Page 129 of Storm of Fury
Sirius gave him a perplexed look. “Warned you about what?” His expression suddenly lightened. “Did you think I was going to slam into the cliffs? Foolish mortal. I rule the skies. And I wasn’t about to let that puny princeling beat me.”
“Not.Funny. I nearly shat my trousers.”
Sirius was still snickering as Bryn alighted with Marduk.
Grinning at him madly, she slung her leg over Marduk’s withers and slipped down his scaled side. “That was wonderful. Are you all right? I thought I heard a little girl screaming, but it seems to have stopped.”
“I hate you all.” He staggered to his feet, offering her the cloak that was clenched between his fingers in a grip that might need to be pried open. “None of you are even remotely amusing.” He pointed a finger at Sirius. “Friends do not scare the devil out of friends.”
“If you’d trusted me, then you wouldn’t have been scared,” the enormousdrekiwarrior said with a shrug. “As if I was going to end my life as a mere stain upon the stones. I’m the Blackfrost.”
“Quiet.” Marduk suddenly held up a hand, walking toward the edge of the cliff, wearing naught more than the trousers he’d hastily hauled on. “I can hear Ishtar’s song.” His face brightened. “I couldn’t sense her for a while, but now she’s back on this mortal plane.”
“Where the hell is she going when she passes through her portals?” Tormund muttered.
“We don’t know,” Marduk replied. “There are other realms out there, and some of them can be reached by the portals in the Hall of Mirrors at theZinicourt. Since those portals were created by Chaos-wielders, she may be able to slip into other realms, and time moves differently there. Or… I don’t truly know. Portal magic wasn’t something I paid a great deal of attention to when I was younger.”
“Unless it wore a skirt, you didn’t pay much attention to anything,” Sirius said.
“I thought you were too busy murderingdrekito know what I was or wasn’t doing as a kit.”
Sirius bared his teeth, but Tormund clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Ishtar. Let’s focus on Ishtar. Where is she?”
Marduk concentrated, his head turning slowly to the mountain. “Up there, I think. It’s more of a generalized location, rather than a pinpoint.”
“Let’s move,” Sirius said. “And be prepared for anything. Her magic is unpredictable.”
“Besides, those Keepers have been on her trail ever since we left Kamchatka,” Marduk muttered. “They’re still out there somewhere.”
They slipped down the hillside and crossed a river.
Marduk abruptly froze. “I can smell those cursed Keepers. They’re close.”
Sirius looked up at the slopes of the mountain ahead of them. “This way. She’s gone up the cliff face.”
Tormund craned his neck. “She climbedthat? That frail young woman?”
“Dreki,” Marduk corrected.
His balls tried to shrink into his abdomen.Nope. That was a nope. “Have I ever mentioned my distaste for heights?”
“Frequently,” Bryn said.
“All the time.” This from Sirius.
Marduk looked between them, and then shrugged. “Once or twice.”
“I’ll take to the skies and see if I can spot her,” Sirius said, transforming. He launched into the skies with a thrust of his wide black wings.
Tormund swallowed as Marduk set himself into the climb, finding handholds in the sheer rock and hauling himself up. It seemed odd that Ishtar had climbed the cliff. He and Bryn had been tracking her for days, and whenever she’d encountered a physical obstacle like this, her tracks simply vanished—found several miles to the west perhaps, or in the middle of a forest.
The princess was no fool.
She’d managed to stay ahead of the Keepers, after all, and they were legendary trackers according to Marduk.
What was it about this mountain that had drawn her to it?
He looked up at the stark cliffs. High in the sky a flicker of wings disappeared into a cloud bank. Sirius, prowling the night like an overgrown bat.
