Page 41 of Veiled Flames (Destiny of Dragons #1)

Twenty-Eight

Rosomon

O ur group is ushered down a long corridor, which grows narrower as we progress. Our voices echo off the walls and ceiling, amplifying our fear and excitement. All the rider candidates are here, not just the new recruits. Will the senior candidates run this gauntlet too?

I didn’t see Samyull when we left the classroom and look around the group for my friend, but nearly all of the candidates are taller than me, so it’s difficult to spot anyone amongst them.

I hope that Samyull didn’t leave without saying goodbye. But right now, I must concentrate on the challenge ahead. The mere word gauntlet is daunting, but I’m ready to face this—whatever it is.

Saxon and Treacher stand at the end of the corridor, blocking a large door. From their postures and expressions, it’s clear that they’re arguing. Saxon pulls up his hood, and then strides toward us, shaking his head.

As Saxon plows through, our group parts like grass in the path of a galloping horse. Nerves build in my belly when I realize he’s headed directly toward me.

I step to the side to avoid him, but he adjusts his trajectory, and his hand brushes mine.

As if the earth shifted beneath my feet, I stop in my tracks. And when he looks down into my eyes the impact hits lower, heating all the places he’s both hurt and brought so much pleasure to.

“Don’t do this,” he whispers. “You won’t survive.”

My heart gallops, but then my mind overrules the part of me that lies between my legs. Firming my jaw, I reset my anger.

Tugging my hand away, I glare. “You underestimate me, sir. I have surprised you thus far, have I not?”

He blinks.

“I thought so.” As I stride forward, I sense his lingering gaze, hot as a steaming bath, and my neck aches with the effort not to glance back.

Treacher remains ahead of the door, his body forming a wall of threats. Arms crossed over his chest, he scans the group, a smug look on his face. He opens the door to reveal a cavernous space, its ceiling higher than the turrets of my father’s castle. The room may well be inside an actual cavern.

“New recruits,” Treacher calls out as we enter.

“Head up to the viewing gallery.” He points toward a circular staircase like none I’ve seen before.

Bolted to the wall, it’s forged from metal slats set around a pole, and it’s very unlike any stone or wooden stairs I’ve used in the past. I rush to stay amongst the first men to climb it, and the long winding staircase clangs beneath the footfalls of our riding boots.

We keep our hands on the pole at its center, and the floor remains visible between the slats as we climb.

Halfway up, I glance to the side, and a moment of light-headedness grabs me. If anyone loses their balance, they’ll lose their lives before this gauntlet even begins.

When we reach the top, many of the men are panting from exertion, and we spread out along a railing, also forged from iron. Once I secure a place near its center, I marvel at the railing’s construction. I can’t imagine the ironsmith’s forge that created pieces of iron this size.

“Candidates Tynan and Burchard,” Treacher calls out from below. “Let’s show the new recruits how it’s done.” He chuckles. “Any recruit who watches these two run the gauntlet without pissing his breeches, earns the right to face his own death.”

Gears grind above us, and panels open in the ceiling, exposing the room to the sky and flooding the room with light.

Fear seizes my chest.

I thought the dining hall was huge, but this space is at least four times its size in every dimension. And it’s full of strange structures like nothing I’ve ever seen. Pillars, ropes, hoops, walls and tunnels are laid out before us, many far below.

Surely some of these structures were made using magic, but it’s hard to believe the klericks would tolerate such blasphemy.

But I consider the inexplicable railing in front of me, and the stairs we climbed.

Not to mention all the conveniences at camp.

I know nothing of magic except that it’s evil, even though Othrix used it to create the veil, but I can’t imagine how the spectacle in front of us could have been constructed without some kind of magic.

Tall pillars rise from the floor, at varying heights.

Past those, I spot a channel scarred by a series of crevices, running along the center of the floor, as if this structure was built above a series of canyons.

At the end of all that lies darkness—almost like a cave.

There are too many features to take in, and I pull out my looking tube to better scan the space.

“Senior candidates,” Treacher bellows from below. “You each know your roles.”

Eight men run off, disappearing down narrow ledges which line the sides of the room.

Another group of four crushes into a metal cage.

Once they are inside, one of the bigger servants releases a chain hooked to the wall.

Gears grind as the man uses the most elaborate pulley system I’ve ever seen, and he lowers the cage of men out of sight.

Leaning over the railing, I try to follow their path, but obvious sounds of awe draw my attention forward.

Tynan swings over a treacherous height, using a rope affixed to the ceiling near the corner of the viewing platform. Arching his body, he releases the rope, and I gasp. He’ll plummet to his death!

I don’t care what happens to Tynan, not to him in particular, I simply don’t want to see anyone die. Anyone else.

But he lands in a crouch atop the closest pillar.

He’s perhaps ten spans down from our height, close to double that ahead of us, and the pillar’s surface provided a very small target.

He throws the rope back toward the corner, and it’s grabbed by Burchard, who has to lean out precariously far to snag it.

I turn back toward Tynan just as he leaps from his perch, landing on another pillar lower down and ahead.

Then he continues, leaping from pillar to pillar.

Each column’s size, shape and height is different, and the distances between them seem impossibly far, yet both men are now traversing the path with relative ease and with no evident regard to the danger.

If either slips or misses a pillar, they’ll certainly fall to their deaths. At best they would never walk again.

Tynan moves with the agility and grace of a mountain lion, and although he’s now far below me, I swear I can detect his muscles rippling under his leathers. But that’s likely a figment of my overactive imagination.

The pillars’ heights grow shorter and shorter as they approach the canyon floor. But both men are still too high from the ground to dismount without the risk of broken bones.

Tynan reaches the final pillar and then, without hesitation, he dives off it headfirst.

We all gasp. A flaming hoop crosses Tynan’s path, and his body passes through it, and then he rolls on the floor. I’m still shaking when Burchard follows behind him.

Using my looking tube, I study the space to better understand what I saw.

A hoop is swinging like a pendulum supported by a very tall wooden structure.

To pass through the hoop will require careful timing, not to mention a precise and confident dive.

And the spot on the floor where Tynan landed and rolled looks as if it’s padded.

Small mercy given the height of that final pillar.

The next section of the gauntlet heads back toward us and seems even more treacherous. Wide cracks in the ground slice across a narrow passage. Tynan races forward, and my body clenches. The first gap is definitely too far to leap.

But just before he reaches the gash, I spot a rope hanging ahead of him. Racing at full speed, Tynan grabs the rope and uses it to swing over the crevice, landing easily on the other side. The rope swings back, but it’s swaying, which will make it more challenging when Burchard reaches that point.

This section of the gauntlet seems possible. The trick is to build up enough speed, but also maintain enough control to grab onto each rope.

Tynan grabs the rope for the second crevice, and flames shoot up from the gap’s center. He pushes off harder with one leg, crossing the space in an arc and narrowly missing the flames. The rope swings back at a different angle leaving it swinging wildly.

Burchard has entered this section now. He stops and retreats, needing to build up his running speed to make a second attempt for the first crevice. I watch as both men continue. The flames rise in different places for Burchard but he successfully crosses without being burned.

The distance between the two men expands, as they continue over four more crevices.

Each time flames rise from a different place, and the rope is often swinging when Burchard makes his approach.

The key to surviving this part of the course will be based not only on our individual performances, but also on whomever we follow.

I wonder if I can volunteer to go first in my pair. It seems to be the favored position, and therefore no shock that Tynan claimed it.

Tynan crosses the final gap, then disappears from view.

Several of the other recruits run along the viewing platform as if expecting some kind of secret way to see inside the tunnel Tynan entered, and I take the opportunity to move to the spot where Tynan and Burchard started the course, hoping that will make it easier for me to go first.

Tynan has yet to reappear, but a thumping sound rises from below. This gauntlet terrifies me, but I’m even more frightened by the idea that my chance of surviving might be dependent on whomever I follow—especially if it ends up being Egon.

Burchard enters the tunnel, neither man is visible for a while, and then a sound lifts my gaze.

Tynan is climbing a long rope at the far end of the space. As he climbs, senior candidates are firing flaming arrows directly toward him. In front of Tynan’s rope lies a wall of silvered glass, and he watches it carefully, pushing himself off with his feet to avoid being struck.

One of the arrows bounces off the silvered glass, and I realize that the arrowheads could be rounded.

But even if the missiles might not pierce the skin, they would undoubtedly bruise, and the flames would burn if they hit anything beyond leather.

I make sure every strand of hair is tucked inside my riding cap.

Tynan reaches the top of his rope and uses his strong upper body to hoist himself smoothly onto a platform.

Burchard starts to climb a second rope. He springs away from an arrow just in time, but when he starts climbing again, hand over hand, an arrow strikes him right between his shoulder blades.

A bell sounds. Burchard’s body jerks in response, and flames cascade down the leather protecting his back. Burchard’s hands slip. He drops close to six spans, at least his own height, but he regains his grip and starts climbing again.

Tynan is now walking along what looks like a very narrow ledge, several stories up from the floor.

He stops.

A huge block of stone shoots out from the wall in front of him, then it retracts. If Tynan had moved another finger width, the stone would have pushed him off the high ledge. He starts moving again.

Several more times Tynan pauses or jumps back to narrowly avoid being forced from the ledge. What is the secret to this part of the course? There must be a sound or a pattern—some kind of warning. What is it?

Tynan finishes the section and then leaps forward off the ledge. Grabbing a long narrow pole, he slides down it into another area not visible from above.

Burchard has reached the top of the rope and starts along the ledge.

I observe his progress carefully, comparing it to Tynan’s.

There is no set pattern. The rocks shoot out in different places and at different intervals than they did for Tynan.

For Burchard, the second rock shoots out a mere two spans past the first, and then a third doesn’t appear for another ten.

If there’s no pattern, the warning must be a sound.

Tynan reappears on a ladder, climbing back up toward the ceiling. The ladder is made of rope and it’s twisting and shifting to make it very unstable.

When he nears the top, he stretches forward and grabs onto a bar. Holding the bar, he swings, arching his body to gather momentum, and then he releases it. He flies through the air and grabs a second bar that’s lower and forward from the first.

Tynan’s skill and athleticism are impressive. He may be spawned from cruelty, but his command over his muscular body astounds me. As he grasps the lowest bar, I realize that it’s situated over a large open pit so deep I can’t detect its bottom even through my looking tube.

On this final bar, Tynan takes four long swings, his long body arching and piking, and then he releases the bar and sails easily over the pit, rolling as he lands and then fluidly running forward.

Tynan steps onto a platform containing a bow and arrow, and I lean forward over the railing.

Several targets are swinging back and forth, others are rising and lowering. Again, there doesn’t seem to be a set pattern.

Tynan cocks an arrow, but just as he’s about to shoot, the platform he’s standing on lurches to the side. As if prepared for the possibility, Tynan quickly adjusts his aim, and his arrow strikes one of the targets, remaining lodged there.

He cocks another arrow, and this time, just as he’s about to shoot, the platform rises a few spans and a ball of fire flies toward him. He ducks under it, and still manages to release his arrow, hitting another one of the moving targets.

The fire lands in what I now see is water beneath the platform. Burchard releases the final bar, but lands with his weight on his heels. He stumbles back, windmilling his arms, and he barely catches his balance at the edge of the pit.

Shaking his head, he races to leap onto a second platform that’s parallel to Tynan’s.

Tynan, rapidly strikes his last two targets, leaping over a fireball as he shoots his last arrow.

The crowd cheers, and Tynan’s platform moves back to its starting place.

As he steps off, he glances up to the viewing gallery, a satisfied smirk on his lips.

His gaze lands on me and pauses. He nods and bows, and my heart stutters.

His performance was nothing short of magnificent.

And as I see Burchard miss one of his targets, I realize that it won’t be long until I must face this gauntlet.