The Soul Forge by Andrew Lashway Read Free Book Online Page B

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    “Where we goin’?” he finally said, and his voice carried every ounce of his regret.
    “That way,” the woman pointed, “towards the stained glass on the left of the stairs.”
    Thomas immediately started runni ng in the direction that she pointed. The window in question was the picture of the King, holding in one hand a golden scepter while in the other he was casting out a dark figure covered in black and purple – the Dark Priest, Thomas had to assume.
    The woman smashed the picture to shards with the butt of a sword.
    “Here,” she said, offering the weapon to Thomas.
    “Sorry ma’am. I’m not a fighter. I’d end up impaling myself if I had a sword.”
    The woman shrugged in response and disappeared into the dark confines of the castle. Taking a deep breath, Thomas reluctantly followed her. Instantly, they were surrounded by darkness. Thomas looked around, but he couldn’t see more than a foot or two ahead of him.
    A hand grabbed his, and he jumped on reflex.
    “Do you always scare this easily?” the now-familiar voice of the woman asked with a chuckle.
    “Not usually,” Thomas replied, trying to get his heart rate back down to normal.
    “Well, we need to get something so we can see. It’s far too dark down here.”
    Thomas silently agreed, looking around even though he still couldn’t see anything. He could only follow the sound of her footfalls, echoing in the chamber they found themselves. How the woman knew where to go was anyone’s guess, and Thomas wasn’t foolish enough to break the silence and ask.
    The darkness was pressing in on Thomas, speeding up his heart rate as he tried to control his breathing. To make matters worse, he kept tripping over stuff that littered the ground, round things that felt like stone and other objects that cracked when they stepped through them. Between the two of them, they were about as stealthy as an agitated horse.
    Then he heard a noise that didn’t belong to him or the woman. It was a low hiss, like something from an animal .
    “You hear that?” Thomas whispered.
    “Yeah,” the woman immediately replied. For the first time, he heard a note of fear creep into her voice. “I wish I could see.”
    “Didn’t happen to bring a torch, did you?” Thomas asked. Her pointed silence was all the answer he needed. Then a new thought struck him, one that he wasn’t too keen on exploiting. But the hissing was growing louder, and so was the knot in Thomas’ stomach. If they couldn’t see, then they had no chance of making it out of this basement.
    Thomas took a deep breath and struck his hands together, sliding them back and forth like he was trying to warm them. Just as he thought, sparks erupted from where his hands continually met.
    The woman didn’t show her surprise (not that he would have seen it if she had) but she did let out what at first sounded like a squeak.
    “You’re a magic-caster,” she said. It wasn’t a question, and Thomas didn’t feel the need to answer it anyway. Instead, he kept rubbing his hands together, using the very frail light to keep a lookout for where they were going.
    Then he used it to check where they had been, and he had to stifle a scream.
    He caught the brief glimpse of a skull on the ground, smiling up at him, before a hand reached out and attempted to take his. Startled, he turned away and pushed the woman and shouted, “run!”
    They did just that, not bothering to try and watch their path but simply seeking escape. The hissing grew louder still, and both of them stopped as the noise reached their ears.
    Thomas leaned forward hazardously and rubbed his hands together again, as fast as he could. Sparks erupted from his hands that he lit up the entire room for only a moment. What they saw was terrifying.
    They were completely surrounded by… things.
    They looked mostly humanoid, but they just weren’t. Their skin looked wooden and they were naked, and where there should have been eyes there were only black