A year ago, these words would have sent Callindra through the door in a fury.  Her losses and experience had taught her to bank the fires of her rage however, and she waited patiently instead.  The exertion of flying to the top of this place had drained her, but she needed an edge if she was going to survive and escape with Holt.  Closing her eyes, she touched Shadowsliver’s hilt and incanted a spell.

“You touch her.  You die.”  Holt’s voice reached her ears, sounding harsh as though he’d screamed it raw.  She was shocked by the level of anger in it to the point she almost lost her grip on the spell she was casting.

“Listen to the old grandfather, still feeling protective of the whelp.”  The honey sweet voice purred.  The sound was followed by the crack of kiln dried wood hitting flesh.  Callindra lost her temper and released her spell.

Everything seemed to slow as she borrowed the speed and fury of Njordi, the Great North Wind.  The door swung open with enough force that it shattered against the wall and she was through and halfway across the room before her targets had turned their heads.  Shadowsliver reached out in a perfect lunge, punching cleanly through the skull of a thin man clad only in a leather loincloth who stood beside a brazier filled with glowing coals and a variety of metal bits.

The impact hurt.  Callindra’s left hand felt as though she had punched a stone wall and she nearly lost her grip on his leather-bound hilt.  Gritting her teeth, she managed to maintain her concentration on the spell and ripped the blade free with a twist, breaking the man’s skull in twain.  With a practiced motion, she turned and hurled her sword at the wide woman who seemed to be made all of slabs of muscle.  She turned from bringing her hand back to deliver another blow with the wooden staff in her hand surprise turning to glee on her face.

It could have been the pain of impact, the speed of her motion or her horror at seeing Holt in the cell beyond the woman, bound in shackles.  It might have just been bad luck.  Whatever the reason, she saw her blade fly past her opponent’s neck, inflicting only a shallow cut.

Cursing, she tried to pull the blade back, but he had already passed through the bars and the sudden motion caused his chain to wrap around the bars of the cage.  Although she was moving much faster than the other woman, Callindra saw her smile as she turned and began to swing her staff.

In a reckless, desperate move she saw that the huge woman was trying to strike her feet so Callindra did the only thing she could think of.   Wrapping the chain around her left hand, she leaped into the air, turning a neat flip over the striking staff and the woman’s head while letting the chain loop around her neck at the same time.  With a wrench of her hips, she twisted in the air one and a half times before the chain jerked taunt and nearly tore her arms from their sockets.

The chain cut halfway through the woman’s throat, spraying blood into the chamber as Callindra bore her to the ground, screaming in pain and rage.  The spell fled as her concentration broke, but she kept the tension on the chain for another count of ten just to make sure the bitch was dead.

With a shake, she forced herself to let go of the chain.  She realized she was still snarling an unending string of curses in a low harsh language.  More of Kain’s native tongue had rubbed off on her than she’d thought; Orc was an excellent language to swear in.

“Callindra?”  Holt’s voice shook slightly, “By all the Gods and Demons how did you…  What did you… are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”  She snapped, before looking down at herself; clad in black and splattered with blood and knew her face was still set in a grimace of pain and rage.  “I’m fine.”  She said in a calmer tone of voice, “Let’s get you out.”

Her left hand throbbed and the fingers didn’t work the way they should as she untangled Shadowsliver’s chain from the bars and fumbled a ring of keys from the dead man’s belt.  Her hand twinged when she tried to turn the key in the lock and she had to use her right hand instead.  Once inside she began unlocking Holt’s bonds.  He watched her with hooded eyes.

“What happened there?”  He asked, his voice still hoarse.  “You were different.  I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I lost my temper.  Bad things happen when I lose my temper.”  She said, fighting to keep the dregs of her anger from building on itself.  The keys fell from the numb fingers of her left hand and she bit back an orcish oath.  If only she had a god rotting sheath for her sword instead of having to carry him.

That thought made her freeze.  She did not want to put Shadowsliver, her life, her soul her companion down.  Taking a deep breath, Callindra picked up the keys with her right hand and unlocked the rest of Holt’s shackles.