Ride the Storm (Cassandra Palmer 8)

Because there were hundreds of them.

Hundreds and hundreds of campfires. Meaning that the army we’d passed on the road, which had now stopped for the night, had to be numbered in the thousands. Thousands of fey, more than I’d ever expected to see on earth—more than I’d ever expected to see period—and at their center, what looked like a whole city built out of tents.

The other women had gathered around, dirty hands clinging to the bars, pale faces staring out, momentarily forgetting their fear in the face of overwhelming awe. I doubted any of them had ever seen anything like it. I knew I hadn’t—and that I hadn’t read about it, either.

You’d think something like this would make the history books, I thought, as we creaked onto a narrow road, terrifyingly steep and rocky. I grabbed the bars, bracing along with everyone else, and tried not to notice the sheer drop-off on the other side. Or the pebbles rolling under our wheels, which were plain wood and didn’t have any kind of traction. Or the fact that this wasn’t the most well balanced of vehicles.

All of which was still okay, more or less, until the merchant abruptly whipped up the horses.

Suddenly, instead of slowing down—which would have been freaking sensible—we were all but flying down the mountain, wheels rattling, cage swaying, women screaming—and falling and tumbling because the crappy wheels were only in contact with the road about half the time.

“What’s happening?” I yelled at Rosier, who had wrapped himself around a cage bar, like a frightened monkey. “What’s he doing?”

“Trying to avoid that,” he said, looking over my shoulder, his eyes huge. I turned in time to see a blast of spell-fire tearing through the air and then through the cage, shearing off the top right corner and sending us swaying dangerously from side to side.

“What the hell?” I screamed as the horses whinnied and bucked, the merchant shouted and swore, and we almost fell into the abyss.

As it was, I got thrown to the other side of the cage, where for a second I was left staring down at a sea of nothingness, just a blue-gray void of mist and vague lumps that might be trees, and another cliff face rising across the gulf, distant but near enough that I could see shapes darting among the rocks.

And flinging spells, because three more were already headed our way.

They streaked across the sky, red and orange and purple, strangely beautiful as they parted the mist, sending it rolling up on either side. Like vertical fireworks or colorful torpedoes tearing through the sea. Which would have been a lot more impressive if we weren’t on the ship they were about to sink.

“Get low!” I told the panicked women. “Now, now, now!”

I pushed them down, the ones I could reach, but had to break it off a moment later and dive for the floor myself. But it looked like the idea had been conveyed. We ended up clinging to the grimy planks, as flat as we could get, but thanks to the open bars of the cage, that still gave us a perfect view—

Of the rain.

Out of nowhere, the storm that had started slacking off turned violent, and in the clear night sky ahead clouds blew up. I watched as the mist in the valley congealed into boiling, purplish gray masses and rain began to fall, above us, below us, everywhere all at once. Drenching sheets that tore into the spells, shearing off their power, causing them to sputter and crackle and spit—

And die.

My heart hammered as I watched one dissipate right before it reached the bars. Another made it but had been blown off course, exploding in the air just above us, raining a cascade of bright red sparks down on all sides. But a third was still coming, lashed at by rain and storm, buffeted by wind, but somehow still on course. Like some magic heat-seeking missile that adjusted its path as we did, as we all but flew with no springs and no brakes, our eyes glued to the steadily approaching power ball that was getting smaller and smaller but was still coming—

And then it hit, like a massive hammerblow, sending us slamming into the horses, which screamed and grew wings, or so it seemed. Or maybe that was because the different parts of the storm had just become one massive torrent, the main core of its power driving down on us—and the road. Which went from dangerous, overgrown goat trail to something a whole lot worse.

I looked down at the flowing river of mud, at the trodden-down, slick-as-glass weeds, at a set of wheels no longer turning, because they were no longer in contact with the road, and thought, Oh.

And then we were over.

The next few seconds were a heart-stopping mass of confused images: the cage sliding and dipping and falling, and then flipping when we hit open air. All of us strangely silent as we tumbled around, because our hearts were in our throats. The rain, almost a solid sheet outside the bars. One of the horses, its mane streaming, its eyes wide and white-rimmed as it fell alongside us, pawing the air as it continued trying to run.

And the ground, speeding toward us like a green bullet, trees spearing up like daggers, huge boulders everywhere, death in a hundred forms waiting with open arms—

And continuing to wait as we froze midair, a huge rush of my power halting our fall midtumble.

Leaving me to yo-yo to a stop between the hard oak boards of the ceiling and floor, panting and shaking and screaming as I hadn’t been able to before, the ones trapped behind my teeth by utter terror breaking loose with a vengeance.

“Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

And then something hit me in the face.

It took me a second to realize that it was Rosier, who I’d knocked loose from his death grip on the bar, sliming the side of my head before I managed to throw him off. And to scream some more. And to beat the ceiling of the cage, which was now the floor, not for any reason I could name, just because the massive surge of adrenaline had to come out somehow.

I collapsed back against the old boards, gasping and exhausted. Scatterings of rain sparkled in the moonlight above my face; women’s shifts flowed out everywhere, like angels’ wings; the slaver stayed suspended, caught halfway through a fall on the opposite side of the wagon from his horses, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping. Like the terrified faces that stared down into mine, all of them mirroring the way I felt, because I hadn’t saved us yet.

I’d frozen us too soon.