“Watch her leg! Watch her leg!” screamed Gunderal, as both Ivy and Sanval continued to swing their swords blindly at the area near her sister’s left boot. “Be careful!”
“Get it off me,” cried Zuzzara, the leather in her boot now starting to visibly shred around the calf. “Gunderal, do something! It’s magic!”
With an elegant swirl of silk skirts, Gunderal leaped into the bath. She landed gracefully but with a wince of pain as the movement jarred her sprained arm. With her uninjured hand, Gunderal fumbled loose the canteen at her belt, worked its cap open, and tucked it into her sling. She sprinkled drops of water into her good hand. Her canteen slipped out of the sling and fell onto the floor a thud. Stepping over the canteen, Gunderal muttered the words of a spell as she walked toward her half-sister.
“Get back!” screamed Zuzzara, terrified Gunderal would walk into the blades of the fighters or fall victim to whatever was trying to chew off her leg.
Gunderal ignored her. She continued to chant, cupping her hand in front of her face, and blowing out her breath.
Gunderal’s breath sparkled in the air, glittering like crystals. A frost formed on the invisible creature revealing four stumpy legs and a square body, with a cluster of round nodules covering its sides.
Now able to see the creature, Ivy and Sanval hit it on each side with their swords.
“Go for the head, go for the head,” cried Gunderal.
“Where is the head?” screamed Ivy.
“Where it is attached to my boot!” yelled back Zuzzara, giving a mighty kick. The creature hung on. Sanval swiftly spun and sliced away the cluster of nodules on the top of the creature’s head, barely missing Zuzzara’s foot. The creature gave off an even more noxious puff of stink and collapsed. A mottled green and brown hide became visible underneath the glittering frost that coated it. Although it was not easy to tell head from tail, what appeared to be the attacker’s mouth remained locked around the calf of the half-orc’s boot.
Using Zuzzara’s shovel as a crowbar, Sanval broke open the creature’s jaw and released Zuzzara’s leg.
Gunderal observed with satisfaction that the creature had not been able to completely bite through Zuzzara’s double-dragonhide boots. “I told her that the expense was worth it,” she explained to Sanval, who was still looking a little dazed from the stench of the creature. “Besides looking fantastic, those boots can survive the worst attack. It never pays to wear cheap footwear.”
“Certainly,” Sanval replied courteously. He flicked out a clean cloth from his belt pouch to wipe disemboweled fungus off his sword and the front of his own fine leather boots.
“But look at that tear,” said Zuzzara, leaning down to finger the long rent in the top layer of leather.
“We will just take them back and get them exchanged for a new pair. Probably something in green, that would be nice.”
“Do you think that cobbler will do that?”
“He gave us a lifetime guarantee,” said Gunderal with the assurance of a wizard who was always willing to make merchants live up to their promises.
Ivy poked the creature with the tip of her sword, just to verify that it was dead. It let out another puff of stink.
“Ivy, leave it alone,” said Gunderal, pulling up one of her long silk neck scarves to cover her nose.
“Poor baby,” said Mumchance, looking down at the four-legged creature. He snapped at Wiggles. “Don’t touch. Don’t roll in it! Bad dog! Wiggles, stay!” He lunged for the little white dog and scooped Wiggles up into his pocket before she could roll over the corpse.
“Poor baby!” said Zuzzara. “It nearly chewed my leg off.”
“Oh, stop making a fuss,” said her unsympathetic sister. “I told you that we can get you new boots.”
“What is it?” said Ivy. “Besides smelly.”
“Phantom fungus—you get them in old tunnels and caves. It’s a little one though. Full grown, it would have been chewing off Zuzzara’s hip, not biting her ankles,” said Mumchance. “Good thing you used that frost spell, Gunderal. It is the only thing that could have made it visible. Their invisibility talent is immune to most magical counterspells.”
“It should have frozen in place,” said Gunderal. She sighed from deep in her chest and shook her head. “Not just sparkled.”
“Hey,” said Zuzzara, “last time that you did that freeze spell, you turned me into a snow orc. That spell can sting!”
“The spell did not work anyway,” said Gunderal, ignoring her sister’s criticisms as she usually did. “I just can’t seem to concentrate long enough.”
“The frost was fine,” consoled Ivy, “all we needed to do was see it to kill it.”
“It was an excellent use of magic,” agreed Sanval with a slight bow. “In Procampur, we say that subtlety always takes more talent than brutality.”
“Oh, do we say that?” said Ivy, remembering some of her wilder strokes as she tried to bash Zuzzara’s attacker. “How very refined of us.”
Sanval simply looked puzzled at her tone.
“So, if this is the baby,” said Kid, poking at the dead pile of fungus with one shiny hoof, “where is the mother, dear ones?”
Everyone glanced around the room.
“I think it is time to start moving again,” said Ivy.
For once, nobody argued with her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Three possible exits from the city bath,” Ivy pointed out to her friends, ticking them off on her fingers. “There’s the lovely, dank, animal-dug tunnel which that baby phantom fungus came from.”
“Where that bugbear’s arm has gone, my dear. I’m sure that the mother fungus has it,” said Kid, sniffing the air in that direction as he retrieved his stilettos.
“Which may have body parts and bigger phantom fungi,” agreed Ivy. “Thank you for reminding us.”
The whole group decided against exploring that tunnel.
“Then there’s the northern way,” said Ivy, gesturing at the line of footprints that indicated where the rest of the unfortunate bugbear’s party had apparently fled.
“That is the way that we should go,” said Sanval. “If the bugbear was one of Fottergrim’s raiders, then they may be setting up an ambush. They may be aiming for the Thultyrl’s camp.”
“We don’t know that,” said Ivy. “All we know is that they were down here, and they are probably not friendly.”
As an officer of Procampur, Sanval pointed out that it was his duty to find out what the raiders were doing in these ruins and, if possible, capture or kill them. He was very courteous about it and obviously expected everyone to agree with him.
Ivy looked at her friends, and they all rolled their eyes.
“We were not going that way,” she told Sanval. “We need to get under the walls of Tsurlagol and bring the western wall down. As the Thultyrl decided.”
Sanval looked unconvinced. But before he could voice another argument or strike out on his own, following that mysterious trail of footprints, Zuzzara grabbed him from behind in a friendly headlock. He squirmed, but the half-orc was stronger and quite a bit taller than the officer from Procampur. She leaned over his shoulder to look into his face and show him her grin, full of pointy teeth.
“I owe you my life for being so quick with your blade,” said Zuzzara, “so I definitely cannot let you run off and get yourself killed.”
To avoid getting his windpipe crushed by Zuzzara’s concern, Sanval agreed to stay with the group, but he kept casting glances back at the line of footprints leading away from the bath.
“I should follow them,” he said.
“Sweet,” said Zuzzara, giving him another hug against her brass-buttoned waistcoat that caused all the breath to leave him with a giant whoosh.
“She’s more dangerous friendly than angry,” said Ivy, pulling Sanval away. “But she’s right too. Sweet of you to want to do your duty. But not proper behavior for an officer.”
Sanval’s dark eyes widened. “I would never do
anything that was inappropriate.”
Ivy gave him her most innocent smile. “Then you will want to follow the Thultyrl’s orders. He ordered you to go with us and stay with us and help us bring down the wall, didn’t he?”
Sanval looked as if he had just swallowed something very bitter. The logic of Ivy’s argument was inescapable. Yet, she could see a certain doubt crawled across his handsome features. Would it be more fitting to chase after a possible threat to the Thultyrl or to carry out the Thultyrl’s orders and stay with the Siegebreakers?
“It would be best to stay with us,” Ivy answered his unspoken question. He looked even more troubled that she had guessed what he was thinking.
Kid trotted back and forth at the entrance to the eastern tunnel.
“Are we going or staying, my dear?” he said to Ivy, clip-clopping a little ways into the darkened entrance.
“Give me your torch,” Ivy called to Zuzzara, putting her hand out for it. She took the lit torch from the half-orc and thrust it into the entrance of the tunnel. A long, smooth way ran straight ahead. Strong stone walls and ceiling were clearly visible. It was a tunnel built by humans (or more likely dwarves, added Mumchance). Best of all, it did not look as though it would easily collapse on them.
“It looks like a passage to Tsurlagol,” decided Mumchance. “But it might take us farther east than we want, toward the harbor gate rather than the southwest corner of the wall.”
“We’ll worry about that when we see where we come out,” decided Ivy. “We do not have time to try every tunnel. This one looks the most promising to get us close to the wall.”
The tunnel ran in a long curve, at times so narrow that they had to go in single file and at other times so wide that four could walk abreast. Kid led, so he could backtrack on the trail of the bugbear’s party.
“Quick step, quick step,” he chortled as he followed the faint trace of the footsteps in the dust. “They march straight, no pause, no doubt. They are hurrying away from where they came.”
“Were they pursued?” asked Ivy.
“Yes, but much later; other feet have passed through here,” said Kid. “But the followers miss the arch where we entered and go farther that way.” Kid pointed to another tunnel, slanting west and north as far as they could tell.
Bending down to examine the floor, Kid seemed puzzled by some of the marks. “Footprints, here and here, but older tracks too. Tracks of rats on four little feet, tracks of kobolds chasing after the rats, tracks of something with no feet chasing after the kobolds.”
“I do not like the sound of that,” said Gunderal with a delicate shudder.
“Oh, my dear, these are old, old tracks,” said Kid, one ear twitching back and forth in thought.
Ivy wondered if this tunnel had been a good choice. Still it was better than wandering after whatever party that bugbear came from, no matter how much a certain shiny gentleman kept making longing glances over his shoulder.
“What are the freshest tracks in this tunnel?” asked Ivy, convinced that she would not like the answer.
“Those we also saw in the room behind us, big feet and man-sized feet.” Kid scratched his nose, obviously mulling over his answer. “And then there were those tracks that hugged the walls and never went to the center of the room.”
“You didn’t tell us about those!”
“You were in a hurry to leave, my dear. Another group of big feet went tiptoe through the room. The tracks were a little fresher than the dead bugbear that Zuzzara found. Another party of orcs or bugbears perhaps, following the first group. Big hobnailed boots, all of them wore, and there were many treading over the other footsteps.”
“Blast.” Just what they needed: entire troop movements underground. Could Fottergrim be considering an ambush, using these tunnels to sneak some of his horde outside the walls for a quick attack on the camp? Or was it someone else, with their own secret mission in this rotten, mixed-up, tangled ruin of a dead city with its long buried secrets? “Blast, blast, and blast!” muttered Ivy as she considered their options. Well, there was no way to go back, and whatever way that the bugbears or other creatures had entered, that had to lead to the outside. Get her above ground and in the open air, and she could work out a strategy. Or let her find the foundation of Tsurlagol’s current western wall and she would topple it with great pleasure.
“Is there a problem?” As usual, Sanval’s tone was courteous and pitched low enough to be discreet.
“Problem?” Ivy gave an exaggerated roll of her shoulders. “No problem at all! Just thinking about the best way to bring down that wall. A good spell blast, maybe.”
“Ivy, we found something!” Zuzzara’s bellow echoed through the long, narrow tunnel. An open doorway was carved into the wall. To enter the dark room beyond, they had to step up over a broad stone threshold. From the other side, the Siegebreakers could see the lintel of the door was carved with a procession of men and horses, dragging wagons full of jars behind them. The flare of Zuzzara’s torch and the light of Mumchance’s lantern revealed a long, narrow room with niches carved into the walls, filling the space from floor to ceiling. Neatly piled bones, three or four skulls resting on the top of each pile, occupied each niche.
“Funeral procession,” said Mumchance, glancing up at the carving on the lintel. The carved parade continued across the ceiling, and small flecks of old paint brightened the ribbons carved around the spokes of the cartwheels and in the horses’ manes.
“We are in an ossuary,” said Sanval. “We have these in Procampur too. The dead are taken below the streets once their bodies are burned.”
“That is what I love about being underground,” said Ivy, “the wonderful things that you get to see, like other people’s graveyards.”
“Look at all the names on the wall,” said Gunderal, going from niche to niche. “I can read them; this writing is not that old. There are whole families in some of these niches: mother, father, children.”
“Not here,” said Zuzzara, pausing before another niche. This one had a smaller pile of bones than the others, and only one skull rested on top. The skull looked a little lonely, Ivy thought. Gunderal leaned against her sister’s shoulder and recited the epitaph inscribed upon the wall, her voice growing softer and sadder with each line.
“As for the name of this warrior, I do not know it,
Nor do I know from what place he came.
But he rode to our walls,
With his banner displayed and flying in the wind.
At his boasting, the defenders drew their blades.
We could not resist from beginning the battle.
Four fellows caught him and beat upon him,
Each stroke like a hammer upon an anvil.
His armor split to reveal the treasure beneath.
The wizards stole his gem, as they steal all.
When he died, the ground was hard with hoar-frost.
So we burned his body to keep him warm,
And stored his bones among our dead.
But his name we never learned,
And his family mourns unknowing.”
When Gunderal finished, even Zuzzara gave a little sniff and knuckled her eyes. Mumchance cleared his throat and rubbed Wiggles’s ears. The little dog licked his hand.
Ivy just shrugged. She would not let such a memorial affect her. “So died a mercenary. Unknown, unnamed,” she said.
Sanval gave her a peculiar look, almost sympathetic. Ivy ignored him. “I wonder what his treasure was.”
“Probably meant that they cut out his heart,” said Mumchance.
“I do not think it was his heart,” said Gunderal. “Wizards would not have much use for that.” She brushed an errant curl back behind her ear, tilting her head to one side in puzzlement. “There’s something else here. Some runes below the bones, like the ones back in the mosaic. See that one”—she tapped the symbol with one shell pink nail—“is almost the same as the one written near the big jewel carried by that wizard toppling to
wers in the picture.”
Distracted by a clattering sound, Ivy whipped around to see Kid poking through another pile of bones. She snapped an order at him. “Get away from that!”
Kid just gave her one of his pointed smiles and said, “No magic here, my dear. No spells. Just dead, cold dead, in their little pots and niches.” He trotted back to where they stood. He leaned very close to the wall to study the peculiar runes pointed out by Gunderal. “Beautiful Gunderal is right. These are the same as the ones written in the mosaic. Jewels—these marks may mean jewels. And there are footprints below the niche that are the five that we tracked before. Looking for something, but finding nothing, I think.” Something about the lone pile of bones discovered by the sisters intrigued him. Kid stuck his long, black-nailed fingers into the pile of bones before them, shifting the skull out of his way as he felt around the niche.
“I swear if you stir up another pathetic skeleton to attack us, I’m leaving you behind,” exclaimed Ivy.
“Do skeletons attack him often?” asked Sanval, remembering the lurching collection of bones in the hall of ash.
“With depressing regularity,” Ivy replied. “Skeletons, animated corpses, crawling hands of the undead. There’s something about him. Like honey to bears. Get away from those bones! We don’t have time, and there is nothing there for you to steal!” Ivy suddenly could not bear to see the lonely mercenary disturbed again. Eventually, everyone should be allowed some peace and rest. She reached out and smacked Kid not too gently across his bottom.
“I go, I go,” bleated Kid in mock terror, skipping out of her reach. “See how swift I run. Can you catch me, my dears?”
Rounding a corner at a quick trot, Kid almost smashed his nose on the stone wall that blocked the tunnel ahead. Ivy swore. They had reached a dead end.
“Just need to find the handle,” said Mumchance, running his hands over the smooth marble wall. “It must open. They did not walk through solid stone.”
Crypt of the Moaning Diamond Page 10
