In Draeden's Trench (The Glyst Saga Book 2) by Alex Bentley

Author:Alex Bentley [Bentley, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2021-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

An Unfair Fight

The road dips steeply as I head in the direction of the pit, the mountains seeming to roll toward me, to hang over me like a wave about to crash down onto the beach at Brim. I pass old carts and tools, and several red-painted kanna skulls nailed to posts. Thankfully, none of them contain grefa stones. Rocks begin to grow around me, until I am walking along a narrow, grey canyon. It twists like a snake and is just about wide enough for three horses to ride abreast.

If I were to be attacked now, I would be penned in, my options limited to say the least. I draw the short sword. No sooner have I done so than I hear voices and notice a glow ahead of me, just around the next bend. I stop, wait, listen. They are not growing louder, those voices—two men?—which means they are not coming toward me. A guard post of some sort? Doubtless. Mines are valuable things, after all.

I flatten myself to the wall and edge forward. When I reach the bend, I look around it, quickly and with just one eye.

Three men, not two. And they have their backs to me. At first, I wonder why this is so. It seems an uncommonly foolish way in which to protect a mine’s riches. But, of course, this is not an ordinary pit. This is Draeden’s Trench. I recall what the shopkeeper said:

But this pit is especially hazardous. There’s something down there. Has been since the quake a decade back. Something sleeping… awoke. Something from the bowels of the earth.

The guards are not there to keep people from getting in. They are there to stop people—people like Cass—from getting out.

Beyond the three guards, I can see the entrance to the pit: a misshapen hole in a craggy sheer face that rises straight up for almost thirty feet before sloping away. I can see some way into the mine with the help of what looks like torches fixed to wall sconces every ten yards.

There is no way past the guards. I could take out one with an arrow, possibly a second. But there is every chance I would be facing two opponents alone, with only a short sword for a weapon. What’s more, I’m not an assassin. I can stomach killing an attacker, and I have learned my father’s lesson—on the whole—of not letting bandits and the like escape, in case they bring more of their kind. But this is different. Despite their task, these may be good men. Even if they would slay me in an instant if they so much as heard a peep from a grefa stone.

No, I can’t kill them. I’ll have to find some other way of getting into the mine.

What, I wonder, would Cass do?

Some ruse. Some con. He would be hard-faced and bold, as when he lied to Slek Mydra about the whereabouts of our camp, despite the Sceada’s gutting sword being laid out on the table before him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.