" Easy?" asked Lan. " What do you mean, easy? We fought for our very lives back there. We could have been killed at any instant." The dull pain in his calf told him exactly how near a brush with death he' d had. He didn' t like Inyx even thinking it had been too easy to escape from Waldron' s treachery.
Yet:
A thought niggled. He felt something amiss, though not the ease of their escape. At every turn, he had expected Velika to appear, breathless and flushed, newly escaped from Waldron' s clutches. Some minor detail relating to the blond woman and Waldron bothered him. The expression on the man' s face as his hand touched Velika' s tears. Unconsciously, Lan rubbed his own fingers over his grimy, bloodstained tunic, then stopped guiltily, as if caught at some unclean act. The confidence Waldron had shown had been wiped out in an instant- turned to confusion- by the blond woman. Lan couldn' t figure out what that meant. He' d reacted similarly to her when they' d first talked in the field, after he' d rescued her from a life of slavery in some merchant' s pleasure den. When he had time, he would have to put this perplexing reaction to Velika to serious thought, but now his entire energies had to be directed toward staying alive.
The courtyard was denuded of all but the small weeds growing at the periphery; nothing stirred but tiny dust devils whirling mindlessly across the barren ground. The wind whistled ominously through the pile of stone and glass comprising the castle and its battements, but not a human sound was to be heard.
" Have they deserted this fine castle?" asked Krek. " I might enjoy spinning my web from yon tower to this point and then over to the central keep. Not a large web, barely fifty miles of strands, but enough to satisfy me in my old age."
Lan hobbled forward, sword in hand, peering up at the towers, expecting the glint of sunlight off an unguarded crossbow or helm or sword tip. All humanity had been stripped from this now- desolate place. A chill crept up his spine and made his hand tremble. If Waldron had abandoned the castle in favor of another- or another world- Velika would be with the self- appointed Saviour. Lan might never find her in the myriad worlds of chance along the Cenotaph Road. A needle in the ocean was simple to find in comparison; a magnet attracted iron. But what magnet drew Velika if she were lost among the probabilities of all the worlds?
" The Kinetic Sphere is still in its chamber," he said suddenly. " Waldron wouldn' t abandon it. He must still be here. But why the emptiness?"
" Perphas he feels the need to expand or loot to further fuel his own world with goods for their coming winter," opined Krek. " If I were not so tired, I would consider leaving right away and tending my own affairs. My web must be in gross disrepair by now. The hatchlings are not up to tending it now that I am absent and Klawn searches for me. Ah, Klawn," he moaned softly, " where are you?"
" Krek, please, not so loud. They said something about her escaping from their dungeons. You might inadvertently call her."
" Do I deserve more justice than she is likely to dispense? No! I shirked my duties, a cowardly thing to do. But this obscene desire to see more of the world seized me again and pulled me away at a crucial time." The spider shrank down in size until hardly more than a large rock. Lan didn' t bother trying to cheer up the disconsolate spider. He had learned nothing worked well, but Inyx continued to cajole the creature.
" Krek, please, for me. We' ve got to get out of here. I feel a trap. Spin a strand for us over the wall so we won' t have to go through the main portal. Please." She stroked the spider' s hairy legs until he actually shivered with joy.
" No one needs me. You would be better off to look for another means of escape. Dependence on my feeble talents will lead only to ruin."
" Nonsense, Krek. You' re one of us, part of the team. The three of us belong together. Together, we can defeat Waldron and his whole damned army!" Inyx waved her sword around with wild abandon until Lan cringed. And he didn' t much care for the way the woman limited their number to only three. Velika made the fourth. Just because she was held captive didn' t mean her heart wasn' t with them and their efforts to defeat Waldron and walk the Road.
Yet the niggling thought made him wonder. Did her love for him extend that far? Lan didn' t know. He was no longer certain of his own love for the blonde at times.
" Oh, very well. This one time only. I simply have not the strength to do more." The spider made a coughing noise preparatory to spewing out the sticky strand of web- stuff, but he paused as he took aim on one of the crenelations along the battlement. " I fear I dallied too long. Company of a winged variety approaches, and quickly."
Lan strained his eyes against the sky and finally saw several hard black dots moving slowly. Predicting where the specks flew proved impossible because of the angle, but Lan felt a sinking feeling that these black birds were winging to stop them. No matter where Waldron had gone, his feathered bodyguards adequately protected the castle from all invaders.
" Inside the great hall," he urged, pointing toward the central keep. " If we can prevent them from entering, we stand a chance to kill them one by one."
Inyx snorted as if she didn' t believe him. Lan didn' t blame her for the skepticism; his own faith flagged dramatically upon finding the castle deserted after the fight required to win free from the chamber cradling the Kinetic Sphere. Better to meet Waldron face to face than to fight off the droves of those evil black ravens. The first hit and sent him stumbling before he had covered half the distance to the doorway. The next streaked down and left ugly, bloody tracks across his shoulders. A third almost clawed off his ear with a mighty swoop that caused the bird' s pinions to creak and snap under the strain.
" Hurry, Lan," said Inyx, standing in the doorway, one hand sweeping an arc over her head to keep the darting ravens at bay. " I' m not going to come and pick you up!"
The words galled him. Pick him up! Power flooded into his injured leg, and he propelled himself in a flat drive through the door. He skittered along the polished floor and collided with a wall, his teeth snapping together hard enough to give him a bone- jarring wrench. The torn remnants of two ravens told him that Krek had already beaten him to the cleanup detail. Blood dripped from the mighty pincers and glued small black feathers to the hard, serrated surfaces.
" Did I do that smartly enough for you, highness?" he asked sarcastically. " I wouldn' t want to delay you more than a few seconds in your noble quest to beat a cowardly retreat."
" Cowardly!" snarled Inyx. " Stupid is what you are to want the likes of Velika. Can' t you see her for what she is? Pah! I want to return to the Road and leave an oaf like you behind."
" And I will go with you, for a short while, if you will allow it, Inyx," said Krek. " I tire of all this petty bickering over the lumpy female."
Lan felt sheepish as he propped himself against the stone wall. Krek was right. He was being churlish.
" No more arguing?" he said, holding out his hand. Inyx hesitated, then took it firmly in her own.
" None."
" Then how shall we ever decide how to get past all those filthy ravens? You humans do nothing without arguing."
Lan only sighed.
" We are not alone," was Krek' s appraisal. " I hear the ravens beating themselves senseless against the door, and there is another sound deep in the halls, a slight noise hardly worthy of mention. But I note it solely in the event you missed it." Krek spread his long legs, claws biting into the stony walls.
Lan exchanged glances with Inyx, then drew his sword again. Perhaps this was an enemy who' d die by the sword, unlike the flapping cloud of gnatlike birds outside. Lan silently railed against the ravens, then tottered and weakly put his hand out to maintain balance. The building swung in a large arc, making him so dizzy he fought down the giddiness it brought.