"Bring one of your books," Hyara hissed as Galmak knelt at her side. "We're getting out now."
He was thankful his back was turned to the room and neither Var'kan nor his grandmother could see the startled look on his face. But he had to leave his questions; Var'kan was scraping his way over to prod them out the door with Jas'ka. Hyara rose a little creakily to her hooves and he saw that her eyes were blue and puffy with tears.
"Now, what's this about," he murmured once the door was safely shut behind them and Jas'ka was following at his usual several lazy paces.
She hesitated a few seconds, then said in a voice so low he could barely make it out, "You're convinced, as far as they're concerned. All it takes now is a knife in your chest. You know they won't even tell you when they're going to do it. You've never had a real choice, but now their last incentive to wait is gone. You have to be ready now, love, today."
He growled low, realizing she was probably right. Time was up and this was it. Could he do it? Was he ready? The vague plan he'd been mulling over for days felt suddenly very meager and sickly in his mind.
"Find a spot and read your book," she whispered almost inaudibly as they passed into the courtyard outside the building. "I'm going to get rid of Jas'ka. Don't follow. I won't be alone."
He caught the tiny smile, the gleam of restrained and fearful excitement in her eyes and his stomach twisted with terrible unease, but he did as she said and found a seat on a boulder a dozen or so yards from the doorway. Hyara hovered nearby, stretching her long legs and gazing around dispiritedly at the forest's noonday gloom. Preoccupied as he was with the appearance of reading his book, it took him a moment to realize exactly what she was doing and the result of it. He frowned ferociously at the page even as his eyes darted, under cover of his lashes, between his mate and the troll nearby watching them. Or watching her, rather. Jas'ka's eyes were all over her. Hyara looked oblivious to it, in fact looked utterly downtrodden and vulnerable. Clearly that was her aim, but Galmak had to close his eyes and count slowly to ten to keep the red from creeping into them and keep his hands off Jas'ka's throat.
"Be back in a minute," she finally sighed, loudly enough for the troll to hear, and trudged slowly toward a cluster of high, standing walls across the courtyard. Galmak gave a short nod, not looking up from his book, and summoned all his willpower to pretend not to notice when Jas'ka sauntered casually after her.
She could handle one troll by herself. She wouldn't be alone, she'd said anyway. Gink must be here somewhere. Oh gods, if anything happened he'd put the knife through his chest himself, but he had a decision to make and his attention had to be elsewhere. With a soft thump, he dropped the book to the stone at his side and, hesitantly at first, began winding into his control the cold, thrashing river of power. It was thunderous in his mind. More runes were gone today; for all he could tell, there might not be a single one left. Their one attempt was now or never. The hesitancy melted away with a hiss, the dam crashed down with a roar, and the Shadow flooded through him in a black torrent.
***
The trees were shedding sparse, dripping moisture on the stone of the ruins, turning the soft grey to a slick charcoal. The canopy's endless drizzle of light fell along with the droplets before it winked out, setting the moisture glimmering like a bombarding swarm of insects bent on diving into the forest floor. Hyara trudged across the wet stone with her head hung low and noticed none of the forest's surreal beauty. Her stomach jumped and fluttered as if the twins were already kicking her, but she knew that wasn't the case. That would have been a welcome sensation. This was not.
As soon as she rounded the wall, she knew Jas'ka would appear any second. She'd heard his slithering gait and could feel his wily, eager presence behind her. Quickly, she grabbed up a fist-sized chunk of stone and flattened herself into the crook of a curved wall. Any second.
But more than a few seconds passed and when she stretched her senses outward, she couldn't feel the troll anymore. Shit. He must have–
With a whisper of air, he materialized at her side and a dagger flashed to her throat, stopping just short of drawing blood. She swallowed involuntarily against the pressure and then felt the sting of the metal.
"Yah sly, like ole Jas'ka," the troll whispered caressingly, his lips pressed close to her ear, and let the dagger trail lightly down her front until it bit the neckline of her linen shirt. There was barely a sound as the blade sliced very slowly through the threads. "Drop yah rock now, girly. Ah wouldn' wan' mah knife ta slip an' cut dat soft skin."
His other hand closed around the base of her tail and he yanked her backward against his body. With a wild heave, Hyara brought the rock flying upward toward his face. Jas'ka ducked nimbly but in those few seconds the knife wavered. She grabbed his wrist and twisted even as his other hand caught her hand with the stone and squeezed brutally, forcing her fingers open and the heavy stone to the ground with a sharp crack. She shifted her weight, kicked hard, and connected with a thigh. The troll grunted in pain, but rather than weaken him it seemed to infuriate him. He hurled her hard against the wall and for a few seconds her head rung when a horn dashed against stone.
Breathing hard and trying to regain her balance while also holding her belly protectively, she slid away from him along the wall until he grabbed her again and pressed the icy line of the knife blade against her chest. He forced his face close, shoving her backward, and his black eyes blazed with a horrible look she'd seen before in a different set of eyes.
"Yah life's not important ta dem," he spat in her face. "Ah kill yah when Ah'm done an' dey won' care, yah tailed bitch. How 'bout Ah kill yah whelps now if yah don' cooperate?"
"Please," she wheezed. "Just don't hurt them. I won't even say anything to anyone."
"Yah makin' it too easy ta want ta kill yah," Jas'ka hissed back and let the knife point dig into the hollow at the base of her neck.
She shook her head in terror and a low moan escaped her. Months ago, this close-quarters fight against a skilled rogue would have been a deadly challenge. Now she only wanted it to end somehow, in whatever way would keep her babies safe. Light help her, she could see now that she'd badly misgauged, her plans had been flawed, she'd still been thinking as if she had only herself to lose, and despite all evidence to the contrary she'd banked on the troll's inability to harm two innocents. She hadn't believed he could do it, but his threats spoke otherwise. Now survival with minimal risk was paramount and that might mean losing. Hyara cowered against the wall with her eyes locked on the wicked blade that hovered near her heart. Oh Light, please. I'll accept anything but my babies dying. And especially not here, please, not in this place.
The troll snicked the blade suddenly downward and let it finish the work he'd begun moments ago on her shirt. The low swell of her belly gleamed pale blue in the watery light and she stared down at it, feeling the beginnings of numbness in her mind. The blade paused, hovering at her midsection, and she shivered and shut her eyes as he pressed it flat and cold against her.
"Down," the troll whispered harshly and wrapped his fingers around her neck. His hand weighed on her like an anvil and she slid slowly down the wall to the ground.
***
By the time Jas'ka had disappeared around a high wall after Hyara, Galmak had the Shadow roaring greedily inward to him. It was a flood tide that threatened to carry him away if he didn't center his attention with the strictest discipline on what he hoped to accomplish, and so he could spare almost no thought for what he was feeling from his mate across the ruins. She had Gink. She would have nothing, not even her own life, if he failed this now.
And so he shut her out as best he could and concentrated. Torrid blackness shifted and swirled in his mind and he struggled to direct it into the energy he needed. He needed power. He needed something massive, something unavoidable and inevitable as the sunrise. Little knowing if he could even achieve such a thing, Galmak strained to reach for every ounce of power he could grasp. The thought crossed his mind that the effort might well drive him mad, much like the Legion's warlocks Var'kan and Teyagah had once known, reaching for a power they didn't understand and couldn't hope to contain.
The same tiny corner of his mind that was still paying attention to Hyara now felt Palla lope up and stop at his side. He didn't acknowledge her, even as she sat at his feet to guard him; he couldn't, or he would risk spectacularly losing everything he'd managed to scrape into his grasp. Gods, how long could he hold this flood and how long before they noticed what he was doing? It seemed the entire forest must be seething and boiling with the mad energy he'd tapped into. His mind threatened to wash away under the pressure. He knew he was holding on by a mere thread and if anything at all tipped the balance…
He had to release it. He had to do something with it. Sweat trickled down his face without even attracting his attention. He'd made a fast grab for power, afraid his time would run out, and now he didn't have a clear idea of how he needed to direct it. He couldn't see his targets. Should he walk into the building, open the door, face them and let the Shadow fly? Going inside the back room was out of the question, but unless he could see them… Galmak's mouth formed the words of a lurid curse without conscious direction from his brain.
And then in the space of one uttered syllable, his problems grew. It began with a tugging pressure from a different direction, so small that at first he didn't recognize it in the torrent straining against him, but mounting steadily until he realized with alarm that this was something new. The slight tug became the iron arm of a machine, ripping steadily and inexorably at his grasp on the Shadow. Never think your spells are entirely your own, Var'kan had cautioned. This thing he'd started without a clear direction, without true understanding, the undead was now going to take from him. With panic building, he summoned more strength than he knew he had and managed, just barely for the moment, to counter that outside force.
He groaned aloud, although he didn't hear it. It would be only a matter of time before Var'kan managed to wrest everything away, and then what? Aside from the obvious, that their one chance of escape would be gone forever, what other consequences would they face for his defiance? Death for me, and then undeath. And final, complete death for Hyara and the twins, followed by entrapment in these ruins forever.
No, not here forever, a cruel little voice told him. Teyagah will have her slave back at last.