Eight || Hunters
Mint took point and led the way on the approach to the entrance of the atelier. There was a rather conspicuous incongruity to the rest of the pyramid, a rectangular hallway protruding toward them, at the end of which a door would inevitably stand.
"Now we get to hope it's not locked," Mint said cheerily. "That'd be great fun, trying to find a key down here." Having said it, her mind suddenly went elsewhere, and she looked over her shoulder to Rue. "So how'd you end up finding me, anyway?"
"Something released a lot of magic," he said. "I think you got sent one way and I went another. They both met here."
"Is that what happened?" Mint asked. "I was just walking along and suddenly I was elsewhere."
"Far as I can tell," Rue said. "You didn't feel it?"
"No." She paused, then stopped and turned to face him. "How did you?"
He looked at her quizzically, but didn't stop walking, slipping right past her and heading toward the door. "It was a pretty substantial bit of magic," he said. "Raw, though. Unwoven. Something must've broken."
"That's not what I asked," she said sharply. She rotated to keep facing him, but once he had gotten a few feet ahead of her she leapt after him and caught him by the shoulder. He stopped, but didn't face her. "I asked how you saw it. I didn't see anything."
"You weren't actively looking though, right?"
Her brow furrowed. "Granted. But I imagine you weren't looking for magic."
"No. But it wasn't insubstantial. I just... felt it."
She let go of his shoulder, but slid up directly alongside him, trying to lean over to look him in the eye. He studiously avoided acknowledging her. "You're not a mage," she said. "You don't do magic. Right?"
"Right."
"Mostly it's only people who've been trained in magic that can see spells like that. Err... feel them." She narrowed her gaze. "I remember Klaus gave you that seal key to have a look at before you handed it to me. You were feeling for magic."
"Also right."
"But you're not trained for it."
He shrugged again.
"Where did you say you were from?" Mint asked.
But before the last of the sentence had left her lips, Rue had come to an abrupt stop. He was staring ahead, silent, but visibly tense. Mint followed his gaze and saw that he was staring at the door of the atelier. There was nothing remarkable about it, as far as magician workshop's went; it was overly elaborate as any of them, stuffed with runic markings and personal identifiers and lots of swirly lines that had been carved into the design for the sake of swirly lines. Nothing unusual about that.
"What?" she said.
"Somebody's here."
Mint felt a little cold, but kept her voice under control. "What?"
He started to walk again, a quick-stepping pace, and Mint immediately followed. Then she jolted into a run and cut in front of him, stopping a few feet shy of the door herself.
It was open.
It wasn't much, but the door clearly should have been flush with the walls; the design snaked out and around, crept into the surrounding fixtures, radiated around the sides. It was old and worn and eroded, but the intent was obvious– as was the fact that the door had been slid into the wall and badly closed behind, leaving a notable slice of darkness between the edge of the door and the walls.
Mint reached out and pushed the edges of her fingers against the door, intending at first to slide it open. She stopped dead, however, as a rush of magic flooded past her. Old magic, stale, frayed: an old spell recently broken, still in the process of dying.
"This was supposed to be locked," she said. "Somebody came through and broke it."
Rue came up next to her and pressed his hand against the door. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating. "This is it," he said. He looked up and backed away. "Same magic that dragged us in here."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
Mint considered the implication. If he was right – and she really had no reason to believe he was lying to her – then he had probably felt the release of all the gathered magic. The seal was old, and judging by its remains it had been a powerful spell. Breaking it would have released a massive amount of untamed magic; enough, perhaps to disrupt the spell Elroy had woven into his labyrinth, the spell the two of them had been standing in the middle of when the magic was released.
That was a reasonable guess as to how they had ended up from the entrance of the labyrinth to somewhere in the middle of it. Probably saved them some aggravation trying to navigate it, actually.
Of course, that was also going to make getting back out a right pain in the ass.
Later, she told herself.
"All right," she said, lowering her voice. "So whatever broke the seal did it while we were here. Not long ago."
"Agreed."
"So they're still here."
Rue did not respond immediately. Instead, he sidled next to Mint, got his grip on the edge of the door, and began to pull to the side, forcing it open. It started to slide, and once there was a little more room Mint put her back into it, shoving along while he pulled. The door growled in protest, but fortunately it was a fairly quiet noise, and after a few seconds of struggle they had the door mostly open.
Rue, panting, turned to face Mint.
"It's pretty likely," he said breathlessly.
She forced her own breathing back to normal, bit back her panting, and nodded. "How d'you– d'you figure somebody got in here before we did? You think they know what's down here?"
"Dunno. We'll just have to– have to see."
But neither of them moved immediately. They both stared into the dark opening as though expecting something to come raging out at them, but everything remained silent. Then, slowly, Mint raised a ring in front of her face, casting warm light before her, and started the trip.
There was a short hall, stonework and old chipped paint, but it wasn't long before the hall suddenly opened up. She faltered slightly when the stifling atmosphere suddenly gave way to so much more space, but caught herself and continued to walk forward. Water splashed up against her shield, murky and thick even in her projected light. She wondered briefly if the water had been sitting stagnant in the pyramid all these years, or only just entered when the door was opened. She suspected the latter; if it had been rotting inside the atelier all this time, the stone floor beneath her would have been slick with decay.
She motioned behind her, and a few seconds later – at her beckoning or not – Rue stepped into the room behind her, holding the lantern close to him to conceal some of its light.
Mint looked around. A hunk of crystal hung overhead, long arms spearing downward; chances were that had once been the central source of light, back when the atelier had needed it. The walls all sloped upward, disappearing somewhere above the crystal lamp, where they doubtless came together to form the tip of the pyramid. On their level there were promises of other rooms, door stationed in each corner of the atelier, and about ten feet above them was a walkway that suggested there was a second floor. No indication of anything higher than that, although at that point the pyramid's compression would have made fitting more rooms rather difficult.
"I don't hear anything," Rue said. "You think they left?"
"If they did, they better not have taken anything good." She nodded to one of the doors. "Split up. See if there's anything of value over there. I'll take these doors."
He nodded, and they went off their separate ways, Rue checking the doors to the right while Mint opened the ones to the left.
The first room she tried was an instant disappointment; water flooded into it, same as the rest of the atelier, causing the few bits of ancient furniture that remained inside – a simple stool, a simple chair, both of them unusually small – to float about level with her waist. There was a desk, a counter, cabinets beneath it– already opened, already ransacked, and if there had been any evidence of what had been inside or if anything had actually be there to steal, it had been flooded out with the tide.
Still, she performed a sweet of the room, looking in the corners, under the table, feeling around for any old magic that might be concealing something juicy. She came up with nothing.
She marched back out of the room, pausing at the door to have a look outside for any signs of movement. Seeing nothing, she ducked to the side and ran for the other door, shoving it open.
Unfortunately, the second room was just as empty as the first; a few useless bits of debris bobbing sadly on the water, empty counters, empty cabinets. Although maybe it was for the best; if there were anything left in here – paper products especially – the water would have destroyed them completely.
Small comfort to her, though. For all the trouble getting down to this place – for Elroy's disorienting security spells, for the tight spell he had wound on the door to his workshop – she had been expecting to see more stuff. It didn't even need to be particularly expensive or even interesting, but she had been hoping for more than crumbling chairs and tables.
She left the room, irate, but was still careful to do a quick scan outside the door and up on the balcony above before stepping fully into the foyer again. She shot a glance around, making her way slowly across the open space.
Then, a light. She looked up, across the room, and saw Rue leaning out of one of the doors, inching his lantern around the side. His gaze fell on Mint, and he waved her over. She jogged lightly to the door, and he pushed it all the way open, letting her slide in before it shut quietly behind them.
"You find something?" she asked.
But a look around the room and it became apparent she needn't have asked.
The room Rue had found was vastly different from the ones Mint had been in. It was a fair bit larger but much less open, populated as it was by rows of long stone tables, all of them solidly attached to the floor, the water level coming up a few inches shy of covering the tops. Shelves populated the walls, and strange objects populated the shelves. Mint stepped toward the nearest shelf and cast light over the objects, finding rows upon rows of metal objects: gears, connector rods, ball pivots. She was also assured again that the water damage was recent; all of the metal implements were in excellent health, beneath the heavy layer of dust.
"It's some kind of workshop," Rue said. "A physical one. That's not what got me, though. Over here."
He moved past her and toward a table further back in the room, where the shadows ran deep and their combined light hadn't quite reached. As he moved toward it, though, Mint saw the figure appear, its shape forming like welling liquid as Rue's lantern light washed over it. From where she was standing, it looked like a clump of dark, earth-tone fabrics thrown in a heap on the table. As she approached, the shape tried to coalesce in her mind, but she was having a hard time making out any details until she was right up next to it and she suddenly recognized that what she had taken for a bit of cloth draped over the table's edge was actually an arm.
She bit back a yelp of surprise and stared at it, temporarily stricken. Rue approached from the other side and reached out.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"It's not real," he said. "Look."
He took it by the shoulder and pulled, lifting the thing onto its side. Mint couldn't help but grimace; it certainly looked like a poorly-wrapped corpse to her.
But on examination she realized he was right. It was a humanoid construct – two arms, two legs, a torso, a head – but it was clearly not human, merely shaped to resemble one. The whole body was tightly bound in thick brown cloth and leather straps, but when she reached out to touch it, it felt soft and malleable, like it was stuffed. The place where the head should have been was the same, just a stuffed bulb wrapped tight to retain its shape, wearing a strange metal visor roughly where the eyes would be. Rue made his point again by taking the thing's wrist and pulling it, making the elbow move. The stuffing bunched up unnaturally, and the movement was accompanied by a muffled mechanical clicking. When he laid it back down on the slab, the arm remained in the same position.
"I think it's some kind of mechanical doll," he said.
Mint prodded it again, this time harder, half expecting it to suddenly leap to life. It remained mercifully inert. "Why would anybody make something like this?" she asked.
"Couldn't say. I don't think he finished, though." He pulled back on a loose length of cloth – almost a cape – that lay across the creature, revealing a hollow carved into the thing's back. There were a few loose tubes protruding from the sides, and it had clearly been built to house something else. "I'd guess the power source would go in here."
She nodded and looked back up, past Rue and to the shelves behind him. They were not overflowing with mechanical goods. That side of the room seemed much more... organic.
"What's behind you?" she asked slowly.
Rue looked over his shoulder. "Body parts," he said. "Um, for the dolls, I mean."
"Plural?"
He pointed to the nearest corner, and there it was, sitting nonchalantly on a tall stone platform, its back propped up against the wall while its feet rose and fell lazily, buoyed by the water. Its head was slumped against its chest, and its hands were folded delicately into its lap. If she hadn't known better – that is, not known that the thing was inanimate and then also not known it was terrifying – she could almost imagine it taking a nap.
"That's awesome," Mint said. "Just really pleasant, this whole place is. Did you happen to find anything that isn't horrifying while you were in here?"
"Maybe."
He flipped his rucksack to face forward and zipped open the top. He reached in, grasped something, and pulled it out, showing it to Mint. It was cube, a bit larger than his palm, golden in color and engraved with strange geometric patterns. She took it from his hand, a bit awkwardly at first – it was heavier than it looked – and twisted around so she could see it from all angles.
"Hmm," she said. "What is this?"
"I think it's valuable, whatever it is," Rue said. "The doll was holding it."
"Holding."
"I mean– sorry, it wasn't holding it. It didn't have a grip or anything. It was just laying in its lap, between its hands. Posed, I guess."
"Staged," Mint said.
"Maybe."
She looked at the cube again, closed her eyes, poked at it mentally. There was magic there, she could almost feel it, but the source of energy was stirring inside the cube and she could actually reach through to feel it. The cube itself was dampening magic, keeping whatever was inside from getting out– and keeping Mint's investigation from getting in.
When she looked up again, she was smiling.
"This is definitely worthwhile," she said. She hesitated, contemplated, and then decided to hand the box back to Rue. He accepted it and stowed it in his rucksack. "That the only thing in this room?"
He gestured to the doll lying on the table. "Unless you want to take one of these with us!" he said.
His voice was so perfectly calm and flat that she had no idea if he was joking.
"I don't think they'll travel well," she said.
"Probably not."
They headed back toward the door.
"Second floor, then?" Mint asked.
"You didn't find anything in the other rooms?"
"Not a thing."
Rue reached the door first and pressed his hand against it, gently sliding it open just enough to see through. He took a peek outside, then fully opened the door and walked, with Mint following just behind him. She turned and slid it back shut, but when she moved away from it again she almost rammed into Rue.
"What is it?" she snarled.
"Company," he said quietly. Mint leaned around him to see.
A man was standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, nonchalant as anything as he watched them, his head tilted slightly to the side, his mouth crooked into a half-smile. His features were angular, his built athletic, but he was only a couple of inches taller than Mint and his limited height mitigated any of the intimidation he might have built up otherwise. He was slightly tanned and wearing decent clothes, although his pants and boots and the bottom of his long white coat were thoroughly soaked through. The edge of his silhouette was slightly aglow and still a little indistinct; sure signs of short-range teleportation.
"Thought I heard something," he said genially. "You kids seem a little lost."
Mint stepped around Rue and walked forward, waving her ring in his direction. It was accusatory and threatening, but it was also so she could cast a little more light on him. She was looking to see if they had ever met before, if she'd ever even seeing him in passing, if she'd ever heard of a description of the guy.
Absolutely nothing.
"Who the hell are you?" she asked.
He shook his head, clicked his tongue. "Tut, tut. That's not language a lady should be using."
"Maybe not," Rue said, "but it's a decent question. Who are you?"
He pressed a hand against his chest and made a shallow bow. "Duke," he said. "Just a humble treasure hunter." He rose upright again, his gaze flicking between the two of them. "And I was just coming down here to have a look at the rooms."
"Have fun," Rue said. "There's nothing worthwhile."
Duke smiled, but his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Maybe not anymore," he said, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd like to have a look at anything you might have picked up. We didn't come all this way just for the dregs upstairs."
"Dregs?" Rue repeated.
"We?" Mint repeated.
"Duke!" A separate voice suddenly calling from somewhere above them, echoing against the stonework before being absorbed by the water. At the sound, Mint felt a strange little thrum in her chest, although she could not figure out quite why. She looked up to the balcony just as the drumming of footsteps filtered out to them, and saw somebody else emerge, leaning over the wall around the balcony, lit up by the torch they were holding. A woman this time, probably in her thirties, with platinum blond hair and a predilection toward dark and well-tailored clothes. Mint found herself staring.
"Oh," she said finally. "Oh, no way..."
The woman's attention was immediately turned toward the man. "Duke," she repeated. "You're doing an awful lot of talking."
"Just making pleasant conversation, milady," he said, nodding to Rue and Mint. "We have company."
The woman's gaze – steely, gray – followed Duke's, and she settled on the two again. Mint watched right back. Then she saw it; the spark of recognition, the curling of the lip.
"Of course," she growled. "You would be here, wouldn't you?"
Rue shot a glance at Mint, then up to the woman. "You're... acquainted...?" he asked tentatively.
"Milady, you know her?" Duke asked.
The woman leaned casually on the side of the wall, shifting the torch to her other hand and waving it out into the air, casting the gathering on the first floor in a warm orange light. "Oh yeah," she said. "Didn't I ever tell you that story?"
"I don't believe so."
"Oh, it's a good one. That piece of work down there," and she pointed, "is little Princess Mint. 'Bout a year ago, I was– where are you going?"
Mint had been going toward the exit, gently tugging Rue along by the arm behind her while he was briefly paralyzed by confusion. When the woman called her out, she stopped and looked up to her.
"You don't need me here while you're telling your stupid story," she called. "We were just leaving."
"Mint," Rue said slowly. "What is happening?"
Mint dropped her voice and spoke quickly. "The old crone up top there is Belle. We're... acquainted. And that guy is apparently Duke–"
"I figured out that part."
"–but he's a recent addition. At least, he wasn't around when we ran into each other before."
"Sorry to interrupt your little talks," Belle called, "but you seem to be leaving rather soon and I'm afraid we're not done yet. Duke, get the door."
"Yes, milady."
He side-stepped and vanished, reappearing a heartbeat later standing just in front of Mint, bodily blocking the way to the entrance. Mint raised the dual rings in front of her, pressing them together and generating a cloud of pale magic between them.
"Get out of the way," she said.
In response, Duke leaned against the wall. Mint gritted her teeth and drew one arm back, forming a long line of crackling energy between the two rings, preparing to fire off a blast of magic when the water behind them exploded.
The spray rebounded off her shield, but the sound and the impact were enough to turn her attention. She cut off her working spell and spun around to see Belle standing on the balcony, a ball of light in her free hand, winding up to hurl another blast of magic down at them.
"I know you've found something!" she yelled. "Hand it over!"
"Not likely!"
"Duke!"
At that, Mint was suddenly smashed bodily from behind. She slammed into the ground shoulder-first, her bubble-shield wavering, and flipped onto her back in time to see Duke flicker and vanish. Confused, she flipped herself back to her feet and saw him still standing by the doorway, not quite so casual. And another him vaulting in Rue's direction.
"What the–"
Another pillar of water erupted alongside her, the force of it bowling her over and sending her sprawling against the ground again, slightly disoriented. Fine cracks were opening in her shield as the spell lightly un-wove itself, sending rivulets of water dribbling down the interior of the bubble. She considered closing the gaps, but at that moment Belle launched herself off the balcony and onto the ground floor. She used the water level to break her fall, but killed her torch-light in the process.
Which instantly made her much more difficult to see.
Not hear, though. Belle was charging through the water as best she could, splashing loudly through the water, and Mint twisted herself around and brought the rings in front of her, burning hot white between them. She yanked one arm back, dragging the light into a solid, blunt-edged line, and aimed out into the darkness where she heard Belle approaching. She waited one second, two, and as soon as her face appeared Mint angled slightly down and released her hold, launching the magic forward as though releasing the string of a bow.
The light arrow crashed into Belle's chest and sent her backward. Mint heard the splash and launched herself to her feet, running to where she had struck Belle. The woman was thrashing her way back to her feet, soaked and coughing, and Mint took the opportunity to dispense with fancy tactics and just brain Belle with her rings.
Belle was too fast; she lashed her arm out, caught Mint's, and yanked down hard. She got one leg into Mint's bubble shield and pulled forward, slamming her knee just below Mint's ribs. Instantly the air left her lungs and Mint staggered, gasping for breath, her eyes watering. Belle was already moving again, but the water was dragging her back and it barely gave Mint an opportunity to recover enough to throw herself to the side of an oncoming burst of flame.
Then she saw it.
By the light of the fire she saw something glint golden on Belle's makeshift belt, a thin circlet of metal that was far fancier than it had any right to be. She saw it only for an instant, before the flames were extinguished against the water and Belle had pivoted so the object was out of sight, but Mint suddenly had a new goal.
She shot a glance over her shoulder. Rue was holding off Duke – or the shadow-Duke, alter-Duke, illusion-Duke, whatever was going on over there – but only just. Whatever not-quite-real Duke he was fighting was slicing through the water like it wasn't even there, although his fists plainly were as he was battering at Rue with a long and swift series of punches. Much to Rue's credit, he was doing an admirable job between his own footwork and rather clumsy swordplay keeping Duke at bay, but it was clear that he couldn't keep this up much longer. Nor, she hated to admit it, could Mint; that blow to the solar plexus was making it hard to get a full breath of air, and her limbs were a little shaky for it, and her grip on the bubble shields was rapidly fraying.
She had to act immediately, or not at all.
Belle was creating another handful of guttering light, stepping back and away from Mint to give herself more space. But that put Mint at an advantage; she might have been winded and hurting, but she wasn't fighting against water density to move.
So she moved.
She launched herself forward, ignoring the powerful stitch forming in her chest, and shoved both rings into one hand, using her other hand to drag the light of them. Their energy died off, and she clasped their burning gold in one hand, closed up between her fingers. For a few seconds, the only light she could see by was what Belle was generating in her hand– which gave me a nice, easy place to aim for.
She dove and brought her hand up in an arc. She was too low to bunch Belle in the face – what a pity – but that had never been her intention. Instead, she closed her eyes and opened her hand.
The captured light erupted outward in a blinding flare; she saw it even behind tightly shut eyelids. Belle cried out and abandoned her own spell, bringing both hands to her face to shield her eyes. Mint touched down on the ground, crouching, and then sprang forward and snatched at the item hanging from Belle's side.
She twisted in the air, rolled over her back, leapt onto her feet, and came to a screeching halt. She wheeled around, waving the object in the air, and shouted, "I got a thing! We're out!"
Rue seemed to have been waiting for the word. He ducked to the side of Duke's next attack and rose up behind, jamming his elbow into not-Duke's neck. The not-Duke fell face-first into the water and shimmered into nothing. Real Duke, still standing in the doorway, looked up.
"You don't think you're leaving that easily?" he asked.
Mint shoved her prize onto her belt and hurled one of her rings his way. He ducked it easily and shot her an almost indignant look before turning his attention to Rue. Rue had just arrived at the edge of the door and was already swinging his sword down to Duke's midsection, but the man was dreadfully fast and had a surprisingly long reach. He stopped Rue's wrist with his own arm, and brought up his other hand to go for a solid uppercut, at which point Mint snatched at a fine thread of magic in the air and flicked her wrist.
The wring, tied to the other end of the magic thread, responded immediately, changing trajectory instantly and flying back through the air right along the path it had traveled down, which at that moment was newly occupied by the back of Duke's head. The solid metal disk cracked against his skull and sent him staggering forward. Rue finished the job by roughly shoving him aside, sending him toppling into the water.
"Go!" Mint shouted, and Rue ducked into the passage. Mint wheeled around to see Belle storming toward her, still squinting but now surrounded by a dancing ring of flame. Mint brought her rings together, concentrated, and slashed them against each other, dragging one up into the air. The water in front of the passageway decided to follow, a curtain of water rising up to block the passage just as Belle ordered her flames forward. They crashed against the water curtain, exploding into a cloud of steam, and Mint decided that was good enough for the moment. She staggered around and charged back for the door.
She burst through the other side, and as soon as she was out Rue was shoving the stone door shut. Once he had it closed, he turned to Mint, panting hard, and stepped away.
"That won't hold them long," he said, finally taking the opportunity to shove the gladius back in its sheath and plucking the lantern back up from where he had put it down beneath the water; she found herself vaguely impressed that he had managed to hold on to it. "We have to get out of here." Then his eyes flickered down to her waist. "What's that?"
She pulled it free to show it to him. "Looks like a tiara," she said. "Belle had it. I figured if she wanted it, it must be worth something." She twisted in the light, let the glow reflect off its sides, studied it. There was magic in there, thrumming under her fingers, although the energy was tangled in a way she had never seen before.
"Was that everything?"
"Everything I saw," Mint said. "We'll have to worry about anything else later." She hooked it back on her belt. As she did, there was a thump from behind, of somebody slamming into the stone door, and they exchanged a quick glance.
"We're gone," she said, and Rue did not dare object.
They ran, Mint leading the way this time, straight forward. She was heading back for the way she had come in originally. It was a slippery slope and might be hard to scale properly, but she didn't have time to work out where Rue had come in and certainly didn't have time to work out where Belle and Duke had come in.
As they ran, something caught her eye. She slowed. She stopped. She turned, and Rue came to a stop next to her, still breathing hard.
"What is it?" he asked.
She raised a ring and re-infused it with light, casing another circle of gold around them. They were at the pillar posted in front of the atelier, the one that had been adorned by the bone dragon's statue.
Had been.
Mint whispered, "Oh crap."
They both looked up, toward the atelier. Mint flashed the light from her ring and illuminated the room.
As it turned out, the sound they had heard – something heavy and solid slamming against stone – had not been from inside the atelier.
The bone dragon was sitting four-legged on top of the atelier entrance, its head angled down to watch them, claws digging into the walls around the door, long tail hanging over the side of the protruding entryway, dangling lazily as the tip skimmed the surface of the water, its hollow eye sockets turned upon them. It opened its mouth and released a long, rattling hiss, wing stumps on its back unfurling slightly. They burned a soft and strangely inviting orange.
"Really?" Mint demanded of nobody. "Really?"
Really.
The dragon's back was suddenly alight with energy, and with a terrible shriek it launched off the atelier, flames at its back propelling it forward in some mockery of flight. It soared clean over them and crashed in an explosion of water spray in front of them, dragging its claws along the drenched ground to come to a stop. It twisted its long neck around to face them again, opening its jaws. Fire was building in the back of its skull, igniting its jaws and eye sockets with a dangerous red.
Then the jaws opened wide, and it unleashed a bust of flame. Rue and Mint jumped out of the way, ending up on opposite sides of the creature, the fire impacting the spot around where they had been standing, guttering against the empty air for a brief moment before the water rushed in to field the void. It sniffed at the air, exhaled a burst of steam, and slowly turned to face Mint.
What luck.
She took a step back, and the bone dragon stepped forward. It covered a lot more ground in one movement than she did. But now that she saw it, she realized that it wasn't aiming for her, not quite; its head was tilted to the side and down, black sockets of its eyes focused on the tiara. No doubt the dragon wanted it back.
At least that proved it was something worth taking.
She continued to backpedal as the dragon bore down on her, looming ever closer, the flames in its mouth burning with increasing intensity as the magic regenerated. She tried to aim for it, tried to anticipate, brought he rings up in front of her and charged them with energy, looked for the perfect moment–
There was a sound, metal on stone, and the dragon whipped around. Behind it, Rue was pulling away, shaking his arm and hissing in pain, the blade of the gladius still vibrating from the impact.
"Didn't work," he growled.
Except, for Mint, it had.
She pulled the rings sharply apart again, and the water beneath the dragon suddenly swelled and erupted upward in a tight geyser that struck it just beneath the chin and smashed into the core of fire energy in its throat. The dragon shrilled and reared back, plumes of steam spiraling up out of its eyes, and Mint ducked beneath it and back over to Rue.
"Now!" she yelled.
He shoved the sword away. "On it."
Together, they charged for the opening. They were quick about it, only taking as long as they strictly needed to recover before they took off again. Unfortunately, the dragon was faster.
It lunged, the fire at its back still roaring strong, and its foreclaws hit Mint, smashing her into the ground with such force she blacked out for a split second. It was too long; when she came to she realized immediately her hold on the bubble shields was gone and she had just enough time to suck in half a breath of air before the water crashed down over her and the dragon now had her pinned below the surface, one claw keeping her upper body pressed to the ground while the other slashed at her waist.
She kept her eyes shut tight, tried not to struggle. Don't waste air, she didn't have enough to waste and she didn't have a good enough plan that she could risk. Just had to wait, just had to hope–
The dragon's weight lifted off of her. Instantly she kicked off and shot back to the surface of the water, breaking through and taking in a deep gulp of air. She thrashed in the water, desperate to swim to the exit but making no headway. She had to calm down, but her heart was hammering too fast and her head felt kind of fuzzy and suddenly something grabbed her arm and she tried striking at it with ring and she hit something that had more give than the dragon did and suddenly she was yanked to her feet and found herself staring into dark hazel eyes.
"That really hurt," Rue said.
"I was drowning," she growled.
He released his grip on her – only one arm, she noticed, he had the one she had struck tucked up against his chest – and backed away from her, giving her room to breathe. "Sorry," he said quickly. "We have to leave. Now."
Instinctively her hand flew to her side, and she realized there was an empty space where previously there had not been. "The tiara!" she shouted. "It got the tiara!"
She turned, but Rue caught her arm before she had managed to move. She whirled, shooting him a venomous glance, but his expression was solid and stern and something about it made her take pause. "We are not fighting that thing," he said flatly. "We can't touch it."
"You can't touch it," she said, yanking her hand from his grip. She turned to face it, raised her rings, and tried to think of the ideal spell. The water had only worked for a moment; now that she could see it again, its back thrusters were burning bright and the flames in its mouth had returned, hot as ever.
It was also not looking at her.
Its attention was back toward the atelier. Two figures were making their way across the room; Duke was shrouded in darkness, she could only see the promise of his shadow, but Belle was swathed in light and hurling small bursts of magic at the creature. It whirled to face them, the bursts of magic striking it directly in the face. It swiped its claw over its head as though it were wiping away water and hurled itself at the treasure hunters.
Mint let her hands drop.
"I think I see your point," she said.
"Let them deal with it," Rue said.
She gritted her teeth. "The tiara–"
"We'll worry about it later," he said briskly. "We have the cube. And the dragon hasn't noticed that we have the cube, and I say we don't let that go to waste. Come on."
She knew he was right. She hated it – hated to admit defeat – but she was sore and tired and rapidly running out of steam, and looking over Rue – nursing his arm, breathing hard, his whole frame shivering – she realized that even if his weapon wasn't useless against the dragon, he really couldn't keep going. Maybe later – once they were rested, once they'd had a chance to prepare themselves – they could dive back into the mines and deal with this thing properly, win back the tiara. But not now.
She shot one more glance to the dragon and saw it gleefully hurl Duke through the air. Another of Belle's attacks lit up the room and struck the dragon's side, but it shrugged off the magic as easily as it had the first time and crashed through the water, unleashing a gout of flames in her direction.
Maybe they didn't have to fight, though. Maybe she could sneak up while it was preoccupied, snag the tiara, get out before it noticed...
An errant swipe of its tail cracked into the pillar it had been standing on and reduced half of it to dust, and she decided arguing would accomplish nothing. She turned and nodded, and Rue dove, swimming the rest of the way to the tunnel. Not a second later Mint followed his lead.
They made it to the tunnel, dragged themselves out of the water. Haste was of the essence – the sounds of battle raging behind them spurred them forward – but they still moved with utmost care. Not exactly fast going, but when the alternative was falling back into the water pit and being eaten by a dragon statue, it was far preferable.
Eventually, the sounds of conflict became quieter, and then stopped following them altogether. Eventually, they reached the apex of the tunnel. Mint had to brace herself, leaning forward on her knees, gasping for air. Rue staggered forward a few more paces before giving up, leaning against the tunnel wall.
They both waited, panting and gasping, dripping wet, but after a few minutes Rue shoved himself forward, staggering down the tunnel. Mint looked up, almost called after him, failed to find the energy to form words, waited again. She could feel herself relaxing a little more, and as she did the pain was starting to come on, renewed and sharp. If she kept moving she would be able to ignore it until they got back to town. At least until they were out of the tunnels.
She swallowed her next breath, forced herself upright, and followed.