Ultima(#2): Masquerade by Austen Andrews

Author:Austen Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 8

Braun's Needle

At that moment, under those distant storm clouds, heavy raindrops pelted an old woman’s face.

Her mouth tingled with warmth. Her blood surged. Her veins quivered.

She recognized the signature of a healing potion.

Thulann could only open one eye. The midnight tempest showered the hillside. She was lying beside the pile of fractured rock that had been an outcropping not long before. Toria was buried somewhere underneath.

Pikas and Grynholt were gone.

Venduss balanced atop the mound. Frantically he tore at the jumble of sharp stones, hurling them aside with desperate grunts. Though he must have drunk a healing potion at the same time he administered hers, his wounds robbed him of strength. His leather garb was a tattered, gory mess.

The heap of rocks was taller than he was. Thulann knew there was no hope of burrowing through it.

She wresded to her feet, climbed next to him and began to dig anyway.

Crevasse glittered in the distance. Lights separated from the mining town and headed toward them. Quick spouts of flame burst from the flying entities, illuminating the nearby crags.

Thulann threw down the large rock in her hands. "Dreadnoughts. It is time to leave now, Venduss."

The youth ignored her.

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "Getting caught solves nothing. Please."

He roared a curse and spun, jamming his foot into her gut. She spilled down the rugged pile of stones and splashed into a puddle. Above her, backlit by the approaching flames, Venduss clutched his head and screamed with rage.

Then he darted to Thulann’s side, helped her find her feet and led her away from the scene of the battle. The Way Master wiped rain from her injured face.

Her hand found a gap where her right eye had been.

A twinge of horror blinked through her, but she disregarded it. She tore a strip from her black shirt and wrapped it around her head to cover the empty socket. Then she scanned the terrain with her remaining eye. Escape would not be easy. Dreadnoughts moved swiftly and hounds bayed not far off. Neither she nor Venduss were in good shape to flee.

There was no remedy except perseverance. They had to put aside what had happened and take the future one step at a time.

Toria could not breathe. Her arms and legs were pinned by a crushing weight. Cold water slithered over the length of her body. Everything was blackness.

Panic seized her. She squirmed and tried in vain to cry out. The rocks around her shifted, jabbed into her ribs with a crackling sound. But her bones did not make the noise. The ground below her did.

An instant later it gave way. She plummeted into darkness and hard stones. When she thudded onto a solid surface she scrabbled away by instinct.

The rockslide crashed atop the place she had been.

She pressed against a cold wall and screamed for help, but no reply came. She could not hear any sounds of battle above.

In pitch blackness she knelt with a cool stream swirling around her ankles. The air was lively with the splash of water.

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