Caramon agonized. “I don’t know …”
Raistlin picked up his pack. “You do what you want. I am going after Sturm.” He stalked off.
“Me too,” Tas said. “Maybe it will be my turn to wear the helm tonight. I gave Tika Rabbitslayer, Caramon,” he added, feeling sorry for his friend. “She left her sword in the corridor. Oh, and she gave me a message for you! I almost forgot. She said to tell you she understands.”
Caramon groaned softly and shook his head.
“I’d stay and talk some more, but I’ve got to be going,” said Tas. “Raistlin might need me.”
Tas waited a moment to see if Caramon would come, but the big man did not stir. Fearful that the other two would leave him behind, Tas turned and ran off. Caramon heard the kender’s voice coming from the library.
“I can carry your pack for you, Raistlin!”
He heard his brother’s voice in answer, “Touch it, and I will slice off your hand.”
Caramon made up his mind. Tika understood. She’d said so. He caught up with his twin at the door leading into the fortress.
“Let me carry that. It’s too heavy for you,” Caramon said, and he shouldered Raistlin’s pack.
Tika walked for hours, anger and frustration and love blazing like embers inside her. First love would flare up, then die down, only to have anger burst into flame. The fire fed her energy, and she made good time, or thought she did. It was hard to tell how far she’d come; the tunnel seemed unending. She talked to herself as she walked, holding imaginary conversations with Caramon and telling Raistlin exactly what she thought of him.
Once she thought she heard something behind her and she stopped, her heart pounding—not with fear, but with hope.
“Caramon!” she called eagerly. “You came after me! I’m so glad …”
She waited, but there was no answer. She didn’t hear the sound anymore and decided she must have imagined it.
“Wishful thinking,” she muttered to herself and kicked angrily at a loose rock, sending it rolling across the floor. “He’s not coming.”
In that moment, she faced up to the truth. All the fires in her died.
Caramon was not coming. She’d given him an ultimatum: her or his brother. He had chosen Raistlin.
“He will always choose Raistlin,” Tika said to herself. “I know he loves me, but he will always choose Raistlin.”
She had no idea why this was so. She only knew it would be so until something happened to separate the two, and maybe not even then.
There was the sound again. This time Tika knew she hadn’t imagined it.
“Tasslehoff? Is that you?”
It would be just like the kender to abandon his post and chase after her. He was probably planning to sneak up on her, jump at her out of the shadows, then collapse with laughter at her fright.
If it was Tas, he didn’t answer her shout.
She heard the noise again. It sounded like harsh breathing and scraping footfalls, and whoever it was, it wasn’t bothering to hide anymore.
“Tasslehoff,” Tika faltered. “This isn’t funny …”
Even as she said the words, she knew it wasn’t Tas. Fear twisted into a cold, hard knot in her belly. Her throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe or swallow. She shifted the torch to her left hand, almost dropping it. Her right hand closed spasmodically over the dagger in her belt. She didn’t want to die, not alone, in the darkness, and at the thought, a little whimper of terror escaped her.
She couldn’t see, but she could hear the sound made by claws scraping across the stone floor, and she knew immediately her pursuer was a draconian. Her first panicked instinct was to run, but though her brain was screaming at her to flee, her legs refused to budge. Besides, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
The harsh panting and grunting came closer and closer. The draconian was finished sneaking about.
He emerged into the torchlight right in front of her, racing straight at her. At the sight of her, his hideous scaly face contorted in a slavering grin. He gurgled, saliva flicked from his jaws. He wore a curve-bladed sword, but he had not drawn it. He did not want to kill his prey; he wanted to enjoy it first.
Tika let the beast-man draw close to her—not from any planned strategy, but because she was too terrified to move. The draconian’s red eyes gleamed; his clawed hands opened. He spread his wings and leaped at her, planning to drag her to the stone floor with him on top of her.
Determination hardened in Tika. Determination steadied her hand, turned her terror to strength. Swinging the torch in a wild, backhand stroke, she bashed the draconian in his leering face. Her hit was perfectly if accidentally timed and caught the draconian in mid-flight.
The blow knocked the baaz’s head one way and his momentum carried his feet in the opposite direction, upending him. He landed with a heavy thud on the stone floor, his wings crumpled beneath him. Tika flung aside the torch, and holding the dagger in both hands, she was on the baaz in an instant. Screaming in fury, she slashed and stabbed.
The draconian howled and tried to grab hold of her. She didn’t know what part of the draconian she was striking; she couldn’t see all that well, for a red rage dimmed her vision. She struck at anything that moved. She kicked, stomped, stabbed and slashed, knowing only that she had to keep fighting until the thing stopped moving.
Then her blade struck rock, jarring her arms painfully. The dagger slid out of her blood-slick hands. Panicked, Tika scrabbled to find her weapon. She caught hold of it, picked it up, whirled around, and saw her foe dead at her feet. The rock she had hit was the draconian, turned to stone.
Sobbing for breath, shaking all over, Tika tasted a horrid, bitter liquid in her mouth. She retched and felt better. Her frantic heartbeat slowed. She breathed a little easier, and only then felt the burning pain of the scratches on her arms and legs. She picked up the torch, held it over the draconian and waited for the corpse to turn to ashes. Only when it finally disintegrated did she believe it was dead.
Tika shuddered and was about to slump down on the stone floor, when the thought came to her that there might be more of the monsters out there. She hurriedly wiped the blood from her hand to get a better grip on the knife and waited. The pain burned in her arms and her legs and she began to shiver.
Her thinking cleared. If there had been any others, they would have attacked her by now. This one had acted alone, hoping to have his prize all to himself.
Tika took stock of her wounds. Long jagged scratches crisscrossed her arms and her legs, but that was the extent of the damage. Her violent attack had taken the draconian completely by surprise. The scratches burned horribly and bled freely, but that was good. The bleeding would keep the wounds from putrefying.
Tika cleaned out the scratches with water from the water skin, rinsed the draconian’s blood from her face and hands, and swished the water around in her mouth to rid herself of the horrid taste. She spit the water out. She was afraid to swallow, afraid she’d throw up again.
She was bone-tired, sick and shaking. She longed to curl up in a ball and have a good cry, but she couldn’t bear the thought of spending another moment in this horrid tunnel. Besides, she had to reach Riverwind and there was no time to waste.
Gritting her teeth, Tika thrust Rabbitslayer in her belt and walked determinedly on.
Tasslehoff led Caramon, Raistlin, and Prince Sturm, as the kender was now calling him, up the airshaft. Reaching the top, they peered out cautiously and hopefully. They had not heard any sounds of draconians during the night and had hoped that, having slain the dragon and looted the place, they would have moved on. Instead, they found the draconians camped out underneath the way out.
The draconians slept on the ground, curled up, their tails wrapped around their feet and their wings folded. Most of them slept with their heads on lumpy sacks filled with whatever treasure they’d found in the fortress. One draconian had been left on watch. He sat up with his back against a rock. Every so o
ften, his head would nod and he would slump forward, only to jerk awake again.
“I thought you said it was an army,” said Caramon dourly. “I count fifteen.”
“That’s almost an army,” Tas returned.
“Not even close,” said Caramon.
“Fifteen or fifteen hundred, it makes little difference,” Raistlin said. “We still have to get past them.”
“Unless there’s another way out.” Caramon looked at Sturm, who shook his helmed head.
“Thorbardin lies that way.” He pointed to the south. “Across the Plains of Dergoth.”
“Yeah, I know,” Caramon said. “You’ve told us that three times in the last five minutes. Is there another way out of this fortress? A secret way?”
“Our army stormed the gates of the fortress. We came in through the front and swept aside the defenders.”
“This is the only way,” said Raistlin.
“You can’t know for sure. We could do some exploring.”
“Trust me,” Raistlin said flatly. “I know.”
Caramon shook his head, but he did not continue to argue.
“We will simply wait for the draconians to leave,” Raistlin decided. “They will not hang about all day. They will likely return to the fortress to continue searching for loot. Once they have gone inside, we can depart.”
“We should just kill them now,” Sturm said. “They are merely goblins. Four of us can handle such vermin with ease.”
Caramon looked at Sturm in astonishment. “Goblins? Those aren’t goblins.” Puzzled, he looked at Raistlin. “Why does he think they’re goblins?”
“Remarkable,” said Raistlin, intrigued. “I can only speculate, but since draconians did not exist during the time in which the prince lived, the helm does not know what to make of the monsters. Thus the prince sees what he expects to see—goblins.”
“Great,” Caramon muttered. “Just bloody great.”
He peered over the edge down a sheer wall, black and smooth, that extended for about thirty feet, ending in a massive pile of rubble—chunks of the fortress, boulders, and rocks all jumbled together. At the foot of the rubble heap was the large patch of dry ground on which the draconians were camped and beyond that the mists and miasma of a swamp.
“I suppose we could climb down the wall,” said Caramon dubiously. “Looks kind of slick though.”
Caramon waited until he saw the draconian’s head slump, then he pulled himself out over the ledge for a better look. The moment his hand touched the smooth, black rock, he gave a curse and snatched his hand back.
“Damn!” he said, rubbing his palm that was bright red. “That blasted rock is cold as ice! Like sticking your hand in a frozen lake!” He sucked on his fingers.
“Let me feel!” said Tas eagerly.
The guard’s head jerked up. He yawned and looked about. Caramon grabbed the kender and dragged him back.
“At least you can use your magic to float down,” Caramon grumbled to his brother. “The rest of us will have to use the ropes to push ourselves off the rock. It will be slow going, and we’ll be sitting ducks on the way down.”
Raistlin glanced sidelong at his twin. “You are in a very bad mood this morning, my brother.”
“Yeah, well …” Caramon rubbed his stubbled jaw. He had not shaved in a couple of days, and his beard was starting to itch. “I’m worried about Tika, that’s all.”
“You blame me for the fact that the girl ran off by herself.”
“No, Raist, I don’t blame you,” Caramon said with a sigh. “If you must know, I blame myself.”
“You can blame me, too,” Tas offered remorsefully. “I should have gone with her.”
The kender took hold of his topknot and gave it a painful tug as punishment.
“If anyone is to blame, it is Tika herself. Her foolishness prompted her to leave,” said Raistlin. “Suffice it to say, she’s in far less danger returning to camp than she would be now if she were here with us.”
Caramon stirred and seemed about to say something, but Raistlin cut him off.
“We had best prepare for our departure. Caramon, you and Tas go back and bring up the extra rope and anything else you can find that you think we might be able to use. I will remain here with His Highness.”
The moment Caramon and Tasslehoff were on their feet, Sturm thought they were leaving, and only Raistlin’s most persuasive arguments could prevent the knight from rushing off.
“I hope those draconians go inside soon,” said Caramon. “We’re not going to be able to keep Sturm here much longer.”
Caramon and Tasslehoff returned with the rope and started to secure it for the trip down the mountainside. Once Sturm was aware of what they were doing, he offered his assistance. Sturm knew nothing about mountain climbing, but Prince Grallen, having lived all his life beneath the mountain in the subterranean halls of the dwarves, was skilled in the subject. His advice proved invaluable. He showed Caramon how to tie strong knots and how to best anchor the ropes.
As they were working, the draconian camp below woke up. Raistlin, keeping watch, noted the bozak draconian as being the one in charge. Larger and presumably smarter than the baaz, the bronze-scaled bozak was not so much commander as he was bully and slave driver.
Once he woke up, he went about kicking and hitting the baaz until, grumping and grousing, they stumbled to their feet. The bozak doled out hunks of maggot-ridden meat to the baaz, keeping the largest share for himself and five baaz, who were apparently his bodyguards.
From what Raistlin could gather from listening to the mixture of Common, military argot, and draconian, the bozak was ordering his men back inside the fortress to continue searching for anything valuable. He reminded them that he would be taking his cut, and nobody had better try to keep anything from him, or he’d slice off their wings.
Led by the bozak, the draconians trooped inside the fortress, and soon Raistlin could hear the bozak’s guttural shouts echoing along the corridors far below the airshaft.
Caramon waited tensely, rope in hand, until the draconian voices and the sounds of tromping feet faded away. Then he looked at his brother and nodded.
“We’re ready.”
Raistlin climbed up onto the lip of the hole. Gripping the Staff of Magius, he positioned himself, looked down at the ground some eighty feet beneath him, and raised his arms.
“Don’t, Raist!” said Caramon suddenly. “I can carry you down on my back.”
Raistlin glanced around. “You’ve seen me do this countless times, my brother.”
“Yeah, I know,” Caramon returned. “It’s just … your magic doesn’t work all the time.”
“My magic does not work all the time because I am human and fallible,” Raistlin said irritably, for he never liked to be reminded of that fact. “The magic of the staff, however, can never fail.”
Despite his confident words, Raistlin felt the same flutter of uncertainty in the pit of his stomach he always felt whenever he gave himself completely into the hands of the magic. He told himself, as he always did, that he was being foolish. Spreading his arms, he spoke the word of command and leaped into the air.
The Staff of Magius did not fail him. The staff’s magic enveloped him, carried him downward, and set him drifting gently upon the currents of magic as though he were light as thistledown.
“I wish I could do that,” said Tasslehoff wistfully, peering over the edge. “Do you think I could try, Caramon? Maybe there’s a little magic left over …”
“And miss the fun of scaling this sheer rock wall that’s so cold it’ll burn off your skin if you touch it?”
Caramon grunted. “Why would you want to do that?”
He looked down. Raistlin waved up at him to let him know he was safe, then hurried over to the fortress entrance. Raistlin stayed there, looking and listening for a long while, then he waved his arm again to indicate that all was safe. Caramon lowered down their packs, including the kender’s hoopak and Sturm’s armor, which
Raistlin wanted to leave behind, but Caramon insisted that they bring with them.
Raistlin untied the packs, set them to one side, then took up a position near the entrance, hiding himself behind a boulder so that if the draconians came out, he could take them by surprise. Caramon, Tas and Sturm began their descent.
Sturm climbed down hand over hand with practiced ease. Tasslehoff found out that scaling rock walls was, indeed, fun. Shoving off the rock wall with his feet sent him flying out into the air, then he’d come sailing back. He did this with great glee, bouncing over the rock face, until Caramon ordered him gruffly to cut out the nonsense and get himself to solid ground. Caramon moved slowly, nervous about trusting his weight to the rope and clumsy with the placement of his feet. He was the last one down and landed with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Compared to that, the climb down the pile of rubble was relatively simple. They were gathering up their possessions when Raistlin rose up from his hiding place and hissed at them to be quiet.
“Someone’s coming!”
Caramon looked up in alarm at the three ropes dangling from the opening. Seen from this vantage point, he understood how the fortress had come by its name. It bore an uncanny resemblance to a skull. The air shaft formed one of the eyes. Another air shaft opposite formed the other eye. The entrance to the fortress was the skull’s mouth, with rows of jagged stalagmite and stalactite teeth. The ropes, trailing down from an eye socket, told all the world they were here. Caramon considered hiding in the thick vapors of the swamp, but the draconians would come after them, and if that happened, he’d rather fight them on dry land.
Caramon drew his sword. Tasslehoff, mourning the absence of Rabbitslayer, hefted his hoopak. Sturm drew his sword as well. Caramon hoped that Prince Grallen was as a skilled a warrior as Sturm Brightblade. Raistlin, hidden behind the boulder, readied his magic spells.
The bozak and his five baaz bodyguards walked out of the fortress entrance, intending to have a private search through the loot the baaz had left behind to see if any of them had been holding out on him. Planning to loot the looters, the bozak was not prepared for a fight. He and the others were extremely startled to find themselves facing armed foes.
Dragons of the Dwarven Depths Page 18
