Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

fear of otherwise attracting bandits. “Have we been going in the same direction for over a mile now?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I told her, looking back over my shoulder. “Have you noticed, Indra? Odile?”

“Sure, I noticed,” said Odile. “I thought it was supposed to be like this.”

“But there haven’t been any exits,” said Branwen. “Not on the ceiling or walls or anything.”

Concerned, I asked, “Are we still headed southwest?”

“Hold on”—Indra dug out their compass, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth—“let’s see…”

The noise of shock that followed chilled my blood.

“Odile,” she said hastily, “look at this!”

Odile took it from her hands and gasped, tone at once drenched in accusatory displeasure. “You ninny! What did you do to this thing?”

“But I didn’t do anything,” protested Indra, adding tersely while I leaned over their shoulders to see the problem, “and I don’t call you names, you know, Odile.”

The needle of the compass whizzed in rapid circles, indicating nothing.

I was only about to request the device to take a closer look at it when a woman’s familiar, cruel-edged cackle echoed through the darkness of the tunnels all around us.

Sword in-hand, I turned to face Gundrygia.

THE NEW WOTSUNG

HOW LONG SHE followed us in the fashion of a shadow, I could not possibly say. Even today Gundrygia remains coy about the subject.

I know only this: that I set eyes upon her in that darkened space and knew we were no longer on Urde.

Gritting my teeth, I tried to fathom how much time had passed. The days I had been in her arms had seemed like hours. The minutes in her sepulcher had been near an hour. Perhaps, if Weltyr willed it, there would still be time to make it to the airship. Perhaps, if we could extricate ourselves from this trap, we would escape capture by the Skythorn guards.

Like most traps, this one was lined with the finest of bait. Wilder and lovelier than ever, Gundrygia stood before us in the same furred garb she’d worn when I discovered her; with the same tattoos upon the haughty face that peered through tumbling curls.

“So it’s you again, witch.” Blade gleaming bright between us in the light of the lantern, I fought back the yearning and subsequent fear that subsumed me to see her. “If you’ve come for the lantern again, you’ve made a sore mistake—my friends and I are still making use of it.”

“I came for no light, but a flame…for you, Burningsoul.”

Scoffing, I lowered the blade somewhat while the enchantress smiled on. “What business have you saying such a thing? What force on Urde could convince me to go of my own will?”

Her lower lip protruding in a pout, Gundrygia drew her furs up from her feet and slunk toward us in the dark.

“Rorke,” said Branwen, “be careful.”

The elf raised her crossbow. With the wave of a hand and a pink flash of light, Gundrygia sent it skittering across the ground. Branwen cried out and went to claim her much-abused weapon as the witch steadily eyed mine.

“You mean to say you feel no desire for me, Rorke?” Her great green eyes turned toward me in a way almost frightfully girlish while she continued her steady stride toward me. Behind me, Indra and Odile raised their weapons in defense of their queen.

With my companions on-guard for their own sakes, Weltyr’s sword was my only defense. Of all things, Gundrygia pressed herself against it when she was near enough. My breath hitched while her slender hand caressed the length of the white blade. Soon those same fingers melted over the hilt and enveloped my hand.

Before I knew what had happened, Gundrygia’s body pressed to mine. The hand folded around my fist guided the sword’s razor edge to her cheek.

“Does this body not please you, Paladin Burningsoul?”

“I’m not a paladin in the eyes of the Church anymore, Gundrygia.”

“But in the eye of Weltyr, himself—oh, you must be mighty indeed for the All-Father to have selected you as bearer of this. His most powerful weapon.”

Her free hand trailed over my chest and down my stomach, which had tightened with anticipation along with the rest of my body. Inhaling once again the rich honey of her supply scent, I brushed my lips across the flyaway strands of her dark curls and, bending lower still, kissed the temple of her forehead. Almost breathless to caress her even now, I dropped my voice to a whisper.

“If you fear the sight of my Master, as I have been informed you do, then surely you must have respect for his power…surely you understand what could happen to you for disobeying his will.”

With a soft laugh, Gundrygia gazed into my face and drew another, altogether more haggard exhalation from me with her even lower contact. “Who could disobey the will of the All-Father, Burningsoul? It is the only will in existence, of which we mortals are all simple pawns…our wills cannot help but be expressions of Weltyr’s will. Therefore, should you will to come along with me, how could your lovely companions argue that this be anything the will of the divine?”

“We are not called to test,” I told her, pushing her away and going on while she gasped to stumble back from me. “We are called to obey. Those slaves that do not obey are doomed to be destroyed by their master. Those that do—”

“Are to be rewarded?”

Lip curling in a vicious sneer, Gundrygia stumbled back further. Her head jutted forward from her shoulders and for a few seconds she looked like an animal baring her teeth.

“Please—ask your durrow friends behind you. Tell them how often the average slave merits reward. How happily you had it in the Nightlands, friend! How coddled and spoiled you were by your own privileged mistress. Yours is not the lot of most who find themselves in bondage in the city of El’ryh.”

Remembering the beatings I had witnessed in the streets, or the humiliated and sometimes executed slaves I had seen