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“I want to get out of here,” said Blessing. “Something very very bad is about to happen.” She turned on Berthold. He stood a head taller than she did, although he wasn’t as tall as her father. “Help me wake them up!”
Berthold’s expression twisted, eyes opening in mock horror, mouth opening to an “o” of pretend fear. “Of course, my lady!” He spoiled the moment by laughing again. “Who made you regnant?”
She stamped her foot. “My father is Prince Sanglant. I am the great granddaughter of the Emperor Taillefer. You have to do what I tell you to do!”
He snorted with amusement, glanced at Anna to estimate her station and importance, and nodded at Brother Heribert. “Who are you, Brother?”
“I am called Brother Heribert. I am a cleric in Prince Sanglant’s schola.”
“Is it true this brat is Prince Sanglant’s daughter?”
“I’m not a brat!”
“She is indeed, my lord.”
“How can she be the great granddaughter of Emperor Taillefer? Henry’s forebears have no connection to that noble house.”
Heribert hesitated just long enough for Berthold to go on, impatient as his thoughts skipped ahead.
“Prince Sanglant has a schola? How can he? He’s the captain of the King’s Dragons. I didn’t even know he had a daughter this old, but I suppose it’s no surprise given what everyone says about him and women. Heh! I wonder what Waltharia will have to say about that! She thought she walked that road first!”
“What road?” demanded Blessing.
Heribert flung up a hand as if to say, “stop.” “I pray you, Lord Berthold. We must untangle these lineages later. Princess Blessing is right. We’d best flee.” He wiped sweat from his brow. “I don’t like being trapped in here.”
“Nor do I,” admitted the youth, looking around. “Although it is the most amazing thing! Who could have dug such caverns? You should see the treasure back there! Golden helms and mounds of emeralds and garnets! Jeweled belts. Necklaces. I told them not to pick anything up, but they would cram their sleeves—all but Jonas, he’s the only one who listens to me—”
A temblor shook the earth so hard that Anna had trouble keeping her feet. The Kerayit healer moaned, fighting sleep but not quite able to wake. Thiemo and Matto didn’t stir at all. The blue fire had become so bright she had to squint. The cavern shone, walls gleaming. The stone sweat as heat swelled. It was like being trapped inside a box that had been thrown onto a fire.
“No one is listening to me!” shrieked Blessing. She pounced on Thiemo and shook him. “Wake up! Wake up!”
Without warning, the Quman soldier leaped to his feet, knife in hand as he assessed his surroundings. Over the last months Heribert had picked up the rudiments of the Quman speech. He spoke now, and the young man nodded abruptly, lowered the knife, and knelt beside Matto, shaking him. The Kerayit healer opened her eyes and, with a grunt, scrambled to her feet. She pointed to the fiery blue net whose brightness by now made the light in the cavern almost unbearable.
“Sorcery,” she said in halting Wendish. “Go now. Go quick.”
“Do you know the way out?” asked Heribert.
“I don’t,” said Berthold. “It’s all changed. It wasn’t like this at all yesterday when we crawled in here—”
“I know how to go!” exclaimed Blessing.
“Take her,” said Heribert to Anna. “We’ll have to carry Thiemo and Matto if we can’t wake them up.”
“Do you really think she knows anything?” demanded Berthold, more in disbelief than in anger. He had begun, finally, to appear nervous.
“I do know! I do!”
“Have you a better plan?” asked Heribert in his mildest tone. “I haven’t. One is as good as another. We’d best hurry.”
Thunder shook the cavern, a stalactite shuddered loose from the ceiling, crashed to the floor, and shattered into stinging shards. Anna caught one on her cheek. Blood trickled down her skin.
“Lord Berthold!” A young man no older than Villam’s son staggered out of a passageway. He shaded his eyes, brought up short by the blinding net of light. Another tremor shook them. A second stalactite cracked and fell, and the poor youth leaped aside and shouted out loud as he flung up his arms to protect himself. Dust and debris scattered.
“Where are the others?” demanded Berthold. He, too, was pale now. He, too, looked frightened.
“I can’t wake them!” said poor Jonas, who had been crying. “I don’t know what’s wrong!”
“This way!” cried Blessing, who had run to a different passageway, one opposite the tunnel that Berthold’s companion had just emerged from. “I said this way! We’ve got to hurry! The storm is coming. It will crush us if we’re in here!”
