by Gary Gygax
Gord turned quickly to look at her. Leda was gesturing to the forms of dead baboons nearby, and the corpses were responding. Before his eyes, about a dozen of the dead apes rose up, blood-smeared, entrails spilling, to form a crescent around the girl, their backs toward her, facing their own, living kind with ready fangs. Indeed, Leda seemed able to care for herself, with some strange and grisly assistance, so Gord took advantage of the moment to go to the aid of the hard-pressed nomad warriors.
"Two can play your game!" Gord shouted to the mute creatures that had momentarily recoiled from the stone spikes and the fury of the young adventurer's blood-drenched blades. He sprang upon the bridge of dead monsters, stabbing and thrusting as he advanced, and fought to the side of the spiky area farthest from Leda. The apelings there sought to recoil from the savagery of their foe, but those behind the ones in front were not quick enough. A severed head flew; another baboon, its arm lopped off, fell writhing on the hard, blood-covered floor of the chamber. Using each weapon-stroke with murderous efficiency, whirling and darting continually, Gord chopped his way through the pack. Now the survivors were moving backward, toward the chamber door, and Gord was able to get clear and join the beleaguered nomads. Another of the men had fallen beside Nizamee, but Achulka and the one called Jahmut were still holding their own.
"Die! Die!" he shouted over and over as the young adventurer fell upon the group of things that were between him and the steppemen. Two of the yellow-maned baboons fell instantly, caught from behind as Gord assaulted them like a whirlwind.
Heartened by this, the two tribesmen still able to fight redoubled their own efforts, calling "Illa-Thuffi! Illa-Thuffi!" as they struck about them with their swords.
Gord cleared a path through the dozen or so apeoids who were clustered to attack the tribesmen. Counting those already killed by the nomads, not half of the creatures were left alive. Hie remainder turned suddenly in panic or fear, bounding and capering to escape from this red-smeared room and the terrible humans who were cutting them down in droves. Gord thought that some spell of Leda's might be at work, helping the panic to wash over these near-mindless little killers, but he didn't spend any time dwelling on the matter. "Cut them down!" he called to the two nomads, and then the young thief leaped after the routing troop of albino monsters, leaving red tracks wherever his blades touched their blond-maned heads or dead-white backs as the things sought to flee.
Both Al Illa-Thuffi warriors joined Gord in the work of slaying the apes as they scrambled to get clear of the chamber and back to the safety of wherever they had come from. Then, from outside the chamber, in the passage where the remainder of the pack was routing through, human voices cursed and shouted.
"Stop! and "Back! Back!" echoed in the arched corridor beyond the doorway. "Kill!" and "Obey!" could be heard as deep-voiced commands directed to the retreating monsters.
The two Thuffi warriors were busy finishing off some wounded apeoids that were thrashing about or attempting to crawl to escape. As the voices shouted their orders to the things beyond, Gord acted to delay a second inrush of the terrible little monsters. Kicking aside a carcass and cleaving one of the braver apes as it tried to re-enter the chamber, the young man grabbed the thick door with his left hand and began to swing it back toward the closed position.
A flying spear grazed his shoulder, for the light coming from inside the room made Gord a distinct target. In the next instant, the swinging door stopped and bounced back slightly, as if it had struck something. As the door rebounded, there was a thud and an audible groan from the empty air — and. amazingly, a crossbow bolt that had been heading directly for Gord abruptly stopped in midair. Scarcely a second later, a heavy billet of wood with protruding spikes came flying through the doorway and struck Gord's chest.
The spear wound was only a trifle, and the hurled aklys, as the spiked club was called, did little more than bruise Gord, for the mesh of elfin armor beneath his robe warded off the piercing iron hooks and points. But the metal projections of the aklys caught on the heavy cloth of Gord's burnous, and the one outside the chamber who had thrown the weapon hauled hard on the leather thong attached to the club's handle. Gord was jerked from his feet and toppled headlong toward the stone floor. Before he struck the rough granite, however, something only scarcely softer broke his fall.
Fortunately, Gord's comrades were right behind him as all this occurred. Achulka grabbed Gord's feet and hauled him out of the doorway and back into the room, just as Leda got behind the half-closed portal and shoved with all her strength against its thick planks. The door banged closed, and an instant later Leda dropped its bar down. In the interim, several more spears and a half-dozen quarrels had been discharged into the room, but none had scored a hit. More missiles could be heard thudding into the planks of the great door even as the dark elf shut it fast.
The invisible mass that had held Gord away from contact with the floor had been dragged into the chamber along with the thief. Grateful for this invisible cushion but unnerved by the whole affair at the same time, Gord hurriedly hoisted himself to his feet. The young adventurer bent down and prodded the seemingly empty air with his sword point. The weapon encountered a solid… something. Leda knelt beside the area and felt around, her hands moving swiftly over the unseeable thing they touched. A moment later she held a strange ring in her fingers and a very visible dead body was lying face down at her feet.
"Invisibility ring," she said to Gord and the nomads as she put the loop of dull metal into her sash. "He is a strange-looking sort," she added, gazing down at the form.
The corpse was that of a thin, pygmylike albino, a human who closely resembled the yellow-maned baboons that had attacked them. "He was slain by that little bolt," Gord observed, noticing the object that was protruding from the corpse's upper back. "The flesh is black around the shaft… poison?"
"Yes," Leda answered. "Are either of you wounded?" she then asked, turning to the nomads.
"Not heavily, and not from such missiles," Achulka replied, "although I fear that the apes have done for our brothers. Perhaps we were too hasty in removing the Arroden charms…"
Leda interrupted. "Gord, see what you can do about blocking the door," she said. "Those beyond are sure to try to force it, magically or physically. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can do for our friends."
As Leda turned to her spell-work, Gord did what he could. First, he took the spear that had been cast into the room and jammed the point into the door so that it kept the bar held down in a locking position. Then the young adventurer began to toss the bodies of the dead baboons into a mound that further blocked the portal. By the time he had made a pile as high as his chest and was dragging the last of the lifeless creatures over to finish the task, Leda had completed her ministrations and come to his side.
"Nizamee is finished," she whispered to the young man. "Those filthy apelings did for him. The other three will be fine in a few days, even though I hadn't sufficient power to heal them fully. I knew that you'd also need some of my magic, Gord, for you are a mess of wounds. Now hold still, and I'll do what I can to cure the worst of them."
After a few seconds spent murmuring and gesturing, the dark elven girl began to touch Gord here and there, each probe on a painful area, each making him want to wince and draw away. His pride kept him motionless and silent. Then her touch seemed to grow lighter and cooler, and was no longer painful. "You're doing it, girl," he said.
"I've done it man!" she said with a tired swipe at her blood-smeared forehead.
The three nomads were on their feet and cleaning their swords. As Leda sat down on the floor next to Gord to rest, fatigue showing plainly on her lovely face, Achulka walked over to where the two were. "We will be ready to fight again in a little while. Farzeel. We owe you and your warrior-woman our lives. We will fight with you to the death for that, but…"
"But?" Gord said with puzzlement.
"But if we manage to live and get clear of this place," the nomad said solemnly, "we will
go no farther into the Ashen Desert. Two of our brothers have fought their last because of this place, desert and ruin. We will take our chances and go back alone if need be — or with you two, if you are wise. It is not the way to repay a debt of life, Farzeel, but neither is dying uselessly a measure of manhood."
Before Gord could speak, Leda answered the warrior's pronouncement. "We are held fast within this place, Thuffi. Let us deal with the matter at hand before worrying about going north or south above. Such talk is so much wind until our enemies outside the door are dead."
Achulka smiled grimly at that, hefting his tulwar. "We will do that, dark warrior-lady. Never fear."
"We can remain bottled up in this chamber for a long time, Leda," Gord said to bring things back to the reality of the situation, "and we can die quietly in doing so. I also think that talk is foolish, and so is this hiding. Our foes can regroup and gather reinforcements if given enough time. That enables them to come at us when they are ready. Instead, let's prepare to attack them now, and fight the battle on our terms."
Everyone was quiet for a moment, and in the interval the clank of weapon on stone and the shuffling of feet could be heard outside the barricaded doorway. "You make good sense, Gord," Leda said. "I will do what I can, although I have little left In the way of spells. Once I am done with the priestess-craft, I will take up poor Nizamee's sword and do the best I can to fight by your sides."
The nomad warriors struck their breasts at Leda's words, a signal honor. Gord too was bolstered by what the little elven girl had said. "Be ready then, my dearest lady, to lay on with spell and weapon," he told her. "We four will clear the door and attack when you give the word."
In a couple of minutes, the four men had quietly unstacked the mound of corpses that Gord had piled up. Then all five of the comrades gathered at a spot away from the door, so they could not be overheard, and Leda explained her strategy.
"Jahmut and Gord will open the door," she said. "Do not look out right away when he pulls open the portal, for I will cast a spell there to disorient the enemy. When I shout, then you will be able to look, and the passage will be lighted. You other two, loose arrows as quickly as you can, and then all charge to the foe with your blades." Gord had no bow, but he-could use the spear that had been thrown into the chamber, and he would throw that as he rushed to close quarters with the apelings and their masters who awaited outside.
Jahmut stepped to the door and put his hands on the heavy iron ring that hung stapled to the planks. Gord lifted the bar, softly, placing it firmly in its upright position and securing it with another little bar that kept it from falling and accidentally locking the portal — a precaution made by the ancient keepers of this stronghold centuries ago. The other two Thuffi warriors were crouched a few feet away behind a wall of baboon bodies, their bows ready. Gord looked at Jahmut and nodded. As the nomad pulled on the door ring, Gord jumped back to be shielded by the door jamb. Leda was prepared, too; as the heavy construction of planks came open, she uttered an incantation and cast her spell.
A chorus of shrieks and cries sounded as the light created by Leda's casting blossomed forth and made the passageway bright. There were perhaps a dozen of the white pygmies and twice as many of the yellow-maned, albino apes there, caught unprepared by the sudden assault. Leda gave a shout, and Gord stayed out of the opening as the nomad warriors sent a pair of shafts into the turmoil beyond. As soon as he heard the clatter of their discarded bows, though, he jumped into the doorway, aimed rapidly, and hurled the small spear with all his strength. Jahmut was there beside him, tulwar in hand, and the two rushed into the enemy. The pygmies and apes were still in disarray, milling about as they tried in vain to keep from being hindered by the globe of bright light that floated near the ceiling of the corridor. Their eyes, accustomed to darkness, bulged and ached as they were exposed to more illumination than they could stand.
Gord was quickly separated from Jahmut by the press of enemy bodies, but he didn't mind. He was too busy laying about with sword and dagger to notice anything but his targets. For fully two minutes he fought alone; then Leda was beside him, holding the tulwar that had belonged to Nizamee. "Beware,
Gord!" she shouted to him, pointing ahead of where they stood. That one there is a spell — caster!"
Her warning came just in time. Gord saw that one of the pygmies was making passes in the air. As the little man called out the last of his incantation and thrust out his hands toward the young adventurer, Gord leaped up and ahead in a vaulting jump. For an instant while he was in the air, he felt as if all the muscles in his body were stiffening. But then the feeling passed as quickly as it had come, and he landed in front of the startled little dweomercraefter and wounded him before the pale midget knew what happened.
Now it was Gord's turn to be surprised. A small fighter nearby stabbed at the young thief, forcing him to dodge and parry instead of quickly finishing off the spell-worker. Simultaneously another, lesser spell-crafter finished a work of his own, and Leda's magical illumination suddenly vanished. In the confusion and darkness, the chief dweomercraefter of the pygmy warband expected to slip away from his attacker, not reckoning with Gord's exceptional visual capacity.
With his long dagger, Gord fended off the curved-bladed pole arm the fighter had thrust at him, knocking the weapon's hooked portion aside so that it struck one of the baboons that was moving to assist in the fight. As the warrior tried to clear his weapon, and the dark suddenly engulfed the combatants, Gord kept his eye on the wounded spellbinder. The little fellow turned away and ran down the corridor and around a corner to be clear of the melee. When he got a fair distance down this escape passage he turned, bent on summoning some new mischief. The pale pygmy's eyes, already huge, nearly started from his head as he saw the supposedly night-blind human figure bounding after him, dodging from side to side as he advanced with sword and dagger at the ready. Behind Gord came a small crowd of apes and pygmies, not chasing him so much as they were escaping from the swords of his companions.
"You cursed oaf!" the gray-clad midget shouted, gesturing and muttering furiously. A fat, crackling streak of violet-blue electricity issued from the little man's hands and came close to striking Gord full in the chest. The young thief threw himself to the side as the sizzling bolt was released, and the full force of it missed him, but the stroke was still close enough and strong enough to burn him and knock him flat. The lightning continued down the corridor and played among the caster's own fellows, dropping several of them in their tracks. Then it hit the wall where the passageway turned, and it came sizzling straight back along the corridor it had just traversed.
From where he lay, dazed and nauseated from the shock of the bolt's passage, Gord saw the bolt blazing back in the direction from which it had come. An instant later he heard a loud sizzling sound, immediately drowned out by a shrill scream, and the pygmy keeled over, dead from his own electrical attack. Gord managed to climb to his feet and stumble back through the passageway, stepping over the dead bodies, getting back to where Leda was swinging away furiously with a sword that was really too large for her to handle. The nomads had been blind since the moment Leda's globe of light was extinguished. She had shouted for them to stay behind her and was singlehandedly keeping off five or six of the pale little fighters and their yellow-maned baboons. When Gord began hewing them from behind, they fell like wheat before a scythe. At this point, the survivors scrambled and got away as fast as they could. The battle was over.
While the men of Thuffi regained their rushcandle from within the treasure chamber and sought for stragglers to dispose of, Gord and Leda followed the signs left by the fleeing band of underground dwellers. Only a handful had managed to escape, but they left a trail that was easy to follow, for several bore wounds that still bled. It led the two down the spiral steps to the old well room and disappeared through the hole that led to the pool beyond.
"I feared it," Leda said to Gord. "They must use this place, but from some other access point. W
hen we bathed and made love here earlier, we were seen or heard. Those baboons probably have noses keen enough to follow scent."
"Yes and no, love," Gord replied. "You are right about our being detected, I think, but not about the apelings. They don't have noses that good — don't forget I handled a lot of dead ones, and I got a good look at them. They followed us by looking at the signs in the dust. I think those so-called baboons are nothing more than the same species as the pygmy men, degenerated perhaps, or bred to serve as hounds."
Leda didn't believe him until she too had examined several corpses after they returned to the treasure room. "Devildirt, Gord! These things are men!" she exclaimed with revulsion in her voice.
"Not men, actually," Gord said. "Pygmy spawn, albinoid descendants of once-humans who have probably dwelled underground for a hundred generations. It isn't surprising, though. Slavery is just a step away from deliberate breeding for desired characteristics, degenerate or otherwise. I have seen the losels that the vile Iuz breeds, too — a disgusting thing to do to human, humanoid, or ape!"
At the mention of the cambion's name, Leda's face became a mask of hatred. "I hate that gross pig!" she said. "Somewhere, somehow, one named Iuz has harmed me or someone close to me. I would kill him very slowly if I had that lump of dog dung in my hand!"
"Perhaps you would… if you could," Gord said laconically. "Still, I am interested to note that his name evokes such a response in you, girl. What other memories now return?"
Leda looked at him blankly. "None, other than disgust and hatred for that despicable dog. Let us speak of something else."
"Yes," interjected Achulka. "It is time for us to talk of returning to the mountains. My brothers and I have gathered all the wealth we can hope to carry, and when we are rested we will set forth. Come north with us, Farzeel and Leda-Warrior-Woman!"
"We have been over this before, Achulka," Gord said. "Leda and I have a… a… vow which must be kept. But if you wish to begin acting like old-"
