“Just don’t fart,” Ulric said. “My face is much too close to your butt. My view is not great.”
“You weren’t thinking when you let me go first,” the basajaun replied.
“This isn’t how normal people walk into battle.” I smoothed my hair back.
“Yes, it is,” Nathanial replied. “It is exactly how people walk into battle. Confident people. People who know that victory is at hand, and losing is not an option.”
“Hear, hear,” Jasper intoned.
But I knew they were just trying to bolster me.
Light filtered through the dimness as the tunnel bent right, still sloping upward. We were reaching the end of the tunnel.
“Good news,” Hollace whispered.
No door barred the way this time. Little green shoots led to the tunnel opening and patches of lush grass grew beside the entrance. The intensity of the sun blinded me at first, and I screwed up my face and blocked the rays. An electric blue sky looked down on us, not one cloud to mar its beauty.
“Wow.” Ulric stepped up beside me, hands braced on hips, and I had to agree. Gorgeous.
Stone steps led down to another tunnel, disappearing into a grassy berm. On the other side, the land flattened out into a huge meadow high off the ground between the peaks. All around us the land dropped away steeply, giving way to the mountain face. The horizon stretched out before us, peeking around distant snow-capped peaks. The view was breathtaking, the air impossibly clear and fresh.
“We’ll be able to fly,” Hollace said as I started down.
“No.” I pointed at the shallow magical dome straddling the path we currently walked, keeping people put, and then the larger dome encompassing the meadow. “Well, not you, at any rate. Ulric probably could. Maybe Jasper. Cyra. The rest of you would be hindered. It would be like the basajaun in that tunnel.”
“I was fine in the tunnel,” the basajaun said gruffly.
“I mean, the way you had to bend over—”
“I could have fought easily. Called on the mountain to help. It senses the violence within it. It will have its share of blood.”
“I just meant that you had to bend over—”
“I am fine outside or inside the mountain. It is my birthright.”
I gave up.
As the basajaun muttered away, we entered the berm, the lighting once again dim. A sign pointed my team away right, and we walked into what could only be described as a locker room. There were flat benches and little cubbies, plus a big pile of rusty swords and various other weapons next to the door leading outside. The meadow, I’d noticed, had been stripped of grasses and flowers. Sand had taken its place, clearly having been brought in. It didn’t look natural to the area. This kind of preparation didn’t happen overnight…
Elliot had definitely planned all of this way in advance. But how far in advance? When had he hatched his plan to get me here?
“Really?” Ulric took a half-cleaved helmet out of a cubby and showed it to Broken Sue. “This yours?”
“Intimidation tactics,” Austin said, stripping off his shirt. “I don’t smell blood in here, or see it on any of those weapons. These are just props. They’re not meant for people like us.”
“Speak for yerself,” Niamh said. “I think they’re good craic. Look at this one.” She held up a breastplate. The strap over the left shoulder was broken and the whole left side was bent in, suggesting the person in it had been crushed by something. “Or look.” She grabbed a metal shin guard, twisted so badly that any leg inside of it would have been hanging on by a thread. “Here, Jessie, wear this one.” She grabbed a woman’s breastplate, shining bronze, the breasts large and ending in points. “Go on, wear it. Go on, ye might as well.”
I shook my head and plucked at my muumuu, nothing but a thin bit of fabric that could easily be pulled off before a change.
“Missed opportunity, that,” Niamh said.
“I will.” Cyra took hold of it and affixed it to her middle. “I’ll try to boob-ram someone. That’ll hurt worse than my fire.”
Edgar stepped out from behind another set of cubbies with a bicycle helmet a size too big and catcher’s gear. “Look, they have something like what I first wore when Jessie started learning. It almost fits.”
Niamh stared at him blankly. “It’s not funny when ye do it.”
“It is.” Cyra held her stomach and laughed. “It is funny when he does it! Hollace, you put something on, too.”