Swinging my daggers over my head, I slammed them into the jagged edge of the blasted rock. The blades didn't quite run smoothly through the stone as if it were butter, and an intense jarring sensation vibrated through the dagger to rattle my bones and loosen my grip. Fuuuk!

But they sank in and held and I hung by the hilts, my body swinging with the crazed momentum.

Tipping my head back, I squinted up into the gaping hole overhead. My gaze sharpened on the smoothness of the upper portion of the hole, the symmetry of it, the elbow bend at the very crown of the hole. This wasn't random, nor a simple frantic act of escape, there was a second tunnel up there and the creature had blasted the hidden entrance to it open.

And Yezekael was scrambling into the tunnel.

I twisted my head and body aside as stones were dislodged by the creature's rough movements and rattled down the hole, falling past me. He disappeared quickly from sight when he entered the escape tunnel that ran horizontally through the catacombs.

Yanking a dagger free, I punched a hole higher up the gouged rock.

I burst into rapid motion, repeating the movement—

Crack, crack, crack—

Using brute strength and agility to punch my blades through stone—

To haul myself swiftly upward.

Reaching the very top I clambered onto the ledge and rolled to safety. Huffing for breath, I slipped the daggers back into their sheaths before I twisted over to rise unsteadily to my feet. The tunnel was wide but it didn't give me much headroom. I had to bend my torso over to avoid smacking my head on the low ceiling of the passageway. I shoved forward, my posture cumbersome, which slowed my speed considerably. Yezekael, I imagined, was scrambling on all fours like a cockroach. The sound of his escape became more and more distant as he pulled away.

Indeed, young Crowther, he's far ahead—grumbled the Uzrek.

Hellsgate!

My boots slammed along the rocky terrain as I ran, cursing myself. I couldn't stretch my legs long. I couldn't pick up my usual speed. I traversed tunnel after tunnel, panting for breath. It seemed like all I'd fucking done today was run. My thigh muscles burned and my lungs caught fire, sweat drizzling down my spine. I hurtled around pin bends, ducked lower to avoid overhanging rock, and wove through twists and turns. I pounded up slopes and fell to my knees to crawl my way through shallow tunnels before clambering to my feet and pushing onward.

Shit, shit, shit...

I slowed my speed when I realized the tunnel split into three possible choices ahead of me. Which way had Yezekael gone?

The Uzrek entered my mind—The left, young Crowther.

I threw myself down the left tunnel, careering into a faster pace, the steady thump of my boots on stone slapping against the rounded walls. The rush of air raked cool fingers across my face, tossing my sweaty hair from my forehead. Darkness streamed by and time became meaningless. On and on I ran and Nelle was with me, pushing through my focus, taking up residence in my mind.

That strange animalistic side of me hissed with fury, an unspoken demand that I stop what I was doing, spin around, and find her. I had no idea what the fuck was happening at the Keep, but a rippling sea of unease and anger kept me company as I chased Yezekael.

You need to move faster!—urged the Uzrek.

I needed this creature.

If he got away, then all was lost.

I can't... I can't...

I can't lose Yezekael...

Not now. Not when I was so close to capturing it.

Nelle's unease shifted into arrogant pride to itch along my bones. I pushed hard, forcing Nelle's emotions back down deep. I had to keep my thoughts on the task. Capturing Yezekael was right there, right within my reach.

Faster. I needed to move faster.

Relief flowed through my bloodstream as the tunnel grew wider and taller, giving me the headroom I desperately needed. My spine straightened. I stretched my legs long. And I was gone with renewed energy, exploding into an aggressive speed.

My mind emptied itself of everything but the lesser creature before me.

All that remained in my head was the rhythmic thud, thud, thud of my heart drumming in my ears. Nothing else existed but the task at hand, the smell of blood in the air, the adrenaline pulsing through my veins.

My focus was deadly and honed. An ancient thrumming. A fierce snarl as if I were a savage beast, something that smoldered with banked fury and wanted out.

There was a smile in the Uzrek's voice when he hissed—Good, Wyrm Tamer. You're gaining on him.

I burst into an enormous cavern with a roof that sloped to a hole at its very center which seemed almost as if it were a chimney flue. This was the same cavern I'd dashed across earlier on my way to catch up with my team and the Văduvas. Faint light poured from the hole in the roof and glanced off the water dripping from its innards. An escape route—I was sure of it. The sloped cavern was ringed with holes like a beehive. And there was Yezekael, directly ahead of me, moving across the vast cave on all fours and scuttling fast.

I shot across the cavern fast, my loud, rapid footfall echoing through the massive chamber.

Yezekael glanced over his shoulder and those brown-rimmed pupils dilated with fear. The loud scrape of claws on rock scratched my ears as he pushed himself upright, half twisting around to hurl at me a handful of something small that thrummed with dark magic.

They sliced through the air, fast, deadly.

Wrenching my shoulders aside, I narrowly avoided being hit. One skimmed my cheek and burned a graze across the flesh. Behind me the weapons struck the ground and rock exploded like a tidal wave crashing along a shoreline. Stone rained down in a noisy thunder. Smoke swirled outward to sting my nostrils and heat burned my back. The ground shook and trembled, knocking my balance.

I flung my arms wide to steady myself. A snarl loosened from my throat. My brows drew over my gaze pinned with determination on Yezekael. I pumped my arms like pistons. Damp strands of hair blustered across my forehead as I pushed my pace faster, my boots slamming on the rocky floor like gunfire.

I was a bracing wind coursing across the cavern. A storm-edged arrow.

Yezekael spread his wings wide.

Fear tangled with rage that he should dare to take flight.

Yezekael sprung upward, his wings sweeping down. The downward draft of stirred air gusted through the cavern and knocked against my body.

He launched upward. His wings swept up and down to pound the air, to propel his ascension. He flew through darkness, through drizzling water, heading to the gaping hole.

Horror rushed down the back of my neck, along my limbs, chilling the pit of my stomach. If he reaches the hole in the cavern's roof...

I had to stop him. As I ran, my breath rasping from my throat, I reached for something, anything on my bandoleer, and instead encountered loops of leathery magic. I wrenched Leviathan Spinebender from over my shoulder, my fingers gripping the long handle tightly. The lash crackled and sizzled with the whitish glow of magic like a surge of electricity razoring down a powerline.

Hurtling through the damp, dark air, I raised my arm and swung the whip over my head. Pools of water arced in sprays as I thundered across the pitted floor of the cavern. The lash cut through the air, whirring faster, faster, faster.

Yezekael flew higher, and the loud booming of his beating wings resounded within the space.

I snapped my arm back—

Slashing it forward—

The crack of the whip exploded in my ears. The lash whipped overhead, slicing through the air, right toward Yezekael. The tip snaked out through the darkness and wrapped around Yezekael's foot.

I yanked my arm back as if I'd caught a fish on a fishing line.

The creature screamed as he jerked downward with the motion, his wings caving in. He shook his foot trying to get rid of the tangled whip, but it had locked around his ankle like a chain.

My boots vibrated beneath me as I slammed into a skid to stop my momentum, bending my knees and hauling downward with every ounce of strength I possessed.

Yezekael was fierce.

His wings dug out wider and beat faster, harder, stronger.

To my shock I found myself being dragged.

Holy shit!

I struggled, panic ensnaring me wholly. I shoved down bodily over the whip's handle, the lash straining and digging against my shoulder. My boots scrambled for purchase—

I stumbled, losing my balance—

And then I lost the sensation of gravity beneath my feet.

It was the same sensation I'd experienced when I'd hurled myself over the cliff after the sodden earth gave way and Nelle plummeted. This time instead of falling, I was lifted straight up into the air.

The wind created by his beating wings shoved up against my body, shifting strands of my hair to blow this way and that as I was carried up, up, up.

Yezekael continued screaming in outrage and threw his leg about, trying to shake me off. His mighty wings beat the air, dragging me upward as he flew through the drizzle of raining water toward the gaping hole in the ceiling of the cavern.

Water pelted my face, splashing in my eyes, and made the leathery handle slippery. I tightened my hold as best I could as we flew higher and higher and higher.

I needed to do something. Any-fucking-thing.

My shoulders and arms ached from holding my weight and stress perspired across my brow. Spitting out a string of curses, I kicked my legs out and began climbing hand over hand, treating the lash like a rope. I dragged myself bodily up the length of the whip's lash, closing in on Yezekael. All I needed to do was to get up there and latch my fingers around his feet to get a secure hold

Feathers came free from the creature's wings as he drove them harder, faster. Scarlet plumes scattered to whirl through the air.

Yezekael frantically dug into a pouch strung around his chest. On the tips of his fingers were a slew of tiny amber critters much like stick insects with large pincers. They leaped off his fingers and landed on the coiled lash wrapped around his foot.

The whip crackled and spat as the chittering critters used their pincers and managed to untangle and unwind the end, loop by loop, from their master's foot.

With every uncoil of the lash, I jerked downward—fuck, fuck, fuck—my grip slipped on Leviathan's braided length.

I scrambled to regain my hold, my body swaying precariously over a terrifying drop as Yezekael continued to drag me upward with him.

My mouth went dry as I did something fucking stupid and glanced down at the dizzying height, the jagged rocky floor below.

My nerves pitched and tumbled into the pit of my stomach.

Fucking hellsgate.

I might survive. I might not. I certainly wasn't looking forward to slamming into unyielding rock.

I jolted downward once more. The lash held onto Yezekael's foot by a single loop that was fast becoming freed by the tribe of tiny critters chittering with excitement.

It was too late...

Pure terror swept through me, draining me of all courage.

"I'm looking forward to seeing your body splatter down below," Yezekale grinned at me.

His grin faltered and then froze.

It was the outward thrust of his body, the bowing of his spine, and the awful scream of pain slashing through the cold air that confused me. And I still didn't understand, not even when something pierced through his wing that snapped feathers to drift away in a puff of scarlet. That something was long, slender, and barbed. The weapon was yanked back and the bloodied hook-like end caught on the leather wing. Yezekael shrieked as he was hauled backward like a speared eel, dragging me with him.

His long limbs flailed uselessly. He disappeared right into one of the enormous passageways that ringed the top of the beehive cavern, yanked right into darkness. And I came with him. My body slammed against the sloping cavern's wall. Pain erupted all over my body and joints. Blood wept from my nose, the split in my lip. I groaned, my head spinning but I held on tight to Leviathan Spinebender, and whoever it was that had snagged Yezekael dragged me up into the passageway that overlooked the cavern.

Relief flowed through my chest to be back on solid ground.

My knuckles, scuffed and bruised, slowly loosened so I could release the whip's lash. I rolled over onto my back, staring up at the black glistening rock, my panting breath huffing out in hot gusts. It was the snapping of bone, Yezekael's shriek of agony, that had me rolling over onto my front, digging in to push to my knees to watch the weapon being ripped from a wing, tearing through cartilage and bone and membrane and flesh.

My eyes flared wide with astonishment.

The lesser creature swayed, his long limbs hanging limply by his sides as he sucked in a pained breath, his entire body trembling. The Uzrek had one hand wrapped around Yezekael's throat, his talons curving into the creature's pale skin, threatening to pierce the flesh. The other hand gripped his walking stick, the thigh bone of some ancient beast he'd used like a boat hook to spear Yezekael.

The Uzrek towered above us both. The tips of the twisting crown of horns scraped the overhead ceiling and flashes of sparks were caught on the swirling air currents caused by his movement. The cloak of dried, cracked flesh rippled with his furious forward movement. Cleaved hooves clacked on stone as he jerked Yezekael closer.

You saved me—I mentally whispered in disbelief. "Thank you," I said aloud to the Uzrek. But he was too busy scaring the ever-living shit out of the lesser creature.

Yekekael had squeezed his eyes shut. "Open your eyes," the Uzrek hissed, shaking him violently. "OPEN THEM!"

"NO!" the creature shrieked.

I understood why. The only thing that would give Yezekael leverage was what Sirro wanted from it. Knowledge. If the Uzrek could enter his mind and steal that information, then he had nothing of worth to bargain with.

I staggered to my feet, spat a gob of blood, and gently rubbed the back of my hand across my throbbing, swollen lip.

The Uzrek shoved the creature at me. "Here, son of the Wyrm, take your prize."

Yezekael stumbled, collapsing to one knee. My fingers were already working, grabbing the creature's lanky arms and using the whip like a rope to bind his hands behind his back. I grabbed the sagging beast by the crest of plumage on top of his crown and yanked his head back to be able to hiss into his ear. "Time to meet Sirro."