Captive Of The Warg, (Wargs of the Outland #2)

The Cure Of Distance

If there was a quiet way for a young wolf to express emotion, Basil hadn't learned it yet. Almost as soon as Reia tried to sneak out of the wargrex's chamber, the cub's head jerked up from his bone, eyes fixed on her. Almost as soon as she shut the door, shrill barking erupted from the other side.

Her nerves were raw enough without Basil's laying waste to them with that mournful farewell. As soon as she opened the door to shush him, he bolted out. After that, there was no leaving him behind. He'd decided the matter for her.

"The wargex's is right about you," she muttered, her torch shivering in the dark as they snuck down the outer corridor, "You are a troll-headed little beast." He snorted, loping in the dark as though he possessed the girth and height of a bull troll.

A warm pulse of relief rushed into her belly, chasing the loneliness that'd crept in as she prepared to leave. Selfish as it was, she found courage to face the oncoming darkness with him at her side.

The arrival of Basil into her life that fateful night had forced her to confront the bitter loneliness of her existence. The thought of leaving him here had turned her numb. But she loved him and leaving him behind was the right thing to do for him. The path she was going lay obscured and narrow, rutted with peril and death. It was no place for a cub. But short of tying him up in the chamber, and muzzling him, what choice did she have?

As they emerged from—what she'd begun to think of as—the rose door, Reia's grip tightened on the small leather pack slung over her shoulder. She hadn't recovered the strength to carry more than the bare essentials. There was a crude dagger hidden in her boot and one strapped to her belt, both purloined from the deep wooden chest. She'd tried to find a key to the smaller chest by the wargrex's bedside, but there hadn't been time.

She knelt just inside the doorway, out of the worst of the wind, glaring over her shoulder in case Saska thought to investigate Basil's earlier barking. Yet nothing but racing flurries animated the still darkness of the corridor.

She couldn't very well lie and say she'd come outside for a piss—not with a pack in her grasp. To save herself the trouble of lying, she made quick work of scooping snow into the waterskin she'd found. When she was done, she stowed it in her coat. The torch spat weak flames as she set off with a sprint, Basil galloping beside her.

It'd begun to snow while she'd been indoors. A steady veil of white swept down from a murky sky, the visibility dropping to nothing. No moon and no stars to encourage her in the dark.

Not an easy escape after all. Were the gods conspiring against her with this sudden snowstorm? But it was foolish to turn back now when there might never be another chance again.

As soon as the postern hatch was open, the darkness glaring up at her, she froze. It took Basil diving inside, as before, to snap her from her terror.

It's not a fucking mine shaft! she told herself, over and over, as she slid down into the hole. There was no water down below, either. Her cub had already proved that earlier. No water. None at all. If she chanted that enough times, it would be true.

Unlike the mine shaft she'd been pushed into, the postern tunnel was a shallow drop into a mostly level tunnel. The white rock walls stretched downward in a gentle decline, the floor uneven. She pulled the hatch down over her head, at once thankful for the snow storm that would blanket the postern, hiding her escape. Maybe the gods were conspiring with her, after all, not against her.

Flamelight caught the white, frosted walls, filling the silence with a soft, eerie hiss as her small fire devoured the dark. Basil trotted on ahead, indefatigable as one who wore the darkness like an aegis.