Sarah felt the heat growing against her face as she fell. So, too, grew the certainty of her demise. Frostfire might survive in the magma, for all she knew, but for her there could be no alternative. Her flesh would ignite long before she hit the lake of molten rock. It would be tremendously painful, but, she hoped and prayed, it might at least be quite brief.
Please let it end soon, Lord, she prayed, please let it-
Her prayer was interrupted by a sudden jolt as she stopped falling, Frostfire’s arm tightening around her waist before beginning to haul her upwards. She opened her eyes. They were clinging to a ledge above the magma pool, about ten metres below the entrance to the lava tube. Sarah had been unable to see it from above, but Frostfire must have known it was there and now he was lifting her up to place her on the solid stone away from the rising heat.
“I thought we were going to die,” she said as Frostfire climbed up beside her. She was shaking now as the shock of the moment finally hit her.
If a Stoneskin could roll its ball-of-fire eyes, then Frostfire would have in that moment. “Do you still not trust me?” he asked.
“Oh no,” she replied, “I do and, just then, I trusted you to kill us cleanly rather than face any other path out.”
The Spiketail seemed to absorb this and ponder it a moment before nodding. “Good,” he said.
Somewhere up above them the fighting was intensifying and, with a tremendous roar, a Grinder plummeted past to splash into the magma far below. Sarah saw its eyes turned blood-red to match the molten rock before, arm outstretched, it sank forever into the glowing pool.
“What is going on up there?” she asked.
“It looks like civil war,” Frostfire said emotionlessly as he looked up towards the conflict. Then, after a moment, added, “We should find Shadowsmoke.”
They made their way along the precipitous ledge as it wound around the Magma Chamber, climbing higher and higher in spiralling degrees until, at last, it reached one of the volcano city’s many junctions of bridges and tunnels. Most of the fighting still appeared to be taking place above them, although Sarah could also hear the clash of spears down one of the nearby tunnels.
“Where to, now?” she asked.
Frostfire seemed to taste the air for a moment, before gesturing down the tunnel from which Sarah had heard the sounds of combat.
“Of course,” she said, wearily and prepared to unleash her Slayer powers, if necessary, but Frostfire shook his head.
“Let me talk, first,” he said, before leading the way into the tunnel, leaving Sarah to wonder why Frostfire would ever considering talking to be his particular strength.
As it happened, the only sign of combat they came across in the first tunnel was the aftermath of a particularly bloody skirmish that left two Spiketails and a Grinder dead on the floor. Frostfire examined each carefully, before shaking his head and moving on.
“Did you know them?” Sarah asked as they left the corpses behind.
Frostfire nodded. “Skyflint and Leafglow,” he said after a moment, “they had always been loyal to me.”
“And you think this civil war – if that’s what it is – is about you?”
“About the treaty at the Colony, yes. I knew there would be some who would not want to lay down arms for long.”
“So, what? If this rebel faction takes control of Ashvault, then…?”
“Then the war will begin anew, just as we await the Ancients.”
“That would be disastrous!”
“Indeed. So we must find Shadowsmoke.”
They made it to a spiral staircase cut into the rock and followed it up several levels towards the distant din of combat. Frostfire didn’t explain his logic, but Sarah guessed that he thought that Shadowsmoke would be at the heart of the conflict, probably trying to make sense prevail. They traversed several more tunnels, passed the aftermath of a number of bloody battles and drew ever closer to the loudest sounds of combat, but saw no one alive for the whole of their journey until, at last, they rounded a corner to see a group of Spiketails and Grinders clamouring around a doorway in the middle of the corridor, shouting, roaring, growling and banging their spears and shields. They did not appear to see Sarah and Frostfire at the end of the corridor and the laconic Spiketail gestured for them to retreat and watch from around the corner.
“We know you’re in there, Shadowsmoke!” roared one of the Spiketails, her eyes aglow with a mysterious purple fire. “The door won’t last forever and I know you don’t want to face these hungry Grinders when they finally bash it down.”
“Who is that?” Sarah asked in a whisper.
“Featherflame,” Frostfire replied. “She’s been stirring trouble since before Doctor Barkham. She must have found my absence… convenient.”
“If you come out now,” Featherflame was continuing, “we’ll take you peacefully. You can carry on your experiments under house arrest. It will be better this way.” She glanced around at her leering mob. “No one wants to see you ground to gravel.”
“I’m not alone in here, Featherflame,” came Shadowsmoke’s voice from beyond the door. Sarah recognised it immediately, despite how long it had been since her brief, but formative encounter with the old Shaman. “And I know there are still loyalist forces in Ashvault. You are not as powerful as you would have me believe!”
“I’m not the one cowering in a kitchen,” Featherflame spat back, before turning to some nearby Grinders and giving the eager command, “tear that door down!”
The Grinders obviously didn’t need much encouragement and set to with great gusto, charging the door with their hulking great heads and roaring as they did so. Sarah watched in horrified fascination as chips of stone flew away from the door and its frame and then in another kind of fascination entirely as Frostfire stood up and stepped around the corner and started to speak.
“Featherflame,” he said, loud and clear so that his voice echoed down the corridor to interrupt even the cacophony of the Grinders, “you’ve stopped scheming and started acting. Took you long enough.”
Featherflame’s eye’s flared bright as she caught sight of him and, immediately, she signalled to the Grinders to stop and stepped through the crowd towards him.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” she said, “I figured you’d have to come see the results of your handiwork sooner or later.”
“You mean the bloody corpses on the levels below? Looked more like your style, to me.”
“Oh no,” Featherflame laughed, “this was all your doing. The blind loyalty you instilled over the years killed those Stoneskins. We only held the blades, after all. They were the ones who ran into them.”
“So these,” he gestured at the crowd, “are the truly gifted, then? They see what the others could not? What revelation did you give them to ensure such zealotry?”
“The truth, Frostfire. Why, it wasn’t that long ago that you were spouting it yourself! How quickly you became a human sympathiser, eh?”
“There are bigger problems facing this world than petty race wars, Featherflame, and if you’d been paying attention, you’d know that.”
“You’re not talking about Those-Who-Came-Before like old Shadowsmoke, are you?”
“The very same. If he’s been warning you, then you should have been listening.”
“His mind’s addled with age and with his devotion to the Feathers.” She raised her voice and turned her head towards the battered door. “If they were ever real they’ve long since abandoned us!” She turned back to face Frostfire as she added, “The past is in the past and there it must remain. We look to the future, one where Stoneskins control Shadow once more!”
“That’s what they want. Division. War. Shadow devastated so that they can step in and carry on where they left off without having to worry about the squabbling cubs at their feet. Shadow won’t be ours, Featherflame, but theirs unless we do something about it. That’s why I’m here, to learn from Shadowsmoke. Learn and make plans.”
“Well, that may be your role in the story you’ve written for yourself, but I’m the writer now and, I’m afraid, I have ordained a different purpose to your visit. ‘Frostfire returned to face the punishment for his sins’ sounds about right to me.” She gestured to the Grinders once more. “Kill him,” she said quite calmly and, at once, the Grinders began to charge.
Frostfire signalled to Sarah to step out from cover as he readied himself and she obeyed willingly, bringing forth her Slayer powers. Even so, the Grinders were backed by a small army of Spiketails and it would be tough going to fight them all. It was not the sort of battle one engaged in hopefully.
Help us, Father God! She prayed, even as the Grinders converged on the end of the corridor and the fight began in earnest.
Sarah dodged as the first Grinder charged, sending it careering into the wall behind her. She then kicked as hard as she could at a second Grinder, which was about to attack Frostfire and diverted it into the sidewall of the corridor. For himself, Frostfire was wrestling with a third Grinder and just about holding his own, but then a fourth and a fifth joined the fray to either side and Sarah found herself fending off two more that showed just enough intelligence to dodge her kicks and punches. There were more still waiting just behind them, along with lithe, wiry Spiketails, each muscling into the space to find some weakness or other and exploit it.
No, seriously, God, please help us!
And then the door to the kitchen exploded, taking out several of the crowd of Spiketails with huge, searing chunks of shrapnel. Sarah couldn’t see clearly for all the enemies swarming around her, but it looked like a small squad of Spiketails stepped out into the chaos, each armed with a kitchen implement, including one who seemed to be carrying a sieve and a stone colander. They set to against the other Spiketails at once, drawing some of the combatants away from Frostfire and Sarah as they did so.
“Kill them all!” Featherflame screamed, but more Spiketails were emerging from the kitchen all the time, a whole loyal army of them armed with kitchen utensils and the courage of their convictions and when the last of them stepped out into the corridor and began to fight, there stood Shadowsmoke in the midst, summoning Stoneskin magicks to chase Featherflame down the corridor with tendrils of living smoke.
Sarah kicked the last of the Grinders clear and smiled. They were going to win this after all.
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