That was all Brynn needed. As the creature jerked upright, the woman dashed forward, slipping her bow between its widespread legs. She caught the leading edge of her bow with her now free hand and continued on, lowering her shoulder as she lifted with both hands, slamming into the creature, which was somewhat smaller than she, while her lifting bow took away its balance.
Down it went, crashing to the floor.
Before Brynn could pursue, she noted other movement, all about, and ,amst a sec- came up just in time to set herself in a defensive posture !“ Juraviel yelled, as a pair of the creatures rushed through a t area, their ugly features showing clearly. The elf leaped toward then fell into another roll to avoid the thrust of a pair of spears. ‘Ijrynn shifted her bow out toward him, and Juraviel grabbed on, welding the momentum assist as Brynn pulled him right past her, to dive yet another roll that brought him up between Brynn and Cazzira, and
1 ser to the Doc’alfar. He started toward her, alarmed, but realized almost t once that Cazzira needed no help at that time.
Her movements were every bit as fluid, graceful, and beautiful as bi’nelle dasada, the elven sword dance. She twirled about, spinning on a pointed toe leaping and kicking, and all the while shifting her small club from hand to hand, letting it flow out from her, an extension of her perfectly controlled body.
She seemed to leave an opening, and a goblin rushed in at her back, spear leading.
But Cazzira spun and the spear went past her turning back, and the goblin got too close, inside the reach of her club.
The crack was so pronounced that Juraviel and Brynn figured the Doc’-alfar’s club must have split apart, but when the strike was finished, Cazzira continued her dance, intact weapon in hand, and the goblin skidded down and lay very still, the side of its head caved in.
Cazzira’s club swiped past another goblin, which hunched back out of range, then came on, for it seemed clear that the diminutive Cazzira had overbalanced.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. The club went sliding harmlessly past, but the Doc’alfar flipped it over to her other hand, her left hand, weaving against the flow of her body as she turned right to left. Her left turned under and handed the club back to her right, reversing the weapon so that Cazzira took its thick end.
Out snapped that right hand, stabbing the thinner, handle end of the club into the face of the attacker, whose own momentum worked against it.
Two goblins down and the dance went on.
Belli mar Juraviel’s fascination with the tantalizing dance of Cazzira nearly cost him dearly, for the goblins coming at him paid no heed to anything other than their intended prey.
Lne elf got his sword out in front to parry one spear and force the welder of the second to hold back its thrust. Then Breynn was there right behind the/attacking pair, her bow-staff mentally before her with widespread hands. She punched out, left right, smacking both goblins hard./toe on the back of the head, on the shoulder, and both stumbled forw/rd.
Where JuravieJ’s fine-tipped sword stabbed them, one-two, one-two.
The elf spun about, and Brynn leaped up beside him, but the remaining goblins on the flank ran off screaming and shouting, shadowy forms blending into the darkness.
Both Brynn and Juraviel spun about to regard Cazzira, who seemed stuck in place, like a statue fashioned after a dancer caught in a pose, one arm extended above her head, her weapon held perpendicularly to it, back over and across her head, and her other arm out before her like some targeting instrument. She was up on one foot - on one toe, actually - with her other leg looped about the supporting limb, lending to her perfect balance.
No goblins approached; no goblins, save those on the ground about her, were to be seen.
„We must move from this place,“ Juraviel said. „To tighter tunnels where goblins cannot throw spears at us from the shadows!“
„Some are wounded,“ Brynn remarked, but if that meant anything to the two elves, they did not reveal it.
„Away! Away!“ Juraviel demanded, and on the trio ran, past the towering mushrooms and out of the wide chamber, rushing down one narrow corridor.
Around the first bend, Juraviel, in the lead, came face-to-face with yet another goblin, its sickly eyes wide with surprise.
A fine sword slid into its belly; a club came past Juraviel’s shoulder to smash it in the face.
The three ran over it as it fell back, stomping it flat to the stone.
They heard the loud flapping of wide goblin feet in pursuit sometime later.
Brynn handed her lamp to Juraviel, then strung her bow as they ran, and when the sound closed in at their backs, she turned suddenly and let fly, her arrow disappearing into the darkness. She knew not if she hit anything, or if her arrow skipped harmlessly across the stones, but the sound of pursuit stopped for a bit, and the three ran on.
They crossed a large chamber, keeping near to the wall, then turned into the first opening, only to hear goblins, many goblins!
They passed that, and the second opening and the third, as well. Then, using nothing more than a simple guess, they charged down the next. In the dim light of her glowing lamp, Cazzira in the lead nearly stumbled over the edge of a precipice. She fell to her knees, watching in horror as a few loose stones fell before her, dropping out of sight.
Seconds later, the three heard the echoes of the stones bouncing along the deeper rocks.
„Back!“ Juraviel yelled. „Quickly, before the goblins cut us off!“
„They already have!“ cried Brynn.
„There is a way!“ said Cazzira, pointing to the right, past the precipice.
Peering into the gloom, just at the edge of the lights, Brynn noted a rocky ding trail that seemed full of loose stones. She was about to point out ‘ h rious danger there, but Juraviel and Cazzira weren’t waiting, with the far leaping out and beginning her controlled slide, and Juraviel hop-it behind her, his wings flapping furiously so that he put as little Sit on the unstable slope as possible.
Brvnn turned and let fly another couple of arrows, wanting the other two
be far below before she tried the slope with her greater mass. Then she went out gingerly, and lay out on her side, using her bow like a guiding oar she slid down, down, into the deeper blackness.
She caught up to Juraviel and Cazzira at an apparent dead end: a lip overlooking a deep, deep drop.
The two were working furiously - to set up some defense, Brynn figured at first, but she looked on curiously as they unpacked the fine silken rope, Cazzira taking one end and handing the bulk of it to Juraviel.
With a shared nod, the Touel’alfar leaped out into the blackness, wings beating furiously. He disappeared from sight, but the fact that the rope didn’t seem to be tugging at all gave Brynn hope that his descent was controlled, at least.
„He has found footing,“ Cazzira told Brynn a few seconds later.
Brynn glanced back to see Cazzira tying off the rope around the stub of a stalagmite with one of her patented slipknots. Holding the rope in both hands, the Doc’alfar set her feet against the mound and pulled with all her strength, tightening the slack as much as possible.
„Use your belt,“ she said to Brynn, then she looped her own belt over the rope and swung out, sliding away into the darkness.
Leaving Brynn, who had given her lamp to Juraviel, in absolute darkness, and with the sounds of goblins approaching.
The woman worked furiously, pulling off her belt and falling down to her knees, groping her way to the stalagmite mound and the taut rope. She had no time to pause and consider what she was about to do, no time to yell out and make sure that Cazzira was clear and she could come on, no time even to shout and ask how far she would have to slide. She just looped her belt over the rope, grabbed up her precious bow, and slipped out, tucking her feet defensively as she blindly slid over the rim of a deep chasm.
Juraviel and Cazzira put up lamps to guide her in on the other end, the pair standing on a landing
, with a dark tunnel behind them. As soon as Brynn touched down, Cazzira grabbed up the rope and gave a deft twist and tug that detached it across the way.
If hey pulled it in and ran on, and this time, with a gorge blocking the way behind them, they did not hear the flapping feet of goblin pursuit. Tthey went on for a long, long time, until sheer/exhaustion stopped iem. They made their camp in as defensible a position as they could find, set their order of watch, and, despite their nervousness each of them slept soundly.
They moved off with all speed the next day, along the only tunnel available to them, though Cazzira admitted that she had little idea of where they were
„In Tymwyvenne, we have a saying that most who perish in the Path of Starless Might do so of old age,“ she told them with a half-hearted chuckle If she was trying to be humorous, neither of the other two caught it.
They seemed to be going generally in the right direction, south, as far as their instincts could tell, but more troubling, they were going down more than up. And the air grew warmer and more stifling with each passing hour
The next change came so gradually that it took them all many, many steps to even notice.
Juraviel stopped, and the other two glanced at him and were held by the curious expression on his face. „The tunnels are not natural,“ he explained „They have been worked.“
Both Cazzira and Brynn moved to the side of the tunnel, holding aloft their respective lights to study both wall and flooring. Sure enough, they found crafted supports along walls and ceiling, and worked blocks flooring the somewhat even slope beneath their feet.
Brynn and Juraviel inevitably turned to Cazzira for some explanation, but the Doc’alfar had none to offer. „There are no cities down here, no settlements at all, that the Tylwyn Doc know of,“ she explained. „Unless these are goblin tunnels.“
Juraviel was shaking his head before she ever finished that last, ominous thought. „No goblins made these,“ he said with some confidence. „Goblins tear down, they do not create.“
„The world is a wide place, Belli’mar Juraviel,“ Cazzira reminded. „By your own words, not all humans are alike - the men of the kingdom north of the mountains are not so closely akin to the To-gai-ru. Perhaps the same can be said of goblins.“
Juraviel considered the words briefly, but shook his head again. Not goblins.
„We should know soon enough,“ Brynn put in, and she started away, the other two falling into step beside her.
The worked tunnel went on for more than a hour of walking, opening finally into a wide chamber sectioned by walls of mortared stone, each running out from a wall, left and right, and with a narrow doorway set in the middle. Gingerly, ready for fight or flight, the trio moved up to the door, to find that it was not fully closed, and was swinging unevenly on its old and rusty hinges.
Juraviel took the lead, gently pushing it open, studying the stonework immediately beyond, then rushing ahead, glancing left and then spinning around to the right, looking past the door.
Then he looked back to his companions and shrugged.
The trio went left, moving along a corridor of stonework walls, six to feet high, all the way to the wall, and finding only a dead end, with no ‘her doors or openings apparent. ‘ raviel looked at his companions, shrugged again, then hopped, beating jmss to lift him to the top of the wall. Then he leaped higher, a short gave him an overview of the wide chamber for as far as his light would illuminate. Knowing that he would make quite a fine target there, the elf came down almost immediately.
A maze of walls,“ he explained. „There seem to be openings, but at op-osite ends of each successive corridor. „
„A defensive design,“ Cazzira noted. „To force enemies to battle along hundreds of feet of narrow corridors merely to cross this one chamber.“
„Then let us hope it is not now defended,“ said Juraviel, and he started along the corridor the other way, all the way to the far wall, where they found an opening that turned back into the second corridor. All the way back to the other end, they found the entrance to the third.
Entering that third corridor, Brynn jumped up, caught the top of the wall, and pulled herself into a sitting position atop it. „My feet ache from the walking,“ she explained, reaching back toward Cazzira. The Doc’alfar took her hand, and Brynn easily pulled her over the wall, while Juraviel fluttered up and over to join them.
And so they crossed, wall by wall, gradually working their way back toward the center of the room, and finally they came over the last of the thirty barriers, to find a series of carved steps leading between four fabulously decorated columns, and with a great iron door set in the chamber’s back wall.
The carvings on those columns told them much.
„Powries,“ Juraviel said breathlessly as he inspected the worn reliefs. He looked to Cazzira, who seemed not to understand. „Bloody caps. Dwarves.“ The Doc’alfar shrugged and shook her head, even after moving beside Juraviel to see the fairly accurate depiction of one of the fierce powries sculpted into the column. Fittingly, that relief showed the powrie in threatening pose, hooked sword at the ready and in full battle gear.
If we go through that door to find a city of powries awaiting us, then we are surely doomed,“ Juraviel remarked.
Cazzira looked up at him, a knowing grin on her face. „Yet you wish to °pen it as much as I do.“
A strange feeling washed over Brynn as she watched the two elves exchange smiles, a sudden intuition that some deeper connection was forming between them. She didn’t say anything about it, just followed, her bow ‘ hand and ready, as Juraviel and Cazzira walked up to the large iron , studied it for a few moments, then pushed it open, its/ rusted hinges creaking.
A thin, glowing fog awaited them.
„Fazl pods,“ Cazzira noted, moving forward. Just inside the doors va landing, a balcony overlooking a wide chamber with a series of platea stepping down into the bowels of the mountains. Hundreds of structur houses and larger communal buildings, sat on those various plateaus nected level to level by stone-worked stairways, all of it illuminated in d n white. They saw the pockets of fazl pod colonies, dozens and dozens great living lamps and each containing pods numbering in the millions K Cazzira’s guess. So many were there, that few corners of the various plateau were hidden in shadows, and this city spreading beneath them was surely huge, level upon level upon level.
But, they learned as they descended the stairway from the balcony to the nearest plateau, it was a city long in decay. Upon closer inspection, the trio noted that the stones of the various buildings were crumbling, their mortar gone. What few items they found in the many houses, pots and clay vessels utensils and stone furniture, were broken and dusty, with no sign of any continuing society.
They moved along, down another stairway, then across a narrow stone bridge to a small section of what seemed to be more lavish houses.
„Back!“ Cazzira warned as soon as they had stepped off the bridge, and the other two froze in place.
Following her gaze, they saw the threat, first one gigantic subterranean lizard and then another, slithering across an area of tumbled stones. The creatures went on their way, bodies swaying in a fluid, mesmerizing manner, forked tongues flicking out before them.
„The new inhabitants,“ Cazzira. whispered.
„But what happened to the old ones?“ Brynn asked; and intending to find out exactly that, the three went down again to another level, then down from there, and down again.
On what seemed to be the bottommost section of the city, in a chamber similar to the first they had crossed, full of defensible walls, and even with the rotted wooden remains of what seemed to be a ballista, they found their answers.
The room was full of skeletons, piled at every portal.
„Short and thick,“ Juraviel remarked, holding up one broken femur. „Powrie bones.“ He shook his head in disbelief as he searched on, for the bones were devastated, smashed and clawed. „What could have done this to a
colony of hardy powries?“ he asked, and the other two, having no experience with the powerful dwarves, didn’t truly understand the weight ot that statement.
They made their way from pile to pile, coming to a wide-open anteroom, where they found many more bones, but with wounds very different.
Brynn bent low and picked one up, holding it for the other two to see.
on one side, as if some intense heat had blasted across it
ndous force. Likewise, one wall of the room was blackened and
with the war engine could have done this?“ Juraviel asked.
wurm,“ came a quiet answer from Cazzira a few moments later, both Turaviel and Brynn looked at her directly, she added, aeon?“ Brynn echoed, and she looked to Juraviel, her expression full
Turaviel’s look dispelled those doubts, for he was nodding in agreement.
„P rhaps they dug too deep,“ Cazzira remarked. „Perhaps they uncovered that which should have been left undisturbed.“
„Do you notice that something is missing?“ Juraviel asked, and the other two looked at him curiously.
„Their weapons,“ he explained. „Their armor. All of their treasures. The entire city, as far as we have seen, has been picked clean.“
„By centuries of pillagers,“ Cazzira reasoned, and they left it at that and went back to their searching.
By the tunnel opening of the anteroom, Brynn found the next surprise. „This was no powrie,“ she said, holding up a longer and narrower femur, charred on one side. Several other larger bones, human bones, they seemed, were about it, some crushed, others just burned.
„Humans and powries did battle in here?“ Cazzira asked.
„Why would they leave only one set of human bones, then?“ Brynn asked. „A traitor, perhaps, who betrayed his clan to the dwarves?“
„You assume too much,“ said Cazzira, but her scolding was cut short by a cry of surprise from Juraviel, who had exited the anteroom to inspect the beginning of the tunnel beyond. He emerged from that shadowy place holding a piece of wood as long as his arm. What is it?“ asked Cazzira.
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