YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO escape,” a voice growled, and Fort turned to find the younger dwarf that Jia had just healed pushing himself up to a sitting position.
Gabriel was on him instantly, shield held ready to smash it against the dwarf’s face. “What do you know about it?”
“That thing was just in my mind too,” the dwarf said, wincing. “Didn’t realize you all were so delicate. My kind have to listen to Ketas all the time. Maybe we’re just used to the pain.”
“Ketas?” Fort said. “Is that what you call the Old One?”
“That’s his name,” the dwarf said. “Or maybe his title. I don’t know.”
“What did it tell you?” Jia asked.
The dwarf looked up at them for a moment, then sighed. “To capture the humans. They want you waiting for them in Dragon’s Teeth when they arrive.”
Gabriel nodded and pulled back the shield to strike.
“Wait!” Fort shouted, jumping between him and the dwarf. “He wouldn’t have just told us that if he planned on doing it.” He threw a look over his shoulder at the dwarf. “Um, right?”
“I told you to leave, didn’t I?” the dwarf grumbled. “You’ve got a little time before they get here, so I’d use it. Otherwise, Q’baos will take your will, just like she took the will of my people, and will soon have mine.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes but slowly lowered the shield. “How long do we have?”
“Half a feeding cycle, maybe,” the dwarf said. “The elders say they used to travel instantly via flaming circles, but they must have forgotten how, because those haven’t been seen for as far back as anyone can remember.”
“How long is a feeding cycle?” Rachel asked. “Preferably in minutes or hours?”
Now it was the dwarf’s turn to look suspicious. “Those are measurements they use, the Old Ones. How do you know of them?”
“We’re from the same place they are,” Fort told him. “And they want us to take them back.”
The dwarf seemed to think about this for a moment. “I’d say you have three, maybe four of those hours then,” he said finally. “Why, did you plan on doing some sightseeing?”
“Nope, we’re leaving right now,” Rachel said, pulling on Fort’s uniform.
“You said you took the last human to Dragon’s Teeth,” Fort said, yanking his shirt out of her hand. “Could you take us there in that amount of time?”
The dwarf looked at him strangely. “You want me to take you where the Old Ones commanded?”
“Yeah, I’m with him!” Rachel shouted. “Are you joking?”
“That’s where they took my dad, too,” Fort told her. Turning back to the dwarf, he leaned down and extended a hand to him. The dwarf eyed it suspiciously for a moment, then reached up and took it, letting Fort help him to his feet.
“I’ll take you, if that’s your wish,” the dwarf said. “But I promise, you’ll wish you’d fled while you had the chance. I only just missed the Ritual when the last human arrived because I was a few cycles too young still. Now I have no choice but to attend, and Q’baos will destroy my will, and yours along with it.”
“She’s another Old One?” Jia asked. “What’s her specialty?”
“All I’ve seen her do is turn my people into servants, worshipping her with all their spirit,” the dwarf said, spitting on the ground. “If she has more power than that, she wouldn’t need it.”
“That’s the magic they used on us back at the old school,” Rachel whispered to Fort. “When that Old One with the screaming faces on it took over all the Healing students.”
Great. So not only did they have to worry about the Old One who used Mind magic, apparently named Ketas, but also one who knew… wait, the dwarf had said she took over his people’s spirits. Was that the sixth kind of magic? The power to not just take over a mind, but change them into willing slaves permanently?
“Fort, we can’t take the chance,” Jia said, coming up alongside Rachel. “Last time, one Old One nearly killed us all. The others never even made it fully through the portal. We won’t have a chance against all of them together.”
“She’s right, we have to go now,” Rachel said.
“No, we don’t,” Gabriel said, moving to stand next to Fort. “This dwarf will take us to Fort’s father, and then Fort can teleport us back to the portal. We can do this. And we’re not leaving without trying.”
“What do you keep calling me?” the dwarf asked. “A de-wharf?”
“No!” Rachel shouted, shaking her head. “How do you all not get this? It’s not just us in danger. If we leave the portal open, they might find it before we’re back! We’re not taking that chance, no matter what.” She turned to Fort, and her face softened a bit. “Look, I know how hard this is, but you can’t put the whole world at risk for… you know, for…”
“For my father?” Fort asked quietly. “Watch me.”
He turned toward the dwarf. “Which way to Dragon’s Teeth?”
The dwarf pointed toward one of the tunnels. “There. But what did you call me again? It sounded WHOA!”
Gabriel grabbed the dwarf in midsentence and threw him over his shoulder. “I’m with Fort,” he said to Rachel and Jia. “If it makes you feel better, go back to the portal and guard it. If the Old Ones show up before we do, then just collapse the cavern. We’ll find another way out.”
Rachel growled loudly in frustration, while Jia sighed and walked over to join Fort and Gabriel. “They’ll have a better chance if we go with them,” she said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Rachel shouted. She turned to walk away, then stopped, started moving again, then slammed her foot against the ground a few times. Finally, she shot a fireball off toward the ceiling, watched it explode while shouting insults, then finally came back to the others. “Let’s get this done quickly,” she growled. “The moment we get even a hint that the Old Ones are close, we teleport back to the portal, Fort. Do you understand me?”
Fort nodded, unable to hide his smile. “I do. And thank—”
“NO,” she said. “Don’t you dare. Come, dwarf, lead the way.”
“My kind are called Dracsi-kin,” the dwarf said. “And I have a name.”
“What’s your name?” Jia asked.
“What’s a Dracsi?” Gabriel asked.
“Don’t answer either of them!” Rachel said. “Let’s go!”
“I am Sikurgurd,” the dwarf said as Gabriel carried him toward the tunnel he’d pointed out earlier. “And Dracsi are the large beasts you must have seen as you arrived. You know, big teeth, scales, that sort of thing. The Old Ones named us Dracsi-kin because we were made by D’hea to care for them. We haven’t been allowed any other life, and the Old Ones ensure we never rebel with the Ritual.”
“That’s when the Q one takes your spirit?” Jia asked.
“Q’baos,” the dwarf confirmed. “Dracsi-kin who have mastered their inner control of magic are forced to take the Ritual. I hadn’t yet finished my apprenticeship when the last human arrived, and—”
“Tell us about him,” Fort said. “The human you said was taken to the Dragon’s Teeth. Is he okay? What happened to him?”
Sikurgurd seemed to shrug, but it was hard to tell with him hanging upside down behind Gabriel. “I don’t know. Only those at the Ritual could have told you.”
“Was the human alone?” Gabriel asked.
“Strange that you should ask,” the dwarf said. “I’ve heard different stories. Some say it was just one, but others claim there was a human closer to our size—”
“Fort!” Jia shouted as Gabriel immediately came to a halt. “That could be Michael!”
Michael? He’d been a fourth student, back at the original school at the NSA. Damian, Sierra, Jia, and Michael, Colonel Charles’s son who’d been studying Destruction magic, and who was also… oh wow.
“Yeah, the monsters took him also,” Jia said, confirming what he was thinking. “If there’s a chance he’s still… we have to bring him back too, Fort!”
“Does anyone else remember that there are horrible tentacle monsters on their way as we speak?” Rachel asked. “Just me? No one else, then? That’s what I thought.”
“I agree with the excited human,” Sikurgurd said. “You are all doomed.”
“Thank you!” Rachel said. “Now are we at least getting close to this Teeth place?”
The dwarf nodded in the direction they were going. “We’ll pass through the city up ahead, and then hit the mines on the other side. There are carts leading down to Dragon’s Teeth. We don’t mine there anymore, so if we can get that far, you’ll be safe from my people. The city, on the other hand, won’t be easy to pass. Every elder Dracsi-kin is hoping to please Q’baos by finding you themselves.”
Rachel covered her mouth to scream relatively silently, while Fort just leaned toward the dwarf. “Sikurgurd, you know, if we get out of here, you could come with us,” he said. “We can’t just leave you here to… to have your spirit taken from you.”
For the first time, the dwarf’s eyes lit up as brightly as his goggles had. “I’d never leave my people,” Sikurgurd said, looking ready to strike Fort. “I’d sooner cut off an arm, or feed myself to a Dracsi!”
“Can’t you fight them?” Gabriel asked, resuming their forward motion.
“We have few Dracsi-kin young enough as it is,” Sikurgurd said. “And our elders would defend Q’baos and the other Old Ones to their deaths if need be. We’d be forced to fight our own families, and so are trapped.”
“Hey, I think I see lights up ahead,” Jia said, pointing past Gabriel.
“That is Dra, my city,” Sikurgurd said, sounding a bit proud. “It’s not the largest of our settlements, but it is the deepest.”
“How big are we talking?” Gabriel asked him. “You said it’d be hard to sneak by.”
“As I said, we have a smaller population than others,” the dwarf said. “Still, I would imagine we wouldn’t have to deal with more than ten or twenty million of my kin before we reach the mines.”