amy. .9: No promises on adorable little Alice. you know I am a lovely whump writer. And poor Steve just utterly traumatized! You're assumptions will be answered here!
discordchick: hahahaha! I love that line too! I actually never put that together either! So I love that you pointed it out! I do love little Alice. There was an absolute war over what to name her but I'm quite happy with the end result. No love story as yet (yet...right? yet!) as for Clint...
khaitosfren: He's just so adorable! I just love Thor and kids.
JRBarton: :D!
Fury-Natalia: Daw, I couldn't let her just go away and never return. she was too fantastic for that!
Ms. Hawkeye: I'm so glad you love the Avenger babies! As for what Rinon knows... we learn that tonight!
quiet-raindrop: LOL! I hope those are pure thoughts of happiness! As to what's going on? Only the author truly knows. How do I come up with it? Dear Lord, you've got me on that one! I never thought starting out on Lithium Hawkeye a 22 book series (thus far) would spew from it. It has been an incredible ride, and its all for you amazing readers!
5mairer: HAHAHAHAHAHA! I do really love the your reviews:) And what a tall order! A summery for the entire series? good heavens, I think I might take a few chapters for that one.
Guest: awe...you reviewed chapter one which i absolutely love! Yes, unfortunately I've been too busty with vet school for common grammatical rules, though my unpaid editors have been working on it :P Over time I've been working through books one and on to correct those many stragglers. eventually I hope to get them all!
Chapter 50
"Le'Lareme, esuea mele eh li." General, they are ending the evacuation, Linnor announced. He approached the lunar bluff beside Rinon and watched the ships escaping into the atmosphere. "We must go."
"This is the moment. We must find him. Get to him, swiftly, before it is too late!" Rinon turned swiftly, signaling to the hovering ship to drop to the ground for them.
"Moment? Find him?" Linnor asked, catching up to Rinon's heels.
"Do you not see it? Feel it?" Rinon asked. "We must find the archer. This is the moment his fate is decided. I have given my word that we will prevent this happenstance."
"You seek to change it?" Linnor asked, surprised.
"I will do what I can. Whether I succeed or not. I owe his family that."
The rest of his scout team gathered while the evacuation ships joined the others in their escape. He left it to Linnor to catch them up on his plan. He'd kept close to Clint and Natasha both. He'd sworn to the Black Widow, the moment she knew of his gift, that he would try again where in the past he had so often failed. He was going to ride after the two of them and move the very planet itself if it meant tearing Clint out of death's grip.
The last ship swung around toward them and hovered for a moment as it lowered down. Even before it had a chance to drop, Rinon felt the ground shift beneath his feet. A massive quake erupted as the entire slab of stone slid right out from under him. The shouts of the elves at his side echoed in the canyon swiftly rushing up at them as they fell through the open air into the darkness down below. His mind had time to think while the ground rose to meet him. Swift, fleeting memories flew through him like pictures on a movie real.
He hadn't intended to be on Nova Luna at all. Natasha requested he come. In her desperation for one last saving grace to protect the man she loved, she'd approached Rinon in the night and begged that he take a ship himself to Clint's side. If something should happen, if T'Challa abandoned them along with everyone else, she wanted one last chance to get them away. He was meant to fly in on T'Challa's heels, should the worst occur. Having the planet begin to crumble beneath their feet never factored into the plan.
The ship hovered above the surface waiting to take them away. The moment Rinon and his men touched the earth on their climb up to the great peak where Clint made his jump, the ground opened up and swallowed them down. Twelve elves tumbled through the cracks and crevices of the lunar surface. One was trapped almost at once between the shifting of two great plates. Rinon reached out to grab him, attempting to steal his compatriot back, though he knew at once the elf was already dead.
Rinon hit the ground on his side and at once felt his arm shatter. He cried out and tried to turn in the small space, but he was wedged between two massive rocks. Something crashed. A hot breath fell against him from above. Rinon tried to shift his sword free.
"Le'Lareme!" Linnor cried out.
A creature roared in anger and fear. Rinon felt the spray of hot liquid and he knew at once it was blood. One of the lunar creatures had come up from the depths and sought for the safety and easy food of the numerous populous while the cold lunar core superheated.
Hands reached down and carefully lifted him up.
"Le'Lareme, are you all right?" Linnor asked. He resheathed his blade and wiped the blood from his own torn face.
"My arm." Rinon said, gasping. He held it tightly across his chest. There was little space in the wedge of rock they'd dropped into. He glanced around, counting that from the twelve men he started with, only nine survived. Of them all, only Linnor seemed to be in the best shape.
Spying out one of his most loyal friends, Rinon whispered, "Reylano, are you well?"
"Fear not, I live," Reylano replied. He supported his back against one of the massive stone walls and looked over. He stood by the tail of the underground creature. He had not survived the journey downward unscathed. His shoulder held at an odd angle and dripped in fresh blood.
Rinon tried to see up the way they had come but from the angle of their fall he could see nothing of the sky. There was a chance that it had blotted out in the mass of Galactus. Even now the black hole surged forward to consume them all. They were trapped, injured, and alone.
"We must move," Faraday said, pushing his way closer, indicating for the elves ahead of him to move as well. "There are beasts at our back. We cannot stay."
"No, we cannot." Linnor agreed. The way the rocks angled only a single elf could walk at a time. The trail of nine fell into a line and pushed forward. They had no idea what may lay before them, but they hoped perhaps the rocks might open again. The sky might yet return and offer an attempt at escape.
"Keep together." Rinon commanded, urging his fellow men on into the very depths of the heating lunar world.
Ahead of him, a figure stood. At first he wasn't sure he'd seen anyone at all, then like a shadow the person moved. He stopped, the line pausing behind him.
The shadow moved once more. A face appeared beneath its dark cast and the being's eyes fixed for a moment on Rinon. "Follow," he seemed to say without any words at all.
"Le'Lareme?" Reylano asked.
Rinon walked forward, closing in on the peculiar creature. The rocks, however, shifted again. His body lifted as if the entire ground was nothing but the back of a serpent. The company rose against the tombstone walls and fell again end-over-end. Plates of rock moved aside, trapping them even deeper than before.
The elves continued to slide along the angled bedrock covered in powder like sand. Linnor hit the next drop off before the rest. He hardly managed to grab a mound of rock along the smooth floor. He halted his fall, but gazed downward to see what lay beneath him. At once he dragged his legs up to avoid the snapping jaws of another legless creature. Massive fangs slammed together in the dead air beneath the elf. The creature stretched, fanning out a great crest on either side of his face and struck forward like a cobra.
Rinon grabbed the loose shirt on Linnor's back and dragged him, one-handed, to safety. Reylano stood above him with his sword ready and the minute the serpent's head rose over the drop off, Reylano struck him. Lirrie put an arrow to his bow string and shot into the creature's eyes. A scream pierced the air and it fell away again. Linnor scrambled up to safety.
"There are more. Hundreds, thousands, below us. Just beneath our feet," he said to them.
"Night's creatures. They mean to toy with us, not eat us. Heartless beasts," Faraday said.
"Confused. Terrified. Working on an instinct they cannot understand or control," Rinon corrected. Taking the wall in his good hand, he carefully backed up the steep grade toward whatever safety might be had. The others began to follow him.
Again a shadow seemed to cross his path. Rinon fixed his eyes on the creature. A burst of crimson cloak showed beneath the utter black. The face, a ghostly pale, fixed upon his.
"Who are you?" Rinon asked, his voice echoing along the canyon walls. Beside him, Reylano and Lirrie hovered. They followed his line of sight along the rock but saw nothing before them.
"What is it?" Linnor asked.
Rinon broke away from them, ignoring their words to approach the strange visage. The creature, so much like a man, pulled away from him.
"Wait!" Rinon shouted, stumbling forward.
Still, the creature pulled away. He faded into the shadows, around sharp corners, through halls, and open rock. Rinon followed after him. Running as fast as his battered body allowed. The line of elves jockeyed to keep up with him. Few knew him prone to the visions that guided his life, but even they had never seen this dramatic of an action out of their king. Terrified he had gone stark, raving mad, Yiri lunged ahead of the others and meant to finally halt him.
That's when Yiri heard it first. The soft, steady, beep, beep, beep.
Rinon stopped. He glanced down at his coat, slowly reached into his pocket, and removed the tracker Natasha had given to him. It was signaling him.
His eyes rose once more to that shadowy figure he chased. The pale, soft skinned creature fixed his chocolate colored irises on him. Slowly the creature nodded.
"Mal-ahk," Rinon whispered. "Sarhorn."
Suddenly a scream split the air. The elves shifted in their fright. The world descended back to silence once more and the Sarhorn was gone. An explosion and shimmer of light shot across the cavern in front of them.
Blinking at the others to confirm whether they had seen the same as he had, Linnor rushed ahead, taking his steps carefully to follow the peculiar light. He crossed into a slightly larger space. A bright blue square rested in the grey sand around it. He turned in shock.
"Le'Lareme, the tesseract!" Linnor exclaimed.
"A way out straight from the Mal-ahk," Rinon said.
Reylano came up beside him and removed the shroud from his bleeding shoulder and carefully laid it on the ground over the infinity stone. Taking the edges together he gently caught it. Surprisingly, it did not object to being handled.
Linnor looked at his leader. "What could this possibly mean? How did it get here?"
A second scream split the air. Rinon stepped away from them, head erect, ears pricked as he swiveled in either direction as if to lock down the source. At first all he could hear was the barks and roars of those beasts below stealing their way to the dying surface above. He could have sworn, though, that something else existed between those snarling beasts and the steady beep-beep-beep in his pocket. Rinon broke ahead of them. The elf's entire body stiffened.
"Rellya," Rinon whispered in disbelief.
"Wait!" Linnor exclaimed.
The former king ran. He had little time. If he meant to save Barton from his fate, he must do so now. He couldn't explain. He couldn't tarry. The others followed as fast as they could manage but Rinon had always been spry and light of foot. He bounded beyond a massive fallen column and encountered a small triangle of clearing at the base of two tectonic masses. They might have been walls once, sent smashing together under the force of the dying world. He could just fit in the space they afforded. If they didn't happen to shift any more, he might survive to reach the man trapped inside.
"I hear him!" Linnor cried. He skied to his knees beside Faraday and instantly shrugged out of his great coat and armor. They wouldn't allow him to fit through the crevice.
"Is it he?" Rinon questioned, though he had no need for a reply. Something in him told the tale of it. The horrified screams did the rest. Somehow the earth had moved them in a way he would never understand. They covered a league in no time at all, merely by falling, running, and trying to escape with their lives intact. The Sarhorn led them to this place, where just beyond that stone wall the Elves listened to the explosive concussions of Clint Barton's arrows. They heard his shrieks as those beasts he was trying to defend himself against tore him apart.
Faraday and Linnor went through the hole in an instant. Reylano and Yiri followed immediately after with Thell, Lirrie, and the others. Rinon meant to follow next, but his final two men held the leader back. They were not alone on their side of the wall any longer.
Rinon unsheathed his sword and stood with the small opening at his feet. A great boar-like creature, standing as tall as a Frost Giant with tusks dripping in saliva, chomped toward them. Its feline-like legs crouched and circled the three remaining elves. A feral squeal broke through its four-tusked mouth as the beast lurched forward at them.
AHHHHH! Ok, wait...take a deep breath...review...ok, now move on to the next chapter!