The rest of the fighters would be expecting to face each other and whatever horrors lay deep in waiting, they wouldn’t expect to try andfind an out. If she could manage to find it while the rest were distracted fighting one another, she could survive.
She could survive.
With no way of knowing where to go, she picked the tunnel to her right and ran down the hall as quietly, and quickly, as she could. Every nerve in her body running on high alert as she listened carefully for anything, or anyone else that might attack.
The firelights stretched and gave her little lighting to see where she was going but she let a small amount of her focus slip to her feet and at least fifteen feet in front of her so her mind could see what her eyes couldn’t. Her eyes had adjusted but even so, she could only see maybe five or six feet in front of her, darkness swallowing the rest of her path until it was basically right in front of her.
Never before had she been more grateful that her training with Adym had taken place at night. Sometimes under a full moon with plenty of light to see, but too often being under the cover of a new or waxing moon that gave her little help. All those nights he insisted that she keep training, using more of her senses than just her sight. Learning how to rely on her smell, touch, and hearing just as much as what she could see. Now, with her magick to help her as well, she didn’t need her eyes.
She’d battled the Alkijin and won.
She’d faced a dragon and lived to tell about it.
She would survive this.
She walked as swiftly as she could down the halls, avoiding any that carried fresh screams to her, only choosing the ones that held silence.
Left.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Right.
Ambrose pulled the dagger out, holding it ready and at her side in case anything were to jump out and surprise her. She wouldn’t be caught offguard again.
She hoped Rowland had bled out from where she’d left him, but a larger part of her doubted that was enough to take him down. If he was alive, he’d be hunting her. She had no doubt about that.
Her mind raced, wondering what other foul creatures the gods had waiting for them.
The next left she took led her to a stone archway that opened into a larger chamber with entrances to six other tunnels scattered around the sides. Similar to the chamber they’d been dropped in, she didn’t like the hum that danced across her nerves.
Glancing around, she didn’t see any signs of life. Just six more entrances to tunnels.
All she had to do was pick one before something else found her.
Which one was the right one though?
She closed her eyes and listened. Metal clashing against metal carried faintly from the hall she’d come from. The chamber in front of her however, was as quiet as death.
Any of them would do.
She stepped in quietly and put her back against the wall as she dragged her feet towards the nearest tunnel, eyes darting over the space for any sign of movement, she pulled her sword from her side and replaced the dagger at her thigh. She prayed that it wouldn’t be another dead end, forcing her to waste precious time.
Or worse, lead her to something far more deadly.
When she reached the halfway point to the archway, footsteps sounded from the tunnel directly opposite to her, though she couldn’t make out what it was in the shadows that hugged the hallway.
Throwing caution to the wind she ran for the tunnel entrance in an attempt to reach it before whatever was walking towards her found her.
Just as she was about to step through the new archway, laughter echoing from the other tunnel stopped her in her tracks.
She knew that laugh.
