31. Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Eight

Demon's Pass

" D id we run all day?" Lily asked.

Asher rubbed his eyes, not realizing he'd allowed them to close. "Mm," he grunted.

Lily turned as much as the saddle allowed. Her green eyes were filled with concern, and she reached out to touch his cheek. "You need to sleep. And we should stop soon to check your leg."

He stretched and shook his head. "I am fine."

"Are you sure?" She leaned over the side of the horse to look at his leg.

He had been trying to ignore the growing pain, but finally relented and looked down at it. It hurt worse than it looked. Then again, he couldn't see the true extent of the wounds because of his pants.

"It could be worse," he said.

"You get hurt more than anyone I know."

He smiled a little. And then he chuckled.

"What?" she asked.

"It's just..." He let out a laugh, more out of relief than anything else. "I can't believe how close you were to marrying that barbarian. And that I was almost your pet tiger!"

Lily smiled. "That was definitely not the adventure I imagined." She looked over his shoulder in the direction they'd come. "Have you seen any signs of them?"

"No."

"Do you need to stop and rest?"

He shook his head. "We can't risk losing any ground if the barbarians are following."

She frowned. "You need sleep."

Asher quirked a grin. "Lily, though I appreciate your firmness, I really don't think we have the time. What if I take a nap on the horse and you can keep us on this path for a little while?"

She snorted. "Fine. And if you fall off, I'll just tell you I told you so." She raised an eyebrow.

He felt his heart jump and quickly looked forward. He didn't know why, but he'd found her incredibly attractive in that moment.

Trying to sleep was impossible. His leg burned, his ribs ached, and every time he tried to doze, he tilted to one side or the other.

"Which way do we go?" she asked, pulling the horse to a stop.

Asher had at least been able to rest his eyes. He rubbed one of them as he glanced at the sky. Thank goodness a majority of the day had passed.

The road forked, with the right leading down near the mountains but not through them—a trading path that would take travelers south. The one to the left looked more like a game trail. The way to Demon's Pass.

Unfortunately, that was their destination.

"Left," he said.

Lily glanced over her shoulder. "You don't sound happy about it."

He shook his head. "I'm not. If we go right, we can avoid the pass, but it's the fastest way. It's not safe either."

"How did the soldiers get you out?"

"Right." He pointed. "But it adds at least another day, and we have no supplies."

Lily gnawed her bottom lip—a habit she clearly had. "But you can go fishing again. We'll be able to eat that. Or maybe some other animal?" She paused, glanced at his leg, then shook her head. "You're too injured to do anything else, aren't you?"

"Well, I'm sure—" he started.

"No. We go your direction. Eat when we can. Will we make it out before nightfall?"

Asher glanced up at the sky. He certainly hoped so, because he had no desire to be in the pass when night hit. "We need to go as fast as we can," he answered. "If we're in there when night falls, we'll be in danger."

"I don't like the sound of that."

Asher nudged the horse with his heels. "We don't really have another choice."

Lily rubbed her hands up and down her legs as the horse began walking down the trail toward the pass. "Will they follow us?"

"No barbarian would choose to go this way."

No one in their right mind would, either. But with the barbarians chasing them, Asher knew this was the only way to effectively escape them.

The pass sloped downward instead of up toward the light. The cliff sides towered above them at an angle that made the pass narrow, like something being squeezed shut. The sides of the cliffs closed together tightly, casting eerie shadows down upon Asher and Lily. The top was just wide enough for the sun to shine through, barely breaking the thick darkness. Because the path jutted immediately to the left, neither could see how deep or far it was.

It was then that Asher slid off the horse. "We will want to travel on foot from here." He reached up and put his hands on her hips to help her get down.

"Why?" she asked.

He cleared his throat. "This is what we call Demon's Pass."

"That sounds safe." She looked around, concern clouding her eyes. "It feels...wrong. What is this place?" she whispered, in spite of them being physically alone.

Asher felt it too, though. The sensation of being watched. The hair on his body was prickled in warning. All of his senses piqued. "I've never been through it myself," he admitted. "But there are stories that there is some kind of a rift in this canyon. A sort of...portal between our world and that of the demon world. No one knows why or how, but the demons can somehow travel between their world and ours in this pass. They can't leave this canyon, but they can't return to their plane." He felt a growing knot in his stomach. "At least, those are the stories."

"You are certain this is the best way to go?" Lily turned to him.

Asher finally broke his gaze away from the opening of the pass, nodding his head. "We've spent too much time here to go back. The barbarians would catch us for certain."

"Let's make the best out of this situation, then." She rounded her shoulders and stepped to the side for Asher to walk alongside her.

"I would feel more comfortable with you in front of me, where I can see you and protect you from what may come behind. I'll lead the horse behind me." His gaze darted toward the foreboding pass and back.

She sucked in a breath. "Let's be on our way. But promise you'll tell me if you need a break." She raised her brows and hinted with her gaze toward his leg.

They remained quiet as they entered the deep crevasse between the two mountains. The layers of earth were evident in the rock walls and little plants and flowers desperately clung wherever they could take root. Asher looked up more than once, keeping an eye on the color of the sky as well as looking out for signs of danger. Luckily, their journey was uneventful, other than the sense of impending doom all day.

Asher's stomach clenched and a feeling of nausea traveled to his stomach. The barbarians hadn't fed him dinner, or breakfast. He knew Lily must be feeling hunger pangs too, because it was well past lunch time. He had begun leaning heavily on the horse for support, because his leg was in agony from the wounds left by the cougar that morning. Although Lily didn't ask him, she glanced back more than once with concern.

They were going too slow. Even when Asher pushed himself to walk faster, he couldn't. His leg simply wouldn't allow it.

The canyon walls took on an orange hue and Asher looked up to the sky again. "No," he whispered.

"What?" Lily asked. She followed his gaze. "Sunset. How much farther do we have?"

Asher looked beyond her, but the mountain pass turned beyond his field of vision and he had to shake his head. "I don't know."

Lily stopped. "Get on the horse. You can't walk any longer. I know you've been trying to be strong and quiet, but we just have to get out at this point."

Asher held no weight on his leg when he stopped. "Lily, we're wasting time."

"Exactly. Please get on the horse."

"The walls aren't wide enough," he tried to argue.

Lily placed her hands on her hips.

The hair on the back of Asher's neck prickled, and a burning rush of adrenaline shot through him. His gaze darted everywhere around the canyon as the horse pawed at the ground.

"We need to keep moving," he said firmly, not looking at her. Why could he feel the danger and not see it? There was nowhere to hide here. "Do you have enough strength to cast spells?" he asked softly.

She nodded, staying close to him.

He took a heavy step forward, but the horse refused to move, pulling back on his reins and skipping from side to side. He bumped the cliff wall twice.

"Shh," Asher whispered. "Come."

He caught the flickering movement of a shadow, or perhaps it was the sunlight catching on a shimmer of metal, but Asher grabbed Lily's arm and yanked her behind him. In the same instant, there was the twang of a bow's string, and an arrow skidded across the ground.

They both looked at it.

It was black with vibrant red feathers and a purple liquid dripping from the sharp tip.

Asher glanced back up in the direction the arrow had come from, but whoever had shot it was no longer there. He let go of the horse and began backing up, still holding Lily to his back, eyes scanning the top edges of the cliffs.

"That was aimed at me," Lily whispered.

Asher nodded silently.

"I...think I can give us a shield. It will be difficult to hold with my own energy, but I'll try."

Asher finally understood the shadows. As the sun leaned away, shadows had begun to spread downward, reaching toward the floor, toward them. There were dozens of small forms, no taller than three or four feet, and they scurried like lizards across the walls, darting from crack to crack.

"Whatever you can do, do it now. There are at least twenty of them. Possibly more," he said quickly.

"There's not much vegetation," she muttered and raised both hands in the air.

He didn't understand what that had to do with anything, but a bright burst of white light shimmered in front of him, rippling like the surface of a lake on a hot summer's day. The shield appeared none too soon as a rain of arrows struck the shield and bounced off with hollow, echoing twangs.

"Perfect," Asher said and glanced back at Lily.

"Can you hear them chattering?" she asked.

He nodded and listened to the sounds of their claws scampering across the rocks, trying for a different angle. "Turn around. They're in front of us now." He turned his body, manipulating her to stay behind him as he did so. "Keep an eye on our back, just in case they're distracting us from something worse." He started walking as quickly as possible now, doing his best to ignore the pain in his leg.

"I'll try. I'm not very good at doing more than one spell at the same time."

Asher scanned the right side of the cliff. "These things aren't visible in the daylight. They don't come out in the sun. See how they avoid the gaps of light still on the cliffs?" He pointed. "I can hear them every now and then, but they're staying in the shadows or in the crevices we can't see."

"Remind me why are we traveling through here?"

He glanced at her, mouth opened to answer.

Lily shook her head. "I was being sarcastic."

"Oh." He focused his attention forward again.

The walls narrowed, now just barely wide enough for the horse to still walk behind them.

Lily sucked in a breath, one hand still out to support the shield, which began to spark. "I'm trying to hold on to the trees at the top, but they're far away. Why aren't they attacking us now?"

Asher shook his head a little. "I don't know. Perhaps they weren't expecting you to cast magic, so now they are watching us and trying to devise a plan? They could be more intelligent than we think. Whatever their reason, we need to gain as much ground as we can."

"So why not ride the horse and gallop out of here?"

"I'm afraid it may provoke them to attack us again. If we can keep calm, maybe that will help them stay calm. If we ride the horse, we may also provoke something bigger."

Lily lowered her hand. The shield disappeared and she cradled her head.

Asher stopped walking and turned to hold her face. "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry." She blinked several times. "I've never held on to spells like that for a long time. I'll have to summon it again."

He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. "Don't worry. Only summon it when needed. You're getting better all the time."

Lily looked up at him with those stunning green eyes of hers, the ones that made him want to wrap his arms around her and protect her forever. "You think I'm getting better at magic?"

"I think you're getting better at being confident in yourself." He winked and let go of her before he began walking again. They didn't have time to flirt. What was he thinking?

As the darkness settled into the canyon, the walls seemed to tighten with it, giving the two a sense of oppression. Both tried to keep their breathing and footsteps as quiet as possible, both scanned the darkness for any sign of demons or monsters, and both silently hoped the other would be safe should an attack occur. Their calmness seemed to help the horse as well. Though his eyes were wide with fear, darting from side to side, he wasn't acting as skittish as he had when they'd entered the canyon hours before.

"It makes me uncomfortable that nothing else has happened," Asher whispered, suddenly breaking the silence between them.

"We're going to get out of here," she replied. "I would much rather have an uneventful story to tell when we get to your home."

Asher's hair stood on end again and his gut wrenched. He acted purely on instinct, not knowing what sort of monster it was or what the attack would be. He shoved Lily hard, and she slammed her shoulder into the stone wall opposite where he stood. A large gray arrow smashed into the wall beside her head, exploding on impact.

Lily whipped around and aimed one hand toward the sky and another at the horse.

Asher followed her gaze and his eyes widened.

Four long shadows with demonic glowing red eyes hovered overhead. Their long robes floated behind them as if of their own accord. Each shadow had a long weapon in its hands. Some had bows as long as they were tall, others had long halberds. The cluster moved forward, headed directly toward them at a fierce pace.

Asher was frustrated with himself that he had no weapon to help with. He held on to Lily's shirt and guided her backward so she could stay focused on whatever she was planning while continuing forward. But three monstrous creatures appeared, blocking the path forward. They stood on human legs with human torsos but had giant bull heads with horns. Hair covered their entire bodies, but that hair was on fire.

From the corner of his eye, Asher spotted the small creatures and, to his horror, watched as they gathered together, binding together into one large purple monster the size of a horse. It was covered in oozing scales and had a disjointed jaw that snarled as it jumped down at him.

Asher transformed into his tiger form to meet it. It reached forward with cracked claws and Asher swung his extended claws and tore down the monster's arm.

Light burst overhead, and the purple monster Asher fought let out a terrified scream filled with several voices overlapping. It ran for the wall, exploding into shifting creatures with six tiny legs.

Rain started pouring over the fire monsters, and Asher looked at them to see their faces contort in anger. One slammed Asher in the ribs with the hilt of his battle axe. Asher hit the wall, all of the air exploding from his lungs, and he landed in a heap, gasping for air. His head exploded in pain, and he knew he was in bad shape.

Lily dropped to her knees and placed both of her hands against the stone ground.

All three fire monsters bolted for her.

Lily's eyes went red as the ground began to shake violently. Behind her, the horse's muscles began to fade, and it let out a pained whinny.

And Asher finally understood.

Lily's magic wasn't her own. She drew the strength behind her magic from the life forces of those around her. That was why she needed the trees.

His stomach dropped and he struggled to get to his feet. He'd hit the cliff so hard, he found himself back in his human form.

Lily was suddenly at his side, trying to pick him up under his arms. "Get on the horse."

"Lily," he said weakly. His vision went white and he stumbled, almost falling. Had Lily not been there, he would have collapsed.

"I've got you. Can you get on the horse on your own?" She dragged him over and then gasped. "Oh no."

His head dangled and he couldn't see her face, but he felt her sorrow. He didn't know how, but somehow Lily got him up on the weak and likely dying horse.

"I'm so sorry! Please, just get him out of here. That's all I ask. I'll find a way to heal you. I swear it," Lily said.

"Lily, no." Asher reached weakly for her, his vision blinded in his right eye from the blood flowing down his face.

And then she disappeared from sight, and he saw her strike the ground and roll as if she'd been thrown through the air.

"Lily," he begged softly.

His vision blurred and then went dark.

***

Asher blinked rapidly, waking to find himself on the horse, which stumbled out of the pass.

He could see trees under the bright moon and hear a river.

But how had he gotten out?

Everything rushed to him—the fight with the demons, seeing Lily before he blacked out, and her providing an escape. He looked in every direction, but there was no Lily to be seen. His eyes settled on the canyon exit, and his heart stopped.

"No. Lily!" His hands gripped the reins. "Come on!" His stomach churned and he kicked the horse in the ribs, heading back toward the exit.

Suddenly, there was scream and Lily stumbled out, her side covered in blood. She looked at him with a blank expression, like she didn't actually see him there.

He jumped off the horse, only to collapse when his leg couldn't hold him. He growled in frustration and crawled to her, then pulled her into his arms. "I'm here!"

She looked up at him weakly. "You're . . . okay."

He forced a smile. "I am. And you are too. You got us out." His hand was wet with something warm. When he looked down, his stomach dropped. Her entire left side was open with four enormous claw marks. "No. Lily. No, no, no. This is bad." He cradled her, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to stand, holding her in his arms. "Just...hang on. Stay with me. We're almost home."

The rocks beneath his feet slipped and scattered, causing him to stumble and fall. But he managed to keep Lily from hitting the ground. He swore under his breath and laid her down.

He removed his shirt, pressing it to the wounds. He looked at Lily's face, but her eyes were closed. "Please hang on. Look at me. Lily." He patted her cheek with a blood-covered hand.

She reached up and touched his cheek, blood smeared on her hands and arms from the wound. She gave him a weak smile, trying to say something.

"Lily. Lily, please." His tongue suddenly prickled with nausea, and the world swayed. "No. I can't pass out right now." He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a big breath.

Her hand fell.

Asher opened his eyes and stood to get the horse. His eyesight flashed white, and he crumpled beside her, unconscious.