“Any sign of the creature?” Tol asked, keeping his voice low as well.
“None.” Narren wrinkled his sunburned nose. “Stinks like a slaughterhouse in there.”
Tol grimaced at the too-apt description. “I notified Egrin. He’ll join us when he can, but I want to have a look myself now. Mandes, come with me.”
Kiya also followed him, as did a reluctant Miya. Tol told them to remain in camp, as this was only a scouting expedition.
“No, I am with you,” Kiya said stubbornly.
“And I am with Sister,” added Miya. “Though I wish she’d stay here!”
He ordered them to go back, but Kiya said flatly, “I’m not one of your warriors. I’m your wife, and I don’t take orders.”
Mandes chuckled. Tol glared at him, then hissed at Kiya, “All right! But please keep quiet!”
It was a foolish injunction, and he knew it. Having grown up in the Great Green, the Dom-shu were far stealthier than Tol or the city-bred sorcerer. They moved along silently as wraiths in the gathering night, while Mandes dislodged loose stones with every step.
At last they were crouching at the entrance to the cave. Sixteen paces wide and half as high, it was amply sized to admit the monster, and Narren had been right about the stench. Warm air emanating from the cave smelled worse than a charnel house. Mandes audibly gagged. Tol had to swallow repeatedly to keep from doing likewise.
Digging through his supplies, Mandes brought out a wooden tube of ointment. He put a drop of the oily stuff on their forefingers and bade them smear it under their noses. The sickening reek faded, replaced by a faint aroma of roses. Mandes explained the effect was only temporary.
The ledge at the mouth of the cave was a single slab of brown granite. Overhead, Luin had risen high enough to cast its reddish light into the opening. Tol could tell the cave had been gouged out of the living rock by force, most likely by XimXim himself.
At Tol’s request, Mandes cupped his left hand, and an orange-white orb materialized, throwing off a soft glow. Tol and Kiya started in, he drawing his sword and she nocking an arrow in her bow. Mandes walked between them, lighting the way. Bringing up the rear and glancing constantly over her shoulder, Miya also carried her sword.
The tunnel plunged straight into the mountain, slanting downward at a fairly steep angle. Heaps of stinking refuse lined the walls-bones of various victims with scraps of flesh drying on them, along with dozens of XimXim’s cast-off spikes, which had a musty reek all their own. Normal subterranean life was absent. No bugs scuttled away from their light; no bats clung in furry clusters from the cave roof.
Two dozen steps inside the cave, the muggy air gave way to a much warmer current, rising slowly from the depths of the tunnel. The passage continued straight as an arrow, with no end in sight.
“Let’s go back!” Miya said. Her whisper sounded booming in the stone-walled cave.
“Yes,” Kiya agreed. “There’s nothing to see.”
Tol wasn’t satisfied, and asked Mandes if he could throw the light farther down the tunnel.
“I can send it as far as I can see it,” replied the wizard.
He mumbled a brief incantation, and the little orb flew out of his hand. It sailed down the center of the passage, on and on, growing ever smaller with each passing heartbeat. Tol was astonished by the length of the tunnel.
Miya, still rearmost, suddenly cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”
“What? The monster?”
“No! More like… horns.”
That jolted Tol. Narren wouldn’t sound horns unless there was a grave emergency.
“Go back!” he shouted, shoving Mandes and Kiya around. “XimXim must be coming!”
It was hard going back up the slope. Mandes’s soft slippers lost purchase, and he fell repeatedly. The Dom-shu sisters finally grabbed him by the arms and dragged him along.
The journey seemed to take forever, but finally Tol was close enough to the cave mouth to see the stars beyond. Unfortunately, he also heard the dreaded sound-zimm-zimm-zimm. The creature flew past, blotting out the sky for an instant, and Tol’s heart spasmed in terror. If XimXim entered the cave now, they’d be trapped, with no hope of escape or place to hide.
Below the cave entrance, Tol’s men realized the same thing. Egrin had arrived with his company, and it was as he listened to Narren’s explanation of their commander’s personal reconnaissance that the dreaded hum filled the night air. Egrin immediately ordered all signal horns blown, though there was no way to know whether Tol could hear them.
Hoping to draw XimXim’s attention away from the cave, Egrin called forward the soldiers in each company who carried clay urns of live embers. In camp each night, the embers were revived for cookfires. Egrin ordered them thrown on a bed of dry leaves. The brisk wind fanned the glowing coals, and a lively fire erupted as XimXim’s hum grew louder.
Overhead, the monstrous creature spied the leaping flames so close to his lair. His large but primitive eyes made out warm-blooded figures moving in the darkness around the fire. He landed in a dry streambed upwind of the fire, and then, rearing up, front legs cocked and ready to strike, he advanced toward the flames.
A shower of spears arced out of the darkness. Reflexively, XimXim halted as they whizzed by. His slender legs were difficult to hit, but several iron-tipped missiles struck his thorax. They bounced harmlessly off his armored hide.
Palps clacking, XimXim strode rapidly into the shadows beyond the bonfire. He could see the dull white faces of his” enemies. Powerful forearms lashed out, scattering the humans. Raking backward with his right leg, he caught one man and hoisted him high. He tried to cut his captive in two, but the man’s iron breastplate resisted. The man screamed and struck at him with a sword. More men rushed out of the darkness, shouting.
XimXim watched, curious, as they swarmed around him. Humans did not usually rush toward him; they ran away. One of the odd humans thrust a spear into the tender joint of his left middle leg, bringing forth a stream of green ichor.
Furious with sudden pain, XimXim snipped the head off his captive human and dropped the limp body. He gathered his legs together and leaped six paces. Humans scattered as he landed hard among them, his narrow feet driving into the stony soil. Since their torsos were protected by iron, he proceeded to cut the humans down at the legs, which were not armored.
Crouching by a boulder, Narren wiped blood from his eyes. “That thing must be made of metal!” he cried. “Swords and spears don’t hurt it!”
“I hurt it,” Egrin replied, showing the younger man XimXim’s green blood on his spear. “It doesn’t have many soft spots, but it has some!”
The fire, ignored by the battling Ergothians, spread quickly from the masses of fallen leaves and licked at the abundant dry tinder. It filled the ravine with crimson light and grotesquely wavering shadows. Men screamed as the monster found them. Others roared defiance and tried to muster their comrades. Eight men of Egrin’s company climbed a tall outcropping that put them level with XimXim’s massive, angular head. They tried to spear the beast’s huge eyes, but it deftly parried their weapons with its massive forearms.
Bringing both arms together like interlocking scythes, XimXim mowed down every soldier on the outcropping. It seized the last one alive and bit off his head. Flinging the torso at the men below, it climbed the rock to gain a height advantage.
Egrin, noting the creature’s movements, shouted, “The beast shows his back! At him now!”
He, Narren, and eleven men rushed from cover. Two grabbed XimXim’s right rear leg, just as he was about to lift it off the ground. Weighed down, the monster swiveled its head to see what held him. While he was so engaged, Egrin ducked under the tree-sized limb and drove a spear into his lower joint.
XimXim shivered from one end to the other. His injured leg kicked out with enormous force, hurling free the men hanging on it. Reversing his stance, he butted four of the creatures who’d caused him such pain. They went down, and XimXim tri
ed to bite the man closest to him. The fellow’s iron cuirass saved him for the moment, but XimXim kept biting at the hard metal plate.
“Egrin! Egrin!” Narren cried, seeing the older warrior pinned down by the monster. He scrambled to his feet. “Juramona!” he shouted, and attacked with his saber.
With one terrific slash, Narren chopped off the end of XimXim’s drooping right antenna. The monster gave a high-pitched shriek of pain and fury. Back came the terrible forearm, snapping like a spring. The blow caught Narren on his breastplate and slammed him against a sharp-edged boulder. His helmet flew off, and he slid to the ground. Blood welled from a terrible head wound, drenching his fair hair. He did not get up again.
Egrin rolled away from the angry monster. He heard death whisper by, as XimXim’s left forearm drove into the dirt, just missing him. With his antenna damaged, the creature’s aim seemed to be off.
“Get back! Fall back!” Egrin bellowed.
The Ergothians were only too happy to oblige. In the brief melee XimXim had killed twenty and wounded twice that many more. As the soldiers took cover in the scrub forest, several flung dirt over the burning brush, extinguishing the fire they had started.
Showing a distinct distaste for continuing the fight, XimXim clambered up a short pinnacle. His wounded leg stuck out behind him, trembling. Green blood stained the boulders, mixing with the red shed by the Ergothians. He opened his wings and took off, flying directly to his lair. When he had rested and was sound again, he would sally forth and destroy these reckless little pests, not only in his immediate domain, but everywhere he encountered them.
As sentries stood watch, graves were dug and wounds tended.
Egrin knelt by Narren and closed the young warrior’s lifeless eyes. Lifting his own gaze, Egrin ran a hand down his cuirass. The hammer-forged plate was dented and chewed as he’d never seen iron damaged before. Juramona iron had saved his life.
No, the armor had only protected him. Brave Narren had saved his life. How Tol would grieve when he learned his old comrade had died-and how proud he would be to know how courageously Narren had sold his life!
Drawn by the signal horns and the blazing bonfire, the scattered companies of Tol’s demi-horde gathered in the ravine below XimXim’s cave. Egrin dispersed them, so the monster wouldn’t find them too easily come daybreak.
He watched as Narren was consigned to the ground. So much death he had seen in his long life, so many young lives lost. Egrin stared up at the black hole in the mountain. Did his commander-his friend-still live?
From the blaring horns and flickering firelight, Tol correctly divined his men were trying not only to warn him, but to distract the returning monster. He couldn’t fault their gallantry, but he fumed at their disobedience. Hadn’t he told them not to fight XimXim?
He, Mandes, and the Dom-shu women were only a dozen steps from the cave entrance. The women released the magician to dash out the opening, and Mandes promptly slipped again. Tol grabbed for the collar of his robe, but missed.
Mandes, squeaking in alarm, rolled down the sloping tunnel.
Miya ran after him. She caught hold of his robe, planted her feet-and was yanked head over heels by his considerable weight. Hopelessly tangled, they slid on.
“Sister!” Kiya shouted and sprinted after Miya.
Tol yelled at her, knowing she wouldn’t abandon her kin any more than he would abandon the pair of them. The cave entrance was so close he could feel the night breeze, but without hesitation he too turned back.
Down and down Mandes and Miya tumbled, him grunting and her cursing eloquently. In the course of her whirling progress, Miya spotted a dull red glow in the distance, felt the rise in temperature, and finally realized what lay ahead. Drawing her arms in, she pushed away from Mandes with all her strength, and they shot apart. Mandes’s robe snagged on rough rocks in the curving wall of the tunnel. He jerked to a halt. Miya, no longer tumbling, slid on her rear briefly, then suddenly ran out of floor altogether.
Her legs dropped into open air. She scrabbled for a handhold, but there was none. For a terrifying instant, she teetered on the edge of a precipice, then plunged into the abyss-
— and landed hard on her back a few paces down. Dust flew up around her.
Mandes’s white face appeared above her. “Lady, are you all right?”
“Just wonderful!” she yelled at him, coughing. She tried to sit up, but her sides stung as though thorns had been hammered in. “I think I broke some ribs!”
“Don’t move!” said the wizard. “Don’t even turn your head!”
As soon as he said it, of course she had to do exactly that. There was rock under her head, but when she turned to the right, her cheek met only sweltering, stinking air.
She’d landed on a ledge just wide enough to catch her. Beneath her was an enormously deep pit. Intense heat, a red glow, and nauseating vapors rose from the depths below.
As Mandes tried unsuccessfully to reach her, Tol and Kiya arrived, feet skidding as Mandes shouted at them to beware the pit.
Tol had a length of rawhide wrapped around his waist, a spare bridle for his horse. He dropped one end to Miya. She lifted her hands and grasped it, but couldn’t pull herself up-not with her broken ribs.
Tol made ready to go after her, but Kiya stopped him, announcing she would go.
Tol planted his fists on his hips. “For once in your life, will you do as I say?”
“Someday, husband, but not now.”
Kiya laid aside her bow and quiver, then tied the hide rope under her arms. With Tol and Mandes anchoring her, she backed over the rim of the pit, feeling for footholds with her bare toes. The two men grunted under the strain.
“Sulfur,” Mandes muttered, gasping with effort. “That smell. Must be molten rock down there.”
Tol played out the rope a little at a time. “How can rock be molten?” he asked, eyes streaming moisture from the stinging vapors.
“Same way metal can. Deep underground… is heat enough to melt solid stone.”
“Where does the heat come from?”
“Some say Reorx’s divine forge. Others-” The rope slipped. Mandes drew in breath with a sharp hiss, as the hard hide cut the palms of his hands, then continued, as though speaking to a student. “Others believe the heat… is a natural state of the deep places.”
The line went slack, and Kiya shouted she had arrived.
“Where do you stand on the matter?” asked Tol, looking over his shoulder at the wizard as they both relaxed momentarily.
Mandes carefully patted his sweating, blistered hands with a corner of his robe. “I await further evidence before ascribing to either theory,” he said.
On the ledge beneath them, Kiya pulled her sister briskly to a sitting position, ignoring Miya’s squawks of pain. She set to work tying the rope under Miya’s arms. Both women were coughing, their eyes streaming tears. Fumes rising from the depths enveloped them in a noxious fog.
Tol’s face suddenly appeared above them, eerily highlighted by the glow from the chasm.
“Quiet!” he hissed. “Something’s coming!”
“Something? Something? It’s that monster!” Miya exclaimed.
“Haul me up! Let me die fighting!” Kiya cried, but Tol’s face disappeared.
Tol and the wizard heard, far down the passage, a series of rapid clicks-the sound of hard-shelled feet on stone-and an occasional loud whirr. Tol had seen wasps vibrate their wings when they were angry. XimXim must know intruders were in his lair, and was probably furious.
Tol stood, slowly removing his crimson mantle. Stripping to his iron breastplate and leather trews, he kicked his clothing out of the way, then drew his sword and war dagger. He tossed the empty scabbard away “You don’t think you can fight that thing single-handed?” said Mandes. He was sitting on the tunnel floor rifling through his clothing.
“What else can we do? We have no escape, and I doubt it knows mercy.”
Mandes produced the four wax balls containi
ng the Balm of Sirrion and half a dozen other objects: two dried clay pills the size of acorns, a speckled bird’s egg, two stoppered wooden tubes, and a small glass cruet sealed with red wax.
“The sum of my life’s work,” the wizard said drily.
Tol gripped his weapons hard, pondering the sum of his own life. What did he have? A chest of gold coins, an old house, and the patronage of the future emperor of Ergoth-a man married to the woman Tol loved. Was that all he’d accomplished in his short life?
“Tol!” Kiya shouted. “Don’t leave us down here! I want to fight too!”
“Aren’t you going to answer her?” asked Mandes.
“Not this time,” he said.
That was something else he had, the Dom-shu sisters. Wives in name only perhaps, hut faithful and honorable companions. He would do his best to die honorably for them.
The clatter of many limbs grew louder. Several times Tol thought he saw movement in the shadows, but could discern nothing tangible. The sulfur vapors were making his head and chest hurt. If XimXim simply waited, the fumes would do his work for him. Yet Tol doubted there was much danger of that. The monster enjoyed killing too much to miss an opportunity to cleanse his home of invaders.
The drifting streams of smoke suddenly parted, revealing an enormous triangular head, half as wide as the tunnel. In the dull ruddy glow and tight confines of the cave, XimXim looked even more monstrous. The black pupils in his huge eyes swung round until they fixed on the two men. Two pairs of sharp palps clacked, as though eager to taste blood.
Tol felt a sharp stab of fear in the pit of his stomach. He could face any number of human foes with equanimity, but this creature was an abomination, an unnatural and terrifying evil.
Mandes shakily fell to his knees. At first Tol thought he was praying, but the sorcerer was simply adopting a more convenient posture for throwing his tiny arsenal of balms and vapors.
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