We presented you with two earlier excerpts from the fifth book in our Thread of Souls series. One from Ruuda’s POV, and one from Jade’s POV. Here is our third and final excerpt on our way to book publication!
Keep in mind the book is still in the final editing stages, and things may be changed.
All content is protected under Tal & Ru Travels LLC.
Enjoy!
TALIESIN
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What’s happening?
Pain was the first thing that woke Taliesin’s fuzzy, drugged consciousness. He felt himself dragged across rough stone. He tried to command his body to move but couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t focus.
Where was Ruuda?
Where were his friends?
What had happened?
Water ran across his face and he reflexively turned to the side. His entire body ached and burned. The burning was terrible. It wouldn’t stop.
Ruuda . . . His thoughts wandered, fleeting, like leaves swept away in a current.
More water splashed over his face. He couldn’t breathe. That panic allowed him enough concentration to open his eyes. He was faced with the inside of a burlap sack. It was heavy around him. Salt, he realized. The bag was full of salt, and it stung his beaten and bloody body. Rain came in through the burlap, soaking his clothes and running in rivulets over his face.
Ruuda! I need to escape! I need to get to her.
He flexed, but his arms were bound behind him. He tried to cry out but found his tongue blocked by a gag. Taliesin thrashed once.
Then the jura retook him, and all faded into blackness.
When he came to, the bag was no longer moving. He felt warmth and smelled beer and roasted vegetables. Music played nearby.
A female voice spoke. “Really? That’s Taliesin Ostoroth? You must have been paid a lot!”
A harsh, deep male voice responded, “That I was.”
I know that voice! Taliesin thought. His mind tried to claw its way back to consciousness, fighting against the jura and the wounds. The man on the ship. Hajiadal.
“What about the others? I heard he was with a group,” the woman inquired.
Taliesin heard his captor gulp down a long drink and put the glass down with a clink. Hajiadal replied, “They were staying at the Sanguine Vestibule. I hired assassins to take care of them. He brought his dark dwarf pet to the ship, though. She was surprisingly tough, I’ll give her that. In the end, my demon chased her off. She must be dead by now.”
A chorus of impressed grunts sounded.
Taliesin opened his eyes.
Fuck it all, I’m still inside the sack!
As he kicked out, he closed his eyes to protect them from the salt.
“Oh!” Hajiadal chuckled. “You’re already awake? You’re hardier than I thought.” A kick connected with Taliesin’s side. “Stay quiet. I’m enjoying a drink.”
Laughter followed.
A drink?! You’ve got to be kidding me.
Taliesin screamed through his gag at the indignity.
“I said be quiet!” Hajiadal roared. A much rougher kick followed his words, and Taliesin curled up at the assault.
As the dark elf cleric stayed still, breathing through the pain, his mind drifted again. His memories floated past, and he watched them all as one watching carriages cross a road. Ruuda on the ship with him, her fiery hair soaked in the rain. The travel through the Eleste Highlands and its rugged terrain. His new friend, Jasita Yolarin, giving him a timid smile. All his travels flashed before him in reverse order. The terrible dragon and blizzard at the Citadel, a passionate night in a mountaintop cave, the six months of imprisonment, that night at the An’Ock Coliseum, escaping the Gloomdwell, traveling down the Amakiir River with Ruuda at his side, and leaving the . . . leaving the . . .
The Deep Hollows.
That’s where Hajiadal is taking me. Back underground. Back home.
A wave of anxiety clenched his gut at this thought. But he did not linger on it long. His mind was already slipping away, and he let the jura take him.
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More dragging awoke Taliesin. This time his mind was sharp, the fogginess of the drugs gone. He was still inside the sack, and he could no longer smell or hear the interior of a tavern. It was very quiet. The only sound was Hajiadal’s rhythmic steps.
Taliesin made a noise of complaint through his gag.
The dragging stopped. A long sigh followed.
“Awake again, I see,” Hajiadal stated. “Well, I suppose I could do with some conversation.”
A rustling noise preceded the top of the bag opening. Strong hands wrapped under Taliesin’s shoulders and pulled him free. The Deathwalker took in a deep breath of fresh air through his nose.
“You’re heavier than you look,” Hajiadal complained. “Walk a bit and give my arms a break.”
As he was set down on his knees, Taliesin quickly took in the area. It was a long, cavernous tunnel, featureless and dark. They were in the Deep Hollows already.
His gaze moved up to his captor. Hajiadal’s strong form leered over him, a smug smile on a square-jawed face. Shaggy white hair hung down to his shoulders. He wore dark leather armor. Taliesin noticed his own buckler shield strapped to Hajiadal’s back. The man was quite the contradiction to Taliesin himself who was smaller, more slender, unarmed, and with torn clothes and dried blood all over him.
Taliesin grunted through his gag, glaring up at the man.
Hajiadal leaned over and pulled the gag free, letting it drop around Taliesin’s neck. “What do you have to say?”
“Fuck you!”
“Anything else?”
“Who are you?” Taliesin demanded. “Who hired you?”
“That’s confidential.”
“How did you know so much about me and the group I came into the city with?”
“That’s confidential, too.”
Taliesin’s jaw tightened as he fixed the other man with an irritated look.
“You don’t need to worry about them,” Hajiadal stated, patting the hilt of his sword. “They’re all dead by now. Even your fire-haired dark dwarf.”
“She’s stronger than your demon.”
Hajiadal rolled his eyes, picked Taliesin up in one fluid movement, and threw him over his shoulder. Keeping the bag in his other hand, he continued to walk.
“Not ass first!” Taliesin protested.
“You are really full of complaints for someone so small.”
Taliesin craned his neck around in an attempt to see their direction, but viewing the tunnel upside down only made him dizzy. He looked back where they came from. The corridor went into darkness.
How long have I been out?
“When we fought on the ship, you said ‘she’ about the person you’re working for,” Taliesin began. “Who is ‘she’? My mother? High Priestess Maiathah? Ella Rinn?”
Hajiadal glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow. “How many people have you pissed off?”
“Plenty more.”
“Are any of them men?”
Taliesin thought of the high elf, Aust Mastralath, that he and his companions fought in the Gloomdwell. A servant of the dark god Ragseev. He’d had an army at his disposal. Taliesin had been the one to take Aust’s powerful interplanar orb from him through a spell. He was sure that man was furious at him. At all of them. Especially if he learned that the orb was destroyed.
“I’m not afraid to challenge people,” Taliesin at last answered his captor. “It’s not a bad thing to make enemies of some people. People like you.”
Hajiadal chuckled. “Not afraid of a challenge, indeed.” He sat Taliesin on his feet and appraised him. “I beat you to shit on that ship. Look at you. You’re a mess.”
“What’s your point?” Taliesin surreptitiously pulled at his wrist bindings, but they did not budge.
The other man’s red eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard you can heal wounds. Heal yourself. I want to see.”
A sardonic laugh escaped Taliesin. “Even if my hands were free to cast a spell, I’m not going to perform for you.”
Hajiadal was on him in an instant, shoving him roughly to the ground. The breath was knocked out of the cleric, and pain shot through his hands from landing on them. Hajiadal wrestled one boot and sock off Taliesin’s foot. He pulled out a knife and pressed it against one of Taliesin’s toes. The cleric froze, giving his opponent a wide-eyed stare.
Hajiadal smiled, though it looked more like a predator bearing its teeth. His voice was low and dangerous as he spoke. “If I cut this off, I’m sure you’ll heal it.”
Taliesin did not move, afraid to provoke the man further. The knife pressed against his skin just enough to draw a dot of blood. Taliesin hissed, his fingers flexing instinctively to heal himself. But with his hands bound, he couldn’t finish the movements of his spell.
Hajiadal withdrew the knife. “I thought so. Let’s go.” He grabbed Taliesin’s elbow and began to pull him along.
“Wait! I need my other boot!” The cleric hobbled on one leg, looking over his shoulder at his boot.
“Where you’re going, you won’t need clothes.”
That drew Taliesin’s attention. He gaped at his captor for a moment, struggling for words.
He’s lying, he told himself. He’s trying to scare you. He’s taking you home to your family.
“I can’t travel the Deep Hollows without my boot,” the cleric pressed.
Hajiadal let go of his elbow. “Fine. You have ten seconds to get it on. Ten . . . nine . . . seven . . . four . . .”
In a panic, Taliesin hurried to his shoe and slipped it on in an ungraceful display. His sock was balled up against his toes and his dark pant leg wasn’t tucked in. But he had it on, and that was all he cared about.
Smirking, Hajiadal shoved the burlap sack at him. The salt had all fallen out at this point, stained with Taliesin’s blood. “Carry this. I might want to put you in it again.”
“How am I supposed to carry this with my hands bound?”
Hajiadal slipped the bag over the top of his head and then laughed at his own humor. “Let’s go.”
Taliesin stared at the inside of the sack, rage burning his blood. He could still smell the scent of jura, part of the trap set for him on the ship. It reminded him of home. Of the cultivated land around House Ostoroth’s manor. But none of the memories were good.
“I can’t see,” Taliesin spat venomously. “I will not walk like this.”
“Start walking.”
“No.”
Hajiadal laughed derisively, and that was the limit of what Taliesin could take. Following the sound of the laughter, the cleric charged forward and rammed his shoulder into his captor. They both tumbled down to the hard ground. Taliesin couldn’t see, but he attacked Hajiadal in any way he could. With his knees, his elbows, and kicking his feet. The other man growled and quickly regained control. He flipped Taliesin over onto his stomach, and a hard blow cracked the side of the cleric’s head.
Taliesin’s body went limp, dazed and sick from the strike.
Without a word, Hajiadal picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. The burlap sack fell off, and it was left behind as the man strode down the tunnel. Taliesin watched it with blurred vision until it vanished into the darkness.
