Page 39 of Paladin's Hope

“A gnole isn’t taking eyes off a human.”

Galen’s gaze locked with his. Piper took another step back involuntarily. He had no idea what emotion he was seeing in the other man’s eyes. Perhaps it had no name. It was deeper than rage, emptier than hate. It made him feel like prey.

Piper’s nerve broke and he bolted.

Click.

For a moment, Piper thought he was fainting. The ceiling seemed to fall away. Then he realized that the ceiling was in just the same place, and the floor itself was tilting. Fast.

In a matter of seconds, the far side of the room had dropped several yards. Piper caught a glimpse of another yawning pit…a pit that he and Earstripe were now sliding into.

He flung himself flat on his back and tried to slow his descent, feeling his heels skid on the slick ivory surface. Scraping sounds and gnollish obscenities came from his right as Earstripe tried to dig his claws into the infinitesimal grooves in the floor.

He managed to halt himself for a few seconds, arms outflung, feet flat on the tilted floor. For a split second, he felt relief, and then one of his heels slipped and he skidded another few inches down. Am I really going to die because I don’t have better shoes?

Somehow, probably because his palms were so sweaty that they stuck to the floor like suction cups, he managed to push himself upward a few desperate inches. He couldn’t look behind him to see what Galen was doing. That was irony for you. He’d been running away and now he was desperately trying to scramble backward the way he’d come, probably right onto the paladin’s sword. Was it better or worse to die sliced to ribbons in the pit, or be chopped to pieces by a man you were attracted to? Okay, well, possibly the pit is the better choice in that case…

Something went clang. Something else grabbed his hair. Piper yelped. It felt like it was being pulled out by the roots, which it probably was. He watched, barely comprehending, as Galen’s sword slid past him with a long metallic sound like a draw from the scabbard, infinitely prolonged, and then it hit the bottom and tumbled into the pit. He could feel individual hairs tearing loose from his scalp.

Then a hand tangled in his collar, pulling upward, and the ties on his shirt were caught under his chin and he couldn’t breathe and maybe this was how he died, being strangled by a man that he was attracted to, maybe he wasn’t going to get a choice after all. His vision was starting to go gray again. He lifted a hand to his throat to try and stop the pressure, imagining Galen’s face with his unfocused green eyes and that terrible blank expression, hearing himself choke. He didn’t dare lift the other hand but in a second he was going to have to and then he would slide down onto the blades this was it this was how it ended all because he had seen a man in pain and was so goddamn arrogant that he thought he could help or maybe he was still back in the fishing village and he was a fish drowning on dry land and in a minute the vision would fade and everything would be normal maybe this wasn’t actually happening at all maybe he was watching the last seconds of someone else’s life, not his own…

The pressure on his throat eased. Galen’s hand slid under his lifted arm and held hard.

“Hold still,” the paladin said in his ear. He sounded almost eerily calm. “I’ve got you, but if you struggle, we’re both going to fall.”

Oh god, he’s back. He’s back. It’s over. If Piper hadn’t been dangling by his neck over certain death, he’d have cheered. As it was, he couldn’t get enough air to speak coherently. He managed to grunt something that he hoped sounded like agreement.

“Earstripe,” said Galen, still in that calm voice, “I can probably get one foot down near you. If you grab onto it, I think I can hold you both up.”

“Better do something quick,” said Earstripe, sounding strained. “Claws aren’t going to last much longer.”

Piper couldn’t see much, but from what he could work out, the paladin was lying flat at the top of the floor. There must be a lip around the edge, he thought, or maybe a little ledge where the edge of the floor is tilted up. But can he really hold both of us up for…six minutes? However long it is?

“I’m going to move,” Galen told him. “I won’t let go, but our balance is going to shift. Don’t struggle or we’ll both go down.”

“Yeh…” Piper breathed, unable to nod.

The pressure on his neck changed. He swallowed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Galen’s boot slide downward. It seemed impossibly far away from Earstripe. Could the gnole even reach it?

One of Earstripe’s hind legs slipped. Ivory squealed as the gnole’s claws scrabbled along it. Piper heard himself moan in strangled horror.

The gnole lunged upward, grabbing for Galen’s foot—and missed.

Galen cursed. Piper felt the grip on his neck snap bruisingly tight. The paladin’s foot kicked out into empty space.

With an agility that Piper hadn’t known he possessed, Earstripe flung himself upward and sank his teeth into Galen’s boot. Piper heard the other man hiss in pain. He felt Galen’s grip slacken for an instant, felt himself start to slide—and then the arm around him tightened again.

“Now,” said Galen calmly, “I think it would be best if no one moves at all.”

“Yeh,” panted Piper.

“Auungh,” said Earstripe, with a mouth full of foot.

It was the longest six minutes of Piper’s life. It felt like six years. His vision began to go gray around the edges from lack of air, and he fought to stay conscious, because if he went limp, all three of them were going to fall, since he couldn’t trust Galen to do the sensible thing and let go.

But eventually there was a click and a grind and Galen’s body jerked sideways. The paladin rolled into him. Piper had a moment of nauseating terror, but the slope was already decreasing rapidly and he only slid a few inches before the floor snapped level again. Earstripe released his grip on Galen’s footwear and all three of them lay flat on the floor, gasping for air, grateful to be alive.

Seventeen

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