Having seen what the sorceress could do, especially when she was angry, Sabira hoped so too.
The tunnel they’d been traveling through had been getting narrower and shorter for some time, and while some of the passageways they’d been in had clearly seen other feet, this one looked relatively untouched, at least by any of Tarath Marad’s new explorers. Its inhabitants were, of course, another story.
Xujil made his way back to them.
“The tunnel ahead is blocked by an ancient deadfall, but a small opening exists. We will have to crawl for some distance, but we will be able to pass through unharmed.”
Greddark frowned, peering over the drow’s shoulder in the gloom. None of the luminous fungus grew here, and even the everbright lanterns were starting to wane.
“Can’t we just clear it?”
Sabira couldn’t blame him for asking. Despite their love of mining and being underground, many dwarves had a paradoxical fear of tight, enclosed spaces. Sabira didn’t much care for them herself.
“Perhaps with the proper equipment, a dozen duergars on a leash, and the luxury of time, yes.” Xujil blinked at him. “But as we do not seem to have any of those things to hand, I believe crawling is our best course of action.”
Sabira held up her hand to forestall Greddark’s retort.
“I’ll let the others know.”
She passed the information down the line, then gestured for Xujil to lead the way. As they followed the drow, Greddark caught her sleeve.
“A dozen duergars on a leash?” he repeated in a low voice.
Sabira didn’t miss a beat.
“Can you think of a better place for them?”
She didn’t wait to hear his answer, instead following the drow as he climbed quickly up a pile of broken rock to a small aperture and, crouching down, disappeared into it. Eyeing the sharp rubble, she shrugged her pack off and dug in it for a moment, coming up with a pair of leather gloves. Slipping them on, she replaced her pack and began the precarious ascent, careful to test each hand- and foothold before putting her full weight down. The guide had made the climb look easy, but she was no elf, and this was going to be challenging enough without having her palms cut to ribbons in the process.
At the top of the stone pile, she glanced back to see the others following her lead, digging their own gloves out before coming up after her. Then she turned back to the dark opening and, with a quick prayer to the sun goddess Dol Arrah to light her way, she bent down and crawled inside.
The everbright lantern on her helmet threw the rocky passage into sharp relief, painting the low roof and narrow walls with harsh blue and black angles. As she made her painstaking way across the shattered stone, she peered forward for any sign of Xujil, but she could see nothing ahead of her but darkness.
Sabira’s world soon compressed into the small island of light cast by her helmet’s lamp. The walls were so close now that all she could hear was her own labored breathing and the scrabble of her hands and knees against jagged, unforgiving rock. Stinging sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, blurring her vision. She could feel the tons of earth above her pressing down, eager to crush her for her temerity in daring to traverse the depths. She crept slowly along, becoming convinced with every passing moment that the drow had led them into a trap and that the tunnel would never end. That it had somehow closed up behind her, cutting her off from her companions, and that she had no choice but to crawl eternally forward until she ran out of food and water and the everbright lantern gave out, leaving her to die alone in unending darkness.
As if in response to her fearful thoughts, the lamp flared and then went black. Sabira froze in place for long moments, her heart in her throat. But then the more rational part of her mind broke through the sudden, foreign terror, telling her she’d just entered another region of magical darkness. All she had to do was keep moving and she’d soon be out of it. The everbright lantern would work again and she’d find her way out of this tunnel and into… well, another tunnel, but at least it would be bigger and less oppressive.
She allowed the calm, logical thoughts to wash over her, repeating them to herself until her breathing was even and she could move forward again, no longer paralyzed by fear.
She made it about a foot and a half before she heard a low, hungry whisper, right beside her, where no one could possibly be.
Saaaabaaaa…
With a yelp she couldn’t contain, Sabira scrambled forward, blind. She felt the sharp rocks slicing through clothing and flesh, but barreled on, heedless. She slammed against the wall as the tunnel made an abrupt turn to her right, and then she was out of it, tumbling down a steep slope and landing on her back in warm, sticky mud.
Xujil stood above her, his head cocked to one side as he looked at her curiously. Then he held out an ebon-skinned hand to her.
She took it without thinking, so grateful to be out of the crawlway and back into what passed for the open down here that she didn’t even mind his clammy grasp as he pulled her up from the sucking mire.
“Are you well, Marshal?” he asked.
She took quick stock of her injuries and nodded. The cuts and bruises were nothing compared to the blow to her pride. In all her years as soldier, with all the horrors she’d faced, she had never felt as terrified as she had in that moment, trapped in that tunnel with something unseen as it whispered her name.
Rationally, she knew the fear had been Khyber-wrought, and not her own-or, at least, not entirely. But that knowledge did nothing to lessen her shame. She was just glad none of the others besides Xujil had been there to see it.
Once on her feet, she turned to survey her surroundings. She stood at the base of a curving cavern wall that stretched up into the darkness high above her and off into the distance on either side. The chamber was easily three times the size of the one that housed Trent’s Well; the largest that she had ever seen. Multicolored fungi glowed on the rocks, lighting up the vast cave with muted hues of violet, gold, emerald, and ruby.
She’d landed in a subterranean swamp, fed by an unseen water source. Thick, ropy grasses grew at its edges. Beyond it, wide-boled gray trees thrust up out of the rocks, towering over the bizarre landscape as their full, domelike canopies scraped against the sparkling stalactites that dripped down from the unseen ceiling. It took Sabira a moment to realize that the strange forest was actually composed not of trees, but of gargantuan mushrooms.
There was a sound behind her and Sabira looked to see Greddark emerging from the high tunnel and making his way carefully down the rocky slope. She searched his face carefully, but saw no trace of the terror she’d felt. Apparently, the dwarf had not heard his name called in the darkness as she had. She tried to ignore the disquiet that followed on the heels of that thought, but was not entirely successful.
The others exited from the tunnel one by one and soon they were all gathered beside the swamp.
“What is this place?” Jester asked, his voice full of wonder. Though she knew it was inaccurate, she could easily imagine tiny gears whirring in his head as he struggled to find a rhyme for “fungus.”
“Gharad’zul,” Xujil supplied, “the Forest of Decay.”
“Lovely,” Sabira said. “How fast can you get us through it?” She didn’t even like mushrooms in her food; she certainly didn’t relish the prospect of traipsing around the gigantic fungi like tiny garden bugs begging to be squashed.
“As fast as your people can move,” the drow replied, and Sabira thought she detected a hint of alacrity in his voice. Considering the guide could travel much faster through his native environs without them, she supposed it was warranted. That didn’t make it any less annoying.
“Well, let’s put word to deed and see, then, shall we?”
The drow nodded and headed off at a brisk pace, skirting the swampy area. Bubbles rose from the surface, trailing them as they walked, but nothing emerged to confront them. Xujil led them under the forest canopy, which was really a series of overlapping mus
hroom caps with gills the size of the mainmast on a House Lyrandar galleon. Smaller mushrooms the height of a man grew about the trunks of the fungal trees and more of the variegated luminous fungus carpeted the forest floor like moss. Fluffy spores floated in the air, disturbed by their passing, and Sabira didn’t have to tell the others to cover their noses and mouths to keep from inhaling them. Who knew what the tiny things might begin to grow once inside a humanoid host? Sabira suppressed a shudder just thinking about it.
The forest was eerily quiet. No birds trilled in the nonexistent branches and no animals scampered through the absent underbrush. Even their footsteps were muffled, sloughing through wet fungus instead of crunching over pine needles or twigs. The air was stagnant and smelled of sweet rot and old dirt. Sabira found herself picking up her pace almost unconsciously, and the others followed suit, casting wary glances about them as they hastened through the alien woods.
Before long, she began to hear a soft, rhythmic sound. It started so gradually that she didn’t mark it at first, but when she found herself swallowing several times to moisten a suddenly dry palate, she realized what it must be.
“Are those… waves?”
Just as she asked, they broke free of the woods and found themselves standing on the rocky shores of a vast lake that stretched out into darkness. Black water lapped sluggishly at the jagged beach, driven by some unseen force out upon its impenetrable surface.
Xujil had mentioned traversing a body of water with Tilde’s group, but he hadn’t quite conveyed the size of said body. Sabira had been expecting a river like the one in Trent’s Well, or, at most, a pond. Nothing like this.
Sabira scanned the shoreline, looking for a way across and coming up empty. It was a dead end.
She rounded on their guide, suspicion flaring.
“You were supposed to lead us to Tilde. Unless the city she’s being held in is underwater, you’ve got some explaining to do.” She reached back to unharness her urgrosh. “ Now.”
“It is well you reach for your axe, Marshal,” Xujil replied. “You will need it.”
Was the drow actually threatening her?
He continued on, unperturbed by either her anger or the shard axe now in her grasp.
“There is a reason this path has remained untrodden by the surface-dwellers, save the sorceress and her men. They do not know the secret of crossing the sunless seas.” He paused, finally seeming to understand that he was in danger. “I do.”
Sabira lowered her weapon slightly, eyes narrowing.
“Continue.”
Xujil pointed behind her.
“That is how we cross.”
Turning, it took her a moment to see what he meant. A stand of mushrooms as tall as the mayor’s house sprouted from a nearby inlet. Two of the mushrooms lay on their sides, felled not by rot, but by blades. Their enormous caps were missing.
When she turned back to him, the drow’s smile hinted at smugness.
“We sail.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Far, Barrakas 27, 998 YK
Tarath Marad, Xen’drik.
They set to work hacking at the stem of another of the giant mushrooms, Sabira with her urgrosh and the others with small hand axes from their packs. Xujil, as usual, stood aloof. Zi watched from afar as well, his strength not lying in his woodcutting skills.
The mushroom’s stem was thick and rubbery, and even the adamantine blade of Sabira’s shard axe had some difficulty chopping through the odd pseudoflesh. The more mundane axes had even greater trouble, and it took the five of them working in concert to bring the towering fungus down. The sound of their blades hacking into the tough stem echoed off the cavern walls, and when the fungal tree fell, the noise ricocheted back at them like a distant avalanche.
“Well, that’s going to attract some attention,” Sabira commented as she and the others moved toward the cap to begin detaching it and hollowing it out. Skraad, who’d been doing double duty with an axe in both hands, hung back for a moment, catching his breath.
“Oh, no, I’m sure this cavern is ‘vacant,’ just like the last one was,” Greddark replied acerbically, casting a dark look over at the drow as they quickly severed the cap and began removing the planklike gills. The dwarf, not the most trusting of souls by nature, had become downright hostile toward Xujil ever since the guide had pulled his disappearing act back in the chitines’ cavern. In the Holds, the words “coward” and “welcher” were synonymous, and there was no more vile insult. The drow was lucky Greddark hadn’t already gutted him, just on principle.
“Technically, the cave was vacant when we entered. The chitines were likely attracted by the sound of our battle with Thecla’s men,” Jester offered from the other side of the felled trunk. Unlike the others, his voice betrayed no sign of strain, and no sweat touched his metal brow. Sabira wished, not for the first time, that Guisarme was still with them. She wondered if he’d made it back to Stormreach, and if so, if the artificers there had been able to repair him.
“Whose side are you on?” the dwarf growled, but Sabira ignored him, her mind elsewhere. Thoughts of the fallen warforged led inevitably to Laven and Glynn. Two more wounded under her command.
Wounded, but still alive, she reminded herself. According to Xujil, she was doing better than Tilde had at this point, and with fewer resources from the outset. Sabira supposed she should take some sort of pride in that fact, but such self-congratulation rang hollow and false. She couldn’t help feeling that if she’d been a better leader, her three missing companions would still be with them.
Then again, remembering the horrors of the past week, and the voice in the crawlway, they were probably better off where they were.
“Keep an eye out for-” she began, turning to speak to Zi. As she did, there was a whoosh as something hot blasted past her, followed by a scream that did not stop.
Whirling, she saw Skraad, his body engulfed in eldritch fire. Behind him, two man-sized mushrooms advanced on fleshy, leglike stalks, tiny eyes glowing within the round caps that served as their heads. Huge, bulbous arms sheathed in what looked like spine-covered greaves slammed down on him from either side, stabbing into the burning orc as he struggled frantically to put out the licking flames.
She looked back over at Zi, wondering how the wizard could have missed the mark so badly, only to see the bald man in the grip of another walking mushroom, this one with long, tentacle-like arms that were wrapped around his throat, squeezing. The wizard’s mouth worked soundlessly as he clawed at his neck, trying to free himself long enough to speak another spell. As Sabira watched, another shambling fungus stepped forward, driving a spiny staff into Zi’s gut, and pulling it away bloody.
“Myconids!” Xujil shouted. “Get the boat into the water! They cannot follow us there!”
The drow ran lightly along the shore to the severed cap and began pulling it out toward the lake, Jester and Rahm joining him. Sabira and Greddark turned to face the forest, which was now alive with movement as dozens of the walking mushrooms marched inexorably toward them.
“Use your wand!” she said to the dwarf, holding her shard axe in front of her as she backed slowly toward the water’s edge. More and more of the myconids swarmed out of Gharad’zul until she was sure the entire fungal forest had uprooted itself and was advancing toward them.
“Can’t. Used up all the acid. Look like they’re impervious to fire, anyway-or just willing to ignore it,” he replied, not bothering to prime his alchemist’s blade as he unsheathed it. He’d shoved the handle of the small axe through his belt and now held his sword out before him in a double-fisted grip.
Sabira’s eyes moved past him to where Skraad fought futilely against a half dozen of the creatures as they rained blow after blow down upon him, seemingly unfazed by the flames. Sabira wanted to run to his aid, but she knew it was already too late as the orc fell beneath the onslaught and disappeared from sight.
A commotion sounded behind her and Sabira glanced back, dreading what sh
e would see. An enormous round spore had floated over the water toward Xujil and the others as they dragged the makeshift boat into the lake. Rahm must have seen it first, for he’d moved to engage, drawing the pseudopod-covered sphere away from the drow and the warforged and thrusting at it with his sword. As he did so, the sphere erupted, showering him with what looked like green dust. She could only watch helplessly as the man began to scream and choke, the flesh around his nose and mouth bubbling as he inhaled the poisonous spores. He threw himself into the water, flailing about, trying to wash the toxins away. Too soon, the thrashing quieted and Rahm lay still, the back of his head bobbing up and down in the oblivious waves.
“Sabira! Move!”
She tore her eyes away from Rahm’s lifeless figure, shaken out of her horrified reverie by the urgency in Greddark’s voice. The boat was in the water and the myconids were mere feet away, reaching for them with spine-covered arms and rootlike tentacles.
She didn’t need any further urging. She turned and ran.
Sabira reached the boat first, splashing through knee-deep water and clambering aboard, aided by Xujil and Jester. Greddark was right behind her, and as soon as they were both safely inside, Xujil handed them sections of gill, which were thick and hard like wood.
“Row.”
They got about a hundred feet from the shore, which was lined now with the myconids, their caps forming an irregular and menacing horizon against the incongruously cheerful light of the luminescent fungus.
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