The rain lifted, no longer slicing down against their heads. It hung now, in a mist, clinging to everything around it, obscuring what might have otherwise been easily seen.
The temple loomed out of the gray suddenly, its shape an unmistakable pyramid in the distance. One side was caved in, as if a great creature had taken a bite from its side. The other tilted oddly, and it wasn't until they neared that Adda could tell it was because the entire structure was sinking into the soupy mess of ground around it.
“And we're still assuming there's anything of value left in that?” Strale asked. “It looks like the hind side of a...”
“It's there,” Adda announce. Isn't it? she asked as an afterthought to Nex. Great Six, it had to be.
Most of the trees surrounding the temple had died long ago, blackened trunks jutting out of the water like great rotting teeth.
“If it is sinking, the building won't be stable. Do we dare enter?”
Adda turned her study of the dying vegetation back to the temple. Kiskan was right. Forget if the orb was inside, what if they got inside themselves and it collapsed...or sunk with them in it?
The worry of it all clawed at her stomach.
Positives. She had to stay positive.
First, she had found the temple. That was much, much more than she had truly believed she might accomplish. Not only that, but she had managed to gather a group of companions who were fighting toward the same goal...sort of...well...mostly.
Feel better yet? Because we need to move. I sense Vou is nearing.
No. Not really. It was getting increasingly difficult to not fall to despair.
A weight fell on her shoulder, and a warmth spread from the hand there. She looked up into Scet's eyes and met with a fierce determination.
“We will find it, and it will cure you,” he murmured, brushing a wayward strand of hair from her cheek. “I promise it will be so.”
When he said it like that, looking at her like that, like she was the only...the most important thing in the forest, she could almost believe him.
“How many will we risk for this possibility?” Andas asked, holding a hand up when Scet whirled his direction with a snarl. “Sorry Alpha, but I must point out that it, perhaps, isn't wise for every member of our pack to enter such a place. If something were to happen, we would all be lost. May I suggest those with a vested interest, those already doomed, be the ones to enter?” He didn't look at Adda, but she could tell that he meant her.
He didn't want to risk his life, or the pack. Adda glanced back at Scet, who seemed to be working hard to contain his fury with the man. The problem was, Andas was right. It was stupid to risk all, even a team chosen for this purpose, when she was doomed either way.
The screech of a possessed Shifter broke the moment. It was distant still, but that didn't stop the fear from stealing her senses. She had to get that orb before that woman.
Vou's hunters. They have found our trail.
“I will go,” Adda growled. Without hesitation, nor further worry about crumbling and sinking buildings, she pushed her way forward. She couldn't wait for the others to follow, let them choose their fate as they would.
She made it all of three steps before Scet scooped her from the ground.
Beneath her, or where she had trod in her thoughtlessness, the mud rumbled and bubbled. A spire shot through the surface, its angle ensuring it would have pierced the spot where she had stood moments ago.
At first, she thought it was a thin branch, but it was too long and too perfectly straight to be such. Some of the mud slid from the end and she recognized a weapon, a pike, with the tip broken off. The mud had slowed the triggered release upward, yet it still would have done its job.
“Just how many enemies did Alikeye-Baroth have?” she grumbled.
The trap had startled Scet, too. His heart pounded against his chest, Adda could pick out the rhythm as she was squeezed tight for a moment.
“Behind me,” was all he said when he placed her back on her feet.
“I still don't know who you are talking about, but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on whoever set these traps,” Strale was close, he had only been a step behind Scet, and now he crowded into Adda's space.
“That would be Scet...in a previous life,” Adda informed him. And thank the Six it was so. If he didn't have a sense for these traps, they would likely all be dead.
Strale's golden brows formed a pucker, which did nothing, she noticed, to mar the beauty of his face.
“Nothing to say to that, Dragon Lord?” Scet wondered. His gaze slid over Strale, but then scanned the swamp with narrowed focus. The water had quickly raised to her ankles in the few steps she had managed, black water, with a grasping ooze that settled along the top, deceptively hiding the water's depth, and concerning in its consistency.
“Her trials have obviously damaged her mind. Generally, it isn't polite to point such things out,” he sniffed.
“She tells the truth,” Scet told him, his words filled with tired acceptance.
“Yes, well your state of mind was long ago established.”
From somewhere behind his broad expanse, Kiskan growled.
“We go forward,” Scet ignored the Lord, but glanced meaningfully at Andas. “Any who don't wish to risk the temple may stay and face the creatures.”
An explosion of branches punctuated the last of his words and the monotonous gray of the sky was filled with the dark shadow of a tattered Dragon.
They were too late.
Go, Adda, we must reach it first.
How? Did you not see what happened the last time I moved on my own?
Then don't move on your own. Take the beast man with you. Just go.
It was the first time that Nex had suggested asking for help...sort of…and it alerted Adda to the seriousness of the situation.
The black silhouette dove toward them, rearing up at the last moment. It flapped its great wings once, twice, and then the air was filled with the sound of a roaring fire.
Behind Adda, water shattered and exploded as the golden form of Strale's Dragon burst forth. He sheltered most of them with the expanse of his great wings, saving the pack from the worst of the heat. Illaise and her men were slightly behind, however, and Adda feared she met with the same fate as her other man, burned alive. Water hissed and sizzled where the Dragon-fire landed on the swamp. Steam whipped up from the surface.
The moment the flames subsided, Strale was gone, lifting into the sky with a great roar of outrage.
Illaise pulled herself up from beneath the swamp water as he took off, her men following shortly behind. It was a miracle they had made it beneath the surface, really, she must have anticipated such an attack. An oily ooze clung to her gray hair and pale skin, a fierce hatred glinted in her eyes as she watched the dark Dragon deftly avoid Strale's golden figure. She turned forward.
“Do we move forth to stem this plague or stand here and become Quatori fodder?”
Scet stood for a moment, undecided. Above the swamp, Strale charged at Morakamouth diving at the last moment and narrowly avoiding a sharp bite on his flank. Morakamouth was on his own, where was Vou? Certainly not between his massive claws.
Don't fret, she comes. Nex assured her, just as several ruined Shifters burst into the swamp from the edges of the forest. Vou's hunters.
Kiskan snarled, the sound half animal, her spear lifted and she might have charged across the swamp right then to meet the enemy if Scet hadn't barred her path.
“It's too dangerous to battle here, even I hardly grasp where the traps are laid.” He turned to include the others, “we will make a stand at the temple.” The command echoed with a ripple across his skin. He held back his beast form, but the growl he let loose was filled with authority and power, then he surged forward.
“Keep close and in my footsteps.”
Footsteps that were already obscured by the swamp water. Right.
Move.
Another screech...more creatures? How many tracked them?
Move, Adda!
I'm going.
Behind her, Kiskan cursed. Adda ran after Scet, each step splashing swamp water up her legs, doing her best not to look over her shoulder to see who...or what, followed.
Another burst of Dragon-fire pierced the air, the heat dry above her head. It felt like a giant hand pressing down upon her, but she kept running, afraid that if she fell to the swamp now, she might never rise again. A violent roar and the fire ended abruptly, something snapped and the black remains of a trunk slammed down into the water on her right, followed by a flash of gold.
Water and slime flew in all directions, caking the side of her head.
The dark Dragon landed on top of the gold with a meaty thud, its lip-less mouth a picture of horror with jagged and broken teeth that sped toward its prey.
The golden Dragon writhed and twisted, throwing wide clumps of mud. Somehow, it narrowly avoided the gnashing teeth.
Something whipped against Adda's right arm, leaving a stinging pain along her skin. There would be a wicked bruise there later, if she survived. She glimpsed the edge of a retreating spear. Kiskan's spear.
“Eyes forward, Alpha's mate, don't want to veer off the trail.”
From the quality of her voice, Adda got the distinct impression that she was somehow enjoying herself.
Scet moved suddenly to the left and Adda followed diligently, a narrow wire flung up and out of the water behind him. It blurred across what had been their path moments before disappearing back beneath the surface of the swamp.
She splashed past where the wire had sunk, with the distinct concern that the trap might be resetting itself, a concern that was confirmed a few moments later when Illaise cursed violently a distance behind.
“I don't care in which life you built these traps, if one of them de-limbs me, I'll be ending this one,” she called to Scet.
So, she had listened to their little discussion. Adda shouldn't be surprised, she doubted much got past the woman's hearing when there was something that she wanted.
It felt like a very long time they dashed through the mire with Six knew what following them and the sounds of Dragons battling in the sky.
At last, they reached solid ground and clambered up the slick stones onto what was the roof of the first level of the temple. There was enough room for the warriors to stand side by side as they gained the surface. It had once, perhaps, been well constructed; it had lasted centuries, so obviously that was the case, but now it slanted awkwardly and disappeared into the water where they climbed up. Half of the entire first level was fully submerged.
Adda tried to find hope that it would not be the part that contained the orb. Struggled, actually, to find hope that the orb was there at all.
The fear of traps and footing gone, she turned, finally glimpsing what lay behind her. The swamp spread out before them, innocuous looking except for the stumps that stood, flaming from the remains of the Dragon battle. The only sign of Strale's fate was the echo of snarls that came from beyond the trees that framed the open space.
Shadow crept from the edge of the swamp, turning and melding with the darkness of the water. Shapes made their way forward, more of them than Adda cared to count. The one at the front drew her attention, the darkness pulsed around it...him. He lifted his face to the sky and snuffled.
Recognition was a physical force that weakened her knees. She staggered, saved only by the steadying of Scet's hand.
She wasn't the only one, either. The youngest of Illaise's warriors, the boy, had climbed from the water, he stiffened, a howl of pain ripped from his throat.
“Izran!”
He surged back to the water, fool of a child. The only thing that stopped him from rushing to his death was Andas, who must have fallen behind due to the weight he carried. Andas stepped into his path down the roof, blocking his way with determination.
“Do not throw your life to them,” he commanded.
Adda nodded her approval. It wasn't his brother anymore, anyway. That soul, she prayed, was at peace somewhere. It had to be. But this body, though it resembled the man, was not Izran. There was no saving him, and she should know, hadn't she tried?
Guilt seeped in beside the shock of the man's appearance, the underlying knowledge that, while she had tried, she hadn't succeeded. A fear that maybe she hadn't tried hard enough, that if she had only put his life before her own she might have pulled him from that fire.
You would have joined him in his fate.
Maybe, but I can stop this one from self-imposed destruction.
That is not your place.
Nex was right, it was Illaise's job. The boy was her responsibility and she cared for his life the way she cared for all others, only when it suited her. Adda turned, searching for her, intending to tell her so, to demand that she take control of her warrior. There was only one problem.
Illaise was gone.