Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (27 page)

The sack the man carried caught on a rock and ripped ever so slightly. The man swore and called ahead. “Wait a moment. This sands-cursed sack got caught on a rock.”

Further up the passage, Kaiden stopped and turned, the light making his prematurely aged face look momentarily younger again. “Don’t you dare damage those scrolls, Daelyn. Get the sack untangled and meet us above.”

“Selmack, get over here and help me with this,” Daelyn grumbled.

Gavin held his breath as one of the men in the middle group turned his head to glance back at Daelyn. A bead of sweat pooled on the end of Gavin’s nose and threatened to fall.

“Why should I help you? You’re the one who wanted to drag the sack instead of carrying it like the rest of us.”

Selmack turned back around to the accompaniment of his companions’ chuckles. Kaiden seemed to look directly at where Gavin was hiding, but then his eyes slid back over to Daelyn and his expression hardened at the man’s continued mutterings under his breath.

“Get it done. We won’t wait for you.” Kaiden turned back to the woman and strode off down the hall.

The other three men called a few japes back at Daelyn and moved to follow, though one of them did leave his lamp on the ground so Daelyn wouldn’t be left in complete darkness. The bead of sweat dripped off Gavin’s nose and another one formed. He’d hoped he could follow them and get one of them alone—in fact, this was the second time he’d managed to get to place of concealment ahead of them, but this was the best situation he’d encountered so far. It was now or never. Nikanor didn’t have time for him to wait around for another opportunity.

Gavin waited for the rest of the group to move on and then counted to ten slowly in his mind. Daelyn cursed and turned his back on Gavin’s hiding place, bending down to try and unsnag the sack. Taking a deep breath, Gavin stepped in to the light, hoping no one from the other group would turn and see him there. In one quick motion, Gavin stepped up behind the man, wrapped one arm around the man’s neck, grabbed his own wrist with his other hand, and pulled backward with all his strength.

Daelyn immediately reached for Gavin’s arm, scrabbling against his grip and trying to get to his feet. Gavin pulled back hard against his neck, which only served to help Daelyn to his feet. Thankfully, Gavin was taller than him and was able to keep pulling until the man’s feet lifted off the ground. He kicked and flailed, trying desperately to free himself or shout out some sort of warning, but Gavin kept his arms tightly locked. He ground his teeth together against the pain of Daelyn’s nails digging into the flesh of his forearms.

After a few brief moments of struggle that felt like an eternity, the man stilled. Gavin counted to three and then let go. The man’s limp form dropped to the ground with a soft, muted thump.

Gavin stepped backward until his back hit the wall. His hands trembled, but he took a deep breath and brushed the sweat out of his eyes. Daelyn was still alive, just unconscious. Gavin took several more deep breaths and then set about stealing Daelyn’s clothes, trying to ignore the fact that his hands still shook and he was constantly licking his dry lips with an even drier tongue.

Gavin pulled on Daelyn’s clothes as quickly as he could, then used his own clothes to tie up and gag the man. He left Daelyn where he was, unconscious on the ground. Once again he hoped no one from the other group would decide to look back and see what was taking Daelyn so long, though hopefully they’d see Gavin standing there and assume he was Daelyn.

He held up the man’s sword last of all, trying to decide if he was going to take it with him or not. The metal would give Kaiden something to use against him. But if Gavin didn’t bring it with him, it might trigger suspicions. Then again, he had no intention of getting close enough to anyone for them to find out who he really was, at least not before it was too late.

In the end, he belted it on. There were still four other people he had to get through before he got to Kaiden. There was ample time to work out that particular obstacle.

Gavin straightened, feeling odd in the unfamiliar clothes, though the sudden thrill of anticipation washed away a good measure of the discomfort. It was time for Gavin to truly begin his hunt.

He hurried down the passage after Kaiden and the others after picking up the lantern, which turned out to be a simple candle type, instead of the longer-lasting oil variety. Gavin wished he didn’t have to have it with him since the light would leave him blind when he looked out into the darkness, but he had to maintain some of the pretense at least. He left the bag of scrolls behind. While he was curious about their contents—especially considering how much emphasis Kaiden put on them—his current priorities lay elsewhere. He first had to eliminate the threat Kaiden and his followers posed, and then he had to figure out a way to get back to the stoneway pillar where Farah would be looking for him. If he was able to also figure out what happened to Nabil and rescue the creature along the way, all the better.

Before too long, Gavin saw light ahead in the passage. He breathed out a small sigh of relief. He’d half worried that the others would have turned down a side passage along the way and he would lose them. Thankfully, that was not the case.

Gavin slowed his pace slightly and sucked in a steadying breath. The next part of his plan would be tricky. He had to somehow get one or two of the men to break away from the others.

To that end, he stopped and set down the lantern. “Oi, Selmack,” Gavin called in his best imitation of Daelyn’s voice. “Come here and help me, will you?” Imitating voices had been something he’d learned while an outcast performer, though he’d never thought it would have any real use. The echoes would distort it enough that, hopefully, the others wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Ahead of him, Gavin saw the moving light stop and a faint voice called something back down the hall at him. Gavin couldn’t tell what said, but decided to yell back anyway.

“Come on, you stupid fool.”

With that, Gavin stepped back into the shadows and waited, looking away from the light so his eyes would adjust back to the darkness. Silently, he fished around for a stone, which he found with relative ease. He gripped it in his hand and waited. After only a few moments of waiting that seemed like an eternity, Gavin heard the sounds of booted feet headed toward him. Gavin glanced toward the light with a darting, fleeting motion of his eyes, careful not to let it linger too long. He hoped only one person would come but, if his plan worked, he could deal with two. He fingered the rock in one hand and checked the sword with his other.

Gavin waited.

For a moment, all he heard was the hard, grating noise of boots against sand and rock. Then two figures materialized out of the darkness. One was the tall, lanky figure of Selmack. The other was the blonde woman.

Gavin went to throw the rock, then hesitated and licked his lips. His plan required that these ones die. Gavin had been content to leave Daelyn unconscious behind him, one man wasn’t much of an issue when he had Daelyn’s intellect, but he couldn’t start leaving more people to follow him. It sickened him to think of himself as an assassin, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Necessity drove him now.

Gavin threw the rock. It missed the lantern by almost a hand’s distance.

Gavin’s heart froze within his chest as the rock bounced against the back wall and Selmack and the woman immediately sought him out in the darkness. For an instant, really the space between two heartbeats, Gavin’s mind went completely blank. He’d never once thought he’d miss the lamp, so he hadn’t even bothered to find another stone.

Then his heart beat again and thought returned. One hand shot out into the darkness, scrabbling along the ground until it closed around stone. Selmack drew a long, curved sword and took a single step forward. The woman didn’t move, but instead scrunched up her face in apparent concentration. Gavin felt energy being drawn toward her as he carefully took aim and then threw a second time. This time, the rock flew true.

The lamp shattered and the candle within toppled, snuffing out the flame. The passage was immediately plunged into darkness and Gavin drew his sword, getting to his feet. The blade felt heavy in his hand, but his eyes were already mostly adjusted to the darkness, whereas Selmack’s and the woman’s were not. Selmack froze where he was and Gavin seized that moment. He rushed forward, blade extended in front of his in a straightforward thrust. Selmack must have heard him as he began to raise his sword in a generic defensive posture, but it was already too late. Gavin’s sword pierced his chest and Gavin pushed it up until it pierced something vital. Selmack slumped backward and Gavin pulled the sword free before it could get torn from his grip by the man’s falling body. Bile welled up in his throat.

A dim white light burst into existence in the hall as the woman’s hands erupted in crackling energy. Gavin turned to her, sword raised, though his posture betrayed his surprise. In the dim light, he recognized her now—Sarial, the woman he and Lhaurel had imprisoned in the cell where Samsin and Nikanor now waited.

Her face was a mask of surprise and rage. “The outcast, is it?” she asked, voice dripping with feigned fear. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have gotten free so quickly. Kaiden doesn’t give you enough credit, it seems. He says you’re rather pathetic, for a mystic.”

“I may surprise you,” Gavin said. He reached out to the sands around him. After the last time, after he’d broken down the barriers he finally realized were there, it came easily to him now, almost instinctively. He drew in the energy and in a moment, white sparks crackled up and down his own hands and, unlike Sarial, up and down his arms and along the length of his blade.

“Fine then,” Sarial spat, her face twisting into an expression of deepest loathing. “Mystic to mystic then, outcast.” Her hands dropped to her belt and drew a pair of long, thin daggers. The energy in her hands danced up and down them as she charged forward in an attack.

Gavin danced backward, bringing his sword up to knock the two daggers out of line with his body. Sarial spun back in a counterstrike faster than Gavin was expecting and scored a hit along Gavin’s cheek. The pain was hot and intense, but Gavin didn’t have time to dwell on it. He stepped back again and spun his blade around to fend off another flurry of blows from Sarial’s flashing knives.

A grin slowly spread across the woman’s face, which Gavin found unnerving at best.

“I expected better,” she said, making an obviously playful swipe at his arm that had little chance of actually connecting. “Even one as new as you. You don’t even know how to use the energy to fuel itself yet.” She snorted.

Gavin felt himself flushing, but forced himself not to get distracted. Sarial outmatched him at close quarters, it was obvious, and the cramped passage favored shorter weapons. The only light by which they could see was generated by the sparking energy on their hands and arms, which wasn’t much to begin with.

Gavin parried a blow from one of the daggers and then dropped to a knee and ducked under the other. At the low angle, he lashed out with the sword with his off hand and managed to score a minor hit to Sarial’s leg before she was able to pull it back.

Sarial cursed, the sound loud enough to cause an echo, though her hold on the energy didn’t waver. Gavin silently cursed along with her, but for a very different reason.

“Fool,” Sarial hissed. “After I’ve finished with you, Kaiden and I are leaving this place. We’ll take the faithful with us, those who gave heed to our warning, but you and the Roterralar? Well, you’re going to die.”

“I get really tired of hearing that,” Gavin said, feeling anger build, but holding it back. He parried a blow and then took another step back. “I’ve made it a habit of surviving when I shouldn’t. You’re nothing compared to the Oasis walls. You’re nothing compared to the life of an outcast.”

Sarial laughed. Gavin blocked another swipe of a dagger and then swung up and around. Sarial dodged out of the way. Gavin stepped forward and brought his sword around in another side-cut. The energy in his hands and up his arms grew and swelled, crackling along the blade. Sarial blocked the blow and countered with a quick thrust. Gavin batted it away. Sarial’s face took on a look of confused concentration as Gavin moved relentlessly forward. The growing energy building within him gave him strength, and he used it to increase the speed and strength of his attacks. For the first time, Sarial took a step back.

“What was that again, about being finished with me?” Gavin asked.

Within the passage, a soft breeze began to blow, caressing Gavin’s sweat soaked brow and then passing on.

Sarial growled something inarticulate and attacked Gavin with renewed vigor. Gavin exchanged blows with the woman for several long moments, each scoring a few minor hits on the other. In the middle of the battle and filled with the crackling energy, Gavin barely felt them, and his confidence grew as he continued to make headway. He didn’t step backward. He was done retreating.

Sarial swiped upward at an angle with her left dagger. Gavin, expecting the move, swung down hard with his sword. With the momentum and strength of the longer weapon behind it, the blow was hard enough to rip the dagger from Sarial’s hand and send it skidding across the sandy, rocky floor. Sarial stumbled forward at the sudden overextension and Gavin stepped forward.

He started the killing blow, but the sword flew out of his grip, disappearing into the darkness.