the word as though it tasted foul. “Nor are we cleric or Paladin to any god, contrary to misguided opinion.”
“Oh?” Intrigued, Kylah reached the back of the spare cavern and she started to follow the wall to the left. “You still could be An Dioladh.”
“Nay. I couldna,” he said shortly. She couldn’t pinpoint where the Druid’s voice hailed from in the dark. It was like he threw it off the walls and caught it from a different location each time he spoke.
“But how can you be certain?”
An inhuman sound split the darkness and the staff arced through her in a vicious lash one second before the entire bulk of the Druid flew into and all the way through her with astounding speed. He glanced off the stone wall with a heavy leather boot and, in a flurry of robes, used the momentum to twist his leg behind him in what would have been a powerful and devastating kick to her temple.
His boot sailed through her head and he landed with surprising dexterity for such a large and encumbered man.
Kylah’s hand flew to her chest. “You just… you could have…” Her entire body arced and vibrated with an unseen force and, though she’d not felt him at all, the impact of his intrusion was so potent she’d lost all sense of reason.
“Nay.” He said the word slowly, as though speaking to a dim-witted child. “I couldna.”
“But…” She couldn’t collect her wits. He’d just attacked her. A woman! A dead and lethal woman, certainly. But, even so.
His eyes narrowed as they traveled the length of her specter in a cold and calculating manner, as though searching for a weakness, any chink in her armor he could use to his advantage. Obviously unimpressed with what he saw, he lifted an eyebrow, creating fissures in the mud there.
“But… You are a Druid,” she repeated lamely, as though that should explain everything. The word had always held such mystic allure to the superstitious Highlanders, spoken in whispers of awe and fear alongside ancient words like Shape-shifter, Dragon, and Berserker.
“And ye are a fool.” He disappeared again.
Kylah blinked. “I’m not a fool, I’m a Banshee.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive.” His voice now came from—inside the rock? That couldn’t be right.
She ignored his insult and pressed her ear to the wall. “We’re both creatures of magic, you have to admit that.”
“Wrong.” The rock told her. “Ye’re a creature of magic. I’m a being of power.”
Kylah drew back and frowned. The rock or the man? This had to be the most confusing conversation she’d ever had.
And the most fascinating.
Along the left wall, she’d reached the water’s edge so she trailed back to the center and started searching along the right.
And found nothing.
Disappointed, she looked back and a gleam in the black rock caught her notice. Embedded in the wall, just wide enough for a body to hide was an overlay of stone virtually invisible from anywhere in the cave except for where she stood now.
“Hello.” Investigating it, Kylah realized it must take a small miracle for someone the Druid’s size to fit. No magic, indeed. After following it, she realized the crevice angled rather sharply to the right, and since one couldn’t turn around in the space, one simply must angle with it and change direction before being dumped into a cavern twice as large as the first.
“Wha—” Kylah gasped, her mind incapable of processing the strange and complex stone and metal tools and contraptions displayed in front of her backlit by a roaring fire at the rear of the chasm. Abruptly she was grateful she didn’t actually have to blink, or her over stimulated eyes would have surely shriveled in their sockets.
A movement to her left warned her before a rock hurtled through her and broke against the wall. “Get… the fuck… out!” the Druid roared. “Ye canna be here.”
“Why?” Guilt for imposing upon his solitude caused her to cringe. She’d never before been in the habit forcing her company on others, but then, she’d never had to. She couldn’t very well leave without learning more about this… this… she didn’t even know what to call the things in front of her. Kylah drifted toward a table of sorts crafted of stone and weighted with numberless round bowls of various sizes, colors and materials, avoiding the infuriated Druid. He looked more terrifying in the firelight. Menace roiled off of him. She could feel it in her Banshee way, inexplicably drawn to the strength of his rage.
Letting