Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three) Read Free Page A

the Wave Chariot to the dock, then let it fall into the water before it could jerk tight and stop his momentum.
     
    In a few seconds he had passed out of the dark cave into a slightly lighter one, closed at the end with a solid metal portcullis that was just beginning to rust at the bottom where it dipped into the water.
     
    With a barely restrained battle-cry, Lauro thrust out both hands towards the crisscrossing bars, wove strands of wind in and out between them, then punched the air above him with all his strength. The wind responded to his Stride, and the portcullis flew upward into the ceiling with a clang! , locking in place once it was there. The clear night sky was just visible at the end of the tunnel beyond.
     
    No more stops, Lauro thought, satisfied. Nothing can any longer hold me here.
     
    I am free.
     

Chapter Two: Pirates?
     

     

     
    Gribly awoke to someone shaking him by the shoulder as he lay still in bed. It was Elia, and she looked worried. He sat up groggily, rubbing his bleary eyes. It’d been a bad night for sleeping.
     
    “Ye-ahh!” he exclaimed, trying to greet her and being interrupted by a yawn. When he had it under control, he shook his head to clear it and looked at her again. “What’s wrong? You don’t look very happy this morning. Course’, neither would I if I woke up as early as you do…”
     
    “Stop chattering on like that,” she snapped. He stopped immediately- this wasn’t like Elia at all- or if it was, it was the part of her he didn’t like. “Look around,” she told him.
     
    He did.
     
    “Oh no…” He almost leaped out of bed in his hurried dismay.
     
    “Oh yes,” Elia countered unhappily, “Lauro’s run off while we were sleeping last night.”
     
    “How did you know?” Gribly inquired, throwing on a heavy, fur-lined coat that Karmidigan had given him, and fervently wishing that he was wearing more than knickers in front of Elia. As he pulled on sturdy Reethe boots, she answered him.
     
    “He drugged one of the guards last night and made off with a weapon or two from the armory. Patnel- that’s the guard- woke with a splitting headache this morning and immediately raised the alarm.” The nymph girl was practically pulling him along, out of his room and down the hallway towards the inner sanctum of the Raitharch’s dwellings, where they were both quartered.
     
    “We’ll need to go after him. How did he escape?” Gribly was trying to piece the shards of his original plan together as quickly as he could while only half-awake.
     
    “By boat. He took a Reethe Wave Chariot.”
     
    “Then we’ll take another one and hunt him down!” They passed under an arch and out across a circular courtyard made of polished frostrock. The sun was red over the rooftops of the Sanquegrad, still in the act of rising.
     
    Elia shook her head in disgust. “Can’t. He’s knocked holes in all the small boats. After his deception with the armory guard, Karmidigan and the Raitharch were on the lookout for a trick like that. Good thing Karmidigan caught it, too, or we’d be stranded out in the ocean in a few hours.
     
    “Blast!” swore Gribly, punching the air. “He’ll have a lot to answer for when we find him, that over-blown, proud-headed fool!” Elia rolled her eyes at his reaction.
     
    “Just like a man, ranting on and on without doing anything about it. Besides, I can see why he did it. He seems to think that it’s best for him to do it alone- another piece of male blockheadedness, but understandable.”
     
    Gribly shut up and quieted down. Deeper and deeper into the Raitharch’s fortress they went, and finally he spoke up again.
     
    “We could go after him in a larger ship, couldn’t we? I know the Reethe have some- I’ve seen them.”
     
    Elia tossed her hair over one shoulder in a shimmering, blue-brown mass, sighing regretfully. Gribly swallowed as it brushed him.
     
    “No, though I’d wondered the same thing,” she said, shaking