The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 135: Volume 5: Chapter 120 — Into the Mountain

Read chapter 135 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 5: Chapter 120 — Into the Mountain Day 134, Evening Dusk did not settle into the mountains the way it did on the plains. On open ground, the sun faded slowly, colors blending until the horizon darkened and stars appeared as if they had been waiting. Here, the light ended all at once. One moment, the cliff still held a narrow ribbon of gold; the next, the mountain turned slate-dark, as if someone had drawn a curtain across the world. The cold followed immediately. It slid down the rock and settled against the back of Yara's neck with practiced familiarity. Summer meant nothing at this elevation—the mountain kept its own season, and dusk brought it down like a hammer. Ahead of them, the ventilation shafts waited. They were old. Older than the current fortifications. Older than the gates that the upper army sat outside of. Black-mouthed openings cut into the stone at a shallow angle, half-hidden by scrub pine and broken shale. Thick iron grates covered them, dwarven work, precise and conservative, meant to move stale air out of a long-depleted iron vein deep below. Not a gate. Not a road. Not a place meant to be defended. That was precisely why she wanted it. Yara crouched behind a low ridge of slate, her underground team spread in a loose half-moon behind her. Bodies stayed low. Profiles broken by rock and brush. No torches. No loose metal. The valley below lay quiet, wind-threaded and empty. But the shafts breathed anyway, a slow, steady exhale that felt almost warm against the evening chill, the air from deep stone that kept its own season, indifferent to the darkening sky above. Scythe was already gone. Yara had watched him move at the edge of sight, then watched the place where he had been become empty. Not even the air seemed to remember him. Shadow followed without comment, absence slipping into absence, and Mist moved with her, a predator whose instincts had learned patience without losing hunger. The rest held position. Harry crouched a few paces to Yara’s left, blade-segment wings tight against his back so they would not catch stray light. The unified shard-glow beneath his skin pulsed steadily now, no longer stuttering or arguing with itself. He looked at the ventilation grates, distracted, as if thinking through something beyond the immediate approach. Sam loomed behind him, wings folded like dark sails. Even restrained, he was too much mass for stealth, but he tried to keep his head low, his breath measured, obedience written plainly in his posture. Heat leaked from him anyway, softening the cold air in a faint shimmer. Her bears formed around naturally. Graveclaw and Stonehide flanked her like the walls of a corridor, armored heads angled toward the mountain. Shadowfang ranged behind, head moving in small, precise increments, tracking angles and blind lines. If anything approached from the rear, he would see it first. He always did. Gayle stood near Yara’s right shoulder, old robes hanging wrong on a young body, hands tucked into his sleeves. His eyes were bright—too alive for someone who had lived eighty years. He tilted his head, listening to the air moving through the shafts like a man judging acoustics in a cathedral. Susie hovered at the edge of the formation, cloak bells wrapped tight to silence them. She hummed anyway under her breath—barely a sound, more vibration than noise. Something to keep her warm. Something to keep her brave. Daryl bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, mapping gear strapped across his chest. His eyes flicked from stone face to seam line to shadow as if he were reading fractures written into the mountain itself. He smiled in short bursts, the kind of smile that meant he was enjoying himself a little too much. Behind the line of Scars and the eighteen Enhanced, the Bore Beasts waited. Earthbreaker and Boulder stood at the front, massive and patient. Deepclaw crouched low, vibrating with barely leashed aggression. Spite’s eyes shone too bright, too eager. Stonedigger looked off