Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [70]
Dag’s face darkened as anger rose in him. “Once, when I was no more than seven winters of age, I hid such a ring for safekeeping in a hole gashed into an oak, rather than have it taken by the raiders. Could it be possible that you have done much the same?”
“I do not have the ring,” Hronulf stated.
“We shall see.”
Dag did not doubt that the paladin spoke the truth. He knew that by all that was reasonable, he should find a way to heal the man and question him, but flag was beyond reason. Rage, grief, the madness of his life of terrible isolation- a torrent of emotions too many and complex to catalogue or understand-tore him over the edge. In one swift motion, he plunged his own hand deep into the paladin’s wound.
A roar of agony and outrage tore from Hronulf’s throat. Dag suspected that the touch of a priest of Cyric caused pain greater than the paladin would know if a dwarven smith quenched a red-hot iron in his belly. This pleased flag, but it was not quite enough to sate him.
Dag held his father’s anguished eyes as he began to chant the words of a spell. The god Cyric heard his priest and granted the fell magic. Dag’s frail fingers suddenly became as sharp and powerful as mithral knives. Up they tore, through walls of muscle and flesh, and closed surely around the paladin’s beating heart.
With one quick jerk, flag Zoreth pulled the heart out through the wound and showed it to the dying paladin. Then, just as quickly, he threw the heart into the hearth fire.
Dag Zoreth spun on his heel and stalked from the room, still chanting softly. The last sounds Hronulf of Tyr heard were the hissing, sputtering death of his own heart and the voice of his lost son, cursing him in Cyric’s name.
Seven
The sounds of battle faded swiftly as Bronwyn plummeted down the steeply sloping shaft. Down she slid, picking up speed as she went.
Dimly she realized that the tunnel was carved into the thick wall of the keep and that she had fallen down what was a nearly vertical drop. She wrapped her arms over her head and steeled herself for whatever would come at the bottom of the shaft.
But the tunnel curved suddenly, sliding her into what seemed to be a spiraling arc. She suspected that the tunnel was sweeping down through the curved wall, but she could not be certain. Balance and sense of direction had abandoned her, swept aside by the speed of her headlong slide. There was no time to consider her situation, to plan or even to react. She had no choices, no options, but to surrender to the force that held her in its grip. This she understood without words or even conscious thought, and the understanding raised her frustration into simmering rage. Was there nothing in her life, nothing at all, over which she had any control?
Suddenly Bronwyn realized that the tunnel had widened.
She no longer felt the walls rushing past her, brushing her along one side and then the other. And she no longer felt the ripple of the closely fitted stones beneath her. The floor over which she careened was still smooth but seemingly of solid stone.
She was inside the mountain now, Bronwyn realized, and still falling.
Her speed hadn’t lessened much, but at least she had some room to maneuver. She wrenched herself to one side, tucking her knees up against her chest and then kicking out as hard as she could. Neither her outstretched hands nor her kicking feet managed to graze a wall, but stretching herself out full length had some effect. Her wild slide began to slow. Bronwyn dared to hope that the ride was almost over.
Just then she hit another curve. Her weight shifted, sending her into a spin. Completely out of control now, Bronwyn tumbled and rolled. She flailed about wildly, seeking something, anything, to hold onto that might halt her wild ride. There was nothing; the stone floor and walls were smooth and sheer. She was grateful for that. If the tunnel had been rough, she would have been torn and battered past recognition, but at the moment, she would almost welcome a boulder in her path if it would stop