The Lost Link, page 23
part #1 of Power of Fae Series
Breathe, Jette. In and out. Fear is a state of mind. You can master it.
It worked. My frantic wheezing ebbed as I locked the phobia deep inside. There was no time to panic. What the hell had Starke called this mission? Easy, peasy. If he were standing in front of me right now, I’d wring his damn neck. Not for the first time since I’d gotten thrown in this tiny cell did I hope he knew what he was doing.
Where the hell was he? What had they done with him? What was taking him so long to get me out? Fear for his safety started to outweigh my own. Asha needed me to help carry out her plan. She wouldn’t kill me. But Starke was another matter. Was she evil enough to harm her own flesh and blood? Starke had bet on she wouldn’t, but I wasn’t so sure as I touched my swollen lip, the souvenir from Asha’s blow. She wouldn’t kill us yet, but she could make us suffer a lot of pain and enjoy doing so.
I began pacing the tiny cell, trying to keep my worry for Starke from gnawing its way through.
Stay calm. Remember, Asha won’t kill you. You aren’t going to die. Not today. Maybe soon, but not today. Although you can still carry out her mission with missing fingers. Or toes. Or ears. Or a missing tongue. Oh crap. What if she cuts out my tongue?
“Shut up, brain,” I growled out loud. “Stop thinking this shit. She isn’t going to cut off your toes or fingers. And she isn’t going to cut out your tongue. And then again, maybe she will.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth, trying to put a stop to the verbal manifestations of my fears falling from my lips. Saying it out loud only made it that much more real.
“I could only hope for such a blessing.”
That voice. I spun on my heel and practically leaped back to the iron door, my heart fluttering in my chest. The sight of him standing in the corridor, even battered and bruised, made my legs go weak with relief.
“Starke,” I breathed, reaching for the fingers he dangled through the bars, taking comfort from his touch. I was so happy to see him alive. But all that came rushing out was, “What the hell took you so long, dude?”
He chuckled softly. “Good to see you, too, little rabbit.
My relief far outweighed my irritation, and I let the name slide.
“How…?”
He motioned over his shoulder, and I caught sight of the guard accompanying him.
“I told you I still have those loyal to me.”
“We have to move quickly, Sire,” the guard whispered, and Starke nodded, stepping out of the way. The sentry approached my door fumbling with an old-fashioned iron ring of keys. He glanced up at me as he unlocked my cage. He was young, not much older than me, the fear evident in his eyes, wide in his dark face. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was defying Asha. The punishment for his betrayal would be death. He knew that. But beneath the fear, I saw more. I saw courage and determination. He wasn’t about to let his world die. Not if he could do anything to help save it.
I winced as the door swung open with a loud creak, and I froze in place, but the young man reassured me. “You do not have to worry about other guards. Everything has been taken care of. We’ve bought you some time.”
“Thank you,” I whispered to him as I stepped by. He merely gave me a slight nod.
“Here, Sire.” He handed the ring of keys to Starke. “We hid your weapons in the armory at the end of this corridor so they wouldn’t be noticed. As for the fire elemental, she is being kept in the tower on the top floor. The silver key on the ring is for her prison doors. The servants’ stairwells will be your easiest access to the tower, since they are not guarded.”
“Why are the stairwells not guarded?” I asked in disbelief. That didn’t sound like Asha to be so cavalier about her most important prisoner.
The guard turned his attention back to me. “There is no need to guard the stairwells, since the top floor is guarded by a Grimner. Soldiers are not necessary.”
My gaze darted to Starke. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but I saw the flash of worry in his eyes at this tidbit of info. What the hell was a Grimner? Didn’t sound good, so odds were I probably should be worried, too. Starke quickly regained his composure.
“Thank you, Nole.” Starke’s hand fell on the guard’s shoulder. “You have served me and Endova well. You have made me proud to call you a friend. What you have done today will not be forgotten.” A look of contrition replaced the gratitude on Starke’s face. “And I apologize for what we both know I am about to do.”
Nole began to nod just as Starke’s fist whipped out and sucker punched him in the jaw. The guard’s head spun and his eyes rolled back.
“Shit,” I breathed, even as Starke caught the young man’s shoulders and lowered him gently to the floor. “A little word of warning would have been nice. Remind me never to make you proud if that’s how you repay help.”
Starke didn’t take the bait. “Help me drag him in.”
I did as he asked, glancing sideways at Starke as we dropped the poor dude on the cold floor of my cell.
“Was that really necessary?”
“To save his life? Yes. We had to make it appear that Nole was not a willing accomplice.”
Starke locked the cell as soon as we exited and pointed down the long corridor that seemed to disappear into a dark nothingness.
“The armory is that way.”
He only took a couple of steps before I reached out and grabbed his arm.
“What’s a Grimner?”
“Weapons first, Bridjette. We don’t have much time.”
“No.”
He stopped midstride and glared back at me.
“Now is not the time to be mule-headed. Move.”
“Don’t try to order me around. I’m not one of your cowering subjects. When Nole mentioned the Grimner, you looked like you were about to have a stroke. What is it? You owe it to me to tell me what we are about to face.”
He ran a hand over his battered face in resignation and gave a curt nod. “You’re right. This is not something you should walk into unaware. A Grimner is kind of like an ogre. Nothing but a big slab of muscle with very little brain power.”
“Like Rach, you mean?”
His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I don’t think Rach would appreciate the comparison.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t mean the brain part. I’m referring to the brawn. We have to fight an ogre?”
Starke shrugged. “More like a giant troll, really. They are fearsome warriors and fierce guardians but are truly basic creatures. The lack of mental capacity makes them easily malleable by magic, which is why my mother favors them. Don’t worry. I’ve fought and defeated them before.”
“With magic?”
He paused before answering, knowing damn well where I was going with this. “Yes.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Hard. We both heard it.
“You do realize we no longer have magic in here, yes?” What I really wanted to ask was if we were going to survive this fight. He couldn’t lie to me. He would have to tell me the truth, right? But I really didn’t know if I could handle the truth.
“I’m aware. Jette, we must move. We don’t have time for this.” He held his hand out to me. “I know this is asking a lot, but you need to trust me on this. We got this. Do you trust me?”
I squared my shoulders and took his hand. The jolt of electricity that jumped between us had nothing to do with magic. Blowing my cheeks out in an exaggerated sigh, I linked my fingers through his.
“Yes, I trust you. But when we’re both being roasted over an open fire as troll dinner, I’m so gonna whine to you with my dying breathe that I told you so.”
His teeth gleamed in the shadows. “Of that I have no doubt.”
As compared to the gloomy corridor we exited from, the armory was lit up like midday. I squinted, my nose wrinkling in disgust as the smell of mold and a thousand-year-old sweat permeated the air, all originating from the rows upon rows of weapons lining the walls and covering the stone tables. My disgust soon turned to amazement.
The room was filled with spears, bows and arrows, guns, knives, and axes. Asha was quite the collector. Some looked ancient, like they were crafted at the beginning of time, while others looked futuristic like they’d come straight out of some Star Wars movie. As I wandered through the mystifying collection, realization set in. Obviously, Asha’s gate travelers had brought back more than info and essence from their journeys. Asha was a collector of other worldly weaponry.
“How are we going to find our weapons in all this?” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder like I expected a guard to pop out of some shadow any minute screaming, “Gotcha!”
“Don’t you feel it?” Starke threw over his shoulder as he made his way through the room like he knew exactly where he was headed.
“Like I wanna puke my guts out? Yeah, I feel that.”
But even as the sarcasm fell from my lips, a buzzing in my fingertips became more noticeable. I made a right turn, and the tingling ebbed. Starke must have felt the same since he backtracked and turned left. I followed suit, and the buzzing increased again. It suddenly hit me: we were playing a game of hot and cold. Turn the wrong way, farther from my sai, the buzzing waned. Move in the right direction and my hand hummed with electricity. My sai were leading me straight to them. This was new.
It only took a few minutes of hot and cold before we found what we were looking for. Starke’s red-hilted sword and my sai rested side by side on a table among a pile of other crap, discarded as if they were useless pieces of junk. I guessed in this tower they truly were. Asha, so arrogant in her power, had no fear from either of them, just another couple of pieces to add to her collection. I wondered if any of the other pieces were owned by Asha’s enemies, and what had happened to those people? The cells we had passed on the way here were all empty. She obviously didn’t like to keep prisoners. Alive, anyway.
Stop it, Jette.
I scolded myself, trying to halt the awful thoughts, even as I situated my sai sheath around my waist. I was surprised at how good it felt to wear them again. Like I was back in control, however much an illusion that was.
As I waited for Starke to situate his sword, my eyes latched onto an interesting object. It looked like a handgun at first glance, but the bright green covering the end of the barrel told me differently. It was a taser. Interesting.
I picked it up, examining it before sticking it in my coat pocket. Could come in handy if we came across any unexpected guards.
Starke watched me pocket the thing with interest.
“What’s that?”
“Something from my world. It’s called a Taser. A badass weapon where I come from. Takes an enemy down by shooting them with electrical pulses. Let’s just say you don’t want to be on the receiving end of this baby. The guns in here would be more useful, but I’m assuming we have to do this quietly, yes? Guns are not quiet, and I don’t see any here with a silencer of any sort. Plus, I’d probably just end up shooting myself or you.”
“Well, we don’t want that. I’d prefer to stay very much alive. To be quite honest, I’d like to keep you that way as well. I kind of like having you around, little rabbit.”
He stepped toward me, reached out, and tucked a stray silver lock behind my ear. His nearness combined with his words caused heat to flare in my cheeks and my stomach to somersault. I so badly wanted to reach out and touch him back. My fingers itched to feel his skin against mine. Instead, all I managed to do was croak, “Again, real bad timing? Don’t we have a troll to defeat?”
He grinned. “Indeed, we do. We will pick up this conversation later, since I believe I still have a challenge to accept.”
He lightly tapped my lip piercing, reminding me of our conversation by the lake.
“Hmph. Always the optimist. If there even is a later. In case you’ve forgotten, defeating trolls wasn’t something you taught me. Making water missiles. Fighting trolls. Two totally different things.” I weighed my hands up and down.
“Stop worrying.” Starke started wandering through the rows of weapons like he was searching for something in particular. “The secret to defeating a Grimner is to take out its third eye. The top orb is the dominant eye and allows a Grimner full sight. Taking it out will render the other eyes useless. Throw off its vision. And since it has absolutely no sense of smell, we will be practically invisible to it. That’s why we need this.”
He unclipped one of the jacked-up crossbows from the wall. The same kind I’d seen the guards in my grandmother’s village carry. But I was still focused on what he’d said.
“Wait. This thing has three eyes? So how many arms and legs does it have then?”
His laughter trickled back over his shoulder. “Two of each, of course. Like normal.”
“Normal?” I growled at his back. “There’s no such thing as normal anymore. We’re on our way to battle a troll, which I assume is not vegetarian, rescue a fire elemental, and jump to another world. That’s not ‘normal’ where I come from.”
“Really? Well, consider yourself special. I don’t do these sorts of things with just anyone.”
Special? Yeah. Lucky effin’ me.
23
We heard the Grimner long before we saw it.
Nole had been right in telling us we wouldn’t encounter any guards on our way to the top of the tower. We hadn’t seen a soul. Asha obviously felt that anything inside the tower was under her control and nothing to worry about. Her guards and morquals were based outside, concentrating on keeping people out. Another arrogant assumption on her part. A win for us.
That didn’t mean my nerves weren’t wound tight and my hearing on high alert as we traversed our way to the tower. And even though my mind was monopolized with playing out all the possible scenarios of how this battle would go, the new sounds infiltrated my thoughts as soon as we hit the top of the last set of stairs.
Thuds. Something big and heavy waited at the opposite end of this hallway around the corner. Something with talons scratching at the stone floor as it moved about. I glanced sideways at Starke, my eyes wide with terror. This was suddenly very real.
“Remember what I said.” Starke tried to comfort me with his whisper. “Once we take out its eye, it won’t be able to see us, so we can easily avoid its claws and get the doors unlocked to the tower.”
“Claws? You didn’t mention claws,” I squeaked as I backed down a couple of steps.
He ignored my fear, nodding instead toward the stack of barrels packed against the opposite wall, about ten feet away. A position from which we could see down the hallway and whatever else was lurking at the other end.
“We’ll take cover there. Once I take out the Grimner’s vision, we’ll head to the tower room. That’s where we’ll find the fire elemental.”
“Hopefully,” I grumbled. He continued on like I hadn’t said anything.
“We get inside the room, I’ll take out Asha’s ward, and you get ready to jump us. Easy as pie, like I said right?”
“Have I told you how much I hate those words,” I grumbled again. “And how are you taking out her ward? We can’t do magic in here.”
“Magic takes many forms, Jette, and many levels of strength. Blood magic is very strong but comes at a price. It will be the only way for me to take down the ward.”
“Cryptic much?” I snapped. “What the heck is blood magic?
He studied me through narrowed eyes.
“There’s no time to explain and you’re stalling.”
“Yeah, ya think?” I muttered, the thuds from our unseen enemy echoing down the hallway. “I really do not want to fight a troll today.”
“It’s now or never.” He readied his bow, nocking three of the long metal arrows from his back.
“On three,” Starke whispered. “One, two…”
“Wait.” My fingers dug into his arm. “You sure there isn’t another way?”
“No. Now, we have to hurry.”
“But—”
“Go.”
He nudged me toward the barrels, and I slid noiselessly across the corridor, hugging the wall I collided with. Starke quickly joined me, the bow ready and aimed as if he expected the Grimner to be already heading our way. He peered through the barrels, assessing the situation. I was stupid enough to do the same.
I swear my heart stopped beating. Like literally, it just flopped over and died in my chest. I think I even peed a little. My knees went so weak I wobbled, reaching out to the wall for support.
The Grimner did not resemble Rach at all. Rach actually appeared humanoid. This…thing was a nightmare in the flesh. Time actually seemed to slow, allowing my brain to absorb every aspect of the monstrosity. The hulking mass of muscle and putrid flesh nearly touched the ceiling—eight or nine feet tall at the least. Its grayish tinged skin was pocked with pus-filled sores and old scars like it had seen more than its share of battles. The three eyes, stacked one on top of the other in the middle of its fleshy head, shone bright yellow, staring down the hallway straight toward us. Had it seen us? The mouth opened wide as a low shriek emerged, and I swore I could see rotting chunks of flesh and bone stuck between its shark-like teeth. Yeah, I was right. This thing was no vegetarian. We’d be dinner if it got its claws on us.
“What are you waiting for, Starke?” I hissed. “Shoot its good eye already before it decides we look tasty.”
Starke took a couple of deep breaths, like he was trying to psyche himself up.
“You look freaked out,” I whispered, panic replacing fear. “Why do you look freaked out?”
He glanced over at me. “I’m not freaked out. I just need to focus. Fighting without magic takes more concentration.”
“You’re telling me that now?” I hissed as the Grimner took a step our way like he knew something was up, but he just wasn’t sure what. “Oh crap, he’s coming this way.”
Starke sucked in air, squared his shoulders and stood tall. His arms rock steady, he raised the triple loaded crossbow and shot an arrow toward the Grimner. His shot was true as the arrow sliced through the air and landed smack dab in the middle of the eye…only it was the wrong eye. The arrow protruded from the bottom orb, while the top one rolled wildly, trying to pinpoint its attacker.
