The cave was consumed by darkness as furious roars of hundreds of creatures were muffled by the rubble behind us. The ground shook as something massive slammed into the mouth of the cavern. More dirt fell from the ceiling as the cave became more and more unstable.

A small glowing light radiated from my dad’s bracer as four pillars of ice struggled to hold the roof over our heads. Underneath the outraged roars of the beasts outside, I could hear the faint sounds of something cracking.

“Everyone, keep moving!” my dad shouted as another ice pillar formed out of the ground.

I could feel loose dirt and pebbles falling from the ceiling despite my dad’s support, coating my hair and making it difficult to breathe without inhaling a mouthful of mud. I raised my hand and a bright green flame danced on my fingertips lighting the dark cavern. Using my light as a guide, we hurried deeper into the crumbling cave system.

One of the ice pillars shattered behind us further collapsing the tunnel. I could hear my dad grunt with exertion as the pillar directly over us grew thicker and protect us from being buried beneath a mountain of stone and dirt.

From behind the collapsed tunnel, I could hear Irene’s undead clawing away at the stone in an attempt to tunnel inside, but all that did was make the cave collapse faster. With every stone the undead removed, four more fell from above to replace it.

I spurred our wagon forward in a panic as more and more loose dirt fell on my head. The mercenaries struggled to keep up as their horses panicked and crashed one of the supply wagons into a wall. The mercenaries leading the wagon did not hesitate to leap out as the wall crumbled like wet paper. The wagon and all the supplies were instantly buried in an avalanche of loose rock. I could still hear the muffled cries of the two terrified horses as the rubble entombed them forever.

Another ice pillar shattered behind us, creating a cascade of dirt that nearly buried the fleeing mercenaries. My dad continuously created more and more pillars around us as we raced forward. The pillars in the back continuously shattered under the immense weight of the collapsing mountain.

Every second felt like an eternity as the cavern collapsed around us. My heart raced as I commanded Mordere and Mitis to flee at their full speed. I was no longer willing to look back and see how the mercenaries were doing. I could only pray they were fast enough to keep up.

A loose rock bigger than my head smashed into my shoulder as another piece of the ceiling gave way. I stifled a scream of agony as I felt something crack and snap. Mordere and Mitis nearly went out of control as my connection with them was severed by the pain. I pushed back the tears in my eyes as I tried to focus on keeping our one light source burning in my uninjured hand. Luckily, even without my direct control, the two horses knew to keep running as they dashed like mad past another collapsing wall.

Finally, everything grew still as the final bit of rubble fell behind us. I had no idea how far we had made it into the tunnel in our mad dash for survival, but we were deep enough that I could no longer hear any of Irene’s undead.

The mercenaries had survived surprisingly well. Their bodies glowed with dull bronze sheen allowing them to sprint with a short burst of inhuman speed. Most of the horses and a second of the three wagons had been abandoned to a horrible fate, buried alive under the rock, but by my count all of the people were alive.

I let out a sigh of relief as I collapsed onto the roof of the wagon. I felt like crying as the pain in my shoulder made even breathing hurt, but I pushed it away best I could as green flames wrapped around the shattered bone. I grimaced as my innate talent probed the injury. It was a clean break, but with the current strength of my innate talent it could take up to a week to heal.

“Wren, are you ok?” Charly asked as he rushed over to my side.

“Do not worry about me. I will be fine,” I hissed softly.

“Good, then I can safely say that out of all the insane things we have done recently, this tops them all!” Charly shouted as he waved his arms wildly, “How is triggering a cave in over our heads the best plan you could come up with?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I asked as I pushed away the pain and forced myself to sit up. I saw my dad and a few of the mercenaries lighting lanterns that had survived our desperate dash and extinguished my flames with a flick of my wrist.

“It nearly didn’t!” Charly fumed.

“Would you have rather face hundreds of undead Demonkin?” I asked.

“No, but-”

Before Charly could continue, Donte jumped up with a big smile on his face. “I don’t know what you are complaining about. That was amazing! My heart is still beating like crazy. Let’s do it again!”

“I… what?” Charly stuttered as he looked at Donte in disbelief, “How can you possibly want to do that again?”

“Well, maybe not again, but you have to admit that was exciting.”

Charly looked over at me with his mouth wide open. “I think you broke Donte.”

“He was broken long before he met me,” I said dismissively. “How else would you explain his willingness to follow us around all this time?”

“I’m not broken!” Donte replied raising both fists into the air before collapsing beside me on the roof of the wagon, “I’m just happy to be alive!”

Donte’s exuberant actions bumped my injured arm, causing me to hiss in pain. I pushed the boy away with my one good arm, almost pushing him completely off the wagon. “Go be happy somewhere else! Go help Charly tend to the wounded or something. The explosion earlier did more damage than the mercenaries are willing to admit. If one of them dies now, I will end up even more in debt to Esben than I already am.”

Charly and Donte both nodded as they climbed down off the wagon and ran over to help the mercenaries. I cradled my injured arm and picked rocks out of my hair as I watched the two boys offer to help the injured.

“Let me help,” my mom said as she sat beside me. She started combing out my hair with her fingers. “I saw that rock hit you. How bad is it really?”

“I will be fine in a week,” I replied as I leaned against my mom’s shoulder, “My body heals fast.”

“That does not mean it does not hurt. You are allowed to cry when it hurts you know. You do not have to hide it from everyone.”

“Crying does not make the pain go away.”

“Neither does pushing everything away,” my mom said as she started humming a song while continuing to fix my hair.

I listened to my mom’s song in silence while watching everyone else work. My dad was busy taking stock of what we had left in our supplies while talking to one of the mercenaries. Charly and Donte quickly commandeered medical supplies from our wagon to treat the burns and wounds on the more heavily injured mercenaries. I counted six who needed immediate attention of the remaining nineteen men. I bit my lip as I glanced up from them towards the collapsed tunnel.

“I never thought Irene would be so dangerous. She was is just a copycat. A remnant of a bad memory to be buried. I never considered her an actual threat. How can she control so many undead?”

My mom stopped humming as she looked towards the rubble we just escaped from. “It is always the enemies we underestimate that are the most dangerous. Irene had centuries to plot her revenge. You only just learned about her when we were back in Aktaio. Do not worry. She may have caught us by surprise this time, but now we know what to expect. Next time we meet her we will be ready.”

I clenched the fist of my good hand and nodded. I would not make this mistake again. The next time I faced off against Irene, she would be the one running away.

Tearing one of my already damaged shirts, my mom and I made a sling for my arm before joining everyone else below the wagon. I was starting to worry about my dwindling wardrobe. We had not been able to stop at a proper town since before we entered the blood mist and I was officially out of non-tattered clothes. If things continued like this, I would be wearing rags by the time we reached Kala, or worse… one of the boys’ smelly shirts. I shuddered just considering the thought and decided I would cherish my remaining wardrobe from now on.

The sling helped though and my shoulder did not hurt as much with the extra support. It was worth the price of one torn shirt. Once my injury was dealt with, I joined my dad who seemed to be having a rather serious conversation with one of the mercenaries.

“I would have preferred to die fighting the fake Vaktare than this. Do we even know how deep these tunnels go? Where the exit is? Or if the exit is even still intact?” the mercenary asked as he pulled on the hair of his bushy beard with obvious anxiety.

I leaned against my dad and looked at the mercenary with a frown. He seemed older than the other mercenaries by a fair amount and had a large scar over his eye. “You are… Habil, right? You are Esben’s second in command. What is wrong? Are big strong mercenaries afraid of the dark more than a little girl like me?”

“Little girl?” Habil huffed, still pulling at his beard, “Underground is for the Vaktare. It is not a place for the living. No honest man should ever spend his time underground. Even less so when that ground is collapsing…”

I had a mischievous grin and was about to tease the rugged man for his superstitions when my dad stopped me. Clearing his throat, my dad spoke with a firm voice. “While it is true this is not ideal, this cave system is said to have many exits. Even if one has collapsed there should be others for us to find.”

“And how long will that take?” Habil asked, “This mountain range takes more than a week to go around. How long will it take to cut through it?”

“About half a day by carriage,” I responded instinctively while remembering the last time I had been here hundreds of years ago. “If your men are walking… maybe two days. There was a faster route once, but that path was the one that collapsed and caused this trade route to be shut down in the first place.”

“Two days! We are stuck down here for two days!” Habil shouted as he pulled the hair straight out of his beard without even wincing in pain.

I nodded as I tried my best to remember everything I could about the place. “Two days minimum, if the tunnel we choose is also collapsed we might have to backtrack. We could lose a day or more if that happens.”

The mercenary collapsed against the rubble on the ground as he cradled his head in his hands. “We are going to die down here… there is no hope.”

“Relax, it is just an unstable, dangerous, tunnel that could collapse at any time. Worst case, we get buried alive from a cave in,” I said as my mischievous grin returned, earning me a stern glare from my dad as the hardened mercenary practically wailed in distress.

My dad shook with a sigh. “The cave has stood for hundreds of years. It will continue for a few more days. Our real problem is food and water. The wagons we lost held most of our supplies. The one wagon left mostly carries camping gear and… bodies. Neither of which will help us much after days of wandering in these tunnels.”

“We have enough food in our wagon to feed this many people for a day or two. It will be fine,” I said, patting my dad’s back with a smile, “We got away from Irene’s undead. That was the hard part. This little trek will be a breeze compared to that.”