Run Like Hell

by Elliott Kay

  The thick, iron-bound bar required the strength of all three. Scars found his muscles straining with effort. Despite the brief rest in DigDig’s little home, he was still weary from the earlier battles and all the running since. Weariness could soon turn to exhaustion, but he would get this done.

  The bar came free. The trio pulled it well away from the doorway before dropping it to the floor. None of them lingered. In seconds, all three were behind the cell door again. This time, Scars made sure it locked as he closed it.

  “What are you doing?” Teryn hissed, aware of the need for quiet. “We can’t use the keys from in here.”

  “He can,” Shady Tooth answered, gesturing to Yargol.

  “Sshh,” warned War Cloud. “Get down low.”

  “Why, what’s behind that—?” Teryn began. She stopped herself when she heard the low grind of the heavy doors opening with old, rarely-oiled hinges. Heeding War Cloud’s advice, she crouched low like the others—all except Yargol.

  The magician’s loose sleeves fell to the elbows as he raised his mismatched hands. He waved them around one another in a sort of spiral, pulling inward with each circuit. A breeze wafted into the cell through the little window, carrying along smoke which strangely lingered near the window rather than spreading within. Yargol crouched with the others as his spell continued on its own. He looked back to the human. “A little wind to cover our scent, and a little smoke to help the shadows,” he explained in a whisper.

  Her mouth opened with more questions—and then her eyes narrowed. She sniffed. “Why does it smell like lavender?” she whispered.

  Yargol grimaced. “My mentor preferred spells with ‘added value.’ I’m sorry.”

  The large doors creaked louder, grinding hinges followed by rasping and shuffling. Scraping, grunting, stumbling noises followed, along with the patter of bare feet on stone—many such feet.

  Something yelped in pain. A chair fell to the floor. The grunts and gasps built, increasing in numbers and frantic intensity as more footsteps rushed by. A heavy thump at the cell door sent a shudder through even Scars, but he kept low and said nothing.

  The thumps continued, up and down against the door and then several all at once.

  Hands grasped the bars on the little window: small, inhuman…and dried out to a sickly, desiccated tan shade. Open wounds on the fingers looked as if they’d gone to rot. The creature’s round head bumped against the bars as it jammed its tiny nose up for an urgent sniff. No one mistook the goblin for the living creature it once was. Not with the sickly pallor of its flesh.

  Another hand appeared on top of the goblin’s head, this one closer to human yet every bit as sickly and decayed. The hand wrenched the goblin back as another face appeared in the window. This time, the crew saw the grey beard and ruined eyes of a dwarf long dead, yet still moving. Like the goblin, the dwarf sniffed for the cell’s occupants.

  The rush of footsteps continued. Dozens of creatures had to have already passed, yet more continued. The dwarf at the cell door faltered, bumped by others either fighting for his spot at the door or merely passing by. A wretched stench drifted into the lavender-scented smoke still magically lingering at the window. The stink soon overpowered more pleasant smells, forcing more than one of the cell’s occupants to pinch their nose with a look of disgust.

  Still sitting with his back against the door, Scars looked to his companions. DigDig seemed solid; though smaller and perhaps weaker than the rest, he had the nerve for diving deeper into the dungeon than anyone. He’d been in spots like this before. Yargol retreated into his hooded robe, neither moving nor speaking. Shady Tooth watched the window with both her knives drawn. War Cloud kept his eyes shut in prayer.

  That left only the human to worry about. Scars found nothing less than the same wary, silent resolve shown by Shady Tooth. Despite a cell full of armed monsters and the unseen ravening hordes on the other side of the door, she kept her fear under control.

  Scars knew the effort it required. His own fears were no less powerful. Sweat collected on his brow. His heart pounded. His breath came short and shallow. He reminded himself of the strength of the cell doors and the core instincts of the threats outside. They wouldn’t linger. Not with the scent of blood and living food to draw them away.

  Newcomers aggravated the scuffle at the cell door. The dwarf fell under a struggle, replaced by two more hands—both of them right hands, with more thumping to indicate a lack of cooperation between their owners. Snarling and rasping followed. Another hand made it through the bars, hooking over the bottom of the window to blindly reach and claw. Scars leaned out of the way and stared, wondering if it had sensed him.

  If they detected anyone in the cell, it might be all over. Dwarf craftsmanship may have made the cell doors impossible to break down without tools, but they might never make it out again. Not with death awaiting on the other side. Go out and be slaughtered or stay in here and starve, thought Scars. What a great plan I’ve hatched.

  Then everything stopped. The clawing arm froze. So did the thumping at the door and the endless cacophony of footsteps and shuffles beyond. A distant scream drifted through the silence to explain the sudden change. Scars detected a note of frustration in Chatter’s voice—along with a note of pain.

  The arm withdrew violently, as if its owner had lost whatever support allowed it to reach so high. The riot of growls and footsteps resumed, though this time with purpose. It peaked almost immediately, reducing with each following second until Scars heard nothing at all. That single scream had summoned every hungry mouth in the prison.

  He waited a moment more, staring at his companions. Only silence followed. Quieter than the rest, DigDig crept forward, accepting Scars’s offer of strong shoulders to stand upon for a look through the window.

  “All gone,” the goblin hissed.

  “What the hell was all that?” Teryn demanded with a whisper. “Were those zombies?”

  “Ghouls, mostly,” said War Cloud. “Zombies don’t hold together that well. They don’t rot the same. Those were all ghouls. Still happy to eat us, though.”

  Yargol stood with his arms raised again in a sweeping gesture. The smoke drifted back out of the cell window, and with it the worst of the stench of dead flesh.

  “We take whatever we can,” said Scars. “And then we move out. Quietly.”

  “Might want to get the doors,” suggested Shady Tooth. “It’ll buy us a little time if one of those things hears or smells us and comes back.”

  “I can help with the noise,” Yargol added.

  Scars glanced at Teryn once more, but decided to hold the thought. She said nothing as Yargol took care of the door with a little more magic, floating the keys out through the window. Teryn watched the crew in wary silence rather than drawing attention to herself. Scars thought it spoke well of her sensibilities.

  Freed from the prison cell, Shady Tooth and Yargol went straight for the entrance. War Cloud watched the other end of the prison as he emerged from the cell, his blade low but ready. Nothing but shadow could be seen past the doors at the other side.

  DigDig set to looting as soon as he was out of the cell. He wasn’t the only one. Teryn took up the first weapon she came across on the floor.

  “You know how to hold a sword,” Scars observed.

  “And a dagger, yes,” she said, picking one up from the wreckage by the table. “You seem to know a lot about ghouls.”

  “War Cloud and I get a lot of the shit jobs around here. The lower levels are infested with undead from the First Darkness and whoever else has been caught up in it since. Sometimes they wander up here. The wizard liked to keep them penned up in case he needed a swarm of ghouls for something. Shock troops, I guess.”

  “Lovely.” Everything about her spoke to her wariness: her posture, the priority she put on taking up a weapon, the way she turned to keep her rescuers in her field of view. She glanced at the bodies on the floor. “These are all orcs,” she said.

  “You caught
the part where they let prisoners starve to death so they could get slightly better food, right?” Scars pointed out. “Maybe you haven’t been here long enough to see the beatings? None of that was a matter of survival for them. Cruelty like that is a choice.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Good to know.”

  Then it was his turn to be wary. “Are you an adventurer?”

  “I suppose you could say I’ve had a few adventures, but not out of enthusiasm. I’m not the dragon-slaying sort, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then what sort are you?”

  “The sort who wants to get out of this mess alive.” She moved aside as Shady Tooth and Yargol returned to join DigDig in searching the wreckage of tables and gear. “Who are you, and what is all this about? Why did you turn on these others?”

  “Call me Scars. We’re leaving this place. The ghouls are meant to cover our escape.”

  “We hope,” grunted Shady Tooth.

  “Escape? Why are you fleeing?” asked Teryn.

  “We had a job here. It’s over now. Adventurers hit the upper levels a little more than an hour ago. They’re cleaning the place out. I’m sure they’ll come through here soon enough, if you want to wait for them.”

  “Adventurers? Shit. Do you know who? Which—no, it doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not sure it’s in our best interests to tell you,” said Scars.

  “I don’t want to run into some band of adventurers any more than you do.”

  Shady Tooth’s ears perked up. She’d finished rummaging through the wreckage of the tables, anyway. “What’s bad about a bunch of adventurers finding some lone human prisoner in a dungeon? I’d think that’s your best way out of here.”

  “And a lot of humans would expect one of you to have killed me out of hand already,” said Teryn. “Or eaten me.”

  “There’s no reason for killing you,” said Scars. “Nothing to be gained from it, either. With a bunch of adventurers running around down here, there’s more good than harm in letting you go.”

  “And more harm than good for me in running into them,” Teryn admitted. “I can help you if I can come with you.”

  “How?” asked Shady Tooth.

  “You said you want to get out of here. Your kind are hunted in Theralda. I know these lands well. I can act as your guide. And I can move more freely than you can.”

  “That depends on where and when,” Shady Tooth countered.

  “Why?” asked Scars. “Why would you do this?”

  “I told you I’m a traveler. Maybe I’m a little more of a bandit, if I’m honest.”

  Scars let out a snort. “That explains a lot.”

  “I’m a fair hand in a fight, too. Most of you look a little beaten up. I can pull my weight.”

  “Boss?” DigDig asked. He crouched before a small wooden chest, opened now thanks to the troll’s keyring. The goblin produced a bow and quiver of arrows. “Think this is her gear.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “So you can fight. Are you healthy enough?”

  “I’m starving and thirsty and exhausted, but I want to get out of here. I’ll fight.”

  “Apparently she has much in common with us,” said Yargol.

  Scars handed over his waterskin. “It’s clean. Water isn’t a problem here. Dwarven pipes.”

  She took it from him, eyeing the skin with more shock than suspicion. “Those bastards said…” She didn’t bother finishing the thought. Teryn tore off the cap for a long gulp.

  “You sure about this?” asked Shady Tooth.

  He shrugged. “She knows when to keep her mouth shut. If she wanted to feed us to those adventurers, she could’ve holed up here in the prison to wait for them. Coming with us only puts her at risk.”

  “I suppose. If she can shoot that…elven bow,” Shady Tooth noted, her eyes narrowing as she looked upon it again.

  “My great-grandfather’s,” said Teryn. “Is that a problem?”

  “I’m sure it will be eventually,” grumbled Shady Tooth.

  “Trouble,” War Cloud hissed suddenly. Scars turned around, only then noting his absence from the conversation. The gnoll hadn’t moved from the middle of the chamber, facing the open doors to the darkened ghoul pen. He took up a battle stance, bringing both hands around the grip of his sword. “We’re not alone.”

  Teryn rushed for the chest as DigDig stepped up with his shovel. Shady Tooth drew her weapons. So did Scars. “They should have all passed,” he murmured.

  “The burning orc isn’t here anymore,” War Cloud noted. “They dragged it back inside.”

  “How many?”

  “Not sure. A handful, I think.”

  “How can you tell?” asked Shady Tooth. “I can’t smell anything. Can’t hear…wait…there!”

  They rushed out of the darkness all at once. All five shared a sickly grey pallor to their skin, which lay mostly bare under the tattered remains of clothing torn and gone to rot after centuries of wear. They varied by shape and race, comprised of two dwarves, a goblin, an orc, and an elf, but they were all ghouls now: long dead yet possessed by lethal hunger.

  War Cloud braced himself to meet the charge. Scars and Shady Tooth rushed to support him. An arrow flew in before the clash, striking the undead goblin in the shoulder with enough force to turn him. The impact sent him twisting and sprawling in front of one of the dwarves to take both down to the floor. Yargol proved less apt than the archer, sending a flaming icicle between two others without hitting either.

  Only a heartbeat before the rest came to blows, Shady Tooth leaped out from her position. Unready for such a move, the orc ghoul didn’t try to dodge and couldn’t hold up her greater mass of muscle and fur. She slammed him to the floor, stunning her enemy even before her knives came out.

  The rest of the front line stuck to the basics. War Cloud stepped into the swing of his sword, once ready to take them all on himself but now focused on the undead elf given the assurance of support from his crew. His blade caught the elf in her ribs, taking her off her feet to bump into the last of the dwarves. Off-balance in the last, critical moment before contact, the dwarf ghoul stumbled rather than dodged as Scars plunged his spear through a dried and grey beard and into solid flesh.

  The dwarf grabbed the shaft of the spear and pulled himself through with savage indifference to his injury. Clawed hands tore into Scars before Scars let the spear go, savaging his upper arm. Blood poured from the wound as Scars gave ground.

  The ghoul rushed on, snarling and slashing—until a shovel swept up from beneath him into the shaft of the spear embedded in his chest. DigDig virtually rolled in, hitting hard enough against the spear in the dead dwarf’s chest to turn him sideways.

  It was all the opportunity Scars needed. He snatched the other end of the spear protruding from the dwarf’s back and pulled, turning the dwarf further to now face away from him. Though fairly matched in strength, Scars had height and the leverage of a handle. He needed only to keep from impaling himself on the spearhead. The predicament kept him too close to use a sword to good effect, but his dagger was easier to draw, anyway. He put the blade through the dwarf ghoul’s neck, holding it in place by the top of the spear through its back until it stopped moving.

  He looked around for a comrade to aid, but found no one in need. Shady Tooth had her opponent pinned beneath her. She stabbed the orc ghoul mercilessly with both of her knives until it stopped moving, heedless of the orc’s claws dragging against her leathers. War Cloud made good use of the reach of his weapon. Having already put the undead elf on the floor with a vicious wound in her side, he brought it down again in a fatal blow across her torso. DigDig swept in around the little skirmish to swat the elf in the head with his shovel to help keep her down. The fight seemed well in hand—until it wasn’t.

  “Watch the others,” War Cloud warned.

  “Other whats?” DigDig asked. “All dead.”

  “No. At least one is s
till—look out!”

  Of the two ghouls on the floor, only the smaller one was truly dispatched. The dwarf rallied with crazed hunger and hate, springing to his feet despite an arrow through his lung and burns across his shoulder. His deformed, clawed hands tore through the flimsy armor covering DigDig’s back. Blood trailed from his flailing hands. DigDig collapsed with a scream.

  War Cloud hewed the dwarf ghoul through the collarbone and down into its chest before Scars could reach them. Practically in the same motion, War Cloud dropped to his knees at DigDig’s side. He rolled the goblin onto his stomach to check his wounds. “Light! I need light!” he demanded.

  Within seconds, he had more than he expected. A light brighter than any torch shined down on DigDig from Yargol’s palm as the magician arrived. Scars could see all the ugly details of the goblin’s wounds, from the rent links of old and worn-out armor to the slashes running up and down his back. Scars had seen worse, but worse usually killed someone instantly. DigDig gasped and hissed in pain.

  “How bad is it?” asked their wounded guide.

  “Bad, but you’re still alive,” said War Cloud. He snatched up the nearest rags from amid the broken table at his side to press them against the wounds.

  “Those are filthy. He’ll get infected,” warned Teryn.

  “Everything down here is filthy,” said War Cloud. “We’ll deal with the infection when it happens. He’s bleeding now. Shady Tooth, Teryn: I need more rags. Whatever you can find. Don’t worry about the filth.”

  “I can have them cleansed in the blink of an eye,” added Yargol. “It will take no effort.”

  “Right,” Shady Tooth grunted. Her first steps wobbled on an obvious limp. “Fucking ghouls. Even if they don’t cut deep, your muscles still go dead.”

  “What can you do for him?” Scars asked War Cloud.

  “I can stop the bleeding with Yargol’s help. It’ll keep him alive for now. He won’t be up for any fighting. I can’t do more than that until I’ve had time to rest and pray. Still too drained.”

  “Drained? Are you a shaman?” asked Teryn.