Warriors of the Freeguilds by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2023-03-28T10:36:02+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My world was a blur of pain and sickening motion as I toppled, screaming, into darkness. How long I fell, I cannot recall, but my battered body scraped against walls and struck a protruding passing blur of an object with force enough to yank my shoulder from its socket. This wave of agony was soon followed by a sudden, terrible slap as I struck freezing water.

Icy cold enveloped me. I dragged in a mouthful of putrid water, and immediately felt an almost overwhelming urge to throw up. I splashed and struggled instinctively, filled with the all-consuming madness of panic. That could have easily been the end of my career right there in that dank, subterranean pool, but by some miracle I managed to gather enough of my wits to cease my frantic struggling and shake off the shock that threatened to overwhelm me. Through a cloud of bubbles I could make out the outline of a strange device indeed – a spear-shaped nose of battered, rusted metal, surrounded by wires and protrusions, descending into the darkness beneath me. The head was embedded in the smooth stone of a circular wall that dropped into an abyss beneath my flailing legs. There was no motion down there, but the sight still sent a primal shiver of dread through my bones.

Sickly green light bled down through the surface of the man-made pool into which I had fallen. There was a rough slope that led out of the water, and I made my way to this, ­hoping dearly that I could haul myself onto dry land. Fortunately the slope, though steep, was manageable, and I gracelessly ­struggled my way to the surface.

I dragged myself up onto a shelf of pitted rock and lay there for a long while, spluttering and shaking, trying to regather my senses.

Varon had tried to kill me. For all my suspicions about the state of the man’s mind, I’d never expected that he wanted me dead. Why would he? I’d done exactly as he asked, getting him this far into the Latchkey Isle. I remembered the look upon his face as he had pushed me over the abyss. There had been a cruel delight in the man’s eyes that I had never seen before.

I shook my head and dragged myself to my feet, groaning in pain as I felt my damaged shoulder. I was lucky, beyond lucky that this was the only injury I’d suffered in my long fall, but it burned like fire. I could barely raise my arm above head height without black spots dancing across my vision.

Nursing the injury, I took in my surroundings for the first time. Overhead, the smooth walls of the chute disappeared into darkness. I could not hear the sounds of battle or the howls of gheists, and so I judged that I must have fallen some distance. Or perhaps the city had changed around me once more. In any case, there would be no making my way back up that way.

I was standing in the mouth of a rough-hewn, circular tunnel that ended at the foot of the pool.

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