HERE IT IS.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH.

What happened to Clint in those dark depths alone?

FIND OUT NOW!

Chapter 51

Clint forced himself to sit up. His quiver had spilled his arrows all over the ground. He fished for them one at a time, pulled them to his string and sent them sailing into the darkness surrounding him. The creatures approached and retreated like packs of coyotes. Explosions from his arrow tip lit the dark if temporarily. The Infinity Gauntlet shattered in comets of light streaking throughout the cavern. The Herald who floated down ahead of him shrieked like a monster. Her back arched, arms extended as that power convoluted, shifted upon itself, and erupted into the sky. The slabs of granite slammed together on her, and the Herald was no more.

The temporary sight of the cavern around him was enough to make him never want to see again.

Clint's body screamed in pain from the shards of femur ramming through his thigh muscles into the open air. No matter what he did, he continued to catch the end of his bow on their razor like points, sending chills of anguish through him. Something came close. It grabbed his boot, dragged him across the floor on his back and deeper into the darkness. Clint shouted at it, grasped blindly around for an arrow shaft and, finding one, sat up to ram the point down through the beast's skull. In the same moment it died, another snuck up on the distracted archer from behind and snatched him across half of his chest. Clint shrieked. The animal shook him in its powerful jaws and clamped down on him like a lion. Barton found his knife and struck out with it.

The animal growled, shaking the sound through Clint's very bones. A taloned foot dug into his shoulder and held his body down. The jaws released only briefly before clamping again through three of his ribs. Braced against his shoulder, the animal yanked itself head away, taking part of Clint's chest with it. Barton gasped. He took whatever arrow he could find and jammed it through the bones of the animal's leg. The world exploded almost at once. He rolled away as the force of the close-up detonation stunned him. His eyes burned, ears rang. He couldn't catch his breath. The good lung struggled to compensate for the injured, torn out one.

He asked himself why he kept fighting. This was how it all would end. He knew that from the moment he was given a new lease on life. He attempted to accept it, tried to live something of a life knowing that this ending always hovered in the distance. But his body, in the end, refused to stop fighting.

A light cut through the darkness very suddenly. He hid his eyes from it, imagining that one of the creatures had triggered a spare flash bomb arrowhead. He could hear nothing but the ringing tinnitus in his ears and the roaring of the subterranean monsters. They pulled away from the light, leaving him panting, bleeding, dying on the jagged bedrock.

"Rellya!" A voice shouted in the hollow darkness. A set of hands fell over his chest and began to drag him.

"Rellya, hold on. We've come. Hold on."

Clint shifted, screaming as his missing side dragged along the ground. The hands held fast to him and shifted his body onto his back. Elven shouts and orders flooded around him like a blanket. He knew the danger their lights had chased away would hide for only moments before bravery, pure mania, drove the creatures back. He wrapped a fist tighter around his bow, found an arrow along the ground and fit it to his bow string. Clint dragged the arrow back and let it fly into the shadows, right down the gullet of a wide-mouthed demon.

One of the elves turned to meet the charging beast. He brought his sword down into the snout of the animal and drove it to the side. A dozen more came behind the first. The elves were over run. Some dragged Clint toward the safety in the crag of rock, but rather than let them, he continued to scrape arrows up from the floor and sent them flying. He recognized Linnor and the fanged creature snapping down at him. Clint let an acid tip drive through one of the animal's eyes, until it passed through the creature's skull completely. From the edge of his vision he saw another bear down on Yiri. Clint destroyed that one as well.

Reylano, despite Clint still attempting to defend them, continued to drag the archer back. He reached the safety of the triangular escape where Lirrie lay along the floor, waiting for them. Reylano struggled to pass the upper half of Clint's body through to the waiting elf, but somehow they managed the feat. At first Lirrie thought he might loop a cord around the archer's chest and drag him to safety that way, but given Barton had so little of that remaining, it was impossible. Instead he settled for the uninjured arm. Lirrie formed a lariat, slipped it over Clint's head, beneath his good arm, and pull the loop taught. With Barton secured, Lirrie scrambled backwards, yanking the cord, and therefore the archer, along the floor until they burst into the safety on Rinon's side of the wall.

"Faraday!" Clint cried. His final three arrows fit against the string all at once. He let them fly, his last act before disappearing into the crack. Faraday dropped to his knees and the three arrows killed the four monsters meaning to tear him apart. Hawkeye was that good.

Linnor stepped into his brother's path and sent him toward the crevice. "Go!" he cried.

A cry split the air. Beside them Yiri was stolen off his feet and thrown into the shadows. His blood splattered the walls as his cries ceased. Faraday crouched into the opening. He held his hand out to his brother and called his name.

A dog-like mutt latched onto Faraday's arm. He couldn't draw his sword in the small space to defend himself. The mutt yanked and chewed, meaning to pull him back into the canyon opening where he might be torn apart. Linnor threw himself at the creature and tore his brother from its grip. Linnor pressed Faraday back into the crag of rock and, inexplicably, threw his sword into the shifting shelf of stone above. The shelf collapsed. Faraday watched his brother, his only kin, be sealed on the other side of the wall forever.

"Come on! Faraday, come!" Lirrie beckoned from the other side. Faraday's crushed heart prevented him from moving. He kicked at the stones with his boots, as if attempting to dislodge them. One of the elves squeezed in at his back and took him by the shoulders. He dragged the unwilling Faraday from the crevice by force.

"No!" the elf cried. "Linnor! Linnor! Let me back! Let me back to get him!"

"Shellu la. Shellu la, Faraday." He is gone, the elf whispered. He kept the kinsman on his back and grabbed the abandoned great coat of Faraday's brother to stem the bleeding from his torn arm.

"Kinme!" Reylano exclaimed.

Of the three elves left behind, only Rinon remained beside the wall. He hardly drew a breath from the gravity of the wounds he'd suffered defending the other side of their escape. Lying beside him was the barely alive Clint Barton. He was unconscious, bleeding, and hardly recognizable from the man he once was. They couldn't stay and wait for those beasts to regroup and come for them. They had to get away.

"Not . . . not your king . . ." Rinon reminded him gently, gauging how much strength he used in speaking.

"Goheno nin, Le'Lareme." Forgive me, general, Reylano said, kneeling between the dying archer and his faltering leader. "We must get away. Staying here means death. Direct me, please."

Rinon looked down at the tesseract wrapped in the elf's coat. Reylano followed his line of sight and grasped the coat tail to bring it closer. He rubbed his face with the back of his arm, trying to clear the blood escaping from his head wound. He unwrapped the blue box.

"What should we do?" he asked.

Rinon attempted to draw his blade but could not from his shattered arm. Reylano reached forward and drew it himself.

"Throw the blade against it. The stone will take us home," Rinon whispered.

"How do you know? What if the power destroys us?" Reylano asked.

Rinon's eyes slid shut. "I know."

holy crap.

holy CRAP!

So the elves have Clint. Rinon MIGHT have done it. Following the signal Natasha left for them, and the ghostly Sarhorn, the two fronts have been reunited. BUT, with injuries such as those, can Barton even hope to survive? If he did, why didn't Rinon bring him along? OH THE POSSIBILITIES!

Please review:) I told you Part 4 was going to be intense!