The Pillars Of The World

been sharp, but there was concern beneath them.
    He smiled. “I’m going for good, Winn. I just wanted to leave a peace offering.” He tipped his head toward the mare.
    Winn’s eyes widened. “How’d you manage to get one of Ahern’s special horses?”
    “Let’s just say I bargained well.”
    “She’s a beauty. I guess the baron won’t run you off until he’s got her locked in the stables.” The man looked at the saddlebags.

    Neall tensed.
    “The baron has guests,” Winn said slowly. “Not the sort of men you want looking in your direction, if you get my meaning.”
    “I get your meaning.”
    “When you leave here, you’d better ride fast.”
    “I intend to.”
    The man started to say something more but the frenzied barking coming from the kennels silenced him.
    Then, “Mother’s tits! What’s wrong with them ?” He hurried away.
    “Stay here,” Neall told the horses.
    He opened the kitchen door.
    Ari leaned against the stone wall, next to the door. In one hand she held the spiked bridle. She had looked through the Master Inquisitor’s chest and had found other things that could be used as a weapon, but she couldn’t bear to touch them. She could barely stand holding the spiked bridle. The metal was filled with the pain of the ones who had worn it.
    If only she had a stone that size that she could throw at whoever opened the door. If it hit him in the face or chest, it might knock him down long enough for her to get away.
    Could she use her magic to will the spiked bridle to feel like stone? She closed her eyes, picturing it clearly. A man opening the door. Stones flying to strike him. Knocking him down.
    As I will it, so mote it be.
    The wall she leaned against shifted slightly, making a quiet grinding sound.
    Her eyes snapped open. Before she could wonder if she’d actually felt something, she heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
    Her heart pounding, Ari gripped the spiked bridle, ready to swing it at whoever walked through the door.
    Stones flying. Stones flying. As I will it. . .
    The door started to open.
    The wall beside her exploded outward, the stones striking flesh.
    Stunned, Ari stared through the hole in the wall at the two guards lying on the floor, their heads buried under stone.
    She tossed the spiked bridle into the room, gingerly stepped over the man nearest the door, then stopped. She wasn’t the first person who had felt fear and pain in that small, dark room. From the moment the Black Coats had dragged her into that room, she had sensed the misery that had soaked into the stones over the years.
     
    Pressing her hands against the stone wall on the other side of the door, she called the strength of the earth into her, let it flow through her to the stones.
    “Bury this place,” she whispered, focusing her will on the room as she drew more and more of the earth’s strength into herself then channeled it into the stones. “Bury it deep so that no one will feel fear and pain here again. As I will it, so mote it be.”
    The stones trembled beneath her hands.
    Ari turned and ran for the stairs.
    The shadow hounds pulled another man down. He squealed like a rabbit as one of the bitches sank her teeth into his neck and tore out his throat.
    Dianna raced after the next one. Some of the hounds were ahead of her, keeping their quarry running across open land.
    The leader, the one who had dared sneer at the Lightbringer, was still up ahead. She let him stay ahead.
    He couldn’t outrun her hounds. But she also couldn’t let him reach the farmhouse she could see in the near distance.
    He wouldn’t. But being close to safety when she brought him down would hurt him even more.
    As Neall entered the kitchen, the manor house shuddered, rumbled. He felt the kitchen floor drop beneath his feet, giving him the strange sense that he was being flung into the air.
    Mother’s mercy, was the whole place going to cave in?
    “Ari,” he whispered. If the house was collapsing for some reason, she would be buried alive.
    He ran across the kitchen, yanked open the door that led to the cellar—and caught Ari before she could fall. With one arm around her waist, he hurried her across the kitchen and outside.
    He hesitated, then led her to Darcy and gave her a boost into the saddle. There wasn’t time to adjust the stirrups, so he placed her hands firmly on the saddle. “You just concentrate on staying with him. Let him do the rest. He’ll take care of you.”
    “Neall . .