by T. H. Lain
He heard something—likely the goblin in front of him—scream with pain. Someone bumped into him from behind. He whirled, his eyes refusing to open as purple blotches bubbled across the inside of his eyelids.
"Damn it, Jozan," he heard Naull say from behind him—it must have been she who'd bumped him, "warn us when you're going to cast—"
Regdar tried to step away from her, but she tripped or was pushed into the back of his knees. He tensed his legs, but he still went down. Regdar opened his eyes and had to shut them again. He hadn't realized how accustomed to the darkness his eyes had become. Naull cursed again when Regdar hit the cave floor, rolling over his left arm and bumping her a few times as he tried to roll to his feet.
"Regdar," Naull yelled, "look out for the—"
Again she was cut off by Regdar falling. He was rolling and sliding down a hard rock incline, and from the sound of her cursing and growling, Naull was close behind. He opened his eyes, and the light was gone, replaced by a darkness so total, Regdar was sure he was blind. He hit a rock wall, and the air was forced from his lungs, but he bounced off and continued to fall. He felt Naull grab his arm, but the hand was forced away before he could reach her.
He could hear Jozan call his name, but the sound of the priest's voice was receding quickly, echoing, and impossible to pin down. In a heartbeat or two it was gone completely.
What a bunch of amateurs, he thought. What a bunch of damned amateurs we are.
So they're goblins then, Jozan thought as he stepped into the shadowy humanoid's charge.
Lidda was sprawled out on the cave floor next to him, cursing in some language Jozan didn't recognize, all tangled up with Regdar's shield. From behind the priest came loud crashing sounds, rocks and gravel shifting, and the curses of both Regdar and Naull. With the light from Lidda's lantern partially blocked by the big shield on top of her, Jozan had enough trouble seeing the goblin that was attacking him. He had no idea what his friends were doing.
A second goblin, the one Jozan had cast the light spell on, had disappeared down a side passage, the bright light going with him. The spell had blinded the creature but had also managed to do much the same to all of them, and Jozan was more than a little embarrassed by that failure.
The goblin jabbed at Jozan, the roughly carved tip of the little javelin looking sharp enough to kill. The priest batted the stick away with his heavy steel mace, and the weapon flew from the goblin's grip. With a squeal, the little humanoid turned and ran. Jozan, his mace still on the follow-through, stepped back and let his weapon fall in front of him in a defensive posture. The goblin was running a—
It fell with a weak, high-pitched scream when a thin-handled dagger appeared as if from thin air, stuck in the middle of its back. The goblin went down hard, never putting its hands out to stop its fall.
"Bull's-eye!" Lidda cheered.
The priest looked down at her in horror. The creature was running away, and she'd hit it in the back. The lack of honor, the absence of a sense of justice, made Jozan's blood run cold.
Before he could speak, the halfling was up and running in the direction the fleeing goblin had gone, the light of her lantern going with her. Jozan reached down and snatched up Regdar's heavy shield before it became too dark for him to see it.
"Lidda!" the priest shouted as he started to run after her.
She hared off after the fleeing, light-blinded goblin, into the black depths of the side passage from which the three goblins had emerged, away from wherever Regdar and Naull had gone.
The cave floor was almost impossible for Jozan to negotiate. He could see the light from Lidda's lantern, bouncing and blinking as she, apparently, dodged between the stalagmites that crowded the floor. Jozan bumped his knees and other parts of his anatomy on more than a few of the conical stones that grew from the cave floor like tree stumps.
He had only prayed for the one light spell that morning and was further embarrassed by the fact that he carried no torches or lantern of his own. If he lost sight of Lidda's bobbing light, he would be at Pelor's mercy in the dead black cave all alone.
There was a sound from ahead—at least Jozan thought it was ahead of him, the sound echoing a thousand times over made that a wild guess at best. Lidda's lantern seemed to bobble in response to it. It sounded like someone being strangled, and Jozan feared for the halfling's life. She might have run headlong into an ambush. It would be the most obvious tactic: appear to be running away so your enemy follows, cocky and careless, into a nest of archers.
Jozan, unsure what else to do, hefted his mace and went after her as best he could through the stalagmites. The lantern light was no longer moving away, and as the priest came closer, he slowed down, trying as hard as he could not to make a noise. He breathed through his mouth—quieter than breathing through his nose. He walked with a stiff-legged gate to minimize the creaking of his armor, and he held his mace high, so it wouldn't knock against any of the stalagmites.
Finally, he could see Lidda, lit by her own lantern. She was scanning the darkness in his direction and smiled when she saw him.
"It's all right," she called, her voice cascading around the cave.
Jozan looked around and realized that he could see nothing at all outside the strict boundaries of the lamplight. The cave could be barely bigger than that, or stretch on for thousands of feet in all directions. The air was cool and humid, with a distinct breeze that carried on it a melange of dank, earthy smells, one stronger than the others: the smell of blood.
Jozan approached more quickly, his jaw clenched tightly, wondering what he would say to the wayward halfling that might impress upon her his outrage at the way she'd dispatched the fleeing goblin—no, two fleeing goblins.
The light-blinded goblin was impaled on a stalagmite, the surprisingly sharp point of the formation jutting out through its blood-drenched back. Its eyes were closed, but Jozan could see a line of light, and a vein-traced orange glow through its eyelids. He had cast the spell on the goblin's eyes—another old trick.
Jozan looked at Lidda, and she must have seen the stern look on his face.
"It wasn't me," she said. "He just ran into it, poor bugger."
When he'd been a raw recruit in the Duke of Koratia's infantry—The Third New Koratia Comitatus, Red Dragon Regiment, to be precise—the drill sergeant had made the whole regiment perform various tasks while blindfolded. As Regdar fished around through the contents of his backpack, he wished he'd paid better attention to those drills.
"I think I found a torch," Naull said, her voice quiet but still echoing in the absolute darkness, "but I can't find my flint and steel."
The only other sound was the distinct splashing of water, as if from a waterfall, or even waves crashing in rapid succession over stone. Echoes made it impossible to judge distance or direction. Regdar thought they might be either inches from the edge or a mile from it.
Every time his fingers touched something familiar in his backpack, they'd find something that seemed wholly alien in turn. Finally, his hand came to rest on what he was certain was his own flint and steel.
"Thank Pelor," he said, "I think I found mine."
Good," said Naull, "light my torch."
Regdar carefully opened the little suede pouch that held his flint and steel, realizing that if he were to drop it in his haste, he might never find it. All the while, he kept his eyes closed—he remembered somewhere that he was supposed to do that. The purple blotches brought on by the wayward light spell were gone, leaving only the odd flash and trace of red he saw whenever he closed his eyes.
"Do you have it?" Naull asked, impatience making her voice shake.
Regdar felt the cool of the steel and the roughness of the flint and took a deep breath, holding them away from his face—and stopped.
"Regdar?" Naull asked, obviously sensing his hesitation.
"I can't see your torch," he said.
Naull answered with an irritated sigh.
Regdar held the flint and steel ca
refully in his left hand and pushed his right hand into his backpack again.
"I'll have to find one of mine," he said.
There was a rustling of fabric from the same general direction that Naull's voice had come from, and she said, "I'll try to find my flint and thrice-bedamned steel."
Regdar, irritated himself and amazed at how cavernous his backpack felt now that he couldn't see what was in it, nodded, not realizing that Naull couldn't see the gesture. When his hand finally closed around the rag-covered head of a torch, he sighed and slid it out.
"I have one," he whispered to Naull.
He tapped the flint and steel together and a tiny spark flew, not even shedding enough light for Regdar to see his own fingertips for the slightest second.
"Light it," she urged.
Regdar bit back a response. What did she think he was trying to do? The second spark was bigger, and it leaped from the flint to the ragged edge of the torch cloth. A line of orange glowed in the total darkness and Regdar thought he'd never been happier to see so minute a fire.
"Did it catch?" Naull asked, apparently unable to see the growing line of orange light trace its way along the edge of the rag.
Regdar didn't bother to answer. He puffed air into his cheeks and blew gently. Specks of light jumped from the edges of the rag, then a fire licked up, smaller than a candle flame.
"You got it!" Naull exclaimed, her words pinging through the darkness around them.
In no time, the torch was ablaze, and Regdar turned to survey the place their long fall had brought them to.
They were, as he'd expected, in a natural cave. The chamber was roughly circular, maybe ten yards across. The floor sloped gradually in one direction—Regdar had no way of knowing which way was north, south, east, or west. He didn't even know into which end of the chamber they'd fallen, though he assumed the higher end.
The ceiling was beyond the reach of his torch, though when he held it high over his head, he could see the blunt tips of hundreds of thin stalactites. What dominated the cave, though, and explained the sounds of water, was a thin waterfall that stretched up into darkness and emptied into a pool of roughly churning water.
He looked at Naull, who was also surveying their surroundings. She was a bit haggard, her clothes in a general state of disarray, but as beautiful as—
Regdar pushed that unbidden thought aside and took a few steps closer to the water, looking away from the young mage.
"What do we do?" she asked.
He could feel her looking at him and could feel his face flush. He didn't turn around, just took a couple steps closer to the edge of the pool. There was something about the way the water moved that seemed strange, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
Naull stepped closer to him, and he thought she almost touched his arm, but when he looked down, he saw her pull her hand away.
"That's not just the waterfall," she all but whispered.
“I thought so,” Regdar said. “It’s kind of…”
“Swirling?” she offered, stepping even closer to the edge.
Regdar looked down. They were standing on a flat slab of some kind of smooth white rock. The water wasn't splashing onto it, though, it seemed to...swirl...under it.
Regdar noticed another sound intruding on the splash of the water, and just as he opened his mouth to warn Naull that the stone was cracking, the slab fell out from under his feet, plunging them both into the icy clutches of the strange little maelstrom.
"I'm not used to working with a partner, all right?" Lidda finally admitted.
They were picking their way back through the dark forest of stalagmites, and with every step, Jozan grew less and less sure that they would ever find the bottom of the shaft, let alone Regdar and Naull. Though he knew he was taking some of his nervousness and frustration out on the halfling, it didn't change the fact that they were in this predicament because of Lidda's irresponsible actions. He was peering into the utter blackness all around them, hoping to see anything, so he didn't respond to Lidda's halfhearted admission.
"Now I get the silent treatment," she grumbled. "Priests..."
Jozan wasn't listening. He was angry with her, but anger was a fleeting thing, unworthy of Pelor's servants. He could feel that Lidda had a good heart and was confident that she could be turned around. It was that feeling for people that led him to the service of Pelor, that same empathy that got him in so much trouble in the past.
Lidda stayed close to him, the light from her lantern the only hope they had to avoid the fate of the impaled goblin let alone find their way back. Jozan tried to keep his attention to the outer perimeter of the light so that he could see whatever there was to see as soon as it was possible for him to see it. Even so, he knew he'd only have a second or two to react. When he saw the web, he reached out to grab Lidda's arm but misjudged the distance between them and almost pushed her over.
"For Olidammara's sake, Jozan," she spat, more surprised than angry. "I said I was sorry, what do you want me to do—"
Jozan shushed her and pointed at the web while slipping his mace off the ring on his belt. He heard Lidda draw her sword.
"We went the wrong way," she whispered.
Jozan started moving slowly toward he web and was about to shush her again when a long, low moan echoed through the pitch-black cave. It was the unmistakable sound of someone in pain. Jozan could feel it. The hair on the backs of his arms stood on end. The voice had the sound of someone who had given up hope. Jozan had only heard that sound once before, and he'd hoped he'd never hear it again.
"It's Regdar," Lidda said, hopping once, then tearing away at a run.
Jozan reached out to try to stop her, but she slipped past him and was hopping over stalagmites on her way toward a sound that Jozan knew couldn't possibly be Regdar. The priest had no choice but to follow her.
As before, she opened the distance between them quickly. She didn't appear to be slowed by the dense stalagmites. Instead, she seemed to use them to her advantage, leapfrogging some, spinning around others, so that they seemed to be pushing her through the darkness. Jozan followed her as quickly as he could, bumping his knees and elbows, all clanking armor and panting breaths.
There was a loud hiss and everything went black, but that was the least of Regdar's worries. He could feel himself being pulled underwater even as he was whipped to the side. His nose filled with water, and his eyes burned. He clamped his mouth shut and struggled to hold his breath while the fast-moving water had its way with him. His sword was ripped from his hand, and he hit rock—maybe a rock wall—and he was falling.
He could feel his face come out into air, and he drew in a quick gasp, managing to clamp his mouth shut again when water splashed into his face. He bounced off something hard—another rock—and it hurt, but he knew nothing was broken. The air was forced out of his lungs, though, and it was painful, desperate seconds before he came out of the water again long enough to draw in a breath.
There was a splash that whipped his head to one side, and the sound might have been loud enough to deafen him, if his ears hadn't filled with water. He was submerged and sinking, but he wasn't being beaten against rocks anymore. Regdar could feel the water shove him down and backward, then he came to rest on the bottom.
Wrapped in thirty pounds or more of steel armor, he sank like a stone wrapped in thirty pounds or more of steel armor. His feet were on the bottom, a hard stone surface that Regdar was happy to note was less slippery than he'd expect the bottom of a pond to be. He opened his eyes in the frigid water but could see nothing at all. He pushed against the bottom with both feet, confident that he could at least get his face above water long enough to breathe, maybe even to call out for Naull.
The top of his head hit stone only a foot or less above him, and he might have knocked himself out but for the sturdy helm he still wore. The strap around his chin had secured it through what Regdar realized was worse than a one-way trip down a waterfall. The stone above his head kept him submerged,
though. His lungs were beginning to ache. He tried again, holding his hands up above him, but felt the smooth stone before he even bothered trying to kick off the floor again. He was completely blind, and he was drowning.
It took Jozan a few moments to realize that the webs were full of goblins. The fine, sticky strands stretched from stalactite to stalagmite and to one uneven, curved wall of the huge cave up into the darkness past the reach of Lidda's lantern light. Studded throughout the chaotic mass of grayish white webbing were bundles of almost pure white, shaped in the outline of the squat little humanoids. Some seemed to be missing limbs, a few were missing heads. Others were hanging upside down or at odd angles. Most were packed into the web in uncomfortable, even unnatural positions, with arms forced at odd angles, legs broken and smashed up against backs.
Lidda stopped at the edge of the mass of webs and, gazing along its length, stepped backward until her back came to rest on Jozan's thigh.
"Let's go," she whispered, her voice echoing in the cool air that was growing ever closer with a strong stench of decay. "Let's just—"
The priest put a hand on her shoulder, and she stopped speaking.
They stood there looking at the webs for the space of a few heartbeats, then Jozan said, "They're all dead. None of them are moving."
"Thank the Nurturing Matriarch for that, at least," Lidda said.
Jozan offered similar thanks, silently, to Pelor, then said, "This could be Fairbye in a week...a month...maybe a year, if these spiders—"
"Then we won't go back to Fairbye," Lidda cut in. "What are we talking about this for, Jozan? There must be dozens of goblins stuck in there. There could be hundreds, maybe thousands of those spiders or more."
Jozan's heart sank. As always, at least to Jozan's mind, the right thing to do was evident. They needed to continue. They needed to eradicate these spiders before they ranged any farther on the surface, before they established a pantry like this in the village.
