by T. H. Lain
“Let me guess,” Lidda whispered, walking slowly up to join them with Naull in tow. “The spiders came from there.”
They all looked at each other, and both Regdar and Jozan shrugged.
“We might assume so,” Jozan said, “but let’s see.”
He lifted the rock and drew back to throw it.
“Wait,” Regdar said. The priest stopped. “We could use that light.”
“It only lasts ten minutes or so,” Naull said, and Jozan glanced back at her. “Am I right?”
“She’s right,” Jozan said with a smirk.
Jozan hurled the rock into the dark cave. It was a good throw, and the rock arced over the pit then hit the slope and clattered down. All four of them took a step closer and watched the brightly lit rock roll downward, revealing nothing as it went but more uneven rock, scattered with gravel and stones-until it disappeared over an abrupt edge about a hundred and fifty feet down the slope.
Regdar listened carefully and heard the rock hit something, but just barely. He was about to say something when Lidda spoke.
“It’s still falling… there… maybe, what? Ninety feet from the drop-off at the bottom of the slope?”
They all looked at her in the starlight. Regdar couldn’t make out her face, then she smiled, and her teeth seemed to glow in the dim purple light.
“Hey,” she said, “it’s a halfling thing.”
Regdar sighed and said, “We’ll camp here.”
***
With the drought there was no shortage of dry wood to be found. Regdar made one fire, then set about making six more, forming a circle of smaller campfires around the first one. None of them had encountered spiders like the ones they’d fought earlier, but it seemed a reasonable assumption that the creatures would shy away from fire. Regdar figured that even if the spiders were brave enough to approach the flames, at least the light would help them be seen. Both Naull and Jozan had offered to help him, but he’d gracefully refused. The enterprise gave Regdar something to do, and the idea of a campfire chat with the priest and the two strange women didn’t appeal to him. He found Lidda’s teasing foolish, and there was something about Naull that was distracting.
“So, Lidda,” Naull asked, “how did you end up with Jozan and Regdar? Jozan said something about someone wanting to hang you?”
“The good people of Fairbye,” Lidda said, “are a pack of bloodthirsty murderers-and racists too. They kill halflings on sight.”
Jozan laughed and said, “And thieves, interestingly enough.”
“You’re a thief?” Naull asked the halfling.
“I’m an adventurer,” Lidda responded.
Regdar almost laughed at that. He looked up long enough to see Naull smile and gaze into the star-spattered sky.
“Adventurer…” the young woman said.
“I told the burgher I would question you thoroughly,” Jozan said. “If you’ve stolen something, you should admit your crime and make proper restitution. Stealing the odd this or that shouldn’t bring a death sentence, but one can’t expect to simply-”
“The burgher is a whoremonger,” Lidda said.
There was a space of silence, then Naull asked, “In Fairbye?”
“Sure,” Lidda answered. “Fairbye sits on a trade road. Caravans pass through there. Not often, mind you, but they pass through, as do other travelers, like yourselves. Burgher Tomma provides weary travelers with a little… well, you know.”
“Returning an accusation with an accusation is not a defense, Lidda,” Jozan scolded.
“It’s true,” she said. “My first night there he approached me in the tavern. He put his hand on my thigh and whispered lewd suggestions in my ear.”
Naull giggled and asked, “Really? Like what?”
Lidda scuttled closer to the young mage and said, “Well, first of all he told me that if I put his-”
“Ladies,” Jozan interrupted, “for the love of Pelor, remember yourselves.”
Regdar was happy that no one could see him blush in the darkness.
“Sorry, Father,” Naull said.
“Yeah, Pops,” Lidda giggled, “my bad.”
“You can call me Father,” Jozan said, “or Jozan, thank you. You know, it’s customary to show some gratitude when people do you a service.”
“Is that a sermon?” the halfling asked.
Her petulance was beginning to grate on Regdar, and he felt his jaw clench. Jozan said nothing.
After a few moments, Naull said, “I think what Jozan is trying to say is-”
“I know what he’s trying to say,” Lidda cut in. “He’s right, I guess. Thank you, Jozan, for getting me off the hook, but eventually you’ll have to let me go on my way. I pay my debts. You saved me from swinging, and Naull saved me from the spiders, so I’ll see this fool’s errand through. In the meantime, please don’t preach to me. No offense, but you don’t know me. You don’t know where I come from or what I do or why I-”
She stopped, and Regdar thought she might be crying.
“We should get some sleep,” Regdar said, waving his hand over the last fire, which had caught nicely. “I’ll take first watch. Naull, please relieve me in a few hours.”
***
Naull was tired, but she hadn’t slept. Eventually, she just couldn’t pretend anymore and sat up. Regdar barely spoke to her, he just curled up in his bedroll, looking a bit odd without his armor on. He was asleep in seconds.
She tended the fires and scanned the darkness around them for signs of movement. She kept her spells in mind, ready for anything, and was surprised to find that she wasn’t the slightest bit afraid. There might be giant spiders out there, or worse, but she was almost deliriously happy. She was out. She was doing it. Like Lidda, she was an adventurer. The word was like medicine to her. Adventurer.
She knew the instant she heard the sound of gravel shifting that it was a spider. She looked up and over at where the sound had come from and saw nothing in the firelight. Taking up her staff, she listened for a long time before she heard the sound again. It came from a bit farther away and to the left.
Naull reached down and touched Regdar on the shoulder, then yelped when the huge fighter sat bolt upright. By the time Naull realized Regdar was awake, he had tossed off his bedroll and reached for the shield that he’d been carrying on his back. Naull recognized the spindly red dragon painted on the shield as the sigil of the Duke of Koratia.
“Regdar-” Naull started, but he held out a hand to quiet her.
She heard the sound again, a bit to the right this time, then again almost immediately and from much farther to the left.
Lidda snored loudly and turned over in her sleep. Regdar bent and picked up a short bow. He slung a quiver of arrows over his shoulder just as Jozan sat up, a crossbow already in his hands. Naull was amazed at how well armed these people were. Regdar nocked an arrow and lifted the bow. Jozan did the same, sliding up to his feet. Lidda was still breathing regularly, letting loose the odd dainty snore.
Naull brought a spell to mind that would launch a bolt of magical energy at a spider, one that would never miss its target, but she’d have to be able to see the spider to make it work.
She stood slowly, her hands on her staff but still ready to cast the spell, then something burst out of the darkness. She jumped away as something clattered to the ground next to her. Regdar let loose his arrow, and it streaked out into the darkness. There was a loud scuffling of feet in the shadows, coming from several directions at once.
She looked down and saw that what had come out of the woods was a straight wooden pole about four feet long, carved and burned to a sharp point on one end-a crude javelin.
“It’s not the spiders,” she said.
Lidda snored again, and Regdar nocked another arrow, scanning the darkness but obviously not seeing anything.
“Are those people out there?” Naull asked, looking at the javelin then at Regdar. “What do we do?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he fire
d another arrow into the darkness. Naull thought she heard it pass through tree branches.
“Regdar,” she whispered. “What do we do?”
He glanced over at her as he nocked another arrow, and a cold chill ran down Naull’s spine at the look on his face. He didn’t know.
Another javelin came out of the darkness and spanked off Regdar’s shield. The big man cursed. Naull realized all at once that they were standing in the middle of a ring of campfires. Whoever-or whatever-was out there could see them.
“Regdar, wait!” she gasped, grabbing his arm just as he began to draw his bow back again. He looked at her and she said, “We can’t see them, but they can see us.”
She touched the arrow lightly and nodded to him. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. The look in his eyes was a mixture of curiosity and impatience. He was going to trust her but not for long.
With her staff leaning against her body, she started to chant the words of the spell as she fished in her pouches for the proper material component. She had to look through more than one and had almost completed the incantation when she found the right pouch and pulled out a dead butterfly, pinched between two fingers. The dried insect disappeared almost before she’d gotten it completely out of her pocket, and she spoke the last word of the spell.
The arrow blazed with a bright, almost blinding yellow light, and Naull said, “Shoot it!”
Regdar pulled back the bowstring and let loose. Naull squinted up at him and saw that his eyes were closed. The magically illuminated arrow shot out into the darkness, lighting a patch of the world as it went. Naull saw the trees, the ground, the stones all around in vivid, colorful detail-then there were new sounds.
Something grunted, growled, there was a sound that might have been a yelp, and Naull saw a shadow running through the trees. It was just the black outline of a person, a little person no taller than Lidda but more stoutly built. It was running from the light.
The arrow landed in the underbrush, and they all watched, listening, for the ten minutes it took for the light to flicker, then go out. There were no more footsteps and no more javelins.
Lidda yawned, and Naull looked over and saw the halfling sit up slowly. She looked around, squinting, and asked, “What… my turn to be the lookout or something?”
Everyone stared at her.
Lidda looked back at them and said, “What?”
6
“Small humanoids,” Regdar said, standing slowly from where he’d been crouching and examining the ground. “Goblins, maybe… or halflings.”
Lidda snored loudly, a response that elicited a giggle from Naull and a scowl from Jozan. Regdar blushed, glancing at Naull as Jozan began to stalk back to the campsite, no doubt to rouse the halfling, who had been sleeping for at least an hour after the others had risen with the dawn. As Jozan passed Regdar, he stopped, looking down.
“Regdar,” the priest said, “are you wounded?”
The big fighter looked down at his boot. It was crusted with blood that had been drying around the makeshift bandage he’d tied while the others slept.
“It’s fine,” he said.
Jozan sighed impatiently and squatted next to Regdar. “Was this a spider that bit you?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, the priest added, “Take your boot off.”
Regdar opened his mouth to tell the priest again that he was fine but ended up taking off his boot.
“For Pelor’s sake, Regdar…” Jozan grumbled.
“Those spiders could be poisonous,” Naull said, squinting at the wound from over Jozan’s shoulder.
Regdar felt foolish and avoided looking at Naull.
“She’s right,” Jozan said, poking at the wound with one finger. “Still, I don’t see any sign of poisoning or infection.”
“Very well, then,” Regdar said. “I’m fine, and we haven’t even begun to explore the-”
He stopped when a rush of warmth enveloped his leg and the throbbing pain that he’d grown accustomed to was suddenly gone. Jozan was kneeling, with his head bowed, whispering something Regdar couldn’t hear. A dim golden light radiated from his hands, then faded just as Regdar realized what was happening. Jozan had called upon the power of Pelor to heal him.
The priest stood, nodded once at Regdar, then walked back toward their campsite. Naull was still looking at his leg.
“How does it feel?” she asked.
“Fine,” Regdar answered. He looked down at his leg and saw not the slightest trace of a wound.
***
The captured goblins stood in the center of the deep pit, keeping close together. Tzrg sat squeezed together with a line of his fellow Stonedeep goblins. Rezrex and his hobgoblins sat on the higher ledge above them, swilling the bitter fungus beer and laughing heartily at the goblins in the pit.
Tzrg wasn’t laughing. He knew what was going to happen to the captured goblins. They had done terrible things to the Cavemouth Tribe at Rezrex’s command, and things were just getting worse.
Rezrex growled, “Brjdn ksr!”
Tzrg cringed and wanted to close his eyes but didn’t. He heard stone grind on stone and instinctively looked down. He sat on a ledge five feet below the floor level. Another fifteen feet below that ledge was the floor of the pit. Almost directly under where Tzrg was sitting was the entrance to a little side passage that emptied out onto the uneven floor of the pit. It was from this side passage that the grinding noise, then the monster, came.
The two captured goblins saw it right away, and though they were scared at first, Tzrg could see them force themselves to face the creature. They looked at it as if they didn’t know what it was, which didn’t surprise Tzrg. He’d only seen two of them himself.
The Cavemouth goblins were unarmed, which wasn’t fair. They bent their knees as if waiting to jump at the ksr, and clenched their fists, then opened their hands again and bent their fingers into claws. They bared their fangs and growled at the beast.
The creature stepped forward slowly, its powerful muscles sublimely evident under its thin, shimmering coat of gray-and-brown mottled fur. It was big but not enormous. It was a little longer than a goblin was tall, with a bushy tail as long as its body. The creature’s tail whipped around behind it as it advanced. A shaggy mane of dark gray fur ruffled up over its shoulders, bristling as it hunched down, stalking forward.
A cheer went up from the hobgoblins that was mimicked by the bulk of the Stonedeep goblins. Tzrg cheered with them, if reluctantly, and hoped it would be over soon, so he could find some dark corner of the cave and just get drunk or something. The ksr growled at the crowd, and that scared most of the goblins into silence. The distraction also gave the two Cavemouth goblins time to whisper to each other and flash a couple quick signs. They split up, trying to circle the beast, so that it could only see one of them at a time. Tzrg was impressed by how smart that was. These were smart goblins. They might live as long as two or three minutes.
One of the goblins was stepping back away from the creature while the other was moving just a little closer. They both continued to separate. They were scanning the floor of the pit, presumably for loose stones or anything they might use as a weapon. All the stalagmites had been broken off and carted away a long time before, and Rezrex had the whole thing swept out before every “fight.” That’s what Rezrex liked to call this: pnl… a fight. Tzrg had helped sweep the pit out himself and hadn’t dared leave anything in there for the Cavemouth goblins. Their fate was sealed.
The monster looked from one goblin to the other before seeming to decide on one-the smaller of the two. It lunged forward, and the smaller goblin jumped back, losing his balance and falling on his seat. The goblin scrambled backward, apparently not realizing that the creature had stopped. The second goblin leaped at the ksr and was committed to the attack before he realized the thing wasn’t still going after his friend.
The monster turned on the attacking goblin, and Tzrg winced at what happened next. The fur, even the skin, peeled back from the ksr
’s face, revealing glistening pink muscle and shining yellow-white bone. It’s fang-studded jaws came open, and it let out a shrieking wail that rattled Tzrg’s eardrums. He put his hands to his ears-as did the rest of the Stonedeep goblins-but he could still hear the scream. He couldn’t hear Rezrex’s shout of triumph and excitement, though, so that was one good thing. The huge hobgoblin was having the time of his life.
The goblin who had begun a gutsy assault on the much larger and fiercer ksr scrambled to a halt and ended up falling on the cave floor in front of the monster, arms and legs sprawled out and his face twisted into a very un-goblinlike expression of pure horror.
The goblin looked as if he wanted to get away, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t frozen or paralyzed so much as confused with pure, unadulterated terror. The creature pounced, and the goblin wasn’t able to do much but shake and sob as the monster ripped it to bloody shreds.
Rezrex leaped to his feet, cheering, looking more pleased with himself than he was with his pet ksr. Tzrg looked down at the smaller Cavemouth goblin, who was trying in vain to climb the smooth flowstone walls of the ksr pit as the creature, blood dripping from its baggy-skinned jaws, advanced on him slowly to the cheers of the hobgoblins and goblins that echoed around the massive chamber.
Tzrg turned away, sure that eventually he would share the Cavemouth goblins’ fate.
***
Regdar stood next to Naull at the edge of the deep black shaft. Jozan stood on the other side of Naull, and Regdar could hear Lidda getting dressed behind them.
He looked down into the shaft and watched as four balls of what looked like torchlight gradually sank through the air, slowly turning around each other, twisting and intertwining, and all the way illuminating the irregular walls of the vertical cave.