Split the Party

by Drew Hayes

  “By the gods . . . someone really doesn’t want people to get past this part, do they?”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think it was enough.” Gabrielle gestured forward, where, after a few seconds of searching, the others saw what she was staring at.

  There, stuck on one of the swinging blades midway down the bridge, was an unmistakable piece of shorn gray cloth. The priest had come this way, and worse, he’d made it past the obstacle, which meant they were going to have to do the same.

  Even if they didn’t have the damnedest idea as to how.

  Chapter 32

  “Are you sure this will work?”

  “‘Sure’? Sure seems like an awfully certain word for what we’re trying here. I’m hopeful, though. That good enough for you?”

  It really wasn’t, but Timuscor didn’t bother telling Talcia that. After all, they had so few options. “Hopeful” would have to do. It was better than certain death, so there was that to be said for their plan, but Timuscor couldn’t help thinking mages were supposed to be a bit more skillful than this. Talcia’s idea had merit, certainly, but it came up completely lacking when checked for grace or subtlety.

  “Okay, as soon as I summon the boars, you take off running,” Talcia instructed. “I’ve enchanted your speed as high as I can, so if we’re really lucky, you’ll be moving too fast to be caught in any of the traps you inevitably spring. Meanwhile, I’m enchanted to weigh as much as a handful of feathers, so I’ll just hang on for the ride.”

  “Explain to me again why we’re murdering a bunch of pigs,” Timuscor demanded.

  “We’re not . . . the pigs aren’t real, okay? They’re just magical shells in the shape of boars, same as with most summoning spells. As soon as they take too much damage, they’ll vanish back into mana. And we’re ‘killing’ them because they’re the advance guard. They run ahead, hopefully setting off most of the traps before you get there, meaning we have a safer journey as tiles reload.”

  Timuscor shrugged his shoulders, a motion which sent Talcia, who was gripping onto them with both hands, tumbling about. “Still seems cruel, but if you insist.”

  “Seeing as neither of these spells last very long, I’m afraid I have to do just that,” Talcia replied. He raised one hand, gesturing in the air as words fell furiously from his mouth. With a snap of his fingers and a hurried motion to grab back onto Timuscor’s shoulders, the spell was done. Seconds later, a sounder of boars erupted from nowhere, appearing just past the line marking the end of the tunnel and the start of the room. They hit the ground running, and it was a good thing they did, as chaos immediately began to burst forth all around them.

  “Go!” Talcia needn’t have bothered with the command; Timuscor was already bolting forward, careful to stay behind the boars without getting too close to them. It was a smart strategy, as their stampede was triggering blasts of fire, flurries of arrows, whipping vines bursting forth from the ground, swords dropping from thin air, and more manners of potential death than Timuscor could even pay attention to. He quickly stopped trying to catalog them and focused on avoiding the multitude of obstacles instead.

  The boars, in what was a shocking turn of events, so far as Timuscor was concerned, were actually proving to be quite helpful. Every trap they sprang stayed in place for at least a few seconds, giving Timuscor time to charge through or around it while the magic reloaded. Additionally, the creatures were cutting such a rapid pace for themselves that few of the deadly explosions or attacks were managing to hit them. By the time they, and soon after, Timuscor, made it halfway across the room, it seemed as though they were going to get to the other side easily.

  That was right about when the boar in the lead on the far left stepped on a tile and was suddenly suspended in a giant glacier of ice which spanned several other tiles and nearly engulfed another boar’s leg. The one who had suffered a near miss swerved to the side, dodging more traps like before, and then vanishing in a cloud of mana as a massive explosion burst forth from under it.

  “What the hell!” Timuscor jumped to the side; he hadn’t even been close to the boar, but the explosion was so large he could feel the heat on his face.

  “I guess whoever made this accounted for the possibility that someone might try to just race through. Seems some of the tiles are meant to be undodgeable.” Talcia sounded remarkably calm, though, if Timuscor had been able to turn his head back and look, he’d have seen the elf was several shades paler than he had been only moments before.

  Another boar suddenly found itself under a veritable waterfall of swords, letting out a single sharp squeal before mercifully dissolving into energy. There were only two left, and unless Timuscor was mistaken, the remaining duo seemed far less enthusiastic than they had when the charge began. On the upside, they were nearly three-quarters of the way through the room. On the downside, at the rate they’d been losing pigs, Timuscor would soon be racing along solo.

  “Do you have a plan or something?” Timuscor yelled, striving to be heard over the swarm of arrows that had appeared in midair and turned another boar back to mana. The lone pig grunted harshly, and then lowered its head and hurtled forward, charging for all it was worth.

  Talcia leaned over, putting his mouth only a few inches from Timuscor’s ear, and screamed to be heard over the explosions roaring behind them. “FUCKING RUN!”

  This plan, at least, Timuscor didn’t need explained to him. Forgetting about staying behind the boar, he pumped his legs, putting every ounce of muscle he could into upping his already magically-augmented speed. There was no more strategy or observation. All that was left was to try and accomplish the impossible: to outrun every fiery, sharp incarnation of death this room could throw at him.

  Timuscor was dimly aware of metal bounding off his armor, heat burning from the side, and something grabbing at his ankle, but he paid none of it any mind. Injuries could be healed, so long as they survived. A moment’s hesitation, a stray thought aside from just running, and everything would be lost. His legs ached and his lungs burned, yet Timuscor dared not slow down. A few feet ahead of him, the final boar sank out of sight as a swamp of thick, dark goo suddenly appeared beneath its hooves. There was still time for Timuscor to dodge it, but doing so would mean sacrificing precious, precious speed that he didn’t have the stamina to regain, not to mention sending him careening around to untested areas. If he’d focused very hard on footwork, he might have successfully redirected his momentum and made it around the swamp.

  But Timuscor never even tried. In truth, it was only afterward, when he was in midair, that the thought would occur to him. For Timuscor, set as he was on going forward at any cost, never slowed down as he neared the swamp of the strange, thick goop. Instead, he ran faster, putting every last bit of strength he had in his legs. When at last he reached the final step before he’d go plunging into that dark liquid, Timuscor leapt for all he was worth.

  It was a valiant effort—powerful strength combined with an earnest heart to propel him further and higher than he’d ever jumped before. That said, Timuscor was still just a man, and a man in heavy metal armor at that. As soon as his feet left the ground, it was apparent he’d fall short. Below him, the dark goop bubbled and shimmered, almost as though it was waiting for him.

  With no time to think—an act that would only have been a hindrance to a man like Timuscor—the knight reached over his shoulder, grabbed Talcia by the wrist, and hurled the elf forward like he was tossing a sack of grain onto a pile. The sorcerer, already a slender man made exceptionally lightweight by his spell, whipped through the air, flying well over the remaining tiles and slamming onto the floor of the tunnel that marked the room’s exit. Timuscor, satisfied that at least one of them had made it, closed his eyes as his descent began, waiting for the sickening splash as he fell into the goop.

  In place of a splash, he was treated to an earsplitting clatter as his armor collided with hard stone. Slowly opening his eyes—first the right, followed by the left—Timuscor looked arou
nd to find that the swamp had vanished. He rose slowly to his feet, waiting for another trap to spring, but none did. Movement came from his left, and Timuscor spun around, hand on the hilt of his sword, only to find the final boar ambling about, hacking up wads of the black goop that vanished when they hit the ground.

  “How in the nine hells did you know someone making it to the exit would deactivate the traps?” Talcia stared at him from the ground where he’d landed, not daring to move lest he accidently turn the room back on.

  “I . . . um . . . lucky guess?” Timuscor finally pulled himself together enough to accept that he wasn’t dead, and that, if he left the tiled floor quickly enough, he might be able to stay that way. On impulse, he whistled for the boar to follow him as he headed for the exit, which the wild pig did, albeit with a healthy amount of snorts and grunting.

  “Damn good guess.” Talcia pulled himself up from the ground as Timuscor and the boar stepped into the tunnel. He considered dismissing his sole remaining summons, but decided against it. Mana spent was mana spent, and they might find a use for it before the spell’s time ran out.

  Timuscor only nodded, then reached down and scratched the boar behind the ears. He was still in something of a shocked state, going from certain death to tentative safety in such a short span of time. Plus, unlike Talcia and his joy, Timuscor was haunted by a worry that was growing louder by the moment.

  When it was time to leave, how on earth were they going to get back through that room?

  * * *

  “Both of you are completely insane, you know that, right? I mean, when we ambushed the bandits in the forest and Grumph volunteered to be the bait, I sort of suspected you might all be a touch off, but this . . . this is a whole new level of madness.”

  “How do you have the strength to talk?” Eric asked, working hard to make his jaw unclench. Every muscle in his body was aching, and they were only halfway through the trek.

  “Fritz has a gift,” Gabrielle grunted. Despite the added weight of her armor, she was actually holding up the best of the lot, having worked so hard on arm and hand strength that her task was, while not easy, certainly within the realm of doable.

  The two adventurers and lone trader hung upside down from the rail-thin stone walkway they’d been meant to pass over. Its leanness, no doubt intended to be an extra difficulty to overcome as one dodged around swinging blades, also made it possible for a determined, somewhat suicidal traveler to wrap their legs around it and pull themselves across from underneath, inching forward a bit at a time.

  It had been Eric’s idea, thrown out more as a joke than a real possibility, but Gabrielle had leapt upon it almost as quickly as she hurled herself onto the walkway and flipped down to its underside. With the priest so close by, there was no chance she was going to let him get away.

  One plus of the method was that it took the swinging blades almost entirely out of the equation. Low as many of them went, none came so far down as to hit the gripping feet or hands, even if it didn’t always feel that way while they shuffled underneath them. Of course, the trade-off was that crossing in such a manner was physically exhausting, even for those in relatively good shape. Before they’d even made it to the halfway point, all three were dripping in sweat from the constant physical exertion. This made keeping a grip tougher, which in turn made it all the harder to move with each passing inch, which tired them out even more in a circle of torture that, had it been the architect’s intention, would have been sheer genius.

  As Gabrielle reached forward, sliding herself along beneath the path of yet another swinging blade, she struggled against the dull ache in her left side. Thistle’s healing had gotten her back on her feet, but it was either going to take several weeks or more magic before the effects of her fall were entirely removed. Pushing herself forward, she ignored the throbbing from her ribs. Blocking out pain was a talent she was quickly cultivating into a skill, one she had suspected would require mastery sooner or later.

  The trio inched along, Fritz following Gabrielle, and Eric in the rear, boxing the elf in just in case she lost her grip. It had sounded noble when Eric suggested the lineup, but as they passed the halfway mark and drew closer to the three-quarter point, Eric was fairly certain all he’d be able to do if Fritz fell was perhaps tilt his head and watch her descent. All the reflexes in Solium couldn’t make up for the fact that it was taking every ounce of his strength just to hang on. Thankfully, Fritz seemed to be having an easier time than he, her lithe body no doubt less burdensome to haul across the chasm. Eric simply focused on the motions he had to make, blocking out the constant noise of the blades swinging overhead and the twinkling of the spear tips in the darkness beneath him. All that existed were his hands and legs, tugging his body forward bit by bit. After a while, he fell into a rhythm, and the strain on his limbs began to grow more bearable.

  In fact, Eric got so lost in his rhythmic movement that he failed to realize Fritz had stopped. It only entered his awareness when he reached forward to grab the beam and instead wrapped his hand around Fritz’s slender leg. She yelped, kicking her leg slightly, and he quickly released the grip. For a moment, both of them hung there, panic trying to loosen their holds on the precious stone beam. Each was ultimately able to gain firm grips once again, and as soon as she had hers, Fritz whipped her head around to face Eric as best she was able.

  “What the hell?”

  “Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts,” Eric admitted. Now that his focus was broken, the weariness in his arms and legs came shooting to the forefront of his mind. He could feel his fingers trying to shake and willed them to stay steady for just a bit longer.

  “Well, cut it out. We can’t afford for anyone’s focus to stray. Not in this place.” Gabrielle, unlike Fritz and Eric, spoke from an upright position, as she’d finished hauling herself onto the platform at the rail’s end. This was why Fritz had stopped, and as Eric glanced at the beautiful, life-sustaining platform, he felt new strength flow to his hands. With salvation in sight, he wouldn’t let his life come to an end here.

  With Gabrielle standing, it only took moments for her to haul Fritz off the beam. Eric quickly followed, alternating between rubbing one hand with the other every few seconds as soon as his grip was allowed to be broken. There was little to see on the new platform; it looked essentially identical to the one they’d stood on across the chasm. All that mattered was the doorway leading into a new section of tunnel, one where they knew the priest had a significant head start on them.

  Wordlessly, Gabrielle drew her axe and motioned for the others to follow. She took off at a jog, hurrying onward toward her quarry. Eric followed quickly, with Fritz bringing up the rear. After a few feet, they took a turn and the room of blades and death was out of sight, as if it had never been there at all.

  The only reminders of their ordeal were their sore limbs and the swooshing sound of swinging blades that followed them down the tunnel’s depths.

  Chapter 33

  After several minutes of walking, Thistle and Grumph once more emerged in a room. This time, however, there was no altar in the center, nor was it full of trapped tiles and swinging blades. Instead, the room was bare, save only for more torches and three other doors. Above each was a single symbol, and as Thistle turned around, he noticed the tunnel they’d emerged from bore a marker as well: a simple drawing of a sun.

  “Ours leads to the surface.” He turned, noting each of the other three symbols as he did. One was of a sword, the second of a shield, and the third of a book. “What do you think, old friend? Challenges, or rewards?”

  “Maybe both.” Grumph stared at the etchings carefully, trying to discern something from their design that might give away what lay at the end of each tunnel. No amount of squinting or head tilting revealed anything of note, however. The drawings were so crude that there was no detail to discern. They simply were what they were: a sword, a shield, and a book.

  “Offense, defense, and magic. Or maybe it’s strength, stamina, and i
ntellect. Perhaps it’s literal in that we’ll simply find a sword, shield, or book at the end of each path.” Thistle frowned; while this no doubt made a fine riddle to confuse those who were treasure-hunting, it didn’t help him, since he had no idea what he was even looking for. The only clue already given was the altar they’d passed, hinting that perhaps this was more than merely a place to store magical weapons.

  “Let’s see here . . . any mage worth their salt would go after the book, wouldn’t you say?”

  Grumph nodded. Books and magic were practically synonymous; whatever lay down that route would certainly appeal more to a spell caster than blades or shields.

  “And almost every warrior puts more stock in their blades than their shield,” Thistle continued, looking at the other symbols etched into the wall. “Even if we expand the interpretation and assume some might look at it and expect to find armor, by and large I’d say the warriors of the world would go after the sword first. Especially if we assume it was adventurers expected to be stumbling upon this place.”

  “Probably was,” Grumph agreed. He could already see where Thistle was going with this, but when the gnome got into a puzzle, it was best to let him work it all the way out.

  “Meaning that the shield is by far the least likely of the three to be chosen by anyone. Or rather, the least likely to be chosen first. And, assuming there are more traps and dangers down each path, the odds of someone getting a second shot wouldn’t be likely.” Thistle turned to face his friend, only to find Grumph staring at him expectantly, clearly waiting for the big reveal. “Right then: so anything these builders might have really wanted to keep hidden would best be stored down the path with the shield on it, which means I think that’s the one we ought to follow.”