It seemed profoundly unfair that he would die a victim of falling rock.
If Brandt was going to die, he wanted his death to be heroic. A death dealt by an elite Falari commander would be acceptable. He wanted a death where people would speak of his nobility and sacrifice, of the content of his character. Perhaps women who had never known him in life would weep for his passing, bemoaning the loss of a promising warrior taken before his time.
If a falling rock killed him, his own squad, closer to him than blood, might pretend he never existed.
As a stone twice the size of his fist hurtled down the cliff face toward him, he lamented that a betting man’s odds were on the falling rock.
Brandt leaped to the side, his hands searching for a new hold, the deadly stone brushing his left arm on its way to the scree below. His hands caught a jagged protrusion and he swung wildly for a moment before planting his feet against the wall. Given the extent of the scree they had to pick their way through just to get here, falling rock wasn’t an uncommon occurrence on this cliff.
“Sorry!” Ana called from above him.
Brandt vowed not to climb directly below her anymore. He would rather find his own way up, even if it took longer.
He looked up in time to see her scamper up another section of the wall with ease.
Ana’s lightness put his to shame. It didn’t help that he was almost twice her size, but even if they had weighed the same, her skill far surpassed his, a fact she seemed eager to remind him of today. She paused on a ledge not much wider than her foot. From the way she stood on it, though, she could have been standing on a wide road in a perfectly flat field.
Brandt looked down. They’d climbed several times his own height. If he fell, he didn’t think lightness would prevent an injury. From where Ana stood, a fall meant almost certain death.
She was smiling. She enjoyed the challenge.
“Do you see a trail?” he asked. The locals had said there was a trail. No one had known the exact location of the trailhead, though, and a full morning of searching hadn’t revealed it.
Thus, the climb.
“No,” Ana replied. “But I think I see the cave above. Maybe forty paces away, if you could walk up the cliff from where I stand.”
Brandt muttered a curse. He had never minded heights in the past, but he’d never tried climbing a hundred paces up a vertical wall with a disturbing amount of loose stone, either. A hundred paces didn’t seem like much — on the ground he could cover that distance in a handful of heartbeats. On a vertical wall, a hundred paces might as well be the distance to another world.
He took a deep breath and focused his internal energies, feeling gravity relax its relentless hold on his body. He planned his route, then pulled himself up the wall.
Fortunately, though the wall was high, it offered plenty of hand and foot holds. He made himself as light as he could, using the holds to propel himself up. He was just about to lose focus when he reached Ana’s ledge.
Brandt wobbled as his feet found purchase. He had forgotten down below that his feet were larger than hers. Where she could stand flat-footed, he had to balance on his toes.
Ana steadied him and pointed. Less than a pace away the ledge was wider. Brandt side-stepped over and finally rested.
From his higher vantage point, he saw the cave Ana had noticed. From below it appeared as a dark smudge on the cliff face. Unfortunately, her estimation of its distance looked accurate.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s a good place to hide from the world.” She gave him a small shrug. “If I was thieving from the surrounding area, I’d consider it. It’s a little hard to reach, though.”
Brandt thought the same. A good hideout balanced accessibility with safety. The cave above appeared incredibly safe, but he couldn’t imagine making this climb every day. Even a sure-footed gazelle like Ana ran a significant risk with this climb.
Brandt ran his hands over the rock wall, searching for his next hold. His fingers passed over a well-defined edge, barely raised from the surface of the rock wall.
He frowned. Nature rarely made use of straight lines. He motioned for Ana to approach, then pointed to his discovery.
She came and ran her hand over the same section of stone. The difference was barely visible to the eye. If Brandt hadn’t been searching for a hold with his hands, he didn’t think he would have noticed it.
“He’s got a stone affinity,” Ana said. “A strong one.”
Brandt agreed, though he hated what that implied. This mission was supposed to be easy.
She gave him a questioning glance. “Keep going?”
Brandt looked up at the cave, then back down. The altered stone was evidence enough their bandit did indeed live in the cave above. No other explanation made sense. They could return tomorrow with the rest of their squad. Five against one sounded much better than two against one.
But Brandt was pretty sure the bandit wasn’t home. If their suspect had a strong stone affinity, he would have come down and thrown them off the cliff face by now. They hadn’t exactly been sneaking up on the cave.
Besides that, time was against them. The bandit had been striking more frequently. The local governor demanded results.
And strong stone affinity or not, Brandt didn’t back down from a challenge.
“Want to risk it?” he asked.
“Against stone?” she paused, more reasoned than him. “Sure.”
Brandt agreed. Even if the bandit wasn’t home, any information might help them predict his movements.
They made themselves light and climbed the rest of the way.
The cave was bigger than Brandt had envisioned. He’d expected a small space, possibly wide enough for some shelter and storage but little else. Instead, a deep darkness greeted him. The cave went well into the rock face.
Fortunately, Brandt always came prepared to use fire. His small pack carried two small torches, and a moment later he had one of them lit with his own fire affinity. As always, he felt the warmth of the fire calling to him, a seductive, nearly irresistible song.
He ignored it.
All elements were dangerous.
But fire put the others to shame.
They stepped into the cave, Brandt leading the way with his flame.
The darkness retreated before his torch, and he found the end of the cave in short order.
There was no evidence of habitation.
Brandt slowly spun around with the torch. They couldn’t have been misled.
“Brandt.”
He turned at the sound of fear in Ana’s voice. She stood next to a wide crack in the stone. He’d walked right past it without noticing. He stepped closer, thrusting the torch forward.
He immediately took a step back. His legs felt weak.
The crack wasn’t a crack, but a tight passage. The stone of the floor, ceiling, and walls was perfectly smooth.
No hammer and chisel could make a hallway so perfect.
But that level of affinity was impossible. The cost was too high.
He heard nothing besides their quick breathing. The cave was empty, and any answers were through that passage. He refused to be cowed, even by a feat as impressive as this. He stepped forward.
Ana put a hand on his arm. Their eyes met. After a moment, she nodded.
Like the rest, she would follow his lead. He hadn’t let them down yet.
Brandt went through first. The passage was narrow. He had to turn sideways, and even then either the backs of his shoulders or his chest scraped against the sides. Ana slid through easily.
He wondered if the bandit was closer to Ana’s size than to his.
He froze on the other side of the passage, his eyes locked on another impossible scene.
The second chamber was several times larger than the first.
It had been devastated. Rubble lay everywhere, broken boulders larger than his torso.
Behind him, Ana pushed her way through. He stepped to the side to let her in. She froze beside him.
“Oh.”
She had a gift for understatement.
Brandt stepped deeper into the second chamber. Ana started to follow, but he waved her back. The light from his torch didn’t fill the whole space. He wanted to make sure they were alone.
After picking his way through some of the rubble, he found a flat spot where he didn’t have to worry about balance. He closed his eyes and listened to the song of the flame.
Most didn’t understand that heat surrounded them, every moment of every day. Even the frigid air of winter contained plenty of heat. The air in this cave, cold and clammy against his bare arms, held more than enough.
He pulled the heat from the air around him, felt the warmth of it as it flowed toward his torch.
He opened his eyes. Held high above him, his torch blazed, several times brighter than it had before. Light reached every corner of the second chamber, if only for a couple of heartbeats. Brandt spun around quickly, just to ensure they were alone.
He saw no one besides Ana.
He released the flow of heat to his torch. He shivered. The air around him had become much colder. It would take a few minutes for the circulation of air to heat the space back to its normal temperature.
Ana stepped closer to him, rubbing her arms to keep them warm. Together, they explored the cave.
Ana focused on the rubble first. She examined a few of the boulders while Brandt swept some of the smaller debris aside with his foot. He frowned when he found a depression in the floor of the cave. It had been partially filled in with loose pebbles, but he could feel the bottom with his toe when he dug it in.
He called to his partner. They stared at the depression.
He shook his head. “Does that look like…?”
She nodded.
“That’s not possible, right?”
“I didn’t think so.”
The depression was an impact crater. Made by a fist or foot of someone with a stone affinity. Each of them had seen plenty.
But it was too large by far.
Even their masters at the academy would have been hard pressed to create one half as wide or deep.
“A new weapon?” she asked.
Brandt wished he knew.
This wasn’t a bandit’s hideout. The man might be stealing from travelers on the road and hiding here, but this was something more. This was a training ground for an incredibly strong fighter. A place where his training wouldn’t be interrupted or discovered.
They continued their exploration. The chamber was filled with damage that shouldn’t be possible. Mystery piled on mystery.
As they neared the end of their search, a thought occurred to Brandt. Where was the fire?
If a bandit lived here, he needed to cook his meals. He needed light to see. He needed fire.
But there was no evidence of any. Brandt hadn’t seen any wood or ash. He hadn’t noticed any scorch marks from fire on stone. The realization hit him hard. “The bandit doesn’t live here.”
A soft sound, like the scuffing of a shoe on stone, reached their ears. It came from the first chamber. Brandt quickly extinguished the torch.
Had the bandit returned?
With a nod, the two warriors snuck toward the narrow passage, preparing to ambush the man as soon as he came through.
Brandt heard the sound of stone on stone before he saw anything. Whatever moved, it sounded large. His stomach twisted in knots when he identified it.
The passage.
Ana must have reached the conclusion about the same time he did. She sprinted ahead of him, light over the rocks. He followed, but lost ground with every step. Gods, but she was fast.
She was in the passage when he got to the start of it. Sure enough, the narrow passage was closing. Brandt saw the flutter of a dark cloak on the other side of the passage, but his attention was captured by Ana.
She wasn’t going to make it.
The passage was going to close around her.
An impossible death, trapped in stone forever.
He reached in and found her hand. Too late, she realized her danger.
He pulled with all his might.
At the same time, she became light. He yanked her off her feet toward him, the two of them crashing down together as the passage sealed shut, as though it had never existed.
