Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset 2

by Lisa Blackwood

  Regardless of the dangers, she was going to infiltrate that place.

  Shadowlight was somewhere inside.

  Beyond the fortress’s tall, impenetrable outer walls, she saw the high peak of what must be a temple. That was Shadowlight’s most probable location if Daryna’s intel was accurate. Anna would have a better idea once she scouted around. First, she had to get inside without getting caught.

  She scowled at the sun. To gauge by its position above the horizon, it would be at least another forty-five minutes before it was dark enough for her shadow magic to hide her entirely.

  Crouching down behind her present sheltering outcropping of rock, she pulled food and water from her pack. She’d eat and then cross the valley floor and see if there was any other way inside besides the front door.

  Chapter 2

  The human-gargoyle hybrid had been this way already. She’d done a fine job of covering her tracks as she’d followed the lay of the land until she’d come to the road. The human had possessed the wherewithal to know not to walk the road in broad daylight, but she’d followed it as she tracked the young gargoyle’s location unerringly to the Battle Goddess’s fortress.

  When she’d first exited the pass, she’d waited until full dark to call her shadow magic and start the last leg of her journey. She moved with stealth and cunning, hiding her presence from the sentries that patrolled these lands. He’d have to have his captains discipline the men sleeping at their posts. A human, even a half-gargoyle one, shouldn’t have slunk unnoticed past his guards.

  Still, anger didn’t manifest at the realization. Perhaps he should discipline himself while he was at it. This human had once managed to use one of his own daggers against him. A lucky toss, perhaps, but she’d still bloodied him.

  Overpowering her now and taking her to the Battle Goddess might be wise, but he was curious just how deep into their territory this female would manage to infiltrate. He could always capture her later.

  And this little exercise might make an excellent example of what the young gargoyle’s Kyrsu was capable of. It might even please the Lady of Battles to learn that, although human, Shadowlight’s future second in command could overcome her birth handicap and grow into a truly formidable ally.

  Commander Gryton grinned up at the night sky as he followed Corporal Anna Mackenzie into the heart of the Battle goddesses’ territory.

  ∞∞∞

  Anna tread past another set of guards, slowly placing one foot in front of the other without so much as shifting a pebble. So far, she hadn’t given herself away. Not yet.

  She wasn’t sure how much longer her luck would hold, but it only had to last for a few more hours, just long enough to rescue Shadowlight. Once free, they would follow Daryna’s instructions and hope for the best. Anywhere was better than here.

  When she’d first reached the gate and beheld the biggest set of stone doors she’d ever seen, she’d had to wait for shift change before attempting to enter the city. But luck had been with her, and she’d arrived not long before new soldiers had come to relieve the ones on duty.

  All the guards were dressed similarly to Tin Man in heavy body armor. The rattle of their armor and weapons helped disguise Anna’s soft footfalls. Still, she didn’t relax as she made her way farther down a cobblestone street and crossed paths with an increasing number of enemy combatants. After all, gargoyles could hear something as soft as a heartbeat and these guards might have senses just as developed.

  She took the first side street she found, a narrow alley with almost no traffic. She needed to find a place to hole up for a few hours where she could wait for the nocturnal citizens of this fortress to sleep. She’d heed that much of Daryna’s warnings and instructions.

  As Anna made her way farther down the narrow alley, the smell of manure grew stronger. Realization struck, and she followed the odor to a large stable complex. The building would be as good a place as any to lay low for a while.

  It surprised her that they kept horses here. It probably shouldn’t have, since the weapons and armor all were medieval-looking. But the presence of horses surprised her. How could a primitive, horse-riding culture be a threat to all Earth?

  But she knew the answer.

  Magic.

  It all came down to magic.

  Anna entered the stable and soon found a ladder leading into the loft. After glancing around once, she started up the wooden rungs. Once she was safely out of sight, she released her hold on her shadow magic.

  Weaving her way between stacks of hay bales, she situated herself in a back corner. It wasn’t until this moment that an uneasy thought presented itself. What if those weren’t horses down there in the stalls?

  The pooka and the unicorn could pass for horses easily enough.

  Fuck.

  Her finger eased against her rifle’s trigger as she waited for some sign that she’d been discovered. But after thirty seconds, and there was still no dreaded outburst from the creatures below, she decided they were just animals. The sound of their chewing, the rattling of buckets, and the occasional knicker as the horses talked to their friends further away in the paddocks all helped to soothe her nerves. With luck, the animals had just been bedded down for the night, and no one else would come until dawn. So far so good.

  The first hour passed without incident except the horse in the stall below her took a piss and Anna’s eyes and nose burned from the powerful ammonia vapors.

  She silently cursed her heightened gargoyle senses for the first time.

  At least no one would smell her over that pungent odor.

  The contented sounds of horses lulled her, and she soon drifted into a light sleep. Approaching footsteps on the stone cobbles outside awoke her sometime later. Anna’s eyes snapped open, and she rolled onto her belly, crawling forward a few feet until she could glance between a gap in the loft’s floorboards and watch the stable’s west-facing door. After a moment it swung open enough to admit a hulking figure in full plate armor like what Gryton wore, but since it didn’t have as much bling as Tin Man’s, she assumed this was a soldier of lesser rank.

  He eased through the door and glanced around the empty lane and then whispered something to another unseen person behind him.

  Anna’s index finger touched the trigger as she peered through the scope.

  “The grooms have left for the night,” the big male whispered to the person behind him.

  “Good. I don’t have all night.”

  The second speaker was female.

  “In a hurry?” The male challenged, masculine pride evident in his tone.

  “The arrival of the gargoyle disrupted my routine. I need to feed before I report for duty.”

  “Ah, I wouldn’t be a very good subordinate if I let my captain go hungry, would I?”

  The female stepped forward and shoved the male against the wall with enough force to raise dust. “Stop talking, or I’ll find a better use for your mouth.”

  Anna scanned the female and noted she also wore armor, but hers was of a slightly more ornate design than the guy’s.

  This was likely one of Tin Man’s senior officers. More importantly, the female knew about the gargoyle, which had to be Shadowlight. This female would lead her to wherever the kid was being held.

  Anna’s magic told her Shadowlight was somewhere below her present elevation, which probably meant he was housed in a dungeon of some kind. And it would be a whole lot easier to find by following this female than it would be for Anna to poke around on her own and risk discovery.

  So far, the two below hadn’t sensed Anna’s presence or noticed the faint glow given off by her ward-spelled weapons. And soon it looked like they would be too involved to notice her, but she wasn’t taking any chances and remained still with her rifle pointed at them.

  The female was aggressively stripping the male of his armor, and he was returning the favor. Anna’s eyebrow arched to her hairline. It looked more like mutual assault than any kind of foreplay, but neither one
was complaining.

  The female hauled open the door to the empty stall behind them and then shoved the male back into the clean straw lining the floor.

  “Vaspara, you spoil a male,” he said with a throaty chuckle.

  The stall’s one window allowed enough moonlight in to illuminate the two. The female, Vaspara, appeared human. The male, not so much. He was taller and broader than an average human. Something was odd about the texture of his skin. All she could ascertain in the semi-darkness was that it didn’t look quite normal. But the telltale giveaway was the short pair of horns curling around his head and the spikes growing out of his shoulders.

  Nope. Not human.

  It was too dark to make out much else, but she thought she saw the white flash of fangs at his mouth before the woman leaned down for a kiss.

  Anna scanned the stables once more to make sure someone hadn’t come to check on the noise.

  Eventually, the fantasyland porn stars finished up with groans and snarls. Seriously. Snarls. Anna had another reason to curse her enhanced gargoyle senses, but then a wave of coppery stink obscured the scents of musk and sweat. And this wasn’t just a few beads of blood from a scratch.

  She glanced back at the two, half expecting one of them to be dead. But nope. Both soon rolled to their feet and began to dress. It looked like the male had a few scratches, but the female was the one with the big bite on her shoulder.

  She moved like it didn’t hurt her at all. Once they were dressed the male turned back to the female with a fanged grin. “Anytime you need me, I’m always happy to serve.” He purred. “I do love a good roll in the hay with a succubus.”

  “It’s Captain. Do I need to discipline you, soldier?”

  All playfulness vanished from the male and he came to attention. “No, Captain Vaspara.”

  “Good.” She turned and marched from the stables. The big male was swift to return to wherever he’d come from as well.

  Once Anna was confident the way was clear, she eased down the ladder and silently picked her way to the stable door. She listened for a full minute but didn’t hear anyone outside. After calling her shadow magic to cloak herself, she eased the door open just a little and squeezed through the narrow space she’d made.

  Outside, she scanned the area for more activity. There were guards out in the yard in front of the stables, and she heard a few others patrolling somewhere behind the building, but they were the only ones she sensed close by.

  At the opposite end of the cobbled yard, a torch-lit walkway led off to some other part of the fortress. Vaspara was almost out of sight already. If Anna wanted to find Shadowlight quickly, her best bet was to follow the captain.

  Anna didn’t fool herself. Walking the city at night, when most of its nocturnal residents would be most alert, wasn’t a good plan, but after what she’d seen and heard she didn’t want that female, that succubus, alone with the kid.

  Nope. No sitting and waiting for dawn while that demoness did God only knows what to Shadowlight.

  Dragging in a deep breath, Anna left her hiding place and set out to follow the female to wherever Shadowlight was being held. She didn’t fool herself. This was extremely dangerous. If she got caught, Shadowlight might never escape from the Battle Goddess’s domain. As much tactical sense as it made to sit and wait until dawn when the enemies’ senses would be dulled, she couldn’t just leave a child to be abused, either.

  Anna wouldn’t fail. If she had to give her own life to protect the kid, she would. One way or another, Shadowlight was going to gain his freedom.

  Chapter 3

  Her initial assumption that Shadowlight was being held in a dungeon proved correct. She had followed Captain Vaspara deeper into the sublevels of the city, and eventually to the dungeons where she’d managed to get within a couple hundred meters of the kid’s cell. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just sneak in, grab him, and sneak out again.

  For one thing, there were two guards parked at either side of his door, with others stationed where branching tunnels intersected with this passage. She’d counted six different checkpoints leading out of the dungeon. The only reason she’d gotten this far was that she’d followed close upon Vaspara’s heels and slipped through each of the checkpoints before the soldiers closed ranks again.

  The constant strain of maintaining her cloaking shadow magic was starting to wear upon Anna, but no one had sensed her yet. Then again, no one was looking for an enemy soldier to be foolish enough to infiltrate this place.

  That advantage would only last while Shadowlight was still in his cell. As soon as she broke him out, if she managed to break him out, the enemy would swiftly discover it, and the hunt would be on.

  She doubted her shadow magic was up for hiding her from anyone actively searching for an escaped gargoyle.

  The second problem was the chains.

  When Captain Vaspara had entered Shadowlight’s cell, Anna had heard the rattle of chains accompanying the kid’s rumbling growl of warning.

  Even though Anna knew she wouldn’t like what she found, those two sounds together had been enough to cause her talons and her fangs to lengthen. Those weren’t the only changes. Her joints had ached and throbbed until she’d feared she might shift into a fully-fledged gargoyle there on the spot.

  She’d held her shit together. Barely. Then backtracked fifty feet to an empty room she’d spied on the way. With her back against the wall, she glanced around the room to confirm it was indeed empty. Breathing slowly and steadily, she clapped down on instincts that were still urging her to attack.

  Shadowlight needed her calm and logical, not a rage monster on a killing spree.

  Although, that might be needed later to escape this place.

  Anna looked around her hiding place. Its surfaces were covered in what looked like a century’s worth of dust, which suggested it hadn’t been used lately. That suited her just fine.

  Conversation drifted down the hall and Anna heard Captain Vaspara addressing Shadowlight.

  “Come now, you must be hungry,” Captain Vaspara said in a reasonable voice. “I brought you some food.”

  Shadowlight’s answering growl sounded more like a ‘fuck you’ than a ‘thank you.’

  Anna fingered her rifle’s trigger.

  Eventually, the succubus gave up trying to talk to the young gargoyle and slammed the heavy door back in place. The demoness left orders that no one was to feed the gargoyle until she returned later.

  Anna narrowed her eyes. Captain Vaspara was apparently trying to gain the kid’s trust, but he was too smart for that. He was brave. She allowed herself to feel a little pride on the kid’s behalf.

  Then reality intruded. It didn’t matter how brave he was, courage wouldn’t help him out of those chains. His rescue depended on her finding a way to free him.

  Communicating with him was the first hurdle she needed to overcome after she came up with a plan. In the past, he’d been able to read her mind. At least until Gregory had started his training sessions. Now she was able to hide her presence and her thoughts.

  That same training also allowed her to speak with Shadowlight over a distance. But could she do it without betraying her presence?

  She didn’t know the answer to that. She wouldn’t risk it. Not yet. Once she had an escape plan mapped out in her mind, only then would she attempt to reach him.

  As long as Shadowlight wasn’t in immediate danger, she would wait until daylight when more of the fortress’s citizens would be asleep.

  Right. That gave her a few hours to come up with a plan.

  Making her way deeper into what she thought was actually an old guard’s room that had later been transformed into a storage area, Anna studied a row of barrels sitting along one wall. There was a narrow space between them and the wall so she wedged herself into it, safely out of sight of anyone who might happen to glance into the room as they passed by in the hall.

  She kept her shadow magic in place as well, just in case.

  A l
ittle over three hours later, she heard several pairs of footsteps and the now-familiar voice of Captain Vaspara.

  “Any trouble from him?” Vaspara asked.

  “No. He was pretending to sleep, though, so he’s likely waiting for a chance to strike.”

  “I’d expect nothing less from a gargoyle, even one as young as him,” Vaspara acknowledged.

  The rattle of a latch sliding back was followed by the heavy scrape of the cell door opening. A low growl echoed down the hall.

  “Young one, I’ve brought you some food and drink.” Only Shadowlight’s low growl answered Vaspara’s words. “You haven’t eaten in over a day. You must be hungry.”

  Shadowlight continued to growl.

  That’s my boy, Anna thought while a wolfish grin crossed her lips.

  Eventually, the female captain gave up and exited Shadowlight’s cell.

  “If he isn’t taking food by tomorrow night the Battle Goddess has instructed me to use magic to gain his cooperation. Until then, no one else is going in there. Understood?”

  “Yes, Captain Vaspara!” The words were accompanied by the stomp of boots against stone and the rattle of armor as they gave their version of a salute.

  ∞∞∞

  Anna waited to make her move until dawn, or at least what passed for morning here. This planet’s day wasn’t the same twenty-four hours as Earth’s. As best she could figure, it had a twenty-eight-hour day. Enough to notice, but not enough to handicap her significantly. Although, she supposed the planet had a different gravity than Earth, too. When she’d first arrived, she’d just assumed her weariness was a result of the altitude up in the mountains.

  Nope. Nothing so mundane. Alien planet. Complete with super unfriendly magic-wielding aliens.

  Huh. And some people whined about jetlag. Try portal hopping to another planet.