The armed derro were equally surprised to see a hill dwarf in their midst, but they recovered quickly and surrounded him. Basalt counted eight — a smaller patrol than the one he'd dodged below — but, weaponless himself, he knew even one derro guard was more than he could hope to over power.
"What have we here? said one of them, stepping out of the circle toward Basalt. The derro's corn-yellow hair stuck out at odd angles, and his unnaturally large eyes reminded
Basalt of two pieces of cold black onyx. But the mountain dwarf's skin was what was most disconcerting; its blue pale ness looked translucent in moonlight.
"Well?" The derro poked Basalt in the chest with the point of a spear. "You're obviously a hill dwarf," he said, taking in
Basalt's freckle-tanned face, thin leather vest, and muddy old boots. "We don't like finding hill dwarves near Thor bardin. What are you doing way out here?"
Basalt willed his knees to stop shaking as he ransacked his mind for a response. "I, uh, I was hunting!" he finished quickly, latching onto the idea. "I'm near Thorbardin?" He let his eyes go wide with innocence. "I guess I got so carried away that I didn't notice where I'd wandered off to."
"What are you hunting at night? You hill dwarves don't see that well in darkness," the derro said, eyeing Basalt skep tically. "And no weapons?"
"Raccoon," the young hill dwarf supplied hastily. "You have to trap 'coon at night, because that's when they come out of their nests."
The derro appeared to be considering Basalt's answer, rocking back on his heels, searching the hill dwarf's face for deception. All he detected was fear.
The soldier's eyes narrowed. "I saw your expression when you came through those trees; something was after you."
Basalt nodded. "I was tracking a raccoon when I saw — "
He thought about making up another lie about a bear, but decided to stay close to the truth so he didn't slip up. "I saw another, bigger patrol of dwarves coming my way, and I panicked and ran."
"He's lying, Sergeant Dolbin!" said a voice from behind Basalt.
"Who cares? Let's just kill the hill scum and move on!" said another.
"Yeah, we've got a lot of ground to cover tonight!"
Basalt could sense the circle drawing tighter around him.
Suddenly, someone pushed him from behind. The startled hill dwarf stumbled forward only to have the butt of some one's spear jammed into the pit of his stomach. He doubled over, unable to breathe, and another spear shaft thudded across the back of his neck. Gasping, he fell to the ground.
The ring of mountain dwarves erupted in laughter and taunts. "Look out, farm boy, the raccoons are after youl"
"Oooh, here comes one now!" Basalt saw a shape step for ward and then felt his rib cage crack as the mountain dwarf's heavy boot crashed into him. The force of the blow rolled him over in the damp grass.
"Get him up," growled another. "I want to knock him down again." Basalt's head cleared for a moment as two pairs of hands lifted him to his feet. Someone slapped his face. He looked up just in time to see a hairy fist smash into his nose. Excruciating pain exploded in his skull as he tum bled over backward, landing in a heap on his left shoulder.
The grass was cool and moist, but he also felt something warm and thick running across his ravaged face.
Basalt drew up his knees in an effort to stand, when some thing forced him back to the ground. A muddy, hobnailed boot pressed down on the back of his neck, grinding the side of his face into the earth. The night sky swam with colors before Basalt's eyes as the dwarves pelted him with kicks and hammered his back and legs with the shafts of their spears. He bit his lip to still his screams, but he could not keep from squirming as the blows only increased. And then, suddenly, they halted.
Basalt felt someone grab him by the armpit and jerk him to his feet. He looked up through the blood streaming down his throbbing face and saw that it was the first derro who had questioned him, Dolbin.
"Now that my men have taught you what happens when you wander where you're not wanted," the sergeant said, holding fast to Basalt's arm, "we're going to have some real fun."
Basalt slumped against Dolbin in defeat; he hoped they would kill him quickly, for he had no strength or will to fight left.
Dolbin forced him to stand, then smiled condescendingly.
"You'll like my game — I'm going to give you a chance to get away!" Basalt perked up slightly, which was the response the derro sought. "Good, now you're ready to listen.
"The rules are very simple," he began. "We let you go, and then we try to catch you again. We'll give you a one minute lead, of course, to make it sporting."
Basalt's right eye was swollen shut, but he looked up through his good one. "And if you catch me?" he wheezed, agonizing stabs of pain shooting through him from his bruised ribs.
The sergeant shook his head sadly and clucked his tongue. "You really shouldn't dwell on ugly thoughts. But I will tell you what happened to a hill dwarf spy who got caught in Thorbardin just two days ago."
Basalt's heart lurched, and he felt near to fainting from his wounds. But he forced himself to listen to Dolbin's next words.
"How shall I say it?" Dolbin tapped his chin in a mock sympathetic way. "I've got it! He's been relieved of the bur den of being a hill dwarf!" His men hooted with laughter.
Flint's dead. Dolbin could only be speaking of Flint. The news dashed Basalt's last flickering hope and left him more numb than the pounding he'd just taken. He was distantly aware that Dolbin was addressing him.
"— won't ruin the game by giving up already, will you?
We'd make death doubly painful for a poor sport," he warned. The derro roughly shoved Basalt through the circle of dwarven soldiers. The hill dwarf fell, struggling again to his feet while the soldiers kicked and jeered at him. Dolbin squeezed Basalt's right shoulder hard and pointed him to the edge of the clearing opposite where he'd burst in.
Go! Basalt felt his legs moving with a will of their own, and he found himself half-staggering, half-running toward the trees.
"Remember, we'll be right behind youl" Dolbin yelled, and his men broke into laughter again.
Basalt stumbled past the edge of the clearing and barely avoided tripping on an overgrown log. He rushed forward, heedless of his path, and more than once crashed into a shadowy tree or lost his feet in a tangle of creepers. Desper ately he wanted to stop and rest, or stop and listen for sounds of his pursuers, but he knew he could not — if he stopped, he might never move again. He also knew that he would never hear anything over the sound of his own lungs heaving against his bruised ribs or the blood pounding in his ears.
He ran blindly and nearly senseless, until suddenly the ground gave way beneath him. He stepped out into nothing, and silvery blackness rushed past him. Less than a heartbeat later, Basalt splashed into an ice-cold stream. His throat wanted to scream even while his mind fought to keep con trol. His chest felt as if it were wrapped in iron bands.
In panic Basalt clawed his way up the muddy bank and lay there shivering, his courage spent. The tiny bit of strength that remained was completely occupied in keeping
Basalt from weeping openly. But he swore he would not cry, not even if the derro found him there and chopped him to bits on the spot.
"I know Flint wouldn't cry," he sputtered through clenched teeth. But he could not stop the tears from flowing, for his agony, for his fear and desperation. For his Uncle Flint.
After a few minutes, Basalt hiccupped to a stop. He could hear the sounds of the forest again. His teeth stopped chat tering, and the ringing subsided in his ears. He crawled a few yards away from the stream and toward a thicket. There he lay, waiting for the pursuing derro.
Basalt listened for several minutes, but heard nothing.
Could they have lost my trail? he wondered. But he knew that made no sense. Used to life underground, the derro could see even better than him in the dark, and they weren't frightened out of their wits either. He had certainly left a trail that ev
en a child could follow. So where were they?
Either they are toying with me, or… or they didn't fol low me at all, Basalt thought. Strangely, the first possibility did not frighten him, but the second made him angry. Basalt reflected on the humiliating beating, remembered his bruises and shattered bones, and felt the cuts and scrapes suffered during his wild flight through the forest. He was nothing but a joke to these derro, first a punching bag and then a frightened rabbit to be chased off.
The shame was almost more than he could bear. Exhausted beyond endurance, broken in body and spirit, Ba salt lapsed gratefully into unconsciousness.
Flint plunged down the steeply angled, rocky chute, tum bling head over heels, slamming from side to side. He fought to gain some control over the plummet, but could barely discern up from down. Jagged edges of granite tore at his flesh and clothing as his hands groped desperately for any thing to grip. Suddenly his short fingers slapped against something long, thin, and hard, and instantly they locked around it. The dwarf growled in pain as his hand slid along the knobby shaft. Dirt and rock rained down on his head as the sudden weight on his handhold loosened sections of the wall. Daring to glance up, Flint saw he had caught an an cient tree root, half buried in the wall of the pit. He clamped his fist around it tighter and clung to the exposed root with all his might and desperation.
His feet met a rocky outcropping as he came to a stop. Ex pecting the rock beneath him to tear lose under the impact,
Flint tightened his grip on the root as he tested the size of the ledge with his toes. To his alarm, it was only six inches deep, albeit three times his girth in width. He pressed his back against the wall and tried to think as he caught his breath.
What now?
That thought was barely formed in his head when some thing heavy crashed down around his shoulders, flailing and thrashing.
"Help me!"
Stunned and knocked off balance by the weight, Flint nearly lost his grip and tumbled over the edge, but blind in stinct locked his fingers around the tree root. In spite of its tone of terror, he recognized the voice of the dwarven frawl guard, although he didn't dare budge an inch to look up.
"I can't hang on — " she squealed as she began to tumble off of Flint's shoulders, windmilling her arms.
"Get your feet on the ledge!" Flint hissed. "Hug the wall!"
Flattening himself even more, he grabbed her flapping arms in one hand and held them tightly while she scrambled for footing next to him. Flint guided her hands to the root and together they clung to it, panting from fear and exertion.
After a moment's rest, Flint peered at the frawl. "What are you doing here?" he asked bluntly as he pressed his bleeding cheek to his shoulder. "Trip?" He coughed violently on the dirt in his throat.
"Hardly." Perian shot back, not daring to move. "I was pushed in behind you by that swine-son, Pitrick. He'll roast on a slow spit for this."
"That's assuming we get unspitted ourselves," Hint re sponded. "Do you have any idea how far down the bottom is, or how to get out, or what exactly is at the bottom?"
"Of course not!" Perian snapped. "It's a beast pit. No one comes down here exploring. No one comes down here at all with any hope of getting out."
A noise from below froze her in place. Her eyes locked onto Flint's.
"I heard it, too." Flint shifted his position to get a better look down into the pit. The old mine shaft twisted and bent as it descended. After a few moments his eyes focused on what he thought must be the earthen floor approximately thirty feet below. As Flint strained to pick out any addi tional details, the noise — a sort of scuffling, he thought — came again. And a shadow passed below.
Still peering down, Flint asked, "What in the name of
Reorx is that?"
"A killer," Perian replied. "Beyond that, I couldn't say.
And I really don't want to find out. I want to wait for my hands to stop shaking and then climb back out of here."
"I don't think that's too likely," Flint said, now scanning the tunnel above. "The sides of this pit are rough but crum bling. Trying to climb out is likely to send you plunging even sooner to the bottom. If we had something to dig hand holds with, maybe we could work our way…"
Flint's idea was cut off by a scraping sound from below, as if something of great bulk was being dragged across damp rocks. Perian released the root with one hand to clutch
Flint's shoulder instead. "I can see it — or something — moving down there," she whispered. "There it is again!"
Flint blinked, trying to focus on the small patch of floor at the bottom of the twisting shaft. He could hear the sound plainly now. It was a dragging, sloshing sort of noise, punc tuated with numerous clicks and slaps. Though vaguely fa miliar, he couldn't quite identify it.
Until the smell reached them. With sickening thickness, the stench of rot and waste rose around them, filling the tun nel. Perian shrank back to the wall as Flint spat, trying to clear the taste from his mouth. "What is it'/" groaned the frawl.
"Carrion crawler," answered the hill dwarf. "They eat most anything, as long as it's dead. If it's not, all the better, they have fun killing it. They can climb, too, so I expect it will be coming up." As if on cue, a section of pink and purple flesh passed across the pit floor. A moment later, an enor mous green eye stared up at the pair. Glistening tentacles, each more than five feet long, circled a gnashing mouth filled with hundreds of grinding teeth. The head swayed back and forth, into view and then out again. All the while, the stench grew stronger and the noise louder.
"Look for big rocks, maybe we can drive it off," advised
Flint frantically, releasing his grip on the root to grope across the ledge and wall. Moments later he had a small pile of fist-sized stones at his feet. "It's not much, but we might slow it down. Aim for its eyes. And whatever you do, don't let those tentacles touch your skin."
"What happens if they do?" whispered Perian, staring at the bobbing head.
"Its venom will paralyze you so it can dine at leisure later.
Be careful!"
Flint hefted a pair of rocks. Holding them in one hand, he pried Perian's right hand from the tree root with his other and forced a rock into it. "When I say, give it a taste of stone!"
The feel of the rock in her hand gave Perian something to focus on. She hefted it, turned it over in her palm. A good shot from this could split a steel helmet, the frawl thought.
She turned back to the pit, the rock poised above her head.
At that moment the carrion crawler burst into view from behind a twist in the tunnel, its tentacles flashing and writh ing toward the ledge. Flint could see most of its segmented body now, twisting along the contours of the wall. A pair of short but thick legs, white and slime-covered, extended from each segment. Each leg ended in a pair of suction cups as big as the dwarf's head. Shreds of rotted flesh from past meals clung to the beast. Bile rose in Flint's throat as revul sion gripped him. The creature was far larger than any other carrion crawler the dwarf had ever seen, or even heard of; it was the grandaddy of all carrion crawlers. Swallowing hard, Flint tightened his grip on the root and hurled the stone. With a crack, it caromed off the shiny head and sailed down the tunnel, unnoticed by its target.
Instantly, Perian's arm snapped forward. The stone plunged straight into the crawler's mouth, disappearing in a tiny shower of tooth fragments. It was impossible to tell whether the beast felt any pain, but the repulsive head made a sort of roar and swung abruptly away from Perian.
Though the beast was still at least six feet below them, three tentacles lashed out and wrapped around Flint's right boot.
Instantly the leather steamed and hissed, and blisters formed around the ankle. Though protected from real dam age by the leather, Flint howled with pain. He snatched up another rock and smashed at the thin, straining append ages. First one, then another, were severed by his ferocious blows. Blue ichor stained the rock ledge beneath Flint's foot.
Perian fired a second stone at th
e beast, hitting just at the rim of one of its eyes. Enraged, the carrion crawler swung its head out from the wall, dragging Flint's foot from the ledge.
Desperately he clung with one hand to the root, groping for any sort of hold with the other. Perian grabbed him by the shoulders just as the monster reared again, and both of them flew off the ledge and out into space. The remaining tentacle around Flint's foot tightened, then snapped in two. Still clutching each other, Flint and Perian bounced and skidded down the length of the beast's segmented back, finally crashing onto a pile of bones on the ground.
Flint groaned as he scrambled to his feet. He seemed un hurt, but his foot, with the fragments of tentacle still wrapped around the boot, seemed to be growing numb.
He glanced around and saw that they were in a cul-de sac. He could not see how far that cavern extended, but it was the only direction out.
"Quick, we need a weapon of some sort," Flint shouted to the prone frawl. "Don't you have a knife — some weapon?" he gasped.
"I did," she said in a small voice. "But I dropped it."
"You dropped it?" he groaned in disbelief.
"It must have slipped out as I was falling down the chute," she retorted defensively, struggling to her feet.
"Maybe we can find it down here, or anything else. We haven't got much — " Flint's gaze shot up to the wall where the carrion crawler should have been, but the monster had already turned around and was moving toward them
"— time! Come on!" He grabbed Perian by the wrist and jerked her into motion.
Scanning the floor as they ran, Flint's eye caught the glint of metal among the rocks and scattered bones littering the carrion crawler's lair. With a kick he churned up a rusty but still solid blade about ten inches long. With his free hand, he snatched it on the run.
"It's gaining!" shrieked Perian. "How fast can that thing move?"
"Faster than us," Flint snorted, glancing backward at their pursuer. He was horrified to see the creature a scant ten feet behind, and charging fast! In spite of its bulk, the beast moved with alarming grace and fluidity, its numerous legs rippling along its flanks. Then, as Flint watched horrified, the whiplike tentacles shot out and wrapped around Per ian's throat from behind, jerking her to a dead stop.
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