It was hard to tell how long they climbed the crude stairs up the twisting path within the cave. With no light to reference herself to, she could only guess. But she guessed a few hours.
A few hours in which the warlock was mostly silent as the exertion of the constant climb took its toll.
The elf kept a cautious pace, though her heart pounded impatiently. She'd spent years training to be what she was.
One of her first trainers had told her it was a good thing she'd turned out to be so good with knives. Because she was never going to master the slow art of sneaking into a fortress.
About the only way she was going to kill her target, he'd said, was to fight her way through the front gate.
This, he told her, was her single greatest gift.
And also her weakness.
Grunting in memory of his tone, which had bordered on pity, the elf consciously slowed her pace even more. Took her time to feel out every slight shift of air as she attempted to sense the slightest vibration of movement.
For a brief moment, she thought she was close to grasping what it was her trainers had tried so hard to teach.
The warlock caught the sudden change of pace and chewed nervously on a fingernail. "What is it?"
She kept her voice low and steady as her concentration was broken and all awareness of the air ahead immediately collapsed. "Ask me that again and I'll cut your tongue out through your throat. Feed it to you. I mean it, Chukshene."
"Is that even possible?"
"Want to find out?"
"It's not high on my list of things to research."
"Then shut the fuck up."
He spat out a corner of nail and threw her a frustrated look. "I'm not like you, Nysta," he said. "I don't move fast. I don't have a shitload of fucking knives to cut shit up with. I wouldn't know what to do with a sword. Or an axe. I'm not that kind of fighter. But I can fry your face off. I can summon a demon big enough to stomp on pretty much anything. But these kind of spells take time. Time to prepare. Time to cast. It helps if I know what the fuck is coming."
"I'll think about telling you when I know." She rubbed hard at the scar on her cheek as they approached another twist in the tunnel. Slid along the wall. Glanced sharply around the corner. Then, satisfied it was empty, led the way around. "Until then, 'lock, just shut the fuck up so I can listen."
"I don't know what you're listening for," he growled. "Can't hear anything over that fucking noise."
He was almost right.
The drumming had grown loud enough that her ears were beginning to ring from the constant drone of it. But she could kind of make something else out in the background.
Something familiar, but she couldn't pin down what it was.
"Means we're getting closer to whatever's making it," she told him. "Think of the fun you're about to have making it dead."
"What if it's already dead?"
"Then it's had a lot of practice dying, so should be easier to kill."
"I don't think it works that way," he said drily.
She frowned at the ground heading toward the next bend.
More scuff marks of boots scrambling in patches of dust. Small pebbles flicked away as heavy footsteps scattered them this way and that.
And something else.
A strange hollow sound. The drumming sounded different. Like there was a subtle echo to it.
Crouching in front of the corner, she cast a quick glance at the warlock's glowing orb before deciding it was too late to tell him to turn it off.
While it was just a hunch, she had a feeling the Twins were just around the corner.
There were too many tracks in this area for them to have simply passed through. They must have doubled back, then doubled back again.
Perhaps they'd thought to run back to the fortress, then heard her coming and planned a fresh ambush. She figured the blasts of hot air must have unnerved them to the point they quickly decided to make a stand.
The warlock picked up on her fears and opened his book slowly. Mumbled lightly as he sifted through the pages.
Sliding Go With My Blessing and Reasons to be Cheerful free, she rolled her shoulders.
Tilted her head to stretch her neck.
Sucked a breath.
And threw herself around the corner.
In that split second, she knew her mistake, but it was too late.
Diving across the ground, she had time only to widen her eyes in surprise as the ground seemed to drop out from under her feet and sweep downward into a slippery incline.
Desperately trying to fight gravity, the elf let out a yelp as she lost balance and pitched forward. Bounced heavily as she tumbled out of control.
Unable to stop, she felt a rush of fear as her eyes caught sight of a dark patch of ground at the base of the slope.
She kicked out, trying to slide to a halt. Her boot dragged hard across the ground and caught painfully on a thick chunk of stone jutting out of the ground.
Yanked around with a savage lurch, she felt like she'd been punched in her hip.
Gasping, she twitched in pain.
Tried to reach up to grab the rock. Looking to get some balance.
Spat a curse as her foot burst free of her boot.
Sent her rolling once more down the incline in a tangled heap.
The dark patch loomed ahead and she let out a roar as she raised Reasons to be Cheerful and brought it flashing downward. The blade clanged contemptuously off the stone, sending numb shivers of impact up her arm. But the bent tip scraped across the ground before reluctantly piercing a narrow gap between two compacted rocks.
Once more, she was flung sideways as gravity jerked hard on her arm.
"Nysta!"
Inertia turned into vertigo.
She froze, unwilling to move.
Her bare foot pressed against the sharp edge of the dark patch which wasn't a patch. It was a sudden hole in the ground. A wide hole into the unknown.
Sweat squeezed through the pores of her skin like acid.
She looked up.
Chukshene stood at the top of the incline, uncertain what to do. It was even steeper than she'd thought and only then did she realise the luck needed to halt only millimetres from the edge of the deep chasm.
She was disgusted with herself for not looking first. It was another stupid mistake, and one whose cost might well have been her life.
The elf felt a flush of heat across her cheeks as she scrambled for a hold.
Found one.
Just as the knife in her hand snapped.
The elf stared down at the broken weapon in her hand. It had saved her life.
But it was beyond repair, so what soul she'd injected into it by naming the blade had fled. It was now just a lump of useless metal.
She tossed it over the edge, listening as it fell until it landed with an odd wet thunk somewhere below.
"Are you okay?" Chukshene called.
Nysta felt a flash of anger at the question.
He was beginning to piss her off. The constant asking of it. As though he was still afraid of her. Afraid of what she might become.
Because, despite his act, she still couldn't shake the nagging feeling there was more to what he knew than what he was saying.
"Just fucking great," she growled, looking down at a couple of fresh new scrapes on her hands. "Hurt my pride is all."
He inched his way down.
His boots slid on loose stones a few times, but he kept himself steady by pressing against the wall. "You look like shit."
Carefully, she retrieved her boot, then sat near the ledge to pull it back on.
She didn't trust herself to speak. Echoes of panic still flooded her veins.
While she struggled with her boot, the warlock sent his ball of light cruising out over the hole in the ground.
The gaping hole was wide, but a thin ledge skirted the edge. They'd be able to follow it around if they were careful, though the elf's skin prickled at thought of it crumbling under her feet.
She shuddered as she imagined falling into the dark.
When her boot was on, she leaned out to see how deep it was. Chukshene's eerie yellow glow couldn't penetrate far in the tunnel's gloom, but the hole wasn't as bottomless as she'd imagined.
Mottled shadows glimmered in the light. And, with a hiss of breath, the elf caught a glimpse of several dark patches soaking into the rocks below.
The warlock followed her gaze. Winced. "Is that-?"
"There," she said grimly, pointing downward. "Show me."
He sent the glowing orb lower.
They'd hit the ground hard, the jagged rocks tearing them to pieces. Chunks of wet flesh and loose entrails formed a grisly carpet. And, judging by the broken bones littering the cave floor, the Twins hadn't been the first to make the fall.
At some stage, the tunnel floor had cracked open above a small cavern to form a ragged open pit. Since then, anyone careless in their attempted passage through the tunnel had fallen hard to their deaths.
A death she'd just narrowly avoided.
Perhaps when the Caspiellans left the fortress, they'd deliberately caved in the tunnel.
Or perhaps it was simply the result of time. She couldn't tell. And couldn't care.
All she cared about was the fact she'd failed to kill the Twins with her own hand.
"It's them, isn't it? The two fuckers who shot at us."
The elf set her jaw, rage pulling at her heart. "Hard to say with the Twins," she said harshly. Spat out over the ledge at the two shredded corpses. "Can't tell them apart."