by Dan Willis
He took out the compass and pressed it into her hands. “Take this just in case,” he said.
“In case of what?” Rose demanded. “You’re too sick to fight. You have to go to the front with the other sick and wounded.”
“Go,” Bradok said in a voice that made it plain there was to be no argument or debate.
Rose gave him a dark stare but turned and went.
Bradok reached for his sword then wished he hadn’t. The mere motion of reaching across his body ripped at the wound in his side. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the hilt with the tips of his fingers and gingerly slid his blade free of the scabbard.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Kellik asked, coming up quickly from the rear guard.
“Don’t turn down any help cheerfully offered,” Chisul’s friend Vulnar said. Maybe Bradok imagined it, but he thought he saw Vulnar wink; whether the wink was intended for him or Kellik, he wasn’t sure.
“What’s the situation?” Bradok asked determinedly.
“The situation is you are in no shape to fight,” Corin said, materializing close by.
“They definitely know we’re here,” Kellik added. “But I think we’re still pretty far ahead of the main group.”
“Then where is this stench coming from?” Thurl said, tying a handkerchief around his face. “It feels awful close.”
A wet, squishing noise answered. Down the path where they had come, a dozen forms shambled into the light. They moved faster than Bradok remembered, pressing up the path toward their quarry.
“I was afraid of that,” Corin said, gesturing. “They sent some of the less affected ones ahead to try to slow us down.”
Bradok raised his sword, a bit more slowly than he would have liked. Thurl and Much stepped in front of him with their swords.
“You take any that get through,” Much said.
“Aim for their legs,” Chisul said.
The Rhizomorphs shambled closer, heedless of the wall of dwarf flesh and steel that blocked their path. They slammed into the defenders without even slowing down, attempting to bowl them over.
One tall dwarf with mushrooms growing where his eyebrows should have been leered at Bradok over Much’s head. His skin was pale and gelatinous with glowing fungi sprouting out at odd angles. He opened his mouth, as if about to yell. Instead an enormous red tongue lashed out, striking Bradok on his arm over the heads of the others. The blow didn’t strike hard, but where it touched his skin, it burned. With a cry of surprise and disgust, Bradok chopped the tongue in half and shook it from his arm. It landed on the tunnel floor, still twisting and thrashing.
Much ran the tall Rhizomorph through, but it had no apparent effect on the creature. The Rhizomorph slashed Much across the chest, knocking him backward. The monstrosity attempted to step over him, then, and go after Bradok. As it moved, however, Thurl chopped one of its legs off at mid thigh. With a cry of anger, it toppled sideways. Turning to Thurl, the thing bit his left arm and hung on. Thurl reversed his stroke and decapitated the Rhizomorph, sending its head rolling back down the tunnel.
Kellik was busy meanwhile. Never one to be subtle, he raised his warhammer and brought it down on the head of the nearest Rhizomorph. The thing’s head exploded like an overripe melon, sending bits of gray goo flying in all directions.
Chisul and Vulnar had cut two of them down and were trying to prevent the ones in the rear from rushing them all at once. Just as it seemed they would be overwhelmed, Perin and Tal arrived, rushing into the creatures with flailing swords.
Bradok watched as his friends began to push the Rhizomorphs back, slowly but surely. Bits of gray flesh spattered the walls and ceiling as the dwarves hacked the mushroom men to pieces.
A flicker of movement down the tunnel beyond the fight caught Bradok’s eye, and he looked up in time to see three more Rhizomorphs advancing on them. Two of the creatures carried a third between them. The one in the middle seemed to be having some kind of fit, thrashing and convulsing. As Bradok watched, it began to swell and grow.
“They’re trying to release a spore cloud,” he yelled.
Bradok recalled how quickly and how far the previous spore cloud had spread. They were already within the radius of the impending explosion.
“Run for it,” Corin shouted, grabbing the fallen Vulnar and yanking him to his feet.
As everyone turned and fled, Thurl swept his hand out from beneath his cloak in a long, fluid movement.
“Everyone, hold your breath!” he shouted as he loosed his dagger, which sped from his hand.
It struck the writhing Rhizomorph right in the gut, and the hapless creature erupted.
CHAPTER 22
The Trail of Blood
A golden cloud of spores rushed up the tunnel and surrounded the fleeing dwarves. Bradok could feel the spores burning his arm where the Rhizomorph’s tongue had touched him. His eyes teared up, making it hard for him to see as he ran, holding his breath.
An uneven spot in the floor caused him to stumble, and he fell flat on his face, the air rushing from his lungs upon impact. Pain shot through his body like lightning. His side felt as if it were on fire, and his shoulder as though someone were trying to twist his arm from his body. It took all his willpower not to take a breath and suck in a lungful of spores. He leaped back to his feet and ran. He could feel himself getting dizzy from the lack of air; then the cave before him began to shimmer on its own. Staggering, he put out his hand to guide himself along the wall of the tunnel.
Rough hands grabbed him and dragged him forward. He stumbled on as best he could, until the pain in his arm seemed to subside.
“You can breathe now,” Kellik’s voice came out of the fog.
Gasping and coughing, Bradok sank to his knees and shook his head to clear the dizziness.
“Here they come again,” Thurl said behind him.
Bradok heard the hiss of steel blades whistling through the air and the wet sound as they struck diseased flesh. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his side, and raised his sword.
Behind him the dwarves and Perin were hacking and slashing at the Rhizomorphs crowding the hallway. A pile of severed limbs and unidentifiable chunks of flesh were strewn on the ground. The Rhizomorphs fought with their hands, rending flesh whenever they could with their long, clawlike nails. Occasionally one of their pink tongues would lash out at an opponent’s exposed flesh.
As Bradok moved up behind Thurl and Much, one of the ghastly creatures spat a wad of yellow goo directly at them. Much ducked, and Thurl dodged, but the wad hit Bradok on his shirt. The yellow substance appeared to contain some of the spores from the yellow cloud.
While being careful not to cut himself, Bradok scraped off the spores with his sword and flung them to the ground.
Just then someone cried out in pain. “My eyes,” bellowed an older dwarf named Serl, falling over onto his back and clawing at his face.
The Rhizomorph in front of him stepped into the gap and leaned down, trying to take a bite out of Serl’s leg. Bradok stepped forward and chopped the creature’s head from its body.
He moved to the fallen hill dwarf and saw that the yellow goo covered his face.
“Tal!” he yelled, dropping his sword and reaching painfully for his waterskin.
Tal was there in an instant. The doctor bore many cuts and scratches on his arms, a testament to his intense combat. “Hold him,” he said, pulling out his own waterskin, for Bradok was still struggling to produce his.
Bradok tried to keep Serl still as Tal washed the muck from his eyes. With only one good arm, it wasn’t an easy task.
“Duck,” he heard Thurl yell, and instinctively Bradok hurled himself sideways.
A long pink Rhizomorph tongue sailed over his head and struck the cave wall. Someone severed it, and the next instant it fell, writhing, on the floor. Bradok kicked it away in disgust.
Bradok picked up his sword and got painfully to his feet. The remaining defenders had killed and
dismembered enough of the Rhizomorphs that now only a handful remained. Little by little, the dwarves and Perin were driving the monsters back.
Bradok moved among the still-flailing limbs and bodies, striking the heads of any that appeared still capable of causing trouble.
A few moments more, and it was over. Bradok stood on weak legs. He slowly moved his sword across his body, trying to catch the tip of it where it belonged, in the top of his scabbard.
“Are you all right, lad?” Much asked, taking Bradok’s sword for him and slipping it into the empty scabbard.
He nodded, feeling tremendous exhaustion.
“You’re bleeding again,” Thurl said in a disapproving voice.
Bradok looked down to see a red stain soaking through the bandage on his side. “There’s no time,” he said, pushing Much’s hand away. “I’ll be fine. We need to get back to the main group and spur them to keep going. There’s no telling how long it will take the rest of these walking mushrooms to catch up with us.”
“Yeah,” Chisul agreed. “Stay ahead of them.” The big dwarf was cradling his left arm, which appeared to have been burned by acid.
Bradok held up his own arm, looking at the wound, and realized that it was burned like Chisul’s, though not so badly.
“I counted about twenty in this group,” Perin said. “How many more can there be …?” He let the question trail off glumly.
“Can he walk?” Bradok asked about Serl.
Tal waved his hands in front of Serl’s eyes. The big dwarf’s eyes appeared white and watery and didn’t follow Tal’s hand.
“He’s been blinded,” Tal explained. “It might just be temporary; I can’t tell yet.”
“Well, I might be blind, but I’m not deaf,” Serl said, sitting up. “And I can still walk. One of you lead me along and I’ll do fine.”
Corin and Vulnar each took one of Serl’s hands, guiding him quickly up the passage. Bradok started after them, more slowly, hampered by his wound.
“Keep going until you find the others,” Bradok called. “I’ll catch up.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Thurl said.
“Tell Rose to use the compass,” Bradok called as the other dwarves began to outpace him. “She’ll know what to do.”
Bradok and Thurl walked along in silence and darkness, their eyes adjusting to the lack of light. Finally, when Bradok could no longer hear the tread of the dwarves in front of them, Thurl paused. He stretched his arm out from his cloak. He’d wrapped a handkerchief around his forearm. A large, dark stain covered it.
“This may be a problem,” he said, showing his wound to Bradok.
“What happened?” Bradok said, panting with the effort of walking.
“One of them bit me,” Thurl said.
“Before or after the spore cloud?” Bradok asked.
“After,” Thurl said. “I’m worried about it.” Such a declaration seemed out of character for the normally stoical Daergar.
“Corin said no one knows how the Zhome is spread,” Bradok said. “I think that if it was spread in such a mundane way as bites, Corin would know about it.”
“Still,” Thurl said. “Rose has the Zhome on her arm, right where she was scratched in our first encounter with the Rhizomorphs.”
“True,” Bradok agreed worriedly.
“Almost everyone was wounded this time,” Thurl said. “We may all be infected.”
Bradok sighed heavily. “Well, we’ll just have to deal with that somehow,” he said.
“How?” Thurl asked. “If we’re infected, sooner or later, we become Rhizomorphs. If that happens, we become a danger to everyone, so it stands to reason that before anything like that happens …” He let the sentence trail off.
“I see what you mean,” Bradok said grimly. “We either have to abandon those who carry the Zhome germ at some point, or we have to kill them.”
“Such decisions are difficult,” Thurl said. “But perhaps they are made more easily and rationally in advance, when we are discussing the problem in the abstract and no one particular person’s life is on the line.”
Bradok wondered at Thurl’s resoluteness. “What do you suggest?”
Thurl reached into his belt and pulled out a small crystal phial. “A few drops of this in someone’s waterskin before bed, and they’ll never wake again,” he said. “Quick and painless.”
Bradok thought about it, not answering for a long time. Perhaps Thurl’s idea was the most humane option, but as the group’s leader, the decision would fall to him. He would have to decide when to abandon or kill those who suffered from the Zhome. He would have to decide whether to abandon or kill Rose. But as leader, wasn’t it his responsibility to act on behalf of the group?
“Thank you, Thurl,” Bradok said, quietly. “If the time comes that we have to let one of our own go, I will keep your idea in mind.”
“I live to serve,” he said in response.
“Where did you get that potion, may I ask?” Bradok asked.
“I’ve had this for the last thirteen years,” came the reply. “I keep it secret. Keeping things secret is my trade.”
They walked together for more than an hour before they caught up to the other survivors. The main group had stopped in a cavern sparsely dotted with Reorx’s torch mushrooms, giving off light that reflected off the damp ground. A pool of water fed by a waterfall was off to one side, filling the cavern with cool spray and a damp smell. A shallow, fast-moving stream ran away from the pool, across the floor, and into a deep fissure against the opposite wall.
A small knot of dwarves had gathered around Tal. Rose saw Bradok approaching and immediately hurried over.
“You’d better come quick,” she said, her face pale.
In his wounded condition, Bradok had expended most of his energy just putting one foot in front of the other. Hurrying was no longer possible for him, but he lurched after her.
Rose shooed away some of the crowd so he could get through them. Serl lay on the ground with Tal kneeling over him. When Bradok got a look at the dwarf’s face, he felt like retching. Mushrooms were already growing out of Serl’s eyes and nose. He lay on the ground as though dead; the only sign he gave of life were the ragged breaths that came at infrequent intervals.
Bradok glanced at Tal, but the doctor could only shrug and shake his head.
Suddenly Bradok’s arm was jerked up in the air so hard and fast that he gasped at the lancing pain. It was Corin who had done it, and the Daergar was staring at his arm. Bradok saw it too: A tiny mushroom had embedded itself in the wound left by the tongue.
“It’s a spore,” Corin said.
Bradok squinted and saw that, at the base of the mushroom there was a small, opaque seed, about the size of an orange seed.
“We’ve got to get it out before it takes hold,” Corin warned.
Bradok nodded. Tal approached with a pair of long metal tongs and, taking hold of the seed, yanked it out. Bradok grunted as it trailed a small root that had already begun burrowing in his flesh.
“Check everyone who fought,” he said, rubbing his arm ruefully. “Strip down and look everywhere.”
The thought of Zhome spores growing in their flesh had the usually modest dwarves stripped bare in moments. There was a gasp as Chisul took off his shirt; a row of tiny mushrooms were growing in his back, right where Bradok had seen the gray patches before.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Tal said quietly once he’d examined Chisul. “It’s as bad as Rose’s arm.”
Chisul nodded with dismay; he and the others had suspected that Rose was infected, but after the fight, so many of them were.
Everyone was checked over and over, and twelve spore growths were found. Those were removed as best as they could, but it was possible they were all doomed. Bradok was just too spent and sore to care. When they were finished, he pulled Rose aside.
“I’m not sure I can go on,” he told her, “and there’s no one fit enough to carry me. I want you to take everyone a
head without me. I’ll catch up if I can.”
Rose just shook her head. “Everyone’s spent,” she said. “It’s only terror that drove them this far. We need to rest.”
“If the Rhizomorphs are close—” Bradok began, but Rose silenced him.
“Yes, we may die if we rest here,” she said. “But if we push on, you and the children and the other wounded may collapse from exhaustion. I’d rather make a stand and fight the Rhizomorphs when we’re fresh, not when we’re too done-in from running.”
Bradok thought about that for a moment then shrugged. “We should find a defensible spot,” he said then added, “just in case.”
A surprised look crossed Rose’s face, and she drew out the compass from a pouch on her belt. “It’s like it heard your words. It jumped,” she said, holding it out to Bradok.
Bradok took the compass and opened it. The glowing mist swirled inside, but the Seer did not appear. Confused, he closed the lid and examined it. The engraving around the purple stone had changed again. Bradok took the compass over by one of the glowing mushrooms and squinted down to peer at the tiny letters.
“In the damp hollow ye can hide, so long as no sound comes from inside,” Bradok read.
“Maybe it means that crack where the little river disappears,” Rose said, pointing.
“But what does this mean, about no sound?” he wondered.
“Stay here,” Rose said. “I’ll check it out.”
Bradok gratefully eased himself down onto the damp floor while Rose took one of the lanterns over to where the stream of water disappeared. He’d closed his eyes for only a minute when someone materialized beside him, sitting down.
“Have you had a chance to look at that metal book?” Tal asked.
Bradok knew what the dwarf wasn’t saying. The metal book might be their only hope against the Zhome and the Rhizomorphs.
“No,” he said. “How’s Serl doing?”
“There’s nothing else I can do for him,” Tal said, discouraged. “I fear he hasn’t got much time left.”
“What about Chisul and Rose?” Bradok asked as evenly as he could.
