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by Vivian Vande Velde

  16. THE SHADOW CAVES

  The caves were only a few miles' journey from the clearing. The entrance dipped into the ground, looking less like a hill than a big bump.

  "It looks like a burial mound," I said.

  Everyone glared in my direction.

  Disconcertingly near, a wolf howled.

  Wolstan nearly jumped out of his skin.

  Cornelius said something that sounded like "Turgid hostage FORTRAN," and a little ball of light appeared in his cupped hand.

  "Ah! Tinkerbell!" I said.

  With a condescending smile, Cornelius motioned for me to take the lead, since it was still my turn.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness. Behind me, muffled by the stone walls, once again came the eerie cry of the wolf.

  Cornelius and his horse crowded in behind me. The light he held let us see about as far ahead as you might at night with a car's high-beam headlights, except it was a circle of light, not a beam, so we could see the sides and behind too.

  The cave dipped sharply downward and widened. Cornelius moved in next to me, and we started walking right away, leading our horses behind us to make room for the rest of the group. Above the clatter the horses' hooves made on the stone floor, I called back to Wolstan, "Who carved this out? Ores?" for the passage obviously hadn't been chipped out by nature.

  "Dwarfs," he answered. "Mining for copper. Some of the smaller tunnels interconnect, some are dead ends, some are filled with water. Once the dwarfs moved out, the orcsmoved in."

  It was a natural orc habitat: dark, damp, smelling of mildew and worms. They'd love the mazelike construction of the place, too, which would make it impossible ever to ferret them out.

  We passed countless offshoots, smaller tunnels that branched away into darkness. The main tunnel dipped, curved, climbed repeatedly. Sometimes it would open up into a huge cavern, though mostly the ceiling was too low for us to ride horseback. Once we skirted an underground pool. Its black surface reflected back Cornelius's light, showing nothing of what was underneath. Ripples gently lapped the stone basin, though there was no breeze. When we spoke, our voices echoed back in sinister whispers. Our road was smooth, constructed that way by dwarfs with wheelbarrows full of copper, or worn by the feet of countless travelers.

  And all the while we watched and listened, alert for ores.

  I was used to a game moving faster. "You have entered the Shadow Caves," a dungeon master might say. "After walking for two hours, you come to a door." Or, "Several furlongs later, you hear the rattle of loose pebbles from a corridor off to your right." Instead, I was in a constant state of expectancy, the surging of my own adrenaline wearing me out, the tense waiting dulling my warrior's edge. Already I knew that if orcsattacked now, I wouldn't be able to fight them off as well as I could have an hour ago. But the alternative was to give in to boredom, to deaden the instinct to strain my senses outward, to depend on the others to catch any telltale clue that we were being followed or were approaching danger.

  Something skittered in the tunnel behind us. We all whirled around, flashing swords, daggers, bows: ready to battle for our survival.

  It was only a red-eyed rat, its sharp claws clicking on the stone path before it disappeared into a crack in the wall.

  Cornelius released a breath. "How about we break for supper?" he suggested.

  I didn't point out that his timing was disgusting. Instead I said, "Sounds good to me." I stretched, trying to work the beginnings of stiffness from my muscles.

  Cornelius went to unload Phoenix, while Robin watched the rear. It was Thea's turn to be up front; and as for Mom, she just sat down where she was, looking exhausted.

  "How about you, Wolstan?" I asked. Nobody was talking to the poor guy. That was a situation I would have hated, but I was never good at small talk. "You hungry?"

  He shook his head. He had a way of always avoiding people's eyes. "My brothers and I, we'd just eaten. You know. Before."

  There I went, trying to be helpful, dragging up painful memories. I sniffed at an unpleasant odor. "Lucky," I told him. Then, to Cornelius: "What is that?"

  "Smells rancid," Thea said. "Something go bad?"

  Cornelius sniffed at the various containers of food and shook his head.

  Robin called up, "I don't smell anything."

  "Good," Thea said. "You can eat first and we'll watch to see how sick you get." She swept her scabbard to one side and sat down, still facing outward. Resting her chin on her knee, she buried her nose into the crook of her arm.

  I approached Cornelius. "What have you got?"

  "Smoked mutton." He held out the strip of oiled leather in which the meat had been wrapped.

  "Yeah?" Thea said. "How long's it been dead?"

  The pieces of meat looked hard and dry and salty, but when I sniffed them, they smelled more smoky than anything else.

  "Stop making such a fuss," Robin called from his position. "Next time, take your vacation at the Hyatt Regency."

  "Hmph." Thea pulled the scabbard onto her lap and began to polish the pommel of her troll-acquired sword with her sleeve.

  She wasn't making a fuss though. The smell wasn't so bad back where Robin was, but up by Cornelius and the packhorse it was foul. And beyond him ... it was even worse. I sniffed like a bloodhound following a track, approaching Thea.

  She'd unsheathed her sword to polish the blade. Just as I reached her, she swung the sword at me.

  I yelped, falling backward.

  "Harek!" she cried.

  "What?"

  Again she shoved the sword in the direction of my face, but now I realized she wasn't trying to give me a nose job; she was trying to have me look at the sword.

  It was glowing, and the words etched in its surface, ORC SLAYER, appeared to be written in red.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  Then I sniffed the sword, to see if the awful smell came from it.

  Nothing.

  I sniffed beyond Thea, where the tunnel stretched before us.

  No.

  I tipped my face up. Directly above, about seven feet off the floor, was a hole—a huge hole: another tunnel high up. And from the darkness within, a stench as bad as the time I'd opened my locker the first day of school and found a salami sandwich someone had left from the previous year.

  And glowing amber eyes, which blinked in recognition of having been discovered.

  "Orcs!" I screamed.

  Three of the creatures leapt out. I threw myself to the side to keep them from falling on me. At the same time I scrambled to get my sword out of its sheath, calling myself an idiot for having left the crossbow hooked to my saddle.

  I only had my sword maybe a quarter of the way out when something slammed into my chest. I saw the glint of a dagger hilt, and remember thinking, Aw nuts. Just when things are getting exciting, I have to go and get myself stabbed to death by an orc. A half second later, the ore's momentum hurtled us both to the ground. Concussion on top of everything else, I thought. And here was this stupid orc who didn't even realize he'd already killed me, with his greasy little hands around my neck, trying to strangle me.

  I was vaguely aware that the other two orcshad missed entirely and landed face first on the floor, but that was small consolation for being dead.

  On the other hand, like a snake that's too dumb to know it's dead, my body could still move. And come to think of it, the pain in my chest wasn't actually that much worse than getting hit by my cousin Tom's fastball, something he manages to accomplish just about every family reunion picnic.

  The orc had my right arm pinned across my chest, since I'd been reaching for my sword, but I was able to slam the heel of my left hand into the creature's face. Then, since I hadn't quite died yet, I forced him farther back with my left forearm against his throat. That finally gave me enough room to tug my sword out of its sheath, and without stopping to think, I simultaneously shoved it into him and rolled him off. His dagger was still in my chest, and it only seemed reasonable
to pull it out. Only then did I realize that just the tip had penetrated my thick leather breastplate. The pain was from the force of the blow and the fact that the blade was iron. Apparently I wasn't dead after all.

  Which was a relief no matter how you look at it.

  Orcs were still dropping out of the upper tunnel. They were about human shaped, though short and stocky and hairy in all the wrong places. And they had pointy yellow teeth. There were a couple dozen out already, and more crowding the hole. I killed two of them before I got a chance to take a breath, to look around and see how the others were doing.

  Thea was swinging her sword, which now glowed as bright as Cornelius's magical light. Good thing, for Cornelius had had to drop that spell to use his Wizards' Lightning. Mom looked like she was just barely holding on, but Wolstan was by her side, and you could tell he was an old pro at this. Robin was using his sword too, although thieves prefer bows or slingshots. This was too close-quarters for that.

  An orc swung a broadsword at my head. I ducked and his blade swept off the head of another orc who'd been coming up behind me. Like I said, orcs aren't too bright. I stabbed the first one, even though I did probably owe him my life. "It's just a game," I murmured.

  "Back off!" Cornelius yelled to me and Thea.

  We were badly positioned: Cornelius didn't dare use Wizards' Lightning on the remaining orcs for fear of hitting us.

  We slashed our way to his side, whereupon he raised his hands and shouted something like "Piccadilly Circus!"

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a huge fireball appeared, which spun down the corridor like a giant lethal bowling ball.

  There were yowls and the smell of charred flesh, but meanwhile the way toward Sannatia was blocked, and we had to back up the way we'd come.

  "The horses," Mom said, grabbing at Phoenix's bridle. "Our supplies."

  "Leave them." With one hand I dragged on her arm, with the other fought off another orc. From the new direction we were heading came the sound of running footsteps: more orcscoming from the rear, surrounding us.

  She let go of the bridle and came.

  "This way." Thea sprinted down one of the side tunnels.

  "What if that's a dead end?" Robin asked.

  "That's the dead end," Thea said, indicating the direction from which the orcs were coming.

  A short way later, the tunnel forked.

  "Which way?" Thea asked Wolstan.

  "Who knows?" Wolstan indicated Mom. "She doesn't look like she's going to make it much farther whichever way we go."

  It was true, but I hated him for saying it.

  Thea chose left.

  At first the path dipped down, then it curved to the right. We passed one secondary passage, turned right at the next.

  And still every time we stopped for a breath the orcs' footsteps echoed hollowly behind us.

  "They can see the light from your sword," Cornelius told Thea.

  "Cannot," she said. "We're too far ahead."

  "Orcs can see real good in the dark," Wolstan said. He gave a shudder. "I hate orcs."

  We found another tunnel to the left. Took that. Bypassed two more to the left and one to the right, took the third one that opened to the left.

  "Slow down," I said. "She can't keep up." By "she" I meant Mom.

  "Here." Wolstan hooked his sword onto his belt. "I'll carry her."

  "You will not," Mom said, but Wolstan grabbed her and flung her over his shoulder.

  "Anybody keeping track of how we've come?" he asked.

  "Ahmm," we all said.

  And still the footsteps trailed us.

  "It's your miserable sword," Cornelius told Thea.

  "You've wanted this sword all along," Thea said. "And if you can't have it, you don't want anybody else to have it."

  "The sword can sense the orcs," Cornelius said, "which is why it glows. The orcs can sense the sword, which is why they can follow us."

  "I think he may be right," I said.

  "My other sword's with the horses," Thea said angrily. "And Without this, we'll be totally in the dark. And—and..." She gave a cry of disgust and flung the sword down the tunnel away from her.

  For a short while, the faint glow from behind us lit the walls. But then we were in the dark.

  17. IN THE DARK

  "I'll bet, Cornelius," said Mom, still slung over Wolstan's shoulder, "that you can't make another light for us until tomorrow."

  "Ahm," our wizard said, "no. Sorry."

  "Then, Wolstan, I really appreciate your carrying me, but could you please set me down before you accidentally walk into a wall, or before I throw up?"

  I could hear the faint scuffling of her shoes as Wolstan set her upright, but I could see absolutely nothing. And elves have better night vision than humans.

  Cornelius said, "I do, however, have an idea." He started muttering, and the nonsense words were vaguely familiar. His Illusion spell, I realized.

  There came just the faintest hint of light.

  Take that back.

  To use the word light at all would be an exaggeration. But suddenly I could make out patterns: black designs on black background. "Oh, very nice," I told him. "What's that supposed to be?"

  "It's a torch." Cornelius sounded hurt that I'd had to ask.

  "Why's it so dim?"

  "Because, Harek," he explained too patiently for it to be patience, "it's not a real torch. It's just the illusion of a torch."

  "Give your eyes a moment to adjust," Thea advised.

  It got a little better. A little.

  "We better hold hands," Robin said. "So nobody gets lost."

  "Lost?" I said. "At this rate we could all fall into a chasm and not know it till we hit bottom."

  "There haven't been any chasms so far," Thea said.

  "So far," I pointed out, "we were in the main tunnel."

  Slowly we made our way forward, bumping into walls and each other, stepping on people's feet.

  At last the company began to unwind, to feel proud of themselves. "Did you see that big one?" Thea asked. "The one with the bear-head helmet? Did you see how long he twitched after I cut his head off?"

  "Yeah," Robin said. "And how about the one I got with his own pike?"

  "Did you smell them fry?" Cornelius asked.

  And on and on. Wolstan didn't say much. He occasionally muttered, "I hate orcs," but that was about it. Mom didn't say anything at all. Neither did I. They were only orcs, I told myself. It wasn't like they were people. It wasn't like they were real. But I just couldn't get up any enthusiasm. Nobody seemed to notice.

  After what seemed like a couple days, the passage narrowed and we had to readjust ourselves single file. Cornelius ended up in the lead, with me right behind. At that point, we were going downward.

  "Corny, we're never going to find our way out of here," I muttered.

  "Don't call me Corny," he snarled.

  Mom squeezed my shoulder and I patted her hand.

  We found another passage, but it smelled so damp and nasty, we bypassed it. We took the next one, though it was just as bad.

  Suddenly Cornelius took a step backward, coming down hard on my foot. Mom slammed into my back. I could feel Thea walk into her, Wolstan into her, and Robin into him.

  "Now what?" I asked.

  "Water."

  I peered around him into the dark. Ahead our path was blocked by a body of water several yards long. Beyond that, the tunnel widened and slanted upward. But of course there was no way to judge how deep the water was, nor even, for that matter, if it was plain, harmless water.

  Cornelius picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. "Doesn't sound deep," he said.

  "What does deep water sound like?" Wolstan asked.

  Cornelius hiked his robe up over his knees and stepped in. He took another step. Another. The water was up about midcalf. "Cold," he said, still moving forward cautiously. "Bottom's slippery." Almost halfway across, he pitched forward.

  "Cornelius
!" Thea cried.

  "It's all right. It's all right," he assured us. The torch had fallen into the pool, but since it was only the image of a torch, the water hadn't extinguished it. Cornelius picked it up, but didn't stand right away. "Something's here." He felt around in the water.

  "Something alive?" I asked.

  Cornelius held up a metal box, about the size of a shoe box.

  "Oooo, treasure," we all said. Except for Mom, who was sitting on the ground and didn't seem to care about anything. And Wolstan, who was only a nonplayer character and had his own reasons for whatever he did.

  Cornelius waded the rest of the way across the pool. "Seems safe to me," he called back.

  We assumed that if nothing had grabbed him, nothing would grab us and made it safely across, joining him on the other side.

  "Should we open it?" Robin asked, eyeing the box.

  "Sure," Cornelius said. "Why not?"

  "Because we've got orcs breathing down our necks," Wolstan said.

  "We've got a moment or two." Robin looked at Mom. "Care to try the lock? That's one of a thief's specialties."

  "Go ahead," she told him.

  Robin fiddled with the mechanism and the lid sprang open.

  "Oooo," we all said again. Except Mom and Wolstan. Even in the terrible light, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and assorted other goodies glittered brightly.

  Cornelius closed the lid before we were ready to stop ogling. "I'll hold this until we have a chance to divide it properly," he told us, and tucked the box under his arm.

  Robin glanced at me with raised eyebrows but didn't say anything.

  18. LOST

  In theory we wanted to head upward. But it was impossible to guess from the direction a tunnel started where it would go. Up, down, around, dead ends. More and more frequently we stopped to rest, worn out by anxiety and frustration. There was no way to judge how far we'd gone, how long we'd been at it.

  "How are you doing?" I asked Mom during one of our stops. Wolstan had been carrying her again, and she was no longer complaining.