Cursed: Traitor's Trail

Chapter 7 Part 3

She managed to find the archway. The beam still stood, propped haphazardly by the small stone. A sigh escaped her. She had been worried that it might have somehow come down during her absence and she would find nothing to drop on the creature.

She studied the situation carefully. The stone that supported the beam sat wedged about half way up a steep wall of tumbled rock; nearby, a rubble pile rose past the joining point. She could climb that—probably.

Carefully, she started her way up, her progress slowed by impassible items and lack of visibility. Plus, with her hands bound she had to climb in tiny, halting steps. At last she reached the beam and placed her hands on it lightly. No tingling. She exhaled with relief; now was not the time to go exploring in dreams with glowing eyes.

She pressed a little more firmly. The beam didn't budge, and a new worry entered her mind. What if she proved too weak to start the collapse when the time came?

She rooted around nearby, looking for something to be used as leverage. All she found was bits of broken stone interspersed with splinters of wood and lots of dust. At last, she stumbled on something cold and smooth. Bending down, she brushed it with a finger. She heard of metal, a rare and expensive material; one that nomads couldn't afford.

She didn't have time to explore its particularities. She pulled the long, smooth—whatever it was—loose and felt her way back to the beam. Wedging one end beneath the stone, she dug it in as far as she could, while keeping an ear open for the king's man. An echoing crash alerted her to his presence before he ran, limping heavily, into view. The demon right on his heels. Aya found herself cheering for the warrior, mentally urging him forward. Come on, just a little farther.

She pressed on the metal hard, hefting at it with her whole weight. Nothing happened. Demon spit. The beast was going to kill the poor man in front of her. She pulled, hanging her body off the makeshift lever. Finally, it cracked and things began to shift. Stone ground upon stone and the noise echoed down into the passage. It slipped downward, but her timing was off.

The king's man glanced up, he immediately grasped the situation and turned, waging his sword and slowing the demon's approach. He forced it into an ideal position just as the beam—and several layers of stone—crashed down, pinning it.

For a long while, the cavern filled with the sound of crumbling and settling debris. The king's man, covered in a layer of dust that rivaled parts of the steppes, looked up at her, eyebrows drawn together. His face paled, and blood still seeped down his thigh.

“Thank you,” he said at last.

His words were punctuated with the sound of scrabbling from beneath the beam. He looked back, fear evident on his dusty features.

“Time to go,” she told him, sliding over her pile a little recklessly and coming to rest near his battered leg. He flinched away from her clumsy approach. She didn't wait for him to react, but worked herself beneath his arm. He started to pull away, but another bout of noise from the pile behind him changed his mind.

Together, they moved forward quickly, stumbling over loose bits and adjusting positions frequently. Fully armored men were heavy.

To add to their troubles, the man weakened. By the time they reached the slide that led into the cavern, Aya struggled to support the majority of his weight. She stopped and eyed the incline distrustfully. They would never make it up on their own.

They struggled together valiantly, and managed part of the climb before the man seemed to sense, at last, the hopelessness. He was dragging his left leg rather than lifting it and, in his weakness, he could barely move his right. He sat in a patch of moonlight that filtered in from the tunnels; the storm had passed with the same abruptness that it had started.