Disciple of War Disciple of War (Art of the Adept #4) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,25

Leaning to one side, he pulled back the side window and looked out. The single-lane road wasn’t paved, and Will could see a sharp stone cliff rising on the left-hand side.

Selene looked over. “We’re getting close. That cliff was created when they made this road. Earth elementals were used to cut a level path straight through the foothills. The land smooths out in a mile or so.”

Will stared at the sharp granite, enjoying the stark view as well as the crisp air. A sharp cracking sound caught his ears, and he glanced up to see the stone begin to move as if in slow motion. For a timeless moment, the world seemed to freeze, and then his brain registered what he was seeing. The cliff face had fractured and sloughed away. The lazy movement he saw represented thousands of tons of granite falling toward the roadway.

The driver shouted at the same time as Will turned to Selene and said, “The cliff face is collapsing on top of us.”

Her face registered shock and surprise and for a split second the two of them just stared at each other.

“I can’t use a force-dome in here,” said Will.

“We have to get out.” As she said the words, however, the carriage sped up, though whether that was the driver’s doing or because the horses had panicked, they couldn’t be sure.

Selene had the carriage door open by the time Will was standing, and they jumped together. Fortunately, the ground was smooth and grassy on the verge of the road where they landed, otherwise they might have had worse than the minor scrapes and bruises that they acquired in the fall. Will saw Selene holding out her hand oddly and realized she was trying to cast a spell, but the heart-stone enchantment was still in effect.

Luckily, he had a force-dome already prepared, and with a thought and a rush of turyn he felt the protective field snap into place around them just seconds before an avalanche of broken stone and soil blocked out the sun. The experience was surreal, and while the force-dome blocked out much of the sound, the ground beneath their feet seemed to roar at them in deep, vibrating tones almost beneath the threshold of human hearing. Will could feel the pounding granite in his legs and chest, and the world shook violently around them.

A minute later and everything seemed to have come to rest, leaving them in a shockingly silent darkness marked only by the sound of their breathing. Will felt Selene’s hand seek out his, and then she pulled him closer. He wasn’t sure who was reassuring who at that point, nor did he care.

“How long can you keep the force-dome up?” asked Selene.

A year ago and he would have said fifteen minutes, but he had grown. Since the disaster at the dam, he had become much better at absorbing and controlling turyn, plus the force-dome was proximal to his body, reducing the amount of energy it required. “An hour or more,” he said confidently.

“Seriously?”

He nodded before realizing the gesture was wasted in the dark. “Yes. The real problem is that I can’t do anything while keeping the dome up.”

“I hate to say it, but the earth elemental would have been awfully handy,” Selene observed softly.

Will listened with one ear while simultaneously wondering how long their air would last. The water-breathing spell he knew wouldn’t help. It stored air within the caster, but that air would come from the space around them, displacing the problem rather than solving it. If he had known and used it on each of them before they were buried, it might have allowed them to last much longer, but now that they were trapped underground it was mostly useless. Ignoring his dark thoughts, he replied to Selene, “Do you regret it?”

“No.”

He squeezed her in the dark. “Unfortunately, our principles may get us killed. I can’t think of a single spell I know that would help us, even if I could use it without dropping the force-dome.”

She clucked her disapproval. “All that practicing and you’re still unprepared.” Her voice didn’t sound too worried, though. “You spent too much time on battle magics.”

Will protested, “I practice a lot of spells that aren’t battle magics.” A sudden idea came to him. He had previously run afoul of King Lognion’s secret enforcers, The Driven, and they had used some sort of magic to move through the ground as though it was insubstantial. “What about the spell that the Driven use