Sadie led him through the trees until they reached the edge of the large, shimmering pool. She inconspicuously searched for Father Daar, but the priest was nowhere in sight.

Suddenly, she spotted him on the far side of the pool, just to the left of the waterfall. He was frantically tugging on the branch of a cherrywood tree. Sadie immediately led Eric to the right side of the pool and spoke loudly, trying to warn Father Daar of their presence.

“Wait until you see it, Eric. The entire floor of the cave is covered in gold nuggets.”

She saw Father Daar shoot upright and whirl to face them. And then the old priest ducked behind the tree he’d been tugging on. He quietly pulled on a back branch instead.

“Where is it, Quill?” Eric asked, stopping and staring up at the towering cliffs surrounding them. “Where’s the gold?”

“It’s there, hidden by the falls,” she said, using the cane to point to the far end of the pool. “Just walk behind it.”

He nudged her forward with his gun. “You go first.”

“I can’t,” she said, leaning heavily on the cane. “Just let me rest here for a minute.”

She started to sit down, but Eric grabbed her arm and pulled her along after him. There was a loud snap from Daar’s direction, and Sadie watched in horror as the branch he’d been tugging on broke free and fell on top of him.

“Who the hell is that?” Eric hissed, turning his gun toward the priest.

Sadie rapped Eric’s hand with her cane, but he didn’t drop the gun, instead whirling to pull her off balance. At the same time, an angry roar came from the lower end of the pool. Sadie saw Morgan standing with his sword in his hand at the entrance to the grotto.

And Faol was standing just in front of Morgan, his hackles raised and his teeth bared.

Blood slowly oozed from where Eric’s bullet had grazed his chest, but the wound didn’t keep Faol from growling at Eric.

With his arm now firmly around her neck, Eric started backing away, pulling her deeper into the pool. “I’ll kill her, MacKeage!” he shouted, touching the barrel of his gun to her head. “Slowly walk over to your right, to the cliff wall.”

“Tàs as,”Morgan hissed at Faol, using his knee to push him to the right. In unison, Morgan and the wolf moved toward the cliff.

“Remember the magic, girl!” Father Daar shouted.

Having forgotten about the priest, Eric whirled in his direction, spinning Sadie with him.

Father Daar pointed a finger at her. “Use it!”

Sadie was violently turned around again at the sound of a growl, and a gunshot rang out beside her head. Sadie screamed when she saw Morgan, running toward her with his sword raised, fold in half and fall to the ground. Faol lunged from the edge of the pool, and Eric stepped back and fired again.

Sadie slammed her cane into Eric’s ribs. “No!” she screamed, striking him again, struggling to get free and reach Morgan.

Faol knocked them both off balance enough that Sadie was able to push Eric away and scramble to the edge of the pool. She reached Morgan just as another gunshot sounded, the bullet ricocheting off the ground beside them. Morgan rolled in a blur of movement, pulling Sadie with him as he grabbed the cane out of her hand.

He rose to his knees with his back to her, one hand grasping the cane, the other hand covered in blood pressed against his side. He held the cane over his head, pointed it at Eric, and shouted something in Gaelic.

Lightning suddenly cracked with blinding brilliance through the air, charging the mist with a rainbow of colors. The ground beneath them began to tremble. The cliffs began to groan and rumble. Large chunks of granite broke from the towering walls and fell into the water with thunderous splashes.

Eric’s gun fired several more times. Light swirled through the grotto, and Sadie could no longer see Eric as he became surrounded by black whorls clawing at him through the mist.

Sadie screamed, not understanding what was happening.

Morgan continued to shout, the cane in his hand sparking with blinding energy. The mountain groaned louder, violently shaking as if trying to shrug off the chaos. Huge blocks of granite fell around them. Uprooted trees came crashing down, vibrating the earth with deadly shivers.

Black fingers chilled with the stench of death swirled past her, the howl of their rage making Sadie’s ears hurt. She saw Eric clearly for one blinding moment, running to where she had told him the gold was, as the fingers reached him, clawing menacingly.

She could hear his screams.

And her own. She could hear the mountain growling as it crashed around them. Morgan turned and pushed her, telling her to run.

But Sadie couldn’t move.

Morgan slammed into her, throwing them both back against a large piece of the fallen granite wall. He used his body to cover hers as chunks of debris rained down around them with such relentless violence that she could no longer hear her own screams. The air detonated with the percussion of a sonic boom, and the cane in Morgan’s hand whispered a mournful sigh before it simply dissolved into ash.

And the chaos suddenly stopped.

Silence replaced it. The air was still. The earth no longer rumbled, and the sound of the waterfall had ceased.

Sadie blinked in the dim light of dawn breaking over the summit of Fraser Mountain and looked past Morgan’s shoulder. Destruction lay everywhere like a volcanic eruption. A gaping hole had opened several hundred yards deep into the mountain, and the sharp cliffs that had formed the grotto now lay crumbled into talus. The waterfall had been sealed off, the gold and most of the pool now deeply buried beneath boulders.

The giant trees, most of them uprooted, some of them still standing but with their tops snapped off, littered the ground like discarded toothpicks.

The destruction was complete.

“Morgan!” she screamed, grabbing his shoulders and wiggling out from under his limp body. “Morgan!” she repeated, shaking him. “Answer me!”

There was a cut on his head, but his side was bubbling red with blood from one tiny hole from Eric’s bullet. More blood spread at the ground beneath him, soaking his shirt all the way down to his pants. His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow. His face was pale as death.

Sadie dug at the boulders pinning his legs, whimpering with frustration when she couldn’t budge them.

Father Daar stumbled over and knelt beside them.

“Do something!” Sadie shouted at him. “Use your magic!”

“I have none!” Daar snapped back, adding his own weight to hers. “It was used up in the destruction.”

Sadie spotted Morgan’s sword lying beside him. She grabbed it and started prying at the boulders.

The sword suddenly broke, sending both Sadie and Father Daar stumbling backward.

Sadie lifted the hilt that she was still holding, staring in horror at what she had done.

“Oh my God. I broke his sword.”

She scrambled back and knelt down to cup Morgan’s face. “Hold on, my love,” she whispered, touching her lips to his ear. “You hold on,” she ordered when he didn’t respond.

Sadie was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders and pushed away so violently that she swallowed her gasp. A tall, dark-haired giant with eyes the exact same color as Morgan’s replaced her at Morgan’s head, running a large hand over her husband’s face.

“We’ll have you out in a minute,” the stranger said, putting his shoulder into the larger of the two boulders.

Callum suddenly appeared and set his own shoulder to the rock, both men grunting and straining and cursing. Sadie sat on the ground and placed her feet just below their hands to add her own strength. Even Father Daar used smaller rocks to hold up the boulder each time it moved.

The stranger stopped, catching his breath, and looked at the situation. He walked to the back of the rock and started working, throwing debris out of the way. Callum found a stout branch and set it to pry against the boulder, only to stop suddenly and lift out the broken tip of Morgan’s sword.