“Two of the women in my village had such fear,” Lhors said. He eyed Khlened for a long moment. “It must be hard for such a brave man to learn he can fear something.”
“Yes. He can learn to bear it, if he will listen to Maera.”
Vlandar nodded sharply and dismissed them, beckoning for Nemis, Khlened, and Maera to join him. Lhors watched from nearby. He could see Vlandar’s lips moving, then Maera’s and Khlened’s. Nemis merely folded his arms and listened, but Lhors could hear nothing of what was said.
Several moments passed before Nemis beckoned. Rowan gripped Lhors’ shoulder and drew him back over to the rest of the group. The mage caught hold of Mal’s hand and stretched his own arms as far as they would go.
Making a bigger tube, Lhors realized.
Vlandar gestured for all of them to come close. The air inside the tube felt as if a storm was coming—Nemis’ contribution, perhaps. Lhors swallowed dread and tried not to think about the last time his hair had stood on end.
Vlandar cleared his throat. “We can’t stay like this for long. Anyone or anything down here sensitive to magic will sense the tube and surely know we aren’t their kind. If you must say something, it better be important.” The warrior quickly laid out his plan. “We won’t go east. Nemis says the region beyond the rockslide leads to the caverns he sensed earlier—with the way out through water and the other through dread creatures. Besides, there is one bugbear just visible, and it seems to have orders to keep constant watch on the ruined passage. There are others inside the chamber, and they are ready to fight.”
“Why?” Lhors asked. “What enemy could they have back there?”
“Mal thinks they are orcs—a good many of them. From what we saw of the way these giants treat their servants and slaves, I believe there may have been rebellion down here. The bugbear on guard down there feels anxious, Mal said, and his companions are very alert.”
“Bugbear guards… afraid of orcs?” Khlened demanded.
“Orcs are as big and as bloodthirsty as bugbears. If they were enslaved and are now armed and spoiling for revenge… well, they would be a dangerous enemy even if there were only a few of them.”
Several of them nodded agreement, then Vlandar continued, “So that is no way for us, even if we chose to face the pool or chance the other portal. Nosnra is also our enemy, but that would not make the orcs our allies. The three chambers across that hall are orc housing, but Mal does not think they are prisoners—servants or trusted slaves perhaps.”
“Trusted?” Rowan protested. “They are barred from the outside!”
“A loyal slave is still a slave,” Vlandar reminded her, “but they are not our business. Now, down the right-hand corridor where Lhors heard what could be a smithy, Nemis sensed… you tell them, Nemis.”
“I was aware of several sources of strong emotion: fear and hate mixed, and in some a sense of hopelessness—also extreme heat and at least two giants. Besides the giants, there are slaves—possibly human, perhaps elf or dwarf—I cannot be sure, but they are not orcs or the like. That I can tell.”
Malowan’s eyes fixed on Vlandar, but he said nothing.
Vlandar looked at the paladin and nodded. “Yes, Mal, we will go there. Nemis, have you another of your beneath notice spells?”
“Better to save those for special need,” the mage replied. “I can create invisibility, though we will need to be as quiet as possible to pass unnoticed by the two giants in that torture chamber. You do not want to attack the bugbear?”
“No,” the warrior said, “not unless we are seen or heard by that guard. Their hearing is not keen, and he is concentrating on his task anyway. I’ve fought them before. The noise would alert every giant in the vicinity. No, we deal with those in the torture chamber and the smithy, and then take on the bugbears if we must. We aren’t enough to battle enemy from both sides. So, the west passage.”
Nemis nodded. “And move with care around here.”
“I plan on it,” Maera said flatly.
“More than usual,” the mage replied. “These walls—all this down here—it was not built by giants, you know.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression. “Something older and darker…”
“Set me at it with m’ sword, and I’ll gut it!” Khlened snarled, but he’d gone very pale again.
“The gods grant you the opportunity and the strength should such a chance come,” Nemis replied.
“My arms are growing tired,” Malowan added, “and we have stayed here long enough.”
“Agreed,” Vlandar said.
Vlandar led the way, waiting at the end of the north-south corridor while Nemis cast his spell of invisibility. He then divided his company, placing himself at the fore with Lhors and Maera, then Nemis who wanted to be central should he need to reinforce his spell or create a new one. Khlened came next, then Agya and Malowan with Rowan moving silently behind, a drawn bow in her hands and her eyes fixed on the bugbear guard.
Things went well for some moments. They could hear a faint noise from down the east passage, as if someone were dragging stones away from the other side of the barrier. The guard was halfway off his stool, a morning star clutched in one hand and his whole attention fixed on the boulder wall and beyond.
Suddenly he yelled what might have been an order, his voice a hellish roar that echoed in the relatively narrow space.
Vlandar gestured furiously for everyone to back up against the north wall and stay still. Before they could obey, half a dozen bugbears, all heavily armed, poured into the hall, most of them pelting straight for the boulder wall. Unfortunately, the last of the lot stumbled on loose rock, caught the guards stool to right himself, and wound up on his knees, staring straight into Rowan’s eyes. His jaw dropped and he sucked in a loud breath to yell.
Rowan loosed her arrow, which slammed into his throat. The cry became a shrill howl of pain. The other bugbears stopped dead and turned.
“That’s torn it,” Rowan said grimly, and went to one knee, hauling the arrow case over her shoulder and bracing it against her thigh where she could rapidly draw shafts. Maera came up to take a place behind her, loosing a javelin as the other bugbears came pelting toward them, swords, morning stars, and axes ready to strike.
Vlandar edged around the rangers, bringing Malowan and Nemis with him. The three ran straight for the bugbears, holding to the south wall of the passage to give the rangers and Lhors, who found himself between the two, a clear line on their targets.
“Save your javelins until they’re nearer!” Maera told him.
Lhors merely nodded. His mouth was very dry.
Malowan and Vlandar engaged the first of the hairy creatures, Vlandar blocking the morning star on his sword. Malowan dodged the swing of a bugbear’s axe, then swung around reversing his sword and digging in his heels as he thrust the blade back through thick fur. The bugbear staggered back, clutching its belly and squalling in agony. Vlandar swung his own weapon in a full circle before bringing it crashing down on the back of the brutes head. The creature fell with a crash.
Another set on them at once, and then more. Khlened came running up, snarling. He brandished a sword in each hand, and he clenched a thick, nasty-looking dagger between his teeth.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lhors could see the rangers firing into the crowd of monsters.
The startled bugbears fell back a few paces, a few falling to the rangers’ arrows and javelins. Lhors saved his own spears in case any of the creatures managed to break past the three warriors. Rowan finally let Maera drag her and Lhors back out of the way. Nemis came running up, stopping just behind the three men who were barely keeping the creatures at bay.
“Vlandar!” he yelled. “Help me! Get them in a line!”
“What kind of a—? Are you mad?” the warrior yelled back as he swung his sword at the nearest bugbear. Blood splurted from a deep gash on the brute’s forearm, and its morning star fell from its hand. “Will you set them dancing?”
“Get them
in a clutch then! I have a spell readied, but it won’t work on them all otherwise!”
“We’ll get them bunched for you!” Vlandar said as he parried a strike. “Khlened, to that side! Mal, ease back this way with me!”
The three men formed an arc with Vlandar at the center. The bugbears ignored Nemis—the mage wasn’t wielding a blade like the other three, Lhors realized—and threw themselves forward. The air crackled, and a thick, bluish fog wrapped around the shaggy creatures. When it faded, the bugbears were simply gone.
Nemis heaved a sigh. “Apparently they weren’t fluent in anything but their own nasty language—if that. Stupid brutes.”
“Giants might be,” Vlandar said evenly. “Keep that in mind if we need to make plans on the spot, will you? Mal, you and Khlened—”
But the paladin had already moved in the direction they’d been heading and stood motionless in the corridor. He came back, shaking his head.
“There is at least one enormous blaze going in that chamber. The two giants I sense may be lying in wait to catch us by surprise, but I believe they are asleep or unconscious.”
Maera smiled grimly. She was coming back with all the javelins she could salvage, running the shafts between her hands to test them before stuffing them back into the case. Rowan was doing the same with her arrows. “Better if we know for certain. That would be work for rangers, I think. Come, sister.”
Lhors stared at the spear he held. He hadn’t even thrown one, he realized. The creatures hadn’t come close enough for him to have been of use. He hoped no one else had seen the panic he’d felt when those monsters came charging.
Rowan touched his shoulder. “We’re going to make certain the giants up there”—she gestured toward the doorless chamber and the glow of fire—“somehow did not hear all that just now. Come help, will you?”
“I… help? Me?” He blinked then nodded. “If I can.”
“You’ll do, lad,” Maera allowed. She melted into deeper shadow along the north wall, edging sideways toward the distant firelight. As the rest of the party sought a hiding place away from the scene of battle, Lhors and Rowan went after Maera.
As they neared the open doorway, Maera gestured for Lhors to ease over to the south wall with her while Rowan kept to the north. She fit an arrow to the string as she vanished into the dark opening that went straight north. Maera signed for Lhors to stay where he was and watch while she slipped partway down the angled passage.
It wasn’t quite as dark that way—enough that Lhors could tell the passage branched again farther on. Ruddy light stained the walls down there, and he could hear the distant sound of a hammer battering metal into shape and, when that ceased, the loud huff of a bellows. I was right about the smithy, he thought. He felt a little better. Maybe he had contributed something after all.
Maera was back almost at once, and Rowan came back a moment later. The rangers exchanged rapid and complex sign Lhors couldn’t follow, then Maera moved light-footed toward the opening straight ahead. Lhors tightened his grip on the spear and was glad the rangers couldn’t hear his wildly beating heart.
The chamber was a horror of bloodstained flooring, instruments that left him sick and weak at the knees. Some had obvious uses. Others he couldn’t begin to imagine their exact purpose. High-burning fires licked at metal clamps or turned huge twisted branding irons a glowing red. In the midst of all this, two giants slept heavily, back to back on a filthy mat. The one facing out was smiling, as if in the midst of a pleasant dream.
Maera edged forward, gesturing for her sister to come with her, but Rowan shook her head fiercely, then beckoned, drawing her sister and Lhors back up the hall and into the shadow of the angled hallway.
“You want to kill them, Maera? Why?”
Maera sighed, clearly exasperated. “Can you even ask? They are torturers. They deserve to die!”
“Yes,” Rowan replied sourly. “So what do we do then, murder them while they sleep or let them waken first and then kill them?”
“Why let them waken?” Maera demanded. “Go in, kill them, and be done with it! It is not sporting, but this is not sport, sister. This is survival.”
“Do not lecture me, sister,” Rowan retorted. “Whatever they are, whatever they have done, that does not justify acting in the same fashion. Leave them. I doubt they will waken while we are here. If they do, then death is their fate, but I will not dishonor myself with their blood, nor allow you to do so.”
“Arrogant,” Maera hissed. “Is it not arrogant of you to assume we will be able to kill them if they waken?”
“If, was, could have been,” Rowan replied evenly. “It does not matter, Maera. I will not aid you in this.”
Maera’s lips twisted, but she finally sighed and gestured assent. “You would better serve Heironeous than Ehlonna,” she said acidly.
Before Rowan could reply, her twin was gone, moving at a swift pace to rejoin the others.
Rowan laid a hand on Lhors’ shoulder. “I am sorry you had to be party to that,” she said quietly. “My sister is a good person, but she has a special grudge against giants.”
“I hate giants,” Lhors said after a moment’s thought “My father… my village… But I could not have killed those two while they slept However evil they must be to work in such a horrid place, it does not make it right for me to act the way they do.”
“You speak for me,” Rowan said as she eased back into the main corridor, “but I would not share such opinions with Maera were I you.”
Maera had apparently failed to convince Vlandar either. She and Malowan had drawn aside and were arguing in fierce whispers as Rowan and Lhors rejoined the company. Rowan went over to Vlandar and briefly explained what the three of them had seen.
“South up there is the passage leading to the smithy. North are slave pens or prison cells with bugbear guards. And there is”—she hesitated—“a trail of blood, fresh and old both, that goes between the north passage and the torture chamber.”
“There are prisoners that way,” Nemis said softly. “No humans, no elves—orcs and trolls. I pity them, but I will not risk my life to free them.”
Vlandar nodded. “Even Mal agrees we dare not try to help them. Most of them would not thank us and might even try to kill us to win favor from Nosnra.”
“Let us go before any other guards come out of that barracks,” Malowan said. “There are more bugbears in the farther rooms—behind closed doors, fortunately for us. But they are not the only enemy that might come through here.”
Vlandar nodded and took up the lead, the rest following as they had before, but this time Rowan moved sideways so she could both watch where she walked and keep an eye on their back trail.
Once inside the southwest passage and out of the light from the torture chamber, Vlandar halted again and beckoned Malowan up with him. The two exchanged a few brief signs. Lhors could follow some of it, including “search,” and “caution,” but some of it must have been personal sign between the two. Vlandar held the rest of the company back with him while Malowan and Agya stole quietly forward, stopping at the barely visible bend in the hallway. They were back almost at once.
“It is very loud in there, so no one will hear us,” Malowan whispered softly. “There are dwarves in there. The ones I could see are chained, but there were others that I could sense but not see.”
Vlandar frowned at the opposite wall. “Some are prisoners, but some might not be. Some of them might be allies of the giants, especially if they are not all from the same tribe. You could not tell, Mal?”
“I would have to get closer to use such a spell.”
“Hmmm.” Vlandar considered this briefly. “Some are prisoners at least. How many giants?”
“Two,” Agya whispered. Lhors thought her eyes seemed huge. Whatever was in that room had scared her, it seemed. “And they’re bigger’n those rotters up above and blacker’n a cook pot.”
“Fire giants,” the paladin said evenly. “We will need to hit them hard an
d fast.”
“I know,” Vlandar replied tiredly. “No Mal, I’m not arguing. I’m of your mind. A warrior who won’t help the broken and downtrodden is nothing but a thug with free room and board from his king. I just—”
“Consider this,” Malowan broke in. “The guard-change off that big chamber happened just as we came out. Have you ever known a lair where guard-changes were not all done at the same time? So the guard on that rockslide likely just changed also.”
“You’d trust to that?” Maera demanded.
“No,” Malowan said, “I call it likely. But stay ready for the unlikely all the same. It is likely that any dwarves imprisoned down here are not used only in the smithy. Once the fires here are banked, they would be put to work elsewhere. If that is so, at least some of them will know their way around down here. Freed, they could be strong allies.”
“Damn you for a logical man anyway,” Vlandar said with a faint smile. “I wish I could find fault in your argument, but I can’t.” He tapped Nemis on the shoulder.
The mage, who had been keeping an eye on the corridor, turned and asked acerbically, “Can we leave this place before we are discovered dithering out here?”
“At once,” the paladin assured him. “One question. Do you have a spell to make a wall of silence across the entry to the smithy, should we need one?”
Nemis shrugged. “I memorized a number of them, knowing we would need them.”
“As soon as we’re ready,” said Vlandar, “put it up so that the noise doesn’t travel.”
Agya started and shivered as the distant roar of a great ape suddenly echoed down passage.
“Yes, we are getting away from that,” Vlandar assured her.
“Aye. To go after brutes in a room wi’ more swords’n I can count. You’re certain on this?” she demanded of the paladin.
“Certain I must try,” he said with an unapologetic shrug.
“Get yourself killed yet,” she said tiredly, “but if you’re on, so’m I.”
Against the Giants Page 16