She felt her hands hit something hard as she fell past, instantly she latched on, her body jerked and slammed against a rock wall, a sharp stone stabbing her side without piercing her skin. She squeaked in pain, her arms trembling with the effort to hold up her weight. Thinking quickly and hanging in the darkness she clacked her heels, the sharp blades under her soles shot out and she kicked into the rock wall, stabbing them in. Instantly her arms relaxed and sagged with relief as they no longer were required to sustain her entire mass.
Ange stayed there for several moment, panting as her heart slowed from its exhilarated race of adrenaline. Her chest heaved for air, it burned as she sucked in cold air into her lungs. When her body finally calmed and stopped trembling from the shock she looked around. It was absolutely dark and as she looked above she could see she was many feet down a huge and expanding crevice that cut jaggedly through the land above.
She guessed she was about forty feet down what seemed like a twenty foot wide crevice from where she hanged. The storm raged above, hardly any moonlight reached where she was in the horrible conditions.
Ange suddenly remembered her illuminator on her belt and she let go of the rock her left hand clung too, she was surprised she even able to use her arm, as thought about it, her arm began to burn with pain.
She cursed silently under her breath as she yanked the lantern from her belt and hugged the device between her body and the wall as her stiff fingers brushed off the frost and pressed the button to turn the inner mechanism and reveal the sheltered blue crystal. She sighed in relief as the metal shutters moved aside and the area was bathed in a decent radius of light.
Ange held the lantern out and gulped as she looked below, over a hundred feet down she could barely capture the shape of the rinorse that had carried her so far, on its side, dead and partially covered in snow.
She looked at it regretfully and observed the deep dark crevice carefully before looking up. If she went down, she probably would get snowed in a mere few hours. As if in confirmation, a few feet to her right a waterfall of snow fell down into the crevice with a loud thrumming and misty cold air for several seconds before stopping, the crevice was filling.
She looked up with a concentrating and determined frown as she snapped the lantern back onto her belt and slowly began the climb up the quickly frosting stone wall.
She found the first ten feet easy and the stone soft enough for her boot-blades to stab into the wall’s surface. But afterwards the stone became harder and covered in frost and fresh snow powder that required for her to sheathe her blades and climb with her own strength. It probably took her an hour to climb the crevice’s steep wall, resting only twice as more snow rushed down to her alarm, at least it didn’t flow over her.
Painfully she climbed the last few feet, panting and out of viable breath in her lungs. Her entire chest burned with the effort and cold air, even with her mask on. She knew if she took it off, the air would be even colder and sharper, but at that moment she felt it was suffocating her. She tiredly pulled herself up and fell limply on the snow, relieved for once for its coldness. Her entire body felt hot with the exertion she had just suffered through the climb.
Ange yanked her mask off, the cold air and snow crystals stung her face and she sighed in relief though her breath came more sharply and painfully. The wind was picking up and with it the snow from even the ground. She panted heavily and stayed there on all fours for a moment as snow accumulated on her back as she tried to catch her breath, her body burned tiredly and she could feel her awareness slipping, desiring to blackout and rest. The idea was almost too tempting, to fall asleep forever.
No. I don’t want to die. She thought harshly.
Her arms pushed her up unwillingly and she swayed momentarily before regaining her balance and closing the cloak around herself more tightly, her body was starting to shiver with cold again, though it was worse this time, she felt the her perspiration was freezing to her skin underneath her black leather armor.
Sullenly her feet began to trudge through the snow as she pulled up the hood and held it with her stiff and injured left hand. Her body was starting to shake painfully as she pulled her lantern and held it before her, her arm gradually growing numb again. To her dismay, the snow grew deeper the farther she walked, soon it was past her hips and to her stomach.
Teeth clattering she stiffly lifted her lantern overhead and looked for the mountains. She squealed in shock as a sudden burst filled the air before her and she fell back, it was dark again. She spat and cursed under her breath, realizing the crystal had probably gotten damaged during the day’s events and finally broke.
She forcefully pushed herself back up, shivering, abandoning the lantern, and kept walking. Soon she didn’t know where she was walking too, what direction she was going in or if she even had a sense of hope she could make it through the night and the storm.
She was shaking every other second from the cold and her face felt stiff with frost and her eyes burned as ice covered her eyelashes, her lips were blue and her breath was coming in short ragged gasps.
Despair finally made her fall to her knees, trembling, as her body swayed to the ground, her face resting on soft cold snow. She felt her body was even too stiff to curl up in an effort to even hold in a scrap of warmth.
Tears began to rush down her face, freezing to her skin, but she didn’t care this time. She was going to die, in the middle of nowhere in a frozen wasteland, her body would probably never even be found, not that she believed anybody would care to find her.
She blinked shaking as darkness gathered at the edges of her mind, promising her rest. She closed her eyes, feeling her cloak flapping in the relentless wind as her body tiredly gave up fighting the freezing temperature.
The black cloak suddenly stopped snapping and drifted slowly over her body and she wondered if enough snow had finally fallen on her to still her entire shape. Then she noticed something odd, a cold and punching wind was no longer slashing at her numb body. She opened her eyes painfully, the thin frost that had already accumulated there broke apart as she looked up.
She was aware enough, alive enough, to feel mystified at the sight before her. She felt almost surprised that her body was able to push itself up and look around.
The moonlight had finally shot past the breaking clouds to the white frigid world around her, but what stirred a sense of shock through her was the swirling snow that stayed at bay in about a fifty foot radius around her in the shape of a perfect dome.
It was like she was in the eyes of a storm, the place Daren explained to her where the air was calm and still as the winds and rains ragged around its perimeter, a hurricane. An event that only happened out at sea.
She blinked in disbelief, gazing around at the impossible anomaly. The frostbitten earth beneath her shook with a sudden and powerful quake that quickly stilled, making her nearly slip and fall back to the ground. She gasped, feeling a moment of instinctual fear grip her as she stared wide-eyed in the direction of a massive shadow that now obscured the last setting moon. She stared at it, the impossibly huge and still shadow that had suddenly appeared before her.
But she felt too cold, too dead to feel anything for more than a mere moment as she stared blankly.
She could only recognize a few things in the darkness, an impossibly huge outline of wings spread wide as they slowly folded into the shadow’s body and a crown of branches at the top the shadow’s long shape, which were too smooth and curling in a distinct, and too exact form to be branches. Horns?
But that too was impossible.
Another agonizing tremble ranked Ange’s body before she could think about it further as her eyes fluttered and the darkness that had accumulated at the edges of her vision rushed over her. She felt the unrelenting cold pull her down as her consciousness failed to stay aware and her body slumped with cold tired defeat. She was suddenly drifting in still darkness, where it was neither cold nor warm.
Chapter 6: Mark of the Dragonboun
d
Warmth was the first thing perceived as awareness slowly washed over Ange. She stiffened, instantly alarmed as she took into account the sensations that were assailing her. One, she was no longer surrounded by snow and cold, and underneath her sore body was something soft, and she could tell, someone had removed her gloves. Something warm was also gently covering her body, insulating her body that was suddenly hurting more fiercely than she remembered.
Secondly, from the heat that touched her face and the crackling ahead of her she could tell she was facing a fire, and she could hear someone shuffling in front of it only a few paces away. Slowly she twitched her right hand to her dagger, bidding her time and trying to appear relaxed. The third fact was she didn’t know how she had come to be wherever she was and betrayal still lingered strongly in her thoughts, mistrust and suspicion quickly took the forefront.
She quickly rationalized that she had been captured. Who else would find her in the middle of the Artic Desert? Except the guards who could have followed her tracks after she got away…
Her fingers touched the hilt of her dagger and she suppressed a smile from crossing her face, whoever it was had been arrogant enough to leave her armed and unbound. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the handgrip of her dagger, and she decided not to wait. She would attack and make every attempt to get away. She would have to be fast and she wasn’t sure her sore body could handle the demand. But she had to try.
She yanked her blade out with a swift jerk and snarled as she rolled quickly off the blankets she had been on and opened her eyes as she lunged. She quickly discerned a few facts, she was somewhere in a cave, probably still near the Artic Desert. And she was charging for a single man, shock took her as she was suddenly knocked back like a gust of wind had slammed straight into her. Her eyes still trying to focus.
She gasped as her back and head slammed painfully into a stone wall and she suddenly realized her own dagger dried with old blood was pressed to her throat in another’s hand as a strong and unyielding arm pinned her against the wall.
“Is that any way to thank me for saving your life?” asked an amused and annoyed voice, Ange’s heart stuttered as she recognized it.
She blinked shocked and gazed straight into a pair of sun bright eyes in a smooth handsome face, except his cloak was gone and now she could see impossibly white tufty hair curling softly and falling down to the back of his neck and forehead.
“You!” Ange gasped beyond shocked.
He smiled pleasantly. “Hello, little thief.”
He suddenly let go, Ange gasped as she fell only to be caught by his arm again. He pulled her up to her feet till she was steady again.
Ange glared at the ground, irritated by the fact that she needed help, especially from him as she stood up erect and pushed his arm away.
He chuckled as he turned away back to the fire.
“You should rest,” he suggested quietly. “You’re still badly injured.”
She scowled. “Are you stalking me?” she demanded furiously.
He snorted amused as he kneeled down by the fire and tossed her blade back at her at a frightening speed. Ange petrified as it whisked past her face and embedded itself into the stone wall with a thud. She gazed at it shocked as half its length was buried in rock. She gulped involuntarily.
“Of course not,” he replied smoothly but his voice trembled slightly and his eyes were guarded. “Fate only seems too content with making our paths intersect.”
She blinked and looked back as she sat tiredly back onto the blankets. She gazed down at them and was surprised to see she had been lying on fur, a large white pelt and probably from a mammoth polar bear. She shuddered remembering a picture of it in one of Daren’s books. She stared surprised to see that his cloak, which had been tossed aside in her attack, was what had kept her covered and warm.
Her eyes traveled back to the mysterious man.
He wore a complete set of silvery white armor, etched with lines of crystal blue in intricate designs. As she gazed at it she was lost in the folds and lines of the chest plate. His arm length gauntlets were off, resting on the floor by the fire. Instead a simple long-sleeved white shirt was showing and even it looked of expensive make. His pants were black leather leggings as armor plates wrapped and protected most of his thighs with a kneecap and another plate at the front of his lower leg as thick leather black boots with metalwork designs like the rest of his armor reached up past his ankles and up half way up to his knees.
She stared and wondered once again who he was, or what he was. She gazed intently at his shape, no horns and no odd protrusions, he looked entirely human, his entire six foot length. His angular face appeared young and had a slight graceful touch to his features and to Ange’s surprise, the pores where facial hair grew from didn’t even seem to exist either. Only his eyes seemed ancient, wise, and deep.
Daren’s voice echoed hauntingly in her thoughts.
“The most powerful incubuses were said to look entirely like humans with the exception of their eyes and hair, it was the only thing they apparently couldn’t change with their magic.”
He called them ‘stunningly beautiful’ and ‘their eyes and hair were sometimes unnatural shades but alluring’, if it is true, then he was right on the mark. She thought unhappily.
She watched as the man tended to a large ice bowl as he dipped in long pieces of white cloth in it.
“Who and what are you?” she blurted out without thinking.
He turned to her and blinked as he gazed into her suspicious gaze. He smiled with humor.
“Usually one introduces themselves first before asking someone else private information,” he informed unbothered as he strained another piece of cloth.
She glared with her arms crossing over her chest, unrelenting and stubborn.
They remained as such in silence for several minutes. He turned to her, calm.
“Do you have a shirt underneath that armor?” he asked politely with a worried yet curious note.
Ange sat up straight, shocked by his question.
“Why would you ask me something like that?” she stuttered abashed.
He gazed at her seriously. “If you haven’t noticed, you were severely injured. And if you will indulge me, I’m trying to tend to you,” he replied.
She blinked shocked and then realized the pieces of cloth he had been working on were actually bandages. She turned her gaze back to him, surprised by his kindness.
“I…I have a camisole underneath,” she answered, her face heating up to her confusion.
He nodded. “Good, then take off your armor,” he ordered quietly as he turned back to the bandages and a pot she hadn’t noticed over the fire before.
She grimaced as she looked down at her black armor and then wondered where her cloak was, she found it hanging on the wall and to her surprise it was torn savagely.
When did that happen? She wondered shocked from where she sat.
She looked around the cavern noticed the entrance not far off but all she could see was the blue daytime sky and some sparse clouds and she wondered how long she had been out. She tried to remember and only recalled collapsing in the snow and then…an anomaly of nature occurring before her very own eyes. The snow parting away from her and swirling around her in a colossal dome. And then a shadow, a massive shadow in the dark of the night.
She trembled as she remembered the sight with fear.
“Tell me, little thief, why were you in the middle of my Artic Desert and wounded?” he asked quietly with curiosity.
Ange blinked. “My?” she echoed.
His face twisted into annoyance and he refused to meet her gaze. His face smoothed out a second later as he smiled tranquilly. He answered in a very apologetic tone, his voice a bit edgy. “I’m sorry, I’ve lived here for so long and very few visitors dare come into these lands that I’ve come to refer to them as my own,” he admitted.
Suspicion coiled in Ange’s gut. “How old are you?” she asked leery.<
br />
Agitation spasm for a moment across the man’s face as he scowled and gazed at her with hard eyes. They were like pieces of topaz in his face. “How old do I look like to you?” he asked with a cold touch in his voice.
Ange flinched and she realized she was pushing her luck by probing him on what was obviously a sensitive topic for him. “Somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-five,” she replied truthfully and trying to seem unbothered by his tone.
He gazed at her for a moment before turning back to his pot and didn’t reply to her statement.
Despite the obvious sense of danger, Ange’s curiosity got the better of her but she decided to stay quiet for the moment and simply observe as he stirred the contents of the pot with a spoon that looked like it was made of stone.
His gaze turned back to her, they were soft again and his face had relaxed.
“So are you going to answer my question, little thief?” he asked.
Annoyance took her at the little nickname even though it was true on both accounts, her height and her profession. But it was the first part that sent her temper flaring.
“That isn’t my name,” she snapped.
He smiled amused, obviously pleased that he had annoyed her. “Then what is your name?” he asked pleasantly.
She scowled at him. “What’s your?” she flashed back and then smiled mockingly, echoing his earlier words in the most possible rude yet formal manner. “‘Usually one introduces themselves first before asking someone else private information.’”
His smile faltered instantly into a grimace, he stared at her for a long time and she felt herself starting to quail underneath his unblinking gaze despite trying to meet it boldly.
“I don’t have a name to give you,” he replied very quietly.
Ange felt her composure shatter as she stared at him shocked, his gaze impassive.
“You…you don’t have a name?” she asked in disbelief. Sorrow overwhelmed her as she thought of the common similarity.
Sky Warriors: Poleuthan's Thief (Sky Warriors Saga Book 1) Page 7
