“Worried or not, Phen, the time has come for us to go.” Hyden raised his voice over the murmur of the group and gave Cade a nod. “Everyone inside the rune circle, all of you now.”
The giant smiled. “The kingdom of Afdeon wishes that the gods grace your quest with naught but good fortune.”
“Thank you. If we are not heard from in ten days, send a search party,” Hyden said. “One or more of us will most likely survive even the worst of possibilities.”
“We pray that won’t be necessary,” Cade said, “but rest assured, it will be done if you don’t return on time.”
Hyden forced a smile. He had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be easy. “Give King Aldar my best, when he has recovered.”
Oarly sensed twenty eyes looking down at him and tried to become smaller than he already felt. A moment later, Hyden spoke a word. The air filled with static, and after a deep “whoomp!” that shook the fabric of reality around them, they were suddenly somewhere else.
A roughly chiseled version of the teleportation symbol was now beneath their booted feet, and unlike the smooth-floored chamber they’d just left, the ground here was gray and uneven. A bitter wind cut through their furs and whistled in the shallow recess in which they found themselves. They were in a scallop on an icy granite cliff, and even the layered clothes under the shagmar coats they wore couldn’t keep the frigid chill from finding them.
“B- b- b- bah!” Oarly blurted, then shrunk back into his furred hood and adjusted his pack.
“Let’s get moving.” Hyden nocked an arrow to his bowstring and took the lead. “Moving’ll keep us warm. Since you’ve got a blade and no pack to haul, Lieutenant, you take the rear.”
Lieutenant Welch nodded and drew his sword. He leaned it against the rock face and buttoned his coat over his scabbard. He put on some gloves he’d gotten from one of the giant page boys and took up an alert position at the rear of the procession.
The rocky ledge was wide enough for a small horse cart, but beyond its lip was a thousand-foot free fall into a jagged gorge. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but the powerful wind carried granulated ice crystals that scoured the travelers. Ice and snow was piled in all the crevices along the way, making each step a slippery chore.
Around midday they found a shallow recess, similar to the one they’d appeared in. It wasn’t enclosed enough to hold warmth, but it was mostly out of the wind, so they were able to enjoy a meal in relative comfort.
It was harder starting again than it had been the first time. The harsh, bone-chilling climate seemed to sap the life right out of them. No one spoke. They couldn’t have heard each other over the wind anyway. Not one of them heard Lieutenant Welch’s muffled scream behind them. The man was snatched off of the trail by a huge rock troll that was hiding in a crevice. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when Hyden was debating making a camp in a narrow fissure, that they realized he was gone. The sudden alarm that swept over the group clinched the decision to make a camp. The fissure was out of the wind. While the group huddled around a couple of small everburn fires, Hyden, Jicks, and Phen looked for the lieutenant.
They searched into the night, using Phen’s orb spells and Talon’s superior vision, but they found nothing. There was no trace, not even a hint of what had happened. When they were finally forced to settle in and get warm, Jicks was in tears. Princess Telgra and Dostin both cried, as well. Hyden, Phen, and Oarly had lost several people close to them while warring and adventuring in the past. They were a little more hardened to such happenings. It was a sad affair, but it was part of the journey.
Hyden recalled his Uncle Condlin’s words, right after one of his cousins fell from the sacred nesting cliffs during the annual egg harvest. “Every gain has a price, and sometimes loss is the cost of that gain.”
Lieutenant Welch paid the price for Phen, Princess Telgra, and Talon to find healing. At least Welch made the first payment, Hyden thought to himself. He could tell by the look on Phen’s stoney face that the boy understood this, too. Talon knew, as well. The persistent hawkling was still out in the night, riding the icy winds in search of their lost companion.
By the look on the wild-eyed faces of both elves it was clear that they understood the magnitude of the loss, as well. Elves, Hyden knew, lived far longer than men and had a peculiar view of death. They cherished life, and the fact that the lieutenant had lost his helping one of them seemed to be weighing heavily. Sleep, for some of the group, was hard to come by.
The afternoon of the next day they came to the Leif Repline cavern. To everyone’s relief, it was no natural formation. The stonework was ancient, the opening worked into a perfect arch just big enough for a giant to walk under without stooping. A few icicles, as long as a man is tall, hung down into the entrance. With a marble-hard arm, Phen knocked them out of the way and ushered the others in out of the bitter wind.
Once inside it was obvious that, though much stone work had been done here, the cavern was indeed naturally formed. Talon cawed from overhead and winged off cautiously into the darkness. A few hundred feet into the gray tunnel the scree-covered cavern bottom became smoother. A semiflat carved floor led deeper into the mountain. Both Hyden and Phen cast their orb lights into existence so that each had a fist-sized glow of magical illumination hovering a few feet overhead.
“You can do that, too, my lady,” Corva told Princess Telgra. “Soon you’ll be yourself again.”
She gave a nervous laugh that was tinged with sadness. “You seem as if you can’t wait to get rid of this me for the other.”
“I hope the other you likes me as much as you do,” Phen said, saving Corva from an awkward response.
“I’m sure I will, Phen,” she chuckled dryly. “But I might not like the other you.” The last was said teasingly.
“Bah!” Oarly barked and shrugged off his pack. “We’re finally out of the fargin cold and safe underground. Do I have to listen to the banter of daft folk thrice my age?” He gave all of them a good, hard stare. “You can change a person’s skin, and you can erase some memories, but you can’t change the nature of who someone is.”
“That was profound, Oarly,” Phen said seriously. “That liquefied lotus bud you’ve been drinking seems to have unclouded your head.”
“Bah!” Oarly barked again. He pulled a little flask from inside his coat and took a long pull. Then he unbuckled his battle axe and started off ahead of Phen, letting the boy’s orb light his path.
“He’s right,” Hyden observed from behind them. He’d had the archers and Jicks put down their gear and ready their weapons. Jicks was moving to the front of the procession near Oarly, as Hyden indicated for him to do.
“It does make sense,” Phen said. “We are who we are.”
“It’s kind of warm in here,” observed Hyden randomly. “Let Jicks and Oarly take the lead. If something attacks, those in the middle drop down so that we can loose our arrows over you. This passage is tall and there might be openings up high, as well as low. Keep an eye out for pitfalls, Oarly.”
Corva let his pack drop to the floor and drew his longsword. He told Dostin to lose his burden and be ready with his staff. The monk nodded, his face a mask of silent fear.
“There will probably be nothing until after the poisoned fountain,” Phen said knowingly. “Up ahead it will open into that chamber. There’s no mention of branching tunnels or halls.”
“Old caverns crack and shift, lad,” Oarly said, using his jeweled axe to point at just such a fracture, which was big enough for a man to squeeze into. “A thin wall might have crumbled through, or such, since then.”
“Aye.” Phen nodded and prepared a spell, up until its final command word.
No more than a thousand feet from where the cavern bottom turned to carven floor, the passage opened into a beautifully detailed room with a ceiling done in a pattern that resembled a woven reed basket. In the center of the floor was a wonderful triple-level fountain. The water flowing through it was burbling and tin
kling away. There was a pyramid formed of life-sized stone mermaids spouting crystal clear water from their pursed lips. They looked to be frolicking inside a rippling, knee-high walled pool. An ancient mound of bones sat amid a pile of rotted clothes against the retainer wall. It had been there so long that some of the bones had begun to crumble. Beyond the fountain, the passage continued into the darkness. Out of the shaft, Talon came fluttering in and landed on Hyden’s shoulder excitedly.
“Not this one, Talon,” Hyden said. “Fly ahead and once your eyes adjust, see if you can find another fountain, or anything else.” The hawkling cooed his understanding and took back to the air.
“I doubt it needs to be said, but no one drink the water here. Jicks, you and the boys go fetch our packs while we set up camp. We will explore deeper into the passage after we have gotten out of these heavy clothes.”
Jicks had Phen light a torch with his fire finger then led the two archers back up the tunnel for their gear.
No sooner had they gotten out of earshot than Talon come shrieking back into the chamber. Hyden felt his familiar’s alarm flashing in his brain and saw the reflection of firelight in a distant pair of big, glassy eyes. He was about to warn the others, but it wasn’t necessary. The long, low rumbling of an angry growl filled the chamber.
Oarly started toward the dark opening from where the sound was originating. Corva left Princess Telgra with Phen, and he and Hyden both hurried to the dwarf’s side. Hyden nocked his bow as Talon flew past them and wisely landed on Phen’s shoulder.
Spike jumped from Phen’s pocket when the Gwag growled again. The lyna cat hunched its back and hissed at the sound, then scampered off toward it.
“This is bad,” Oarly said.
“What?” Hyden asked. He wondered if Oarly was having some sort of dark premonition.
The Gwag growled again and the sound was massive. It was getting closer.
“What is it, dwarf?” Corva asked through his fear.
“It’s a terrible thing to have to face that fargin Gwag,” Oarly cursed. “I haven’t even had a chance to get good and drunk yet today.”
Just then, a horrible scream erupted from behind them. It came from one of the archers. The sound was accompanied by a different kind of roar. It didn’t sound like another Gwag, but whatever it was, it sounded just as big.
Chapter 42
Phen turned to see what he could behind them. Jicks and one of the archers were scrambling back toward the fountain chamber, each carrying a couple of supply packs. Their torch was nowhere to be seen. Both were pale, wide-eyed, and moving very swiftly.
“Beware!” Jicks called ahead of them. “A troll got Mort.” He fought a sob and the power of his emotion carried in his voice. “Got him good, it did.” He stopped speaking when he saw that Hyden, Oarly, and Corva were in readied battle stances facing the other direction. As he glanced over his shoulder, Mort’s wailing cry caused him to shudder. Throwing the packs down, he drew his blade and turned to face the way he had come. “I don’t think it followed us, but we have to be ready.”
“It’s fargin eating Mort,” the archer sobbed as he nocked his bow.
“Cover that passage,” Hyden commanded over the Gwag’s approaching rumble.
Spike growled back at the sound and ran between Oarly’s legs toward it. It took only a few heartbeats for the lyna cat to disappear into the darkness beyond the range of Hyden’s magical light.
“Guard Telgra with your life,” Phen told Dostin. “I’ll be right back.” Talon flapped from Phen’s shoulder as he moved away. Telgra nearly didn’t let go of him when he started toward Jicks and Krey. Phen walked right past them. The sudden lack of his orb light in the larger chamber dimmed the space considerably. Talon landed on Telgra’s shoulder and settled as she and Dostin watched Phen and his light fade toward the entry.
Not sure what to do, Jicks and Krey eased in behind Phen and followed him.
***
Suddenly, a snarling, toothy head shot into the light of Hyden’s orb. It was big and furry, like some giant fox or wolverine. It was lightning quick, for it attacked so fast that it caught them all by surprise. Corva was caught in the retreating beast’s mouth and screamed. Hyden instinctually tried to call out to the beast, but in its enraged state the effort was wasted. Oarly darted toward it and, with a leaping swipe of his axe, caught the monster with a glancing blow. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cause the Gwag to let go of Corva before it pulled back completely into the darkness. Oarly went to help the elf to his feet while Hyden loosed arrow after arrow, hoping to keep it off of them.
“It’s a giant snaker,” Oarly announced fearfully. “A mongoose, I think. Big bastard.”
Corva had been punctured by several dagger-sized teeth and was bleeding profusely. He managed to stand upright and limp toward the others. Oarly, helping to steady him, didn’t see the Gwag lunging back at them.
Hyden saw it, though, and he put an arrow right in the creature’s melon-sized eye, but not before it had its teeth around the dwarf.
Oarly tried to yell, but a sickening crunch of bones cut the sound into a grunting wheeze. The creature shook its head violently from side to side as it backed away, but it didn’t let go. Its eye looked ruined. Thick, milky fluid slung from the wound as the Gwag shook its dwarven morsel. Bright red blood, lots of it, sprayed and splashed from its mouth. Through eyes welling with tears, Hyden loosed more shafts at the beast. They found flesh again and again, but the creature didn’t slow down. Within the span of a dozen heartbeats it had taken Oarly and disappeared back into the darkness. Hyden started to chase after it, but when he saw a long, bushy, squirrel-like tail whip around and bound out of sight, he realized it was pointless. The crunch he’d just heard was still reverberating through his head.
Phen was oblivious to the action taking place behind him. He could hear it all, but chose not to pay it any mind. He was on the attack.
He came upon the troll. It was slightly bigger than a giant and covered in dark, mangy fur, with long, pointed ears, and a black hog-like snout. Its chin and chest were matted with slick dark blood, and it held Mort’s leg as if it were the drumstick of some giant bird. Its big brown eyes were eerily human-like, and they stayed glued to Phen’s strange appearance.
“I’m going to distract it,” Phen said to the two soldiers behind him. “Get the other packs, and then get away.”
The creature took a big bite of Mort's thigh. It pulled away from the bone, stretching the bloody meat until it tore. Krey sniffled and sobbed but nodded that he understood his orders. Jicks was already shouldering one of the two packs closest to him.
Once Krey had the final pack, Phen spoke again. “Get well behind me. I’m not sure how this will turn out.”
The troll took another bite out of Mort and curiously studied the stone man with the light hovering over his head. Phen was glad it didn’t seem to care about the other two creeping away with the group’s food and gear.
Phen knew that the dragon tear medallion would amplify his spell’s potency. Just how much, he wasn’t sure. His intent was to wall off the passage with thorny growth. It was a spell he had once used to entangle one of Spike’s giant kindred in a black dragon’s lair. He hadn’t had the dragon’s tear medallion then, and his spell hadn’t created enough growth to block a passage. Now, though, he thought he could do it.
Before the troll could take another bite of their companion, Phen cast his spell and was amazed by what happened next.
From the rocky floor and walls, tiny chips and flakes of stone broke free. Little green worm-like tendrils pushed outward. They turned and twisted and thickened. A season’s worth of growth took place with every passing moment. The branches twisted and twined, and long, finger-sized thorns pushed out of them.
Suddenly, the troll darted at him, reaching out a bloody claw. It never found its mark as it was lifted by the growth that dug into it. It contorted as it squirmed in confusion and fear. It howled out terribly as merciless thorns bit
in and held it in place. Phen was alarmed when the growth grew toward the ceiling and started spreading toward him. He had to back up quickly to keep from getting caught in his own tangle. The troll was mewling, its feet and legs splayed at an abstract upward angle. It was bleeding and whimpering between fits of wild shaking as it tried to thrash around, but it couldn’t get free.
Phen hurried back to where Jicks and Krey stood open-mouthed and teary-eyed. A glance back made him mutter a curse. Oarly would have to hack them a way out now, but at least nothing else could come in behind them.
“Oarly,” Hyden’s voice came to them from down the passage. The reverberation off of the stone made it sound as if a dozen people had called out at once. Phen wasn’t alarmed by Hyden’s call. Oarly had probably chased after the creature. It wasn’t until he heard Hyden call out again that his heart sank and his stomach knotted up. The emptiness and hopelessness in Hyden's voice was clear.
“By the gods, no,” Phen said. He took off running, his heavy, stone footfalls pounding back toward the open chamber like hammer blows. Jicks and Krey hurried after him as best they could with the packs they were carrying. They arrived in the fountain chamber to see Hyden holding Phen back in a great bear hug as the stoney boy tried to follow the bloody trail of gore into the darkness.
Corva lay under Telgra and Dostin, who were crouched over him protectively. The elven princess was running her hand over deep wounds and murmuring something. A soft yellow glow radiated from her palm into the elf’s skin. All the while, the distraught monk was repeating a prayer over and over again.
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