by John Daulton
“Well, Sarge,” said Meggins, “I have a feeling we’ll find out when we see what’s over there in the light.”
Ilbei was half-tempted to turn back, but he didn’t. The hope of something better ahead, even in the unknown, was preferable to the certainty of something nasty where they had already been. So down they went.
Soon enough, they made it to the rough-cut bottom of the man-made cavern, which grew in size as they moved along until it was clear that they’d come into the upper reaches of a natural cavern instead. The former had clearly been added to the latter through the labor of men bent on getting to the stream—an advanced bit of planning and engineering, Ilbei noted silently.
Moving on, they approached the bend around which the light came, treading cautiously and waiting until the latest bright flare of light dimmed down. Ilbei peered first around it to see what was beyond.
The floor of the natural cavern they had come into fell away abruptly, dropping another seventy spans, this time straight down. The stream plunged over it and fell in a long white ribbon where it crashed to the floor below. As it flowed away from the base of the rock face, it painted a black stripe across the bottom of the now very large cavern, which was at least a half measure long and a quarter measure wide. The stream vanished around another leftward bend and disappeared.
The walls of the cavern were riddled with mine shafts, angled into the rock and clearly abandoned, given there were no ladders or long flumes anywhere nearby. Ilbei knew exploratory excavations when he saw them, and oh, what a scale this exploration had been on. How could he possibly never have heard of this work? Jasper’s expression showed that he was thinking the same thing, clearly having never read anything of it in his mining journals or books. Ilbei knew that if he had, the pedantic wizard would be babbling on about it just then. Which meant, it had to be a secret. And no small one. And what’s more, it damned sure wasn’t an operation bent on copper or lead.
“What is it, Sarge?” Kaige asked. Having grown up on a farm, he had no experience with mining, but it was apparent in the way both Ilbei and Jasper stared out into the open space that something was unusual. Meggins’ expression suggested he was interested to hear what answer came.
“If’n that there ain’t a gold mine of the most modern make, then I’m the royal assassin and Jasper here is the Queen.”
“It might be silver,” Jasper said. “The royal silver mines in southern Great Forest are equally vast. Unfortunately, given that that sad D-class seeing spell wouldn’t allow me to get this far, much less any farther, I couldn’t tell you which, making either guess as likely as the other.”
“Ya might be right, Jasper,” Ilbei said, “but—” He cut himself off when a wave of people, small in the distance, moved together out from behind the bend at the far end, hustling in a tight group into the center of the cavern, looking like a foamy wave washing up a beach. The wave stopped halfway across and did not rush back right away. Right after came the bright flare of fire from around the bend. The little figures waited together, motionless, as the bright light filled the cavern. When it was gone, the wave of them returned to the sea of their unseen origins, running out of view as one. Something hissed briefly a short time after, and once more the air was filled with the sound of metal on stone.
“Well, one thing is sure,” Meggins said. “Whoever they are, if they all got in here, there’s a way for them to get out.”
“So we can too,” Kaige added.
“Aye, lad, we can,” Ilbei agreed. “But first we got to get down this here cliff. That’s quite a drop down there.”
He lay on his stomach and crawled to the edge, where he peeked over and looked for an easy way down. A little past halfway was a narrow ledge that ran twelve or so paces along the cliff face. He drew back and got to his feet again.
“There’s a ledge breakin it up,” he said. “I got my rope, and Kaige still has his. We ain’t used Jasper’s yet either, so we’ll still have one when we’re done.”
“Why don’t Jasper send us with his teleport spell?” Kaige asked, appearing very happy to have had such a clever idea.
Ilbei had to force himself not to snap at him, realizing there was nothing wrong with the suggestion—other than Ilbei’s hatred of teleporting. It was one thing to teleport out of real danger, but letting himself be dissolved and reappeared to avoid a simple thing like climbing was too unsettling for thought. If his life was going to be at stake, he’d rather trust himself to hammer his own stake into a rock face and climb down like a man. But the basilisk was already out of the bag, so to speak, so he waited to see what Jasper had to say.
It seemed that the sweet goddess Mercy shined her love down on Ilbei, for Jasper sadly pronounced, “I’ve got four more. Not enough to get everyone down all the way, and only enough to get four down to that first ledge.” It was all Ilbei could do not to shout for joy.
“Well, that’s just hard luck on us, boys and girls,” he said, so as not to let his relief be known. “Now let’s get to it. That wall ain’t gonna climb itself.”
Jasper frowned and seemed to wonder how that made any sense, while Meggins secured Kaige’s rope to an outcropping of stone, and Ilbei put his weapons and gear in order. Ilbei looped his own rope around his shoulders and tucked several pitons and a hammer into his belt. He tied the rope Meggins handed him around his waist, then nodded for Kaige and Meggins to lower him down. Soon he was inching down the wall like a four-legged spider in chainmail and a steel hat.
He came down gently on the ledge and saw as he did that there was an opening in the cliff a few paces from where he stood. The ledge was just wide enough that he could make his way to it. He inched toward it, quietly, his back pressed to the rock. When he was at the opening, he peered around the edge, but the entry gave way only to blackness. Blackness and the reek of harpy filth. He suddenly knew what the indescribable odor was. He didn’t have to ask anyone, he didn’t even have to see a harpy. He’d caught enough of a whiff from the dead ones to know what it was. And now he knew what it smelled like in concentrate. He’d never forget it either. Olfactory stains like that don’t erase from memory.
He pulled back, mainly to catch his breath, but also intent on waiting for the next flare of fire so he could see farther inside. But from inside the darkness came a low, throaty rasp that made him reconsider.
Ilbei looked back up the cliff at his companions as he drew his pickaxe. Kaige was just preparing to start down, but Ilbei gave him the signal to wait. He gripped the weapon firmly and laid his arm across his chest, prepared for a vicious backhanded strike if anything untoward should poke its head out of the cave.
Nothing did, however, and after several heart-pounding moments, the rasp was gone. The light at the far end of the cavern flared again. Ilbei watched in its brilliance as once again the cluster of small figures ran out into the open and stood together patiently. He contemplated them for a few moments, then decided to risk another look into the opening. He couldn’t bring his people down until he knew what was in there making that noise.
He inched back to the edge of the opening and, before the bright light went out, he chanced another look.
She dove at him with her claws out, human hands, but long-fingered and taloned at the end where slender fingernails ought to have been. She rushed out in a wind of wings, a flurry of feathers that might once have been gray but were mainly brown and black with filth. The hissing rasp was the same as it had been before, but louder, and she was upon him with gaping mouth and gnashing teeth.
He was too close to swing his pickaxe properly and only managed an elbow strike. It struck her in the chest, soft tissue and bone beneath, the bared breasts of a woman, though grimy and caked with filth. She shrieked but came on anyway, the force of her leap and the power of her wings driving her forward. She grappled him as she dove, clawing at his face and wrapping her powerful legs around him, pulling him into her, as her teeth strove for his throat. His helmet tumbled down, bouncing once with a clang against
the cliff.
Her momentum swung them out from the side of the rock face together, Ilbei still tethered to the ledge above. They flew out over the cavern floor some forty spans down. He thrust his hand between his throat and her face, his palm against her chin, and snapped her mouth shut, pushing her head back. His pickaxe fell away right after, chasing his helmet. He had to let it go in order to catch her wrist and tear away a clawed hand that was digging deep gouges into the back of his neck. Her breath was hot and moist against the side of his face, reeking foul with carrion and decay.
“By the gods,” he spat. “Get off me, demon!” He let go her wrist and punched her twice in the side of the head, shaking loose a cloud of dust and a smattering of lice, some of which wriggled beneath the shirt he wore underneath his mail. She hissed again, trying to straighten her head for another bite, but Ilbei clutched her in his powerful grip, squeezing her jaw, pressing her cheeks in between her teeth as he bent her head back all the more, so much so that he could see the lump in her throat and the tendons at her neck drawing taut beneath the soft, filthy skin.
“I’ll break yer head right off,” he snarled at her. “By the gods, I will. Lay off, or I’ll open ya up like a stein.”
Her free hand struck out, a downward swat, and her nails cut down the side of his face, narrowly missing his eye. She coughed twice and spat something warm and gray into the air. The motion of their swinging carried Ilbei right through the spray. Whatever it was she spat arced up, thick and heavy, gray like a dead mouse, and landed in his hair.
She gripped his throat with the hand that had raked his face, her taloned fingers nearly long enough to wrap all the way around his neck, and he had to let go of her head to pull that grip away. She slammed her forehead into his, so hard they were both dazed. He shook the dimness off just before she did, and was about to grab her by the tangled mass of her long black hair when they hit the cliff face hard. They spun on impact, and the stone ground against his back, catching on the tools he’d tucked in his belt, which in turn sent him and his harpy attacker spinning, rolling together against the stone as the rope swung them along it, bouncing and scraping like cheese on a grater.
But they were moving up. He realized that Kaige and Meggins were reeling him in, bringing the fight to where they could lend a hand. Thank the gods!
Inspired by the knowledge that help was on the way, or at least that he was on the way to help, he tried again to grab her by the hair. But she was coming to her senses as well, and once again the claw raked down the side of his face, the same side, the ripping strike crossing the first set of tears and splitting part of his ear. She spat into his eyes, blinding him, and she made the choking cough sound again, something wet in her throat, then sent another wet mouse-mass at him, this time straight into his face.
Blindly, he groped for her hair and yanked her head back. Better the claws than whatever the hell that was she was spitting. Or at least he hoped.
He heard Meggins say, “Keep hold, I’ll get her.” Then came a dull thump, two blunt sounds like a rock on muscle and bone, but muffled some. The harpy shrieked, and Ilbei felt strong hands grip his arm. Another, smaller pair of hands grabbed him on the other side. Then he was being dragged up and over the cliff’s edge.
Her legs around his waist released, and a great wind blew on him right after. Dust and sand and bits of gravel pelted him. The harpy shrieked. Meggins shouted and cursed. “Evil bitch,” he snarled. Mags shouted something as well. The harpy shrieked again, but the sound of it, loud at first, rapidly diminished, as with distance. Ilbei wiped at his eyes, blinking through the haze of filth, and saw the blurry wingspan of the harpy as it soared out over the cavern below.
“By the gods,” Ilbei said.
“No shite, by the gods,” Meggins agreed.
“Quick, quick,” Jasper said, his face looming suddenly at Ilbei from one side. “Open your eyes.” He began dumping water in Ilbei’s face. For a moment Ilbei sputtered and moved to fight him off, but realized immediately what Jasper was about. He held still and let himself be ministered to. “Hold them open,” Jasper ordered. “Stop closing them.”
Ilbei hadn’t realized he had been. “Sorry, then,” he said, but Jasper pried one of Ilbei’s eyes open with his fingers, roughly, and dumped more water in it.
“Now the other,” the wizard said. He repeated the process with Ilbei’s other eye. He dumped more water into the sputtering sergeant’s face, wiping at the cuts with a cloth. From there, the mage treated the cuts on Ilbei’s neck and arms, each meticulously and in turn. He didn’t stop until he was satisfied by whatever measure was operating in him. When that was done, he sought one of the quicker healing scrolls from his satchel and read it in Ilbei’s cause.
The reading took several long minutes, all the while Meggins pacing back and forth along the edge of the cliff, his newly acquired bow ready to shoot anything that flew near. But the reading was fairly short as healing went, and it wasn’t too long before the cuts on Ilbei’s face, neck and arms closed, though they remained puffy and red.
When Jasper was done, he set himself to rolling up the spent scroll without so much as a second look. Ilbei watched him and couldn’t help but grin. “Thank ya, son,” he said.
“I’m not done,” Jasper replied, stuffing the rolled parchment into his satchel. He asked Meggins for his waterskin. After receiving it, he poured that over Ilbei’s head. He then combed through the sergeant’s thinning gray hair roughly with his fingers for a while. “Is that all the water we have?”
“No, here’s mine,” Mags said, handing over hers. “But that’s the last of it.”
Ilbei was doused and roughly cleaned some more, but just when he thought Jasper’s ministrations were through, Jasper leaned down and looked him square in the eye. “Did you swallow any of that?”
“Of what? The water or what she spat?”
“Either.”
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t recall. It seemed likely that he had, but he wasn’t sure of it. He didn’t remember opening his mouth.
“Then vomit.”
“What?”
“Vomit. Use your fingers. If they aren’t long enough, use this.” He knelt and rummaged through his cast-off pack, pulling out a piece of steer jerky that was a few fingers wide and twice as long as his hand, standard-issue field rations. He folded it in half lengthwise and stuffed it into Ilbei’s hand. “Don’t eat it. Jam it down your throat until you throw up.”
“But, I …,” Ilbei started.
“Sergeant, do you have any idea what harpy disease can do?”
“Ya said ya have scrolls. And ya just read one.”
“I do, and I did. That one I just read was basic growth healing. The other will need an onset disease to have anything targetable, and that assumes it even works for this. We’ve already been over this twice. Do you really want to wait for symptoms, or would you rather try to prevent them?”
Ilbei growled and set his worst frown on the bossy young wizard, but he took the jerky and went off for a bit of privacy in the dark. He kept at plunging the jerky down his throat, sliding it around the bend at the back of his tongue until his stomach cramped and his intestines convulsed. He kept doing it until his abdominal muscles hurt. Finally, when it was done and his eyes ran with the tears of the stomach spasms he’d given himself, he returned to Jasper and asked if he was satisfied.
“I am,” Jasper said. “Now, as long as your tongue doesn’t swell and your skin doesn’t start turning green in the next few days, you’ll likely be fine.”
“I thought ya said ya weren’t a doctor.”
“I’m not. But I do read, as I have mentioned before. They put all sorts of useful information in books. You people should try one some time.”
Ilbei ignored the jab. Jasper was clearly upset, and the stress, now that the immediate danger had passed, was making him snippy. Ilbei had been at the soldiering game long enough to understand, but he also wasn’t too keen on swollen tongues and turning green. �
�Can’t ya just read the spell on me now?”
“You don’t have the disease now, so it’s not onset. Surely even you know what that means.”
Ilbei wanted to argue that point, but he suspected he had no real ground to stand on for his protest. He wasn’t sure if he thought Jasper might be wrong medically or magically, but he supposed it didn’t matter either way in the end. The only thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t know. So with nothing to be done for it, he let it go. Besides, they still had a cliff to climb.
He straightened himself and checked his gear. He’d have to get his helmet and pickaxe back anyway. “Let’s go, people,” he said. “And just what ya can carry on yer backs. Keep it light, as we might be needin Kaige fer somethin other than a packhorse.”
“But what about my trunk?” Jasper asked. “Is Kaige going to carry it? I certainly can’t.”
“No, he ain’t. So load up yer satchel, and let’s go.”
At which point, of course, Jasper began to protest. Ilbei, however, was already lowering himself down the cliff.
Chapter 28
Meggins stood protectively at the edge of the cliff with his newly acquired bow, guarding the descent as Ilbei made his way down. Kaige came right after, with Ilbei waiting on the ledge, trying not to make any sound lest he draw another attack from any harpies that might still be inside the cave.
Kaige got down quickly enough, and Mags lowered a torch to them, already lit. Ilbei, armed with Kaige’s shortsword, took the torch, and Kaige drew his massive broadsword off his back. Together they scooted along the ledge and leapt inside, darting across and planting their backs against the far wall two spans in.
