Soulbinder (Book 3) (11 page)

A chorus of snarls and chitters came from the stairwell.

Kara raised another arrow and fitted it to her bow. Her hands were shaking.

Joseph limped up beside her, his rapier at the ready.

Kendril turned back to Maklavir, and held out his hand. “Toss it here,” he ordered.

“But it’s not—”

“I said
toss it
!” the Ghostwalker roared.

Startled, Maklavir threw it to his companion. Kendril caught it and turned back to the stairway. His other hand dropped the sword it had been carrying and reached underneath his cloak to the small of his back. It emerged with a small silver pistol. Kendril stepped up to the edge of the stairs and glanced down.

There were at least five wolfrats on the stairs below him, and more behind them. They snarled up at him.

“Take cover,” Kendril called back. Cocking back the lock on his pistol, he tossed the grenade at the wolfrats.

As the metal sphere bounced down the steps and off one of the sidewalls, the wolfrats paused, their attention diverted by the strange new object.

Kendril brought his arm down with the pistol. He tracked the grenade as it rolled down the last few steps.

Maklavir stared at the Ghostwalker from where he had taken cover behind one of the statues.

“Oh, you can’t be—” he began.

Kendril fired.

Chapter 7

Sounds, garbled and indistinct, drifted through the air. Slowly, like fog clearing away from the ocean, they became more and more clear.

They were voices, talking softly.

Kendril opened one eye, then the other. The darkness that greeted him seemed hardly less than when his eyes had been shut. Blinking, he started to move.

And then the pain hit him.

It lanced up the right side of his head, like a sharp stab of flame. He winced, giving a sharp intake of breath.

“Well, well,” said a familiar voice nearby. “Look who finally decided to rejoin us.”

Kendril slowly turned his head and opened his eyes once more. In the gloom he could just make out Joseph sitting a few feet away.

“Joseph,” he managed, his lips feeling cracked and dry. “What--?”

“What happened?” The scout chuckled. “You set off a grenade in a thousand year-old temple, that’s what happened. Almost buried us all.”

“I tried to warn you,” came Maklavir’s voice from somewhere to the left. There was a heavy sigh. “Not that you ever listen to me.”

Kendril started to sit up, feeling the pain in his head again. “The wolfrats--?”

Joseph put an arm out on Kendril’s shoulder. “Take it easy. A stone smashed into your head when the ceiling collapsed. You’re lucky you weren’t crushed to powder.”

“We
all
are,” said Maklavir.

Kendril reluctantly obeyed his friend. He lay back down on the cold floor. “Where’s Kara?”

“Right here,” came the young woman’s voice from further back in the darkened room. “A few bumps and bruises, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the wolfrats, either,” Joseph added. “That explosion buried the entire stairway, plus about a third of this room. There has to be ten tons of rock between us and them, assuming any of them even survived.”

“Yes,” said Maklavir, “about that…I thought wolfrats were supposed to be extinct?”

A brief movement in the darkness from Joseph suggested a shrug. “They are. At least no one’s seen one and lived to tell about it for three hundred years.”

“Well these wolfrats were very much alive,” the diplomat pointed out.

“I know. That cavern Kendril and I found must connect to a whole labyrinth of underground caves and passages. Those wolfrats must have been living entirely underground in places unknown to anyone above for centuries. That’s the only way they could have survived so long without ever being seen.”

“Maybe one of those passages might lead to the surface,” suggested Kara hopefully.

Joseph gave a sigh in the dark. “Possibly, but it would take us months to dig through all the debris to get there. And we don’t have that long.”

“No,” said Kendril abruptly, “we don’t. So what are our other options?”

Joseph pointed up towards the ceiling above them.

Kendril saw the large hole still in place, letting in the faintest bit of gray light.

Joseph rubbed his side. “It isn’t blocked, praise Eru, but we’re still no closer to getting out than we were before. The lantern got busted up in the blast, too, so we don’t have much light to see by, either.”

“Not that there’s much to see,” Maklavir added.

Kendril closed his eyes. “Wonderful.” He set his teeth against another flash of pain. “So anyone want to tell me exactly what happened?”

There was a brief silence in the dark room. Finally Kara’s voice spoke up.

“Galla ran. I’m sorry, Kendril, I tried to stop him, but he got to the top first, then cut the rope.”

Kendril pushed himself to a half-sitting position and leaned his neck and shoulders against a nearby boulder. “That Baderan slime. When I catch up to him he’ll wish he’d never been born.”

Kara rubbed her face wearily in the darkness. “Well, no doubt he’s on his way to get his money right now.” She made a face. “I was so stupid.”

“It’s not your fault, Kara,” said Maklavir sympathetically. “How could we have possibly known that Galla was only interested in that pendant? He fooled all of us. Well, almost all of us,” he admitted, glancing over at Kendril’s darkened shape.

“Pendant?” Kendril’s voice turned suddenly cold and icy in a way that gave chills to everyone else in the room. “
What pendant
?”

Maklavir fumbled for a moment, taken aback by his companion’s sudden change. “The, uh, pendant. He—Galla, that is, he, well he--?”

“The stone box in the room downstairs,” Kara broke in. “Galla managed to get it open. There was a golden pendant inside, with some kind of red-jeweled pendant attached. Apparently he was after it the whole time.” She shivered at the sudden recollection. “Just before he kicked me back down the hole, he told me there were people who would pay him a king’s ransom for it.”

“You said a red jewel,” came Kendril’s voice once more. Every word seemed deliberate and frozen into space. “A ruby?”

Maklavir and Kara both paused in thought, their faces crinkling in the darkness.

“Well, now that you mention it,” Maklavir mused, “it didn’t exactly seem…I mean it didn’t
look
—”

“It was no ruby,” said Kara slowly. Goosebumps began inexplicably forming on her arms. “It wasn’t like any jewel I’ve ever seen before.”

“It…absorbed the light,” Maklavir said, recalling the details as he spoke “All of it. There was no reflection.”

“
Vesuna’s blood
,” Kendril cursed. “And now
he
has it.” He took a sharp intake of breath. “I’ve been a fool.”

Joseph scratched the end of his beard thoughtfully. “Do you know something about this, Kendril?” he asked quietly. “Something you’re not sharing with us?”

The Ghostwalker didn’t answer. He looked up instead at the hole in the ceiling. “What I know,” he said quietly, “is that we have to get out of here.”

“Well,” said Maklavir amiably, “I would say that’s a given.”

“And then,” Kendril said, “we find Galla.”

The dagger hit the floor with a low thud, the rope trailing forlornly behind it.

Joseph stepped up to it before the dust had settled and snatched it off the ground. “We’ve been trying this for two hours now. It’s not working.”

“That dagger doesn’t exactly make a great grappling hook,” Maklavir observed. “Perhaps we could use something else?”

“Like what?” Kendril said, the irritation rising in his voice. He stepped away from the wall where he had been standing. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of limited in terms of supplies down here.”

“The dagger isn’t the problem,” said Kara quietly. She was sitting off to one side on one of the fallen statues. “It’s the room above. There’s nothing up there for the dagger to catch on. Even a real grappling hook wouldn’t help.”

“Then what exactly do you suggest we do?” Joseph gave the dagger a frustrated look, shaking some of the dirt off.

Kara folded her hands in front of her. “I could
climb
up.”

All three heads turned in her direction.

“Forgive me for stating the obvious,” said Maklavir carefully, “but wouldn’t you need a rope?”

Kara pursed her lips, inspecting the hole carefully. “Not if I did it freehand.”

“Freehand?” Joseph gave her a quizzical look. “Kara, that hole is almost fifteen feet off the ground. And there’s at least twenty feet more before the top.”

The young woman tilted her head. “I know, Joseph. I saw it all on the way down.” She gave a wisp of a smile. “Both times.”

Kendril looked hard at the redhead. “You think you can do it?”

Joseph dropped the dagger to the ground. “Absolutely not. It’s too far.”

Kara faced Kendril, pretending she hadn’t heard the Joseph’s remark. “Maybe. The walls of the hole aren’t entirely smooth. There are small crevices, divets, enough for handholds and footholds. Whether they would get me to the top or not is another matter.”

Joseph stepped forward, his face anxious. “But if you fell, Kara—”

“I won’t fall,” she said smoothly. “If it gets too hard to go on I’ll just climb back down.”

Maklavir stretched his arms. He gave the hole above them a doubtful look. “I don’t know, Kara. I saw the walls on the way down, too, and—”

“Back in New Marlin,” Kara interrupted, “my brother Torin and I had to steal for a living. Many of the finer mansions had gates, and sometimes guards. Often the only way in was to actually climb down the chimney.” She paused, as if remembering. “Since I was the smallest and fairly nimble, I got the fun job of going down. It was dark and filthy work. I usually couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and could barely breathe. I had to feel my way down the bricks by hand.” Kara looked up at her three companions. “It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed, now that I think back on it.” She glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. “This should be easy by comparison.”

Joseph shook his head emphatically. “I don’t like this. There has to be some other way.”

“Such as?” Kendril crossed his arms.

Joseph gaped at his friend. “You can’t seriously be thinking of sending her up there?”

Kara’s face blanched. “No one’s
sending
me anywhere. I’m volunteering to go.”

Joseph looked quickly over to Maklavir.

The diplomat gave a helpless shrug. “It might be the only chance we have, Joseph.”

“I can’t believe this,” said Joseph. He looked back over at the young woman. “Kara, please, you don’t have to do this.”

“We have to get out of here,” said Kara. “If I
can
make it up there, then I have to try.” She leaned back. “Otherwise we just wait around to die.”

Joseph looked away, his hands tightening into fists. “I don’t like this.”

“I know, Joseph.” The softness in Kara’s voice surprised everyone in the room. “But it’s our only chance.”

Joseph glanced down at the ground, then gave a resigned nod of his head.

Kendril took a step forward, peering up through the hole. “So how do we get you up there?”

She smiled, patting the fallen statue she was perched on.

“I was thinking we could use this.”

The statue was stone, and very heavy. It took over an hour of tugging, cursing, and pulling to drag the statue over to a position beneath the hole. The rope finally proved useful for tilting the pagan idol to an upright position.

When it was finally done, the three men stood back to admire their handiwork in the flickering light of a matchcord, still panting and sweating.

“So,” said Maklavir between breaths, “did the pagans purposefully make everything as heavy as possible?”

“Trust me,” said Kara from the other side of the room, “you guys had the easy part.” She finished pulling her red hair back, tying it deftly into a ponytail.

Joseph wiped some sweat from the back of his neck. “I’m still not sure about this, Kara. What if—”

The thief loosened her vest and shrugged it off her shoulders. “We’ve been over that already, Joseph. Will that statue hold my weight?”

“We’ll support it,” said Kendril. He rubbed delicately at the purple bruise on the side of his face. “It should get you up to the hole. The rest is all up to you.”

Kara smiled, rolling both her shirt sleeves up to the elbows. “That’s all I need.” She kicked off her boots, yanking the stockings off as well, then started rolling up her trouser legs to the knees.

“What I don’t get,” Joseph began, glancing down at her, “is what—” He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes falling on Kara’s exposed leg. He quickly averted his eyes, his face budding bright crimson.

“Is…what you—” he fumbled, lost for words. “I mean—”

Kara glanced up at her hapless friend, then beamed at him. “No time to be modest, Joseph. I promise I’ll cover them up again when I’m done.”

Maklavir gave Kara’s shapely calves an admiring look. “No need to hurry on our account, of course.”

The pretty redhead gave him a sarcastic smile, then walked up to Joseph, who was still doing his best to look away. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Surprised, the scout looked over at her.

“At least there’s one gentleman in this bunch,” she said, turning back to the statue.

Blushing even more, Joseph mumbled something incoherent, then looked away again.

“Alright,” said Kendril, grabbing the statue from one side. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Joseph and Maklavir took places along the statue as well, supporting it as firmly as they could.

Kara took a deep breath, stretching her arms and legs. She snatched the rope and tied it securely around her waist.

“Do you need the light?” Kendril indicated the sputtering matchcord with a nod of his head.

“No. I don’t want the smoke getting in my eyes. Besides, there’s a little bit of daylight coming down. It should be enough to see by.”

Kara took one more stretch, then, as nimbly as a cat, she climbed up the statue. She poked her head up into the hole, examining it for a moment, then reached up one hand, then the other. The next moment, her whole body slid up out of view.