Phoenix Rising by Ryk E Spoor Read Free Book Online

and he really wished he could have some light, but even if he’d carried a torch or something with him, he would’ve needed a way to carry the sword at the same time . . . and using a light in here might call attention to anyone at the other end. No, just squirm along and let my skin and my sword guide me.
    After several minutes of scuttling and wriggling through the dark side passage, he began to see a dim light. A few moments more and he was at a small opening in the side of a much larger tunnel. Sniffing, he could catch the smell of heated rock, snake musk, the undefinable spicy aroma he associated with large insectoids. Same caverns! He peeked cautiously up and down the cave; nothing in sight except greenish lightglobes stuck to the walls at intervals. He moved out and chose to move to the left; that was the direction he thought the main ritual chamber was in.
    He moved very cautiously, sword out, even though he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he were caught. A swing with any of their weapons will cut me in half. I need to do this sneakily. He remembered that wandering mage giving him some general pointers on magic, and one fact stuck in his mind: the crucial importance of the array or symbol used for a ritual or summoning. That gives me a real strategy. Sort of. Well, it’s really more of an idea for what I want to get done. Is that strategy? No, I have to get those monsters out of the room, or at least confused and moving around to get away with it. And I have to do it without them seeing. Now . . . how am I . . .
    Suddenly he became aware of multiple footfalls behind him. Duckweed glanced around in panic. Can’t get back to the hole! The cavern was rough but there were no rocks to hide behind, no open doorways (two closed ones, but the latches were far above him and the fit of the doors far too tight to squeeze under).
    Only one chance. He pushed up against the wall and squatted down, seeing vague shadows just starting to come around the gentle bend. Oh, drought and dust, my sword . . .
    There was no time to do any thing fancy; he stuck the sword underneath him and sat on it. Please don’t look down, don’t look down . . . or if you do, just see nothing unusual . . .
    Three figures moved down the rough corridor. One was a mazakh , said to be a cross between snake and demon, a venomous reptilian creature on two legs that moved like a striking snake, a long, flexible tail trailing behind it. The other two were ant-headed, with savage cutting mandibles, and armored black-and-red chitinous bodies that also stood on two legs, but had no tails, but did have hard-polished wingcases.
    The three were talking quietly and moving purposefully towards the far end of the corridor—where, he suspected, the ritual was taking place—when one of the insectoids’ glittering compound eyes swept the area lower down. With a sudden chittering hiss it shrank away from Duckweed, causing its companions to instantly draw weapons and look around for the cause of the panic.
    Duckweed resisted the almost overwhelming urge to pull out the sword. Not a chance. If they just don’t notice the hilt . . .
    The mazakh hissed something and then smacked the insectoid that had seen Duckweed with the flat of his blade. “Idiot. That’s the third one I’ve seen here this week. Not like the ones we’ve been capturing. Of course, if you want to waste your time . . .”
    The insectoid chirp-rattled something which somehow sounded sheepishly apologetic, and the three went on, having decided that he was just another harmless native of the cavern.
    Which, Duckweed thought as he was slowly allowing himself to breathe again, isn’t all that unusual.
    After all . . . I’m just a Toad.

5

    Once his heart slowed to normal, Duckweed looked up at the doors. Have to get through the one . . . or the other, maybe. Wonder what’s through there? He’d seen that the door at the end of the corridor was, as he’d suspected, one of the two into the big cavern. He