Highland Supplanter (Book 2)

Chapter 54

AN - Longest chapter so far, I hope it was worth the wait! Az x

Chapter 54

Unable to turn to those behind him, and unwilling to talk as he feared someone on the other side of the door hearing, he released Sheena, to reach down and take his dagger in hand. Looking up at a movement before him, he wanted to call out but all he could really do was follow quickly as Sheena took it upon herself to find what was on the other side of the door.

Pausing just on the other side, he hardly moved as the man behind him plummeted into his back. A small grumble coming from those still in the tunnel. This was nothing that he had expected. Before he could take in the horror he saw before him, Sheena had recovered and was taking off and quickly. The macabre sight was sickening, even from the sights he had seen and the battles he had taken part in. He had dealt out death many times, but never had he seen such a sight as this. These poor men had obviously been through agony before death had finally been granted to them. Multiple bodies strewn the floor, in various stages of decomposition. The smell was overpowering in the room, and if not for Sheena making her way stoically through the room, dodging around a stray arm and leg, he would have actually been tempted to turn back around. Not wanting to face the pain before him.

Hurrying after her, as he saw her make it around the corner into the corridor beyond, he could hear the sounds of the men entering the room, and was sure one or two were retching up whatever they had managed to eat before the mission started. The air got no cleaner the further from the room he travelled, and he wondered just how many of the small off shoots held bodies as that first one had.

Racing along the shadowed corridor, the light of his torch flickering and sputtering with his movement. Turning another corner in this maze of a corridor, trying to use the sound of feet slapping on the rough stone flooring ahead of him, to gauge which direction he was to head in. The footsteps before him stopped, those behind him gaining in speed and volume as they neared his position. Slowing to a walk in order to pick up any sound before him, he wondered if he had been right in trusting Sheena, or if this was a trap that she had help Grant set up. And they were walking right into it.

Yet Fyfa was here. She was going through God only knew what. He was not turning back, not now. Not when he was so close to finding his heart once more, from the depths of a living hell. A final corner, leading into the bottom of a dungeon system that Sheena had known in detail. For the first time he wondered exactly why she knew the intimate details of the dungeon, a woman should never have been near this part of the Keep. Not in an honourable clan anyway.

There was a little incline in the floor that almost caused him to trip, as he did so, he realised that Sheena was crouched before him, trying to peer around the corner. That was when he heard the voices nearby. Glad he did not curse as he had almost tripped. He crouched a little, as if it would help with his hearing of the conversation so close to them now, he had to wonder if they were coming in this direction. But other than to drop off another unfortunate soul in the room of death, he could not see a reason for them to come down this corridor.