ICE

82. The Tunnel

HIDDEN WITHIN AN invisibility spell, Ravenna emerged from the forest.

A legion of ice soldiers surrounded her, their weapons held at the ready. She waited a moment, allowing herself to listen to the life that bustled quietly in front of her. Some of the men talked quietly amongst themselves, their voices concealed within their tents. Others snored, the noises making the loose tarp above their heads tremble. Ravenna sucked in a sharp breath and lifted her hand, gesturing toward the campsite.

Her soldiers rushed forward. Their silent approach made for a quick and easy slaughter. As the soldiers ceased their attack, and moved away from the corpses, Vyses waved a hand. A cloud of red magic emanated from his fingertips. It churned through the air, a tumble of fluffy red that devoured the bodies in front of them.

Ravenna surged forward, toward the water. "We don't have time to waste," she told Vyses. Her feet glowed with magic and she stepped onto the surface of the water. "We need to search the edges of the water. The tunnel system that is being used has to be close to the campsite, or at least within sight of it. Once we find it, we can advance from there."

Vyses nodded. Ravenna waved a hand and her ice soldiers joined the search. They waded through the water, searching for anything that could lead them to the tunnels. Ravenna walked further out into the body of water. Even with the limited vision that nightfall provided, she realized that she couldn't see the other edge of the water. She was certain that the water beneath her didn't belong to an ocean –they were too far inland for that. Yet it reminded her of that night in Wai, when she perfected the spell to create her soldiers.

She closed her eyes for a moment and then turned back to the bank, where Vyses, Lyth, and her ice soldiers combed the water. Some of the soldiers had moved out further into the water, with small waves brushing against their waists. Ravenna watched them closely, watching for signs that they'd found something.

Her eyebrows furrowed when she noticed one ice soldier drop entirely into the water. Another followed suit. And then another. One second, the ice soldier stood sturdily within the water. Then its entire body plunged downward, beneath the surface, as if the water swallowed it whole.

Ravenna's eyes widened, and she lifted a hand. The ice soldiers immediately stopped their movements, completely frozen in their spots. Vyses glanced toward her, his eyebrows furrowed with confusion, and cocked his head to the side. "Did you find something?" he called.

She waited a moment before responding. With her hand still lifted upward, she scanned the area where the soldiers seemed to vanish. There wasn't a single ounce of movement across the bank. Even the waves remained still.

When it became clear that the missing soldiers wouldn't return from beneath the water, Ravenna bolted toward the bank. "Here!" she shouted across the water. "Three soldiers dropped into the water right here. The sand has to end there, which could mean that there is a tunnel down there!"

Vyses nodded. He glanced toward Lyth, his gaze hard. "Move quick," he said. "Come back and tell us what you find."

The small boy bounded forward, toward the spot in question, and then dove deep into the water. Ravenna moved to stand beside Vyses, watching the water for any sign of movement beneath the surface. The soldiers around her slowly began to fade, to melt into the water around her.

When the glow of her soldiers vanished, Lyth's head burst through the surface of the water. He swam back onto the sand, his breathing labored.

"There is a tunnel down there," he announced. "It's fully submerged and has a pretty strong current. The soldiers that went under weren't visible. We will need a spell that will allow us to breathe underwater and stay together, despite the current."

"Why do you think the current is so strong?" Ravenna asked, slightly confused.

She really only knew a few things about the plumbing system used within the larger cities of the kingdom, all thanks to her travels before she met Caelan. Her knowledge mostly stemmed from the stories of retired criminals that lurked within the shadows of the taverns near her home village. The stories explored the existence of the tunnels and how a criminal might use them to get in and out of the cities. The tunnels supposedly worked as a small system of underground rivers, using several routes to connect the city and the water. It was only natural for there to be a slight pull within the water, but she wasn't quite expecting anything incredibly strong or too strenuous, considering the stories came from several humans.

"The tunnels have probably been spelled, lass," Vyses explained. "Probably to pull in more water. Which means that there might be a spell to detect any magic that is used in the tunnels. We need to be careful. How do you wish to continue?"

She frowned. "Is there a counter spell for that? Or a way around it?"

Vyses furrowed his eyebrows. "Not that I am aware of."

She hesitated. "Do you think we can take them if we are caught?"

For a moment, Vyses didn't respond. His gaze seemed to scan over her face, her body, the movement almost weighed down with the lack of his response. Then a small exhale escaped him –the sound almost too soft to be a resigned sigh. "I think we will be able to manage, lass," he told her quietly. "So long as you can remember what you've been taught so far with fighting and magic. With magic being used so sparingly, both in the hands of a guard and in something as trivial in the plumbing system, I can only wonder how it will be used inside the city walls. I might not be able to always protect you if we are attacked by a powerful source of magic."

"I can handle myself," she told him. She rolled her shoulders back, forcing herself to stand straighter and appear more confident. "If you think that we can defeat them, then let's do this. What else do we have to lose?"

Vyses blinked at her. A sly smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "You're absolutely right, lass. We've come too far to back down now."

He lifted his hands into the air above his head. Thin tendrils of red magic slivered between his fingers, withering against his skin. Ravenna watched as the magic shot outward, arching above him and stretching into a massive spherical shape. The magic rested against the surface of the water, too light to sink beneath it, and rocked slightly with the motion of the small waves. Vyses gestured toward it. "Ladies first," he said, bending at the stomach in a small bow.

Ravenna moved past him, stepping into the spherical shape. Lyth and Vyses followed her. The world around them was bathed in red, almost as if she had peered through a colored piece of glass. Vyses snapped his fingers and the sphere sunk downward, until the water engulfed them.

The world beneath the surface was dull. A sandy floor covered in bones, plants, and foreign objects. Ravenna focused her attention on the area in front of them –where their target originated. A massive cave-like opening was carved into the earth in front of them. The glow of their sphere illuminated the water that rushed past them, sucked into the mouth of the tunnel like an endless stream.

Vyses waved a hand and their sphere shot forward.