Rushil strained with the effort to speak and, when he did, his answer came out a harsh groan. “The thralls!”
Azolirum spoke. “We only just missed them. This voroto can’t have been clawing on to life for long.”
Nadine snapped her head in Magnus’s direction. “We can catch them.”
Magnus nodded, a spark of hope flickering in his eyes. “Get the Eye back before they’re taken to their masters?”
They both looked at Azolirum, who nodded once in an austere fashion. “We’re close to the fortress. There isn’t much time.”
Yes. This wasn’t over yet. They had a chance.
Nadine turned back to Rushil and unsheathed a blade from her belt with the hand she’d been using to hold his cheek. Magnus caught her about the wrist as she would’ve brought it forward. She glanced back at him. Magnus’s eyes were full of gravity. “I’ll do it, woman.”
Over his shoulder, the Nozverak chattered to each other in their language, already walking in the direction the thralls must’ve taken Samar.
She frowned at Magnus. “Have you ever performed a mercy killing?”
He hesitated, as she’d known he would.
Before he could react, Nadine whipped around and drew the edge of the blade across Rushil’s neck, so fast, the man wouldn’t have had time to cringe. Though he didn’t deserve it, she kept one hand under his head as he choked on the last bit of life leaving his body. And when he breathed his last, she pressed his eyes shut with a sweep of her hand.
She wiped her knife on the cleanest part of Rushil’s cloak before turning back to her barbarian’s haunted expression. She patted him once on the shoulder before rising to her feet. “I have.”
Azolirum rumbled over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
24
The Heart of the Mountain
They ran. Though they kept their voices low, stealth had taken a back seat to speed. Magnus had never needed to run more in his entire life. He wanted to fly, but he couldn’t in this hellish place where there was no sky. He was on the wrong side of the mountain, and everything about his time here kept reminding him.
He wanted to scream in misery for all they’d lost and for all they were holding onto. So much damn time had passed, so many of his clansmen’s lives sacrificed to bring him here, to make this one chance for their people to be saved. To give Magnus his one chance to save Arvid. That opportunity was teetering at the edge of a cliff now, and Magnus ran like his feet could carry him there in time to snatch it from the edge of the precipice, if only he pressed himself harder. They had to reach the Ebronians before they were taken to the fortress. If not it would be too late to retrieve the Eye.
“Keep going!” He urged his companions forward.
Nadine had started out the slowest with her comparatively short legs. But the Nozverak, though they often charged in battle, could not keep up a running pace for long. They were huffing like great oxen hauling lumber up the side of the mountain. Magnus and Nadine frequently glanced back at them, looking for directions that Azolirum or Crann would point out through hunched shoulders begging for rest.
They were catching up. They’d find the captives soon. Magnus could sense it. The tracks in the dust were sparse, but it didn’t matter. They knew where the Ebronians were being taken: the heart of the mountain.
Magnus crashed through a wave of heat. He squinted into the glow of orange flame that licked the darkness from one of the tunnel’s offshoots. He didn’t slow, but gripped his axe, ready in case the light came from approaching torches. Then he slid to a stop, and his mouth fell open at the wondrous sight that even his wildest dreams could not have called up.
This tunnel overlooked a cavern ten times larger than the mushroom forest. Had Magnus thought there was no sky underground? He was wrong. He could even see something like an ashy moon in the blackness, scorching hateful rays upon a lake of fire below. In the distance, waves of molten rock surrounded an island fortress larger than even the Golden Court of Ebron. Bright pillars of fire poured down from cliffs that fed the swirling pools below. Sulfur. The burning air reeked with it. Heat scorched Magnus, even hundreds of paces above, where he stared down at the hellscape.
Nadine skidded into his back. Her breath caught. He was glad she was there, else he might have wondered if this was all real or if he’d died and slipped into the oblivion Nadine so frequently mentioned.
“Magnus,” her voice was barely a whisper, but she was already tugging him forward. “We have to keep going.”
The Nozverak were catching up, and Azolirum bent over, hands upon his knees to catch his breath. He batted his horns in the direction of the fortress. “My home. One of many. This is where the Soul Thieves have squatted their hollow skins.”
“How will we find them?” Magnus asked.
Azolirum growled. “It’s my fortress, nozturel. I know where they’ll be.”
With that, he was off. Nadine pulled at Magnus’s arm and they resumed their sprint.
They passed more tunnels as they went. More and more, that seemed to go on forever, and Magnus wondered, not for the first time, just how far each really went. Surely this was the heart of the mountain. Surely the Earth’s wretchedness didn’t go deeper than this?
“It’s a volcano,” Nadine said through panting breaths.
“What?” Magnus kept running.
“A mountain of fire. But it’s slept so long. Nobody knew.”
Vague memories came flooding back to Magnus of tales he’d heard. Mountains erupting into chaos with geysers of fiery vengeance. He’d thought of them only as stories. After all, he lived atop a mountain, and the only evil to come from it was the veligiri that slunk from its tunnels. He shook the thought from his mind and pressed on until a sound sent a spark of wary hope.
“Stop!” Magnus hissed.
They all did. Magnus turned, angling his ear forward. There were voices ahead; they echoed down the walls, along with the cracking of leather on something hard. Metal clanged and stone scraped. They’d found their quarry.
Magnus motioned forward, and they made their way up to a corner so they might see around it. A string of veligiri marched through the tunnel ahead. The path before them led directly to the fortress, widening along the way. A few more minutes and they’d be in the open. Any chance for a stealthy retrieval of the Eye would be gone. They had little time for planning. Magnus performed a quick count, then turned toward the others.
“Two Ebronians in the group. One’s injured.”
“Samar,” Nadine said. “It must be him, else he would have used the Eye.”
Magnus nodded and turned to Azolirum. “Two blood-seekers, a blade-arm, three trolls. Can you see any imps?”
Magnus’s eyes were probably better than the Nozverak’s now that there was enough light, but he had to be sure there wasn’t a bundle of the tiny devils upon the chained up prisoners. They could escape so easily and run back to their masters. Then again, would it really matter? They were so close now. It was no longer about making it to the heart of the Earth. At this point, no matter what happened, they might as well fight their way through and find the Soul Thieves. So long as they had the Eye.