Martha Wells - Ile-Rien 03 by The Death of the Necromancer

Author:The Death of the Necromancer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-05-31T13:45:55+00:00

It was becoming more and more apparent that something was hunting them through the darkened corridors of the prison.

Nicholas cursed when he saw their path blocked by another door. So far they had run into four locked doors that the keys Nicholas had taken from the guard upstairs refused to open, but two Crack had been able to force with his jimmie. Two had been too heavily plated to open with that method and they had had to change their route. There were not supposed to be doors blocking these passages; they must have been added in the last few years, perhaps as a response to more escapes.

He gestured Crack toward the door and leaned back against the dirty stone to let him pass. Ronsarde braced himself against the wall, his breathing harsh. Nicholas exchanged a worried look with Reynard. If they kept to this pace much longer they might kill the Inspector. Somewhere up one of the corridors a crash of splintered wood echoed, then a thump and a human cry, abruptly choked off.

“God, it’s got another one,” Reynard muttered. “How many does that make?”

“Four,” Nicholas answered. He was watching Crack work the door. This one looked like it might be forced, with luck at least. When they hadn’t been captured in the cellblock area, prison warders or constables must have been sent down to this level to search for them. Fortunately, the creature the sorcerer had sent after them was indiscriminate in who it killed. “If it knew where we were going, it would have had us by now. It’s just… hunting.”

“Maybe it’s time to start hunting it,” Reynard said.

Nicholas met his eyes, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll slip back the way we came and try to kill it,” Reynard explained. He looked back down the corridor. “That’s the only course of action that makes sense. From what we’ve heard it moves fast; there’s little chance of all of us outrunning it, not with an injured man and having to stop to break open doors every few minutes.”

“You don’t know the prison,” Nicholas pointed out. He had considered taking this option himself but he was reluctant to do it until he could think of a sure way to destroy the creature that was trailing them. The most likely method he had come up with so far involved the gas jets the passages were lit with, but he couldn’t think of a way to accomplish it without self-immolation and he didn’t think the situation warranted that yet. “If you survived the encounter with this creature, you wouldn’t be able to follow us out.” If we ever find the way ourselves, which is very much in doubt at the moment.

“I don’t have to find my way out. The Inspector is the one who is the fugitive from the Prefecture. Alone, I’m just another damn fool who ran in here to escape the sorcery.”

“You’ll need the pistol,” Nicholas tried again. It would be certain death to confront the thing alone and he estimated he had until Crack forced the door to talk Reynard out of it.

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