Such were in plentiful supply. He had little time to spare for thoughts of who made this tunnel, or why, but he knew it was no dwarf. The rock was crudely cut, marked everywhere with the square white scratches of a chisel. The ceiling was uneven, and more than once he bashed his head on a place where the tunnel had not been properly excavated. In places it grew so narrow that he had to squeeze through sideways himself, and it was only with vigorous wriggling and much grunting that Morget kept up with him.
Yet the barbarian never complained, nor suggested they turn back. He shared with Croy a certain outlook on enemies who ran away from you when you approached. It was highly unlikely they would just run and leave you alone-in all likelihood, the farm girl, or whatever it was that Morget had startled, was going to seek help. Presumably armed and dangerous help. For a knight like Croy, that meant only one course of action was thinkable. You rushed in, as fast as you could, to find your enemies before they had a chance to regroup.
Croy was sweating and breathing hard by the time he reached the end of the passage. It terminated in a featureless brick wall, just like the one that had led to this secret way. He pushed at it, expecting it to open easily like the secret door they’d found back in the mushroom farm. When it failed to budge, his brow furrowed and he kicked at it and struck it with his shoulder and considered digging into the mortar between the bricks with his belt knife.
“Let me see,” Morget insisted, shoving his way past Croy. There was no room for them to stand side by side in the narrow tunnel so Croy squeezed backward, coming into far more contact with Morget’s flesh than he liked. Considering the fact that both of them were covered with manure, it was not a pleasant dance.
“It must open,” Morget insisted. “We saw no side passages, or any other way for her to escape.”
“Unless there was another secret door, more cunningly hidden than the last,” Croy suggested. “It’s possible this door is false. A brick facade placed over a dead end in the tunnel.”
“A false door?” Morget asked.
“A false secret door,” Croy agreed.
“A false secret door trap,” Morget growled. “Intended to leave us with no retreat possible, boxed in where we can’t fight properly. Subtle! I like this not. I told you she was a sorceress. She’s playing tricks on us.”
Croy grunted in dissent. “I’m sure now she was no practitioner of magic at all,” he said. “Just a simple mushroom farmer.”
“She is a sorceress, and she must be destroyed,” Morget demanded. His rage seemed poorly contained.
Croy remembered something then. He recalled that when Morget had told his story of coming from the eastern steppes to Ness, he claimed to have fought many sorcerers along his way. It was how he’d learned to fight like an Ancient Blade.
Now Croy wondered how many of those foes had been actual magicians-and how many just appeared so to the barbarian. How many innocents he might have slain in his berserker fury. The thought made Croy’s blood run cold. Morget seemed less than interested in rescuing Cythera and Slag as well-he was far more determined to find his demon, regardless of whether Croy’s friends survived the quest.
For the first time Croy began to wonder just how honorable a companion Morget might be. Croy had spent time guarding the mountain passes against barbarian invasions. He’d always been told that the easterners were vicious, savage people, barely human and incapable of moral behavior. When he first met Morget and saw he bore an Ancient Blade, he’d come to believe that was all just prejudice, that it was possible for a barbarian to be an honorable warrior and a good man.
He tried to fight off such doubts. They were no help at that particular moment. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go back. There must be another way up-some stairwell that will take us more directly to Cythera and Slag, and-”
Morget was beyond talking, at that point.
The barbarian roared and charged at the wall with his shoulder, hard enough, it seemed to Croy, to smash his own bones if the bricks didn’t yield.
Luckily, they did. The door shifted an inch or two, letting in a gust of foul-smelling air. Croy wrinkled his nose. At least this new reek didn’t smell of excrement. Instead it stank of rotting vegetables and spoiled meat.
“Damn your tricks, sorceress!” Morget cursed, and then struck the door again, hard enough to make the tunnel shake. The door shrieked as it opened another few inches-and then Croy winced as he heard something heavy and metallic fall away from the door. It clattered and rang as it fell to crash on a floor on the far side.
“Now at least they know we’re coming,” Croy said. He was not prone to sarcasm, normally. Maybe Malden had been rubbing off on him.
“That just makes for a fairer fight,” Morget replied. He pushed the door again and it opened easily. It must have been barred from the far side, that was all.
Morget slipped through the opening and Croy followed close behind-just close enough that he could grab the barbarian’s shoulders and pull him back before he fell to his death. Beyond the brick door was a narrow ledge looking out over a vast room. The floor of the room was a good fifty feet below them.
Morget shouted in anger and struck the wall behind him with a closed fist. The blow made an echoing boom that rolled around the big room for long seconds.
We may not surprise them, Croy thought, but if luck is with us we’ll scare them senseless.
Candlelight revealed few details of the room beyond, but enough at least to give Croy some idea of how to proceed. The ledge was only six inches wide, part of a stringcourse that ran along the wall. This at least was dwarven architecture-the stringcourse was made of carved dwarven runes, hundreds of them, with raised dots between every six or seven runes, probably to mark the end of one word and the start of another. Below the stringcourse someone had made a very crude ladder by chiseling holes into the wall for handholds.
Croy sheathed Ghostcutter and started down, lacking any better plan. He had never been a skilled climber, but he went down as quickly as he could, clinging desperately to the handholds.
They were too small for human hands, really, but he found he could grip them with a few fingers, and use other handholds for the tips of his boots. Carefully, and far slower than he would have liked, he climbed down the wall to the floor below. He was hampered in this by the need to hold his candle in one hand even as he climbed. He dropped the last five feet to the floor and unsheathed his sword the second he was standing on solid ground.
Behind him Morget came down much faster, with Dawnbringer clamped tight between his teeth.
By the time the barbarian dropped light as a feather to the flagstones, Croy had made out more of the chamber. The room was perhaps a hundred feet long, and half that wide. Its walls were of fine marble veined with a deep green. No furniture, machinery, or other fixtures filled the space, but at one end a massive throne had been carved to abut the wall, a deep chair raised up on six steps of joined marble blocks. “An audience chamber. Or perhaps a place of judgment,” Croy said.
“Once upon a time. Now it’s a midden,” Morget replied.
They were both correct. At their feet lay the iron bar that had barred the secret door above them. It had dug a shallow gouge in the floor when it struck. It was, however, far from the only thing strewn across the floor. Rags, bits of broken wood, and countless pieces of cave beetle shell had been dumped here without heed. The floor was thick with rotting meat and cut-up pieces of mushrooms. Entire fish skeletons crunched underfoot.
None of it was fresh-but it was new. This was not garbage dumped by dwarves in ages past. Someone living had used this chamber to store their refuse.
“Gah!” Morget shouted, and lifted up one boot to stare at its underside. The sole was clotted with fish guts. “What’s next? Will we have to crawl through a charnel house before we find this demon? Or perhaps a latrine?”
“I don’t think so,” Croy said. He pointed with Ghostcutter at the far side of the chamber. A massive arched doorway stood there, open to dark
ness.
Oozing across the threshold was a thing perhaps fifteen feet in length, though its shape constantly changed so it was hard to tell. It had no fixed form, instead rolling forward like living water. Its skin looked slimy to the touch, and underneath could be seen shapes like organs and even faces, pressing upward against the skin in mute screams of torment.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Croy asked.
“Oh, aye!” Morget said, and let out a booming laugh that made the whole marble chamber buzz.
Chapter Fifty-one
The demon flowed across the floor, the edges of its shapeless form rippling as it glided over the refuse. A face pressed outward against its skin, the eyes protruding and staring in Croy’s direction. A second face loomed toward Morget. Both were stretched and distorted to a point of horror.
Croy set his candle on the floor, squeezing its lower end between two flagstones so it would stand upright. He couldn’t fight this thing if he couldn’t see it. Then he brought Ghostcutter down, the point near the floor. He put his left foot back to improve his stance.
He had no idea how to attack it. It did not have limbs to cleave or a proper head to target. He was not so foolish to think that the faces would be vulnerable. It had too many of them, for one thing. Morget had spoken of a central organ that seemed important to the beast, but Croy couldn’t see it through the skin. What could you do with such a shapeless abomination, save carve it up and then burn the pieces?
He doubted it would stand still while he did that.
It came on fast, faster than a man could run. Just before it would have lapped across Morget’s boots, it reared up in the air and struck at him with the edges of its envelope. Croy jumped in and brought Ghostcutter around in a wide arc intended to slice open the thing’s back. The cold iron edge of his sword found little purchase-its skin gave too easily, so it was like trying to slice honey. He managed only to trace a shallow wound that oozed a clear fluid.
The monster did not roar in pain-if it had a voice at all, it had not used it yet. Croy knew he’d hurt it, though, because it stopped attacking Morget and came at him instead. He expected it to turn around to face him, but instead it merely leaned over backward and splattered all over Croy’s chest and face like a thing of pure liquid. Its back became its front, and Croy was overwhelmed instantly.
Sticky fluid splashed across his mouth and nose, sealing in his breath. He clamped his eyes shut and tried to bring Ghostcutter up, but the thing’s infernal substance wrapped around his sword hand and squeezed, constricting the muscles in his wrist until he dropped the weapon. He fought and clawed against the stuff as it wrapped around his waist and pulled him off his feet, drawing him into its body.
The demon swallowed him whole.
He passed through its skin like diving into hot water and suddenly was inside the thing. Its blood burned his face and hands-anywhere it touched exposed skin-and slithered down the collar of his tunic and up his sleeves.
There was no air inside the thing. Its jellylike substance pushed at his lips, trying to get inside of him, to suffocate him. Wherever it touched his bare skin searing pain made his muscles twitch, while fear threatened to overwhelm him like a black wave. He was seconds from death-seconds at the very most-and his natural urge to panic, to scream, was almost uncontrollable.
Giving in to that urge would undo him, he knew. He would die the moment he gave up fighting. There had been a time when even reason would not have been enough to save him from his own fear. Only years of training allowed him to overcome that perfectly natural reaction. He forced himself into a kind of fragile calm. If he was to die like this, devoured by a demon, then that was acceptable. But only if he went down fighting.
He forced himself to open his eyes and saw a jeering face inches from his own. Its mouth opened in a mocking laugh and he saw right through its maw-there was nothing behind those cruel lips but dim light. Croy fought to bring one arm up and he punched wildly at the face. Every movement was constrained, slowed by the viscous medium of the thing’s body. He barely had the strength to push his fist forward, to connect with that terrible face. Yet when his knuckles met its cheek, the face did not resist him but only folded around his hand like a wet leaf.
He felt the face’s soft lips work at his fingers, and he yanked his hand back in disgust.
Croy’s lungs heaved with the desperate need for breath. He fought down the spasm that threatened to force open his mouth and make him inhale the caustic substance of the demon, knowing that would be his death. Wildly he looked around him, even as his eyes burned with fierce pain, looking for something to grab, some organ he could rend and pull apart.
Then Dawnbringer plunged downward through the mass of the demon, missing Croy’s chest by inches. The Ancient Blade burst with light as its point found its target-an enormous round mass that pulsed with wriggling dark worms. Dawnbringer pierced the organ through and it spilled open, the worms curling and shriveling as they were exposed to the demon’s acidic blood.
Croy saw three more faces scream, and then a thick wet membrane came crashing down all around him, the thing’s skin contracting as it died. He fought and pushed against the skin that wrapped around him like a blanket. His fingers dug through that gruesome envelope and tore it apart in long ribbons of clear flesh. Icy cold air struck his face, and he spat the creature’s blood out of his mouth, then sucked in a sweet gust of breath that made him tremble with ecstasy.
Morget pulled and scraped the skin away from Croy’s body as he struggled to get up, to stagger out of the thing’s clinging remains. He stumbled over to one marble wall and leaned hard against it, gasping and weak. Looking down at his hands, he saw they were as red as if he’d been scalded with boiling water.
The demon lay in a puddle of its own ichor, as flat and lifeless as a cast-aside tarpaulin. The faces buried in its skin stared upward at nothing, and its organs oozed dark fluids as they twitched and died, one by one.
Finally it lay still. Its corpse began to steam, and it shrank as it turned to fumes and vapor. Like any demon, like any unnatural creature, it could not exist in this world once its vital spirit had been dissipated. Only sorcerous energy could maintain its physical form, and now that was gone. In a few seconds it was nothing more than a stain on the marble flagstones.
“It is dead,” Morget said, and laughed wildly. “My demon is undone! Now I am a man-and even my father cannot gainsay it. Mother death, I thank you for this chance to kill, to send this thing into your arms. Croy! Brother! We have won!”
Croy nodded feebly and tried to slow the frantic beating of his heart.
“Yes,” he finally wheezed. “Yes. Won. Now-we find Cythera.”
“Of course!” Morget chuckled. “Anything you like.”
“Right now,” Croy said, the words like knives in his throat, “I just need… to sit down.”
Chapter Fifty-two
The blue-haired creature walked on its knuckles toward Malden and started tapping on his foot. He pulled his leg back and drew Acidtongue from its scabbard. “What in the Bloodgod’s name is that thing?” he demanded.
“Just a… blueling, lad,” Slag groaned. “Harmless. Your human miners call them knockers. They’re blind but-”
He stopped to wince and try to cough. Nothing came up.
When Slag could breathe again, he went on. “They’re bloody useful
… underground… can see through rock with their… their rapping. Can find pockets of… gas… and…”
The female dwarf rolled her eyes dramatically. “And he can tell me if anyone’s in a room before I open the door and get three feet of iron shoved up my arse,” she said. She yanked viciously on the blueling’s leash and it flipped over backward and groveled on the floor.
“All right, next question.” Malden walked around the simpering imp and pointed the tip of Acidtongue at the female dwarf’s throat. A drop of acid spilled from the blade and sizzled on the floor. She stared at it the way a jewelry appraiser might study a gem
of a color she’d never seen before. “Who are you?” Malden demanded.
She smiled and bowed, careful not to impale herself on the sword.
“Balint’s my name. I work for the dwarven ambassador at Redweir.”
The city of Redweir-Skrae’s third largest-was home to the Learned Brotherhood, the monastic order that preserved all of Skrae’s knowledge. The city possessed the largest library on the continent, and also a thriving colony of dwarves, Malden knew. The dwarven embassy there controlled all trade between Skrae and the dwarven kingdom and was responsible for maintaining the treaty between dwarves and men. Balint could be a very powerful enemy to make, but Malden didn’t much care at that moment.
“Where are the barrels that stood here?” he demanded. “We want our property back.”
“Hmm, where could they be? Where, oh where? You can suck snot out of my mustache and have as good a chance of finding them. They weren’t yours to begin with, and they sure as fuck aren’t his.”
She gave Slag a kick to the ribs. Slag cried out in pain and Malden brought his sword up to slash at her.
“Oh, now, that would be a fucking shame, wouldn’t it? If you were to strike me down right now. Considering I’m completely unarmed, you bucket of puke.”
Malden glanced down at her belt. She had a scabbard on either hip, but they didn’t hold knives-the one on her left contained a screwdriver, while on her right she had a wrench.
“You know what human law says about pus-kerchiefs like you who kill dwarves, don’t you?”
Malden did. The treaty that guaranteed Skrae its only source of steel made the punishment for harming a dwarf quite clear. If he murdered Balint, he wouldn’t just be executed. He would be roasted alive and then fed to dogs. Of course, that would only happen if he was caught in the act.
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