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ZAN PAUSED AT THE EDGE of the trail where it emerged from the trees into a sunny meadow dotted with rocks covered in pale lichen. Further on, purple-brown heather stretched along the ground until the curve of the mountain hid it from view. Rainer came behind her, his limp less noticeable than it had been the day before.
Movement is good for him. And the wind through the trees. The serene power will do him wonders.
The hike up Wildcat Mountain wasn’t easy, but Rainer had said he needed to test his limits. Zan figured she’d better relish being faster than him because it wouldn’t last, Balance or no Balance.
“Is this the meadow you told me about?” he asked, stopping beside her.
“Yes. As perfect as I remember.” She lifted his shirt to inspect the angry red gash that ran from below his sternum to just above his right hip bone. “How is it? Did it feel okay during the climb up that last part of the trail? It was steep.”
“A little pain. I had to rest for a moment, but the wound didn’t feel like it would reopen.”
“Good.” She let his shirt fall but kept her hand on his stomach, smiling up at him.
With all our worries, I’m still here with him in this magical place. Lucifer is dead and there will be no more demons. That is true and real.
Rainer took in the view, a wistful look on his face. “All this beauty will help with my healing. It has to. The mountains, the meadow.” He took her hands. “And above all, you.”
“You’re so dreamy,” she said with a sigh, only half-joking. “You make my knees weak.” She was about to hug him when he walked some distance away to look off toward the neighboring peaks.
“Am I? Do I?” He rubbed his forearm.
“What are you asking?”
He turned back to her and ran his fingers along the scars on his face. “Am I ugly to you now?”
Zan laughed as she closed the ground between them. She took his hands away from the dark streaks of knotted skin and caressed them with her own. “Rainer, you are beautiful, the most beautiful thing in the world to me. The scars add just the right touch of menace. Seriously hot. You know I’m not a girl much turned on by safety.”
Despite his smile, sadness clung to the edges of his eyes. “I look menacing, yet I’m far less dangerous. Pellus needs me and I fear I won’t be able to help him. What if I can’t fight? What if I can’t fulfill the purpose of a warrior?”
She broke away from him and walked some way up the trail before she whirled around.
I knew this was coming, but even so, it pisses me right the fuck off.
“You fulfilled the purpose of a warrior! Fulfilled! E-D. Past tense,” she said. “You killed Lucifer for them! You don’t have to do everything yourself. Remiel and her warriors will help us rescue Jeduthan, and once we do, your purpose will be to stay here with me. To love me. To spend every precious second with me, as long as I live.”
“I can’t imagine a finer purpose.” He hugged her and nuzzled her neck, then held her shoulders to search her face. “It should be enough for me, but I don’t know what I’ll be like. My injuries have impaired the flow of Balance but I’m still a born weapon. I may act out in ways neither of us understand.”
“I know. I remember what it was like for you before the Council let you fight from exile. We can deal with it.” She drew him down for a kiss then put her hands under his shirt to caress his tender flesh. He kissed her harder. Hungrier.
“Can we, honey?” Zan asked. He stopped and pressed his forehead to hers.
“Perhaps not yet.” He wrapped her up and stood with his chin on her head. “It’s hard for me to tell you this, Zan, but our love won’t be the same. Not the way it was before. You won’t feel my power.”
“I’ll have to settle for someone generous, beautiful, and skilled. What a shame for me.”
Zan rested her cheek on his chest as the sun broke free from a gathering of clouds, lighting the valley below.
“I’m a shadow of my former self,” he said.
“Look at me, Rainer. Do you really think I mind if you’re a little less superhuman? You know my insecurities. They’ll always be there.”
Rainer put one hand on her hip. With the other, he smoothed her hair. “Zan. I could be the most powerful being in the cosmos, and still I would love you.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m lucky. To be loved by the greatest hero in the history of the realms. The warrior who defeated Lucifer.”
“Well, I know you love me because I think you believe that, but the Guardians are the greatest heroes in the history of the realms, Zan. I’m merely a warrior.” He kissed her. “But you’re right. I accomplished what I set out to do. I should take satisfaction in it.”
They resumed their hike through the heather around the curve of the mountain until they reached a steep tumble of rocks, the last push for the summit.
“You ready for a scramble?” Zan asked.
“We’ll find out.”
The climb took them almost an hour. To be sure that Rainer didn’t re-injure himself, they often rested. They backtracked a few times when their path would have required Rainer to reach and stretch father than was wise. When they gained the summit they stood beside each other, gazing on the peaks that fell away toward the north—harsh, craggy granite that eased in stages to deep hunter green, then softened to hazy chartreuse under the sunlight. They breathed in the sparkling air with their arms around each other. After a few minutes, Rainer walked to the edge of a precipice and stood with his eyes closed, the wind making wild swirls of his hair. Zan knew he was trying to absorb energy for his healing, but he was too close to the edge for her liking. She went over and touched his arm.
“Indulge me, honey. Take a step back.” He glanced at her with a fake scowl, then circled her waist from behind. “Could you feel them? The mountains?” Zan asked.
“Not as much as I should.”
“But you feel something. That must be a good sign. Maybe Pellus can give us some advice when he gets back.”
When Rainer didn’t say anything, Zan decided to change the subject. “Speaking of Pellus, we need to tell Kurt and Malcolm that he and Remiel are coming. How should we do it? Pellus is at least used to dealing with humans, but Remiel? She might freak them out. She’ll probably be the largest woman they’ve ever seen.”
“Did you tell Pellus to exit from a rift some distance away and call you? We could avoid having them meet at all. We could pick them up and drive to a motel.”
“No, I didn’t think of that. I told him the coordinates for Kurt and Malcolm’s address.”
“He might think of it.”
“He probably will, but I don’t think cell phones work very well up here. We’ll see. He knows not to appear in the yard and it’s a good idea for them to stay at a motel, but I think it would seem pretty bizarre to Kurt and Malcolm if we don’t let them meet our friends. Bizarre and rude, considering their hospitality.”
“I suppose so, but I will go with them to the motel so we can plan Jeduthan’s rescue. You should visit with your friends, rid yourself of the Covalent and their troubles for a while. Reminisce about Patrick.”
Zan twisted to frown at him. “Think I want to be rid of you, do you?”
“I think your friends want to be rid of me.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” She turned in his arms. “But I’m as anxious as you are to find out about the situation in the Covalent Realm. The motel is a good idea, but I’m going with you. And we shouldn’t tell Kurt and Malcolm about Pellus and Remiel until after the barbeque tomorrow. Let them enjoy it without making them more nervous than they already are.”
“Of course.” He kissed her forehead and she turned back to take in the view. “I’m looking forward to the barbeque. I’ve always enjoyed the Fourth of July and I think I will like being around veterans. Humanity’s warriors.”
“I think you’ll like being around them, too.”
They stood quietly for a minute before Rainer said, “Shall we eat our sandwiches? I’m ravenous.”
“You’re always ravenous. But yeah, let’s eat. The sandwiches are in your pack. If we head over to the south side, there’s a good place to sit.”
They picked their way across the summit. Zan hoped the five sandwiches they’d brought for Rainer would be enough. His appetite was something to behold.
A good sign.
The bluff, barren and windswept though it was, offered the perfect vantage point to observe the Wasteland Dungeons. Pellus could see the whole plain in front of the dungeons as well as the passage—the only way in or out save for an arduous trek over the foothills that ringed the plain on both sides. He had been there for the better part of three turns, and the effort required to sustain himself in the frigid, oxygen-poor atmosphere had taken its toll, as had the reality of the security situation. His mate was inside those dungeons somewhere, and though the interior was protected from the harsh atmosphere, she would be chilled to the bone, afraid she would be executed, not knowing if he was dead or alive. Nearly three hundred warriors camped in front of the rectangles of reddish-brown rock dug into Guardians’ Keep, one of the most imposing peaks in the Wasteland. The only mountain higher was Streamcatcher, revered for the way it seemed to nearly touch the Stream, the furious force of Creation that coursed above the Realm, a raging river of sapphire blue.
Although Pellus spent most of his time on the bluff learning the security routines around the dungeons, he departed from time to time to help Remiel gather her hunted warriors, or assist with the construction of a base in the caves on the other side of the foothills. The commander had chosen a clever spot. The entrance to the caves was obscured within a canyon, and a warrior at full power could charge from that canyon to the area in front of the dungeons in a mere three-hundredth turn.
The problem is, few of the warriors are whole and all of them are exhausted.
Pellus dabbed his eyes with his filthy robes. His gratitude for the brave warriors willing to risk their lives to rescue his mate was paired with dread that they would be slaughtered and Jeduthan would die.
The number of Abraxos’ fighters patrolling around the dungeons never fell below three hundred. When the shifts changed even more were present. If that were not bad enough, Pellus spied a detection net and barriers which told him that at least two adepts had been enlisted to heighten exterior security. While Pellus could use his superior skills to penetrate the thick stone walls to get some sense of the layout, the barriers devised by the adepts were at least partially effective. He wanted to recreate the floor plan but was left with dangerous blind spots. He could not see where they held his mate or the trap that had surely been set for him, probably by additional adepts. He dared not slip inside the dungeons to complete his blueprint or assess internal security.
I do not see a way, Jeduthan. Balance help me, I do not.
He wondered if Barakiel had awakened from his healing sleep.
Please let him have had enough time with the Sylvan Three. At full strength, he would slaughter his way through the rabble in front of the dungeons like an earthly plow through loose dirt.
After coughing to expel the grit of wind-whipped dust from his throat, Pellus noticed vibrations along the bluff. He peered down to see Remiel and one of her hardier remaining warriors ascending the steep promontory. They had managed to find the commander some armor as dented and blood-stained as that of her companion.
“Commander, warrior.” Pellus nodded to each. “I am glad you have returned. How goes the search for your comrades?”
“I believe we have gathered most of the warriors from my battalion who returned from the Destructive Realm, except for those who were transferred to Healers Hall after the battle. Ladriel fears they are lost.” Remiel’s voice was hard-as-stone as she gestured to the stocky, sandy-haired warrior beside her.
“Yes, my mate— ” Ladriel paused to rub her eyes, whether because of dust or emotion, Pellus could not tell. “I tried to locate him and was told that any of Commander Remiel’s warriors who were unable to flee were executed.”
“I am sorry, fine Covalent, for your pain. And for yours, commander.”
“Thank you, adept,” Ladriel said. “Balance willing, you will not suffer the same fate. All our warriors want to help you and make these traitors pay in blood.”
Pellus could not answer. Ladriel looked back to her commander, perhaps embarrassed. In a few pulses, Pellus regained his composure. “What about fugitive warriors from other battalions, Commander? Have you been able to help them?”
She knows what I am really asking. I do not want to seem ungrateful in front of this suffering warrior.
“Yes, adept. We have brought many to the hidden base, most only moderately wounded, which explains why they were able to escape. I think if we give them a few turns to rest and gather energy from the Stream, we should be able to mount a force of almost five hundred.”
“How many of that number are intact?”
Remiel’s black eyes bored into Pellus. “Not more than a hundred.”
He returned the intensity of her gaze. Remiel and her warriors knew they might be mowed down in their weakness. They were willing to fight, but Jeduthan’s rescue was not their only goal. They would fight to liberate Council President Ravellen and High Commander Camael, whom they suspected were also imprisoned in the dungeons. It made Pellus feel more in control to think this was about the Realm, not him.
“Well, then,” he said, stiffening his back. “We shall have to devise a plan worthy of our warriors’ courage. I have observed long enough. We should return to base to discuss our approach. Then we must head to the Earthly Realm to see how it goes with Barakiel.”
“We cannot lose with the mighty Barakiel beside us,” Ladriel said. “He will give us the power we need.”
I hope you are right, warrior.