“You killed him!”

Allison’s voice barely rose above a hoarse, venomous whisper. She’d screamed and screamed until her vocal chords felt as if they’d peeled apart like string cheese.

“You told me you wouldn’t hurt him.”

She stared at Ubira with burning, swollen eyes. The screaming was over. The tears dried. Nothing but a hollow hatred for the man in front of her remained.

They remained on the ledge overlooking the path below until the last of the rocks stopped tumbling and settled into place. Rocks covered a long stretch of the trial, almost from the tunnel to the bend. There was no sign of Kellen, the other two people he’d been with, or either of the animals.

Allison stared at the spot where she’d last seen Kellen before he disappeared over the cliff. She told herself over and over that if she just kept watching, he would climb back up. Close to an hour went by — or at least it seemed — and he never did.

A dozen masked cultists picked their way down from the top of the chute. They’d been the ones to trigger the massive rockslide. Allison didn’t know how they’d done it, especially how they managed to dislodge the massive, elephant-sized boulder. She’d fought with all her might, eventually opening and twisting her mouth wide enough to bite the hand of the cultist covering her face. But her shout hadn’t been soon enough and now Kellen was gone.

Professor Ruggs gripped her tight, an arm looped around her shoulders. She knew he was afraid she’d go too far and get them in trouble. Allison didn’t care. One day, she swore, she’d kill Ubira. She was prepared to wait and hate him as long as it took.

Ubira ignored her, just as he had the whole time she’d shrieked and threatened herself hoarse. When the cultist woman returned, leading the others out of the chute, the slaver broke his silence.

“That was a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

The leader of the cultists shook her head. “Maybe to deal with them. It is good to cover the path, make it look abandoned. We cannot risk the others following them and finding us when we are this close. There are enough of them to cause problems.”

“Maybe so,” Ubira said. “But now they don’t have even their companion-strength Mana Beast. Shakraa defeated him. When he returns to his beastcaller, he will be nothing more than a ward like the other.”

Allison filled in the gaps of understanding she had in Ubira’s words with what she’d seen of the fight between Shakraa and the flying coyote. They’d disappeared out of sight over the cliff, then reappeared high in the sky overhead. One moment, the two were locked in battle in the air and the next, the coyote disappeared in a flash of dark blue light. Shakrra hadn’t escaped unscathed, either. When she landed on the rocks above them, she’d shrank down to the size of a swan — quite the difference, considering she’d been as tall as Ubira before the fight started.

“You’re sure they are dead?” the woman asked, sending another gut-wrenching pain through Allison.

“Shakraa flew down to the base of the mountain,” Ubira said. “She was only just strong enough to make it back up after her fight. There were no bodies, but with the number of rocks that fell, they would have been buried. They weren’t hanging on the side of cliff, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Good,” the woman said. Her emotionless response made Allison hate her almost as much as Ubira. How could she act like that when she’d just killed three people? “We should go. I am eager to reach the city. We can arrive before midday if we move quickly.”

As the cultists shepherded the prisoners in line, Allison debated if she wanted to get up or not. Part of her wanted to stay there, to refuse to move until they dragged her along or killed her. But as she thought about it, the fire she’d always had inside her flared, giving her strength. If she didn’t get up, she couldn’t make Ubira pay for what he’d done to her brother. Allison rose, all fell in line. If nothing else, she had to look after Kattoh and Myri. She didn’t trust these cultists or whatever plans they had for the captives.

Ubira caught her eye, and she stared back into his hated yellow eyes. In the end, he was the one to look away as the cultists led them down the ledge and back onto the trail beyond the rock slide.

The path grew wilder with the rising sun. Mostly that meant the trail grew narrow or sloughed away completely in spots. They’d passed around the first sentinel of mountains overlooking the plains, so the sun didn’t shine directly down on them for hours. Allison felt nothing from its cold light. In a different circumstance, she would have been thrilled to explore the high mountain crags.

Overhead, the morning sun had burned the clouds away, giving her the first real view of the mountain peaks, jutting around them like a bed of spears. Vast banks of snow reflected the same sunlight, illuminating the harsh landscape in blinding detail. Even through her sorrow, Allison imagine this was what climbing Mt. Everest must be like.

“That isn’t just snow,” Professor Ruggs remarked. “These are glaciers.”

Ahead of them, the glacier field narrowed between walls of ice. It appeared as if a massive hatchet had chopped the glacier in half, forming a rough canyon down the middle of the glacier where it filled the saddle between two mountain peaks. From a distance, Allison thought the dark path through the glacier was just wide enough for a person. As they drew closer, it continued to grow until she realized it was as wide as a city street. They continued into its depths.

The world became a frozen dark thoroughfare. High above, a cut of clear blue sky could be seen. The sunlight hardly penetrated the ice, but shone down enough to cast the frozen overhead in a mesmerizing blue light. Down in the bowels of the glacier, their footfalls crunched on dry, sugared snow. Plumes of breath rose from the lines of cultists and captives as the masked woman led them deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Weary from their all night march on top of the already demanding trek into the mountains, no one spoke. The imposing ice pressing in around them seemed to swallow all sound on its frozen walls. Allison ignored the cold, focusing on one step after another. Occasionally, she found the strength to force a smile or a funny face at Myri, whose chin hung over the professor’s shoulder while he took his turn carrying her. Either the little girl wasn’t fooled by the false cheer or she felt so much despair and fear that she couldn’t manage even a tiny smile in return.

After what felt like several blocks, the light at the far end of the glacier grew, promising an escape from the expanse of ancient ice. When they appeared on the other side, they stood on a broad slope overlooking a hidden world.

“My word,” Professor Ruggs muttered. “It almost makes it all worth it. If the Machu Picchu scholars could see this…”

An entire city of terraces sat on top of the world. Dozens of levels of fields, walls and stone buildings ran hundreds of feet down the mountain. There was too much to take in all at once, but as Allison’s eyes roamed, she saw pens with llamas and cultivated gardens, all full of workers. It made no sense that, on the other side of the glacier, nothing but dried out moss, snowdrifts, and endless rock existed. Here, trees grew on almost vertical mountain sides and, though vibrant splashes of color painted the expanse in reds, oranges and yellows, no sign of winter existed. A tiered pyramid-shaped building sat at the highest point of the city, directly across from where they stood. Rather than a pointed top, it had a broad flat platform, positioned so one could stand on it and look down over all the different levels below.

Many of the stone buildings were lined together like townhouses, connected by graveled footpaths or stair cases of flat rocks. Some of these hinted at occupants with their thatched roofs and unkept appearance while others were exposed to the elements and had collapsed walls. Far more of the buildings looked to be unused or in disrepair, especially the larger ones that weren’t houses. Lichen covered the temple’s cracked and weather-worn stones, though care had been taken to keep it free of debris.

Allison expected them to head to the temple. Instead, the masked woman led them down a narrow, ceaseless switchback path on a cliff that circled the mountain top city like an arm. As they made their descent, people — men, women and even some children — shouted and pointed up at them. None of the cultists responded to the waves or welcoming shouts.

“I thought you said the Earth Badger Empires didn’t keep slaves?” Allison asked the professor.

“I don’t think these people are Earth Badger.” Professor Ruggs responded. “Whoever they are, these people have rebuilt parts of this city, but most of it is still in ruin. This one looks like it was abandoned for some time before being resettled.”

“These are not my people.” Allison risked a glanced back on the steep trail at the sound of a woman speaking. She was one of the Earth Badger captives captured in the caravan attack and walked just behind Kattoh. If Allison had to guess, she would have put the woman near her mom’s age. Her dark hair showed no signs of gray, but tiny wrinkles of middle age showed in the corners of her eyes and mouth. “They are hiding in our remains like maggots.”

“Quiet!” a cultist snapped from farther back in the line.

The woman glared and Allison hoped she would ignore the man to tell them more, but she fell silent.

By the bottom of the descent, Professor Ruggs and some of the older captives limped from the steep declining, switchback trail. Regardless of age, lack of sleep, hunger and loose rocks sent many of the captives sprawling. One man had slipped and almost fallen over the side of the path before Ruggs and a cultist had grabbed him and pulled him back. Allison gathered her share of cuts and bruises even with good boots on. By the time they reached the bottom, Kattoh hobbled on a swollen knee and relied on Allison’s support to help him keep up the pace.

When they reached the base of the cliff, they continued along it, parallel to the city. Here, a well-worn path of rock stepping stones and gravel led to a ridge even in height to the middle of the stacked city. Behind them, like rows and rows of honeycombs, empty holes in the rock stared out of the buildings and terraces. Each was shaped like a beehive, just tall enough for a person to walk through without having to stoop over. The holes rose so far Allison could still see them when she craned her head all the way back. The ones at ground level with them were the largest, wide enough for two people to pass through side by side.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Professor Ruggs muttered. “If I’m not mistaken, those are tombs.”

At a command from the masked woman, the cultists herded them inside, brandishing their clubs at anyone not moving fast enough for their liking. Pulled along with the rest, Allison glanced over her shoulder to look at the blue sky and the sun on the mountain peaks as long as she could. She had a feeling she might never breathe open air again.