Anilyia (31 page)

“Tell us the fastest way to the surface,
then you can run after your friends,” he told the feju, pulling his
sword back in the hopes it would help her to speak. She only fell
to her knees while more tears streamed down her face. Tathan could
tell by the smell that the warrior had done more than just wet
herself.

“I don’t understand. I thought Rojuun were
brave,” Liselle said, looking at the feju in pity and surprise.

Tathan shrugged. “Perhaps they aren’t that
different from humans, some are brave, others are cowards.”

“Most of these have all acted in the manner
of cowards though,” Sir Danth pointed out. “I must say that I am
disappointed as well. This one kneels sniveling before us, while
her companions have run away. I find that I have lost much respect
for Rojuun whereas it was strong before.”

Tathan took a step forward, staring at the
feju. “Will this take us to the surface,” he asked, pointing toward
the western passage in front of her. She shook her head slowly,
still sobbing. Tathan pointed at the passage behind her, headed
toward the east. The Rojuun didn’t respond right away, but slowly
moved her head up and down after a moment. Tathan considered before
asking, “We can get to the surface from there, but not right away?”
She nodded a bit faster. “Are you lying to me?” Tathan asked,
bringing the sword back up to her neck.

The Rojuun shook her head vigorously through
a new bout of weeping. Tathan turned to Liselle. “You stated that
she could live if she answered our questions. Do you feel satisfied
with the answers, or shall I kill her?”

“Let her live,” Liselle answered quickly.
Tathan nodded, sheathed his sword and headed to the eastern
passage, leaving them to follow. He wasn’t worried about the feju
pursuing them. People who lost bodily functions didn’t generally
chase whoever caused them to lose those functions.

Tathan didn’t like the idea of continuing
east. He believed the best way to get out was to head north, get to
the surface, head to the Willden Forest and then travel to Kethril
in hopes of getting a ship along the coast heading south,
essentially traveling in a large circle to Mayncal. It would be a
long journey taking months, but going through the mountains and
Iynath Empire simply wasn’t an option.

“Let me down!” a shrill voice sounded behind
him. Tathan turned to see the princess beating upon the breastplate
of Sir Danth’s armor. Her feet were kicking and she was flailing
about.

The knight set her down, feet first. “Yes,
Your Highness. If you give me warning before you faint next time,
I’ll endeavor to catch you.”

Tathan thought the princess looked rather
attractive when angry. She was glaring at Sir Danth with her jaw
set and fists clenched. Tathan gestured down the passage. “Your
Highness, if you’re done being cranky, we really should be
going.”

The princess slowly turned toward Tathan.
“I. Never. Get. Cranky,” she said, punctuating each word. She held
up a finger in front of Tathan’s face. “I am a princess. I get mad
and people serve me as you will serve me now.” She looked up and
down the hallway, then at each of them. “I order you to take me
home immediately,” she commanded imperiously.

Sir Danth raised his eyebrow at the command
causing her to do a double take. Her eyes passed over Vevin, not
really seeing him. Tathan didn’t blame the dragon for hiding behind
his illusion and not wanting the princess to start giving him
orders. Then she pointed at Liselle. “You will be my handmaiden and
obey my every order.”

Tathan didn’t need to see Liselle’s eyes
flare into pure fire or the blue flames surrounding her hands like
living entities ready to engulf the princess, to know his cousin
wasn’t going to take that well. The princess screamed and ran into
Sir Danth’s arms.

Liselle opened her mouth, showing thin
flames curling within and around her lips. The tendrils of fire
slid in through her nostrils when she inhaled, creating an eerie
effect. In an otherworldly voice, she said, “I will never be your
servant nor will you ever give me another order.” The princess
gulped and nodded vigorously. At least she didn’t faint again.

Tathan intervened before Liselle could fry
the princess’s head. “Peace, Cousin.” He gestured for her to be
calm. The fire left her mouth and hands, but still ghosted behind
her eyes. He turned to the princess. “It’s our intention to get you
home, Your Highness. It’s not going to be immediate though. We’re
deep in the Caaldith Mountains in Rojuun territory and there is no
clear way out.”

“What do you mean there’s no clear way out?”
the princess asked with concern.

“I mean we don’t know how to get out of the
caverns,” Tathan answered.

“Never fear, Your Highness. We are looking
for a way out at the moment. Hopefully, in a day or two, we’ll find
a way,” Sir Danth reassured her.

“A day or two?” she replied with her eyes
wide. “Wait a minute, you rescued me, but don’t know how to
escape?” She looked around in a panic. “We’re stuck down here?” The
pitch of her voice was getting higher by the moment. “Wait, wait,”
she said spreading her arms out with palms out. She looked at Sir
Danth, then Liselle, before finally settling on Tathan. “You look
normal,” she said ignoring Tathan’s raised eyebrow. Liselle and Sir
Danth raised an eyebrow too. Not wanting to be left out, Vevin
joined in as well. Tathan’s mouth twitched as he attempted to
contain a grin. “Where exactly is ‘here’?” the princess asked with
a touch of panic in her voice.

Tathan answered, “As I said earlier, we’re
deep in the Caaldith Mountains in the heart of Rojuun territory
where no human has ever set foot. We’re hoping to find a way back
to the surface, but don’t know how to get there or even which way
to go,” he explained, giving the princess a realistic picture of
their situation. Tathan absentmindedly noticed that Princess
Anilyia was very pretty when tears began to stream down her face.
Most women looked terrible when they cried. “There are Rojuun in
every direction and we have no idea how many we’re going to have to
fight to escape. Sir Danth was being generous with his estimate
when he said two or three days. It’ll probably take a week or two
if we even succeed . . . Why are you all glaring at me?”

Liselle’s eyes were filled with fire again
and Sir Danth had his arms crossed. He was definitely glaring. Even
Vevin seemed mad at Tathan. His dance had turned into an angry,
serpentine movement. The princess wasn’t mad, she was just sobbing.
That was Tathan’s least favorite thing about women: they cried . .
. a lot.

“My dear Cousin,” Liselle said with her arms
crossed. “You have a way of putting things in the most despairing
way. You’ve made the princess cry and you’ve cast a gloom upon the
entire party. You should be ashamed.” She glared at him. The fact
that all women seemed to know how to make a man feel as though he
were in trouble was his second least favorite feature of women.

“It’s important she, and all of us, have a
realistic understanding of the problems facing us, that way we’re
not surprised when we’re not looking at the sun in a day or two,”
Tathan said defensively. He hated it when people had overly
optimistic ideas of what was going to happen, it caused more
disappointment in the end.

Liselle put her arm around the princess, not
noticing how Anilyia shrank in fear from the person who had just
breathed fire a moment ago. “We are supposed to bring hope and
reassurance to this woman in a dark time, yet you tell her things
are only going to get worse. How are the rest of us supposed to
feel knowing you think we’re going to die and rot in these forsaken
tunnels?” she demanded. The princess was trying to maneuver away
from Liselle’s tight grip around her shoulder.

“I didn’t say we were going to die and rot!
I don’t think that at all,” Tathan protested. “We’re extraordinary
people capable of amazing things and we make a good team, which
we’ve proven time and again, but it’s going to take some work and
the odds are against us,” he explained more calmly. “Let’s have a
realistic understanding of our situation then do our best to
overcome it.”

“There is some wisdom to his words, Milady,”
Sir Danth agreed.

Liselle closed her eyes and took a deep
breath. The princess finally managed to get loose and went to Sir
Danth. Liselle opened her eyes and the flames were gone. “Alright,
so it’s going to take a while to escape. I truly believe we can and
will.” She turned to the princess and pointed. “We are rescuing
you. I don’t care if you are a princess, you will
not
give
us orders. In fact, since we are currently in such danger, you will
follow orders and do exactly as you are told.” Liselle leaned
forward, directly into the cowering princess’s face. “Do I make
myself perfectly clear, Your Highness?” The princess nodded
vigorously.

“Very well, shall we go then, boys?” Liselle
suggested, moving back to Vevin and linking her arm in his.

Tathan nodded and led the way once more. He
really didn’t like his cousin’s new habit of calling them ‘boys’.
None of them were boys by any stretch of the imagination.

They walked down the hallway for a good half
hour with Tathan in the lead, the princess holding on to Sir Danth
behind him and Liselle and Vevin taking up the rear. In separate
instances, they came across a group of five Rojuun, a trio and a
pair. Liselle cast her hold spell on all of them and they proceeded
without bloodshed. They knew the Rojuun would speak of their
passing, but leaving a trail of dead bodies would tell anyone who
followed them which direction the party was going just as
efficiently.

At the first opportunity, Tathan had taken a
tunnel heading north. There were more plants and various small
animals moving about. At one cave, they had found a gate shutting
off a tunnel. The companions didn’t go in that direction because it
sloped downward. A breeze, colder than they had felt in the
caverns, came from it. A few twists and turns had them heading
northwest again.

Tathan was a bit worried about Liselle’s use
of spells, but she had told them that passive spells like barriers
and the such didn’t use too much energy. Explosive spells like fire
took the most and healing spells took as much energy as the
severity of the injury required. She appeared to be doing fine so
far and the rest of them still had plenty to give if Liselle became
too tired.

Princess Anilyia hadn’t said another word,
staying close to Sir Danth, partially out of fear from the peril
they were in and partially out of fear of Liselle. Tathan didn’t
get much of a chance to study her due to the fact that he was
leading the party, but the few times he glanced back, he was awed
by her beauty. Her brilliant blue eyes sparkled brighter than the
gem-encrusted jewelry adorning her ears, neck, arms and fingers. At
times, when she brushed her hair back over her right ear, an
intricate tattoo on her neck showed.

The rich dress she wore was terrible for
traveling and the hem had already become frayed from dragging along
the stone floor of the passage. She held it up with her hands, but
it just didn’t stand a chance.

An increase in the frequency of light globes
ahead caught his attention, doubling from every sixty feet to every
thirty feet. “Tathan,” Liselle called out softly. He turned to see
that she had stopped with Vevin. Sir Danth and the princess stopped
to look back too. “Tathan, there’s something very wrong up ahead,”
she said, obviously upset.

He walked back to her. “Do you have any idea
what it is? Is there an ambush?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not an ambush,
it’s something unnatural, something that’s making the world
scream.” Tathan could tell his cousin was distressed. “It feels
unnatural like the hhorrj felt unnatural, Tathan,” she said with
tears welling in her eyes.

Tathan put a comforting hand on her shoulder
as Vevin wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. She took a
deep breath and nodded that she was ready to continue. Tathan took
the lead again, this time with his sword drawn. The blade eagerly
grabbed at nearby light. Glancing back, he saw the princess staring
at it in frightened awe.

They entered another small cave a few
minutes later. Tathan scouted it before waving the rest forward
when he found it empty. “We want to go there.” Liselle pointed to a
hallway on the left.

“But that’s southwest, back toward Alluu,”
Tathan replied. “There’s one other tunnel, going to the north.”

Liselle shook her head. “The unnatural
feeling is coming from that direction. It’s not far away and then
we can come back and go north. We need to see what’s wrong and fix
it.” Her face was pale, the blood having drained from it.

Tathan looked both directions. He didn’t
want to waste time trying to fix anything ‘unnatural’ when they
should be concentrating on escape. It was clear his cousin didn’t
even
want
to go that way. He sighed and headed down the
passage anyway. If Tathan did many more good deeds, he might not be
able to show his face in a dark alley ever again.

The new hallway was well lit and carpeted. A
moment later, they came to an intersection. “Go right,” Liselle
whispered. Tathan glanced around the corner and saw a glowing
barrier with two guards in front of it. They were dressed in bright
red and gold colored armor. He turned and held up two fingers.
Liselle nodded, moved past everyone to get into the intersection
and cast the spell. There was the sound of bodies falling. Then she
nodded and Tathan went into the new hall ahead of her.

When he saw the unconscious bodies, he
raised an eyebrow at her. She replied with a shrug. “I thought it
would be better to put them to sleep.” He nodded and moved to the
glowing barrier. It was orange and hummed with energy. There were
metal brackets along each side of the barrier and a glowing panel
set into the wall.