The Drow There and Nothing More (Goth Drow Book 3)

by Martha Carr

  “Yeah, well, I have experience with people expecting me to talk down to them.” Cheyenne looked slowly up from the chuckling troll and met the burning-red gaze of the winged magical who’d whisked Persh’al out of the club faster than she could follow. “That’s a literal thing for you, though.”

  The magical loomed at least seven feet over her, her dark-gray face framed by a mane of red hair punctured by two curling black horns sprouting from her temples. Her wings hugged her back tightly as she folded her arms and raised a thin eyebrow at the drow halfling. Then her black lips curled in a smile. “You get used to it.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Cheyenne, Nu’ek. Nu’ek, Cheyenne. Introductions aren’t really my thing.

  “Well, we don’t have time for them anyway.” Nu’ek glanced into the dazzling plaza and frowned. “Let’s go.”

  Cheyenne pointed after her as Nu’ek turned and headed down an alley almost too narrow for her broad shoulders. “She’s your friend.”

  “Yep. Always add a little truth to your lies, kid. That’s what makes ‘em good.” He took off after his giant friend, whose clawed feet clacked on the ground with every trembling step.

  The halfling shot another glance at the mouth of the alley and hurried after them. “Apparently, you can only lie to complete strangers.”

  “I’ll take my win where I can get it. I just wish the scary golra had waited another fifteen seconds. I was this close to snatching that vial out of that orc’s fat fingers.”

  Nu’ek tossed a hand in the air, flashing the patch of red fur on the back of it. “You didn’t want that poison, Persh’al, trust me.”

  “Oh yes, I did.”

  The golra disappeared around another corner, forcing Persh’al and Cheyenne to pick up the pace. “I never pegged you as a goldsmile-head. Does your master know you’ve got a nose for it?”

  Cheyenne looked at the troll with wide eyes. “Your master?”

  “He’s not my master. And no, he doesn’t know because there’s nothing to know. Honestly, you giant, hairy mountain, I’m a little insulted that you’d even think that’s why I wanted it.”

  Nu’ek stopped at the end of the next alley, placed her huge gray hand against the wall, and turned to look down at him. “Then what did you want with it?”

  “Well, I wanted to know what the hell it was since nobody’s talking. Like at all.” Persh’al rubbed his head. “But now that I know it’s goldsmile, it’s a moot point. Have any ideas why bouncers at an Uppertech club are handing the stuff out like Jell-O shots?”

  “Like what?” The wall flashed beneath Nu’ek’s hand, and thin panels of metal ejected and folded in on each other, opening into a doorway with plenty of room for the large golra to pass.

  “Never mind.” Persh’al shook his head. “I’m stuck in centuries of Earthside gabble.”

  “There’s a reason nobody’s talking up here.” Nu’ek glanced up the wall, scanning it for something, then stepped through the open doorway. “So you should stop until we get to where we’re going. Then you can run your mouth all night if you have to.”

  Persh’al sniggered. “I missed you.”

  The golra grunted. “Sure.”

  Cheyenne and Persh’al walked through the doorway side by side, staying a good six feet behind Nu’ek as she stomped ahead. The scrolling analysis lines in her vision were few and far between now, even when she turned up the activator. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Not really.” He nodded at Nu’ek’s back. “But she does. Right now, that’s good enough for me.”

  “I see you haven’t raised your personal expectations since you made your great escape.” The golra’s low voice echoed around them, then she stepped into an alcove off the tunnel and waited for them to join her.

  “If I had any expectations coming into this, they’d all be disappointed.” Persh’al and Cheyenne stepped onto another round platform. The halfling ducked and stared up at the huge magical when the tip of the golra’s black wing twitched beside her head. The platform lit up and lowered like an elevator down another metal tunnel. “And even without them, I’m still disappointed. You’re not just luring me away from the good stuff so you can chuck me out the door like you did when your brooding foreman said he didn’t like the way I laugh, are you?”

  Nu’ek glanced down at him. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Uh-huh. I bet you have.”

  “You’ve come back, troll, and I can only think of one reason why. Is this her?”

  Persh’al raised his eyebrows at Cheyenne and shrugged. “Yeah, this is her.”

  “Good. Now shut up until I tell you it’s safe.”

  “Yep.” He gripped the straps of his pack and looked at the top of the vertical tunnel moving slowly away from them. “One more question, though. How’d you know we’d be in Wildhaven?”

  Nu’ek grunted. “I didn’t. That was an amusing coincidence.”

  “Really?” Chuckling, Persh’al rubbed his forehead and studied what he could see of his friend’s face from so far below her. “You just hang out there by yourself on random nights to lighten the mood?”

  One of the thick black talons arching from the golra’s feet tapped the metal platform beneath them. “I like the music.”

  “Huh.”

  The platform settled gently at the bottom of the tunnel, then Nu’ek led them down another series of alleys and passages between metal walls not nearly as clean and bright as in Uppertech. Cheyenne gazed between the high walls at the narrow strip of sky. It shimmered above the translucent dome around Hangivol, less bright now than when they’d arrived at what she guessed was the middle of the afternoon. “We’re back on the lowest level, right?”

  “This is the level we came in on,” Persh’al muttered as they turned another quick corner after Nu’ek’s trailing wings. “Not the lowest.”

  “For real?”

  “Oh, yeah. And now I’m gonna shut my mouth because I know this is something better said elsewhere, yeah?” He gave her a reassuring nod, then they pulled up behind the giant golra, who’d stopped at another unmarked wall.

  It opened the same way beneath her touch, panels folding out to reveal another doorway. Nu’ek grunted and ducked, nearly doubling over as she squeezed her massive body into the much smaller entrance. “If you say a fell-damn word about this, I’ll pull you through and throw you like a spear down these stairs.”

  Persh’al snickered but didn’t open his mouth.

  The staircase was steep and narrow and just kept going down. Cheyenne studied the walls, seeing an occasional flicker of blue text scroll by as they passed. Losing technology underground. Big surprise.

  They climbed steadily down for what felt like at least half an hour. The halfling instinctively pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, then immediately shoved it back in when she saw nothing but a black screen. Of course it doesn’t work here.

  With another grunt and a screech of talons on stone instead of metal this time, Nu’ek squeezed herself out of the narrow staircase and straightened up in the large, open room at the bottom. Her black and red wings shot out to their full span for a much-needed stretch.

  “Whoa.” Cheyenne stepped back to keep from clotheslining herself on the barb-tipped ends of those wings, her hair billowing around her face in the kicked-up gust of air.

  Nu’ek tucked her wings against her back again, stretching her muscular gray arms straight up over her head. “District 5 isn’t built for golra.”

  “Makes sense. Nobody wants to serve a bunch of you in one place. They’d run out of fellwine in five minutes.”

  The golra ignored him and interlaced her fingers for a good knuckle-crack. Then she extended one hand toward the blank stone wall at the base of the staircase and cast the first pure magic spell Cheyenne had seen in Ambar’ogúl.

  A buzzing tingle of magical energy washed across the halfling’s skin, and she let out a slow breath through pursed lips. Feels more like the Nim
lothar power boost. Makes sense when I’m standing in the only world where magic was supposed to exist.

  The stone wall lit up with hundreds of thin glowing purple strands, all of them drawing inward and converging in front of Nu’ek’s outstretched hand. A whirlpool of spinning purple light grew on the door, then the golra flicked her fingers, and the circle flashed.

  Cheyenne blinked quickly and had to look away, but when she gazed at the wall again, she found the spell slowly fading. Now at the center was the four-pointed star, which pulsed once before fizzling out in a puff of violet-colored smoke. “I’ve seen that before.”

  Nu’ek let out a thoughtful hum. “That’s not surprising.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Persh’al chuckled. “I forgot you used the front door of the warehouse a few times in the beginning.”

  The golra shoved her hand against the stone wall with a grunt, and the entire section of it drew back into the wall before shifting to the side and opening another room beyond. The ground shuddered beneath them, and the growling rumble of stone scraping across stone made Cheyenne wince.

  “Right.” She gave Persh’al a questioning look. “On your wards.” And other places.

  “Not my wards, kid. Our favorite drow built those around the warehouse. They’ve got some serious juice behind ‘em, lemme tell ya.”

  Cheyenne blinked at the opening in the wall, which Nu’ek could pass through at her full height. “And who put the wards up here?”

  Persh’al snorted. “Who do you think?” Then he darted after the golra and into the darkness of the next room.

  For being a wanted drow on two different worlds, L’zar really gets around.

  Taking a deep breath, Cheyenne stepped through the stone wall after her guides. The minute she passed through, the huge slab of stone slid back into place behind her with a resounding boom. Another wave of magical energy burst through her with her next step, and she felt a small, tight pinch somewhere in the back of her head. Then even the activator’s blinking blue Active light in her vision winked out, and she stood in complete darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  A ball of normal-looking flame burst to life in Nu’ek’s palm, and she nodded for Cheyenne and Persh’al to follow her down another passage to the left.

  Cheyenne leaned toward the troll and whispered, “My activator went dead.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Just turned off. Kinda hurt a little.”

  He chuckled, and Nu’ek turned over her shoulder with a knowing smile, her dark face lit by the dancing shadows of the flames across the walls. “The wards beyond these walls have stood for centuries. We’ve had to add extra layers on the inside to cover our tracks.”

  “You know, I felt something,” Persh’al said, readjusting his pack. “Guess that’s what cut the switch on your gear, kid.”

  “It keeps the Crown out of our heads,” the golra added. “When we go dark, she goes blind.”

  “Well, you sure took that one literally.” Persh’al snorted and gestured toward the light in Nu’ek’s hand.

  She ignored the joke and led them around a curve in the passage before they stopped at another door, which was carved of thick black wood and had steel bolts down either side. The door was at least two feet taller and that much wider than their winged guide, and Nu’ek grabbed the iron ring on the side of the door before jerking it open.

  How many doors do we have to go through in this place?

  Soft, warm light spilled through the open door, followed by the sound of a dozen low voices. The golra disappeared into the room beyond, and Persh’al turned to wiggle his eyebrows at Cheyenne. “Try to keep an open mind, huh?”

  “What?”

  He didn’t reply before slipping through the massive doorway. Cheyenne pursed her lips and followed. What am I walking into?

  It was a chamber nearly three times the size of Persh’al’s warehouse in DC. The place was lit by floating torches and orbs of light bobbing against the stone walls. A huge table of glittering black metal took up the center of the space, though the twenty chairs around it were empty. On the other side of the cavern was a stone well that dove even deeper into the earth of Ambar’ogúl, and dark, shimmering light hovered over the lip like the wall of light between the pillars of the new portal ridges. High-backed armchairs dotted the chamber, clustered in groups of three or four, and spaced along the walls were at least two dozen tunnel entrances of various sizes. Each of these was marked with an O’gúleesh symbol illuminated in different colors, but without a working activator, Cheyenne had no idea what they meant.

  “By the blood of Op’paro,” someone shouted, cutting off the easy conversation inside the room. “Persh’al Tenishi. You’re still breathing.”

  Persh’al spread his arms. “I’ve gotten pretty good at that, yeah.”

  Cheyenne took a quick count of the magicals staring at her, most of them trolls, orcs, and goblins. She couldn’t begin to guess what the others were; two of them were covered in sharp, green-tipped quills and one could have passed for a nightstalker if it weren’t for the orange flames flickering in her eyes and the five bushy tails flitting behind her. The other magical had blood-red skin covered in spiderwebs of black and small buds of horns sprouting from his head.

  One of the magicals draped in a thick black cloak that concealed everything except two burning red eyes stepped forward. The next second, the figure dispersed into millions of swarming, swirling black specks that darted across the room and rematerialized a foot in front of Persh’al, the cloak whipping around its ankles without exposing an inch of the magical’s body. “You think you can just step through that door, and we would welcome you back with open arms?”

  Frowning, Persh’al eyed the magical, then shrugged. “I did expect it. Just not from you, Berloth.”

  The figure lifted a four-fingered hand gloved in black leather from beneath its cloak and slowly reached out toward Persh’al’s neck.

  Cheyenne clenched her fists, watching intently. If this goes south, I have no problem blasting our way out of here.

  Then a low chuckle emerged from the black hole beneath the figure’s hood, and the hand clamped down on Persh’al’s shoulder to give it a tight squeeze. The leather glove creaked. “Took you long enough.”

  The blue troll smiled. “You’ve waited longer.”

  The handful of the staring magicals chuckled and approached the newcomers. Nu’ek stood aside and folded her arms, watching the reunion from at least two feet over anyone else. The cloaked figure released Persh’al’s shoulder and stepped back. “And how much longer must we wait for the rest?”

  Persh’al dipped his head. “We’re almost there.”

  “Except you brought the wrong drow.” One of the magicals with green-tipped quills cocked her head, a green-gray tongue poking out between dark lips.

  The red-and-black-skinned magical narrowed all-black eyes at Cheyenne. “We’re not picking up strays.”

  Cheyenne dipped her head and glared at him. “You did not just call me a stray.”

  “Look at that.” The magical sneered at her, his black eyes glinting. “It talks.”

  “What the hell is this?” Cheyenne turned her gaze onto Persh’al now.

  The troll slowly shook his head and folded his arms, gazing at the group of magicals hidden below the city. They gathered slowly in front of their old friend and the drow halfling, emanating suspicion and a distrust Cheyenne could almost taste.

  He better know what he’s doing.

  Persh’al lifted his chin and scanned the faces of his alleged friends. “Who’s got a problem with the drow standing next to me?”

  “All of us,” hissed a goblin with a burned, blackened patch of mottled scars across her forehead. “We don’t know this one, and a drow we don’t know is a drow who’ll bring this whole thing down on our heads.”

  “Take another look.” Persh’al gestured at Cheyenne without looking away from the sneering faces. “Notice anything familiar?”

&nb
sp; Someone hissed, and for an unbearably long ten seconds, Cheyenne’s skin tingled under fifteen scrutinizing gazes.

  She turned to Persh’al. “I’m not doing this.”

  “Just wait.”

  “Hey, I know when I’m not wanted, and I didn’t come here to be stared at like some freak in a circus.” She spun around and headed toward the open door into the dark passageway beyond.

  “Cheyenne.”

  The second she reached the huge wooden door, it swung shut on its own with a resounding boom. She whirled and glared at the back of Persh’al’s head and his limp mohawk. “Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll blast my way through this!”

  “Blood bonds with blood.” The deep voice echoed from the other side of the massive chamber, and a hulking dark shape appeared from one of the open tunnels beneath a glowing red O’gúleesh rune. When the hulking raug stepped into the light, and everyone turned to look at him, the chamber fell deathly silent.

  How the hell did Gúrdu get here before we did?

  But it wasn’t Gúrdu. This raug was much older, his gray skin wrinkled and lined with age. He shuffled forward, thumping a gnarled cane on the ground with every step. Persh’al turned to meet Cheyenne’s gaze and dipped his head.

  “You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?” the raug growled as he limped toward the front of the chamber.

  Cheyenne gritted her teeth and forced herself to reply. “More than once.”

  The raug stepped onto the widening path the other magicals made for him, passing Persh’al without a second glance. He stopped in front of Cheyenne, towering over her by at least a foot. He took a long, whistling sniff of the air, then snorted in her face.

  She jerked her head away from the hot breath rustling through her hair but didn’t look away from the glowing orange-brown eyes studying her. “Step back.”

  Persh’al sucked in a sharp breath.

  The raug’s eyes narrowed, then he stepped aside, thumping his cane on the stone floor with a crack before addressing everyone else. “This is not the drow we hoped to see in our midst, but she is not the wrong drow.”