Another horn sounded and this time it was for longer, which was quickly followed by a collective howling sound, like a horde of beasts had just been released. It turned out that I wasn’t that far off as Sophia suddenly shouted,
“Gorgon leeches!” after she had effectively beheaded one of the demons.
“Oh no,” I muttered and Ari gave me a panicked look.
“I take it we are not dealing with cute little demon puppies?”
“No, try the things that would most likely eat them,” I told her and then Pip looked over shoulder at us and added,
“And then puke them back up only to eat them again.” Then she swung her axe up, getting one demon in the man parts without even looking.
“Up ahead, we cross over there,” the man said taking no notice of us as he sliced into the chest of one demon, causing him to fall into another, taking him over the side with him. Thankfully, there seemed to be a break in the demons ahead of us so we picked up the pace and ran faster to where we could see men battling it out on the other side.
“Friends of yours?” Sophia asked but unsurprisingly the man ignored her and continued on.
“Look out! Above us!” Ari shouted raising up her weapon just as the first wave of Gorgons hit us. I slashed out and ducked out of the way as the dead body of a gorgon leech fell from above me. These looked slightly different to the ones I remembered back on the cliff face where I first saw them.
Instead of cracked skin over twisted mangled bodies, they had slightly thicker limbs that split at the joints. Their skin looked to be dusted in ground stone and wet cement but their bleeding eyes were covered in dirty bandages, whereas their snapping teeth were entwined with spiked metal wire, making them even deadlier than usual. Some even looked to have their entire bodies covered with the stuff and these were the ones you had to watch dropping from above as both Ari and I got snagged by a few.
“Go past!” the man told us, ready to take them on alone. We did as we were told with Pip and Sophia now taking the lead and trying to get to where he told us to cross. I looked behind me just in time to see him unhook a wired glass vial from one of the many leather straps around his waist and throw it up as high as he could so that it smashed above the Gorgons, raining liquid down above them.
This didn’t look as if it had done much damage until he hammered his heavy sword down on one of the torches, freeing it so that he could catch it. Then he swung it up like he had done with the vial and boom! The second the fire touched the first leech, the rest of them caught fire one after the other like a wave of flames was rolling over the lot of them.
“GO!” he shouted to me as I watched him following behind us running with the sight of flaming leeches falling from above and into the gorge below. They looked like blazing lanterns from a distance lighting the dark chasm below as they fell.
I did as I was told but found myself coming to a dead stop as the path in front of me started to crumble away. Thankfully the others made it ahead of me and just as I was turning around to tell our hooded saviour about our new problem, I felt myself being picked up by the waist and anchored under his arm.
“What are you…AHHH!?” My question was cut short as I screamed as I found myself suddenly flying over the deadly drop as he jumped us both over it. I thought I would fall forward and put my hands out to catch myself but never got there. He righted me before pushing me on the back to me keep running to join up with the others.
The rest were just getting to the other side of the bridge to join the armed men that were fighting the same demon foes as we had been. We were about to run over when I was suddenly yanked back and held against the wall by a strong arm across my chest. I was about to ask why when I followed his gaze up to see a huge jagged boulder come crashing down with ropes snapping all around it. I looked then to the other side to see where those ropes led to and it became obvious the demons had destroyed the bridge in order to trap us on this side by cutting the net that held it in place. The boulder smashed its way through the narrow stone arch from above, shattering it as though it had been made of glass.
“Is there another way across?” I asked.
“Come with me.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him, swinging me to his back and then to his front, whenever an enemy got near so he could fight them head on and I was out of danger.
“There, up ahead.” He nodded to a single rope bridge that looked to have half broken slats across, obviously the one they used before the stone bridge was made. I did as he said knowing I had a better chance of surviving the bridge than I did the demon horde still headed our way. Although the second I stepped on it and it started to sway I couldn’t help but take a step back.
“Go!” the man ordered but I started shaking my head, telling Mr Indiana Jones at my back,
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Fucking Humans!” he snapped suddenly, placing a hooded shoulder to my waist and lifting me up and over into a fireman’s lift.
“Oh my God, don’t drop me! Shit, shit, shit! Don’t die, please don’t die,” I repeated as I had no choice but look down directly into the terrifying drop below. We got to the centre of the bridge when he let me slide down the front of him. I looked up at him, noticing for the first time how tall he was and from this angle I could just see his sandy coloured stubble covering his chin. He looked one way and then the other and I followed his motions, quickly realising why he had stopped in the middle of the bridge. His men had moved down to meet us as they still fought against wave after wave of Pertinax’s supernatural army.
I could see they were getting closer to the cave’s opening and knew that if they just made it out then they had a chance. I would have liked to have said the same for us but the second the demons spotted us on the bridge I knew we were done for. I watched in horror as each of them started to grab the torches off the wall and run towards us.
“Occidere eos!” The man at my back shouted, ordering his men and pointing to the danger ahead. (means ‘Kill them’ In Latin) They saw the demons running for us and quickly started firing arrows at them. They all took shot after shot but kept running until all but one were dead. He fell forward just at the end of the bridge, setting it alight like he had sacrificed his life to do just this.
“We need to get back!” I shouted but just as we looked the other way, we saw some of the gorgon leeches he had set alight had managed to crawl their way back up the sides of the gorge.
“The bridge! We need to get off the bridge!” I shouted just as three of them reached over the ropes of the bridge, setting it alight as well. The blaze was travelling towards us at too fast a rate and I knew that we would either be burned alive or the bridge would soon give out and we would plummet to our deaths anyway.
I looked to Sophia, Pip and Ari on the other side, seeing them through the flames crying out to me. Ari was on her knees screaming, reaching out her arms to me. Sophia was shouting orders for the men to try and reach us in time and Pip was holding the top of her head in her hands, as though she couldn’t bear to watch. I swallowed hard knowing that this was it. There was nothing more to be done. All I could hope for was that they made it back to our time and Sophia would have the chance to tell Draven all I had done to try and save his world and mine. This in the hopes that one day, in the Heavens maybe, we could be together once again.
It was only a dream but when you faced death as much as I seemed to do, then all we had left was our dreams to give us comfort. Our hopes that when facing impossible odds there was a place for us at the end of it all, one that would be a welcomed reprieve from the chaos and destruction that put us there in the first place. This was something I had to believe in.
I felt the bridge start to go, tipping to one side as the first of the ropes burned away. The flames were getting closer towards us and just before they could touch us, I felt the man grab me close and suddenly there was a darkness as I felt the floor beneath us start to fall as we plunged to our deaths. The rest of the bridge fell into th
e abyss and as the man tightened his grip around me he told me to,
“Hold on!” There was only one name that escaped my lips and for the first time in the face of death it wasn’t Draven’s, it was the man whose voice I’d just heard.
Our shadowed saviour…
“Lucius.”
Chapter 67
Killer Personality
The last thing I heard was my name being screamed from above as we fell down with the middle section of the bridge. However, the only thing I could think about right now was dying in Lucius’ arms, of all people. He had wrapped his cloak around me to protect me from the growing flames so all I could do was feel my death, not actually be able to see it when it came. I suppose I was glad of this for instead of being petrified of the fear, I was getting ready to say goodbye to my life and accept my fate.
I didn’t know how long I had left to do this but in those short moments I saw a glimpse of Draven stood waiting for me at the altar. It was our wedding day and just as I imagined it would be, him standing there in a tux, looking as handsome as the day I met him and smiling at seeing his bride for the first time. The grin he gave me lit up his eyes and spoke volumes of the pure happiness he felt in that single moment.
Then it all disappeared.
The feeling of falling suddenly jerked to a halt and as it did the cloak that covered me fell away letting me see for myself what had happened. I cried out in fear as the deadly drop below was far from over. Now it simply loomed there below me as Lucius had one arm banded around my waist and was currently hanging off the rocks with his other hand gripped to a ledge.
He swung us both a bit before quickly flipping my body up with enough strength that it flung me up and over onto the ledge above. I landed with an ‘umpf’ jarring my not completely healed rib cage as I rolled a few times. Then I looked up to see not one hand but two grip the edge before Lucius hoisted himself up the rest of the way to join me on the ledge.
I stood up, wincing slightly but glad to feel the pain because that way I knew I was still alive. I walked over to Lucius and said,
“So what now?” In fact, what I would have preferred to say was, thank God it’s you and thank you for saving my life yet again, but I had to remember that he had no clue as to who I was. He looked down at me as if only now remembering that I was still there and he took so long before speaking that I didn’t think that he would answer me at all.
“Do you hear the water?” he asked and I took a moment to listen but it was obvious his hearing was far more acute than mine was. I gave him a look and shrugged my shoulders telling him no, which had me wondering if I could see his face would I have seen him rolling his eyes at me?
I looked down to see if I could see anything but it was too dark and I knew that if I couldn’t hear the water, then it was still a long way down.
“Do you swim?” I frowned up at him and said,
“Yeah, why?” This time he didn’t answer me but instead he just picked me up and tossed me over the edge without so much as a warning. I screamed as I fell down but at least had the good sense to hold my nose as I crashed into the freezing water below. The force of my landing meant my head went under the water but thankfully holding my nose meant that when I resurfaced I wasn’t coughing and spluttering for air as I had held my breath.
I couldn’t see anything but I heard something crashing into the water behind me. The current of the water was dragging me along but the second I felt something grab me I screamed. I started flinging my arms around in the dark as all I could think about was the gorgons that had fallen down here, wondering if one of them had survived.
“Be still, woman!” Lucius snapped, calming me enough with the sound of his voice, letting me know that it wasn’t something demonic that wanted to take a chunk out of me in the dark! He didn’t say anything else once I had stopped trying to drown us both and he had fitted himself securely against my back. Then he started manoeuvring us both through the underground river, moving us from side to side and obviously avoiding any obstacles he could see in the dark.
We both bobbed along silently with me shivering in his arms and breathing heavily as I kicked my feet underneath the water trying to stay afloat in the current. I had to admit I doubted I would have achieved this as gracefully as I looked, without Lucius at my back helping me stay steady.
Thankfully up ahead I could finally see a small speck of light that the further we travelled the bigger it got.
“Turn around and hold on to me.”
“Uh…why?” I asked not liking the sound of that but doing as I was told anyway because in the face of all the things I didn’t like, I still didn’t want to be stupid enough not to listen and die from them. He didn’t answer me as I faced him but just nodded up ahead. I turned my head to look over my shoulder knowing what I would see because I could hear it before I could see it.
“Oh shit.” This was all I had chance to say before we both went crashing over the waterfall and I was sure my grip was so tight on his neck that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I ended up strangling him before we hit the bottom.
“You asshole! You could have killed me!” I screamed at him after coughing up a reservoir of water and smacking him on the arm. I would have remained angry if it weren’t for the fact that I was getting momentarily side tracked by the sight of him undressing. He had his back to me so I hadn’t yet seen his face fully but the sight of his muscular tanned back was making me shake my head to try and get some sense back to my brain.
“Uh…what are you doing?” He looked back over his shoulder at me briefly and said,
“I thought that would have been obvious to a Concubine.”
I was utterly outraged!
“I am not going to have sex with you! What did you think, that I would just drop my harem pants as a way of saying thanks for saving my life! Oh my God, somethings never change! Seriously will there ever be a point in history when you’re not trying to get into my…”
“Undress.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped putting a hand on my hip.
“To see a man undress is something you would be used to,” he clarified making me go beetroot in colour with shame as it finally dawned on me what he had meant.
“Oh, I thought you…” I tried to back track and explain but he cut in and said,
“I know what you thought, woman.” I mouth the word ‘woman’ behind his back wondering if he always made it sound like a bad thing or was he always this much of an ass around the opposite sex?
“Well you still could have warned me before just throwing me over the bloody ledge!” I grumbled turning my back on him just in case he decided to start taking off his pants.
“So what now?” I asked looking around at the endless barren land that stretched out for miles around us. When he didn’t answer me I glimpsed back over my shoulder at him to see he was bent down on one knee doing something with his weapons. Well at least he still had his pants on I thought wryly. I decided this was getting me nowhere so I stormed over to face him and put my hands on my hips.
“I know you don’t have any problems using words so I would appreciate an answer,” I snapped, which after even more silence I realised it still had no effect on him. He continued to take stock of his vast weapon collection as he lay them all out in front of him. His cloak, tunic and under shirt had all been wrung out and were laid upon a rock so that the sun could do its work.
“Answer me!” I demanded getting pissed off with this pointless silent treatment. He simply raised his head up a bit and looked at me as if he had honestly just realised I was there. I couldn’t see his face fully thanks to the sun at my back, which I could feel was powerful enough to start drying my clothes.
“I will go to the King,” he told me.
“You mean ‘We’.” I corrected and Lucius stood up making me take a step back. He walked up to me and said,
“There is no ‘we’,” then he briefly looked down at me before walking past.
“Uh, I beg to diff
er on that one, as I am coming with you,” I told him sternly, spinning around to face him. He was bent over the manmade pool that captured the water from the waterfall before it was then channelled back into an underground tunnel. It looked like some ancient version of an aqueduct. He was filling some sort of animal skin flask before dipping his head under the water and flipping it back out again. I sidestepped as the water splattered back at me, wiping the drops angrily off my face as I said,
“Did you hear me, I said I am coming with you,” I told him again.
“No you’re not,” he told me turning to face me and pushing all of his wet hair from his eyes. It was the first time I finally got a good look at his face and he was utterly and annoyingly, breathtaking. His skin was a lush golden colour and his long hair was like the desert sand highlighted with almost white blonde streaks from obviously spending days riding in the sun. Which begged the question, why was Lucius, who I knew didn’t like the sun, out in it in this ancient time?
I knew it wouldn’t harm him as the legends would have you believe about Vampires, but he had made it clear a few times how he loathed it. So what had happened to him between now and my time to make him change? It obviously wasn’t only his aversion to the sun that was different as the Lucius I knew certainly was a lot more vocal, that was for sure.
I had to wonder if by being a Vampire, the effects of it over the years hadn’t changed him? Like a man without the light locked in a dark cell could slowly become blind, given enough time without it.
And speaking of eyes, the same intense mix of steel grey and ice blue eyes looked at me now as if seeing me for the first time also. His muscles flexed as though feeling something strange and not liking what it was, that or the sight of me was just making his skin crawl, I thought bitterly.
“Look you may not like it, but you can’t do anything to stop me from coming with you,” I told him and he raised an eyebrow at me, making me want to roll my eyes back at him. I was quickly getting sick of dealing with big macho alphas doing that at me.
Sacrifice of the Septimus: Part 2 (Afterlife saga Book 7) Page 33
