A final deep thrust and a shudder brought him to climax inside her. He sank against her back, as well spent as she felt owned.
“No more games,” Akraz promised when he finally took his sword to hack away the silken strands of the web that entrapped Laya. “We have no choice but to attempt our escape now. Although Zathstragomal can’t track us here in the Sticky Tunnels, he will suspect where we have gone. We won’t have another chance if we turn back now.”
“You will come with me?” Laya asked.
Akraz paused, suddenly unsure of himself. Who was he to presume a place in her life?
“Just until the end of goblin territory,” he said gruffly.
“Ah,” she said neutrally.
“Put this on.” Akraz handed her his surcoat Laya slipped it on. From the front, it passed for a short dress or long tunic, all in all decent enough. But the sides left her slender leg, belly and breast completely bare. He handed her his short sword. “And take this.”
He cleaned and shouldered his own sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed black shadows creeping toward them from various corners of the cavern. He scanned the eerie cave with growing alarm.
“Ah, Laya? I thought you said that the other spiders would not intrude on the territory of this one?”
Other spiders crept toward them, unmistakably.
“Oh no,” said Laya. “They must sense the spider that guarded this territory is dead. They are coming to fight over its place.”
“Great. A spider war.” He unsheathed his sword again. “Go ahead and say it.”
“Say what?”
“‘I told you so.’ We should not have stopped to dally in this accused place. I endangered you once again because of my petty lust.”
“Probably,” she said. “But I’ll have to spank you later.”
He did a double take.
Laya batted her lashes at him innocently. “Right now we have bugs to fight.”
The only thing that saved them was that the spiders were just as interested in fighting one another as in eating Laya and Akraz. Otherwise, the couple would have been swamped beneath the swarm of giant arachnids that converged to squabble over the corpse of their dead comrade.
For all that, it was a close thing. Laya killed only one giant spider. Akraz killed three. But the third bit him before he took it out, and poison swelled the bite into a mottled protrusion on his upper chest. He managed to stagger with Laya out of the large cavern into a smaller feeder corridor before he collapsed from pain and delirium.
With grim efficiency, Laya used the short sword to slash open the wound and drain as much of the poison as she could. A man of any lesser physique would have already succumbed to death from either the poison or the blood loss alone, never mind both combined. Akraz was goblin-tough, as hard as the rock bones of the mountain heart around them, but even he had his limits.
He knew it too. “You can still make it,” he wheezed to Laya. “Once I am cold, all I ask is that you cover my body with rocks, to keep it from becoming spider food. Then get out of here as fast as you can. Go back to your people. Go back to the Light where you belong.”
“Stop talking like that,” snapped Laya. “I’m not going to abandon you.”
“I’ll never make it to freedom now,” he said sadly. “It was never more than a dream to begin with. I was born a slave and will die a slave.”
“I said, stop that. I know you cannot make it all the way through the Sticky Tunnels now. Our only choice is to take you back to the goblin warrens for aid.”
“No!” His face turned ashen. “You will lose your only chance to escape.”
“I can’t let you die while I save myself. I did that to a friend once in my life already and have regretted it ever since. Who among the goblins acts as a healer?”
“No one. The sick are given a merciful death or else just pushed out into the public corridors to beg for crumbs until they die.”
“Marvelous society,” muttered Laya. “I do not think I can carry you all the way back to your own den, it’s too high up in the mountain, up past too many levels and too many checkpoints. Is there anyone you know, anyone trustworthy, who lives closer to this level?” “My sister,” he said reluctantly. “Her den is on one of the lower levels.” “You have a sister!” “Yes. Even goblins have families. But I have not seen her for some time.” “Will she take you in? Or turn you in?” “I don’t know.” He was fading fast. “We will have to risk it,” said Laya. “We will go to your sister’s.”
Chapter Six
The only way Laya could carry Akraz was to create a makeshift travois using his own broadsword and spider webbing gathered from the walls. Fortunately, the older webbing was drier and less sticky than the fresh, though just as tough. Like all elves, Laya knew how to weave. Ironically, in Sylvindell, spider silk fetched a pretty penny, as one of the rarest and most difficult to find materials in Chavana. Laya had no loom, but her fingers worked a net of braided silk cords that she looped over the sword. She also made a harness for herself, to distribute the weight across her shoulders. Then she began the slog back through the dark stone tunnels.
Akraz had given her directions earlier, but now when she checked him, he had fallen into unconsciousness. His face had reverted to its monster shape and the warty skin was pallid, clammy to the touch. Beads of sweat drenched his brow and chest.
Laya feared he would not survive the rough trip. Such was the weight of his massively muscled body, however, that she had no choice except to stop frequently to catch her breath.
She dragged him to the mouth of one of the habited warrens. Every muscle in her body trembled with exertion. When her knees buckled beneath her, she knew she could go no further. She hid him as best she could and continued alone, following the directions he had given her to thread the maze of goblin caves.
The public tunnels had almost no light, which was all to Laya’s advantage as she slipped from shadow to shadow. Nor was there much foot traffic. More of a problem was distinguishing one goblin’s hole in the wall from another, for the entrances were not labeled and all looked the same, with tiny, square, rusted iron doors hunched under lowering lintels of raw rock wall. Laya counted the ninth door down a certain winding corridor.
She knocked.
There was no immediate response. Laya grew nervous in the thick, black silence of the corridor, hoping no one would pass by while she waited there.
At last the iron door creaked open a smidgeon. A dirty child peeked out from the crack. Boy or girl, Laya honestly could not tell through the encrusted grime on its face and rags.
“I am looking for Hwega,” said Laya gently.
Laya had never seen such surly suspicion in so young a child.
“Why?” the child demanded. Snot dribbled from its nose.
“Does she live here?”
“Maybe. Are you going to kill her?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you going to throw her in a dungeon?”
“I should say not.”
“You’re a stranger,” the child pointed out. “Strangers are bad. They hurt you. Are you trying to hurt my ma?”
“Is Hwega your mother, then?”
The child, suddenly afraid of having said too much, began to slam the door shut.
“Wait!” Laya grabbed the door before it could close. “I’m not here to hurt your moma. I just need her help. Her brother is sick.”
“Uncle Akraz?”
“Yes! You know him.”
“He brings me nice things,” the child confessed shyly. “One time, he brought me an orange. I never had an orange before. It was the best thing ever.” A little pout. “But he made it share it with my brothers and sisters.”
Laya’s heart melted. What kind of life must this child lead that the memory of a slice of orange was a precious gift?