Shea drew the knife across her skin, biting down to keep the sound of pain inside. Cutting yourself on purpose was totally different than a wound you received while going about your life.
She knelt and held her arm over the eye. The story hadn’t said where the blood needed to fall, so she figured the eye was as good a place as any.
“Work.” She willed the thing. If it didn’t, she didn’t know what else to try.
For a long moment, the cavern was silent. Nothing happened. Then there was a rumble—one that was felt more than heard. The ground under her started to shake.
Trenton cried out as the wall he’d been descending started moving. He lost his grip and tumbled off, missing the monolith Shea stood on and falling to the ground below.
“Trenton!” Shea cried, throwing herself to her knees on the side of the platform. The area he had fallen was shadowed, and she couldn’t see his form to know if he was alright. That was all the attention she could spare for him as the rock around her began to move. She clung to her perch as it shook and quaked.
Perhaps this hadn’t been her best idea.
Rock and dust cascaded from above, the monoliths closing in on each other and sealing out the sun, leaving Shea alone and in darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE EAGLE swooped for another pass. Fallon leaned close to his horse, its legs pumping as it ran for all its worth. The eagle grew larger and larger, falling from the sky faster than anything Fallon had ever seen. At the last second its wings snapped out, catching the wind as it sailed over Fallon’s head.
Fallon reined in his horse, slowing its gallop and watching as the eagle bypassed his men and headed to the cliffs. It was joined by a second eagle, both preoccupied by something tucked away and out of sight.
Shea. They were going after Shea. She’d been climbing near there before they appeared. Fallon didn’t want to think a beast could be that smart—to bypass easy prey in favor of a much more difficult quarry—but he didn’t know how else to explain why the golden eagles were acting so counter to their nature.
He saw Reece up ahead, looking at the eagles the same way Fallon had.
“Could this beast call be the cause of this?” Fallon shouted, reining his horse to a stop next to the pathfinder.
Although there were plenty of mounts with each of his men bringing four to enable them to switch off when their first mount got tired, Fallon had not given Reece one. He’d wanted the other man tired and irritated from the journey.
Reece looked lost as he stared at the eagles as they pecked at something in the rocks. Fallon took heart, seeing their continued preoccupation as a sign that they’d been unsuccessful in their hunt.
“I don’t know,” Reece finally said. “I’ve never seen them act like this. It’s against their nature.”
“So, it’s the beast call.”
He shook his head. “A call shouldn’t be able to control them. Its sole purpose is to summon a beast. It doesn’t pick the beast and certainly doesn’t guide its actions.”
Fallon thought they needed to revisit that assumption. What he was seeing contradicted that statement. It was the only explanation.
“We need to get those eagles away from the cliffs.” The words ‘and Shea’ went unspoken. To the men who still stood guard over the pathfinder, Fallon said, “Put him on a horse and get him to the cliffs.”
There would be some protection afforded by tucking in close to the cliffs. For a short time at least.
Fallon let out a war cry, summoning his men as he galloped towards Shea. Half of his army was still strung out along the cliff, looking for the entrance that Fallon was half convinced didn’t exist. Those that heard him galloped towards him, forming a wave around him, Fallon at the tip of the spear. He slowed the gallop. They needed to distract those birds.
In the distance, Braden had formed the men that couldn’t answer Fallon’s call, creating a square, archers inside, spearmen on the outside. The men fell into line easily, having practiced the movement several times during the journey to Bearan’s Fault. They’d learned from the first attack. The golden eagles would not find them such easy prey this time.
“What’s your order?” Caden shouted next to him.
“Have Braden’s men harry the eagles. The rest ride with me.”
Fallon whistled and the men around him broke off, following him without question or doubt as he rode back out onto the wide-open plains. The cliffs receded behind them, but not quickly enough for what Fallon had planned.
They were bait. Harrying the eagles would only do so much. Moving bait would pull them off their victim.
A bugle sounded behind them. It was the signal Fallon had been waiting for. He let out another cry and the ranks split, groups breaking off to form a large square, spearmen on the outside edge and archers on the inner edge of the square.
Fallon took a position inside the square on the side where the eagles would attack. He shouted his order. “Archers to the ready.”
His men reached for their bows.
“Nock arrows.”
Only the sound of heavy breathing and horses shifting was heard.
“Hold.”
The eagles grew in size until Fallon could count the spots on one.
“Draw.”
That was close enough.
“Loose arrows.”
The arrows released with a series of twangs. In a smooth movement, his archers knocked their next arrow and drew back their strings.
“Loose.”
Another volley of arrows flew.
One eagle screeched and pulled back, the powerful beat of its wings taking it higher into the air. Its companion kept coming, attempting to snatch a man off the line. Fallon was there with spear in hand, jabbing up into its stomach. Other spearmen joined him, some glancing off its protective feathers, a few finding their mark.
It peeled off to join its companion in the air. Together they circled.
“Archers!” Fallon shouted. Bows lifted. “Loose.”
A storm of arrows sailed toward the eagles. They swooped and dived to avoid the worst of it.
“Loose.”
The eagles beat their wings and climbed.
Thunder sounded from the cliffs and the ground shook. Such a loud noise that Fallon was half convinced the world was about to meet its end as the horses tossed their heads as their eyes rolled.
They were too well-trained to rear and toss their rider, but they pranced in place. Eagles didn’t concern them, but the ground moving under their feet was enough to upset years of training.
“Look,” one of Fallon’s men shouted. To Fallon’s eyes he looked not much older than a boy. He was familiar. Fallon thought this might be one of the men Shea was friends with.
A small opening appeared in the cliffs. One not visible before.
“She did it,” Buck shouted.
Of course, she did. If anybody could, it was Shea. In the nick of time too.
“One hundred meter sprints,” Fallon said. “On the next pass.”
There was a chorus of battle cries acknowledging his command.
The eagles passed over head, shying away from the volley of arrows the archers sent in their direction.
“Now.”