by Elliott Kay
“Wonderful,” grumbled Shady Tooth.
DigDig saw more movement at the next intersection. Some of the undead shambled while others crawled. Some didn’t wait for the crew to close in. “Fight up ahead,” he warned.
“Scars, I can’t see,” said Teryn. “Even with Yargol’s magic, it’s too dark.”
Their guide had a hand in his belt pouch before she finished speaking. He only thought of the drawback once the glowstone was out in the open: he couldn’t hold it and swing his shovel with any real effectiveness. The shovel worked best with two hands. Lacking a better alternative, DigDig hurled the glowstone into the mob of zombies and ghouls.
He didn’t like the effect the light had on their enemies. Now he had a better sense of their numbers and their ferocious looks. It only made the whole scene scarier.
“Good job,” declared Yargol. A flaming icicle rushed past DigDig’s head, stabbing one ghoul dead center in the chest. The thing stumbled and fell, catching fire to become a burning obstacle its fellows had to avoid.
DigDig grunted out a wordless thanks. He supposed it was a good job…not that he’d thought of how it would help the magician when he threw it.
“Smash through,” War Cloud urged the others. “Nothing here will show mercy.”
The gnoll crowded past DigDig, moving from rearguard to the frontline beside Scars. DigDig felt a hand on his shoulder slowing him up. Yargol ran alongside with advice: “Let the bigger ones lead.”
Teryn seemed to have the same idea. DigDig caught sight of her at Yargol’s opposite side, her blade up and ready. He meant to say something, but a gnoll’s war cry and the crash of bodies derailed his thought. An instant later, Shady Tooth leaped past, bringing both feet forward as she flew between War Cloud and Scars to crash into an undead hobgoblin.
The world fell into shadows and slaughter. Big bodies with big weapons pressed in, hacking and cleaving through the hall. Dried and desiccated long ago, the undead did not bleed much, but little bits of them landed at DigDig’s feet. He searched for some way to be useful from behind the crew’s muscle, ready to dish out some pain with his shovel. Nothing offered a clear shot. Yargol threw more magic and even Teryn could lunge past their line to stab at one of the ghouls, but DigDig saw no way to help. It was all so much bigger than him.
He usually avoided big stuff. He couldn’t match the bluster and brawn of the leaders of his kind. King Mierrek was a hobgoblin, along with most of his court—all of them bigger than goblins. Yet the other goblins pushed DigDig around, too. He wasn’t small for a goblin, but it didn’t matter when there were always two or more against him, with others to back them up.
Nobody wanted him around, no matter how hard he worked or how helpful he could be. He never knew why. DigDig stuck to the shadows and kept to himself.
Now he had a crew and no way to help them.
“Push forward. Hold the line,” Scars ordered. “Keep it—argh!” A goblin ghoul slashed him with its clawed hands while he was on the backswing. Scars wrenched free of his attacker before its fingers got caught in his armor. DigDig stepped up to swat it, but War Cloud kicked the ghoul away first.
The damage was done. DigDig could already see the wounded arm stiffen up. Scars stepped back in the line despite his own calls. He kept his blade up as a sharp barrier rather than swinging with an arm he couldn’t trust. His shield became his primary tool. “Watch the claws,” he warned.
DigDig thought he might step in to help fill the gap. Scars never left him room enough to move in. War Cloud shifted over, grasping the top end of his greatsword with a gauntleted hand to shove several more undead goblins back. Along with his shift in tactics, War Cloud poured on the ferocity to make up for his companion’s debility.
To the right, Shady Tooth plunged one knife into the neck of a dwarf and used it to wrench the foe back behind her. It tumbled to the ground as she pressed on. DigDig brought the edge of his shovel down on the zombie dwarf’s neck to finish it off, but he knew as he hit the effort was unnecessary. It wasn’t getting up again.
He looked back to Shady Tooth in time to see her come face to face with an undead bugbear even larger than herself. Her knives flashed, digging into the pale monster. She turned it aside and shoved it against the porch of a ruined dwarf home, hacking and slashing while the ghoul clawed at her in turn. DigDig couldn’t see an angle where he could help. He turned to take her spot in the front line, but Teryn stepped in first.
“Help Shady Tooth!” she told him.
“I’ve got her,” said Yargol. Though living and dead bugbears continued to grapple, Yargol found an opening for his spear in the ghoul’s side. It was all the edge Shady Tooth needed.
“Are we getting anywhere with this?” asked Teryn, still swinging.
“Yes,” said Scars. “Keep fighting, there’s an end to—aw, shit.”
DigDig didn’t see the trouble, but he heard the heavy thump of footsteps right before Scars came tumbling back past him. Dwarves and goblins turned to ghouls were bad enough, but the undead ogre that crashed into Scars brought a whole new sense of menace. Brawny muscles and long, wild hair rushed overhead in DigDig’s vision as it lurched to one side, swatting down Teryn, and then back the other way—only to catch War Cloud’s greatsword in its upper arm.
They pushed against one another, caught by the embedded blade and a not-yet-severed limb. The ogre bellowed in rage. War Cloud roared back even louder.
DigDig saw his chance. He ducked around and past the ogre, rising up in time for a decayed dwarf to lunge at him. A panicked swing of DigDig’s shovel took the dwarf’s rotting head clean off its shoulders. He spun back around, finding the contest of strength unlikely to break War Cloud’s way.
Though the ogre no longer felt pain, it still needed functioning legs. DigDig swung the edge of his shovelhead into the back of the ogre’s knee with all his might. Hobbled from behind, the ogre collapsed in the test of might against War Cloud. The victor put a boot in its side to wrench his blade free. DigDig helped keep the enemy down with a nasty shovel blow to the face. By the time War Cloud came in with a killing blow, Scars piled on with his sword, too. The ogre didn’t rise again.
“We need to keep going,” said Yargol. He stepped past the victors, thrusting both hands out at their foes. Black liquid jetted out from his hands, splashing out in a small wave—and shrieking with a dozen voices. Goblin and dwarf ghouls collapsed amid the rush of howling acid. The fumes left even Yargol wincing and choking, but the magician had enough presence of mind to throw down another glowstone to illuminate the path ahead.
Scars paused to take stock of the crew. His left arm still wasn’t moving and the ogre’s charge hadn’t left him unscathed. War Cloud seemed no worse for wear. Teryn bled from several cuts but so far she seemed unfazed by the touch of the undead. On the porch of the dwarven home at their side, Shady Tooth emerged victorious from her fight with the bugbear ghoul—though staggering and bleeding. Like Scars, her muscles tightened up from the ghouls’ touch, only for her it was all over her back. “Right behind,” she huffed.
“I’ll help her,” DigDig announced, rushing to her side. “Go. One more crossing, then turn right. Go.”
None of the others waited around to argue. Shady Tooth scowled down at him. “You aren’t strong enough. Not even tall enough. You can’t help me.”
“Shut up. Can, too. Lean on my shoulder. C’mon.”
Scowling deeper, she jammed one knife into its sheath before leaning on DigDig’s shoulder, almost as if to prove a point. “Can’t even use you as a crutch,” she muttered…until she stepped once and found she could do exactly that.
Crashes and a few screams beckoned them forward. Her limp picked up speed. DigDig kept up with her and even pulled her into a faster pace. “Pretty strong for a goblin,” she conceded.
“Strong legs, strong back,” he grunted. “Think I don’t work around here? All I do is carry shit. Up and down, back and forth.”
“If you work and you’re n
ot weak, why do they hate you?” huffed Shady Tooth.
“Don’t know,” he said, and then added a lie: “Don’t care now.”
“Huh. Yeah. Guess not.”
They soon passed Yargol’s glowstone, but Teryn now wielded her own. Flashes of Yargol’s magic added to the light. The same mix of ghouls and zombies came at them again, mostly from the passage breaking off to the right.
War Cloud held the center of the intersection as the others pushed on. He met the leading undead hobgoblin with a low and wide slash and another roar. It was the kind of move skilled swordsmen didn’t make often, all power and extension while leaving themselves open, but War Cloud didn’t worry about this enemy’s savvy. He connected directly in the undead hobgoblin’s side—and split him into two brightly burning halves with a flare of magic.
“Whoa!” blurted DigDig.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” snapped Shady Tooth as they closed in.
War Cloud kicked the top half of the hobgoblin up off the ground at its brethren. The corpse still glowed with heat like an oversized piece of charcoal. The other ghouls shrank back. Dumber and slower than the ghouls, one of the zombies stumbled over the corpse and caught fire. “I can’t exactly do it all day,” said War Cloud.
“Can you do it quieter?” Shady Tooth asked. “You’ll wake every corpse in the hold.”
War Cloud kicked the remainder of the glowing corpse down the hall. “They’re already awake.” He patted DigDig’s free shoulder. “Here, let me help her.”
DigDig let War Cloud take over without argument. Resistance was lighter up ahead. The others were almost at the intersection now. Yargol hurled another fiery spell around the corner to their right in advance of their run. Scars and Teryn moved in. DigDig rushed forward, thinking of the rail tracks and mine carts down the hall…
…No. Not this hall. The next. He cursed himself as he heard more sounds of battle among his crew. “Wrong turn!” he shouted. “Wrong turn! Next one! Need the next one!”
“What?” snapped more than one of his allies.
A decaying dwarf missing one arm stumbled out of the intersection to collapse on the ground. DigDig closed in to finish it with a shovelhead to the face. He looked up to find Scars, Teryn, and Yargol already twenty feet down a dark hall leading to nothing but more enemies. DigDig waved for them to come back. “Wrong turn! Wrong tunnel!”
“Damn it, you said—!” Scars fumed, slamming another zombie down with his shield.
“Got confused. Lots of tunnels. Sorry!”
“’Sorry’ won’t keep us alive,” Shady Tooth complained. War Cloud helped her past the intersection as they others turned and ran, covered by another rush of screaming acid.
“Save it,” Scars told her. He ran beside DigDig on the way to the next corner. “It’s the next one? You’re sure?”
“Rails. Carts on rails,” DigDig managed. His words came between short, shallow breaths. “Dwarves took things back and forth to the bridge on rails.”
“You holding up okay?” Scars asked.
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t know how else he could answer that. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to carry him. He’d almost been better off helping Shady Tooth. It kept him motivated.
“Did you say carts? Going our way?” asked Yargol. The magician worked even harder to keep up with the rest.
“Yes. All rusted now. Broken. Won’t move.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Probably be more undead in the tunnel,” DigDig added. “Lots of undead.”
“Something else you might have mentioned,” said Shady Tooth.
“How is that any different from the rest of this?” asked War Cloud.
They found the answer to his question as soon as they turned the corner. Light from Teryn’s glowstone shined down a long hallway descending into darkness. As DigDig described, a pair of mining carts sat side by side on ancient rails running down the middle of the passage. Ancient shelves and storage bins lined the walls at the mouth of the passage, most of them long broken or collapsing in decay.
Bodies lined the passage, too—dozens of them, spreading from the carts on into the darkness, made up of dwarven workers and guards and at least as many goblin raiders. Some of their number had already stirred to their feet. The rest looked about to follow as movement spread throughout their open tomb.
“I need them kept back for a couple of minutes,” said Yargol.
“Oh, is that all?” War Cloud grumbled.
“You’re half of our shooting ability,” said Scars. Beside him, Teryn sheathed her sword in favor of her bow. Already, they heard the hungry, rasping howl of ghouls.
“Then we need to broaden our capabilities,” said the magician.
Yargol set the bottom of his spear on the ground, leaving it standing upright as he released it and stepped toward the carts. It promptly tilted into a fall stopped only by Scars. He caught the weapon before it hit the floor, reversed his grip and hurled it down the hall into the chest of one of the approaching zombies. The thing collapsed with a gurgle.
Though his face was still obscured by the shadows of his hood, Yargol’s exasperation was clear as he looked back to Scars. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry,” said the crew’s leader. “I thought you were done with it.”
Sighing, Yargol knelt behind one of the carts. Scars motioned to DigDig. “Keep him covered. War Cloud, take the left. Shady Tooth?”
“Still stiff. Fucking ghouls,” she growled. Shady Tooth staggered forward without support from War Cloud to lean against one of the carts.
Scars moved up parallel to War Cloud. Teryn stayed close behind him, rapidly shooting one arrow after another down the hall. DigDig watched with surprise at her speed. She didn’t hit with every shot, but she was steady despite her pace. Clearly, she had practiced this. She was also mindful to use the silver-tipped arrows in her quiver, as evidenced by the sudden, shrieking death suffered by one ghoul who took a shaft through the chest.
“You fixing the wheels?” DigDig asked Yargol.
The magician had his hands under the iron cart. DigDig waited through an uncomfortable stretch of nothing but the sounds of ghoul and zombie-smashing from his companions before Yargol answered. He thought he heard a metallic clank. “The wheels and the rails,” said Yargol. “We need the whole system to work properly.”
“How long will that take? Doesn’t this spell take longer than the others?” asked Shady Tooth.
“As it turns out, with a little extra effort and energy…I can work fast,” murmured Yargol. He faced the cart as he spoke, still completely covered by his robe and hood except for his hands. A quick series of metallic clanks rang out again, this time stretching off down into the hall.
“Can’t be fast enough,” growled the bugbear. “DigDig, behind us.”
More of the undead came up from their path. Decayed forms came up on their rear, more in a shuffle than a run. The crew had already faced those who could move faster. Still, their slower movement made this wall of death no less threatening. Once they came within reach, they’d hit hard. Hit and bite.
DigDig looked in the carts for something to throw. He found a few discarded bricks and hurled a couple of them at the approaching threat, but they did little good. He heard another set of clunks from the carts as he wound up for his next throw. The zombies were not indifferent to his bricks, with one collapsing after a nasty blow to the head, but his efforts hardly provided a deterrent.
Shady Tooth growled as she struggled to pull her knife from its sheath. She still had trouble moving. The rest of the group still had their hands full. DigDig took a deep breath, hefting his shovel up with both hands and setting his feet to charge in. Yargol needed room. Maybe he could buy that.
As he launched into his run, a hand grasped his shoulder to yank him back. DigDig’s legs didn’t get the same message. The contrast pulled him right off his feet to land him on his butt. Yargol stepped past him, shouting something DigDig didn’t understand before he slammed bot
h of his hands down on the floor.
Thunder and lightning burst from that same spot on the floor, flashing and booming left and right all the way down the hall back to the intersection. Crackling electricity caught one zombie after another. Most staggered back or fell altogether. Some caught fire. The display lasted only an instant but it nearly cleared the back of the hall.
DigDig looked on in awe. Even the sounds of battle on the other side of the carts slackened. “What the hell?” Shady Tooth snapped. “You were sitting on that little trick this whole time?”
“I can’t do that all day,” Yargol fairly groaned. The magician’s fatigue was plain as he turned around with his head hung low. “It’s more flash than harm. Many will get up again.”
“Still!” she fumed.
“And you were all in my way,” he added. “The cart will move. Someone needs to push it. Hard.” The magician heaved himself inside, practically rolling over the edge. “The brake is on the right. Pull it and get me moving. I have one more spell to throw.”
“This I can do,” said Shady Tooth. She crouched against the cart and nodded to DigDig. The handbrake stuck out of the back right corner as a handle rising just over the edge. He threw it and jerked his hand back as Shady Tooth pushed hard.
The cart wasn’t heavy, nor was Yargol. Shady Tooth had plenty of muscle. Gravity helped even more. The cart rolled past Scars and War Cloud in a rush, plunging toward the greater mob of oncoming corpses. DigDig understood using the cart as a weapon to disrupt the mob, but he never thought Yargol would ride it.
Then a horde of flaming bats erupted from Yargol’s hands to scour the path ahead and to the sides. DigDig watched Yargol burn zombie after zombie while others directly in front of him were battered aside by the weight of the cart. If the magician could cover only so much distance with his spell, the rolling cart surely added to it by carrying him along as he poured out more flame. Every squealing bat that missed its mark promptly whirled and dove back down until it burst into flames against a target. Magical fire scoured the passage for many yards ahead.