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

by Martha Carr

  Cheyenne approached the wall and walked slowly along it, scanning the lines of code and letting her activator sift through it a thousand times faster. “Let me guess; that’s because of the dampening wards L’zar put up in his secret rebel lair underground.”

  “Ha!” Lumil pointed at the halfling, then slapped a hand to her head. “How the hell are you reading all that in the fell-damn walls?”

  “I’m not.” Cheyenne’s smile kept growing as she absorbed block after block of data. “I’ve been there.”

  That statement distracted L’zar from staring at the walls, and he turned to his daughter. The corner of his mouth twitched, then he resumed his dreamlike pacing.

  “So, I can’t get a message into the bunker.” The activator lit up a trail of glowing blue code, illuminating it brighter than all others. She reached toward it and stopped. Don’t touch anything until you’re sure. Following the trail around the wall, she waited for the activator and her synced magic to find what she was looking for by feel alone. “Do they have any other endpoints set up with active tech? Right outside the wards, I mean.”

  “Over a dozen.” Corian folded his arms and watched her. “That’s the problem.”

  “Where are they most likely to come from when they think it’s time to meet up with us?”

  “Quadrant A4, Section 482C, Sub-section…” L’zar growled and closed his eyes, muttering to himself as he went through the jumbled routes of his memory. “Sub-section 87.”

  Cheyenne stopped beside the closest metal door in the wall and wrinkled her nose. “Mm.”

  “No, sub 86.”

  “Yeah, that looks right.” Cheyenne lifted her finger toward the flashing point in the wall the activator had lit up for her with the Hangivol coordinates straight from L’zar’s mouth.

  The drow’s eyes flew open and he focused them on his daughter, flashing a wide grin.

  “Whoa.” Ember patted her cheek and looked back and forth between L’zar and Cheyenne standing on opposite sides of the chamber. “Is anyone else feeling out of the loop here?”

  “Get used to it, fae.” Lumil nudged Ember’s shoulder gently. “When you’re dealing with the drow, there’s always a loop, and you’ll never be a part of it.”

  “Huh.”

  Cheyenne firmly pressed the glowing point in the wall, and a shuddering jolt of energy raced up her arm and into the side of her neck. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, and a surprised chuckle escaped her. “Oh, man!”

  “See? Weird-ass drow stuff like that.” Byrd pointed at the halfling. “If anyone else walked in on this, they’d think she’s over there gettin’ it on with the wall.”

  Lumil lunged toward him and raised her fist.

  He shrank away and laughed, raising both hands. “Hey, hey. Not with the runes, huh? Come on. It’s not like the rest of us haven’t seen L’zar in his freaky fetish stages.”

  “You know what?” Lumil’s open mouth closed when Corian cleared his throat. She stepped away from Byrd and slowly lowered her fist. “I’m dropping this.”

  “Okay, I’m in.” Cheyenne stood there with her finger pressed to the wall, tapping into the massive mainframe of blended tech and magic coursing through the entire blueprint of Hangivol. “What’s the message?”

  Corian studied the halfling’s blank stare and frowned. “Last-minute change unavoidable. New doorway in Heart lower pit. En route to the heart via…”

  “Just put in our current location, Cheyenne.” L’zar clasped his hands behind his back, his lips pursing in rhythmic twitches like he couldn’t decide whether to frown or grin again. “That’ll do.”

  “Yep. Then what?”

  “Hurry. And that’s the end of it.” Corian glanced at Maleshi, who shrugged and went back to watching Cheyenne communing with the system disguised as a building. “The next part is a little trickier, kid. You’ll want to encrypt this.”

  “Done.”

  “What?”

  Byrd burst out laughing.

  Cheyenne slowly removed her finger from the not-stone wall, sucking in a sharp breath when the river of energy seeped away from her neck and arm and left through her fingertip. Then she looked at Corian and shrugged. “Sent it.”

  “But did you encrypt it?”

  “Yeah, triple-layered. I left a few clues, so they shouldn’t have any problem figuring out the lock.”

  L’zar hummed in fascination and continued his pacing around the room. “Which is what?”

  She glanced at him sidelong and tilted her head. “Thief.”

  A low chuckle came from L’zar, but he didn’t say anything else.

  Corian scratched the side of his head beneath a twitching feline ear. “This is something for the record vaults, Cheyenne. Which, if there were any pre-existing records of those attempting to do even half of what you just accomplished in two minutes, would be blown to pieces at this point. Well done.”

  “I mean, thanks. I didn’t really try.”

  “Yes, and that’s my point.”

  “Okay, so the Four-Pointed Star has our message.” Maleshi eyed L’zar as he made another circle around the chamber. “Or they will, hopefully. That part’s out of our hands. We need to keep moving.”

  “Ready to head out, General.” Lumil gave Maleshi a weird, slanting salute.

  General Hi’et eyed the goblin woman and shook her head. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Byrd chuckled, and Maleshi’s silver gaze settled on him.

  L’zar stepped into the middle of the chamber and turned in a slow circle, eyeing each of the metal doors. “This way.”

  “After you, then.” Maleshi motioned for him to lead the way, and the group converged behind L’zar.

  Ember joined Cheyenne with a curious frown. “That was some trick with the walls.”

  “Tell me about it. This’d blow your mind, Em. After all this is over, you should give it a try at least once. With your own activator, obviously.”

  “Oh, yes, obviously. I have no desire to come between you two.”

  “Very funny.”

  L’zar reached the door he wanted and waved his hand in front of it. The metal flashed a muted gray light, then rumbled open and slid sideways into the wall. Before it had finished opening all the way, the drow darted into the corridor, and everyone else filtered through after him.

  He led them down one twisting passage after another, all of black stone. Only half of it in the narrow hallways was disguised magic-tech panels, and Cheyenne let herself take fleeting glances at the system code running through it all. At least this way I’ll be able to tell if someone sounds a silent alarm.

  Ten minutes later, L’zar held up a hand for them to stop.

  “What’s going on?” Ember asked as they pressed their backs against the wall and waited for L’zar to keep moving.

  Cheyenne’s drow hearing picked up different voices screaming and wailing somewhere in front of them. “You can’t hear that?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You don’t want to.” She grimaced and shook her head. Sounds like the torture chamber in the basement isn’t the only one they’ve got in this place.

  “We’re about to walk into a rather large private gathering.” L’zar looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows at Corian. “And it won’t be pretty.”

  “No other route?” Maleshi asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. This wouldn’t be an issue if we’d come in where we were supposed to.”

  “It’s not worth arguing about anymore, L’zar.” Corian gestured at the branching corridor ahead of them. “Focus on what’s possible now.”

  “One way into the courtyard.” L’zar wrinkled his nose. “Through two walls, that entire joyous-sounding gathering, and the corridors branch off from there after that. If we get separated or anyone ends up losing their mind over what we’re about to see, just remember that from here on out, keep turning right.”

  “That would just take us in circles,” Ember muttered.

  He leaned f
orward to meet the fae girl’s gaze and smiled. “Not in Heart.”

  “Just say the word, then.” Byrd nodded.

  “Hmm.” L’zar glanced down the hall again. “Lumil, you might be the better choice for getting us through.”

  “Oh, yeah.” The goblin woman pounded her rune-encircled fist into the other hand. “I got this.”

  “Then stay close.” L’zar took off down the next corridor.

  Cheyenne’s drow hearing picked up the growing volume of agonized screams ahead.

  Ember swallowed, breathing faster as the group sped up. “What did he mean by ‘lose our minds after what we’re about to see?’”

  “That wherever we’re heading, it looks worse than it sounds, and it sounds bad.”

  “Fantastic. Too late to get off the next stop?”

  “Nice try. The next stop is the last stop, Em.”

  Chapter Ninety-One

  By the time they reached the massive metal doors of their only available route to the Crown’s courtyard, everyone could hear the screaming. L’zar motioned them to a stop again and nodded at Lumil. “Thirty seconds, then have at it.”

  “You got it.” The goblin woman raised both bespelled fists and approached the doors.

  L’zar moved down the line and stopped in front of Cheyenne. “Make sure you’re ready with the marandúr. If it’s not immediately accessible, make it accessible. You won’t have another chance after this to go through your things to find it.”

  “Sure.” Cheyenne grimaced when a curdled wail seeped through the stone walls, punctuated by short, shrieking bursts of terror and agony. She slipped her backpack off her shoulders and tried to hold it and unzip it at the same time. L’zar grabbed the straps and held it up for her. “Thanks.”

  “Quickly.”

  She unzipped the main pocket and dug around in the bottom. When her fingers brushed the cold metal of the gold marandúr coin, she fumbled quickly to get a good grip, then pulled it out and flashed it at him.

  “Good. Put it away.”

  Cheyenne stuffed the coin into her back pocket and frowned at him. He’s giving short-sentence orders, and I’m hopping to it. Never thought I’d be in a place where I trusted what he’s saying. We’ll see how long it lasts.

  When she finished, L’zar lifted her backpack higher and held it for her like a jacket as she slipped her arms through the straps. “Thank you, Cheyenne. I feel much better knowing you’re as prepared for the next few steps as you possibly can be.”

  “Yeah, well, you know, I’m just doing it for your approval and shit.”

  He gave her a tired smile, and one of his eyelids drooped over a golden eye before he opened it again. “I’m sure neither of us wants that to be true. We’re almost there.”

  Cheyenne couldn’t help but offer a quick smile in return, then L’zar turned away and headed back toward Lumil and the metal door.

  “You said thirty seconds, but I figured I’d wait for you to finish whatever that was.” The goblin woman shrugged. “Go time?”

  “By all means.”

  Lumil let out a whoop and charged toward the metal doors leading into the next room. Her fists flashed with the rotating patterns of blazing red runes, and she drew her arm back to lay into the door where it met the wall. Stone and metal shards and small, sparking bits of O’gúl tech flew in every direction. The screaming on the other side of the door didn’t stop.

  The rebel group charged after Lumil through the hole she’d punched in the wall. The goblin woman led the battle with a bellow, throwing punches at the startled Crown servants before the smoke and dust had halfway cleared.

  Cheyenne summoned black orbs of sparking energy in her hands but paused when she realized what she was looking at inside the next chamber.

  It was another circular room, this one with a massive round pool in its center. The pool was sectioned into six wedge-shaped metal cages rising two feet above the surface. Inside each cage was a magical chained to the metal bars above their heads by the wrists. Most of them dangled helplessly from their manacles as they shrieked and screamed and wailed nonstop, bobbing within not water but a black, bubbling, steaming sludge letting off the smell of rotting meat, cooking meat, and something distinctly floral.

  Metal rods protruded from the bars, suspended on pulleys, every single one aimed at a caged magical. The last loyalist in dark-gray robes to notice the invasion by L’zar Verdys’ rebel party got in one more good prod at the troll woman in the cage in front of him. His gloved hands wrapped around the metal rod and struck her between the shoulder blades. The tip of the rod sparked with blazing red light, the troll woman screamed, and the black sludge in her cage flashed with different colors before the brilliant blue steam rising out of it was quickly vented up into a clear glass bubble the same size and shape as the pool suspended from the ceiling.

  This is where she takes their magic.

  Cheyenne’s fury boiled in her more violently than the black sludge in the pool. A roaring battle cry burst from her mouth as she charged the orc loyalist. He looked at her with a vicious snarl as she lashed out with her whipping black tendrils. They snaked through the bars of the troll woman’s cage, coiled around the orc’s neck, and jerked him forward. His face smashed into the metal cage three times before Cheyenne finally released him and darted around the large pool to finish the job.

  The orc swayed on his feet, blinking and trying to regain his bearings. She curled her fist with a black energy sphere inside it and landed a cracking uppercut to the orc’s startled face. He flew across the room, and the halfling raced after him.

  A dozen servants of the Crown battled the rebel group inside the magic-stealing chamber, most of them goblins and skaxens. The orc Cheyenne blasted across the room a second time before turning to fight a snarling goblin wielding one of the magical cattle prods was one of two. She grabbed the rod before he could poke her with it and sent a concentrated stream of black fire racing across the metal. The flames ate the goblin’s gloves in less than a second and started to consume him. The goblin screamed and reeled away, flailing as her drow fire did the rest of it for her. Cheyenne squeezed the metal rod with both hands and shattered the thick pole.

  Then she turned toward her next fight.

  Corian raced across the chamber in a flash of silver light and landed a powerful blow to the skaxen standing in his way, and the orange-skinned magical sailed into the sectioned cages. The top of the one he landed on broke beneath his weight, and he crashed into the black, steaming goo with a shriek. The chained magicals screamed and wailed as they jerked around, still attached to their manacles. When their skaxen torturer fell into the sludge, the prisoners stopped screaming long enough to watch him splash around in the substance, fighting for his life. None of them looked away until the skaxen had disappeared into the thick soup.

  Ember and L’zar stood back from the battle a foot inside the hole Lumil had blasted into the wall. The fae girl’s eyes were wide as she watched the Crown’s servants racing across the room and leaping toward the rebels, attacking between snatching up various magic-stealing instruments and wielding them like weapons.

  L’zar turned toward a metal shelf along the wall on his left, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the various supplies and ingredients stored there. He didn’t seem to notice when a goblin crashed into the shelf two feet in front of him, jerking under the electric jolts of red light consuming him. Then the drow disappeared.

  Byrd hurled balls of green flame into the fray, shattering beakers and vials, destroying the metal cages in the pool, and striking the O’gúl servants’ faces and chests.

  One massive ogre stood on the far side of the room, blocking the opposite exit. He was bare-chested except for an apron of slick, shiny black leather wrapped around his beefy gray torso, his flesh covered in burn scars and thick, slashing lines. A welder’s helmet rested in the lifted position on his head, revealing his full sneer as he watched the battle.

  His orange-red eyes settled on Gene
ral Maleshi Hi’et as she ducked beneath a skaxen’s attack spell of hissing green darts before bringing her glinting claws up to rip the other magical to ribbons from gut to gullet. Before the skaxen hit the floor, she whirled and saw the ogre.

  “I’d heard a rumor,” the ogre growled. “Never know what you can believe these days.”

  “I could say the same thing, Yarin.” Maleshi bared her teeth and stalked toward him, undaunted by the spells and sparking weapons and blood flying around her. Her silver eyes burned with battle fury. “Looks like you got the promotion you were so eager to snatch up.”

  “Looks like you sold your honor for another furball and a washed-up prankster.” Yarin swayed from side to side as the nightstalker general approached him. “You’re finished, Hi’et.”

  “Well, we’ll see.”

  The ogre chuckled darkly before bringing a meaty paw up to slam the welding helmet down into place over his face. Maleshi snarled and raced toward him, her four-inch claws flashing in the magical light overhead. Yarin waited until the last second before letting out a bellowing roar and heaving a massive plate of metal out of the huge cauldron beside him. Whatever it was meant to be used for, the plate now served as the ogre’s shield. Sparks flew and blue fire erupted on impact as Maleshi slashed the plate. She darted in a silver blur around the ogre, lashing out where she could, and every time, she was met with a grunt and the ogre’s surprisingly quick reflexes in blocking her.

  Cheyenne raised an opalescent black shield in front of her and Lumil when the pair of identical-looking skaxens aimed two metal hoses at them and unleashed a yellow-green cloud of acrid smoke. The smoke materialized against Cheyenne’s shield before dripping like syrup to the floor, eating holes in the stone and hissing madly.

  Lumil grinned at the halfling, then spun out from behind the shield and raced toward the skaxens. Cheyenne blasted one in the face with a churning black orb and eyed the other skaxen, who had leaped away from Lumil onto a workbench. Glass vials and metal instruments crashed to the ground. Before the skaxen could get better footing to lunge toward the goblin woman, Cheyenne’s black tendrils shot from her hands and wrapped around one arm and leg. She whisked the rat-faced magical off the table with a snarl and hurled the skaxen toward Lumil’s waiting fist.