Free The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path) by Brock Deskins Page A

diligence looked to have finally paid off as two groups of men, maybe five in all, approached her from two different directions.
     
Ellyssa stood up and nervously cast her eyes between the two groups of men. She looked like a frightened rabbit, too terrified to run from the wolves closing in on her. However, the emotion coursing through her veins was not fear, but hatred and rage. The eyes of these men were indistinguishable from the ones who had taken her. Perhaps they were even the same men. They would know where Captain Jake was, and she would make them tell her where.
     
“Easy there, girl,” one of the slavers called out as if to coax a stray dog toward them. “We ain’t gonna hurt ya. We just want to take ya to a nice place out of the rain and maybe get some food in ya. Wouldn’t ya like that?”
     
When the men approached close enough for her to smell them, Ellyssa bolted between the only opening the two groups left her. The false kindness of the men vanished and they all began shouting orders to each other and hurling curses at the girl for making them chase her. Three stayed on her tail while two others split off to get ahead of her.
     
Ellyssa ran quickly down the alleys and narrow streets but made sure she did not lose her pursuers. The slavers probably thought she was running blind, but she was leading them exactly where she wanted.
     
Several exhausting minutes of running ended with the girl trapped in an alley dead-ending in a solid wall of stone. She stood huddling against the wall, shielding her face with her arms as she pleaded for mercy.
     
“Please, sirs, please leave me be!”
     
All five slavers shared a laugh at the girl’s helpless pleadings as they casually approached, one holding a large sack, another with a belaying pin ready and willing to knock her senseless at the first sign of a struggle.
     
“Keep your trap shut and there’ll be no problems. There’s no place left to run.”
     
All five men stopped as the girl started laughing, stood up straight, and faced them without the slightest hint of the fear filling her a moment ago. “Congratulations, you caught me, but I am afraid all you will find here tonight is your death. Whether your death is quick or painful is up to you.”
     
“Shouldn’a made this difficult, girl,” the man with belaying pin said.
     
He took two swift steps forward and hurled the small club. The pin passed right through the space between her eyebrows and struck the wall with a sharp crack. As disconcerting as that was, the true panic set in when the laughing girl simply vanished.
     
“She’s a ghost!” one man shouted. Several of them turned around to run only to find Ellyssa blocking the end of the alley.
     
“Oh, I’m far worse than that,” Ellyssa said, practically cackling with delight.
     
Two of the slavers looked at each other and rushed the girl, drawing blades as they ran. This earned them the opportunity to die first. Ellyssa’s laughter was lost in her fury as she pulled at the Source, commanding it to do her bidding. Errant energy caused her hair to stand on end and limned her in an ethereal light making her look positively terrifying, like some avenging spirit come to punish the men who had led such wicked lives and caused so much pain.
     
Twin bolts of azure energy lanced out from her hands, each catching one of the men rushing toward her. The force of the strikes crushed ribs, scorched flesh, and hurled them back even farther than they had run forward. The other three men looked about frantically, desperately searching for a way out. Their desperate searching was short-lived as ropes snaked down from the rooftops, wrapped around the men’s chests and necks, and hoisted them several feet up the wall. The slavers gagged and kicked wildly as the ropes threatened to cut off their airway. The men looked at Ellyssa with terrified eyes as she strode forward.
     
She looked up at the nearest dangling slaver. “Where is Captain