Page 116 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
“Your Highness, you can’t be serious.”
“On the contrary, Captain Blackwell, I have never been more serious. If you wish to take Eirwen, you will have to go through me. I daresay my mother will not be pleased if any harm should come to me.”
Something sounded in the distance. One of the knights backed into another. “What was that?” he hissed.
“Something you’d rather not face,” said Cole. “I repeat, gentleman. Depart this place at once.”
The scuttling drew nearer. Shapes darted in the corner of Eirwen’s vision. They needed to move, quickly.
Another knight gave a shriek, smacking into the object and sending it crashing to the ground with a terrific noise that reverberated throughout the chamber. The scuttling intensified, and worse, a deep, hollow rumbling groaned through the stone.
The shades were on them in an instant, ten, twenty, thirty crawling out of the shadows. Merry drew his spark stones and struck a nearby fuse, setting off an explosion in the corner of the street. It took out three, delaying the others and causing a distraction just long enough for Eirwen to bolt from her spot.
She streamed back towards Onyx, Wren and the Huntsman, Cole behind her.
They were forty feet up the side of the cavern, fixing the gaps in the steps.
“What happened?” asked the Huntsman.
“Knights, shades, dozens, maybe more. They’re filling the square–”
“Merry? Oakley?” barked Onyx from above.
“Holding them off–”
Wren tumbled down the steps and leapt back onto the ground, drawing her crossbow and streaming towards the fray.
“Defend Onyx!” she snapped at Cole.
Cole nodded, taking back point as Eirwen flew up the stairs, over the planks replacing the missing steps and up to Onyx’s position. He raced upwards, climbing towards the platform above the crystal.
Another explosion erupted below. Smoke clawed through the air. Stone struck the ground. Eirwen forced herself not to look, not to think of Merry and Oakley and Wren and the knights. She needed to get Onyx to the top.
He stopped shortly, causing her to almost topple over a wide ledge. It wasalmost ten feet across. Too wide for him to jump. Eirwen glanced backwards, trying to gauge the length of the ladders and planks they’d already used, only to find the bottom of the steps crawling with shades.
Cole yanked a plank away and kicked the other to the bottom of the cavern, hauling it up to Eirwen. It fell cleanly through the gap.
Onyx groaned, shooting Cole a look as though this were all his fault.
“How strong are you?” he barked.
“Pretty strong.”
“Toss me.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Toss me. Over the gap.”
“Um–”
There was a noise from behind them. The shades were climbing over one another, forming some kind of grotesque, misshapen ladder with their own bodies.
“Quickly, lad!”
Cole seized him by his backpack, pulling him into a wide swing and throwing him over the ledge. He hit the other side with a thud, his legs dangling in mid-air. A half-scream wrenched from Eirwen’s throat, and she took a running jump, leaping over the gap and pulling him up the other side, only looking back briefly to see if Cole was following.
They raced up the rest of the mountain side, into the chamber above the giant sunstone. A large hole was cut into the floor. Long, crystalline tendrils, the rocky roots of the stone, clung to the sides. Onyx streamed towards them, his dagger already outstretched. He crashed down on his knees, rolling up his sleeve, and slashed the inside of his arm. A long, shallow cut. Blood dripped onto the crystal.
