Crypt of the Moaning Diamond

by Rosemary Jones

  “Let’s discuss defensive strategy later,” suggested Ivy. “Gunderal, can you put it out?”

  The little wizard scanned the skies above them. A lone white cloud floated harmlessly overhead. “It won’t be much,” Gunderal said, “but I think I can wring a short burst of rain out of it.”

  “Well, do it, Sister, do it!” said Zuzzara, dodging a falling beam and leaping over the body of a stunned orc trapped beneath it.

  Gunderal concentrated, giving out a series of complicated commands that almost sounded like bird calls. The cloud turned from white to black. There was a rumble of thunder somewhere far overhead.

  “Nothing fancy, no lighting,” yelled Mumchance. “This roof won’t protect us.”

  Gunderal nodded, and the cadence of her call changed. It began to rain. Heavy drops sizzled on the burning roof and formed enormous puddles on the walkway. Ivy watched with satisfaction as one of the orcs charging them with raised sword and spiked shield stepped in the water, slipped, skidded on the wet stones, and bounced over the edge of the wall. The creature tumbled into space, its weapons flying. Its mouth opened with a furious howl, then it disappeared into silence far below them.

  The rain slowed to a dull pattering and then stopped. The roof smoldered above them, letting off damp puffs of black smoke.

  “We won’t be barbecued today,” Ivy said.

  “That’s it,” said Gunderal as the last drop fell gently on her blue-black curls. “And that is my last spell of the day. I need to rest before I can do any more.” She paled and swayed.

  “It’s enough, little sister. It’s more than enough,” said Zuzzara as she hugged Gunderal, almost lifting her off her feet. Ivy eyed the smoke-smudged Siegebreakers. Sanval was fighting in shirt sleeves, but at least he had a sword, and it had already been bloodied on the wall. Zuzzara still had her shovel—it was a bit dented, but that iron was hard. Kid had grabbed a discarded goblin stick, and he had a wicked gleam in his eye. Mumchance was best protected—his sturdy summer armor had survived their day underground basically intact. For once he had remembered to draw his short sword instead of his hammer.

  “You and you, flank me,” said Ivy, pointing at Kid and Sanval. “Mumchance, stay with the sisters and keep anything you can off their backs.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked the dwarf, dropping back to the rear as she had commanded.

  “Hit them hard,” shouted Ivy as she picked up speed again. Sanval and Kid kept a nice half stride behind her; they formed a perfect flying wedge heading toward the battling Archlis and Fottergrim.

  “Hit them low,” screamed Ivy, not bothering to look back over her shoulder. The Siegebreakers were tight on her heels, and she could hear thuds and screams as they overran any leftover orcs still littering the walkway. She raced along the top of the wall—head down, braid swinging, fists tight, forehead lined, and eyes narrowed—as she tried to turn herself into an one-woman battering ram. Nothing like flying into a fight with an empty scabbard, she thought.

  Ivy barreled into the magelord and the orc, breaking the two apart. A joyously barking Wiggles dashed through her feet. Ivy teetered. Sanval grabbed her waist and steadied her upright as he twisted her out of danger and skewered one of Fottergrim’s startled hobgoblin bodyguards. Ivy leaned around him and caught an answering slash of a sword on her forearm armor.

  “Thank you,” said Sanval, following her earlier advice and dropping low to slash at the knees of another bodyguard who was trying to scramble out of their way.

  “It was nothing,” panted Ivy, hoping that the blow had only bruised her arm and not broken anything. “Where did the dog go?”

  Ahead of them, Wiggles zigzagged around a raging Fottergrim, heading straight for Archlis. The little white dog bit the magelord, hard, and her sharp white teeth cut through his suede boots. Like the dread before him, the magelord had obviously not placed a protection against small white dogs among his many clanking, clinking charms. Archlis screamed and tried to hop away, clinging to the Moaning Diamond, then doubled over to slap at the dog with his other hand. The edge of the Ankh hit the rock wall, and he lost his hold on it and dropped it. Wiggles dashed off, scampering toward Mumchance. Fottergrim picked up the magelord’s Ankh and retreated up the walkway. The big orc shook it as if he expected it to launch a fireball directly at Archlis. Nothing happened, much to his surprise.

  “You fool,” screamed Archlis. “I could have made you a king!”

  “Traitor! Human!” the orc screamed insults back at him.

  With another cry of rage, Archlis glared at Fottergrim, raised his hand, and twisted a rusted iron ring on his finger. The bony magelord transformed into an enormous hairy demon, so unlike his narrow-shouldered, skeletal self that for the blink of a moment, no one understood what had happened. Then they all stopped whatever they were doing and stared. The transformed Archlis was so huge that his furry shoulders and giant boar-tusked head broke through the charred, soggy wooden roof above him. Bits of timber rained down on both sides of the wall. Orcs unfortunate enough to be standing near Archlis were pushed over the edge of the wall by his sheer bulk.

  “What is it?” Ivy asked, staring up at monster.

  “Huge and ugly,” Zuzzara called. It was certainly that—a beast three times the height of the magelord, covered in fat, muscle and scruffy fur, with taloned fingers that hung on apelike arms, and hands that almost touched the ground. Its ears were wide and notched, its face a scrunched up horror, its body an expanded grotesque imitation of an ape. On its shoulders were black feathery wings, completely out of proportion, appearing much too small to lift that enormous weight.

  Kid called softly, “It is a nalfeshnee, my dear, a demon from the Abyss.”

  “Thanks for the lesson,” said Ivy. “How do we kill it?”

  “We may not have to, my dear,” said Kid, pulling her back from the crumbling edge of the wall. “Wait and watch.”

  “Hey, sister, why don’t you have a ring like that?” shouted Zuzzara over the screams of crushed orcs, caught between the nalfeshnee’s bulk and the stone walkway.

  “And turn myself into something that hideous? Never!” yelled Gunderal.

  Ivy stuck out her foot and tripped up a fleeing hobgoblin who tried to dash past her. It threw out its arms to maintain its balance, and its halberd—with its axelike head and long handle—cartwheeled into the air. Stretching out a long arm, Ivy caught the halberd, then spun away and let the hobgoblin rush past. The hobgoblin paused for half a step, glanced back at the giant demon, shook his shield at Ivy, but continued running.

  “Look at the magelord,” crowed Kid. “He went too large. The nalfeshnee cannot fight on top of this wobbling wall.”

  “Kid is right,” Mumchance shouted. “Look at that wall. It is cracking.”

  Bits of the stone crenellations snapped off as Archlis tried to steady himself. The sheer size of his backside, in the beast’s form, forced the stones off the wall, following the roof timbers and squashed bodies to the ground below.

  “We need to get out of here now,” commanded Ivy.

  Sanval thrust with his sword at an attacking orc. With one swift move, he skewered the creature. It doubled up, its weapons flying out of its hands. Sanval pivoted, the orc still caught on his blade’s point. When he twisted his wrists to free the blade, he managed to fling the orc off the wall. While he wiped the blade clean on a fallen orc, he said, “I knew following you would get us out of the ruins. I know you will find a way out now.”

  “Thanks,” shouted Ivy, touched by his confidence in her abilities. She ducked under the blow of another pig-snouted fighter, using her stolen halberd to ram the surprised orc between the legs and send it sprawling. Stepping hard on the orc’s stomach once it was prone, she retrieved the halberd and jumped to Sanval’s side. “All part of the job, rescuing our friends!”

  “I thought you did not believe in heroics.” Sanval slicked his tumbled curls out of his eyes as he skewered another orc one-handed.

&nb
sp; “I lied,” Ivy admitted. “Heroics are fine.” She grinned at Sanval as she reached around him to smack the backside of a startled archer who had wandered into this section of the wall seeking his friends. The barbarian fled with a yell for reinforcements.

  “Watch out!” Sanval dived past Ivy, ramming another screaming orc over the wall before the trooper could brain Gunderal with his warhammer. The pretty wizard gave Sanval a sparkling smile as she ducked around her big sister to help trip up two orcs attacking Zuzzara.

  Swinging his blade at another orc, Sanval sliced it below the knees. The creature lost its balance and toppled into space. Sanval and Ivy pivoted around each other to strike more attacking orcs.

  “Ask me what mercenaries and red-roof girls have in common,” she said, reaching past him with her stolen halberd to crack an orc across the side of his head.

  “Nothing at all,” Sanval exclaimed, glancing at her with a most peculiar smile that lit up his dark eyes. He jabbed away at an oncoming hobgoblin.

  “Do too,” she laughed. “Both always figuring out every move. Both more fun than an entire room full of proper Procampur ladies. Don’t for a moment think that I did not have a plan in my back pocket for everything that happened in the ruins.”

  “There goes Archlis,” Zuzzara said, pointing with her shovel. She gave a formidable whack on the top of the head to a poor little goblin sneaking around them, obviously a stray still seeking an escape route off the creaking, groaning wall. Fottergrim had retreated even farther back, so he stood in the doorway of the farthest watchtower, screaming some type of order over his shoulders.

  “Look! He really can fly!” said Gunderal.

  Incredibly for a creature of its bulk, the tiny wings lifted the demon Archlis off the wall. His feet hung no more than a half a man’s height above the surface. As he lifted off the wall, Norimgic and Osteroric took one look at the orcs bearing down on them and then leaped after Archlis, each grabbing a long arm. Archlis gave a roar and shook his hands, but the screaming bugbears held tight. Bobbing and weaving, Archlis began a ponderous flight off the wall. The bugbears dangled off his arms, both paddling their big flat feet like swimmers, as though hoping to keep themselves afloat.

  “It would appear that flight is a good choice, with perhaps a touch of magic?” Kid tugged at her waist, and Ivy realized that rather than pulling her out of the way, he was trying to get her attention by dragging the red magic belt out from where it was tucked down behind her weapons belt.

  “That’s a good idea,” observed Ivy, thrusting the halberd’s tip through the breastplate of an orc. She bent her knee and pressed the sole of her boot against the orc’s armor to pull the halberd free from the dead creature. With a grunt, she stated, “Let’s follow him down.”

  “I am pleased that Osteroric escaped,” said Sanval, close on her heels as she headed for the edge. “He and his brother were rather civilized for bugbears.”

  “And their pockets are still stuffed with jewels, which is more than what we got,” mourned Mumchance.

  “We’ll just add it to the Thultyrl’s invoice,” declared Ivy. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  Ivy jumped up on the edge of the wall. Looking straight down, she had a clear view of the ground, a long, long way below her. Piles of dead orcs with twisted limbs and shattered heads and bodies testified to the height. Ivy stood on the ledge, teetered forward, then stepped back and beckoned her crew. “Grab my belt!” she yelled.

  “I don’t understand,” Sanval began.

  “Trust me,” she said, looking down at Sanval. Despite all the dust and rust and assorted grime that they had picked up that day, his upturned face just shone with honesty, bravery, and all those other fine Procampur qualities. The man did not need highly polished armor to dazzle her. Sanval smiled up at her.

  “Ivy!” Zuzzara and Mumchance and Kid shouted together, with Kid adding a gentle, “My dear.”

  Startled, she swung around to look at them, then completed the turn to look in the direction they all pointed.

  Archlis as the demon Nalfeshnee beat his wings frantically, trying to distance himself from the battlements. But he was sinking. The huge creature looked like some six-legged, three-headed bat that could not fly very well. The bugbears, dangling from the giant monster’s arms, their legs churning, weren’t helping. Tossing their considerable weight in their terror, and swinging their weapons and occasionally pricking the demon’s hairy body, they howled and screamed and blubbered. The bugbear brothers had been brave fighters when grounded, but flying was not something any bugbear ever yearned to do.

  “We need to get out of here!” Mumchance had finally caught Wiggles. Tucking the little dog firmly into his pocket, the dwarf nimbly avoided one of the falling orcs who had just been brained by Zuzzara’s wildly swinging shovel.

  “Got a plan!” screamed Ivy. “Everyone to me! To me!”

  “Coming, my dear,” said Kid, as he leaped up and drummed another orc on its snout with his sharp hooves. The creature let out a howl and clapped both hairy hands over its injured proboscis.

  “What are you going to do?” Sanval asked, backhanding an orc trying to detain him as he climbed up on the edge of the wall next to her. Ivy was holding herself steady by wrapping one arm around a wooden pillar supporting the burned-out roof.

  “Grab my belt!” Ivy screamed at him over the noise of the fight behind them. There was such confusion that Fottergrim’s gray orcs and mountain orcs were busy trying to brain each other—each group was convinced that the others had started the fight that now engulfed the top of the wall. The battered Fottergrim was howling orders at all of them, but nobody could hear him over the general hubbub. The hobgoblins who had come late to the fight, following the orange goblins into the fray, jabbed with their spiked shields. The orcs crouched below them, red eyes gleaming, and thrashed their halberds like scythes. The hobgoblins shouted to each other, closing ranks, occasionally saving each other with a sword thrust, and occasionally overreaching and stabbing one of their own kind.

  “My belt!” Ivy yelled at Sanval. All the other Siegebreakers had figured it out, but he had not been there for the fight with the destrachans. She could feel Zuzzara’s big hand firmly anchored in her weapons belt. The big half-orc had snatched up her little sister and tucked Gunderal under her other arm. Mumchance and Kid each had their hands locked on her legs. Ivy let go of the wooden post and grabbed the silver buckle of the narrow red belt that she wore loosely below her heavy weapons belt. “Pull the wings open three times and then shut,” she whispered to herself as her fingers caught the small silver wings. She twisted them and prayed to whatever gods might be listening that the belt’s magic would hold them all up. It had worked well underground, lifting her out of the reach of the destrachans, but she had been the only weight to lift. Now there was a lot more weight hanging off her, and she prayed that her weapons belt would hold and that her pants would stay up. That would be all that she needed—to plunge to her death baring her ass to the fighting orcs and screaming hobgoblins behind her. Then again, it wasn’t that bad of a final fate, she decided. It would be a way to leave the world with a certain ragged style.

  Either way, Ivy just had to trust that her luck (and her belt) would hold.

  “Jump!” she screamed at Sanval as she snagged his collar with her free hand and pulled him off balance. His booted feet shot out and up, his arms flew up, his fist tightened around his sword hilt, and his dark curls blew every which way.

  Ivy plunged off the wall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The belt’s magic was strained, but not broken. Rather than shooting toward the sky, they dropped, jerked level, and then started to gently descend to the ground.

  Sanval hung straight down from his collar, where Ivy held him in a tight grip, his body rigid, his arms and legs pointing hopefully toward the earth, his face a frozen blank. He made a slight choking sound, and Ivy tried to shift her grip so she would not strangle him before they hit the gro
und.

  Zuzzara had let out a single huge bellow when they leaped off the wall. Ivy looked down at the half-orc, dangling from her white-knuckled grip on Ivy’s heavy weapons belt. Beads of perspiration popped out on the half-orc’s forehead. Zuzzara was as pale as Ivy had ever seen her. Suspended with Zuzzara’s arm around her waist, Gunderal looked like some pretty bird, her body perpendicular to the ground, her arms stretched out like wings, her hair and skirts fluttering around her. She seemed to be shaking with soft laughter.

  Ivy looked past them to the two hanging on her legs. Mumchance was staring at the ground, or was that his good eye that he had squeezed closed? Wiggles was a lump in his pocket, not even an ear sticking up over the edge. Kid clung to her other leg, and it did not surprise Ivy to see him look up at her, wink, then grin at the floating Gunderal.

  They sank slowly, spiraling down in an odd zigzag pattern, and then they all hit the ground in a tumble of legs and arms.

  “Oooh,” Gunderal moaned, flattened beneath her big sister.

  “Sorry,” Zuzzara said, rolling off her onto all fours. She pushed herself upright and pulled her little sister into a standing position.

  “It’s all right,” said Gunderal. She smoothed down the front of her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. Her blue-black curls fluffed obediently into perfect ringlets, with highlighted streaks of blue and aquamarine framing her pearly features. “Good fighting up there, big sister.”

  Zuzzara shrugged. “It’s what I do best!” Imitating Gunderal, she straightened her waistcoat and shook her head so that her many braids swung out, the iron beads clattered, and the braids fell neatly into place. She smiled weakly and wiped the perspiration from her face with her hand. “Give me a hundred hobgoblins every day, as long as I never have to fly.”

  “No, it was wonderful,” Gunderal said with a little laugh. “I must get a new spellbook—one with flying spells in it.”

  “How could you like that? You are water genasi, not air genasi!” said a surprised Zuzzara.