Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Avel cuts him down where he stands, severing his head in a single agile swing of Torin’s sword. It is not an act of battle. It is an execution.
There is a moment afterward in which there is silence. Nothing but the sound of heavy breathing of two victorious saurians.
“Well,” Torin says, breaking the silence as I crawl out from under the bed, unavoidably covering myself in blood and bits of saurian. “I guess that’s that then.”
“That’s not it,” Avel says. He turns to me and reaches for me, stopping only when I flinch as his hand makes the lightest contact with me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I got hurt.”
“You should be sorry,” he says — a frightening comment, given the state of him. “But you do not need to fear me, and I will ensure that your wounds are tended to. You are safe now, Raine. Safe as you should have been all along.”
Our reunion is interrupted by a pounding at the door. Evidently, murdering multiple saurians in a row in the most brutal of ways is not something that goes entirely unnoticed even in this subterranean warren of a place.
“LET US IN!”
Someone shouts on the other side. I suppose that’s worth a shot as an approach, though obviously Avel and Torin have no intention of letting anybody else in. They are both injured, but not so badly they cannot move. The door is blocked with a heavy plank of wood which can be fitted across two iron bands that keep it closed. It’s not an entirely impassible barrier, but it does mean we have a little time on our side.
All three of us look at the barred door, then at the pile of bodies on the floor, and silently register the fact that the entirety of the saurian underworld has been alerted and we are all wounded and have no backup.
“Is there another way out of here?” Avel asks Torin the question.
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Under one of the tapestries or rugs. I forget where.”
Torin is back to his somewhat lackadaisical, somewhat high, overly casual demeanor, albeit now covered in the blood of what used to be his allies. He starts fussing around the tapestries, peering behind one and then another, until Avel loses patience and starts simply yanking them off the walls.
“Hey! I got that at the market! Don’t get blood on it!”
“Whelp, there is blood everywhere, we have limited time to escape, and I am not going to respect your spice-infested decor. Find the damn exit.” Avel rips down another tapestry and tosses it on one of the bodies.
It’s kind of cute how they interact. Avel has a sort of rough paternal energy that feels very attractive in this moment. Torin curses and starts pulling at the rugs as well as peering behind the hangings while Avel systematically rips the room apart behind him. There is no coming back to this place anyway, a fact that Torin doesn’t seem to have come to terms with as yet.
“Here! I found it!” He pulls back a tapestry and points to a round portal set low in the wall. Avel is only just barely going to fit through with his wings folded, if he gets through at all.
“You go first,” he says to Torin. “Raine behind, and I will take up the rear. Let’s go. Now.”
“If you hadn’t ripped all the tapestries down it would have been more camouflaged,” Torin grumbles as he gets down on hands and knees to crawl into the hole. I can crouch-walk inside it, while behind me, Avel has to commando crawl with his wings pressed super close to his body in order to make his way through.
We make our escape through a series of escape tunnels inside a series of escape tunnels. Escape-ception. There really are parts of this world that are hidden from those who maintain lawfulness, and I would be lying if I said I was not inexorably attracted to them. I am a lifelong career criminal, and I’m starting to think — in spite of all his performances to the contrary, Avel might just have some very bad boy tendencies as well.
For quite some time, our little procession wends its way through the earth on something of an upward incline. As soon as we move out of range of the light in Torin’s room, the tunnel becomes pitch black. There is nothing to be seen. We do not know what terrain we are moving toward. My mind begins to terrorize me in the way minds do, making me imagine the whole thing suddenly ending in a pit of lava or something. Logic tells me if there were a pit of lava around here, we’d have more light.
Behind us, we can hear the sound of outlaws who, having broken into Torin’s quarters, are now dealing with the bodies of their fallen comrades and trying to work out where we have gone. The further we move, the more their voices become hollow and quiet until in the end it sounds like outraged rumbles and whispers coming from another time and place altogether.