“This is too many,” she complained. “I can’t report all these men to the authorities. And most of them belong to very prominent families. It would be unthinkable to levy an accusation unless we were absolutely sure of ourselves.”
“You and your nefarious captor move in the same circles,” Jack pointed out. “If you and I attend enough social functions and gatherings together, sooner or later I’ll spot the man I saw last night and point him out to you. You’ll almost certainly recognize him at that point, and we’ll catch our secret slave-dealer.”
“Good thinking, Jack,” Seila replied. “That might work.”
Jack grinned to himself. He thought so, too; why, he was almost grateful to this Fetterfist fellow for showing up, since it would give him the perfect excuse to stick closely to Seila for the foreseeable future. “Send me word of any event you mean to attend,” he told her. “I will clear my calendar to make sure I am at your side.”
After that, he reluctantly took his leave, returning to Raven’s Bluff in a Norwood coach as the afternoon gave way to evening. He enjoyed a quiet supper, gave the day’s correspondence a passing glance, and retired at nine bells-he was expected at the Smoke Wyrm early.
The next day the weather reverted to a typical Ravenaar spring, with blustery winds and light showers that threatened to linger all day. Jack arose shortly after dawn and dressed himself with great care. Instead of the elegant tunics and fine capes he’d favored since coming into money, he pulled on a quilted leather jerkin sewn with small steel rings and a long, hooded cloak. He sheathed one dagger in his right boot and another at his right hip, while hanging his fine rapier in a plain wood-and-leather scabbard on his left. He slung a roomy pack over his shoulder, and set out while the cool shadows of morning were still long and dark in the streets.
He found the cellar door of the Smoke Wyrm unlocked, and let himself in with a sharp rap on the lintel. “Hello,” he called.
Tharzon appeared in the hallway, leaning heavily on his cane. “Ah, there you are, Jack,” he said. “I was afraid you’d sleep away half the day before remembering your work this morning. Well, come on in, you’re the last to arrive.”
Jack followed Tharzon into the common room. Kurzen stood by one table, checking a large pack of his own; he wore a coat of worn, blackened steel scales, and a kite-shaped shield was strapped over his shoulder. By the large stone hearth a tall, burly half-orc in a hauberk of chainmail fiddled with the straps of the iron greaves on his shins, while a halfling woman with russet hair tied back in a braid worked on a large dagger with a whetstone. A lean human with long, shaggy braids of red hair and a W-shaped patch of red stubble on his chin sat in a chair by the window. He wore the robes of a mage and smoked a long clay pipe while nursing a mug of steaming tea.
“The company’s complete,” Tharzon announced. “It seems some introductions are in order. Kurzen you all know, of course. Jack, these three are the remaining members of the Blue Wyvern Company. The tall fellow in the mail is Narm; he’s a stout hand in a fight. Next to him, the young lady with the knife is Arlith. And the fellow by the window is Halamar, who’s known as a master of fire magic.” The old dwarf pointed to the half-orc, halfling, and mage as he named them. “Wyverns, this is Jack Ravenwild, a very resourceful thief and sorcerer back in his day. You might have heard some talk of Lady Norwood’s rescue from enslavement in the dark elf realm below Sarbreen; he was the man responsible for that. Today’s work is Jack’s scheme.”
Narm looked Jack up and down and shrugged. “Right, then. What’s the prize today?”
“A book of spells named the Sarkonagael,” Jack answered. “There is a hefty reward offered for its recovery; we’re going to retrieve it from Sarbreen.”
“You know where the Sarkonagael is?” Arlith asked. “Half the sellswords and freebooters in this town have been turning the place upside down looking for it. Five thousand crowns is a handsome pile of coin.”
“Ah, but unlike all those other amateurs, I’ve actually seen the book before. I know what I am looking for.”
“What sort of spells does the book contain?” the sorcerer Halamar asked from his seat by the window.
“Shadow magic, mostly,” Jack answered. “I have no objection to your professional interest and I’ll be happy to let you have a look, but the disposition of the book is not negotiable; I keep it. Well, at least until I am ready to turn it in for the reward.”
Halamar took a draw on his pipe. “If it’s really full of nothing but shadow magic, then it’s not of much interest to me. As good Tharzon observed, most of my magic is in fire.”
“Now for the terms,” Jack said. “It’s my job, so I claim half the reward. The rest you can split four ways-” Tharzon cleared his throat, so Jack amended his split-“er, five ways, because Tharzon of course is owed a share as expediter. That makes five hundred crowns for each of you. And I’ve got good reason to think there’s more to find down there. Whatever else we find besides the Sarkonagael, we’ll divide into six equal shares, one for each of us and one for Tharzon. Is that agreeable to all?”
“It seems a little optimistic to divide loot we don’t have yet,” Narm muttered.
“In my experience, leaving these things to the last leads to hard words and hurt feelings. Better to set reasonable expectations right at the start, I believe.”
“Full shares for survivors and kin if one of us doesn’t come back?” Arlith asked. She gave Jack a small smile. “In my experience, we don’t want to give anyone a reason to think about improving their cut.”
“Fair enough,” Jack decided. He had no intention of engaging in any such dealings, but it was good to know that she didn’t, either, and that sort of understanding might serve as a check on anyone who did harbor such designs.
The halfling nodded. “Then I agree to the terms.”
“I agree,” Narm said. “And I,” Halamar added.
“Agreed,” said Kurzen. The younger dwarf looked around at the company, then back to Jack. “Have you got everything you need?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Jack answered. “Where’s the nearest entrance to Sarbreen?”
Kurzen pointed at a doorway behind the bar. “Right here.”
“That seems a little dangerous, keeping a door to a monster-filled dungeon in your place of business,” Jack remarked.
Kurzen motioned for the small band to follow him, and then led the way into the Smoke Wyrm’s storeroom. Dozens of kegs of ale lined the walls; there were no other exits. Jack was just about to speak again when Kurzen grasped a stack of kegs and pulled it clear of the wall. Instead of toppling over, the whole stack slid together on hidden rollers, revealing a very sturdy-looking door of iron plate secured by heavy bars and padlocks. The dwarf undid the mechanisms one by one, until he pushed the door open, revealing a dark corridor. Water gurgled in the darkness beyond, and a strong whiff of dank air filled the room. “Not the dungeon,” the dwarf barkeep replied. “The city sewers. It’s handy to have a way to get in and out of the Smoke Wyrm without being seen, after all. We’ll find passageways leading down to Sarbreen proper just a little ways in.”
“Charming,” Jack muttered. “A stroll in the sewers to begin the day. Well, lead on.”
Kurzen simply turned right and set off at once. Halamar whispered a word of magic, and a dim golden light began to shine from his staff, illuminating the tunnel. A dry walkway ran along the right-hand side of the sewer, which now ran fast and relatively clear with the runoff from the morning’s rain. Jack glanced once behind him; Tharzon gave him a nod, then pulled the hidden door closed. It blended perfectly with the brickwork of the tunnel. The company marched perhaps two blocks under the city streets until they came to a doorway off the sewer. Several steps up led to a dry chamber of strikingly different stonework. On the opposite wall, a wide, shallow staircase descended into darkness beneath an archway flanked by the carven images of two dwarf smiths.
“This was one of the old guardrooms of Sarbreen,” Kurzen exp
lained. “The stair was one of the city’s main entrances.”
“Wouldn’t the sewer flood it?” Arlith asked.
Kurzen snorted. “My forefathers knew what they were about. You’re standing on the roof of Sarbreen; of course it’s designed to shed water away from the living spaces below. When the humans came along later and laid out their city above old Sarbreen, they used these channels as their city’s sewer system.”
The dwarf barkeep advanced to the archway and peered down the stairs beyond for a moment, then gave the rest of the party a nod and started down. The passage was wide enough for four people to walk abreast, its walls decorated with long, continuous friezes showing scenes of dwarves engaged in all sorts of trades and work. They went on for the better part of a hundred yards until they finally emerged in a wide hall marked by towering columns. A great fountain stood in the center of the hall, but its waters were black and stagnant. Rubble, debris, and dust littered the floor.
“The market hall,” Kurzen said softly. “Here surface traders brought their goods to trade with the City of the Hammer. From this point on, stay on your guard. We might meet anything down here.”
Kurzen turned to the right again and started to lead the party toward another passage mouth in the wall of the great pillared hall, but at that moment Jack became aware of a sudden soft, flapping rush of footsteps from the shadows by the fountain.
“Behind us!” he shouted as he whirled to meet the threat.
A ragged line of squat, scaly lizard-like creatures charged toward the explorers, armed with spiked clubs and heavy javelins. Several of the creatures paused to throw their darts; the missiles hissed through the air, clattering on the stone floor. Jack ducked under one; another struck Kurzen as he was turning, only to rebound from the dwarf’s large shield.
“Troglodytes!” Arlith shouted. She raised a crossbow and fired off a bolt that took one of the monsters in the throat; the creature stumbled to its knees and clutched at its neck.
Then Jack smelled the creatures for the first time, and very nearly threw up at the first whiff of them. They stank, not in the way that an unwashed beast might smell rank but with a revolting reptilian musk that was acrid and rotten at the same time. Jack drew his rapier and backpedaled, conjuring a pair of magical missiles in the shape of silvery darts with his left hand. He finished the spell with an arcane word and flicked out his fingertips at the nearest troglodyte; the silvery missiles flew from his fingers, striking the creature in its torso. The troglodyte stumbled and sank to the stone floor, but more monsters swarmed past their stricken fellow.
Narm drew his greatsword and charged forward to meet the oncoming troglodytes. Kurzen let out a dwarven war-cry and followed a step behind him, brandishing a heavy warhammer. The half-orc and the dwarf collided with the charging savages in a furious ringing of steel and iron, stemming their rush like twin battlements. The troglodytes fought in eerie silence, making not a sound other than faint hisses when they were wounded. More of the creatures veered around Narm and Kurzen, seeking to come to grips with the rest of the explorers. “Ware my fire!” Halamar shouted, then spoke the words of a spell that unleashed a torrent of flame. The furious blast burned down two or three of the monsters as they surged forward. Then the troglodytes were upon Jack and his comrades.
The monsters crowded in around the small company, spiked bludgeons rising and falling-but Narm’s sword whirled like a white razor, shearing off limbs left and right, while Kurzen’s hammer crushed scaly flesh and bone as he shrugged off the trogs’ blows in his heavy armor. Jack stabbed wildly with his rapier, ducking and dodging as the creatures pressed their attack. The foul musk seared his nostrils and clogged his throat; his eyes watered, and it was all he could do to keep his gorge in check. Halamar blasted the creatures with bolt after fiery bolt, until the sickening smell of charred flesh filled the hall. At that point Jack did lose his breakfast, but somehow he managed to wave his rapier around enough to keep any of the trogs from braining him while he was retching.
Then, as suddenly as the creatures had charged, they broke and scattered, fleeing back into the shadows. Narm leaped after the retreating monsters and cut one down from behind; Arlith’s crossbow sang again, dropping another. The ringing echoes of steel blades died away as Jack recovered from his distress and straightened up again. Nine or ten troglodytes lay dead or dying on the ground; by unspoken agreement the small company drew back from the thick reek hanging in the air where they’d fought.
“Looks like they’ve had enough for now,” Narm remarked. “Is anybody injured?”
“A dart bounced off the floor and struck my shin,” Halamar said. He peered down at his leg. “Ruined my boot, but it’s not too bad. I can walk.”
“You’re bleeding, Narm,” Arlith said. She pointed at the half-orc’s arm; there was a thin thread of blood running down to his elbow.
“It’s nothing,” the warrior said.
“Fine, then. Let me bind it up before we go on,” the halfling replied. Narm shrugged and held out his arm as Arlith retrieved a bandage from her pack.
Kurzen wandered back over to the nearest of the dead troglodytes, and frowned as he studied the body. “This fellow’s missing an eye. And so is this other one. And this one, too. I think they all are.”
Jack ventured as close as he could stand, and looked at the bodies on the ground. Sure enough, each of the troglodytes was missing its left eye. Leather patches had been sewn over the sockets. In fact, now that he looked more closely, he saw that what he’d taken for crude body decorations on their scaly hides were actually very comprehensive designs. Each troglodyte was painted with symbols of eyes, dozens of them. “How strange,” he murmured. “Some sort of tribal custom?”
“They’re weak-minded creatures, easily dominated by other monsters,” Kurzen replied. “I think it’s their way of pledging loyalty to their master.”
“What sort of master?”
Kurzen shrugged. “Hard to say. Let’s hope that our path just skirts their territory instead of leading us deeper in. I hate fighting troglodytes; can’t stand the smell of them.”
“I wholeheartedly agree,” Jack said. “Let us press on before any more of them show up.”
From the market hall, they turned northward again-or so Kurzen said, anyway-and followed a wide, straight passage for some distance. Suites of chambers were cut into the stone on either side, many littered with rubble and old debris. From time to time, Jack caught a whiff of troglodyte stench hanging in the air; either some of the musk had rubbed off on his clothes or more of the foul brutes were not as far off as he’d like them. Fortunately, no more of the creatures appeared, and he began to think that perhaps they’d left the trogs behind them.
At the end of the straight passage, they came to a cloverleaf-shaped chamber with fine masonry walls and great double-doors of bronze lying wrecked in a grand doorway to the right. Dead fountains stood before the doors, revealed by the golden light of Halamar’s light spell. “The Hall of Knowledge,” Kurzen explained. “The city’s sages and scribes gathered here. Few of my forefathers took to wizardry, but those who did were counted part of the sage’s brotherhood.”
“Is it worth exploring?” Jack asked, studying the darkened doorway with interest.
“It was plundered long ago,” Kurzen answered. “I’ve heard there are hidden vaults that haven’t yet been found, but the deeper reaches are guarded by magical constructs-gargoyles, golems, things of that sort. Best to leave it for another day.”
The rogue’s interest dimmed as soon as Kurzen mentioned guardians. “Maybe we’ll have a look if the rest of the day’s work comes up dry,” he decided. “Carry on.”
Kurzen led the band to another staircase leading down. This one descended only thirty feet or so before emerging onto a ledge in the side of a large natural crevasse. For a moment Jack thought they’d found the upper landing of the elevator to the deeper Underdark again, but he realized that this was a much smaller cavern. The stairs turned left an
d descended along the sheer side of the crevasse; the dwarf guide paused to scan the stalactites hanging overhead carefully before continuing down the stairs. Shadows thrown by Halamar’s light on the stone formations created vast, fanglike caricatures on the crevasse’s rough walls. They were more than a little unnerving, and Jack was glad when they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned back into a passageway surrounded by solid stone.
“Lower your light,” Kurzen said softly to Halamar. “We’re drawing near to the temple.”
The sorcerer waved a hand over the glowing crystal at the head of his staff, dimming its brightness to little more than a small lamp. With an exchange of glances between the members of the small company, they fell silent and advanced more slowly. Ahead of them a huge stone lintel loomed out of the shadows, covered with geometric designs and the sharp-edged runes of Dwarvish writing. Cautiously they ventured beneath the doorway, finding themselves in a great antechamber or narthex between the passage they’d followed and another hallway at the opposite end. In the middle a mighty archway led into the temple proper; Jack caught a glimpse of golden tile and the shadow of mighty columns waiting beyond.
“The Temple of the Soulforger,” Kurzen said in a hushed voice. “There are grander rooms in Sarbreen, but none more sacred or more beautifully wrought. Tread these chambers with respect, my friends.”
“Well done, Kurzen,” Jack answered.
He started forward … only to catch the sudden sharp reek of troglodyte-musk and the sound of scaly feet ahead. Dozens of troglodyte warriors poured out of the arch leading to the inner temple and rushed the small party.
“Bane’s blazing bollocks! Here they come again!” shouted Narm. He ran forward to meet the monsters’ charge, brandishing his greatsword.
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