Raphael was the first to slide over the side of the cliff. He hissed and groaned against the sting of holding onto the roots that stuck out from it with his scraped and blistered raw hands, lowering himself to the narrow ledge far below. Damon and Andre lowered Dalfur next by the rope they had tied around his waist, the rope that had been attached to Raphael’s shield, now wielded by Bruce in the short shield wall he, Samma, and Hugo had formed to protect them from the rain of arrows.

  Dalfur whimpered and growled with each bump on the way down. He found balance on one foot with an arm over Raphael’s shoulder so they could move him to make room for Damon next.

  Their ears were ringing from Samma’s blasts of thunderous Holy Light against the charging warriors. The backs of their feet dug into the ground as they were pressed closer and closer to the edge while Andre rolled over the side to climb down next. Hugo’s calls were crazed and roaring, sometimes indecipherable, yet they listened. With his shield tied tightly to the shoulder of his slung arm, Hugo had the heavy spear in his other hand, keeping the center of the formation. Bruce and Samma, on either side of him, kept their shields locked against his. They braced with their shoulders, their spears constantly pulling and thrusting. But each charge of their foes, though repelled, sent them closer to the edge, piled the dirt behind their bracing feet higher over the heels of their boots, sent bolts of strain through their knees, yet they didn’t let the wall break.

  Samma heard the voice of the Holy Spirit commanding him. Again and again, he thrust outward against the charges with the power of the Holy Spirit, sending the armored warriors flying back into the trees. Again and again, he shifted his shield sideways without letting it pull from Hugo’s to stop an arrow from hitting his side. Again and again, the voice commanded him with simple, sudden, booming commands, “Thrust! Strike! Shield left! Strike forward! Thrust thine faith!”

  Hugo sent Bruce with a tap on his shoulder. Bruce pulled from the shield wall, dropped to the ground at the edge of the cliff, and rolled over the side. Hugo crowded against Samma, angling their shields to form a ‘V’, and braced for the next eruption of charging warriors from the trees.

  Hugo ducked from the arrows that looked like lines flying toward his face. The toes of his bracing foot dropped over the edge. He caught himself on his knee with a knock of the shield to his face when it bounced off the ground.

  Just as suddenly as Hugo had fallen, Samma obeyed the command in his head and swung his shield around the other side of him to catch an arrow the moment before it would have struck Hugo in the temple. Then he swung it back in front of him to catch another aimed for himself.

  Hugo staggered back onto his feet, cursing.

  “You’re next!” Hugo roared once he was back at Samma’s side with his shield angled again.

  “No,” Samma shook at him. “You are.”

  “Samma, I order you…”

  Samma turned a frowning roll of his eyes on Hugo and kicked his feet from under him toward the ledge. Hugo cried out as his feet slid over the side and his stomach hit the ground. He dropped his spear, floundering to grab onto anything he could with his one good hand. He growled at the Paladin who was bracing against a horde charging for him from all sides until all he could see was the muddy side of the cliff tangled with wiry roots as he plummeted. He caught a handful of them to stop his descent and felt Bruce’s hand on his legs to guide him to the ledge below as he let himself sink downward.

  “Samma!” He roared as all of the others on the ledge turned upward toward the thunderous booms and the clashing flashes of red and blue light.

  Samma’s shield flew out over the cliff in a spin and Hugo’s face twisted in agony. Bruce raked his fingers in the wall of mud to form an angry fist, bearing his teeth as his eyes ran red. Andre and Raphael noticeably sank and turned away. Damon was frozen, unblinking.

  “Wait,” Dalfur was the one who put a hand to Hugo’s chest, his gaze raised to where they had climbed from. The others stopped. “Just…Wait, I think I can hear something.”

  “That’s them looting his body,” Bruce whispered through gritted teeth so that Damon didn’t hear. “We need to go.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dalfur didn’t take his eyes away. “I think…He wants us to wait. Just a minute longer.” He used a root to pull himself closer into the cliff wall, hopping on his one foot, his sallow face turned to Hugo with earnest pleading, “God wants us to wait. I can feel it.”

  “What, you’re a Paladin now?” Andre sounded half disbelieving and half hopeful at the same time.

  Hugo nodded to Dalfur, silently praying that it was true.

  A thunderous boom vibrated the cliffside, sending chunks of mud bouncing and sliding down over them along with pieces of the bushes they had crawled through to get to that ledge. And then they saw Samma’s legs swing over the side and brace hard into the muddy cliff wall. Gripping a handful of roots, Samma leaned back from the wall and stabbed upward with his spear. He let go of it to hold onto the roots with both hands and swing sideways as the impaled warrior fall past him, shrieking with the spear driven completely through him, through his armor, to disappear in the foaming, jagged rapids below.

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  “Yes!” Bruce used roots and stabbing handfuls into the cliffside to get around Hugo. He reached to guide Samma down onto the ledge that was barely wide enough for them to stand with both feet side by side.

  They beamed as Samma found his foothold on the ledge. Samma grinned back, but pressed Bruce tightly into the cliff wall, signaling for the others to do the same with a blistery finger to his mouth and point upward. Hugo made sure the others did the same. They all pressed against the cliff, some hugging into it, others with their backs pressed, mud and roots draping over their shoulders.

  “There’s something below,” They heard a man say from above them. “Looks like it might be a path. The Paladin might’ve survived.”

  Hugo winced. Worried looks passed between them as they each looked upward without moving or making a sound.

  Branches above them rustled. They were coming down on top of them. Hugo’s face hardened as he turned to each side, meeting their tired, frightened, determined faces. He nodded to each of them. They weren’t giving up. They had made it this far, they can make it the rest of the way, his look was telling them. God was with them, his trembling sneer was saying in silence.

  Dalfur slid his hand through the mud to rest on the spear he had put in his sledgehammer's sheath with a nod. Damon, with his back pressed hard into the muddy wall, gripped his spear readily in both hands. Andre slowly, carefully, loaded a bolt into his crossbow with a bloodlust in his skyward glare. Raphael had his muddy sword in one hand and had dug his arm through the mud to hook around a thick root, readying himself at the front of their line. Bruce drew in a breath and, with nothing but cold determination in his look, nodded to Hugo.

  Samma only grinned at Hugo’s nod and held up a finger.

  A horn trumpeted from somewhere in the distance. The rustling above them became louder for a moment, then faded into the rumble of the river. Samma’s grin widened over his bloodied teeth.

  “God’s with us,” he said to Hugo, “We can go.”

  Hugo let out a shaky sigh of relief, half in curious disbelief, half in thankful faith. He waved for Raphael to lead them onward.

  Raphael stood on the tips of his toes to look over the heads of those between them with a questioning glance that Hugo met with a nod and wave.

  Pressing against the cliff wall, their feet sliding sideways along the ledge that was so narrow that they couldn’t fully walk along it, they went. Dalfur grimaced with each wavering and dizzying step, Andre’s bracing hand on his back from in front of him and Damon’s from behind him, as his trousers became darker and darker with crimson wetness and his skin paled. Hugo moved from one handful of stringy roots to the next, sliding his back with his bound shield across him while Bruce held onto his collar to brace him.

  When the ledge rounded the corner of the cliff to follow the stream that fed into it, they all felt their hearts lifted, knowing that the soft pool and the falls they were so desperately headed towards were finally within reach. The cloudy sky was darkening above them, but they felt lighter with each step, lifting the weight that bore down on their tired hearts, speeding their pace.

  The misty air on their approach tasted sweet as they stumblingly climbed up the smooth rocks, searching for handholds in thin crevices of them. The rushing fall of the river fell past them, shielding them. As Dalfur was lifted into the darkness of the cave by Andre and Bruce, as Raphael knotted his ropes together so that they could follow deep into the cave before the first torch was lit, as Hugo’s shield was unbound from his shoulder and taken by Samma, as Damon tied the end of Raphael’s rope around himself so that he was at the end of their line and no one would be separated, they all heaved with tired hope.

  Dalfur was lolling, limping to keep up, but they didn’t leave him behind. It was Andre who had his arm over his shoulder and was carrying him into the deep dark of the cave, leaving the light of the sunset beyond the cover of the waterfalls behind them. He refused to leave him behind no matter how many times he said with slurring words that they should leave him to go on. It was Raphael who asked Hugo to take his place so he could help carry Dalfur when he began falling in and out of consciousness, taking Dalfur’s other arm over his shoulder and lifting him up, never letting go until they were far enough in to light the first torch.

  They lay Dalfur limply on the ground and cut his pant leg open to get to the broken arrow through his blood dripping thigh. In the dim, flickering torchlight, while Hugo directed Damon and Raphael on using a chain shirt and two spears to make a litter carry for him,

  Andre and Bruce held Dalfur down. Samma pulled the shaft of the arrow from him. Without a second thought, Samma raised his hands toward the sky that was beyond the canopy of the cave above them, beyond the darkness that shrouded the aura of the torchlight, asking, pleading, begging, for God’s healing power to flow through his hands.

  And he pressed his glowing blue hands to Dalfur’s thigh as the Holy Spirit coursed through him as the others gaped in awe. Even as he touched his hands to Hugo, the torch flames flickering wildly, they watched with baited breaths. Dalfur’s sallow skin regained color, Hugo’s fingers flexed between stretching outward and forming a fist, and Samma collapsed.

  It was Samma, not Dalfur, whom they rolled onto the litter, carried by his younger brother and Andre for the few hours before he woke up. They knew they couldn’t rest. They knew they couldn’t stop. Though the night had finally come, they carried on, driven, determined, unwavering. Deeper and deeper into the echoing silence of the caves, they went, guided by Hugo’s memory and the torches to light only a few paces around them.

  God was with them. They were almost there.