Page 72 of Ryld's Shadows
“Your aelfe warriors were seen, Jessamine.” Dzev’s voice cut like a razor with his rage. “They caused the rockslide. Ryld, come to me. She tried to kill Kai and Hank.”
The dam broke.
Ryld whipped his head toward Jessamine. He could only see her outline through the black lenses that bled over his eyes. She had something in her hand, reaching for him with it, and a shadow bit down on her arm just above her wrist. The bones snapped, twinpop-pops, and her scream of pain cut through even the dullness that stuffed Ryld’s ears. More shadows rushed her, clawing and tearing. She fell away from him along with everything else.Gone.If Hank was gone, he wanted to be gone too.
* * * *
The pain in his arm had reached the point where the blood pounded in his ears, so Kai wasn’t certain what he heard at first. Scratching? Scrabbling? Maybe there was a small mammal in here after all that he could persuade to carry a message.
But the scrabbling began to resolve into…digging? Voices outside the cave, perhaps? Had the aelfe returned to make certain?
A rock near the top of the cave arch lifted away and afternoon sun blinded him. He squinted against the glare as more rocks vanished from the pile. When the hole was large enough, a face appeared at the top of the rockslide.
“They’re here, auntie!” The young face was drow, dark with white hair. Not an aelfe at all.
A face Kai recognized replaced the young drow’s.
“Lady Ksatha?” he whispered.
“Good. You’re not dead.” The drow queen turned her head to call down. “Get the rest of these rocks moved! Hurry!”
A combination of hands and magic lifted the rocks away quickly, the sunlight becoming unbearable enough that Kai squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them again when a gentle hand landed on his arm.
“Kai Hiltas. You’ve managed a bit of a pickle, as the humans say.” Lady Ksatha’s smile was wry as she gazed down at him.
“How?” he choked out and began to cough.
“Hmm. My niece, Tsada, was the scout on this end of our holdings today. She spotted two aelfe bucks onourlands and followed. Good that she did, since she saw them throw you and your goblin-son friend in here and bring part of the cliff down to seal you in.”
“I couldn’t…” He turned his palm over to show her, and she hissed in dismay.
“That explains…everything.” She smoothed the wild hair back from his forehead. “I told Tsada that ahiltascould never be trapped like this. But that…that is an evil thing and old. I wonder how long Jessamine has had that in her stores.”
“Saving it…just for me.” He managed what he hoped was a smile. “Hank is…sleep…spelled.”
“Easily mended. But I think we’ll let him sleep until we’re somewhere more comfortable.” Lady Ksatha gestured to her warriors. “Come. Get them out of here. Gently!” She raised her voice when one of the young drow was about to drag Kai out by the arm. “Gently. Please.”
The journey to the drow court was a short one—since the aelfe had brought them most of the way there—and accomplished on litters rather than thrown across a saddle like a potato sack.
In the cool dark of the drow caves, Lady Ksatha brought them to one of the sleeping chambers and called mages in to remove the cursed stone from Kai’s hand.
“Our Ryld,” Kai told her through the pain. “We must rescue him from thatkzashtaelfe.”
“I’ve sent a war band to her court.” She patted his shoulder. “Dzev will retrieve him.”
“Ah. Thank you. For…” His throat closed over with unexpected emotion. “All of this. I should have…listened to you.”
“Allsoon mended.” She gave him a smile as she swept out of the room to let her mages work.
It took a full circle to remove the cursed stone, a process far more painful than Kai had anticipated, and while he was curious about the process, he managed to lose consciousness before the interesting part of nullifying the stone and working it free.
* * * *
“Ryld…”
He heard his name from the end of a long tunnel. It echoed in his head. His eyelids felt weighted down, and he ached where he wasn’t numb. Finally, with all his effort, he managed to force his eyes open.
Chaos greeted him. No, not chaos. The aftermath of chaos. It was quiet, and dusk had fallen. No one was near, except Dzev.
