Against the Giants

by Ru Emerson - (ebook by Flandrel; Undead)

  Malowan shook his head. “I would know if they were so close. Nemis, reassure our northern friend. No one nearby?”

  “No one,” the mage said readily. He closed the book on his hand, marking his spot. “This seems to be a hundred paces or so from any life at all, unless you count a stray rat or a few spiders. There are large and unpleasant creatures some distance away to the west, and some sort of beasts eastward. The latter are moving about, but the others seem to be caged and in a fury because of it. I can tell there are giants and others above us on the main floor. The stairs came down so well that they are having difficulty getting the first stones moved. Among the giants, there is uncertainty and a little fear as well.”

  “Fear?” Lhors asked in surprise.

  “Fear,” Nemis agreed. “Look at us. Smaller than they, fewer than they, and yet we have challenged them in their very halls.” His sardonic smile faded. “And we have killed some of them and some of their servants.”

  “’Tis fine,” Khlened grumbled, “but what next? I still see no way from this place. Do we simply sit here until they come to take us?”

  “No,” Vlandar said. He was lacing his mail shirt close to his body. “There are two ways out of this chamber, besides the one Nemis destroyed. Agya and Nemis found them while the rest of us were resting. But you are right We dare not stay here much longer. We have much to accomplish yet.”

  “I agree,” the barbarian said. He scowled at the ruined wicker. “All the fighting we’ve done so far and for what? One skinny purse. Most of the coin we’ve found so far—and it wasn’t much—went to those hulking giant lasses.”

  Vlandar sighed. “If we win through with the information the king seeks, he’ll see us rewarded handsomely. Particularly if we spend so much time doing his work that we’ve spared none seeking out treasure.”

  The barbarian snorted in obvious disbelief.

  “I agree,” Vlandar continued. “He might not take your word for such a thing, but I have served him and his father before him. He knows I would not lie—not over a trifling matter like coin.”

  This silenced Khlened.

  Vlandar looked around the room and got to his feet. “All right, people. You know I wanted to get in, get that map and any other useful information, then quietly leave. Well, at least we have the map. Mal, have you and Nemis examined it?”

  The paladin shook his head. “I wanted you awake so we could go over it together. I would also like to compare it with the scroll—”

  “Scroll?” Maera demanded. “What scroll?”

  Malowan stirred. “There was no time to share the information before. Also, I wanted to be certain of its contents.”

  Nemis’ lips twitched. “You did not trust me, you mean. I cannot blame you—”

  “Save that,” Vlandar broke in briskly. “Maera, I chose to keep that matter to myself. Now I intend to share it. That is my right as commander, is it not?”

  She nodded and settled back against the wall.

  “From now on, our main goal is to escape this place. Best would be a forgotten doorway to the surface, but I doubt we will find one. There may be ways guarded by spells or beasts, and even if we do make our way back to the surface, we may have a long journey back to our horses.”

  “There may be other ways to leave, Vlandar,” Malowan said mildly. “Ever since I first heard Lhors’ tale, I thought these giants must have a spell or some magic device to get them from here to Keoland. Upper Haven is many days’ journey from here, even for giants. I find it odd that they have not been seen more often. The land is not that underpopulated.”

  “True,” Vlandar said. “And we may find such devices or magic items on this level. I have led enough raids against bandits and robbers to know that those who have a permanent hiding place keep their most valuable things apart—often in a secret space beneath the chief’s personal quarters.”

  “I agree,” Malowan said. “I still believe the scroll cases I found in that woodpile were temporarily hidden—set where they would not be seen by everyone, but near enough that they could be retrieved quickly. Once the orders written there are carried out, I believe the scroll would be put with previous orders in a locked chamber close by. Perhaps down the nearby stairs?”

  Vlandar nodded. “I agree with you, Mal. I hope to find another way into that passage from down here. The two staircases cannot be very far apart. We shall see. So far, Nosnra and his crew seem not to have warned any guards down here where we are and what we have done.”

  “How do you know that?” Lhors asked.

  “Because there is no company of giants breaking in either of the doors, and… Nemis?”

  The mage murmured a spell—probably the reveal danger one that Lhors knew he used often. Nemis shook his head no.

  Vlandar went on. “We are alone. Nemis would sense anyone nearby. Either this level is largely deserted, which I doubt, or no one down here knows what happened up there, which I also doubt. If there are dungeons and housing for slaves and such down here, as I think likely, the giants are involved in their normal routines. Still, we dare not stay here much longer. We have all rested some. All of you, eat something and drink a little. Nemis, I think it’s time to explain.”

  “As you choose,” the mage said and set his book aside with a faint sigh.

  “Me first, then you,” Vlandar replied.

  Nemis merely nodded.

  Lhors thought he looked resigned, but it was hard to tell. The mage’s face didn’t reveal much.

  Vlandar went on, “The scroll Mal found is written in Giantish. The scroll Mal found gives us written proof that these giants were ordered to attack villages. We do not know why, but we do know who. I can assure you that if we come away with nothing but this one scroll, we will have accomplished part of our task. When we find a way out, I may choose to divide our force and send some of you to take that scroll back to Cryllor. The Lord Mebree’s sorcerers can easily transport it to wherever the king presently is.”

  “But if our boats and the horses are already gone… ?” Maera asked.

  A muted grumbling rippled through the party.

  “They will not be,” Malowan replied. “I left the mate this charm.”—he fished a little device from his belt. “At least once a day, I let him know that we still live. He waits for another signal from me if we need help, and by yet another to tell the Flennish to set sail back east while he and the lad return the horses to Cryllor.”

  “Now,” Vlandar went on, “I see most of you are dissatisfied, but there is more to all this than you know.” He gave Nemis a steady look.

  The mage sighed, but came away from the wall. He looked resigned, Lhors thought. Like the day you had to admit to old headman Yerik that you sneaked into the onion fields and ate bulbs, he mused. The headman had been really angry until Gran broke into her cackly laugh and reminded the headman of his own forays into that same patch.

  Nemis now wore the same look on his face that Yerik had.

  “All right,” the mage said. “I have something to tell all of you, and I… well…” He settled cross-legged on the floor and drew a deep breath. “The scroll was written by a being called Eclavdra, a dread sorceress of the dark elves, the drow.”

  Rowan caught her breath sharply, and Maera sat up straight.

  Nemis eyed the rangers. “Yes, I see that you know of drow. For you others, drow are elves, but unlike Rowan or Maera, they are black skinned, silver or white-haired, and they live beneath the ground. Unlike our rangers, they despise growing things. They are selfish, cold-minded, and cruel. Long ago, they fought the other elves for control of the surface lands and lost. They were driven underground where they have since made their home. They do not want to return to the surface, unless they have greatly changed. They prefer the dark depths of the earth, but they hate other elves, half-elves, and all who dwell under the sun.”

  “It is an ancient hatred,” Rowan said. She sounded shaken, and Maera’s face was pale. “Of course we know of drow, but no one has seen
them in many of our lives. We hoped they were all dead.”

  “They are not,” Nemis said evenly. “I have seen them. My master was a skilled mage who made a study of the drow. What he learned drove him to fear them, and I think his fears made him a little mad, for not long after I was bound to him, he sought the drow, and they found him. Before that year’s end, my master and I were housed in a chamber far below ground in the midst of a vast city of drow. He had pledged himself as apprentice to one of their most dire sorceresses, Eclavdra. As his apprentice, I was also bound to her.”

  Rowan looked at Maera, who was honing the points of her spears on a whetstone. Maera shrugged.

  “I have never heard that name,” Rowan said.

  “Few have,” Nemis admitted. To Lhors, his eyes looked haunted—like Gran’s eyes the morning after the giants’ attack. “She is many things: sorceress, dour warrior, a black cleric, and”—he swallowed—“extremely charismatic. She draws people of all kinds to her service. My master went to her from fear. I for other reasons.” He stared at his hands. “She wanted me for her own… personal… reasons. Because I pleased her, I was given training in the drow magic. Eventually, I learned enough that I was able to strike down my master and escape.” He looked at Rowan. “Yes, that could be a lie to hide that Eclavdra trained me and sent me onto the surface to spy for her or do worse things. I can only swear to you that I am no spy for the drow.”

  “I know that,” Malowan told him. “You others, remember that as a paladin, I can discern when someone lies. Nemis is not lying.”

  “In that case,” Maera said, “we have a problem.”

  * * *

  “Mal!” Agya hissed urgently. She was exploring the east wall as the rest of the party prepared to set out. “Mal, come ’ere! There’s a loose bit just ’ere.”

  Malowan came over to see, and Vlandar followed. Lhors, closest to the girl, could make out the fingertip-sized circle that slid aside as she pressed on it. “Lookit,” she breathed. “I can see out there!”

  She stepped back as the paladin crouched to set his eye to the opening. Malowan nodded cautiously and gestured for Vlandar to look, then signed Agya to ease the cover back into place. “There is no one out there just now, but someone might come and hear our voices,” Malowan said quietly.

  “What is it?” Lhors asked.

  “A very large, dark chamber,” the paladin replied, “apparently empty for now.”

  “We’ve been quiet enough,” Maera replied. “Besides, if something had been that close, either you or the mage would have detected it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” Malowan conceded reluctantly, “but our magic is not infinite. Someone could have crept in and away again without us noticing, though it is unlikely.”

  “Well,” Agya interrupted, “tell you what, just before I opened that spy-bit, there was somethin out there—not in th’ open, more like clear across. First off, I caught an echo, then p’raps whatever it was went behind some door, ’cause was not so loud and no echo. But I did catch someone speakin’ what sounded like Giantish, like it was bellowin’ orders. But th’ other din’t have words.”

  “What exactly did you hear?” Malowan asked.

  “Ah, wait,” Agya said and shut her eyes to concentrate. “Goorzh, nigheye! Zharhoye!”

  To Lhors’ surprise, it sounded like the guttural, spitting sound of Giantish. “’Tis all I could catch aright.”

  “How’d you know that,” Lhors asked, “if you don’t understand giant-talk?”

  “I don’t understand it,” the girl retorted.

  Malowan cleared his throat, defusing a potential spat. “Agya doesn’t read. Like many who don’t, she has excellent recall of sounds—even words whose meaning she doesn’t know.”

  Agya waved that aside. “So? It means—well, what?”

  “It is an order,” Nemis said. “‘Stay put, you brute, and guard!’ As if the giant spoke to a pet.” He looked to Malowan, who was pressed against the east wall, eyes closed.

  “I sense incredible evil, despair, pain, and anger. I think the giant may be a cell guard, and there is a beast to aid him in that task.”

  “Beast?” Agya looked unhappy. “Like Jufas’ monkey? It weren’t no pet. It bit people, nasty creature, gave ’em awful fever. Jufas nearly got kilt when th’ brute jumped ’im wi’ no warnin’ at all.”

  Rowan nodded. “That is the worst of wild beasts being kept in fetters. Bears and apes will usually leave you alone in the wild. Kept prisoner and tormented—well, they act no worse than any of us would in their place.”

  “P’raps,” Agya said. Lhors didn’t think she sounded convinced at all. “But any kept ’ere won’t be yer wild, free things as leaves us alone, will they?”

  “Agya,” Malowan murmured and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Unfortunately, you are right. Beasts here will be pent and angry or trained to attack. And Vlandar, there are three or four other pent-up brutes to the west—I am nearly certain they are manticores, and it will do us no good to go after them. Remember where we are in the northwestern corner of the Steading. The west door may not lead anywhere but to a trap.”

  “I agree,” Vlandar said. “Better to avoid manticores altogether. The sting from their tails is said to be bad.”

  Nemis laughed, but his eyes weren’t amused. “Call it lethal.”

  Vlandar nodded. “Yes, I know. We go the other way, then.”

  When he turned to pick up his armor, Agya cleared her throat. “Wait. If y’ask me, we better learn ’xactly what’s there. I mean, what’s yon sounded mad to me and prob’ly not fussy if its dinner’s still alive. Seems sense to me if someone takes a look proper-like.”

  “We have Nemis—” Vlandar began.

  The girl shook her head. “Aye, and we have Mal—both of ’em for magic. But sir, we need a real search. ’Tis no time to be trustin’ only to magic.” She eyed Malowan sidelong. “’Member when you looked in th’ thieves guildhall for Mobwef and nearly got skewered?”

  “I did not,” the paladin replied with dignity, “nearly get skewered. I merely—”

  “’E had a noble’s spellstone e’d stolt,” the girl reminded him sharply, “and it was good enough that you wasn’t aware of ’im. Someone might ’ave a thing like that ’ere.”

  “And you would see him?” Nemis asked mildly.

  Lhors thought the mage was holding back temper—but only just from the way his eyes looked.

  “No,” she replied, “but I might smell ’im. Back in th’ city, Mobwef and ’is crew weren’t much for baths. Things ’ere ain’t either. I smelt Mobwef and warned Mal. Any of us go search out there first, it’s me.” Her face was a study in frustration. Probably, Lhors thought, she didn’t have use words as persuasion very often. “Master thief Mobwef, ’e had a rule back in th’ city. Job gets tricky so’s you maybe lose a thief or so, don’t risk th’ good ones or your green ’prentices neither, or them’s as don’t have experience in th’ kind of place they’re robbing. Pick so th’ loss won’t hurt yer guild, but still use one who knows ’is job.”

  “She’s saying,” Malowan added tiredly, “that she and Lhors are the most expendable of us all, but that Lhors wasn’t raised in a city and she was. She won’t be fazed by stone mazes.”

  “That’s it,” Agya replied then settled back on her heels. She spared a glance at Lhors, but then divided her attention between Malowan and Vlandar.

  Like I’m of no account, thought Lhors, like what she says matters—not what Vlandar decides! His face felt hot, and he hoped his sudden anger didn’t show. Oh, for a chance to see her out in hill country where she can feel as lost and useless as I do, he raged internally. I’ll show the skinny little—

  He knelt and busied himself rearranging things in his pack. It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t at least three years younger, so set on herself, and so gods-blasted self-sufficient.

  Agya’s voice tightened the back of his neck. “Stone and dark by themselves don’ scare me. I’m little,
a thief, and good at it too. If not, I’d be dead by now. And ’member you tested me back in city. I can go ’bout a place I ain’t been afore and give you a proper map of it.”

  “I’m persuaded,” Vlandar said as she paused for breath. “I know you can help me map this place, but Mal will go with you.” He held up a hand when she would have protested. “Do not argue with your commander. Remember that Mal has weapons and other skills that you may want if that beast attacks you.”

  Lhors turned back as Agya nodded. She seemed pale and momentarily beyond speech. Vlandar, the youth thought with some satisfaction, must have done that on purpose. Wisely, too. It would do no good if any of them went out there so overconfident that he or she died. His father had warned him against overconfidence on the hunt.

  Malowan and Nemis were already pressing aside a panel on the north wall that the mage had found earlier. The panel slid aside, revealing a heavy iron wheel. Khlened and Vlandar had to work hard to get it moving. Lhors gaped as the east wall of the little chamber slowly lifted into the ceiling. The whole system must have been recently oiled, because everything moved smoothly and in silence.

  The chamber beyond the door stretched for some distance north and east. The south wall and most of the cavelike ceiling were lost in gloom.

  Malowan gazed around for a long moment, then touched Agya’s arm. “There is a door almost straight across. Do you see it?”

  “A bit of light,” the girl agreed in a low voice, “and there”—she pointed just north of the light—“maybe another passage.”

  The paladin met Vlandar’s eyes. “Let the door down behind us. Nemis will know when we need it raised again.”

  The warrior nodded and clasped his arm. “Trithereon’s cloak cover you.”

  The two slipped from the little chamber. Vlandar waited long enough to be sure that some guard hadn’t spotted them, then he and Khlened lowered the door.

  Faced with nothing better to do in the quiet dark, Lhors sat and watched Nemis go through his supplies. The mage’s hands were steady and his mien thoughtful as he brought out the bottles he’d taken in the maids’ quarters. He seemed to be testing them, though he never removed any of the stoppers. Lhors wanted to ask how he did that, but he felt a little foolish around the self-contained Nemis. The man’s story about dark elves had made little sense to him, but it sounded frightening and the tale had certainly upset the rangers.