Read Online Down a Lost Road by J. Leigh Bralick - Free Book Online

we going to do
with that?”
    “ We get out.”
    “ Get out, how? We’re sort
of locked in here.”
    “ I won’t let you be taken
before Azik,” he said fiercely.
    He frowned a little, his eyes barely
flickering up toward me. After a moment he nodded toward the
window.
    “ See if you can pry the
bars out. All but one, the leftmost one.”
    I stood on my tiptoes and took hold of one
of the bars. It seemed a little loose, so, ignoring the ache of my
wrists, I wriggled it in its socket until it started pulling free.
I braced one foot against the wall and tugged as hard as I could,
and collapsed in a shower of dust with the bar in my hand. I sat
stunned, shaking my head to get the bits of stone out of my
hair.
    Yatol glanced over with a strange amused
smile – a brief break in his dark concentration – while I tried to
recover my dignity by calmly brushing my hair back from my face. He
was laughing at me. I glowered but he had already turned
back to the rope and didn’t see it. I managed to get the other two
bars out, and by the time I finished, Yatol had woven all the
straws into one long, smooth rope. I watched him secure it to the
remaining bar, test the knot, and toss the coil out the window.
    “ Come after me,” he said,
and pulled himself onto the ledge.
    “ Won’t the bar come out?” I
cried. “We just dismantled half a wall of this stuff!”
    “ This bar will hold. Or did
you think I’ve been idle while I waited for you?”
    “ Waited for
me…?”
    I’d only been gone half a day, and probably
not more than half an hour in the dark chamber. How long could he
have been waiting? But he only met my gaze in silence, then slid
one leg over the edge of the casement.
    “ Yatol! Wait, stop. It’s so
thin. It’s just straw! It can’t hold!”
    “ Trust me,” he said, and
was gone.
    I vaulted up onto the ledge and clung to the
bar, hoping to keep it secure as he made his way down. He soon
reached the ground, but my stomach flipped as I watched the rope
tossing back and forth, the sands rolling like the surf on a windy
day. I shuddered and took the cord firmly in both hands, and
lowered myself out. Sweat beaded on my face, mingling with blood
and matted dirt and streaming down. My eyes stung but I couldn’t
let go to rub them. I blinked fiercely and concentrated on what I
was doing.
    I’ve never been one for rope climbing. In
all the gym classes I’d ever taken, I could only remember one time
I’d managed to get to the top and back down again, without making
the teacher climb up and coax me down. I wasn’t particularly afraid
of heights, when I was on solid ground. This was anything but solid
ground.
    I stared at my hands and refused to look
down, but my arms began to shake, burning with the effort. My
wrists, sore already, felt like they were breaking. I swung like a
deadweight, while my arms seized with that terrible paralysis. I
can’t, I thought, mouthing the words. I can’t. But I was
too afraid of the Ungulion to say it aloud.
    My gaze strayed downward to Yatol. I could
barely make out his features, pale and worried. My hands were
exhausted, my palms raw. It was all I could do to keep hold of the
rough fibers of the rope. I took a deep breath and lowered myself a
little way, then a little more. The rope creaked, and I thought I
felt the tiny tremor of a breaking strand. I tried to brace my foot
on the wall, but it slipped on the slick stones and the jolt nearly
made me fall. Sheer terror seized me. I had to get down. Or back
up. But I couldn’t go back, no matter how much I wanted to be on
solid ground. Yatol was waiting for me below. And above? Ungulion.
Azik.
    I managed to get nearly halfway down when
the hideous sound came again, the droning wail that shook the bar
and made the rope quiver in my hands. An Ungulion leaned over the
casement, face contorted with fury. Its rotten skeletal hands
groped out, plucking at the rope with sharp nails. All fear of the
rope fled and I climbed down at a