“Six,” Bac said. “The other cages are empty. They might have gone in the opposite direction. Are they instructed to go somewhere, Balvor? Maybe wait by that steel door?”
“They’re instructed to kill any thieves, leaving only leprechauns alive,” Balvor said, still seemingly unworried.Bac’s magic was keeping him so. “We all drink a potion that is poisonous to them, so they wouldn’t dare eat me. I fear that you all are ingravedanger.”
As if we didn’t know that already.
“So, are there more? Near other vaults?” Neve asked.
“Yes.”
“They likely ran off because they were weaker than the ones here,” I said. “I expect that they’re elsewhere, fighting and eating their own kind.”
“How many others are there within the vault system?” Bac asked.
Balvor gave a shrug and hummed lightly. Bac’s powers of persuasion were far too strong.
“It matters not how many. We have no choice but to go forward,” Caelo muttered, as pissed about all this as I. “Weapons at the ready. Harvadril, at the front again.”
As we raced down the corridor, I half expected the other ogres to leap out of the offshoots and into our path. They didn’t though, and I caught the sounds of fighting down a few smaller tunnels. On the way here, I’d heard growls and whines.It seemed I was most likely right about ogres moving to other halls to eat their own.
Whatever the starving, pitiful fae the leprechauns had imprisoned were doing, it was not searching for us. We reached the steel door without issue.
“Your hand to the door,” Bac instructed.
Balvor extended his hand, palm shaking. Was he fighting Bac’s powers? If so, he failed to free himself from them, for he pressed his hand to the door as Bac instructed and the door lifted. We ran through it and down the hallway.
“Nearly there!” Luccan cried out. “Be prepared for anything.”
I gripped the long sword in my hand, thankful that Neve’s family had placed them in the vault. For us, they might mean the difference between life and death.
We burst into the circular room, the mouth of the never-ending stairs. I took in the space but found no adversaries. A moment of peace that was shattered by the howls and guttural roars from the steps above.
“Freyia, can you take the back?” Neve asked. “More ogres, or maybe something worse could come, and you’ll hear them gaining before any of us. Plus, I trust you to catch anyone if they fall down the steps. Harvadril, you take point.”
“As you wish, Princess Isolde.”
“I’ll be right behind you, draugr,” Caelo said.
I stood by Neve. The steps were narrow, but there was no way I was letting her go ahead of me, nor behind, where I could not see her.
“Go,” Freyia assured. “The longer the alarm bells sound, the more guards they’ll have at the top of the steps too.”
We ran, lungs burning, legs straining from the effort. With each step upward, I kept Neve in my sights. We made it only thirty steps when my heart dropped to my knees.
Emerging from the unseen cages deep in the sides of the staircase were black direwolves. I counted six. Almost one for each of us. Too bad they weren’t the only foes we’d face.
A lindwyrm, technically a type of dragon native to this realm and not a worm at all, undulated down the stairsahead of the wolves, having already spotted us. The creature was fifty paces long and made of pure muscle, but that was not the worst of it. Seemingly in control of the animals were two draugrs waiting among the wolves.
“Bleeding skies,” Luccan hissed. “If we live through this, it will be a miracle!”
“The lindwyrm has venom,” I shouted. “It will spit that venom, so steer clear of it.”
“How will we kill it if we have to stay away?” Neve held up a dagger. “These aren’t good for range fighting.”
“Harvadril,” I said, not wanting to risk someone with skin that the venom could burn off.
Not to mention, I had doubts that any of us could do what I was about to ask of the draugr. The lindwyrm was thick and while Luccan, Caelo, Freyia, and I were strong and experienced fighters, the draugr was more so.
“Harvadril, slice the lindwyrm in half. Then we fight our way up.” I rarely prayed to the dead gods, but I did so now, singling out Tyiel, God of Battle. If no more ogres came and if the wolves and the enemy draugrs would just stay on the steps long enough for the lindwyrm to die, wemighthave a chance.
