An hour later, moving across an open expanse of bare rock — the two friends feeling very exposed indeed! — Elbryan stopped suddenly and dropped to a crouch. Thinking danger at hand, Pony crouched as well,; and reached her hand into a pocket, fingering her few stones.
"There!" the ranger said excitedly, pointing down across the valley to his left, toward the western arm of Aida. Beyond that black line of stone, a black dot, a solitary figure, moved steadily across the green' carpet, making fast for a thick copse of trees.
No, Pony realized, not one figure, but two, a man atop a horse . . . a man atop a centaur!
"Avelyn and Bradwarden!" she whispered.
"Running hard for Aida," Elbryan agreed. He looked back at Pony, his smile wide. "And with none chasing them, and none standing before them."
Pony nodded grimly. Perhaps her love was right, perhaps the dactyl was indeed inviting them in. She had to wonder, though she said nothing aloud, was that a good thing?
The pair, were off the mountain within the hour, making their way along its base, weaving in and out of boulders and patches of trees. They easily avoided the few bored goblin sentries that were about, and every so often came upon tracks that told them they were following the exact route Avelyn and Bradwarden had taken.
Finally they crossed over the mountain's long arm and were surprised to find the ground very warm under their feet. Only then did the pair realize that this line of stone was not a solid ridge, but rather, like a living thing, was growing and changing. Most of the ridge was hard, but every so often, the pair caught a sudden glimpse of fiery orange, the lava flow bubbling up to the surface, then meandering across the hardened black stone like a crawling orange slug. Within a few minutes, each of these movements would cease, the lava gradually rolling over itself or gathering in a depression, and then quickly cooling, its glow fading to blackness.
"Like a living thing," Pony remarked, taking more care where she subsequently stepped.
"Like the dactyl," Elbryan replied. "Flowing out from Aida, encompassing all the world under its blackness."
It was not a pleasant thought.
They were several hours behind their friends, Elbryan and Pony realized when they at last came upon the same expanse they had seen their friends traversing. There was no apparent resistance; behind this arm of Aida, this blocking ridge of black stone some twenty to thirty feet high, no monsters moved about and no sentries were visible.
They went into a copse of trees, such a stark contrast of teeming life next to the black wall of stone, and found again the centaur's tracks. Soon a second set — the tracks of a heavy human, of Brother Avelyn — were visible beside those of Bradwarden, and it was not hard for the pair to surmise that the centaur might be getting tired.
But Bradwarden continued on; and so did Avelyn; and so did Pony and Elbryan, increasing their pace in the hope that they might patch up to their friends before they entered the caverns of the mountain. Perhaps, Elbryan pondered, if Avelyn and Bradwarden were scrambling about, looking for some way into the mountain . . .
It didn't happen that way. The ranger and Pony exited the copse of trees, then crossed through a second and then a third, climbing to the lower reaches of Aida. As soon as they cleared that last copse, they saw an entrance, a great gaping hole, defying the slanting rays of the westering sun. If the appearance proved, true, if this was indeed a way into the heart of Aida, then Avelyn and Bradwarden had long ago gone into the mountain and might even now be standing before the demon dactyl as Elbryan and Pony stood staring at the entrance. The anxious couple went back into the last copse and cut sticks, wrapping them with cloth to make torches.
Then, fearful that they would be too late, the pair split, left and right, and moved quickly and stealthily right up to the edge of the cavern entrance.
Elbryan peeked around the stone and into the gloom; Pony did likewise from across the way; and they were somewhat relieved to find that this was indeed a deep cavern and that it was apparently empty.
Just inside, Elbryan noted the hooflike depression of the centaur's track.
Keeping near the side wall, not daring to light a torch, the pair moved in tentatively, allowing their eyes to adjust to the rapidly diminishing light. All too soon, they were faced with a dilemma: light the torch or walk on in near-complete darkness.
Elbryan winced as the fire flared to life, as if expecting all the minions of the dactyl to descend upon him. After a few tense but uneventful moments, he motioned to Pony, and the pair crept along, coming to a place where the tunnel forked: one branch going right and level, the other left and down. Looking down the right-hand side, Pony noted that the tunnel forked again just a short way in, and the tunnel continuing to the right beyond that second fork showed yet another side passage.
"A veritable maze," Elbryan moaned. He fell to his knees and moved the torch low, searching for some sign of his friends' passing, but the ground was bare, unmarked stone.
"Straight ahead," Pony declared a moment later, seeing her companion's frustration. "Deeper — into the mountain, and then down and to the left at the next fork."
She spoke with determination, though it was only a guess — a guess that seemed as good to Elbryan as any he might make. They moved in deeper, then began a descent along a smooth and angled passageway. Elbryan gave up any thoughts of continuing his scan for tracks, knowing that to do so would only slow their progress. Avelyn and Bradwarden were wandering in here, probably as lost as were Elbryan and Pony. Sooner or later, one of the pairs, or perhaps both, would stumble upon the dactyl or some of its deadly minions.
It was a desperate situation, and both Elbryan and Pony had to remind themselves often that they had known it would be like this from the moment they had set out from Dundalis.
Bestesbulzibar was outraged, and yet the demon was somewhat amused as well as it stood with Quintall and a pair of very nervous giants, looking down the ruined slope of a mountain. How powerful indeed was the demon-forged spike! To cause such devastation as this, simply because it left the hand of its dying wielder and fell across the stone!
One of the giants continued to stammer on about bad luck and other such nonsense, trying hard to concoct some excuse that might keep its skin attached to its body. Bestesbulzibar wasn't listening.
"Have they made the mountain?" the dactyl asked Quintall, indicating Aida.
The rockman scrutinized the terrain ahead and considered the distance. He put a hand to his chin, an oddly human gesture. And indeed, Quintall now seemed physically human. The rough edges of his rocky body had smoothed and rounded, shaping more and more to, the exact human form the spirit had left behind. The rockman was recognizable again as Quintall; the features, the size, and the body dimensions were all the same, as if the man's spirit were somehow determining the shape of this new stone coil. Of course, his "skin" was now obsidian in consistency as well as hue, and red lines of molten stone still striped his joints; his eyes, too, were red pits of liquid stone. But he looked like Quintall, and the rockman could hardly wait until the moment that Brother Avelyn saw his new and superior body.
"Have they?" Bestesbulzibar prompted.
Quintall nodded. "If they ran on through the night," he answered, "and if no others rose up against them."
"Perhaps they will be seated upon my throne when I return to it." The dactyl sneered, eyeing the pair of giants wickedly.
"B-bad luck," one of the behemoths stammered.
"We will —"the other began to promise, but the dactyl cut it short.
"You will go and take your places with the army," Bestesbulzibar instructed. The demon badly wanted to rip the hide from these two, and from any others of the hunting party who had survived their encounter with the intruders and who were now hiding nearby, fearing the demon's wrath. Or perhaps Bestesbulzibar could take them back to Aida and throw them in the path of the deadly Nightbird. Or, the demon mused, perhaps it would give the job of punishment to Quintall, that Bestesbulzibar might witness the power
of its newest weapon. But the dactyl was not a stupid creature and could control its impulses, even those bent upon destruction, which the demon loved above all else. Bestesbulzibar had lost too many of its elite giant guardsmen already, considering the effort he had taken to outfit the giants with armor, but, in truth, the demon figured that it had lost little by the failure of the giants.
So Brother Avelyn and the one called Nightbird may have entered Aida; that only meant that Bestesbulzibar might enjoy a bit of the fun of killing them.
"Come along," the dactyl instructed Quintall. The rockman moved closer and Bestesbulzibar lifted from the ground, hooking its powerful legs about Quintall, and then speeding the instrument of its wrath across the valley, above the heads of the cowering minions, and back to Aida.
Quintall, possessed of heightened senses, whose glowing eyes could light the way along dark tunnels, was sent to find the trail.
"We are too low," Avelyn complained, leaning against a wall of the stuffy, tight cavern. He kept the light of his enchanted diamond low, hoping that it would be less conspicuous and not attract any more guards like the two powries Avelyn and Bradwarden had just overwhelmed. That thought in mind, Avelyn kicked aside the bloody leg of one of the dwarves and shifted himself so that he was looking back the way they had come.
"Now wouldn't the demon thing be at the heart?" Bradwarden asked casually, tearing at the second powrie as he spoke. "And wouldn't a mountain's heart be below?"
Avelyn shook his head immediately; he just didn't feel right about the path. They had gone down and to the left at the first fork, too soon perhaps, to be heading into the lower chambers of this tunnel-crossed mountain. "Our enemy might be higher," he said, "near the smoking cone, where the winged demon might quickly fly out among its minions."
He looked back at Bradwarden as he finished his argument, and he was song that he did.
"Bah, 'tis a guess and nothing more," the centaur replied, taking a huge bite out of a powrie leg.
Avelyn closed his eyes.
"We go along, I say," the centaur continued, talking through its full mouth, "choosing trails as we find them. It's all a guess, yer knowing as well as I'm knowing."
The monk sighed and didn't disagree. Whatever course they chose, Avelyn would second-guess. Too much was, at stake here; the monk was too much on the edge of his nerves.
"Now why're ye here?" Bradwarden asked simply. "Ye've come to face yer destiny, so ye said, and so ye shall. We'll get there, me friend, and if that's what's scaring ye, then I'm not for blaming ye. But turning back won't put us any closer to anything, and every lost step gives more of our enemies the chance to stumble upon us." He spat at that last thought and tossed the tough powrie leg to the ground. "And the damned things aren't even good eating!"
Avelyn managed a smile and walked by the centaur, taking great care to avoid stepping on the discarded meal. They started off again, side by side, their bulky forms filling the narrow passageway.
"I am not pleased by the sight," Elbryan whispered, looking down the long, narrow descent, a ledge bordered on the left by an uneven wall and on the right by a long drop of more than two hundred feet from where the ledge began and only gradually diminishing as the trail moved lower. Height hardly seemed to matter when considering the danger, though, for the drop ended in a pool of red fire, a swirling lake of molten stone. Even from this great height, Elbryan and Pony could feel the intense heat, and the sulfuric stench was nearly overwhelming.
"And I am not pleased at the prospect of backtracking all the way," Pony replied. "Down we decided to go, and down this goes!"
"The fumes . . ." the ranger protested, and his fears were not lost on the woman. Pony fumbled in her pack and took out a strip of cloth, an intended bandage. She tore it in half and wetted both strips thoroughly from her waterskin, then tied one about her face after she handed the other to Elbryan.
The ranger, though, had a better idea. He took the green armband from his right arm, the one the elves said would defeat any poison, and tore it in two, handing one strip to Pony. With a trusting nod, the woman donned the mask, as did Elbryan, the ranger eyeing Pony all the while, admiring her gumption. The brave woman was not easily deterred.
They needed no torch in this place, because of the glow of the lava, and so their hands were free as they started down, at first hugging the wall tightly — the ledge was not narrow, but the prospects of slipping over were far too grim. Gradually, they eased out from the wall, their pace increasing, and soon they had put a couple hundred feet behind them, nearing the halfway point of the descent.
Pony, holding the lead, grew hopeful when she spotted a dark shadow along the wall far below, a side passage, running into the mountain and away from this place: So intent was she that she never noticed the crack running right across the ledge in front of her.
She stepped over it, and as she brought her weight down, the stone beneath her foot gave way.
Pony screamed; Elbryan grabbed her and pulled her back to safety, the pair falling to the ledge in a jumble. The ranger scrambled to the very lip and watched the eight-foot stone slab falling. It bounced off a jag in the wall, then spun over and out, tumbling into the magma, where it was swallowed, disappearing with hardly a splash.
Pony, horrified and breathing deeply, had to slow herself down consciously. She managed it, but the deep breaths had taken their toll, the sulfuric fumes overwhelming her, for in the fall, she had dislodged the elven mask. She rolled to the lip of the ledge, pulled her mask further down, and vomited.
"We must go back," Elbryan said, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder, trying to comfort her.
"Shorter down than up," Pony said stubbornly, and she retched again. Then she sat up quickly, determinedly, pulled out her waterskin and washed her face briskly, replacing the mask and standing firm.
"A long jump," Elbryan remarked, eyeing the break in the trail.
"An easy leap," Pony corrected, and to prove her point, the woman took a single running stride and sprang across the gap, landing easily and skidding down defensively, on the lower level.
Elbryan stared at her long and hard, admiring again that stubborn determination but honestly wondering if she wasn't being foolhardy just to prove a point. They had no idea if that passage down below led anywhere, after all, and the eight-foot leap would be decidedly more difficult coming up the angled walkway.
"Easy leap," Pony said again. The ranger managed a smile; they were going to face a demon, after all, so how could he berate the woman for what he considered recklessness?
Pony's eyes widened, and Elbryan realized that she was about to scream.
The ranger spun, drawing Tempest as he went, but the danger was not behind him, but to the side, coming out of the solid wall. Stones burst outward; Elbryan skipped back up the slope a few scrambling steps and dove to the ground.
He turned about, confused, and when he saw the source, he was even more confused.
Quintall walked out onto the ledge.
Elbryan was up in a defensive crouch, Tempest defensively before Up, though he knew not what to make of this moving rockman, this obsidian image of Brother Justice.
Quintall's intentions were easy enough to discern. The rockman looked at Pony, then turned back fully upon Elbryan, red-striped fingers clenching the air menacingly. "Do you think you can win this time, Nightbird?" the demon's lackey asked, his voice grating like stone rubbing stone.
"What are you?" Elbryan asked breathlessly. "What manner of being, what tormented soul?"
"Tormented?" Quintall scoffed. "I am free, mortal fool, and shall live forever, while your life is forfeit!" On came the rockman, stalking straight in.
Elbryan slashed his sword across, scoring a scraping hit that didn't even slow Quintall. The ranger jumped back a step, then lunged forward, Tempest squealing as it deflected off Quintall's face. This hit was more substantial, Elbryan was glad to realize, for the fine elven-forged sword cracked through the rockman's hard skin, drawing a slight or
ange line.
But the line cooled to black almost immediately, and if Quintall was hurt, he did not show it. He came on furiously then, and launched a roundhouse left hook.
Elbryan ducked the blow, just barely, and scampered back as Quintall's hand thundered against the wall. The ranger glanced at that impact spot and his respect for this enemy heightened, for where Quintall's hand had struck, the stone was cracked and smoking.
"Will you run away, then, and leave the woman to me?" the rockman taunted.
"I can get to her, do not doubt."
The words made Elbryan glance down at Pony, and he saw, to his horror, that she was readying for a jump back across the gap. "Stay down!" the ranger yelled to her. "I will come to you!"
"You will never get past me," Quintall remarked, accentuating his point by slamming the stone wall again, even harder.
That movement left an opening that the ranger could not resist. He came forward in a rush, Tempest driving in hard and straight, striking hard; cracking through the black shell and diving into the monster's magma interior.
Quintall howled and launched a series of blows, but Elbryan was the quicker, already retracting his glowing sword — and the ranger was glad to know that the fine weapon had survived the immersion in the obviously hot interior of this wicked foe — and snapping Tempest up left, up right, up left, in three quick parries, then straight ahead to poke the rockman in the face once again.
But even the great wound in the monster's belly fast closed, while Quintall's movements became more cautious, more dangerous.
From down below, Pony was shouting out, but Elbryan hardly took the time.
to consider her words. He had to find some way to hurt this thing, and though his sword might inflict some sting, it seemed that the wound could only be so deep.
DemonWars Saga Volume 1 Page 64
