Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [81]
At least the three tattered ghosts kept missing him as they darted at him, claw-like talons extended to shred him into rags.
It was one bruising impact after another. He gritted his teeth and endured the punishment, trying to keep his head tucked in and out of danger. And it was nausea-inducing dizziness too; even if he did come to a stop rather than hurtling down a hole, would he be able to stand up and stagger off before the spirits got him?
And then, with a bone-jarring thud, his back hit something solid enough to stop the tumble and knock the wind out of him for good measure. For several moments after he uncurled he was too busy thinking about trying to get a breath back into his lungs and to make the world stop spinning around him to worry about ghosts or much of anything else.
When he finally did gasp a lungful of air, it was cool and damp. And he realized that he had rolled into a cave.
And the spirits hadn’t followed him.
Which might have been because there were about half a dozen copper-armored, green-faced fighters around him. Half of them had their weapons—their glowing weapons—pointed at the cave mouth.
The other half had identical weapons—a sword, a spear, and a crossbow—pointed at him.
The little paper bird had fluttered about in frustration for far too long. It didn’t exactly have a mind to think with, but it did have a purpose, and that purpose was to be read.
It had tried every means it had to be noticed, and it was always dismissed as a leaf, or a bit of debris. It seemed there was no way to make these Champions pay attention!
Except—
Now one of them had pulled out an enormous book, and was opening it! The Champion was going to read something!
But not before it read the paper bird!
Swift as a thought, the bird dove for the book, plastered itself against the page, and unfolded before the Champion’s astonished eyes.
Chapter 13
Sasha was just about dead on his feet; a night of no sleep, coupled with the frantic race for freedom and ending with the tumble down the ravine had pretty much put paid to the last of his energy. He kept stumbling over unseen lumps in the tunnel floor, and more and more often, ended up falling to his knees. His legs felt as if they were made of lead, and soft lead at that, and he thought that at this point he must have been walking down these tunnels for leagues and leagues. It certainly seemed like leagues and leagues.
And oh, how he hurt. He thought that surely if he took off his shirt, he would find that his entire body was nothing more than one enormous bruise that extended from neck to ankles. The number of lumps on his head did not bear thinking about.
And he was starving. And thirsty. One little cup of kvass and a single bowl of watery borscht was not much to sustain someone for a day and a night.
It seemed that his Luck finally had run out.
But if Sergei wasn’t caught—he knew a Godmother. Surely Sergei would go to her and try to get help!
Except that Sergei didn’t know he was in trouble. And even if he knew, he wouldn’t know where to look for the one who had freed him.
This was just…grand.
Just grand.
He stumbled and fell to his knees again, and this time he just fell over and then lay there on his back, on the cold stone, eyes closed. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. “I don’t know who or what you are,” he said into the silence, “but I am too tired to go any further. So as far as I am concerned, you can just—”
There was the twang of a crossbow followed immediately by a strange tickling between his legs.
He opened his eyes. A crossbow bolt, head embedded completely in the stone, was sticking up between his legs. It had passed so close to his apparatus that the tickling sensation he had felt was the still-vibrating shaft brushing the cloth of the crotch of his trews.
Miraculously, he found himself on his feet again.
But finally, the tunnel opened up into a vast cave, which seemed to be the end of their journey, for his six guards stopped, and he simply dropped where