The Gatekeeper's Daughter

The Way West

www.gatekeepersdaughter.com

Now available for you in Kindle and trade paperback formats on Amazon.com

Also the sequel (book 2 of 9) has is posted here on Wattpad.  The Title is "In Darkness Deep"

Audra awoke from a gentle tap of Kilimir's foot against her side. As she looked up, groggy from a nap that went to long or a sleep that didn't go long enough; she saw Kilimir's thin smirking face. "Come on princess, we're on the move." Paul Kilimir said almost forgetting Audra wasn't a soldier.

"I'm up." Audra said rolling herself up to her feet before she was quite ready, trying to blink her eyes into working with blur. "We've all dozed off for a bit I'm afraid." Bimsby said has he patted her on the shoulder and walked by. Bimsby and Justin picked up the litter and started toward the doorway to the hall. "This thing's is pretty light." Justin said cheerfully.

"She's not a thing." Audra announced sternly. They all stopped and looked at her. "Her name is Alestra, and she's not a demon either, she has feelings." Audra said about her, before thinking it all the way through.

The men all looked at each other and then to Rom. They all knew that he had more knowledge about the mystical creatures of the world than any of them. Sensing them looking for his approval, Rom smiled and said. "Now we all have our own guardian angel." Rom said smiling alone in the joke. "I don't know exactly what she is, but she's not demonic or filled with any ill intent I suspect." Rom continued with his smile erased. "She's some kind on magical cross between a bird and a person, or perhaps a very large fairy." Either way; it's plain to me she means us no ill will at all." With that the party looked to the beautiful and pitiful creature and smiled with some satisfaction at Rom's answer.

Only Max didn't look appeased; but he didn't display any resentment either. He just looked on without expression, as if deep in thought about the matter. Then he turned at started down the western hallway, further into the unknown, as did they all.

The hallway went on for five hundred feet or more before stopping the westward track and turning right to the north. Shortly after the right turn they were all relieved to see stairs going gradually up. The stairs came to a landing in the and the hall continued to the north.  In the distance they saw a dim pale yellow light, like that of a reading lamp.

They were very weary of what they saw because seeing a source of light that far underground made no sense to any of them except the probability that the Giants who made all that they saw must still inhabit this place.

"Theon, scout the area from where the light comes." Justin said in a low whisper. "Of course . . . send the bloody Halfling." Theon said under his breath, so that only Bimsby heard it. Bimsby smiled and almost laughed. Justin wondered why, and felt as though some joke had been played on him, but he did not say anything.

Silently Theon moved through the darkness, as few creatures could. His tiny figure was seen by his comrades darting back and forth the hallway, illuminated only by the break he would make in the pale yellow light as his black shadowed moved down the hallway, nearly invisible.

After some time and idle whispering about what was taking him so long, Theon signaled twice by rubbing his flint along the wall. The sparks looked like two flashes at that distance to his comrades.

"He is signaling for us to come." Halfstone said as he moved forward without orders to do so. Justin followed quickly after, as did they all. Kilimir and Audra were carrying Alestra. Audra was strong for a woman her size, but it was hard for her to carry Alestra, and hoped she would be required to do it for too long a distance.