The Rabbit and the Raven: Book Two in the Solas Beir Trilogy (36 page)

Cael nodded gravely. “We will wait for you at the Eye of the Needle.” He ran back and heaved himself up into his saddle. Jon and Marisol had already mounted their horses. “Come on,” Cael shouted to them, and kicked his horse into a gallop. The gates were already halfway closed.

David launched himself into the air, landing on four paws as a lion. He ran toward the tent where he had heard Abby cry out. He could see a number of Kruorumbrae emerging from around the back side of the tent, chasing something small and white. The rabbit was running as fast as she could, and the Blood Shadows were close on her heels. She was able to outmaneuver them for the moment, but eventually they would catch her.

Roaring, David pulled up short,
and then leapt at the Shadow closest to the rabbit, taking him down. The Shadow guard following him tried to jump over his fallen comrade, but David reached up, his lion claws finding purchase in the Blood Shadow’s flesh. He slammed the second Shadow on the ground, and prepared to catch another. As he did, he heard Abby scream again. She had been hit by a bolt of blue energy, and lay enveloped in it, writhing on the ground, changing back to her human form.

David looked up. Malden and Lucia were standing behind a band of Kruorumbrae. Lucia had a pleased look on her face. David roared and leapt to shield Abby from another blow. His teeth clenched as the pain radiated across his flank. He changed back into himself, and then released his own volley of electric blue energy, incinerating three of the oncoming Shadows. Malden yelped and ducked under the edge of a tent.

Lucia met David’s defiant gaze with a glare, as another orb formed on her palm. The orb grew big enough to envelop both David and Abby.

Abby had been weakened too much to survive getting hit again. Scooping her up in his arms, David launched himself into the air and the ball exploded on the spot where he had been standing a second before, leaving a smoking hole in the ground.

Below him, David could hear Lucia shouting at the guards to open the gate. She grabbed David’s abandoned horse and leapt up into the saddle, calling for the Kruorumbrae to join her pursuit.

David flew over the city wall. Ahead he could see clouds of dust from his friends’ mounts. They had escaped the city of the Eastern Oracle.

“David,” Abby whispered. Her voice was hoarse. “Thanks for coming back for me.”

“Always
,” he said, cradling her close to him as he flew toward the rock tower in the distance. “Are you all right?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ll live. But the little girl—the Shadows took her.”

He glanced down at Abby. “What little girl?”

“That prisoner they were looking for. She was one of the Nuren villagers taken by the Daughters of Mercy. One of them, Yola’s brother, Daudi, got away, and the other four were killed. But Aziza was imprisoned in the palace. They forced her to become a courtesan.”

“No,” David said, narrowing his eyes. “No, that is
not
okay. This will not stand.”

“That’s why we have to go back for her.”

“I know—but we can’t right now, not with Lucia and her cronies chasing us. Look.” David pointed to the small army of Kruorumbrae bursting from the city gate.

Lucia rode at the front, leading the monstrous pack closer to the portal at the Eye of the Needle.

“If we don’t go back, Aziza will die,” Abby insisted. “She’s just a little kid.”

David looked at Abby’s haggard face. Getting blasted by Lucia’s orb had disoriented her, and he could see she wasn’t grasping their current situation.

“Abby,” he said gently, “I’m sorry. I promise you, once we get away from the Shadows, we’ll rescue her. But right now, the best thing we can do is help our friends.
They
will die if we don’t. Jon, Marisol, and Cael need us.”

Saying their names did the trick, and Abby’s eyes widened with understanding. “You’re right,” she agreed, nodding. “Of course you’re right. But I promised Aziza I would get her out of the city. When we get back through the portal, we need to get help. We have to come back for her.”

“We will,” David vowed. “We’ll come back and clean the Eastern Oracle’s whole corrupted city. Things will change, I can promise you that.”

Chapter Thirteen

EYE OF THE NEEDLE

“
W
here are they?” Jon yelled. “Did they make it?” He dug his heels into his horse’s sides, willing it to run faster.

Marisol glanced over her shoulder as she rode. “I see them! David has Abby. They’re flying toward us,” she shouted.

Cael scanned the sky. He reined his horse in to a trot and shifted in his saddle to get a better look. There was an expression of alarm on his face. “I cannot see them!”

Jon and Marisol slowed their horses to match pace with Cael’s. “Look,” Marisol pointed, “there!”

High above, Jon could make out a hazy silhouette. It was too high up and moving too fast to make out details, but it had to be David carrying Abby in his arms. Who else could it be?

Cael nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. “I never should have left them.”

Marisol shot him a look. “You had no choice. Come on!” She goaded her horse into a gallop.

They were close to the Eye of the Needle now, but in the distance
Jon could see riders from the city in pursuit—a lot of riders, based on the massive dust cloud in their wake.

“Looks like David and Abby invited friends,” Jon
frowned. “I hope they catch up to us before the Shadows do.”

Peering down, David knew they were cutting it close. As he landed at the base of the Eye of the Needle, the riders were fast approaching.

“’Bout time, slowpokes,” Jon said, his arms crossed. He eyed Abby. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Abby replied, disentangling herself from David’s embrace. “Just got into a little scrap with Lucia and her beasties.” Her voice was scratchy, but she seemed to have regained her senses. She was still weak though, and visibly shaking.

David watched her take two unsteady steps before he intervened and helped her ease into a sitting position on the sand. Lucia sure had done a number on her. Abby needed to rest, but she couldn’t rest here, not with the Kruorumbrae on their heels.

“The little girl?” Marisol asked.

Abby shook her head. “They took her. I promised I’d save her, but I couldn’t.” There were tears in her eyes.

David bent down and kissed the top of her head, and then got to work. He walked over to the symbol of the winged woman and placed his hands over it. With his eyes closed, David focused on letting the power flow through him and into the portal.

Jon looked toward the city. “How much time do you think we have?”

David opened his eyes to turn and look at Jon. “We didn’t have much of a head start before Lucia took up the chase.”

Cael stared at the rising cloud of dust and frowned. “Not long. Minutes possibly. Swords at the ready.”

David returned his focus to the portal. Blue light emanated from the palms of his hands, and around his neck, the Sign of the Throne started to glow.

He heard Marisol draw her sword. “Let’s buy him as much time as we can.”

After a moment, David let out a deep breath and the light coming from his hands disappeared. He backed away from the door and studied it. Then he unclasped the Sign of the Throne from around his neck and looked at it. Feeling a warm hand on his arm, he turned to see Abby next to him, her eyes wide with worry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing’s happening,” David said. “When I opened the door before, I could feel the boundaries between our worlds weaken.” He could tell by the confusion on her face that further explanation was needed. “You know how when you push on a door that’s stuck, you can feel it give a little, right before it pops open? It felt like that.”

“So the door is stuck?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel anything at all. It just feels…solid.”

Abby took his hand. “Maybe if we tried it together? Like that first portal we opened?”

“Worth a try,” David agreed.

“No pressure, guys,” Jon called, “but we’ve got maybe two minutes here.”

“Thanks, Jon,” Abby retorted, rolling her eyes. “That’s very helpful.”

In spite of everything, David couldn’t help but smile at her. She gave him a lopsided grin, and he felt warmth pour into him. As he had done when working on the portal in the Newcastle Beach mansion, he held the Sign in his open palms. Abby placed her hands over his, and David looked into her eyes.

There was a thrumming noise and blue light began to leak out from between their fingers. The light poured out onto the ground and pooled around the bottom of the door. There was a brief flash as the brightness of the light increased, and then the light was gone, extinguished like a blown-out birthday candle.

“What happened?” Abby asked.

“
Nothing
happened.” David had been certain it would work. Frustrated, he returned the Sign of the Throne to its place around his neck. “Maybe it’s us. Being exposed to Lucia’s power like that—maybe it drained us.”

Cael left his post watching for the Kruorumbrae to inspect the door. He ran his fingers along the groove between the door’s edges and the stone frame. When he turned back to David and Abby, his face was grim. “I am afraid it is the door that is the problem
. I should have seen this before—this portal can only be opened from one side.”

“What?” David asked in disbelief. “No, that can’t be. Can it?”

“I am sorry. I failed you, Solas Beir—I should have known,” Cael said. “We never should have shut that door.”

“But if we hadn’t, those things from the casino would have followed us through,” Jon called out, looking over his shoulder. “We
had
to shut it.”

“You speak true, Jon, but now we have no means of escape save the Barren,” Cael replied.

“Won’t Lucia just follow us?” Abby asked.

“Perhaps. But the Barren is formidable. She may give up her pursuit,” Cael considered. “She is no fool.”

A scream pierced the dry, desert air. It sounded like a battle cry. David looked up to see the shape of a woman with wings, silhouetted against the sun. It looked just like the symbol on the portal.

“The Daughters of Mercy,” Abby whispered, clutching his arm.

“Maybe they’re coming to help us,” Jon said. “We don’t
know
that they chose a side, do we?”

“They chose,” Abby said, trembling. “They didn’t choose us.”

“Maybe we can change their minds,” David suggested. “Come on, Abby—I’ll do the talking and you try to push them with your mind to come to our side.”

Abby looked scared enough to jump out of her skin, but she wrapped her arms around his neck anyway. David lifted her into the air, flying toward the cave at the very top of the towering rock spire. The Daughters soared to meet them. They circled around David and Abby, and then dove down toward their friends.

Jon, Marisol, and Cael ducked in unison as a screeching Daughter of Mercy swooped low over their heads, her arms outstretched, her fingers curled into grasping, greedy talons.

Jon shuddered, remembering the banshee screams of the lamia in the rainforest. He waited until the Daughter had gained plenty of altitude before daring to rise. “Did you see her face? She looked like a corpse!”

Marisol’s eyes were wide with horror. “That’s not what I saw.”

“On your guard, my friends,” Cael shouted, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword. “The Kruorumbrae are here!”

David wrapped his arms more tightly around Abby’s waist. She looked as petrified as the Eye of the Needle. “Keep projecting your emotions, Abby,” he said, trying, despite his own terror, to keep his voice even and calm. “This will work. I know it will.” It sure wouldn’t work if the emotion Abby was projecting was her fear, but saying that out loud wouldn’t help.

One of the Daughters stopped circling and floated in midair, directly in front of David. She flapped her great white wings lazily and stared into his eyes.

“I am the Solas Beir,” David said. “I serve the Light. Join me—together we can defeat the Kruorumbrae.”

The Daughter smiled—she had the face of a child, a look of sweet innocence unspoiled by darkness. Golden ringlets framed her cherub face. “Greetings, Solas Beir,” she said, her voice musical and light as air. “What price would you pay for us to join your cause?”

David returned her smile in an effort to hide his disgust.
Mercenary,
he thought.
Mercenary with the face of an angel.
“I wish to bring peace to our land. You will be richly rewarded for fighting alongside us.” As an afterthought he added, “There is much gold in Caislucis. Help us and it is yours.”