Kingfisher(53)

From somewhere in the trees above him there came a sudden, high-pitched scream.

His head snapped around; he took a step uphill and heard a gunshot. He froze. Someone shouted from below: Leith, he thought, but had no time to answer before he began a scrabbling run among the stones and swollen tree roots. The girl cried out again; this time it sounded like a curse. Another shout came, this one from uphill as well. Pierce crashed through a thicket; the ground leveled on the other side of it, trees opening up in a crescent around a strange stone ruin.

Water flowed out from under the ruin, a quick little rill that vanished back underground beneath a brake of ferns. The ruin, three broken walls and an archway, had been built around what looked like a cave in a steep, sudden rise of earth, slabs of stone, more trees.

The voices sounded very close, a tangle of men, the girl crying at them fiercely, rhythmically. Pierce saw the mountain bikes lined along both sides of the dark opening.

All of them carried the familial devices of the Wyvernhold knights.

The girl’s voice rose sharply. Pierce looked around wildly for a weapon, saw a lovely glass pitcher lightly chained around its neck to a tree branch above the froth of water. During the moment it took him to reach it, break it against a stone and turn, armed with a shard of jagged glass attached to the pitcher’s handle, some of the confused knot of voices began to break into words.

“Put that down! I’ll shoot, I swear—”

“All weapons belong to Severen—you can’t shoot us. Just put it down—”

“You put that down!”

“This is holy ground. We are Knights of the Rising God on a quest in King Arden’s name, and this gold mine is dedicated to Severen—”

“This old shaft is as empty as your heads, you *s; it went dead a hundred years ago!”

“If you’ll just listen—”

“Put that down, too! This is Tanne’s holy ground, not Severen’s, and I swear—”

There was an odd snick of metal that Pierce associated with weapons in very old movies. He plunged into the ruins, wielding his broken glass in the air, and found an elderly man with white hair down his back swaying on his knees and trying to pull himself upright. His eyes widened at the sight of Pierce and his weapon. He threw himself sideways to grasp at some kind of long-handled implement. Pierce moved quickly through the ruins and into the open earth beyond them, the mouth of an old shaft crisscrossed with miners’ lights, young men’s faces flaring and disappearing as they roamed, and rummaged, and the girl cursed them in the constantly shifting shadows.

One turned headlamp illumined her face finally: a young, freckled oval, narrowed gray eyes beneath flaming red brows, lips pared thin as thread with fury.

Then she vanished as light drenched Pierce’s face, then flashed across the broken pitcher.

Pierce heard her gasp. A thundering boom sent dirt scattering down from the ceiling. There was a tortured groan from very old timber. All of the headlamps pointed up.

The world went black.

When Pierce’s eyes flickered open, he saw the spare, freckled face again. He felt water misting over him instead of the dry dust of centuries. He made a sound, and Leith shifted into view, crouched beside him, Pierce realized, under sky and trees, not earth and rotting boards. The empty chain that had held the pitcher swung aimlessly above his head.

“I’ll give you a drink, but you’ll have to take it from my hands,” the girl said dourly. “You broke my pitcher.”

That, Pierce thought, would explain her disgruntled expression. He tried to speak, then nodded. Leith held up his head; the girl cupped her hands in the bright rill, and he opened his mouth.

He drank the pure, cold water falling from her fingertips three times before he could finally speak.

“Sorry,” he croaked. “I needed a weapon.” He paused a moment, remembering. “Did you shoot everyone?”

“No. But they didn’t wait around for the ceiling to make up its mind.” The frown on her face was easing; she added, “I thought you were one of them when I saw the broken pitcher. They were taking things—small, sacred things we keep in there—looking at them with their unholy lights, then just tossing them on the ground. Searching for gold, I think, though they kept yammering about something sacred belonging to Severen.”

“Can you sit up?” Leith asked, and helped him. The world whirled, then slowed and steadied. He felt at the back of his aching head, wondering if one of the mineshaft timbers had swung down and smacked him. Sitting, he saw the old man finally, with his white hair and his beard down to his belt. There was not much room for expression on his hairy face, but his eyes were rueful.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were one of them, too. You’re all dressed alike but for the emblems. Sir Leith here explained who you are.”

“What hit me?” Pierce asked bewilderedly.

“My garden shovel.”

“Oh.” He sighed, his eyes going to Leith. “So much for knightly prowess. Armed with a pitcher and felled with a garden tool.”

“You should have— You should never have—” Leith began, then gave up, shaking his head.

“It was very brave of you to try,” the girl said staunchly. “My grandfather tried to stop them. They just threw his crutch over the wall and let him fall. He has a bad knee.”