by T. H. Lain
She heard three grunts of exertion from her left and watched as Soveliss kicked and vaulted up from the floor of the rocking, bounding cart to land on his feet next to her. The man’s balance was uncanny.
"Terrible view," Soveliss muttered, then shouted down the tunnel at the man who was his last, tenuous link to the past. "Clayn! Stay there, we'll come back for you!"
Clayn cupped a hand to his mouth to reply, but immediately flung the hand out as a fat, oily rat, which Mialee could see clearly even at this distance, floated down and settled on his shoulder.
"Soveliss! Go! I'll hold them off as long as I can!" the ranger's voice boomed back at them as more and more furry wightling rodents setlled around him.
Mialee gasped involuntarily when she saw wightling elves, groaning and smoldering, float down behind the rats.
Soveliss looked as if he wanted to jump from the cart and run back to aid his imperiled kin. Darji cawed as she reached the cart.
"No, Soveliss! You must go ahead!"
Soveliss threw a salute down the hall.
Clayn, hacking into a pair of descending gray legs, caught the salute and returned it. More and more burning, writhing creatures fell slowly down, and he chopped them all to bits as they came. As the cart rolled on, Mialee saw that many of the squirming pieces were still on fire. Clayn chopped into a vaguely man-shaped mass of flame and one landed atop the stacked kegs of blasting powder.
Fire. Blasting powder.
"Oh, no," Mialee whispered.
"And I've got another thing to say, Cava," Favrid said from his shackled, spread-eagled place on the stone wall. "You never did find the secret of the tomb. I did. You're a coward." He laughed bitterly. "The Buried One. That name's too good for you. We should have called you the Incompetent One."
The elf-turned-wight leaped from his rough-hewn deknae throne and hissed into the old man's bruised, bleeding face.
"Don't ever call me by that name, deceiver!" the wight snarled viciously, jabbing his hooked finger into the old man's eye.
Favrid screamed pitiably, and Cavadrec heard something pop. A thin line of green ooze drooled down his chin. He had not tasted his favorite treat in days. He opened one finger and carefully hooked the ruined orb with one razor-sharp claw, expertly severing the optic nerve without damaging the brain. Well, not too much. The old wizard only had to be alive. Nothing in the incantations required an intelligent, or even lucid, sacrifice, only that it must be blood that was spilled on the battlefield of Morkeryth, or the spell would fail.
In a very short time, Favrid's blood would fill the unholy chalice now resting on Cavadrec's trophy shelf. It would blend with a specially prepared mixture of arcane and divine magical components. Cavadrec would drink deeply of the concoction, and the dead would rise at his command.
He had never thirsted so, but timing was crucial. It would happen soon.
He pulled his morsel from the old wizard's eye socket with a pop, and was rewarded with another delectable scream. The wight popped the treat into his mouth and thrust his face in front of the old man's jaw. The empty socket bled profusely, but supernatural senses told Cavadrec his old enemy still had plenty of the stuff left inside him. And he was so hungry. The blood-covered eye was an excellent appetizer for the main course.
Two pinpricks of red light flashed in Cavadrec's empty sockets. He cocked his head to one side like a cat examining an insect it knows cannot escape, and stared into Favrid's remaining eye. The old man stared back, defiantly, but whimpered with agony.
Cavadrec extended the clawed pinky of his left hand and popped it into the soft jelly. The old fool screamed again. It was dinner music to the wight's wrinkled, pointed ears.v
Mialee landed in Devis's lap.
Her eyes were wide. "Blasting powder! Fire! Duck!" She covered her head, and they all did the same.
Devis felt and heard the boom in equal portions. A searing shock wave struck the back of the cart and pushed it even faster down the tunnel
Mialee pressed her forehead against his chest, but Devis realized she wasn't just looking for a shoulder to cry on. Flaming debris was thundering down the tunnel behind them. He put one arm around Mialee's shoulder and covered his head with his free arm just moments before the flames washed overhead. The heat was incredible, and cinders and small pieces of burning powder rained around them. Devis patted his hair, and Mialee's wild strands, putting out tiny sparks.
A hissing, clattering noise grabbed his attention.
"The treasure!" the bard shouted, a mix of warning and grief.
He pulled Mialee down even further, curling her into a corner and smashing his own body atop hers. He hoped the others were doing the same, because there was no time to do anything else.
Molten metal-the treasure that would never make Devis rich-spattered in softened, ingot-sized chunks all around them. Hound-Eye screamed, and Soveliss snarled in pain. Devis stifled a cry as two thumb-sized points of searing pain struck his back. He wriggled, trying to shake the piece free, but dared not pull off the smoldering vest because it was his only protection. And he was Mialee's only protection. Sizzling metal would pass right through the open latticework of her athelwood armor. Devis dared not move much, even when a third chunk of metal seared into the heel of his boot.
The bard did not have the power to shield them all, but he could ensure that he and Mialee, at least, had a little extra protection. He dragged a tune from his frantic brain and felt the song-spell wrap their bodies in a coat of magical armor. The molten shrapnel on his back and heel stopped sizzling, but the pain of the burns remained. He gritted his teeth and for the first time in his life, said a prayer to Fharlanghn that was completely and utterly sincere.
27
Cavadrec's lair shook and rumbled. A pair of wolves bounded into the room from one of the many tunnel entrances, howling and stalking the room with obvious and uncharacteristic anxiety. Still, he reminded himself, they were only animals acting on instinct. He decided not to destroy them, but to instead find out what had just set off an earthquake.
"They're coming for you, Cava!" the eyeless, brutalized old man shrieked insanely. Favrid, as near as Cavadrec could see, had been reduced to a screaming lunatic after the wight consumed his eyes. "You can't escape! They won't just bury you! They'll destroy you, Cava!"The old elf began giggling, and it grew into the raving laugh of a madman. "Cava, this fix he's in, because I stole his thirimin," he sang deliriously.
Cavadrec whirled in fury and slashed Favrid's ruined face with splayed claws. He hissed like a cat, longing to tear the old fool into lifeless pieces for daring to bring up their past.
Favrid lifted his battered, bloody head, and the wight heard a gurgle. Blood poured from the old wizard's throat. The impulsive slash had done more damage than Cavadrec intended.
Through bubbling blood, Favrid croaked, "The day of prophecy is at hand, Cava."
Blood flew in a spray from his mouth as he spat the last word, and slumped as his life drained into the cracks in the dusty, stone floor.
"Too soon! Fool!" Cavadrec shouted. Cavadrec leaped to the sacred skull-chalice of Nerull in one bound and had the cup pressed against Favrid's chest with another. As the last of his hated enemy's blood pulsed weakly into the grinning cup, Cavadrec smiled in relief. He felt a dark certainty enter his brain, the hollow, terribly beautiful voice of the god of death. The voice prodded him-not with words, for words were useless to the dead, but with the Reaper's will-to proceed. They had waited long enough.
The liquid in the cup reached the brim. He held the cup to his nose and drank in the sweet aroma of liquid life. Favrid choked one final gasp, then hung limp in his shackles. Cavadrec leered.
With a swirl of ancient robes, the wight moved to his worktable and began adding ingredients to his draught.
Mialee's face pressed into Devis's belly, and she screamed into his leather vest. She could not breathe.
She had to do something. She felt the warmth of a spell suffuse Devis's body and felt vi
bration in his torso from the quick spellsong he contrived. An armor spell. Fine for them, but she could tell from Hound-Eye's desperate wails that the man was suffering terribly. No doubt the others were, too, they just weren't screaming as loudly as the little thief.
Mialee squirmed in the bard's protective embrace until she faced the orange fire above them, or at least that's what gravity told her.
She wriggled her hands onto her chest and shouted, "I'm sorry!" as she jabbed a fist into Devis's solar plexus.
The bard arched his back, giving Mialee just enough room to maneuver her hands in the motions required by the spell she was casting. Her fingers flew through the precise movements, and she hoped with all her heart that the aphasia potion had truly left her system.
"Mithral drii!" she shouted.
The effect was immediate. Mialee felt rather than saw the shield of translucent, silver force materialize directly overhead. It appeared exactly where she'd hoped, far enough away from her to make room for everyone. The shield also cut back the roar of the explosion to a loud rumble.
"let me up!" she shouted into Devis's belly and was rewarded with a gulp of hot but breathable air when he rolled off her.
Her eyes blinked at the sudden appearance of the wall of flame just overhead. It seemed to be thinning out, and she could tell from the horrible, jouncing ride that they were going much, much faster than the mine cart had been intended to go. The others, in various states of injury but still gratefully alive, huddled under the shield and waited for Hell to cool down, if not freeze over.
They didn't have long to wait. Within half a minute, the ceiling of the tunnel emerged through the grasping flames. Within another half minute, the wind of their passage finally overcame the receding shock wave of the exploding blasting powder.
They bounced along the tunnel. Mialee had no idea how far, measures of distance had never been her strong suit and their dizzying speed made the black rock lining the ancient lava fly by. She flicked the hardened metal chunks from Devis's back with his ridiculous jeweled dagger and heard Hound-Eye whimper as a stoic Nialma gingerly knocked still-hot ingots from the halfling's scorched fur cloak. Zalyn, who bore not a mark, helped Soveliss dig searing bullets from his bare shoulders and armored back. The ranger did not flinch, but hissed frequently. Mialee wondered if the ranger had protected Zalyn as Devis had shielded her, or if hot metal simply wasn't capable of penetrating skin inhabited by a god.
Suddenly the bouncing stopped. Mialee felt the huge iron cart tilt nose down.
They were no longer on the tracks, she realized. They were no longer on anything. The cart was falling.
Cavadrec looked up from his concoction. It was finished. He carried the precious chalice to his shrine and placed the grinning rictus of the skull-cup on a worn altar big enough to hold a half-orc. The surface was black and grimed with centuries of dried sacrifices. Flames rose in the brazier set into the shrine.
The rumbling overhead stopped. He paused and cocked a gray ear toward the ceiling of his lair.
Idiots. The old wizard had thought to intimidate him with the noisy entrance of his supposed saviors. Favrid would never know his folly. That was unfortunate, because his pain would have been a thing of beauty. Cavadrec had known about their "secret" passage for hundreds of years. He also knew the tracks no longer led as far as the fools supposed. He waited a few precious seconds for the satisfying crash. Even if the intruders survived the fall-which he doubted-the rust monster would take care of the rest. It was not his creature in the same sense as the rats, wolves, and other wightlings, but it worked to his advantage in this case all the same.
The lair shook as something terribly heavy came violently to rest in a sea of rusted metal. Cavadrec hissed. Not a thing stood between the wight and total dominion. In a low, quiet voice that soon boomed into a horrible shout, he began the chant that would raise the fallen warriors of Morkeyth.
Devis groaned. His ribs had to be broken, a few of them, anyway. Even so, they'd been extremely lucky. The iron cart had tumbled end-over-end twice, and by sheer, dumb luck, it came to rest on its wheels. From the shrieking thunder of metal grinding on metal that accompanied their landing, he guessed that the sturdy iron box had probably saved their lives.
He blinked and looked around at the others. They were all alive, though Soveliss looked like his arm was broken. Hound-Eye held little Nialma tight, ignoring the bleeding raspberry running the whole length of one muscular, brown arm. Devis blinked when he saw the halfling actually kiss the elf girl's elbow, which she must have skinned. The girl was otherwise unharmed as far as the bard could tell, it looked like Hound-Eye had protected her with his own body. Mialee had a nasty welt on her temple that seeped blood, and her ankle looked twisted in an impossible way. Zalyn the goddess-possessed had her mouth open to little Darji, mouthing the words to a spell.
Devis shook his head. Mouthing? No, she wasn't. They were all talking and making noise, but Devis couldn't hear them. The crash had deafened him.
For the second time in the last ten minutes, Devis prayed silently for Fharlanghn to grant his favorite bard one last favor.
28
Mialee saw-with some disbelief-Devis shake his head and launch into a panicked, singsong prayer. She could barely hear his words, but it sounded to her as if he was begging for his ears to grow back, or something similar. Yet his softly pointed ears seemed to be one of the few body parts that had escaped injury.
Then she realized that Devis wasn't asking for his ears, but for his hearing. She tried to stand, to assure him the effect had to be temporary-she herself could not hear very well-but pain lanced through her leg and she dropped back to the floor with a yelp.
Her bruised, cut legs stretched straight out in front of her, but the toes of her left foot still pointed at the floor. Blood ringed her ankle, and she could see bits of white bone sticking through the flesh. She winced and bit back a scream. She wouldn't be standing or walking without serious help. Fortunately, she knew just the goddess-filled healer for the job.
"Zalyn," she gasped, "ankle."
The elder elf, looking older and more tired than ever, opened her cupped hands and a little raven flew up, fully healed. Mialee didn't even want to think of what the flames had done to the bird. Darji landed on her shoulder and chirped. Mialee sensed that the line dividing Zalyn and Ehlonna was fading, and it was definitely not Zalyn's impish voice that reached her ears whispering a soft, healing refrain. Mialee's mangled foot turned, toes up. A greenish-gold glow swelled around the bloody wound, then dissipated. The blood was still there, but it had already dried.
She flexed her toes. Not a bit of pain. She thanked Ehlonna/Zalyn wordlessly, and decided not to mention to the goddess that she still hurt everywhere else. She pulled herself to her feet and went to Devis. He pointed to one ear.
"I CANT HEAR A THING," the bard said with ridiculous volume. Mialee laughed. Despite his condition he embraced her in relief. They were alive.
After a long time, during which their goddess in cleric's clothing went to each of them in turn to treat their most grievous injuries, including Devis's hearing, Mialee raised her head and looked the bard in the eye. Those eyes grew wide as Mialee placed a hand on either side of his face.
As luck would have it, an earthquake chose that exact moment to strike. Devis lost his balance and they fell to the floor of the cart in a tangle. Their massive vessel gave in to the demands of cruel gravity and tipped onto its side, spilling them all across a field of rusted, jagged metal.
Devis cried out as he felt something pierce his side deeply. All around him, the ocean of rusted metal, corroded beyond belief, roiled like a stormy sea.
Wincing, he pulled himself off the jagged thing that may have once been a long sword and felt blood well inside his vest. The bard pulled a filthy, blackened handkerchief from his pocket in one shaking hand and balled it up. He choked back a wail as he stuffed the cloth ball beneath his vest and into the wound. It might keep him from bleeding to death
today only to kill him with an infection in a week.
Mialee! He frantically scanned the area for the elf woman. She'd been about to-
There. She lay on her back, maybe ten feet away. He saw her breast rise and fall. Unconscious, but alive. He looked for the others and found them fanned all around him. All of them but Mialee were moving about, tending to fresh injuries. Zalyn, completely unharmed as usual, floated-floated? Yes, that's exactly what she did, Devis saw-to Hound-Eye, who had gotten the worst of it. His patch was gone and the empty, black socket reminded Devis of the peril they had yet to face. The little halfling still held Nialma tightly to his chest. Hound-Eye had once again put himself between the little girl and harm's way, and this time had truly suffered for it. Two ancient, rusted steel bars were rammed up through his torso on either side of Nialma. Halfling blood streamed down his waist and legs. Somehow Hound-Eye remained conscious and calm. Perhaps, Devis hoped, he couldn't feel it. The halfling had earned that much mercy.
Zalyn/Ehlonna leaned against Soveliss as she shouted more loudly in the din of shrieking metal. Hound-Eye's body rose slowly into the air, the bars grinding out of him. Twin torrents of claret drained from his back onto the rusted surface of the nightmare floor. Nialma, stoic as ever, watched intently as the possessed cleric finished her lengthy incantation and the bleeding trickled to a drip, then stopped completely. Hound-Eye let out a "Wha!" as he spun in mid-air and came to rest gently on his feet. His other wounds still bled, but he would not die today. Not from this particular impalement, anyway.
A low rumbling grew under the groaning metal, and a small, red-brown hillock rose beneath them. Devis felt with dreadful certainty that the cart had not been upset by an earthquake. Something was alive far below them, and it was moving to the surface.