool, metallic surface made her shiver. Whatever lay inside radiated power… Gently her fingers, as loving worshippers, smoothed across the latches, pressing into the groves and smiling as they clicked…

"Shut your eyes when you-!"

The lid burst open, Kristi heard Petero's words just as light burned out of its prison. Dazzling sparks striking out before solidifying into red dominated rainbows, becoming hot behind her eyelids, closed just in time. Without thinking she thrust her hand into the light sensation, seeking the sword, seizing it. The world went dark. Limbs shaking, she broke open one eye, then the next with a relieved sigh. Echoed concerns escaped from the gloom behind her like silver lined truths from a web of rumour. Everything had become clear as she held the scabbard in her fist.

This whole nightmare was based on the demonic tyranny they had sought out in this country. The people of Niak… someone must have known about this place. The monsters, the furies from hell, the dry soiled catacombs; they were bad dreams manifested in reality.  Surely this was what was feared. This had driven the long scaled suffering of her people in Niak. Yet… this country was imprisoned to the same evil. This country needed to be free if the people left behind were ever to be liberated.

"Kristi! Kristi! I can hear people coming! Kristi!" Petero's voice was panicked as it pinged back and forth from wall to wall.
The words lodged in her mind, lingering for a moment in incomprehension before the realisation dawned.          

*

Petero was at the end of the tunnel. He reached out to take the gold scabbard from her hands. Wriggling out of the narrow opening, she staggered to her feet but there was no time to find her balance before his other hand had closed about her wrist. Lurching behind him, she noticed that her hands were raw from crawling through the passage, throbbing under her palms. There were dislocated grunts echoing down the halls outside. Time seemed to freeze as Petero flung open the door, magic already coiled about his fist, and a cascade of savage sentiment scoured her mind. She knew the malevolence wasn't hers. The antipathy and abhorrence of her brother and his aversive anathema did not belong to her. It did not. It could not. She whimpered and wobbled as he tugged more fervently.

"Where's the passage? Which one is it Kristi?" He was prattling in his nonsensical tongue. No, she understood completely.

"Left." Her voice was dry.

"Shit." Realisation had pierced him as he conceived the real reason for her ragged breathing.

His hand tightened and strained against her, trailing her after him. Forcing herself into a mantra of manuscript after manuscript on anything, magic, mayhem, mirages, she tried to concentrate.  One foot in front of the other and breathing, in then out, not too much, not too little. Shutter out the feelings that don’t belong in her head. There was a stampede of footsteps as they sprinted down the barren hallways, each second seemed to lengthen and each shadow blend into a vicious contortion she could only pray were not real as Petero dragged her forwards.

"It's alright. We'll get there." She could focus on the mellow sound of his voice and trace the slithers of rational fear to him, keep herself chained on to that thought that feeling.

*

Fear was something Petero had become accustomed to feeling. His awareness was scattered all about them, his eyes wide and pupils dilated, the hairs on his arms had risen and prickled along his neck. He could accept it now and use it, drive the adrenaline within him to push him a little further, a little faster and maintain a sense of hyper awareness. He was used to that. It was a perpetual state of movement that over took him and stole his mind with it. A sound to his left and he fled right, bouncing lightning thoughts between one giant leap and the next and bringing his sister with him. No one knew where they were, he could tell from the furious groans emanating from the floor and walls and the ceiling and the doors. The demonic confusion reverberated about them. Shattering noises that made no natural sound crumpled and clanged in the echoing tunnels. Kristi could feel all this, all the confusion, acceptance, fear and desire as it straddled her brother and drove him on.

The chalk line was thinning out, she knew that meant it was from earlier on in their journey, having not blunted. They were nearing the cave where the wolf would be straining against the chains, desperate to know if they had been successful. She could see it, quivering in the dank cell and nose twitching in the air, seeking out their scent as they approached, as the door was flung open, as a scaled monster flung itself into their path and Petero drew the sword and destroying it with a white, pulsating shock.

"QUICK!" The wolf was howling, barking, foaming at the mouth as he pulled against the chains and Petero swung the sword again, severing the thin, black chains of magic and the wolf shook the shattered manacles from about his paws, hackles bristling and flexing in a violent celebration of freedom. She realised then that this was happening now. When had her fantasy become reality? She didn't know. But she remembered that it had happened before, but not since her powers began to emerge.

"What's wrong with the girl?" He was barking now, yellow eyes narrowing at her as if expecting her to metamorphose into something dark. Petero was explaining as he sheathed the sword, that she was an empath and that her mind wasn't used to dealing with demon sensations, causing her to… the rest was lost in a sudden burst of pain as she tried to shut down her instinctive scrabble to find emotion and failed.

***

They scrambled on, Kristi’s hands were in shreds, the soft skin ripped open, sending her blood into the stone. Her arms were sore; she would never be able to escape like this. A tear tore down her cheeks but she remained silent. There was no point in worrying Petero even further, he would only stop and then… Painfully she started forwards, pushing her body after the slim form in front of her.

It was at that moment that the moon rose above the tunnel, its luminescent light casting shadows across their faces, grass casting dark hands against the sky. The tunnel rose almost vertically upwards. She couldn't do this. The baying ululations were reaching after them. Above she could see dew glimmering on the tips of grassy fingers as they glittered in the silver light.

“Oh... Oh God…” she closed her eyes, hoping it was just a figment of her imagination, the deafening thunder of feet on granite floor. The misty tendrils reached down for them, the hands of a spectre, drifting down and inviting them up. She had never seen this country before whatever transformation had occurred, but she hardly dared to wonder how a place that had been a source of such beauty for her mother, such a source of hope for her people, could be so heartless, so evil.
Tornado was cursing up ahead, he had forgotten this, she realised, blanching. She crawled towards him, putting her body close to the ground but ready to spring up again if necessary. Petero glanced over at her, his face creased into premature lines as she curled in on herself in the tight space beside him.

“We have to make it 'Tero…” she said, barely audible over the groaning behind, “We can’t stop now…”
 
*

Petero nodded and looked away; he felt in the back of his mind that even if they succeeded, this was far from the end of their problems. The sword dug into his hip, uncomfortable and cold even through his clothes. The wolf was pacing, silver coat dancing in the moonlight; thin grey bristles of his tail flicking the air. They had to escape. Even if he was only trying for her, for his sister, he was also certain that Tornado had his own reasons for fleeing beyond the walls as well as within. He looked upward. The narrowness of the hold they lay under was… And that's when it came to him. Though they could not take a run-up to take the embankment at speed, he could increase their speed with magic by making their hearts beat faster, by releasing energies, by making them imagine that they could do it. He groaned. He was not going to be able to move after this…

He caught his sister's worried gaze and murmured to her, “Trust me, it's the only chance we’ve got.”

“But –"

He was gone into the trance before she finished her sentence, throwing himself through the first of the icy whiteness that came with a meditative path. Behind his closed his eyes, he had started to mumble the incantation and draw out the runes with his hands in the air. The words glided from one into the other, an old elfish language that was imbued with the old magic. The consonants were lost in the nest of sounds weaving around the force building up behind him. And building up behind them all were the roars of bestial atrocities as they caught sight of their prey.

Tornado was the first to feel the magic. The sizzling heat that burnt into his paws and made his limbs feel like elastic. Seeing what Petero was doing he took the chance. Leaping up into the tunnel, springing from one wall to the other, like a ricocheting arrow as it bounces back off a wall, yet he kept on going. The energy setting free his inhibitions and letting his instincts take over. The girl was taking to it too. They were out. Cool air flooded into his lungs.
Petero was still there. Ropes of mist wound their way around their ankles. If they didn't move away soon even the fog would become a weapon to their pursuers. Finally, the fraying boy scrambled out; panting, sweating and dragging out on each breath. Kristi was helping him to his feet even as he barked out that they were to follow him carefully.

*

The drain of power cut through Petero's limbs, each one seizing and making him stagger and moan. The quick pace the wolf kept, impossible for him to keep up with in this state. Gasping he pushed himself to follow Kristi. Kristi was fine. That was good. She could breathe easy. This was their final chance. The sword felt leaden, too heavy to bear. Memories flickered of their mother, her final screams, an old man, spikes, cells cut into black lower-desert dust.

“Tero!” Kristi’s voice came from somewhere far away.
His eyes were shut. When had he blocked his eyes from the light? Slowly he peeled them open, desperation glinting from his sister's eyes into his own,

“Come on Tero, not much further. Come on, get up…”

“Two minutes…” He muttered. When had he fallen to the ground? He could not remember that either. The dust was blowing up in little clouds where his breathing
touched it… Her hands pulled him upwards, a searing pain swept through his lungs, like acid burning glass. Bleary eyes revealed the few yards they had yet to cross until they reached another cave. He groaned and his feet dragged and his body wanted to give in and sleep.

“Come on!” Kristi was literally dragging his wiry frame across the clearing ground.
He was the strong one, he always had been… Kristi had always followed, doing what she could to help. Now she was the one in control, he the useless fool. Then again… She was the one who had saved him from himself time after time, soothed him when his magic lost control, confronted him when self-pity took over. The roars faded into nothing, they were out but not free yet. Fresh air spilled into him, the drain of power still leaving him weak.

Kristi hauled the boy behind a boulder falling behind the wolf and too far to break for the mouth yawning at the base of the rock-face; they did not have time for this but… She would never let her brother die! They lay there, the precious seconds ticking by. If they did not go they would be caught. Petero stirred restlessly. This would have to do.

“UP NOW!” Tornado yelled. Kristi was aiding Petero, straining under both their weights to keep up the pace. He was pushing himself, his breathing coming in ragged short gasps. They would escape. Kristi screamed, white light was pushing out from their right, heat burning through clothing.

The wolf cried out, “UP NOW!”

Pure madness was once again upon them… Agony ripped out across them, piercing them, Kristi began to fall, her feet suddenly too far behind her own legs to balance.

“NO!”  Tero suddenly cried, animating himself as the pain sluiced through his body and startled him into grabbing her arm, his hands slippery with sweat and blood from the lacerations along his right hand side. He held on to her desperately and pulled her into the darkness, letting foreign magic invade him for a moment until it had passed, until only cool gloom surrounded them and the demons vanished in a chorus of disgruntled yelps.