Whatever was following them, stalking them, was scared enough to keep its distance—for now. However, not all the creatures in the darkness knew such restraint. The bloodcurdling screams of dying soldiers and the feral sounds of monsters feasting on fresh meat could occasionally be heard emanating from far-off corridors. Corin knew few, if any, of those who had escaped Xiliath’s wrath would ever see the surface.
Every so often Lhasha or Fendel would hold up a hand in warning, and they would all stop. The two thieves would confer briefly over the trap that had been discovered. If the snare was simple, such as a trip wire, they would disarm it. With some of the devices they used Fendel’s walking stick to set them off from a safe distance. For larger traps, such as hidden pits, they would come back and explain to Corin the proper path to take to avoid the danger.
These were the worst for the warrior. He did his best to follow precisely in the exact footsteps of his smaller companions, carefully avoiding stepping on the areas they had identified as pressure triggers, though he could see no distinguishing features on the uneven floor as he crossed.
At these times—his weight awkwardly balanced, his eyes focused on his feet, everything about him vulnerable—Corin could feel the unseen eyes surrounding them move in closer, waiting eagerly for the single misstep that would set off the trap and give the hidden predators their chance to strike. Corin was careful to insure that chance never came.
But Tymora cares little for care or caution.
“There’s another trap just ahead,” Lhasha explained to her burly friend after yet another lengthy consultation with Fendel. “A real nasty one. A crusher, Fendel thinks. We’re pretty sure we’ve got it figured out, though. Fendel’s going first. Once he gets safely to the other side, he’ll give us the all clear and I’ll lead you across. Until then, we’ll wait here. That way, if anything happens to Fendel …” She couldn’t finish.
Corin nodded to show he understood, though the name “crusher” meant nothing to him, other than conjuring up a series of gruesome mental images of mangled limbs and bodies. The warrior sheathed the sword in his left hand so he could hold the glowing staff Fendel offered him.
“Hang on to this for a minute. I won’t need it, and I don’t want to leave you here in the dark while I go across.”
“Good luck,” Corin whispered.
The gnome soon disappeared into the shadows, vanishing as soon as he was beyond the range of the glowing pole. “Is he all right?” Corin asked anxiously after several seconds of agonizing silence.
With the advantage of her heat-sensitive vision, Lhasha could still see Fendel’s form in the blackness. “He’s just taking his time. He wants to be sure he doesn’t hit a trigger. Even one wrong step could be fatal.”
They could do nothing but stand and wait. Corin didn’t know which was worse: the helpless feeling of sitting idly by while the gnome risked his life to find them a safe route, or the anticipatory dread that came with the knowledge that he, too, would have to cross the trapped area.
A sharp whistle from the blackness signaled that it was time for Lhasha and Corin to cross.
“All right, follow me,” Lhasha urged. “Stay close—step only where I step. Exactly where I step.”
The instructions were the same at every trap they had crossed so far, yet for some reason Lhasha’s voice seemed more urgent this time. The pit of Corin’s stomach rumbled ominously.
The warrior’s fate was in Lhasha’s hands now. Or rather, her feet and her eyes. Corin simply had to trust that the half-elf had watched and memorized every careful step Fendel had taken through the trigger area, and he had to assume Lhasha could duplicate that path without error.
Only several months ago, putting his own life so completely into someone else’s care would have been unthinkable. If there was anyone he was willing to trust, it was Lhasha.
Ahead of him, the half-elf paused momentarily, uncertain of her next move. Corin glanced back over his shoulder, his attention drawn by the sound of something rushing at them out of the darkness. He didn’t dare move his boots from their spot, but he did pivot on the balls of his feet to face the noise, and flexed his knees to brace against a surprise attack from the shadows.
The illumination from the staff’s tip couldn’t fully pierce the black veil behind them. Whatever was charging at them would remain unseen until the last possible second. Behind him, Corin heard the soft rustle of Lhasha’s silks as she continued her path, so intently focused on choosing the safe route that she hadn’t noticed Corin was no longer at her hip until they were separated by several yards.
Only then did she turn around to see what was holding up her companion. Even as she was about to ask what was wrong, the creature from the darkness exploded into view.
It was a man, nothing more. One of the soldiers from the battle, bleeding from his many wounds, his eyes glowing with crazy fire. His face was frozen in a rictus of insane fear, his eyes nothing but pupils, dilated to their full size by the man’s reckless charge through the pitch-black tunnels.
He didn’t even seem to notice Corin, didn’t react at all to Lhasha’s shouted warnings to stop. He came straight forward, stumbling along, arms flailing wildly as he scrambled to escape whatever unseen demons he imagined still pursued him.
He barreled right into Corin, knocking the warrior off balance, causing the one-armed man to lose his footing. The crazed soldier tripped over Corin’s knee, and was sent sprawling across the floor—triggering the trap.
Even Corin’s untrained ears could make out the unmistakable sound of gears grinding and high tension steel springs releasing. Corin’s reflexes and instinct for survival were the only thing that saved him. He dived forward at the sound, tucked into a ball, and rolled out of harm’s way—back down the part of the tunnel they had already come from.
From behind him he heard a booming crash, the sound of thunder or an earthquake. He hopped to his feet and spun around to see the consequences of the trap.
The crusher was aptly named. Two huge chunks of granite had slammed together, sealing the cavern and instantly pulverizing anything that happened to be caught in between the tons of solid rock. A trickle of blood seeped out from the barely visible seam where the two colossal blocks of stone met, and a single foot of the crazed runner jutted out from the side Corin was on, twitching for a brief second before going still and limp.
Lhasha was nowhere to be seen. Corin ran up to the stones, yelling out her name. “Lhasha! Lhasha! Are you all right!”
“I’m all right,” she called back, much to his relief. “I’m on the other side. Fendel’s here, too. Are you hurt?” Her voice was somewhat muffled by the wall of granite between them.
“No!” Corin yelled back. “I jumped clear. Is there any way to open these things up again?”
For nearly a minute there was no reply—Corin assumed Lhasha and Fendel were examining and discussing the mechanics of the trap, trying to figure out a way to re-open the tunnel.
“Corin?” Fendel called out finally. “There doesn’t seem to be any way to move these rocks. Looks like this trap was a one-shot deal.”
The gnome paused, giving the warrior a chance to reply, but Corin didn’t speak. There wasn’t anything to say, really. Fendel filled in the silence soon enough, anyway.
“Do you have some light? You’re not stuck back there alone in the dark, are you?”
“No,” Corin yelled back. “I’ve still got your fancy glowing stick here in my hand. I can see all right.”
“Good, good,” the gnome sounded relieved. “Hang on to that pole. There’s things in the dark you don’t even want me to tell you about.” The gnome took a second to think before continuing. “Just stay where you are. Don’t move. The tunnel we’re in branches off just ahead, I think one of them might eventually lead us back to you.”
There was no point in arguing with the gnome’s advice. The granite blocks were impassable, and Corin knew the odds of him finding his own way out were next to nil. Corin suspe
cted that Fendel had an uncanny ability to maintain his sense of direction and perspective, even while trapped in an underground maze.
“It could take us a while to find you,” Lhasha called out. “We don’t want to set off another trap on the way. Just hang tight and we’ll get you in due time. All right, Corin?”
“I’ll be here waiting,” he replied. A second later he added, “You two be careful.”
Either they had already set off and hadn’t heard him, or they didn’t see any point in wasting time answering back. Whatever the case, Corin’s only reply was the echo of his own voice bouncing off the tunnel walls.
He stood Fendel’s staff in the crook formed by the tunnel wall and one of the granite stones now blocking his path. The warm glow of the gnome’s magic gave Corin enough light to make out his immediate surroundings, but little else.
Ever vigilant for the sounds of an unseen enemy approaching through the gloom, Corin settled himself down, sitting with his back against one of the granite slabs. Sooner or later, Fendel and Lhasha would find him. There was nothing to do but wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Corin was used to waiting. During his time as a White Shield, he had spent more than his share of dark nights guarding caravans or standing watch over an encampment. He was used to doing nothing but sitting and staring, eyes focused only on the impenetrable darkness.
There were tricks a soldier could use to pass the hours on a long watch, ways to relieve the monotony of duty. Corin’s favorite was counting heartbeats. It had the advantage of helping him keep track of time as it passed. Sixty beats a minute. Ten minutes passed, twenty. Thirty.
Of course, time was always relative, and in these particular circumstances it was essentially meaningless. It might take Lhasha and Fendel an hour to find an alternate route back to where Corin waited. Or four hours. Or anywhere in between. They would get there when they got there, and tracking every minute wouldn’t speed things up.
Still, counting heartbeats gave him something to do, a way to stave off the boredom. At four thousand beats, something happened.
Or rather, something stopped happening. Upon first escaping from the beholder and entering the smugglers’ tunnels, Corin had been struck by the oppressive silence, marked only by the far-off sounds of the battle in the vault and punctuated by the occasional distant scream of one who fell victim to the perils of the labyrinth.
But eventually, Corin’s ears had begun to pick up faint, half-imagined noises coming from the darkness. The scuttle of beetles scattering before the light, never seen but always there. The scampering of tiny, clawed feet. Rats, subterranean lizards, and other predators were fleeing before the strange intruders in their realm of eternal night.
Once noticed, these ambient sounds were instinctively dismissed, pushed to a subconscious level of awareness within Corin’s mind. Suddenly, the sounds stopped, vanishing completely as the unseen creatures in the shadows froze or scurried away to safety through the narrow cracks and fissures in the stone. Corin finally understood what true silence was.
The malevolent eyes that Corin had felt hounding his every step were gone, too. Gripping his swords tightly, Corin rose silently to his feet, moving out from the granite wall behind him. He was unsure what to expect, but he wanted to have room to maneuver.
The silence was soon broken by the sound of someone approaching. The noise was still far off but unmistakable. Deep rasping breaths. Heavy, methodical footsteps. The sharp chink of metal rings sliding across each other with every stride of the armored individual advancing.
No glimmer of light betrayed the progress of the one approaching. The being could see in the dark, Corin realized. Like a half-elf, or gnome, or orog.
When Graal finally emerged, stepping boldly into the light of Fendel’s glowing staff, Corin wasn’t surprised, and neither was his opponent.
“And so my hunt is over,” Graal growled. “We have unfinished business, White Shield.”
Corin said nothing, but held his ground.
Graal hesitated. “You no longer fear me.” His voice was somewhere between disbelief and mockery.
Corin made no reply. He owed this beast no explanations. The arm gave him a chance—slim though it was—of besting the orog in combat, nothing more, but the mere chance was enough.
The night he lost his hand, Corin’s very soul had been rent asunder, his spirit shattered into a million fragments. Alcohol washed away much of his broken self—the fires of hate and revenge consumed even more. Pieces of what he had once been were lost beneath the earth, buried with the bodies of his dead comrades. The fragile bits that remained had been swept away by the hollow winds of a bleak and pointless existence, until there was nothing left but a shell of a once-proud warrior.
But in the past month Corin had been reborn, rising from the ashes of his own destruction. The alcohol was gone, the hateful fires of revenge were quelled. The void left by the corpses in his past had been filled by his friendship with Lhasha. There was purpose in his existence. His life had meaning and value once again.
Corin knew he might die in the dark tunnel, but he would die with the knowledge that his life had not been wasted or given in vain. Lhasha had been saved, and if the price of her salvation was an end to Corin’s mortal existence, that was a sacrifice the warrior was prepared to accept.
Misinterpreting the silver-limbed warrior’s stoic silence as speechless fear, the orog laughed. “I will enjoy taking your other arm this time, White Shield.”
Corin let his enemy come to him, let the beast come well into the light to negate any possible advantage Graal might have in the shadowy tunnel.
The orog rushed forward, trying to gain a strategic advantage by using his momentum to drive the smaller man back and pin him against the wall. Corin stepped up into the charge, and they met with a clash of blades that rang throughout the caverns.
Corin dodged to the side, using one blade to intercept and deflect Graal’s attack while the other thrust forward, looking to catch the orog on its point and use the great beast’s own weight and momentum to drive the blade home.
Graal twisted away and leaped nimbly back, showing amazing agility for a creature of his size and bulk. The sword ricocheted off the dark ringed mail covering Graal’s torso. The orog was unharmed, but his advance had been blunted.
Corin followed up with a series of quick stabs and cuts at his foe’s chest, forcing the orog to sidestep and spin away from the blows, turning Graal so that his back was to the wall Corin had been against only moments before.
Corin’s blades flickered in and out, each swinging on a different trajectory and striking from a different angle. He went after his enemy’s legs now, looking to slice open the few inches of unprotected flesh below the hem of the black, iron kilt and above the orog’s heavy leather boots.
Graal stumbled back, momentarily overwhelmed by the unfamiliar dual-bladed attack. The creature parried desperately with his own heavy weapon, somehow managing to smack down each strike with the flat of the dark blade. He was unable to keep Corin off him, unable to drive the undersized warrior back or slow his furious assault.
The orog’s retreat stopped only when the beast’s back touched the hard stone of the granite blocks behind him. Graal pushed off from the wall, using it for leverage as he swung his knee up, catching the Corin in the gut and doubling him over. Corin dropped to the ground and rolled away, springing to his feet.
Graal had not pressed his advantage. The orog was hesitant, Corin realized. Uncertain. The knowledge fuelled Corin’s confidence.
The two combatants circled slowly, each trying to work the other into a position of disadvantage against the walls. One would advance, and the other would momentarily retreat. But just as quickly, the tide would then shift, and the aggressor would be forced back, dancing away from the counterthrusts of his foe.
With each round of give and take the warriors inflicted small wounds on each other. Dozens of small nicks and cuts on Corin’s arms and body—a
n inevitable result of any battle—began to bleed. In and of themselves, none of the wounds was fatal, but they gradually sapped Corin’s strength, slowing him down. Even as Corin became more fatigued he could feel his opponent getting stronger, the dark necromancy of Graal’s foul blade drawing sustenance from Corin’s wounds.
The longer the battle raged, Corin realized, the greater his opponent’s advantage would become. If he couldn’t finish the orog off soon, he would surely die in the darkness of the smugglers’ tunnels. The one-armed warrior launched a reckless, all-out assault against his foe, determined to bring a quick end to the confrontation—one way or another.
The sword in Corin’s left hand arced down, a desperate blow designed to kill, or at least throw his already stumbling opponent off balance. The orog parried, the edge of his enormous black sword catching the flat of Corin’s own blade at an angle more precise than a jeweler cutting a diamond—and Corin’s sword shattered.
The shock of the vibration ran down the length of the weapon, through the blade and into Corin’s hand. His hand tingled, his fingers became numb. The useless hilt slipped from his grasp and clattered on the floor to lie beside the shards and slivers of tempered steel littering the ground.
The orog seized the moment and brought his own blade in hard, aiming for Corin’s unprotected left side. Corin had to reach across his body with the weapon held in his metallic right arm to parry the blow, but he didn’t have the leverage to fully turn the course of Graal’s fierce attack.
Corin partially deflected the orog’s dark blade. It bit into Corin’s hip, buckling the one-armed man’s leg and dropping him to a knee. A second blow came in from overhead, a wicked two-handed chop straight down. Unable to brace for the force of the attack, Corin threw his own blade up in desperation, parallel to the ground and perpendicular to the course of Graal’s weapon.
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