Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (27 page)

A low passage to Sardelle’s right made her
pause, one that opened into a room. Ah, this was where they had
pulled out the books. She ducked into the space and walked a few
paces, holding the lantern aloft. She gave it extra energy, so the
flame flared, and she could make out the smashed remains of what
had once been bookshelves and carpets. The air smelled stale, and
the ceiling had been caved in completely in places, but part of the
room had withstood the quaking, thanks to a couple of sturdy marble
supports still standing. Sardelle touched one, the stone cool and
smooth. The miners had already removed most of the artifacts—odd to
think of books and trappings she had passed by mere weeks ago, as
far as her brain knew, as artifacts now—but there would be others
in the mountain. She wished there were a way to recover them, to
preserve them, instead of letting them be taken out to be
destroyed, or perhaps carted off as quirky treasures.

She climbed back into the main tunnel before
Jaxi could remind her that one particular “artifact” was the
priority.

The ceiling lowered further, the walls raw
from fresh pickaxe gouges, and Sardelle was crouching by the time
she reached the end of the passage. She set down the lantern and
touched the wall. She felt Jaxi’s aura through the rock, calling
her hand like a beacon. Fifteen degrees to the left and about
twenty degrees downward. The miners would have gotten closer, but
they never would have chanced across the sword. That was, she
reminded herself, what she had wanted.

Here goes
, she
warned Jaxi.

She burned into the rock with her mind,
winnowing a small hole, as if she were a termite gnawing through
wood. She would widen it later, but for now, she emulated water,
finding the route of least resistance. At first, the way was easy.
Some of this was, after all, rock that had already been excavated
once, rather than the solid core of the mountain, so much of it was
packed rubble rather than solid slab. But she reached a spot where
nothing except several meters of granite lay ahead.

The dynamite?

I’d hate to cause a
cave-in. Especially when I’m standing here. Give me time—I can burn
through.
Sardelle’s thighs ached, so she dropped to her knees.
How long had she already been at it?

You may not have
time.

The miners are coming
back?

Not yet, but something is
going on up top. People gathering.

All right…
Sardelle
inserted one of the cylindrical sticks into the hole she had
created, then pushed it through with her mind. She had to widen the
hole in places to maneuver it around bends, but she would have had
to widen the tunnel anyway to get Jaxi out.

Soon the stick nestled against the granite.
She lit the fuse with a thought, then retreated to the wooden
supports farther back in the tunnel. As the flame burned closer to
the stick, a fit of panic washed over her. She imagined the
mountain falling all about her, as it had that horrible day
weeks—centuries—before. She almost sprinted all the way back to the
tram, but there wasn’t time.

With all that intervening rock, the explosion
was muffled. A faint tremor ran beneath Sardelle’s feet, but the
massive cave-in she had worried about didn’t come.

Did that even do any
good?

Big hole,
Jaxi
replied.
Come back. Keep going.

Sardelle checked her termite-passage. “Hole”
wasn’t the precise word, as it was still filled with rock, but now
the granite was crumbled, and she could continue burrowing down.
She wiped sweat out of her eyes. A dull ache had started in her
head—though all she was doing was standing there, the mental work
was wearying. She was thinking of telling Jaxi she needed to rest
when a fresh wave of energy surged into her. Even separated, a
soulblade had power to share if it wanted.

You’re close.

Sardelle came across something metallic
sooner than expected, but it wasn’t Jaxi. Right, she had been
buried in a training room among a lot of practice blades. Sardelle
wagered the soldiers up above wouldn’t be so quick to destroy
those
types of relics. She weaved past
what must have been a rack of swords and shields, and kept going,
drawn closer until—

Yes!

Sardelle smiled.
You see
the light?

No, but I got a draft of
fresh air. Make that stale air.

I didn’t know swords were
connoisseurs of air.

We’re not. I’ll take
anything.

Sardelle wrapped a mental hand around Jaxi’s
hilt and began the task of pulling her back through the small
tunnel. She was distracted midway by water dribbling out of the
hole she had made in the main passage.

Uh, are you wet,
Jaxi?

Yes, it’s ruining my
stale air, but I’ll survive.

The water turned from a dribble to a faster
flow. Sardelle shifted away from the opening and returned to
navigating the soulblade through the tight passage, though she let
her awareness seep into the rocks around, searching for the source
of the water. It seemed to be coming from behind that huge slab of
granite she had broken up. Her first silly thought was that one of
the pipes her people had installed to supply indoor plumbing had
erupted, but surely that had happened long ago. This was probably
some hidden spring she had stumbled across. A spring that—

Hurry
, Jaxi urged.
Something’s groaning in here. It sounds like a
dam about to burst.

Great.

At least they were close. Sardelle stretched
out her hand, certain Jaxi’s sleek steel form would float out of
the hole at any moment.

But an alarming crack emanated from the rock
first. The mountain groaned, not just from the direction of the
granite, but all around her. A tremor ran beneath her feet, this
one fiercer than the one the dynamite had caused. And it was
followed by a second and a third, until Sardelle had to brace
herself against the tunnel wall to keep from tumbling to her knees.
Behind her, dirt shifted and trickled down from the ceiling.

With single-minded determination, Sardelle
kept her focus on Jaxi, on pulling the blade out, on—

There. The soulblade flew out point first on
a gush of water that spattered Sardelle in the chest. The sword
might have struck her, too, but it flared with a silvery glow and
pivoted in the air. The hilt came to rest in her hand, even though
Sardelle had been focused more on flailing and staggering back from
the gushing water than on catching it.

Go
, Jaxi urged, the
word echoing in Sardelle’s head with twice the power now that they
were touching.

She would have sprinted away regardless. More
than dirt was falling around her now. With the shaking of the
earth, rocks flew free and smashed down from the ceiling with the
intensity of meteors slamming into the earth. Thanks to Jaxi
enhancing her mental energy, forming a shield around herself was a
simple matter, but neither of them had the power to unbury
themselves if the mountain fell on them.

Sardelle leaped ore carts and abandoned tools
as rocks and dirt bounced off her barrier, inches from her
shoulders and head. A boulder as big as she was crashed down not
three feet in front of her. She almost smacked into it—Jaxi did
gouge a chunk of it away before Sardelle stopped. There was no way
around it, so she climbed up the side. There was only a foot of
space at the top, and she had to suck everything in to squeeze
between the boulder and the dirt ceiling. Rocks clawed at her
shield.

The lighting grew dimmer—the lanterns behind
her being shaken out or smothered by dust. She glanced back, and
her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. It wasn’t dust. A torrent
of water was racing toward her, knocking off the lanterns and
dousing them as it rushed closer.

She scrambled the rest of the way across the
boulder, tearing her fingernails in her effort to pull herself over
faster. She tumbled down the other side, managing to land on her
feet, then sprinted again. The open chamber at the base of the tram
came into view.

Almost there. Ten more steps. Five.

At three steps, the river smashed into her
back. Her shield kept it from hurting and dulled some of the
iciness, but it didn’t keep the flow from sweeping her up into its
grasp. The force knocked her into a wall and then tumbled her feet
over head, mocking the power she thought she had.

If not for the big chamber, Sardelle would
have drowned in a tunnel flooded with water, but the flow spread
out, its height diminishing. She scrambled to her feet as it gushed
out around her. Thinking she would have to deal with guards, she
lifted the sword, ready to deflect bullets if she had to. But
nobody was there. A good thing, since Jaxi was glowing like a
comet.

Calm that down some, will
you?

Sorry. I’m excited to be
out.

It’ll be hard to sneak
out of the fort with you outshining the sun.

Is that the next goal?
Out of the fort?

Sardelle thought of Ridge. It pained her to
say it, but she whispered, “I think it has to be.”

Water continued to gush out of the tunnel
they had exited. Some of it was being funneled into other tunnels,
but the level was rising in the chamber too. Sardelle sloshed
toward a cage resting at the base of the tram shaft. It would be
easier to sneak out if she climbed up the long passage, but going
up would be much harder than sliding down it had been. Even on the
way in, it had been a tedious slog.

Speaking of
slogging…
More water coursed toward the shaft, making the cage
wobble on its track.

Yes, I’m hurrying.
Sardelle pulled open the cage door.

She waved at the lever outside. It flipped
upward, but the machine that powered the tram groaned. Its big
flywheels were half underwater.

Uh oh.

We might be climbing
after all,
Jaxi thought.

We? You have some legs
tucked under your hilt that you’re going to use to help?

Hush. I’ll see if I can
get that machinery moving.

Sardelle had the engineering knowledge of an
ox, so she was happy to leave that task to Jaxi. The ever-rising
water level made her nervous though. “We can always get out and
climb if we have to,” she muttered.

She imagined the water rising up the tram
shaft, threatening to drown her if she couldn’t climb quickly
enough.

No, numerous other levels existed above them
with countless miles of tunnels. It would take an ocean to flood
them all, and even if she had chanced across a spring that big, it
would take a long time for all that water to fill in.

A thunderous crack sounded, so loud Sardelle
brought her hands to her ears for protection, clanging the sword on
the roof of the cage. More cracks followed, each one like an
explosion of dynamite.

Jaxi, if you can’t get
that contraption moving…

The cage lurched. Sardelle couldn’t hear it
over the snapping rock and groaning earth all around her, but she
felt it. After a few awkward trembles that nearly hurled her into
the walls, the cage started upward. It bumped and twitched, as if
it were going over rocks on the tracks—and maybe it was—but it
continued upward.

You were doubting
me?

Who, me?

All the lights disappeared below, swallowed
by water and collapsing rocks. Jaxi didn’t know if the entire level
had gone down, but she prayed that all of the miners had fled
because of the ruse with the gas.

Guess they won’t be
finding and burning any more artifacts for a while.
Jaxi
sounded smug.

Sardelle couldn’t summon a similar emotion.
She hadn’t meant to create all that chaos. She was lucky to be
alive.

She lifted her gaze toward the top of the
shaft. Darkness must have fallen while she was digging around, for
she couldn’t pick out anything. Had the soldiers and miners above
heard all the noise? Did they know she was down there? She
stretched out with her senses… and cringed.

No less than fifty people were gathered
around the mouth of the shaft. She doubted they had come together
to play card games. She also doubted that their presence had
anything to do with enemy attacks—everyone would have been on the
walls then.

Maybe we should stop the
cage and climb out
, Sardelle suggested. But what would that
do? She would have to crawl up the steep, slick shaft, and she had
a feeling those people would still be waiting there when she
arrived.

Yes.

Yes, we should stop it,
or yes, they’ll be waiting?

They’ve been there a
while.

Sardelle remembered Jaxi’s earlier
warning.

Because of me.
She
didn’t make it a question.

Yes.

Sardelle made sure Jaxi wasn’t glowing as the
cage traveled the final meters. If she had to, she could fight her
way out, shielding herself from bullets and blades the same way she
had against falling rocks, but she didn’t want to warn anyone of
her powers by emerging with a glowing sword. Although thanks to
that book, they probably already knew what to expect. And even if
she fought her way past everyone, what then? Magical talents or
not, she wouldn’t be able to navigate that pass in the winter, not
without a ship. She wasn’t about to call down that shaman for a
ride.

It’s a
possibility.

She shuddered—or maybe shivered, thanks to
being wet and feeling the icy drafts coming down from above.
No. It’s not.

Maybe she could figure out how to fly Ridge’s
dragon contraption. Powering it wouldn’t be a problem, but the
rest? She had been daunted by the simple tram machine.