Realm Raiders – Chapter 3

Yas Vitroy split her attention between the crackling mess of a portal and the alien cavern ahead, leaning against a wall of black crystal. She’d adopted a bored pose, arms folded, a foot against the wall, but lost her scowl when her daft companions failed to come through right away.

She got distracted by the tunnel’s walls, like polished obsidian or hematite. The tunnel’s eerie light came not just from the portal but from somewhere further off, reflected across the shiny walls. That and the oddly finger-like stalactites and stalagmites indicated it was not home. Damon had screwed up again, and if he didn’t come through soon, Yas was stuck here alone.

Something chirruped, a birdlike noise that echoed through the cave, and Yas stared accusingly towards it. Birds didn’t belong in caves. She checked the portal again, considered going back through – but Nicky finally tore out of it, stumbling into a wall and bouncing off. Yas stepped out of the way rather than risk being knocked down, and the necromancer spun towards her. Her expression was stricken, wide-eyed.

‘He’s right behind me!’ she said.

‘I bloody hope so.’ Yas smiled with sweet malice. ‘Because we need that idiot to actually get us home, exciting as this mysterious cave is.’

‘Not Damon.’ Nicky moved away from the portal, clutching her rubber duck.

Yas folded her arms again, ready to tell her to grow up, but another shape formed in the still-swirling portal.

‘Leprechaun!’ Nicky’s shriek made Yas shriek too, and then, caution be damned, they were sprinting side by side away from the diminutive figure.

‘This way!’ Yas cried, seeing a fork in the tunnel and taking the lead. She was taller and faster than Nicky, with the fumblesome mage’s superfluous gowns and charms, so she had a duty to lead – into a tighter tunnel of arching crystal, up an incline. Up was good; up meant out. Except the cave wound around and narrowed, its reflective light still bouncing from sources unknown.

Another chirrup vibrated past them. Louder.

‘What was that?’ Nicky cried as Yas slowed.

A gruff shout prevented Yas from a witty rejoiner: the cursed leprechaun, more pissed than ever.

‘There!’ Yas pointed to a gap in the wall. She skidded into another passage just like the last. Her heart beat hard as she ran, reserves running low. She was a sprinter, not a distance runner, good only in small doses. Summed her up entirely, really. She turned another corner to press herself against a wall. Catching her breath, she pulled Nicky into cover and gave her a warning look to be quiet. They listened as the leprechaun’s feet thumped down another tunnel. He was moving away – they’d lost him, for now.

Calming herself, recovering the energy to speak, Yas whispered, ‘He sounds ridiculously heavy, doesn’t he?’

Nicky glowered, breathing deeply to catch her breath, too. She looked even worse than Yas felt.

‘Do you think leprechauns have denser muscles than us?’ Yas went on, to distract her, ease the mood. ‘Or special bones? I mean, one look at him, you know that guy could tackle a rhino. He was like a bloody bulldog.’

Nicky averted her eyes, wearily supporting herself with one hand against the wall, willing Yas to stop. But Yas had long accepted that her main power in these situations was distraction, and Nicky clearly needed some encouragement.

‘Doesn’t feel right running from someone the size of a child, does it? I kind of want to push him over and steal his lunch money.’ Yas paused. ‘Well, I guess we already stole his money. Tell me you still have the coin.’

‘Shut up,’ Nicky huffed at last.

‘Oh, cheer up, we got away, didn’t we?’

The necromancer glared with red-eyed warning, though, and Yas realised things were somehow worse than she knew.

‘What’s going on? Did you lose the coin? Wait. Where’s Damon?’

Nicky’s trembling eyes gave part of the answer and Yas felt her chest tighten. Was he hurt? Left behind? Gone? The black walls seemed to close in, the possibility that there was no way out.

‘No. He can’t be –’

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Realm Raiders Chapter Four lands on Spotlight Indie on 29^th May

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