While falling, Arlen had instinctively grabbed the ground by magic. Now he made the loose dirt and stone explode upward. Men fell back with grit in their eyes or in one case a rock striking him in the chest. Then Arlen began yanking a layer of ground over the pit, like a blanket.

A spearman jumped in. He landed well and stabbed down, burying his spear an inch from Arlen. Meadow shoved him from behind. He crashed nose-first into his spear and staggered, clutching his face. Arlen punched him. He tripped over Meadow and knocked her down.

"Hey!" shouted an archer who'd crouched to aim down into the partly-sealed pit. The spearman staggered out of the way and an arrow flashed, nicked the ceiling, and struck Arlen's ribs.

Arlen groaned and spun around, feeling a hot line of blood. Meadow was trying to brain the brawler with a loose rock but he was avoiding her, trying to retrieve his spear and draw a knife at the same time. Arlen gritted his teeth through the pain. The man swatted Meadow aside and advanced on her, knife raised. The whole pit smelled of dirt and sweat and fear.

Arlen shoulder-slammed him. They crashed into the grave's wall. He felt flesh give under the impact. The man was like a bull, bigger and stronger, and he kicked backwards and sent Arlen reeling too. Arlen bumped into the embedded spear and for him, it was helpful. He bounced off it and body-slammed his opponent again just as he was turning. His chest wound flared up again.

Meadow said, "Here!" and tossed a dropped knife to Arlen. He grabbed it and stabbed. The blade sank into the spearman's chest. He coughed, staggered, and tried to grab it. Meadow finally hit him with the rock and he dropped to the floor. An arrow shot down and hit him in one leg.

Arlen didn't stop. He reached up toward the pit's opening and sealed it over with rock, half an inch thick and then thicker and thicker. Then he risked glancing down again. The man was dead or dying.

Meadow was shaking. She'd been battered and cut and had just helped beat a man to death. "What do we do? We're buried alive and the shaman has a horde of guys just overhead waiting to kill us!"

Arlen grimaced and said, "We'll handle it." He thickened the ceiling a bit. Then he examined his wound. The arrow had gashed an inch deep into his lower right chest but then skidded off, scoring a mostly shallow gash. He could still breathe. Had it hit a bone? No, too low. Faint scarlet light glittered around the blood. He went wide-eyed at that. "Healing?"

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Meadow noticed. "Maybe that power protected you."

"Good, but it still hurts. I'm not made of iron, sadly. Ow. Gonna need to clean this unless magic fixes it up."

The roof rumbled. Meadow said, "Juti must be digging in with a spell of his own."

Arlen caused the floor beneath them to gradually drop another foot away, then thickened the ceiling to match. He could go faster than any shaman of the isles, probably.

"What do we do?"

"We take a break for a minute." Arlen sat down hard and made sure the roof would hold.

The spearman groaned and struggled to rise. Meadow gasped and raised a rock.

"Wait. You there, fighting man. If you want to live, do exactly what I say." Arlen pulled himself to his feet and kicked aside the arrow he'd been shot with, before the man could grab it. "Meadow, if he moves, hit him."

With one eye watching the prisoner, Arlen transmuted part of the wall from rocks and dirt, to metal. He pulled out a pair of crude shortswords and offered one to Meadow, who took it and wobbled under its weight. "Too big? Switch." He shrank the other blade to be more of a machete, and switched. He shaped a bit more material into a plain buckler for his other hand.

The prisoner was staring at him and in obvious pain. "How?" he said.

"I got blessed, is all. We'll get you to a healer in just a minute." Arlen gave up on making more equipment for the moment. Instead he looked toward one of the walls and carved a narrow tunnel in it, pushing outward and gradually up. Then he carved several stairs into the nearest part of the pit, and quietly thinned that part of the roof.

Arlen caught his breath. "Get up. When I say, you go down that tunnel and make lots of noise. They'll rescue you. Ready?"

The warrior stood slowly, clutching his chest, and nodded.

"Go!" When he'd started hobbling down the tunnel, Arlen carefully looked down to its end and magically gripped that spot by sight. He tore open the ground there to form an escape route.

"Do we follow?" said Meadow. Then she looked toward the much closer staircase. "Oh!"

"Yeah. Wait, though."

The prisoner shouted, drawing attention. Arlen waited a few seconds, then broke open the roof above the steps. He went up first.

He'd misjudged the height; it was five feet up to the ground. Three of Juti's goons were there with spears while the rest had run off to the distraction. Good enough. Arlen collapsed more ground beneath the feet of one, sending him tumbling into the same hole he'd dumped Arlen into. The other two came at him.

Arlen slapped the ground. Spikes of rock jutted upward in the path of his enemies. One man ran into a point two inches wide and doubled over, hurt and gasping. The other barely dodged and stabbed for Arlen but missed. Arlen sidestepped and raised his buckler, then slashed with his sword and gashed the man's shoulder. He stepped back and made another slope to help Meadow escape. "Hurry."

Meadow was terrified as she reached ground level with an injured warrior trying to come up behind her. Arlen kicked him in the head. Now Juti and the rest of his remaining fighters were doubling back. An arrow went wide and a dart of ice from the shaman struck Arlen in his sword arm. He winced but wouldn't have more than a bruise.