In seconds he had dispatched three of the beasts, but two other horax materialized with snakelike speed to occupy the breach and re-create the wall of armored bodies. Cursing, all but spitting in rage and frustration, Brandon chopped at the two, cutting the heads from both of the hideous creatures. Somehow the wall blocking him formed again.
“Gretchan!” he called again, his voice cracking from the strain.
By then the priestess had vanished, borne into the darkness in the clutches of the grotesque monsters. He strained to hear a scream, some sound of distress, and his heart sank when he could discern nothing beyond the incessant clacking of the horax who seethed and reared, blocking his pursuit as if they were tactical-minded rearguard soldiers.
Outnumbered at least six to one, Brandon didn’t hesitate, didn’t even pause to consider the odds. Raising his axe over his head, the blade still dripping with the guts and ichor of horax innards, he hurled himself at the monsters in a frenzy of battle rage. But instead of plunging into the center of the formation, where he would have been swiftly overcome, he dodged to the side, swinging a roundhouse blow that cut the head and the first two body sections from a rearing horax. As that monster fell, Brandon tried to skip past.
As he did, he swung a sideways blow, his axe again biting deeply into an arachnoid body. The stricken horax fell, hissing and wriggling, but the dwarf already had moved on to his next target, bringing a hard blow down on one of the bug monsters that, unfortunately, only glanced off it hard skull, though it did cut through one of the two jutting mandibles and sent the monster recoiling in something that resembled fear.
Still the bugs rose and snapped and swayed, blocking him from pursuing Gretchan. Brandon, feeling acutely aware of each passing second, ignored the badly injured bug wriggling on the floor and took stock of the three horax that continued to block his path.
The one with the cracked mandible held back from its two fellows, rearing in the center of the tunnel mouth. The others advanced slightly, jerking forward with four legs supporting each of them, while the forward half of their bodies, four legs waving menacingly in the air, reared and bobbed, weaving back and forth like snakes looking for an opponent.
“You want a target?” Brandon growled, addressing the horax to his left. “How about this?”
He sprang forward, axe held high, and just as quickly bounced back. His apparent target reared farther back, rising so high that two more of its legs came off the floor. All six of the taloned limbs spread wide, ready to grab him in a lethal embrace. The other two horax, reacting in concert with their companion, struck viciously in his direction.
Only he had dodged the other way. He brought the axe down savagely on the back of one horax’s head, lopping it off at the neck. The second horax was still exposed, and the dwarf pulled his weapon around on the backswing, driving the sharp, gore-slicked blade right between the monster’s eyes. Suddenly, the odds had shifted. Only one more horax stood between him and the rescue of his cherished companion.
The remaining horax surprised him, however, by seeming to sense his intent and acting to counter him. The creature scuttled away, backing into the tunnel where Gretchan had disappeared and taking up a position at a bottleneck where the cave was only five or six feet wide. Brandon lunged toward it, swinging wildly, but the monster feinted and bobbed away like a boxer. It spun to the side, leaving the path into the tunnel relatively free, but the dwarf was quickly beginning to understand that the monsters were smarter than he had thought. Far more than instinct drove them, and he knew that he was being dared to try to charge past the remaining horax. Even if he succeeded in a mad dash, he would have left an implacable enemy following him to his rear.
So Brand raised the Bluestone Axe and attacked again, chopping from the left and the right, as if he were chopping away at the trunk of a large tree. He sliced one foreleg from the horax’s left side and two more from the right. The beast’s multifaceted eyes glittered with some angry emotion—whether fear or hatred, the dwarf couldn’t tell—but when he drove in for the last attack, swinging the axe forward and slicing through the chitinous plates of the rearing monster’s belly, the gleam in those eyes swiftly faded to the universal blackness of death.
But Brandon didn’t wait to see the creature die. He was already sprinting down the tunnel, chasing along the path where Gretchan had been taken, hoping desperately that, by some miracle, he could catch up to her while she was still alive.
He had gone a dozen steps when he skidded to a stop, remembering the staff that she had dropped when the red horax had tangled her in its web. Running back into the ruined village, he snatched up the shaft of wood and returned past the bleeding bodies of the slain horax. As he headed deep into the cavern, he noticed that the anvil at the head of the cleric’s shaft was glowing slightly, adding just enough light to allow him to run as fast as he could.
SIXTEEN
PANICKED PURSUIT
The miniature silver anvil on the head of Gretchan’s staff, which was Brandon’s only light source, bobbed and weaved crazily as he sprinted down the uneven bed of the cavern. He descended rapidly, following the slope as he pursued the retreating horax. All thoughts of reaching Garnet Thax, of escaping from that underground nightmare, were forgotten in the desperation and fear he felt for his captive companion.
“Gretchan!” he called again and again, only to hear the echoes of his terrified cry fading into the darkness before him. Was she still alive? He had no solid reason for believing that she was except for his own desire for that possibility. But he refused to surrender hope, so he kept running, heedless of ambush or treacherous footing.
He tripped over a protruding rock and flew headlong onto a pile of boulders. The staff flew from his hand as he tried to protect his face and his axe, absorbing the blow with his body. Ignoring his new bruises, he stumbled to his feet, realizing that the light on the staff had been extinguished when he dropped it. After a panicky minute spent feeling around in the lightless cave, he again wrapped his hands around the smooth wooden shaft, and was rewarded by a godly glow emanating from the anvil icon of the dwarves’ patron god.
“Reorx, please let me find her, save her,” he prayed, his words a rasping whisper in the darkness. “I’ll offer you anything—my own life! My axe! Just let me reach her!”
Though there was no answer, not even any change in the anvil’s glowing illumination, Brandon forced himself to believe that the Master of the Forge had heard his prayer and would take pity on him.
He proceeded as quickly as he could, slowing down from his headlong sprint only when the dry rasping of his lungs forced him to collect his breath. He knew that he would need his strength if—when!—he found Gretchan, so he slowed to a steady jog, marshalling his energy and staring intently into the subterranean darkness before him. Belatedly he realized that the horax, having already displayed surprising battlefield cunning and tactical sense, might be waiting for him in ambush. Remembering the way the creatures could climb the walls and even walk on the ceiling of an enclosed tunnel, he made a point of studying the passageway in all its parts and corners as he moved forward.
But still he trotted with reckless speed. The staff in his left hand, with its glowing tip, led his quest through the darkness. His axe he carried at his right, elbow cocked, blade poised for a quick chop forward or a parry to the side and back. For long minutes he ran thus, his alertness at fever pitch, his imagination conjuring wicked mandibles and bulging eyes in each shifting shadow, every imminent bend in the winding cave.
Every so often he came to a brown stain on the floor, and even a cursory glance confirmed that the stains were dried blood. Each spot of blood made his stomach lurch with fear, and his only consolation was the knowledge that Gretchan had been carried through there not long before. If she were wounded, her blood would still be bright, wet crimson. He guessed that the blood spots he’d found were grisly reminders of the fate that had met the gully dwarves who had once dwelled in the dead village.
&nb
sp; He came to a place where the descending floor dropped away, as if the stream that had once carved the channel had spilled over a subterranean waterfall. Extending the light, he saw that the drop was barely six or eight feet, so he wasted no time in scrambling over the edge, dropping toward a rock at the base. His left foot slipped from the curving rock as he landed, and he tumbled, bruising his knee and wrenching a shoulder. Despite the pain, he bit back any exclamation and worried more about the clatter of his fall.
Only then did he notice that the drop had placed him in the middle of a new type of passage, one that was not a natural cave, but instead seemed to be a relic, a roadway or hall, from some ancient civilization. He blinked in surprise, holding the light up.
The winding cave had dumped him through the side wall of a precise, straight passage that had obviously been excavated under the ground there some unknown but long time earlier. The ceiling was twice his height, and the hall was at least six or seven paces wide. Columns, round as pillars and unadorned, lined the walls at twenty-foot intervals, and the space extended to the right and left as far as Brandon could see.
The horax—which way had they gone?
Once again the stains of Aghar blood gave him proof; he spotted a brown smear a dozen feet to his right. Immediately he started that way, jogging again, warily examining the walls, ceiling, and floor in his path. He came to more bloodstains and reminded himself that Gretchan had been caught in a web—the monsters wouldn’t have had to clamp her in their jaws to carry her. He thought of Gus Fishbiter, an annoying fellow but a friend of Gretchan’s, and felt a stab of pity for the miserable Aghar that had been carried away by the horax. Even gully dwarves didn’t deserve such a fate.
At the same time, he was relieved to see that there were no signs of fresh blood. He quickened his pace as the wide, smooth floor seemed to offer an open route ahead.
Abruptly he emerged from a tunnel mouth into a much larger space. Still standing on a smooth, carved floor, he raised the staff to see that he was in an expansive chamber, one where the ceiling dome rose so far overhead, it was out of the reach of his magical light.
He stepped forward slowly, staring around with frustration. At any other time, in any other delving, such an experience would have filled him with awe: in one corner of his brain, he realized he was exploring a relic of some civilization more than a thousand years old, perhaps predating even the dwarven colony of Kayolin. He saw suggestions of wide columns ornamented with hieroglyphics. Beyond the last column was even a stone chair in the commanding position of a large throne. The rest of the chamber was hidden in the darkness, but clearly very huge, very solidly constructed.
Brandon looked around in vain for some sign of Gretchan. He saw scratches and scuffs in the dust, marks that looked as if they could have been made by horax claws, but they seemed to go in every direction in the great hall; none stood out as a particular path.
He started to search along the near wall, going around the large columns, holding up the glowing staff head so he could see the throne. That, too, was covered with dust, though apparently undisturbed by the bug monsters’ footsteps. He was about to move on when something drew his attention back to the throne: a spark or a blink of sudden light.
Going over to the throne, he discerned a circular shape, a ring more than a foot in diameter, outlined underneath the dust. When he picked it up and blew it off, he was nearly blinded by the reflections of sapphire and silver. The blue stones, a dozen in number, were arranged in a perfect circle around the ring of metal. Then the anvil on the head of Gretchan’s staff blazed with an invigorated light, a brilliance that suddenly cast the whole subterranean throne room into an illumination nearly equal to daylight.
That circlet was hinged at one side and secured by a clasp opposite the ring. It could be opened to be placed around something like a column …
Or a dwarf’s neck.
“The Torc of the Forge!” Brandon gasped out loud.
As if acknowledging his statement, the glow of Gretchan’s staff settled back to its more normal dimness. Oddly, Brandon’s dark-vision hadn’t been destroyed by the brilliant glare; it was as if his pupils absorbed the brightness of Reorx’s blessing and adjusted.
His mind churned. If the artifact really was the Torc of the Forge, than Regar Smashfingers was using a fake in the construction of his crown. His coronation was based on a forgery—
Gretchan! At once his thoughts returned to the priestess, his lost companion. He thrust the torc into one of the pouches at his belt and hoisted his axe and the cleric’s staff again as he continued to search the large room.
Two minutes later he found a crack in the wall, opening into a tunnel marked with many horax tracks. Just a few steps inside the opening, he saw another telltale bloodstain, proof that the captured Aghar had been carried that way once, reasonable enough evidence to support his hope that Gretchan had been taken the same way.
He checked the ceiling and walls—clear—and started into the new tunnel. He wanted to shout Gretchan’s name again, to offer her some hope if she could hear him. But caution forced him to bite his tongue.
And fear made him hurry.
“Ouch!” Gus declared as a shard of pottery bounced off of his head. He kept running with Berta, her bare feet slapping on the cobblestones of the road, trotting behind him. Another piece of crockery flew over the heads of the two Aghar to shatter in the street, leading Gus to veer sideways into a narrow alley. With his lady friend beside him, he collapsed against a wall and sagged down to sit on the ground.
“Ow!” he repeated, rubbing his skull where a lump was already forming. “Why those bluphsplunging Hylar got to be so rude?” he groused.
“Prolly cuz we was stealing they bread,” Berta said sagely. She proudly held up a heel of crusty rye, from which a large bite had been torn off. “Look! Berta steal bread while highbulp Gus make Hylar mad.”
“Give me!” declared Gus, greedily snatching the piece out of her hand. He had to admit, she had some skills, Berta did. “Hey! Who bite this?” he demanded, looking at the generously sized, tooth-marked crescent that had been removed from the corner of the slice.
“Me!” Berta declared, unabashed. “Otherwise, highbulp eat whole thing. Berta go hungry!”
Gus glared ominously at her but couldn’t decide upon an appropriate response. So he took a bite of the bread himself, chewed, swallowed, and took another bite. The food felt good in his belly, which had been rumbling and empty for the past several days. In short order he polished off the rest of the piece, smacking his lips.
“You say lotsa food in Thorbardin,” Berta declared irritably, watching him finish off the last bite. “So far we not find lotsa food. Only little food. But lotsa big, mean dwarves.”
“Yep,” Gus agreed. So far Thorbardin certainly wasn’t as exciting, or bountiful, as he remembered it to be. “Maybe this only bad part of Thorbardin. We go look for big lake. There be cave carp—and Agharhome!”
“Like Agharhome Pax Tharkas?” Berta said, intrigued. At least in a town of gully dwarves they weren’t always getting smacked around by the big dwarves.
“Yep, only bigger. Two times big,” Gus said, remembering the tangled web of sewer tunnels, ruined caves, and steeply sloping lakeshore where he had been born and raised. His family probably still lived there, but he decided that wasn’t reason enough for him to stay away.
“Come!” he said, standing up, feeling the full authority of his highbulp status running through his diminutive stature. “We go find Agharhome!”
Berta was willing enough, so the two gully dwarves made their way carefully down the street, toward the big plaza that seemed to lie in the center of the big city, which they had heard called Norbardin. Fortunately, the street and the plaza were virtually empty, except for a bunch of dead bodies lying around. The Aghar ignored those and made their way to one of the large gates leading out of the city and down toward the Urkhan Sea—the body of water Gus remembered as the Big Lake.
There were some guards at the gatehouse, but they were gambling and talking, not paying much attention to the wide plaza. The gates themselves had been smashed, with no attempt having been made to repair them, so Gus and Berta simply skulked along the edge of the wall, staying low, darting from the cover of one chunk of rock to another. Soon they had passed under the city’s portal and were striding boldly down the long, subterranean road.
After two hours, or two miles, of walking, Gus estimated, they came around a gradual bend, and the whole of the Urkhan Sea spread out before them. Though they were underground, the vast cavern was illuminated, very faintly, by lanterns and fires dotting around the long, winding shoreline: the camps and dwellings of feral Klar, Theiwar hunters, and those few hardy survivors who still lived in the ruined cities that had been ravaged by the forces of Chaos.
Berta gasped audibly at the wondrous sight, and even Gus felt an unfamiliar tug of emotion. It was a majestic vision and, since no one was trying to kill them at the moment, they stopped and gawked for two full minutes. Finally they started walking again, striding along with real bounce in their steps. They heard a party of Daergar warriors coming, tromping boots and clanking armor, and quickly hid in a ditch beside the road. When the soldiers had passed, the two little dwarves resumed their trot toward the shore.
Several stone piers extended into the lake, and a couple of boats were moored there. Crewmen—more Daergar, though not heavily armored like the soldiers—lounged around.
“We not go there!” Berta hissed, grabbing Gus’s arm.
“No, this way,” he said, in complete agreement with her.
The place where the road met the lake was a wide cave mouth, some one hundred feet across and more than thirty feet high. To the right and left, the edge of the tunnel merged into a steep stone slope where the side of the great cavern plunged into the water. The wall of the vast cavern was not a sheer cliff, however. Instead, the lower side of the Urkhan cavern was a sloping grade, a series of ridges separated by equally steep ravines. The footing was precarious but not too treacherous, and Gus confidently led Berta out of the tunnel and onto the steep lakeshore. The ground dropped away to their right and climbed steeply to their left, but they traversed the first ridge, scrambled through the ravine beyond it, and made their way up the next elevated crest.
The Heir of Kayolin Page 20
