by Logan Jacobs
“Emeline, we’re going to need more light!” I shouted. We wouldn’t be able to carry our torches and fight at the same time, but we weren’t all like Dehn, we needed to see what we were doing.
The panthera woman nodded and cast more balls of light that floated above the fray and illuminated the tunnel. I’d half-hoped the monsters might be distracted by them still, at least a little, but all their focus now was on the swearing, half-drunk whirlwind of death in their midst, not that I could really blame them. It wasn’t until Emeline got the rest of the lights up, though, that I realized something was wrong.
None of the creatures were crying in pain or fleeing. None had fallen, though several had some of Lavinia’s dark arrows sticking out of them. Dehn had startled them before, but they were all in the fight now, and they crawled over one another in an attempt to get to the halfling just as they’d done to pursue the light moments before. Despite being made entirely of sharp edges, however, Dehn hadn’t made so much as a cut into any of the monsters’ creepy translucent body armor, and even Lavinia’s perfect shots to the creatures’ heads hadn’t been enough to bring them down. If Dehn noticed that fact himself, it didn’t stop him from hacking away at them with all his might, but the archer knew better than to waste her arrows.
“These bastards have some seriously hard shells,” she growled. “You want to help me out, Gabriel?”
I knew what she meant. I could enchant her arrows with mana just like I did with my dagger. I nodded to her, then threw a glance over my shoulder to the others.
“Lena, Emeline, see if fire has any effect on them, but try not to hit Dehn.” That would be easier said than done with the way the halfling was moving, but he didn’t seem altogether too concerned about getting injured.
I stepped up to Lavinia’s back and placed my hand on her shoulder as she drew her bow again, and this time, her arrow lit up with the blue light of my magic. When she let the arrow fly, it whistled like a missile and pierced cleanly through the head of one of the creatures before it struck another in the abdomen. Both shuddered and went down.
From somewhere in the fray, Dehn cheered, but I could no longer see where the halfling was among all the swarming bodies.
A fireball from Emeline whizzed down into the crowd, followed shortly after by a blast of green flame as one of Lena’s bombs exploded in nearly the same spot. The heat rolled out over us like a tidal wave, but when the smoke cleared, it didn’t appear as though any of the lobster-monsters had even been injured by it. I cursed under my breath. Were those carapaces impervious to flame, too?
Maruk grunted as he smacked one of the monsters aside in a blow that would have shattered the bones of any other creature, but the lobster-thing only staggered, and there was only a scuff mark on its shell where Maruk’s shield had hit it.
The creature that Maruk had attacked lunged to retaliate, followed by two others, and the orc roared in pain as one clamped its claw around his arm.
I was about to tell Lavinia to shoot them when she loosed another set of arrows, not at the monsters attacking Maruk, but at the three that had broken away from the main group and were scuttling toward us. She brought down two, and one of Emeline’s fireballs hit another in the face. The fireball didn’t kill it, but the creature reared as its tentacles caught fire, and it was stalled long enough for Lavinia to draw another arrow and put it out of its misery.
Aerin had rushed forward to help Maruk, but even her enchanted axe couldn’t cut through the monster’s armor. The things had seemed to realize that they couldn’t get to Dehn through his own covering of spikes, and half turned to deal with Maruk and Aerin while the other half started for me, Lavinia, Emeline, and Lena. This last group was pursued by Dehn, who shouted insults and curses as he continued, fruitlessly, to hack at their bodies.
My heart hammered as I tried to form some kind of plan. The only thing that really seemed to work against them was my mana, but even if Lavinia could pick all two dozen of them off before they killed us, she didn’t have enough arrows, not with all the ones she’d already shot. What I needed was to enhance everyone’s weapons, but I’d never done anything like that before. I didn’t even know if I could. Whenever I’d done it with Lavinia, I’d needed physical contact with her to transfer my magic.
“Gabriel!” It was Emeline. The dark-haired mage was backed up against the other wall, about ten feet away, shooting jets of flame as fast as she could at the advancing monsters, and Lena was just behind her, throwing explosives. Neither woman’s attacks were having any effect, and I could see that Emeline was running out of mana.
“Go help them, I’ve got this,” Lavinia shouted. Her tone was as firm and confident as ever, but she knew as well as I did that without my mana, her remaining arrows weren’t going to have much of an effect. “Go!” the ranger insisted, and I raced over to Emeline and Lena.
Three of the monsters swarmed over them, and I heard them scream as I lunged with my mana blade and drove it into the back of the first of the creatures that I could reach, right at the point where its mana glowed. The monster gave a jerk as its body lit up with blue light along every nerve, and I stepped over its still-twitching legs as I threw myself between the rest of the creatures and Emeline and Lena.
As I moved to stab the next one, Emeline reached out and grabbed my free wrist in a panic. I don’t really know how to explain what happened next, because I hadn’t even known my magic could enhance other spells, but as Emeline’s fireball exploded from her hand, it wasn’t orange, but blue.
The blue fireball soared into a group of three of the monsters, and it was as if they’d been struck by lightning. There was an incredible boom as their bodies exploded, and bits of flaming flesh rained down around us. That was when I realized it wasn’t just Emeline who’d been affected by my magic. Maruk’s shields, Aerin’s axe, Lavinia’s arrows, even Lena’s explosive vials all glimmered blue with mana, and the lobster creatures no longer had the upper hand. With every strike from one of my guild members, another of the creatures went down.
There came a wild cheer from my right, and I turned to see Dehn clinging to the back of one of the creatures like a rodeo bull rider. His weapons, too, shone with mana, but the spell had worked for his armor as well, and he looked like some sort of techno-goth version of Bilbo Baggins with his glowing weapons and spiked armor. He whooped and hollered as he cut down the monsters around him and then finally drove his mana-enhanced sword into the back of the one he’d been riding.
Maruk and Aerin worked in tandem, shields and axe shining as they killed the swarm that had surrounded them, and Lavinia picked off the rest of the stragglers with her remaining arrows.
When it was over, the blue light flickered out, and I let my mana blade dissolve as I caught myself on the tunnel wall. The expense of so much mana at once like that made me dizzy, and for a moment I thought I might faint, but then I felt Aerin’s hands wrap around one of mine, and I heard the chime of bells as her healing magic flowed through me.
“Thanks,” I said quietly, and the healer smiled and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss me.
“Thank you,” she whispered when we broke apart. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“Neither did I,” I replied.
Aerin stepped back to see to the others’ injuries, and no one had gotten away without any. Lavinia looked pale as Aerin healed the fracture on her arm where one of the monsters had caught her in its claw, and Maruk was covered in the creatures’ strange, cookie-cutter-like bite marks. Lena had been burned, and Emeline had lacerations on her arm, but Aerin spoke to everyone in calm and soothing tones as she went to each of them and worked her magic.
Dehn’s attitude was markedly different. It was hard to tell just by looking at him how much of the blood that he was covered in was his or the monsters’, but he didn’t seem to be in considerable pain. Quite the opposite, actually, as the halfling was trying to recount his recent feats to Lavinia as she gathered up her arrows. Merlin followed them in p
uca form and sniffed at the softly smoking hunks of flesh that Emeline’s last fireball had left behind.
“They were pretty tough to start with, I’ll admit, but then something just came over me!” Dehn said loudly. “I was on fire! Knocking those bastards down left and right! I bet you’re happy you let me come along now, huh?”
“Uh-huh.” Lavinia caught my eye and worked her jaw, and I gave her an appreciative smile. It was fine by me if Dehn attributed the effects of my magic to his own warrior prowess. It didn’t seem like he’d even noticed how the others had been similarly affected, but I guessed he’d been too wrapped up in the joy of the fight.
When everyone was back in fighting shape thanks to Aerin, we reconvened to check our location on the map.
“We’re here,” Emeline said as she tapped on a spot on the map. I marked a star at the spot and drew the little fanged symbol beneath it that I had decided to use to denote the presence of monsters. These were all dead, but there could be more down here. I was relieved to see, though, that we were near the edge of the maze of tunnels, at least as far as the map showed. Hopefully, our journey would be coming to an end.
“Next stop, Dredfen,” I said, and Emeline grinned.
Chapter 6
Theira must have been watching over us, because we encountered no more monsters, of the lobster variety or otherwise, on our way through the drainage tunnels, and it only took us about another hour of sloshing through the dank underground before there was a marked difference in the passages around us. The centuries-old slime and persistent layer of dirty water gradually disappeared, the air smelled cleaner, and the tunnels became more regular and less twisting. Emeline optimistically took all of these as signs of frequent use that meant that the bandits’ hideout must be close.
I couldn’t be sure if it was the fabled Dredfen that we were nearing, but I did get the sense that these tunnels saw more use than the abandoned drainage network beneath Ovrista, and if I’d charted our progress correctly, we were far from the city now. Someone was using these tunnels and caring for them, and I didn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be the bandits that we were looking for.
Only Lavinia had managed to hang on to her skepticism for this long, though I’d begun to think she was simply refusing to give in out of pride.
“It’s probably some farmer’s root cellar,” the ranger said.
“Oh, come on,” Aerin scoffed. “No one has a root cellar this big, and besides, we’re well into the Wilds now. There are no farmers out here.”
“A crazy hedge mage’s secret escape tunnel, then,” Lavinia amended.
Aerin shook her head. “I don’t know why you’re so unwilling to believe we might be on the right path. Even you can’t be this cynical.”
“Hey, I just don’t want you to get your hopes up about some bandits’ lost city of gold only to discover that that sort of thing just doesn’t exist,” Lavinia replied.
“Maybe the treasure part is exaggerated, but the stories have to come from somewhere,” the redheaded elf pointed out. “And these tunnels are too big and too well-kept to be some random mage’s personal escape route. The bandit theory makes the most sense, whether you want to admit that or not.”
“Lets at least entertain the idea that we could be walking into a nest of ruffians and thieves with a thirst for violence and treachery only matched by their lack of fashion sense,” Maruk hissed. “Perhaps, in that case, we ought to be quiet so they don’t hear us coming from a mile off.”
“Pfft!” Dehn snorted. “Only fair to give the bastards a little warning, don’t you think? After the way I slaughtered all those... all those whatever those things were.” The halfling cocked his fists and landed a double punch on Maruk’s thigh.
The orc heaved a sigh. “I suppose if you told them that story a few dozen times, you could bore them to death,” he muttered. “I know I’m getting close. You’re just like that wretched little Burrowes fellow from the desert.”
Dehn looked surprised. “Did you say Burrowes? As in Adalbert Burrowes? He’s my cousin!”
Maruk froze.
“That’s not what he said!” Aerin insisted quickly.
“That’s what it sounded like,” Dehn replied. “My cousin lives in the desert, too.”
Lived, I corrected silently. We’d killed Dehn’s cousin and all the other halflings we’d encountered there when they’d challenged us to a fight, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to share that with Dehn.
“Um, no, I said, um...” Maruk looked panicked and looked to Lavinia for help.
The archer shook her head and held up her hands.
“What?” Dehn demanded. “I’m not an idiot, I can tell you’re hiding something.” The halfling looked between the three of them, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
I swallowed and stepped forward. This wasn’t going to end well, but as the guild leader, I felt like it was my responsibility to tell Dehn what had happened.
“We, uh, we met your cousin,” I started, and Dehn turned to me. I prepared to dodge ninety pounds of spike-covered halfling as I went on. “Well, he challenged us to a fight over something that we needed, and we killed him. I’m sorry, I--”
Suddenly Dehn burst out laughing.
“We’re serious,” Lavinia told him.
Dehn sobered somewhat and wiped at his eyes. “I fucking hope so. Serves that asshole right.”
I was shocked, to say the least.
“You’re... not upset?” Aerin asked hesitantly.
“Hells, no!” Dehn replied. “Burrowes always was a bastard. You know, he didn’t send me anything for my birthday last year? Not even a card.”
I had no idea how to respond to that.
“Well that was rather indecorous of him,” Maruk agreed.
“Besides, he was kind of a weakling,” Dehn went on. “No offense to you or anything, but if you wanted a real fight with a halfling, you should have come to me. Did you see how I flayed those monsters back there!” The death of his cousin apparently forgotten, the halfling guard launched into another recounting of what he perceived to be his grand finale against the lobster-monsters as the rest of us traded uneasy looks and then started down the tunnel again.
“We didn’t--” Aerin began.
“I just felt all this power rush into me!” Dehn interrupted. “It had to be my noble warrior spirit, giving me an extra boost of strength so that I could save all of you. I swung myself up onto the monster’s back and cut down every one in my path!”
I stopped listening, however, when I noticed something on the tunnel wall just ahead, and I hurried forward to get a better look. It was a carving, like a marker, I guessed, and it looked sort of familiar... While Dehn prattled on, I dug the heist notes out of my pocket and peered at them in the torchlight. My heart leapt.
“We found it,” I said, and I turned back to the others with a grin as they caught up. “This is the same symbol as on the papers, it’s this group’s seal.”
“The Shrikes,” Aerin said as she came up and looked at the carving on the wall. It was a circle, but the edges were slashed through so that it looked like a ring of thorns. In the center was a small bird standing over a tiny human skeleton.
“So... this is Dredfen.” Emeline’s voice was hushed but brimming with excitement as she looked down the tunnel. “We found it!” Then she turned back to Lavinia and flashed a bright, teasing grin at the ranger. “And you thought it was a root cellar.”
“Yeah, yeah, congratulations,” Lavinia muttered with a roll of her eyes.
“May I remind everyone that the bandits will no doubt hear us coming if we carry on like this?” Maruk asked through gritted teeth.
“Maruk’s right,” I said quietly. “We need to be careful now, we don’t even know how many of them there will be.”
“And they’ll probably be a little on edge,” Aerin added, “since their friends didn’t make it back last night.”
I nodded. That was a good point. The elves we’d seen had been
really paranoid, it was a good idea to assume we’d get the same attitude from the rest of their band.
“I should scout ahead,” I said. “I have my invisibility cloak.”
“What about light?” Emeline asked. “You won’t be able to see. I’ll go with you.”
“A floating fireball kind of defeats the purpose of an invisibility cloak, don’t you think?” Lavinia crossed her arms. As if she’d guessed that I might still protest, she added, “And so does a glowing knife. It’s not going to matter if they can’t see you if you can’t see them, either, Gabriel. We should all just keep going for now.”
I was reluctant to admit it, but she was right. The tunnel ahead was still pretty dark, and though I’d guessed the bandits would have set up some torches or skylights or something further down, I didn’t know that for sure. It wouldn’t do any good for me strike out on my own now. Better that we continued on together.
“Alright,” I said. “We’ll all go.” I gave Dehn a pointed looked. “Quietly.”
“Quietly,” the halfling promised, still far too loudly.
I turned back and led the way down the dark tunnel. Emeline dimmed her mage fire so that it wouldn’t be as noticeable from afar, and the others put out their torches so that only a hazy yellow light reached into the tunnel about a half-dozen feet in front of us.
I kept my eye out for more carvings or other signs on the walls, as well as the shimmer of enchantments, or signs of other magical traps, but I saw nothing but the smooth tunnel walls as we crept onward. We’d gone about half a mile when I noticed a light up ahead, and I signaled to the others to stop. I dug my invisibility cloak out of my pack, handed Merlin off to Aerin, and slung the cloak over my shoulders. Invisible, I moved forward quickly and quietly on my own toward the light.