Gunderal nodded and passed her hands over the wall as well, making ladylike sniffs, as she tried to divine what type of lock might hold the door closed.
“So who do you think is down here?” Sanval asked Ivy as the pair in front of them tried to open the secret door.
“Treasure hunters, most likely, and not from Procampur’s side of the wall,” Ivy admitted with as much candor as she could spare. She was not going to mention her worries about possible stray troops from Fottergrim’s horde. That would be enough to send Sanval dashing off in the darkness to save the day and probably get himself killed. “You have camels but no bugbears among your mercenaries. It could be deserters, which would be an encouraging sign, but you would think that they would be carrying more gear with them.”
“Why are deserters a good sign?”
“Now you want to chat? When we are in a hole in the ground with no clear way out?”
“Do you have something else to do? Just now?” And the man even made his comments sound reasonable, much to Ivy’s disgust.
Mumchance muttered something about missing his good pick and gestured Zuzzara to come forward. He took her shovel and tried to wedge the blade under the secret door. Ivy and Sanval moved farther back down the tunnel to give them room to work.
“Why are deserters a good sign?” When Sanval wanted to talk, he evidently wanted to talk.
“Because you don’t desert if you think you’re going to win. You leave when the food starts running low, or the water runs out, or the guy in charge turns out to be a raving lunatic with delusions of immortality and world conquest. Which happens far more frequently than you would think sensible. Look at Fottergrim.”
“World conquest?”
“Well, no, not since the Black Horde was destroyed. But why be such an idiot orc and seize a city? Especially such a city with such a history of bad luck. No one has ever managed to hold onto Tsurlagol. Wandering here and there in the hills, he could survive. Raid a town for a day, carry away the chickens and children, that I can understand.” Sanval gave her one of those straight down the nose looks that were a specialty of his. “Not approve, mind you, but understand.”
“About the chickens?” His tone was exceptionally dry.
“And the children. An orc has to eat, and he has to have somebody to wash out his laundry. A moving horde like Fottergrim’s needs slaves to do all the tasks that fighters think are so far beneath them.”
“Laundry.”
“Cooking, digging latrines, washing socks. Even if you only change your socks once a year, it is nice to have a clean, dry pair.”
“So why not take a city and enslave its citizens?”
“Because it is too big. Somebody is sure to object, like Procampur, and knock the walls down and take it back. It is strange. Fottergrim has been unusually clever for an orc these past ten years. It is almost as if someone talked him into taking the city. Or he was seized by divine madness. And I will bet you my nonexistent lunch and unlikely dinner, he is up on the walls right now, regretting that he ever invaded Tsurlagol.”
“So you think we can win the siege,” persisted Sanval.
“Certainly hope so,” replied Ivy, trying for a nonchalant tone to impress him. “Because we don’t get paid unless Procampur wins. So I would like to bring a wall down before I leave for better places. And nothing is getting done by standing here!”
The last was pitched much louder and Mumchance responded with, “We’re trying, Ivy.” The dwarf dropped to his hands and knees, sniffing along the floor like a hunting hound, obviously trying to scent some stray draft blowing under the door that might reveal an opening. Wiggles ran around him, occasionally giving the dwarf’s red nose a big lick. “Get away, sweetheart,” muttered Mumchance at the dog. “Let me do my work.”
“Perhaps Enguerrand can succeed without your help,” suggested Sanval. He probably meant his words as a kindness, but that statement pricked Ivy’s pride.
“Give me pike dwarfs and gnome archers, and I can topple any cavalry charge,” said Ivy. “And Fottergrim has much more than that.”
“Pikes and arrows would not work against such trained cavalry as Enguerrand leads,” stated Sanval with calm conviction.
“Does. Did. That’s how I met Mumchance,” said Ivy.
Sanval cocked an eyebrow.
“In the mud, pinned under a horse, having been on the wrong end of the charge,” explained Ivy. “Terrible day, rain pouring down, fresh plowed field all gone to muck. But there were these dwarves and gnomes. Just standing there. Waiting for us. They looked so very short from where we were sitting on top of our great big chargers. So the trumpets sound, the drums beat, and we go racing up hill in full armor in the stupidest charge in the history of horse-mounted warfare. I was one of the lucky ones. The arrows got my horse, and it rolled over on me. That horse’s death saved me from being spit on the pikes. Also I fell face up, rather than face down, so I didn’t drown in the mud.”
“How old were you?” said Sanval.
“Fifteen and foolish at that age, like all young humans,” said Mumchance standing up and brushing off his knees. He hooked his little hammer out of his belt and began tapping on the door, pressing one ear against the stone to listen for echoes. With a roll of his good eye toward Ivy, he added, “But she was politer than most.”
“Keep working,” said Ivy. “You don’t have time to gossip.” To Sanval, she said, “My mother taught me court courtesy.”
“Really?” said Sanval, clearly remembering the song about the red-roof girls and a few other comments.
“Oh, I can speak like a lady when I need to,” said Ivy with a blush. She remembered the song too. It lacked elegance. Any Procampur court lady would swoon at the first verse alone, and it was probably just as well that she’d stopped before she’d gotten to the last lyric, because that might have caused a few of the more squeamish Procampur gentlemen to faint too. That boy in the Forty had been extremely pink in the face when she had passed him in front of the Thultyrl’s tent. “And my father was a druid who taught me how to keep my mouth shut. The elves used to call him the Silent Walker. For example, he would never interrupt a good story halfway through. It was one of the things my mother liked best about him whenever his silence wasn’t driving her crazy.”
Sanval did not say anything.
“My manners saved my life,” Ivy continued. “There I was, pinned under a dead horse, with this dwarf sitting on top and asking me what I thought I was doing there. I told him the truth. I absolutely didn’t know why I was fighting that war, but I would appreciate a little help.”
“So I dug her out and dried her off. By then the girls’ father had disappeared, and their mothers were gone, and I thought I could use a little extra help at the farm.” Mumchance pushed Zuzzara’s shovel’s edge against the bottom of the stone door. Scraping sounds, the high-pitched kind that made the back of Ivy’s teeth hurt, filled the tunnel and caused the others to retreat a few steps. With a grunt, Mumchance pulled the shovel out from under the door and returned it to Zuzzara. “Well, that didn’t work. Gunderal, any luck?”
Gunderal muttered something that sounded terribly close to a swear word. Zuzzara looked slightly shocked; Zuzzara’s mother had never let her use language like that! But, being a water genasi, Gunderal’s mother had possessed a very salty tongue when she was angry. Gunderal’s vocabulary was far less delicate than her looks.
“There is a lock, a magical lock,” muttered Gunderal. “I am sure of it. But it is on the other side of the door, and I can’t tell you anything more.”
“It was the most miserable little war. Neither of us could see any reason to stay,” Ivy continued talking to Sanval. She never had any luck with magic doors. If Gunderal and Mumchance could not open it, they would have to go back. She kept chattering to distract herself from screaming in frustration. “So we deserted, Mumchance and I. It was the sensible thing to do.”
“And this war?” asked Sanval with more than polite curiosity.
“Oh, as miserable as the rest,” said Mumchance, still staring at the door. The dwarf frowned, the lines crossing his forehead deepening, and the scars across his face more pronounced than ever. With the iron clad toe of his boot, he softly kicked the obstacle facing him—a straight line across the bottom of the door, clang, clang, clang—but nothing rattled or echoed in the stone door. “But war pays our bills. That is why mercenaries fight, boy. For the money. Not honor, not glory, not history. For loot. Well, except for the odd bad one.…”
“The ones that fight because they like it,” said Ivy. “And before you ask, we are the good kind of mercenary. The ones who care most for gold.”
Sanval did not look reassured.
“So why do you fight?” she asked.
“Because I am a noble of Procampur, pledged to the service of the Thultyrl. And he is a good king, the wisest we have had for some time. But even if he were the worst of tyrants, I would still answer his call. My family has always served the Thultyrl.”
“What sort of family do you have?”
Sanval frowned. “None now, but I come from people who do their duty. My parents did as their families asked. They were betrothed in their cradles and married at the most auspicious time determined by their parents.”
“And were they happy?”
“I do not know,” admitted Sanval. “I never saw them except at formal gatherings. We send our children to the schools for those of our district, to be raised together by approved tutors. Like most boys, I seldom left my dormitory until I came of age, and by then my parents had perished from the same fever that killed the old Thultyrl.”
Ivy grinned at him. “Bet you never thought your path would drop you underground with a bunch of mercenaries unsuccessfully trying to break through a door.” The last sentence was made directly to the dwarf still kicking the door in front of her.
“Maybe a counterweight, above the door,” speculated Mumchance, ignoring Ivy. “Hey, Zuzzara, give me a boost up.”
Zuzzara grabbed the dwarf around the waist and lifted him to her shoulders. His head rapped smartly on the stone ceiling. “Sorry,” said Zuzzara with a grunt as she adjusted the dwarf’s feet on her shoulders.
“No,” said Mumchance feeling along the lintel. “Nothing here. Let me down. Gently! Gently!”
Zuzzara caught him as he flipped off her shoulders and just prevented him from landing headfirst on the floor. Kid snickered, and even Gunderal looked a little less depressed.
After several more attempts to get the door to open, they declared themselves defeated. Mumchance admitted that without the exact knowledge of how the door locked and unlocked, they could not open it.
Gunderal, in particular, was very upset by her failure after having such recent improvement with the phantom fungus. Zuzzara told her sister not to worry, that her spells would come back soon.
“Like you would know anything about magic,” said Gunderal with a tearful sniff. She fumbled a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes.
“I know nothing about magic,” admitted Zuzzara with one of her deep chuckles and a pat on the back that caused Gunderal to stumble. Ever since Gunderal had managed at least the frost spell against the animated fungus, Zuzzara had cheered up. She no longer suggested carrying her little sister or whispered to Ivy about the possibilities of blood poisoning developing from a sprained arm. “But I know you, little sister. You may be pretty, but you are not dumb.”
It was the start of an old family joke, and Gunderal giggled. “And big and ugly doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”
“Unless you fall down on the way to the outhouse.” Zuzzara added the obscure punchline that Ivy had never understood.
Gunderal started laughing so hard that she had to stop to mop the streaming tears out of her eyes.
“Sisters,” moaned Ivy. “I will never, ever, campaign with sisters again!”
“You say that every time,” said Mumchance. “Hurry up, you two. No point standing around here now.”
As he turned, he bumped into Ivy, who stumbled and thrust out her left hand to catch herself. As she fell against the wall, she felt a stone shift beneath her gloved hand. A grating sound came from the floor beneath them, and the entire room shook.
“Earthquake?” asked Sanval in a calm but resigned tone, as he kept his balance on the shifting stone.
“Wizard work,” shouted Mumchance over the crunch of rock sliding over rock. The whole room lurched to the left and bumped to a stop. A new door opened in front of them, with a black corridor running before them. The stone door behind them and the entrance to the ossuary before them had disappeared.
“Shifting passage,” grumbled Mumchance. “Sort of stupid thing that wizards put in for short cuts.”
“Well,” said Ivy, still determined to be optimistic, “perhaps this leads straight outside.”
“Did you suspect such a possibility?” Sanval asked Mumchance.
“I suspect everything, but that never finds the key to a shifting passage. Only a truly lucky or miserably unlucky accident does that,” the dwarf complained and stamped ahead of them through the opening.
“And which kind of accident is this, my dear?” speculated Kid with a soft laugh at the dwarf’s grumbling.
“Won’t know until we get there,” said Mumchance over his shoulder. “Come on, Wiggles, hurry up.” The little dog was lagging behind and seemed reluctant to enter the room. The dwarf whistled. Wiggles tucked her tail firmly between her legs and slunk into the passage behind him.
In the darkness far ahead of the Siegebreakers, the magelord hissed and stopped. He had felt something, like a cold draft across his spell-laden shoulders. The charms attached to his robe murmured to him, giving him advance warning of a new danger. Magic … Somebody or something had woken up an old magic in these tunnels.
“Fools.” He peered back into the blackness outside the yellow light cast by the torches. Fottergrim had set trackers on his trail. He had known that the big orc would do that. Who knew what those idiots had stirred up? If only that foolish orc had done what he had told him to and stayed outside the walls of Tsurlagol, letting him explore these tunnels in peace. No, no, the big stupid oaf had to smash his way into the city and start a war!
The bugbears surrounding him shuffled their broad feet and voiced their complaints. They had been growing more obnoxious in their objections since they had had to abandon that one female bugbear. As if such a creature mattered to him! A quick snap of the fingers, and a quicker flash of fire lit up the tunnel, turning the bugbears’ complaints to sullen but subdued snarls.
“We are being followed,” he informed them. After all, it was the bugbears’ job to guard him while he went about his business. He had already paid them a half-horse worth of nearly fresh meat that morning. And promised them more in the evening. “Be alert!”
But he decided not to rely on the bugbears alone—they were stupid creatures whose big muscles gave them their only worth in his estimation. Something else slithered through the ruins of buried Tsurlagol, something large and scaled and hungry.
With a few muttered words, and at the cost of only one charm, the magelord called the creature to him. At his feet was the big hole that they had just climbed out of. It was another dead end for his treasure hunt, but a perfect trap for anyone foolish enough to follow him.
The new tunnel led the Siegebreakers into another broad room, wider than the first. Like the ossuary, it contained bones—only these were strewn across the floor as well as piled into niches. At the sight and smell of the bones, Wiggles’s ears went up. The little dog tentatively wagged her tail. Mumchance snatched at her collar to keep her from grabbing the nearest bone. While hauling Wiggles away, the dwarf noticed that there was one peculiarity about all the skeletons scattered across the floor.
“There are no heads,” Mumchance said. “Where have all the skulls gone?”
“Burial rite?” guessed Ivy.
Kid advanced into the center of the room.
He glanced at Ivy, waiting for her to tell him not to touch. When she said nothing, he stretched out one little hoof and stirred the bones. An odd grin of amusement spread across his face. “Perhaps someone took away the skulls for a collection, my dears, or to roll them through the ruins for their pleasure.”
“There’s something evil here,” said Gunderal with a shiver at the little thief’s suggestions. “I can feel it.” She passed Kid, going into the center of the room and looking right and left. “There’s something hiding here. I know it.”
Gunderal peered into the shadowy niches lining the walls, with Zuzzara following directly behind her.
“Let’s just get out of here,” suggested Ivy.
“No,” Gunderal almost snapped at her. “We have to find it first. If we try to pass before we find it, we’ll end up like those skeletons.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because I am a wizard,” said Gunderal with more force than normal. “Evil was done here.”
“Come on, Gunderal,” said her sister. “You are just nervous. It has been a bad day.”
The wizard heaved a sigh. “Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. This is what I am good at, sensing magic, just as you are good at hitting things.” Gunderal moved back to the center of the room. Rather than skipping lightly around the bones on the floor, as she would normally do, she kicked her way through a rib cage, sending bits rolling off to one side. “Show yourself. I know you are there,” she said.
Everyone looked at Gunderal, then looked around the room, not asking to whom she spoke. She was a wizard, and they respected that. Still, they had never seen her talk to a pile of bones before. When a thin, strange voice answered her, they all became motionless. Ivy liked to think that standing frozen like a statue in the marketplace was a sign of alertness on her part, never fear. She glanced at Sanval. As always when faced with danger, his face was as frozen as the farm pond in midwinter. But he did give the tiniest shrug of inquiry. Ivy raised her eyebrows and shook her head when he started to move forward. She trusted Gunderal’s instincts. The little genasi had gotten them out of more than one magical trap. Besides, from the way that Kid’s ears were swiveling back and forth in nervous agitation, she was sure that he felt something peculiar in the room too.
Crypt of the Moaning Diamond Page 11
