“I’m here! I’m a vampire slayer!” The girl helped herself to the ranger’s canteen, pleased to find that the scoundrel was carrying beer rather than water. The girl wiped foam from her mouth. “Right! That’s my blow struck for truth and light! Let’s go!”
The disk, however, remained stubbornly stuck three feet above the mud. Annoyed, Escalla peered over the ledge at the disk in alarm and knitted her alabaster brows.
“Damn it! Stupid floating disk spell!” The girl signed for Polk’s rope. “Right! Gimme the rope! We’ll bring the gold up the old fashioned way. I’ll go tie the sacks to the line.”
Jus looked at the steam-drenched cavern in glowering disbelief.
“You’ll be cooked like a dumpling!”
“No way! Three minutes between the geyser over there going off, and five minutes between blasts for this one! That gives me a window of… of two minutes!” The faerie dived down toward the mud, trailing a noose in her grasp. “Now come on! We’ll get your magic hammer first!”
The magic hammer Whelm was hauled up from below, with the severed vampire head dangling below it on the rope. Jus removed the grisly head and tossed it over to Polk.
“Here. Catch!”
Polk held the head and almost screamed in fright.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Stuff the mouth with holy wafers.”
“Wafers?” The teamster stared. “Where in damnation am I supposed to get wafers from?”
“You forgot the wafers?” Jus shook his head in disappointment as he hauled up the first heavy bag of gold. “I don’t know what adventure parties are coming to. Well, just stick it in your pack.”
Escalla helped push the first heavy bag of gold onto the ledge and began to frenziedly untie the rope. She ignored the warning rumble from the geyser down below and triumphantly pulled the rope free.
“Right! Next bag!”
“Escalla?” Jus crouched as the ground began to shudder. “Escalla, get back!”
“What? No way!” The faerie blinked. She began edging back toward the ledge. “I have time! Just a few more bags!”
A sudden roar came from the mud pits as the geyser exploded into life. Already running for cover, Jus tackled the girl and dived with her back into the passageway. An instant later, a vast roaring column of boiling water shot into the air. Amidst the steam, gold and silver coins could be seen showering through the cavern.
“No! My treasure!”
Flapping and fighting, Escalla desperately tried to reach the gold. Jus grimly held her fast, and the girl slumped as she watched the coins go dancing down into the boiling mud. Finally, the girl simply ceased struggling. When the geyser finally halted, she clung miserably in the Justicar’s arms with a tear welling in her eye.
“My gold! My beautiful gold!”
The ranger’s face brimmed with sympathy.
“Hey, cheer up. I’ll get you more treasure.”
“But it was my gold!” Escalla made a miserable little noise, looking wanly off into the boiling mud. “I won it on my very own.”
Shooting a glance toward Polk, who was no damned help at all, Jus patted Escalla on the back.
“You did well. You took out a vampire all on your own. We’ll make a Justicar out of you yet.”
“You’d have to eradicate my fashion sense first.” The girl gave a sigh for lost glories then seemed to cheer up. “Easy come, easy go, I guess.”
“Hey, you’ve still got one bag and the hammer. And the piece down your front can be your lucky piece, hey?” Jus tried his to cheer her up. “Come on, let’s get back to the sphinx.”
The man sat Escalla up on his shoulder where she could talk to Cinders, and the hell hound did his best to wag his tail and nuzzle at her hand. Jus picked up the little sack of gold and stuffed the money into Polk’s backpack.
“Polk, give Escalla your magic light.”
“But I need it for my chronicle!” The teamster bridled in alarm. “How can I see to write?”
“I don’t care. She needs it more than you do.” The Justicar rapped his knuckles against the man’s bulging pack-load of gear. “Use a lantern.”
Polk muttered, tucked his parchment under his arm and fussed with flint and tinder. Creeping out of her sulk, Escalla leaned over and plucked one of the parchments from Polk’s grasp.
“So what are you writing there, anyway?”
“It is a chronicle of our adventure.” Polk shot a meaningful glance at Jus. “Assuming the two of you both end up doing things worth chronicling.”
Escalla read a few lines of Polk’s horrible scrawl and blinked in surprise.
“Hey! This is all about me and the vampire!”
“Of course.” Scorching his fingers, the teamster adjusted the lens of his bullseye lantern. “A heroic act! One slip of a girl fighting a triumphant battle against a creature of darkness.”
“Hoopy!” Always happy to have her ego stroked, Escalla puffed herself up with pride, lost treasures instantly forgotten. “Hey Jus! This is actually pretty good! Check it out!” The girl read a line from the top of the scroll. “Ooh! ‘Escalla, siren of the sylvan forest, slayer of the shadow-fiend!’ I like that!”
“Thank you.” Polk bowed.
“Yeah!” The girl read more. “And what’s this? ‘Sensuous, sinful silky-thighed seductress of the…’” Suddenly unamused, Escalla began flipping back through pages of the scrolls.
“What’s this? ‘Love hungry’, ‘perfect peach’, ‘pinched, lissome bounty of her tightly curved…’” The girl put the scrolls aside and flicked a hard sidewise glance to Polk.
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
“This is the recognized heroic literary style.” Polk swelled himself up with an enormous, fragile dignity.
“Really?” Escalla tossed the man his scroll. “Well if I catch you staring at my silken thighs again, I’m gonna turn into a giant bedbug and visit you in the dark!”
It was time to retrace their tracks. Wearily trying to keep the peace, Jus lead the march into the dark. “Polk, stop writing purple prose about Escalla’s thighs. Escalla, stop hassling the sidekick. Now come on, there’s still two more weapons and a wizard to find.”
Ducking a cobweb, Escalla frowned.
“Isn’t there only one weapon left?”
“The city wants Wave and Whelm, and the erinyes must still be after Blackrazor. It’s a good guess that our old allies are hoping to collect all three.” Jus led the way down steps and back into the waterlogged corridors of the main dungeon. “Let’s get back to that first junction and see your friend the sphinx.”
* * *
Back at the intersection, Enid the sphinx rose from her soggy vigil and waved one big paw as the party approached. Tramping squishily through the muck, Jus, Cinders, Escalla, and Polk all waved in return.
The green slime in the corridor had been bypassed in the brusquest possible style. Thick overshoes of rope for Polk and Jus had used up the bulk of Polk’s climbing gear. Polk muttered and grumbled, unhappy at the slow attrition of his dungeoneering equipment. He wrote his chronicles while glaring at the Justicar’s back, the harsh sweeps of his wax marker showing the color of his mood.
Sitting upon Cinders and Jus, Escalla gave the sphinx a merry little salute and said, “Hey, Enid!”
“Hello.” Enid looked up from teasing knots out of her tail. “Did you beat the vampire?”
“Yeah.” Escalla made a twiddling little motion of her hand, unsure quite how to broach an uncomfortable topic. “Hey, about that… so you did know he was down there?”
“Oh, yes.” Enid nodded as bright as can be. “I heard the magicians talking about him.”
“Um, for future reference, a vampire is a pretty major encounter.” The faerie gave a sigh. “Is there anything else you might want to fill us in on before we go down any more of these tunnels?”
It seemed to be a brand new thought to poor Enid. The sphinx turned to look down the northern tunnel and gav
e a little frown.
“Well, no one tells me much, but seafood or something is down this tunnel. When the breeze blows from that direction, my allergies break out.” The cat woman gave a puzzled shrug. “They deliver about a ton of fish heads down there every day or two.”
“Fish heads.” Escalla nodded, storing the information duly away. “Uh-huh. And the other way?”
Enid shrugged.
“Umm, every day at about nightfall, someone delivers livestock down the western tunnel. Goats, cows, sheep, a few peasants on occasion. It gets pretty noisy down there for about five minutes or so.” The sphinx frowned. “Then it all just stops.”
“Oh, good.” Overjoyed at the thought of all the toothy monsters just waiting for faerie snacks, Escalla sighed. “Gentlemen, thoughts please?”
Jus looked from one tunnel to another.
“Big hungry things in the west tunnel, maybe lots of tiny hungry things in the north where the fish heads go.” The Justicar approached Enid the sphinx. “Thank you for the stun symbol.”
“You liked it? Oh, good!” Immensely pleased, Enid preened her muddy hair. “So few people appreciate quality spells.”
“It helped.” Jus stood with one hand on his sword, looking dark and powerful. Above his head, Cinders grinned and let his eyes gleam bright red. “You said you sometimes see the wizards?”
“Every day!” The sphinx settled proudly in her place. “The librarian and his two acolytes, the keepers of Keraptis.”
“Keepers of Keraptis?” Escalla raised her eyebrows and skimmed a meaningful glance at Jus. “Oh, really?”
“Those’re the chaps! They’re making a new Keraptis.” Enid scratched at her slightly flea-bitten hide. “Dedicated to their job, they’ve worked ever so hard to restore this place just the way it was! My older sister was the sphinx in this dungeon ten years ago.”
The Justicar scowled and carefully weighed this little gem of knowledge in his mind. Settling his sword, he reached up to pat the sphinx’s flank and thoughtfully passed the creature by.
“Thank you, Enid. We’ll see you again soon.”
“All right.” Enid settled into the mud. “Have a nice time!”
* * *
It was time to pick a new route. Jus swiveled Cinders so that the hound could take a good sniff at the dungeon airs.
“Cinders, what do you think, old friend?”
Cinders smelled the western tunnel. That way is beasts—cats, bugs.
“Yup.” The Justicar opened his badger-skin purse and took out a piece of snack-coal for the hell hound. “And the other way?”
Fish this way. The hell hound sniffed at the north tunnel. Evil this way. Fresh blood, dead things, slimy water.
“Evil again?” The Justicar narrowed his eyes. “Interesting…”
Escalla rose up from the rangers shoulders and hovered in the air.
“Hey! I vote north! I vote for the fish heads! One vampire is enough. This time, I say we face something small.” The faerie whirred northward and turned invisible. “Now, come on! Let’s go find some cash and get those weapons back!”
With the invisible faerie in the lead, a slow, careful advance began. Like the other tunnels, this passage seemed to have been burned and gouged out of the mountains heart. Algae caked the walls and spread horrid color across the surface of the mire. The knee-deep waters were unpleasantly warm and made the tunnel echo with the splash of walking feet. Ripples in the surface sent refracted light dancing madly back and forth across the walls.
Cinders tracked Escalla with his sharp eyes. The girl flew up to a dark alcove leading off the passageway, inspected the darkness within, and even unveiled her borrowed magic light to take a closer look. She seemed satisfied. The light waved her companions down the main route, and the little faerie light swiftly disappeared.
The Justicar moved forward slowly. As he drew near the alcove, Cinders began to growl, the fur rising up all along his shoulders. Jus cleared his sword out of its scabbard in a single flawless blur, his weapon suddenly hovering in midair.
“Out.”
Cinders’ flames seethed, and a sinister little tongue of flame lit the alcove. A shadow against one wall stirred and moved as the Justicar’s sword point whipped toward its throat and stopped a hair’s breadth away.
Sir Olthwaite the paladin—pale, filth-spattered and much the worse for wear—edged into the light.
“Greetings, fellows! Well met, well met.” The man raised a hand in wary greeting. “If you will forgive me, I thought you might be some of them.”
Polk made a sound of joy and stamped his foot, splashing his inside leg with dungeon soup.
“Sir Olthwaite! It’s Sir Olthwaite!” The teamster slapped Jus hard on the back. “Now we’ll go places! We’ve got a real hero for this dungeon!”
“Polk, sir! My dear chap what a pleasure to see you well!” The paladin made to advance and embrace, only to be halted by the Justicar’s sword at his throat. “Yes, quite well…”
His face shadowed by the hell hound’s twisting flames, the Justicar did not sheathe his sword. He held the point directly under the paladin’s jaw and asked, “Where is the rest of your party, Sir Paladin?”
Clearing his throat, Sir Olthwaite gave a little shrug.
“There were only three of us: myself, the magician, and the priestess of Geshtai.” The man gave a genteel nod of his chin back toward the sphinx. “That way. The western tunnel. We met wights, two of them. They took a fair amount of defeating.”
The Justicar’s sword remained poised for an instant kill, his stance low and spread.
“Yet you managed to survive.”
“Not unscathed, I fear.” The paladin managed to look a little pale. “They seem to have left me a tad drained of life. I’m not my old self quite yet.” The knight swallowed and tried to move the rangers sword point aside with his fingertips. “Look, well met on the trail and all that! Forgive and forget—what?”
Cinders’ growl became almost audible, his fur rising like porcupine bristles as his barred teeth ran with flames. Escalla popped into visibility between Cinders and the paladin, resting one hand upon the dog’s wet nose.
“Cinders, down boy! Enough!”
Burn!
“Not now!” The faerie coiled close to the hell hound and whispered in his ear. “Let him take hits from a few dozen monsters first, then toast him from behind!”
Unhappy, Cinders drooped and muttered canine curses in the air. Escalla fluttered brightly over to the paladin, inspecting the man by the glow of her magic light. Her tilted eyes shone with innocent surprise.
“So here you are! We were sooo worried!” The girl used one finger to lower Jus’ sword.
“Jus, ease it back a bit just for now…” The faerie kept herself carefully out of reach of their newfound friend. “So you went down the west tunnel, huh? What was there?”
“Wights, my dear, as I said.” Sir Olthwaite took his chance and moved closer to Polk, patting the pleased teamster on the shoulder. “My friend Polk here can tell you that underground exploration has its dangers.”
“Really?” Having just polished off a vampire single-handedly, Escalla clasped her hands in mock concern. “Do tell: What else was down there?”
“A pit trap and a corridor that heated metal as you entered it.” The paladin scornfully adjusted the coil of rope that dangled from his belt. “It’s of no consequence! Come. I can lead you back there. We can pass the traps and find the missing weapons!”
Posing like a confused little girl, the faerie put her finger against her chin. “Oh, but since we’re already partway down this tunnel, why don’t we keep going?”
“There are no weapons down this tunnel!” The paladin’s voice snapped like a whip. “We have a job to do!”
“Yeah?” Escalla pivoted slowly in midair. “But my good friend Enid tells me that each of these three tunnels has a weapon at the end of it!”
Bristling in indignation, Polk tottered forward beneath his huge
backpack full of gear.
“You listen to Sir Olthwaite! Veteran adventurers get a nose for treasure!”
“But I’m a girl, and girls are just sooo curious!” Ever suspicious, Escalla’s sly eyes gleamed as she flew circles about the party. “I wanna go up this tunnel!”
Sir Olthwaite flexed his fingers.
“There is more profit to the west. We used a spell to tell us so.”
“Oh?” Escalla flew down to pluck at the burnt end of the paladin’s rope. “But your gear seems to have gotten all scorched and scratched! North seems so much safer.”
The Justicar had heard enough. With his sword still out, he jerked his head toward the end of the northern tunnel.
“Move out. We’re going north.” The ranger shifted his grip on his sword. “And the great adventurer can show us how it’s done. Polk, give him a torch.”
“A torch?” The paladin bridled. “Why must I carry a torch?”
“Because you’re leading.” His sword held deceptively light in his hand, Jus nodded down the corridor. “Be my guest.”
Sir Olthwaite took a light from Polk’s lantern, spared an unfathomable glance for the Justicar, and then moved down the passageway. Escalla flicked Jus a glance, smiled, and popped swiftly out of view.
Polk was left glaring at Jus in bitter disappointment. The teamster shook his head slowly from side to side like a judge passing sentence.
Jus ignored the man and walked on.
“Keep that hammer safe.”
“It’s safe.” Polk sniffed in disdain. “Son, I’m disappointed. Disappointed! A knight of the Silver Dragon walks among us, and do you pay him the slightest mind?” The little man swelled up like a puffer fish in indignation. “I suppose you don’t care to hear what I think?”
“No.”
Sir Olthwaite had reached the end of the corridor, where his torchlight showed an open room. The paladin lifted high his light, and Escalla came whirring beneath his arm, her passage shown by the scent of magic in her wake. Coming steadily forward, Jus paused in the doorway and looked out over a great waterlogged room.
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