Free FROST CHILD (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip Page B

hadn’t run because they owned something worth keeping.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Crickspleen at last.
    Despite my mind-shield, it knew that I knew it was lying. Its mouth quirked.
    ‘You’d have my word,’ it crooned. ‘You know my word is binding.’
    ‘I don’t want it. If I let you go again, Kate would have my guts for a hat.’
    ‘It was worth a try.’ It gave a bleakly contented sigh. ‘No deal then.’
    It flew at me; an arc of blade-light cut the air, but I hit the cavern floor, feeling the breath of the blade-edge on my scalp. The speed of the damn things could still catch me by surprise, but I wasn’t much slower.
    I swore as I rolled, dodged, sprang back up. It was nothing but a moving shadow but I’d fought them before. Anticipating its moves was the trick. I bent backwards to avoid the next blow, then came at it low and brought my sword blade with me as I spun.
    They look so fragile, so ephemeral. It feels almost wrong as the blade strikes. You’d think the impact in its flesh would be barely discernible, but you have to keep control to finish the blow. Like slicing metal wire.
    But I had a good blade. Crickspleen toppled in two halves, the rattle of satisfaction escaping its yellow lips and leaving it lifeless.
    The others hadn’t been idle, either Lammyr or Sithe. As I rebalanced and lifted my sword again, the chaos and carnage around me was in full-throated roar. I wiped sticky Lammyr-blood from my face and sought another, but we’d had them outmanoeuvred from the start, and in here they hadn’t the space to use their speed to full advantage. There was nothing for me to do but finish a few scraps my fighters had started.
    When the last blade had fallen we stood in the silence, alert for a stirring hand or limb or a sucked breath, hearing nothing but the slow oozing drip of blood.
    I was glad to be able to drop my block and communicate properly. And, of course, scan the caves. ~ Any of us wounded?
    Niall Mor raised a questioning eyebrow at a fighter whose blood streamed from her scalp down the side of her face and neck. She shook her head, angry but not weakened.
    ~ Nothing serious.
    I narrowed my eyes at the woman, half-blinded by her own blood. ~ Dobhran, go back to Grian. The rest of you, follow me. I frowned as I peered into the darkest corners. ~ And block again.
    ‘We took them all, Griogair,’ said Niall Mor, though he kept his voice low.
    ‘Maybe. I want to know what else is here. Search the whole warren.’
    If anybody grumbled, they kept it behind their own blocks, but they went to the task without enthusiasm. This was no place for a Sithe, or not for my Sithe anyway. If someone liked living underground he could go to be the queen’s bondsman, and even Kate’s lair felt like the sweet open air next to this place. It was as if the rocks above us were pressing down slowly, shrinking the spaces between, reluctant to let us leave. I suppressed a shiver.
    There were faint lights in the lower tunnels, muted by iron sconces that were surprisingly beautifully made. The Lammyr could still astonish me. There were times I could almost like them. But it never got beyond almost .
    The air was cold and stale, but the rankness that accompanied Lammyr occupation was mostly absent. There were only the scents of earth and water and small squirming creatures. I made my way with care, and I kept my blade unsheathed, and so did Niall Mor at my back.
    All the same, I might easily have missed her. She was only a shadow, small and dark, huddled in the corner of a side room. It was Niall’s intake of breath that alerted me, since his eyesight was so much sharper than anyone’s.
    I went still, watching for movement. The child might have been a corpse, so stiff was she, but her eyes were wide, unblinking, and lit with the silver glow of a Sithe. No full-mortal girl, then, brought from the otherworld on one of their illicit forays, but a captured Sithe child. Their brazenness was breathtaking, but even this