Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) (4 page)

On all that, I was wrong. Were that I were right. For never have I regretted anything as I grew to regret the dawn when we left the fortress city.

Chapter Three

(Dark Passage)

“They say dark spirits and old gods live deep inside the mountain
.
”
Batumar’s words echoed in my dreams. Troubling images haunted my sleep, dangerous caverns that threatened to swallow me up, invisible eyes watching.

The High Lord woke me before the first light of dawn with a gentle kiss, but I could not shake my dark premonitions. Even in his arms, I shivered.

He dressed quickly, plainly like any ordinary warrior, not that he could ever look ordinary. He was a man born to lead, strength evident in his every move.

My own Shahala tunic and pants, along with a pair of scuffed, fur-lined leather boots, waited at the foot of the bed. A quilted wool cape would keep out the chill of winter. Batumar had even my healer’s veil brought in.

“I mean to take some herbs,” I said as I pulled on my clothes. Having my herbs near me always made me feel better, and we would likely need them on our journey. Even if we did not, I needed them for my traveling healer disguise to be complete.

I caught Batumar’s gaze on me, and I thought I saw hunger flare in his eyes, but it might have been a trick of the dim light.

He looked away, draped a heavy fur cloak over his own shoulders, and picked up the lone candle to inspect the maps one more time. The scars on his face were more pronounced in candlelight.

That light was a small circle around us, nothing but darkness outside it, as if we were already in the belly of the mountain. I shivered.

“My lord,” I began, then hesitated. What use was it to tell him that I felt danger all around?

He looked up, waited. Then, when I still said nothing, he set down the candle. “We must make haste.”

So I hurried to the kitchen, where I wrapped bunches of herbs in cloth and hung the little bundles from my belt. Since the belt could not hold everything, I took a paring knife and cut small holes in the inside quilting of my hip-length tunic and stuffed more herbs in there. And then I did the same with my wool cloak, loading even more herbs into the lining.

When I thought I had everything I would most likely need, I found a simple leather sheath for the knife and tied that to my belt as well.

I did not go by Pleasure Hall; I hurried straight to the High Lord’s quarters, where the steward, Vooren, already waited in the antechamber.

He was a gaunt man, with a scrawny neck and one lazy eye, but with much kindness in him. He had greatly helped me with my healing work after the siege by providing all the supplies, no matter what he had to do to obtain the items I needed.

“My lady.” He bowed deeply, torchlight glinting off his bald head. When he straightened, worry lines crisscrossed his narrow face. “Are you certain?”

“Most certain. You need not worry about me, Vooren.”

Batumar strode from his bedchamber, fastening his sword belt, with the great broadsword he carried to battle, not the ceremonial, jeweled sword of the High Lord.

He attached two water flasks to the belt on his other side, next to a food sack already hanging there. When he finished, he stepped over to me and looped two more water flasks onto my belt, which were immediately lost among the bunches of herbs.

As the last step for our preparations, he picked up the coil of rope the steward must have brought, and looped it around his torso, diagonally from shoulder to hip, over and over, until he reached the end, which he tucked in securely.

I thought all this most sensible, except maybe the size of the food sack.

Batumar caught my gaze. “More would be difficult to carry through the mountain. But the pirates will stop at Rabeen before sailing out to the open sea. I shall purchase more supplies at the market.”

I relaxed a little. Maybe he
had
planned the journey more carefully than I had thought. Rabeen was the last small island before the inhabited rocky Strait of Ghel, through which we would sail.

Batumar nodded at Vooren, and the steward grabbed the lone torch from its sconce and led the way.

We moved down hallways and stairs rapidly, for the servants would wake any moment. The lowest levels of the palace waited, and we cut through storage rooms, then the dungeons, mercifully empty, then down more dark stairways.

We were in the very lowest level of the palace, a level I had not known existed. No sconces had been hammered into the walls. I did not think the servants ever came down here.

At the next turn, a sack waited with unlit torches, and another with more food and water the steward must have prepared for our journey. These we took with us, but not far.

Vooren reached a dead end where old flags leaned against the wall by the dozen, their colors faded, their fabric moth-eaten. For a moment, I thought he had lost his way, but he and Batumar moved to set the flags aside, and, as we all choked on the dust, a rock wall appeared with a heavy cast-iron door in the middle.

The chain sealing the door was as thick as my arm, gleaming darkly in the flickering light, secured by iron loops in the bedrock, fastened with a cast-iron padlock the size of my head.

The steward handed Batumar the burning torch, then lifted an ancient key from his belt and forced it into the ancient lock with considerable trouble. He had to use both hands to turn the key.

Then Batumar handed the torch back to him and, straining and grunting, pulled the enormous chain free, dropping it to the ground in a heap. The three of us were needed to open the door that creaked on its hinges, the sound like a warning scream from an ancient spirit.

My heart clenched.

The darkness that gaped beyond the door was absolute, the stale air that rushed out so cold as to be unnatural. It had a taste I could feel on my tongue even after I pressed my lips tightly together, a coating like thin slime made out of fear.

A shiver of apprehension skittered up my spine, prickling my skin like a needle-legged centipede. For no reason at all, I suddenly thought of my great-grandmother the sorceress. I had a strong sense of something coiled at the heart of all the darkness, lying in wait.

I was awash in a premonition that by crossing the threshold, we were doing something that could be never undone.

I watched with dread as Vooren stepped in first, torch held high. Batumar gestured for me to follow the man. I could not hesitate. If I did, if the High Lord knew I had fear in my heart, he might yet change his mind and leave me here under the protection of the Palace Guard. I gritted my teeth and moved forward. Batumar followed close behind.

Sprit, be strong. Heart, be brave.

I drew small breaths of the frigid, stale air, thick with the smell of mold and long-dead things. The goose bumps on my arms became permanent when, after but a few steps, the passageway widened into a great cavern.

I could only judge the size by the echoes of our footsteps. Our torchlight touched neither the walls nor the ceiling. As we progressed forward, I had the strong sense of being watched, but when I closed my eyes and reached out with my spirit, I could sense no other life beyond the three of us.

“What is this place?” I asked Batumar, barely daring to breathe the words.

Vooren answered me instead. “An ancient temple, my lady.” He too kept his voice to a whisper, as if here lived things best not disturbed.

“Whose temple?” The question slipped out without thought, and I wished I could call it back.

But Vooren had wisdom enough not to answer. Dark spirits and old gods were best not named in a place like this. To name them would be to call them.

All sense of time and space disappeared as we felt our way forward on uneven ground. Nothing existed but the three of us and our small circle of light.

I knew of distant people who believed that a man’s spirit journeys through a dark underworld after death, to be reborn again in light. I thought now I knew what such a journey might look like. And hoped we would indeed someday again see the winter sun.

I could not fathom how the steward knew which way to go. We could have been walking around in circles. If we suddenly reached our entry point again, I would not have been surprised.

But, as if knowing what I was wondering, Vooren stopped and lowered his torch so I could see what I had missed before.

A black handprint on the stone under our feet.

I blanched with recognition.
Old blood.

Blood sacrifice?
All the fine hairs on my body stood straight up.

But the steward said in a voice laden with gratitude, “My grandfather had marked out a safe path.”

We proceeded forward, then suddenly reached the end of the cavernous space and entered a narrow corridor carved into the rock, the passageway here low even for me. Batumar had to duck his head as he followed.

And then the walls closed around us even tighter. Soon we were on our hands and knees, crawling forward, sharp rocks cutting into my palms. Vooren before me stirred up ancient dust, making even breathing difficult.

When a more spacious passageway opened to our left, the steward passed it by. I barely caught sight of a black mark on the wall by the opening before the torchlight moved on. My body ached to straighten. I opened my mouth to beg the steward to take the easier way.

But before I could have uttered a word, he said, “That passageway is where my grandfather lost his sight. In there, my father told me, poison weeps from the walls.”

I shuddered as we crawled forward.

And crawled and crawled until my arms and legs shook from exhaustion, my back cramping. Despite the cold, sweat beaded on my forehead.

“Night must have fallen outside by now,” Batumar said behind me. “We should rest.”

He was probably only stopping for my sake and the old steward’s, but neither of us protested. We collapsed where we were, then rolled onto our backs. The ceiling of our tunnel was so low that I could have easily reached out and touched it.

Batumar passed forward the food sack. “Something to eat.”

I took a chunk of bread and dried fish, then passed the sack along to Vooren. We each had our own water flasks.

We ate and drank, then tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. The belly of the mountain was not a place to close our eyes, even with the torch still burning.

Wailing screams sounded in the distance, otherworldly shrieks. Nothing but the wind blowing through crevices in the rock high above us, I told myself, but I could not make myself believe it, and my stomach clenched with every new sound.

When an eternity later we began moving again—it might have been morning outside by that time—I was more exhausted than when we had stopped.

We scarce spoke on that second day, not even when the ceiling dropped yet again. We slid forward on our stomachs in silence, except when we were coughing from the ancient dust. I crawled with extra care so I would not lose my bundles of healing herbs.

Our water flasks banged and scraped along the rock, and so did the sheath of Batumar’s sword, making our procession a noisy one, regardless of whether we talked or not. If any dark spirits guarded the mountain, they would have no trouble finding us. I shivered at the thought.

Then, at long last, we reached a cave where we could straighten. The air had the smell of rotten eggs.

“The sulfur caves,” the steward said, lifting his cloak to cover his nose. “We must have taken a wrong turn. Hurry on.”

We all but ran, stumbling forward.

And
then
the dark spirit found us.

One moment I was between Batumar and Vooren, following the steward’s bobbing light. The next I was alone in the darkness, the smell of sulfur was gone, and I was colder than if I had been encased in ice.

The spirit hissed in a deep tone. “Why cometh you, Sorceress?” The sound, slimy and sticky, slid along my skin.

He was so close I could feel his fetid breath on my face. Cadaverous fingers caressed my face, seven or eight on one hand, all ending in sharp talons. I shuddered at the touch.

I had to work at gaining enough courage to speak.

“I am no sorceress, great spirit.” My voice trembled.

Courtesy required that I say,
I am your humble servant
, but I did not dare speak the words, lest they gave the spirit power over me.

He waited, then issued an impatient hiss when he realized I would not be so easily tricked. “Cometh you to ask for power? What have you brought to trade for it?”

I wanted naught to do with dark powers. “We are but passing through. We did not mean to disturb you. We beg you to forgive us.”

The spirit dragged his talons across my throat. I could feel the sharp tips scoring my skin and held still.

“Have you brought a sacrifice, then, to pay for your passage?” he demanded.

Numb with fear, I thought of all I had, my little paring knife the most valuable thing upon my person. Offering so meager a sacrifice would have been an insult.

Then I thought of the price that had been exacted from Vooren’s grandfather: his sight. Suddenly I felt as if the cold and the darkness were inside me, swirling in my stomach. Nausea rose in my throat.

The spirit laughed. “No sacrifice?” He howled. Then he whispered, and the sound was more frightening than the howling. “No matter. Kratos takes what he will.”

I could not move. Fear was all around me. I had gone temporarily blind from an injury during the siege.
To live life in that darkness
—the thought closed my throat. But the next thought scared me more.

What if the toll is taken from Batumar?

A warlord could not lose his strength, or his sight, not in the middle of a war.

“Take what you will from
me
, great spirit,” I begged.

“Of your free will?” he whispered with dark delight.

My stomach clenched with dread. “Of my free will. Only let us leave the mountain.”