Read The Gates of Night: The Dreaming Dark - Book 3 for Free Online Page B

few bands of leather wrapped across her torso. Two short scabbards dangled from this makeshift harness, but her knives must have been left behind at the monolith.
    The worst of her wounds were healed, and her breathing was slow and even. But her eyes remained closed, and she did not move.
    “Lei?” Daine said.
    “The charm’s exhausted. If she’s still unconscious,there’s nothing more I can do.” Lei bent to look more closely at her patient.
    “She is conscious,” Pierce said.
    “And angry.” The voice was rough, the accent strange, the words blending together …
anangry
. The woman’s eyes opened, pure silver-white with no trace of iris or pupil.
    And then everything went black.

T he unnatural darkness was deep, but not complete. Daine could still see the vague shapes of Pierce and Lei in the shadows. But the drow woman had vanished, disappearing the instant the darkness fell.
    “Draw your weapons.” The dark elf spoke with a low, lyrical cadence, but an occasional pause suggested that she was not entirely comfortable with the common tongue. “You should not die unarmed.”
    Lei’s never going to let me hear the end of this, Daine thought. He could see motion in the shadows—Pierce raising his bow. But Daine wasn’t going to play this game. “No,” he said. “Lei. Pierce. Stand down. We’re not fighting.”
    “No?” The voice was all around them, seeming to emerge from the shadows. “Am I unworthy of your blade? Change your mind swiftly.”
    The blow was a hammer in his back, a solid kick that landed directly on his spine, forcing him forward. He turned around, but the woman faded back into the shadows. Pain pulsed through his nerves, and he was tempted to give into his growing anger, to draw his sword and give this woman the battle she sought.Then the battlefield at Keldan Ridge flashed through his mind. This woman might be a stranger, but they’d fought the same foe. He’d lost too many of his comrades-in-arms over the last two years to give up on one now—even one who considered him an enemy.
    “Why are you doing this? We saved your life.”
    “You
gave
me life?” Her voice reminded Daine of the buzzing of hornets … musical, but full of deadly fury.
“You?
”
    There!
Daine ducked to the side, and this time the kick brushed past him. He reached out, trying to touch her, but his hand fell on empty air.
    “Enough!”
Lei cried, and light flooded the room. She had her hand raised above her head, and her glove glowed with brilliant illumination, a magical radiance that shattered the shadows. “Enough of this! I don’t know what’s wrong with you, woman, but I brought you back from the edge of Dolurrh. If you want to return, I can show you the way!”
    Even as the light revealed the presence of the drow woman, she was moving, a blur of shadow. She leapt into the air, spinning up and over Lei in an incredible display of agility; Lei had barely finished speaking when a dark-skinned hand appeared around her throat.
    “Light the path, then, spellweaver,” the drow said. “I am ready.”
    The dark elf was holding Lei’s neck with three fingers, but the effect was dramatic. Lei’s face went pale; she was struggling to keep from choking, and her arms were hanging limp at her side. The dark elf’s other arm was curved back, fingers and thumb drawn together to form a point, reminding Daine of the tail of a scorpion.
    Daine’s sword was in his hand; he didn’t rememberdrawing it. Next to him, Pierce had an arrow to his bowstring and a second between his fingers, ready to loose in the blink of an eye. Daine felt fury building within, and if anything happened to Lei, it really would be his fault. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak another voice filled the chamber.
    “Your anger is misplaced,” said Pierce. The words were sibilant and swift, spoken in the language of the dark elves. Lakashtai had granted Daine the power to understand the speech of the drow, but even he could not