Obsidian Ridge - Jess Lebow [40]
The hallway took a long, sloping curve to the right and headed downward. The group came upon the rat, still searching through the refuse on the ground. Its little nose bobbed up and down, as it sniffed its surroundings. Then suddenly, it stopped, sitting back onto its hind legs and clawing at the air.
"What's its problem?" said the guard behind Princess Mariko.
A large dark splotch suddenly peeled away from the wall and fell to the ground. The dimly lit hallway made it difficult to determine what was happening, and at first, Mariko thought it was just a piece of loose stone or a large patch of moss on the damp rock that had lost its grip and was sloughing off onto the floor. Then that piece of moss unfolded to twice its original size, and snapped tight, wrapping itself around the rat like a thick rug.
"Cloakers!" shouted one of the guards.
The ceiling and walls seemed to melt. What had appeared as only shadows in the dark corridor, dripped away from the stone, unfurling and falling on the group.
The cloakers looked like huge bats, but instead of little ratlike bodies with ears, claws, and tails, they were all wing and teeth. Unfurled, some were easily twice the size of a man, and they descended on the hallway, blanketing anything they touched and wrapping it up.
Princess Mariko dropped to her knees, ducking under the huge wings of one of these beasts. The guard behind her was not as quick, and he disappeared underneath the creature's embrace.
"Get it off me! Get it off me!" The man squealed as he struggled to get free. The cloakers black body stretched around the guard, distending with each punch and elbow the man threw.
Two of the other guards had been wrapped up in similar fashion. One had been caught around the legs, and she swung on the creature, a dagger in each hand, slicing into the beast's flesh but seemingly making no progress in getting it to let her go. The second was completely consumed by the cloaker, his muffled screams indicating that he wasn't faring well either.
Jallal and three of his henchmen had managed to avoid being caught. They were free but preoccupied with trying to stay that way as four other cloakers flapped around them in the hallway.
Mariko didn't wait around to see how it turned out. Not even bothering to get up, the princess somersaulted forward, hugging the wall and tumbling right past the fight. Coming up on her feet, she didn't look back, dropping her head and sprinting down the corridor.
"After her!" Mariko heard Jallal scream as she disappeared deeper down the hall.
His words were like a gust of wind, pushing her along with their urgency. Mariko picked up speed as she ran the gently downward sloping passage. Her lungs burned and her legs ached, but she kept going, knowing that every step took her farther from her captors and that much nearer to escape. The walls drew in closer as the hallway spiraled down, and the light grew dimmer-the mage-lit stones were fewer and farther between here, and in several places it looked as if they had burned out or broken, leaving long sections of near-complete blackness.
Each time she hit one of these dark patches, the princess cringed and silently prayed to Helm to keep her safe. If she were to run into another hive of cloakers there would be little she could do to defend herself. Her hands were still tied behind her back, and though she could probably cast a spell, she would have to do it without looking. She really didn't want to have to fight a cloaker by turning her back on it.
Coming around the next corner, the passage straightened out and widened into sort of a crossroads-four passages heading off in opposite directions. Without even thinking, Mariko took a hard left and ran down another short hall, then into a much larger room. Dozens of square pillars, each a few paces apart, held up the high ceiling.
Dashing into the corner, Princess Mariko dropped into a crouch and stopped to catch her breath. The room was quite dark. What little