The Lost Girls and the Kobold (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 7) by C. Dale Brittain

Author:C. Dale Brittain [Brittain, C. Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

VIII

It was a deep crevice. It took several seconds to fall, everyone shouting in terror—except for Paul, who couldn’t get enough of it. That is, I was fairly sure everyone was shouting, though I didn’t do inventory. I of course was shouting myself.

But the seconds-long fall gave me enough time—just—to catch everybody with magic, not to keep them from falling, but to slow the descent. No time for a flying spell for myself, when I had to work a lifting spell on everybody else. We all hit the stony bottom of the crevice with the wind knocked out of us, but now I did do inventory, and nobody was dead.

“Everybody all right?” I gasped with what little breath I had. “Any broken bones?”

Apparently there were no broken bones, just a lot of scrapes and scratches and bruises. Paul, who had landed on top of me, was best off of all.

“Flying!” he cried, hopping up and down with delight. “Do it again!”

The rest of us sat rubbing skinned knees and elbows while our heart rates subsided, trying to breathe normally again. The crevice was shadowed and chill and filthy. There were what appeared to be sheep bones there with us; apparently I had overestimated their sure-footedness.

The girls’ best dresses were now thoroughly ruined. Even Joachim, who was always very neat, was all rumpled. And I didn’t like to think what I must look like myself.

“How will you get us out of here, Daimbert?” Joachim asked, with his usual confidence in my abilities. I used to be flattered by his confidence; now it just embarrassed me. After all, it was my fault we were here in the first place.

I looked up at a narrow slice of sky far, far above. It might be possible, barely, for someone as strong and agile as Yan to climb out by finding finger-holds and toe-holds in the rock face, but not for the rest. There were roots and dirt as well as rock, and it all looked very unstable to my eye. “I could lift everybody with magic,” I said slowly, “one at a time. Now, the question is whether it would be easier to lift with me standing here, or whether I should go up above first….”

Or could I fly halfway up, find someplace to wedge myself, and lift them from there? I might be able to fly and lift one person at the same time, but I didn’t feel confident enough to chance it, not in my current state of exhaustion.

While I was turning spells over in my mind Alais suddenly gave a horrified gasp.

I whirled around, expecting wolves or vipers.

It was even worse. Paul was gone.

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