A Stone's Throw (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 3) Read Free Page B

pool of water and a wide stone area shadowed by an outcropping of rocks far below me. The stones had a smooth look to them, but from this distance it was impossible to tell if they were rounded from the water and weathering or if they had been worked by tools.
    “Fly down and have a look around,” Drake suggested, glaring at the pixie-goblin.
    “What if there is a monster down there?”
    “Then scream like a little girl and fireball it,” Makha said with a wide smile.
    “You know, your usual reaction to things,” Drake added.
    “I hate you guys. Except Killer.” Rahiel gave me a suffering look, her silvery eyes wide with mock-vulnerability.
    Only because I can’t talk, lady. The things I would say to you at times, like what is with your impractical princess dresses? Or your hairstyles? I sighed.
    “Why do you hate me?” Azyrin asked. “I do not tease.”
    “You married the muscle mountain there. You are guilty by association.”
    Rahiel, getting no quarter from any of us, turned Bill, and they flew down into the pit. I kept an arrow ready, just in case there really was a monster down there. My keen eyes detected no movement but the rushing waterfall overpowered my hearing and all I could smell was damp stone. The pixie-goblin, looking like an exotic insect at this distance with her green-and-purple coloring and the unicorn’s pink and gold, flew around the bottom of the falls and then they rose back into the air and returned.
    “There is a good-sized opening to some kind of cave system. No way to tell how deep it goes. I saw no signs of any life.” She almost sounded disappointed at that last part.
    “Then we’ll go in,” Drake said. He slipped a double-banded steel ring from his finger and separated the rings with his thumbnail. “Here, pull on this end.” He held it out to Makha.
    She took the steel ring and pulled. The rings came apart in a linked chain, growing and spreading and lengthening. “Saar’s balls,” Makha said.
    “That is a chain ring.” Rahiel moved closer as Drake walked the original link back to the nearest tree, a great spreading oak that had probably been a sapling when duels were still fought in this place. “Where did you get that?”
    “Remember that bastard in Magerill? The one who was cheating at cards?”
    “I remember man who won all your share from shipwreck we explored,” Azyrin said, his pale blue eyes narrowing.
    “He was cheating,” Drake said.
    “We pulled you out of the tavern before you got arrested for fighting,” Rahiel added.
    “Oi, well, I went back and settled things between us like men.” Drake shrugged.
    “By that you mean you waited until he was passed out drunk and then robbed him blind, right?”
    Drake fixed the chain around the tree by twisting a dagger through the links and pulled, testing its strength. “He snored like a rabid bear fighting off a wolf pack.”
    “Man had fingers like Traegalean sausages. Was he wearing that ring?” Makha shook her head as she walked to the edge of the sinkhole and tossed the pile of chain links in her hands over the edge. The links were large enough that our boots would easily fit in them. It wouldn’t be an easy climb, but the chain made a tenuous ladder down into the chasm.
    “He ordered butter and toast before bed. Was a fresh crock of the stuff right there on his nightstand.” Drake grinned. He motioned over the cliff and looked at me. “Elf ladies first.”
    Slinging Thorn over my shoulder, I descended the chain. The mist from the waterfall made the thick steel links slippery and the climb slow. I jumped off the chain a few feet above the rocks and let out a deep breath when my feet were firmly planted on solid ground. As Makha began her descent, I took a look around.
    The stones around the edge of the pool into which the waterfall plunged were a mix of natural shale and tool-cut granite. I brushed my fingers over faint designs carved into decorative columns smashed in the collapse of whatever