“Will someone please listen?” Hop’s hoof slammed against the stone floor with a resounding crack. The noise spurred a wave of hushed murmurs amongst the surrounding voices, but did nothing to earn an engaged audience. Hop spoke with the telltale waver of someone who really didn’t want to do the talking. Alas, as no one else in his group was volunteering, it was either talk or fight, and Hop would do just about anything to avoid the latter. “There’s been a mistake. We are not who you think we are. We didn’t mean to trespass. If you would just return our pack, we’ll go back the way we came.”

The dwarf spokesperson, having previously identified himself as Bromm, communicated this to the others. Evidently it wasn’t what the mob wanted to hear. Their voices raised in volume, until the entire room was one loud, buzzing din.

Danger hung in the air. Tempers on both sides flared as the tension steadily built within the cramped room until it was thick enough to choke on. And yet, even with danger looming over their heads, poised to strike down the moment someone ventured a step too far, Faris still could not help but point out the painfully obvious. “This isn’t working.”

“I’m trying my best,” Hop said. “Feel free to jump in any time now.”

“I know you’re doing your best. It’s not you I’m frustrated with.” The white faun’s blurry shape paced back and forth as he spoke. “How many more times do we have to repeat ‘we’re not here to save your asses’ before someone finally gets it!”

Rasp was the only one still sitting. Hop and Faris’s respective shapes were closest to him, huddled together, attempting to plot their way to freedom without having to rely on violence. It was going as well as expected. Squinting, Rasp was fairly certain he could make out June’s lithe silhouette further down. For the moment, she remained in human form, which was good. There was a chance the cult didn’t yet know they had a shapeshifter on their hands. It could play to their advantage if things went downhill.

Rasp snapped back into the conversation when he heard Faris shout, “Just give us our pack and we’ll go!”

Spokesperson Bromm and Priestess Oreword held a heated exchange before the former’s voice boomed back across the room with such force it rattled the rafters overhead. “If you wish to go, then so be it. But the Kriegaar stays.”

Of the many, many things Whisper hated, being kept as property ranked at the very tippy top of the list. Having escaped enslavement once before, Rasp knew his mentor would rather die than serve another master so long as they lived. Better yet, Whisper would prefer others to die. Which failed to explain why the fae hadn’t yet burst from the pack and laid waste to their cult captors.

Hop and Faris’s voices muddled together as Rasp bowed his head and drew within himself. The few hours of sleep had done his body good. After minimal prodding, his sixth sense flickered to life and swept the room in search of magical auras. It passed over Hop and June’s familiar energy signatures, drawn like a moth to flame to an aura Rasp had not seen before. The magic burned brighter than anyone else’s in the room. Ripples of silver lifted from squat shape and dispersed into the darkness beyond.

Priestess Oreword, he realized, drawing in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. While it was impossible to determine the extent of her abilities from his sixth sense alone, the sheer magnitude of power wafting from her aura was enough to convince Rasp that it wasn’t necessary to find out. There wasn’t any reason to fight. After all, as Hop insisted, they could solve their differences peacefully. So long as peacefully involved snatching the pack and sprinting their way back to the surface as quickly as possible.

Rasp moved on from the priestess in search of his mentor’s telltale blue glow. His heart sank when he found it. Whisper’s energy burned low, flickering in out like the last stubborn nub of candlewick. No wonder Whisper hadn’t interfered. They were barely alive. It would not be long, Rasp feared, before the fae had nothing left to burn.

Rasp blinked his aura vision away and stood. His head protested the sudden shift and sent a wave of dizziness that nearly dropped his ass back onto the ground. Someone caught him, fortunately. What was even more fortunate was the fact that it was the same someone to whom he wished to speak.

“Faris.” Rasp kept his voice purposely low. Only the Bromm appeared versed in the common tongue. With all the hubbub going on around them, the dwarf was unlikely to overhear. “What are our chances of making a run for it?”

“We’re trapped on the third story, Rasp,” Faris hissed back. “They’ve got us surrounded. How are we going to manage that if we can’t even get to the door?”

Rasp flexed his fingers, taking stock of his reserves. His magic had returned. Not completely, of course, but Rasp was certain he had enough stamina to attempt something stupid. He tilted his head at the faint blue-green glow coming from what he assumed was the outside. He’d mistaken for a window, initially. But along with the return of his faculties came the realization that the opening was far too big to be a mere window. “Am I wrong in thinking that’s a balcony?”

“It is.”

“Is it open?”

“What does that have to do with anything? So what if it is? Are we proposing we jump?” There was a thoughtful pause before Faris realized this was indeed what Rasp was proposing. “You can’t be serious.”

“Remember the time I flew you over the forest? I got us safely back to the ground all in one piece then, didn’t I?”

“Barely! And that was just me. There are two others you’d have to carry, all at once, not to mention the fact that we don’t have Whisper.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

All good points. Rasp, naturally, ignored the bulk of them. “That’s why you’re going to steal Whisper back, Dingle. And then we’ll jump.”

“Not happening.”

“Think about it. The dwarfs have got us surrounded. They know they have the advantage. Even if you grab the pack, they’re not expecting you to go anywhere with it. Only an idiot would jump out the window.”

“I want you to think about what you just said.”

“Steal the pack, Faris.”

“No.” Faris blew a breath of hot air out his nostrils. “You do it.”

It took all of Rasp’s control not to throw his hands out at his sides in exasperation. Not making a scene, as it turned out, was extremely difficult to do when your supposed best friend refused to listen to reason. “I think it’s pretty fucking obvious why I’m not the right person for the job.”

“Because you’ll be too busy jumping out a window?” Faris replied.

Fuck it. This wasn’t getting anywhere. If you wanted something done, you had to outsource it to someone who asked as few questions as possible. “June?” Rasp whipped his head in his sister’s direction. “Grab my bag.”

“On it!”

“June, no!” Faris shouted after her.

By then it was too late, of course. The human’s sinewy form had already bounded across the room and seized her prize from Priestess Oreword. “Got it! Now what?”

“Grab onto Hop.” Rasp linked arms with both fauns, one on either side of him. He barreled forward, dragging them with him. “Let’s go!”

Hop’s attempt to struggle free was pathetic at best. He seemed to realize that whatever Rasp was planning, they were doing regardless of his feelings on the matter. “What’s going on? What are we doing?”

Rasp raced for the balcony. He pulled them through the rotted doorway and onto the ledge of stone jutting out over the exterior of the building. “We’re jumping!”

“There’s no wind underground!” Faris screamed.

Rasp’s legs curled beneath him as his feet pushed off into the air, propelling them up and over what remained of the railing. “What?”

“You use wind to fly, idiot! There’s no wind underground!”

Oh.

Shit.

The gravely screech of shifting stone rumbled from the streetway below. The group’s sudden plummet was impeded by the mound of rubble that rose up to catch them halfway. Pain shot up Rasp’s legs as his feet struck the slippery stone. He yelped, lost his balance, and fell, pulling everyone else with him as he tumbled helplessly down the rocky outcrop.

Faris recovered first. He yanked Rasp to his feet, snapping, “Thank you for not letting us die, but could you have picked something a little less painful?”

Rasp’s eyes darting back and forth across the dimly lit gloom, legs trembling. “That wasn’t me.”

Faris pulled him into an awkward run. From the fast, squelching footsteps paces ahead, Rasp assumed Hop and June had taken the lead. Admittedly, it was difficult to tell now that Hop’s headlamp had gone out. Probably for the best though, considering they wanted to make it as difficult to follow them as possible.

“That wasn’t you?” Faris repeated. “What was your plan then?”

Attempting to talk in the middle of a full sprint after having tumbled down a mountain of rubble was not doing Rasp’s fraying temper any favors. His blood boiled as hot as the scuffed skin on nose. “I don’t know. I froze, okay?”

“You were just going to let us die?”

“Can you two do this later?” Hop called over his shoulder. “They’re going to be on us any second now. Yelling is only going to give our position away.”

Apparently Faris was only willing to listen to reason when it came from someone else. The faun shut his infernal gob and focused on not running Rasp face-first into a wall. The ancient buildings passed by in a nauseating blur of pulsing lights and shadows. It was having a strobe effect on Rasp’s poor vision, rendering him even more confused than he already was. He clung to Faris’s elbow, knowing if they got separated he would never find his way out on his own.

They were rounding what felt like the umpteenth corner when something struck out at Rasp and wrapped around his ankle. It cinched tighter, drawing blood as it yanked his feet out from under him. Rasp slammed onto his stomach with a wet splatter. The snare around his ankle tightened, snaking further up his legs as it did so, anchoring itself into his skin with what felt like barbed teeth. It started to pull, dragging him backwards through the slime-coated muck.

The tried and true Stoneclaw instinct to fight to the death kicked in at last. Rasp flipped over, snapping the dagger strapped to his side and started hacking away at the thorny vine entangled around his ankle. He felt the tendril writhe as it switched its hold to avoid the cold steel. Rasp kept cutting, ignoring the wet splatter that marked his face and clothes as he reduced it to pieces. With one final hacking cut, he severed the vine’s hold and kicked it away in disgust.

Blood and plant matter oozed down his battered leg as Rasp staggered to his feet. He could hear screaming all around, the voices of his friends echoed off the stone structure, calling from all sides. The mix of sound, strobing lights, and adrenaline clouded his head. Rasp stumbled blindly forward, unable to pinpoint the location of others.

Confused, Rasp didn’t register the approaching hooves until he was already caught in Faris’s grasp, being dragged in the opposite direction at a speed born of pure desperation. “This way!” Faris said.

Rasp gritted his teeth as bolts of pain lanced up his injured leg. He persisted, slamming his heels against the soft ground in order to keep pace. The sounds of the scuffle grew fainter behind them. “What was the fuck was that?”

“Vines, I think? But they were alive?” Faris sounded as though he didn’t believe what he’d seen with his own eyes.

“Where are the others?”

“I couldn’t get them out in time.”

“We’re just leaving them?” The guttural roar of a bear rang out in the distance. Rasp tried to pull free from Faris’s iron grasp. “Faris, this isn’t right. We can’t just leave them. We have to go back.”

“The dwarfs were already cutting them loose when I grabbed you. They won’t harm them, not while we have the pack.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Whisper, if you could fucking wake up right now, it would be really helpful!” Rasp didn’t expect an answer, so it wasn’t really much of a surprise when he didn’t receive one.

“The pack’s our only bargaining chip,” Faris carried one. He was obviously talking out loud as a means to calm his own nerves because it wasn’t like Rasp had anything helpful to contribute. “If they catch us, then we have nothing. We have to stay ahead of them. Hole up somewhere safe and then—”

The last of Faris’s words turned into a scream as his arm jerked free from Rasp’s grasp.