Carrying a full-grown person down the side of a volcano was harder than it sounded. Which was saying something. Because it sounded really hard.
It would have been easier if they’d had more than one shoe between the two of them.
Or if one of them had more durable clothing on than half-charred kurti.
Or if neither of them were bleeding. Or burned. Or hungry.
Jenny’s stomach grumbled unhappily.
The least the Centaurs could have done was feed them before throwing them into the heart of the volcano. What sort of message did that send to their sadistic volcano god? They’d only sacrifice people who hadn’t had a decent meal all day?
Jenny winced as her bare, bleeding feet scraped against the rough rock face of Centaur Mount. A little further down the mountainside, the jagged rocks turned to smoother, more porous stone. It would be easier on both of them.
Jenny flinched as the sharp rocks dug deeper into her raw feet.
“Jenny, you should go on without me,” Barb mumbled in her ear.
Jenny clutched the taller girl’s arm across her shoulders, holding on to her wrist in a death grip, burned fingers tight in the fabric of the no-longer-white kurti at her waist.
“Don’t be silly.” Jenny rolled her eyes.
“I’m slowing you down.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
Barb scoffed and leaned against her, the warm trickle of blood from the wound in her side a constant reminder of how badly hurt she actually was.
The adrenaline from their narrow escape above the magma chamber had lasted almost to the end of the tunnel Barb had discovered inside the volcano. Barb had spotted daylight, forged the way through the searing air within the lava tube, and made it two steps outside into the fresh air before she collapsed.
Jenny readjusted her hold on Barb’s arm and waist and continued taking one step at a time down the side of the mountain, eyes focused on the smooth gray stones a few yards away.
Barb Taylor was a warrior. A fighter. She was cut from the same cloth as Meg, the unsinkable, unyielding hero-type that would rather charge into battle than admit any sort of weakness. That was how Jenny had seen her. It was the image of her Jenny had built in her own mind from the day they’d met.
But the Barb Taylor she’d witnessed in Tiron’s throne room was nothing like that. It was like she’d become a completely different person—ripped open, heart on display for everyone to see, vulnerable. And scared.
As Barb had writhed and screamed, the one wielding the Shadow had spoken to Tiron, and Tiron had listened to every word, sadistic glee glowing in his horrible eyes.
Between Barb’s wordless cries, her broken voice had sobbed for her mother—for someone named Lance, whoever that was. She’d pleaded for help, but no one had helped her. It had only ended when the Centaur wielder had died, reduced to ash and bones by the very power he was using to rip Barb apart.
Wherever Tiron had found that horrible shadow weapon, he needed to take it back. It was power nobody should have, power to look into someone’s heart and make their private fears public.
So why didn’t it work with you?
She shifted Barb’s arm across her shoulders and pressed forward.
“Jenny, we’re not going to make it,” Barb whispered.
“Oh, stop being so negative.”
Barb sputtered. “I’m not being negative. I’m being realistic.”
“Same thing.”
“It is not.”
Jenny smirked. “Are we going to argue about this?”
“I’m not arguing. You’re wrong.”
Jenny couldn’t hold in a laugh.
Barb groaned and hung her head before she laughed quietly too. “Okay, fine. We’re arguing.” She shut her eyes. “But I’m not wrong.”
“Sure, you are.”
“Jenny, you can barely stand.”
“Lies. All lies.”
Barb sagged. “What is wrong with you?”
“Hey, you’re the one who wants me to leave you on the Centaur’s mountain to spend the night. Alone. With your spleen hanging out.”
“My spleen isn’t hanging out.”
“I think it is.”
Jenny stumbled slightly but gripped a particularly sharp rock with her toes to right herself. She could feel the layer of skin scraping off between her toes, but she grit her teeth and pressed forward.
Above them, clouds of hellish smoke belched out of the summit of the volcano, spilling into the sky in a furious flurry of ash. Below them, the unforgiving landscape of black rocks and scattered brown bits of dead lichen, spreading like cracked leather over the surface of the charcoaled surface.
Jenny stepped down on the porous gray rocks with a sigh of relief. Finally, something that didn’t rip new holes in the skin of her feet.
But the rock shifted beneath her, unstable and loose, and Jenny tilted sideways, taking Barb with her. Jenny took a great step forward and bent her knee awkwardly, trying to regain her balance as her other leg went the opposite direction.
They didn’t fall.
But her knee did make an audible popping sound, and Barb’s weight against her sent a chorus of muscle spasms clenching up her side.
They hadn’t fallen.
But they were going to.
“Break time!” Jenny exclaimed cheerfully.
Too cheerfully to be honest. Hopefully Barb wouldn’t notice.
Barb grunted as Jenny set her against a rock and peeled herself away from her, their clothes sticking together with the blood that had dried between them.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Barb narrowed her bloodshot green eyes.
Dang it. She noticed. “Of course not. That’s not even a question, Barb. It’s not helpful at all. If I had hurt myself, I would totally totally totally tell you.”
“You’re babbling.”
“Is that different than normal?”
“You’re not asking questions.” Barb flashed a half-hearted smile. “Your inane babble usually comes with question marks.”
“Ha.” Jenny harrumphed and flopped onto the smooth rock beside her friend. “I resemble that remark.”
Barb shut her eyes and leaned back, clutching the wound on her side. “Don’t you mean that you resent that remark?”
Barb said the weirdest things sometimes. “Being resentful is bad for your health, Barb.”
“Never mind.”
Jenny ran her hands into her hair and took a deep, calming breath. This was bad, no doubt about it, but surely it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever had to handle. Being kidnapped in Terran was bad too, and they’d gotten out of it just fine.
Of course, Mickey had been there.
And Danny.
And Danny’s random blue-haired friend with the weird accent, Ronnie Akkard. He’d been along for the ride too for some bizarre reason. That still didn’t make much sense to her, but they wouldn’t have beaten Cassidy if he hadn’t been there.
Okay, so maybe the kidnapping in Terran wasn’t a good comparison, because this time it was just her and Barb. And Barb was hurt.
Maybe Jenny hadn’t faced anything like this before. So what? She’d make do. Meg always did. No matter what life threw at them, Meg always found a way to overcome it. No matter the challenge, no matter the danger, no matter how hurt she was—even when it made no sense for her to keep fighting—Meg never gave up.
So Jenny wouldn’t either.
“What are we doing here, Jenny?” Barb mumbled under her breath.
“We’re resting.” Jenny dusted the dirt and gravel off her burned hands. “Because you weight a lot more than you look.”
Barb glared at her, and Jenny smiled back.
“Not in a bad way,” Jenny said. “You’re all muscley. And I’m glad, because you pulled us out of a volcano. But it doesn’t make you any easier to carry. And—you’re a bit taller than me, if you hadn’t noticed.”
Barb leaned her head back against the rocks, pressing her hand into her bleeding side. “That’s why you should go on without me.”
“Nope.”
“Jenny.”
“Not happening.”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“Because Meg is my sister.” Jenny stood and leaned over, pulling Barb’s hand away from the wound so she could poke at it with her fingers.
“Fair point.” Barb hissed. “How bad is it?”
Jenny chewed her bottom lip as she stared at the ragged gash in Barb’s side. “Well, you’re right. Your spleen isn’t actually hanging out.”
“Wonderful.”
“It might be your gallbladder that I’m seeing.”
Barb lifted her head to flash an angry expression at her. “You aren’t helping.”
Jenny leaned back and ripped a piece of fabric off the hem of her ruined kurti. “Here,” she said, pressing it against the wound.
Barb snarled through clenched teeth.
“I know,” Jenny said. “I know it hurts, but we’ve got to get the bleeding stopped.”
Or else… Jenny left the rest of it unsaid. They had to get the bleeding stopped, or Barb would pass out. Or Jenny would have to leave her. Or Barb would die.
None of those options were okay.
Barb released a long, shaking breath. “Where are we going, Jenny?”
Jenny blinked at her. “Atama Village.” She rocked back on her bare heels and leaned on another rock so she could check the status of her aching feet. As suspected, they were raw and bloody. She didn’t have enough kurti left to wrap them, unless she wanted to run around the Centaur lands in nothing but her under things.
She wasn’t that desperate.
“That doesn’t mean anything to me.” Barb shut her eyes again. “I’m assuming it’s Josharon.”
“It’s a Harna village, in the Crescent Canyon.”
Barb sighed. “Good. Okay. And it’s close?”
Jenny paused.
Here was the risky part.
She could tell Barb the truth—that while Atama Village was indeed the closest village to Centaur Mount, it was by no means close. Not even relatively speaking. And since they were walking—on bare, bloody feet with significant injuries no less—getting to Atama Village would probably take several days.
Or, she could do what Velanna did: Tell Barb to trust her and leave out all the relevant details that might mean something to her.
Jenny pressed her lips together.
“Jenny?”
Honesty was always the best policy, but Barb had a tendency to overreact. Jenny noticed such things. And she was already a bit testy. Granted, she had a hole in her side. And while neither her gallbladder or her spleen had actually fallen out yet, it was probably just a matter of time, and that was enough to make even the most patient of people a bit grouchy. Let alone Barb.
“It’s not close at all, is it?”
Oh. Well. There was an option she hadn’t considered: that Barb would actually answer her own question. That was nice.
“It’s closer than Prism Castle.” Jenny bent to take Barb’s arm again.
Barb remained dead weight against the boulder. “You’ve got to go on without me, Jenny.”
“No, I don’t.” She pulled Barb’s arm around her shoulders anyway. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“You have a better chance of reaching the village on your own,” Barb said. “Without hauling me around.”
Jenny flashed another smile. “Barb, I know you just want me to go ahead without you because deep down inside you really want to march back up the volcano and kick Tiron in his ugly Centaur face.”
“What?”
“But I’m a good person. And I’m not going to let you do that. Because it’s just silly.”
Sputtering indignantly, Barb grunted as Jenny hauled her up.
“It’s for your own good, Barb.” Jenny shook her head as she pulled Barb down the mountainside.
Barb couldn’t string real words together for a while. Or, if she were using real words, they weren’t words Jenny recognized. And with Barb in a mood like this, Jenny figured she was better off not prying too deeply into what her older friend was saying.
They walked forever.
Hours and hours and hours.
Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth felt full of cotton. So dry. Her breath tasted like death too, so she made a note not to breathe on Barb.
Poor lady was suffering enough.
The side of the volcano tilted downward at an ever-decreasing angle, so on one had it made climbing down much easier since gravity was on their side. But on the other hand, it made descending much harder because gravity was also against them. One wrong step, and they’d both bounce down the rocks like tumbleweeds.
Jenny’s feet burned and ached with a dull throb. She only looked behind them once after she realized she was leaving bloody footprints on the dark rocks.
Overhead, the moon crept out from behind a bank of clouds and shone on the ragged rocky path before them. The lava tube had emptied out about halfway down the mountainside. Good thing too. Any higher up and climbing down together would have been impossible with the steep grades.
Stretching out in a unbroken line of rocks and gravel, the mountainside collided with level ground covered in a warm outer coating of pumice and obsidian. Of course, it might have been burning hot for all the feeling left in Jenny’s feet.
“What will we do at Atama Village?” Barb asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Get a messenger hawk,” Jenny said. “Send word to the castle.”
“I’m sure they already know an attack is coming,” Barb said.
“Yeah.” Jenny nodded. “But they don’t know we’re still alive. Tiron will tell them we’re dead. They need to know we’re not.” Jenny blinked back tears. “Meg needs to know that we’re not.”
They struggled together toward another outcropping of rocks, and Jenny lowered her down, the ache in her shoulders and back almost unbearable. Barb reached the highest boulder, and Jenny released her. She sank to the stones next to her, and they lay under the moonlight in silence.
“Jenny?”
Jenny shut her eyes. “I won’t leave you. Stop asking.”
“No, not that.” Barb scoffed. “What—what happened in Tiron’s throne room?”
Jenny glanced over at her and swallowed, her dry throat scratchy. “What do you remember?”
Barb stared at the stars above them, her eyes tracing the outline of the familiar constellations.
“Pain,” she said.
“And?”
A slight tremor shook her arms as she turned her face to stare at Jenny. “And what?”
“What else?”
“Who says there’s anything else?”
“I do.” Jenny held her gaze. “What did you see?”
Barb’s lower lip quivered. Or maybe it was a passing shadow. Because her voice was steady when she answered.
“A shadow.” Her green eyes glimmered in the dark. “It was like a living shadow. It wrapped all around me, and I couldn’t get away from it.”
Jenny nodded. “That’s what I saw too.” She laid her head down. “At least, that’s what I saw the second time. The first time, I saw Meg.”
“What?”
“I saw Meg,” Jenny said. “She was—angry at me. And she left me behind.” Jenny faced Barb again and set her jaw. “So I knew it wasn’t true.”
Barb held her gaze.
“What else did you see, Barb?”
Barb looked away. “I didn’t see anything.”
That was a lie.
Jenny stared at Barb’s upturned face. Did she push? Did she contradict?
“Barb?” She took a steadying breath.
Barb didn’t answer.
“Who is Lance?”
Barb’s eyes slid shut. Her lip was definitely quivering.
“How do you know that name?” Her voice sounded hollow and dull.
“You called out to him in Tiron’s throne room,” Jenny said. “I think—I think the shadow forces people to see what they’re afraid of.”
Barb made a sound like something between a scoff and a snort. “I’m not afraid of Lance Crawford.”
That was a lie too.
Jenny swallowed again and sat forward. “It doesn’t matter. I just—Barb, when Tiron was asking me questions, he wanted to know about a light.”
“What light?”
Jenny shrugged. “He thinks that Velanna has it. I think they mistook me for Meg because I was using her saber on the field, and he figured they could trade us for this light.”
Barb glanced to her. “Tiron has a shadow weapon. I guess it would make sense that there’s a light weapon that can stop it.”
“Okay, but Velanna hasn’t got it.”
“How do you know?”
“She’d have told us.” Jenny wrung her hands.
Barb didn’t know Velanna very well. She didn’t understand the well-concealed protective streak that drove Velanna to do everything she did. If she’d had a weapon capable of the kind of power Tiron’s shadow had, she wouldn’t have just hidden it away and pretended like it didn’t exist.
Velanna was better than that.
Jenny started to stand up, and her foot brushed something soft. She froze and looked down. At her feet, spreading like lacy carpet, the rocky surface of the ground was softened by thin brown layers of lichen. She knelt and fingered one of the thick fronds of the soft brown lichen.
“Barb,” Jenny whispered.
“What?”
She tore the leaf off and stood, holding it up to the moon. She smelled it, and its earthy scent mingled with the sharpness of something like mint brought tears of joy to her eyes.
“We might be saved,” Jenny mumbled.
She knelt again and began uprooting great patches of the lichen.
“What are you doing?” Barb groaned.
“It’s ka’i kinari,” Jenny said. “It’s a brown lichen the Josharons use to staunch bleeding.”
Yaasha had told her, ages ago, how the yodha warriors of old would use strips of ka’i kinari to close wounds and lower the risk of infection. It grew best in dry areas too, specifically on porous rocks.
Barb scowled. “You aren’t touching me with that.”
Jenny ignored her, shook the dirt and gravel off several of the long lacy strands of fungus and peeled up the side of Barb’s tunic.
“This may sting,” Jenny said.
She pressed the lichen into Barb’s side, and she snarled again, gripping the rock.
“We won’t make it to Atama Village tonight,” Jenny said, “but this will help us enough to get to the forest. And in the forest, we’ll be set.”
“Set?” Barb hissed. “Set how?”
Jenny laughed. “You’ll see.” As she worked, the arrowhead Yaasha had given her pressed against her chest inside her kurti. She’d almost forgotten about it until she’d realized what the lichen was. “We might survive this after all.”