Set in Stone (65 page)

Or maybe it was just the blackened ends of her now-short hair, and the missing eyebrows.

She advanced on Aonghus and her deep blue cloak billowed behind her. Underneath, she wore her black battle leathers.

When did she find time to change? Wasn't everyone supposed to stand around doing nothing until he finally choked to death? Her lack of respect for the dying was so inappropriate. He'd have to last an extra day just to spite her.

Most of the rest of the army still stood in formation, but their attention was wavering already too. In the first moments of the hanging, many had bet loudly how long it would take for him to succumb, and they'd seemed eager to get it over with quickly. Captain Rory had finally silenced the loud betting with an angry word.

In the past half hour, their interest had faded to boredom.

Captain Aonghus started making a rambling excuse to Shona, but a glint of light drew Connor's gaze up into the early morning sky.

There.

A second glint helped him locate the object hurtling down toward the camp at impossible speed.

Uh oh.

Despite the need to nurse his remaining granite powder carefully, Connor increased his tap rate and directed it all through his body. His muscles hardened into sculpted perfection.

"Connor, what are you doing?" Shona demanded.

He winked at her. "Boom."

The missile struck the large fire burning nearby.

It exploded. Big. A firestorm blasted through the clearing. The wind caught Connor and threw him back against the rope. If he hadn't already been tapping granite, his neck would have snapped for sure.

For half a second, the rope held, and he swung back, like a fish on a line in a strong current. Then the rope snapped, and Connor tumbled through the air, crashed hard to the ground, and continued rolling all the way to the edge of the camp.

With a little effort, Connor managed to draw his bound arms around his feet and stand. The shackles proved too strong to burst, even with granite-hard muscles.

After the initial blast, the flames were already dissipating, but the super-heated air seared his lungs and tasted like ash.

The clearing lay in shambles, with soldiers tumbled into twisted piles where the explosion had tossed them like grout tailings. Many of them struggled to extricate themselves. Some did not. Tents, equipment and supplies were scattered everywhere, broken and burning.

A deep silence hung over the clearing, although Connor couldn't understand how. He could see men screaming as they beat flames out, or cradling blackened wounds, but he heard nothing. It felt like a nightmare.

He clutched for the sandstone pendant on its chain around his neck, but found nothing.

Tallan take them! They'd stripped everything.

The huge, plate-armored captain staggered to his feet and looked around wildly. Connor's first instinct was to flee into the trees near the river, but without his equipment, he wouldn't last long. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure where to look for it.

A gentle hand touched his shoulder. He turned to find Moira standing close behind him. She smiled, and her soot-streaked face never looked so welcome.

In her hands, she held his belongings, including the sandstone pendant.

Connor wrapped her hands and the pendant with his and drew upon its power. Healing warmth flooded through him and washed away the aches and pains. Something popped in his ears, and sound crashed in on his mind.

He ignored the roaring of flames, the screaming of men, and shouted orders from leaders, and listened only to the welcome sound of Moira's familiar voice.

She gasped as healing warmth flowed through her hands also, and straightened a little. "What did you do?"

"A gift for a gift," he smiled. "Where did you find all this?"

As he slung his satchel over one shoulder and shoved his foot into his boot, Moira said, "While everyone was busy watching you . . . die," her voice cracked on the word before she continued in a rush. "I snuck into the command tent to find a keepsake of you. When everything exploded, I thought you might need this."

"You're amazing." He cupped her face in one hand. "Whatever happens, you are always my dear friend."

She gave him a weak smile and sighed, "I suppose that's the best we ever could have hoped for."

She pushed him toward the trees, "You'd better run."

He risked one last glance around the clearing, and caught sight of Shona as she climbed to her feet. The blast has burned off the last of her hair, and her face was singed.

Served her right.

Not far from Shona, Lord Gavin, his clothes charred and face burned, was trying to lift Lady Isobel. Her clothes were badly burned and her face blackened. Her wails drowned out all the other screams in the clearing.

Carbrey noticed him, and shouted, "Striders, bring me that traitor!"

So he ran for the forest, and the river beyond, and tried to tap basalt until he remembered he'd purged it all. Granite had just saved his life, but it didn't help now. It strengthened his legs, driving him in long strides, but his legs moved more ponderously, making him run like a torc with heavy steps that shook the forest.

He paused when he reached River Road, and glanced back. Two of the Striders raced in his direction, closing fast. He'd never make it to the river in time.

Connor thrust a hand into his belt pouch, and his fingers closed not on the pouch of powder he sought, but on a small rock. He drew it forth as the Striders moved in for the kill, nets raised to snare him.

He dropped the rock, a piece of smooth slate, the Wallstone gifted to him that first night from Verena, a night that felt years past.

A wall of earth erupted from the ground along the road between him and the Striders, and he distinctly heard two loud thumps from the other side. He winced.

As he ran for the river, he thanked Verena for that precious gift. The water beckoned him on. Carbrey lacked a Water Moccasin like Kilian, and Gregor couldn't sense through water.

That sparked an idea. Connor dove deep and swam hard downriver as he considered his options. He'd failed the last time, but did he dare try again?

What did he have to lose?

After all, they'd already executed him once.

Chapter 77

Gregor stood atop his earthen tower near the narrow ravine leading up to the prison cave and searched the surrounding lands for signs of an enemy assault. He also searched along the river for Connor.

He found and removed the Wallstone the boy triggered. The Striders would survive, but wouldn't be running anywhere soon. He could not sense the boy anywhere. Either he fled into the river where Gregor's senses could not follow, or he fled on the wings of basalt.

As Gregor prepared to extend his senses further afield, the brush across the clearing started to shake. He frowned. He sensed nothing moving in that area.

Then he gasped as a wildly spinning sphere of water eight feet in diameter churned the brush under and careened into the clearing, moving at speed. Visible like a shadowed wraith in the center of the racing sphere stood Connor.

Gregor smiled and reached for fingers of earth.

Clever boy.

Connor whooped with excitement as the water sphere ripped through the underbrush and churned across the clearing toward the startled Gregor. Connor stood with hands and legs spread-eagled, each point touching the inner edge of the wildly spinning sphere.

Everything looked distorted through the water, but he could see enough to guide the sphere. More or less.

He spit water from his mouth, but it did little to help. The middle of the sphere was only a little drier than the middle of the river, and it felt like he breathed in as much water as air with each coughing breath.

He wasn't entirely sure how he made the sphere move, and he made sure not to think about it too much. It was like running Fracked. Too much thought would make him stumble, and he couldn't afford it.

The sphere hurtled across the clearing on a crash course with Gregor's tower. The Sentry could not sense through water, and Connor's gamble appeared to have paid off. He would not fail a second time. Fingers of earth shot out of the ground and grasped for the sphere, but Connor drove right through them, and the spinning water tore the grasping fingers to shreds.

Sometimes in the quarry they used water funneled through ever-shrinking pipes to blast away dirt. Water could not be compressed, so as the same volume was forced through smaller and smaller pipes, the pressure built fast. Pressurized water could scour even granite. The relatively soft fingers of earth stood no chance.

Unhindered by Gregor's initial attack, Connor rode the sphere across the clearing until barely forty feet separated the two of them. He roared a wordless challenge and battle rage howled through him.

Nothing could stop him!

A wall of earth erupted from the ground right in front of him, too close to dodge. The sphere collided with the wall so hard, Connor almost lost control of the water and tumbled right out.

He fought to regain control and resume the spinning before he lost momentum, but a second wall shuddered up out of the ground right behind him. Two more rose between the first two, creating a box to hem him in on all sides.

Connor fumed. Gregor was proving as resourceful as he'd feared. With a loud rumbling, the walls began shrinking, closing in around Connor's sphere.

Connor max-tapped the soapstone powder in his stomach and drew the sphere in tighter, spinning it faster. The water blurred around him, sounding like roaring rapids. His hands began to burn from the friction, but he could not spare the concentration to tap his granite strength.

The earthen walls seemed to melt under the watery onslaught, but more earth flowed up to shore up the barrier.

He needed something stronger to break out.

Connor curled his fingers into claws and focused the churning water. Spikes like shards of ice rippled outward along the outer edge of the sphere.

Those spikes dug into the earthen walls and the sphere shot
up the wall
.

He whooped as the sphere churned up and over the wall and sailed the last thirty feet to Gregor's tower. The Sentry gaped in amazement, wasting a precious second before trying to shift his tower out of the way.

Connor's sphere crashed into the tower, and sheared through. He and Gregor fell together to the muddy ground as the tower and sphere collapsed together.

Connor landed hard, but tapped his granite and powered through the thick mud even as it continued to rain down around him. Gregor staggered to his feet nearby and spun to meet him.

Connor Curse-punched him in the jaw.

Gregor's head whipped back, his dark eyes rolled up into his head, and the powerful Guardian toppled to the ground. Connor laughed at the impossibility of it, and shook out his hand. Feeling returned, along with the maddening itch, but Connor relished it this time.

He threw back his head and roared his victory.

"That's a sight I never expected to see."