“You arrived just in time,” Shadowsmoke said in his low, rumbling voice once the dust had cleared on their violence. “I’m not sure we could have done that without your help. Good to see you again, Sarah, by the way.” He gave her a sharp-toothed grin which, nonetheless, seemed warm and friendly for a Spiketail.
“We weren’t expecting to be the cavalry, I assure you,” Sarah replied, “but of course you’re welcome.”
“And yet,” the Shaman said glancing furtively up and down the corridor, “I fear we had best move on before more come along to bother us. Featherflame was certainly not the only diehard among the citizens of Ashvault and her death may just make things worse. I need to get to my home, but these unrepentant bigots keep getting in the way.”
“We’ll do what we can to help,” Frostfire said, “but then we have questions that need answers.”
“About Those-Who-Came-Before? Yes, I suspected as much. I knew I couldn’t be the only one who had seen the signs. But quickly, we must hurry!”
He gestured for his followers to take the corridor off to the right, in the direction Sarah and Frostfire had been heading, then hurried along after them with the two just behind. There were twists and turns, doorways off to other rooms to the left and right, but the Spiketails knew exactly where they were going and there was no hesitation any time a junction threatened to confuse. Just before they reached the next set of stairs, however, they were set upon by another gang of Grinders with two snake-like Creepers and a Slatewing. The Grinders were dispatched quickly, with the help of Sarah’s Slayer powers and a Black Sand incantation from the Shaman, but the Slatewing stayed until just before the last Grinder fell and then flew off down a side corridor.
“Fetching reinforcements, no doubt,” Shadowsmoke observed. “That only means that we need to be quicker!” he added before dashing up the stairs.
Sarah was nearly breathless when they finally came out on the top level of the Magma Chamber and, for a moment, her Slayer powers faltered and she felt the full brunt of the heat of the Magma miles below. She staggered, put a hand out to steady herself against the wall of the corridor even as the rest of their party hurried across the bridge and that’s when she heard them, hundreds of feet pounding up the steps behind them, the rattle of weapons and scales.
“Run!” she shouted, pushing herself away from the wall to dash across the bridge towards the Spiketails. And then the Stoneskin army spilt up out of the stairwell behind her and her words were drowned out by the roars and shouts and shrieks of dozens of Spiketails, Grinders, Creepers and other forms Sarah did not know at all.
“We need to hold them at bay until I can reach my supplies,” Shadowsmoke shouted, his eyes smouldering like embers. “Dustflare!” he commanded, “Bladelight! Hold the bridge!”
“Just the two of them!?” Sarah demanded as two Spiketails split off from the party to stand firm in the centre of the bridge, blocking the path of the oncoming horde. She watched in horror as they braced themselves, then faced the full brunt of the force arrayed against them with their spears, knocking Grinders to fall to their deaths in the magma below, skewering Creepers, gutting fellow Spiketails, but not without injury to themselves.
“They know what is being asked of them,” Frostfire replied, “Come on!” and he ushered her around a corner into another long corridor where all that could be known of the clash on the bridge was the sound of weapons and guttural death cries – and no telling whose was whose.
“It isn’t far now,” Shadowsmoke called from the front, and, indeed, Sarah felt that she recognised this tunnel more than some of the others, though she could not say exactly how.
And then they rounded another corner and Sarah’s heart fell, for there before them was another small army of Stoneskins, waiting for their arrival and ready to engage. Shadowsmoke skidded to a halt before them and two more of his Spiketail entourage ran ahead to guard him. Slowly Shadowsmoke began to take a few steps backwards as more of his loyal followers filed forwards and engaged the enemy with violent enthusiasm.
“What now?” Sarah asked as he fell back to their position. She struggled to see any course of action that wouldn’t lead to their untimely demise. As if to prove the thought, she could hear the Stoneskins from the bridge marching towards them. That their sacrificial rear-guard must have fallen nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“There’s a secret entrance,” Shadowsmoke said, “but we’ll need to pass the front entrance to reach it.”
“Then we must hope that your army serves as a suitable distraction,” observed Frostfire. Shadowsmoke merely nodded and Sarah took a deep breath.
They watched as the two small armies fought each other ahead and waited for an opportune moment. Eventually, a small gap opened up on the right and Frostfire said, “If we’re going to move, we’d better do so now!”
Shadowsmoke nodded again, adding only, “Once you’re past the fray, head down the corridor to the right and don’t stop until you reach the signstone.” And then he was off with Frostfire following closely behind. Sarah braced herself and ran after them.
The rebel Stoneskins were, indeed, too preoccupied fighting Shadowsmoke’s loyalists to see the Shaman and Frostfire as they passed. One Creeper, however, spotted Sarah as she ran past and lashed out its tail to trip her and send her sprawling across the stone floor, banging her head and stunning her for a moment as she did so.
“Thought you could get away, eh?” The Creeper asked in a coarse, sibilant whisper as it slithered towards her. “Not ssso fassst!”
Sarah stared at it, dazed, watching the way its red, fireball eyes bobbed about with each stretch of its serpentine body with uncomprehending dullness. And then the Creeper darted forwards to snap at her with a long, crocodilian mouth and the sudden movement triggered her survival instincts. She rolled towards the wall, leapt to her feet and kicked at the beast as hard as she could. Despite its considerable weight it went flying backwards into the battle, to be set upon by confused Spiketails from either side and giving Sarah the time and space she needed to get away.
Shadowsmoke and Frostfire were waiting for her by the signstone which stood at one side of the corridor, pointing the way to various locations around the city. It was tall enough to scrape the ceiling.
“The secret entrance is behind the sign,” Shadowsmoke said. “Please, help me shift it.”
Sarah and Frostfire grabbed one edge of the stone whilst Shadowsmoke took the other. It was heavy, but lighter than Sarah had expected and, once it began to move it was clear that it hid a set of steps and a hole set low into the wall.
“Hurry inside,” Shadowsmoke said, ushering Sarah and Frostfire through once the hole was clear, then pulling the stone back into place behind them.
They were in a low tunnel, forcing the two Spiketails to stoop most uncomfortably, but it didn’t last long before another set of steps led up through a flatweave rug into Shadowsmoke’s study.
“Well, we’re here,” Sarah said once they had all climbed out, “now what?”
“Now I have to begin an incantation that will put this Civil War on ice,” Shadowsmoke replied, already hurrying around the room gathering talismans and ingredients.
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Just try not to get in my way!”
So Sarah took a step back and merely watched as Shadowsmoke gathered the necessary materials and then arranged them in a circle of bones and feathers in the centre of the room. Next, he took a bag of Black Sand and poured it within the circle in crisscrossing lines which seemed to weave around the various talismans and powders. Then, he sat down cross-legged before the circle, his eyes grew dim and he a let out a low, droning hum which built, slowly but surely, into something loud enough to resonate within Sarah’s lungs, sending vibrations all through her body and leaving a tingling feeling in her extremities.
The Black Sand began to glow a fierce green, the light radiating up even as the torchlight of the chamber grew dim, to cast the Shaman in mysterious shadow. And still, he droned. And each of the piles of powder ignited in turn - indigo, violet, red, orange - and the talismans joined in the glow with a soft yellow light of their own. Sarah felt that she could not look away, for it was much more beautiful than she would ever have believed.
And the light changed once more – all the colours shifting towards a cool blue. Sarah suppressed a shiver, at first thinking that the colour change had suggested it, but then realising that the room, once sauna hot – although her Slayer powers made it bearable – was actually cooling rapidly. Soon she had to wrap her arms around her chest and press her hands into her armpits to keep them warm and still the room grew colder. Her breath came out in great billows of condensing vapour.
“What’s happening?” she tried to ask, but her teeth began chattering so much that it was hard to form the words.
Then, just when she thought the cold would become utterly intolerable, when her skin felt as though it was being pricked by icy daggers all over and the very air she breathed seemed to burn, Shadowsmoke’s eyes flared, for the briefest instant, a bright, fiery red amidst the black and the blue light vanished at once, leaving the room feeling cooler than it had, but no longer frosty.
“What was that all about?” Frostfire asked, clawed arms crossed, clearly unimpressed by the sudden shift in temperature.
“Why don’t you take a step outside and see?” Shadowsmoke replied with a slight smile. “You can use the front door, this time.”
Sarah took the lead, taking the corridor out towards the main door leading into the tunnels of Ashvault. She could tell something was different immediately she approached, however, as there were no sounds coming from beyond, none at all, and she thought it unlikely that the battle could have ended so soon. She hesitated and Frostfire brushed past, pushing open the door and stepping out into a plaza of ice sculptures. Icicles hung from the ceiling, frost patterned the walls and the two battling hordes stood frozen where they fought, encrusted in a layer of glittering ice.
“But how?” Sarah asked. “We’re in a volcano!”
“There are few limits to the powers of Black Sand and Hypostatick energy to alter reality,” Shadowsmoke said from behind. “Not when you know what you’re doing. But we must hurry, now. This won’t last forever and we have a pilgrimage to make before they thaw.”
“A pilgrimage?”
“To Ashfeather,” the old Shaman replied, “where I believe we shall find the answers we all seek.”
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